Toxic Toffee

by Amanda Flower

  I started to say something, but he interrupted me. “Bailey, I have to go. I have a call coming in from the department. If I can possibly drop by and see you at the shop before it’s too late, I will.” He said good-bye and then hung up.

  I parked my little car in its usual spot on Apple Street and walked the short distance to the candy shop, ever mindful of all the sounds of the night. The tiniest rustle of the blossoms on the apple trees made me jump.

  My grandmother opened the front door to the shop just as I came up the walk. I had a feeling Aiden had told her I was coming. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  I smiled and held up the sack. “I couldn’t possibly eat this all myself, so I thought it would just be easier to eat here and spend the night. That way I can get a jump on things in the morning.”

  She gave me a knowing smile.

  I stepped into the shop and found Charlotte and Deputy Little in the front room. Charlotte grinned. “Deputy Little is going to keep an eye on us again tonight.” She blushed ever so faintly and then turned away. I wondered if I’d imagined the blush.

  “What’s in the bag?” Little asked.

  I set the sack in the middle of the table. “All kinds of goodies. I think Millie gave me all the leftovers from the quilting circle. It was meant for the three of us in the shop, but there is enough here for an entire Amish district.”

  “Oh, is that sweet potato pie?” Little asked.

  I scooted the pie tin over in his direction.

  “That’s my very favorite,” he said.

  “I’ll get some dishes,” Charlotte said, and went into the kitchen. She was back a minute later with plates, napkins, and silverware.

  I smiled at her. “Thanks, Charlotte.”

  She nodded, which was unusual for the typically bubbly Amish girl.

  Everyone loaded up their plates, and even though I had eaten more than my share at Millie’s farm, I filled up a plate too. I was a sucker for sweet potato pie just as Little was.

  I was about to take my first bite when there was a knock on the window, and I turned to see Aiden waving at me. I dropped my fork back on my plate and met him at the door. When he stepped into the room, I immediately felt calmer, as if everything would be all right, just the way Millie said a person feels when it’s a perfect match. Aiden was my perfect match.

  “You guys eating?” Aiden asked eagerly.

  “Are you hungry?” Charlotte asked.

  “Always,” Aiden said. “Investigating really brings out the appetite.”

  “I can attest to that,” I said.

  Aiden shook his head as if he’d just accepted that for a fact. I think it was the best he could do.

  Charlotte hopped up to get another plate from the kitchen.

  Aiden clapped Little on the shoulder, and I saw the other man relax. I supposed in guy code Aiden was telling Little that all was forgiven from the night before even though no words were used.

  Aiden stood up after eating. “Thanks for the food. It’s going to be a long night at the station. I want to go over a few things again related to the case.”

  “Can I help, sir?” Little asked.

  Aiden shook his head. “No, I would much prefer that you stay here and keep an eye on the ladies from Swissmen Sweets.”

  Charlotte was cleaning up the food and packing it away. Even with five people sharing in the meal, we had leftovers.

  Little nodded and picked up his plate. “I can do the dishes,” he said.

  Charlotte’s mouth fell open. “We can’t let you do that. You’re a guest.”

  “Maybe, but I can’t just sit here while you do all the work.”

  Charlotte looked as if she might protest again, but Maami said, “We would love your assistance with the dishes, Deputy Little. It is my least favorite chore.”

  Little smiled and gathered up the remainder of the plates and silverware. He went into the kitchen. Maami and Charlotte followed him with the leftover food.

  When Aiden and I were alone, I asked, “Did you talk to the Beilers’ about their tractor?”

  He nodded. “I did, but they weren’t that forthcoming by the time I got there. I have a feeling that Jud Beiler regretted calling the police, so he started to downplay the whole incident.”

  “How did the person who slashed the tires get to the tractor?”

  Aiden sighed. “The shed it was in was unlocked, which is typical of an Amish farm.”

  “Did the Beilers have any idea who might have done it?”

  “Jud Beiler didn’t. He wouldn’t let me talk to his daughter, Katey. I still would like to, but I have to speak to her away from her father.”

  The mentioning of Katey Beiler made me think of how strangely she’d behaved at Easter Days. The girl had been uncomfortable. It was painfully apparent she didn’t want to marry Eli, and I would have known that even if Millie had not confirmed that Katey and Eli were a bad match. “If you are going to talk to any of them, I would start with Katey.” I went on to tell him about her engagement to Eli.

  Aiden’s brow went up. “I didn’t know the families were that close. What else did you learn today?” he asked. “Did you learn anything at the quilting circle?”

  “I did,” I said, and I went on to tell him about Casey, Stephen’s son, and his first wife, Ethel, but as Millie suggested, I didn’t mention Sybil Horn just yet. I wanted a chance to speak with her before Aiden and his officers got to her. Millie was right; she would be more forthcoming with me than she would be with the police. She had grown up Amish after all.

  “I knew that Stephen was married before and he had a son from that marriage.” He rubbed the five o’clock shadow on his chin. “It’s an interesting theory that he might come back to claim the farm as rightfully his.”

  “Can he do that?”

  Aiden shrugged. “With an attorney, he can try, and he just might win. It’s not like Eli would hire an attorney against him. That’s not the Amish way.”

  “That’s what Millie said.”

  Aiden studied me. “It seems to me Millie Fisher is a wise woman. I’m looking forward to meeting her sometime soon.”

  “You would like her.” I glanced back at the kitchen. “Did you know that she is the matchmaker for the village?”

  “Oh?” Aiden asked.

  I looked up at him. “She said that we are a perfect match.”

  “I’m glad Millie can reassure on that point.” His lips brushed mine. “But I already knew it. I knew that since the day I met you.”

  “You didn’t show it the day we met,” I said.

  He smiled. “I knew you were the kind of woman who had to make up her own mind about a person. I had all the time in the world to wait for you, Bailey King.”

  Chapter 33

  I went straight to bed after Aiden left and was up the next morning at four. I was determined to beat Charlotte and my grandmother downstairs so that I could make most of the candies for the day. They both had been working so hard in the shop, and it was time to reward them.

  By the time Maami came downstairs at five thirty, I had all the fudge made and had restocked the marshmallow eggs and chocolate bunnies and pigs. The bunnies and pigs were cooling in the refrigerator.

  Maami pulled up short as she came through the swinging door. “Bailey King, what on earth are you doing?”

  I was cleaning the large island with vinegar and water to prep for the next batch of candy. I wanted to make taffy because I’d noticed that we were running short. “What does it look like I’m doing?” I asked with an innocent smile.

  Charlotte walked into the kitchen too. “Wow. Bailey, did you do all this?” She blinked. “Now I know why Jean Pierre wanted to make you head chocolatier.”

  I laughed. “You’ve both been working so hard, and I know that between the toffee rabbit and Stephen’s death, I haven’t been pulling my weight around here since I got home. I just want you to know that the shop and the two of you are important to me, and I want to do my part.”

 
; Maami’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  “I’m glad you’re both here because I have some news.” I grinned.

  Charlotte clapped her hands. “Aiden asked you to marry him!”

  I shot her a look. “Nooo . . . You are almost as bad as Juliet about that.”

  “I can’t be that bad,” Charlotte said, looking aghast at the very idea.

  “In two weeks, the two of you are going to Florida for a week of fun in the sun!”

  They blinked at me in unison and said nothing.

  “I booked you a trip on the Amish bus that goes to Pinecraft and rented a little bungalow for you by the beach.”

  “But what about you?” Maami asked, seeming to have finally found her voice.

  “I’ll stay here and mind the shop. You take care of it when I’m in New York, Maami. It’s the least I can do for you and for Charlotte too.”

  “We can’t accept this,” my grandmother said. “It will be too much work for just one person.”

  “Emily will be with me, and this is my gift to you.”

  Charlotte grabbed my grandmother’s arm. “Oh please, let us go, Cousin Clara. I have always wanted to go to Florida, and this might be my only chance.”

  Maami looked from Charlotte to me and back again. “It’s already paid for?” she asked.

  “In full,” I said. “Not at all refundable.”

  Maami’s eyes glistened. “Then, I suppose, Charlotte, we must go to Pinecraft.”

  Charlotte jumped up and down. “This has been the very best year. First New York and now Florida!”

  Maami said nothing more but pulled Charlotte and me into a three-way hug.

  I spent the rest of the day working at the candy shop. I did everything I could to make the day lighter for my grandmother and Charlotte. Finally, Maami couldn’t take it any longer and shooed me out the door just after lunch. “Go, Bailey, we know you are dying to do some of your snooping.”

  She couldn’t be more right, and the first person I wanted to snoop on was Sybil Horn.

  As I drove into Millersburg, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket, telling me I had a text message. A message from Aiden. Where are you?

  Millersburg, running an errand, I texted back. He didn’t need to know that the errand was related to the investigation, at least not yet.

  Millersburg was the county seat of Holmes County. No one would consider it anything other than a small town. The county seat had about forty thousand residents, and unlike other places in Holmes County, almost all of those residents were English.

  The center of town was marked by the giant courthouse with its domed clock tower and sculpted lady of justice looking down on the street. There was a small green next to the courthouse with a large statue of a Civil War soldier. That was about as un-Amish as you could get, having a military statue as the focal point of the town. The statue overlooked the intersection of the county’s two main routes, Route 39 and Route 62. I didn’t know whether Millersburg had been chosen to be the county seat before or after the roads converged there.

  I parked on the street across from the courthouse and removed from my pocket the scrap of paper with Sybil’s address that Millie had given me the night before. I studied the paper. The address should be straight ahead. I glanced up and saw a girl look up and down the street and turn the corner in the direction I wanted to go. She had long brown hair that fell to her waist and was tethered at the nape of her neck in a ponytail. She wore a T-shirt, jeans, and round wire-rimmed glasses. There was nothing about her that would have caught my attention except for her face. I was certain that Katey Beiler had just turned the corner, and she was wearing English clothes. I hurried after her and was within twenty feet when she went through a windowless door into a flat-faced brick building that I suspected dated back to the turn of the twentieth century.

  I walked up to the door where she had disappeared and pulled the scrap of paper from my pocket to be sure. I was right. The address matched the one carved into the side of the building. Was this what Millie wanted me to see, but was unable to tell me? That Katey Beiler was going English? Why hadn’t she just told me that? And no wonder the girl didn’t want to marry Eli. If she did, she would be Amish forever.

  I stood there for a moment wondering what I should do. Should I try to speak to Sybil now, when I knew Katey was in there?

  I always had the option to call Aiden and tell him what I had seen, but what good would that do? There was no English law that said a young Amish woman couldn’t dress like an Englischer.

  I decided at least to see if I could take a peek into the building before I knocked on the door and asked to speak to Sybil.

  The door was large, old, of dark wood. It looked like something out of a British castle, not a door one usually saw in Amish Country, where blond wood and plainness was the norm.

  There was a keyhole, and I peered through. All I could see was the inner working of the lock. The keyhole, unlike the ones in most Saturday morning cartoons that I had grown up watching, didn’t give me a clear view into the building.

  I shook my head and was about to straighten up when the door flew open. I fell inside the building flat on my face. Before I could get up, someone pulled me by the arm and slammed the door behind me. I was trapped.

  Chapter 34

  A man loomed over me. He wore jeans and a polo shirt and had a full, close-cropped beard. I guessed that he was in his thirties, and he most definitely was not Amish. “What are you doing here?” he wanted to know.

  “I . . . I . . .” I scrambled to my feet, and much to my relief, he didn’t stop me. When I stood, I noted that I was just a couple of inches shorter than him, but he outweighed me by quite a bit if the biceps barely restrained by his T-shirt were any indication.

  I took a step back and put my hand on the door handle. I started to open the door. Clearly, I wasn’t wanted here, and this was a case when I knew better than to overstay my welcome.

  “Leaving already?” the man asked. “I thought you would want to learn more.”

  I still had my hand on the door. “Learn more about what?” I asked.

  “Did you hear about what we do here and want to see if it was a good fit for you too? I know it can be scary to leave, but this is the best place for you to come once you make that difficult decision.”

  I squinted at him. “Leave what? What are you talking about?”

  He cocked his head. “You’re still on the fence, I see. There’s no pressure here. We don’t want to convince you either way. It’s your decision, but we want you to know that there are places like this you can reach out to if you decide to go. You don’t have to feel like you’re in it alone.”

  I felt as if I was in some kind of self-help promotional video. “I’m not looking to leave anything. I’m here to talk to Sybil Horn.”

  He stepped back. “Are you a reporter?”

  I cocked my head. “No, but would it matter if I were? Do you have something to hide?”

  “No, we don’t,” he said with a scowl. His demeanor had completely changed. “What’s your name?”

  “Bailey King.” I had a sneaking suspicion that I had seen him before, but I didn’t know where. Holmes County was small. I could have seen him anywhere, at the market, on a walk, or out at a restaurant. However, my gut told me that it was fairly recent.

  “Why do you want to speak to Sybil?”

  I thought it would be best to be straight with this guy or he was never going to let me out of the entry. “My Amish friend Millie Fisher told me to talk to her.”

  His face cleared. “Millie is a nice lady. Sybil is in the back of the building.” The man walked down the hallway. He turned when I didn’t follow him. “If you want to see Sybil, you will have to follow me.”

  I chewed on my lower lip. Aiden’s voice in my head was telling me not to go, but I couldn’t leave until I’d spoken to Sybil. After that, I would call Aiden, I promised myself.

  As we moved down the hallway, I asked, “What’s your name?”


  “Adam.”

  “Adam what?”

  “We only use first names here.”

  This was getting weirder by the second.

  Adam stopped in front of a closed door. He slowly opened it and pushed the door halfway in. I was trying to guess what might be in there. Was Katey inside the room too? Was she all right? All sorts of terrible scenarios played out in my head. I should have called Aiden the moment I saw Katey go inside this building. This was a case where curiosity just might have killed the chocolatier.

  He pointed into the room. “Go ahead and look. I think it’s the best representation of what we do here.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. I didn’t like it at all. I hesitated and then peeked around the door frame. The overhead light was on as well as a green desk lamp in the middle of a table. Katey sat at that table bent over a piece of paper with a pencil in one hand. She made a mark on the paper in front of her and then pushed it in the direction of the person sitting across from her. The stranger was a dark-haired woman in her fifties, I would guess. She picked up the piece of paper that Katey gave to her and studied it. She set it back on the table and picked up a pencil of her own. She began to make marks on the paper. “That’s good, but you divided by two when you should have used four.” She wrote something on the paper. “See how that makes the equation easier to do?”

  Katey studied the paper. “Ya, danki. I think I know what you want me to do now.”

  “Sybil, you have a visitor sent here by Millie.”

  Katey jumped out of her seat with a look of panic on her face. “What are you doing here? Did my father send you?”

  I held my hands up in surrender. “No, no one sent me. I was in Millersburg and saw you walking down the street.”

  She narrowed her eyes. The fear was gone, replaced by anger. “You followed me here? Who do you think you are?”

  “I came here to speak to Sybil. I didn’t know that it would be the same place you were going.”

  The dark-haired woman stood. “I’m Sybil.” She had a regal demeanor about her and had long thin fingers that were perfect for playing the piano. She held her chin high. “How can I help you? Do you want to get your GRE too? I see that you are already in English clothes, but I don’t think you’re ready quite yet to leave the Amish way. I can see you might be trying too hard with your clothes.”