Premeditated Peppermint

by Amanda Flower

  “I think Daniel knows why,” I said.

  The young Amish man looked trapped. Cass stood in the barn doorway, blocking his exit.

  Grandma Leah turned to her grandson. “Daniel?”

  The boy dropped his head and sat down on a bale of hay. He covered his face.

  Grandma Leah hurried over to him. “What’s wrong, my boy?”

  “Daed lied to both of us.” His voice was muffled through his gloved hands.

  “What do you mean?”

  “My mother didn’t die. She ran away.” He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. “Rocky, the person she was asking you about, that was my mother. She told me so.”

  Grandma Leah stumbled backward. I hurried forward and steadied her with my hand so she wouldn’t fall over. “That can’t be. She must have lied to you.”

  “She didn’t. She knew too much about Daed and me and about this farm. She told me all of this in our language. She never would have been able to speak so well if she was an Englischer.”

  “You met with her?” I asked.

  He nodded. “The first night she was here. I met with her at the gazebo. She looked so Englisch, but she told me everything she knew about us in our language. She could describe the farm down to the smallest detail.”

  Grandma Leah pressed the back of her hand to her own forehead as if she were checking her temperature.

  “Did your father know she was here?” I asked.

  He stared at his hands. “I told him when I got back to the tree farm. I wanted to know why he had lied to me. Why did he tell me that my mother was dead instead of the truth, that she ran away for the Englisch life?”

  “What did he do when you told him?” I asked in a low voice.

  Daniel still wouldn’t look me in the eye. “He said he wanted to talk to her. He left and didn’t come home for a long while. I didn’t see him until the next morning, and then when we went to the square to set up for the market, we heard . . . we heard that she had been murdered.” He started to cry in earnest now.

  My heart broke for him because I believed he was thinking what the rest of us were: that his father, Thaddeus Keim, had killed his mother.

  “Get off of my farm!” A booming voice shook the barn rafters. There stood Thaddeus Keim with a pitchfork in his hands. And the business end of it was pointed at me.

  Cass took two giant steps back from the very angry-looking man. “Watch where you point that thing,” she said.

  “Mr. Keim . . .” I started to say.

  “Don’t call me, Mr. Keim, Englischer. You need to leave.”

  Grandma Leah took a step forward. “Thad, my grandson, is what this girl says true? Was this Rocky woman your Rachel?”

  Thad clenched his teeth and pointed at Cass and me. “Leave. I want you off of my land. You have no right to be here.”

  Cass tapped on the screen of her phone. “Gladly.”

  I wasn’t ready to go just yet. “You lied to your son about his mother. Rocky was his mom, and you didn’t want him to know that.”

  “Rocky!” He spat the name. “She is no one to my son. She should have kept her promise and stayed away. The best thing she ever did was leave. She wanted the Englisch life, and so I let her go. But we agreed she would never return. She had no reason to come back. Her coming back has ruined everything.”

  “She only wanted to see her son,” I said. “Maybe she was ready to make amends for what she did.”

  “Daniel is not her son. He is my son, and she made her decision to give him up years ago. She cannot go back on it now.” He lifted the pitchfork in his hand a little bit higher, but I ignored his threat.

  “Then after she died, you broke into her room at the guest house to search for anything she might have left behind that would reveal the connection between you and her. You wanted to destroy any evidence.”

  “You don’t know what you are talking about.”

  By the way his glance shot to his son, I knew I was right. “The police have the baby rattle.”

  Thad paled. “Get off my farm.”

  I opened my mouth to argue with him some more, but Cass pulled on my sleeve. “I suggest that we leave unless we want to meet the pitchfork up close and personal.” In a lower voice, she added, “I called the police.”

  I held up my hands. “We will leave, but you have to move away from the door so that we can go.”

  Thad stood there for a long moment as if he were considering this. Maybe he thought it would be best not to let us go. If he’d really killed Rocky, would it work to his advantage to let us go? We were two witnesses who knew about his connection to Rocky. We were the two witnesses who’d seen him run away from her room in the guest house and drop that rattle. A rattle that I was certain had been Daniel’s when he was a baby. Rocky—or rather, Rachel—must have taken it with her when she left her Amish life as a memento of her baby son. There would be no photographs of the baby to take. The Amish do not take pictures of one another. It is against their teachings.

  Thad stepped out of the way. When Cass and I were safely on the other side of him, I said, “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “That is the Englisch way, to say sorry after they do something wrong. The Englisch never mean to do anything and can always make excuses for their actions. That is where you differ from the Amish. We do what we say and mean what we do. It would serve you well to follow your grandparents’ example in that way.”

  Cass yanked on my arm and whispered in my ear, “Bai, come on, it’s time to go. The chance to convince this man to talk to you in a civil manner has come and gone.”

  I nodded and let her pull me away from the Amish farmer.

  We had reached my car when Aiden’s departmental car, followed by two cruisers, pulled into the Keim yard. Aiden and the other officers jumped out of their vehicles.

  I spun around to see Thad’s reaction. He didn’t move. Maybe he was done with running.

  Aiden slowed his pace as he saw how calm Thad was being.

  “Mr. Keim,” Aiden said in his cop voice. “I need to talk to you about Rocky Rivers.”

  “You want to talk to me about my wife,” Thad replied.

  Aiden didn’t appear the least bit surprised by this revelation. Perhaps he had been listening to me when I’d told him my suspicions about Keim’s relationship to Rocky.

  “Please put the pitchfork down.” Aiden held out his hands. They were in front of him. Nowhere near his duty belt and gun.

  Thad looked at the pitchfork and then unceremoniously dropped it on the ground as if he had no use for it at all. Grandma Leah stood in the doorway of the barn with her hands pressed palm to palm in prayer.

  Behind the police cars, an Amish buggy turned into the driveway. A young woman climbed out of the driver’s seat. Daniel ran by his father, Cass and me, and the police. He gave the girl a hug, and the pair of them climbed back into the buggy and drove away. It wasn’t until the girl poked her head out of the buggy to look back at us that I realized who it was. Emily Esh had just rescued Daniel Keim, but the question remained, who would rescue Emily?

  Chapter 33

  Cass and I were uncharacteristically quiet on the ride back to Swissmen Sweets until her phone rang.

  “Bonjour, Jean Pierre!” she said in a perky voice.

  A barrage of French shouting came over the other end of the line.

  “Yes, yes, Bailey is fine.” She rolled her eyes at me. “He did what? Right. Right. Yes, I appreciate your letting me come here to check on Bailey. Caden clearly can’t handle Christmas in the shop.” She paused. “Oh, you want me to come back today?” She looked over to me.

  I nodded. Rocky’s killer had been found. Eric and his crew were wrapping up filming to return home tomorrow. It was time for Cass to go back to her real life, and it was time for me—all over again—to figure out what I wanted to do with mine. If Linc was right and the network wanted me to fly to New York to shoot a pilot, did I want to do that? I’d thought when I moved to Hol
mes County that I had made my final decision about what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, but an opportunity like this had never even entered my mind as a possibility.

  Whatever I decided, I needed to talk to my grandmother soon. I didn’t want her to believe that I would break my promise to my grandfather and abandon her. I loved her more than anyone. If I chose to do the show, it would partly be for her. She had worked her entire life. I wanted her to have time to rest and enjoy herself, but I had to ask myself if that would be something she would want. The Amish way was to work until you were unable to work. In their culture, work was pleasing to God. It was hard for me to imagine my grandmother agreeing to a true retirement, but I would love for her to slow down. The shop was a lot of responsibility even with Charlotte’s and my help, and I wanted to expand it and hire more workers, perhaps even Emily.

  Thinking of Emily made me wonder what her relationship with Daniel was. Were they courting? How had she known that he needed help right then? Had Daniel been the Amish man I’d seen walking away from Emily in the alley when Nutmeg got loose? Probably, I decided. And I couldn’t help but wonder where they had gone. I hope Daniel was okay. He was understandably upset. In the span of a few days, he’d discovered his mother didn’t die when he was baby and his mother, whom he’d just met, was murdered by his father, or at least that’s what the police believed. Aiden hadn’t been very forthcoming with me when he’d arrested Thad at the tree farm. I wondered what evidence he had that proved Thad Keim was the killer.

  “Yes, yes,” Cass said into the phone. “I’ll leave as soon as I can. It’s a short flight, so I should be back in the shop by this evening. I’ll fix everything that Caden screwed up.” She ended the call.

  I glanced at her as we came into town on Apple Street. “You have to go back.”

  She nodded. “Apparently, Caden had mixed up a bunch of the special orders. He’d sent a box of chocolate Santa Clauses to a Hanukkah party.”

  I winced.

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her head. “It’s going to take a bit of doing to unruffle those feathers, but I’m sure when we say we will replace their candies for free and throw in some freebies, all will be forgiven.”

  I parked my car in an open space in front of the yarn shop. “Thank you for coming out here. You were a big help.”

  She smiled. “Even though I live hundreds of miles away, I will always be your wingwoman, Bai.”

  I smiled back. “I know.”

  “And listen,” she said in a more serious tone as she looked me in the eye. “As much as I want you to come back to New York for three to four months to shoot a show for Gourmet Television, you have to ask yourself what you want. Don’t think about what I want or what your grandmother wants. Think about what you want.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “And if you choose to go forward with the show, just remember that I’m your manager. I’ll get you the deal!”

  I laughed. “I won’t forget that.”

  An hour later, I was helping the taxi driver heft Cass’s giant suitcase into the trunk of his car for the drive to the private airport in Canton where Jean Pierre’s plane waited for her. Finally, the driver slammed the trunk closed.

  “You brought enough to stay here a month, not just one night.”

  She grinned. “I like to be prepared.” She gave me a hug. “Take care of yourself and remember what I said.”

  I hugged her back. “I will.”

  Cass moved on and gave Maami and Charlotte hugs, too. “The shop looks great. I can’t wait to return.”

  Maami smiled at her. “You are welcome any time.”

  “I’m counting on that,” Cass said. She looked at her phone. “I’d better go. I’m sure Jean Pierre is driving the pilot crazy asking him when we will be back in the city.”

  I hugged her one more time, and she climbed into the car. Maami, Charlotte, and I waved until her taxi disappeared around the corner.

  “I am going to miss her,” Charlotte said. “She is very . . .” She searched for the right word. “Flamboyant.”

  I laughed. “That’s true.” I followed them back into the shop.

  “We heard about Thad Keim being arrested for the murder,” Charlotte said. “It’s so awful to believe that a quiet man from our district could do such a terrible thing, and they say, too, that she was his wife, who ran away from the Amish, and Daniel’s mother.”

  I wasn’t the least bit surprised that the details about the arrest had gotten out. The Amish telegraph was better than any gossip magazine in New York that I knew about.

  Maami clicked her tongue. “It’s best that we not talk about it for fear of spreading more gossip. All we can do is pray for Thad, and for his son and grandmother. I’m sure they are distraught.”

  The image of Grandma Leah’s heartbroken face came back into my mind.

  Across the street on the square the Christmas Market was about to open. “We had better set up,” I said to Charlotte.

  The young Amish woman opened the door to Swissmen Sweets. “I’m hoping for a quiet day at the market.”

  I followed her and Maami inside the shop. “Me too. Good thing I made so much peppermint bark when Eric and I were filming. We should have enough to get us through the market today.”

  Maami smiled. “And Charlotte and I did the rest while you and Cass were out.”

  I went into the kitchen and found that Charlotte already had everything packed for the market. “I guess we’re ready to go,” I said.

  Maami touched my arm. “Before you leave, can I have a word with you?”

  I bit the inside of my lip. “Of course, Maami.”

  Charlotte looked at us. “Why don’t I wheel the cart across the street and get started? Bailey, you can come over when you’re done.” The swinging door closed behind her.

  “Is everything okay, Maami?”

  She shook head. “Not everything. I need to ask you to forgive me.”

  I held on to the counter. “Forgive you? For what?” I couldn’t think of a single thing that my grandmother had ever done that required my forgiveness.

  “For how I behaved this morning. It wasn’t right. I know that you didn’t purposely omit to tell me that the television people were coming.”

  “It was just an oversight,” I said. “But if anyone should be asking for forgiveness, it’s me. I’m the one who messed up and forgot to tell you.”

  Maami shook her head. “And I didn’t handle the fact that you might want to return to New York well. I am sorry for that too.”

  “Maami, you did nothing wrong. I can understand why you wouldn’t be happy about my being gone for months at a time; you need my help in the shop.”

  “It is not that. We have Charlotte now with us, and she is a great help.”

  I winced. Maami didn’t know how painful that was for me to hear. It just confirmed my feelings that Charlotte, being Amish, was a better fit for the candy shop and for my grandmother than I could ever hope to be.

  “About New York, you have to decide what you want to do. I will support any decision you make.” Maami didn’t know it, but she had repeated Cass’s sentiments.

  I hugged her. “Danki,” I said, using the Pennsylvania Dutch word for thank you. “I haven’t decided yet, but when I do, I will tell you first.”

  Chapter 34

  A little while later, when I walked back to the square, I cringed to find Margot hurrying toward me. The curls that peeked out from under her winter hat bounced with every step. “Bailey, I have news.”

  “What kind of news?” I asked.

  “It was a false alarm yesterday and our original Mary didn’t have her baby, so she’s back to take over the role.”

  “Oh,” I said. In my head, I was doing backflips.

  “We don’t need you to play the Virgin Mary this evening.” She held my right hand in both of hers. “I hope you won’t be too disappointed.”

  “I think I’ll be able to survive this,” I said, unable to hold back my
grin.

  “We don’t need Aiden either, because the original Mary’s husband will take the part.”

  “I think Aiden will survive too.”

  Speaking of Aiden, I saw him walking across the square and headed in our direction. I pointed at him. “He’s right there.”

  Margot spun around, and I took this as my chance to make a hasty retreat to the candy shop’s table. Charlotte already had everything laid out. She sat in the folding chair behind the table and was flipping through a songbook.

  She smiled up at me. “The organist at the church is on vacation this Sunday, and Reverend Brook asked if I could play the organ for Sunday services. I’m trying to pick out the pieces that I know best and enjoy the most. I really want to impress the congregation. I don’t think they have had an Amish girl play for them on Sunday morning before.”

  “I would say you are probably right about that.” I stacked one of the peppermint bark boxes on top of another. There really was very little for me to do there. I was debating about going back to the candy shop when Aiden approached the table.

  “What were you doing siccing Margot on me like that and running away?” he asked.

  “I didn’t sic Margot on you,” I said.

  He rolled his eyes.

  “Aiden, can I ask you something about Thad?”

  “I’m not sure why you are asking permission when we both know that you will ask anyway.”

  I smiled. “When you questioned him about breaking into the guest house, did he say why he climbed in through the window and didn’t just walk through the door? As the caretaker for the place, he had a key.”

  “I had been wondering the same thing,” Aiden admitted. “When I asked him, he said that he was afraid of running into the TV people. He didn’t want anyone seeing him going into Rocky’s room.”

  “But why didn’t he go back out the window then?” I asked.

  “He said that he tried, but the trellis had become slippery as the snow picked up. He couldn’t get a good foothold. He thought he would fall, so he decided the safer route was to take the risk of being seen and go out through the front door.”