Secrets in the Grave (Serenity's Plain Secrets Book 3) (3 page)

“What’s the boyfriend doing here?” Todd’s lips twisted.

“He used to be Amish and his entire family still is. It’s not so strange for him to be present,” I said as convincingly as I could. Inside though, I was wondering the same thing.

The three of us were making our way across the yard when the front door opened again. This time, EMPs exited the house with a gurney.

“Dammit,” I muttered under my breath, breaking into a jog. Todd and Bobby followed on my heels. Bobby huffed at the exertion and Todd’s keys jingled on his belt.

The crowd split to allow us to pass through. I caught a glimpse of the bishop and James Hooley joining the back of our parade up the porch steps. The pots filled with pansies on each side of the doorway made the young woman’s death seem more surreal than it already did.

“Why did you move the body?” I demanded of Raymond, at the front of the gurney. Lucky for Beth, she was at the back.

Raymond’s eyes rounded and his slender face flushed. He was tall, gangly and a bit awkward at times. Beth was a firecracker.

“I didn’t know there was any kind of investigation planned.” Raymond thumbed over his shoulder. “Jeremy gave us the go ahead to bag her.”

“That’s right,” Beth added from the house. Jeremy was further back in the room, talking to a teary-eyed, older woman and a much younger one, who stared ahead in shock.

I inwardly groaned. I hated dealing with grieving families. It was impossible to be respectful of their loss and ask nosy questions.

I risked a glance at Daniel, leaning back against the porch railing. When our eyes met, he smiled.

It was annoying how a million butterflies took flight in my stomach like I was a sixteen-year-old school girl. I swallowed.
I’m thirty-four and way too old for weak knees in the presence of a man. Even a tall, well-muscled and handsome one like Daniel
.

“So. How long have you been here?” I asked.

Daniel shrugged and glanced at his mother. The two weren’t close, so their being together was intriguing in itself.

Anna spoke quietly to Daniel in the Pennsylvania-German dialect of the Amish. I had no idea what they were saying, but I didn’t need to understand. Anna didn’t take her eyes off me while she talked, and I was good at reading voice fluctuations and body language. She was disturbed, and not in a grieving way, either.

Daniel turned back to me. “About ten minutes. Fannie Kuhns was my mother’s niece and my cousin.” He paused as if deciding whether to say more. The tension on the porch was palpable. Todd stood quietly beside me, and Bobby whispered back and forth with Beth. I could hear the scribbling of his pencil in his notebook. I was too distracted to catch everything, but the gist was that Bobby wanted basic information about the state and location of the body without having to open the zipper in front of the entire community.

“Ah, my father contacted me this morning. He had something important to talk about.” He shook his head at my questioning eyes. “This isn’t a good place to discuss it. I’ll tell you everything later.”

“We don’t have the luxury of waiting for this conversation. It needs to be taken care of now,” Bishop Esch announced,
stepping onto the porch. He stopped in front of me and pointed into the crowd. “You must arrest that man.”

Several of the Amish men moved aside, leaving one standing alone.

I stared at the man. He was tall, straight-backed and smirking slightly. There was a sprinkling of gray at his temples. The rest of the brown hair poking out from under his hat was curly. His beard was long and thick. The top few buttons of his ivory shirt were unbuttoned. His boots weren’t muddy like the other men. The oddest and most mesmerizing part about the man were his eyes. They were the lightest blue I’d ever seen.

When the man returned my gaze, his mouth loosened into a friendly smile. My heart rate sped up and the breath caught in my throat.

This must be the medicine man
.

2

DANIEL

S
eeing Jonas Peachey sent a shiver up my spine. The healing man had always given me the creeps, even though I’d only seen him a few times as a child. I still remembered the threatening glint in his eyes when Aaron Esch had questioned him about his healing practices following the unexpected death of an elderly man suffering the final stages of cancer. My family was visiting relatives in the Black Willow Amish settlement when it had happened. Aaron had been there at the same time visiting his sister, Robyn, Jonas’ wife.

The look Jonas had given Aaron for questioning his tactics and authority in that Ohio community was odd for an Amish man. I’d only been about ten at the time, but I’d recognized it for what it was. Jonas believed the only authority he answered to was himself. He’d told Aaron that perhaps the old man had wanted death. The implication of his words still made my heart pound.

I shook away the memory and glanced at Serenity.

Her blonde hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail, and the large aviator sunglasses she wore covered a fair amount of
her face. Her plump lips were pursed as she stared at Jonas. Physical longing stirred in my groin. I wished I’d kissed her goodbye earlier, instead of wasting a perfectly good morning arguing.

Between a suspicious death in the community and the suspected involvement of the mysterious Jonas Peachey, there wouldn’t be any time for romance.

“May I speak with you alone, Bishop Esch?” Serenity asked.

When Aaron nodded, Serenity turned back to Jonas. “You should stick around. I have a few questions for you, too.”

Serenity murmured a few words to the paramedics and Bobby before she allowed Fannie Kuhn’s body to be taken from the house. When she went inside, Aaron, Bobby and Todd followed her.

I glanced at Ma.

“Tell the Sheriff what I’ve told you,” she said before she hurried down the steps to my waiting father. He shook his head when his eyes met mine.

I took my own worried breath when I entered the house. Serenity was talking quietly to Irene Kuhns, Fannie’s mother, while a young woman I assumed was Fannie’s sister looked on with a puffy, red face. Aaron and Bobby sat a discreet distance away at the kitchen table, talking quietly. Bobby scribbled in his notebook the entire time.

Todd sidled up to me. With a raised brow, he whispered, “What the hell’s going on around here?”

I couldn’t help smiling at his blunt words. I was thinking the same, but wouldn’t have dared say so. That was Todd’s way. He couldn’t be subtle if his life depended on it.

I shrugged. “I guess that’s what we’re going to have to find out.”

Todd rubbed the bristle on his chin. “You should ask Serenity to add you to the payroll. You’re working enough cases with us.”

I snorted. “Don’t think it hasn’t already occurred to me.”

“Bobby, Daniel,” Serenity said, jerking her chin at us to join her.

I didn’t hesitate, crossing the room quicker than Bobby. I didn’t know Irene well, but I remembered her from my childhood in the community. She was one of the milder women, about fifteen years younger than my mother and extremely shy around outsiders. Seeing the tears dribble down her round cheeks made me uncomfortable. The woman’s grief was like a water-filled balloon ready to explode. It physically pushed at me, making me take a step back and glance away.

The younger woman had the same plump, roundish features and strawberry blonde hair as Irene. Her tight face said she struggled to keep the tears in.

When Bobby reached us, Serenity took a tea cup from Irene. She held out the cup to Bobby, who pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on before he touched it.

“The contents of the cup were the last and only thing Fannie ingested today. It’s empty, but it hasn’t been washed. Can you get any forensics from it?” Serenity asked.

Bobby nodded slowly. “I can swab the interior and send it off to the state lab. There might be enough residue to get a list of some of the ingredients, but with trace evidence, I doubt anything we find will be sufficient to hold up in court.” He brought the cup to his nose and inhaled, then looked at Irene. “Peppermint?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “It makes the parsley tea taste better.”

“Did you know your daughter was pregnant?” Bobby asked.

Irene glanced at her daughter. The girl squeezed her mother’s hand in encouragement before Irene responded.

“I learned of it just today when Fannie began bleeding.” Irene gulped and licked her lips. Tears welled in her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I know this is difficult, but it’s really best to talk about what happened while it’s still fresh in your mind. We all want to know what happened to Fannie,” Serenity coaxed.

Irene sucked in a wet breath and dabbed her eyes with her apron. When she collected herself, she nodded.

Serenity faced the daughter. “How long have you known about your sister’s condition?”

With Serenity’s sunglasses pushed up on top of her head, her eyes were visible. There was a hint of accusation in those dark blue eyes. Serenity had a knack for reading people. I guessed she’d pegged the sister’s prior knowledge of the pregnancy accurately.

The girl didn’t look at her mother. She swallowed and replied, “I suspected it for the past couple of weeks.”

“What’s your name?” Serenity’s pen was poised above the small notebook in her hand.

“Hannah—Hannah Kuhns.”

“I’m sure this is very upsetting for you to talk about right after your sister’s death.” Serenity hesitated. “Was Fannie married?”

Before Hannah could answer, Irene shook her head, pulling her apron up to her face. “I can’t do this right now,” she mumbled, hurrying from the room. Her footsteps on the staircase boomed throughout the house.

Serenity didn’t miss a beat. “Where’s your father?”

“He died three years ago,” Hannah said, the words so soft I had to lean forward to hear.

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

Serenity’s face relaxed. Hannah wasn’t a minor. Serenity could continue to question her without her mother’s presence.

“It’s really important that we know who the father of the baby is.” Serenity lowered her voice. “Do you have any idea who it might be?”

Hannah’s eyes widened. While she hesitated, I held my breath. I had the feeling Serenity and Bobby were, too.

“No, I don’t,” Hannah said. “May I go now?”

I looked at Serenity. She didn’t immediately answer. Her face was still as she considered, then she gave a curt nod. “You may. I don’t expect you’re planning a trip or anything. I’ll need to talk to you again once your sister is laid to rest.”

“And her baby. The child must be buried, too,” Hannah said.

“Of course. When both of them are buried.”

Hannah whirled away, trotting up the steps after her mother.

Serenity scowled at me and Bobby. We took a step closer together as Todd joined our group. “Are you kidding me?” Serenity whispered.

“As I’ve told you before, nothing is simple or straightforward with the Amish,” Bobby said, tilting his head. He twirled the end of his gray mustache between his fingers.

Serenity lifted her hand and pointed to her fingers as she talked. “We have a young pregnant woman. She’s not married. She dies under somewhat strange circumstances and her
family doesn’t want to talk about it.” Her gaze settled on me. “Sound familiar?”

“Maybe she died of natural causes.” I paused to look at Bobby. “It happens sometimes, doesn’t it?”

Bobby nodded. “Sure it does. If the pregnancy develops somewhere other than the uterus, a rupture can occur that causes internal bleeding and death, but that usually happens much earlier in a pregnancy. Beth indicated that the fetus looked to be around four months along. It’s odd that a catastrophic event would take place at that point in the pregnancy.”

“What if something like this happens to Heather?” Todd interrupted.

We turned to look at him. He was pale and frowning.

Bobby rested his hand on Todd’s shoulder. “Heather has been seeing an obstetrician on a regular basis since the very beginning of conception. Trust me, her doctor would know by now if she had any problems with the pregnancy or the baby. She’s in good hands.” Bobby dismissed him and turned back to Serenity. “Usually, if a mother dies in the process, it’s early in the pregnancy or at the end when a full term baby is delivered and there are complications. This woman’s death is mystery.”

“How long will the autopsy take?” Serenity asked.

“I’ll get right on it. I should have some information for you by tomorrow. The state lab’s analysis of this cup—” Bobby held it up. “—will take a couple of days with a rush order. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that parsley tea is a known herbal abortifacient.”

“Parsley can cause miscarriage?” Serenity said with wide-eyed disbelief.

“It’s a primitive treatment that’s been used for centuries to induce menstruation and bleeding,” Bobby stressed.

Serenity glanced around the room. Aaron was still seated at the table, but his head was turned toward us. Several women were making their way to the stairway and a small group of men were gathered on the porch beyond the screened door.

“Whoa, wait a minute, ladies,” Serenity called out. Todd walked to the front of the line, blocking the staircase. All eyes turned to Serenity. “Jeremy, over here.” Serenity motioned to the young deputy.

Jeremy squeezed in between the women. “Yes, ma’am,” he said when he reached us.

“Where was the body when you arrived?” Serenity asked.

“Upstairs. She was on a bed,” Jeremy replied, blinking.

Serenity looked in Bobby’s direction and the old man started toward the stairs. “I’m on it.”

Serenity flicked her finger for Todd to join the coroner.

When it was just Serenity, me and Jeremy, she asked, “Where was the fetus?”

“Wrapped in a towel beside the body.” Jeremy took a breath. “Raymond and Beth bagged them together.”

Serenity sighed. “Get these people out of here. Only family members in the house.”

I spoke up. “Ah, Serenity. Everyone here is probably related in one way or another.”

Serenity rolled her eyes, but sighed in understanding. “Okay. Only the mother and sister are allowed to stay. Clear the house.”