Murder, Handcrafted (Amish Quilt Shop Mystery) by Isabella Alan Page A

beeline for the counter and joked with one another as they picked out their doughnuts.
    “I had better let you get back to the counter,” I said.
    Her brow knit together, but she only nodded as she went to tend to her customers.
    As Oliver and I walked back across the street to my shop, my conversation with Rachel haunted me and brought to mind a conversation that I had had with Anna Graber only a few days after I moved back to Holmes County to take over Running Stitch. Anna had said something like, “Jonah moped for days after your family moved to Texas and looked forward to seeing you each summer. It was hard for him when you stopped coming, but it was for the best.”
    The conversation had stuck with me nearly two years later, and I remember the pang I had felt when Anna had said that to me. How could my staying away from Holmes County been for the best? I had wondered at the time. I hadn’t fully understood it, but then again, maybe a small part of me had and I pushed it away. Rachel’s revelation confirmed what I might have always known.
    And now, I had to worry about Mattie lying to me about working at the pie factory on top of that. I knew that she wasn’t working there, because Rachel would definitely know if Aaron had asked Mattie to help out. Oh yeah, and then there was the murder too.
    “Angie!” Willow Moon called to me as my foot hit the sidewalk in front of Running Stitch.
    I turned to find Willow standing in the doorway of her place of business, The Dutchman’s Tea Shop, one of the few truly English businesses in Rolling Brook. No one would confuse Willow for an Amish person. She waved her hand at me, causing the gauzy fabric that made up almost all of her blouses to billow aroundher face. However, her short spiked purple hair never moved. “Please come over.”
    “I need to open the shop,” I said, fearing that Willow needed a tea taste tester. Been there, done that, and I had barely come away with my life, not to mention my taste buds intact. I didn’t know what tealike concoction Willow was brewing up across the street at her tea shop, and I didn’t want to know. They were all horrible.
    “I’ll come to you,” she called and made her way across the street to stand next to me on the sidewalk.
    I unlocked the front door to Running Stitch and let Oliver and Willow inside before stepping into the shop myself.
    “Angie, I’m so glad that I caught you alone,” she said as I entered. “We have important township business to discuss.”
    Willow and I were both Rolling Brook township trustees. I had taken the post in order to represent the interests of the Amish in Rolling Brook. The Amish would not run for political office and depended on their English friends to remember them when making laws and rules in the county. I had found that severely lacking when I first moved back to Holmes County, at least in Rolling Brook, and took up their cause. That didn’t mean I enjoyed it. I had found during my time in the positon that most of the work of a township official was boring and tedious. And the long rhetoric-filled meetings were the absolute worst.
    Willow and I were usually allies when it came to making decisions for the township. She and I were on one side, and head trustee Caroline Cramer and JasonRustle were on the other. Former head trustee—who still acted like and would like everyone to believe he was still in charge—Farley Jung was the tie breaker. It was always a surprise to see on what side of a decision Farley would fall.
    “I heard about the accident at your parents’ home today,” she said without preamble.
    I turned on the lights and raised my eyebrows. “How’d you hear about it? I just told Rachel, and she didn’t know.”
    “Farley called,” she said, as if that was explanation enough. Actually, it was. It seemed that Farley Jung knew everything that happened in the county. “I heard too that there was a Bigfoot sighting there.”
    Oh boy. I took a breath and walked