A Murder of Aspic Proportions

Book 2: Sunflower Café Mystery

by Amy Lillard

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

Synopsis

The award-winning author's brand-new Sunflower Café Mystery series, set in small-town Kansas, features a twenty-something advice columnist turned café manager and sleuth, her loyal Yorkie, farm-fresh produce—and murder. Will appeal to fans of Charlotte Hubbard, Molly Jebber, Susan Lantz Simpson, and Kelly Long.



Twenty-something Sissy Yoder never imagined herself running her Aunt Bethel's café, but her help is needed, so she's making a go of it. And she must admit that life in tiny Yoder has been anything but dull—she's already solved one homicide—after being named the prime suspect in the case! Enjoying a peaceful respite after all that excitement, Sissy just wants to write her advice column, hang out with her loyal Yorkie, Duke, and procure some of local farmer Walt Summers's scrumptious "To Die For" tomatoes for the Sunshine Café’s menu. But when the unsavory Summers—resented by just about everyone in town—turns up murdered in his garden shed, it's up to Sissy to roll up her sleeves, dig for some clues, and weed out the culprit . . .

Release date: June 27, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

“ ‘To Die For Tomatoes One Quarter Mile Ahead.’ ” Sissy read the sign as she and her aunt, Bethel Yoder, passed by. Usually, Sissy was hard pressed to get her aunt to ride around in her “little car,” as Bethel called the convertible Fiat, but today she didn’t have a choice. Not since Sissy offered to drive Bethel to her doctor appointment to have her cast removed in front of witnesses. The offer, that was: Sissy had made the offer in front of witnesses. No one but the tech and Sissy witnessed the removal of the cast. The cast that had brought Sissy to Yoder in the first place.

And if she wanted that cast off, what could Bethel do but hang onto her prayer kapp and frown at Sissy as they zoomed along?

Though Sissy’s parents had left the Amish and moved to Oklahoma before Sissy was born, the rest of the family had remained in Kansas and kept to the Plain lifestyle. Bethel and her family being some of the ones who remained.

“That’s a bold statement to make,” Sissy continued.

Her aunt shot her a look, which happened a lot, though Sissy had a difficult time figuring out what some of the looks meant. It might be that Sissy was bothering her aunt by chattering on or that Bethel had to go to the bathroom. These looks could go either way. “I don’t know about bold, but I’d say a quarter mile is understating it a bit.”

“I was talking about the ‘to die for’ part,” Sissy clarified. Honestly, her aunt could be so literal.

“They are pretty tasty.”

“To die for tasty?” Sissy pressed.

“Maybe.” Perhaps the biggest compliment she had ever heard her aunt deliver.

Sissy had decided that since she and Bethel were already going to be away from the café today, it was the perfect time to check out the local tomato crop. Now that the cast had been removed, they were on their way to the Summers’ Tomato Farm, the pride of Yoder, Kansas, owned and operated by Walt Summers, most hated man in the area. Or, at least, that’s what her cousin Lizzie had told her. But Bethel’s daughter hadn’t had time to finish the juicy tidbit before Bethel herself shushed Lizzie for gossiping. Honestly, poor Lizzie was trapped in the house, spending most of her time in one bedroom, on bed rest, as she awaited the birth of her boy-girl twins. What else did the sweet-but-bored mamm-to-be have to do but gossip? Still, when Bethel spoke, most everyone in her vicinity listened. She just had that way about her.

“If they’re as good as everyone says they are, then we’re going to have a great summer at the café.” Sissy smiled, pleased with her plan.

The Sunflower Café was one of the five places to eat in Yoder, including the Carriage House Restaurant, the Bull in Your Eye Diner, the deli at the Yoder Meat Market, and home.

Sissy supposed it was more accurate to say that the café was the real reason that she had made the temporary move from Tulsa to Yoder, Kansas. So she could help.

When Bethel had broken her leg and Lizzie had been prescribed immediate bed rest, it was Sissy to the rescue. Of course, it didn’t hurt that she had just caught her boyfriend cheating, and he just happened to be her roommate’s brother, and . . . sigh. Some things were better left in the past.

Sissy pulled her shiny red convertible into the gravel drive. The large white sign next to the road declared that she had indeed arrived at the correct place, but it seemed deserted.

“Not many people around for the best tomatoes in three counties,” she commented as she cut the engine.

Bethel removed her hand from the top of her head, where it had been holding her prayer covering to keep it from blowing away in the wind and harrumphed, her favorite vocalization, Sissy was certain. She made another disapproving noise in the back of her throat. “I don’t know why we’re even here.”

Sissy got out of the car, and Bethel grudgingly followed suit. Her aunt was nothing if not testy, but the woman worked so hard every day, Sissy had determined that her grouchy attitude was merely one of focus and determination. At least, that’s what she wanted it to be. See in the weeks that she had been in Kansas, Sissy had reluctantly grown fond of her aunt, and she didn’t want the woman to be as unhappy as she appeared. She couldn’t be, Sissy decided. Not with a thriving business, two new grandbabies on the way, and a solid, white two-story on the edge of Yoder. Focus and determination, that was all.

From the back seat, Duke, her precious Yorkie, barked as if to say, Don’t forget me!

Sissy turned back to the car and retrieved the dog, who had been usurped from the coveted front-seat position since Bethel was traveling with them.

“We’re here because we need to add a few new items to the café’s menu,” Sissy reminded Bethel. She hooked Duke’s leash to his harness and set him on the ground in front of her.

“So you say,” her aunt grumbled.

“And Josie agrees.” Though Sissy still wasn’t a hundred percent sure of Josie’s on-the-levelness, she and the café’s main cook had grown into a kind of uneasy truce these days. Sissy supposed Josie was just as skeptical of her as she was of the cook. But they had teamed up to broaden the menu while adding a few healthier choices for the diners.

The idea had come to Sissy a few weeks ago when she was talking to town legend Howard Yoder. Howard was a disabled Vietnam vet who rode around town on a purple Jazzy scooter and conked people with his cane if they didn’t move out of his way fast enough. Howard had recently stopped eating at the Sunflower Café because Bethel had stopped serving chili dogs. He had lamented the fact to Sissy, saying that her aunt had gotten on a health kick and taken his favorite lunch item off the menu.

In truth, Bethel was unhappy with the changes the meat company she used had made in the hot dogs themselves and decided they weren’t worth the hassle. But the seed had been planted for Sissy. And since the tomatoes were red, ripe, and delicious, it seemed the perfect place to start.

“We can make caprese salad, tomato aspic, bruschetta.” Sissy ticked off the new dishes, one by one, on her fingers.

“I don’t even know what those are,” Bethel grumped. She shut the car door and looked around, her mouth turned down at the corners in her signature frown. “Where is everybody?”

For a place that sold “to die for tomatoes,” it certainly was dead. Pun completely intended.

“I don’t know,” Sissy replied. It was better to acknowledge the question, which wouldn’t bring a whole host of queries about tomato dishes, and just focus on the lack of workers at the tomato farm. “He doesn’t work on the honor system, does he?”

Several of the Amish houses had little shops out front and sold everything from home-canned goods to tasty baked items. Some left a box or ajar for the customers to put money in if there was no one around to help them. But this didn’t look like the same sort of setup, and Walt Summers, owner of the Summers’ Tomato Farm, was not Amish.

“Not that I’ve heard.” Bethel walked toward the wooden stand, where several baskets of tomatoes sat, just waiting to be sold. As she lumbered along, Sissy noted that she limped a bit, no doubt the muscles in her recently de-casted leg getting used to working once again without their fiberglass support.

Sissy never had found out how Bethel broke her leg, though she had heard many wild variations of the story. So many that she wasn’t sure if anyone other than Bethel herself knew the truth.

Sissy glanced toward the house, but there was no fluttering at a window or any movement to make her think someone was inside watching and waiting for customers, as sometimes was the case.

“He’s around here somewhere.”

Sissy wished she had the same confidence she heard in Bethel’s voice. And she never thought that this idea would ever cross her mind, but a deserted tomato farm was a bit eerie. “Maybe he’s in the growing shed.”

Growing shed was not the best term for the structure that sat halfway between the end of the drive, where Sissy had parked, and the house itself, where Walt Summers lived. The shed was a four-sided building with walls formed of a light-filtering mesh. The top was made of screening, no doubt to keep out the bugs and other vermin and still allow more than enough of the Kansas sun to come through. And even though all five sides were covered, she could see enough to know that no one was inside.

“You don’t think—” Sissy couldn’t finish the thought. Mainly because there were too many thoughts hitting her brain all at once. She didn’t know how old or healthy Walt Summers was, but she had heard of people younger than their teens having heart attacks and dying. Or perhaps he had been robbed, conked on the head, and left for dead. Or tied to a chair like in the Die Hard movie. Or kidnapped for ransom. Or perhaps she was just being a bit dramatic.

Bethel started toward the entrance of the growing shed, a modified screen door covered in the same light-filtering mesh as everything else. “Be careful,” she told her aunt. “There’s a lot of standing water around here.”

Ripple upon ripple of water seeped from under the walls of the growing shed and reached out in all directions. The wetness spread even farther the longer they stood there.

Duke happily started through one of the patches of water, until Sissy scooped him up in her arms. In addition to not wanting wet, muddy feet in the back of her car, she couldn’t be certain how deep the puddles were, and Duke, for all of his fierceness, was a very tiny dog.

“Sissy,” Bethel called. Her aunt stood, one foot inside the growing shed and one foot out, the screen door propped open on one ample hip.

“Is he in there?” Sissy asked, but she could tell from the sound of her aunt’s voice that something was wrong. She minced her way through the puddles, which seemed to be getting deeper, and lamented that she had picked today, of all days, to wear new white canvas shoes.

“He’s in here,” Bethel replied.

Sissy pushed past her aunt but stopped after taking one giant step into the growing shed. From the inside, the place looked even larger and even more impressive. Given any other time and any other day, Sissy would’ve stopped in that same position in awe.

She could almost imagine what the place should have looked like.

Rows upon rows of beautiful tomato plants propped up lovingly with wooden stakes and pieces of twine. Marigolds planted painstakingly in short rows between the cash crop, no doubt there to keep the insects away from the fruit-bearing plants. It was a trick her mother swore by. Buckets of Walt’s own Special Blend of fertilizer sat along the perimeter, stacked three high. They looked like the buckets the pickles came in for the café, but these were blue, with a logo consisting of a fat tomato intertwined with the SF of Summers’ Farm.

That’s what it should have looked like. But not today.

Oh, the blue buckets of not-pickles and the marigolds were in place; even a few of the stakes had been left in the ground, pieces of twine dangling like forlorn windsocks from where they had been tied, but the tomato plants themselves were missing. Pile after pile of dark rich soil sat upturned in what had once been neat rows. Whoever had done this had grabbed the plants and ripped them out of the ground, roots and all. A few tomatoes, both red and green, lay scattered about, most trampled, no doubt, by the bootheel of the plant burglar.

The ground under their feet was soggy, and a garden hose continued to leak water onto the churned-up earth, nearly drowning the bright yellow marigolds. By all appearances, it looked as if the crop had been ripped up and carted away while someone was watering the plants.

And that someone was lying face down in front of the high-topped wooden planting table that sat in one corner, stacked with supplies necessary for the growing side of the business—starter trays, small pots, and stakes, along with twine and other gardening equipment.

“Is that—” Sissy started.

It seemed to take a great deal of effort, but Bethel started her feet into motion and made her way over to the man. At least, Sissy thought it was a man. From where she stood, she couldn’t see the face of the person, but the industrial-blue pants and the mud-caked work boots seemed to indicate the person was male.

“Walt Summers,” Bethel reported.

Sissy waited for her aunt to continue, though she had an overwhelming feeling that she didn’t want to hear what Bethel had to say next.

“He’s dead.”

“He can’t be dead,” Sissy protested.

“Well, he is.”

Why was this happening again?

“Are you sure?” Sissy inched closer. She didn’t want to be closer, but she felt pulled toward the prone figure.

“Come see for yourself.”

That was probably the last thing she wanted to do, and yet she found herself standing next to her aunt, looking down into the vacant eyes of Walt Summers. Well, eye. His head was turned to the side, one arm under him, the other stretched wide. In his hand, he clutched a pink piece of paper that looked like an invoice. Sissy could barely make out the letters PIP in bold across the top. He was lying on the garden hose, which gushed water out and around him. The ground had been turned into a muddy, soupy mess.

“He wasn’t stabbed,” Sissy whispered in awe. But even as she said the words, she knew that not all dead people were stabbed. Somehow, though, that’s exactly what she had been expecting. Yet just because he was dead didn’t mean that he had been murdered. He could have had a stroke or a heart attack or—

“Looks like someone conked him on the head.” Bethel gestured toward him.

“I think you’re right.” Details started to rise through the fog of shock at finding the tomato farmer dead. Blood had trickled from the ear they could see, and a lump the size of a goose egg had begun to take shape in his thinning gray hair. A baseball cap advertising YODER SOD AND FEED lay off to one side. It was splattered with blood, making her think that perhaps he had been wearing it when he had been attacked. A shovel rested on the ground a few feet away as if it had been tossed there by a careless hand.

Duke barked and squirmed to get down. Until that moment, Sissy hadn’t realized that she had been tightly clutching the poor pooch to her chest. “Shush,” she told him, but kissed him on the top of his tiny head. “You have to stay with me.”

He barked in response.

Bethel shook her head at the two of them and turned her attention back to the scene at their feet. “Whoever did this must have taken the tomato plants.”

It was only logical.

“Do you suppose they hit him to knock him out so they could take the plants and accidentally killed him in the process?”

Bethel grumped. “How am I supposed to know?”

“We should turn off the water,” Sissy said.

“We should call the police,” Bethel countered.

“The police!” Her aunt was right: The police needed to be there. Sissy hadn’t thought about that. Honestly, finding another dead body in such a short period of time had her head a bit muddled. “I should call 9-1-1.”

“Jah.” Bethel shot her a pointed look.

“Oh.” Sissy shuffled Duke from her right arm to her left and felt her pocket. Keys, but no phone. “I must have left it in the car.”

“Then go get it.” Bethel’s patience was beginning to run thin.

“Right,” Sissy said. She started backing out of the growing shed as if she couldn’t turn away from the body or . . . something; it didn’t matter. She couldn’t just ignore its presence. Another dead body and another possible murder. A farm of tomatoes vandalized and most likely destroyed. It seemed Walt Summers’s tomatoes really were to die for.

As Sissy and Duke backed out of the growing shed, Bethel tsked, and Sissy thought she heard her say, “What’s this town coming to?”

Sissy called the emergency number, and Bethel turned off the water. Now all they had to do was wait for the deputy to show up. Surely, a dead man at a tomato farm trumped traffic tickets and bar fights. Not that there were many bar fights in Yoder. There weren’t many bars, come to think of it. And it was just after noon, a fact Sissy’s stomach reminded her of with an empty growl. She should have swung by a McDonald’s or something while they were in Hutchinson. As it was, they would be lucky to get out of here before dark.

Still, she couldn’t help reminding herself that her problems were nothing compared to those of Walt Summers.

“Is he married?” Sissy asked with a small nod toward the growing shed.

She and Bethel had moved back into the yard to wait for the police. Since she couldn’t have Duke ruining a crime scene, on top of running around in the mud and getting filthy, she was still holding him close. Now her arms were beginning to grow tired from carrying him around. He didn’t weigh much at all, but it was enough that, after a while, she could feel the extra strain.

“Walt?” Bethel asked. “Jah.”

Sissy looked back to the house. “Should we see if his wife is home?”

How strange would that be, to knock on her door and have her answer, not knowing that her husband had just been killed sometime before.

Bethel shrugged. “I suppose.”

Together, they started toward the back door.

“Should we go to the front?” Sissy asked. Her footsteps were slowing of their own accord. Honestly, she didn’t actually tell her feet to slow down, but it was happening all the same. The last thing she wanted to do was tell a stranger that her husband was dead. Or tell anyone that anyone was dead, for that matter.

“Bah,” Bethel said.

Sissy took that as a no.

“You knock.” She held back and waited for her aunt to climb the small stoop that led to the back entrance, with its glass and screen storm door. Just two layers between them and telling a woman her husband was gone.

Bethel knocked on the door loud enough to wake Walt himself, but no one came to the summons. Sissy took a step back and looked toward the windows. The house was still, eerily quiet. Sissy didn’t know if Walt and his wife had a pet, but if they had a dog, he surely would’ve started barking at the commotion they were making outside. Then again, he might be used to people coming and going at all times, seeing as how this was their place of business as well as their residence. The truth of it was she didn’t want Walt Summers’s wife to be home. She didn’t know the woman, and she surely didn’t want to tell her that the police were on their way. Yet there was no getting around the consideration aspect of the situation. If the wife was in the house, then she surely should be notified the police were coming before Earl Berry just showed up on her doorstep. Then another, more horrible thought seared through Sissy’s imagination. “What if—what if she’s dead too?”

For the first time since Sissy had met her, Bethel Yoder appeared shaken. Her aunt took a step back from the door, as if standing too close to it would somehow bring a bad omen onto herself. “No,” Bethel whispered.

Perhaps that was why the house was so still. Perhaps that was why no curtains moved, no pet barked, no one was answering. A helter-skelter image of blood-smeared walls flitted through Sissy’s overactive imagination before she put the brakes on her own thoughts. Still, she managed to choke out, “Maybe we should just wait for Berry to get here.”

Bethel took another sma. . .