“I knew what he would be like when I wasn’t here to protect them anymore. I’ve got this thing, like a crab, growing in me.” Alma touched her abdomen. “Just like my own mother and her mother before her. They died of it before they turned fifty, and I’ll die of it, too,” she murmured. “And when I was gone, what would happen to Lemuel and Mary Rose and the baby? They’d be left at Daniel’s mercy. He’d be the head of the family. Don’t you see? He had to die. It was the only way.”
Rachel took a breath; the stone floor of the barn was hard and cold. The cold was seeping into her muscles, making them stiff and achy. “Did . . . did Moses know it was you who killed him? Did he know and protect you by confessing to the killing?” Rachel asked.
“He didn’t know,” Lemuel said. “Maybe he suspected, but he didn’t know. He asked me if Rosh had done it. Rosh was his friend. He knew Rosh would look after Mary Rose and the baby. Moses thought that, after a while, God would make the police understand that he didn’t do it and let him go.”
Rachel twisted her neck to look at Alma. “You didn’t have to kill Daniel,” she argued. “You could have gone to the police.”
“Ne,” Alma said, closing the man’s denim coat she wore. She swam in it. Did it belong to her son in jail, or her son-in-law now buried in the cemetery?
“We don’t wash our dirty laundry in front of Englishers,” Alma said. “And what would they do? It would be our word against Daniel’s. He’d come home and we’d be the worse for it.”
“Did you tell the church elders? The bishop?”
“Mary Rose did,” Lemuel said. “And the bishop was angry. He told Daniel that it was wrong to mistreat his wife. Daniel just went home and grabbed the baby and shook her until she screamed. He said that if Mary Rose carried tales on him—if any of us did—we’d live to regret it.”
“Hush, child,” Alma cautioned. “No need to tell her any of that now. It doesn’t matter.”
But Lemuel wouldn’t be silenced. “Rachel has to understand why you did it. She has to see that you had to get rid of Daniel.” He dropped on his knees beside her. “Daniel said my mother wouldn’t always be around to take up for her, and maybe the baby would just fall against the stove or tumble into the well. He said Mary Rose needed to make up her mind who was boss around here, him or an old woman.” Lemuel was weeping now. His nose was running, and he was blubbering but still babbling on. “Mary Rose knew he would kill the baby, but she thought she could change him.”
“He might have killed Eliza,” Alma said. “Daniel complained that she cried too much and she was just a runty girl. He said next time he’d get a son on Mary Rose, so what did it matter if a sickly girl baby had an accident. One less useless mouth to feed.”
“But why then? If all of this had been going on for some time?” Rachel murmured. “Why that day of the hunt?”
“Because he’d hurt Moses and Lemuel again. Because the gnawing in my belly was fierce that day,” Alma said in a rush. “Because Salome gave me something for the pain and we both knew that my time was growing short. And because I knew he’d be in that deer stand. And I had to do something before it was too late to save my children.”
Rachel blinked, finally realizing what Alma was saying. “You’re saying you did it?” Rachel said. “Not Lemuel or Mary Rose? And not Moses?”
“Ne. Mary Rose doesn’t even know I did it,” Alma said. “Nobody knew. Nobody would have ever known if Lemuel hadn’t come upon me, coming back through the woods that day.”
“I’m sorry, Mam,” Lemuel whispered, hanging his head.
Alma brushed her fingertips across her son’s face. “Wasn’t your fault. Couldn’t be helped. Just wish you hadn’t seen me. Hadn’t figured it out.”
Rachel’s mind was now reeling. Alma had shot and killed Daniel, then Lemuel had accidentally come upon his mother and figured out what happened? If not at that moment, then obviously later when he found Daniel’s body.
Rachel looked up from the floor at Alma. “You shot Daniel, not once but twice.”
“Had to,” Alma insisted. “No more than shooting a rat. Daniel was evil. Evil don’t die so easy. He should have died with the first shot, but he started screaming and crawling toward me. He said I’d go to hell. And I said he’d be there ahead of me and pulled the trigger again.”
“But you won’t go to hell,” Lemuel sobbed. “You’ll go down on your knees in front of the church and you’ll be forgiven.”
“Ne, that won’t happen,” Alma said. “It’s too late for all that, because I’ve still got bad things to do to make everything right.”
“What bad things, Mam?” Lemuel asked.
Rachel held her breath, holding Alma’s gaze.
The Amish woman looked away. “I’ve got to protect you. I’m sorry, Rachel. You seem like a good person, but I can’t take the chance that you’ll tell the police. You’ll tell them that Lemuel helped me hide what I did. He dropped his father’s gun down the old well. That makes him guilty, too. And they’d put him in jail like they did Moses.”
Rachel struggled against the ropes. “They won’t. It’s not the same thing,” she protested. “Lemuel didn’t kill anybody. He’s too young
