Murder, Served Simply

by Isabella Alan

  Oliver placed his paws on the dashboard, and his stubby tail wagged with excitement. He loved the hotel, and the staff loved him. I would have to keep an eye out to make sure they didn’t slip him too many treats. Both Oliver and I had gained weight since moving to Ohio. We planned to get back on the wagon in the New Year.

  We had visited the hotel often in the last few days as Mattie and I set up the Amish quilt show in the front sitting room. I had been honored to be asked to sponsor and manage the show, especially since I was still new to the community, until I was told I would be doing it with a rival quilt shop. Martha Yoder was my sullen partner for the event and the owner of Authentic Amish Quilts, which unfortunately was right next door to Running Stitch. When I first moved to Holmes County, Martha had been my employee, but when she didn’t like the direction I was taking my shop, she decided to open her own right next door. The location was intentional.

  Now we were working together. I hoped this would lead to some type of truce, but so far, all that had come of it were scowls and thinly veiled insults. All coming from Martha, of course. I knew when to keep my insults to myself.

  I’d been gritting my teeth and taking Martha’s jabs because the show was excellent exposure for my shop, and I needed that to compete against her. If she’d thought about it for just a moment, she would have realized that we could work together to help both of our shops, but she was too busy being angry.

  “Well, Oliver,” I said, “let’s be civil with her. The quilt show is only up for a few more days.”

  He woofed sympathy. I can always count on him.

  My little SUV shifted into four-wheel drive as it made the climb up the steep hill to the hotel. As the tires ground through the snow, I felt bad for the horses that would be pulling the sleigh loaded with tourists for the entire progressive dinner. Beyond a double row of pine trees iced with fresh snow, the Swiss Valley Hotel came into view. The hotel was a grand white building four stories high. It reminded me of an overgrown gingerbread house with electric candles flickering in every window and a garland of pines over every doorway. More greenery with clear twinkle lights wrapped over the whitewashed fence surrounding the property, and the pines trees closest to the entrance sparkled with blue, red, and green lights draped over their limbs.

  Even though the hotel was “Amish themed,” it very much was owned and operated by its English proprietress, Mimi Ford. She inherited a sizable fortune at her father’s death and used that money to purchase the hotel, or so Sarah Leham, my quilting circle’s good-natured gossip, had told me. Amish women worked as maids and cooks in the hotel. Amish men served as its carpenters and handymen. I wondered what the Amish employees thought about the controversial play going on in the barn.

  With that in mind, I was curious to know what Martha thought about it. She wasn’t a fan of English impacting Amish culture. Wasn’t that the greatest complaint about the play?

  The parking lot was half full, and I circled the lot to find the space easiest to get out of when the play ended. It would fill up closer to showtime, and I didn’t want to be trapped in parking-lot gridlock when it was time to leave.

  There had been some speculation at the last trustees’ meeting whether or not tourists and locals would be willing and able to come out on a cold night this close to Christmas for the play, but Mimi reported at the meeting last week that the first five shows had sold out. Since a portion of the proceeds would go toward building a new playground for the township, this was excellent news.

  I shifted the car into park and was relieved to see I had beaten Jonah and the sleigh there. Good. It would give me enough time to settle myself before Ryan showed up on the scene. I still didn’t know what he came all the way to Ohio to say that he couldn’t have told me over the phone, assuming I would have answered the call. I had my suspicions, but I did not want them confirmed.

  I reached into the backseat of the SUV and grabbed Oliver’s travel bag. Yes, my dog has his own accessories, and I refuse to believe that is strange. I rooted around in the bag until I came up with Oliver’s Christmas sweater and boots. The sweater was red and had Rudolph’s face knitted into the pattern on the back.

  Fannie Springer, an Amish friend of my aunt and owner of a yarn shop just up the road from Running Stitch, made him the sweater. It would keep him warm in the drafty barn during the play, and the red boots would protect his paws from the snow and ice. Bonus: He looked darn cute in the getup. At least I thought so. Oliver seemed to disagree.

  My Frenchie whimpered as I slipped the reindeer sweater over his head. “Count your blessings,” I said. “I’m not asking you to wear your antlers.”

  He stopped fussing when I said that. He hated the antlers.

  With Oliver appropriately dressed for the arctic, I climbed out of the car and grabbed my ever-present hobo bag.

  Oliver hopped out behind me and snuffled as he shook his four paws one at a time, trying his best to fling the boots off his feet. I knew all of his tricks and reinforced the closure with extra-strong Velcro. I snapped a leash on his collar.

  The whimpers became stronger.

  I patted his head. “Sorry, buddy. There are a lot of cars around here, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

  Oliver and I shuffled across the icy parking lot. The surface was a sheet of ice. I may have had Oliver outfitted for the weather, but I hadn’t thought of my own footwear. I should have left my cowboy boots back at the shop and traded them for my ugly black snow boots, but I was convinced those had been commissioned by a prison guard in Siberia. I really needed to go into the city, the closest being Canton, and buy some more-attractive snow boots. I may have never wanted to be the pageant girl my mother hoped I’d become, but I still had some fashion standards, and it was time my snow boots got the heave-ho.

  I shuffled forward on the ice bit by bit, so focused on not falling that I didn’t hear anyone approaching. Oliver froze, which told me something was amiss.

  A voice broke through the swirling snow and wind. “Hey, you! You!”

  I scooped up Oliver and held my huge purse at the ready to strike.

  “You!” the voice called again. A figure stumbled forward in the snow-filled air. I made out the outline of an Amish felt hat before I saw his face. Snow swirled around him, and his grizzled beard whipped back and forth, peppered with ice crystals, and he looked like Rip Van Winkle just awakened from his long nap.

  I took a big step back and had to steady myself as the smooth soles of my cowboy boots slid on the icy pavement. “Who are you?”

  The elderly Amish man shook his fist. “The curse of Gott is upon you for this abomination!”

  “Um, sorry?” I wrapped the long strap of my purse more tightly around my hand, better to whack him with. “What abomination would that be?”

  He pointed at the large white barn adjacent to the hotel. “That,” he hissed. “There will be the wrath of Gott for it.”

  Warm yellow light glowed out of the barn’s four-pane windows as final preparations were made for the opening performance of An Amish Christmas.

  “The play?” I asked.

  “Ya! It is a disgrace to our people, a disgrace!” Rip Van Winkle’s doppelganger shook his fist.

  An abomination and a disgrace? I guessed I shouldn’t ask him if a complimentary ticket to the show would make him happier. “I think you should go,” I said, expecting him to argue.

  “I will,” he spat. “But mark my words. You will rue the day you chose to put on this atrocity. You will rue the day.”

  Some spittle landed on my face. Gag. I wiped it away. Was there a five-second rule for spit like there was for a dropped cookie on the kitchen floor as far as germs were concerned? I needed Purell stat.

  He stepped backward into the snow flurry. “You tell those heathens what I have said.”

  “Sure. Consider your message already delivered,” I said, thinking I’d te
ll the sheriff about this nutcase first and clutching Oliver closer to my chest.

  The man melted into the snow. I took a few deep breaths, because there was nothing like a close encounter with an Amish abominable snowman to give a girl a shock. Oliver’s solid body pressed up against my leg. I scratched him between the ears, his favorite spot, before setting him back on the ground. He’d been shaken by the incident too.

  My Amish aunt Eleanor had been like a second mother to me, and I’ve always had many Amish friends. I knew the Amish disapproved of much in the English world, but they usually did so quietly and without confrontation. It was not the Amish way to threaten or be so outspoken. There was only one other Amish man I’d known who had behaved like that, Joseph Walker, and he had ended up dead. I had been the one who made the gruesome discovery. I shivered. I wasn’t interested in reliving that memory, especially standing alone in the dark in the middle of a frozen parking lot.

  I would have to ask Anna about this man. I wished I had thought to ask his name. The spit threw me off my game.

  A hand rested on my shoulder. Rip Van Winkle was back! I swung around and smacked my assailant with my enormous purse.

  “Oomph!” the attacker cried, and I found James Mitchell, the sheriff of Holmes County, standing two feet from me. He was holding his stomach.

  I rushed toward him. “Ohmigosh, Mitchell, are you okay?”

  He straightened up. “I think so. What do you have in that thing? If you swung any higher, you would have cracked one of my ribs.”

  I winced. That was a good question. There could be anything in there from a stapler to a brick. My purse was the catchall for everything in my life. If I pick something up, into the purse it goes. As I do this, I always think I’ll remember to put whatever it is back where it belongs, but items rarely make it to their final destination. My purse is sort of like a purgatory for the lost, encased in fine-grain leather.

  “I’m so sorry!” I rubbed his arm. “I didn’t mean to do that. I thought I was being attacked by Rip Van Winkle.”

  He narrowed his startling blue-green eyes and placed his hand over mine on his arm. “Say that again.”

  “Oh! It wasn’t the real Rip Van Winkle.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “You can cut the sarcasm.”

  He grinned. “Okay, I will try to refrain from comment. Please tell me what happened.”

  I frowned. “Oliver and I were heading into the hotel, and we were stopped by an angry Amish dude, who looked a lot like . . . Rip.”

  “Hence the name.”

  “Yes, hence the name. Anyway. He called the play an abomination and said that we would all rue the day that the play was put on.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything else from old Rip.”

  “Are you laughing at me? I never should have told you the nickname I gave him,” I grumbled.

  “I’m not laughing at you,” he insisted. But the glint in his aquamarine eyes told me otherwise. “That must have been Nahum Shetler you came across. We have gotten complaints from the hotel that he’s been stalking around the place during play practice. I’m not at all surprised he showed up on opening night. I’m sorry if he scared you.”

  Shetler? Where had I heard that name before? Then it hit me. That was the last name of the Amish girl in the production.

  “Shetler? Is he related to Eve, who has the lead in the play?” I bounced on the balls of my feet to fight the cold. Cowboy boots weren’t made for this weather. Not only could I trip and fall, but frostbite was totally possible.

  “He’s her uncle. Let’s go inside, and I will tell you more about him. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “No, I’m not,” I said through chattering teeth. “But Oliver is cold, so let’s go.”

  Mitchell scooped up my stocky dog as if he weighed no more than a pillow. Oliver licked his cheek. It seemed we were both smitten with the handsome sheriff.

  As we navigated the icy parking lot, I asked, “What has Nahum been doing? I mean other than accosting innocent bystanders in the parking lot?”

  “I think that’s the most of it. One of the deputies had to escort him off the property twice for trying to scare off the actors from rehearsal.”

  I slid on a patch of ice, and Mitchell protectively stuck a hand under my elbow. “You’re not wearing the best footwear for the weather.”

  “I know. I should have been more practical, but I had a strong feeling this morning that I would need the boots today.” As slippery as my footing was, my cowboy boots gave me confidence. They were good at stomping things.

  “That wouldn’t have anything to do with the arrival today of your parents and Ryan?” he asked, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.

  “What do you think?”

  Mitchell opened the front door to the inn for me. “When will I get to meet them?”

  “You’ll see them tonight.”

  “See and meet are not the same thing.”

  I squatted next to Oliver and removed his boots, but I left on his sweater.

  The Frenchie whimpered.

  “You look adorable, trust me.”

  Mitchell tapped his foot. “You are avoiding the question.”

  “You will get to meet them, I promise, but not on the first night, okay?” I placed my hand on his chest. “I haven’t told Mom and Dad about you, and I don’t want to in front of Ryan.”

  “Is it wrong that I want to meet your parents? You’ve met my family.”

  “No, of course not.” I folded my coat over my arm. “But I know Mom and Dad won’t be the main attraction for you.”

  “So he did come.” He covered my hand with his and squeezed it. “I was hoping the little weasel would back out.”

  “Please don’t call him a weasel to his face. That would be awkward.” I slipped my hand from his chest.

  Mitchell chuckled. “I can’t promise you that.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ve barely said two words to him since he got here, so I still have no idea why Ryan came all the way to Ohio for Christmas.”

  The sheriff’s expression turned serious. “I know why, Angie, and so do you.”

  I looked up at him. “Why?”

  “You. He wants you back. I have to say it’s a pretty romantic gesture to come all this way to win you.” His right eye twitched. I would have missed it if I hadn’t been standing so close to him.

  I rocked backward onto my heels. “And is that what you want?”

  He reached out and grabbed both of my hands. “No. But I can’t blame the guy for realizing he made a huge mistake. But it’s too late for him, and I will do everything in my power to make sure he fails.”

  “You don’t have to worry about it,” I said.

  “I know.”

  Mitchell squeezed my hands one last time. “Don’t wait too long in introducing me to them, okay? Or I might just have to introduce myself.”

  Knowing the sheriff, that was not an idle threat.

  Chapter Three

  I stood up. “Can we get back to the conversation about Nahum Shetler?”

  Mitchell took my coat, and I followed him into the small coatroom next to the hotel’s registration desk. The wooden hangers clanked together as he hung up my coat and then his own.

  “You’re in uniform,” I said. Outside, his long wool coat had almost completely covered up his navy sheriff’s department uniform. “I thought you were here tonight as a guest, not on official business.”

  For the inaugural progressive dinner and play, the hotel invited all the Rolling Brook dignitaries, or at least, the closest thing we had to them. Mitchell was invited as the county sheriff, and I was invited as a township trustee, a title I still wasn’t completely comfortable with. I had agreed to the appointment with the hope that I would be able to better represent the wishes of the Amish, but i
t was hard to think of myself as a politician.

  Mitchell put his stocking cap and Oliver’s boots on the shelf above the coats. “It’s turning into a little bit of both. Farley was concerned about the problem the hotel had been having with Nahum, so he asked me to come as the sheriff.”

  Farley Jung was the immediate past head trustee of Rolling Brook. Because of governmental term limits, he had to step down in November and was just your average trustee like me. After six years at the top, he retained his control over the trustees through the mouthpiece of his replacement, Caroline Cramer.

  “Nahum did seem to be very outspoken for an Amish man.” I adjusted my huge bag on my shoulder. “But why are you involved? There’s nothing to investigate, right? Does Farley think something criminal will happen?”

  “I’m just here to put the play’s cast and crew more at ease. Some of them have been shaken by Nahum’s appearance at practice.”

  “I could see how Eve would be shaken,” I said. “Her own uncle called the play an abomination. What about his bishop? Could he talk to him?”

  “From what I gather from the Shetler family, Nahum doesn’t attend church services or pay much attention to anything their district or any Amish bishop has to say. He lives outside of any particular Amish community.”

  “He’s a rogue Amish?” I asked as I followed Mitchell out of the coatroom.

  The sheriff stopped beside the eleven-foot-tall Christmas tree to the left of the main entrance. I inhaled the heavy scent of pine. Oliver wriggled under the tree, and I heard him taking a drink from the tree’s water bowl. White twinkle lights and handmade blue and white ornaments covered the tree. The white pine was halfway between the registration desk and the doorway to the sitting room where the quilt show was taking place. Just beyond the sitting room’s archway, the grand staircase began. It curved in a great C shape. I made a mental note to check on the quilts in the sitting room before I left the hotel that night.