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

over to the cash register. I hit the NO SALE button and the drawer flew open. “Willow, it wasn’t Bigfoot. There’s no such thing.”
    “That’s not what I heard,” she said, and she lowered her voice even though we were the only two—not counting Oliver—in the shop.
    I removed my full money drawer from the locked cabinet under the counter and set it into the cash register. “Willow, you can’t be serious.”
    “It was Bigfoot. It’s the only explanation.” She lowered her voice. “I’ve seen him myself.”

Chapter Ten
    I stared at Willow as if she had a unicorn horn growing out of her forehead. Seeing how she was talking about believing in Bigfoot, it was possible that she wouldn’t find that thought the least bit strange. “Come again?” I asked.
    “Bigfoot! Sasquatch! He’s here. There have been a number of sightings in the county over the years. I saw him myself.”
    “When?”
    She tapped her chin with her index finger. “I’d say it was about four years ago. It was definitely before you moved here. Remember the old barn that burned down and where the pie factory is now? Well,” she said, warming up to her tall tale, “I was out for a walk one evening. I used to walk to the barn and back to my shop just for a little exercise. I was strolling along and was about to head back to the tea shop when the creature jumped out of a tree on the far side of the barn and ran into the woods. I spun around and ran for my life.”
    “Was it an animal, like a raccoon?” I asked.
    She dropped her hand and her blouse billowedaround her with the movement. “That would have to be a pretty huge raccoon. It was bigger than a man. I knew it was Bigfoot.”
    “What did you do?” I asked, even though I knew by questioning I was only prolonging the conversation.
    “I ran home and called Farley right off.” She waited.
    I suppressed a sigh and asked, “Then what happened?”
    “The sheriff and his deputies came out and checked the scene. They didn’t find anything.”
    “Mitchell was there?”
    She nodded. “Oh, yes, I insisted that he come himself.”
    I frowned. Mitchell hadn’t mentioned there had been other Bigfoot sightings in the county. I knew that Willow wasn’t the most reliable of witnesses, but I was sure Mitchell remembered the incident.
    Willow was still talking. “That was the last time Bigfoot was seen in this county until the sightings around your parents’ house this week.” She took a breath. “It was also the last time I walked to that old barn by myself at night.”
    “Willow, you can’t really believe that it’s anything more than a guy in a suit. Maybe it was someone playing a joke on you.”
    She folded her arms. “Bigfoots have been reported all over Ohio. If I were a Bigfoot, what better place to hide out than in Amish country? There are plenty of dense forests around here. Plenty to eat and plenty of water.”
    I couldn’t argue with her that Holmes County would be a good place for a Bigfoot to live if there was such a creature, but there wasn’t. “Do you knowexactly how Farley had heard about the latest sightings? Did he tell you?”
    She nodded. “He heard all about it from one of the sheriff’s deputies.”
    Anderson. I’d bet my best quilt frame that it was him. I sighed. The deputy wanted so desperately to impress Mitchell, he should know better than to leak information to a township trustee.
    I smoothed the dollar bills in my hands. “Did this deputy say he saw the creature with his own eyes?”
    “Nooo,” she said slowly. “But he described what Jonah Graber and others on the scene saw.”
    She made no mention of my eyewitness account, so I thought it was best to keep the tidbit to myself. “Maybe Jonah and the others didn’t realize what they were seeing. Maybe it’s a bear, or,” I added, “a bobcat.”
    She shook her head, and as usual, her purple spiky hair was perfectly still. “There aren’t that many bears around here, and a bobcat isn’t