Plainly Murder

by Isabella Alan

  Beyond the stockroom, I opened the door to the tiny backyard. Oliver made a beeline for an azalea bush. The yard was at a slant, as Rolling Brook was on a hillside. My aunt had planted a small garden there. It would need some weeding, but the gladiolas, hollyhocks, and other late-summer flowers flourished. I had a clear view of the green rolling hills and an Amish farm about a mile away. A tiny farmer hitched his horses to a buggy. Although I’d lived in Millersburg as a child, standing in my aunt’s garden was the first time I realized how beautiful this part of the country was. As a kid, I’d taken its beauty for granted. This was the first time I really saw it with my adult eyes.

  I tried to picture Ryan Dickinson, my former fiancé, standing next to me. In my mind’s eye, I put him—with his fancy suits and expensive European leather shoes—into life in Rolling Brook. It didn’t work. Ryan, an up-and-coming attorney, was a Dallas boy born and bred. He loved the traffic, fast pace, and intensity of the city. Nothing about Rolling Brook was intense. I smiled to myself. The only way I could be there at that moment was alone, and I realized being alone wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe the un-Ryan-ness of Rolling Brook was its true appeal. Then again, it might have been the boots working their magic.

  Harvey stepped into the garden and stood beside me. He wiped his brow with a blue handkerchief.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, motioning to the view.

  He smiled and a dimple appeared on his left cheek. “It is.”

  A cardinal landed on the wooden fence surrounding the garden. Oliver yipped and dashed under the closest bush, which was a little too small for him, leaving his hindquarters exposed. He held his black stubby tail completely still, as if he thought the cardinal wouldn’t see him if he didn’t move. I didn’t bother to tell him it was a bird, not a tyrannosaurus. My Frenchie suffered from ornithophobia. We’d sought treatment from acupuncture to hypnotism. Nothing had worked.

  “Is your dog okay?” Harvey asked.

  “He’s fine,” I assured him.

  He cleared his throat. “Are you sure you want to take the shop on, Ms. Braddock? It’s a big job. I can still help you sell it if you’ve changed your mind.”

  I smiled at him. “I thought I told you to call me Angie.”

  The small lawyer blushed. “Yes, you did. I’m sorry, Ms.—I mean—Angie.”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. As for your question, my answer is yes. I do want to run the shop. I haven’t been so sure of something in a long time.”

  “What’s wrong with your dog?” Martha joined us and handed me a set of keys.

  “He’s afraid of birds,” I said casually, as if this were a normal canine problem.

  She laughed. “Ach, he’s going to see a lot more of those in Holmes County.”

  That was my fear. The cardinal hopped along the fence as if he knew. Poor Oliver. His transition to country life was going to be much more difficult than mine.

  “Can the cowgirl run the quilt shop?” Martha sounded dubious.

  I shook the keys in my hand. “She’s willing to try. The shop is perfect.”

  “Only the gut Lord is perfect.” She winked at me. “But we’ll get as close as we can. Now, you’d better saddle up. There’s a lot of work to be done.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her. “How do you know all these cowboy expressions?”

  She grinned. “I may have watched a Western or two during my rumspringa.”

  The boots bolstered my courage. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “The man standing outside the woodworking shop, who is he?”

  Harvey’s dimple disappeared. “You must mean Joseph Walker. He owns that shop and makes the best wooden furniture in the county. I have a few of his pieces in my home.”

  “He seemed”—I searched for the right word—“cold.”

  Harvey laughed nervously. “Oh, I’d hoped that we could talk about Joseph later.”

  Martha folded her arms. “You may as well tell her. She needs to be prepared.”

  “Prepared?” I looked from one to the other. “Prepared for what?”

  Harvey pulled at his tie. “He claims he owns Running Stitch.”

  I waved my hands in the air. “Wait, roll back, what?”

  “He has a fifty-year-old deed for the property with his father’s name on it. It clearly states the Walkers are the owners.”

  “Then my aunt and uncle must have bought the shop from Joseph’s father at some point. Where is my aunt’s deed to prove Joseph wrong?”

  Harvey swallowed. “That’s the problem. We can’t find it anywhere.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Isabella Alan, an academic librarian for a small college in Ohio, grew up visiting the state’s Amish country with her family. Her 2010 debut, Maid of Murder, written under the name Amanda Flower, received an Agatha Award nomination for Best First Novel.

  Advance Praise for Murder, Plain and Simple

  “Isabella Alan captures Holmes County and the Amish life in a mystery that is nothing close to plain and simple, all stitched together with heart.”

  —Avery Aames, Agatha Award-winning author of the Cheese Shop Mysteries

  “Who can best run a quilt shop in Holmes County’s Amish country—an English outsider, or only the Amish themselves? With its vast cast of English and Amish characters in fictional Rolling Brook, Ohio, Isabella Alan’s Murder, Plain and Simple will be a dead certain hit with devotees of cozy mysteries.”

  —P. L. Gaus, author of the Amish-Country Mysteries