Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (7 page)

She shook her head. “That would be the
Englisch
way. The Amish way will be to help Rachel with her housework and help care for the bakery during this time.” Her eyes twinkled. “If we happen to do a little crime solving too, that won’t hurt. I know you have already started.”

“What do you mean?”

“Angie, I saw you spying on the sheriff earlier near the canning shed. I know I’m not the only one.”

I grimaced. Anna seeing me spying on the coroner and sheriff was not good news.
Who else saw me and did they tell the sheriff?
I would have to tell him. I hoped I could think of a way to do it to lessen the blow.

“We will meet at Running Stitch after the auction today. Sarah is already there, and we both know she will want to be in on this from the start,” Anna said.

“What about your families? You need to go home. I know that you have much work to do.”

“I have told Jonah, and if Sarah must leave, we will tell her what we decide later. We have to help Rachel. The best way to do that is to find what really happened to Wanda Hunt.”

Great, now Anna was beginning to sound like me. I think I may have created a crime-solving monster.

A
t four thirty on an autumn Wednesday afternoon, Rolling Brook was quiet. Occasionally, a car leaving the auction would roll by. Amish shopkeepers pulled in their outdoor displays from the sidewalk for the night.

I slid my Honda into one of the diagonal parking slots in front of my shop. Typically, I parked in the small lot at the end of Sugartree Street across from the mercantile, but with the businesses closing up for the day, I felt I could take a shopper’s spot.

Running Stitch was a brick, flat-face building that my uncle Nathan had painted olive green a decade before I was born. I always wondered why he picked that particular color. Had he been caught up in 1970s paint trends? I didn’t think so. It was much more likely the color had been on sale at the mercantile when he decided to paint the shop. Even though it wasn’t my favorite color, I had no plans to change it because I remembered the shop as olive green when I was a child and Aunt Eleanor was at the helm. Forest green awnings hung over the shop’s two windows providing the west-facing building with shade in the late afternoon.

I smiled at the large display window to the right of the door. A fall theme of leaves, pumpkins, and autumn-colored quilts filled the space. When I had brought in real fallen leaves from the shop’s backyard garden for the display, Mattie had been aghast. To the Amish, there were clearly things that belonged inside and those that belonged outside. Real leaves fell into the outside category.

Choosing the quilts for the display had been my biggest challenge. I had so many to choose from because my aunt had sewn so many quilts throughout her lifetime and each one was more beautiful than the last. In the end, I settled on my favorite Ohio Star and a Goosefoot. Both were made with russet, orange, goldenrod, and brown wools, which were perfect for an autumn display.

On the inside of the window, a poster advertised our new lineup of quilting and embroidery classes. Anna agreed to teach the quilting classes, and Mattie, who was a whiz with the embroidery needle, would teach the embroidery classes. I frowned. The poster was eight and a half by eleven, which made it difficult to read from the street. Maybe I should have paid the extra money to blow it up. Only a handful of people had signed up for the classes so far. I reminded myself it took time to build something new, especially in a place as resistant to change as Rolling Brook.

Oliver knocked his head against the back of my leg.

I laughed. “Fine. We will go inside. You’re so impatient.”

He cocked his head.

“Okay, I agree this has been a particularly long day.” As I reached for Running Stitch’s doorknob, I couldn’t help but steal a glance at the shop next door, Martha Yoder’s shop. A brand-new sign hung over the front door, A
UTHENTIC
A
MISH
Q
UILTS
. I gritted my teeth. The shop’s name was a pointed dig at me, whom she believed robbed Running Stitch of its Amishness.

I didn’t begrudge Martha her new business. She had taken care of my ill
aenti
for many years, which was the root of the problem. Martha had assumed that since she had cared for my aunt and the quilt shop during her illness that Aunt Eleanor would leave the shop to Martha in her will. When I inherited the shop and decided to stay in Holmes County for good to run it, Martha had not been pleased.

Martha deserved to have the life she wanted, but did she have to rent the space right next to my shop? No. She did that out of spite. Only a narrow alley separated Running Stitch from Authentic Amish Quilts. I wished it were a greater distance, like the Grand Canyon.

I blinked at a white poster hanging in her front window advertising quilting classes. The poster was twice the size of mine. I stepped closer to the window. A
LL
OUR
TEACHERS
ARE
A
MISH
LADIES
, it read.

I gritted my teeth. The only person in my shop who wasn’t an Amish woman was me. Those classes had been my idea. How dare she? I closed my eyes and counted to ten backward in Pennsylvania Dutch, a language I was attempting to learn with Rachel’s help.

I opened my eyes and found Martha glaring at me through her shop window. My frustration evaporated. She wasn’t done with our little feud yet. That was certain. I sighed and turned toward Running Stitch.

As I did, Anna’s buggy horse trotted down Sugartree Street. Anna’s horse slipped into the spot next to my car.

Oliver pressed his back against Running Stitch’s front door. He wasn’t a huge fan of horses. They weren’t on the same level of his terror list as birds, but he still believed in giving them plenty of space.

Anna tossed me the reins and I tied off the horse at the hitching post. The horse blew air out of his nose into my face.

“Maggie,” she said to the horse as she slowly lowered herself from the buggy. “That is no way to say hello to a
freind
.”

Maggie bared her teeth, and I took two large steps back. “I don’t think Maggie believes we are friends.”

Anna removed her quilting basket from the buggy. “She’s being grumpy because she stood at the auction yard all day around the other buggy horses. She’s not a very social animal.” She slipped her arm through the basket handle. “Have you told Sarah yet?”

“I told her briefly about what happened to Wanda over the telephone, but I haven’t been inside the shop yet to tell her about the emergency meeting.”

Anna, Oliver, and I entered the shop together. Sarah, who was alone in the store, met us at the door with her cloak in her hand. “Anna, I’m surprised to see you here too.”

Anna set her basket on the cutting table. “We’re having an emergency meeting.”

“Because of Wanda?” Sarah’s eyes glittered.

Anna removed her cloak.
“Ya.”

“I’m so glad. I want to hear everything.” Sarah replaced her cloak on the wooden peg.

“There’s not much to tell.” I unbuttoned my jacket. A leaf fell to the floor as I did. A leftover gift from my goat-wrestling match.

Sarah narrowed her eyes. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Anna set her basket beside the rocking chair by the window and sat. “Calm down, Sarah. Of course, we will tell you all the news. Can we catch our breath for a minute?”

Sarah blushed. “
Ya
, I am sorry.”

“Are you sure you can stay, Sarah? What about your children?” I asked.

Sarah’s thin lips disappeared in a smile. “Do not worry, Angie. My daughter called the shop not long ago. They are all fine, and she’s working on dinner: sausage, biscuits, and gravy. The younger children are helping her in the kitchen.”

At age eleven, Sarah’s daughter could make a full meal for her family of five. When I was eleven the most impressive meal I could do in the kitchen was make my own Kraft macaroni and cheese, a talent my aunt Eleanor did not approve of. She found any meal that came from a box to be suspect.

Oliver sniffed the perimeter of the shop as if to check who had been in and out of his domain throughout the day. Satisfied there wasn’t any danger, he settled on his dog pillow at the feet of Anna’s rocking chair.

I dropped my hobo purse on the counter beside the cash register. “Then let’s sit. It’s been a long day at the auction.”

Sarah and I started to move two folding wooden chairs from around the stretched quilting frame where we held our quilting circle meetings.

“Nee.”
Anna struggled to her feet. “I will come to you. If we’re to talk about Rachel and poor Wanda Hunt, it is best if we keep our hands busy and work on the quilt. I don’t have my quilting with me, but I am sure you have a needle I can borrow, Angie.”

I laughed, replacing my chair beside the quilt frame. “Pick out any needle you like.”

Sarah sat at her place, which was across from me on the quilt frame. We had been working on this quilt, which had been commissioned by an English customer, for a little over a week. The customer had pieced the Sunshine and Shadow quilt herself and asked us only to quilt it.

Anna settled into her chair on the side between Sarah and me. She clicked her tongue. “I see another place here where the woman clearly didn’t piece her pattern correctly. Look at this.” She pointed to the offending spot of the quilt.

“Anna,” Sarah said. “Not everyone can be a
gut
quilter. I am sure this
Englischer
is proud of herself for finishing the quilt. It will be a treasured family heirloom.”

“True, but it is so difficult for me not to rip it apart and start over,” Anna huffed.

I laughed and handed her a box of quilting needles from a basket I kept beside the quilt frame. “Anna, you’re a perfectionist.”

Her expression cleared. “Most Amish quilters are when it comes to their work.”

Sarah threaded her needle. “What has happened? I don’t want to know simply because it’s news. I want to help the Millers. I really do.”

Anna, whose glasses were at the very tip of her nose, examined the needles in the box before making her selection. “We know that, Sarah.”

Sarah tied a knot at the end of her thread. “Mattie and Rachel are wary of me because I spoke of Mattie’s former sweetheart to others in town. I am sorry for it. I’m trying not to gossip, but it’s difficult for me. I wish the Millers would see I am trying.”

I winced. Sarah was right. Sure, she was a gossip, but she had proved to be loyal to me and Running Stitch. When Martha left, she could have sided with her, but she didn’t.

“Helping the Millers now will be a good start,” I said.

“What happened to Wanda?” Sarah asked. “How was she murdered?”

How odd was it for an Amish woman to ask such a question?

I threaded my own needle with sturdy white thread. “She died, but we don’t know she was murdered. It may have only been a tragic accident. The coroner will have to determine if it was murder.”

Anna began stitching. “Angie overheard the sheriff and the coroner talking.”

I blushed. “I may have heard a little bit. The coroner thinks she died of allergic reaction. He suspected peanuts.”

“Was Wanda allergic to peanuts?” Sarah asked.

“That’s what we have to find out. A member of her family or a close friend might know,” I said.

“What about Willow Moon?” Sarah asked. “Wanda was a regular customer at her shop, and they are both township trustees.”

Willow was a possibility. She ran the Dutchman’s Tea Shop next door to the Millers’ bakery. I had seen Wanda there many times myself. “I will ask her,” I promised.

After a set of eight tiny stitches, Anna pulled her needle through the fabric. “Finding out what happened to Wanda is important, but it is much more important we think of the Miller family and what they need during this time.”

Sarah buried her knot deep in the middle of the quilt. “Why are the Millers involved? You never told me over the phone, Angie.”

“Wanda died holding one of Rachel’s fry pies.” I threaded my needle. “Rachel gave it to her at the end of an argument.”

“She died holding a fry pie,” Sarah yelped.

I nodded.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” Sarah fidgeted in her seat. “What were they arguing about? Rachel’s never argued with a person in her life, well, other than me.”

“The pie factory Aaron would like to build. Wanda wanted to put a stop to it.”

“How terrible. And the sheriff thinks Rachel may have given the fry pie to Wanda to kill her?”

I nodded, hoping I was wrong.

“That’s ridiculous,” Sarah scoffed. “Rachel Miller is one of the mildest women ever to take a breath of life.” She leaned across the quilt frame. “What about Wanda’s family? They will need help too,” Sarah added.

I liked Sarah even more for remembering Wanda and her family. “According to the sheriff, Wanda’s nephew, Reed, is the only local family member. He’s fifteen and lived with his aunt.”

“What’s going to happen to him now?” Anna asked.

I set my needle against the cloth but had yet to start stitching. “He’s going to stay with the sheriff until some other family arrives. The boy’s mother lives in California.”

Sarah smiled. “The sheriff is a
gut
man. Don’t you think so, Angie?”

I frowned. “He is a very good sheriff. He cares about the people of Holmes County.” I pretended I had no idea what she implied with her question.

Anna shook her head as she pulled her needle through again. “It’s not right for a child to live so far away from his parents.”

“The sheriff said that Reed only mentioned a mother. There may not be a father in the picture.”

Anna frowned. “The poor boy. It will be
gut
for him to go back to his mother and to his home.”

In the Amish world, generation after generation stayed in the same place. The thought of one of their children moving across the country alone was hard to fathom. However, migration even happened to the Amish as their population grew and more Amish traveled west to places like Wyoming and Colorado in search of less expensive land to establish new Amish districts.