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    A Final Solitude Death: An Amish Country Murder Mystery
    A Final Solitude Death: An Amish Country Murder Mystery
    A Final Solitude Death: An Amish Country Murder Mystery
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    A Final Solitude Death: An Amish Country Murder Mystery

    By Saundra McKee

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    About this ebook

    Murder once again rocks the quiet Amish village of Solitude as the community tries to come to grips with the controversy over deep well gas drilling. Some residents are becoming wealthy, while others fear dire environmental consequences. The body of a college student and activist opposed to the drilling is found on an Amish farm where a well has been recently drilled. When the activist turns out to be the beloved grandson of close friends, Dana Blades, retired history professor, and her close Amish friend, Fannie Byler, seek to find answers to who is responsible for the grisly slaying. Third in a series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSaundra McKee
    Release dateApr 20, 2011
    ISBN9781458039552
    A Final Solitude Death: An Amish Country Murder Mystery
    Author

    Saundra McKee

    I am a retired educator. I taught in the public schools for 15 years and at the university level for 22 years. I love to travel the world. I enjoy politics, dogs, mysteries and water sports. I am a lay speaker in the United Methodist Church.

    Read more from Saundra Mc Kee

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      Book preview

      A Final Solitude Death - Saundra McKee

      The Final Solitude Death by Sandy McKee

      All characters and events in this story are fictional. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental. While some of the places mentioned actually exist, they are used in an entirely fictional manner.

      Published by Saundra McKee at Smashwords. Copyright 2011. Saundra McKee.

      November 2010

      Prologue

      It’s been eight years since Dana Blade’s childhood home in the quiet Amish community of Solitude was rocked by an explosion. The explosion injured her childhood Amish friend and confidante Fannie Byler. Two additional attempts on Dana’s life and the suspicious death of her neighbor and deceased mother’s best friend, Helen Beam, were determined to be caused by Dana’s younger brother, Phil. Phil, badly in debt and addicted to gambling, has served less than half of his twenty-five year sentence. Dana has yet to forgive him or reconcile with her only sibling. She has remained close to Phil’s children, especially her oldest niece, Carly. In 2007, Dana to her great surprise, met, fell in love with and married a widower who had relocated to the Solitude area.

      Fannie and Eli, Amish friends of Dana since the fifth grade when they all attended the same elementary school that has since been converted into their home, remain dedicated to their faith, five children, thirty grandchildren and twelve great grandchildren. Eli continues to use his carpentry skills for Amish and English families in the Solitude area who have come to admire his woodworking skills. Fannie, despite a bout with an aggressive form of breast cancer is in good health. She does cleaning and occasional cooking at the women’s shelter that was established by a bequest of Helen Beam.

      Chapter 1

      Monday

      The body was found three miles from the village of Solitude on Joseph Slaughbach’s farm. The bearded man appeared to be in his early twenties. Materials found in his wallet identified him as a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh. He had membership cards from many environmental groups. EMTs surmised that Thomas Stein was most likely one of the many protesters who had been infiltrating the area with the same increasing frequency as gas wells were being drilled in the area.

      Pennsylvania has been dubbed the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of natural gas because of the Marcellus Shale field that lay below two thirds of the state. New drilling techniques permit extraction of the deep-seated gas and oil. Many landowners have become wealthy virtually overnight with their leases. Other out-of-work citizens have found well paying jobs with the gas companies. Most citizens are grateful for lower heating costs. The majority of the citizens of Solitude are conservative by nature and take time to examine all sides of an issue before taking a stance. The most outspoken protests and concerns about the drilling come from those living outside the area. Meetings have been held throughout the area cautioning people of possible water, soil and air pollution resulting from lax regulation of the gas extraction companies. Many residents are descendents of coal miners and shallow well drilling workers and are aware of the environmental tradeoffs that have faced western Pennsylvania since the first oil well was drilled in Titusville, PA by Edwin Drake back in 1859. However, most residents love their clean streams for fishing and abundant wildlife for hunting and will take a stance when eminent dangers are clearly evident. Attempts at putting a coal cleaning plant in the 1970s, and a toxic waste dump in the 1980s, and the spreading of sludge on fields in the 1990s, in the area had all met with such strong resistance that the sponsoring companies were forced to move on.

      Both Fannie and Dana were spending the day at the Helen Beam Women’s Shelter. Fannie was cleaning the office, conference room and the consignment shop that provided a modest income and job training for clients at the shelter. Dana was getting ready to conduct a training session for volunteers on Wednesday. She was running off handouts and positioning her laptop to display a power point presentation on some key statistics about domestic violence.

      Eli dropped off those four wooden cutout silhouettes of those women this morning when he drove me here, said Fannie. What did you say they were for?

      They are in memory of the four women from this area who have died as a result of domestic violence over the past two years. I saw the idea on a mission trip I was on to Louisiana in September. We need to make people more aware of the how widespread and devastating the problem is. We’ve made some real headway into the high schools in the area. We haven’t had much success in holding workshops for our Amish friends. Any ideas?

      Fannie shook her head. Dana, you know we keep things private. The Amish are just like people everywhere, most of us are good, but there are a few mean and violent men. I think that after seeing how things work here, if I knew someone was being badly abused, I would report it. Everything is handled so professionally here with a great respect for the client’s privacy and dignity.

      Dana said, That’s high praise from you. There have been some Amish women who have come forward in other parts of the country, but it’s not easy for them. Just let people know we are here if they need us. I’m going to run over to the bakery for some coffee and scones. Are you interested?

      Do you really need to ask? laughed Fannie. Make mine blueberry.

      Dana stopped at the Post Office/general store before heading to the bakery. Everybody was talking about the body found in the nearby field. The young man had taken a shotgun blast to the chest. Some folks had heard that he’d taken part in the protest held in the nearby college town of Indiana the Saturday before. There was little else to go on.

      By the time Dana returned to the shelter, Fannie had already heard about the body from looking over the daily newspaper. Poor Joseph, they found the man on his farm. I suppose he’ll have to answer lots of questions from the police. He won’t be happy about that. When his daughter was murdered all those years ago, he was so upset by the police being there at his farm so much. He still credits you and me, not the police, with bringing Constance’s killer to justice.

      That seems so long ago. It still makes me so sad. She’d be a wife and mother by now. They think this guy’s death might be related to all the drilling going on around here. I still haven’t made up my mind about the drilling. Larry has leased out a lot of his land for drilling and doesn’t seem to have any serious concerns. I know they pay very well. We’re planning a mission trip to Nicaragua to help dig water wells in June. Larry says it’s all on the gas company’s dime.

      "Two of my brothers have leases too. We aren’t allowed to use the gas, but the bishop says it’s okay to let them drill on our land. Marriage has really

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