A Murder for the Sages

Book 3: Sunflower Café Mystery

by Amy Lillard

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Culinary Cozy Mysteries; Female Sleuths; Mystery

Synopsis

Twenty-something advice columnist and amateur sleuth Sissy Yoder loves helping out at her Aunt Bethel’s Sunflower Café in Yoder, Kansas. It connects her to family, to the close-knit community—and to the suspicious events that always seem to bubble beneath small-town life . . .

The unusual death of local herb farmer, Ginger Reed, is the talk of Yoder. Naturally, Sissy is intrigued. The official report classifies Ginger’s demise as an accident, concluding that she ran herself over with a tractor. But Sissy’s cousin, Naomi, a friend and longtime employee of Ginger’s, insists that’s impossible. When she asks for Sissy’s help in unearthing the truth, Sissy’s on the case—accompanied as ever by her loyal Yorkie companion, Duke . . . 

The deeper Sissy digs, the longer the list of suspects grows—and none of them are Ginger. Near the top is Ginger’s resentful sister-in-law, Mallory. Next is Naomi’s brother, Lloyd, who’s bitter about the oil derrick presumably pumping black gold from Ginger’s land—land that once belonged to his family. Naomi herself could be a suspect—it’s her tractor, after all. But the investigation stalls when Naomi makes a shocking turnaround in her story. Is she lying? And if so, why? Then a missing dog, a desperate lawyer, and a teenage con artist are added to the mix, and the puzzle becomes hopelessly complicated. If Sissy doesn’t solve it quickly, she’ll be lost in the weeds as a killer reaps a deadly harvest . . .

Release date: June 25, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

“Well, it seems to me that somethin’ like that would be durn-near impossible.” George Waters looked around the Sunflower Café to see what sort of support he got.

Trucker hats and balding heads bobbed all around. It was the general consensus. Yesterday’s happenings in tiny Yoder, Kansas, were “durn-near impossible.” Or, as Sissy Yoder liked to say, extremely unlikely. But she was not about to jump into this conversation.

After months of living in the small, unincorporated community, she was still an outsider. She had a feeling she might always be. At least, for as long as she stayed there. Which was something that was yet to be determined.

She took the fresh pot of coffee from the waitress station and started making her way through the small dining area, listening to the talk as she did.

“I mean, how does someone run over themselves with their own tractor?”

Truthfully, it was something that Sissy had never contemplated, but she had to agree, even if she didn’t want to come up with the mental picture to go along with it. The thought was too horrible to imagine. Then to know—well, reportedly from Tammy Elliot, the biggest gossip in the Yoder area—that Ginger Reed had not only run herself over but managed to almost chop off her own head . . .

Sissy silently shuddered and moved to the next table, still filling coffee cups in the standing-room-only café.

It was a gathering place of sorts, this tiny little eatery, where farmers and businessmen alike could convene and discuss the weather, how the Jayhawks were doing, or the latest tragedy. Folks came in, ate, then lingered for the gossip. It was a normal occurrence, just not on this scale. This was something else entirely. As Aunt Bess would say, “You couldn’t swing a dead cat in there without hitting someone.” Never mind why you would be swinging a dead cat. Or a cat of any kind, for that matter.

The Sunflower Café wasn’t the only place in Yoder to get breakfast in the morning. The Carriage House also opened at six, with good food and baked goods, but it didn’t have the close, homey feel that the café offered its diners.

“Maybe it was like this.” Collis Perry pushed himself up onto his arthritic knees and proceeded to demonstrate his theory. “Something happens and she falls off the tractor. Then something happens and the tractor gets put into reverse. Then something happens and it backs over her.” He held out his hands as if he had uncovered the biggest mystery on the planet.

“So what made her fall off the tractor?” someone asked as Collis lowered himself back into his seat, leaning heavily on his cane to do so.

“Maybe she had a heart attack,” Brady Samuelson suggested. Like Collis, he was as old as dirt. Or maybe it was the weathered face of a farmer that aged him beyond his years.

“Well, that’s a possibility for sure.” George Waters jumped back into the conversation. “She wuddn’t no spring chicken.”

“She was fifty-nine,” Sissy muttered.

“What was that, dear?” Lottie asked as Sissy placed the coffeepot back on the burner and reached for the pitcher of water to make more rounds. There weren’t many new orders going out at the moment, so Sissy was making sure everyone had something to drink. She was sure all this talking, aka terrible theorizing, was making everyone thirsty.

Lottie Foster had been friends with Sissy’s aunt Bethel for as long as anyone could remember, maybe even before the two became neighbors. But it was only recently that Lottie had come to work at the Sunflower Café, Bethel’s eatery right there in the heart of Yoder.

Right now, the plump woman was ringing up customers who were—thankfully—paying their tabs before continuing to stand around and talk.

“Nothing,” Sissy muttered, then started for the first table with the water pitcher.

“Well, maybe it was just her heart,” Jimmy Joe Bartlett said. “Her daddy had a heart problem and died before his fifty-second birthday.” No one questioned the man as to how he knew how old Ginger’s daddy was when he died. Jimmy Joe might look dumber than a bag of hammers, but he was as smart as they came. Sissy had gotten to know him earlier in the year after she and Bethel had stumbled upon Walt Summers’s body at the Summers’ Tomato Farm.

Jimmy Joe farmed sunflowers and had a beautiful field out east of town. But that was another story.

Heads bobbed in agreement.

“Yep. Heart attack. That sounds about right.” Brady Samuelson looked around to see if everyone was in agreement. Just about everybody seemed to be, and Sissy supposed that was the most logical explanation for Ginger falling off her tractor, if that was indeed what had happened.

“So how did the tractor get into reverse?” somebody asked. Sissy couldn’t tell who it was from her place beside the small window her aunt used to hand the food off to the front workers.

“Order up,” Bethel called, even though Sissy was right there the whole time and there was no way her aunt hadn’t seen her. But that was Bethel, more than a little cantankerous, and though she still needed Sissy’s help at the restaurant, she continually asked Sissy when she was leaving Yoder and heading back to Tulsa.

Sissy managed not to shake her head at her aunt and picked up the plate of bacon, eggs, and hash browns that Bethel had slid through the window.

She took the meal out to table four, where Wynn Brown was sitting with Nathan Silvers. Nathan and his wife, Candy, had recently bought the florist shop down the way next to the only gas station in Yoder. Sissy had gotten to know them a bit when her cousin Lizzie had the twins.

Wynn was one of two attorneys in town. She had met him on occasion, but only because he came into the café on a regular basis. Like a lot of folks, he had his normal day for breakfast out and that was usually Monday. Seeing as today was Friday, she had been a little surprised to see him. But she supposed, like everyone else in town, Wynn had stopped by to catch up on the gossip more than he needed to eat.

He seemed unusually quiet. Or maybe the café was unusually loud. Could be either.

“Shoelaces,” Collis Perry said with a knowing nod. “I bet her shoelaces got caught up on the gas pedal. Then, when she fell, the tractor kept moving.”

George nodded in agreement but replied, “That still doesn’t tell us how the tractor ended up in reverse.”

“Maybe when she fell she hit the gearshift,” Collis countered.

Was that even possible? Sissy had no idea, but she made a mental note to ask her cousin Lizzie about it later. Sissy had never driven a tractor, but the Amish in Yoder used them the way the Englisch, or non-Amish folks, used cars.

It must have satisfied some of the men, for a few nods could be seen in the crowd. It really was the hot topic of the day.

What couldn’t be determined was whether Ginger was alive when she was run over. It was speculated that the fact could be determined when an autopsy was performed. Or maybe if an autopsy was performed. Because it seemed like such an accident, her death was not suspicious at all. Sissy wasn’t sure what had to happen for an autopsy to be mandatory, but she did understand that in the big scheme of things, an accidental death by tractor would be far down on the list of urgent matters to attend to.

And yet . . .

Sissy eased through the tables and back to the kitchen.

“I just don’t understand it,” Josie was saying as Sissy came in.

Josie Calavara was the main cook there at the café. She worked five days a week slinging hamburgers and eggs, not necessarily at the same time. She was dark and gypsylike and had the brooding attitude to go with her devil-may-care style.

When Sissy had first arrived in Yoder and started to work, she didn’t care much for Josie. She was just so . . . intense about some things, while others she swept under the rug and ignored when it suited her. Today, however, she seemed more out of sorts than Sissy had ever seen her.

“There’s not much to understand,” Lottie said reassuringly. She patted Josie on the arm in her mother-hen manner. “It was a terrible accident.”

“But was it?” Sissy nearly slapped her hand over her mouth, but it was too late. The words were out. One day she would learn to keep her mouth shut.

Her aunt turned away from the grill she had been scraping with a large metal spatula. Nothing was cooking, which was a rare occurrence, but Sissy supposed that was what happened when everyone in the diner had been fed, but no one was leaving. No new customers could come in and take their place and order food. The café was stalled. But Sissy was certain it couldn’t last much longer. People would eventually have to go to work. Wouldn’t they . . . ?

“Of course it was an accident. You have a suspicious mind, Sissy Yoder.” Bethel turned back to the grill and continued her chore.

Maybe she did and maybe she didn’t. But despite the most logical explanation for the phenomenon of Ginger Reed running over herself with her own tractor—that reason being that she had a heart attack and fell off, somehow knocking the gearshift into reverse in the process, and not some weird government experimental program of self-propelled, remote-controlled farm equipment—something about the whole situation wasn’t quite right.

“It’s just—” She stopped herself from continuing. “Know what? Never mind.”

“You know what’s going to happen now,” Josie said, looking at each of them in turn. Her dark eyes held a serious light that pricked at Sissy’s conscience. “They’re going to blame Randy Williams for this.”

“How can they blame him for an accident?” Bethel countered as she squirted water onto the hot grill. Steam rose in a thick cloud and she pushed what water remained to the back of the grill, where the drip pan connected.

“I think she means if they determine that it wasn’t an accident,” Lottie put in. She continued to pat Josie’s arm.

“Who’s Randy Williams?” Sissy asked. “And why would they come back and say it wasn’t an accident after already saying that it was?”

“Because Earl Berry is in charge of the investigation, for one,” Bethel said with a stern frown. Seriously, Sissy loved her aunt, but the woman was about as grumpy as one single person could be. She was a curmudgeon. An Amish curmudgeon.

Though Sissy had to admit she felt the same way about the local deputy.

Bethel placed the spatula to one side and propped her hands on her ample hips. She wasn’t fat, Sissy’s aunt Bethel, but solid. Solid, solid, solid.

“I need a smoke.” Josie didn’t bother to ask if it was a good time for a break. Instead, she pushed past them all and out the back door to her smoking corner by the dumpster.

“Who is Randy Williams?” Sissy asked again.

Bethel looked to Lottie, who clasped her hands together and turned to Sissy. “Local ne’er-do-well, I suppose you could say. He’s been in one kind of trouble or another since the day he was born.”

“So why are we talking about him?” And, more importantly, why would he be suspected in Ginger’s murder, if indeed the herb farmer had been murdered? No one knew anything for sure other than the well-liked woman was dead.

“He just got out of prison,” Lottie explained. Bethel harrumphed. As far as Sissy could tell, it was her favorite response.

“And he’s back in town,” Lottie continued.

Bethel harrumphed once again.

“Why would he murder Ginger Reed?”

Lottie shook her head. “Josie’s just worried about her brother. One day he’ll get out and he’ll be like Randy. Everyone always blaming everything on him because they can.”

That didn’t seem fair at all. But as Aunt Bess, aka Sissy Yoder, liked to say, Fair is where you get cotton candy.

It wasn’t the most comfortable thing she did. Playing Aunt Bess and keeping her true identity a secret was harder than it looked. Then there was the actual advice-giving. Good thing . . . like most people, Sissy was better at giving advice than taking it herself.

Not heeding good advice when it was dished out was the exact reason Sissy had come to Yoder in the first place. That and one failed relationship with one handsome but untrustworthy bull rider and one broken leg belonging to her aunt. And don’t forget one cousin previously on bed rest, now with two tiny babies to care for. But if Sissy had only listened to her mother about Colt . . .

Well, maybe she would have come to Yoder anyway. Helping out your kin was good karma, and with all the secrets she kept and half-truths she told, Sissy could use all the good karma she could get.

“So you think that if they—and by they, I mean Earl Berry—decide that Ginger’s death was not an accident, Randy Williams will be blamed simply because he has a checkered past?” Sissy looked from Lottie to Bethel for confirmation.

Lottie shot her a look. “It’s more than checkered. Believe you me. And I don’t think he’s changing anytime soon.”

“Still.” Sissy shook her head. It wasn’t fair, but she wasn’t about to say the words. Her aunt was right. Change was hard. Changing yourself even harder. Even if you wanted to.

“Small towns.” Lottie gave a loose-shoulder, half-apologetic shrug.

“Yeah,” Sissy muttered in reply. Small towns could be like that, but mostly the good outweighed the bad when you lived in a place where everyone knew your name. But if that name was always associated with trouble . . .

How was a person supposed to overcome that?

Given that they even wanted to?

And who said Randy Williams wanted to?

But murder . . .

“Still,” Bethel broke into Sissy’s rambling thoughts, “everyone deserves a second chance. A chance to change and prove themselves once more.”

It was the Amish way. Sissy knew it well from her ex-Amish upbringing. Her parents might have left the church before she was born, but they were all about forgiveness. They had done their best to instill that same compassion in their children. Sissy tried to uphold their gentle ways, but she seemed to fail miserably every time the chance arose.

“Does he even know Ginger?” she asked.

“How should I know?” Bethel grumped as Lottie said, “I suppose so. Everyone knows everyone in Yoder.”

Sissy knew that to be true as well. It was a small, small, small, small, small, small, small town.

“Better go check the front, hun,” Lottie said. She turned Sissy around and marched her back into the dining area.

Not much had changed in the time Sissy was in the kitchen. Everyone was still there, coffee cups mostly full, practically ignored, as they all tried to solve the mystery that was Ginger’s death.

The only thing different was that Deputy Earl Berry, local law enforcement officer, had slipped onto stool number three, his standard place in the café.

She nodded in Berry’s direction. She didn’t ask for his order; he always got the same thing. Every morning that he came in—which to Sissy’s chagrin was practically every morning—Earl Berry ate three eggs over hard with half a side of bacon and sausage each, along with a large slice of tomato and a piece of toast with a dab of gravy. Sissy was all about routine, but every morning? Ugh.

She made her way behind the counter to the window that opened into the kitchen. “Deputy’s here.”

“Got it,” Josie hollered in return. Apparently, her smoke break was over. But Sissy knew from past experience that it wouldn’t be long before the next one.

Josie was something of a Nervous Nellie. Sissy had discovered this early on in her move to Yoder. Josie tried to hide that anxiety with nicotine. She might be fooling some, but Sissy had her pegged on that one. Not that she could blame the woman. Josie had been through a lot in her life, including trying to support her brother in state prison.

Sissy nodded once more to the deputy and went to fetch the coffeepot from the waitress station. They might not be drinking the coffee, but the least she could do would be to warm it up for them in case they changed their minds.

She made her way around the café, listening to the same old talk from the same old people.

It was an accident.

It wasn’t an accident.

She pulled the tractor into reverse by mistake.

Heart attack. One hundred percent.

It was all a government cover-up.

Perhaps aliens were responsible.

“Listen up.” Earl Berry hoisted himself from the stool. He hitched up his gun belt, a measure to remind everyone just who he was and what power he wielded. “We have done our investigation and concluded that it was an accident. An unfortunate, terrible, tragic accident.”

The clamor of voices almost had Sissy dropping the coffeepot to the floor and covering her ears to protect them.

“Hold on! Hold on!” Berry yelled above the hubbub. “I know you all have questions, but you can rest assured that your friend did not die as the result of being run over by a tractor. She died from a heart attack and fell. It’s as simple as that.”

A low murmur rose from the crowd this time. Curiosity appeased, some folks slapped their bills on the table and headed out.

“Order up,” Josie called from the kitchen window. Sissy went to fetch Earl Berry’s food. She gave him a pointed, reserved smile as she slid the plate in front of him. Then she refilled his coffee.

Despite Berry’s assurances to the contrary, Sissy believed now more than ever that foul play had befallen Ginger Reed. Mostly because Earl Berry said it hadn’t.

Okay, so he had accused her of murder shortly after she moved to Yoder. Like three days shortly, and some hurts ran too deep to be forgotten.

But murder by tractor? Who had ever heard of such a thing?

“All right. All right,” Sissy told her three-and-a-half-pound, ferocious Yorkie later that day. “I’m hurrying.”

Duke barked at her again from his place on the bed. Even though her mattress was low to the ground, she didn’t allow him to jump down from the bed. He was too tiny for that, though he had no idea just how tiny he was. He did, however, know how cute he was and he used it to his advantage. Often.

Sissy took the casserole pan from the microwave oven and set it on the hot pad. Having such a tiny kitchen could be a challenge on family dinner night, but she had learned to cook a couple of tasty meals in the microwave. Though she had bought a larger one than the tiny, barely-big-enough-to warm-up-a-cup-of-coffee model that was provided with her apartment. But what could she expect when living in a converted chicken house? Everything was tiny.

But she thought the little house—affectionately known around town as the Chicken Coop—was charming, adorable, and something of an adventure. She didn’t think her family saw it that way.

Duke barked again.

“I know,” Sissy told him. She dropped the pot holder and grabbed the green leash hanging by the door.

It was Friday and family dinner night at the Yoders’. Well, at the Bethel Yoders. Or should she say the Daniel Schrocks’? After all, her cousin Li. . .