Plain Killing (16 page)

“So far, I can’t say for sure, but my gut tells me . . . no.”

“Sometimes you just have to go with your gut,” he agreed.

“So if you know anything that might help, I’d appreciate it, George.”

“I’ll warn you, this may be nothing more than jailhouse gossip.” He pushed aside his can of soda and the chip bag on the table. “Men get bored in here. Sometimes, they make up stories to pass the time or to gain attention. But what I heard, I don’t know.” He shook his head slowly. “It had a ring of truth. I can’t tell you who told me. He’s one of my students. Basically, a good soul who got a bad start in life. The usual: abandoned by his father, raised by a druggie mother who was more interested in her worthless boyfriends than her children. He was in trouble by the time he hit his teens, but he’s finally made the decision to turn his life around. I couldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

“What did you hear?” she asked. This had to be important. George had to have believed there was truth to this; otherwise, he wouldn’t have had her come, would he?

“You can’t tell anyone where you heard this.” His gaze grew intense. “I’m serious, Rachel. There are too many places in here where a man my age could fall prey to an accident. One moment he’s hoeing cabbages in the garden, and the next he’s slipped, fallen, and cracked his head open on a rock.”

She nodded. “I understand. I won’t implicate you. You have my word.”

“Good enough for me.” He smiled and offered her the bag of potato chips. “Smile at me. Act as though we’re talking about the good weather. I wouldn’t want any of my
colleagues
to overhear.” He lowered his voice. “What I was told is that someone in Stone Mill is neck-deep in the kidnapping and selling of young women.”

Rachel’s eyes widened in shock.

“And he’s Amish.”

All the way home from the prison, Rachel kept going over and over in her head what George had told her. She could hardly believe it. Was it really possible that someone of her parents’ faith was involved in such a terrible crime? One of their own neighbors? Was that why Hannah had refused to give them any information?

What Amish person would risk his immortal soul by selling their own into slavery?

Rachel’s first impulse, when she had gotten back to her car, had been to call Evan. But she had to confirm or disprove the accusation before she went to Evan. Right now, the information bordered on gossip, or could be seen that way. And even then, she knew she could never reveal to him, to anyone, where she’d gotten the information.

Despite Mary Aaron’s warning, Rachel felt as if she had no choice but to try to talk to Hannah again. She needed to at least get her to say if she’d left the valley on her own, if someone had helped her flee, or if someone had taken her against her will. Was Hannah protecting someone nearby because she was afraid? But if she feared someone in Stone Mill, why had she come back? It didn’t make sense.

When Rachel had left the B&B that morning to see George, Hannah’s mother and father had been with her upstairs. Maybe she could enlist their help in trying to persuade Hannah to cooperate—if for no other reason than to protect her sisters, cousins, and nieces. Surely the parents would see the wisdom of convincing Hannah to confide in her. And if George’s information was a fabrication, then it was best to snuff out the lie then and there.

When Rachel reached Stone Mill House, she saw that the Verkler buggy was no longer in the yard. So much for getting their help.

Ada had already left for the day; on Saturdays she only came in for a few hours in the morning. The staff always left when she did. Today would be a busy one in Amish homes because all the cleaning and cooking for Sunday had to be done ahead of time. Among Plain people, the Sabbath was a day of rest and prayer. As for the B&B employees, no one worked for Rachel on Sunday except for a high school girl who manned the phone and took care of guests checking out. Rachel had considered trying to hire another English girl to come in for light housekeeping duty on Sunday afternoons, but Ada had declared her opposition to any outside Englisher help with the house. Managing on her own on Sundays seemed the most sensible solution to Rachel because if Ada wasn’t happy, nothing in the house went well.

When she got up to the attic, Rachel found the door to her rooms closed. From inside, she could hear the familiar words of an old hymn. She knocked and identified herself, and the door opened.

“I’m sorry,” Hannah said. Her cheeks were flushed a deep pink. “Did my singing bother your guests?”

“Ne.”
Rachel slipped into Deitsch. “You’re fine. Sing all you like. Here on the third floor, no one can hear you.” As she entered the room, she saw an ironing board and several baskets of laundry. “I see Ada has put you to work.”

“Ya.”
Hannah’s smile glowed. “I like to keep busy. I cannot just sit and stare at the walls. My mother brought mending and my sewing box. Glad I am to help her.”

Rachel offered her a bottle of root beer. “I thought you might be thirsty. Ada’s recipe is good, very refreshing.”

“
Danke.
You have all been very kind to me.” Hannah placed the soda pop on the table and returned to her ironing: pillowcases and sheets. Ada insisted that sheets, pillowcases, and cloth napkins be ironed.

“Did your parents stay long?”

“Two hours. It was good to see them. I have missed my family.”

Rachel was encouraged. It was the most information that Hannah had volunteered. “I’m sure Mary Aaron will come as soon as she is free. I think she had work to do for her mother today. A lot of canning this time of year.”

Hannah nodded. “My father says the bishop will come soon.
Dat
spoke with him. He’s glad that I am here until we can make arrangements.”

“Arrangements?” Rachel sat down on the edge of the recliner.

Hannah guided the electric iron back and forth, smoothing the wrinkles out of the pillowcase. “I will make confession of my sins,” she said. “And ask forgiveness.”

Rachel pushed back the dark images that rose in her imagination. Was it possible that Hannah could appear so calm after the ordeal she’d experienced? “You were gone almost two years,” she said.

“Two years in October,” Hannah said softly.

“Did . . . Were you with those people all that time? The people who held you against your will?”

She folded the pillowcase carefully, placed it in a wicker basket, and took another from the other basket on the floor. When she glanced up, their gazes locked for just an instant, and Rachel winced at the depth of pain she glimpsed there.

“The reason I ask . . . My friend Evan Parks and I are trying to find out who killed Beth Glick and why. He’s a state policeman.” She paused. “Did you ever see Beth? She left about a year before you did.” Rachel waited and then went on. “Did you hear anything about her? I know you don’t want to think about that bad time, but it’s important that you tell us anything you know that might help us find the murderer.”

“I read about Beth in the newspaper.” She began to neatly fold the white pillowcase.

“In the newspaper? You mean in New Orleans?”

Hannah nodded. “I saw your name. Your picture.”

“The article Bill Billingsly wrote? The one picked up by the Associated Press?”

“I don’t know those things. But when I saw your picture, that’s when I got the idea. To call you.” She added the pillowcase to a growing stack and reached for one from the laundry basket. “The paper said you helped your uncle when the police thought he killed a man. I knew you were a good person from the things Mary Aaron said about you before I left. I knew you would help me, even if you are an Englisher.”

Rachel couldn’t believe that something Bill had written exploiting the Amish had actually helped someone. Talk about God working in mysterious ways. She watched Hannah slip the wrinkly pillowcase over the end of the ironing board. “Can you help me, Hannah? Can you tell me exactly what happened to you? How you came to leave Stone Mill? How you ended up in New Orleans?”

Hannah’s attention was fixed on the iron. “I believe that God will forgive me my sins if I am truly repentant. My bishop says that the English world is one of evil and temptation. That even now it tries to lure me away: my fear, my guilt. My shame,” she whispered. Then louder, she said, “I must put it away from me and have nothing more to do with it.”

“I can understand that, Hannah, but if we don’t stop them, these bad people will keep on doing these things. Did you ever see Beth after you left?”

“Ne.”
The word was so low that Rachel could barely make it out.

“No, you didn’t see her, or no, you won’t tell me?” she pressed.

“I did not see her, but even if I did . . .” Beth stopped and started again. “I told Mary Aaron, I will not talk to Englisher policemen. I left here of my own choice.”

Which meant she wasn’t kidnapped from Stone Mill, Rachel thought. She waited.

Hannah’s face flamed, and she set the iron upright on its end. “My mother says that I must forget what happened, that our faith will bring me peace. I was young and foolish. I thought that I wanted to see what was beyond this valley, but I should have stayed at home. I know that now. If I had been obedient to my parents, to the elders of our church, if I had not been led astray, it would not have happened.”

“Please, Hannah. I’m not asking you to talk to the police. I’m asking you to trust me, to help me.”

“I told you, I know nothing about Beth. I am sorry that she is lost to us. Sorry that she accepted baptism into our faith and then turned her back on it . . . sorry that she may not find the peace that waits for me.”

Rachel was becoming frustrated with Hannah, but she knew she couldn’t show it. She took a different tack. “Mary Aaron said that you knew Lorraine. Did you ever see
her?
Hear about her from anyone else while you were with those people?”

She shook her head. “You see, I cannot help you, Rachel.” She picked up the iron and then put it back down. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. If you want me to go from your house, I will go.”

“Of course I don’t want you to leave. There is no question of you leaving here so long as you may be in danger,” Rachel said. She took a breath. When she spoke again, she took care with her tone, speaking softly, the way Hannah did. “I don’t want to trouble you, but my concern for other young women makes me ask. You have sisters. What if one of them—”

“
Ne.
I can’t. It makes me too sad.”

“Hannah,” Rachel insisted, “you don’t have to talk about New Orleans. All I want to know is if someone helped you leave Stone Mill.”

Hannah pretended to be interested in her shoe. Her mouth tightened into a pout. “Somebody tried to help me. But what happened, it wasn’t his fault. The woman had lied to him. She promised that she would take us to a Mennonite church. She said that they helped ex-Amish girls get jobs and papers. I didn’t have a social security card or my birth certificate. There was another girl with her. Amish, but from Lancaster. I didn’t know her.”

“Another girl? What was her name?” Rachel asked.

“She said Anna, but I think that she made it up. When I said, ‘Anna,’ she didn’t look at me.”

“And the man who helped you? What did he do?”

“Gave me money. Told me that the woman would take good care of me. She was English. A jolly woman. Fat and jolly.”

“Did she tell you her name?”

“Ne.”
Hannah shook her head.

“What kind of car did she drive?”

Hannah shrugged. “A blue van. I don’t know about kinds. Just a van.”

“Did you see the license plate?”

“Ne.”
Exasperated now, Hannah grabbed the pillowcase and threw it back into the unironed basket. “It was nighttime. I was afraid, and I was excited to go. How do I see a license plate?”

Hannah’s last words bordered on curt. Rachel was quiet again for a moment, giving Hannah time before she asked, “The man who helped you. You must have known him.”

“I told you. No one meant for this to happen. It wasn’t his fault. He took me to meet the woman. On the highway, in the diner parking lot. He said, ‘This is Hannah. She’s a good worker. Take care of her.’ He didn’t know that she would take us to the bad men.”

“Where did she take you?”

“Harrisburg. We stopped at a gas station. The men were there in another blue van. The woman said that they were Mennonites and would take us to the church.” She looked up and tears welled in her eyes. “They didn’t do that.” She rubbed at the tears with her fists. “The woman lied. The men who said they were Mennonites lied.”

“Oh, Hannah, I’m so sorry. Please tell me what I can do for you.” Rachel crossed to her and tried to put her arms around her, but the young woman pushed her away.

“You can’t help me. Only being saved will help me. Once I’m baptized, it will be all right.” She stared at the floor. “Everything will be all right, and I will never think about it again.”

 

Two Saturdays later, in the evening, Hannah’s father and mother, her bishop, and several of her church elders came to the B&B and climbed the stairs to the apartment, much to the delight of several of Rachel’s guests. The visitors were all agog that
real Amish
were apparently staying at Stone Mill House. Rachel made no explanation. The less said the better, and the misunderstanding could only help her business.

It had been a long week for Rachel. Evan was clearly displeased with her because he knew she knew where Hannah was and wouldn’t tell him. Twice she’d attempted to get together with him for lunch or dinner, and he’d had some last-minute excuse. To be fair, several of the troopers were out with a virus, and Evan was working a lot of overtime.

She’d also had no luck with extracting information from Hannah. In true Amish tradition, the young woman held to her word. Neither Mary Aaron’s nor Rachel’s own pleas swayed Hannah one iota from her stand. And thankfully, Ada and Hannah’s family had kept her presence a secret so that Evan hadn’t learned where she was staying and added to the problem.

Not three weeks from the time Rachel and Mary Aaron had whisked her away from her captors, the church community had come to a decision on what was to be done with Hannah. Rachel hoped for the best, but was afraid to be too hopeful. Mary Aaron had no such fears. She was positive that a solution would be found to bring Hannah back into the faith with the least amount of pain for anyone.

When the bishop and the others came downstairs an hour later, Rachel saw that Hannah was with them. They all filed through the house without a word and left by the kitchen door to climb into waiting buggies. Four of Rachel’s guests rushed to the front windows to watch as horses and carriages clattered down the drive. Rachel only smiled, giving the impression, she hoped, that she knew exactly what had happened.

 

Tuesday afternoon was a scorcher, and Rachel was glad for the central air, which George had insisted she install for her guests. A couple with two children checked in, and there were the usual emails to answer and craft orders to fill. Rachel had gone out to the kitchen for a glass of lemonade when Ada reminded her that she’d promised to cut mint for iced tea. “We’re nearly out, and I want to make fresh for supper,” Ada said. “And you might take some ice water out to Joab. Lifting stone in this heat. Hard work. He must be parched.”

“Do you think he’d like lemonade?” Rachel got the stoneware pitcher out of the oversized refrigerator.

“The man drinks water, nothing else.” Ada plunged her hands into a bowl of bread dough. “A little stingy with his words, but a decent mason. Not afraid of work.”