Read Online Plain Killing by Emma Miller - Free Book Online

wasn’t certain where, this was and always would be her home. Even in such a time of sorrow, there was a feeling of comfort knowing that your neighbors were there to catch you and support you if you stumbled.
    It was nearly eight o’clock in the evening when Rachel approached the Glick farmhouse. The sun had already settled behind the mountains, and twilight would soon turn to darkness. Evening chores complete, Amish neighbors and church members would come and go late into the night. Others would come and stay, joining Beth’s brothers, sisters, and parents in keeping vigil over the deceased.
    Rachel entered the front hall of the house, nodding to one person after another. Conversations and voices were muted, but she felt welcome, and knew almost everyone there. She hadn’t seen her parents or brothers and sisters yet, but she had no doubt that they’d already stopped by or would arrive soon. Even though they were not close friends of the Glicks, they wouldn’t fail to pay their respects.
    Rachel steeled herself to view the body. She didn’t fear the dead; since she was a young child, she’d attended wakes and funerals. But neither was she eager to again see the tragic face of a girl who’d been wrenched from this world far too soon. She paused and whispered a silent prayer for Beth’s soul.
    “She’s in the parlor. There to the right,” a rasping voice said. A tall woman in a black bonnet motioned toward an open doorway. Rachel knew that by she, the woman meant Beth. By tradition, the name of the newly dead was rarely spoken, even at her own wake.
    Rachel moved to the doorway.
    According to custom, and despite her separation from the Amish church, Beth had been laid out in the kerosene-lamplit parlor off the main hallway. Garbed all in white, she rested in a wooden coffin held up by two sawhorses draped with blue quilts. Straight-backed chairs lined the walls, but only a few were occupied, and those few by elders. Most of the furniture had been removed to make room for the coffin and the mourners.
    Several middle-aged Amish women stood together near the cast-iron woodstove, cold now in deference to the August heat. From the open windows, a slight breeze fluttered the plain white curtains. The room smelled of floor wax, cinnamon, and too many people. There were no flowers.
    Rachel held her breath as she entered the room. Her mouth felt dry and her palms damp as she forced herself to approach the coffin.
    Beth Glick looked smaller than Rachel remembered. Thankfully, someone had covered the young woman’s face and throat with a man’s white linen handkerchief. Beth was clothed in a white dress and white stockings; only her bare hands were visible, fingers folded stiffly around a worn German Bible. Rachel exhaled softly. Such small hands . . . wrinkled from their immersion in water. Her eyes stung as she stared at Beth’s swollen and discolored flesh, two fingernails broken off raggedly at the quick.
    Rachel swallowed once and then again, determined not to break down and cry. Whatever happened to Beth, she’s no longer suffering, Rachel told herself as Evan’s report echoed in her mind: “According to the medical examiner she was strangled unconscious before she met death by drowning.” Evan had gone on to say that the water in Beth’s lungs was identical to that of samples taken from the quarry, proving that death had occurred there. “No evidence of sexual assault,” he had added hastily.
    Sounds of subdued weeping pierced her musing. Figures in Plain clothing moved around the coffin, and Rachel caught the scent of sour sweat.
    “Good of you to come, Rachel.”
    Rachel turned toward the familiar voice. “Bishop Abner?” She took another breath, grounding herself. It wasn’t his body odor that had offended her. His was a clean wholesomeness: green apple soap, licorice chewing gum.
    Rachel glanced back at Beth’s pale form. “Thank you for this,” she whispered to the bishop. “I’d worried that