Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (27 page)

T
he search for Linus Raber was on, but I still had unanswered questions. How was Linus able to hide the animals’ flaws so easily from all those savvy Amish farmers? I doubted he accomplished this on his own. He had the boys, Gabe and Zeph, helping him, yes, but more people had to be involved. The most likely person to help him with the scheme was the owner of the auction yard, Gideon Nissley. Over the following days of the foot race across the auction yard, Mitchell interviewed Gideon several times about Linus’s scheme, but somehow the auction owner convinced the sheriff he knew nothing about it. Well, he may not have convinced him, but he at least gave the sheriff enough reason not to arrest him.

Considering Sunday’s events, I thought for certain that the auction would be canceled on Wednesday, but I was wrong. It appeared the Amish in Holmes County chose to believe that Gideon was innocent of any wrongdoing, and to trust him to auction off their handicrafts and animals. As long as those things being auctioned were described fairly, the sheriff had no reason to close down the operation.

I, however, was not invited to take part in the auction. In fact, it was safe to say that my quilts would not be welcome at the Nissleys’ auction ever again. I would have to find other ways to spread the word about my quilts and shop. Martha and her quilts easily slipped into the place on the auction block I vacated. I tried not to let it bother me, but it did . . . a lot.

Despite that fact, I felt compelled to go to the auction on the next Wednesday, and was grateful to have Rachel accompany me. She didn’t question me when I said that I wanted to go.

We walked across the grounds. “It is strange to be here again,” my dear friend said. “This is the first time I have been back since Wanda died.”

“Do you think you will have a bakery table here again?” I asked after we passed an Amish mother carrying a baby.

“I don’t know. Aaron is so upset over the entire episode and rightly so, but we do need all the money we can collect while the factory is under construction. Thank you again for—”

I held up a hand. “Don’t you thank me again for it. By the way, I am officially a township trustee. I was sworn into office yesterday morning at Running Stitch.”

Rachel smiled. “I am glad. You will do much
gut
for the township and the Amish.”

“I hope so,” I murmured.

“I know so.”

As we walked I told her how the quilting circle had helped me cram for the trustee’s meeting, and she chuckled. I enjoyed hearing the sound. It had been a week since I had heard my friend’s laughter.

I glanced behind me to see Petunia and Oliver following us. “I see Petunia is out and about. I’ll leave it up to Gideon this time to return her to her pen.”

“That’s wise,” Rachel agreed.

As if Petunia understood what we said, she took off at full speed across the grounds. I would have let the goat go if my dog hadn’t taken off right after her. “Oliver!” I cried.

He looked over his shoulder with a grin. His tongue hung out of his mouth like a flag. He thought we were playing tag.

I groaned. “Rachel, I am going to have to go get him.”

She smiled. “Go ahead.”

I took off at a run.

The goat and dog disappeared into the crowd. I caught my breath beside the shed Linus used for his office. The building was empty now except for the desk. I gripped the side of the shed and panted. Deputy Anderson wasn’t the only one who needed to work on sprints.

I sighed. This was the last time Oliver came to the auction grounds with me. Usually, he stayed by my side wherever I went, but not here. Petunia the goat was a bad influence.

I squatted and peered under a bush near the shed. No Oliver.

“What are you doing?” a voice behind me asked.

I toppled over from my squat and rolled onto my back like a marooned turtle.

Jonah’s ten-year-old daughter, Emma, cocked her head. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said as I struggled to right myself.

“What were you doing in the bushes?”

I knocked grass from the palms of my hands. “I’m looking for Oliver.”

“He’s missing again?” She adjusted her glasses and reminded me so much of her grandmother. “Can’t you keep him under control?”

I shrugged. “I guess not.”

She shook her head. “Your dog runs away all the time.”

“Not usually.”

“He ran off the last time I saw you at the auction.”

She had a point.

“I will help you look for him. Do you want me to get my brothers to help too?”

I shook my head. “Let’s leave the twins out of this.”

“We have to hurry.
Daed
will be mad if I don’t meet him at the buggy to go home like I promised.”

“Maybe you should go. I will be all right on my own.”

“
Nee.
It will be faster if we do it together,” she said, sounding so much like her father.

“All right.”

We moved through the auction grounds, which were twice as crowded as they had been just a week before. People were making their way back to their buggies and cars. Emma’s shoulders dropped. “I don’t know if we will find him.”

My stomach clenched. “We will.” I said this more for myself than for her. We had to find Oliver. I wasn’t leaving without him.

We reached the back of the property near the woods, the Nissleys’ house, and the canning shed.

“Do you hear barking?” Emma asked.

I listened for a moment and heard nothing. Then, I heard it very faint. “Yes, I think I do.”

“It’s coming from the canning shed.” She broke out into a run.

I followed right behind her. I caught my breath as I reached the shed. I needed to take Oliver on more walks. Petunia skipped around the canning shed and looked worried. I patted her head. “Don’t worry. We will get him out.”

I threw the door open and put my hand on my hips. “Oliver, how did you trap yourself in here?”

I surveyed the room. Oliver must have gotten in through the one small window near the corner. There were several broken jars on the floor of the shed. I suspected Oliver knocked them down in his desperation to escape.

Emma tugged on my arm. “Angie, I need to go.
Daed
will be waiting.”

I smiled at her. “Go ahead. Thank you for your help.”

“The twins will be jealous I was the one to help you find him.”

I laughed, but then in the next second, my face fell. The place was a sticky mess. “Maybe I should clean this up before I leave. I will have to tell Tabitha too and pay for anything that was lost.”

“I will help you.”

“No, you’ve done enough already. Your father will be angry with me if I keep you much longer.”

Emma gave a huge sigh and hugged Oliver before running across the field in the direction of the buggies.

“We need to find something to clean up this mess.”

Oliver barked.

“I know you didn’t mean it, but it’s better if we don’t tell the Nissleys until after we clean it up. They aren’t that fond of me at the moment.”

There was a water pump outside of the shed. I pumped water into the bucket. I would do the best I could to put the place back to normal before I told Tabitha because I knew she would hit the roof. She really loved her canning shed.

I carried the bucket back into the shed and knelt by a broken jar of orange marmalade. The sticky mess oozed under the shelving. “Yuck, Oliver,” I complained.

He whimpered as I set my bucket on the floor.

Clearly, it would take more than water for this mess. I started to open cupboard doors, looking for a cleaning solution. Where was a bottle of Mr. Clean when you needed it? The first cupboard I opened was filled with empty Mason jars. The second was spices. As I opened the third cupboard, a book fell out and onto the floor. I scooped it up, afraid that it landed in the jam. It was Tabitha’s canning cookbook. There was only a dab of jam on the back. I wiped it with my cloth. The cover was in such bad shape I didn’t think a little jam would do it any real harm.

When I’d knocked the book off the shelf, several loose pieces of paper floated to the floor. I shoved them back into the book. One had slipped under the shelving, and I kneeled on the floor to reach it.

I pulled out the piece of handwritten paper. Across the top it read F
RY
P
IE
D
OUGH
.
A fry pie recipe shouldn’t be in a canning book.
My hand shook as my finger slid down the list of ingredients, and there it was: “crushed peanuts.”

Dread ran through my body as I stared at the recipe. “It’s Tabitha. She made the fry pie that killed Wanda,” I whispered. I jumped to my feet, but I wasn’t fast enough.

“You’ve made a mess of things, haven’t you?” a woman’s voice said.

I turned and came face-to-face with the barrel of a shotgun.

I
stuck the recipe behind my back and crumbled it as I forced it into the back pocket of my jeans. “Tabitha, what are you doing?” I yelped.

She raised the gun higher. “Give me your cell phone.”

“I—I don’t have it with me.”

“Lying is a sin. You
Englischers
always have your phones with you.”

Considering she was the one holding me at gunpoint, I didn’t think she should be the one calling me out for sinning.

“I really don’t. I forgot it at the shop.”

She narrowed her eyes and aimed the barrel at Oliver. “Maybe he has it.”

“Wait! I have it.” I reached into my jacket pocket.

“Toss it into the water bucket.”

I hesitated.

She pointed the shotgun at Oliver again.

I dropped the phone into the bucket. Forlornly, I watched as it sunk to the bottom. No amount of rice was going to save that sucker. I pushed Oliver behind me, shielding him with my body. The little dog wriggled underneath one of the pantry shelves.

Good idea, Oliver. Stay out of sight.
I hoped that Tabitha would forget he was there.

“So you were the one who helped Linus with his scheme.”

She laughed. “You think he came up with that idea? It was me from the start.”

“And Wanda found out.” I shivered. “So you gave Wanda a second fry pie. One with peanuts maybe?”

She smiled. “Wanda was such a glutton. She had already eaten Rachel’s fry pie by the time I gave her mine. Rachel Miller is not the only woman in this community who can make a fry pie.”

I shivered. Tabitha had a malicious side I had never noticed in her before. “Did you take her EpiPen away from her, so she couldn’t save herself?”

Tabitha’s face was blank.

“Her syringe with medicine,” I explained.

She adjusted her grip on the shotgun. “That does not matter.”

I would take that as a yes.

“When I saw you here today, I knew it was because you thought my husband was behind everything. I knew I had to do something because you would just keep coming back. You could ruin us.”

“I never suspected you, Tabitha,” I admitted.

She sneered. “That doesn’t mean that you weren’t suspecting my husband though. You just never thought I’d do anything wrong because I was a meek and mild Amish woman.”

“I don’t believe that anymore.”

“
Gut.
Because you shouldn’t.”

“It was your idea to sell the injured and sick animals. Why?” My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands.

She nodded. “Several Amish farmers had approached my husband asking if he could help them in this way. He was shortsighted and said no. He felt it was wrong. He has always been shortsighted. We would still be running a worthless goat farm if it were up to him. It was my idea to turn our land into an auction. I knew how profitable it could be. I knew that we could get even more money selling sick animals and that Linus would agree with me. So I told him to talk to these men and strike a deal. I would keep my husband out of it if Linus gave me some of the profits.” She took a breath. “When Wanda found out about it, she said that she would give us one month to make it up to all the farmers we swindled, which meant giving them back their money. I couldn’t do that. I needed the money. She was such a self-righteous
Englischer
and wouldn’t listen to reason. She left me no choice.”

Wanda hadn’t blackmailed the Nissleys after all. She tried to make them do the right thing.
I should have known better. If she was willing to turn in her nephew for graffiti, wouldn’t she make Tabitha and Linus account for their crimes? My stomach hurt for assuming the worst about her. Then again, the gun pointed at my chest could have caused the bellyache. It was hard to tell.

“You needed the money for Josiah,” I whispered.

Her voice became very quiet. “He is in the hospital in Columbus getting chemo. He lives there now with an
Englisch
family who agreed to watch over him. It’s too far for us to cart him back and forth even with an Amish truck driver, and we can’t leave the auction for that long. We need every cent we can get out of this business.”

“Won’t the community help? That is what the Amish do,” I whispered.

“They do, but it will never be enough.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “If my son doesn’t get his treatment, he will die. You have no idea how much it costs.”

I did know, but I didn’t dare correct a woman holding a shotgun. My aunt died of cancer. I had seen the stack of bills on her kitchen table when I visited her that last time in February. The Amish didn’t purchase health insurance. Without it, the bills were even more frightening.

“And my husband would have lost everything. We have sold everything we can in order for him to go to the hospital every week. The cost is more than the district could bear. Our bishop told my husband he would do what he could, but there were so many needs for the community. I didn’t think it would be enough and had no choice. I had to do what was right for my son.”

Tabitha’s voice turned icy-cold. “Wanda tried to ruin it. She needed to be removed. I couldn’t let that woman ruin our family or our community’s reputation. The
Englisch
should not meddle in our lives and make up rules for us to follow.”

I much preferred sad Tabitha to angry Tabitha. Angry Tabitha looked as if she might pull the trigger on me any second.

“I don’t believe the rule that says you shouldn’t cheat people out of their money is an arbitrary English rule. It’s a human rule.”

She glared at me. “You, with no children, could never possibly understand what I have gone through.”

“I understand the Amish teachings at least enough to know that you believe God will provide. I don’t think he included a shotgun in his plan to do that though. That’s just a guess. It certainly wasn’t in the part of the Bible we covered in Sunday school.”

“Won’t you stop talking? Even faced with the barrel of a gun, you keep talking. I need to think.”

I snapped my mouth closed. Best not to poke the lady packing heat.

Beads of sweat appeared on Tabitha’s forehead and upper lip. Giving a person a fry pie with peanuts was one thing; shooting them dead was entirely different. At least I hoped so.

I raised my hands. “How about this? We will both leave this shed. Alive. Then we can talk to Sheriff Mitchell about what has happened. He has a son and will understand why you felt you needed to do what you did. He will not understand if you shoot me here, defenseless, in this canning shed.”

Whoever thought I might die surrounded by canned peppers and pickles? Not that I planned my death, but this had never been in the realm of possibilities. Even standing there with a shotgun pointed at my chest, it didn’t seem like it should be in the realm of possibilities.

I slowly moved toward the door.

“Don’t move!” she screeched. “I’m not afraid to shoot you.”

I held up my hands again. “When you do that, what will happen to Josiah? You will go to prison, and he will be on his own.”

“He will have a better life without you poking your nose in Amish business. Who is going to believe an Amish woman like me shot you?”

Involuntarily, I shivered.
What if she was right?
I had a better chance of surviving if I asked her more questions. Maybe then someone would arrive at the shed before I was shot. “Why did you go into this scheme with Linus?”

She swallowed. “You
Englisch
. You are just like Wanda. You meddle in Amish business and mix up my words. You are tricky like all the
Englisch
,
and this is all your fault.”

“I meddled because I was protecting my friends the Millers just like you protected your family.”

“What we did with those animals was not wrong.”

“It’s deceitful. It’s cheating.”

“A man who buys animals and does not check the livestock before he hands over his money makes his mistake. The Amish, we have dealt with. It is only the
Englisch
who believe this is wrong.”

“What about Rachel? Can you justify framing her and Aaron for Wanda’s death?”

“If the police assumed the wrong thing, it is not my fault. Everyone knew about Aaron’s disagreement with the trustees about his factory. It made sense for the police to suspect him. I knew he would never be arrested for the crime.” The shotgun drooped a millimeter.

My arms were beginning to tire from holding them up, but I didn’t dare lower them. “And if he wasn’t arrested, someone else would be. Sheriff Mitchell won’t rest until someone is brought to justice.”

A shadow filled the door of the canning shed. “Tabitha, what are you doing?” Gideon stood in the doorway. His mouth hung open in shock.

Her hair began to fall out from under her prayer cap as she gaped at her husband.

She was a desperate mother pushed too far. My heart softened a little for her. I’d give her a hug if she didn’t have a shotgun pointed at my chest. That would make a comfortable embrace troublesome.

Tabitha wiped sweat from her brow, and by doing so it set her prayer cap slightly askew on her head. The shotgun wavered in her hands. “I am fixing things.” She tightened her grip on it.

“Tabby, no.” He stepped backward onto the grass as realization and horror grew on the Amish man’s face. “Wait. Did you—?”

“Of course I had to get rid of Wanda. It was for Josiah. We needed the money that Linus brought in through those animal sales.”

“
Gott
will provide for Josiah. It is our way.”

“I can’t accept that.” Her body shook with the effort of holding back her emotions.

“It is the Amish way.”

Tears ran down her face. “He is my son, my only child. I had to do what was right for him.”

“Are you even listening to yourself? What is right?” He held his hands aloft. “This is not what is right. If
Gott
chooses to take our son from us, that is His choice to make, not ours.”

“Linus will be blamed. They won’t find him. We can go back to our lives.”

Hello? What about me? Shooting me would make that difficult.

“The police arrested Linus this very afternoon. He told them everything about the auction and about your involvement. We are already ruined.”

The barrel of Tabitha’s shotgun fell two inches, which didn’t make me feel a whole lot better since now she’d get me in the stomach.

“I did not believe the sheriff until now—” Gideon choked on his words as his body lunged forward crashing into Tabitha.

On impact, she dropped the gun as if it was a red-hot poker. As it hit the ground there was a loud crack as the trigger went off. Tabitha’s round body flew backward and crashed into rows of preserve shelves. Gideon and Tabitha crumbled to the floor, and something splattered against my cheek. Blood!
Am I hit?
I felt my cheek and came away with fingers covered in blackberry jam.

The bullet sliced through a row of jelly jars, and jelly was everywhere. It was like an earthquake at the Smucker’s factory.

Petunia stood in the doorway with the heat of battle in her eyes. That was quite a head butt she’d given her master.

Gideon scrambled to kneel by his wife, but I wasn’t concerned with either of them. “Oliver! Oliver!”

The faintest whimper came from the tiny space under the pantry. There was barely enough of an opening for Oliver to wiggle out.

He poked his head out from under the opening. Strawberry jam covered the top of his head in a sticky mess. Quickly, I ran my hand over his head and body, searching for shards of glass. I didn’t feel any, but I wouldn’t be one hundred percent certain until I gave him a bath.

I scooped up the jam-covered Frenchie and ran out of the shed. My hero goat, Petunia, was close at my heels.

Glancing back at the Nubian to make sure she was still there, I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going and ran directly into Sheriff Mitchell and two deputies. Mitchell froze when he saw Oliver and me both covered head to toe in jam. Gideon, equally splattered, stumbled out of the canning shed. “Please someone, help my wife. She is cut and bleeding.”

The two deputies sprinted the rest of the way into the canning shed.

I licked my lips. There may have been a bit of marmalade in the mix too. It was quite good. Tabitha excelled at canning, but murder, not so much. “You wouldn’t happen to have any peanut butter would you?”

The sheriff’s mouth fell open.