Speak With Confection: An Amish Cupcake Cozy Mystery

by Ruth Hartzler

  “I expect most people lease apartments to complete strangers,” Rebecca said with a laugh.

  Aaron laughed too. Everybody else at the table seemed relaxed, but I was still concerned that he was the murderer. I wondered how I could bring the subject around to Gemma’s death and was still wondering when Matilda did it for me.

  “Has Detective Stirling questioned you again?” she asked him rather pointedly.

  “Yes, as a matter of fact, the detective questioned me yesterday. Has he questioned you again?”

  Matilda pulled a face. “Thankfully, he hasn’t. Did you get any clue from him as to whether he was close to solving the case?”

  Aaron shook his head. “No, he just asked a lot of questions about Horatio.”

  “Horatio? Doesn’t he have an alibi?”

  “I don’t know. Detective Stirling didn’t ask me any questions about Horatio’s alibi.”

  “What sort of questions did he ask you?” Matilda pressed.

  “Just about Horatio’s love life, not that I knew anything about that,” Aaron said with a chuckle. “I’d heard rumors about Gemma’s love life, of course, but not about Horatio’s. All I knew was that Gemma had threatened to cut him out of her will.”

  I gasped. “Why would she do that?”

  “Like I told the detective, Gemma wasn’t able to control her temper at the best of times. When I was milking the goats one day, she came in and yelled that she was about to change her will because she didn’t like Horatio’s taste in women.”

  “Was that just before she was murdered?” Matilda asked him.

  Aaron shook his head. “No, it was a few months ago.”

  “I might have to start the fire,” Ephraim said, cutting across the conversation. “The nights are getting cooler earlier this year, don’t you think so, Aaron?”

  “I hadn’t quite noticed, to tell you the truth, because I’ve always had air-conditioning,” Aaron said. “But yes, I see what you mean. It must be good to be closer to nature and therefore more observant.”

  I knew Ephraim had changed the topic away from murder, as he didn’t consider murder a suitable subject for dinner conversation. Still, I found it interesting. I hadn’t heard previously that Gemma had threatened to cut Horatio out of her will.

  Something niggled at me at the back of my mind. Obviously, Gemma hadn’t changed her will because Horatio was to inherit everything, so maybe he had dumped his girlfriend—or simply had pretended to do so. And if that had been the case, had Horatio plotted to murder his mother from that moment forward? It would certainly make sense, but just because the pieces fitted didn’t mean they were the right pieces.

  And there was something else, that something niggling at me at the back of my mind. It was one of those things I knew that I couldn’t quite bring forward to full realization. It was entirely irritating, but the more I thought about it, the more it eluded me.

  Aaron nodded to the seat opposite him. “Is that an Amish custom?”

  “Is what?” Rebecca asked him.

  “Setting a spare place for dinner,” he said. “I’ve heard you Amish are very hospitable. Is that because somebody could drop by with no warning?”

  Both Ephraim and Rebecca chuckled. I hadn’t even noticed the extra place until he mentioned it, so consumed I was with my concerns that Aaron might be the murderer.

  “No, we invited somebody else as a surprise, but he didn’t know if he could make it,” Rebecca said.

  “Who was that?” Aaron asked.

  Just then, there was a knock on the door. Ephraim stood. “That must be him now.” He presently returned with Damon.

  “Damon!” I gasped. My cheeks burned hot and I realized they were likely bright red. That made me embarrassed, which no doubt turned my cheeks a deeper shade of red.

  Damon shot me a warm smile. “Hi, Jane. Hello, everybody. Thanks for inviting me, Rebecca.”

  “Aaron, you wouldn’t have met Damon,” Ephraim said. “Damon, this is Aaron Alexander, our new tenant in the apartment. Aaron, this is Detective Damon McCloud.”

  “We actually met at a recent funeral,” Damon said.

  Aaron gasped. “A detective!” He sounded horrified but soon added, “I had better be on my best behavior.” He forced a chuckle. “I didn’t know Amish people had detectives for friends.”

  “Damon is Jane’s friend,” Ephraim said which made me blush furiously. I silently scolded myself.

  “You have met my partner, Detective Stirling, I believe,” Damon said.

  Aaron’s mouth fell open. “You’re his partner? So, are you working on Gemma Calhoun’s murder?”

  Damon shook his head. “No, I’m working on other cases at the moment. That is Detective Stirling’s case.”

  “Does he have any suspects?” Aaron asked.

  “You’d have to ask him,” Damon said.

  “I’m sorry, but we were all about to start,” she said. “Please have a seat here right by me.” The spare place was diagonally opposite me at the other end of the table, which is why hadn’t noticed it. I wished he had been seated closer.

  After Damon was seated, Ephraim and Rebecca shut their eyes for the second silent prayer, which no doubt, was for Damon’s benefit. The rest of us followed suit. I opened one eye to see Aaron had his eyes shut too.

  I silently recited the Lord’s Prayer to myself and then opened my eyes just as Rebecca and Ephraim opened theirs. Presently, there was another ‘Ouch!’ from Aaron. He bent down to rub his shin. “I know how long it takes now,” he said to Eleanor in a painted tone.

  Rebecca cleared her throat. “Help yourselves, everybody.”

  Soon I had a large helping of schnitz und knepp in front of me. I felt better knowing that Damon was there. If Aaron was, in fact, the murderer, then maybe he would be too scared to do anything as now he knew we were friends with Damon. I certainly hoped so, anyway.

  Rebecca and Ephraim were careful to keep the conversation away from murder for the remainder of the dinner.

  By the time we were all eating dessert, Amish Funny Cake Pie with ice cream, everybody appeared relaxed, even Aaron. I wondered if a murderer would be so calm in the presence of a detective. I had no idea. I wasn’t a psychiatrist, and I couldn’t help but worry.

  Matilda, Eleanor, and I helped Rebecca clear the dinner table. When we returned, Rebecca asked, “Would everybody like kaffi or meadow tea?”

  “I’ll have what everybody else is having,” Aaron said.

  “That’s most accommodating of you,” Rebecca said with a smile, “but some will be having kaffi and some will be having meadow tea.”

  “Kaffi is coffee,” Eleanor told him.

  Aaron chuckled. “I figured that out for myself. I’d like some coffee please. Black.”

  Damon jumped to his feet. “I’ll help you make the coffee and meadow tea.”

  “Nee,” Rebecca said. She did her best to wave him away.

  “I’ll get it, and Damon can help me,” I said with a pointed look at Rebecca.

  She caught my meaning. “All right.”

  Damon and I walked into the kitchen. “Damon, I’m so happy you’re here! It will make Aaron a little more scared to do anything, if he’s the murderer.”

  Damon pulled me into a tight hug and whispered in my ear, “When you said you were happy I was here, I thought you were pleased to see me.”

  I chuckled. “I am pleased to see you. I just can’t help worrying that Aaron is the murderer.”

  Damon released me. “That’s why I wanted to catch you on your own.”

  “Oh, is that the only reason?” I teased him.

  He wagged his finger at me. “Touché! I wanted to give you some information. I’m only telling you, mind you, because I think it will put your mind at rest about Aaron.”

  “You don’t think he’s the murderer?” I said a little too loudly and then clamped my hand over my mouth.

  “Gemma Calhoun had an appointment with her lawyer to change her will.”

&nbs
p; “You’re kidding!”

  He shook his head. “The appointment was set for a few days after she was murdered. She told her lawyer that she was cutting Horatio out of the will because she didn’t like his taste in women and he had been warned.”

  “So Horatio was still with the woman Gemma didn’t like.”

  Damon folded his arms over his chest. “What do you know about that?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know anything that Detective Stirling doesn’t know,” I said. “I’ve just been concerned about Aaron living over Rebecca’s store, in case he was the murderer and all that. This tends to implicate Horatio and his girlfriend, doesn’t it?”

  “I can’t tell you anything, obviously, about an ongoing investigation,” Damon said, “but I wouldn’t worry about Aaron too much if I were you. Still, until we know for sure, don’t take any chances, but I don’t think you need to worry about him. The case has taken a different direction.”

  I reached up and gave him an impulsive peck on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Is that the best you can do?” Damon pulled me to him, but when his lips were inches away from mine, Eleanor burst through the door. “What’s the delay? Some of us are desperate for coffee.”

  Chapter 19

  It had been an uneventful day. Matilda had done her best to try to convince me to break into Horatio’s house, but I had flatly refused.

  Now, I fixed my hair in the mirror. I wore a white Dior suit, one taken—with permission—from the back of Matilda’s closet. The suit was too big on me, but that was nothing a couple of strategically placed pins couldn’t conquer.

  “You look lovely,” Eleanor said as I descended the stairs. I felt like the heroine in one of those romantic comedies which were popular during the nineties, the ones made for teenagers.

  “Thank you. Is Damon here yet?”

  “I want him to try my tomato mint tea.” Eleanor pointed to a mug she had set on the entrance table. “It’s like soup in a cup!”

  “It’s nothing like soup in a cup,” I said, distressed. I hardly wanted my first real date with Damon to begin with disaster, but if I didn’t make a quick escape from my house mates, disaster was the only way I could see the night starting.

  “The mint adds a touch of class,” Eleanor said, ignoring me. “A touch of class, Jane! As if soup in a cup wasn’t delightful enough already, it is elegant soup in a cup.”

  “Why don’t you—I don’t know—actually just put soup in a cup, Eleanor?”

  “Now you are just talking nonsense, dear.”

  “You look beautiful, Jane,” Matilda said kindly as she stepped into the entranceway. “Have either of you seen Gigi?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “The goat?”

  “Of course the goat,” Matilda said. “She’s gone, and she’s such a wild little thing.”

  “I might have left the gate open,” Eleanor said suddenly, and she clapped her hand over her mouth. “Get a flashlight, girls. We have an escapee.”

  “I don’t have time,” I replied. I didn’t want to get the white suit dirty by running through the countryside at night, looking for a wild goat. “Is that Damon?”

  The three of us listened as a car pulled into the driveway.

  “He can help!” Eleanor exclaimed.

  “Four hands are better than three!” Matilda agreed.

  I threw open the door and darted toward the car. Damon had one foot on the ground, when he spotted me barreling forward, insisting that we needed to leave now. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Everything is wrong,” I called.

  I could feel Eleanor and Matilda hot on my heels, their breathing heavy in the raw night air.

  “They have tea that is like soup in a cup,” I warned Damon.

  “And a missing goat,” Matilda added.

  “No,” I hissed as Damon opened his mouth to reply. I pushed him toward his door and then threw myself into the passenger seat, punching the lock and snapping on my seatbelt.

  Eleanor and Matilda pressed their faces against the window, fogging up the glass. They looked like zombies.

  “Help us,” they moaned together. “Help us find Gigi.”

  “Drive,” I urged Damon, who started the car, hit the gas, and tore away from the farmhouse.

  “Did you hear that?” Damon said. “It sounded like something fell on the roof. We should stop and check.”

  But I had frightful visions of Eleanor and Matilda running toward us, arms filled with tomatoes and mint. “Keep driving,” I ordered, surprised by the authority in my voice. Who knew I was so bossy!

  The restaurant was a twenty-minute drive, and we arrived just in time to make our reservation. I believed that Damon had played the law enforcement card, because I’d heard people had tried to eat here for years at this fancy French restaurant and could never get a table.

  Damon asked me to stay in the car because he wanted to open the car door for me. I found myself frowning as my phone chirped again and again with frantic texts from Eleanor and Matilda.

  “Did you hear that?” Damon said, resting his hand on the door handle. He had not stepped from the car yet. “I thought I heard something on the roof.”

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” I said, but there it was. The sound of hooves on the roof of his car.

  I didn’t wait for Damon. I threw open my door and looked up, staring straight into the big yellow eyes of Gigi. So when Damon said he heard something on the roof, he was talking about the escaped goat!

  “Oh no,” I said to Gigi. “I’ve been looking forward to this date for a long time.”

  “We’ll just take her back,” Damon said calmly. He looked in the trunk for some rope.

  “The restaurant will never hold our reservation. It’ll take us forty minutes to drive home, return Gigi, and drive back here.”

  Damon tied the rope around Gigi’s neck. “Eleanor and Matilda can come and collect her.”

  “It will take them twenty minutes to drive here,” I replied, but Damon was already calling them.

  I stood there and listened in on their conversation. So did Gigi, who was still on the roof. Damon told Eleanor and Matilda where we were. After he hung up, he said, “All good. They’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

  “I don’t think the restaurant will hold our table for twenty whole minutes, Damon.” I didn’t mean to sound so negative, but I’d heard this place was notorious for punishing latecomers. They could afford to be. They were the hot ticket in town.

  “Why don’t you go inside and hold our table, while I stay out here with Gigi to make sure she doesn’t run away?”

  I felt even guiltier now. Had I been so uptight about the reservation that Damon no longer wanted to eat dinner with me? These were the kind of thoughts that had haunted me in my youth, when I had felt so awkward and gawky on a date.

  “Maybe I’ve overreacted.”

  “You’ve not overreacted at all.” Damon took the end of the rope from me. “I’m not at all keen to lose this table either, not after Matilda and Eleanor told me this was your favorite restaurant.”

  I did a double take. “They did?” What were Matilda and Eleanor playing at? I kept my thoughts to myself. Clearly, Matilda and Eleanor wanted me at this restaurant for a reason, something to do with the investigation.

  Damon was still talking. “I had to blackmail the sous-chef in order to get this reservation,” he said with a wink.

  I smiled. “Is that legal?”

  “Of course not,” Damon replied. “But it’s smart. A man will go to great lengths to impress a pretty girl, you know.”

  I felt my ears redden. “Well, I’ll just order a bottle of sparkling water and wait for you inside,” I said, and he grinned.

  For a moment, it felt as though we were the only two people in the world, until another car pulled into the parking lot, and the feeling was broken.

  Damon stayed with Gigi as I took my seat in the restaurant. I ordered a soda along with a bottle of sparkling water and resisted the urge
to reach for my phone. Plenty of grown women dined by themselves, so why should I feel embarrassed that no one was sitting across the table from me? Yet I did feel embarrassed. I felt as though the eyes of everyone in the restaurant were falling on me.

  The feeling fled the minute Damon finally appeared at my elbow. “All good,” he said, bending down, his breath touching my ear. “Matilda and Eleanor have taken Gigi. The taxi driver refused to take a goat in the car, so they borrowed my car to take her home. We’ll catch a taxi back to your house.” He smiled and sat opposite me.

  I knew he wouldn’t be smiling if he knew what Matilda’s driving was like. Still, it was better that he remained oblivious to that.

  A waiter appeared at our table and thrust menus at us. My eyes widened when I saw the prices. I was deciding between the Creamy Crab Croquettes with Wasabi Aioli and the Roasted Chicken Stuffed with Thyme and Truffle Oil, when the reason Matilda and Eleanor had seen to it that I came to this restaurant walked past me.

  It was the elusive Horatio. I gasped.

  Damon looked up at me. “Are you all right?”

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to start a relationship with lies, but he would be angry if his suspicions that I was investigating were confirmed. I considered for a moment telling him I was excited to see Asparagus in a Port Wine Gastrique on the menu, but honesty prevailed. “Horatio Calhoun-Blye just walked past us.”

  Damon raised one eyebrow. “The victim’s son.” Damon picked up his napkin, folded it, unfolded it, and put it back on his lap. “So, this isn’t your favorite restaurant, is it?”

  I had to admit that it wasn’t. I hurried to add, “But it is a lovely restaurant, and I’m certain it will be my favorite restaurant going forward. I do love French food. Damon, I had no idea Matilda and Eleanor suggested you bring me here. I was puzzled, right until I saw Horatio.”

  Damon nodded. “I expect Horatio comes here all the time, and the sisters wanted you here to spy on him.”

  I shook my head. “I had no idea.”

  Damon sighed. He reached out and laid his hand on mine, sending little electric tingles running through me. “I know you didn’t, Jane, but I haven’t brought my work to dinner. Can we have a suspect-free dinner?”