Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (6 page)

I
watched the teen. He certainly appeared carefree for someone who had lost his aunt. “How is it possible he doesn’t know about Wanda?” I hissed. “There was a huge crowd outside watching the canning shed.”

“I don’t know, but does he look like someone whose aunt just died?”

Jonah and I both stared at Reed and assessed his level of upset. He laughed at something one of the Amish boys said. “No. Someone has to tell him.”

Jonah didn’t move.

“Aren’t you going to tell him?” I asked.

The boys looked on as an Amish cashier checked the quilts out to their new owners. After the money was settled, I would get my share before the day’s end. Happy zeros flashed in my mind.

“Me? It is not my place to tell him. The police should do it.”

I scanned the crowded room for the sheriff. I spotted Deputy Anderson moving quietly through the room, showing people a photograph and asking them questions. It wouldn’t be long before he reached Reed.

I gnawed on my lip. Would I have wanted the police to tell me about my aunt’s death months ago? It was hard enough hearing it from my own mother. Reed didn’t know me, but surely if I told him about his aunt, it would be less shocking than bumbling Deputy Anderson telling him the news, wouldn’t it?

“I’ll talk to him.” I moved across the room.

“Angie,” Jonah hissed, but it was too late. I’d set my course.

As I got closer to the teen I realized despite his height, he was younger than I first thought. He must be seventeen at most. I bit the inside of my cheek. Despite his tough-looking exterior, the news of his aunt’s death would come as a shock.

“Hi,” I said. “Are you Reed?”

He glared at me with the disgust that only a person between the ages and of twelve and twenty could really pull off.

“She’s the quilt shop lady,” the tall redheaded Amish teen told Reed.

Reed folded his arms. “So what?”

Some of my sympathy dissipated. “Is Wanda Hunt your aunt?”

He shrugged. “Did she say I did something?”

“I think I can take it from here, Angie.”

I turned to find Mitchell standing five feet behind me with a frown on his face.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. What did I think I was going to say to Reed? And now the sheriff probably thought I was poking my nose in where it didn’t belong.

Reed looked from me to the sheriff. “Hey, what’s this about? I haven’t done anything.”

His two Amish friends slipped away into the crowd. So much for loyalty.

The sheriff arched an eyebrow. “No new street art?”

Street art?
If I were a cat, my ears would have twitched at that comment.

Reed kicked a loose pebble across the dirt ground and didn’t say anything.

“I need to talk to you about your aunt,” Mitchell said.

Reed’s head snapped up. “What, is she complaining about me again? She’s like a tyrant. I’m mean, who runs to the police about their own nephew?”

“It’s not that.”

Gideon walked over. “Sheriff, we have another block coming up. You’re going to have to take this outside.”

I turned to see that everyone was staring at us.

Mitchell nodded. “Reed, come with me.”

“No way, dude. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The sheriff gave his best cop stare.

Reed looked behind him to find his friends had abandoned him. “Whatever. Just make it fast so I can get back to work.”

Shouldn’t he be in school? And why was he working at the auction? He wouldn’t be the first person in the auction barn I’d pick as an auction yard employee.

Mitchell turned, frowning as if he were disappointed somehow . . . in me.

Reed ducked his head and followed the sheriff out of the auction barn.

Gideon approached me and wiped sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief. “Angie, you can pick up your money from the cashier.”

Linus began the bidding on an Amish-made chest of drawers.

After I collected my earnings from the cashier, an elderly Amish man who took painstaking care when writing the check, I stepped out of the auction barn and scanned the grounds for Mitchell and Reed. I spotted the sheriff at the edge of the field that served as a makeshift parking lot for both automobiles and Amish buggies. There was no sign of Reed.

I straightened my shoulders and marched over to him. I slowed my pace as I approached. “Hey.”

His beautiful eyes were downturned. “Hey.”

An Amish girl walked by pushing a wheelbarrow full of apples. It had to weigh twice what she did, but she didn’t even break a sweat.

“That must have been hard,” I said after the girl passed by.

“Terrible.”

“Where’s Reed now?” I asked.

The sheriff slid his sunglasses over his eyes. “Anderson took him for a drive. The kid needed a chance to collect himself.”

“Will the deputy take him home?”

Mitchell let out a long breath. “It’s more complicated than that.”

I dropped my arms. “What do you mean?”

“His aunt was his only family here in Ohio. He said his mother shipped him here from California at the beginning of the school year. I got the impression she didn’t want him back, or at least, Reed believed she didn’t. I will call her as she is likely Wanda’s next of kin as well.”

“Poor kid. Shouldn’t he have been in school though? What is he doing working here?”

“I plan to ask him, but I want to wait until his aunt’s death sinks in.”

My heart melted at the sheriff’s compassion for the troubled teenager. “Are you certain there isn’t any other family here in Ohio? An uncle? Was Wanda married?” I felt bad that I didn’t know that. Shouldn’t I have known that?

“Wanda is divorced. Her ex-husband lives in Millersburg.”

“What’s his name?”

Mitchell frowned. “Why do you want to know, Angie?”

“Just curious.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Before you told Reed the news, he seemed antagonistic toward his aunt.”

The sheriff didn’t say anything.

“What did you mean when you asked him about street art?”

Mitchell’s jaw twitched. “We arrested him for defacing public property. You know the covered buggy bridge on River Road.”

“The one that someone spray-painted last week?” I asked.

He nodded.

My Amish friends had been furious at the incident. The once pristine covered bridge had been covered with crude English words and designs. Right after it happened, Anna told me some of the church elders believed that it was an English person protesting their culture. The Amish repainted the bridge the next day, but the scar from the cultural clash remained. I grimaced. “Reed did that?”

“Yep.” He paused. “And Wanda turned him in. She found the cans of spray paint in her garage and put two and two together.”

“He has to be a suspect,” I pressed. “That’s a pretty good motive.”

He winced as if he regretted sharing this information with me. “Everyone at the auction today is a potential suspect, even you. First, I need to determine if this was a crime to begin with.”

I almost slipped up and asked Mitchell about the possible peanut allergy. That would have been a mistake because he would have known I’d been eavesdropping on his conversation with the coroner. Instead, I asked, “Why didn’t Reed know about his aunt?”

Across the field, Deputy Anderson’s squad car turned back into the property. Reed slouched in the front seat. The hood of his black sweatshirt covered his face. What would become of the teen now?

Mitchell’s frown deepened but he answered the question I’d asked out loud. “He and his friends, those two Amish kids, were smoking in the woods during all the commotion.” His frown softened; then he tried to change the subject. “You did very well at the auction.”

I shrugged. As happy as I was about how the quilts did at the auction, it didn’t seem right to celebrate my monetary windfall under the circumstances. “What’s going to happen to Reed?”

Mitchell ran a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I assume he’ll go back home to Los Angeles to his mother, whether she likes it or not. He doesn’t have any other family here, and he’s a minor. He didn’t mention a father, so I’m guessing he’s not in the picture anymore. I may be wrong. I hope the mom can clear that up. Reed’s not talking about it, at least not yet.”

“Where will he go until he can return to California? Back to Wanda’s house? Alone?”

Mitchell removed a sheriff’s department ball cap from the back pocket of his uniform. He bent the bill of his ball cap over and over again. “He’s going to stay with me. He wasn’t too happy about that, but it was either that or foster care. He’s only fifteen.”

My heart constricted as I thought of Mitchell opening his home to this troubled teen whom he didn’t even know. There was so much about the sheriff I didn’t know and so much I wanted to learn. “That’s so kind of you.”

Laugh lines crinkled at the corners of his eyes. “Do you find it appealing?”

“Very,” I admitted, looking him in the eye.

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Good.”

Don’t blush! Don’t blush!
I tried to will myself. I swallowed. “So the auction will go on even with the investigation in progress?”

He nodded. “Yes, the canning shed is so far removed from the main part of the auction yard, I see no reason to shut the place down.” He started in the direction of Anderson’s vehicle and Reed. After a few steps he half turned back to me. “Angie, I know that you are asking questions because you care about Rachel. How much you care about your friends is appealing to me.”

“Thank you,” I murmured.

“But as a cop, I’m going to have to ask you to stop.”

My smiled morphed into a frown.

I
returned to the merchants’ tent and the only difference to the space I found was the Millers’ absence and the bare bakery table.

Oliver whined at me from under my table.

I squatted beside him and scratched his jowls. “Sorry, buddy. I know you didn’t like to be left here all alone, but there are way too many scary people and animals in the auction barn to take you there.”

He sighed and lay back down.

I stood and checked the inventory to see that everything was there. Not that I thought one of the police officers would have run off with a lap quilt, but things could go missing in this type of situation if you didn’t keep an eye on them. After I was certain everything was accounted for, I removed my cell phone from the pocket of my jeans and dialed Running Stitch.

When I took over my aunt’s shop it didn’t have a phone line. Even though Aunt Eleanor was New Order Amish and therefore allowed to have a phone in her place of business, she never saw the need for one. She did all of her fabric ordering through the mail, or if she needed to, she borrowed a neighbor’s phone. I required technology to function. Now, Running Stitch had a phone line, credit card reader, and Wi-Fi.

I listened to the phone ring and waited for Sarah Leham to pick up. She was New Order Amish as well. I hoped she wouldn’t have too many questions, but knew that was unlikely. Sarah was the most curious Amish woman I had ever met. That had landed her in trouble a time for two with more closemouthed members of the Amish community.

“Running Stitch Quilt Shop, thank you for calling. How may I help you?” she asked like she was a professional telemarketer. I doubted Sarah even knew what a telemarketer was.

“Sarah, it’s Angie.”

“Angie, I’m glad you called. Is Mattie on her way? I thought she would be here by now. . . .” She trailed off.

“She’s not coming.” A group of English tourists entered the tent. I smiled at them and then turned away. I didn’t want them to overhear my conversation with Sarah. “Something has come up.”

“With Mattie? Is she all right? I hope she didn’t eat anything that made her ill.”

Funny Sarah would say that, considering how the coroner suspects Wanda died.

“Mattie’s fine. She went home with Rachel and Aaron a little while ago. She won’t be going to the shop because there’s been an accident.”

“Is it Rachel?” Sarah took a short breath. “Is she all right?”

“Rachel is fine too,” I paused. “It’s Wanda Hunt. She’s dead, and Rachel’s shaken up by it.”

I waited for the flurry of questions that were sure to hit me. Nothing. Silence.

“Sarah, are you still there?”

“I—I don’t know what to say.”

Sarah? Speechless? That had to be a first.

Then the rapid-fire questions came. “What happened? How could this happen? Was she sick? Why is Rachel so upset about it? I know it’s terrible,
ya
, but what does that have to do with Rachel?”

“Sarah, I can’t talk right now.” I lowered my voice. “I’m still at the auction. I promise to tell you when I can.”

“Oh, that’s right,” she said. “Someone may overhear you. You can tell me when you return to the shop.”

“That might not be for some time. The auction doesn’t close until four. I should stay here for the rest of it. Business has been good here.” I paused. “I don’t want you to be stuck there the rest of the day. Close the shop and go home. Just leave a sign on the door and the key in the drawer below the counter.”

“I can’t do that to you, Angie. Business has been brisk here too. Auction days are always the busiest in town.”

Relief washed over me. I may have done well at the auction, but I didn’t really want to have the shop close early with so many customers in town. I couldn’t afford to.

But then guilt for keeping Sarah away from her home and children immediately replaced the relief. “You should go home to your husband and children. I can’t ask you to stay any longer.”

“You’re not asking me to stay. I am doing it on my own. Besides, there is no one at home to go to. The children are at school, and my husband is on a carpentry job in Summit County. He won’t be home until late. If the children beat me home from school, they will be fine. My oldest is eleven, and she will be able to mind the other children until I arrive home. I will call the shed phone near our house and leave a message on the answering machine for her. She knows to check the shed phone machine if we aren’t there.”

“Your shed phone has an answering machine?”

She laughed. “I’m New Order Amish, Angie. I don’t live in the Dark Ages.”

I laughed. “Thank you, Sarah. That will be a big help. I will have to make it up to you.”

“You can by telling me everything you know about Rachel and Wanda when I see you.” She hung up the phone.

As I slid my cell phone back into my pocket, a woman in a purple sweater stopped at my table and gestured across the aisle to where Rachel’s table stood empty. “Where is the sweet lady from the bakery? I had hoped to take home one of her pies today.”

“She had to leave early. There was a family emergency.”

Her bottom lip popped out. “I’m so disappointed. Will she be back for Saturday’s auction?”

“I’m not sure. I know she would like to be. It depends on how the emergency goes.”

The woman sighed and moved on. After she left, I helped a group of ladies select souvenir thimbles.

“Aren’t these cute,” one said to her friend. “This is going right on my miniature shelf.”

They each bought three. And the quilting circle ladies had scoffed at my thimbles. I tucked the dollar bills into the back pocket of my jeans.

An Amish woman whom I didn’t know sold baskets from the table next to mine. The ladies who loved my thimbles raved over her baskets. Their praise was deafening. I smiled at the small Amish woman helping them. When we made eye contact, she looked away quickly.

I moved to the other end of my table and smoothed a Diamond in a Square quilt that lay across it.

One of the women examined the bottom of a bread basket. “I’ve been looking for a new basket for my dining room. My husband leaves the mail all over the dining room table. It drives me crazy. He even has an office in the house, but insists on leaving the mail in the dining room.”

Her friend snorted. “That’s a man for you, but that basket isn’t going to make a lick of difference. He will still leave mail on the dining room table, and you will still be picking it up.”

The first woman’s face reddened. “I can train him to place it in the basket at least.”

Her friend flipped over a price tag hanging from a berry basket. Shaking her head, she set it back on the table. “Sugar, you’ve been married to that man for twenty years. Your brief training window has come and gone.”

The first woman clutched the shallow basket to her chest. “I’m still buying it.”

Her friend shook her head.

Throughout the conversation, the Amish basket seller quietly embroidered the edge of a basket liner.

“I’ll take this,” the first woman said.

The Amish woman accepted the money with a small nod and returned to her work as the English women walked away, still bickering over whether the woman with the new basket could train her husband.

As they left, I realized the basket seller, whose table was directly across from where the Millers had been, had had a front row seat to all the comings and goings around Rachel’s table, including Wanda’s appearance that morning and the sheriff’s a few hours later. I studied her, but she never looked up from her sewing. I slid down the table closer to her and refolded a set of quilted place mats. “I wonder if her husband will use that basket,” I said.

The basket weaver said nothing. Her needle moved in and out of the fabric, creating a tiny delicate daisy.

I tried again. “It was nice that she was so eager to buy. This auction has been great for my business. I’m so happy the Nissleys included me.”

Still nothing. Did she not understand English? I knew that was unlikely. The vast majority of the Amish in Holmes County were bilingual with maybe the exception of small children.

“Have you been selling your baskets here long?” I tried again.

She set her embroidery on her lap with a sigh and she peered at me over black wire-framed reading glasses. “Business at the auction is always
gut
.
Englischers
like things. Even things they do not need or use.”

I forced a laugh. “Isn’t that good news for us? We sell things. I’m sure she will find a use for your beautiful basket even if her husband doesn’t. You can never have too many baskets.”

“You can have too many of everything,” she argued.

“Well, I just wanted to introduce myself since my table is right next to yours. My employee Mattie Miller has been here most of the day. I’m Angie Braddock; I own Running Stitch in town.”

“I know who you are. Martha Yoder is my cousin.” Her eyes were cold.

Ahh. I winced. No wonder she was prickly. Martha used to work for me at Running Stitch, but quit to open her own Amish quilt shop because she thought the changes I made to my shop were “too English.” That wouldn’t have bothered me at all if Martha hadn’t opened her shop right next to mine. I could just imagine what Martha had said about me to her cousin. I knew none of it was good. “If you know Martha, then you must know that I am friends with Rachel Miller.”

She dropped her gaze back to her basket liner.
“Ya.”

I shifted from foot to foot. She wasn’t going to make this easy. “I’m sure you have heard the news about Wanda Hunt.”

“Ya.”

She really was a conversationalist, wasn’t she?

“Were you here earlier today when Wanda spoke with Rachel at her table?”

“Why do you ask? You were there.” She picked up her needle again and resumed her work.

“I wasn’t there the entire time. Did you overhear anything they said before I arrived?”

“The Amish do not eavesdrop.” The way she glared at me made me wonder if she saw me eavesdropping on the sheriff and the coroner.

“How did Wanda act when she first walked up to Rachel? Did she look upset, angry, or ill?”

“I do not know. I do not mind others’ business.”

I set the place mat back on the table. The woman had decided to dislike me because of her cousin. There was nothing I could do to change her mind. Martha made sure of that.

She made eye contact again. “It is a shame the Millers have been so influenced by an outsider. I have always thought Aaron Miller to be a strong and reliable Amish man.”

I opened my mouth.

“Mary, how are your baskets selling today?” Anna Graber asked.

I turned to see Anna walking toward us.

“Very well. It is kind of you to ask,” Mary said.

“I’m glad that you were able to meet Angie. As you know she’s the niece of my dear friend, Eleanor Lapp.” Her voice held a scolding tone to it.

“I do.” Mary returned her attention to her embroidery.

Why did I think that the two were having an entire conversation between the words that I wasn’t privy to?

“Angie, can we speak for a moment?” Anna asked.

I followed Anna to the other side of my booth. “By talking to me, you are likely only proving Mary’s point that I am a bad influence on your family.”

“Do not listen to her. She and Martha are close.”

“I know. She just told me that they are cousins.” My brow wrinkled. “In the time she worked for me, Martha never mentioned a cousin.”

“I doubt she would mention much of anything to you, Angie, other than her distaste for the changes you made to the shop. She was set to dislike you before you moved back to Ohio. The moment she learned Eleanor left Running Stitch to you, not her, she made up her mind about you. She hoped you would not stay here, but you did.”

I chewed on the inside of my lip.

“I am very glad you made that decision. Having you here is like having a part of Eleanor with me. I know she’s happy and without pain as she’s gone on to her heavenly reward, but I miss her dearly.”

I will not cry. I will not cry.

“Now, we must think about the more pressing issues at hand. Rachel and Aaron Miller.”

I blinked away the tears gathering in the corners of my eyes. “I feel awful about what has happened to them. Aaron’s not taking the sheriff’s thinly veiled accusations seriously enough. From experience I know Sheriff Mitchell means business.”

She adjusted her glasses. “You think he will put them through what you went through over Joseph Walker’s murder?”

“Mitchell is a good cop. He will come to the right conclusions in the end. The longer it takes him to reach those conclusions, the more it will hurt the Millers and their reputation within the community, both English and Amish.”

She nodded. “That is why we need to meet with the quilting circle. There must be a way to help.”

“You mean to investigate what happened to Wanda.”