Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (14 page)

A
fter Reed ran down the street, I debated whether or not I should run after him. Common sense prevailed. Oliver was back in the Double Dime Diner. If I needed to track Reed down, I knew where to find him at the sheriff’s house. Although it might be a tad awkward to knock on Mitchell’s door asking to see a potential suspect.

As I returned to the diner, Troy shuffled toward a nondescript tan minivan parked on the street. “You again?” he grunted. “You ran out of there like a dog after a tennis ball.”

“Can I ask you one more question?”

“You never got my permission to ask one before. Why start now?”

I smiled, shooting for charming again. “I’m trying to be polite.” Judging by his scowl, I failed.

“I have to make a pick up at the quilt shop in Rolling Brook.”

My brow shot up. “Quilt shop? My quilt shop?”

“You own Authentic Amish Quilts?”

I grimaced. Not my shop. Martha’s. “No, my shop is next door. Mine’s Running Stitch.”

“Why would you be so dumb and open your shop next to another quilt shop?”

“Mine was there first.” I dug the toe of my shoe into the wet leaves on the sidewalk.

“The owner must not like you much or thinks he can put you out of business. Why else would he open there?”

I didn’t say anything.

A slow smiled spread on his face. “Hit a sore spot, did I?”

“Why are you picking someone up from that store?”

“I don’t have to tell you that. I have client confidentially to think about.”

“You’re a driver not a lawyer.”

“There is an Amish driver code. You wouldn’t understand.” He stalked away.

Back inside the diner, Linda set a pancake on a ceramic plate in front of Oliver. He gulped it down in two bites.

She straightened up. “You got a good dog there.”

“Thanks,” I said, thinking I might as well finish that piece of pecan pie. I didn’t want the entire trip to the Double Dime Diner to be wasted.

“I couldn’t help but overhear some of what you said to Troy about his ex-wife. Is that what brought you here? I read about that in the paper. It’s a sad story.”

I nodded. “Very sad.”

“What do you have to do with it?” She looked me up and down. “Are you a cop? I know all the cops in Millersburg. They are some of my best customers. You’re not one of them.” She peered over the counter and examined my outfit. “Are you FBI or something? I saw on television that the FBI dresses fancy.”

I looked down at my jacket and jeans and wondered where the “fancy” comment came from. True, the jeans were designer back from my Dallas days when I cared about such things as the label on my clothes. “No.” I coughed. “Not even close. I told you when I first arrived that I own Running Stitch, an Amish quilt shop in Rolling Brook. Also, I don’t think the FBI is really known for dressing fancy.”

“They wear suits. Suits are fancy.”

I wore jeans and an orange turtleneck sweater. “I’m not wearing a suit.”

She lowered her voice. “Because you are undercover.”

“Really, I own an Amish quilt shop. That’s all I do.”

She pushed away from the counter. “You’re not Amish.”

“I’m not.” I was coming to realize that I was bound to have this conversation every time I said I owned an Amish quilt shop. Should I start saying I owned “a quilt shop” and leave the Amish out of it? But the Amishness of it was what made Running Stitch my aunt’s store.

“Then how can you call it an Amish quilt shop if you’re not Amish?”

“Because it was Amish first. I inherited it from my Amish aunt.”

“Oh, you’re one of those runaway Amish. You saw too much television during
rumspringa
and couldn’t go back. I know the type.”

“No, I was never Amish.”

She gave me a look as if to say
yeah, right
.

“I’m not Amish, and I’m not an Amish FBI agent either. I wanted to talk to Troy because Rachel Miller is a good friend of mine. The sheriff thinks that she or her husband may have caused Wanda’s death.”

“Why? Rachel Miller has to be the sweetest woman in the entire county.”

I couldn’t agree more. “The Millers were in a dispute with the township about a pie factory they planned to build on Sugartree Street.”

“I heard about that.”

“You did? From who?”

“It’s hard to remember. I think it was an Amish man complaining about the English meddling in their business.” She snapped her fingers. “I know! It was Linus Raber.”

“Linus? The auctioneer?”

“That’s right. He was here talking about the factory, but he was mostly talking about how much the Rolling Brook township trustees try to control the town. He wasn’t too fond of them, I can tell you that.”

“Can you remember what he said?”

“Oh, yes, Linus likes to talk. It’s unusual for an Amish man; most are tight-lipped, at least they are when they are around people like us.”

“What did he say?” I asked.

“That Aaron Miller would have to plead his case in front of the township trustees at the next meeting.”

Plead his case. That was tomorrow in front of the trustees, and I had to be there whether Aaron wanted me there or not.

I made a mental note to ask Jonah about Linus. Mattie too. She might be able to tell me what connection he had with her brother that he would know this much about the family business. Aaron wouldn’t tell me himself. Linda was right. Most Amish men were quiet, and Aaron Miller was the most closed-mouth Amish man I had ever met.

Linus Raber just became a person of interest.

A
fter I returned to Running Stitch, Anna went home and I spent the rest of the day in the shop with Mattie preparing for the quilting class the next morning. Mattie left at three. I locked up at four thirty like always, but didn’t leave the shop until six.

As I left with Dodger tucked under one arm and Oliver at my feet following me, I felt a sense of pride. Seven chairs waited in a circle in the middle of the shop where the class would be held. Anna would teach them how to quilt in clear view of the display window and, therefore, those passing by on the sidewalk and street. Little packets of quilting materials, which were included in the price of the class, sat on each seat tied up in a silver bow. The class would be a success, I could feel it.

“Come on boys,” I told my two housemates. “It’s time to go home.”

For dinner I had a snack-sized bag of Doritos and handful of grapes. I wasn’t proud of it, but after an exhausting day investigating Wanda’s death and preparing for quilting class tomorrow, I was too tired to open the refrigerator door much less cook something.

Unfortunately, even though my body was tired my mind was restless, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I didn’t have a chance to talk to Reed Kent. It seemed like everything led back to the teenager. I knew where to find him because I knew exactly where the sheriff lived. I wasn’t a stalker or anything, but I may have asked the ladies at the quilt shop for his address. I had never been on the street before. At least I had never been caught on his street before.

The sheriff’s house was only a few blocks from mine in Millersburg. I guess that’s how he was able to reach my house so quickly two months ago when I had a fire in the backyard. I parked on the street beneath a maple.

The home was a modest white ranch with red shutters. The colors reminded me of a candy cane and made me smile. Did the serious sheriff pick that color scheme? The tree in the front yard was bare of its leaves. I let Oliver out of the car and worked up the courage to walk up the driveway and knock on the door. Mitchell’s eight-year-old son, Zander, threw open the door and the sheriff’s spunky Boston terrier, Tux, flew outside. When he and Oliver touched noses, both dogs leaped around the yard in joyous barks.

Mitchell’s son didn’t seem too surprised or concerned at Tux’s reaction to Oliver. Maybe Tux behaved that way every time someone stopped by.

Zander cocked his head. “Who are you?” The raven black hair from his mother fell into his father’s aquamarine eyes. There was little doubt who this child’s parents were.

“Umm, I’m Angie. I’m . . .” I paused.
What was I?

I had met the child briefly at Rolling Brook’s Watermelon Fest that summer, but not surprisingly he had seemed to have forgotten meeting me. For some reason, that bothered me.

I tried again. “I’m here to talk to your dad, the sheriff.”

From deep in the house, I heard the rumble of Mitchell’s voice. “Zander, what did I tell you about opening the front door? Let me do that.”

Zander spun around and ran into the house. Unsure what to do, I stayed rooted on the doorstep feeling like a fool. Should I go? Would Mitchell be upset that I was there? I knew he wouldn’t be happy when I told him that it was about Reed. Was that the only reason? I gave myself a mental head slap. Of course, that was the only reason.

“Who is here?” I heard the sheriff ask his son.

“I don’t know. Some lady. I’m going to watch cartoons.”

The sheriff sighed. I could hear it all the way to the front door. “Don’t answer the door again,” he told his son.

I heard the gentle thud of footsteps approach. The door was still wide open. The sheriff’s face broke into a smile when he saw me, and his aquamarine eyes brightened. “Angie, this is a surprise.”

A good surprise?

“What are you doing here?” He folded his arms over his blue flannel shirt. It was odd to see the sheriff out of uniform. Even when he was out and about walking Tux he wore his department baseball cap.

“Hi.”
What a brilliant opening, Angie
. I stopped myself from knocking the heel of my hand against my forehead. “I’m looking for Reed.”

The sheriff’s open expression closed up like a trapdoor. The calculating cop grimace planted firmly back on his face. “Reed? Why?”

“I wanted to talk to him, you know, about what happened to his aunt.”

He folded his arms. I tried not to stare as the muscle contracted under the fabric.
Get it together, Angie!

“Why do you think I would let you do that? You’re not a cop.”

“Maybe he will tell me something he won’t tell you.”

He leaned against the doorframe. “He doesn’t even know you. What makes you think he will talk to you?”

Why did I come here? In the list of dumb ideas, this was off the charts. I planned to blame this lapse in judgment on fatigue.

The sheriff dropped his arms. “I didn’t even know you knew where I lived.”

Oh, great, now he was going to think I was a stalker. Could this get any worse? “I . . .”

My dismay must have registered on my face because the sheriff quickly added, “It’s fine that you know. I’m sure anyone English or Amish in the county could tell you. It’s no secret.”

“One of the ladies in the quilting circle told me.” I sighed. “I understand you don’t want me to talk to Reed, but I think I can help.”

“You need to stay out of it. Do I have to remind you what happened this past summer?”

He didn’t. The fading scars on my palms remind me every day. “Was it murder?”

The sheriff sighed. “Possibly and that’s how I am treating it until proven otherwise.”

“How did she die?” I frowned. “Was it the fry pie?”

Please say it wasn’t. Please say it wasn’t.
If I knew the fry pie wasn’t to blame, then Rachel wasn’t involved, which meant I wasn’t compelled to investigate.

“It was the fry pie.”

My face fell.

“She had an allergic reaction. She choked on the pie because her throat closed up and she went into anaphylactic shock. Wanda was deathly allergic to peanuts. The coroner requested her medical records from her family doctor and she was hospitalized twice for the reactions before.”

“If she had been hospitalized before, wouldn’t she know what to do if she had a reaction? Wouldn’t she have medicine with her?”

He knew what I meant. “You mean an EpiPen? She did have a prescription for one and we found several in her medicine cabinet in her home, but she didn’t have any with her. According to the coroner, her doctor was surprised to hear that. He said Wanda carried her pen everywhere. Her allergy was that extreme.”

Did Wanda forget and leave her medicine at home? Or did someone take it from her at her moment of need?

“Were there peanuts in the fry pie?”

There was still hope if the answer was no.

He nodded. “There were small traces of crushed peanut baked into the pie. For someone with an allergy like Wanda’s it would be enough.”

“You took all the fry pies from Rachel’s table at the auction. Did you find any peanuts in any of those? It could just be a part of the Millers’ recipe and an honest accident.”

“None of the ones that have been tested so far, and the peanuts are not part of the Millers’ recipe. I asked everyone who works in that bakery if peanuts were part of the fry pie dough, and every single person said no. I couldn’t help but notice the
NUT
FREE
sign on Rachel’s table too. . . .”

No wonder the sheriff treated this case like a homicide. This was bad for the Millers. If the peanuts were only in Wanda’s pie that was intentional. I swallowed a lump in my throat. Like premeditated murder baked up by my best friend or her husband.

“I see you have come to the same conclusion. The peanuts were only in one pie, a pie given to Wanda, who was allergic to peanuts.” He paused. “Given to Wanda by Rachel.”

“Are you sure it was Rachel’s fry pie? She wasn’t the only baker there. Maybe Wanda picked up another made by someone who loved peanuts.”

“That’s not likely. You saw her give Wanda the pie yourself.”

I couldn’t deny that.

“What about the Millers’ bakery? Mattie said that a deputy was there yesterday afternoon.”

“Deputy Anderson went over to the bakery to collect samples. I can’t tell you anything more, Angie. This is an open case.”

I wasn’t so easily deterred. “The Millers bake with peanuts all the time. It could just be a case of cross contamination.”

“Angie, the peanuts were baked into the pie. They were baked into one pie that was given to Wanda on a silver platter. The coroner is sure they were put there on purpose. If they were, that was premeditated murder.”

“I don’t remember the silver platter.”

He groaned.

“It could still be an accident,” I said.

“Even so. It’s still a crime. Manslaughter at best.”

How can anyone ever say “manslaughter at best”?

“They have a motive, Angie. A good motive.” He pushed off the doorframe with his shoulder and stood straight.

“If it is murder, it would be someone who knew about her allergy. It must be someone she knows,” I mused.

“That doesn’t exclude the Millers.”

“But . . .”

The sheriff frowned as if he regretted telling me this bit of news.

Tux and Oliver rolled in the leaf-covered lawn. Pouncing and chasing each other around the yard.

Mitchell’s expression softened. “They’ve missed each other. We need to set up a play date with those two.”

His sudden change of topic left me blinking. “A play date?”

“Yes.” He nodded as if he hadn’t just taken a right turn in the conversation.

I smiled as I watched the dogs. “They would love that.”

“And maybe a real date for us at the same time.” His voice was low.

I opened my mouth, but as I did, a bright red sports car zoomed up the sheriff’s street and pulled into his driveway. Mitchell swore under his breath. It was the first time I’d heard him say anything worse than “aww shucks” in all the time I’ve known him and that included when he stood over a dead body.