A Killer Carol

by Laura Bradford

  All in all, the transition from Ruth to Hannah had been relatively seamless insofar as the products. Now it was really just about getting the tourists—in particular, the ones who’d been coming to Heavenly for years—to realize the change in face behind the counter didn’t mean Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe had gone the way of the dogs.

  A string of murmurings cut through her woolgathering and yanked her eyes back to the front room in time to see Benjamin Miller walk toward the table of holiday place mats and then turn and head toward the snowflake candleholders she’d arranged across a shelf on the opposite wall. With careful hands, the widower picked up the holder, turned it from side to side, and with a labored sigh set it back on the shelf, his shoulders sagging.

  “You know she’ll love anything you pick out simply because it’s from you, right?”

  Whirling around, Ben pinned his ocean blue eyes on her with first surprise and then relief. “Claire!”

  Striding all the way into the room, she stopped, pointed to the candleholder, added a raised thumb, and then rose up on tiptoes to kiss the man’s clean-shaven cheek. “Annie told me you were out here.”

  His gaze dropped to the floor, where it remained long enough to clear his throat. “I did not want her to interrupt you from your work.”

  “You are never an interruption, Benjamin Miller.” She drank in his strong jaw, his dark eyebrows, and the way the skin crinkled around his eyes as he redirected his attention back to the candleholders. “I’m guessing you’re wanting to buy a Christmas gift for Rebeccah?”

  He tucked his thumbs inside his suspenders. “I know Christmas is not to be about expensive gifts, but in my home we have always given little things to one another on Second Christmas. Ruth would make everyone’s favorite pie, my mamm would make a new dress or shirt for each of us, and Eli and I would work together on a new stool for Mamm and a tool holder or something else for the barn for Dat. Such gifts would always bring a big smile. That is why I would like to give Rebeccah something from me.”

  “So it’s still going well? Between the two of you?”

  The crinkles widened with his shy smile just before they disappeared from view via the brim of his hat. “Yah. It is . . . good.”

  “I’m glad.” And she was. Ben deserved happiness. His wife’s death just months after their marriage more than a decade earlier had left him living alone for far too long. His determination to turn away from his baptismal vows in order to have a life with Claire shortly after her arrival in Heavenly had been touching but not right for either of them. Now, she had Jakob, and Ben was courting the younger sister of a local Amish widow—a woman who clearly made the man happy if the sparkle in his eyes at the mere mention of their budding relationship was any indication.

  Reaching out, Claire fingered the snowflake pattern dusted onto the glass candleholder and then dropped her hand to her side. “Tell me what you’re thinking. You know, what you’re wanting to say with this gift?”

  His dark brows furrowed. “I do not understand.”

  She wandered over to the shelves dedicated to kitchens and fished a place mat with a manger scene from the bin. “Like this. It’s the kind of gift I might give to Aunt Diane for the counter in the kitchen. It’d be something festive for a spot we often sit at together after the guests have had their dinner in the dining room, or on the rare occasion there are no guests at all.

  “And this?” She swapped the place mat for a set of napkin rings with a snowman motif. “This is pretty, and would make a nice gift, but it’s not special.”

  Shrugging, he pointed at the candleholders. “These are pretty.”

  “Thank you. I made them this past weekend. But they’re not special enough, either.” She crossed to the trio of quilt racks situated closer to the back wall and ran her fingertips across the intricate snowflake pattern Benjamin’s sister-in-law, Esther, had created. “Now, if Esther was to give this to Eli, it would be special—more special than if I simply bought it and gave it to Eli. Because from Esther, it would be as much about the time and love she put into it as any warmth or coziness it might provide.

  “And those candleholders I made?” She made her way back to Ben and the shelf he’d yet to leave. “While I hope they’ll make good gifts for many of my customers, I think Aunt Diane would enjoy them even more knowing I made them as opposed to just buying them. Make sense?”

  “But I do not make such things,” Ben protested. “I am a farmer.”

  “You make things all the time, silly. It’s why you have an envelope of cash in my office right now with your name on it. People love the small chests and step stools you make.”

  “I do not think Rebeccah needs a step stool. She is staying with Emma and the children, and I am sure Emma has such things.”

  “But she won’t always be living with Emma, right?” Claire prodded, grinning. “Someday she’ll live somewhere else . . .”

  A flash of crimson on his cheeks was quickly coughed away. “What do you think Jakob will give you for Christmas?”

  Instinctively, her gaze skittered past Ben to the large front window and its partial view of the white clapboard building that housed Heavenly’s police department. “I can’t answer that. Part of the fun is the surprise.”

  She took advantage of his answering silence to note a non-sweeping Annie on the front porch, passersby on the sidewalk beyond, and a familiar horse and buggy parked on the opposite side of the street. “Why didn’t you hitch your buggy in back? Annie has feed and water back there for her horse, Katie.”

  “I did.”

  “That’s not your horse?” she asked, pointing toward the window.

  “No, that is . . .” Ben stepped around the shelves closest to him and strode over to the window. “Yah . . . That is Samuel’s horse and buggy.”

  “But Samuel has a hitching post behind Yoder’s Furniture.”

  “That is true. Perhaps he is running an errand or making a delivery.”

  “He has English who do that, doesn’t he?” she asked.

  “Yah.” Ben took one last look at his new brother-in-law’s buggy and then turned back to Claire. “Will you give Jakob one of your candleholders for Christmas?”

  She forced her thoughts off the buggy’s odd placement and back to her Amish friend. “I could, I’m sure. But I’m thinking about more of an experience instead of a gift for him this year. Like he did as a ‘just-because’ for me one day last year.”

  “What did he do?”

  “Do you remember that big snowfall we had last year? The one that closed all the shops on Lighted Way?” At Ben’s nod, she left her lookout spot and wandered over to the counter and the pair of stools it blocked from customers’ view. “Jakob showed up at the inn that day with a sled and took me sledding. It was . . . magical.”

  “It was the first time you went sledding?” he asked, surprised.

  She pulled out the stools, slid one out for Ben to take, and perched atop her own. “No, I’d been sledding many times as a kid. But it was my first time sledding as an adult, I’m pretty sure, and it was definitely my first time sledding with Jakob.”

  Hiking her ankle boots onto the bottom rung of the stool, she tipped back against the counter, smiling at the memory of the perfect winter day. “I can’t tell you how good it felt to laugh. We stayed out so long, I’m pretty sure my lips were as blue as your eyes when we finally called it quits and went inside the inn for some hot cocoa and cookies. But that time with him? Laughing and acting like kids? I’ll never forget it. Ever.”

  Ben swept his hand toward the window as he, too, sat. “There is no snow.”

  “Yet. But that’s what Jakob did, Ben. I’m sure you can come up with something equally special. Something Rebeccah will never forget.” She pitched forward, hijacked the bowl she kept beside the register, and offered Ben a wrapped candy. When he declined, she helped herself to a butterscotch, the cri
nkle of the wrapper unusually loud in the otherwise quiet shop. “Maybe a horse-drawn carriage ride, or a winter picnic up by the covered bridge. I’m pretty sure she’ll love anything you come up with just so long as it means she can spend a little quiet time with you—talking, laughing, making memories.”

  He seemed to consider her words as her own attention drifted toward the sound of the back door opening and closing and, soon, Annie’s footsteps on the tiled hallway. “Hey, kiddo, I was beginning to think you weren’t ever coming back.”

  Annie hurried over to the counter, her eyes wide, her cheeks flushed from the cold air. “I’m sorry, Claire. I noticed Samuel Yoder’s buggy across the street and then Mr. Glick from the hardware store walked by and said he saw Ruth go into the police station just before lunch.”

  She felt Ben stiffen on the stool beside her and quickly rested a calming hand atop his own. “It is nothing to worry about. I imagine Jakob summoned her to the station to get a feel for how things seemed at the Esch farm yesterday. You know, during their visit.”

  At Ben’s questioning eyes, she continued. “Probably things like whether they may have noticed any strange cars lingering on the road outside Daniel and Mary’s farmhouse . . . whether Daniel and Mary seemed upset or worried about anything . . . stuff like that.”

  “Why does Jakob need to know such things?”

  “Because, at the moment, Samuel and Ruth appear to be the last people to have seen the couple alive.”

  Ben cupped his bare chin with his hand. “They were not there when Daniel and Mary passed.”

  “I know that. And Jakob knows that. But they might have seen something or heard something—something that didn’t seem important at the time but might now in light of what happened.”

  “Daniel and Mary were in their eighties,” Ben said, dropping his hand back to his lap. “It was their time to be with God.”

  She felt the weight of Annie’s gaze on the side of her face and motioned the teen over. “Annie . . . Why don’t you come sit here on my stool for a moment? I have something I need to tell you.”

  Slipping off the stool, she stepped to the side and waited for Annie to get settled. When the teen was in position, Claire looked from Annie to Ben and back again. “Your friends—Daniel and Mary—they didn’t . . .”

  She stopped. Took a breath.

  “Claire? Are you okay?” Annie asked, her voice revealing the same worry now inching its way into the lines around Ben’s eyes.

  Swallowing, she took Annie’s hand in her own and looked between her friends once again. “Your friends did not pass because of their age or because it was their time.”

  Ben drew back.

  Annie traded worry for confusion. “They did. I saw their feet. And—and Henry said they were gone.”

  “But it wasn’t age,” Claire rasped. “They . . . they were murdered.”

  Annie’s gasp, like the distinctive thud of Ben’s boots as he returned to his feet, echoed around the shop. “M-murdered?” Annie eked out.

  Claire pulled the distraught teen close. “Jakob told me this morning. But when you got here for your shift, I was waiting on a customer. When I finally finished, you were busy with a different customer and I needed to head back into my office to work on the—”

  “Is Jakob certain?” Ben asked. “That someone did this to them?”

  “He seems to be, yes. I don’t know the specifics or what led him to that conclusion other than time of death, I think, but that’s what he said.” She looked at Ben across Annie’s shoulder. “When he heard that Ruth and Samuel had been visiting at the Esch farm earlier in the day, he said he’d need to talk to them.”

  “But who would want to do such a thing?” Annie asked as a pair of tears slipped down her milky skin. “Mary and Daniel were so good, so kind. They would not hurt anyone. Ever.”

  Claire stepped back, wiped the wetness from Annie’s cheeks with her thumbs, and then wandered back to the window, Annie’s words and Ben’s growing silence adding to her sudden listlessness. “I don’t know who. And I don’t know why, either. I can’t imagine the answers to questions like that any more than you can. But I know one thing for sure: Jakob will find those answers—one way or the other. And when he does? He’ll make sure justice is served—for Daniel, for Mary, and for everyone who loved them.”

  Chapter 5

  Even without his third yawn in as many minutes, Claire knew Jakob was exhausted. She could see it in the dullness of his eyes, the dark circles beneath them, and the unusual slump to his broad shoulders as he maneuvered his way around tables and chairs with a lidded cup of hot chocolate in each hand.

  “I wish you would have let me get that,” she said, liberating their drinks from his grasp and setting them atop their favorite corner table in Heavenly Brews. “I slept last night. You didn’t.”

  He dropped into his chair with a quiet thud. “Being a gentleman is not sleep dependent,” he teased.

  “Jakob, I’m serious. You look like you could fall over.”

  “I’m okay. Really.”

  “We could have rescheduled, you know. I would have understood.”

  “I didn’t want to reschedule.” He accepted the cup she slid in his direction, popped the lid off, and took a long sip. “With the exception of that too brief visit at your shop this morning, I feel like we’ve been doing the two-ships-passing thing a little more than normal lately. When I’m free, you’ve been in meetings about your holiday event or up to your eyeballs with customers at the shop. When you’re free, I’ve either been working with our new officer, Derek, or . . .” He waved away the rest of his unspoken words and took another sip of his drink. “Anyway, all I’m trying to really say here is that I wasn’t going to let this opportunity to see you disappear—tired or no tired.”

  She smiled at him over the rim of her own cup. “And I’m glad, I really am. I just need you to promise that you’ll find a way to get some sleep tonight. Before you end up getting sick.”

  “I will.”

  “Good. And now that that’s out of the way, can you tell me what it was that made you first realize Daniel and Mary had been—”

  Lifting his finger, he reached into his back pocket, extracted his phone, and, after a quick glance at the screen, silenced the buzzing and flipped the device, upside down, on the table.

  “Is that the station?” she asked. “Because I understand if you need to take it, especially with everything that’s going on right now.”

  “It’s not the station.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, she rewound back to the point of the interruption. “So what was it that made you realize Daniel’s and Mary’s—”

  “You know what? I actually think it might be best if I return that call.” He picked up the phone and pushed back his chair. “You’ll be okay in here by yourself for a few minutes, right? I shouldn’t be long.”

  She followed his eyes down to his phone, and when he didn’t bring them back to her, she swallowed. “Um . . . sure. I’ll be fine. Make your call. There’s no rush. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Good. Thanks.” And then he was gone, his tall form disappearing out the door with nary a glance back.

  Not sure what to make of his odd behavior, she fingered the coffee shop’s logo on the front of her cup and then busied herself by looking at the various flyers tacked to the bulletin board on her left.

  The Heavenly Public Library was hosting a Cookies with Santa event on December sixteenth . . .

  Heavenly Brews was having a hot chocolate tasting on the eighteenth, with a variety of winter flavors being unveiled . . .

  For the third year in a row, Gussmann’s General Store had collection bins behind the store for the purpose of its annual holiday food drive. And for every five food items donated, customers would receive $5 toward their own in-store shopping purchase . . .

  The Breeze Po
int Assisted Living Community, slated to be open by next December, was taking leasing applications for its new state-of-the-art apartments . . .

  Marty Linton, a celebrated baker from the popular Tasty Desserts Network, was returning to his childhood hometown of Heavenly, Pennsylvania, to host a Spring Bake-off. The contest, open to anyone sixteen or over, required an original from-scratch recipe. The grand-prize winner and their recipe would be a featured guest on Linton’s show, Dreaming Up Desserts. Additionally, the recipe would be made and featured in every Linton Bakery location across the country for the entire month of June, with 50 percent of the profits from all sales of the dessert going directly to the winner . . .

  “Wow.” Scanning down to the end of the flyer, Claire narrowed in on a quote from Marty Linton himself: Bring me your best dessert, and you just might end up like me—baking your way to your dreams. “Oh, Annie,” she whispered, “you can win this, I know you can.”

  “It’s Claire, right? You own Heavenly Treasures down the street?”

  Startled, Claire looked up to find a vaguely familiar face smiling back at her. It took a moment, but just as she was fearing she’d have to admit she didn’t know the woman’s name in return, the stocky build, the muted blue-green eyes, and rounded face added together to form a name if not a context in which she belonged. “Yes, and you’re . . . Nancy, aren’t you?”

  The woman she guessed to be in her early to mid-fifties nodded, clearly pleased that Claire remembered her name. “That’s right. I met you for the first time at Esther and Eli’s wedding last fall, and then again at Samuel Yoder’s wedding just a few weeks ago.”

  She pondered the woman’s words, her thoughts racing back through both events in search of the limited number of English who’d been invited. Besides herself and Jakob, it had been Harold and Betty Glick, and a solo Aunt Diane, at Eli and Esther’s wedding. The same had held true at Ruth and Samuel’s wedding, save for the addition of Aunt Diane’s new beau, Bill. Everyone else had been Amish, except—