Toxic Toffee

by Amanda Flower

  He sighed. “The report is not back, but the coroner found a piece of candy in Stephen’s mouth, and there was a piece of lily of the valley in it.”

  I froze. “Candy?” I had a very bad feeling about this. Any time when candy and murder were in the same sentence, I felt a tad worried about the direction of the conversation. “What kind of candy?”

  “It was toffee, to be specific. It seems that Stephen had a sweet tooth and loved homemade toffee.”

  “I did notice him chewing on something, but I just assumed that it was gum or perhaps chewing tobacco.” Chew wasn’t an uncommon vice in the Amish community. I rubbed my forehead. “Toffee. Why did it have to be toffee?”

  “You have something against toffee?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Although, I don’t like it when it kills people. But the giant rabbit Margot wants me to carve will be made of toffee too. It just seems like a strange coincidence.”

  He shifted from foot to foot. “I will have to check where it came from. . . .” He trailed off.

  “You think it was from my shop.”

  “It could be, Bailey. It very well could be.” He shook his head as if the idea disturbed him as much as it did me. I was certain that it did. Even before he and I started dating, Aiden had had a special kinship with Swissmen Sweets. When he was a young boy, he and his mother fled his abusive father in South Carolina and took refuge in my grandparents’ candy shop for a few months while Juliet got back on her feet. He wouldn’t want the candy shop involved in a crime any more than I would.

  “Let’s talk about these letters,” Aiden said. “I will know more about the toffee and the lily of the valley when the coroner finishes his report, and yes, that will take a few days just as television has taught you.”

  I frowned. I wasn’t ready to let the conversation about the toffee go, but before I could protest, he went on, “Why did Eli bring the letters to you? He should have given them directly to the police.”

  “He’s afraid of going to the police. I don’t have to tell you that some Amish are afraid of the police. It was easier for him to give them to me. I’m not Amish, but my grandmother is. For some Amish, that is close enough when they need to reach out for help, and they know when help needs to come from an English person.”

  Aiden’s frown deepened.

  I held out my hand. “Listen, I didn’t ask him for the letters. I didn’t know anything about them before he dropped them in my lap. I didn’t even know that Stephen was murdered. All I knew was a seemingly kind man was dead. But now that I have read the letters, I wonder how kind he actually was.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The notes I read commented on something bad Stephen did in his past. It would seem to me that he did something terrible, and if his son is right, whatever it was got him killed.”

  “Did Eli know what his father might have done?”

  “No, and even though he knew about the letters, his father didn’t know that Eli had found out about them. Eli never asked his father about the notes. He just watched him collect them from the phone shed every day for the last two weeks.”

  “What happened that might have triggered this?”

  I shrugged. “Got me.”

  Aiden rubbed the back of his neck. “The secretive nature of the Amish makes my job so much more difficult than it has to be. I wish, just once, that they would question each other. If Eli had had the nerve to speak to his father, or if Stephen had asked someone for help, Stephen might still be alive today.”

  “It’s not their way.”

  “I know. God knows that I know that.”

  “I told Eli that I would have to hand the letters over to you and he agreed, but he said there was a condition.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that. What kind of condition?”

  I ignored his tone. “He said that he wouldn’t talk to you or any other officers about them. Everything has to go through me.”

  “Nope, not happening,” Aiden said, shaking his head. “That’s not going to work. I have to talk to him about this. As far as we know, he’s the only one other than Stephen who even knew that these letters existed.”

  “Maybe Stephen’s other children knew? Did he have other children?”

  “Stephen also had three daughters. They are all married and have homes of their own now. I’ll talk to each of them, of course, and ask if they knew about the letters, but I’m not hopeful they did. Each one had been out of the Raber home over a decade.”

  “I’m not sure that Eli is going to talk to you. I think he can make himself scarce if he needs to. I told you how he disappeared from the square right when Stephen died, and he sneaked up on my house. I didn’t even know he was there until he was standing at the front door.”

  “He broke in to your house?” Aiden’s voice was sharp.

  “No, I invited him in after I almost whacked him with a throw pillow.”

  “Bailey, you just moved here from New York City. Don’t you know not to let strange men into your home?” Aiden looked as if he might be ill.

  “Of course I did,” I said. “But New York and Harvest are two very different places. He needed my help.”

  Aiden rubbed the back of his neck just a little bit harder. “Do I need to remind you that murder happens in little villages?”

  He had a point, and I shivered.

  Aiden frowned at the letters. “He can’t just drop a sheaf of threatening letters and feel like that is the end of it for him. That’s just not how things are done.”

  “But that’s how some things are done for the Amish.”

  He didn’t argue with me because he knew that was true. “What else did Eli say?”

  “Not much other than the letters.” I paused.

  “There is something more. I can tell. What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Well, he came to me because Daniel Keim said that I could be trusted. Daniel told him that I could find out who killed his father.”

  Aiden pressed his lips together and rubbed his forehead as if he were about to get a migraine. “And what did you say in response to that?”

  “What could I say? I said I would tell you about it, but I also said”—I paused—“I also said that I would help him the best I could.”

  “So, you promised to catch a killer.”

  “Not in so many words, but I guess that’s the gist of it.”

  He rubbed his forehead. “I feel a headache coming on.”

  Aiden really looked like he might be ill.

  Puff chose that moment to hop into the living room, and Aiden jumped. “What the—!”

  This time he scattered the letters in the air.

  I stooped to pick up the letters a second time.

  “What on earth?” Aiden blinked at the rabbit. “Did you get a pet?”

  “No.” I shook my head, holding the letters loosely in my hands.

  Puff hopped over to me and sat on my foot as if she was in disagreement on the subject.

  “He looks like he’s claimed you as his own.” The dimple was back in his cheek. “Did you buy one of Raber’s rabbits?”

  I folded my arms and looked down at the bunny. “No, I didn’t. This is Puff.”

  “Like the magic dragon?” Aiden asked.

  I held up a finger. “First, I appreciate that you and I have similar senses of humor. Second, no, this is Puff, Stephen Raber’s beloved personal pet. Eli brought her with him when he came to talk to me and left her behind.”

  Aiden sat at the small dining table. I guessed this was a lot for him to process, and it was getting late too. It had been a long day for us both.

  “Let me get this straight,” Aiden said. “Eli came over here, gave you these threatening notes and a rabbit, and asked you to find out who killed his father and to keep the rabbit?”

  I shrugged and looked down at the rabbit on my foot. Puff twitched her nose. “Pretty much,” I said, and then I bent and picked up the rabbit. She was quite heavy. I would say even a pound
or two more than Jethro the pig. I knew that because for whatever reason, it seemed I toted Jethro around the village almost as much as Juliet did.

  I sat across from Aiden at the table with Puff on my lap. I found her weight comforting, and she was unbelievably soft. It was like having the kind of fur muff ladies wore in Victorian days to keep their hands warm.

  Aiden arched his brow at me. “How many of the notes did you read?”

  “Four. They’re sitting on the table right there.” I pointed at the tiny pile of letters I had read while Eli was there.

  He pointed at me. “I don’t want you to be involved in this.”

  “I am involved, and there is nothing you can do about it. Stephen died in front of my very eyes, and his son Eli came and talked to me about his father’s death. He didn’t seek you out, and he won’t. He told me that. If you want to solve this case, you need me. The Amish trust me.”

  “They trust me too,” he said a bit defensively.

  “Not as much as they trust me, and that’s because I have Amish roots through my grandparents. I’m sort of an insider even if I have lived most of my life away from here. You have lived here most of your life, but you are English—nothing can change your Englishness. I can help you.”

  “I don’t want your help when it comes to a police investigation. Ever. If Stephen was killed the way both Eli and the coroner think, then whoever did this is very angry, angry enough to kill again. If it’s the same person who sent these notes, he wanted Stephen to confess to whatever led to the threats. If that person is the killer, we can only assume that didn’t happen, so this person, this killer, made candy to poison Stephen. That is not a crime of passion. That is cold-blooded, premeditated murder.”

  “I know that,” I said a bit uncertainly. “But Eli isn’t going to talk to you about his father. He barely spoke to me about him, and he came to me for help. It’s just not the Amish way.”

  Aiden rubbed his forehead. “Not the Amish way. How many times have I heard that in my lifetime? The Amish way is not always the right way. It would be best if you realized that the Amish are just people like us. There are good Amish and bad Amish. They are people who make mistakes and they are people who are capable of murder.”

  I bit my lip to hold back a smart retort.

  “I need to get these to the station.” Aiden stood, removed a pair of latex gloves from the inside pocket of his jacket, put them on, and gathered up the letters.

  I stood up too and set Puff on the floor. “Can I at least see the other notes? Eli gave them to me.”

  Aiden pursed his lips together and then sighed. “All right. I shouldn’t be doing this, but you might see something that I will miss.” Carefully, he unfolded all the notes on the tabletop.

  “Are they in any kind of order?” I asked.

  “I just set them out in the order that they were stacked, but that was after we both took a turn at throwing them in the air. There’s no clear sign to tell in what order they were received.”

  “I didn’t throw them in the air. You scared me!”

  Aiden smiled. “Because I caught you in the act of doing something you know you shouldn’t have been doing.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re showing me the notes anyway.”

  “You have a point,” he said as he set the last note on the table.

  I peered at the fourteen notes. It seemed to me that they were written all by the same hand. The print was almost identical. It was very straight up and down and precise. They all expressed the same sentiment—that the receiver, Stephen Raber, had done something terrible and he needed to repent or suffer the consequences.

  I removed my cell phone from the back pocket of my jeans and snapped a photo of the notes on the table.

  “What are you doing?” Aiden wanted to know.

  I checked to make sure the photo was clear and tucked the phone back into my pocket. “I doubt you will let me see these again. . . .”

  “I’m just going to pretend that didn’t happen.”

  “Fine by me.” I smiled.

  Aiden shook his head and started to gather up the notes again with his glove-covered hands. I looked down at my own flowered garden gloves and felt silly for putting them on. If I was going to be around murder investigations so often, I would need to start carrying some of the plastic gloves that we used at the shop for candy making. I wondered if I should bring a few pairs home for circumstances just like this.

  He organized the notes into a neat stack and slipped them into an evidence bag. “If you are going to help Eli with this, please at least promise that you will keep me in the loop. If you want to talk to someone, tell me where and when.”

  I frowned, promising nothing. As much as I wanted Aiden with me, I knew that many of the Amish wouldn’t speak about personal issues in front of a police officer. It didn’t matter how well-respected he was by the community.

  “I’ll let you know what I’m up to, so expect frequent text updates.”

  “I guess I’ll have to live with that.” He turned and walked to the door.

  “You do.” I followed him.

  Aiden stopped at the door and turned to face me. “You can be so aggravating at times.”

  I smiled. “I know.”

  The dimple appeared on his cheek and he leaned in and kissed me. When he pulled away he said, “I really do need to take you on a proper date. It seems wrong that we haven’t done that yet. Life always seems to get in the way.”

  Murder gets in the way, I thought.

  I patted his arm. “Aiden, I understand. Murder first, then romance.”

  He shook his head. “I wish that weren’t such a true statement.” He gave me another quick kiss and left.

  I closed and locked the door behind him, wishing that it wasn’t such a true statement too.

  Chapter 11

  I had absolutely nothing in my house to feed a rabbit. Shoot, I had nothing in my house to feed myself. It was almost nine on a week night. The local supermarket in the village closed at six, and the supermarket in Millersburg had closed over an hour ago.

  I filled a bowl with water and set it on the floor of the kitchen for Puff and searched my kitchen for something else to feed her. In the back of my pantry there was a suspect package of rice cakes. It was the best I could do. I removed one of the rice cakes.

  “There you go.” I held the rice cake toward her.

  She looked up at me.

  “They are good for you,” I said. “It says right here on the package that they are heart healthy and made with whole-grain rice. They will make you strong.”

  She flattened her body to the floor and bent her ears back.

  I sighed. “It’s the best I have.”

  I set the broken up rice cake on a plate and put it on the floor next to the water dish.

  Puff didn’t move.

  There was a knock at my front door. I glanced down at the rabbit. “What on earth is going on? It’s the middle of the night.”

  She didn’t respond.

  I grabbed my throw pillow off the loveseat again—apparently my go-to weapon of choice—and approached the door. I peered through the peephole again, and this time I saw a short woman in a flowered blouse and long skirt. She had a prayer cap on her head, but she was most certainly not Amish in that outfit. I guessed she was some sort of Mennonite. She appeared harmless.

  I opened the door.

  She smiled at me sweetly. In her hand she had a basket with honey and jams. “I hate to come over here so late.” I would guess the woman was about fifty. Gray wisps were threaded through the dark hair under her prayer cap. “I’m Penny Lehman. I live right next door to you.” She pointed at the little white frame house to the left. I could just make it out in the dark. “I stopped by because I saw the police were here earlier, and I wanted to make sure everything was all right.”

  “Everything is okay,” I said. “The police officer who was here is my boyfriend, Aiden, so you will see him from time to time.”


  “Oh,” she said. “You’re dating Aiden Brody? Then, you must be Bailey. I’m good friends with Aiden’s mother, Juliet. She’s very excited about your upcoming wedding.”

  I inwardly groaned. “Aiden and I aren’t engaged.”

  “Oh,” she said, and I was beginning to realize that “oh” was her favorite word. “Juliet said you were, or at least I thought she said that. Maybe I misunderstood.”

  Knowing Juliet, Penny hadn’t misunderstood her at all, but I wasn’t going to say so.

  She held out the basket to me. “I’ve been meaning to bring this by as a welcome to the neighborhood, but this is the first time I’ve seen you at home.”

  “I’ve been out of town on business.” I left it at that and took the basket from her hand, noting that it carried an assortment of jams and honey. “This is very kind of you. Thank you for the welcome gift.”

  “It’s no trouble at all.” She peered into the house expectantly and I sighed inwardly. I was so tired, and all I wanted to do was go to sleep. However, this woman was my next-door neighbor and I wanted to have a good relationship with her. It seemed the only way I could do that was to let her in. I had a feeling that Penny would remember the slight if I turned her away. I stepped back. “Would you like to come in for a moment?”

  She bustled inside the house. “I can’t stay long.”

  I shook my head as I closed the door after her. It was ironic that I had moved out of Swissmen Sweets because I had wanted more time to myself, and here I was having three back-to-back visitors on the first evening I’d returned from New York.

  “Would you like coffee or tea?” I asked. “I’m sorry that I don’t have anything else to offer.” I set the basket in the middle of the dining table, where the threatening notes had been just minutes ago.

  “I’m quite fine,” she said as she scanned the room. Puff chose that moment to hop out from behind the kitchen wall.

  “You have a rabbit!” Penny said brightly. She plopped down on the floor next to Puff and her long skirt fanned out around her. She scratched the bunny in between her ears, and Puff moved closer to her.

  It felt odd to be standing, looming over her while she sat on the floor, so I perched on the edge of a dining room chair.