“Rachel?” the old woman called after her. “Where are you going?”
Rachel plunged into a divide in the black bonnets and wiggled her way through to the narrow hallway without losing her glasses of cider and lemonade. She’d have to go back for the tissues.
Aunt Hannah followed close on her heels with the baby on her hip. “Why don’t you want to talk about your wedding? Are you having second thoughts? Because if you are, there’s no shame in it.”
Rachel shook her head. “I’m not having second thoughts. I just didn’t want to talk about it today. I feel so bad for Mary Rose. Talking about my wedding seems almost . . . well, almost like boasting about my blessings.”
Rachel’s niece stared at her with large round eyes. She was a pretty child; Rachel didn’t know if she’d look like her mother or her father. Babies, at least young ones, always looked alike to her. She liked babies well enough, but she was wary of them, especially when they cried. This one was vigorously sucking on her pink pacifier and didn’t show any signs of bursting into tears.
Aunt Hannah shook her head. “Honestly, girl, you do get the strangest notions. Is it a pity about Daniel? Of course it is. A sweet boy, always good to the older people. Never missed worship. But people die. That’s life. People, even good people, die. Women become brides and they become widows. And some, like Mary Aaron . . . well, we don’t know how that will end, do we?”
Rachel’s throat tightened. Mary Aaron had been at the grave site, not in Amish dress as her mother wanted, but wearing one of Rachel’s outfits, gray pants and jacket with a white blouse. And a pair of her heels. Rachel didn’t want to get into that hive of bees with her aunt, so she ignored the comment about her cousin.
“Life goes on,” Aunt Hannah continued. “And you shouldn’t feel bad because a new part of yours is opening. There’s enough sadness and grief in this world without feeling guilty about being happy. And you are a good person. You deserve to be happy. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Rachel nodded. Aunt Hannah was a dear, but always full of advice. And Rachel wasn’t sure that she wanted to get into a discussion of life here in the midst of the funeral gathering. Instead, she said, “I love you, Aunt Hannah. You’re the one with the good heart.” And, balancing the tray, she leaned over and kissed her plump cheek.
“I hope I do have a good heart,” Aunt Hannah answered. “Now, I’m going to see about finding a fresh diaper for this little one and you see that our bishop gets his lemonade. He always takes lemonade.”
Rachel moved on, gave her father a glass of cider, asked Beck Beiler if she could take her dirty plate, and made an appropriate comment to Mary Rose’s mother, Alma Studer. She found the widow with the bishop and one of the deacons in the parlor and passed out all her glasses. A squeal of childish voices and a pounding of feet came from the stairs to the second floor, and Rachel excused herself and started to go up the steps to see if anyone was watching over the kids. Everyone expected children to be children, but running inside and making too much noise at an after-funeral dinner was outside the bounds of proper behavior.
The front door opened behind her, and a gust of cold wind whipped against Rachel’s legs and arms and down the back of her neck. She turned to see her fiancé, Evan Parks, just inside the doorway. He was wearing his trooper’s uniform and looked as out of place among the Plain folk as a penguin in a flock of robins. “Evan,” she called to him.
He looked up, saw her, and did a double take.
Rachel glanced down at her dress and realized what had startled him. “I’ll explain later. Are you off work already?” she asked, unable to look away or fail to see how handsome he was. He always looked taller and broader in the shoulders in his uniform with his hat and knee-high boots and the huge handgun in its holster.
He shook his head. “Can I speak to you?” He was wearing his official expression, and Rachel wasn’t certain if it was because of the occasion or that something was wrong. “Outside,” he said, tilting his head in the direction of the door.
“All right.” She’d seen Evan at the cemetery, but he’d been on traffic duty and they hadn’t had a chance to speak. She’d thought he wouldn’t be off for a few hours, but they were planning on seeing each other later. If he was here, there must be a serious reason.
“There’s a problem,” he said, when they were alone on the porch.
She hugged herself for warmth; the temperature was quickly dropping. She wouldn’t be surprised if it snowed again tonight. “Okay.”
“It’s Daniel Fisher.” A wrinkle appeared on his forehead and he folded his arms over his chest in that way he stood when he had something unpleasant to deliver.
Rachel shivered in the raw wind. “What’s the problem?”
“We just got the preliminary report from the medical examiner. His death wasn’t an accident. It looks as if he was murdered.”
Chapter 2
“Murdered?” Rachel glanced around to see if anyone was near enough to overhear them. But that was foolish. What would anyone be doing on the front porch? Everyone else was coming and going through the kitchen. The front door was only used to carry out the dead or to welcome a bride. Well, she reconsidered, it was used by teenagers wanting to slip in or out of the house unnoticed. And for state troopers bringing bad news.
She stared at Evan. “Are you serious?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” Evan’s normally pleasant face with its square chin and dimple was grim.
He took his job
