Candy Cane Crime, page 1
A candy-striped caper . . .
Christmas is coming all too quickly for Harvest, Ohio’s famous chocolatier, Bailey King. Thanks to her new cable TV show, her shop has more candy orders than she can handle this holiday season. Fortunately, her beloved Cousin Charlotte is happy to take the Candy Cane Exchange off Bailey’s to-do list. After all, Charlotte has come to Harvest from her conservative home district to find her future outside of her family’s influence. What better way than by taking on the Englisch task of pairing the sweet notes everyone is exchanging with a peppermint treat, just in time for Christmas Eve delivery? But when Charlotte discovers some of those delicious missives are for her, suddenly she’s staking out the festive postbox, hoping to catch her secret admirer in his intriguing tracks . . .
When Charlotte sees something underhanded going on beneath the merrymaking, she enlists the help of Sheriff Deputy Luke Little to find out if her unknown correspondent is none other than the town’s biggest suspect. And the surprising truth about her suitor’s identity has her contemplating leaving her Amish roots behind forever . . .
Visit us at www.kensingtonbooks.com
Also by Amanda Flower
Amish Candy Shop Mystery series
Assaulted Caramel
Lethal Licorice
Premeditated Peppermint
Criminally Cocoa (e-book novella)
Toxic Toffee
Botched Butterscotch (e-book novella)
Marshmallow Malice
Amish Matchmaker Mystery series
Matchmaking Can Be Murder
Candy Cane Crime
An Amish Candy Shop Mystery
Amanda Flower
KENSINGTON BOOKS
www.kensingtonbooks.com
Contents
Also by Amanda Flower
Candy Cane Crime
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Charlotte’s Peppermint Popcorn
More From the Amish Matchmaker Mystery series
Chapter One
Meet the Author
Copyright
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
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Copyright © 2020 by Amanda Flower
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First Electronic Edition: November 2020
ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2673-5 (e-book)
ISBN-10: 1-4967-2673-1 (e-book)
Dedication
For Jethro’s Fans
Chapter One
The soles of my black sneakers slipped and slid along the icy sidewalk, but I didn’t slow down. I was just in too much of a rush to reach Swissmen Sweets to tell my cousins the news I had just heard. The cold wind blew dime-sized snowflakes against my bare cheeks. The scarf that I wore to protect myself from the blustery weather was no use. I felt it whipping behind my large, black bonnet in a gray curtain, and my legs caught in my thick skirts. It was no matter; I had to tell Cousins Clara and Bailey before Margot Rawlings did. They needed to be warned.
I ran across the village square and across Main Street. There was no traffic today. The weather was too poor. Amish farmers and merchants knew not to go out in weather like this, and even the Englisch schools had closed for the day due to the heavy snow. Perhaps half the village would be closed, but I knew that bad weather was not going to keep Margot away. If she was on a mission, that woman would stomp through a hurricane to reach her goal. Bailey said it was her most admirable—and terrifying—quality.
When I made it across the street, I grabbed the door handle to Swissmen Sweets, the Amish candy shop where I worked and also lived, and pulled hard. The wind fought me as I struggled with the door, but finally, I opened it wide enough to stumble inside, surrounded by a cloud of snow.
The candy shop fell silent as I regained my balance just inside the door. Everyone in the front room stared at me openmouthed, including Margot Rawlings, who had beaten me there. The woman had to be some sort of Englisch magician to pull off such an feat. I had been told she was at the Harvest Market almost a half mile away. I should have been able to reach the shop first because I had been only across the square delivering candy to Juliet Brook, the pastor’s wife. And yet, there Margot stood, staring at me with her appraising dark eyes, her signature short curls covering the top of her head. She wore jeans and a thick sweater under an open winter coat. Her coat was still on, so I knew she didn’t plan to stay long. It would be just long enough to announce her decree and leave. Her clipboard was in hand, so I knew she meant business. Poor Bailey.
I suspected that Margot had already told Bailey what she wanted her to do from the pained expression on my cousin’s face. Bailey wore jeans, a fitted, purple flannel shirt, and dangly silver earrings. Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her blue eyes were worried. I would not have expected anything less after a face-to-face with Margot and her massive to-do list.
“Charlotte,” Cousin Clara, Bailey’s grandmother, said. “Come in from the cold and take off your cloak before the snow on it melts and you are soaked through.”
Bailey sat across from where Margot stood, at a small round table at the front of the shop. We had the tables there so that customers could chat and taste our candies without the pressure of making a quick decision.
“I’m too late,” I said.
Cousin Clara shook out my damp cloak with her wrinkled hands and hung it on the coat tree in the corner of the front room. She held out her hand and said. “Give me your bonnet as well. It needs to dry out, too.”
I did what I was told. “I got here as quickly as I could,” I whispered to Cousin Clara.
She added the bonnet to the coat tree as well. “Why were you in a rush to come home?”
“I had just heard that Margot was heading this way with a job for Bailey. I wanted to beat her to warn you both!” I glanced back at the table where Bailey and Margot spoke. Bailey was shaking her head “no” and Margot was nodding hers “yes.”
“I’m too late.”
“Oh, Charlotte, no one can beat Margot Rawlings when she is on a mission,” Cousin Clara said in a low voice, so that Margot wouldn’t overhear. “Other than the bishop’s wife, Ruth Yoder, Margot is the most determined woman I’ve ever known. If the two of them joined together, none of us would have any peace. It’s for the best the pair of them are rarely in agreement.”
I had to agree with her there. Ruth Yoder scared me even more than Margot, but that had more to do with her being the bishop’s wife and the fact that I was twenty-two years old and still not baptized into the Amish church—something Ruth Yoder did not approve of. She made no secret of what she thought, too.
“You are the obvious choice,” Margot was telling Bailey at the table. There was a large cardboard box in the middle of the table between them, and she pushed it in Bailey’s direction. “You’ve already made all the candy canes in this box. I’m not asking you to make more. You can always get others from Harvest Market. I don’t think people will even know the difference between the ones made by Swissmen Sweets and the store-bought ones.”
Bailey frowned and pushed the box back across the tabletop. “I know it makes sense for Swissmen Sweets to handle that Candy Cane Exchange. We are the only candy shop in the village. We were happy to make the candy canes for it. Charlotte did a great job with them. However, I thought we agreed that’s where Swissmen Sweet’s involvement would end.”
“I don’t remember saying that was the end of it for Swissmen Sweets,” Margot said.
Bailey sighed. “I know why you thought of us first, and I am so grateful, Margot, that you think of our shop when problems arise.”
I glanced at Cousin Clara and she smiled at me. I think we were both surprised that Bailey had been able to say that with a straight face.
“But,” Bailey went on, “as much as I would like to help, Margot, I just can’t. Because of Bailey’s Amish Sweets, the candy orders this Christmas are three times what they were last year. We’re working around the clock to finish everything on time. To make matters worse, I have to go to New York tomorrow morning to do more promotion for the show. That leaves my grandmother, Charlotte, and Emily with all the work. You can see why I wouldn’t want this to fall on their plates, too, can’t you?”
Margot folded her arms and didn’t comment.
“We just can’t take it on.” Bailey pushed the box a little closer to Margot, and then Margot put her hand on the other side and pushed back. The cardboard creased as they pushed from the two opposite sides. If they pushed any harder, the candy canes inside would be crushed.
“What’s the project? I made the candy canes, but I didn’t know what they were for exactly,” I said. Juliet had told me about the candy exchange when I was at the church, but I hoped that I could distract them both by asking. It would also keep the candy canes from being pulverized.
Margot eyed me and then removed her hand from the box. Bailey did the same.
“We’re raising money for new costumes for the annual Christmas pageant on the square,” Margot said. “We’ve had the same wardrobe for the last ten years, and the shepherds are starting to look threadbare. It’s a disgrace! I know they were poor workhands on the hills of Bethlehem, but they can’t have translucent robes. There are children in our audience.”
Bailey made a face and brushed her long ponytail over her shoulder. As she did, the Christmas tree–shaped earring dangling from her ear swung back and forth. Unlike Cousin Clara and me, Bailey was not Amish and never had been. Her father, Cousin Clara’s son, had left the Amish faith as a young man and married an Englisch woman, Bailey’s mother. Over a year ago, Bailey moved to Harvest to help out with the candy shop after Clara’s husband, Jebidiah, died. Since then, the business had grown by leaps and bounds, thanks to Bailey’s guidance and her experience as a chocolatier in New York City. Bailey had turned the shop into more than a profitable brick-and-mortar store. Now it was also an online business and the basis for a television show, Bailey’s Amish Sweets, which she filmed in New York City. It was all very exciting to watch, and I had even been able to go with her to New York for filming and the premiere. It was a thrill indeed, and I couldn’t wait to go back. There was so much to see and explore in the big city.
“That sounds bad,” I said in a sympathetic tone.
“It is bad!” Margot said and patted her short curls. It was a habit she had when she was especially worked up, and Margot was surely worked up now. “And there is no money left in the village budget to deal with it. As you know, the village Christmas pageant is one of the biggest events for Harvest. Every year it brings in tourists and visitors from as far away as Columbus and Cleveland, and even from out-of-state. People want this small village pageantry, and we have to put on the best show we can.” She took a breath. “We can’t do that without appropriate costumes. All I am asking is for Swissmen Sweets to manage the Candy Cane Exchange.” She frowned at Bailey. “Goodness, it’s not like last year, when I asked you to play Mother Mary.”
Bailey shivered. She had played Mother Mary last year under extreme protest. Margot wouldn’t take “no” for an answer then either.
“Thankfully,” Margot went on, “there is a lady at the church who is about to pop with a baby and she’s perfect for the part. I just hope she can keep from having the child for another week. That would put such a damper on everything. A pillow under a woman’s costume is not like the real thing,” she complained.
I glanced at Bailey, who looked as if she was in actual physical pain at Margot’s words.
“Margot,” Bailey said. “I want to help. I really do, but I just can’t this year. We already had to hire extra seasonal staff just to get us through the orders we know we have.”
“What do you want Bailey to do?” I asked.
Bailey gave me a look, as if I wasn’t helping. I guessed I wasn’t, but I was curious how Margot planned to raise money with candy canes. She always seemed to come up with ideas to save the day.
“Well, I have had the perfect idea, just as I always do,” she added with a sniff.
Bailey snorted and then covered the sound with a cough. “I’m sorry. Allergies. I was sweeping the floor when you came in. I must have kicked up some dust.”
There was never any dust in the shop—Clara and I cleaned at the start of each day and after each closing—and Bailey didn’t have allergies.
“You kicked up some dust?” Margot narrowed her eyes at Bailey. “Yes, well, you might want to be more careful when you sweep, then.”
I didn’t know much about the Englisch ways, but I did know that in a town as small as Harvest, we did not want to be on the wrong side of a community leader like Margot. So I asked, “About that idea?”
Margot turned her attention back to me. “To answer your question, the idea I had was a Candy Cane Exchange. For one dollar, a person can have a candy cane delivered with a personal message to someone else in the village. The candy canes that Swissmen Sweets so kindly made are in this box.” She scooted the box on the table closer to Bailey. Bailey didn’t bother to push it back this time. There was a new look of resignation on her face. “We appreciate your donation of the candy canes, but I need more than that. I need someone to attach the notes to the canes and prepare them for the Christmas Eve delivery. The church youth group will deliver the canes.” She eyed Bailey again. “So all in all, it’s not that much work. You already did the hard part by making the candy, and I’ve already told Harvest Market that you might need more candy canes from them.”
Bailey sighed. “I understand that, Margot, but…”
“Could someone from the church take this over?” I asked.
“No, they can’t,” Margot cried, as if it was the most ridiculous question she had ever heard. “You know how busy the church is during this season, and because it is Juliet Brook’s first Christmas as the pastor’s wife, she’s doubling her efforts to get more out of her volunteers. I can’t ask them to do anything else. The members are at their wits’ end as it is.”
Bailey raised her brow. I thought she must be thinking what I was thinking. If Margot thought the volunteers at the church were overworked, it really must be bad. I wondered what Juliet was having them do.
“Well, there has to be someone else in the village who can do this,” Bailey said. “You don’t have to have candy-making training to attach notes to candy canes.”
Margot pressed her lips together and glared at Bailey. I could tell by the set of her jaw that she had come to the end of her rope. It took a long while for Bailey to tell someone else “no.” She was, in general, very easygoing and agreeable, but it seemed this time Margot had pushed her too far, or her heavy workload had. I knew Bailey was struggling to complete everything she had already committed to by the end of the year. Maybe Margot’s request was the very last straw. I had to do something to help and put an end to their argument.
“I—I could help,” I heard myself say.
Behind Margot, Bailey waved her arms, shook her head, and mouthed no! over and over again, but I forged on. “I think it’s a fun idea, and I think it would be nice for the pageant to have new costumes. There is no reason the shepherds should march around the square threadbare. You’re right. That would not look professional.”
Margot clapped her hands. “Finally, someone in this room is listening to some sense!” She stood, picked up the box from the table, and dropped it into my arms. I stumbled under its weight. I hadn’t been prepared for how heavy it was.
“Very good.” Margot slapped a white piece of paper on top of the box under my nose. “These are the instructions as to how you collect the notes and everything else you need to do.” She headed toward the door and opened it, bringing in the wailing wind and a gust of cold air. Before she went out, she said, “Don’t let the village down, Charlotte. Everyone is counting on you. It’s up to you to save Christmas!” With that, she was gone into the whiteness.
Chapter Two
After the door banged closed, Bailey groaned. “Charlotte, are you sure you want to take this on? You’re as busy as the rest of us. I want you to be able to enjoy Christmas, not be stuck working all the time. This will be one more thing you’ll have to deal with. And Christmas is just ten days away.”
