Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery

by Isabella Alan

  She picked up a large basket with both hands. The basket’s bottom sagged under the weight of the half dozen quart-sized Mason jars filled with pickles and maybe a few beets. It was hard to see. Most of the jars’ contents were obscured by a weathered cookbook, a spiral-bound loose-leaf binder with a scratched and stained cover. Tabitha’s name was in black block letters on the green cover. Below her name was a hand-drawn picture of a Mason jar. The book must have held all of the preserve and pickling recipes for Tabitha’s canning business. Canning was one culinary art I was too afraid to try. Knowing my luck I would give everyone botulism.

  I stepped forward. “Can I carry that for you?”

  Forcefully, she swung the basket away. “Nee, I can carry it myself. Amish women are used to carrying their own weight. I’ve carried baskets twice as heavy as this before.” Her smile took the bite out of her words.

  “At least I could carry the cookbook,” I said with a smile.

  Her smile wavered. “Nee. No one touches my cookbook.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “There are too many in this county who want my canning recipes.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You don’t have to worry about me taking your recipes.”

  She laughed. “You are awfully serious for an Englischer. We’ve been looking for you. Your quilts are about to go up on the block.”

  I stepped back. “The bids are still going on? I thought with what happened to Wanda—”

  Tabitha waved away my concern. “Phweet. That was an accident. We can’t stop the auction.”

  “But the police—”

  “Ya. The police are still here and asking their questions, but most of the tourists don’t even know anything is amiss.” She placed her hands on her wide hips. “Now, stop standing there with your mouth hanging open. You have to be there when your quilts come up on the block or they will be pulled. We don’t want that to happen. They will catch a gut price for you and for my son.”

  “Pulled?” My eyes widened. “I got to run.”

  “That’s what I have been trying to tell you.” She shook her head. “Now, go.”

  “Thank you,” I called over my shoulder as I made a dash for the auction barn.

  Luckily, the three quilts I submitted to the block that morning were already in the main auction barn. They had been on display there all day, so visitors could preview them before bids opened. Either my aunt or a member of my quilting circle made each one. I knew that no one at the auction, English or Amish, could fault the quality of the work.

  Inside the barn, Linus had the auction buzzing as he accepted bids for two dairy calves in the open dirt pen below the platform. The horses and cows were auctioned off from the pen, and the platform was where crafts, household goods, and furniture went up on the auction block.

  An elderly Amish man in a straw hat held up his hand. “Seven hundred!”

  “There’re seven hundred! We can do better than that folks. Two dairy calves for the price of one. This is a deal,” Linus shouted. “Do I have another bid?”

  A younger man, who stood next to me, wiped a trail of sweat from his cheek with a handkerchief. “Eight hundred!”

  “There’s eight! Eight from Zeke King. Do I have eight fifty?” Linus pointed at the older man.

  The older man narrowed his eyes. “Nine hundred!”

  An Amish teen continued to lead the two calves at a very slow pace around the dirt-filled ring. He kept the two animals close together, so their sides touched.

  Zeke whispered in Pennsylvania Dutch to a friend standing beside him.

  “To you Zeke,” Linus cried.

  “Nine fifty,” Zeke said.

  “Nine fifty. We have nine fifty. Two dairy calves for the price of one. Great addition to an existing herd or if you want to start your own. Holsteins with the sweetest milk you can find anywhere.”

  The older man shook his head and dropped from the bidding.

  “Two Holstein calves go to Zeke King for nine fifty. Zeke come see the cashier in the front.”

  Zeke shoved his handkerchief into the back pocket of his plain trousers and grinned at his friend before parting the crowd on his way to the cashier.

  Behind the commotion, two of the young men who worked at the auction house moved the heavy quilts to the stage area while a third boy looked on. One, a tall Amish boy, climbed a stepladder and clipped a quilt on clothespins hanging from a metal cable. The second young man, who held the bottom edge of the quilt off of the dusty stage as the first pinned, was English and dressed in all black.

  I appreciated the care the boys took with the quilt. It was one of my aunt’s and an example of her immeasurable talent. When the boys finished, the red, purple, and navy blue Rolling Block quilt hung six inches from the floor. An ache poked me in the chest. My aunt had been gone for a few months. But looking at that quilt, it felt like I was losing her this very morning. Maybe it was the discovery of Wanda that brought back the feeling of loss that bubbled just beneath the surface of my skin.

  I pushed thoughts of my aunt away and realized the three young men were the ones I had seen walking across the auction yard earlier. All three had been walking from the direction of the Nissley house a few yards from the canning shed. Fewer than thirty minutes later I found Wanda dead in that area. Was there a connection?

  “Angie, I am glad you were able to come,” Gideon lowered his voice. “I was afraid you were caught up with the police. Please don’t mention the commotion behind the canning shed to our English visitors.”

  “I won’t,” I promised.

  “Glad to see you are finally here,” Linus said as he loomed above me.

  “I got held up.”

  “I heard. What an unfortunate event to happen on auction day.”

  I wrinkled my brow. Would it be okay to happen on a nonauction day?

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said.

  The large man smiled. “Nee. You’re right on time,” he said and climbed onto the three-foot-high platform with one effortless step. His voice boomed. “Let’s start the bidding at one hundred dollars. Do I have one?”

  I winced. The quilt was worth much more than one hundred dollars. Thankfully, my worry dissolved as the bidding picked up. There was a woman wearing a blue visor in the front row calling bid for bid against an elderly man wearing an argyle sweater in the back.

  My heart ached a little every time I sold one of my aunt’s quilts even though I knew she’d think that was silly of me. I could almost hear her say, “Angie, a quilt is meant to warm you at night and to be sold. Keeping it just because it’s pretty to look at is foolish.”

  The woman prevailed as Linus crowed, “Sold! Seven fifty!” Seven fifty. One of my aunt’s quilts sold for seven hundred and fifty dollars. Did I hear that right? Even though I knew my aunt’s handiwork was well worth that price, I never dared price the quilts in the shop that high because I was afraid I would never sell any of them.

  The English woman who purchased the quilt jumped up and down at her good fortune with such enthusiasm that her visor fell off. She wasn’t the only one excited. I grinned from ear to ear. The auction house kept twenty percent of the sales, but I still made more on each quilt than I would have had I sold them at Running Stitch. Plus, I had the good sense to attach a business card on the back of each quilt with a safety pin. Hopefully, these quilt lovers would drop by the shop and become regular customers.

  The next quilt sold for eight hundred. I was dizzy at the sudden monetary windfall.

  The third quilt was on the block. The bids came so fast, it made my head spin. “Sold! Nine hundred to the lady in the pink ball cap.”

  Rachel had been right—the auction was the way to keep my business afloat and even make a profit. Guilt washed over me as I thought of Rachel. She was home by now. I hated to think of how upset she was over Wanda’s death. I knew that with her kind heart, she blamed herself.

  The two teenaged boys removed the quilts from the lines. The Goth boy joined them again and help
ed fold the quilts. I examined his outfit more closely. He wore black jeans, a rock band hooded sweatshirt, and black combat boots. His dyed black hair fell over his eyes. Huh. I thought everyone who worked at the auction house was Amish. This kid wasn’t Amish, not by a long shot, but he looked at home at the auction house and joked with the Amish boys while they carried the quilts to the cashier.

  Jonah wove through the crowd that was in flux as the next block, Amish-made furniture, was set on stage by the boys. When he reached me, he removed his hat and dusted it on his knee. “You did all right at the auction.”

  “You saw my block?”

  “I did indeed.”

  I grinned. “Not bad.” My smile faded. “I wish Rachel was here to see it. I have her to thank for me being here.”

  He tugged on his sandy blond beard. “Don’t worry about Rachel. She and Aaron will be fine. No one would believe they would hurt Wanda no matter how mad they were at her and the township trustees.”

  “I don’t know. People thought I was capable of murder last summer.”

  “That is different. You were brand-new here and we didn’t know what to expect from you.”

  I frowned. “I wasn’t new to you.”

  He laughed. “I didn’t personally doubt you, my freind.”

  “You better not have.” I returned my attention to the platform. “Jonah, who is the English boy up at the front?”

  Jonah paled. “Oh, no.”

  “What? What is it?” I stared at the boy to determine what could cause mild-mannered Jonah’s sudden alarm.

  “That’s Reed Kent.”

  I blinked at him. “Am I supposed to know who that is?”

  “It’s Wanda’s nephew, and he must not know that his aunt is dead.”

  Oh, no was right.

  Chapter Eight

  I watched the teen. He certainly appeared carefree for someone who had lost his aunt. “How is it possible he doesn’t know about Wanda?” I hissed. “There was a huge crowd outside watching the canning shed.”

  “I don’t know, but does he look like someone whose aunt just died?”

  Jonah and I both stared at Reed and assessed his level of upset. He laughed at something one of the Amish boys said. “No. Someone has to tell him.”

  Jonah didn’t move.

  “Aren’t you going to tell him?” I asked.

  The boys looked on as an Amish cashier checked the quilts out to their new owners. After the money was settled, I would get my share before the day’s end. Happy zeros flashed in my mind.

  “Me? It is not my place to tell him. The police should do it.”

  I scanned the crowded room for the sheriff. I spotted Deputy Anderson moving quietly through the room, showing people a photograph and asking them questions. It wouldn’t be long before he reached Reed.

  I gnawed on my lip. Would I have wanted the police to tell me about my aunt’s death months ago? It was hard enough hearing it from my own mother. Reed didn’t know me, but surely if I told him about his aunt, it would be less shocking than bumbling Deputy Anderson telling him the news, wouldn’t it?

  “I’ll talk to him.” I moved across the room.

  “Angie,” Jonah hissed, but it was too late. I’d set my course.

  As I got closer to the teen I realized despite his height, he was younger than I first thought. He must be seventeen at most. I bit the inside of my cheek. Despite his tough-looking exterior, the news of his aunt’s death would come as a shock.

  “Hi,” I said. “Are you Reed?”

  He glared at me with the disgust that only a person between the ages and of twelve and twenty could really pull off.

  “She’s the quilt shop lady,” the tall redheaded Amish teen told Reed.

  Reed folded his arms. “So what?”

  Some of my sympathy dissipated. “Is Wanda Hunt your aunt?”

  He shrugged. “Did she say I did something?”

  “I think I can take it from here, Angie.”

  I turned to find Mitchell standing five feet behind me with a frown on his face.

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. What did I think I was going to say to Reed? And now the sheriff probably thought I was poking my nose in where it didn’t belong.

  Reed looked from me to the sheriff. “Hey, what’s this about? I haven’t done anything.”

  His two Amish friends slipped away into the crowd. So much for loyalty.

  The sheriff arched an eyebrow. “No new street art?”

  Street art? If I were a cat, my ears would have twitched at that comment.

  Reed kicked a loose pebble across the dirt ground and didn’t say anything.

  “I need to talk to you about your aunt,” Mitchell said.

  Reed’s head snapped up. “What, is she complaining about me again? She’s like a tyrant. I’m mean, who runs to the police about their own nephew?”

  “It’s not that.”

  Gideon walked over. “Sheriff, we have another block coming up. You’re going to have to take this outside.”

  I turned to see that everyone was staring at us.

  Mitchell nodded. “Reed, come with me.”

  “No way, dude. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  The sheriff gave his best cop stare.

  Reed looked behind him to find his friends had abandoned him. “Whatever. Just make it fast so I can get back to work.”

  Shouldn’t he be in school? And why was he working at the auction? He wouldn’t be the first person in the auction barn I’d pick as an auction yard employee.

  Mitchell turned, frowning as if he were disappointed somehow . . . in me.

  Reed ducked his head and followed the sheriff out of the auction barn.

  Gideon approached me and wiped sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief. “Angie, you can pick up your money from the cashier.”

  Linus began the bidding on an Amish-made chest of drawers.

  After I collected my earnings from the cashier, an elderly Amish man who took painstaking care when writing the check, I stepped out of the auction barn and scanned the grounds for Mitchell and Reed. I spotted the sheriff at the edge of the field that served as a makeshift parking lot for both automobiles and Amish buggies. There was no sign of Reed.

  I straightened my shoulders and marched over to him. I slowed my pace as I approached. “Hey.”

  His beautiful eyes were downturned. “Hey.”

  An Amish girl walked by pushing a wheelbarrow full of apples. It had to weigh twice what she did, but she didn’t even break a sweat.

  “That must have been hard,” I said after the girl passed by.

  “Terrible.”

  “Where’s Reed now?” I asked.

  The sheriff slid his sunglasses over his eyes. “Anderson took him for a drive. The kid needed a chance to collect himself.”

  “Will the deputy take him home?”

  Mitchell let out a long breath. “It’s more complicated than that.”

  I dropped my arms. “What do you mean?”

  “His aunt was his only family here in Ohio. He said his mother shipped him here from California at the beginning of the school year. I got the impression she didn’t want him back, or at least, Reed believed she didn’t. I will call her as she is likely Wanda’s next of kin as well.”

  “Poor kid. Shouldn’t he have been in school though? What is he doing working here?”

  “I plan to ask him, but I want to wait until his aunt’s death sinks in.”

  My heart melted at the sheriff’s compassion for the troubled teenager. “Are you certain there isn’t any other family here in Ohio? An uncle? Was Wanda married?” I felt bad that I didn’t know that. Shouldn’t I have known that?

  “Wanda is divorced. Her ex-husband lives in Millersburg.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Mitchell frowned. “Why do you want to know, Angie?”

  “Just curious.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Before you told Reed the news, he seemed antagonistic t
oward his aunt.”

  The sheriff didn’t say anything.

  “What did you mean when you asked him about street art?”

  Mitchell’s jaw twitched. “We arrested him for defacing public property. You know the covered buggy bridge on River Road.”

  “The one that someone spray-painted last week?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  My Amish friends had been furious at the incident. The once pristine covered bridge had been covered with crude English words and designs. Right after it happened, Anna told me some of the church elders believed that it was an English person protesting their culture. The Amish repainted the bridge the next day, but the scar from the cultural clash remained. I grimaced. “Reed did that?”

  “Yep.” He paused. “And Wanda turned him in. She found the cans of spray paint in her garage and put two and two together.”

  “He has to be a suspect,” I pressed. “That’s a pretty good motive.”

  He winced as if he regretted sharing this information with me. “Everyone at the auction today is a potential suspect, even you. First, I need to determine if this was a crime to begin with.”

  I almost slipped up and asked Mitchell about the possible peanut allergy. That would have been a mistake because he would have known I’d been eavesdropping on his conversation with the coroner. Instead, I asked, “Why didn’t Reed know about his aunt?”

  Across the field, Deputy Anderson’s squad car turned back into the property. Reed slouched in the front seat. The hood of his black sweatshirt covered his face. What would become of the teen now?

  Mitchell’s frown deepened but he answered the question I’d asked out loud. “He and his friends, those two Amish kids, were smoking in the woods during all the commotion.” His frown softened; then he tried to change the subject. “You did very well at the auction.”

  I shrugged. As happy as I was about how the quilts did at the auction, it didn’t seem right to celebrate my monetary windfall under the circumstances. “What’s going to happen to Reed?”

  Mitchell ran a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “I assume he’ll go back home to Los Angeles to his mother, whether she likes it or not. He doesn’t have any other family here, and he’s a minor. He didn’t mention a father, so I’m guessing he’s not in the picture anymore. I may be wrong. I hope the mom can clear that up. Reed’s not talking about it, at least not yet.”