Murder, Plain and Simple

by Isabella Alan

  The women packed up their quilting baskets. “No, stay. I’ll be fine.”

  Rachel picked Abram off the floor. “Anna’s right, and I should get home to start supper.”

  Mattie would not meet my gaze.

  Anna placed a hand to her back as she straightened up too. “I’ll stop by the shop tomorrow, Angie, to see if you need any help.”

  “I’m sure Martha will be there. When I left the message on the shed phone answering machine before you arrived, I told her the shop would open at the normal time tomorrow.”

  Anna patted my arm. “I will still stop by.”

  I watched the buggies roll away and wondered if Anna made that last comment to be nice or because she thought Martha would not show up for work the next day.

  As the last buggy disappeared around the corner, my cell phone rang. I followed the sound into the kitchen. I was expecting to see my mother’s number in the readout, but instead it was Mitchell’s cell. I knew because I had programmed the number into my phone and listed it under “paddy wagon.” I twisted my mouth. I wasn’t sure of the two whom I wanted to talk to least.

  I answered the call, hoping that the sheriff wasn’t about to tell me that he changed his mind and I wasn’t allowed to open my store tomorrow morning after all.

  “Angie, this is Sheriff Mitchell. I’m calling to tell you I made arrangements for a professional cleaning company to meet you at your shop tomorrow morning.” He paused. “They are licensed to clean up crime scenes.”

  I grimaced. In my eagerness to reopen the quilt shop, I had forgotten the little issue of the stockroom. The red stain on the wood floor flashed across my mind’s eye. I didn’t know of any cleaning solution that would get that out. “Can I do it myself?” Throwing an area rug over the stain was always an option.

  “No. You want a professional doing the stockroom.” His tone left no room for discussion.

  “Is it very expensive?”

  “Your insurance company should cover it.”

  “They would if I knew Aunt Eleanor had insurance.”

  “She would have had to have insurance to run a business to sell wares in Ohio. Talk to her lawyer. I’m sure he has all that information. I lined up a locksmith to put a dead bolt on your back door.”

  “Thank you.” The sheriff was going way above the call of duty. Was this how law enforcement worked in the country?

  “Don’t mention it.”

  I sat on the couch, and Oliver lay across my lap. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What’s that?” The sheriff sounded wary.

  “I know why the quilt was shredded.” I went on to tell him my theory about the hidden deed.

  “But then where’s the deed?” he asked. “We didn’t find it at the scene.”

  “Maybe the killer took it with him.”

  “That’s possible.” He was quiet for a moment. “If it was there in the first place.”

  “I know it was there,” I said. “I know my aunt, and it makes perfect sense. And Joseph Walker would want the deed. He could destroy it, and I’d have no proof that the quilt shop was mine.”

  “So you think Joseph Walker went into the shop first.”

  “Yes, or maybe he and the killer went in together,” I said.

  “Okay, but that still doesn’t explain how he got in.”

  “I thought you said that anyone could break in through the back door with a credit card.”

  “I did, but Amish don’t have credit cards, or driver’s licenses for that matter. I went through Joseph’s wallet. He didn’t have any card that would work.”

  “So the killer is English,” I mused.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But Harvey said that Martha and I are the only ones with copies of keys.”

  Mitchell was quiet.

  “You don’t think Martha gave him the key, do you?”

  “It’s worth asking her.”

  I nearly dropped my phone. Oliver sat up and licked my chin.

  I heard a child’s voice in the background, and then Mitchell said, “Angie, I have to go. I will meet you in front of Running Stitch at nine sharp with the cleaning guys.” He hung up.

  I stared at the cell after he hung up. Why did the sheriff need to be there for the cleanup? Didn’t he have better things to do, like finding Elijah Knepp? What was I going to say to Martha?

  Chapter Thirty-one

  When I arrived at Running Stitch the next morning, a white paneled van with huge red lettering on the side sat in the diagonal spot in front of Running Stitch. The lettering read “Crime Moppers.” The tagline beneath the company’s name was “We specialize in blood and gunpowder.”

  I groaned. This was just what the out-of-towners wanted to see when they visited Amish Country. I hoped the van would be gone before the tourists started showing up in an hour. Oliver sat in the backseat. I tied Oliver’s leash to the park bench. “You stay. I want to make sure it’s safe for you in the shop first.”

  He curled up under the bench. After the goose incident, he wasn’t taking any chances.

  As I approached the van, two men in white biohazard suits exited the van. An elderly couple strolled by. “It’s nothing to be concerned about,” I told them.

  The man pointed a crooked finger at the shop. “You’ve got gunpowder that they need to clean up in there?”

  “No,” I said, happy to answer a question honestly.

  “Herbert, don’t you know that’s the place an Amish man’s throat was slashed? It was in the paper,” his friend said.

  “Oh.” He lifted his circa 1960 camera to his eye with shaky hands and snapped a photo of the van, the shop, the guys in suits, and me. “Who knew a weekend in Amish Country would be so exciting?”

  “The shop opens at ten if you want to come back then.”

  The old guy’s eyes gleamed. “You bet.”

  I felt a little guilty for drumming up business with the murder angle, but a girl’s got to make a living.

  I followed one of the suited men into the shop. “How’d you guys get in here?”

  One of the men, who didn’t look like he weighed more than a hundred pounds, said, “The sheriff let us in an hour ago. You must be Angie. I hope you don’t mind that he did that. He let the locksmith in too. That guy has already come and gone. He put a really strong lock on your back door.” He handed me a key. “That’s the key to the back door now. The sheriff couldn’t stay because he got a call out right after and had to leave. He wanted me to tell you that.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, wondering why the sheriff thought I would need to know that.

  He hopped from foot to foot. “He said we need to be out of here by ten.”

  “That’s right. That’s when the shop opens.”

  “We should be able to do it. This is a standard job.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around the cleaning of crime scenes as standard.

  “I’m Gill.” He pointed at his lumbering partner. “That’s Mack. So far, we cleared the room and we’re about to start the cleaning process. Want to take a look?”

  “Yes.” I followed them to the back of the shop. The stockroom door stood open. My eyes fell on the stain on the floor. “The stain is the biggest concern.”

  “This is no problem,” Mack’s voice rumbled. “We’ve seen a lot worse than this, haven’t we, Gill?”

  “Word,” skinny Gill replied. “We need to do the paperwork first. You have insurance.”

  “Yes.” I’d called Harvey last night to learn that Aunt Eleanor had an insurance policy on the shop. He gave me all the pertinent information to file a formal claim.

  “Gill, why don’t you do the papers, and I’ll get started,” Mack grunted.

  “I have the insurance numbers in my purse.” I patted the bag at my side. “We can fill it
out at the front counter.”

  Gill followed me to the front of the store, and I removed the notebook with the insurance information from my bag. He pulled a stapled form from inside his hazmat suit. He smoothed it over the countertop. “Just need to fill this out. And sign here, here, and here.”

  I started the forms.

  Gill leaned his elbows on the counter. “You know, we’ve been working with the county on jobs like this for a long time.”

  “Uh-huh,” I murmured as I painstakingly filled in the dozens of tiny boxes.

  “This is the first time ever Mitchell set up the appointment himself. I was real surprised to get his call. He said it was essential we finish the job this morning, so that your shop could open. He called in a couple of favors to get us here.” He sucked on his teeth. “Like I said, we do this all the time. Course most of our work is up in Stark County. More city folks with handguns up that way.”

  I flipped to the next page. “That was nice of the sheriff to call. I don’t know any of the companies.”

  “I’m sure that’s what he was thinking. Just being neighborly to the new girl in town.”

  I was only half listening. “Right.”

  “Then again, now that I met you, I think it could be the old sheriff has a bit of a crush on you.”

  My head snapped up. “What?”

  He smiled. “One more signature on the last page, and we are all set.”

  I signed, and he folded up the form again and tucked it back into his white suit.

  What a ridiculous idea. Mitchell didn’t have a crush on me. He thought I was a cold-blooded killer. “I have a dog. Will it be safe for him to come into the store today?”

  “Don’t let him in the stockroom, and you’ll be fine.” He sucked on his teeth. “In fact, I would leave the stockroom alone for, say, twenty-four hours. After that, you should be okay.” He moseyed back to the stockroom. “Mack, we are good to go.”

  The pair walked out to the truck and rolled the largest Shop-Vac I had ever seen across the floor. Seconds later the sound of the hose rang in my ears. Now would be a good time to take Oliver for a walk.

  When I got back outside, Oliver had wrapped his leash around all four legs of the park bench. “Come on, buddy. We need to get out of here.” I spent five minutes untangling the mess.

  When he was free, I knew exactly where the walk should start, because I owed someone an apology.

  It didn’t take much encouragement from me to get Oliver to walk across the street to the bakery. While the other shops on Sugartree opened at ten in the morning, the bakery opened at eight. All the tables in the tiny seating area were occupied with elderly Amish men or English tourists who arrived at Rolling Brook early to avoid the influx of tour buses that would descend within the hour. Both Mattie and Rachel were hard at work behind the counter. Rachel waved at me, but Mattie gave me no acknowledgment. An apology was definitely in order.

  The visitor in front of me thanked Rachel for the pies he’d purchased and left the shop.

  “I saw the van in front of the quilt shop,” Rachel said.

  “They promised to be done by opening.”

  Oliver bumped against my leg. “Is it okay I brought Oliver inside? He’s afraid of the van.”

  She laughed. “No problem.” She reached under the counter and came up with a dog biscuit and handed it to me.

  Oliver climbed halfway up my leg before I even had a good grip on it.

  I held out the biscuit. “Sit.”

  He gave me a look that said, “Really?”

  “Sit.”

  He sat and I dropped the biscuit in his mouth. I smiled at Rachel. “Now you’re in trouble. He’s going to remember where to get the treats from.”

  Rachel tucked a piece of stray hair back with a hairpin. “We have plenty more where that came from.” She shot a thumb behind her. “I thought you would notice our new item.”

  “What’s that?”

  I read the black chalkboard. “Eight-inch cinnamon rolls and doughnuts.” I laughed.

  “They are selling like crazy. I guess size matters to Englischers, and you aren’t the only one who wants a doughnut the size of her head. Want one now?”

  “No, I’ll wait till my next moment of crisis. If the sheriff arrests me, you can send me one while I’m in jail.”

  “The sheriff is not going to arrest you.”

  I rested my arms on the counter. “I think you might be right. Don’t you think if he had enough on me, he would have done it by now?”

  “Exactly. This means you can give up your search for Elijah Knepp.” She lowered her voice when she said Elijah’s name. I knew it was because Mattie was so close by.

  Mattie came around the counter with the broom. “Rachel, I’m going outside to sweep.”

  Her sister-in-law nodded.

  Mattie made eye contact with me before she went out of the door.

  “Now that Oliver had an extra treat, we should get along on our walk.”

  Oliver shuffled to the end of the counter where Rachel could see him better and gave her his best puppy dog gaze. It always worked on me, and Rachel was a sucker too. “What about one more treat?”

  “Oh fine. He’s had a rough few days. Remind me to tell you about him being chased by a goose on the Graber farm.”

  She grinned. “I can imagine how that went.”

  As if he knew exactly what we were saying, Oliver gave a full-body shiver.

  She dropped the treat into his mouth, and he gobbled it down.

  “All right, that’s enough,” I told him as I dragged him from the bakery. Rachel’s cheerful laughter floated after us.

  I found Mattie holding her broom at the right side of the bakery’s window. She was out of the view of anyone inside the bakery.

  She leaned on her broom. “What is going on at Running Stitch?”

  There wasn’t a delicate way to put it, so I said, “Those men are cleaning up the stockroom.”

  Her eyes locked on the van. “Oh.” She dropped her head. “I am grieved for the family. It may not appear so, but I am. Had I married Elijah, they would have been my family too. Before—” She paused. “Before the fire.”

  Oliver hid under the park bench in front of the bakery. Even across the street we could hear the commotion of the Shop-Vac inside the stockroom.

  “Why did Elijah burn down the Graber barn?” I asked.

  She sighed. “I asked him once. It was before Joseph told the police. Joseph wasn’t the only one who knew. I did too.” She began to sweep the dust from the sidewalk out onto the street. “He said he wanted to know if he could.”

  “That was the reason he gave you?” I asked. Clearly, the guy was insane. Mattie was much better off without him. I didn’t say that. I didn’t want to disturb the rapport we had going.

  “That’s what he said. I did not question him further. I—I was afraid to.”

  “I wanted to apologize to you yesterday. I should have been kinder when I asked you about seeing Elijah.”

  “I accept your apology.” She stopped sweeping. “What I can’t figure out is how you saw us.”

  I gave her a sheepish look. “Well, do you really want to know?”

  She nodded.

  I went over and told her about Danny, the spider, and the ants in his pants. She laughed so hard she had to grip onto the broom to hold her upright.

  I smirked.

  “Have you seen Danny since then?”

  “Actually no.” I smiled. “I should probably find out if he’s okay.”

  “I’m sure he’s fine. He can write a story about it.”

  “I’ve been thinking about your embroidery.”

  Her eyebrows went up. “Yes?”

  “And I wondered if you’d like to teach some embroidery classes at Running Stitch. The classes would
fit well with the quilt shop. I think a lot of tourists would be interested in it.”

  She began sweeping again. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “It could be a few classes a year. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Whatever you were able and wanted to do. We’d have to work out the terms, but I would pay you for your time.”

  Her brows knit together. “I’ve never taught anyone to sew before.” Her eyes darted to the store’s front door. “It would be nice to do something different. I will have to talk to Aaron and Rachel.”

  “I understand. If you’re ever interested, let me know.”

  “I will,” she promised. “Have you heard from Martha yet?”

  I frowned. “No, I haven’t.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Gill and Mack were gone on schedule, and Running Stitch was back in business. I dusted the shelves and counter and turned the sign in the front window to OPEN. There was no sign of Martha.

  I went into Running Stitch’s back garden, where I’d get a better signal, and I tried to call the number of the Amish shed phone I had for Martha a third time. No answer. Again. I didn’t bother to leave yet another message.

  “Miss,” a woman in a flower-printed jumpsuit asked. “I’m trying to select some colors for my next quilt. Do you have any suggestions?”

  I placed my cell phone back into my pocket. “No problem.”

  In the early afternoon, Anna walked into the shop. She nodded her head at the group of women admiring my aunt’s quilts. “Business is gut.”

  “It’s been pretty steady, especially considering this is the middle of the week. I don’t know if they are coming in because they are interested in quilts or interested in visiting a real-life crime scene. Either way, it’s been good business. Most have bought something even if it’s only been a thimble, which reminds me—I need to reorder some. They seem to be more popular than I thought.” I chewed on my lip. “I wonder if decorative thimbles would be a nice keepsake item to sell too. I noticed most of the people coming in aren’t serious quilters—they want a reminder of their visit to Holmes County.”

  Oliver sauntered over to Anna and allowed her to scratch his head. “You are full of ideas,” she mused.