“Who would want to blow up the still?”
“Whoever did it had every intention of destroying that still. There was a propane tank to heat the water to make the moonshine. The shooter aimed for that. We’re guessing the shooter shot off all five rounds from a hunting rifle. Two of them must have hit the tank, but we found three rounds embedded in trees around the area. The three rounds were enough to tell us the location where the shooter was when the shots were fired. The person was about fifty yards away, on a slight rise above the still.”
My pulse quickened. “Did you find anything at the spot where the shooter stood?”
He nodded. “One casing. It seems to me the shooter scooped up all the casings after the shots were fired, missing just one.”
I nodded, deep in thought.
“That one is all we need,” Aiden said.
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because we got a print. If all goes well, we will have the killer in custody before a single firework is shot on the Fourth.”
And then this nightmare would be over.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
My phone rang at seven the next morning. I was up and already at work at Swissmen Sweets. Any candy maker worth her salt was up with the sun. I can’t say that I was a morning person, but my career choice certainly forced me to be. I checked the phone screen and saw that the call was from Margot. I showed it to Cass, who was working next to me at the island in the candy shop kitchen. She wrinkled her nose.
Knowing it was better to take the call than ignore it because she would either call back until I caved or just waltz into the candy shop demanding I listen to her, I answered. “Good morning, Margot.”
“Well, hello, Bailey. Today is the day! The Harvest Independence Day celebration. Oh my goodness, I can feel it in my very bones that this will become an annual tradition. Did you hear they announced it on a Canton radio station this morning?”
“No, I didn’t, but I’m happy to hear that it made the airwaves.”
“Made the airwaves? It was much more than that. The host raved about Harvest being the place to be this holiday. As you can imagine, I am tickled pink over it.”
I could imagine very well indeed.
“Now, I just want to make sure you will be at the celebration.”
“Swissmen Sweets will be there,” I said, and rolled my eyes at Cass.
“No, no, you, Bailey. I need you in particular there. I heard that they found the men behind Leeza’s death, so you really don’t have any reason to wander off, now do you?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I am planning to be at the booth with the ladies from my shop,” I said. “I would be very interested in knowing why you are so keen on having me there. Everyone at Swissmen Sweets does a great job.”
“Oh, I know, I know. I wasn’t commenting on Clara’s work or either of the girls’. I just need you.”
I frowned, because the way she kept saying you was getting a bit creepy. What plans did she have for me? I reminded myself that it couldn’t be anything bad, not really. I mean, Margot was a master of getting me and others to do things we didn’t really want to do, but she was never a threat.
“All right,” Margot said. “I have to run. See you this afternoon. Remember that all booths have to be ready to go by five o’clock sharp. I will not abide lateness.”
“We will be there,” I promised.
“This is going to be amazing!” she shouted, and then ended the call.
Cass stared at me. “What on earth was that about?”
“Margot has a surprise for me at the Fourth of July celebration and I have a feeling I’m not going to like it.”
“I know you’re not.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
Cass stirred melted chocolate in a stainless-steel bowl. “Let’s get these chocolate buggies done,” she said. “I think they will be a hit. Maybe JP Chocolates and Swissmen Sweets can collaborate. We would give you credit for the design, of course.”
“That would be great advertising for us, and I’d be happy to have info available about JP Chocolates here.”
“Excellent.” She grinned. “In some ways, it’s going to be hard to go back to the city, but I need to take over again at JP Chocolates. Jean Pierre might like playing at being head chocolatier for a little while, but he won’t be able to stand it for very long. He much prefers to coach from the sidelines.”
I laughed and poured the molten chocolate from the bowl into the waiting rubber buggy molds. I’d had the molds made not long after I decided to move to Ohio permanently and help out with my grandparents’ shop. Before I took over, my grandfather would hand-carve Amish buggies from chocolate. His carvings were beautiful, each one different, but they were also time-consuming. When I began helping out at the shop, I slowly started changing how we did some things to make the work go more quickly and to increase orders. I got the chocolate molds made so that we’d always have buggies to sell, and they’d become a popular souvenir item on our website. We’d recently begun shipping and selling our candies online. I had a feeling that side of our business would grow tenfold when the television show hit the air.
I was doing all this slowly, staying within the limits of what my Amish grandmother was comfortable with. Our shop would never be on the scale of JP Chocolates, but I wanted to share Amish candies with the world. Bailey’s Amish Sweets would air at the end of the week. I wasn’t sure that my grandmother was ready for all the attention the show would bring the shop. Of course, she knew I’d been going to New York to film a candy-making show, but I don’t think she realized the reach and growth potential it would have for our business.
My phone rang. I hoped it wasn’t Margot again.
Cass pulled a tray of chocolate-dipped strawberries from the industrial refrigerator near the back door of the kitchen. “Bai, are you going to get your phone?”
I removed the gloves I was wearing and pulled the phone out of the back pocket of my jeans. The call was from my producer, Linc Baggins, in New York. “This is Bailey.”
“Bailey, good, good, I thought you wouldn’t answer.” He was breathless as he spoke.
“Is everything okay?” Something must have gone awry with the release of the television show and now Bailey’s Amish Sweets was canceled. I knew it was too good to be true to think I would have my own show on a major cable network.
“Everything is fine!” he shouted in my ear.
I held the phone away from me. Cass and Charlotte were in the kitchen with me, helping prepare all the last-minute details for the Fourth of July celebration on the square that evening. Cass mouthed, You okay?
I nodded because I thought I was okay, but I still had no idea why my producer was calling me so early in the morning on a national holiday.
“We must work fast,” Linc said.
“Is there anything left to do for the show?” I asked. “I was told everything was complete.”
“The network is so excited about the buzz your show has created. They want to throw a premiere party! Now, it won’t be a whole red carpet thing, but there will be press and food critics there.”
“Wow, that’s great news. The show premieres next Tuesday. When will the event be?”
“Saturday. This Saturday,” he said breathlessly. “You have to be here. We can’t have the event without you.”
I raised my brow. It was Wednesday. I bit my lip. Saturday was one of our busiest days, but I would go, of course. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “I’ll be there.” I couldn’t keep the excitement from my voice.
“Good, good,” he said with a sigh of relief. “And bring Charlotte and your grandmother, too.”
“Charlotte and my grandmother?” I asked.
Charlotte, who had entered the kitchen while I had been on the phone, now hung on my every word. Cass mouthed, What? What?
I shook my head. Charlotte had gone with me to New York to film in the past, so I knew she would love the chance to go again, but I couldn’t imagine my gr
andmother in the city. I couldn’t imagine her agreeing to go. It was such a non-Amish thing to do, and she would have to fly. She’d never flown in a plane before.
“I know Charlotte would be happy to return to New York,” I told Linc.
Charlotte’s eyes went wide, and she clapped her hands over her mouth as she jumped up and down in excitement. Cass gave her a high five.
“But I don’t know if my grandmother will be able to come,” I said.
“She has to come,” my producer declared. “Your show would not be what it is without your Amish roots.”
“She may not be comfortable with the idea.”
“Make her comfortable. We will set you up in the best hotel.”
I pressed my lips together. A fancy hotel would only make my grandmother feel more uncomfortable. “I don’t—”
“Bailey, I have to go,” he interrupted me. “It may be a holiday, but when you’re in my field, you never get a day off. I’ll have my assistant send you the flight confirmation, hotel, and all the particulars about the event.”
Before I could say anything more, he hung up.
“What was that?” Cass asked.
“That was my producer in New York,” I said, still a little shocked by the conversation. “Gourmet Television has planned a premiere for my show this Saturday.”
Cass set her tray on the large, stainless-steel island. “Bai, this is huge!”
“I know,” I said.
“He wants Charlotte to come with me, and of course, you and Jean Pierre will come as my guests, too, but . . .”
Charlotte squealed. “I’m going back to the city!”
“But what?” Cass asked, studying me.
“He wants Maami to come. In fact, he insisted that she come.”
The kitchen door swung inward. “Who wants me to come somewhere?” my grandmother asked.
I glanced at Charlotte. I knew we were thinking the same thing. My grandmother would never agree to go to New York for the premiere party.
Cass answered for me, telling Maami about the party.
Maami shook her head. “I can’t go to New York. That is a silly idea, especially not on a Saturday in the summer. You and I can’t both be gone on such a busy day, Bailey.”
I felt my heart sink because I wanted her to be there. The little girl in me wanted my grandmother, the most important person in my life, to see what I had done.
My grandmother walked over to me and took both my hands in hers. “I’m so proud of you, but I know that you respect my way of life.”
“I do,” I said.
“You and Charlotte can go. It would be gut for you. Emily and I can manage the shop.”
“Oh, thank you, Cousin Clara.” Charlotte clapped her hands.
“I would love it if you could come,” I said, even though I knew there was no point. “My producer will cover the flights. We could stay with Cass if you don’t want to stay in the hotel.” I glanced at Cass, and she nodded.
“It would be a tight squeeze in my apartment,” Cass said. “But I would love to have you.”
“Oh,” Maami said, “I don’t know if that would be right. It is not the Amish way to go to big cities. There would be many things there I would not be permitted to do.”
“Charlotte is Amish,” Cass said, “and she went.”
My grandmother smiled at her. “Ya, but Charlotte is not baptized in the church yet. It is one thing for a young woman who is interested in the world and is on rumspringa. It is another for a grandmother who has been a member of the church for over fifty years.”
I clenched my teeth, not because I was angry, but to hide my disappointment. Maami had given me the answer I’d expected to hear, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted her to come. I wanted to show her what my life in New York had been like. I wanted her to meet Jean Pierre. It was silly to think even for a moment that she would come. She had never visited my father or me in our home in Connecticut during all the years I was growing up. I was always the one who’d traveled to Holmes County.
For a moment, I was that eight-year-old girl again, trying to understand why my grandparents never came to see me. I’d ask my parents, and my father would say that they didn’t believe in travel. At eight, I didn’t understand it. If Maami and Daadi didn’t believe in travel, why did I travel to Ohio to see them every summer? I asked my father this question, and he always gave me the same answer: “Because they are Amish, Bailey.” By that point his tone was exasperated, and I knew better than to keep asking.
I respected my grandmother’s dedication to her faith, but at the same time, I still wanted to share the other part of my life with her. Maybe that was the English in me coming out. I wanted her to see what I had created.
It wasn’t the Amish way of thinking. The individual wasn’t the focus of their faith; the community was. Part of that was keeping the community together, which meant not traveling too far away from home. Charlotte and my grandmother had gone to Pinecraft, Florida, weeks ago on a little vacation I had organized for them. I wanted them to have a break from the store. Maami had agreed to that because Pinecraft was an Amish community on the gulf. Going there was within the parameters that her bishop had set for district member travel. A television show premiere in New York was way out of that sphere.
I gave it one more try. “Maybe you can ask Bishop Yoder,” I suggested. “Maybe this would be something he’d approve. It’s his decision to let you go, isn’t it?”
She patted my cheek. “It would be his decision, but I cannot bother the bishop now with so much turmoil in the community over the stills.”
I forced a smile, hoping I looked happier than I felt. “I understand.” I shook my head. “Let’s finish getting ready for the event on the square. If Margot is right, the place will be packed.” I started cutting up more chocolate to melt in the double boiler on one of the many burners in the large kitchen.
Cass gave me an understanding smile, and then a look of determination crossed her face. I tried not to worry over what that might mean.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Last year, when I moved to Holmes County, I had been overwhelmed by the number of events that were held on the square, and the fact that Margot Rawlings expected Swissmen Sweets to participate in each and every one of them. During the fair-weather months from late April to October, there was an event every weekend, or so it seemed. Now, many months later, I took Margot’s requests in stride, and the ladies of Swissmen Sweets and I had moving supplies and candy across the street to the square down to a science. I had invested in two outdoor folding utility wagons with sturdy rubber wheels. They were the perfect addition to the business. When it was late afternoon and time to set up our booth at the Fourth of July celebration, we filled the two wagons with what we needed and were off across the street.
It was a little after four as we began to set up. Emily had gone home to be with her family, but Charlotte, Cass, Maami, and I were all going to work at the candy shop tables. I’d told Emily that she didn’t have to stay if she didn’t want to because we had Cass as an extra set of hands. In the end, she opted to go home. Her choice didn’t surprise me a bit. She was still a newlywed and talked of her young husband constantly, and I knew she didn’t want to chance another run-in with her older siblings.
I was also relieved Jethro wasn’t there. After the great chase through Harvest Woods the day before, I thought it was better to leave him and Puff home. Because I knew Nutmeg would hate the idea of being separated from his friends, Charlotte had taken him to my house earlier in the day, too. Now the three animals were surely wrecking my living room, but at least I knew they wouldn’t run off or be frightened by the fireworks as they might have been in Swissmen Sweets.
Even though the fireworks weren’t to start until after nine at night, the square was already full of lawn and beach chairs as villagers and visitors staked out their spots for the best views of the fireworks.
Thankfully for us, the candy shop booth on the square ha
d a clear view of the playground to the left of Reverend Brook’s church. The fireworks were to be shot off from the field behind the playground. We were sure to see quite a show.
Charlotte clapped her hands and then started unpacking the wagons with the rest of us. “I’m so excited. It’s been quite a day. First, I found I’m going back to New York, and now we get to see fireworks! I don’t know what will happen next.”
My grandmother watched her with concern etched on her face. It was apparent to all of us, except maybe Charlotte, that she was moving further and further away from her Amish roots. I wondered when she would make a decision about being baptized or not. Bishop Yoder was much more lenient than her old bishop, but I doubted that he would put up with her indecisiveness forever. His wife, Ruth, wouldn’t let him.
There were a handful of booths on the square, and all of them tonight were food-related. Margot had made sure that no one was in danger of going hungry while roaming around downtown Harvest on July Fourth.
We made quick work of unpacking our carts and setting up the table. By this point, Swissmen Sweets had done so many events on the square, we had it down to a science.
More and more people came onto the square by the minute, and I realized that Margot had been right. This was going to be one of the biggest events the village had ever seen. There were even more people than had been in Harvest at Christmas, and for that holiday, Margot had arranged a live nativity, including a camel named Melchior.
As the vendors set up, Margot marched back and forth in front of the line of food booths with her clipboard at the ready. I had seen her high-strung about an event before, but nothing like this. “Quickly, quickly,” she called. “All the food services must be open by five,” she shouted on her last pass, and then she glared at the one empty table in the line. I frowned. I saw all the regular food vendors present. I couldn’t guess who else she expected to be there.
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