Criminally Cocoa

by Amanda Flower

He laughed. “I guess so.”

  I shook my head. “I need to talk to Bailey.”

  He held up a hand. “I don’t think you should tell her.”

  I frowned. “Bailey is my friend. Of course I need to tell her what’s going on.”

  “But you don’t know for sure,” he said. “Do you really want to worry her like that? Her confidence is already shaken from the explosion. She can’t continue filming thinking someone is out to get her. She won’t be able to keep her focus on the show.”

  He had a point, even though I didn’t like it in the least. I didn’t want to cause Bailey any more stress than she was already feeling, and I knew her too. Bailey had been tangled up in more than one crime investigation, and she couldn’t help poking her nose in something that didn’t feel right. If she knew someone was tampering with her set, she would be bound and determined to find out who it was, which would drag her attention away from the show. She really needed to put all her focus on the production right now.

  “You and I will keep a lookout for her,” Todd said. “We will make sure nothing like this happens again, so that she can concentrate on her job, which is filming this show.”

  I decided not to say anything to Bailey just yet. I needed to know if my hunch was right first.

  Todd crossed his arms over his chest. “Even if you’re not saying it, I can tell by the look on your face that you agree with me.”

  I frowned at him again. I hated that a person I had just met could read my feelings so well, not that I was hard to read. My mother always said I wore my emotions on my sleeve. That had gotten me in trouble back in my old district too. It was not the way of an Amish woman to show when she was upset. Clearly, I wasn’t doing a great job of being an Amish woman. Then again, I never have.

  Chapter Four

  Everything was so big, so bright, so loud, so…everything. I still hadn’t become used to it even after being in the city for weeks. My fascination with the bright lights and tall buildings didn’t amuse Bailey this morning the way it usually did. She was on edge. The day before, Raymond had said the show would never make it on the air. Considering what had happened, I wondered if he might just be right.

  As I followed Bailey and Cass down the busy sidewalk, I found myself studying the faces of the people passing by. Most were so focused on where they were going that they took no notice of me or of anything around them. It was so different from back home. If I walked down the street, I would see so many people I knew. It was hard to be anonymous in such a small town and even more difficult in the Amish community, but as far as I could tell, the people I passed here didn’t know each other, and Bailey’s friend Cass, who’d lived and worked in this city all her life, didn’t know them either. Things could happen here that no one would have any knowledge of, and the thought made a chill run down my spine.

  Suddenly, the big city felt like a very unsafe place to be. Yesterday, Bailey could have been seriously burned or even killed had she been leaning over the chocolate when it exploded. It could have been an accident, but then I remembered those knobs and what Todd had said about the glass bowl and how people in the television business wanted to get ahead. Would they be willing to hurt someone else to do that? I was very grateful that we weren’t going to the studio that day. What could possibly go wrong in a park? Nothing came to my mind.

  I hurried to catch up with Cass and Bailey. Cass was a fast walker. In fact I had never seen anyone walk so fast in all my life. She seemed to glide in and around the other people on the sidewalk instead walk by them. Her moves were effortless. I, on the other hand, felt like my father’s bull trying to get out of the too small gate in his pen. I brushed up against or bounced off everyone I passed. I got a good number of dirty looks for my missteps.

  “Bai, you are going to have to chill out or you won’t be able to pull yourself together for the camera today.” Cass stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and put her hands on her hips.

  Cass was just about the most interesting person I’d ever met. She had black-and-purple hair and a sharp tongue. She was also the only one who could calm Bailey down other than Deputy Aiden Brody. Since Aiden was in Ohio, Cass was the one taking care of Bailey.

  “Cass,” Bailey said. “You don’t know. You weren’t there. The double boiler exploded! There was glass and chocolate everywhere.” Bailey shook her head. “I can’t believe that I missed there was something wrong with that boiler.”

  Cass started walking again. “You can’t be expected to notice everything. You’re the star of the show. The crew is supposed to set up your station for the shoot. Your job is being able to talk and look like you know what you’re saying while doing it.”

  “Clearly I didn’t if the boiler exploded.” She rubbed her forehead. “I have made chocolate thousands of times with a double boiler, and I have never had it explode.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Cass said.

  “That may be, but I’m a chocolatier; this is what I do. If I can’t use a double boiler, what use am I?”

  “Overdramatic much?” Cass asked.

  “I’m not being overdramatic. Someone could have easily been burned or cut. It’s a miracle that no one was. What if someone had been hurt?” Bailey asked.

  I reached out and squeezed Bailey’s hand. “If it’s your fault, then it’s my fault too. You brought me here to help you with the show. I promise to keep a closer eye on things.” I made an internal vow to do this as well. I wasn’t going to let any more accidents happen on the set. Clara would be so disappointed with me if something happened to Bailey while we were in New York. Not to mention that Aiden would be beside himself.

  Before Bailey could respond, Cass asked in her rapid-fire way, “How did it happen? Was something off about the setup? Were the pot and bowl the right sizes?”

  “I don’t know what happened; the setup looked fine to me.” Bailey edged around a man walking a dog on the sidewalk.

  Bailey seemed to read my mind, saying, “Don’t tell Aiden. Either of you. He has enough to worry about being a deputy, not to mention all the trouble Sheriff Jackson is giving him.”

  Sheriff Jackson was the sheriff of Holmes County and Aiden’s boss. He’d just won reelection in the county because there was no one brave enough to run against him. I had a particular dislike for him because of his negative attitude toward the Amish. He’d never met an Amish person he respected, and because of that I couldn’t respect him. If it were not for Aiden’s presence in the sheriff’s department, the Amish in Holmes County would be in real trouble, because any time that Sheriff Jackson could blame some wrongdoing on the Amish, he did.

  Bailey and Cass expertly moved through the pedestrian traffic and seemed to think nothing of it at all. I, on the other hand, kept muttering, “Excuse me” as I bumped into one person after another. A cluster of schoolchildren stepped between my friends and me and cut me off from them. By the time the children passed by, Bailey and Cass were half a city block ahead of me.

  “What’s with the flying nun?” asked a man I’d just bumped.

  The woman with him chuckled.

  I wrinkled my nose, having no idea what he was talking about. Flying nun. It sounded like another one of those Englisch riddles to me. I ran to catch up with my friends, bouncing off three more people as I went, my bonnet strings flying behind me in my haste.

  “Hey, watch where you are going!” a woman shouted at me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I called over my shoulder. When I finally reached Bailey and Cass, I was out of breath.

  Bailey eyed me as we came to stop at a crosswalk. “What happened to you?”

  I gasped. “What’s a flying nun?”

  Cass turned to me. “Where did you hear that?”

  “A man said it as I passed him on the sidewalk. I don’t understand what he meant.” I squinted in the sun. New York was a lot brighter than I’d expected
it to be. The sunlight reflected off the shiny buildings and hit me in the eye.

  “Never pay attention to what people say about you on the street,” Cass advised.

  I wrinkled my nose again. I wanted to know what his words meant. I felt like it might be another one of those times that Bailey and Cass were so in sync with each other that they forgot I was even there.

  Bailey must have noticed my face. “He’s just making a reference to a movie. It’s a stretch, but your Amish clothes are slightly reminiscent of the clothes a nun wore in that movie.”

  “Oh. So he was being unkind?”

  Cass patted my shoulder. “Welcome to city life, my girl.”

  I frowned.

  The light in the crosswalk changed, and I followed them across the street. A line of waiting taxis was just inches from us. As soon as we made it safely to the other side, the traffic light changed, and the taxis took off like a shot out of my father’s hunting rifle.

  Cass stopped at the entrance to Central Park. I knew that because there was a sign on the wall. She turned to face Bailey and me. “Okay, yesterday was a bit of a mishap with the mess.”

  “Mess?” Bailey asked. “More of a catastrophe. The double boiler exploded.”

  Cass rolled her eyes. “I know that, Bailey. You’re really going to have to let that go and move on. I’m moving on.”

  “You weren’t even there,” Bailey grumbled.

  Cass grinned. “And I have something up my sleeve that will have them forgetting about the silly double boiler in no time.”

  Bailey narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “You will know it when you see it.”

  “Now you really have me worried.” She turned to me. “Charlotte, do you know what she’s talking about?”

  I shook my head. The day was warmer than I had expected, so I removed my black bonnet and tucked it in the canvas tote bag on my hip. I adjusted my prayer cap on the top of my red hair; my hair was coiled at the base of my neck to make sure the cap was in the exact middle of my head.

  Cass shook her head. “Since the set needs to be cleaned and chocolate has to be scraped from the rafters, I came to your rescue as your superagent, and called Linc. I proposed that we use today to get some exterior shots of you with candy for promo and the like. One of my sous chefs from JP Chocolates should already be here with all sorts of delectable candies for you to pose with.” She smiled brightly. “I had an apprentice make an entire batch of chocolate Amish buggies! I went for kitsch. People love kitsch.”

  I began to see why Cass and Linc got along so well. This kitsch sounded a lot like his “props.”

  “Annnd,” she went on, “I have another ace up my sleeve. Just wait. Your show is going to be bigger than The Great British Baking Show!”

  This wasn’t the first time that Cass has called herself Bailey’s agent. I wasn’t sure what an agent was exactly, but Bailey said it was a role that Cass had given herself to help Bailey with the TV stuff. After which, Cass told me that she was my agent too.

  Bailey laughed, and the anxiety that had been etched on her face since the double boiler incident smoothed away. However, the laugh died on her lips when a voice rang out in the park.

  “Bailey!” a sweet southern woman called.

  Bailey spun around to Cass and said, “Are you kidding me?”

  Cass grinned. “The show must go on.”

  Chapter Five

  Juliet Brody hurried over to us along the paved path inside the park. She was beaming and carrying her black-and-white, polka-dotted potbellied pig, Jethro, in her arms. Both Juliet and Jethro always looked like they were ready to go on a fancy outing, but today, they looked like they were here to be in the movies. Juliet’s hair was pinned to the back of her head in an elaborate design, with twists and pinned curls, and she wore a pink-and-white polka-dotted dress with enough tulle under the skirt to cause it to puff out one foot from her body. Over the dress, she wore a white fur shrug as it was still March and there was a bite in the air. Jethro, too, wore his best: a pink-and-white polka-dotted bow tie made from the same material as Juliet’s dress.

  I glanced at Bailey, and she stood there with her mouth hanging open. I think this was one of the few times since I’d known her that she didn’t have anything to say.

  Cass shook Juliet’s hand. “I’m so glad that you could make it to New York. How was the flight?”

  “It was divine!”

  “We are so happy you’re here,” Cass said. Bailey remained speechless.

  “Well, when I got your call that Bailey needed Jethro’s help on the show, I said to Reverend Brook, ‘Reverend, I know it will be a great hardship for the church if I leave for a few days, but Bailey needs me and Jethro is going to be a star.’ Of course, the dear man was so very understanding. He knows how important Jethro is to Bailey.”

  Bailey and I shared a look. We both knew that Reverend Brook would do anything for Juliet because he was sweet on her, as Clara would say. Juliet was sweet on him too, but they thought they had fooled the village into believing they were just church friends. Nothing could be further from the truth.

  “I—I—” Bailey stammered.

  Cass clapped Bailey on the shoulder. “You’ve rendered Bailey speechless; she is so excited that you’re here!” She cocked her head. “But as adorable as that bow tie is on Jethro, it has to go. It takes away from his Amishness.”

  “Pigs aren’t Amish,” I argued.

  Cass waved away my comment. “Fine. It takes away from his plainness. We need a plain pig like you’d see back home.”

  Juliet hugged the pig to her chest. “Jethro is the furthest a pig could be from plain.”

  Cass sighed. “You know what I mean. You might need to lose the fur too, Juliet. Around here, passersby might find it to be offensive.”

  Juliet touched the fur on her shoulder. “Oh, this. It’s not real fur. It’s synthetic. I would never wear real fur. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “That’s a relief,” Cass said, and then she clapped her hands. “Look, there is the production crew and Linc from the network.” She pointed across the path to an open green field. A large white trailer was parked in the field with Gourmet Television emblazoned on the side. It reminded me of the production van from the network that had been in Harvest over Christmas.

  “Juliet, what are you doing here?” Bailey managed to find her voice.

  “Oh.” Juliet beamed. “We did it. We were actually able to keep my arrival in New York a secret. Let me tell you, it wasn’t easy for me not to just pick up the phone and call you. To make matters worse, I had to keep the trip secret from my son Aiden too because I know that he would have told you.”

  “I hope that he would,” Bailey muttered.

  “Oh, I know that Aiden would have loved to come with us too, if he had known, but he never would’ve gotten away from work. My son works like a dog for the county, as you know.”

  “How on earth did you get here?” Bailey asked.

  “By plane, of course.”

  “With Jethro?” Bailey asked.

  Juliet sniffed. “He is my comfort pig. I have to have him with me at all times. I can’t fly without him. I hate flying. I never told you that’s how I got Jethro.”

  “You got him from flying?” Bailey asked.

  “No.” Juliet laughed, and it sounded like the jingle of bells. “Several years ago, I had a flight out to California. I was going to see an old friend from college whom I hadn’t seen in over thirty years, but I was afraid to fly. My friend told me about comfort animals. She said that everyone in California has one. They are super on trend. Well, I thought that was great, and I started to look for an animal that would give me the peace I needed when I fly.” She placed a hand to her chest. “And I can’t tell you what it was like. I met Jethro and the rest is history. It was love at first sight.”r />
  “I’m just trying to imagine how Jethro might have been received on the flight by the other passengers,” I said.

  “Oh, today? Today, we had the pleasure of flying in Jean Pierre’s private plane.”

  Jean Pierre was the former head chocolatier at JP Chocolates, where Cass worked. He was also Bailey’s mentor.

  Bailey shot Cass a look. “Jean Pierre knew too. Now, this is all beginning to make a lot more sense. Cass, can I talk to you for a moment?”

  When they stepped away, I greeted Juliet and scratched Jethro under the chin. The little pig closed his eyes as if in a moment of sheer bliss.

  Across the grass where the production crew was standing, I saw Maria watching us. There was a frown on her pretty face, and her eyes were narrowed. Her stern expression made me shiver. I wondered what had happened in her life to make her so angry looking. Clara’s bishop always said that people are angry for a reason, and that helping them find that reason will speed their healing. I pressed my lips together. I didn’t think I wanted to help Maria. My goal over the next several weeks was to stay away from her.

  Todd, who was standing next to Maria, waved at me. I felt myself blushing. I hoped that he didn’t think I was staring at him when I had been looking at her. From the lopsided smile on his face, I knew that he did.

  I looked away and straightened my apron.

  “Yes,” Linc said as he came toward us with Todd a few steps behind him. “This is just what we need to breathe life back into this production.” He waved behind himself at the director. “Raymond, come here and meet another star of this show!” His voice boomed. Not for the first time I wondered if Linc should be the director and not Raymond since his voice seemed to carry much better than the other man’s. People walking their dogs through the park glanced our way, but not a single one of them stopped. If there had been such an uproar in Harvest, everyone, both Amish and Englisch alike, would have come running to see what the commotion was. I supposed in New York, commotion was part of the everyday.