Murder, Plain and Simple (5 page)
Six
Rachel stared wide-eyed at the bag. “Aren’t those yours, Angela?”
Her comment got Mitchell’s attention, and a chill ran down my back.
He held up the bag in his left hand, and I noted the lack of a wedding ring. I gave myself a mental head smack.
Why is my brain even registering the mundane fact that the sheriff isn’t married at a time like this?
He let the bag dangle from his long piano-player fingers. “Is this yours, Miss Braddock?”
I swallowed. “Yes, but then again, everything in the shop’s mine. It’s my shop.”
He nodded. “What are these?”
“Rotary cutters. They’re used to cut fabric more quickly along a straightedge.”
“Have you touched them?”
“Yes, but not since the day before the party.”
“What party?”
I told him about the grand reopening.
“Who else might have touched the cutters?”
“No one.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me.
“I mean no one except whoever did that to poor Joseph Walker. I put the whole box of the cutters in the stockroom the day before the party and didn’t think about them again until—” The image of Joseph’s wound sprang into my mind, and I had the urge to stick my head between my knees. Rachel gripped me by the upper arm as if she thought I might keel over. She might have been right.
Mitchell lowered the evidence bag and gave me a half smile. “Was the stockroom locked all night?” he asked.
It was already in the lower eighties and the humidity climbed steadily with the heat. Despite the damp heat surrounding me, I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth as I thought. “No, it doesn’t have a lock. We went in and out of the room many times after the party, and I never noticed the cutters.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
I inwardly groaned. I shouldn’t have gotten them involved. “My quilting circle was helping me clean up.”
Rachel straightened to her full height. “I was there.” In her Amish clothes, she looked like a Pilgrim about to tell off the governor of Plymouth. The only difference was she wasn’t wearing buckle shoes. She wore plain white sneakers.
He smiled. “Anyone else?”
“Martha Yoder, Anna Graber, and Sarah Leham. They are all members of the quilting circle.”
“Any one of them had access to the stockroom.”
“Yes,” I said, trying to keep the frustration out of my voice.
“I’m going to have to talk to them.”
“But they had nothing to do with Mr. Walker’s—er—condition. They left hours before I did.”
A gleam caught in the sheriff’s eyes. “You were in the shop alone.”
Now I’d stepped into it, I thought.
“It’s my shop. Of course, I was the last one out.”
“What time did the quilters leave, Mrs. Miller?”
Rachel fingered the edge of her apron. “Nine.”
His aquamarine eyes zeroed in on me. “And what time did you leave?”
I sighed. “Midnight.”
“You were alone in the shop for three hours in the middle of the night. No one else was with you?”
“Does my dog count?”
A smile flashed across Mitchell’s face and disappeared. “No. Why did you stay so late by yourself?”
“I work better at night and wanted to finish up some things before I went home.” I shifted my weight from foot to foot, missing my cowboy boots, which were at home with Oliver.
“What things?”
I threw up my hands. “Filing, accounting, mundane work like that.”
“Who waited for you at home?”
I fidgeted. “No one. I live alone.”
He nodded as if he suspected that was the answer. “Who has keys to the shop?”
“I do, and so does Martha Yoder. She works for me.”
“Anyone else?”
I shook my head. “Unless my aunt’s lawyer kept a copy.”
“Who’s that?”
“Harvey Lemontop.”
He nodded. “I know him.” He tapped his pen to his cheek as he considered the information.
I could almost hear the gears click in his head as he processed what I’d told him. It was as if I could see the thoughts running through his head. The case was a done deal. I was the killer. I had means and opportunity. All that was left was motive.
“How well did you know Mr. Walker?”
Ahh, and now we get to that motive question.
I felt light-headed.
“Not well at all. His woodworking shop is right next door, but we hadn’t had much chance to speak since I took over Running Stitch. We are both so busy.” Even to my own ears, the excuse for not knowing Joseph sounded lame, but I certainly wasn’t going to tell the sheriff that the woodworker thought he owned Running Stitch.
“Do you know anyone who might have an issue with Mr. Walker?”
Farley Jung’s thin face and greasy hair popped into my head. What had he said the day I’d met him?
He will be silent on the topic of the Watermelon Fest soon enough.
“You do know someone.” The sheriff took a step closer to me.
“I know that he and those organizing the Watermelon Fest had a disagreement over the event, but it can’t be that,” I insisted. “No one would kill another person over watermelon.”
“You’d be surprised. You must mean Willow Moon and Farley Jung, then.”
I nodded.
“Okay, do you know if anyone has an issue with you?”
“With me? Why me?” The light-headedness was getting worse.
This can’t really be happening. It just can’t.
“He was killed in your stockroom. Maybe someone was sending you a message.”
I shivered. “I just moved here. I couldn’t possibly have made an enemy already.”
The only person who came to mind was Joseph Walker, but certainly he’d thought of me more as an annoyance than an enemy. Weren’t the Amish pacifists anyway?
“You need to stop by the sheriff’s department today to get fingerprinted. The address for the department is on the card I gave you.”
“Fingerprinted?” I squeaked.
“You said that you touched the murder weapon. We need your fingerprints to rule you out.”
Or convict me,
I thought with a lump in my throat. “Can I go back into the shop?” I asked. I needed to change the subject immediately. It was either that or crash to the sidewalk in a dead faint. Mitchell had already picked me up off the sidewalk once. We didn’t need a reprise of that embarrassment.
Mitchell shook his head. “Not today. Maybe not until the end of next week either. You’re going to want to have your stockroom professionally cleaned. Your insurance should cover that.”
I winced. I hadn’t even thought of the condition of the stockroom. Did my aunt have insurance on the shop? I made a mental note to ask Harvey Lemontop.
“Now what do I do?” The rhetorical question popped out of my mouth.
I felt Rachel’s small hand on my shoulder. “Come over to the bakery. A strong cup of coffee will do you good.”
Amish coffee was the best choice I had.
Sheriff Mitchell watched me, making me feel like a bug under a microscope. I wondered if he had learned that stare down in cop school or came by it naturally.
“Am I free to go?” Unsuccessfully, I tried to keep the edge out of my voice.
He nodded with a peculiar expression on his face. “I know where you live.”
Seven
Did Abigail know?
I felt queasy at the thought of the quiet Amish woman with milky skin hearing the news. Her sweet demeanor gave the impression that there wasn’t much she could handle. Would her husband’s death topple her completely?
Miller’s Amish Bakery smelled like fresh-baked bread with a hint of lemon oil and vinegar. The scent reminded me of my aunt Eleanor’s house, as they were my aunt’s main staples to clean her home. Oiled oak shelves supported loaves of fresh-baked Amish bread in clear plastic sacks held closed with bright yellow twist ties.
Directly across from the front door, a long glass display case ran the length of the room. Fry pies, Amish cookies, and fruit pies filled the case. Rachel’s frowning husband stood behind the counter. A young Amish girl no more than twenty with chestnut hair worn Amish-style—parted down the middle and secured at the nape of her neck into a bun—busied herself cleaning the display case with water and vinegar from a plastic spray bottle. Within the hour, the bakery would be overrun with English tourists, who were there to buy a piece of Amish life and feel wistful about simpler times. Considering Joseph’s death, Amish life might not be as simple as it seemed. The Amish forgo electricity and automobiles, but they still had problems too—big problems that led to murder, apparently.
I winced when I thought of all the business Running Stitch would lose during that day and over the next week. I hoped the sheriff would let me reopen by the following weekend or I could be in real trouble. It was already August; summer was the height of tourist season in Holmes County, and I desperately wanted to be open for the Watermelon Fest. As soon as the thought about the Watermelon Fest crossed my mind, guilt washed over me. How could I even think that when a man was dead, leaving behind a wife and children?
“Have a seat, Angie. I’ll bring you a cinnamon roll.” Rachel hurried over to her husband. He walked through the swinging door to the back of the bakery, and Rachel followed him.
Four small round tables were nestled in the corner of the room. Each table could seat two people at a time. It wasn’t much of a dining room, but it was a nice place to enjoy a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought so. There were two elderly Amish men with long white beards and navy shirts sitting at one table. They eyed me. I touched the top of my head and tried to tame the growing cocoon of blond curls. There was a stainless steel freezer in the corner of the room that held frozen treats. I examined my warped reflection in the freezer’s lid. I looked as if I had been electrocuted. Choosing not to brush my hair that morning had been a bad move. That would teach me to be late. Another idea struck me. Had I been on time, would I have run into the killer? When had Joseph been murdered? I had so many questions running through my head. The one weighing most heavily on my mind being, would I go to jail?
“Is something wrong with the freezer, Angela?” Rachel’s sweet voice asked.
I yelped and turned around.
Her cheeks pinkened prettily. “I’m sorry I scared you. Would you like some ice cream from the freezer?”
Actually a vat of ice cream sounded like what the doctor ordered right then, but I never indulged before noon. The cinnamon roll was different. It was breakfast . . . sort of.
Behind her the younger Amish woman watched me. I flashed her a smile. She turned away and concentrated on polishing the spotless counter. The two men at the table spoke in the low rumbling German-sounding Pennsylvania Dutch. Rachel turned her neck to look at them, silencing them immediately.
“What were they talking about?”
Her cheeks turned even redder. “You.”
“What did they say?” Her frankness made me smile.
“It’s no matter.”
I let it drop for the time being. “Who is that at the counter?”
“That’s Aaron’s sister, Mattie.”
Rachel set the plate of rolls on the table farthest away from the two old-timers. “I’ll get you some
kaffi
. Mattie made a fresh pot.”
When Rachel went back into the kitchen, I walked to the corner of the room on the pretense of perusing the bread selection. As I surveyed the loaves of dense Amish friendship bread, it hit me full force what a tremendous mistake I’d made by leaving Dallas. Who was I to think that I could run a quilt shop? I left behind a good-paying job with a pension, health insurance, and a dental plan. I also left behind Ryan Dickinson. Sure, he didn’t want to marry me, but maybe he would have changed his mind if I stayed in Texas.
I gave myself a mental kick in the head and slid into one of the two chairs at the table. I was letting the posttraumatic stress of finding a dead body rule my thoughts. Ryan was the biggest reason to
leave
Dallas, not to stay.
Rachel returned with two steaming white mugs of coffee as the cowbell on the bakery’s front door clanked against the glass. Sarah Leham rushed into the room. “Angie, there you are. Thank heavens you’re safe. As soon as I heard the news, I rushed straight to the shop. When I saw the police there and couldn’t find you, I suspected the worst.” Sarah’s prayer cap was slightly askew. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Sarah. You didn’t have to come all the way into town.”
“Of course I did. All of us in the quilting circle feel responsible for you, especially now.”
I winced. If Sarah knew about Joseph’s death, there was a good chance all the Amish in Rolling Brook knew. Despite the Amish aversion to gossip, Joseph’s murder was enough to keep tongues wagging in the county for weeks. Add in a newcomer from Texas like me and the talk could last months.
I stifled a grimace. “What was the worst?”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
“You said you feared the worst. What was it? Joseph’s death?”
Her eyes sparkled with barely restrained excitement. “Oh no, I already knew about that. I thought you had been arrested.”
Suddenly, the cinnamon roll didn’t look as tasty as it had a minute ago.
Screech!
One of the old-timers scratched the bottom of his chair across the wide-planked pine boards. He tipped his chair in our direction. I was surprised he didn’t cup his ear to hear our conversation more clearly.
“Why did you think that?” I lowered my voice.
Sarah either was unaware of the eavesdropper or didn’t care. “Because Joseph was murdered in your shop. The sheriff must think you did it.” She leaned in. “Especially if you consider the missing deed. What better motive is there than that? With Joseph gone, you don’t have to argue with anyone over who’s the rightful owner of Running Stitch.”
He must. She was right. Sheriff Mitchell seemed nice enough, but what if he put up a front to get my guard down? I bet a lot of women confessed to all sorts of indiscretions when faced with those aquamarine eyes. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans.
Rachel said something in their language, and Sarah glared at her. In English, Rachel added, “Angie’s done nothing wrong. The sheriff will know this.”
I wasn’t as sure. I plastered a brave smile on my face even though I felt the itch of tears in the corners of my eyes. “As you can see, I’m free. I’m fine, Sarah, really. Joseph is the one who is not.”
Sarah cleaned her glasses on the hem of her apron. “You’re right. What a terrible loss. Poor Abigail. She’s so sensitive. Who knows how she will take this news?”
A knot twisted in my stomach as Abigail’s pale face came to mind again. “Do they have any children?”
Sarah nodded. “Five girls, ages four to twelve. Each one is prettier than the last, but like most Amish men, Joseph always had hoped for a son to inherit his business.”
I tried to put Joseph’s children out of my mind. It was too painful. “How did you hear the news?”
“The buggy telegraph. It’s faster than one of your telephones.” She took a chair from a neighboring table and set it next to me. “That’s for sure.”
Reluctantly, Rachel took the other empty chair at the table and sat.
Sarah reached for one of the mugs of coffee.
Rachel pulled it away from her. “That’s for Angie.”
I waved her concern away. “It’s all right. I appreciate it, Rachel, but I’m feeling a little queasy. I don’t think I could drink it.”
Rachel squeezed my hand. “It’s the shock.” She stood up. “I should have thought of that. Let me make you some tea.”
Before I could stop her, she jumped from the chair and left me alone with Sarah. Sarah sipped my coffee. “Rachel Miller needs to learn not to be such a mother hen. She thinks everyone needs some mothering all the time. Folks need to learn how to stand on their own two feet.”
I felt the same way in principle, but I also believed if a person found a dead body, a little mothering was permissible. Was there something more to the tension between Rachel and Sarah? I thought about the warning about Sarah that Rachel whispered to me at the grand reopening party. Had the warning really been for my sake, or was there more to the story?
“Now, tell me. If the police didn’t arrest you, who did they arrest?”
“No one, at least no one yet. It’s only been”—I pulled my cell phone from my purse—“two hours since I found him.”
“And you were alone when you discovered the body?”
I glanced at the kitchen door. Where was Rachel? How long did it take to brew Amish tea anyway? “No. Danny Nicolson was with me. He was going to interview me for the tourism board Web site.”
“Did the police question Danny?”
Rachel returned with the mug of tea. “Sarah Leham, I hope you weren’t interrogating Angie. We need to care for her now. She’s had a frightful morning.”
Sarah grimaced. “Do the police have a list of suspects?”
Rachel sighed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the two elderly Amish men lean forward even more. I hoped they wouldn’t break their hips if they fell out of their chairs. I discovered the source of the buggy telegraph. I lowered my voice. “Not yet.”
“Sarah, you keep this up and I will have to ask you to leave.” Rachel lifted her chin. “Angie, you haven’t touched your cinnamon roll. It’s fresh from the oven.”
The nausea that started with Sarah’s inquisition wouldn’t go away.
I’m a murder suspect.
How did that happen? “Rachel, thank you, but I want to go home. I need to check on Oliver anyway. I hadn’t thought I would be gone this long. I’m sure he’s wondering where I am.” I stood quickly and knocked over my chair. Just as fast I picked it up and tucked it under the table.
“You can’t leave yet, Angie,” Sarah said, giving no heed to Rachel’s warning. “We have so much to talk about.”
That was all the encouragement I needed. Rachel seemed to think so too. She turned to the counter. “Mattie, bring me a bakery box.”
A strand of chestnut hair fell from the younger woman’s prayer cap. Quietly, she tucked it back into place and did what her sister-in-law asked. Mattie handed Rachel the box while keeping her eyes trained on the wooden floor.
“Mattie, how are you, dear?” Sarah asked. “I saw you chatting with Zeph Shetler at the general store not long ago. Did you have a nice talk?”
Mattie’s face turned the deepest shade of red I’d ever seen. It was close to eggplant purple. Without a word, she spun on her heels and walked through the kitchen door.
On the bright side, it seemed that Sarah’s interest in my life wasn’t some kind of special treatment. She was an equal-opportunity gossip, which might explain Rachel’s dislike of her. I wondered if Sarah had any close friends in the Amish community. I knew they must frown upon her rumormongering.
“Sarah,” Rachel admonished. “You embarrassed the poor girl.” Rachel slid the cinnamon roll from the plate to the bakery box.
“I did see her with Zeph Shetler. Do you think the two will marry in the fall?”
Rachel’s jaw twitched. She turned her back on Sarah and spoke to me. “The roll’s not a head-sized doughnut, but I hope it will work in a pinch.”
I gave her a wobbly smile. “Thank you, Rachel.”
I took the bakery box from her hand. Sarah followed me to the door. “If you need anything, don’t be afraid to call on us.”
I nodded and stepped outside. The humidity hit me like a wall. Several of the police cars were now gone. I noted that Sheriff Mitchell’s car was still there and three other sheriff’s department vehicles. Luckily, none blocked my little SUV in. I hurried over to the car and hopped in the driver’s seat. As I pulled away from the curb, Sheriff Mitchell stepped outside of Running Stitch and watched me drive away.