Page 16 of Fallen

I know where she’s going, but I say nothing, wait for her to continue.

“The book, you know. She wrote all those terrible things about the Amish. Some of them thought badly of her. A few washed their hands of her completely. The elders knew she wasn’t going to come back. Katie, no one said as much, but I don’t think they wanted her back.”

Misconceptions about meidung or excommunication abound. Most non-Amish people believe the bann is a form of punishment. It’s not. Shunning is intended to be redemptive and bring fallen individuals back into the fold. In most cases, it works because when you’re Amish, your family is the center of your universe. Without them, you are cast adrift in a world you’re not prepared to handle.

“Did anyone in particular want her permanently excommunicated?” I ask.

“It was gossip mostly. You know how the Amish are. Rachael didn’t talk about it. But I know it hurt her.” Loretta smiles, reflective, but fresh tears glitter in her eyes. “You remember how she was. En frei geisht.” A free spirit. “She loved to laugh. She loved to love. She loved people. She loved life with all of its gifts. It was hard not to love her. But when she got mad…” She hefts a laugh. “You knew it. She did everything with such … eahnsht.” Zeal. “One of the reasons she didn’t fit in, I suppose. She just couldn’t follow the rules. That was why she left, you know. That was why I worried about her.”

“Because she was a druvvel-machah?” I ask. Troublemaker.

“Because she never held back. Rachael was full speed ahead at a hundred miles an hour, even if she didn’t know exactly where she was going. She was vocal and her opinions weren’t always popular, especially among the Amish. Then she wrote that book and it just made everything worse.”

I recall the stir it made here in Painters Mill. It was some kind of tell-all that was touted as nonfiction. For those of us who are familiar with the Amish, it was glaringly obvious the book was little more than a sensationalized hit piece rife with fiction.

I ask for her take anyway. “How so?”

“Well, she trashed that clan down Killbuck way. The Anabaptist group. They call themselves Amish, but they’re not. Maulgrischt,” she says, using the Deitsch term for “pretend Christian.”

I’m familiar with Amos Gingerich and his followers. I see them on occasion at the farmers’ market, selling vegetables, woodworking novelties, and plants and trees from a small nursery they run on their property. They call themselves the Killbuck Amish. They don’t adhere to any Ordnung that I know of. The Amish refuse to claim them. In fact, a good number of the group’s members are those who’ve been excommunicated from other church districts. Gingerich takes them in and, rumor has it, indoctrinates them into a community that’s more cultlike than Amish. Last I heard there were thirty or so members who live in a communelike compound, a praxis more in tune with the Hutterites than Amish. While most members get around via horse and buggy, the community shares a single vehicle and has several phones on the farm.

The citizens of Painters Mill ignore them for the most part, but rumors abound. Things like the men taking more than one wife. That the children are at risk. A few years ago, the sheriff’s office and Children Services got involved because someone claimed the kids were being separated from their parents and forced to work. The investigation that followed was inconclusive, but it put them on my cop’s radar.

“Katie, you asked me if anyone ever threatened Rachael.” She gives a single resolute nod. “You might take a look at Amos Gingerich. I think he threatened her once.”

I take out my notebook and write down the name. “What kind of threat?”

“Well, you know she stayed with them awhile. After she was put under the bann. She didn’t leave on good terms.” She lowers her voice. “Rachael told me he mentioned some of the awful stories in Martyrs Mirror—you know, the way they tortured and killed the Christians way back when. It gave me the shivers, but Rachael just laughed. She wasn’t too worried about it. I didn’t think of it again until now.”

Martyrs Mirror is a fixture in most Amish homes. My parents weren’t readers, but my mamm kept a copy on a table in the living room. Over a thousand pages in length, the ancient tome details the horrors committed against Christians, especially the Anabaptists. I read the book as a kid—stories of men and women being burned at the stake, decapitated, drowned, and buried alive. The brutality and injustice left an impression, not only about faith and martyrdom, but the kinds of cruelties human beings are capable of.

“Do you know why he threatened her?” I ask.

She grimaces. “Rachael devoted an entire chapter to Gingerich and the Killbuck clan. She trashed them. Called him a polygamist—and accused him of worse.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know it to be true, but she told me some of the men were taking wives as young as fourteen and fifteen years of age. Too young, you know. I told her to let it go. Go on with her life and forget about them. But Rachael was headstrong. Said those girls deserved to be heard. She told me later that her publisher made her change the names, to keep the lawyers out of it, I guess, but everyone knew. Amos Gingerich was not happy about it.”

I think about the scrap of paper in her car with the address scribbled on it. “Do you know if Rachael knew anyone in Wooster? Or from the Wooster area?”

Her brows draw together. “Not that I recall.”

“What about men? Did she have a man in her life? A boyfriend that you know of?”

Up until now, Loretta has been aghast and struggling to accept the news of her friend’s death. Her reactions have been genuine, her demeanor stunned. My question effectively shuts her down, and my cop’s gut takes note. Something there, I think, and I wait.

“Rachael is … was the best friend I ever had. I loved her like a sister. I don’t want to say anything unkind.” For a moment, the Amish woman wrestles with some internal foe, then raises her gaze to mine. “She was a wild one, Katie. As a teenager, she liked boys. As a woman, she liked her men. Maybe a little too much.”

“Anyone in particular?” I ask.

The Amish woman presses her lips together. “She knew I didn’t approve, so she didn’t talk too much about it. But there were men. A lot of them.”

“Do you have a name?”

She shakes her head. “All I know is that there was always a man in her life and every single one of them seemed to be wrong for her.”

CHAPTER 8