Evan shrugged. “Not offhand.” His mouth tightened. “Rachel, it’s time to give up on this. You’re becoming obsessed. You’ve got to let it go. Moses probably confessed because he actually did it.”
“Probably, but not positively. Evan, listen to me. I—”
“No, you listen to me for once.” He shook his head and handed the wet umbrella to her. “For once, don’t be so bullheaded. It’s honorable that you tried to help Alma and Mary Rose and Moses and the boy, Levin or Levy or whatever his name is.”
“Lemuel, his name is Lemuel.”
“Whatever. You tried your best, but you aren’t a detective. Once again, you’ve gotten involved in something you shouldn’t have and I think you’ve let your emotions take over. You aren’t being objective.” He glanced away and then back at her. “You know, they say that justice is blind.”
“That’s what I’m worried about,” she protested, gesturing with one hand.
“No, you don’t get it,” he insisted, getting wetter by the moment. “Justice relies on facts. It doesn’t matter whether Moses has Asperger’s syndrome or if he’s Old Order Amish or . . . or Buddhist. The rules are the same for everybody. You found him a good lawyer, but if you hadn’t, the system would have seen that he was provided with a legal defense. Every defendant is considered innocent until he or she—”
“Confesses?”
He exhaled. “Look, I don’t have time to argue with you, and I’ve got a long and apparently damp shift ahead of me. We can discuss this later, but you know how I feel. You tried your best, but you haven’t found anything that would dispute Moses’s confession. It’s time to end your amateur investigation and focus on us—on our wedding. On me. On our new life together. Can you do that? For us?”
She gripped the steering wheel, feeling defeated. “Yes, I can. I will.”
“All right, then. Good. Talk to you tonight.”
He turned abruptly and hurried to his police car. She could tell by the stiffness of his back and the way he held his head that he was still unhappy with her, but he’d get over it. Evan never held a grudge. That was one of the things she loved most about him.
“Love you,” she called after him. He slammed his car door.
“Well, that could have gone better,” she said aloud. Grimacing, she turned up the defrost on the dashboard. Evan pulled up beside her, beeped once, and pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street. Rachel watched him go. He was right. She had been putting so much energy into Moses’s case that she hadn’t been giving her impending marriage the attention it deserved.
She just had a few loose ends to tie up.
Taking out her cell phone, she pulled up the number for the police department and dialed. After a few minutes on hold and several repeated explanations, she was able to speak to someone who could tell her what she had to do to get a copy of the initial police report detailing Daniel’s death.
A helpful woman told her that she could come in and pick it up. The case was closed and the information was available to the public for the asking. After she ended the call, Rachel sat there, her windshield wipers going and the slush on the window sliding back and forth. Bits and pieces of things various people had told her about Daniel went through her head.
Rosh had said he hadn’t found Daniel’s body. That he only ran to tell Mary Rose himself so that the terrible news would come from someone who cared about her rather than the English police.
But what if he hadn’t been telling the truth? What if he’d lied to her?
Was it possible that Rosh had discovered the body and then gone to Mary Rose? The lie wouldn’t be a big deal unless there was more to it . . . unless it was part of a cover-up. Was it possible Mary Rose cared for him as he obviously cared for her? George had told her that statistics proved that the person who reported a murder was often connected to the crime. Had Rosh and Mary Rose planned this together?
Rachel started the engine. Now that she was sure that Daniel had abused his wife, there might be a reason for Daniel’s death. Rosh loved Mary Rose. Was it possible that he’d killed for her?
Or had Mary Rose done the deed herself?
Chapter 17
Rachel picked up her wedding dress at the bridal gown shop, but instead of taking it home, she drove out to the Studer farm. After the near-argument she’d had with Evan, she had resolved to do as he asked and set aside her investigation of Daniel’s death. He was right: It was time to move on. The tiff with Evan hadn’t been serious and all was well between them now, but it was the wake-up call reminding her it was time to get her priorities straight. What mattered was her impending wedding, and the life she and Evan would build together.
That said, it still wasn’t all that easy to stop thinking about Moses and his family. Rationally, she saw Evan’s point. But every time she thought of an Amish boy like Moses locked in prison for the rest of his life, she wanted to cry.
There were still a few missing pieces of the puzzle that kept nagging at her. Once she’d put her mind at ease, she told herself, she could move on without regrets. After all, if she’d tried her best and come up with nothing to prove Moses’s innocence, then maybe she’d been wrong all along. And that was certainly possible. Being Amish didn’t mean a person wasn’t capable of great evil. It simply wasn’t something she’d seen often, because, as a whole, they really were gentle and God-fearing people.
Mary Rose’s mother met her at the door of the farmhouse with the
