Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery (8 page)

Jonah, who was always on the lookout for how to make a profit, might be tempted by such a move. His mother would be devastated. By Anna’s frown, I suspected she entertained the same thoughts. I didn’t think she had to worry. There was no way Jonah’s prickly wife Miriam would leave Holmes County.

The cowbell hanging from the nail on the inside of Running Stitch’s front door rang as Mattie stepped into the shop.

I
jumped out of my chair. “Mattie, what are you doing here?”

She removed her thin shawl and hung it on the peg along the wall. “I saw Anna’s buggy in front of your shop while I locked up the bakery. I thought you all might be here then.”

“You were in the bakery all this time?” Anna asked.

“Aaron said there was no reason for us to close. Rachel was too distraught to stay, so I volunteered. They needed to be home with their boys.”

Sarah cocked her head. “Did anyone visit the bakery?”

She swallowed. “
Ya
, one of the sheriff’s deputies came in. He wanted to see the kitchen.”

Sarah’s mouth made an O shape. “Why?”

I knew why. The peanuts.

The young Amish woman shook her head. “I don’t know. There was nothing to see. I wasn’t baking anything. We do most of our baking in the early morning. I had already cleaned all the mixers and ovens for the next day.” She gripped her hands in front of her. “He seemed upset when I’d told him I’d done that, but the sheriff didn’t tell us not to clean the kitchen. Why would we not? Wanda died at the auction, not our bakery.”

This was bad. Very bad.

“Did he take anything from the bakery?” I asked.

She nodded.

Sarah spun in her seat to face Mattie. “What?”

“He took a jar of peanut butter and a bag of peanuts. He asked me if we had peanut oil in the bakery, but I said we didn’t. Peanut oil is not an Amish ingredient.”

Sarah turned to me. “Maybe Wanda did die from a peanut allergy.”

Anna stood and walked over to the melancholy girl, taking her arm. “Mattie, come and sit down. You have had quite a day. Tell us more about the deputy’s visit.”

“Which deputy was it?” I asked.

“Deputy Anderson,” she murmured.

Deputy Anderson was a good-natured but bumbling cop. Hopefully, he would miss anything truly incriminating of the Millers, not that I believed there was such evidence in the bakery.

Mattie slipped into her customary chair around the quilting frame, but she didn’t reach for a needle. “He took many pictures too. Picture after picture. I thought he would never stop. He took photographs of the front of the bakery too.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He did this when there were
Englisch
customers. I shudder to imagine what they must have thought. I shouldn’t have let him inside the bakery. Aaron will be angry with me, especially when he hears about all the pictures.”

I squeezed her hand. “You did the right thing. It shows the police your family will cooperate and has nothing to hide.”

Her eyes went wide. “We don’t. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“We know that,” Anna reassured her and patted the quilt topper. “You might as well make a few stitches as we talk.
Gott
loves busy hands.”

Mattie nodded. “You are right.”

I slid the needle box across the top of the quilt to her.

Mattie selected a needle. “Sarah, I’m sorry I didn’t stop by here and tell you that I wouldn’t be coming back to Running Stitch. You have been a great help to Angie today by minding the store.”

“It is all right,
kind
,” Sarah said with an understanding smile. “You needed to care for your family at the moment.”

Anna snipped a length of thread from a spool. “I imagine Aaron has already received a visit from the bishop and the deacon. They will want to hear about what has happened.”

Mattie blinked away tears as she threaded her needle. “It is so terrible. Rachel would never hurt anyone. How can the sheriff believe she would?”

“Will there be trouble from the church leaders?” I asked.

Anna shook her head. “I don’t think so. They will be more concerned about how this will make the district look. However, the Millers have never caused any trouble before. I know the bishop, who is a
gut
man, will give them the benefit of the doubt.” Anna reached across the quilt top and patted Mattie’s trembling hands. “There’s nothing to worry about in that regard, Mattie. Rest assured.”

“Mattie,” I said. “The sheriff will consider Rachel and Wanda’s argument about the pie factory Rachel’s motivation for the murder. What is your brother’s relationship with Wanda and the trustees?”

Mattie swallowed. “Aaron has always gotten along with the trustees well. They have always respected his business and praised the part the bakery plays in the community. That changed when Aaron bought the land at the end of Sugartree Street to build his pie factory.”

“What happened?”

“At first it was fine. In fact the trustees seemed to be happy Aaron bought the land instead of that
Englisch
developer.”

“What changed their minds?” Sarah asked.

“The pie factory. I don’t know what they expected Aaron to do with that much land, but they were furious over the idea of a factory.” She took a breath. “Their reaction came as a complete shock to my brother. He thought the trustees would celebrate another Amish business in town and a place that would create more jobs.”

“When did he find out they didn’t like his idea?” I asked.

She began her first stitch on the quilt. “At the trustee’s meeting. Aaron did what he was supposed to, and he presented the plans for the new factory to the trustees at a public meeting. He even sent them each a copy of the plans ahead of time.” She wiped away a tear. “He worked so hard on those plans. He typed them out on an old typewriter at the library and paid the librarian to copy a proposal for each trustee.”

“But they didn’t like the plans,” Anna said.

Aaron’s younger sister nodded. “
Nee
, they didn’t. Aaron thought that it would be easy. He has never had any problems with the trustees before. It looked like the trustees would approve his plans with little comment until Wanda spoke up. She talked the others out of approving them. She insisted it broke some township building ordinance.”

I grimaced down at my own quilting. What Mattie told us made the Millers’ motives for the murder—if it was a murder—only that much stronger.

“How did she talk them out of approving the plans?” I asked.

Mattie shook her head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there. My brother doesn’t take me to such meetings. Rachel didn’t even go.”

“How large are Aaron’s plans? Have you seen them?”

She shook her head again. “My brother does not show me such things.”

“Is there any chance I can see those plans?” I asked. Maybe if I knew how big the factory was to be, I would understand why Wanda was against them.

She worried her lips. “I don’t know. I don’t know where my brother keeps them. He won’t want us to get in the middle of his argument with the trustees. Aaron insists this will be all over soon.
Gott
will take care of us.”

He may, I thought. But it wouldn’t hurt to move the process along, in my opinion. Maybe Rachel would be able to give me a copy of the plans, but then, she would be disobeying her husband. I didn’t want to put her in that position.

Suddenly I had another idea. Willow! Willow, who knew everything that happened in town politics, likely had a copy. I promised myself that I would ask her the moment the tea shop opened the next day.

“At the very least, I’m going to find out what this mysterious ordinance is Wanda used to shoot down Aaron’s plans.”

Mattie bit her lip. “I don’t think Aaron would like it if you helped him in any way.”

I frowned. “He might not like it, but I don’t answer to Aaron.”

Sarah pointed her tiny seamstress scissors at us. “All this talk about the factory is not focusing on the real issue—what happened to Wanda?”

Mattie shook her head. “It seems to me that the sheriff is blowing her death way out of proportion. Why would he think it was anything other than a heart attack?”

I tapped my needle against my thimble. “The sheriff told me that Wanda reported prank phone calls to the sheriff’s department.” I paused. “If it was a phone call, the person probably was English.”

Anna snorted. “Why do you think that? The Amish have shed phones and are just as likely to call Wanda as an
Englischer
is.”

She had a point.

Mattie sat very still. “Does the sheriff think Wanda was murdered because she’s been getting these calls?”

I set my thimble on the quilt top. “I think he’s treating it like a homicide because he feels guilty the department didn’t take her complaints more seriously.”

Sarah inched forward in her chair. “Well, he should. How could they ignore such a complaint?”

“I guess Wanda was notorious for filing complaints with the sheriff’s department, so they brushed it off,” I said. “We do know the cause of death.”

“What do you mean?” Mattie asked.

Sarah told Mattie about the peanut allergy theory.

Mattie gasped. “That’s why the deputy took the peanut butter and peanuts from the bakery? But there are no peanuts or peanut butter in our fry pie recipe.”

“There’s always the chance the peanuts ended up there by mistake. Maybe cross contamination.”

The women frowned at my comment.

“What I mean is, say you made peanut brittle and chopped up a bunch of peanuts on a cutting board. Later you use the same cutting board to fold the dough for the fry pies. A tiny bit of the peanuts could get into the fry pie dough.”

“But we didn’t make any peanut brittle,” Mattie said, confused. “We only make that at Christmastime.”

“I know that. It was just an example of how peanuts could end up in the fry pies accidentally.”

“But that’s not possible. My brother is meticulous about washing every spoon, bowl, and cutting board between recipes.”

“I’m not saying this to offend you, Mattie. I’m only telling you how it may happen.” I set my needle on the quilt top. “It would probably be best if you didn’t tell the police about washing everything between recipes.”

Her delicate brows knit together. “Why not?”

I sighed. “Because if it was impossible the cross contamination was accidental, then it was intentional.” I paused. “Which means it is murder.”

I
stood. “It’s late, ladies. Your families must wonder where you are.”

“How are you going to solve the case, Angie?” Mattie asked.

I frowned. “All I want to do is show the sheriff that you, Aaron, and Rachel had nothing to do with Wanda’s death.”

“What are you going to do first?” Sarah asked.

“Tomorrow, I will drop in on Willow Moon and find out about the ordinance and what else she might know.” I smiled at Mattie’s worried expression. “Don’t worry, Mattie. I wouldn’t be surprised if your brother and Rachel were cleared by the end of the day tomorrow. It’s getting dark. Let me give you a ride home.”

The ladies stood and gathered up their belongings, and I locked Running Stitch’s front door behind us.

I waited for Mattie as she hugged each woman good-bye. If the hug was any indication, things were much better between Sarah and Mattie than they had been just a few weeks ago. I was glad. Sarah Leham’s farm was a close neighbor to the Grabers, so Anna and Sarah climbed into Anna’s buggy.

Across the street, Willow Moon’s tea shop had a cheerful jack-o’-lantern in the front window. Willow’s apartment was above her tea shop, but the curtains were closed. It was only six in the evening, so she may be awake and ready to talk.

Oliver whimpered as he waited beside my SUV. “Don’t worry, Ollie. We’ll go home right after we drop off Mattie. It’s been a long day.”

He gave me a doggy grin. Really, the Frenchie could understand English, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he picked up some Pennsylvania Dutch since we moved to Ohio.

A breeze picked up leaves fallen from the small maple tree outside of my shop’s window and blew them across the street. Oliver ducked between my legs, and I shivered. I wondered if the Amish ladies noticed the eerie autumn feeling. Fall in Texas didn’t have the drama of Ohio’s autumn. Some leaves changed and the days were cooler, but it didn’t have the colorful display of submitting itself to the coming winter. Even though I’d lived in Ohio until the age of ten, I had forgotten what fall was like here and the creep-crawly feeling that it could give me.

“Angie, are you ready to go?” Mattie asked.

I nodded and helped Oliver hop into the backseat of my SUV. Mattie climbed in the front, and we were off to the Millers’ farm.

Somehow Oliver snuck from the backseat and into Mattie’s lap by the time we turned off Sugartree. His thick toenails must have been digging into her legs through her skirt. “You can make him climb into the backseat if he’s bothering you. He thinks that’s his seat. Really, he thinks the entire car is his.” I laughed.

“He’s not bothering me.” She scratched Oliver between his batlike ears.

The Frenchie leaned into her caress.

“How does Oliver like having a kitten in the house?” Mattie asked.

Oliver perked up at the question. He definitely knew the word “kitten.”

Two weeks ago, Oliver and I brought a nine-week-old gray-and-white kitten home to live with us. He had been from a litter of kittens fostered by my friend Jessica Nicolson, who owned an antique shop in Millersburg. Jessica decided to keep the mother, Cherry Cat, but she planned to find homes for all the kittens. The moment Oliver saw the little gray-and-white kitten, I knew that we would have to take him home. It was love at first sight.

I laughed. “He lives in fear most days.”

“He’s afraid of Dodger? But he is so tiny!”

I chuckled. “He’s not afraid of Dodger. He’s afraid for him. The kitten has a knack for trouble. He’s named after a very mischievous Charles Dickens character and he lives up to his name. I can’t tell you the number of places I have had to rescue him from since we brought him home.”

Oliver whimpered and shifted on Mattie’s lap. I reached over and patted his head. “Don’t worry, Oliver. I’m sure Dodger has been a perfect gentleman in the house all day.”

He gave me a look. Truthfully, the Frenchie was probably right.

As we drove out of town, onto the dark country roads, I clicked on my brights and kept my eye out for the reflection of the orange triangle off the back of the buggies as they drove in the darkness. Most of the Amish in Holmes County, but not all, used the slow moving vehicle sign. Some of the most conservative Amish refused to attach it to their buggies because they claimed God would protect them from an accident.

“You will help us, won’t you?” Mattie asked.

“Hmm?” I murmured with my eyes peeled.

“You will help Aaron and Rachel. You will make sure the sheriff knows they didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’ve already told you that I would.” I didn’t take my eyes off of the road. “Don’t be too upset the sheriff is looking at your family. He has to give this case his full attention. Wanda was an influential person in the county. This is a big investigation for him.”

“I can’t help but worry. I know
Gott
doesn’t want us to fret,” she whispered as she ran her finger across the top of Oliver’s smooth head. “But I can’t help it.” Her fingers stopped, and my Frenchie whimpered.

I couldn’t help but worry either.

“I need you to help them. I know my brother—he will not argue with the police if they accuse him or Rachel of something wrong. It is not the Amish way to do things. It is not his nature either.”

I glanced at her for half a millisecond before returning my concentration to looking for buggies. “Back at the shop you acted like that was a bad idea.”

She patted Oliver’s side. “Only because Aaron won’t like it.”

“Then we won’t let him know.”

She blinked at me. “How?”

“First, you shouldn’t talk about it at all in front of Aaron.”

“Then, you can’t tell Rachel either,” she said. “Rachel can’t keep a secret from her husband. They are married.”

“Okay. Then, we won’t tell Rachel either.”

She was silent for a minute.

We came to a four-way stop under a lone streetlight. With no buggies in sight, I risked stealing a look at her.

“Okay,” she said finally. “I am doing this because it is the right thing to do for my family. No matter what Aaron will think. You will help me?”

“Yes.” What else could I say?

The little SUV bumped and rocked into the Millers’ driveway. A lantern hung from the wide front porch. I was certain Rachel lit it for her sister-in-law.

The screen door slammed opened, and Aaron stepped outside. I walked with Mattie to the front porch to meet her brother.

“
Danki
for bringing Mattie home.” He looked at his sister. “I thought you might be at the library again tonight.”

Mattie shook her head. “I spent some time with Angie at Running Stitch after closing up the bakery.”

She didn’t mention the other members of the quilting circle were also there. If she had, Aaron would have known that something was up.

A chilly breeze whipped around our feet. It caught up Mattie’s skirt and pressed the fabric against her legs.

“It is late and cold,” Aaron murmured. “Mattie, please go inside. Rachel is putting the children to bed.”

Mattie pursed her lips, but after nodding to me did what her brother told her. Unmarried and with no living father, Mattie’s brother was in charge of her life.

Aaron removed the lantern from the rusty nail on the porch. “Angie, I know you may want to, but please do not help the police with this matter. Please know that I do not want you to do that for me or my family.”

I wrapped my arms around my waist to protect myself against the chilly wind. “I understand how you feel, Aaron.”

He visibly relaxed. “
Gut.
I am glad. This is a terrible day and a very sad accident for Wanda and her family. Our prayers are for all involved.” He held the lantern under his chin and the light bounced off the angles and planes of his face. The light highlighted the red tone in his beard. I almost stepped away.

I swallowed. “Please tell Rachel and Mattie I said
gute Nacht
.”

He smiled at my use of the Amish word. “Rachel will be pleased with your pronunciation, and I will.
Gute Nacht
, Angie.”

Seeing the ghoulish cast the lantern’s light gave Aaron’s face, I wondered if there was any chance he was capable of hurting Wanda. As I walked back to Oliver and my car, I shook this idea from my head. Clearly, the spookiness of October had gotten to me.