I tried the best I could to put the murder out of my mind as Charlotte and I made final preparations for the Christmas Market. We had made every peppermint treat we could think of. In addition to the peppermint bark, we had peppermint sticks, peppermint ribbon candy, peppermint patties, peppermint fudge, peppermint taffy, and a few others. It was literally a sea of peppermint in front of us on the counter as we packed everything up for the market.
“What if someone doesn’t like peppermint?” Charlotte asked.
“Hold your tongue!” I said
She held a handful of candy canes suspended in the air. “I . . . I didn’t mean anything by it.”
I laughed. “I’m only teasing, and you make a good point. We can’t assume that everyone coming to the Christmas Market likes peppermint. Let’s put some plain chocolate and fudge in the cart too, just in case.”
She laughed. “You got it, and you really scared me for a second. Sometimes, I just don’t get your Englischer sense of humor.”
I smiled as I affixed a red bow to the top of a white bakery box of peppermint fudge. I had a feeling that after the Christmas Market ended, it would be a very long time before I touched peppermint again. The scent of it lingered in every corner of the shop.
Maami poked her head into the back room. “You girls are having far too much fun back here.” She smiled. “The shop is picking up. I could use some help out front.”
I added the last bow to the fudge boxes. “We are all set here. There is nothing more that we can do until we are able to go to the square and set up in an hour.”
Maami nodded and ducked back into the main part of the shop.
Charlotte placed boxes of peppermint candies on the rolling cart that we used for market days. “I thought maybe we would have heard something more about the woman in the gazebo before the Christmas Market opened.”
I tied an apron around my waist before I went out into the main part of the shop. “I don’t think Margot Rawlings would let anything get in the way of the market. She’s worked too hard.” I paused. “I still think it’s odd that I didn’t see her this morning when the police were at the square. Juliet said she was working on a secret project, but that was yesterday.”
Business was brisk that morning. All three café tables were full, and even more customers stood along the windows, staring out across the street into the square. Nutmeg held court in front of the shop accepting all the compliments and head scratches he could get. He also kept a close eye on the door, watching to see when he could make a break for it. I, in turn, was keeping a close eye on the wily kitten.
Part of me thought the shop might be so busy because of the Christmas Market that was to open in an hour, but the cynical part of me thought Swissmen Sweets had the best view of the gazebo where Rocky had died. Most of the talk in the shop that morning had been about the poor English woman who was murdered. Usually, these comments were whispered with furtive glances in my direction. I didn’t know if the villagers knew of my connection to the deceased woman or if they just assumed a connection because of my unfortunate ability to find dead bodies in the past.
I did my best to ignore the whispers and looks. I wrapped in parchment paper the piece of mint chocolate chip fudge that a middle-aged woman had ordered and carefully tucked it in a white candy box.
The woman handed me her credit card, and as I put the card into the reader, I could feel eyes watching me. I handed the woman her card back and found Eric watching me from the front door. I looked away, and the customer thanked me as she accepted her fudge and receipt.
An Amish man who was a regular customer and next in line started to take a step forward in order to speak to me, but Eric cut in front of him.
I frowned at Eric. “I’m sorry. You can’t cut in line. The man behind you has been waiting for several minutes, and there are others behind him, too, who have been waiting.”
“I need to talk to you now,” Eric said.
I shook my head. “That’s not how it works.”
“It’s how it works today.” His eyes pleaded with me. “Please, Bai, I have to talk to you.”
The Amish man frowned but stepped back. It wasn’t the Amish way to argue over who was really next in line. I gave the man an apologetic look. “Charlotte or my grandmother will be with you shortly. I’m so very sorry.”
He nodded, and his long Amish beard dipped farther down the front of his black wool coat.
I walked to the end of the counter. “Eric, I’m working. Now is not a good time.”
“I know that, but your grandmother and that girl,” he said, referring to Charlotte, “can handle it. I need your help much more than they do.”
“I—”
“Bai, please.” He stared at me with those big blue eyes lined with dark blond lashes. The eyes that used to make my heart melt.
“Fine. We can talk in the kitchen.” I knew if I didn’t give in and talk to Eric now, he would be in my shop disturbing customers all day. I couldn’t have that. I untied my apron and hung it on a hook behind the counter. I lifted the piece of wood that divided the front of the shop from the back counter and let Eric through before I replaced it. As I led Eric to the kitchen, my grandmother caught my eye and raised her brow. “I’ll be back in a minute,” I promised, hoping I was telling her the truth.
When we were in the kitchen, Eric looked around. “Wow, I haven’t seen mixers this old since I was fresh out of culinary school and interning at an Italian bakery in the Bronx.”
“They still work great,” I said defensively. “We might not have everything top of the line, but what we have does a good job.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not knocking it. Mixers like that are workhorses. They’re hard to find nowadays. What they make now doesn’t last nearly as long. I wish I had one.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling a blush creep up the sides of my face. “I’m sorry for snapping.”
“You shouldn’t take everything I say as a negative, Bai. I hope that you can put our past behind you now, because I need your help. I just left the sheriff’s department.”
“Your attorney made it?” I asked.
He nodded. “He’s checking into a hotel right now. I’m supposed to meet him there in an hour so we can plan a strategy.”
“A strategy for what?” I braced my hands on the island in the middle of the kitchen.
Eric perched on one of the backless stools in the room. “The sheriff thinks I killed Rocky, and he is determined to make any arrest stick.”
I wasn’t surprised to hear that Sheriff Marshall thought Eric was behind Rocky’s death. It would be so less messy for him if someone outside the county was responsible for the murder. The last thing the sheriff wanted was a mess on his hands.
Sheriff Marshall ruled the county with an iron fist and wasn’t the kindest of men. He looked down on the Amish in the county and was generally disliked by almost everyone who lived there, both Amish and English. However, he’d just won his fifth consecutive election in November because for a fourth time he’d run uncontested. It seemed no one wanted to go up against the incumbent sheriff. I had thought for a brief moment that Aiden would challenge him. Aiden had spent most of his life in Holmes County, was a seasoned deputy, and was well liked by both the Amish and English, but in the end he’d refused to run. He told me that in law enforcement it was frowned upon to run against your boss, even if your boss was a terrible official. It probably wasn’t a smart idea either, because Aiden and Sheriff Marshall’s relationship was tenuous at best. If Aiden ran and lost, I could only imagine what the sheriff might do to Aiden to retaliate.
If the sheriff thought that Eric was behind Rocky’s murder, the pastry chef really was in trouble, and if Aiden agreed with the sheriff, I thought Eric didn’t stand much chance of getting out of that trouble. However, I knew that Aiden wouldn’t come to a final conclusion until he investigated all possibilities, despite the fact that he’d disliked Eric on sight.
“Is it because you dated Rocky?” I asked.
“How could I miss it? Linc yelled it at the top of his lungs.” I walked to the other side of the island, putting it between us.
“That annoying little hobbit,” Eric muttered.
I gave him a look.
“He’s been terrible to work with the entire time. I don’t even know why he’s here. Rocky was more than capable of handling everything. Rocky was . . .” He trailed off.
I stared at Eric. Was he about to cry? Did he really care about Rocky? This was quite a revelation if it was true, and my heart softened toward Eric just a little. If he’d lost someone he cared about, he deserved my sympathy, no matter what our past might have been.
He swallowed and walked over to my spice shelf. He ran his finger along the containers of spices. “Will you help me, Bai?”
“I think you need to be honest with me before I can make up my mind about that. If you have or had a relationship with Rocky, you have a motive, and Aiden will definitely follow up. It’s best to be honest.”
“Oh, I know Aiden is Mr. Perfect. You don’t have tell me that.” He curled his lip in disgust.
I scowled. “You’re not helping your case by keeping information from me. I don’t know how I can help you anyway.”
He dropped his hand from the spice shelf. “You can help me because you have an in with Mr. Perfect. You can whisper into his ear. I know he listens to you.”
I folded my arms. “This conversation is going nowhere. I don’t know why I let you come back here in the first place.”
I walked toward the swinging door and was about to push it open when he said, “Bailey, wait, I’m sorry.” His shoulders sagged. “I know that acting like this isn’t helping my situation. You probably think that being a suspect in this murder doesn’t bother me, but it does. Bailey, I’m scared, and you are the only one who can help me. I don’t have anyone else here.”
“You have your attorney.”
He shook his head. “His advice is for me to go back to the guest house where I’m staying and keep my head down. I can’t do that, Bailey. Don’t you see? The sheriff has made up his mind. I have to prove him wrong, or I might be stuck in Ohio forever.”
It was truly terrifying to think that Eric might never leave Ohio. Although his never leaving Ohio State Penitentiary was certainly an even more terrifying thought! The sooner he went back to New York, the sooner I could get on with my real life. Without him. “Then start talking. How did your relationship with Rocky start?”
He sighed. “You know the network was finalizing the plans for my show just about the time you and I broke up.”
I nodded for him to continue. I had no interest in going back down our personal memory lane.
“I met Rocky a year before that at a city pastry show. She was walking around the arena, and she approached me. I had just torn the head off of one of my sous chefs for messing up the custard for my tarts.”
I winced, thinking of that poor sous chef. I had seen Eric in the kitchen, and he accepted nothing less that absolute perfection from his employees. Anyone who fell short was in for it.
“Rocky approached me then and told me the name of the network she represented. She said they were looking to change their image, and she thought I was the perfect chef to help transform the network.”
“Because you screamed at a poor nineteen-year-old kid who made a minor mistake? Lovely.” I folded my arms.
“Screwing up the custard is not a minor mistake.” Eric looked aghast. “You know that as well as anyone.”
“I would never yell at someone the way you do,” I said.
He frowned. “I know you wouldn’t, and it seems the viewing audience now wants a kinder, more wholesome Eric Sharp, which is what Rocky and I were trying to give them with this special program.”
“It’s just an act though. You are doing it only for ratings.” I found I was disappointed in him when I made that realization.
“I suppose Mr. Perfect would never yell at anyone either.” His blue eyes narrowed.
“You’re right. Aiden would never treat anyone so poorly.”
“Ah, so he is Mr. Perfect, at least to you. You’re infatuated with him. You were never able to hide your true feelings, Bai, especially not from me.”
My face grew hot. “I’m leaving. I have a business to run.”
He stepped between the door that led back to the front of the shop and me, and I wondered if I had made a horrible mistake in trusting him one last time.
Chapter 11
“If I start screaming, half the village will come running,” I said as evenly as I could. “Besides, I can just go out the back door, which leads into the alley. You can’t block both at the same time, and you can’t trap me in here until I agree to help you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I know that, but I’m hoping your compassion will prevail and you won’t leave. I really do need your help. If you help me, I promise not to make any more comments about super country cop.”
I glared at him.
He held up his hands in a Boy Scout salute.
“That is meaningless. You never were a Boy Scout.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I made it all the way up to Eagle Scout. There is much that you don’t know about me, Bailey King.”
“I don’t doubt that in the least.” I sighed and leaned on the island again. “Okay, then tell me more about the motive.” I waved at him with my hand, telling him to get on with his story. “You and Rocky dated. Were you still dating when she died?”
He looked down at his shoes. “No. We broke up about a month ago. It was a bad breakup, but we decided to keep it secret from the rest of the production team and the network. We both had too much at stake in my show. I had been waiting for this moment to have the media spotlight, and she had worked her way up in the chain of command within the network. We both had too much to lose. Or at least I thought that was the case until she lost it.”
“Lost it how?” I asked.
He frowned as if remembering it was painful. “Last night at the guest house. She yelled and screamed at me.”
“Out of the blue? What made her so upset?”
He wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I made a move for the back door, which would lead me to the alley and away from Eric.
“Wait!” he cried. “I’ll tell you.”
I paused at the door. I shouldn’t have. What I should have done was leave or, even better, kick Eric out of my shop.
There was no reason for me to help Eric. I didn’t need to hear him out. There was no reason for me to help him, other than that I thought he was innocent. I knew he was innocent. The Eric I knew wouldn’t do anything that would endanger his career. Even if he wasn’t found guilty of the crime, this murder had the potential to ruin his career because Rocky’s death would always haunt him. It was something that those in New York would always talk about, and in a city where reputation was everything, Rocky’s death could topple Eric’s empire. Was I going to stand by and let that happen? Part of me wanted to, part of me knew that he deserved whatever he got, but in the end I asked my question again. “What made her so upset?”
He scrunched up his nose. “Does the reason really matter?”
“If you don’t tell me, this conversation is over.” I put my hand on the doorknob.
“Okay, okay, don’t leave. She lost it because she found out I was dating someone else.”
“She had to know that you’re a playboy. She shouldn’t have been surprised if you were dating someone else after you broke up. Why was this news so earth-shattering to her?”
“Because she found out that I was dating someone on this production team.”
“Who?” But I could guess. There was only one other woman who was part of this production. “Josie.” The young girl’s pretty face came to my mind. I could see why Eric had been attracted to her. “So, there is a jealous hairstylist girlfriend on the production crew,” I said.
He swallowed.
“Exactly. I think my girlfriend might have been the one who killed Rocky. She can be volatile.”
“In what way?” I asked,
“She’s an expressive person. Vibrant. She feels deeply,” he said vaguely. “I would never believe that she planned to kill Rocky, but if she got mad enough, yeah, she would do it.”
“How long have Josie and Rocky known about each other?” My head was spinning with Eric’s romantic entanglements.
“Josie knew about Rocky for a while. She noticed how Rocky and I acted around each other and called me out on it. I think that was what attracted me to her from the start—that she was clever enough to figure that out, because Rocky and I were so careful to keep everything professional. Rocky, however, didn’t know that Josie and I were seeing each other until last night. Anyway, Rocky came into the house with a huge chip on her shoulder and yelled at Josie. She told her she was fired, that she could ruin Josie’s career.”
“Who knows about this fight?”
“Everyone on the production crew. It wasn’t like it was done quietly. They were both screaming their heads off.”
“So the police already know about it?”
“If they don’t, they will as soon as they start interviewing the production crew.”
“Why was Rocky so mad at Josie but not at you?”
“She was mad at me, plenty mad, but she needed me for the show. Josie was expendable. Rocky fired her right there for acting in an unprofessional manner and refused to give her a reference for another job. She said that if a future employer called the network, she would ruin Josie’s reputation. This was Josie’s first professional job, so she really needed a good reference.”
“So basically Rocky planned to destroy this girl’s professional life for dating you.”
“Pretty much.” He sighed. “Rocky was an impressive and powerful woman, and she used all of her means to get where she was in her career. She made a lot of sacrifices along the way, as we all have.” He gave me a look.
I didn’t respond to his comment, but instead I said, “It sounds to me as if Josie is a much better suspect than you are.”
Premeditated Peppermint Page 8