“I thought she was living with Mary and Abe Gingerich.”

She looks away, then back at me. “Her parents didn’t like her wild ways. They were afraid she was on the fast track to hell. You know, the drinking and staying out.” Her mouth twists, but she doesn’t quite manage a smile. “They didn’t like me. Mary Gingerich stepped up to help.” She shrugs. “It didn’t work out there, either. Someone told the bishop. He took Rachel in to counsel.”

Counsel. Something goes tight in my chest. How I’ve grown to hate that word.

“How long had she been living with Schrock?”

“Three weeks.”

“What makes you think he had something to do with her death?”

“I just … Everyone thinks Schrock is some kind of fucking messiah or something. He’s not. He’s…” She sighs, frustrated because she can’t seem to find the words. “Rachel was my first friend here in Roaring Springs. We’ve known each other since we were ten years old. When we were twelve, Schrock started … paying attention to us.”

“Paying attention to you how?”

“He started inviting us to his house. For hot chocolate or pie. He gave us chores in his barn, mucking stalls or whatnot, and paid us. He let us ride his horses. We got to see the new filly born. Stuff like that. You know, innocent like. I mean, he’d preach sometimes. Read the bible. He was always quoting Jacob Ammann.”

I know from my school days that Ammann was an Anabaptist leader from the mid-1700s and the namesake of the Amish religious movement.

She pauses to blow on the tea and then sips. “Last summer, he invited Rachel to a party at the barn at the rear of his property.”

“What kind of party?”

Her mouth twists. “I wasn’t invited, but she told me about it. She said there was music and beer. Yoder and Smucker were there. Other people she didn’t know. I guess it got kind of wild, but Rachel thought it was exciting and fun. It was her first, but not her last.”

Marie doesn’t notice when the ash on her cigarette falls to the tabletop. I wait.

“Anyway, Schrock liked Rachel after that so she got invited again. And again. In the beginning, she was into it. She was part of it. She liked being included. I was always a little jealous.”

“What happened?”

Her brows knit. “After a few of those parties she stopped talking about it. Stopped telling me stuff. When I asked, she’d just bite my head off.”

“Any idea why?”

“I dunno. But I knew it wasn’t good. She wasn’t happy.” She puffs absently on the cigarette. “A few days before she died, she was acting all weird, like she was going to tell me something. We were going to meet … like we did sometimes at night. She died before…”