“Weigeth’s alleweil?” How goes it today? Removing his flat-brimmed hat, the bishop wipes sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.

“Ich bin Zimmlich gut,” I respond.

He looks up at the sky. “ We are trying to beat the storms.”

“Looks like a good harvest.”

“Best we’ve had in six years.” His gaze slides to Glock and then back to me. His expression sobers. “Reuben Zimmerman came by an hour ago. He told me about the Plank family.”

Word of a death spreads quickly in the Amish community. Word of murder travels even faster. Not for the sake of gossip, but because other families will drop everything and descend upon the injured or bereaved to help. In the case of the Planks, there’s no one left to help. I tell the bishop what happened, leaving out as many of the details as I can.

He places his hand over his chest. I see the veins standing out on his temple. Sweat forming on his brow. For a moment I wonder if he’s having a heart attack.

“Are you all right, Bishop Troyer?”

“It is the will of God.” He shakes his head, blinking away sweat. “Der Keenich muss mer erhehe.” One must exalt the King.

We spend the next ten minutes rehashing the same things Glock and I went over with the Zook family. The conversation shifts into new territory when I ask him if any of the Planks had come to him with a problem.

A shadow I can’t quite read passes over his expression. “Ja.” Wiping his face with the kerchief, he meets my gaze. “Bonnie approached me after worship with concerns about Mary.”

“The younger of the two girls?”

The bishop nods, his brows knitting. “Bonnie did not want to speak to me with her husband present.”

An uneasy ping sounds in my brain. The Amish are generally a patriarch-cal society. Secrets between a husband and wife are rare. What was Bonnie keeping from her husband? And what did that have to do with Mary?

“Do you know what she wanted to speak to you about?” I ask.

The bishop shakes his head. “We never got the chance to speak privately. I tried several times but Amos was always present.” He shrugs. “I took the buggy to the house last week, but she said it was not a good time. I even met her at the shop in town where Mary worked part-time.”

I didn’t know Mary had an outside job. “Which shop?”

“The Carriage Stop.”

One of Councilwoman Janine Fourman’s shops. I make a mental note to swing by and speak to the manager. “Do you know why Bonnie wouldn’t speak to you in front of her husband?”

“I do not know. Perhaps Amos is—was—a private man.”