Assaulted Caramel Read online

  She gasped. “You mean about the murder?”

  I nodded.

  She frowned, and deep lines creased the sides of her mouth. “How can the sheriff or any of them believe that Jebidiah or Clara King could do such a thing? It is complete insanity. Anyone who knows them wouldn’t believe that.” Her frown deepened even more. “Why, Aiden Brody should be ashamed of himself after everything they did for that boy.”

  “He has to do his job. He’s looking into other leads,” I said, surprising myself by coming to the deputy’s defense.

  She shook her head. “He should be doing more to help your grandparents.”

  “Who told you Tyson wanted to make downtown Harvest into some kind of Amish theme park?”

  “I heard it straight from his son’s mouth.”

  My eyebrows shot up. I never would have put Birdie and Jace Colton together as possible confidants. “His son told you his father’s plans?”

  The deep lines appeared around her mouth again. “He didn’t tell me directly. I was sweeping the walk in front of the shop, and he stood at the corner with Mira and told her the whole scheme. He said that it would all be theirs someday when his father died.”

  I shivered. This sounded to me like a serious motive for murder. Jace had just regained the top spot on my suspect list.

  She sighed. “He pointed at all the buildings on this side of Main Street and said that his father was buying up every last one. According to the son, Tyson planned to ask the shopkeepers to stay on and mind the shops. We’d be his employees, you see.” She balled her hands into fists at her sides. “Well, I had no intention of doing that. When I turned over my keys to Tyson, I planned never to set foot inside this shop again.”

  “What else did he have planned?”

  “Tours of Amish homes, classes to make Amish food, and buggy rides around the county. If he couldn’t find a real Amish person in Harvest to do it, he planned to hire actors.” Her face turned bright red at the thought of someone impersonating an Amish person. “He claimed there was only one thing holding his father back from completing his plan.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Your grandfather. Jebidiah King refused to sell Swissmen Sweets to Tyson. Tyson became obsessed with having it, or so I heard. It wouldn’t stop him from doing what he wanted to with rest of the town, but he wanted Swissmen Sweets desperately. Jace said that his father had found a way to make Jebidiah sell at last. He said it was foolproof.”

  “What was it?” I was breathless.

  She shrugged. “He didn’t say.”

  “Jace said all of this right in front of you?” I couldn’t keep the doubt from my voice.

  She shrugged a second time. “Sometimes the Englischers don’t see us Amish. They think we are part of the scenery and not real people.” Her voice turned bitter.

  “What about Mira?” I asked. “How did she react to all of this?”

  Birdie pulled her chin back again as if in disgust. “And Mira just stood there nodding as if we—”

  “Grossmaami,” Maribel said, and then added something in their language.

  Birdie looked sharply at her granddaughter.

  “As if you what?” I asked. I knew whatever she was about to say was important, very important.

  Maribel stood and set the wrapped blocks of cheese into a green shopping basket. She then took the basket out to the main part of the shop and began restocking the cheddar cooler with the new cheese.

  I held on to the edge of the counter. “What were you going to say about Mira?”

  Birdie looked over my shoulder at her granddaughter. “It does not matter now.”

  I thought it mattered. I thought it mattered a lot. But I decided to let it go for the moment. “Did you tell anyone else Tyson’s plans for Main Street?”

  She frowned. “I told the deacon. That is what you are supposed to do in the church, go to the church elders when you have a concern.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He listened. He doesn’t have to share his decisions with me. It’s not my place to know.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Why not? I would think he’d be worried that someone planned to exploit members of his district.”

  “The deacon is a gut man.” She lowered her voice. “The deacon is unwell.” She tapped the side of her temple with her pointer finger. “He’s very old and is easily confused.”

  “Why doesn’t he retire, so the district can replace him with someone else? How old is the deacon?”

  “He’s eighty, but Amish deacons and bishops don’t retire,” she said, as if I had much to learn. Maybe I did when it came to Amish culture....

  She went on, “The only way church leaders leave their positions is through death. Gott is the one who put them in that place, and He will be the one to remove them.”

  “So they always stay in their position even when they are ill and cannot do the job?”

  She sighed. “Not always. They can choose to step down if that is what Gott wants of them, but that will never happen in the case of Deacon Yoder. His wife would not allow it.”

  “Ruth Yoder seems to be quite a bit younger than her husband.”

  “She’s twenty years his junior. Deacon Yoder’s first wife died young many years ago.”

  “So when Ruth married him, he was already the deacon,” I said. This was an important fact. Had Ruth been power hungry and married the deacon because that was the closest a woman in the Amish community could come to leadership? I frowned. Ambition didn’t sound very Amish to me.

  “The deacon,” Birdie went on without my encouragement, “didn’t have any children from his previous marriage, but he and Ruth have six. All are grown now with their own families to care for.”

  I remembered the remark Ruth had made the day before about all her children staying in the Amish way, while my father—my grandparents’ only child—had left the faith.

  “Did you tell anyone else in the church about Tyson’s plans? The bishop?”

  She frowned. “Nee. The deacon said it was his place to tell the bishop. It would not be right for me to step over him like that.”

  “But he might not have remembered to tell the bishop if he is as confused as you say he is,” I argued.

  “I can’t go directly to the bishop. It is not the way in our district. If I were a man, I could, or if I had a husband, I could send him. My husband is dead, so I cannot.”

  This was an aspect of the Amish culture that I couldn’t understand. I understood respecting the hierarchy of the church, but if there was a problem, why not tell as many people as possible? It didn’t make any sense to me. And then there was the sexism to contend with. For the first time, I felt eternally grateful to my father for leaving the Amish way. As much as I would have loved to grow up with my grandparents, I couldn’t imagine being held back simply because I was a woman.

  “When are you moving out of the Cheese Haus?” I asked, knowing full well she had no intention of leaving, but I wanted to gauge her reaction to my question.

  She jerked her head back. “Move out of the Cheese Haus? Why would I do that?”

  I rocked back on my heels. “You sold your business to Tyson. Don’t you still have to move?”

  “Nee. I’m not going anywhere. The papers were never signed before he died, and I have changed my mind. I will not sell now. I never wanted to when I agreed.”

  It seemed to me that many of the papers were still unsigned when Tyson Colton was stabbed in the chest. “Why did you agree in the first place?

  She pursed her lips, and I had a feeling I’d finally taken the questions too far.

  “Bai, do you think Jean Pierre would like baby Swiss or regular Swiss better?” Cass called from across the shop. She stood in front of the display case of Swiss cheese with a tennis ball sized wedge in each hand. At her feet, a red shopping basket was filled to the rim with cheese and jams.

  “Regular,” I said, shaking my head and turning back to Birdie. “So now that Tyson is de
ad,” I said, “you plan to stay here in your shop.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “That is what I have told you. I have a right to change my mind. Circumstances are different now. I no longer have a buyer for the cheese shop.”

  “Did you speak to Jace Colton, Tyson’s son? I may not be right, but I am assuming that he will take over his father’s affairs, especially since he seemed to think that all of Main Street would be his someday.”

  “I’m not interested,” she said.

  “But you were interested when Tyson wanted to buy,” I said. “What’s the different now? What’s changed? Did he threaten you?”

  “He wasn’t the threat,” she said, and then winced as if she regretted what she’d just said.

  “Was there someone else?” I asked excitedly. This was the second time I had gotten a hint that someone else might have been involved in Tyson’s scheme. The first time had been from Emily. “Who was it?”

  “No one,” she said. “I have already said too much. The past is in the past.”

  Cass shuffled toward us, carrying her overladen basket of cheese.

  I blinked at her. “What on earth are you going to do with all that? How are you going to get it back to the city?”

  With a grunt, she hoisted the basket onto the counter. “I flew private, remember? There are no restrictions on how much stuff I can take back to New York.” She rubbed her hands together. “I see more shopping in our future.”

  I groaned.

  “I’ll just ring that up for you,” Birdie said, and then she gave me a pointed look. “So that you can be on your way.”

  I took the hint. The conversation was over. As I waited for Cass’s purchases to be totaled, I realized that Maribel had disappeared at some point during my discussion with her grandmother. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was telling. There was something about Mira that she didn’t want me to know.

  Cass and I left the Cheese Haus carrying four plastic grocery bags of cheese. The bags were so full that the plastic handles bit into my fingers. I would be happy to set them down, and soon. Across the street, I saw that the wedding reception tent was up, and dozens of people moved around the square carrying chairs, boxes, and flowers. I spotted Eileen in a royal blue suit standing in the middle of the gazebo, directing traffic. I might have been mistaken, but I thought I saw a bullhorn in her hand.

  A man approached us at a fast clip from the square. He had a large camera in his hand. My first thought was wedding photographer.

  “Bailey King?” he asked.

  I adjusted the plastic sacks in my hands. “Yes.”

  He lifted the camera and took a rapid succession of photographs of me. I was certain my mouth hung open in each and every shot.

  Chapter 33

  Cass stepped in front of me. “What are you doing?”

  He grinned. “I’m from the New York Star. I have what I need. Thank you!” With that, he turned and bolted back across the street toward the square.

  Cass set one of her shopping bags on the sidewalk. “What was that all about? What is the New York Star doing in Harvest, Ohio?”

  A bad feeling settled over me, and reciting chocolates wasn’t going to take it away.

  “Could it be about the murder?” Cass asked. “It can’t be anything else, but why would anyone in New York care? I mean, no offense to Tyson or anything, but people are murdered all the time. Is it because you’re a suspect and you’re from New York?”

  That wasn’t it. I wasn’t a big enough personality to garner the New York Star’s attention. The photographer had come to Ohio for a bigger story, bigger than even Tyson Colton’s murder. It might be because I was a murder suspect, and I was Jean Pierre’s heir apparent at JP Chocolates, or it might be about the other celebrity in my life, the secret one—Eric. I prayed that I was wrong.

  I forced a laugh. “Maybe it has to do with the wedding. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Eileen called the press about her daughter’s wedding.”

  Cass didn’t look a bit convinced. “The New York Star, really? They are going to cover her daughter’s wedding?”

  I knew at that moment I should tell her everything about Eric, but I couldn’t form the words. They just wouldn’t come.

  Cass picked up her bag. “So where do we find Jace to talk to him about his father’s plans for Amish Disneyland?”

  “You were listening?” I asked.

  She snorted. “Hello, I can multitask. Isn’t that what chocolatiers do?”

  I grinned. “That we do.”

  “We need to find Mira, too, since she knew about Tyson’s plans,” she said.

  I nodded, realizing that Cass really had been listening to my conversation with Birdie. “But how can we find them? They must be getting ready for the wedding.”

  “Well, I thought we should go over the dessert menu with them one last time, and if we asked some other questions in the process, we would be multitasking again.”

  I set the bags of cheese on the sidewalk and hugged her. “Cass, you’re a genius!”

  “Hey, watch the cheese!” She held the two heavy bags of cheese out at her sides, so that they wouldn’t get crushed by my hug.

  I let her go. “We need to find out where the wedding party is now.”

  She adjusted her bags in her hands. “Can we drop off the cheese first?”

  Cass and I entered Swissmen Sweets, and Maami met us at the door. She engulfed me in a hug, and I held out my bags of cheese to protect them just as Cass had when I had hugged her.

  “Wonderful news.” Maami held me at arm’s length. “Aiden has let us back into the kitchen. He made the arrangements with the cleaning company, and they are already here. We might be able to open as soon as tomorrow.”

  I looked over her head and saw the yellow crime scene tape was no longer marring the kitchen door. “That’s wonderful!” I exclaimed. “Where’s Daadi? I’m surprised he’s not here celebrating with you.”

  Her face fell. “He’s not feeling well, and I put him back to bed. I talked to the doctor on the telephone, and he advised more rest. That’s what Jebidiah is doing.”

  My heart lodged in my throat.

  Maami squeezed my arms. “Now, don’t you make that I’m-about-to-cry face, you hear me? He’s resting, that’s all. All he needs is a little rest.”

  If only that were true.

  She stepped back. “What’s all this?” she asked as if noticing the sacks of cheese for the first time.

  “Cheese,” Cass spoke up. “I went a little bit overboard, but I know everyone in New York will love it.”

  “Where are we going to put it?” I asked.

  Maami grinned. “The big refrigerator in the kitchen has already been cleaned out. You can put it in there.”

  “I’ll put them away,” I told Cass, taking her sacks from her. Even though they were equally as heavy as mine, I knew I could manage them all as far as I needed to go. “Cass, you stay here with Maami.”

  As I made my way to the kitchen, I heard Cass ask my grandmother, “So this means I can plug my hair dryer in there tomorrow?”

  I pushed open the kitchen’s swinging door and stepped inside. Immediately, my eyes fell to the spot on the floor where Tyson had been. There was a faint stain in the dark tile. A man in a white hazmat suit knelt by the stain and scrubbed at the floor. I looked away to find Aiden watching me from across the room.

  “Is it okay to be in here?” I asked, adjusting the heavy bags of cheese in my hands.

  The man on the tile peered up at me. “As long as you don’t touch the chemical with your bare skin, you should be fine.”

  I frowned. This was said by a man wearing a face mask. I hurried over to the refrigerator. It was empty. All the food that had been in the kitchen prior to Tyson’s murder was thrown away. My grandparents would have to start over again. I shoved the bags of cheese inside the fridge and closed the door.

  “Stocking your emergency bunker with cheese?” Aiden asked.

  I turned
around and came face to face with that blasted dimple. “Umm, no, my friend Cass had the urge to buy cheese for half the population of New York.”

  “Cass is the friend who was with you at the church last night?”

  I nodded. “I’m sorry that I didn’t introduce you. I think all politeness went out the door when I dumped that bucket of water on you.”

  He grinned. “No harm done. As you can see, I’m perfectly fine after the near-death experience.”

  I rubbed my suddenly sweaty hands on my jeans. I sidestepped him to put some distance between us. Like my close encounter with Abel by the gazebo the night before, this moment with Aiden felt dangerous, but in very different way.

  His dimple faded. “So, you just happened to go to the Cheese Haus to buy cheese. You weren’t there to talk to Birdie about selling her business to Tyson Colton?”

  I folded my arms and felt a combination of relief and disappointment that he had abandoned his flirty tone. “Isn’t the amount of cheese Cass purchased proof enough?”

  “No,” he said. “I asked you to stay out of the investigation.”

  “Listen, I have to go. I need to head to the church to prepare for the wedding.”

  He grabbed my arm. “Bailey, I’m telling you to stay out of it. A man is dead. If you keep pushing, you might put yourself and your friend in danger.”

  I yanked my arm from his grasp. “If you would do your job and find the person who’s behind the murder, I wouldn’t be in any danger, now would I?”

  He dropped my arm as if I had slapped him.

  As soon as the words left my lips, I regretted them. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—”

  He shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. You’re right.” He looked away from me. “The crew should be done cleaning up in here soon. You and your grandparents should be allowed back in the kitchen by the end of the day. I see no reason why you can’t reopen tomorrow.”

  “Aiden—” I began.

  “Don’t you have a wedding to get to, Bailey?” He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I bit the inside of my lip to stop myself from apologizing again. How had things gotten so out of control so fast? Why did I even care what the deputy thought of me? I didn’t know him, not really. I turned and left the kitchen without another word.