Anna lifted a hand from the reins and squeezed mine, which were folded in my lap. “I miss her too.”
Surprised, I turned to her. How did Anna know I was thinking about my aunt?
She adjusted the reins in her hands. “I miss her every day, but no more than when I sit down to quilt. Your aenti was the best quilter in the county. No one else in the circle can come close to her talent.”
I bit the inside of my lip. “What can you tell me about the wedding quilt that was in the shop?”
“It was some of Eleanor’s best work. She made it a few years back. It was one of the last quilts she pieced and quilted herself before she became too ill to do it.”
I winced as I thought of it in tatters and spattered with blood on the stockroom floor.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as a minivan whizzed past us.
I squirmed on the hard seat. “The quilt was with Joseph.”
“You mean he took it?”
“No, I mean . . .” I hadn’t considered that Joseph may have been the one to take the quilt off the wall before, but I guessed it was possible. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Then what?” Her dark brown eyes magnified by her glasses bored holes into me.
I swallowed. “It was with his body, covered in blood and torn to pieces.”
“But it was on the wall.” Her face paled.
“It wasn’t when I went into the shop this morning. I can assure you of that.”
She took a deep breath. This seemed to come as more of a shock to her than Joseph’s death. “But that’s one of her best quilts. It’s priceless.”
Anna’s change of mood wasn’t making me feel any better about the loss of the quilt. “I know.”
She shook her head. “There must be a reason that the quilt was there. Someone had to have made an effort to get it down off the wall. Those quilt hooks aren’t easy to work. Whoever got it down did it for a reason.”
I hadn’t thought about it. “You think it was a message.” The morbid thought brought a sour taste to my mouth.
She nodded and the ties of her prayer cap waved back and forth.
If it was some kind of message, it was meant for me.
Chapter Ten
The gentle rock of the buggy on pavement turned into a spine-tingling rattle on the loose gravel as Anna turned into a driveway leading to her farm.
“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 wiggl
ed 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.
Chapter Eleven
Rachel knocked on the screen door’s frame just as Oliver and I finished our meal of roasted turkey, biscuits, and fresh milk. Oliver had everything but the coffee. As the last bite of biscuit melted in my mouth, I decided diets were way overrated. Oliver gave a contented sigh in agreement.
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.”
Murder, Plain and Simple Page 7