“How so?”
“Reminiscing, I guess. Asking about her parents and such. Like she missed them.” She emits a sound of dismay. “Like they would have anything to do with her.”
My cop’s antennae go up. “Bad blood?” I ask.
She waves off the notion. “Nothing like that. It’s just that Dan and Rhoda were tough on her. You know how the Amish are. Hardest on the ones they love the most.”
I nod, remembering my own rebellion against the rules and the hard line my parents took to rein me in. “Did she have a good relationship with her parents?”
“They never accepted her leaving. They wanted her to come back. Get married. Have lots of children.” A wistful smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “Of course, Rachael didn’t want any of those things.” Loretta shrugs. “It makes me sad to say it, Katie, especially now. But I think they saw her as fallen. Like maybe she was so far gone there was no way to bring her back.”
Neither Rhoda nor Dan had mentioned that aspect of their relationship with their daughter. Their grief had been genuine and deep. Even so, I was Amish once. I’ve been a cop long enough to know that sometimes it’s those troubled, passionate bonds that push people to the edge of their tolerance.
“Did she stay in touch with anyone else here in Painters Mill?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did you know she was in town?”
Her eyes widen. “She was here? You mean—” She bites off the word. I see her mind work through the implications. “Katie … it happened here? In Painters Mill?”
“I believe so.”
“Oh, dear Lord.” Raising her hands to her face, she swipes at the tears with her fingertips. “I always thought of the city as a place of sin. A place that wasn’t always good or safe for her. To think it happened here.” She presses a hand against her chest. “Did you get them?” she asks. “The person who did it?”
“We haven’t made an arrest yet.”
“That’s a scary thing. I mean, knowing they’re still out there.”
I nod. “Loretta, can you think of anyone else Rachael might’ve come here to see?”
“Other than her parents…” Her expression turns troubled. “She wasn’t exactly on the best terms with the Amish community.”
I know where she’s going, but I say nothing, wait for her to continue.
“The book, you know. She wrote all those terrible things about the Amish. Some of them thought badly of her. A few washed their hands of her completely. The elders knew she wasn’t going to come back. Katie, no one said as much, but I don’t think they wanted her back.”
Misconceptions about meidung or excommunication abound. Most non-Amish people believe the bann is a form of punishment. It’s not. Shunning is intended to be redemptive and bring fallen individuals back into the fold. In most cases, it works because when you’re Amish, your family is the center of your universe. Without them, you are cast adrift in a world you’re not prepared to handle.
“Did anyone in particular want her permanently excommunicated?” I ask.
“It was gossip mostly. You know how the Amish are. Rachael didn’t talk about it. But I know it hurt her.” Loretta smiles, reflective, but fresh tears glitter in her eyes. “You remember how she was. En frei geisht.” A free spirit. “She loved to laugh. She loved to love. She loved people. She loved life with all of its gifts. It was hard not to love her. But when she got mad…” She hefts a laugh. “You knew it. She did everything with such … eahnsht.” Zeal. “One of the reasons she didn’t fit in, I suppose. She just couldn’t follow the rules. That was why she left, you know. That was why I worried about her.”
“Because she was a druvvel-machah?” I ask. Troublemaker.
“Because she never held back. Rachael was full speed ahead at a hundred miles an hour, even if she didn’t know exactly where she was going. She was vocal and her opinions weren’t always popular, especially among the Amish. Then she wrote that book and it just made everything worse.”
I recall the stir it made here in Painters Mill. It was some kind of tell-all that was touted as nonfiction. For those of us who are familiar with the Amish, it was glaringly obvious the book was little more than a sensationalized hit piece rife with fiction.
I ask for her take anyway. “How so?”
“Well, she trashed that clan down Killbuck way. The Anabaptist group. They call themselves Amish, but they’re not. Maulgrischt,” she says, using the Deitsch term for “pretend Christian.”
I’m familiar with Amos Gingerich and his followers. I see them on occasion at the farmers’ market, selling vegetables, woodworking novelties, and plants and trees from a small nursery they run on their property. They call themselves the Killbuck Amish. They don’t adhere to any Ordnung that I know of. The Amish refuse to claim them. In fact, a good number of the group’s members are those who’ve been excommunicated from other church districts. Gingerich takes them in and, rumor has it, indoctrinates them into a community that’s more cultlike than Amish. Last I heard there were thirty or so members who live in a communelike compound, a praxis more in tune with the Hutterites than Amish. While most members get around via horse and buggy, the community shares a single vehicle and has several phones on the farm.
The citizens of Painters Mill ignore them for the most part, but rumors abound. Things like the men taking more than one wife. That the children are at risk. A few years ago, the sheriff’s office and Children Services got involved because someone claimed the kids were being separated from their parents and forced to work. The investigation that followed was inconclusive, but it put them on my cop’s radar.
“Katie, you asked me if anyone ever threatened Rachael.” She gives a single resolute nod. “You might take a look at Amos Gingerich. I think he threatened her once.”
I take out my notebook and write down the name. “What kind of threat?”
“Well, you know she stayed with them awhile. After she was put under the bann. She didn’t leave on good terms.” She lowers her voice. “Rachael told me he mentioned some of the awful stories in Martyrs Mirror—you know, the way they tortured and killed the Christians way back when. It gave me the shivers, but Rachael just laughed. She wasn’t too worried about it. I didn’t think of it again until now.”
Martyrs Mirror is a fixture in most Amish homes. My parents weren’t readers, but my mamm kept a copy on a table in the living room. Over a thousand pages in length, the ancient tome details the horrors committed against Christians, especially the Anabaptists. I read the book as a kid—stories of men and women being burned at the stake, decapitated, drowned, and buried alive. The brutality and injustice left an impression, not only about faith and martyrdom, but the kinds of cruelties human beings are capable of.
“Do you know why he threatened her?” I ask.
She grimaces. “Rachael devoted an entire chapter to Gingerich and the Killbuck clan. She trashed them. Called him a polygamist—and accused him of worse.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know it to be true, but she told me some of the men were taking wives as young as fourteen and fifteen years of age. Too young, you know. I told her to let it go. Go on with her life and forget about them. But Rachael was headstrong. Said those girls deserved to be heard. She told me later that her publisher made her change the names, to keep the lawyers out of it, I guess, but everyone knew. Amos Gingerich was not happy about it.”
I think about the scrap of paper in her car with the address scribbled on it. “Do you know if Rachael knew anyone in Wooster? Or from the Wooster area?”
Her brows draw together. “Not that I recall.”
“What about men? Did she have a man in her life? A boyfriend that you know of?”
Up until now, Loretta has been aghast and struggling to accept the news of her friend’s death. Her reactions have been genuine, her demeanor stunned. My question effectively shuts her down, and my cop’s gut takes note. Something there, I think, and I wait.
&nb
sp; “Rachael is … was the best friend I ever had. I loved her like a sister. I don’t want to say anything unkind.” For a moment, the Amish woman wrestles with some internal foe, then raises her gaze to mine. “She was a wild one, Katie. As a teenager, she liked boys. As a woman, she liked her men. Maybe a little too much.”
“Anyone in particular?” I ask.
The Amish woman presses her lips together. “She knew I didn’t approve, so she didn’t talk too much about it. But there were men. A lot of them.”
“Do you have a name?”
She shakes her head. “All I know is that there was always a man in her life and every single one of them seemed to be wrong for her.”
CHAPTER 8
Summer 2008
Loretta had never disobeyed her parents. Not once in all of her sixteen years. She’d never lied to them. Never shirked her responsibilities. Never conceived the notion of misleading them in any way. Tonight, all of that was going to change.
She’d laughed the first time she heard the expression “Amish rager.” A few of the older Amish boys were talking about it at a singing she’d attended last year. She’d only caught snatches of the conversation. From what she gathered, a rager was a huge outdoor party, held in a barn or field, and isolated from the prying eyes of the adults. There was music and alcohol and, sometimes, the English showed up. It was the kind of gathering that would entail a lot of rule breaking that would undoubtedly get back to parents—and maybe even the bishop. At the time, such an idea had seemed profane and forbidden—something she would never get involved in.
What a difference a year made. Loretta was sixteen now—almost grown up—and her initial disdain for the idea of attending a rager had transformed into something closer to curiosity. Leave it to her best friend to bring that far-off temptation into sharp focus and test all the sensibilities she’d lived by the entirety of her life.
Last church Sunday, when the preaching service was over and all the adults were talking, Rachael had come to her, breathless and flushed, her eyes alight.
“There’s a rager this weekend,” she whispered, as they’d set out knives, cups, and saucers.
Rachael was so pretty. She was long-limbed with a sun-kissed complexion, and thick lashes over eyes the color of a summer storm. She already had a womanly figure, unlike Loretta, who was built like a broomstick. Her smile was as bright as the sun—and so contagious you couldn’t help but smile back, even when you knew she was going to get you into trouble. This afternoon she was vibrating with energy Loretta knew would lead to no good.
“That’s just plain silly,” Loretta told her as she set a paper napkin on the table. “Mamm and Datt will never allow it.”
Rachael rolled her eyes. “You’re such a bottelhinkel.” It was the Deitsch term for a worn-out hen that was ready for the stewpot. “We’re not going to tell them!”
The thought of attending a rager appealed more than Loretta wanted to admit. But she knew it was an invitation for trouble. “Are you sure it’s a good idea?” she said.
Looking left and right, Rachael took her hand and pulled her to the hall, out of earshot of the older women who were bringing out pies. “Ben Bontrager is going to be there.”
Loretta’s heart quivered at the mention of Ben Bontrager. She’d been half in love with him since she was six years old. He didn’t know it yet, but she was going to marry him. They were going to live on a big farm and have dozens of children and too many animals to count.
“I don’t think I can go,” Loretta said.
“You have to!” Rachael whispered. “Ben is on rumspringa. I heard there are going to be some loose English girls there. You can’t let him … you know.”
Loretta wasn’t dense; she knew boys were different from girls. They couldn’t always control their urges. The thought of Ben giving in to some floozy Englischer crushed her.
“What do I tell Mamm and Datt?” she asked.
“Don’t tell them anything, silly girl.”
“How will I get out of the house without them knowing?”
Looking past her to make sure no one was listening, Rachael lowered her voice. “Sneak out your bedroom window. It’s right over the porch. I’ll meet you at the end of the lane at midnight. We’ll go to the rager, stay for an hour, just long enough for you to see Ben, and then we’ll go home. No one will ever know.”
No one will ever know.
Famous last words.
A week ago, sneaking out of the house had seemed like such an exciting idea. Now, Loretta wasn’t so sure.
Lying in her bed, she checked the alarm clock on the table for the hundredth time. It was eleven forty-five. The house had been quiet for some time. Her parents had retired to their room hours ago. Loretta knew her mamm liked to read before she went to sleep. But the light was out now. Time to go.
Rising, Loretta reached for her pillow and arranged it beneath the covers so if someone peeked in, they’d see the silhouette of her sleeping form. Satisfied, she crossed to the window. Her hands shook as she slid it open. The warm summer night greeted her as she stepped over the sill and onto the roof over the porch.
Careful not to make a sound, she lowered herself onto her rear and crab-walked down the slick metal to the nearest branch. Rising, she used the branch for balance and worked her way to the fork in the trunk. From there, she climbed down and jumped the last four feet.
The thump of her shoes hitting the ground seemed inordinately loud in the silence of the night. Certain someone must have heard, she looked around, heart pounding. But there was no one there. No lantern light inside. No movement in the kitchen window. Nothing but the sound of the bullfrogs from the pond and crickets all around.
Loretta launched herself into a run. She cut through the yard, the dew wet on her shoes. Upon reaching the gravel lane, she cut right and sprinted toward the road. Her feet pounded the gravel, her breaths echoed off the blackberry bushes that grew alongside the lane. She was nearly to the end when the shadowy figure stepped out in front of her.
Loretta yelped.
“Shhh!”
At the sight of her friend, relief flooded her with such force that her legs went weak. “You scared the jeepers out of me!”
Giggling, Rachael grabbed her hand. “Quiet or someone will hear you.”
Rachael was wearing English clothes. Jeans. Tank top. Fancy sandals that showed her toes—which were painted pink. Suddenly, Loretta felt frumpy. “I look like a bottelhinkel.”
Stepping back, Rachael set her chin on her fingers and gave her a critical look. “At least we can fix your hair.” Without waiting for her assent, Rachael untied the strings of her kapp, and removed it. Tucking it into the bushes so Loretta could pick it up later, she removed the bobby pins from Loretta’s hair, then used her fingertips to muss it.
“There. Now you’re gorgeous!”
“My hair looks like straw.”
“Phooey.” Rachael motioned toward the road. “Come on. We don’t want to be late.”
Only when they were well past the mailbox did Loretta notice the buggy. Her steps faltered as recognition kicked. “Who’s that?” she asked, knowing full well who it was.
“He’s just going to drive us,” Rachael said.
The boy in question leaned against the wheel of his buggy, smoking a cigarette, watching them. “About damn time,” he drawled.
Levi Yoder was twenty years old. A nice-looking Amish boy from a good family. But Loretta had heard the stories. He’d been caught smoking and drinking. Worst of all, he’d been caught going out with loose English girls. Just last Sunday at worship, she’d caught him looking at her. Beneath all that good-Amish-boy charm, he had a dark side.
“You didn’t mention someone driving us,” she whispered.
Before Rachael could respond, Levi tossed the cigarette onto the road and approached them. “Told you she’d chicken out,” he said.
“No one’s chickening out,” Rachael snapped, a challenge in her voice.
He gr
inned.
Loretta didn’t like him, but she had to admit he looked good in English clothes. Blue jeans. T-shirt. Cowboy boots. He’d let his hair grow and if she wasn’t mistaken, he was sprouting a goatee.
A shiver spread through her when his eyes landed on her. “You going to introduce me to your friend?” he asked Rachael.
“Nope.” Rachael started for the buggy. “She has zero interest and you’re just our ride.”
He pressed his hand to his chest. “Cut a guy off at the knees why don’t you?”
Feeling conspicuous, Loretta followed her friend.
Levi reached into the buggy and tore two cans of beer from a six-pack. He handed one to Rachael, who took it without thanking him as she climbed in.
Loretta reached the buggy and he held out a can of beer. “I remember you now. You’re Rhoda and Dan’s girl. The little skinny thing, never says a word.”
Face burning, she looked down at her dress. She didn’t know what to say or how to react. All she knew was that she didn’t like the way he was looking at her.
“Here you go.” Taking her hand, he helped her into the buggy.
Loretta slid onto the seat beside her friend.
Levi leaned in and eased the beer into her hand. “You grew up nice,” he murmured.
“Cut it out, Levi,” Rachael said. “We need smokes, too.”
Climbing into the buggy, he pulled the pack from his shirt pocket, tapped one out, offered it to Rachael. “You’re wound tight tonight, aren’t you?”
She laughed. “You have no idea, Amish boy. Let’s go. We don’t have much time.”
CHAPTER 9
There’s one bookstore in Painters Mill. Beerman’s Books has been a Main Street fixture for as long as I can remember. The owner, Barbara Beerman, has run the place since I was a kid. When my mamm came into town to pick up fabric at the store next door, I would sneak in to browse the kinds of books my parents didn’t want me to read. I wasn’t exactly a bookworm, but I loved being transported to exotic places. If I could break the rules in the process, all the better.
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