Murder, Handcrafted (Amish Quilt Shop Mystery) (16 page)

S
ome of the Bigfooters looked up from their notes and plates of scones. When Caroline shot them her death glare, they averted their eyes. They weren’t afraid of coming face-to-face with a mythical creature, but Caroline scared them to death. That sounded about right.

“Caroline.” Willow clasped her hands and her gauzy blouse billowed around her. “What a surprise to see you here this morning. Did we have a trustees’ meeting that I didn’t know about?” Willow smiled. “Can I pour you a cup of tea? It’s my new recipe called Bigfoot Brew.”

I inwardly groaned.

Caroline wrinkled her nose. “No, thank you.” Her blond hair was pulled back in a perfect chignon and she wore a suit as if she’d just come from a business meeting. Caroline took her elected position as head township trustee as seriously as the queen of England took her post, and she made sure to dress the part.

“It seems I’m the one unaware of some type of
gathering.” Caroline gestured around the room. “What is going on here?”

Willow forced a laugh. “It seems that the word has gotten out that we had a little Bigfoot sighting in the township.”

“A little Bigfoot sighting?” Caroline glowered. “So this Bigfoot business is true?”

In my attempt to escape, I bumped my hip into a table where two Bigfooters were working on a grid of some sort.

Behind Caroline, Farley stepped in my path as if he knew I was trying to flee. As always, his black hair was slicked back
Grease
-style. He smirked. I scowled in return.

Caroline took a deep breath. “And how did all these people find out about our little sighting here in the county?”

Willow played with her crystal. “I thought it would bring some business if I shared the news with the local chapter of the Bigfooter Society. I never imagined that there would be so much interest.”

I winced.
Oh, Willow, don’t admit it to Caroline right off.

“You did what?” the head trustee asked through clenched teeth.

Willow spun her crystal at double speed.

Caroline’s dark eyes narrowed. “Do you not realize that we are the laughingstock of the county? My counterparts in Berlin and Charm are already calling me, making Bigfoot cracks. Is
this
what we want Rolling Brook to be known for?”

“Caroline,” I said in my most reasonable voice,
“Willow never intended to hurt Rolling Brook’s reputation.”

“And you!” She pointed at me. “All of this is your fault.”

I held Oliver protectively to my chest. “What? Me? What did I do?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Angela Braddock.” Her glossy lip curled in disdain. “Everyone knows the supposed sighting of the
thing
was at your parents’ house. What do you think you’re doing by spreading rumors like this?”

“The Bigfoot thing didn’t come from me,” I said. “The first I had heard of this Bigfoot theory was from . . .” I stopped myself from saying Deputy Anderson’s name. The poor guy had enough problems without my offering him as a sacrificial lamb to Caroline.

She didn’t miss a beat. “From whom did you hear it?”

I shifted Oliver in my arms. He snuffled and turned his face away from the conversation. He didn’t care for Caroline. She wasn’t an animal person, clearly a character flaw. “It doesn’t matter who I heard it from,” I said.

“It’s not Angie’s fault. It’s mine,” Willow said. “I was the one who posted the news about the sighting on the chapter’s message board. I did it without Angie’s knowledge.” She continued to twirl the purple crystal as she spoke.

“Of course you would be interested in this ridiculous myth,” Caroline said accusatorily.

“Now, Caroline,” Farley said in his most condescending voice. “You can’t blame Willow or Angie for
what happened. We can only move forward and deal with it. When I was head trustee . . .”

“Farley,” Caroline snapped, “if I have to hear another anecdote of when you were head trustee, I swear I’m going to scream.”

He only smiled.

Before Caroline could actually let loose a screech that would bring a banshee to tears, I interrupted. “This is not the time to discuss this.” I nodded at the Bigfooters, who were watching us. “Don’t you think it would do better to have a private meeting where we can speak more freely?”

Caroline scowled at the eavesdroppers, who turned away. “You’re right,” she said as if she hated to admit that could be true. “We need to have an emergency trustees’ meeting tonight to go over how to deal with this latest crisis.”

“The tea shop shouldn’t be as crowded later when the Bigfooters start their search,” Willow said.

I winced. That wasn’t the right thing to say to Caroline.

The head trustee pursed her lips. “We can’t have it here with your
friends
coming and going at all hours.” She glared at another Bigfooter, who hid his face.

“We can meet in my shop tonight,” I jumped in. “How does seven work for all of you?”

“I suppose that will have to do since Jason doesn’t seem to make meetings that are right after he leaves his office for the day,” she said with thinly veiled disgust.

Caroline constantly complained about Jason Rustle’s schedule. Of the five trustees, he was the only one
who had a true nine to five job. Willow and I owned our own businesses. Other than her trustee position, Caroline’s work was mostly volunteering, and who knew what Farley did all day. It was probably for the best that I was clueless about his whereabouts most of the time.

“We’ll meet at Running Stitch at seven sharp.” Caroline pointed at Willow. “I expect that you will have a plan as to how to deal with this crisis.”

Caroline and Farley left the tea shop.

Willow’s shoulders dropped. “They didn’t even stay for a cup of my tea.”

Against my better judgment I asked, “What’s in it?” My cup was still on the table.

Willow brightened. “Anise. I think it gives it a zing.”

I bet.

“I need to head out,” I said, making no move to pick up the cup of tea from the table. “Please try to have a plan for the trustee’s meeting tonight. You’re going to need it.”

She nodded. “Don’t you worry, Angie. I will have a plan.”

Why did that comment make me worry?

She picked up my tea mug and poured it into a to-go cup, handing it to me. I thought it was easier to take the cup than to argue with her about it.

When I crossed the street, I sniffed the concoction. I caught a whiff of spices, but there was something else there reminiscent of freshly mowed grass. Against my better judgment, I took a tentative sip. “Ahh!” I spurted and gagged. It tasted like spiced mud.

Oliver circled me and whined.

Still spurting, I poured the contents from the travel cup into a large potted plant along the sidewalk. “If that plant dies after a dose of Bigfoot Brew,” I croaked, “we don’t know anything about it.”

My trusty Frenchie barked in solidarity.

After I had mostly recovered from my tasting of Willow’s tea, a large tour bus rolled down the street in the direction of the mercantile. I should return to Running Stitch. I hadn’t told Mattie how long I would be gone, but I knew she had the quilting class well in hand. It wouldn’t hurt to make one more stop. I pointed my cowboy boots in the direction the tour bus had gone.

Just like the day before, a
CLOSED
sign hung in the mercantile’s window, and just like the day before, I ignored it. I set Oliver on the sidewalk beside me and tried the doorknob. The door opened inward. I stepped inside the mercantile. The store was in the same state of disarray that I found it in the day before.

As we entered the store, the noise of Oliver’s toenails clicking on the hardwood floor was the only sound.

I peered into a long aisle when a handheld camcorder was shoved in my face.

“H
ey!” I cried, and jumped backward.

Oliver braced his paws on the floor as if trying to decide to protect me from the camera or to make a break for the door.

The person holding the camera lowered it from his face, which was beet red. “You’re not Sam.”

“Umm . . . no, I’m not. Who’s Sam?” I asked, taking a good look at the teenager in front of me. He had messy dark hair worn a little too long to keep under control, and he wore jeans and a video game T-shirt. He was most certainly not Amish.

“Cameron!” A voice called from somewhere deep in the store. “Put that blasted camera away and help me feed this wire.”

The teenager spun around and headed toward the voice. After a beat, I followed him. In the middle of the canned-vegetables aisle, one of the tiles from the drop ceiling had been removed, and I saw a pair of legs standing on the second-to-top rung of the ladder under
the opening. The rest of the man’s body was somewhere inside the hole.

The man in the hole dropped his hand. “Give me the wire.”

Cameron was fiddling with a setting on his camera.

“Cameron!” the headless legs barked again.

After carefully setting his camera on a shelf next to a stack of canned beets, Cameron jumped into action. He unwound a spool of wire and placed the end of the wire in the man’s hand. As the man pulled more of the wire into the hole, Cameron allowed the spool in his hands to unwind.

I watched this for a moment. Cameron seemed to have forgotten I was there. I was about to announce myself when legs started coming down the ladder. After a few steps I saw the face and had to stifle a gasp, because I knew I was looking at Blane Bright, Griffin’s younger brother. Blane was the spitting image of his older brother, and the men looked enough alike to be twins. In fact, their features were so similar that I almost felt as though I was staring into the face of a dead man.

Blane rested his arm on the top of the ladder and stared at me. “The store’s closed.”

I cleared my throat. “I know that.”

His eyes narrowed. “Then can I help you?”

His question shook me out of my stupor. “I hope so. I’m Angie Braddock.”

“You’re the sheriff’s girlfriend. I’ve heard about you.” He continued the rest of the way down the ladder.

Immediately, I bristled. Yes, I was Mitchell’s girlfriend, but that wasn’t my defining characteristic and
certainly not the one I wanted to be known for the most. “I’m also the owner of Running Stitch and a Rolling Brook township trustee.”

He waved that statement away as if my other titles were of little consequence as he stepped from the ladder onto the floor. “Liam told me you’d be stopping by to ask me about my brother. He said you were something of a sleuth and wanted to know about Griff’s death.”

Thanks, Liam.

I refused to be put on the defensive by this man. “I wouldn’t call myself a sleuth, but yes, I would like to talk to you about Griffin. He died in my parents’ backyard and, of course, they are concerned.”

“That’s a tough break for them, but I can’t tell you anything. I wasn’t with my brother when he died. I wasn’t included on that job.” His last statement held a hint of bitterness.

“Maybe you—”

“You might as well be on your way. I told you I have nothing to say. I have this big job here, and I need to get back to it so that Liam can open the store tomorrow.” He walked over to the toolbox that was set in the middle of a rolling cart in the aisle and began to sort through the tools in the box.

“But—”

He held up a flathead screwdriver and examined it. Apparently dissatisfied with the tool, he dropped it back into the box and continued to sift through the tools. “Here’s what I know. Nothing. I’m sorry he’s dead. I really am. Griff and I didn’t always see eye to
eye, but he was my blood. That’s all I have to say about it.” He snapped his fingers at the teen. “Cam, I need another length of wire.”

The boy was texting on his phone, and Blane had to call his name twice more.

“Sorry, Dad.” Cameron shoved the phone in the back pocket of his jeans.

His use of “Dad” got my attention. So this was Blane’s son. That also meant he was Griffin’s nephew. Now that I knew that, I could see the resemblance between father and son. Because of Blane’s close resemblance to his older brother, I should have seen the same similarities between Cameron and Griffin too.

Blane appeared pleased with the next screwdriver that he found and climbed back up the ladder. “Cam, I need that wire.”

Cameron handed his father the end of the wire to be fed up through the ceiling.

“Son,” Blane said, “how many times do I have to tell you to pay attention? You have to pay attention on a job like this. If you don’t, that’s how you’re going to get hurt.”

I took the last statement as an opening. “Do you think your brother forgot to pay attention the morning that he died?”

He scowled at me from halfway up the ladder. “Of course he did. If he’d minded his surroundings, he would have seen the wire, however small, and never stepped on that step. It was a stupid mistake that cost him his life.”

“Was it his first mistake?” I asked.

His black eyebrows knit together. “What do you mean?”

“I heard that one of his former employees, Kamon Graber, died in a similar accident.”

He frowned. “That was twenty years ago.”

“I know, but there are similarities.”

“They were both electrocuted, but Kamon wasn’t murdered. His death was a careless accident.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

He sighed. “The circuit breaker was mislabeled in the factory were Kamon was doing the work. He turned off the wrong one before starting the job and was electrocuted as a result. As I said, stupid accident. A good electrician doesn’t trust the breaker labels, especially in an older building with bad wiring. They should all be tested before any work begins.”

“So you blame Kamon?” I asked.

“Yes, and my brother. He should have been more thorough in his instructions to Kamon. He never made that mistake again.” He climbed up another step. “Now, I have work to do.”

“Linda told me to talk to you about Griffin,” I said.

He stiffened. “How do you know Linda?”

“I eat at the Double Dime a couple of times a week. We’re friends.”

He frowned, and seemed to be considering me for the first time. Being Mitchell’s girlfriend wasn’t impressive, but being Linda’s friend was. “I assume that she told you that Griff and I were her foster kids.”

“She did,” I said, looking up at him. “She’s heartbroken over Griffin’s death.”

He snorted. “She would be. Did she send you here? Is that what this is about?”

“She wants me to find out who killed your brother.”

He climbed back down the ladder, leaving the piece of wire dangling over the platform at the top. “Good luck with that.”

“You can help me,” I said.

“I can’t,” he snapped. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to help you, which I don’t.”

“Not even for Linda?”

“Why do I care what she wants? She’s not my real mother.”

I glared back at him. “She raised you.”

He shrugged.

I balled my hands into fists at my sides. Blane was going to tell me what he knew whether he liked it or not. “Who might have wanted to murder your brother?” I thought I would just jump to the heart of the matter.

He eyed me. “You mean other than me.”

My mouth fell open.

He laughed. “I’m not stupid. I know people are talking, and my brother and I just divided our business not long before he died. I got the bad end of the bargain. Sure, I got a nice chunk of money when he bought me out, but he kept on the contracts and clients. I was going to have to rebuild my new electrical repair company from scratch. Now I don’t have to.”

“Because your brother is dead.”

“That’s right,” he said with no emotion. “I get the business in a survivorship deed. He never changed it when the business broke up. He probably thought
he would have plenty of time for that later. He was wrong.”

I shivered. Griffin had wanted to leave his business to Linda, but he was murdered before he could make that happen. Blane came out the victor. Did he force that victory by murdering his brother?

“There’s really no reason for me to talk to you about this. The police have already spoken to me twice.”

I frowned. It was something else Mitchell didn’t tell me. I had to remind myself he was a cop and wasn’t able to talk to me about his ongoing investigation, but knowing that didn’t irritate me any less. “Do you have an alibi for the time that Griffin was murdered?”

He frowned. “No. Believe me when I say that I wish that I did.”

“Where were you?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, so I tried a different question. “What can you tell me about Griffin’s girlfriend, Mallory?”

His face darkened. “Let’s just say that she enjoys the finer things in life, much finer than an electrician living in this county can afford. I wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t get her something she wanted and she retaliated.”

I frowned. That sounded as if she would hit him or yell at him, but Griffin’s death had been methodical and planned out to the last detail. “Would she know how to connect a circuit like the one that killed your brother?”

He balanced his screwdriver in his hand. “It wasn’t a complicated setup. She may have picked up a thing
or two from Griff, and everyone knows that water and electricity is a recipe for disaster.”

“Where can I find Mallory?” I asked.

He frowned. “Her family owns one of those large furniture warehouses that sell overpriced Amish furniture to tourists out on Route Thirty-nine between Millersburg and Sugar Creek.”

“Which one is it?” I asked. There were several furniture warehouses on the same stretch of road.

“Zeff Oak Emporium.” He grunted. “Even the name is pretentious.” He placed his left foot on the bottom rung of the ladder.

“One more question,” I said before he could disappear back into the hole in the ceiling again.

He sighed. “What?”

“Were you working with your brother when Kamon Graber was killed?”

He gave a sharp intake of breath. “No, I wasn’t.” He stared over my head. “I was in manufacturing. Griff went into the trade right after school, but I dabbled in several jobs before settling in on this one. Linda probably told you Griff and I didn’t always see eye to eye.” His voice caught, revealing just a tiny bit of emotion for the first time during our conversation. “He was still my brother, and I’m sorry he’s dead.” With that, he made his way up the ladder.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Cameron had picked up his video camera again and was recording me.

I yelped. “What are you doing?”

“Cam, cut that out.” Blane peered out of the hole in the ceiling at his son. “The kid is obsessed with that toy.”

“It’s not a toy,” Cameron said defensively. “I’m studying cinematography in college. I’m going to be a director. I have to practice if I want to make it.”

His father pressed his lips together in a thin line. “It’s his mother that lets him get away with outlandish dreams like that. I would much rather the boy came back down to reality and helped me with this job.”

I glanced back at Cameron, and the teen seemed to shrink at his father’s words.

“Movies are a good career,” I said.

“Not if you live in Ohio,” Blane replied from his post on the ladder.

“Who says I’m going to stay in Ohio after college?” Cameron fired back.

“We’ll discuss this later.” His father’s tone left no room for argument.