Marshmallow Malice

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Marshmallow Malice Page 9

by Amanda Flower


  “Where could it have been?” I asked.

  “There was a big storm last night. It was possible that something blew up in the middle of the storm and wasn’t heard. The rain would have doused any fire, too. Or it’s possible it happened way out in the country or the woods, and the only ones who might have heard it were Amish and were reluctant to report anything.”

  “You think it’s related to the still,” I said.

  He nodded. “It’s my best guess. Making moonshine is a delicate process. There are many chances to make mistakes that would cause a blast. The ’shiners aren’t working under the best conditions. A simple mistake can lead to disaster. That is one of the many reasons such stills are outlawed. They are just too dangerous.”

  “Will the coroner know if there is alcohol on her body or other ingredients from a still?”

  “I hope so. He believes he will be able to pick something up, but it might take a few days to know for sure. We have to send over whatever he is able to collect to Ohio’s BCI for tests. We don’t have that kind of equipment in the county.” He pressed his lips together. “And if this murder does involve an illegal still, the state, and even the FBI, might want to get involved. These are complications that the sheriff won’t want. He likes to run the county with very little interference from the outside.”

  “But if they can help . . .”

  “I know.” Aiden set his ball cap back on his head. “This is another situation where the sheriff and I differ. In a big case like this, I will take all the help we can get. I always advocate for cooperation among members of law enforcement.”

  “If you think an Amish person might have heard or seen something, you do need my help. There will be rumors that will go around the community. I have better access to those rumors than you ever will.”

  “Please don’t remind me of that.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I wish the department had a better relationship with the Amish, so that they trusted us. Unfortunately, as long as Sheriff Jackson is in charge, that’s not to be.”

  I knew what he meant. Sheriff Marshall Jackson had been in his post as sheriff of the county for decades, and he detested the Amish. He did whatever he could to blame them for all the misdeeds in the county. He needed to be voted out, but, as of yet, there had been no luck in doing so. There were more Amish than English in the county, so the Amish could easily remove him in an election. However, the Amish didn’t vote. They didn’t participate in any form of the English government if they could avoid it. Until they decided to change that practice and start to vote, I was afraid they were stuck with the current sheriff. In the last two elections, he’d run uncontested.

  Aiden needed me for this case, and I had to convince him of that. I needed this case, too. I was afraid it was my only way to make amends for not stopping Leeza from getting into that car.

  “Just let me talk to some people in the district,” I said. “Maybe I can find out more about who that man was and why he was looking for Leeza.” I paused. “Something tells me that she has a stronger tie to the Amish than we realize.”

  “What do you mean?” Aiden asked.

  I had an idea, but I didn’t want to voice it yet. Instead, I said, “The man who was here today was Amish. He seemed to know her, and know her well. If we can find him, this whole mystery might unravel.”

  “How can we find him with no name and Little’s very broad description of him?”

  “I can find him,” I said with all the confidence in the world.

  “Bailey,” he began. “I don’t want you doing this. You don’t know what you’re getting in to, and I can’t always be there to back you up.”

  “Cass will be with me at least for the next couple of days. She’s my backup.”

  “Believe me when I say that doesn’t make me feel any better.” He sighed. “But I could use the help, especially if Sheriff Jackson is going to stonewall BCI and the feds.”

  That’s all I needed to hear.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After we left Aiden, Cass and I walked around the village for a little while, but there wasn’t much more sleuthing we could do. It was Sunday in Amish country. The village was buttoned up. Aiden had to work, but I ended up taking Cass for a drive around the county, so she could see more of it.

  “There is no shortage of cows around here,” was her summary.

  I wished Aiden could have come with us, but he was tied up with the murder investigation, and he had a battle in front of him if he was going to ask for help from another department. The sheriff would fight that. Sheriff Jackson didn’t handle many investigations in the county any longer. He was an administrator more than a cop, but he made sure he got all the glory for anything that went right and someone else took the blame for everything that went wrong. Because he was second-in-command in the department, Aiden was the one who was typically the scapegoat. Thankfully, he was well-liked and respected in the county, so he could absorb most of the criticism. However, with the increasing number of murders in Holmes County, I wondered how long the public’s goodwill could last.

  The next morning, Cass and I walked from my little rental house to Swissmen Sweets. I had left my car parked on Apple Street the night before. This time, I was the one to carry the rabbit. I had tried to train Puff to walk on a leash, but walking a giant, white rabbit was like trying to drag a bag of sugar across the ground. We never got very far.

  I let us in through the front door of the shop a little after six. Cass had no trouble getting up in the morning, for which I was grateful. In New York, she had to be at work at four a.m. to make fresh chocolate creations and supervise her team. Getting to the shop after six was a luxury for her.

  Just like Cass, my grandmother and Charlotte started their workday at four in the morning. I set Puff on the floor next to Nutmeg, who seemed to have been waiting since last night to say hello to his friend. “You two stay here,” I said, although I really didn’t have to. The bunny and the cat knew they weren’t permitted inside the kitchen.

  Cass led the way into the kitchen. “What are we making today?” she asked. She couldn’t help but take charge. As the head chocolatier of JP Chocolates in New York, she was used to bossing around a staff of thirty to make sure that everything was done perfectly and on time. Cass expected nothing less than perfection from her sous chefs.

  Charlotte looked up from the bowl of marshmallow fluff she was whisking with a hand mixer. “Bailey, we have gut news.”

  “After the last two days, I will take any good news I can get.”

  “Yesterday, at the district summer picnic, Becca Stout came up to Cousin Clara and me.” She took a breath. “She wants to sell our candies in her gift shop in Berlin!”

  I blinked. This was one of the last things I’d expected. “Wow,” I said. I had been talking to Becca and other shopkeepers in the popular Amish towns of Berlin, Sugarcreek, and Charm for months, trying to convince them to carry some of our candies.

  Charlotte nodded. “I knew you’d be excited. She was at Juliet’s wedding and loved the marshmallow frosting you made for the wedding cake.” She paused. “At least how it looked, even if no one got to taste it.”

  I made a face at the memory. “Jethro got a taste.”

  “Becca ordered thirty marshmallow sticks to sell at her counter. I’m making up more marshmallows right now.”

  “We are making enough for fifty,” my grandmother said. “I think it would be gut to have some for sale in our store as well.”

  I clapped my hands. “Excellent. Maybe that wedding cake wasn’t a disaster after all, if it led to all this.”

  “It wasn’t a disaster. Everyone loved it. It was beautiful.” Charlotte cleaned off her whisk with a spoon. “Everyone said so.”

  “That was until Jethro took a bite out of it,” I said.

  My grandmother shook her head. “That pig.”

  “That pig” just about summed it up. Cass and I joined in the work to get the marshmallow sticks ready for Becca’s shop and make
the rest of the candies for that day. It was Monday, and the Fourth of July was just two days away. It promised to be a profitable week at the shop. While we worked, my mind wandered from murder to business and back again.

  If the marshmallow sticks at Becca’s shop did well, perhaps our candies could be sold in grocery stores someday. There were other Amish businesses that had made the leap. I bit my lip. But was that what my maami wanted to happen to the business? It seemed to me I was at a crossroads when it came to Swissmen Sweets. I needed to decide if I was going to keep it small or go big. In either case, I needed my grandmother’s blessing. I couldn’t do this without her.

  The former New Yorker in me wanted to go big, so big that I would never be able to stop, but even I knew that wasn’t the Amish way of thinking.

  I needed to have a conversation with my grandmother about that, but it could wait until after this latest murder was solved.

  “Cousin Clara told me what happened to that woman who ran into Juliet’s wedding.” Charlotte covered her mouth. “I can’t imagine. How awful! The poor woman. How did she die?”

  Maami nodded. “Ya, I forgot to ask you this when we chatted yesterday.”

  “She was hit in the back of the head with something,” I said, not giving them any more of the details Aiden had shared with me. Until he could find the source of the explosion, I didn’t think he wanted news of it out there, even to Charlotte and my grandmother. “Aiden doesn’t think she was killed at the church. Instead, someone dumped the body there.”

  “Could it be to send Reverend Brook a message?” Charlotte asked.

  Cass raised her brow at the young Amish woman. “You have been spending way too much time with Bailey.”

  I nodded my head because I was afraid that was true—both that Charlotte was spending too much time with me and that someone was trying to send the reverend a message. “She might have a connection to the Amish after all. An Amish man came to the church looking for her.”

  “Oh?” Maami poured warm chocolate into a bowl. “What was his name?”

  “That’s the problem. He ran away before Deputy Little could find out.”

  “I’m sure Deputy Little did the best he could,” Charlotte said, coming to his defense.

  The rest of us turned and stared at her.

  She blushed and looked down at the marshmallows in front of her. “I’m only saying he does try his best.”

  “That he does.” Maami frowned. “But the Amish man’s arrival is very strange.” She skewered three marshmallows on a wooden stick and dipped them into the chocolate. With a spoon, she scooped chocolate on all sides of the marshmallows to make sure they were perfectly covered. “I wouldn’t think an Amish man would know a woman like that, if she drank too much alcohol, I mean.”

  “He seemed to know her, and he was angry at her. Maybe she has a tie to the Amish.”

  “Bailey said that some Amish do drink alcohol,” Cass said.

  Maami pressed her lips together. “Ya, that is true, if their bishop allows it. It’s usually only the men, and drinking in excess is never permitted.” She looked down at her marshmallows. “At least, it’s not supposed to be in excess, but there are those in our community who struggle with the same demons as the Englisch. Alcohol can be a burden for many, and it ends with terrible results. There have been many accidents because of it.”

  “You mean drunk drivers hitting buggies?” Cass said.

  Maami nodded. “Ya, but there are also those who drive buggies after drinking too much. Not that long ago, an Amish man ran his buggy into a tree. He was killed.”

  “That’s awful,” I said.

  “Too much of anything gut or bad can lead to sin or worse.” Maami returned to her task.

  “Do you think Leeza’s former Amish?” Charlotte asked me.

  “I–I don’t know,” I said. “I just wondered what the connection was. He was mad enough about something to come to the church looking for her.”

  “Then you know he’s not the one responsible for her death. Had he been, he wouldn’t want to make a scene like that,” Maami said logically.

  Cass stared at her. “Bai, I think some of your detecting skills are rubbing off on your grandmother.”

  Maami chuckled.

  I shook my head. “Before we do any more sleuthing, let’s get these candies out. I think between the four of us, we can make short work of it.”

  “I know we can,” Maami said. “Charlotte and I would be grateful for your help.” She stepped back, and her foot bumped into the fire extinguisher box. Cass caught her arm before she tipped over.

  “I’m so sorry, Maami. I should have hung that up by now. The old extinguisher was about to expire, and I bought a replacement.” I grabbed a knife from one of the drawers to open the box.

  “Do not worry, Granddaughter. There was no harm. As you can see, I’m perfectly fine,” my grandmother said.

  “Still, it needs to go up before the fire inspector pops into the shop on one of his surprise visits.” I sliced through the tape on the top of the box and pulled back the flaps. “You all get to work on the candies and I will take care of this. I know what to do. I used to replace the extinguishers all the time at JP Chocolates.”

  Cass nodded as she walked around the island to one of the industrial refrigerators. She opened the fridge door and removed cream, butter, and two dozen eggs. “It’s true. Bailey is crazy about having up-to-date fire extinguishers.”

  I pulled the red extinguisher out of the box. It was a lot heavier than it looked. “Fire safety is important.”

  “Bailey is such a rule follower,” Cass said. “Must be the Amish genes.”

  Charlotte and my grandmother chuckled at her joke.

  * * *

  I glanced at the clock on the wall above the newly installed fire extinguisher. We had been working steadily for the last several hours, and it was already eight thirty. It was time to open the shop door. I excused myself and went to the front of the shop to do just that.

  Puff and Nutmeg sat at my feet as I unlocked the door. They looked up at me expectantly.

  “No,” I said. “We have no time to go to the square today. You two will just have to stay inside the shop.” I set the candy shop’s chalkboard placard on the sidewalk. It wouldn’t be long before the first bus tour rolled into Harvest, and I wanted Swissmen Sweets to be ready for them.

  “I heard you are looking for moonshine,” a gravelly, male voice said.

  I knew who it was before I saw him. Abel Esh slunk over the sidewalk that separated my shop from Esh Family Pretzel.

  “Do you have some drinking to do?” he asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Shame. I was going to tell you where to get it.”

  “How do you know?”

  He took another step toward me, and it took all my strength not to recoil from his closeness.

  “You think you know everything that happens in this county, but you don’t. Aiden Brody doesn’t either. There are secrets in Harvest that would make your hair stand on end.”

  I frowned. “If you are going to talk in riddles, I have no interest in continuing this conversation.”

  “You need hidden places to sell moonshine. That’s all I will say about it.” He stepped back and smiled.

  I stared at him. “What does that even mean?”

  He shrugged. “You’re the one who solves all the little mysteries in this village. I would have thought it would be easy for you to figure that out.”

  I was about to ask him what he meant by that when his sister Esther poked her head out the front door of the pretzel shop.

  “Abel,” Esther said. “I need help moving a large pot. I can’t lift it.” She spotted me standing a few feet away from her brother. “Bailey King, what are you doing? Pestering my brother, I see.”

  I frowned. Abel had spoken to me first, but I wasn’t about to bother telling her that. It would make no difference to Esther.

  Abel glowered at me and said in a low vo
ice, so that his sister would not overhear, “It would serve you well, Bailey King, if you stopped meddling in our community. You only run the risk of getting hurt or hurting those you love.” With that, he walked away from me toward his family’s shop.

  It seemed to be me that Abel Esh had just threatened me. It wouldn’t be the first time, and I doubted it would be the last.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After the shop was open, Emily came in to work and Cass and I left to drop off the marshmallow sticks at Becca Stout’s gift shop. This was what I told the ladies at Swissmen Sweets, but they all knew I wanted to find out more about Leeza as well.

  A Simple Gift Shop was right on the main road in Berlin. There couldn’t be a better place for me to promote my candies. This was the heart of Amish country, or at least it was the heart of the tourist’s version of Amish country. There was every kind of Amish business on the street, from an elderly Amish man making kettle corn to a buggy ride stand where Amish men took tourists for five-dollar tours of the countryside.

  Becca’s store, A Simple Gift Shop, was in the middle of the street and in the perfect position to get the most foot traffic. At first I envied her this location. It was clear to me that she did much more business than I. When Cass and I entered the store, we could barely move through the crush of shorts-clad tourists. I had second thoughts about expanding Swissmen Sweets. Maybe it wasn’t a completely bad thing that my family candy shop was off the beaten path.

  Becca stood at the cash register and waved to me when we walked in. She said something in Pennsylvania Dutch to the young woman standing next to her. The girl nodded and took Becca’s post at the cash register.

  Becca, who was as stout as her surname suggested, was close to my age and had beautiful brown eyes, walked over to us. She and I had met each other at shopkeeper events in the county. It seemed any time there was a gathering of that nature, Becca was there. “Bailey, it is gut to see you. Did you bring the candies?”

  I held up the box of cellophane-wrapped marshmallow sticks. “I have thirty ready to go. We weren’t sure how many you would need. We can always make more.”

 

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