Criminally Cocoa

by Amanda Flower

“What are you saying?” the man asked.

  “I’m saying that you had better make it right or there will be consequences that will have a huge impact on your career, ones that you might never recover from. You might hate working for Gourmet Television now, but I can make it so you don’t work for them or anyone else.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Consider it a warning and an encouragement to get what we both want. You need to know that I’m serious. I’m not going to let some girl from Amish country, you, or anyone else destroy my chances of getting exactly what I have earned, and what I’ve earned is a show of my very own. Ask anyone in this network and they will tell you that.”

  “You’ve put in the time, but that doesn’t mean you have the natural talent that it takes to carry your own show. It’s not something you can learn. You either have it or you don’t.”

  “So you’re saying that I don’t.”

  “Honestly,” the man said, “I don’t care either way. I just want to wrap up this shoot and then I want the show to fail so that I can get on with my life.”

  “You’re not going to be able to do that with me around. I will tell you that.”

  “I could destroy your career.”

  “Could you?” she demanded. “I doubt that after I tell the network what I know about you. Don’t think it won’t reach other networks and studios, ones that you would much rather work with. This is a small industry, or at least that’s what you have always told me.”

  There was a clatter as if something had fallen to the floor, and I instinctively took a step forward. Had the man hit the woman? I shivered at the very thought.

  “Be careful,” the woman said. “You don’t want anything else on the set to break. Haven’t you told us all time and again that we are pressed for time on this shoot?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  There was more scuffling, and then I heard the quick steps of someone walking toward me. They were coming my way. I ducked behind the giant barrel just as a woman walked past. By that time, my eyes had adjusted enough to the dim light to see that it was Maria.

  When she had gone, presumably back to the set of Bailey’s show, I hid behind the barrel for another two minutes just in case the man decided to follow her, but he never appeared. I stood up and smoothed out my skirt. Habitually, I placed my hand on my prayer cap to make sure it was still in place. It was. I glanced back in the direction Maria had gone.

  I had been right all this time. Maria did have it out for Bailey, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if she wasn’t the one behind all the problems on the set, but what man was she talking to? It seemed he knew something about Bailey’s show too.

  I started down the corridor and tripped over something, probably an electrical cord. There were so many of them snaking their way around the studio, through and around the set. Growing up in a home without electricity, I found the cords hard to get used to, and I tripped over them constantly. I never knew when they would pop up.

  I bent to feel what the obstruction was. But it wasn’t a cord. It was the empty pretzel container. I knew it had to be the same container that Bailey had had on the set. I didn’t think that chef making Mexican food had been using pretzels in his flambé recipe.

  To be sure, I sniffed the can and immediately sneezed. There must have been enough sneezing powder left on it to bother my nose.

  Now I was even more convinced that Maria was the one behind the pranks. She was talking about the show, and now I’d found the container that had caused Bailey all that trouble right in the spot where she had been talking.

  Footsteps came toward me while I stood in the hallway, but this time there was nowhere to hide. I tucked the can behind my back.

  Todd pulled up short. “What are you doing back here? This area is only for employees.”

  I was about to tell him that I was off looking for him, but the words caught in my throat. I was still so overwhelmed by the conversation that I had overheard.

  He flicked on a light, and suddenly the hallway was brightly lit. “Why are you standing here in the dark?” he asked.

  I blinked.

  Before I could answer, he asked, “What’s that you are hiding behind your back?”

  “I’m not hiding anything behind my back.”

  He grunted. “I thought Amish people don’t lie. I can clearly tell you have something.” He tried to peek around my side.

  I pivoted my body so that he couldn’t see the container.

  He laughed. “It must be good, whatever it is.” Then he dashed around me and grabbed the container from my hand before I knew what had happened. “You’re going to have to be quicker than that if you want to keep something from me.” He looked at the can. “Pretzels? Are you going to make those birds’ nests for the show?”

  “No, I mean, yes because it’s part of Bailey’s show, but those aren’t new pretzels. They are the same ones from the set with the sneezing powder on them.”

  He handed the container back to me. “How did you get the container? I thought that it was thrown away. I’ve looked all over the set for this container,” he said.

  “Me too, and it’s the evidence that I need to show that Maria is behind the pranks on the set.”

  “What do you mean? You really think it’s her?”

  I nodded. “I heard Maria talking to someone about Bailey in this very hallway just a moment ago, and when I come here to see where she was standing”—I pointed at the container in my hand—“I find this.”

  “All right. You need to settle down just a bit. What did Maria say?” He took the container from my hands.

  “She said Bailey took her place, and whoever she was talking to was supposed to fix it or she would tell some secret about him.”

  “Who was she talking to?” Todd asked in a tense voice.

  I frowned. He was no longer the friendly, jovial young man that I knew. His eyes narrowed just a tad, but it was enough for me to notice and to make me nervous.

  “I—I don’t know. That’s why I came down here. I was hoping that I could get a look at him, but by the time I got here, he was gone. It was definitely a man, though, and I saw Maria. She walked right by me.”

  “Did she say anything to you when she walked by?” His voice was even sharper than before.

  “She didn’t see me. I was hiding,” I said, and I could tell that Todd was trying hard not to laugh, which just made me more upset. This wasn’t a laughing matter if Maria was trying to ruin Bailey’s show. If the show failed, it would impact a lot of people, from the director all the way down to Todd.

  I was just about to remind him about that when he asked, “Where were you hiding?”

  “Behind a barrel. That’s beside the point. The point is Maria has it in for Bailey, and we have to do something about it.”

  “We? We don’t have to do anything.”

  I stared at him. “You’re not going to help me?”

  “Geez, don’t give me those Amish puppy dog eyes, I can’t withstand their power.”

  I folded my arms and waited, back on familiar turf with his teasing.

  He sighed. “Yes, I will help you.”

  “Gut.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “Can you tell me more of what Maria said?” Todd asked.

  I nodded. “She said something about being passed over so Bailey could have her show. Not those exact words, but that was the gist.”

  He touched his chin. “I’m not surprised that she said that. Maria is mad at the world. She thinks everyone owes her something.”

  “Was she supposed to have her own show? Did Bailey’s show ruin it?”

  “The way that she tells it, yes, but that doesn’t make it true. I don’t know if anyone believed that she was supposed to have her own baking show. She has been working at Gourmet Television for five years and is
still a page. If she was any good, don’t you think that she would have been promoted to something else by now?”

  My brow wrinkled. “Baking show?”

  He nodded. “She claimed that she was promised a cookie-baking show, but then when Linc came back from Ohio all fired up about Bailey and her Amish candies, Maria says she was told that there wasn’t enough room on the network for two new shows about sweets. She believes Bailey was picked ahead of her because of the Amish angle. People enjoy thinking about simpler ways of doing things. That’s very trendy right now.” He rolled his eyes.

  “Trendy?” I asked.

  “In, hip, cool.”

  I just nodded as if I knew what he was talking about. I didn’t. I held out my hand. “Give me that container. I want to take it back and give it to Bailey.”

  “No,” he said.

  My brow wrinkled even more.

  “I’m not up to something,” he said with a smile. “I thought the Amish are far more trusting than you seem to be.”

  “There is nothing in our faith that says we have to be trusting of people we do not know. Instead, we are always to be a little wary of the outside world.”

  “Well, you don’t have to be wary of me, Charlotte. I would just like to carry the container because I don’t want you to get any more sneezing powder on you. It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”

  I frowned. “I don’t mind carrying it.”

  “And neither do I,” he said. “Let’s go back to the set. That other camera should be here by now.” He walked around me and down the hallway.

  Short of tackling him, I didn’t know how I would be able to get the container from his hands, and I hadn’t tackled anyone since I’d knocked down my older brother when I was eleven after he burned some of my sheet music back on the farm. My daed had not been pleased with me then. He still wasn’t, to be honest.

  I followed Todd down the hallway and walked past the show with the male chef. I held my breath as I walked by so I wouldn’t make a noise. I didn’t want that director to shout at me again. When we were safely past the Mexican chef, we arrived back on Bailey’s set. Bailey was there along with everyone on the production team.

  “There you are, Charlotte,” Bailey said. “I was getting worried.”

  I noted that her makeup was all back in place. Clearly the makeup artist had gotten ahold of her. Her eyes were still slightly red from the sneezing powder, but it wasn’t too noticeable.

  “Where have you been?” Bailey asked.

  I looked around the room at all the people there. Bailey, Cass, Linc, Raymond, Juliet, Jethro, Todd, Teven, and Maria all watched me. I licked my lips. “I’ve been solving a crime.”

  Juliet, who was holding an ice pack to Jethro’s head, gasped.

  The pig didn’t seem to mind the ice pack. At least he didn’t pull away from it as I would expect, but I supposed that he trusted Juliet implicitly. As far as pig life goes, Juliet gave him a good one. I didn’t know of another pig on the planet that had an agent or flew on a private plane. However, knowing the odd ways of the Englischers, I would guess there were more.

  “What has happened?” Juliet asked in her most dramatic voice.

  I wasn’t used to so many people waiting for me to say something important. It wasn’t the Amish way for a young woman to command a room like this. A small part of me liked it. I scanned all the faces in the room. “Someone here has been tampering with the set with the intention of destroying the show.”

  “Listen, you Amish girl, I don’t know who you think you are, but you can’t come in here and make those kind of accusations,” Raymond said. He rubbed his forehead. “How can this possibly get any worse?”

  “No,” Linc said. “I want to hear what she has to say because many odd things have been happening on this set. Don’t think that I haven’t noticed.”

  “Everyone has noticed,” Bailey said. “But Charlotte was the first one to realize that these events might actually be intentional.” She looked to me. “What did you learn, Charlotte?”

  I swallowed hard. Now, they really were all staring at me. I couldn’t lose my nerve at this point. I was glad that I was Amish at the moment because my long skirt hid the fact that my knees were knocking together from fear. I had never spoken out in such a public way before, and now I wondered if I really did know what was happening on the set of Bailey’s Amish Sweets. What if I was wrong and I was about to accuse an innocent person?

  Maria glared at me.

  Then again, I was pretty sure I was right.

  I took a deep breath. “Maria has been causing problems on the set.”

  “Excuse me?” Maria screeched and took a step toward me with her hands up.

  Cass jumped in front of me as if she was going to protect me. Maria stopped. Cass was small but fierce. I wouldn’t want her glaring at me like that either. “Let Charlotte say her piece. I know her. She wouldn’t speak unless she is certain about what she has learned.”

  “Right,” I whispered back.

  I stepped around Cass, and now they were surrounding me in a circle. There were friendly faces there: Cass, Bailey, Juliet, and I supposed even Jethro, but I never felt so different, so Amish, in all my life. Who was I to stand up to this Englischer?

  “If you have something to say, pilgrim, say it,” Maria snapped.

  “Who are you calling a pilgrim?” Bailey put her hands on her hips and glared at Maria.

  “Don’t get me started on you, chocolate girl,” Maria scoffed. “You’re the root of all the trouble here.”

  Bailey looked like she was about to say something very unkind, but Cass pushed up the sleeves on her black sweater. “You want to go? Because I’m ready.”

  Linc put his fingers in his mouth and whistled. “Stop. Everyone, stop right now.” He turned to me. “Charlotte, the claims you are making are very inflammatory. Do you have proof to back any of this up? We can’t believe that Maria did anything wrong just on your say-so.” He glanced at Maria. “I want this discussion to be fair to all parties involved.”

  I nodded. “Three strange things happened on this set to halt production. The explosion, of course, was the scariest. Thank goodness no one was hurt. I believe Maria was very lucky that no one was hurt, or everything could have been so much worse.”

  Cass nodded. “If that had happened, we would be calling the police right now.”

  I shivered at the very thought, and then I took a breath to continue. I had to get everything I wanted to say out before I lost my nerve. “Then, it was Jethro getting loose in the park because he was scared by a loud horn, and finally there was Bailey’s sneezing fit. I believe that all of these accidents were staged and planned by the same person. It wasn’t until the sneezing powder incident that I was sure.”

  “What sneezing powder?” Linc asked.

  “Why would anyone want to do that to poor Bailey?” Juliet set Jethro on the floor, and the pig settled back on his haunches. He cocked his head as if he was listening as closely to what I had to say as the rest of them.

  I turned to Todd, who was on the very edge of the set with his hands in his pockets. “Todd, where’s the pretzel container?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I stared at him for a long moment. “Yes, you do. The container that you took from me in the hallway.”

  “I didn’t take any container from you.” He was looking at the floor and refused to meet my eyes.

  I swallowed hard. “You were with me right after I found it, and you took it from my hand. You said you would keep it safe.”

  Everyone in the room was staring at us at this point. Todd shrugged. “I don’t know what she’s talking about. It must be something lost in translation since she’s Amish and all.”

  A painful pang hit me in the chest. Why was he acting this way? I thought he was my frie
nd.

  Bailey stepped forward with her fists on her hips. “If Charlotte said that you took the container, then you did. She doesn’t lie.”

  I took a breath. “It doesn’t matter. There was sneezing powder in the pretzel container that caused Bailey to sneeze, which scared Jethro, who then ran into the camera. Of course Maria couldn’t have known when she put the sneezing powder in the can that the camera would break, but she at least knew that she would make Bailey look bad once again, and since this was the third time, maybe it would be just enough to get Bailey’s show canceled and hers picked up.”

  “Charlotte, Maria doesn’t have a show,” Linc said.

  “But she wants one,” I replied. “Very badly, badly enough to ruin Bailey’s.”

  “Everyone knows that she wants one,” Raymond said. “Everyone working in TV wants their own show someday. It’s one of the biggest reasons that people go into this business.”

  “You lying little…” Maria held out her arms as if she was about to grab me by the throat.

  Cass stepped into her path. “You might what to rethink whatever you are about to do or say next.”

  “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Maria cried. “Yes, there is someone tampering with the set, but it wasn’t me. It was Raymond!” She pointed at the director with a metallic fingernail.

  The director’s face turned the same impressive shade of red that it had earlier. I hoped he wouldn’t pass out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You have a lot of nerve to throw accusations like that around, little girl. I could ruin you in this business,” Raymond said with so much venom that it made me inch back.

  The moment he said that last sentence, I knew that he had been the man who’d been arguing with Maria in the hallway, and I began to doubt myself. What if Maria was telling the truth?

  “You were in the hallway with Maria,” I said with far more courage than I felt. “You threatened her then just like you are now, and she told you that she would tell everyone your secret. You tampered with the set?”

  Maria folded her arms and smiled. “That’s exactly what happened, and I do have proof. He was the one who scared the pig at the park, by blowing a toy horn he had in his coat pocket. I saw him do it on purpose. It didn’t take me much time after that to put two and two together, and he was the one behind the explosion as well. He wants to get out of this job just as much as I do. Isn’t that right, Raymond? But your contract won’t let you as long as you have a show on the network. The only way to get out of your contract is to make sure the show tanks before it even gets out of the gate.”