Secrets in the Grave

by Karen Ann Hopkins

  Todd opened his mouth to protest when Bobby promptly shut him up.

  “Don’t you think we should focus on the call that just came in and not worry so much about everyone’s eating habits? I swear the two of you are more like squabbling siblings than the sheriff and deputy of Blood Rock.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and forced a smile. Bobby should have retired by now, but he loved his job, despite his constant complains. I figured that spending all day, every day, with his wife was a lot worse than working full time with dead bodies. I wouldn’t say it out loud, but I was glad for his troubles at home. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do without the grumpy wisdom he dispensed on a daily basis.

  “The death of a woman while having a home birth doesn’t sound like sheriff’s business to me.” I shrugged, facing forward.

  The argument I’d had with Daniel that morning had my stomach rolling more than the burger. His stubborn ways had flared up again. The last thing I wanted to deal with on this cloudy afternoon was Amish intrigue.

  “That’s not exactly what Bishop Aaron Esch said on the phone…” Todd trailed off when I flashed him a withering look.

  “Amish drama. That’s all this is.” I made a cutting motion with my hand to signal the end of the conversation.

  The historic brick buildings, neat sidewalks and ornate street lamps disappeared as we left the city limits. The trees beyond the car’s windows still had the fluffy, yellowish look of budding leaves. The fields were plowed and miles of dark, churned earth spread out on either side of the road. Yellow flashes of daffodils and forsythia bushes began as we passed farmsteads.

  The improved weather was the only thing that kept my foul mood in check. It was difficult to be grouchy when the snow had finally melted and birds were chirping. I rolled down the window a few more inches and tilted my face to the rush of warm air. Every year, the first spring days in Indiana felt heaven sent. It was a relief to be at winter’s end.

  “What do you make of it, Bobby?” I reluctantly asked.

  My last meeting with the bishop was still fresh on my mind. Two months earlier, when I’d gotten back from my insane trip up north to help with the arson investigation in the Poplar Springs’ Amish settlement, Bishop Esch had stopped by my office to complain about the arrival of a new family. I’d listened to the bishop talk about vague healing practices that sometimes went awry. He’d given no specifics. No crimes had been committed as far as I could tell. I’d sent the tall, elderly man on his way, explaining as best as I could that law enforcement couldn’t arrest someone who hadn’t committed a crime. We weren’t in the business of running people out of town, either.

  “From what Aaron said, the young woman was hiding her pregnancy from her family and the rest of the community. She was only midway into her second trimester. It seems she died while having a miscarriage, which is not very common, I might add,” Bobby said.

  I continued to gaze out the window at the newly mint-green world, frowning. I certainly wasn’t an expert on pregnancy. Maybe Bobby was on to something.

  “Is the bishop implying that her death is a homicide?” I asked. A quick glance at Todd showed his expression was grim.

  Without looking back at Bobby, I knew he was twirling the end of his mustache whiskers between his fingers. When he spoke, he sounded cautious.

  “That’s the feeling I got from the man. We won’t rush to judgment on the matter until I conduct the autopsy.”

  “It doesn’t make sense. In Naomi Beiler’s case, the bishop wanted nothing more than to cover up the entire incident so that he could resolve the issue vigilante style. Now he’s begging for our help with a matter that probably isn’t even criminal,” I said, hoping that Bobby would see my aversion to getting involved.

  “Maybe Aaron Esch is afraid,” Todd muttered.

  I leaned over. “Afraid of what?”

  Todd’s shrug made the back of my neck tingle. “Sounds like voodoo shit to me,” Todd replied. “I watched this show a while back about a crazy medicine woman in Haiti who was taking out her enemies in this fishing town. They were just dropping one after the other, for no apparent reason.”

  “I’m sure that most of those deaths can be attributed to poisons of some kind. There is also a theory about the mind’s ability to cause damage to the body when a person truly believes they’ve had a curse put on them,” Bobby added.

  I held up my hand. “Whoa. We’re talking about the Amish here, not some superstitious witchcraft religion on an island.” I scoffed.

  “Voodoo isn’t what you think it is. I’ve spent some time over the years studying foreign cultures. For the most part, it’s a spiritual religion, comprised of a type of folk magic.” Bobby rested his arms over the front seat.

  I turned to him. “Do you really believe there’s magic involved in any of these cult practices.”

  He shrugged, settling back into his seat. “Not everything can be proven or understood by science.”

  “I agree. Have you heard about those people who spontaneously burst into flames? I watched a special about it the other night…”

  I blocked Todd’s ramblings and stared out the window. Among the mostly bare branches in the groves we passed were clusters of pinkish-purplish flowers. I caught a scent of blossoms on the breeze and inhaled. The grass bursting from the earth was such a lush green it almost looked fake.

  “Here’s the place.” Bobby pointed his bony finger between Todd and me.

  Jeremy’s cruiser and an ambulance were parked beside a small, white farmhouse. Four buggies were already lined up on the gravel driveway.

  Thudding my head against the headrest, I grumbled, “It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the Amish show up when something bad happens. This must be the closest thing to a TV show they have.”

  “What has you in such a foul mood?” Bobby clucked his tongue. “A young woman has died. Adjust your attitude to the circumstances,” he ordered.

  I overlooked Todd’s smirking face. Bobby was right. I was being a bitch. And it wasn’t just about Daniel. A couple of months earlier, I’d shot a man named Asher Schwartz. He’d deserved it and I wasn’t suffering remorse over his death, but another innocent person had died on my watch. The image of Jotham Hochstetler bleeding out on the Amish schoolhouse floor was seared into my consciousness, like Naomi’s pale and lifeless form in the cornfield. Over time, a cop became desensitized to cruelty and death, but for me, the pictures didn’t go away.

  I took a measured breath and straightened my sunglasses, putting on my best game face. “What’s the woman’s name?”

  “Fannie Kuhns. Twenty-one years old,” Bobby said.

  As Todd parked the car, my eyes skimmed the crowd of darkly clad people gathered in front of the house. I spotted the tall silhouette of Bishop Aaron Esch and the round one of James Hooley, one of the ministers. Moses Bachman, Daniel’s father, was with them, along with several other long-bearded Amish men I recognized and a couple I didn’t.

  I couldn’t stop my heart from racing. Walking into a group of stoic Amish men gave me the creeps and this particular group was worse. They’d held me prisoner in a barn not so long ago. It was fine to forgive, but forgetting something like that was foolish. I’d learned long ago that the Amish weren’t the pacifist people I’d assumed they were. Reality checks sucked.

  Daniel walked out through the front door behind his mother and I knew my day was completely shot to hell.

  “What’s the boyfriend doing here?” Todd’s lips twisted.

  “He used to be Amish and his entire family still is. It’s not so strange for him to be present,” I said as convincingly as I could. Inside though, I was wondering the same thing.

  The three of us were making our way across the yard when the front door opened again. This time, EMPs exited the house with a gurney.

  “Dammit,” I muttered under my breath, breaking into a jog. Todd and Bobby followed on my heels. Bobby huffed at the exertion and Todd’s keys jingled on his belt.

&nb
sp; The crowd split to allow us to pass through. I caught a glimpse of the bishop and James Hooley joining the back of our parade up the porch steps. The pots filled with pansies on each side of the doorway made the young woman’s death seem more surreal than it already did.

  “Why did you move the body?” I demanded of Raymond, at the front of the gurney. Lucky for Beth, she was at the back.

  Raymond’s eyes rounded and his slender face flushed. He was tall, gangly and a bit awkward at times. Beth was a firecracker.

  “I didn’t know there was any kind of investigation planned.” Raymond thumbed over his shoulder. “Jeremy gave us the go ahead to bag her.”

  “That’s right,” Beth added from the house. Jeremy was further back in the room, talking to a teary-eyed, older woman and a much younger one, who stared ahead in shock.

  I inwardly groaned. I hated dealing with grieving families. It was impossible to be respectful of their loss and ask nosy questions.

  I risked a glance at Daniel, leaning back against the porch railing. When our eyes met, he smiled.

  It was annoying how a million butterflies took flight in my stomach like I was a sixteen-year-old school girl. I swallowed. I’m thirty-four and way too old for weak knees in the presence of a man. Even a tall, well-muscled and handsome one like Daniel.

  “So. How long have you been here?” I asked.

  Daniel shrugged and glanced at his mother. The two weren’t close, so their being together was intriguing in itself.

  Anna spoke quietly to Daniel in the Pennsylvania-German dialect of the Amish. I had no idea what they were saying, but I didn’t need to understand. Anna didn’t take her eyes off me while she talked, and I was good at reading voice fluctuations and body language. She was disturbed, and not in a grieving way, either.

  Daniel turned back to me. “About ten minutes. Fannie Kuhns was my mother’s niece and my cousin.” He paused as if deciding whether to say more. The tension on the porch was palpable. Todd stood quietly beside me, and Bobby whispered back and forth with Beth. I could hear the scribbling of his pencil in his notebook. I was too distracted to catch everything, but the gist was that Bobby wanted basic information about the state and location of the body without having to open the zipper in front of the entire community.

  “Ah, my father contacted me this morning. He had something important to talk about.” He shook his head at my questioning eyes. “This isn’t a good place to discuss it. I’ll tell you everything later.”

  “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for this conversation. It needs to be taken care of now,” Bishop Esch announced, stepping onto the porch. He stopped in front of me and pointed into the crowd. “You must arrest that man.”

  Several of the Amish men moved aside, leaving one standing alone.

  I stared at the man. He was tall, straight-backed and smirking slightly. There was a sprinkling of gray at his temples. The rest of the brown hair poking out from under his hat was curly. His beard was long and thick. The top few buttons of his ivory shirt were unbuttoned. His boots weren’t muddy like the other men. The oddest and most mesmerizing part about the man were his eyes. They were the lightest blue I’d ever seen.

  When the man returned my gaze, his mouth loosened into a friendly smile. My heart rate sped up and the breath caught in my throat.

  This must be the medicine man.

  2

  DANIEL

  Seeing Jonas Peachey sent a shiver up my spine. The healing man had always given me the creeps, even though I’d only seen him a few times as a child. I still remembered the threatening glint in his eyes when Aaron Esch had questioned him about his healing practices following the unexpected death of an elderly man suffering the final stages of cancer. My family was visiting relatives in the Black Willow Amish settlement when it had happened. Aaron had been there at the same time visiting his sister, Robyn, Jonas’ wife.

  The look Jonas had given Aaron for questioning his tactics and authority in that Ohio community was odd for an Amish man. I’d only been about ten at the time, but I’d recognized it for what it was. Jonas believed the only authority he answered to was himself. He’d told Aaron that perhaps the old man had wanted death. The implication of his words still made my heart pound.

  I shook away the memory and glanced at Serenity.

  Her blonde hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail, and the large aviator sunglasses she wore covered a fair amount of her face. Her plump lips were pursed as she stared at Jonas. Physical longing stirred in my groin. I wished I’d kissed her goodbye earlier, instead of wasting a perfectly good morning arguing.

  Between a suspicious death in the community and the suspected involvement of the mysterious Jonas Peachey, there wouldn’t be any time for romance.

  “May I speak with you alone, Bishop Esch?” Serenity asked.

  When Aaron nodded, Serenity turned back to Jonas. “You should stick around. I have a few questions for you, too.”

  Serenity murmured a few words to the paramedics and Bobby before she allowed Fannie Kuhn’s body to be taken from the house. When she went inside, Aaron, Bobby and Todd followed her.

  I glanced at Ma.

  “Tell the Sheriff what I’ve told you,” she said before she hurried down the steps to my waiting father. He shook his head when his eyes met mine.

  I took my own worried breath when I entered the house. Serenity was talking quietly to Irene Kuhns, Fannie’s mother, while a young woman I assumed was Fannie’s sister looked on with a puffy, red face. Aaron and Bobby sat a discreet distance away at the kitchen table, talking quietly. Bobby scribbled in his notebook the entire time.

  Todd sidled up to me. With a raised brow, he whispered, “What the hell’s going on around here?”

  I couldn’t help smiling at his blunt words. I was thinking the same, but wouldn’t have dared say so. That was Todd’s way. He couldn’t be subtle if his life depended on it.

  I shrugged. “I guess that’s what we’re going to have to find out.”

  Todd rubbed the bristle on his chin. “You should ask Serenity to add you to the payroll. You’re working enough cases with us.”

  I snorted. “Don’t think it hasn’t already occurred to me.”

  “Bobby, Daniel,” Serenity said, jerking her chin at us to join her.

  I didn’t hesitate, crossing the room quicker than Bobby. I didn’t know Irene well, but I remembered her from my childhood in the community. She was one of the milder women, about fifteen years younger than my mother and extremely shy around outsiders. Seeing the tears dribble down her round cheeks made me uncomfortable. The woman’s grief was like a water-filled balloon ready to explode. It physically pushed at me, making me take a step back and glance away.

  The younger woman had the same plump, roundish features and strawberry blonde hair as Irene. Her tight face said she struggled to keep the tears in.

  When Bobby reached us, Serenity took a tea cup from Irene. She held out the cup to Bobby, who pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on before he touched it.

  “The contents of the cup were the last and only thing Fannie ingested today. It’s empty, but it hasn’t been washed. Can you get any forensics from it?” Serenity asked.

  Bobby nodded slowly. “I can swab the interior and send it off to the state lab. There might be enough residue to get a list of some of the ingredients, but with trace evidence, I doubt anything we find will be sufficient to hold up in court.” He brought the cup to his nose and inhaled, then looked at Irene. “Peppermint?”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “It makes the parsley tea taste better.”

  “Did you know your daughter was pregnant?” Bobby asked.

  Irene glanced at her daughter. The girl squeezed her mother’s hand in encouragement before Irene responded.

  “I learned of it just today when Fannie began bleeding.” Irene gulped and licked her lips. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I know this is difficult, but it’s really best to talk a
bout what happened while it’s still fresh in your mind. We all want to know what happened to Fannie,” Serenity coaxed.

  Irene sucked in a wet breath and dabbed her eyes with her apron. When she collected herself, she nodded.

  Serenity faced the daughter. “How long have you known about your sister’s condition?”

  With Serenity’s sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, her eyes were visible. There was a hint of accusation in those dark blue eyes. Serenity had a knack for reading people. I guessed she’d pegged the sister’s prior knowledge of the pregnancy accurately.

  The girl didn’t look at her mother. She swallowed and replied, “I suspected it for the past couple of weeks.”

  “What’s your name?” Serenity’s pen was poised above the small notebook in her hand.

  “Hannah—Hannah Kuhns.”

  “I’m sure this is very upsetting for you to talk about right after your sister’s death.” Serenity hesitated. “Was Fannie married?”

  Before Hannah could answer, Irene shook her head, pulling her apron up to her face. “I can’t do this right now,” she mumbled, hurrying from the room. Her footsteps on the staircase boomed throughout the house.

  Serenity didn’t miss a beat. “Where’s your father?”

  “He died three years ago,” Hannah said, the words so soft I had to lean forward to hear.

  “How old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  Serenity’s face relaxed. Hannah wasn’t a minor. Serenity could continue to question her without her mother’s presence.

  “It’s really important that we know who the father of the baby is.” Serenity lowered her voice. “Do you have any idea who it might be?”

  Hannah’s eyes widened. While she hesitated, I held my breath. I had the feeling Serenity and Bobby were, too.

  “No, I don’t,” Hannah said. “May I go now?”

  I looked at Serenity. She didn’t immediately answer. Her face was still as she considered, then she gave a curt nod. “You may. I don’t expect you’re planning a trip or anything. I’ll need to talk to you again once your sister is laid to rest.”