Murder, Plain and Simple Read Free Page B

street, which is owned and run by my aunt’s dear friends the Millers.
    Movement in the display window of the woodworker’s shop caught my eye. A figure stepped away from the front window. I couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a man.
    Farley cleared his throat. “We would also like to know if you can participate in the fest. As a new shopkeeper in town, it would give you the opportunity to promote your business and meet others in the community.”
    Any business I could drum up would be helpful. “I would be happy to help out. What would you like me to do?”
    “We will think of something.” Willow glanced at the CLOSED sign in Running Stitch’s glass door. “When do you plan to reopen?”
    “Tomorrow. We are having a grand reopening party. You both should come.”
    “We wouldn’t miss it,” Willow said.
    Farley took a step closer to me. “As for Joseph Walker, ignore him, like Willow said. He will be silent on the topic of the Watermelon Fest soon enough.”
    I shivered at the trustee’s intensity. He must
really
like watermelon.
    The odd pair said their good-byes and headed down Sugartree, handing out flyers to tourists.
    Oliver braced his two front paws on my leg. I scratched him between the ears. “It’s because I didn’t wear the boots. Had I worn the boots, Joseph would have been nicer.”

Chapter Three
    L ater that morning, I stood in the middle of the shop, holding one of my aunt’s heavy quilts in my arms, trying to decide the best place to display it. It was a double wedding ring pattern. Like most traditional Amish quilts, it was pieced together with geometric shapes of strong color. Her double wedding ring was purple, navy blue, black, olive green, and maroon. It was some of my aunt’s finest work. I inhaled the quilt’s scent, and it smelled like dusty cotton, which I found somehow comforting. There was nothing more comforting to me than the smell of a quilt or the act of quilting, but translating that passion into an occupation was turning out to be a greater challenge than I thought it would be. And Joseph Walker’s claim to own Running Stitch made things even more complicated.
Oliver whimpered at my feet.
    “What’s wrong, buddy? Are you nervous about the reopening too?”
    He pawed at my leg, and I leaned over to pet him. As I did, he buried his face in the quilt and growled softly.
    I jerked the quilt away. “Oliver, don’t try to bite that. It’s Aunt Eleanor’s quilt.”
    He slunk back to his bed pillow by the display window.
    I was still wondering about Oliver’s strange behavior when the shop door banged open. The bell nailed to the door jingled. Oliver perked up from his pillow. Seeing who it was, he rested his head back on the pillow with a snuffling sound.
    Martha Yoder stood in the doorway with her quilting basket hooked over her arm. The basket rocked back and forth as she tugged at her bonnet ties and removed the hat from her head, revealing the white prayer cap underneath. “I see you’ve found the double wedding ring. Do you have a special person in mind for that?” Her blue eyes sparkled.
    I blushed. “I’m going to hang it behind the cash register.”
    Behind her, Rachel Miller, a petite young woman, stepped into the room, balancing three-month-old Abram on her hip. Abram had a tuft of hair sticking up on his head. In Rachel’s other arm, she held a basket from her family’s bakery across the street. I hoped Rachel remembered to pack her county-fair-winning snickerdoodles. The cinnamon-covered cookies were my favorite. Silver-haired Anna Graber was a few steps behind her. All three Amish women were members of my aunt’s quilt circle. We hoped to recruit more quilters during the grand reopening. My aunt started the circle over twenty years ago as a place where Amish women could have a break once a week to socialize with other women. She told me once that even Amish wives and mothers needed time away from the family and housework. Most of the quilts were made