Free Murder, Simply Stitched: An Amish Quilt Shop Mystery by Isabella Alan

shook her head. “That would be the
Englisch
way. The Amish way will be to help Rachel with her housework and help care for the bakery during this time.” Her eyes twinkled. “If we happen to do a little crime solving too, that won’t hurt. I know you have already started.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Angie, I saw you spying on the sheriff earlier near the canning shed. I know I’m not the only one.”
    I grimaced. Anna seeing me spying on the coroner and sheriff was not good news.
Who else saw me and did they tell the sheriff?
I would have to tell him. I hoped I could think of a way to do it to lessen the blow.
    “We will meet at Running Stitch after the auction today. Sarah is already there, and we both know she will want to be in on this from the start,” Anna said.
    “What about your families? You need to go home. I know that you have much work to do.”
    “I have told Jonah, and if Sarah must leave, we will tell her what we decide later. We have to help Rachel. The best way to do that is to find what really happened to Wanda Hunt.”
    Great, now Anna was beginning to sound like me. I think I may have created a crime-solving monster.

Chapter Ten
     
    A t four thirty on an autumn Wednesday afternoon, Rolling Brook was quiet. Occasionally, a car leaving the auction would roll by. Amish shopkeepers pulled in their outdoor displays from the sidewalk for the night.
    I slid my Honda into one of the diagonal parking slots in front of my shop. Typically, I parked in the small lot at the end of Sugartree Street across from the mercantile, but with the businesses closing up for the day, I felt I could take a shopper’s spot.
    Running Stitch was a brick, flat-face building that my uncle Nathan had painted olive green a decade before I was born. I always wondered why he picked that particular color. Had he been caught up in 1970s paint trends? I didn’t think so. It was much more likely the color had been on sale at the mercantile when he decided to paint the shop. Even though it wasn’t my favorite color, I had no plans to change it because I remembered the shop as olive green when I was a child and Aunt Eleanor was at the helm. Forest green awnings hung over the shop’s two windows providing the west-facing building with shade in the late afternoon.
    I smiled at the large display window to the right of the door. A fall theme of leaves, pumpkins, and autumn-colored quilts filled the space. When I had brought in real fallen leaves from the shop’s backyard garden for the display, Mattie had been aghast. To the Amish, there were clearly things that belonged inside and those that belonged outside. Real leaves fell into the outside category.
    Choosing the quilts for the display had been my biggest challenge. I had so many to choose from because my aunt had sewn so many quilts throughout her lifetime and each one was more beautiful than the last. In the end, I settled on my favorite Ohio Star and a Goosefoot. Both were made with russet, orange, goldenrod, and brown wools, which were perfect for an autumn display.
    On the inside of the window, a poster advertised our new lineup of quilting and embroidery classes. Anna agreed to teach the quilting classes, and Mattie, who was a whiz with the embroidery needle, would teach the embroidery classes. I frowned. The poster was eight and a half by eleven, which made it difficult to read from the street. Maybe I should have paid the extra money to blow it up. Only a handful of people had signed up for the classes so far. I reminded myself it took time to build something new, especially in a place as resistant to change as Rolling Brook.
    Oliver knocked his head against the back of my leg.
    I laughed. “Fine. We will go inside. You’re so impatient.”
    He cocked his head.
    “Okay, I agree this has been a particularly long day.” As I reached for Running Stitch’s doorknob, I couldn’t help but steal a glance at the shop next door, Martha Yoder’s shop. A brand-new sign hung