Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (23 page)

J
ust as they had on Wednesday, both of my aunt’s quilts fetched a good price at the auction. If these sales at the auction kept up, I would easily have the funds to survive the slow winter months at the shop.

On the way home from the auction that evening, I stopped at the grocery store and bought three bags of candy for trick or treating that night. I’d planned to buy the candy after the auction on Wednesday. However, with Wanda’s death, that plan had gotten derailed. Thankfully, Mattie had agreed to close up Running Stitch for the day and all I had to do was drive straight from the auction to the grocery store. My biggest worry was what trouble Dodger may have gotten into since he was home alone all day. I feared for my curtains.

The store’s candy shelves were nearly bare. There wasn’t a piece of chocolate in the bunch. Not even a bag of Hershey’s Kisses. I grabbed three bags of the knockoff Smarties, knowing they would taste like sidewalk chalk. I had to buy something. Not passing out candy during my first Halloween in the neighborhood was a surefire way to be shunned by the children of Millersburg, or at least, to be the target for the next toilet paper rampage.

I stood in line at the cashier’s counter behind an Amish woman, a common occurrence I took in stride after living in Holmes County the last two months. However, this time was different because the woman was Martha Yoder. Even though our stores were right next door to each other, Martha and I hadn’t spoken since she stomped out of Running Stitch on her last day as my employee. Every time I saw her, she would walk away or pretend that she didn’t see me, but she wasn’t all to blame. I could have made more of an effort to speak to her too.

Now was my chance because the line to check out was at a standstill. The one open register was backed up as an elderly man painstakingly counted out change for his three bags of groceries.

The cashier benignly smiled as he slid nickels and dimes toward her one by one. Her placid expression would not have been the reaction at the corner market I used back in Dallas. On a good day, the old man would be asked to leave. On a bad day, he would be thrown out onto the street.

“How much more do I owe you?” the old man asked.

“Four more dollars,” the cashier replied.

This could be a while.

Martha’s shoulders drooped, and she glanced over her shoulder. When she saw me standing directly behind her, her eyes narrowed.

This was ridiculous. She was an adult. I was an adult.

I flashed my retired beauty pageant smile. “Hello, Martha.”

She nodded. “Angie.”

“Grocery shopping?”

She stared at me. The smile wasn’t working. It had never worked on the judges either. And okay, admittedly that was a stupid question, but she wasn’t making this easy.

I held up my bags of knockoff Smarties. “I’m buying candy for trick or treating tonight in my neighborhood. This is all they had left. I hope the kids don’t hold it against me.”

“The Amish don’t celebrate Halloween.”

I swallowed. “I know that.”

She adjusted her black shawl on her shoulder. “If you do, you should respect the Amish enough not to celebrate Halloween, especially since you claim to own an Amish business.”

“I know my aunt didn’t feel that way, and I
do
respect the Amish and their beliefs.”

“You didn’t know your
aenti
as well as I did. I spent more time with her than you ever did. How can you claim to know how she felt about anything?’

I bit my tongue and counted to three in Pennsylvania Dutch. “Martha, you have your own shop now. I’m not sure why you are bound and determined to continue to criticize how I run mine.”

She pursed her lips. “You’re right. I should not be concerned with it. You will not be able to compete with me when the tourists realize my store is the true Amish quilt shop in town.”

I took a breath. “There is room for two shops, even two so close together like ours. I’m sure we don’t sell everything the same or offer the same classes or services. I think if we could embrace being two quilt shops together it might bring us both more business.”

She gripped the handle of her cart. “So you are happy I moved next door?”

I suppressed a sigh. “I admit when I first heard about you taking over the woodworker’s shop and making it a quilt shop, I was upset. It wasn’t because I didn’t want you to have your own shop. I was disappointed by your choice of location next to my aunt’s shop.”

Martha stiffened. “I cared for your
aenti.
She was an
aenti
to me in many ways. When she told me she planned to leave the shop to you, I wasn’t worried.”

“She told you?”

Her face flushed as if she realized she’d said too much. “She did. After you visited in February, she told me. She wanted me to know. She felt her time was close and she didn’t want me to be surprised. I accepted it because you were engaged to a man from Texas. I knew you would never move here and take over the shop. I thought at most, you would own it in name from afar, and I would continue to run the day-to-day. Then, you showed up and insisted on working there and changing everything.”

“Martha,” I said in a low voice. “I’m not going to apologize about that. If I had known about my aunt’s wishes in February, I would have thought the same thing you did. I expected to live in Dallas and be married. Many of my plans changed. My entire life changed. Mostly for the better. The only thing I wish I could change back was losing my aunt.”

“Then you wouldn’t be here.”

Her words stung because she was right.

The older man pushed three final nickels across the metal counter toward the cashier. “That should do it.”

The cashier shook her head. “It’s close enough.”

He shuffled away from the counter with his cart.

Martha had only a few items and quickly checked out. She paid the cashier and left without a backward glance. I set my bags of candy on the counter. The cashier rang them through. “Last minute candy buying?” she asked.

I nodded.

She put the candy into a grocery bag. “My advice? Next year come a lot sooner before everything is picked over.” She handed me the bag. “You’re not going to make any allies with the neighborhood kids with these.”

Interesting word choice. Allies.

I thanked her and left.

At home, I had only a few minutes before the trick or treating as it officially began at six thirty. I needed to dress myself and the animals in our costumes.

I dumped the candy into a huge popcorn bowl and set it by the door. Oliver and Dodger peered inside the bowl. The kitten, who could barely lift his head above the rim to see inside, batted at the edge. Oliver hung his head. I knew he believed the toilet papering was unavoidable for us at this point. We had such a poor offering to the neighborhood children.

“Don’t worry; we will win them over with the costumes,” I promised.

He whimpered.

I loved dressing up for Halloween. It had been Ryan’s and my favorite holiday. The Halloween party was the event of the year at my advertising firm back in Dallas. Everyone tried to outdo the next person when it came to costumes. Two years ago, Ryan and I went as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. We laughed hysterically most of the night even though we lost to Princess Leia and Jabba the Hutt. Their costumes must have cost a small fortune. Jabba’s tail was a battery-operated prosthetic.

Life with Ryan had not been all bad. I knew that’s what my mother wanted me to remember, and it was true. We had been together a long time and most of that time had been happy, or at least I thought so. Ryan must have disagreed since he dumped me.

That was then. I’m a different person now, living in a completely different place, a place where a couple dressing up for Halloween would seem strange.

I threw on my costume, which was decidedly simpler and didn’t cost me anything because it was made from items I had in my closet: an old Western shirt with tassels on the sleeves, a denim skirt, my hot pink cowboy hat, and the boots. In Texas, my getup would not have been worthy of Halloween. Ladies wore these outfits on weekends at horse shows and the rodeos. It was an outfit that symbolized a way of life. Here in Ohio, it was a costume, which made me wonder if anyone had ever dressed up like an Amish person for Halloween. If they did, I knew the Amish wouldn’t like it.

Since Ryan wasn’t here to be costume partner, I drafted Oliver. The Frenchie snuffled as I put on his felt cowbell and horns. Since he was already black and white, he didn’t need anything more than that. I simply tied a small red bandanna around Dodger’s neck. I knew better than to dress up a cat too much.

I finished just as the doorbell rang. I opened it to find Dorothy and Toto on my doorstep. “Trick or treat,” they crowed.

I dropped candy in their buckets. “Happy Halloween.”

Toto peered in his bucket with a sneer. “Smarties? Where’s the chocolate?”

I sighed.

It seemed like all the English children of Millersburg were out, and I quickly finished my first bag of candy. Oliver and I sat on the stoop. The children giggled when they saw our outfits, especially Oliver’s. I slipped into the house to grab the other bags. As I stepped back onto the front porch, I saw Sheriff Mitchell following Batman and Robin up my driveway.

Batman, also known as Zander Mitchell, was serious when it came to trick or treating. He didn’t waste his time with a cute Halloween bucket. The seven-year-old had a pillowcase, which judging by the bulge was a third full.

“Trick or treat,” the Dark Knight said.

Robin, Tux, barked a greeting and joined Oliver the cow.

“Happy Halloween,” I said, dropping candy into his pillowcase. I smiled over his head at the sheriff. “Happy Halloween, Sheriff.”

“Happy Halloween, Angie.” His salt-and-pepper hair glimmered in the glow of my porch light. My chest constricted.

Zander rooted through his pillowcase and removed a Snickers bar. Apparently, not everyone in the neighbor waited to the last minute to buy candy. “Hey, you are that lady my mom yelled at.”

Out of the mouths of babes. “I am,” I said. “I’m Angie.”

“I know. Mom and Dad talk about you.”

Mitchell cleared his throat. “Z, we are here for the candy. We don’t want to bore Miss Braddock.”

Zander bit down on the Snickers. “I’m just asking a question.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full either.”

He swallowed. “Angie doesn’t care.”

“Please call her Miss Braddock.”

“Why?” Batman wanted to know.

Mitchell folded his arms. “It’s a sign of respect. Do you call your teachers by their first names?”

“No.” Zander examined my cowgirl outfit. “Are you a teacher?”

I shook my head.

“See,” the seven-year-old said to his father. “You only have to call teachers Miss Whatever.”

I stifled a chuckle. “I see you excluded Robin’s black mask,” I said, pointing to Tux.

Zander swung his pillowcase over his shoulder like a hobo about to jump onto a freight train. A superhero hobo, but still. “He already has a mask.”

Mitchell cleared his voice. “That’s not the only reason.”

“He ate the other one.”

I winced.

“Tux likes to chew on stuff.” Zander was solemn. “That’s why he’s not allowed at my mom’s house. She doesn’t like it.”

“I imagine your dad doesn’t care much for it either.”

Zander shrugged. “Dad’s place is different. We’re allowed to eat on the couch.”

“Kind of sounds like my place,” I said, feeling the sheriff watch me the entire time.

He removed a Milky Way from his pillowcase. “But you are a girl. Girls are supposed to be cleaner.”

“I didn’t say I was messy eating on the couch. You can eat on the couch and still be neat about it.”

“If I ate on your couch, it would be messy,” he assured me.

“It would,” the sheriff agreed with a smile. It was the most relaxed I had seen him since before Wanda’s body was discovered.

I smiled back at the sheriff. “I’m surprised to see you out tonight.”

He frowned. “Why’s that?”

I swallowed. “Isn’t Halloween a big night for crime?”

His face softened. “I’m always on call, but my deputies are handling most of the cases.” He tilted his smile. “And you’re not in the big city anymore.”

“Dad and I always go trick or treating,” Zander said. “It’s a tradition.”

I smiled. “That sounds fun.”

He lowered his voice. “I would never go with Mom. She’d take away the candy. She’s passing out tiny bags of almonds at our house tonight. Almonds. Who wants those? How am I supposed to show my face at school? Everyone will know the almonds came from my place.”

“You will survive.” Mitchell held back a smile.

“I’ll just tell them I was with my dad and had nothing to do with the almonds. When you have two houses, you can work it your advantage.”

I laughed. “I’m glad.”