I shivered. “I—I’m so sorry.”
“Not as sorry as I am.” He stared up the street in the direction of the pie factory. “It wasn’t until after I was already here that I heard about Griff’s murder. Had I known that the Bigfoot sighting had any connection to Griffin Bright, I would never have come. I found out about it last night outside of your parents’ home. I had no idea a crime had been committed until that moment.”
Willow popped out of the tea shop. “Ray, we’re ready—” She stopped talking when she saw me standing on the sidewalk a few feet away from the tea shop door. “Angie, you made it!”
Raymond continued to glare at me.
I cleared my throat. “I made it.”
She clasped her hand over the purple crystal that hung from her neck. “Does that mean you’re a believer?”
“Ummm . . .” I trailed off.
Raymond stubbed out his second cigarette on the sidewalk. “I’ll go inside and prepare the crowd for you, Angie.”
Crowd? There was a crowd?
The door closed behind Raymond but not before I caught a peek of the inside and saw that the place was packed. “How many people are in there?”
She scrunched up her nose. “Can’t say for sure. Maybe thirty.”
“Thirty? Are you kidding?” I squeaked.
“I would never kid about Bigfoot, Angie.” She sounded offended by the very idea.
I looked heavenward. The sun was bright and handfuls of clouds were suspended in the blue sky. For the first time since the beginning of the month, it didn’t look as though it might rain at any moment.
She sighed. “Just come inside and see for yourself.”
I sighed. “Fine.”
She beamed. Then she pointed down to Oliver. “You might want to carry him. I’d hate one of the Bigfooters to step on his paw.”
I scooped Oliver up off the sidewalk and followed Willow into the tea shop.
Once inside, I gasped. The place was packed. There were mostly men, but I spotted at least four women. The only people I recognized were the three men I met the day before. The trio stood at the far end of the shop on a small stage that Willow sometimes used for live music or poetry readings that she hosted in the tea shop. Raymond pointed to a topographical map spread across a table.
Willow beamed. “It’s impressive, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure that “impressive” was the word that I would use.
She walked over to a sideboard where scones, tea, and other refreshments had been set out. She removed a quilted tea cozy from one of the many teapots.
“All of these people are here with the hope of seeing Bigfoot?” I asked.
She nodded and held a full teacup of the inky black liquid to me. It smelled suspicious, almost swamplike. Willow prided herself in making up her own tea recipes. The only problem was she wasn’t very good at it. In fact, her teas were terrible. Her worst offering was her October tea, Witch’s Bite. The memory of tasting that still brought tears to my eyes.
“This is a new recipe of mine,” she said. “I’m calling it Bigfoot Brew.”
If there was any tea on planet Earth that sounded worse that Witch’s Bite, it just might be Bigfoot Brew. I wasn’t dumb enough to take a sip to see if that prediction rang true.
I shook my head. “I can’t drink it while holding Oliver.”
She set it on the table closest to me. “I’ll just put it right here until you are ready for it.”
I’d never be ready for it.
“What are all these people going to do all day?” I asked. “They can’t go thrashing through the woods searching for the Sasquatch.”
Willow sighed. “Not everyone here is actively searching. Ray and his companions plan to give a presentation about the history of Bigfoot. Many of the people here are interested in that and are just here to learn more. They aren’t serious members of the society,” she said as if she found that to be a shame.
Raymond scowled at me before turning back to his map.
The door to the tea shop swung opened, and Head Township Trustee Caroline Cramer stomped inside followed by a smiling Farley Jung. “Willow!” our fearless leader bellowed. “I hope that you can explain this.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Some of the Bigfooters looked up from their notes and plates of scones. When Caroline shot them her death glare, they averted their eyes. They weren’t afraid of coming face-to-face with a mythical creature, but Caroline scared them to death. That sounded about right.
“Caroline.” Willow clasped her hands and her gauzy blouse billowed around her. “What a surprise to see you here this morning. Did we have a trustees’ meeting that I didn’t know about?” Willow smiled. “Can I pour you a cup of tea? It’s my new recipe called Bigfoot Brew.”
I inwardly groaned.
Caroline wrinkled her nose. “No, thank you.” Her blond hair was pulled back in a perfect chignon and she wore a suit as if she’d just come from a business meeting. Caroline took her elected position as head township trustee as seriously as the queen of England took her post, and she made sure to dress the part.
“It seems I’m the one unaware of some type of gathering.” Caroline gestured around the room. “What is going on here?”
Willow forced a laugh. “It seems that the word has gotten out that we had a little Bigfoot sighting in the township.”
“A little Bigfoot sighting?” Caroline glowered. “So this Bigfoot business is true?”
In my attempt to escape, I bumped my hip into a table where two Bigfooters were working on a grid of some sort.
Behind Caroline, Farley stepped in my path as if he knew I was trying to flee. As always, his black hair was slicked back Grease-style. He smirked. I scowled in return.
Caroline took a deep breath. “And how did all these people find out about our little sighting here in the county?”
Willow played with her crystal. “I thought it would bring some business if I shared the news with the local chapter of the Bigfooter Society. I never imagined that there would be so much interest.”
I winced. Oh, Willow, don’t admit it to Caroline right off.
“You did what?” the head trustee asked through clenched teeth.
Willow spun her crystal at double speed.
Caroline’s dark eyes narrowed. “Do you not realize that we are the laughingstock of the county? My counterparts in Berlin and Charm are already calling me, making Bigfoot cracks. Is this what we want Rolling Brook to be known for?”
“Caroline,” I said in my most reasonable voice, “Willow never intended to hurt Rolling Brook’s reputation.”
“And you!” She pointed at me. “All of this is your fault.”
I held Oliver protectively to my chest. “What? Me? What did I do?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Angela Braddock.” Her glossy lip curled in disdain. “Everyone knows the supposed sighting of the thing was at your parents’ house. What do you think you’re doing by spreading rumors like this?”
“The Bigfoot thing didn’t come from me,” I said. “The first I had heard of this Bigfoot theory was from . . .” I stopped myself from saying Deputy Anderson’s name. The poor guy had enough problems without my offering him as a sacrificial lamb to Caroline.
She didn’t miss a beat. “From whom did you hear it?”
I shifted Oliver in my arms. He snuffled and turned his face away from the conversation. He didn’t care for Caroline. She wasn’t an animal person, clearly a character flaw. “It doesn’t matter who I heard it from,” I said.
“It’s not Angie’s fault. It’s mine,” Willow said. “I was the one who posted the news about the sighting on the chapter’s message board. I did it without Angie’s knowledge.” She continued to twirl the purple crystal as she spoke.
“Of course you would be interested in this ridi
culous myth,” Caroline said accusatorily.
“Now, Caroline,” Farley said in his most condescending voice. “You can’t blame Willow or Angie for what happened. We can only move forward and deal with it. When I was head trustee . . .”
“Farley,” Caroline snapped, “if I have to hear another anecdote of when you were head trustee, I swear I’m going to scream.”
He only smiled.
Before Caroline could actually let loose a screech that would bring a banshee to tears, I interrupted. “This is not the time to discuss this.” I nodded at the Bigfooters, who were watching us. “Don’t you think it would do better to have a private meeting where we can speak more freely?”
Caroline scowled at the eavesdroppers, who turned away. “You’re right,” she said as if she hated to admit that could be true. “We need to have an emergency trustees’ meeting tonight to go over how to deal with this latest crisis.”
“The tea shop shouldn’t be as crowded later when the Bigfooters start their search,” Willow said.
I winced. That wasn’t the right thing to say to Caroline.
The head trustee pursed her lips. “We can’t have it here with your friends coming and going at all hours.” She glared at another Bigfooter, who hid his face.
“We can meet in my shop tonight,” I jumped in. “How does seven work for all of you?”
“I suppose that will have to do since Jason doesn’t seem to make meetings that are right after he leaves his office for the day,” she said with thinly veiled disgust.
Caroline constantly complained about Jason Rustle’s schedule. Of the five trustees, he was the only one who had a true nine to five job. Willow and I owned our own businesses. Other than her trustee position, Caroline’s work was mostly volunteering, and who knew what Farley did all day. It was probably for the best that I was clueless about his whereabouts most of the time.
“We’ll meet at Running Stitch at seven sharp.” Caroline pointed at Willow. “I expect that you will have a plan as to how to deal with this crisis.”
Caroline and Farley left the tea shop.
Willow’s shoulders dropped. “They didn’t even stay for a cup of my tea.”
Against my better judgment I asked, “What’s in it?” My cup was still on the table.
Willow brightened. “Anise. I think it gives it a zing.”
I bet.
“I need to head out,” I said, making no move to pick up the cup of tea from the table. “Please try to have a plan for the trustee’s meeting tonight. You’re going to need it.”
She nodded. “Don’t you worry, Angie. I will have a plan.”
Why did that comment make me worry?
She picked up my tea mug and poured it into a to-go cup, handing it to me. I thought it was easier to take the cup than to argue with her about it.
When I crossed the street, I sniffed the concoction. I caught a whiff of spices, but there was something else there reminiscent of freshly mowed grass. Against my better judgment, I took a tentative sip. “Ahh!” I spurted and gagged. It tasted like spiced mud.
Oliver circled me and whined.
Still spurting, I poured the contents from the travel cup into a large potted plant along the sidewalk. “If that plant dies after a dose of Bigfoot Brew,” I croaked, “we don’t know anything about it.”
My trusty Frenchie barked in solidarity.
After I had mostly recovered from my tasting of Willow’s tea, a large tour bus rolled down the street in the direction of the mercantile. I should return to Running Stitch. I hadn’t told Mattie how long I would be gone, but I knew she had the quilting class well in hand. It wouldn’t hurt to make one more stop. I pointed my cowboy boots in the direction the tour bus had gone.
Just like the day before, a CLOSED sign hung in the mercantile’s window, and just like the day before, I ignored it. I set Oliver on the sidewalk beside me and tried the doorknob. The door opened inward. I stepped inside the mercantile. The store was in the same state of disarray that I found it in the day before.
As we entered the store, the noise of Oliver’s toenails clicking on the hardwood floor was the only sound.
I peered into a long aisle when a handheld camcorder was shoved in my face.
Chapter Twenty-six
“Hey!” I cried, and jumped backward.
Oliver braced his paws on the floor as if trying to decide to protect me from the camera or to make a break for the door.
The person holding the camera lowered it from his face, which was beet red. “You’re not Sam.”
“Umm . . . no, I’m not. Who’s Sam?” I asked, taking a good look at the teenager in front of me. He had messy dark hair worn a little too long to keep under control, and he wore jeans and a video game T-shirt. He was most certainly not Amish.
“Cameron!” A voice called from somewhere deep in the store. “Put that blasted camera away and help me feed this wire.”
The teenager spun around and headed toward the voice. After a beat, I followed him. In the middle of the canned-vegetables aisle, one of the tiles from the drop ceiling had been removed, and I saw a pair of legs standing on the second-to-top rung of the ladder under the opening. The rest of the man’s body was somewhere inside the hole.
The man in the hole dropped his hand. “Give me the wire.”
Cameron was fiddling with a setting on his camera.
“Cameron!” the headless legs barked again.
After carefully setting his camera on a shelf next to a stack of canned beets, Cameron jumped into action. He unwound a spool of wire and placed the end of the wire in the man’s hand. As the man pulled more of the wire into the hole, Cameron allowed the spool in his hands to unwind.
I watched this for a moment. Cameron seemed to have forgotten I was there. I was about to announce myself when legs started coming down the ladder. After a few steps I saw the face and had to stifle a gasp, because I knew I was looking at Blane Bright, Griffin’s younger brother. Blane was the spitting image of his older brother, and the men looked enough alike to be twins. In fact, their features were so similar that I almost felt as though I was staring into the face of a dead man.
Blane rested his arm on the top of the ladder and stared at me. “The store’s closed.”
I cleared my throat. “I know that.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then can I help you?”
His question shook me out of my stupor. “I hope so. I’m Angie Braddock.”
“You’re the sheriff’s girlfriend. I’ve heard about you.” He continued the rest of the way down the ladder.
Immediately, I bristled. Yes, I was Mitchell’s girlfriend, but that wasn’t my defining characteristic and certainly not the one I wanted to be known for the most. “I’m also the owner of Running Stitch and a Rolling Brook township trustee.”
He waved that statement away as if my other titles were of little consequence as he stepped from the ladder onto the floor. “Liam told me you’d be stopping by to ask me about my brother. He said you were something of a sleuth and wanted to know about Griff’s death.”
Thanks, Liam.
I refused to be put on the defensive by this man. “I wouldn’t call myself a sleuth, but yes, I would like to talk to you about Griffin. He died in my parents’ backyard and, of course, they are concerned.”
“That’s a tough break for them, but I can’t tell you anything. I wasn’t with my brother when he died. I wasn’t included on that job.” His last statement held a hint of bitterness.
“Maybe you—”
“You might as well be on your way. I told you I have nothing to say. I have this big job here, and I need to get back to it so that Liam can open the store tomorrow.” He walked over to the toolbox that was set in the middle of a rolling cart in the aisle and began to sort through the tools in the box.
“But—”
He held up a flathead screwdriver and examined it. Apparently dissatisfied with the tool, he dropped it back into the box and continued to sift through the tools. “Here’s what I know. Nothing. I’m sorry he’s dead. I really am. Griff and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but he was my blood. That’s all I have to say about it.” He snapped his fingers at the teen. “Cam, I need another length of wire.”
The boy was texting on his phone, and Blane had to call his name twice more.
“Sorry, Dad.” Cameron shoved the phone in the back pocket of his jeans.
His use of “Dad” got my attention. So this was Blane’s son. That also meant he was Griffin’s nephew. Now that I knew that, I could see the resemblance between father and son. Because of Blane’s close resemblance to his older brother, I should have seen the same similarities between Cameron and Griffin too.
Blane appeared pleased with the next screwdriver that he found and climbed back up the ladder. “Cam, I need that wire.”
Cameron handed his father the end of the wire to be fed up through the ceiling.
“Son,” Blane said, “how many times do I have to tell you to pay attention? You have to pay attention on a job like this. If you don’t, that’s how you’re going to get hurt.”
I took the last statement as an opening. “Do you think your brother forgot to pay attention the morning that he died?”
He scowled at me from halfway up the ladder. “Of course he did. If he’d minded his surroundings, he would have seen the wire, however small, and never stepped on that step. It was a stupid mistake that cost him his life.”
“Was it his first mistake?” I asked.
His black eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?”
“I heard that one of his former employees, Kamon Graber, died in a similar accident.”
He frowned. “That was twenty years ago.”
“I know, but there are similarities.”
“They were both electrocuted, but Kamon wasn’t murdered. His death was a careless accident.”
Murder, Handcrafted (Amish Quilt Shop Mystery) Page 17