Confection is Good for the Soul: An Amish Cupcake Cozy Mystery

by Ruth Hartzler

  My spirits fell. Waneta had provided us with some good leads in the past. Still, to look on the bright side, she was likely to provide us with good leads in the future. I only hoped it was before the police arrested Rebecca.

  Chapter 9

  Rebecca wasn’t her usual cheerful self when she arrived at her cupcake store that morning. I had already prepared the store for opening as I usually did.

  “Thanks for doing all that, Jane,” she said absently.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her.

  “Yes, I am,” she said. “Why don’t you, Eleanor, and Matilda drop by to share dinner with us tonight?”

  “That would be lovely,” I said. I could see the usually stoic Rebecca was feeling down, no doubt because she was yet again a suspect in a murder.

  “I hear you spoke to Wanda Hershberger this morning.”

  I gasped. “How did you know that?”

  “News travels fast in the community,” Rebecca said with a chuckle.

  “I didn’t want to worry you by telling you,” I said. “Wanda didn’t know anything, but asked Waneta to let her know as soon as they identify the poison used on Judy Jenkins.”

  I had already dusted the countertop, but Rebecca was dusting it again. I expect it made her feel better to be doing something. “It was definitely poison?”

  I nodded. “It had to be. That is, unless it was natural causes, but Brian Birch said Mrs. Jenkins had been sick for the past few weeks with stomach flu symptoms, severe gastrointestinal symptoms, as well as stabbing pains and heart palpitations.”

  Rebecca’s hand flew to her throat. “That’s awful.”

  “Maybe I over-shared,” I said.

  “Nee, I’d rather know. And who is Brian Birch?”

  I’d completely forgotten she didn’t know. “Brian did the website management for Mrs. Jenkins, among other things. He moved nearby a few months ago. We met him at the book launch and he offered to come over if we needed any help. Matilda called him and asked him to help us move the heavy table.”

  Some color returned to Rebecca’s cheeks. “Let me guess—the three of you moved the table from its original position and you asked him to move it back?”

  I laughed. “You know us too well.”

  “And has the cat assisted anyone in the investigation?”

  I didn’t know whether or not she was joking. “No,” I said uncertainly. I added, “Rebecca, I know you don’t like Matilda or Eleanor helping in the store, but I want to question Selena Starr in my lunch break. Judy Jenkins gave her a very hard time and right now she’s my main suspect.”

  Just then Matilda came in. “Sometimes the obvious ones aren’t the murderers,” she said. “Maybe it was Selena. Maybe Selena was in it with James Jenkins. Maybe she was in it with Brian Birch, or maybe Brian Birch and James Jenkins were in it together.”

  My head was spinning. Matilda always thought several people were involved in the murders, just like in some Agatha Christie books.

  Just as I thought that, she added, “It’s often more than one person in Agatha Christie books.”

  Rebecca bit her lip and then said, “I suppose Eleanor could help me if you two wanted to speak with Selena Starr.”

  I hurried to thank her. “Matilda, will Eleanor mind not coming with us?”

  Matilda looked doubtful but said, “Of course not! The investigation is what’s important.”

  And so, a few hours later, I drove Matilda to Selena Starr’s house. It was on the edge of town and looked somewhat like an Amish house: large, painted white with a brown roof, two stories, a large porch, a white picket fence, colorful flowers as well as herbs.

  Matilda had already called ahead and asked if we could speak with her. Just as I killed the engine, I turned to Matilda. “Now tell me again, exactly why has Selena agreed to speak with us?”

  “Honestly Jane, you’re not paying attention. I’ve already told you what I said to her.”

  “Humor me and tell me again, won’t you?”

  Matilda chuckled. “Sure. I told Selena the truth, that the police suspect your sister because she was on the receiving end of Judy Jenkins’s false accusations.”

  “But surely Selena will realize we suspect her,” I said.

  Matilda shook per head. “No, because I already told her that we’re making a long list of everyone Judy falsely accused, and we’re also making a list of exactly how she accused everyone. I might have led her to believe that there is a long list of people Judy falsely accused of stealing her business ideas.”

  “Aha! You actually didn’t tell me that before.”

  “Enough talking now,” Matilda said. “Let’s go.”

  We walked up the porch steps. A ginger cat on a rocking chair yawned and stretched, opened one eye, and then promptly went back to sleep. Matilda raised her hand to knock just as the door opened.

  “I thought I heard a car,” the lady said. She was a pleasant looking lady with long dark hair and awfully good skin. She wasn’t wearing much make-up, but her cheeks were flushed. “I’m Selena Starr, but I’m sure you guessed that,” she said with a smile.

  “I’m Matilda Birtwistle. We spoke on the phone. This is my roommate, Jane Delight. Judy Jenkins falsely accused her sister.”

  Selena shot me an appraising look. “Oh yes, your sister is the one who owns the Amish cupcake store.”

  I nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Please come in.” Selena opened the door wide and we walked inside her house. Although it looked like an Amish house on the outside, it certainly looked nothing like one inside. Amish houses have no pictures hanging on the wall or any photographs to be seen. To the contrary, works of modern art covered most of the walls in the living room. The décor was opulent, and it appeared Selena was a world traveler, given the unusual tribal masks, Cantonese porcelain garden seats, and a huge bronze, which I suspected was French.

  “Please sit down.” Selena waved an elegant hand toward two couches opposite each other with a large glass coffee table in between. “May I fetch you a drink?”

  I was feeling tired after my restless night, so I said, “Coffee would be wonderful, please.”

  “Sure.” She shot a look at Matilda.

  “Yes, coffee would be good for me too please,” she said.

  Selena left the room and I could hear noises in the kitchen. She was too close for me to say anything to Matilda, not that I had anything in particular to say.

  Selena presently returned with a tray on which were coffee cups and a large plate of cupcakes. She set the tray down in front of us and then placed three empty plates on the table along with silver filigree spoons. I recognized the plates as Royal Doulton Japonesque with black and gold enamel. My ex-husband’s mother had the same set. I also recognized the cake forks as English Sterling silver made in Chester by the hallmark depicting an upright sword between three wheat-sheaves. I had not known anything about antiques until my former mother-in-law had decided to teach me.

  Selena clasped her hands and leaned forward. “So, Jane, what exactly did Judy Jenkins think your sister was doing?”

  “My sister uses traditional Amish desserts and cakes as ideas for her cupcakes,” I told her. “For instance, she has Shoo-fly pie cupcakes and whoopie pie cupcakes.” I would have said more, but Selena interrupted me.

  “That’s brilliant! What a clever idea.”

  I nodded and pushed on. “Yes, but she’s been selling Amish sour cream spice cupcakes for many years. Judy Jenkins told my sister that it was her own idea to make Amish sour cream spice into cupcakes. My sister told her again and again that she had been selling them for years, but Judy wouldn’t hear a word of it.”

  Selena made an inelegant snorting sound. “Honestly, that woman! Of course she wouldn’t listen to your sister. Facts meant nothing to that woman.” She wrung her hands.

  “What did she do to you?” I asked her. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Matilda pulling a notepad and pen from her purse.

  Selena th
rew her hands in the air. “What didn’t she do to me? Goodness me, I don’t even know where to start. Judy accused me of stealing her business ideas.”

  “Exactly what business ideas were those?” Matilda asked her.

  Selena took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. “I have online courses on cake baking—videos, you understand. I do quite well out of them. Or rather, I did until Judy Jenkins.”

  When she didn’t speak again for a moment, Matilda spoke up. “What did Judy do?”

  Selena’s face turned beet red. “She bought dozens of negative reviews and had the people leave them online for my courses.”

  I was shocked. “What do you mean, she bought reviews? How can you buy reviews?”

  Selena rubbed both temples with her perfectly manicured fingernails. “There are plenty of websites online where people can buy reviews, either positive or negative. You haven’t heard about it?”

  I shook my head. She pushed on. “It’s quite common in the restaurant business for people to purchase negative reviews to put on their opposition’s products. It’s also awfully common in big online stores. Judy also paid the same people to leave negative reviews on my cookbooks on online stores.”

  “Are you sure they were paid-for, false reviews and not just reviews from people who wanted to leave negative reviews for genuine reasons?” Matilda asked her.

  Selena shook her head. “People in the business know all about this. One major online bookstore took court action and had some of the big fake review sites shut down, but some are still around. Any online search will show you. You can buy a negative or positive review. I’m afraid it’s a common practice with some unscrupulous people. The people who left negative reviews on my cookbooks have all left positive reviews on her cookbook. Some might call it a coincidence, but I’ve been in the business for years and I know a fake review when I see one. Besides, everything Judy did was always entirely unscrupulous, so I can’t see why she wouldn’t use those review sites.”

  “What sort of unscrupulous things did she do?” I asked her.

  “Well for a start, she was gaming the system.”

  Matilda looked up from writing. “Exactly how was she gaming the system?”

  “She paid more than a five figure sum for ads on her ebook. It was a seventy-cent book. She can’t hope to get a return on that. She spent a fortune.”

  “But that doesn’t sound dishonest or even unethical,” I said. “It just sounds like a silly thing to do with her finances.”

  Selena did not appear to take offense at my words. “Yes, you could see it that way. However, Judy was selling courses on how to sell and market a cookbook, and her book was only a bestseller because she spent huge sums of money on it. How then can she run a course telling other people to do what she did? They’d go broke.”

  I was trying to take it all in.

  “She was so abusive last time, I actually had to call the police,” Selena continued.

  “What happened?” I asked her.

  “Judy actually came to my house—can you believe that? She said people were only paying for my online courses because they thought she was running them.”

  “But she had only put out one cookbook,” I said.

  Selena pointed at me. “Exactly! Preposterous, isn’t it? Anyway, I opened the door and saw it was her. She tried to put push past me, but I put my foot against the door. She yelled all sorts of silly things at me, mostly saying I was stealing her business ideas. However, I’ve been running online courses for over a year and she hasn’t. She wouldn’t leave, so I called the police. She was enraged and obviously wasn’t looking where she was going, because when she left here, she caught her hair in that hanging potted plant right by the front door and her wig came off.”

  “She was wearing a wig?” Matilda shrieked.

  I stared at Matilda, wondering why she was so interested.

  Selena nodded. “Yes, she was. I almost felt sorry for her. She was as bald as a badger.”

  “Bald?” I said in shock.

  Selena sighed. “Well, that’s an exaggeration, but she was bald in patches and what little hair she did have was quite thin. If I had to guess, I’d say she only had half her hair and that’s why she was wearing a wig. I actually did feel sorry for her, but then she turned around and yelled abuse at me once more.”

  Matilda stood up abruptly. “Thank you so much for your time, Selena. All these details have been very helpful. We’ll add these to the long list of other people Judy abused. It’s so good of you to help us like this.”

  “I don’t like to see an Amish lady falsely accused,” Selena said. “The whole idea is crazy. How the police could suspect her is beyond me! Besides, victims of Judy Jenkins need to stick together.”

  I was halfway through thanking her when Matilda grabbed my arm and all but pulled me out the door. I hadn’t noticed the potted plant before, so I took a good look at it as Matilda dragged me past.

  As soon as we were in the car, Matilda said, “Jane, I’ve identified the poison!”

  Chapter 10

  “You’ve identified the poison?” I said in shock. “How?”

  Matilda waved her finger at me. “I can’t be sure, mind you.” She looked at her watch. “Would you drive straight to the Amish herbalist? Sarah Beiler? We have time if you hurry. Better still, let me drive.”

  “I’d rather arrive there alive,” I said dryly. Matilda tended to drive at high speeds. I figured she’d had advanced driver training at some point, but I still preferred to be nowhere in the vicinity when she was behind the wheel.

  “What’s the poison?” I added.

  “I don’t want to say until I have more information,” she said. “Remind me to find out if Judy had a skin rash.”

  “And why do you want to speak with Sarah? Are you going to run your suspicions by her?”

  “Not as such. I want to find out if she knows of other poisons that cause hair loss. I’ll keep my suspicions to myself at the moment.”

  I didn’t like being kept in suspense, but I figured Matilda wouldn’t be swayed.

  When we arrived, Sarah was out in her garden. I said, “I hope you don’t mind us dropping by unannounced.”

  Sarah waved to us. “Not at all. I was just fetching some peppermint for a fresh batch of meadow tea. Why don’t you join me?”

  The Amish never minded anyone dropping by without notice. In fact, it was quite the norm in most communities, and certainly in my old community. My mother always had plenty of food on hand because a whole family could drop by right on dinnertime. The Amish were nothing if not hospitable.

  I knew Sarah was wondering why we were there and was too polite to ask, so I added, “Have you heard that a woman who knew my sister was murdered?”

  Sarah nodded. “Yes, everyone knows. She accused Rebecca of stealing ideas for those cupcakes Rebecca’s been selling for years.”

  I was about to tell her more when she said, “I assume the victim was poisoned?”

  Matilda answered her. “She was, and we only just found out she was wearing a wig. She harassed another woman by the name of Selena Starr, and Selena told us that she saw her wig come off, and that the victim was partially bald. What little hair she did have was quite patchy.”

  She nodded slowly. “Well now, that is interesting. Coffee or meadow tea?”

  “Coffee, please,” Matilda and I answered in unison.

  “Have you had breakfast?” Sarah asked us.

  “Jah, denki,” I said, lapsing into Pennsylvania Dutch.

  “Make yourself comfortable while I make the coffee.”

  I absently stared at my thumbnail while Sarah was away, wondering what the poison could be. When Sarah returned with two mugs of coffee and one cup of meadow tea as well as a large plate of oatmeal whoopie pies, Matilda wasted no time questioning her. “What are the causes of hair loss?”

  Sarah tapped her chin. “There are many. It’s often caused by an autoimmune disease. It could be thyroid disease, lupus
, rheumatoid arthritis, or it could be too much testosterone. You often see hair loss in men who take steroids to increase their muscle mass,” she said. “Hair loss is also caused by low ferritin. Sometimes people’s hemoglobin levels are at recommended levels, but their ferritin levels are low. It takes a long time to get ferritin up to a sufficient level to reverse hair loss.” She tapped her chin. “A lack of carbs, among other things can cause hair loss. People on strict diets can suffer from hair loss because they’re not getting enough calories.”

  “What about poisons?” Matilda asked her. “Do you know of any herbs that cause hair loss?”

  Sarah look surprised. “I don’t know of any herbs that cause it. Do you know of a poison that causes hair loss?”

  “Absolutely!” Matilda said. “Thallium. Agatha Christie used it in her book, The Pale Horse.”

  “So you think Judy Jenkins was killed by thallium?” I asked her.

  Matilda shrugged. “We know she was poisoned, and she did complain of gastrointestinal and cardiac symptoms as well as sharp abdominal pains. Those, along with hair loss, are certainly the symptoms of thallium poisoning.”

  “Hair loss has various causes,” Sarah pointed out.

  “Exactly,” Matilda said. “That’s why I’d like to know if she had a skin rash or suffered from tremors. Brian Birch did say she was suffering from weakness and a loss of balance.”

  “She also had high blood pressure and heart arrhythmias,” I reminded her.

  “Maybe she had a heart condition,” Sarah offered.

  Matilda shook her head. “Apparently, these symptoms all started just over three weeks ago. That fits in with thallium poisoning.”

  “How do you have such an extensive knowledge of poisons?” Sarah asked her.

  “I’ve read all Agatha Christie’s novels several times,” Matilda said with a wave of her hand.

  I was certain there was more to it.

  Matilda was still speaking. “As far as I know, the production of thallium has been banned in this country.” She bit her lip. “That’s what makes me think it might not be thallium, but all the symptoms are there.”