“There you go,” Ettie said as she passed a cup to Ava. Once she had a cup for herself, she sat down on the couch.
“Well what is it that you’ve been doing with yourselves?” Ava asked the elderly sisters.
“I’ve been having bread problems,” Ettie said, still fuming about her failed bread. “My bread is falling in the middle and I’ve no idea why and it’s been distressing.”
Ava looked concerned as she took a sip of coffee. “That’s no good.”
“Nee, it’s no good at all. I called Ruth, and she told me to go to her bakery tomorrow morning.”
“Ruth Fuller?”
Ettie nodded.
“Is she going to tell you how she makes her bread?”
Elsa-May interrupted. “She’ll never tell anybody. People come from miles around to have her bread. And people have been asking her for years to reveal her secrets.”
Ava frowned. “It can’t be that secret; its only bread.”
“It’s not just any bread,” Elsa-May said.
“Have you never tasted Ruth’s bread, Ava?”
“Nee, I haven’t.”
Elsa-May and Ettie looked at each other. That would explain Ava’s attitude.
“Bread is the staff of life, Ava. Haven’t you heard that?” Elsa-May said bluntly.
“Jah, I know, but…”
“There’s no buts about it, Ava. Our whole diet is based around bread. If you take away bread, what are we left with?” Elsa-May smiled when Ava chuckled.
“And she’ll solve your problem with your bread, Ettie?” Ava asked.
“I hope so. If she can’t help me, I doubt anyone can.”
“She’ll know what you’re doing wrong, Ettie,” Elsa-May said.
“I hope so, but I don’t know how she’s going to help me with what I’m doing wrong if she doesn’t come here and see it for herself. She needs to be in my kitchen. It’s not the same me just telling her about it.”
“Ettie, she’s just invited you to the place where they make the best bread in the world. You should be able to figure out what you’re doing wrong just by being there.”
Ettie stared at Elsa-May. “I hope so.”
“Besides, I’d rather not have her see how small our kitchen is.” Elsa-May looked down at her knitting.
Ettie pursed her lips. “There’s nothing wrong with our kitchen. It’s just the two of us, and it’s all we need.”
Elsa-May’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t think of asking her to come here to watch you make bread. She might say she will to be polite.”
Ettie wasn’t happy with what her sister said, but remained silent.
“Would you like me to drive you there tomorrow, Ettie? I won’t come in; I could drive you there and fill in time around town, and take you home when you’re ready.”
“That’s very kind of you, but she wants me to meet her at three in the morning.”
“That’s early,” Ava said.
“That’s what time she starts. I didn’t like to say it was too early for me since she’s doing me a huge favor.”
“Well I could take you, and I could just wait in the buggy until you’ve finished.”
Ettie shook her head. “Nee it’s far too early. I’ll call and book a taxi tonight for the morning.”
“Are you certain?” Ava asked before she took another sip of coffee.
“I’m certain.”
When Ava left fifteen minutes later, Ettie and Elsa-May waved as her buggy drove away from the house.
“She doesn’t come to visit very often for no reason at all,” Elsa-May said.
“When she first arrived, I thought she was going to tell us something. It seemed to me that she had some news.”
“Jah, I wonder if she had something to tell us. Do you think there’s something wrong in her grossdaddi haus? She could need you to repair something, Ettie.”
“Then why didn’t she ask?”
Both sisters walked back into their house.
“She might have felt awkward about you spending money when the main haus is sitting vacant.”
Ettie raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps the oven or something has stopped working and she needs it repaired. I’ll visit her tomorrow after I see Ruth and I’ll ask Ava if everything’s all right.”
Chapter 2
Ettie had her alarm clock wake her so she would have enough time to get ready for the taxi to drive her into town at three. She changed out of her nightgown and into her dress. Once she placed her black over-bonnet on top of her white prayer kapp, she went into the kitchen to have her morning glass of water with a squeeze of lemon juice. It was far too early to think about breakfast.
Once she laced up her black boots, she pulled her black cape from the peg behind the front door, swung it over her shoulders, and waited by the door for the taxi.
The taxi appeared right on time at two forty-five. She opened the front passenger-side door and sat in the front seat.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning,” Ettie said back to the man. Ettie was glad that the driver wasn’t a talker, as she was still trying to wake up. The last thing she had wanted was to have to think about making conversation. It normally took her brain some time to catch up with her body of a morning.
The taxi took her right to the front door of the bakery. As the taxi zoomed off down the gray road, Ettie saw that the street was deserted, and she wasn’t surprised. A few minutes later, she saw a small figure in the distance. As the figure drew closer, she saw that it was Ruth. Ruth gave a wave and Ettie waved back.
“Ettie, I didn’t know if you’d make it this early in the morning.”
“I said I’d be here.” Ettie smiled. “Denke for sparing me the time.”
“I’m happy you’ve come. I don’t often take time to see friends. I’m so busy in the bakery every day. I’m here six days a week, you know.”
“Are you? That’s a lot to work, isn’t it?”
“It is and it’s hard work too. I try not to work Sundays, since it’s our day of rest, but I do have to be here early to let the workers in.”
“Can’t you give one of them a key?”
“I’m the only one with the key and that’s the way it shall stay.” Ruth opened her hand to reveal a key, and then she held it up in the air. “This is the only key, besides my spare key at home.” She nodded her head to the alley. “I always enter through the back.”
Ettie followed her around the back. Ruth pushed the key into the lock and then slowly turned it until they heard a click.
When they walked in, Ruth flicked on some lights and the place lit up. Ettie was reminded how the members of the community were permitted to have electricity in their places of business, but not their homes. Electricity in their homes was bringing ‘the world’ in.
“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” Ruth asked.
“I haven’t been back here, nee. I’ve been to the store section out in the front to buy bread and the other goodies that you make so well.” Ettie looked up at the wooden vaulted ceilings and her gaze lowered to the rows of stainless steel ovens and steel countertops. “It all looks modern and so shiny.”
“I’ve got the latest equipment. I have to have it, with the volume of bread we put out.”
Is having the latest technology the key to making her bread? Nee! She’s been making the same bread for years. “You can still produce the same bread with all this new equipment?”
“Jah, of course, I can.”
Ettie was hoping that Ruth would take her on a tour to show her what all the equipment was used for.
“Tea, Ettie?”
“Jah, denke. I’d love some. It was too early to have some when I left. Tea would go down quite nicely.”
Ruth smiled and beckoned her to follow. “Come with me into the lunchroom.” After Ruth put the kettle on to boil, she sat down at the small table with Ettie.
“How many workers do you have?”
“I have thirty employees. Not all of them ar
e full-time; some are part-time. I’m branching into other things. I make chocolate chip cookies, brandy snaps pinwheels, cheese torts, cheese tarts, cream sticks, and lots of other things. Bread is still my main seller.”
“Jah, that’s what you’re best known for.”
“So tell me the problem you’re having with your bread, Ettie. I didn’t have time to listen on the phone yesterday.”
“I’m making the bread in the same way that I always do. The temperature of the kitchen and the temperature the oven are exactly the same, and I’ve been using the same amount of ingredients.”
“Do you measure exactly, or do you just measured by sight? A bit of this and a bit of that?” Ruth made pouring motions with her hands.
“I measure by sight. I know the measures. I’ve been making bread since I was a maidel. I’ve always done it that way, as my mudder before me did.”
“Tell me what you do exactly. Wait a minute, I’ll make the tea.” Ruth rose to her feet, and then placed a tea-bag into each cup before she poured hot water into the cups. “Milk, Ettie?”
“No milk for me.”
“I have it that way too.” Ruth placed the cups on the table in front of them. When she took a sip of tea, Ruth leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “Go on, Ettie. You were telling me exactly what you’ve been doing,”
Ettie launched into explaining exactly what ingredients she used and what she did with them. She finished by saying, “And then I knead it on a floured surface, by pushing with the heels of my hands, away from me as I’m adding in the rest of the flour.” Ettie hoped Ruth hadn’t fallen asleep, but who could blame her if she had? It was time for sleeping not time for baking. Even the cows weren’t awake at this time.
Ruth opened her eyes. “That sounds about right, but unless I’m there watching what you do I simply can’t say what’s going wrong.”
Normally, Ettie would’ve invited Ruth over to her house, but by the sounds of things Ruth was too busy. Ettie didn’t want to be a bother and neither did she want to upset Elsa-May, so she simply nodded at what Ruth said.
“The only thing I can say is that it must be too hot in your kitchen. The yeast consumes the starches in the flour and converts them into carbon dioxide and alcohol, which is what causes the bread to rise. The activity level of the yeast is dependent upon the temperature in the room, so if it’s too hot the yeast will become overactive.”
Ettie sighed. “I don’t think the temperature’s any different to normal.”
“Why not try a pinch of salt in your mixture next time? See if that works. It’ll slow down the fermentation and enzyme activity in your mixture.”
“Denke, Ruth, I’ll try that.” Ettie looked out the door of the tea room into the bakery. “You certainly must keep busy, especially when you’re got all the other goods to make now too.”
“It does keep me busy, and I love working in the store and meeting people. I’ve made such good friends over the years. If I didn’t have the bakery, I don’t know what I’d do. I guess I would just waste away sitting in a chair all day. That’s what I saw my mudder do when she got older and I don’t want to turn out like her. She had nothing to be excited or happy about.”
Ettie’s thoughts turned to Elsa-May who sat in a chair all day knitting despite the doctor telling her to get some exercise. Perhaps she should get Elsa-May a dog as the neighbor had suggested.
“I’m seventy seven now, Ettie. People keep telling me to retire but why would I do that? I feel the same now as what I did when I was forty. I might look different, but I feel young. I really don’t feel old.”
Ettie said, “I know what you mean. We don’t look the same on the outside, but we’re the same on the inside.” Ettie took a mouthful of tea. “Am I keeping you from your work?”
Ruth shook her head. “I always come in at this time to have a quiet time by myself. I make a cup of tea, and sometimes I’ll look over the books or do paperwork. When the others get here, it’s so noisy I can’t even hear myself think.”
“And what time did you say the others arrive?”
“The bakery staff arrive at four and the staff who run the store come in at seven. This place will soon be buzzing.”
“I imagine it will.”
“So what have you been doing with yourself, Ettie?”
“Besides trying to make a decent loaf of bread, not a lot.”
“Have you decided what to do with Agatha’s haus yet?”
“I’m nearly through with repairs, then I’ll lease it. Ava Glick’s already leasing the attached grossdaddi haus. She’s a lovely girl.”
“She seems to be. I don’t know her very well. Couldn’t you and Elsa-May move into it and lease out the one you’re living in now? From what I can remember, Agatha’s haus is a lot bigger than yours.”
“I was thinking of moving into it at one stage, but the dreadful business with Horace being murdered and his body hidden under the floor for so many years made me rethink the idea.”
“I can understand that. There’s no one living in it now?”
“Nee not in the main house. Elsa-May’s grandson, Jeremiah, is finishing the repairs and then I’ll lease it out to a nice familye.”
“Good idea.”
“I would sell, but in her will, Agatha requested that I leave Ava in the grossdaddi haus for as long as she wanted. Besides, I don’t need to sell.”
When they finished their tea, Ruth said, “I’ll show you the place.”
“I’d love to have a look around. I’d like to know what all those big machines are for.”
“Come on, then.”
Ettie said, “It’s gleaming and clean, not a speck of dust anywhere.”
“It takes a good hour to clean up every night. I insist on the place being spotless and we have to abide by all the health regulations. We have inspectors over here all the time.”
“Jah, of course, you would have to stick to all the rules.”
Once they’d had a look around the bakery, Ruth said, “Now I’ll take you through to the older section where my office is.” As they walked to the front of the bakery, Ruth pointed to a door. “That leads to the store, and this one here is my office.” She pushed open another door. “This is where I do all my paperwork.”
“Don’t you have someone to do that for you? With a business this size I’d imagine there’s a lot of paperwork.”
Ruth laughed. “I do have a bookkeeper, but it’s quite a job to arrange the paperwork to send off to him.”
Ettie followed her into the office.
“That’s strange. I always turn the light off and I was the last one out.” Ruth took two steps into the room and screamed.
Ettie froze in place and then looked to where Ruth was staring. She stepped next to Ruth and it was then that she saw the body. A man who looked to be quite dead lay on the floor behind Ruth’s desk.
“Is he…?” Ruth asked.
Ettie stepped over to have a closer look. The man was face down on the floor in a puddle of darkened blood. There was a large knife in his back, and he had a large Bible clutched in one hand. “I’ll see if he’s breathing. You call 911.”
Chapter 3
While Ruth picked up the phone, Ettie crouched down beside the man and put two fingers on his neck to feel for a pulse. Ettie was familiar with the stale stench of death that hung in the air, so she knew that the soul of the man stretched out before her had gone to meet his maker. There was no pulse, not even a faint one. “He’s dead,” Ettie announced so Ruth could relay that to the operator.
Ettie touched the lifeless wrist beside her foot, knowing that the neck was the better place to find a pulse but hoping for a sign of life none-the-less. Ettie put her hands on the desk, and pulled herself to her feet and waited for Ruth to get off the phone.
When Ruth hung up the phone she walked closer to take another look at the man.
“Nasty way to go,” Ettie said. When Ruth remained silent, Ettie looked at her to see that her mouth had falle
n open. “Did you know him?”
Ruth slowly nodded.
“Who is he?”
Ruth sat down. “He’s a customer. He had a permanent order for bread. His name is Alan Avery and he’s got a busy café not far from here.” She looked up at Ettie. “What was he doing here and why is he dead?”
Ettie shook her head. “I’ve no idea, but we know he wasn’t here alone.”
Ettie looked down at the knife sticking out of Alan Avery’s back. “Is that one of your knives?”
Ruth raised herself a little in her chair. “Nee. We don’t have knives like that. It looks like a butcher’s knife.”
“Is that your Bible?” Ettie asked.
Ruth looked at the Bible and covered her face with her hands. “It is. It’s my Bible. Why is he holding it? Take it out of his hands, would you, Ettie?”
Ettie frowned. “I can’t. The police will need to have things just as we found them. Where had you left your Bible?”
She pointed to a bureau. “I always leave it in that.”
Ettie nodded. “Does he pick up the bread? Could he have come to collect his order?”
Ruth shook her head. “He always comes at seven-thirty. It’s either him or one of his workers, but recently I refused to supply him.”
Ettie raised her eyebrows. “Really? Go on.”
“We had a falling out when I found out he was opening a bakery right down the road. He was calling it ‘The Amish Bakery.’ What do you think of that? He’s not even Amish.”
Ettie rubbed her chin.
“Of course, I stopped supplying him after that.”
“Jah, I suppose it was only a matter of time before he’d be making his own. It would never be as good as yours, of course.”
“Nee, it wouldn’t and that’s why he’s been trying to buy me out for the past three years.”
A loud buzzer sounded.
“That’ll be the staff at the back door. I’ll have to go and let them in.”
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