Murder, Plain and Simple (7 page)
ter Ten
“I’m sorry that I didn’t visit more often,” I blurted out. “I mean that I didn’t come and visit Aunt Eleanor more often. I should have.”
She smiled. “Your
aenti
understood. She loved you like a daughter. She wouldn’t have left you her shop otherwise.”
Her comment only made me feel worse. “I forgot how pretty it was here in the summer. Everything is green and full of life. It’s so different from Dallas.”
Anna pulled back on her horse a tad to slow his pace as we made our way up the long drive. “I’ve never been, but I don’t doubt that. I don’t think I would care much to live in a big city.”
I tried to place Anna, or any of the ladies from the quilting circle, in Dallas. It didn’t work. Just like placing Ryan in Holmes County didn’t work. Some folks needed to stay in their part of the world. Was I different because I could navigate in both, or was I a different person in one place than I was in the other? Neither Anna nor Ryan could mask their true selves. Maybe I was a chameleon.
Anna parked the buggy beside a two-story farmhouse that belonged to her son, Jo-Jo, who had been my partner in crime as a child.
Any further discussion was drowned out by the squawking of geese. A flock of thirty domestic geese clustered in a pen beside a large whitewashed barn.
I peered under the seat at Oliver. He heard them. His nails scratched at the buggy’s floor as he tried to further conceal himself under the bench.
“Ollie, they aren’t flying.” I looked up at Anna. “They can’t fly, can they?”
She laughed. “No.”
Oliver whimpered.
Anna wrinkled her nose. “The geese are Jonah’s latest experiment. He wants the farm to succeed. That’s not an easy task with all the corporate farms producing mass crops.” She placed a hand to her head. “You would not believe the squawking. I have to sleep with three pillows over my head to find any rest, and I can still hear them. I wish my son had chosen a quieter animal to farm, like rabbits.”
Oliver agreed.
The screen door of the farmhouse opened, and a young, handsome Amish man in a straw hat with his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows stepped out. “
Mamm
, what are you doing here? I thought you were off to the quilt shop this morning.”
“So did I, son.” She turned to me. “You remember Angie, don’t you? Eleanor’s niece. She inherited the quilt shop.”
Jo-Jo grinned. “Sure do.”
A memory of a towheaded boy whom I played with as a child tickled the back of my mind. I’d hated to leave him almost as much as I hated to leave my aunt and her quilters. “Jo-Jo, it’s so good to see you.”
Jo-Jo’s face turned impossibly red. “I don’t go by that name anymore.”
Anna smiled. “It’s been nearly twenty years since you two played together as children, hasn’t it?”
Jonah, Anna’s youngest child, who was a year older than me, grimaced. “That was a long time ago. Much has changed.”
I started to move my arm to offer a handshake but thought better of it. “It’s nice to see you again. Congratulations about the family and farm. It looks like you have done well for yourself.”
His mouth tilted up at the corner. “I’ve done all right.”
Anna jerked a thumb in the direction of the geese. “I wished you could have done all right without the addition of those monsters.”
The geese seemed to understand Anna’s insult and began squawking with increased gusto.
The second corner of Jonah’s mouth turned up.
Anna pushed her glasses up her short nose. “One of them chased Ezra into the house. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought the goose was herding the poor child.”
He had a full-on grin now and looked so much like the blond boy I remembered. “It’s
gut
for children to learn how to behave around the animals the hard way. That will make them remember better than anything I say to them will.” He ground the toe of his work boot in the dirt. “I heard you are engaged. Congratulations.”
“I was.” I paused. “I’m not anymore.”
“Oh.” Jonah cleared his throat. “I’m headed over to the Walker place. The family is taking it hard.”
My mental trip down memory lane came to an abrupt halt. “Have you seen Abigail?” The question rushed out of my mouth.
“No, but her brother, Elijah Knepp, stopped by the farm earlier. He said she was in a bad way. My wife, Miriam, is over there now sitting with her. I’m going over to do the chores.” He tapped the dirt off his boot.
Anna sniffed. “Elijah should be the one who is doing the chores.”
Jonah’s mouth twitched. “He said he had business in town, and I offered to step in.”
Stepping in and offering help was so like the Jo-Jo I remembered.
“I must go. Since the buggy’s already out, can I take it?” Jonah asked.
Anna nodded. “Of course.”
“Danki.”
Jonah stepped up into the buggy. “I have the family buggy hitched behind the barn if you need it.”
Then, I remembered something. “Wait.”
Jonah turned around, as if he knew what was coming next.
“Ya?”
He had one leg suspended in the air like he was about to stomp out a line dance.
Before I could answer, Oliver stuck his nose out from under the front seat of the buggy.
“Who’s this?” Jonah asked.
“That’s Oliver.” I slapped my leg. “Come out, boy.”
The cowardly canine wiggled backward.
I stepped around Jonah and stuck my hands under the seat. I grabbed Oliver by both shoulders and pulled. He barely moved an inch. I put my hands on my hip. “Oliver.” I felt my face turn red. Of course, the dog would misbehave at a time like this.
Jonah peeked under the bench. “He’s shivering.” He wrinkled his brow. “What’s wrong with him?”
I grimaced. “It’s your geese. He’s afraid of birds.”
“How can a dog be afraid of birds?” Jonah asked with some of the Jo-Jo twinkle I remembered in his eye.
I shrugged.
A grin spread across my old friend’s face. “I’ll get him out.”
“Don’t hurt him.” My eyes went wide.
“Don’t worry.” He reached under the seat, and after a few grunts came up with the dog. He placed Oliver into my arms. The dog promptly buried his head in my armpit. “Life must be different in the big city. I never met a dog afraid of birds before. I’ve met plenty of birds afraid of dogs, though.” He hopped up into the buggy. “
Mamm
, I should be home with Miriam and the children this afternoon.”
“Where are the children now?” Anna asked.
“Miriam has the baby with her, and we sent the others to her sister’s home for the day.”
Anna nodded.
“I told Elijah about the Watermelon Fest in Rolling Brook next weekend. I don’t know if he will help mend the barn.” Jonah looked down at us from his seat in the buggy.
Anna adjusted her glasses on her nose. “Some folks are still uncomfortable with him being back home.”
“I suspect Sheriff Mitchell will want to talk to him,” he trailed off.
My heart gave a little flip when Sheriff Mitchell was mentioned.
Anna and I watched as Jonah rode away in the buggy. “He’s a good boy. I’m glad that you got to see him again. He moped for days after your family moved to Texas and looked forward to seeing you each summer. It was hard for him when you stopped coming.” The next part she whispered under her breath. “But it was for the best.”
I wanted to ask her why but decided I didn’t need to. It was for the best because Jonah was Amish, and I was not. Maybe as children our friendship was innocent, but as teenagers, it was a recipe for disaster.
I placed Oliver on the ground and he hid behind my leg. I wondered if there was a dog therapist in town I could take him to. I suspected Anna wouldn’t know of any. “Who is Elijah Knepp?”
Her mouth twisted as if she didn’t like the taste of the words that she was about to say. “He’s Abigail’s younger brother. I hope he will be there to support his sister like she has supported him after all these years.”
“Why did you think it was a good thing he wouldn’t be at the Watermelon Fest?”
She sighed. “Elijah has had a tough time with the law. He just got out of prison.”
I stepped back and nearly tripped over Oliver. I leaned down and picked him up. He was going to be as active as a rock as long as there were birds in the vicinity. “What did he go to prison for?”
“It is no secret. He burned down a barn. It was—” She stopped herself.
“What?”
She ran a hand over her apron. “It was not important.”
I gasped. “Was it an accident?”
She shook her head. “And the police would have never found Elijah if Joseph hadn’t turned in his brother-in-law.”
My eyes widened. “He must be a suspect for Joseph’s murder, then.”
Not that I wished any ill will toward a man trying to get back on his feet, but this was great news for me. Elijah had a real, plausible motivation for murder. It was much better than the one the police suspected of me, which was not being welcome to the neighborhood. Elijah couldn’t be the only one either. In fact, there must be dozens of folks in Holmes County with a motive to hurt the woodworker. I shivered to think that there could be more than one person capable of what I saw in the stockroom. However, I had to believe that to solve the murder, and it was worse to imagine myself in an orange jumpsuit with a six-foot woman named Big Bertha as my cell mate. If the police had a viable suspect, then they wouldn’t concentrate on me so much. Maybe the shop would open sooner too. Financial ruin wasn’t around the corner after all. I winced. How could I think of the shop and myself when Abigail and her children were in so much pain?
Anna studied me. “Why are you making that face?”
I forced a smile. “What face?” I cleared my throat. “It was nice to see Jonah again. It brought back a lot of memories.”
She smiled. “Have you eaten anything today?”
Forlornly, I thought about the enormous uneaten cinnamon bun back at my rented house in Millersburg. “No.”
She clicked her tongue. “I didn’t think so. Let me make you something as we wait for the rest of the ladies to get here.”
“The rest of the ladies?”
“I called an emergency quilting circle meeting. We shouldn’t sit around and worry with idle hands. The best action to do at a time like this is quilt. I promised you a lesson after all. It will give us the peace we seek.”
Oliver ran after Anna as if his tail were on fire. I wasn’t sure if it was the sound of the geese that spurred him on or the promise of food.
er Eleven
Rachel stepped into the kitchen with Abram on her hip. “Am I the first one here?”
The older woman nodded. “But everyone is coming.”
A frown formed on Rachel’s delicate features. “Everyone?”
Anna arched an eyebrow. “Sarah is coming too.” She returned to the kitchen to prepare the coffee.
Rachel blushed, and again, I wondered if there was something more to Rachel’s mistrust of Sarah. Rachel pulled a lap quilt from her blanket and laid it on the floor. She placed Abram on his tummy on top of it and removed a handful of wooden blocks from her basket for him to play with. The baby closed his fists over one of the blocks and gurgled at us as if to ask if we saw his accomplishment.
Rachel perched on the oak rocking chair closest to her son. “You must think me awful for not wanting Sarah to be here. She—”
Anna poked her head through the doorway that led into the kitchen. “Angie, can you carry this tray for me into the living room?”
I glanced back to Rachel. Relief was clearly visible on her face. “Go on,” she whispered.
In the kitchen, Anna had a pewter tray set out with five steaming mugs of coffee, a creamer of milk, and bowls of white and brown sugar. “Put it on the end table beside the couch. The ladies can help themselves from there.”
Oliver lay on the blanket next to Abram. His tongue hung out of his mouth and his stubby tail wagged back and forth.
I placed the tray on the end table as instructed. “I’m so sorry Oliver climbed on your quilt. I can put him outside.” As I said that, I cringed. The last place Oliver would want to be was outside with the geese, and I didn’t like the idea of the dog being out of my sight. If Joseph’s murder was really a message for me, wouldn’t my dog be an easy target?
Rachel laughed. “Don’t even think about it. Abram is completely taken by him.”
I examined the plump pair on the floor and saw that she was right. Abram held on to one of Oliver’s batlike ears as if it were the edge of his favorite blanket. My little dog grinned, clearly enjoying the attention. I was about to ask her what she’d wanted to say about Sarah when I heard the rattle of a buggy outside the house. More members of the quilting circle arrived. My questions for Rachel would have to wait.
The screen door creaked open, and Martha loosened her prayer cap tie as she stepped into the house. “Anna, I can smell your sweet
kaffi
from my buggy. I would love a cup. Maybe it will clear all of our heads.” She turned her blue eyes on me. “Terrible news for the shop and, of course, Joseph,
Gott
rest his soul. I’m glad to see you in one piece.”
I handed Martha a cup of coffee.
She placed her quilting basket on the floor next to a rocker identical to the one Rachel sat in and took the white mug from me. “When will the shop reopen?”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know. It’s not likely to be this week.”
Martha sat on the rocking chair. “How could this have happened?”
“I don’t know.” I selected a cup of coffee for myself.
“Didn’t you remember to lock up the shop last night?” The sharpness of her voice was unexpected.
I nearly dropped the mug of coffee I held. “Y-yes. Of course, I remembered to lock up.”
Martha leaned back in the rocker. Her expression was hooded. “Maybe you forgot. How else could anyone have gotten inside the shop?”
I remembered the sheriff’s questions about the keys. Martha had the only other key. Unless Harvey Lemontop kept a spare. I would be sure to ask him.
Rachel’s forehead creased. “If Angie says that she locked it, then she did. Maybe someone broke the lock. It wouldn’t have been that hard to do.” She removed fabric from her basket. “Did the police say how Joseph and”—she searched for the right word—“the other person got inside the shop?”
A flush crept up my neck. “The sheriff thinks whoever broke in either had a key or used a credit card on the back door.”
Martha flushed. “Had a key? That’s ridiculous. You and I are the only ones with keys.”
“Maybe there is another key we don’t know about. Aunt Eleanor was sick a long time—maybe she gave it to someone and forgot to get it back.”
“Absolutely not. She would not have done that without telling me. If there was another key to Running Stitch, I would know about it.” Martha scowled into her coffee. “You must have left the door unlocked.”
“I didn’t,” I said, but doubt crept into my voice.
Had I locked the door?
I thought that I had, but I couldn’t remember with one hundred percent certainty. I remembered letting Oliver into the backyard for a potty break after the quilters left. Did I lock it when he came back inside the store? I must have.
“Did Joseph and his killer enter the store together?” Anna asked.
“What?” I asked.
“Did they go in together or separately? Who was there first?”
“I—I don’t know,” I said.
“How did Joseph die?” Martha sipped her coffee.
The room grew warmer, and I placed my mug of coffee back on the end table. It was too hot to hold in this humidity. The Amish didn’t air-condition their homes, and little breeze came through the screen door and open windows. I didn’t want to tell them the fabric cutters they teased me about had been used as the murder weapon.
“Gude mariye!”
Sarah Leham’s shrill voice rang through the front door. Despite Rachel’s obvious misgivings about the nosy quilter, I couldn’t be more relieved to see her.
The screen door smacked against its frame as Sarah hurried into the room, carrying an enormous basket. She set the basket by the door. “I didn’t know which project we’d be working on, so I brought everything.”
Martha arched an eyebrow. “Since the quilt frame is stuck in the shop, we will be piecing today.”
Sarah grinned. “
Gut.
I brought two projects that need piecing. It’s always so difficult to decide which one to work on. My husband says that I should stick to one project to the end, but when I think of a new pattern or see a new bolt of fabric, I want to jump into a fresh project right away. My husband says I’m far too impulsive for an Amish woman, but that is just my way.” She took a breath.
Martha pursed her lips. “Your husband is right. If you start something, you should finish it.”
Sarah shrugged off Martha’s criticism as Anna stepped into the room. “Fix your
kaffi
and find a place. The Lord said idle hands can lead to trouble.”
Sarah picked up a cup of coffee and added cream and sugar. “I’m glad you called this meeting, Anna. There is so much we need to discuss. I think we should get right to it.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
Rachel kept her head bent down over her fabric pieces. Oliver belly-crawled over to her and lay on her right foot. Oliver loved feet almost as much as he feared birds. I smiled to myself as I remembered the way he would lick Ryan’s toes, much to my former fiancé’s disdain. At the time, I had been embarrassed by Oliver’s behavior. Now I relished the memory.
Sarah settled on one end of the sofa closest to the coffee tray. “What makes you smile, Angie?”
It sounded like an innocent question, but considering its source, I doubted it. “Oliver likes Abram and Rachel. I’m glad he’s making friends. It’s been a tough adjustment for him.”
Martha glanced at Oliver, who had fallen asleep the second his head hit Rachel’s big toe. “He’s a dog. Why would he need adjusting?”
I bit my tongue. Literally.
Anna sat on a small easy chair and began to remove dozens of two-inch-by-one-inch lavender, cornflower blue, and cream diamond fabric from her basket. “Angie sees her dog as a member of the family.”
Martha pulled four shoofly quilt squares from her basket. They were already pieced together. She began pinning the squares to one another, so that she could sew them together. “With managing Running Stitch these last two years, I haven’t had much time to spend with animals.”
My brow creased. Was that what this was about? Martha was upset about working at the quilt shop? I opened my mouth to ask, but Sarah was much faster with the tongue. “I can imagine that caring for the shop while Eleanor was ill was difficult. You must be happy Angie is here now to take that burden. Why, I can see her making all kinds of improvements. Maybe Angie being here will attract even more
Englischers
to the shop.” She turned to me. “Surely, you will know what appeals to them better than we would.”
Martha concentrated on the pieces of cloth in her lap, but I didn’t get the impression that Sarah’s declaration brought her much comfort.
Anna gathered up her pieces and pulled up the bottom of her black apron so they were cradled into its fold. “Sarah, switch places with me, so that I can instruct Angie how to piece.”
Sarah stood without complaint and moved her enormous basket beside the chair Anna vacated.
The older woman sat next to me on the sofa and laid small diamond pieces out on the cushion between us.
I picked up two of the diamonds and placed one on top of the other. They were perfectly cut and exactly the same size. Many times when I cut fabric, there were frayed edges that I didn’t mind because I knew they would disappear into the quilt when the pieces were sewn together. I had a suspicion that every one of Anna’s quilts was perfect, inside and out. “Ever since I moved to Texas, I’ve done all my piecing on my sewing machine.”
“Some Amish in Holmes County do it that way on a treadle sewing machine, but your
aenti
was a firm believer in keeping the traditional hand-quilting ways alive. She only made hand-pieced and hand-stitched quilts. She said that doing it by machine would make a quilter lazy.”
I thought of the dozens of frayed edges that were buried in the middle of the many quilts I had made for family and friends back in Texas. Was I a lazy quilter? Apparently.
Anna handed me a tiny plastic box of straight pins. “Start pinning and then we will work on stitches.”
Rachel gave Abram a sandwich bag of animal crackers. He removed one and crushed it into the quilt. I winced, but Rachel seemed unconcerned that her son marred such a beautiful piece of art. To the Amish, quilts were first and foremost practical items, only extremely beautiful practical items.
Martha, Sarah, and Rachel all worked on new piecing projects too. While I pinned, Anna removed a twelve-inch-by-twelve-inch wall quilt from her basket. It was pieced in the bear-paw pattern and basted together. Basting was a way to hold the quilt’s three layers, the top, the batting, and the bottom, with long pieces of loose thread. The thread typically was a bright color so that it could be removed with little trouble when the quilting was done.
Anna had basted her quilt with bright orange thread. Barely glancing at the tiny quilter’s needle between her left thumb and forefinger, she threaded her quilting needle by feel. “This is a size eight quilter’s needle. I like to use a small-sized needle because it’s easier to keep your stitches small if the needle is smaller.”
“Size eight. Got it.” The needle was much smaller than any I had used before. I wondered how many I would lose in the couch cushions, and who the unlucky ones would be who would find them when they sat on Anna’s couch.
Anna set her needle to the fabric and eyed me. “Why aren’t you pinning?”
My hands had stilled on my lap as I watched Anna work. “I was paying attention to you.”
“You can do that and pin at the same time. Isn’t that what you
Englischers
call multitasking?”
I gathered another handful of fabric diamonds from the middle cushion.
She nodded approval. “Just like on a sewing machine, you follow the line from the quilt pattern.” She traced a finger along the drawn-on blue line on the fabric. “This looks dark, but it will wash out after the quilt is complete like it was never there. My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be, so I use bright blue to make my stitch lines. You can see from the blue line that this quilt is set for a wave pattern. I chose that because it’s one of the easiest and a good place for you to start. Just follow the curve of the wave.”
Anna dipped her needle in and out of the fabric five times before she pulled the needle through slowly. I knew she decreased her pace for my benefit. When the thread was taut, there were five identical millimeter-long stitches.
“That’s amazing,” I said, knowing my own stitches would never be that uniform.
“Nee,”
Anna said. “Only the Lord is amazing. This is a mere skill. Your stitches will be the same in time. Place those pieces back on the cushion.”
I did as instructed, and she placed the small quilt on my lap. Handing me the needle, she said, “Your turn.”
Carefully, I smoothed the quilt over my lap and found the place where the next stitch should begin.
Rachel pinned a goosefoot-patterned square together. “You will be a fine hand quilter when Anna is done with you, Angie.”
I shot her a quick smile and returned my attention to the quilt.
I held my top lip between my teeth as I adjusted the needle in my hand. “Do I need a thimble?”
“Thimbles are for sissies.” Anna winked at me.
I chuckled. “Sissies?”
“I hear how the
Englisch
teenagers in Millersburg talk.”