Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (28 page)

T
hree weeks later, a Rolling Block quilt was stretched across the middle of the quilting circle’s frame. The white, yellow, and pink quilt had been paid for by a local pastor for his wife as an anniversary present. The woman had pieced the quilt topper herself but hired Running Stitch to quilt it by hand. It was the second quilt we had done this way, and I saw the potential for this to be a great addition to the shop’s business. For most novice seamstresses, the quilting was the longest and more tedious task, and one they didn’t have the patience or time for.

Anna clicked her tongue. “I know that you think this project is
gut
for the shop, Angie, but do you really want workmanship like this associated with Running Stitch?” She pointed at her corner of quilt. “Some of these stitches are uneven,” Anna tsked. She dug into her sewing basket and pulled out a seam ripper.

Oliver and Dodger lay at her feet in the Frenchie’s dog bed. After his ordeal in the canning shed, the dog was even more protective of the kitten, if that was possible. He would not let Dodger out of his sight. I guess Oliver knew all too well there are many dangers in the world, and they came in all shapes and sizes, even as pleasant Amish women.

“What is that for?” I asked.

Anna touched the sharp edge of the seam ripper to the fabric. “I can’t quilt over top of these horrible stitches. I need to fix them.”

“Anna, the charm of the quilt to the pastor’s wife is that she was the one who pieced it. Your fixing that will ruin it for her,” I said.

“I think she’d much rather have a quilt done right than have done it herself.” Anna’s glasses slid down her nose.

The seam ripper tore through the thread holding the two pieces of fabric together. I sighed. There was no use fighting with Anna when she made up her mind about what was right and what was wrong.

“I can’t fix it completely but I can stop it from being a lost cause,” Anna muttered.

Rachel and Mattie shook their heads as they bent over their work.

Sarah leaned across the quilt. “I heard at the mercantile today that Linus Raber agreed to a deal to testify against Tabitha about Wanda’s murder. Now she probably doesn’t have a chance at getting off.”

“That’s for sure,” I said as I straightened the notions on the cutting table.

“It’s so awful,” Rachel said. “And Fannie is broken up over what her brother Linus has done. You know, she was the one who told the police where he was hiding under the covered bridge on River Road. By the time the police found him he was covered with an inch of mud and smelled like dead fish.”

I grimaced. “I didn’t know Fannie did that, but it was the right thing for her to do.”

Rachel frowned at her stitches. “Even though it was the right thing to do, I know she regrets it.”

“Poor Josiah,” Mattie said. “Do you think anyone has told him about what Tabitha has done?”

We quilted silently for a few seconds as we thought about that and what it might mean for the sick boy.

“The community will take care of Josiah,” Anna spoke up. “Tabitha should have trusted that from the beginning. If she did, Wanda would still be alive.”

I prayed Josiah would be all right. I wondered who would have to deliver the news to him about what she did, seemingly for him.

“Gideon will have to decide how much to tell his son,” Rachel said.

My new cell phone rang. The old one, which I tossed in the bucket of water in the canning shed, was a goner just like I had feared it would be.

Anna clicked her tongue. “I don’t know how you can stand your pants ringing all the time.”

I fished the phone out of my jeans pocket and laughed as I looked at the screen. It was my mother. She was probably calling to complain again that I wasn’t going home for Thanksgiving next week. I couldn’t leave Running Stitch. It would be my first Black Friday since opening the shop. It was an important day for any retailer. As a compromise, I invited them to come to Ohio for an old-fashioned Midwestern Christmas. To my shock, my mother agreed.

“Everything is set,” my mother said in my ear. “We’ll be there in Rolling Brook a few days before Christmas.” She sniffed. “I wanted to come earlier, but you know what a workaholic your father can be, and he’s supposed to be retired.”

“You will love the shop.”

“I remember it well. I hope you modernized it.”

“We have Wi-Fi.” I paused. “I’m happy you are both coming. A little surprised, but happy.”

“Surprised? Why are you surprised? Why wouldn’t I want to see my one and only child on Christmas?”

Guilt washed over me. “You never seemed to want to come back to Ohio even when I visited Aunt Eleanor.”

“I loved my sister, but visiting her was impossible. Where would your father sleep? She only had that loft bedroom for guests, and how would I get ready in the morning? Don’t even get me started on the outhouse.”

“Mom, Aunt Eleanor’s house had indoor plumbing, and you could have stayed at any one of the nice and electrified inns in the county. There are no shortages of places to stay here.”

She sniffed. “Well, there’s a lot about Holmes County I’ve forgotten. I can’t believe I was ever such a small-town girl. I was destined for greater things.”

I rolled my eyes, grateful my quilting circle couldn’t hear my mother’s words. I changed the subject. “The classes I’m hosting at the shop have finally picked up. Everything appears to be going well.”

“The shop. The shop. That’s all you ever talk about.”

“It’s why I am here.”

“What about friends?”

“I’ve told you about my friends in the quilting circle. They are here right now in fact, working on a quilt.”

“I mean male friends. Have you met anyone?”

Was this from the woman who begged me on a weekly basis to move back to Dallas and marry Ryan?

Mitchell’s piercing aquamarine eyes came to mind. She didn’t need to know about him. I thought of our one excellent date, which had been a simple and calm lunch at the Double Dime Diner. I had loved it, and Linda the waitress had let both Tux and Oliver hang out in the diner while we ate.

“It’s way too early for me to think about a boyfriend,” I said.

“I agree.” There was a smile in her voice I found unnerving. My mother rarely agreed with me.

Suspicions rose. “Why are you agreeing? Are you up to something?”

She sniffed. “You don’t trust the woman who gave you life?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I wish that you would come home for Thanksgiving.” She sniffled.

I decided to let my suspicions drop. “I wish I could too, but the shop is so new. I need to be here. The township is throwing special Black Friday sales. It could be a real boost to business before the dead of winter when tourism drops off.”

“I think you love that store more than you love your own mother.”

“You know that’s not true. I’m sure I will be able to get away for a week in the winter to visit. It will be nice to be back home where it will be warm when it’s freezing here.”

“So you will visit your father and me only when it’s convenient.”

Ugh. “I didn’t say that. Maybe I will be able to come for next Thanksgiving. The shop is too new to me yet.” Not to mention, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to afford the plane ticket home. I had invested most of the money I had accrued from my advertising job into Running Stitch. If my mother heard I was low on funds she would swoop in with my father’s checkbook in hand. I didn’t want that. I wanted the shop to make it by hard work, not by a gift from my parents.

She sighed. “I suppose I will have to be satisfied with Christmas in Ohio.”

“You will love it. An old-fashioned white Christmas like you had as a child.”

“I need to go, dear. I have a luncheon meeting with the Stars of Christmas pageant director. She will be disappointed to hear that I will have to miss the day of the pageant, but we all have to make sacrifices to see family.”

Was she trying to make me feel guilty? Because it wasn’t working. I knew all of her tricks.

“I won’t keep you then. Can you e-mail me your flight information, so I know when to pick you up from the airport?”

“You won’t need to pick us up. Your father has already arranged a rental.”

“All right. That’s a good idea. You two can sightsee while I am at work.”

“Great! Your father, Ryan, and I will see you soon.”

Did she say Ryan? Did I hear that right? “Ryan?”

Oliver climbed out of his snug bed with Dodger and whimpered at my feet.

“Didn’t I mention Ryan is coming too? He wants to spend Christmas with us,” she trilled. “As a family. Like we used to be.”

“What?” I screeched.

“’Bye sweetheart,” she crowed.

“Mom? Mom?” I spoke to no one. She’d hung up.

Rachel jumped out of her chair. “Angie, what happened?” She touched my arm. “Something terrible, I see. Are your parents all right?”

I turned to the other women in the quilting circle. They stared at me, frozen in midstitch on the quilt.

I cleared my throat. “They’re fine, Rachel.” I gripped her hand on my arm. “My ex-fiancé . . . he’s—he’s coming here. He’s coming here for Christmas.”

Amish Quilted Pincushion Jars

by Angela Braddock, Owner of Running Stitch

If you are a quilter like me, you have sat on more needles than you’ve cared to count. To save yourself from those nasty pricks, you need a quilter’s best friend: a reliable pincushion. At Running Stitch, one of our bestselling items are our pincushion mason jars. The pincushion keeps all of your needles in one convenient place, and the jar is a great place for buttons, thimbles, and extra thread. If you can’t make it to our shop to pick up one of the many that the quilting circle created, you can make your own. Here’s how!

Supplies

fabric

scissors

thread

needle

polyester stuffing

mason jar

hot glue gun

Step One

Choose your quilting pattern and cut pieces of fabric. You need enough pieces to create a square twice the diameter of the metal top of the jar.

Step Two

Piece together the top into a square with thread and a needle.

Step Three

Cut a thin piece of fabric into a circle the exact size of the lid’s metal insert.

Step Four

Shape the polyester stuffing into a ball, cover it with the pieced quilt top, and push the stuffing with the quilt top through the ring portion of the jar’s lid. Put the metal circle insert firmly into place inside the lid’s ring, underneath the stuffing, allowing the edges of the fabric to hang out over the sides of the metal circle.

Step Five

Wrap the end of the pieced square around the back of the metal circle. Hot glue the fabric to the back of the metal circle, and cut off any excess fabric.

Step Six

Take the fabric circle you cut earlier in step three and glue it over the bottom on the metal circle to hide the quilt top’s jagged edges.

Step Seven

Screw the lid onto the jar, and you are done!

Read on for a peek at Isabella Alan’s next Amish Quilt Shop mystery,

MURDER, SERVED SIMPLY

Available from Obsidian in December 2014.

W
ater fell from the faucet into the old porcelain sink in Running Stitch’s tiny bathroom. Through the closed door, I heard the ladies from my quilting circle’s cheerful Pennsylvania Dutch chatter. Normally, the sound would have made me smile. Today, any noise was certain to cause an instant migraine.

I dabbed my face with a damp paper towel, careful not to mar my eye makeup. When Ryan Dickinson showed up at my door I wanted to look my best. Not for him but for me. Didn’t every girl feel like that when confronted with her ex-fiancé? Of course, most girls don’t have their parents to blame for the reunion. I rested my forehead on the mirror and willed myself to get a grip.

A tap came on the door. “Angie, are you okay in there?” Anna, who had been my aunt Eleanor’s closest friend, asked.

I opened the door. My kitten, Dodger, and French bulldog, Oliver, sat on either side of her. Concern was plastered on all three of their faces.

“I’m fine,” I said, forcing some Christmas cheer into my voice.

None of them bought my act.

“
Ya,
you sound like it.”

If you had asked me before moving from Dallas to Ohio’s Amish Country if Amish women were sarcastic, I would have said no. Boy, did Anna prove me wrong.

“I
am
fine.”

She stepped back to give me enough space to exit the bathroom.

“You didn’t seem that way earlier today. When your parents and Ryan arrived, you practically threw them onto the progressive dinner wagon. You barely gave Mattie and me enough time to introduce ourselves.”

I crossed the shop to the long table lined with tureens of soup, each made by a lady from my quilting circle, and chili made by me. I had to bring a little of Texas to this Christmas in Ohio. “The wagon was leaving,” I said as I stirred my chili. “I didn’t want them to miss this important event in Rolling Brook. It’s not like they will have another chance to have an Amish progressive dinner.”

“They will if they come next Christmas,” Anna said.

I shivered. “Mom and Dad are welcome back, but this will be the
last
Christmas Ryan Dickinson spends in Rolling Brook if I can help it.”

Mattie Miller, my assistant in the shop, said, “Ryan is very handsome.”

I scowled at the chili.
Maybe I should add some more hot sauce and show them how we really do chili in Texas.

“He’s no more handsome than the sheriff. The sheriff is distinguished,” Anna said.

I flinched. There lay the heart of the problem. Ryan Dickinson, my ex-fiancé, and Sheriff James Mitchell, my kind-of boyfriend, were together in the same county for Christmas. I never thought I would see the day, not even in my worst nightmares. And it was all thanks to my mother, who was the mastermind behind it all.

Suddenly, the chili didn’t seem all that appetizing. I debated going back to the bathroom in case I needed to toss the half dozen Christmas cookies I had pilfered from the tray Mattie brought from across the street from her family’s bakery. I replaced the glass lid onto the Crock-Pot.

Mattie’s thin eyebrows wrinkled. “Angie, you don’t look so good. Are you ill?”

“I’ll be fine. The holidays are always stressful, right?”

Anna sniffed. “The
Englisch
make it stressful. It’s not that way in the Amish world. We know Christmas is a time of reflection on our faith and to be with family.”

“I think most English folks know that too,” I said. “But there are also credit cards involved.”

Anna shook her head as if I had hit her with yet another mysterious English riddle.

Mattie unwrapped a third stack of plastic bowls from their packaging and set them on the edge of the table. “The progressive dinner is across the street at the bakery.”

“Already?” I swallowed hard. The next stop would be Running Stitch. I hurried to the front window. Sure enough, the progressive dinner wagon was offloading customers, most of whom were local English folks, with the exception of Ryan and my parents.

Before the cold could seep through their heavy winter coats and parkas, they dashed into the bakery. My best friend and Mattie’s sister-in-law, Rachel Miller, would warm them up with a hot coffee and a piece of her prizewinning friendship bread.

Maybe if Mom and Ryan overeat, they will be too ill to talk to me about whatever brought them to Ohio this Christmas,
I thought, feeling more cheerful, and then I could spend the rest of the week avoiding talking to them about it. I wouldn’t mind talking with my dad though. I suspected he was on my side. Plus, Dad had the ability to pack away a couple of pies single-handedly without breaking a sweat. The progressive dinner wouldn’t even be a challenge for him.

Mattie patted my arm as she carried a tray of crackers to the second long table along the quilt shop’s front window. “Angie, don’t worry so much. It will all be fine.”

When had Mattie become the calm, reassuring one? When she’d started working for me four months ago, she’d been a quiet, unassuming Amish girl. I liked the new Mattie, but wasn’t sure how her conservative brother felt about her new confidence.

I peered out through Running Stitch’s display window. One of my favorite quilts, a Wedding Ring done in Christmas red and green, hung over the quilt stand next to a five-foot Christmas tree decorated with white lights and pincushions as ornaments. The Amish didn’t have Christmas trees in their homes. Like everything else, their Christmas decorations were modest: some greenery and maybe a string of popcorn at most. I shivered to think what my Amish friends would think of the nine-foot glitzed-and-glittered tree that sat in the front hall of my parents’ home back in Dallas. There were enough electric bulbs on it to light up an aircraft carrier. Dad always said it wasn’t worth putting up a Christmas tree unless you could see it from space. Thinking of the tree made me nostalgic and happy. My parents—both my parents—were in Rolling Brook for Christmas.

The wagon rocked as the two draft horses shuffled in place. Steam escaped from their nostrils as they stamped the snow-covered road. Jonah, Anna’s son and my childhood friend, sat on the driver’s seat of the wagon. He spied me in the window and waved. He arched his sandy-colored eyebrows as if to ask a question.
Great,
I thought,
even Jonah wonders how I am going to handle Ryan. Does the entire town know my ex-fiancé is here for Christmas?
I already knew the answer to that one.

Behind me, Anna and Mattie spoke in hushed tones. I walked across the room in time to hear Mattie say, “Aaron said it’s wrong for the
Englischers
to portray the Amish that way.”

Ahh,
I thought,
the play,
An Amish Christmas. That was the second hot topic in town, and I was happy to have it. At least it took some of the heat off of me.

“Did you hear what it’s about?” Mattie asked.

“Considering its title,” Anna said, “something Amish and Christmas.”

“Nee.”
Mattie put her hands on her hips. “I mean yes, but it’s mostly about an Amish girl who falls in love with an
Englischer
and leaves the community. My brother says that it belittles our way of life.”

Anna snorted. “Let the
Englisch
have their fun.”

“If it were just
Englischers
.” Mattie lowered her voice until I could barely hear her. “Eve Shetler is in the play.”

Anna clicked her tongue. “
Ya,
I heard that. Eve is an
Englischer
now. It’s not our concern what she does now that she has left the community.”

“Many don’t feel that way. It’s fine she left the community, but why would she come back and mock it?”

“I don’t think the play is meant to mock anything,” I said, jumping in for the first time.

“Have you seen it?” Mattie asked.

“No, I heard bits and pieces when I was at the inn setting up for the Christmas quilt show. Tonight will be the first time I will see it run all the way through.” The progressive dinner would end at the Swiss Valley Hotel on Rolling Brook’s border with Berlin. The grand finale of the evening would be the opening of
An Amish Christmas
. Perhaps now was not the best time to mention the musical numbers in the production.

Mattie smoothed the pile of napkins on the table. “Then you can’t say for sure.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but the bell over the front door rang. Progressive diners poured into the quilt shop. Cheerful chatter quickly filled the small shop. The women raved over the quilts, and the men made a beeline for the tureens of soup. Anna and Mattie took up their posts behind the soup table and began dishing hot soup and chili into bowls.

Mom, Dad, and Ryan were in the back of the pack. My father gave me a huge grin, and it took all my willpower not to run over to him and give him a big bear hug like I had when I was a little girl. The man behind him, Ryan, stopped me. Ryan had a pained expression on his face as he rubbed his arms, as if to get blood circulating. Clearly, spending the night freezing in an Amish wagon as it moved from business to business in Rolling Brook and eating heavy Amish food was not what he had expected when he arrived in Ohio. I knew Ryan, the fitness fanatic, was already mentally calculating the number of calories he’d consumed since his plane landed and how many hours it would take in the gym to burn them off.

His gaze zeroed in on me. Could I be wrong, but did his expression soften? My stomach did a little flip. I wouldn’t let Ryan’s chocolate puppy-dog eyes work their magic on me. I wasn’t going to be fooled this time. Never again.

I broke eye contact, and I took a deep breath. It was just a week. What could possibly happen to ruin Christmas in a week?

I glanced down at my beloved Frenchie, Oliver. He covered his nose with his white paw. Oliver knew better. He knew all the players on and off the stage.