“The farmers’ market is a problem. We have rules and regulations in the township, and it’s my job and the job of all the township trustees to make sure that they are followed to the letter of the law.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I believe the purpose of the farmers’ market is to bring more people to the library book sale. It just happens to be at the pie factory because the Millers have a big enough parking lot for the event.”
She sniffed. “Then they are guilty by association. I would think after all the trouble that Aaron Miller got into last year over the pie factory, he would have been more diligent in checking if this was okay with the township.”
Oh, please.
I took a deep breath, but before I could say anything, she continued her rant. “Furthermore, the book sale is different. That was cleared with us months ago, and I didn’t see any reason to call a trustees meeting about the change of location. However, we need to have an emergency trustees’ meeting to vote on this unauthorized farmers’ market. Until then, I have half a mind to march down to the Millers’ pie factory right now and shut the entire operation down.”
At least it was only half her mind.
“Jason Rustle isn’t available until noon,” the head trustee said. “So we will have to meet then. I would like to handle this immediately, but we need all trustees there for the vote, and he insists he can’t leave work early to take care of this. It seems I am the only one who takes my responsibilities as a township trustee seriously.”
I stopped myself from beating my head on the cash register while I listened to her talk. “That’s fine. We can even use my shop. The meeting will be at Running Stitch at noon.” I leaned against the counter. “Please, don’t go stomping into the farmers’ market trying to shut it down until we meet. You don’t want to make a scene in front of tourists, do you?”
She was quiet for a moment. “Fine. Since we have to wait, it gives me time to prepare. I will let the others know.”
“I’ll see Willow at the book sale. I’ll tell her.”
“Good. And tell her to answer her phone.” She hung up.
Before I slipped my cell phone into my pocket, I noticed that I had a text message. Again, I hoped that it was from the sheriff. No such luck. It was from Amber Rustle. “I asked everyone at the library about the bookmobile keys,” the text read. “Three of my coworkers saw them the day before and day of the bishop’s death. I trust them. Those keys weren’t used.”
I frowned. Another dead end.
After I slipped my cell phone into the back pocket of my jeans, Oliver sighed at his food bowl. I kept an extra food bowl and some dog food in the shop for such an occasion. I filled his food bowl and dish of water from the sink in the bathroom. “There you go, Ollie.”
He took a mouthful of kibble and carried it over to his cushion. It was breakfast in bed, Frenchie style. I carried his meal over to him and set it by his bed.
He gave me a goofy dog smile, and I wondered which one of us was the one who was trained.
My stomach rumbled, as I hadn’t had breakfast either. Miller’s Amish Bakery was open. Rachel would give me that blueberry muffin, no questions asked. I certainly didn’t want to tell her about the conversation I had just had with head township trustee Caroline Cramer. It would only make her worry.
My phone rang again. I glanced at the screen, and Mitchell’s face came up. He was smiling and the sun was on his hair, making the silver flecks in his hair sparkle. I had taken it a few weeks earlier at the dog park we visited often with Oliver and Tux, Mitchell’s Boston terrier. It was a rare moment when Mitchell didn’t have a care in the world.
The phone’s cheerful ring, which sounds like an electronic mamba, was insistent. I picked this ringtone for the sheriff because Mitchell thought it was ridiculous, and I liked the face he made any time he heard it. His reaction was much more enjoyable than the sound itself, which I had to admit was pretty annoying, especially in the morning. If it had not been for the coffee that Sarah had given me in her kitchen, I might have chucked the phone across the shop.
“Hey, stranger,” I said.
He laughed. “Sorry I haven’t called you back by now. It was a long night.”
“Oh?” I asked, wondering whether it had something to do with the bishop’s murder.
“Car accident—a bad one outside of Charm.”
“Oh, no. I’m sorry. Is everyone all right?”
“They’re all alive.” He left it at that, and I didn’t press. I knew that, as sheriff of Holmes County, Mitchell had much more to deal with than Bartholomew’s murder, and my heart hurt for all the pain and suffering he witnessed on a daily basis. The fact that he was still a loving father to Zander and put up with me said a lot about him. I couldn’t do anything that would jeopardize that, not even to protect a friend.
“So what’s up?” he asked. “I assume you have been nosing around on the Beiler case.”
“Who told you that?” I joked.
“I know you.”
He did.
“I’ve found out a couple of interesting things.” I told him about my conversations with Amber and Bunny yesterday, and with the intoxicated Levi and with Gil Kauffman just that morning.
Mitchell was silent the entire time. “You have been busy. One of my deputies or I will talk to each of them.”
“Be careful,” I warned. “When you are at Bunny’s, you might be greeted at the front door with a shotgun.”
“What?” He yelped.
I explained, and then I added, “Amber from the library just texted me that she doesn’t think the bookmobile keys were taken from the library. No one on staff noticed them missing.”
“That fits with what we have learned. Both sets of keys at the library were dusted for prints. All the prints belong to library workers.”
“Like Bunny,” I said.
He sighed, and I suspected that he was questioning his taste in girlfriends. “Anything else?” he asked.
“Nothing concrete.”
“Anything not concrete?” He sounded suspicious. Mitchell could tell I was holding something back.
I leaned on the counter. “I ran into Nahum Shetler yesterday. It shook me up a little.”
“Oh,” Mitchell said. “He didn’t bother you, did he? What did he do?”
I shook my head even though he couldn’t see me. “No, he didn’t bother me.”
“If he does, let me know right away. The guy is a nut.”
“I will. There’s—”
He interrupted me. “Angie, I have to go, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, not able to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
Mitchell didn’t catch my mood. He was too distracted by whatever was happening on his end of the line. “Call you later. Love you.” He hung up.
Great. I didn’t even get to tell him about Nahum seeing Austina, and then he hit me with the “Love you” thing again. Did he have any idea what he was doing to my nerves?
Chapter Twenty-nine
I was preparing to open the shop for the day when there was a knock on the front door. I looked up and saw Anna peering into the store with her hand shading her eyes.
Oliver hopped out of his bed and hurried to the door. I had to gently nudge him away with my foot to unlock it.
“Anna, what are you doing here?” I asked as I opened the door.
“Hello to you too, Angie.” She bustled into the shop with her ever-present quilting basket in her hand.
I chuckled. “Not that I’m not happy to see you. I thought you would still be at Sarah’s for a little while.”
“I was there for a gut piece. Sarah was understandably shaken up by her drunken brother-in-law appearing on her doorstep. She was fine and talking a mile a minute by the time I left.”
“I’m glad.”
“I dropped in because I th
ought you might need help minding the store today with Mattie tied up in the factory opening.”
“I was planning to go back and forth as I had the time. Technically, I’m still in charge of the book sale.” I grimaced.
She shook her head and removed her black bonnet, exposing her gray hair pulled back into a tight bun and her small white prayer cap. “That will never do. You need to be down there at the scene of the crime.”
“But don’t you want to go?” I asked.
“I’ll drop in at some point, but I will be much more comfortable right here.” She hung her bonnet and cape on the hooks on the wall, leaving no room for debate.
“If you are sure,” I said. “I am eager to see what’s going on down there. Who knows what my mother and Willow cooked up.” I gave a mock shiver.
“Then go.” She adjusted her glasses on her nose. “Jonah is already at the farmers’ market. This works fine for me. I can help customers, and when no one is here, I can sit in the rocker and quilt. What better advertisement can you have for the shop than an old Amish woman quilting in the window?”
I grinned. “I can’t think of any, and for the record, you are not old.”
She snorted and set her quilting basket beside my aunt’s rocking chair and sat. “There’s one more thing before you go.”
“What’s that?” I asked as I removed my jacket from the peg. I had had the good sense to wear the flannel-lined one that day. It was a wardrobe addition I had purchased since moving to Ohio. There wasn’t much need for flannel anything in Dallas.
“We need to have a quilting circle meeting. Today. This afternoon. We need to go over the case. I think we each know something that will help the culprit become more clear to us, or at least point us in the right direction.”
I shrugged. “Might as well have another meeting this afternoon.”
“Another one?” Anna asked.
I gave her a brief version of my conversation with Caroline Cramer.
Anna rested her hands on her wide hips. “If Caroline knows what’s gut for her, she will leave Rachel and Aaron alone. That woman is absolutely infuriating. I thought it was awful when Farley Jung was head trustee, but she’s so much worse. The only thing that woman sees is her rules.”
I silently agreed. “What about Sarah? Will she be able to come to the quilting circle meeting? She said Jeremiah was away on a job.”
“We can go to her.”
I slipped into my coat and grabbed Oliver’s leash. I shoved it into my jacket pocket. He could walk unleashed to the Millers’ factory, but it was good to have the lead with me in case I needed it. “If you’re sure . . .”
She shooed me with her hands. “Go, go—clear this up before Rachel and Aaron hear about what that awful woman has planned.”
I didn’t argue with her anymore and opened the front door. Oliver ran out of the shop ahead of me.
As Oliver and I strolled up the street, I waved to my shop neighbors and the tourists I saw. It was a quarter until ten, and the tour buses were just starting to roll into town. The tourist season picked up like this in early October as brochures and Web sites advertised trips to Amish Country to see the gorgeous fall foliage. And it was gorgeous. The sky was high with only a few cirrus clouds suspended in the blue. There was a faint smell of burning leaves that gave the air a campfire quality I never smelled in Dallas. The leaf burning was most likely happening on an Amish farm close to Sugartree Street. A jarring thought hit me as I passed the woodworkers’ shop, where Old Ben, an eighty-something Amish carpenter, sat on a three-legged stool, whittling a chunk of wood the size of Oliver’s head. Murder happens here, I thought. If it happens here, it could truly happen anywhere.
I removed my cell phone from my pocket and tried Mitchell’s number. It went directly to voice mail. I asked him to call me and told him it was about the Beiler case. I was starting to get desperate to tell him what Nahum had revealed to me the day before. I should have told him the moment Nahum left me there on the sidewalk.
For half a second, I wondered whether Rachel’s wayward father could be the killer. He certainly was crazy enough and I had seen him angry enough to kill a person before. However, other than being crazy, I couldn’t think of a motive. He had no attachment to Bartholomew Beiler’s district as far as I knew.
I moved on to other suspects: Phoebe, the teacher with the secret reading habit; Gil Kauffman, the bishop’s protégé, who would no longer be marrying Faith. I needed to talk to Faith about him, but how would I find her? I seriously doubted that she would be coming to the grand opening of the factory, the scene of her father’s death.
Then there was Bunny Gallagher. Could she have killed the bishop to exact revenge on Austina? She was just crazy enough to do it, and she was still my front-runner, although Gil was a close second.
And then there was Austina.
When I reached Miller’s Amish Pie Factory, I was overwhelmed by at least a dozen buggies and twice as many cars that filled their side parking lot. There were so many cars that an Amish teenager was directing them to park on the grass behind the parking lot. Half the paved area was filled with farm stands for the farmers’ market, not to mention the large white book sale tent.
My mother stood in front of the book sale tent wearing a pink apron over her designer wool coat. I recognized the apron from her volunteer days at the children’s hospital in Dallas. She gestured with her hands as she directed a volunteer where to put a box of books. The flaps of the book sale tent were tied back, revealing three rows of cafeteria-length tables full to bursting with books. All the books’ spines were orderly and upright, with spines up to the tent’s ceiling. I couldn’t help but smile. My mother must have been in charge of the book organization. Had it been Willow, she would have thrown the books, still in the boxes, on the table and made the customers root through them.
“Please,” my mother was saying to the volunteer when I was within earshot. “Please keep the children’s and adult books separated.”
The older man nodded, chastised, and carried his box of books away.
“Angie!” Someone called my name.
I turned to see Rachel standing at the back entrance of the pie factory, grinning from ear to ear. I went over to her.
She clasped her hands together. “Can you believe how many people are here? Aaron is already giving his second tour of the factory for the day, and we had to ask some guests to wait for the next one. I can’t believe this many people came out.”
I grinned back. “I haven’t seen a crowd like this since the Nissleys closed their auction yard.”
“I know,” she said, her eyes shining. “Maybe this farmers’ market idea will fill in the gap the loss of the Nissleys’ business left behind.”
I gave Rachel a hug. “Congratulations. This is a big day for you and Aaron.”
Her cheeks turned pink.
Rachel’s happiness was only more ammunition to make sure Caroline didn’t ruin this moment for Rachel and her husband. I was going to give her more congratulations when something rammed into my side, and I went flying onto the blacktop.
Chapter Thirty
“Ow,” I moaned, opening my eyes. Above me I found Rachel, Oliver, Jonah, and Petunia, the culprit, staring at me.
“You know,” Jonah said, “I think Petunia really likes you, Angie. She gives you more head butts than anyone else.”
“What a compliment.” I held out my hand and Jonah grabbed it, pulling me to my feet. The first thing I checked was whether my cowboy boots were scuffed. They were fine, which was good news for Petunia; it meant she would live to see another day.
“Are you hurt?” Rachel asked.
I glanced around and found both Amish and English staring at me openmouthed. “Both my dignity and my hip are bruised.” I brushed gravel from my jeans and jacket. At least I wasn’t as wrecked as the time Petunia knocked me over into d
irt. I supposed that was an improvement of sorts.
Rachel folded her arms across her chest. “Jonah, you should not have brought Petunia with you.”
Jonah rubbed the back of his neck. “I couldn’t leave her at home. Miriam threatened to throw her into the stewpot if I did.”
Petunia baa-ed. She didn’t like the sound of that. Oliver stepped closer to his goat friend as if to protect her.
“Besides,” Jonah said, “Petunia is the mascot for my business.”
“Mascot?” I arched an eyebrow.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a card. It was handwritten in block letters: “Graber Lawn Service. Eco-friendly. We do it all.” There was a small drawing of Petunia in the corner. I had to admit it was a good likeness.
“I made the cards up myself,” Jonah said, puffing out his chest.
“Who knew you were such an artist,” I said, handing him back the card. “But I still don’t understand what Petunia has to do with the lawn service.”
Jonah stuck the card back into his pocket. “I read in the Budget about this Amish man in Indiana who made a business out of taking his goats to clear farmland for other farmers, both English and Amish. I thought it was a great service I could offer here in Holmes County. I have Petunia now, but I thought I could take her on small jobs. If it goes well, I can buy more goats.”
I bit back a warning about another business venture. I knew he must have already heard it from Miriam tenfold.
Rachel dropped her arms. “Well, keep an eye on her.”
I patted Petunia on the head. “I had better go check in on the book sale and my mom.”
Rachel smiled. “Your mother has been here since eight this morning, barking orders at the volunteers.” She lowered her voice. “I had no idea she was so bossy.”
“You haven’t seen the half of it.” I waved to them and headed to the book sale tent.
After giving Petunia a head butt of his own—albeit a much gentler one than I received—Oliver trotted after me.
Mom smiled at me as I approached. “What do you think?”
Murder, Plainly Read Page 18