Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (17 page)

M
attie shut Running Stitch’s front door after the last student from quilting class left. “I can’t believe how much money those ladies spent, Angie. There were only seven of them, but I think we had one of the best days for the shop since the grand reopening.”

I grinned as I tucked the credit card receipts into a money pouch and stowed it under the cash drawer. “We have to credit Anna for that.” I turned to my aunt’s dear friend. “Anna, you missed your calling as a used car salesman. I’ve never seen anything like it. How did you convince Shirley she needed three pairs of scissors?”

Anna smiled coyly. “I only told her each pair had a different purpose. There were darning scissors, needlepoints, and fabric scissors. I didn’t tell her she had to buy any of them. I simply told her what they were.”

Mattie chuckled. “You are too much, Anna.”

“Probably so.” Anna tied her cloak over her shoulders. “It’s time I headed home. I promised Miriam I would stay with the children this afternoon, so she could visit her sister who has a new baby.”

“You will be alone with the twins?” I grinned.

“Emma will be with me. It will take both of our wits to keep those rascals in line. When I told Jonah he had the twins as payback for all the trouble he caused me when he was young, I didn’t know I would have to spend so much time with them. I supposed
Grossmammi
is getting payback too.” She winked and went out the door.

I grabbed my own jacket from the peg on the wall.

Mattie moved the chairs back around the quilt frame. “Are you leaving too?”

“I am. I want to go back to the auction yard to speak with the Nissleys.”

Mattie worried her lip. “Why?”

Dodger hopped off of the fabric shelf where he had been snoozing throughout the class. He meowed loudly. Oliver jumped out of his dog bed to check on his small charge. The kitten held up his cheek, and Oliver gave him a doggy kiss.

Mattie shook her head. “They are the strangest dog and kitten I have ever seen.”

I bent over and picked up the kitten. “I know. I guess that’s why they’re mine.” I scratched the kitten beneath his chin. “I want to go back to the Nissleys’ because Rachel was here this morning. She told me the sheriff stopped by the farm and told you all about the peanuts.”

She tightened her apron around her waist. “She shouldn’t have told you. My
bruder
would not like it.” Her brow drooped. “Do you think she knows that you are snooping into the crime? I don’t want her to get in trouble with my
bruder
.”

“I imagine she suspects it. She knows me well enough to know what I might do. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

“That’s true,” Rachel’s sister-in-law said.

“However, she didn’t ask me outright if I was. I think she wants to be able to be honest with Aaron, so let’s still try to keep her in the dark about most of it.”

Mattie nodded. “All right.”

I zipped up my jacket. “I understand Aaron doesn’t want to defend himself because that is not the Amish way, but I’m not Amish.”

She played with the edge of her apron. “It’s more than that. Aaron would be upset if you got hurt.”

I laughed it off. “I’m not going to be hurt. I promise.”

She bit her lip as Oliver and I went out the door.

Yesterday, the day after the auction and Wanda’s death, the auction grounds had been empty except for the two Amish boys and Gideon. This was Friday, and there were several Amish farmers who lived farther away unloading their livestock into the pens. Wednesday’s auction was well attended, but it didn’t come close to a fall Saturday auction. Several of the outbuildings that had been closed during the Wednesday auction would be open for business.

I knew the Millers didn’t give Wanda peanuts, and I doubted Reed did because his aunt’s death put him in a bad position. I paused as this thought crossed my mind. If Reed was telling the truth. I didn’t know Reed well enough to know if he was lying about not wanting to live with his mother again. I suspected a teenager who could be involved in stealing cars was an accomplished liar. So Reed wasn’t totally off of my list, but he wasn’t number one either. It had to be someone else.

Since she died at the auction, was I safe to assume that someone had a connection with the auction? Maybe not. I couldn’t forget Troy, her charmer of an ex-husband, but again, her death put him at a disadvantage. He wouldn’t receive any alimony from a dead woman. Therefore, the auction seemed like the best place to start investigations for the day.

I parked my SUV on the grass between two buggies. Oliver and I crossed the main green, stopping every few steps so that he could sniff at the piles of fallen leaves that covered the ground. The grass was still spongy from yesterday’s rain.

Jonah’s market wagon was parked by the livestock barn. Petunia the Nubian goat supervised as Jonah tried to march his geese into an open pen.

Honk! Honk! Honk!
They protested.

Oliver shuffled backward, and I had to scoop him up to stop him from bolting. “We won’t get too close, Ollie, I promise.”

I chuckled as I stopped a good ten yards from Jonah. Oliver buried his square head into my elbow.

Jonah tapped one of the geese with the end of the shepherd’s staff. The bird snapped at it with her beak.

My chuckles got worse.

Jonah never had much control over the geese since he decided to add them to his livestock last summer.

Jonah turned and narrowed his eyes. “What are you laughing at?”

“Laughing? I’m not laughing.” I covered my mouth.

His eyes were slits. “You are laughing.”

“Okay, maybe a little.” I grinned. “Auctioning off your geese tomorrow?”

He nodded. “I thought I would start with a few to see what price they can catch. If they do well, I may auction off the rest.
Mamm
is thrilled. She started humming to herself as I loaded the geese into the wagon. She doesn’t like having them around. If I auction them off maybe she will stop complaining about the noise.” He paused. “Maybe.”

My grin widened. “Maybe you will all get some sleep now.”

“If I can sell them.” He shifted his hat on his head. “If no one bids on them, then they are going back home with me.
Mamm
might never forgive me if that happens.”

“She will . . . eventually.”

His face broke into a grin.

Petunia walked over to me and tilted her goat head while she appraised Oliver. The Frenchie peeked out from my elbow.

“Baaa!”
Petunia cried.

Oliver barked. Okay, it wasn’t much of a bark, it was more of a whimper-yip, but I was proud of him for trying to communicate with the goat.

“Don’t worry, Ollie,” I said. “Petunia is a nice goat.” I thought it was best not to tell him how she knocked me to the ground the day before.

Jonah snorted. “A nice goat? That’s not what you said when you jumped on her on Wednesday.”

“I’ve gotten to know her since.” I stepped over to Petunia and patted the goat on the head and scratched her long velvety ear.

He walked up the wooden plank to the back of the wagon and tapped the sides of one of the stubborn geese with his staff. Jonah muttered in Pennsylvania Dutch. I knew a handful of words because Rachel had started teaching me. He called the goose dumb.

I shifted Oliver in my arm. “I don’t think she’s going to cooperate if you continue to call her names like that.”

He frowned. “What are you doing here anyway? Besides pestering me.”

“I need to talk to Gideon about tomorrow’s auction.”

His eyebrows knit together. “Am I to believe that’s all you’re doing?”

“Yep, that’s what you are to believe.”

“Angie, I have known you since we were
kinner
. I recognize that look in your eyes.”

I gave him my blank stare. “What look? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t.” He poked the goose again, and she took two steps backward, away from the plank.

“Jonah,” a voice called from behind me and asked Jonah a question in their language. I turned to see Gideon stroll toward us.

“They will be off the wagon soon, Gideon. It’s taking me a bit longer than I expected.”

“
Gut
because I can’t have another day like Wednesday.” The auction yard owner hooked his thumbs through his suspenders. “The auction can’t have any complications tomorrow.”

Did Gideon consider Wanda’s death a complication? Or did he mean Petunia running loose through the auction? Maybe he thought they were equal.

Jonah nodded. “Don’t worry, Gideon. The twins are staying at home tomorrow.”

“Gut.”
Gideon bushy eyebrows knit together as he spotted me. “What are you doing here?”

I swallowed and felt Jonah watching me. “Mr. Nissley, I wanted to talk to you actually,” I said.

He scowled at me. “Is this more nonsense about Wanda and Reed? Because if it is, I have already said my piece on that.”

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry about yesterday. I dropped by to make sure it was still all right to bring a few of my quilts to the auction tomorrow. When I was accepted into the auction on Wednesday, I knew a condition for me coming again depended on how well the quilts did.” I set Oliver on the ground.

Jonah finally prodded the goose enough that she waddled down the plank and into the pen.

Oliver flattened himself beneath Petunia as if the goat could protect him from the winged terrors.

“All right?” Gideon raised his bushy brows. “It is fine. Your quilts sold very well and made a nice profit for us both.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Anna had been right. Gideon Nissley was more interested in the money that my quilts could make him than me snooping around the auction grounds after they were closed.

“Your quilts did so well I am considering bringing in another quilt merchant. Another shopkeeper approached me about making sales here too.”

“Who?” Martha. I knew he meant Martha. Again, I felt Jonah watching me.

“Martha Yoder. She has a new quilt shop in town.”

“I know it. It’s Authentic Amish Quilts. It’s right next to my shop.”

“
Ya.
I heard that she moved into Joseph Walker’s old woodworking shop.” He pulled at his suspenders. “Didn’t she used to work for you?”

“Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. Losing my temper with Gideon wouldn’t bring me any closer to solving Wanda’s murder.

“You need to register your quilts with my auctioneer, Linus Raber. He should be in the office now, studying the auction blocks for tomorrow. He takes his job seriously and likes to know every detail about the items and livestock he auctions off.”

“I didn’t bring them with me.”

“That is all right as long as you can describe them. He will be able to set you in a block and tell you what time you will go up.”

I thanked him and went in search of Linus Raber. Oliver and Petunia trotted behind me close to my heels.

The office was inside one of the five outbuildings circling the main barn like a wagon caravan on the Oregon Trail. The building was roughly the same size of the canning shed, which was still surrounded by crime scene tape. I wondered how long the sheriff planned to leave it up. Would it stay like that through the auction tomorrow?

A young Amish man stood in front of Linus’s doorway. His face was blotchy as he argued with another man, whom I assumed was Linus, in Pennsylvania Dutch.

Where had I seen him before? I knew it was likely on auction day, but there were so many Amish there I couldn’t place him.

The man removed a handkerchief from the back pocket of his trousers and wiped away the sweat dripping down his face, and then I remembered him. He was the young Amish man who had bid on the two calves and won before my aunt’s quilts went up on the auction block. Zeke. Yes, Linus had called him Zeke King during the auction.

“I will take this up with Gideon then,” Zeke said in English.

I couldn’t see Linus’s face from where I stood to the left of the shed, but I heard him. “It won’t do you any good. Go back home, Zeke King, and play farmer. Clearly, you know nothing about livestock.”

Zeke replied with a foul word and stomped away. I jumped to the side as he almost ran into me.

I stepped around the side of the shed to see Linus sitting at his desk as calm as can be. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I would never have known he’d just been in a heated argument with Zeke.

The office looked like it had once been a toolshed, and it didn’t have any windows, so Linus had the door open to let in the sunlight to work by. The auctioneer sat at a desk right in front of the open doorway and wrote on graph paper with a pencil. He flipped the tablet’s pages and licked the end of his pencil before he set it to the paper again.

The low, no-frills desk looked like it was plucked out of a mid-twentieth-century classroom. Linus’s legs hung out the front. Mud caked his work boots from walking around the auction grounds. I hope that tomorrow the ground would be dry because I wanted to wear my cowboy boots to the auction. I felt like I would need them if the day was going to be anything like my first day at the auction.