Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (24 page)

“Nice outfit,” Mitchell said.

I shrugged. “It’s just something I had lying around.”

The sheriff was smiling wide now. “I see you dressed up Oliver too.”

Oliver whimpered and sniffed Tux’s costume. He barked and gave me an accusing stare. Oh, I could all but hear my Frenchie complaining
“He has a cape, Mom. A cape.”

“You dressed your dog up like a cow,” Zander said.

“I did.”

Zander pulled at his Batman ears. “I think he’s embarrassed.”

“He was fine until Tux got here and showed him up with the cape. He can’t compete with a superhero.”

Zander spun to show off his cape. “No one can compete with a superhero.” He squatted in front of Oliver. “Next year, I can help you find a better costume,” Zander said.

“Thanks . . . I think,” I said.

Mitchell barked a laugh.

“Trick or treat!” A pair of pint-sized witches crowed.

Mitchell moved to the side, so I could drop candy in their bags. The sheriff’s cell phone rang. He stepped to the side. “Mitchell.”

By the way he greeted the caller, I knew it was a business call.

“Where?” the sheriff asked. “How long?”

He glanced over to me while Zander chattered about Oliver’s costume options for next Halloween. Currently, it sounded as if Oliver was destined to be a Transformer.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Mitchell said.

“What happened?” I asked.

“There’s been a break-in.”

“Where?”

He seemed to consider my question. Finally he said, “At Wanda’s accounting office. Her partner went back tonight to pick up something and found the place tossed.”

I gripped my candy bowl. “Was anyone hurt?”

He shook his head. “But I need to get over there ASAP. Anderson is the only one on the scene at the moment.”

I frowned and understood his urgency. Anderson meant well but had a long way to go when it came to being a cop.

“Can Zander stay with you for a little while?” Mitchell asked.

“Of course.” I winced, remembering his ex-wife’s reaction to me being at his house earlier in the week. “But won’t that upset Hillary?”

He grimaced. “I don’t have time to drive him to her house. I’ll call Hillary on my way to the scene.”

“Sure, yes, Zander can stay,” I said.

“And Tux will have to stay here too. Hillary’s not going to want to take him to her house. I’ll be back later tonight to pick him up.”

“That’s fine. Oliver will love the company and the help to keep an eye on Dodger.”

He smiled and squatted in front of his son. “Z, I have to go. Mom will be here soon to pick you up.”

“But what about trick or treating?” Batman’s shoulders drooped. “We’re only halfway done.”

The sheriff rocked back on his heels. “I’m sorry. I will make it up to you. I promise.”

“That’s what you always say.”

The sheriff swallowed hard. “You will be fine here with Miss Braddock.”

Batman folded his arms. “She’s not a teacher. I’m not calling her Miss anything.”

“Zander,” his father’s voice sharpened.

“You can call me Angie,” I said quickly.

Mitchell peered up at me. “Fine. Your mom will be here soon.”

The boy shrugged. “Okay.”

“We can do a couple more houses here on my street while we wait for her,” I said. “It will give me a chance to show off my own costume. It’s time people in Millersburg met a real Texan.”

This won a small smile from the Dark Knight. “Okay, but Batman doesn’t usually roll with cowgirls.”

“He does tonight.”

Zander laughed.

Mitchell stood. “Great. I’ll give Hillary your cell number in case you aren’t at the house when she arrives.”

“You have my cell number?”

He swallowed. “I have it from this summer.”

He didn’t have to say the rest. He had it from when I was a murder suspect.

He cleared his throat. “Hillary won’t be in the best mood, so it would probably be best if you’re home when she arrives.”

“Good point.”

The sheriff stood. “You be good, okay?” he said to his son.

Zander rolled his eyes.

“We’ll be fine,” I said.

He squeezed my hand before he left. “Thank you.”

The sheriff saved my cell number, but what he didn’t know was I had saved his too.

I
wanted to join the sheriff as he rushed to the scene to find out how this break-in was related to Wanda’s death—because it had to be. As I watched Mitchell hurry down the sidewalk, I couldn’t help but wonder if one of the three men who I came to think of as my main suspects broke into Wanda’s office. Perhaps it was Troy, her ex-husband? Maybe he wanted to destroy some type of incriminating evidence related to his divorce case, but I couldn’t imagine what that would be.

It could have been Gideon just as easily. Wanda was his accountant. Did he break in to retrieve papers about his accounts? Or maybe it was David Booker, her business partner, who broke into his own office to throw off suspicion. Hadn’t he said that he and Wanda had a survivorship deed when it came to the business? As far as I could tell, he gained the most from Wanda’s death and hadn’t appeared to be broken up about her passing.

Or was it a fourth suspect: Reed? As much as I wanted the teen to be innocent, I couldn’t deny that he had a history of vandalism. There was the covered bridge on River Road as evidence of that.

Zander pulled on my hand, shaking me out of my dark thoughts.

“So Batman,” I said as his father disappeared out of sight. “Want to hit a couple more houses before calling it a night?”

“Who’s going to pass out your candy?”

“I can leave the candy here on the porch. People can take some if they want to.”

He peered into my bowl. “Nobody is going to take it. You don’t have very good stuff.”

I sighed.

His aquamarine eyes, so much like his father’s, examined me through the Batman mask. “Next year, I will help you do Halloween right because what you have here is kind of embarrassing. It’s not much better than almonds.”

“That’s harsh.”

He shrugged. “I call it like I see it.”

I straightened the tassels on my shirt. “I guess I do need a tutor. Let’s hit the streets.”

After finishing the street, the two dogs, Zander, and I walked up my driveway just as Hillary’s red car pulled in. The dogs had to hop onto the grass to avoid being run over. It was a good thing we didn’t stray too far.

Her door was opened before the car came to a complete stop. “What are you doing with my son?” Hillary screeched.

Thankfully, trick or treating was winding down. There were only a few older kids stumbling through the neighborhood. Apparently they were determined to stay out until the bitter end.

“Mom, we were trick or treating,” Zander said.

“I’m not talking to you, Zander.”

“Hillary, would you like to come in for a moment?” I couldn’t believe I invited this woman, who clearly hated me, into my home, but it was better than her screaming at me in the middle of my driveway.

“Fine. I need to talk to you. It would be better to be inside.” She slammed her car door closed.

As she marched through the living room, she inspected everything. I knew she judged all of my furnishings, which weren’t much. Most of them I had bought piecemeal since I’d moved back to Ohio. I left behind the sleek, modern furniture from my Dallas apartment. It would not have fit in my new home. I had a couch, coffee table, and television. That pretty much summed up my living room, and except for the television both of the other items had come with the house. Since moving to town, I had poured all of my money into the shop. Furniture for the house would have to wait.

Zander flopped onto the couch with his pillowcase of bounty. Still in costume, Oliver and Tux panted at his feet.

Dodger climbed up the couch with his claws. The bandanna was gone. Knowing Dodger, it lay in shreds somewhere.

“Want to hand out the candy?” I asked Mitchell’s son.

He shook his head. “No. I will sit here and take inventory.”

I laughed. Inventory was a funny word for a kid to say. I wondered if he had gotten it from his father or his mother.

Hillary removed her red trench coat, which I had to admit looked stunning with her black hair. What I wouldn’t give to have straight, sleek hair like that. It was an impossibility with my curls. I had tried and so had my mother. She always said the girls with straight hair won more pageants.

“Zander, don’t eat too much of that candy,” his mother said.

Hillary followed me into my retro kitchen. If she didn’t approve of my sparse living room, I wondered what she thought about my circa 1960 kitchen and its olive green appliances. She didn’t comment on it.

“I can make a pot of coffee or tea,” I said. “I have regular and decaf of both.”

She pursed her lips but finally said, “Decaf tea please.”

I filled the kettle with water from the tap and set it on the stove.

Hillary didn’t wait for the water to boil before she jumped in. “How dare James leave my child with you? I don’t even know you.”

I set cream, sugar, and spoons on the table. “I understand why you’re upset, but he got a call about a case and had to leave all of a sudden. He and Zander happened to be trick or treating at my house at the time.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I know all about his callouts. You don’t have to tell me. I was married to the man for fifteen years.”

Fifteen years. I hadn’t realized that the sheriff had been married that long. Sadness washed over me at the thought that a marriage would end after such a long time. How difficult that must have been for both of them and Zander.

“What was it this time? A drunk college student home for Halloween, Amish kids throwing a party, an accident? It’s always the same.”

I wasn’t sure I was supposed to tell Hillary this. In fact, was ninety percent sure I was not, but I said, “It was about Wanda Hunt.”

She dropped the spoon she held. “Wanda. About what happened to her?”

Taking the second spoon, I sat on the other side of the table. “I think so. Someone broke into her office tonight.”

“That’s terrible.” She gripped the spoon. “It must have been the killer.”

I shrugged even though I was convinced of the same. “Wanda was your friend.”

“She was a very good friend to me.”

“What could have been in that office that someone thought it was worth breaking in for?” I asked.

She thought for a moment. “Wanda and David are the only CPAs in Rolling Brook. Most of the businesses and half of the farmers in the township have accounts with them.”

“What are some of her large accounts?”

“Wanda didn’t talk about her business much with me, but I guess the mercantile and the auction yard would be the largest. I suppose that if Aaron Miller opens the pie factory he’ll work with David. He would be one of the largest too.”

The teakettle whistled, and I poured the boiling water into my cat-shaped teapot. “Would Aaron work with David? After his dispute with Wanda?”

“I don’t know. He has been a customer before. I remember seeing him leaving Wanda’s office once when I met her for lunch.”

That didn’t sound good for Aaron. Any connection between him and Wanda made the police more suspicious of him. Now that Mitchell was on the scene, I suspected that he had already found Wanda’s file about Aaron’s business, if he didn’t know about it already. He would go over it line by line looking for a motive.

I set the cat teapot in the middle of the table and two mugs with French bulldogs on the side. “When did you see him?”

“Earlier in the fall, September maybe. It’s hard to remember. It seems like the months blend together at a time like this. Wanda was a dear friend to me.” She pressed a folded paper napkin to the corner of her eye. “Everyone thinks Wanda was a hard woman, but she was like an aunt to me. She helped me a lot when I went through my divorce.” She gave me a pointed look. “She’d gone through a nasty divorce a year before me. It was nice to have someone to talk to who understood. My mother didn’t understand. She and my father have one of those perfect marriages. She wanted me to stick it out with James. Wanda understood why I had to leave.”

“How nasty was Wanda’s divorce?”

She wrinkled her nose. “It was awful. Even though she and Troy didn’t have any children—thank goodness for that—they fought over every little thing that they owned. Wanda made more money than her husband, and he thought that meant he should get everything.”

“And they were still fighting about that,” I said.

“I guess you mean Troy’s pathetic case to get alimony. There’s no way he would win that one. Wanda told me her lawyer told her that he expected the judge to throw the case out.”

Had Troy realized that his case with Wanda was a lost cause and killed her in revenge?
He certainly knew about her peanut allergy.

“My divorce wasn’t as difficult,” Hillary said. “But I had Zander to worry about. I fought for sole custody and lost. The entire town was against me because everyone loves James Mitchell. He’s a good sheriff—don’t get me wrong—but he’s married to his job. I didn’t want my son to have to compete with police work like I did.”

I poured her a cup of tea.

She leveled a look at me as she accepted the cup. “If I were you, I would keep his job in mind before I got in too deep with him.”

Ryan was married to his job too and the social status that it allowed him. He never said it, but I suspected that was one reason he broke off our engagement. I wasn’t eager to start a relationship with another workaholic.

A small smile turned up the corners of Hillary’s mouth. She appeared pleased that she planted a seed of concern about Mitchell in my mind.

Hillary wrapped her arms around her narrow waist. “I still can’t believe that she’s gone.”

I dropped my eyes to my tea. “Did Wanda ever say anything about the auction? Why she was there so often?”

Hillary poured cream into her tea. “Gideon Nissley was a client.”

“Is that why Gideon gave Reed a job?”

“Yes, Wanda asked him to.”

I added more sugar to my tea. There was never too much sugar. “He seems young to have a job. Why did Wanda ask for him to be hired?”

She scowled into her tea. “Because that teenager needed to focus. Wanda said he liked horses, and the auction house was the best place.”

“But he’s not Amish.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Clearly.”

“So Gideon hired him because Wanda was his accountant? Are people that close with their accountants around here?”

She stiffened. “Holmes County is a small place.”

There had to be more to it. “Did Wanda ever say anything to you about the auction yard that surprised you? It doesn’t have to have anything to do with Reed even.”

“She said once that the Nissleys and the auction house would do whatever she asked them to do.”

“Why?”

“Because she knew things about the business.”

“What kind of things?” My voice was sharp.

“She didn’t say. She was their accountant. I didn’t question that she knew about their affairs.”

Was Wanda blackmailing Gideon Nissley?

“Did you tell the sheriff this? That she said this?”

She set her teacup on the table. “No, why would I?”

“Because she’s dead,” I said in exasperation. “Anything she said to you about the auction is important. That’s where she died.”

Abruptly, she stood. “I need to leave. I can’t talk about this anymore. It’s late, and Zander needs to go to bed.”

I followed her into the living room where we found Zander asleep on the couch. His Batman cape was over his back like a blanket, and he clutched the top of his pillowcase in his fist as if he was afraid someone would take his candy from him while he slept. Oliver and Tux slept on either side of him.

Tears gathered in Hillary’s eyes as she watched her son. “He takes his father’s life in stride, but I worry about what will happen to him when he’s older and understands more.” She swallowed. “About what his father does. When James joined the Millersburg Police after college, it was different. Crime here was so low, but it’s been slowly creeping up. Now there are murders. What if something happens to James? I don’t want my son to go through that. I don’t want to go through that.”

That’s when I realized Hillary was still in love with her ex-husband. It was a complication I did not need.