Dating Can Be Deadly

Book 5: Amish Matchmaker Mystery

by Amanda Flower

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Animal Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

Set in the fan favorite Amish village of Harvest, Ohio, the latest novel in the USA Today bestselling author's Amish Matchmaker series features the unlikely sleuthing duo of an Amish widow and her zany, oft-divorced English best friend.



It's August in Holmes County, and that means it's time for the Holmes County Fair. It's the county's biggest annual event, drawing tourists and locals alike to see livestock, eat too much fried food, and watch the rodeo and speed racing contests. This year, Millie has entered the quilting competition—while her very not Amish best friend, Lois Henry, is distracted by her new dating app and her search for husband number five. In a place where quilting is a way of life, the competition is fierce—especially this year, when an anonymous donor doubles the winning cash prize. Amish and English women are up against each other, and some will do anything to win—even murder . . .



When someone attacks the quilt barn by slashing the quilt display, it's unsettling enough. But when a quilting judge is found murdered, Millie knows it's time to for Lois to get off her app and help her hunt for a killer instead—before the competition is wiped out for good . . .

Release date: October 24, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

“Do you see him?” Lois asked, standing on her tiptoes as she tried to look over the line of people paying for their tickets to enter the Holmes County Fair. “He said he would meet me at the ticket window.”

“How would I know if I’ve seen him if I’ve never met him?” I asked, holding my quilting basket tightly to my middle, so that it wouldn’t get jostled in the crowd. “And neither have you.”

“I’ve seen his picture on the app,” Lois said. “He’s very handsome. I hope that wasn’t just good lighting and filters. I used a filter once and erased my nose, and then I didn’t know how to get it back. I had to take a whole new picture.”

I stared at her. Honestly, I had no idea what Lois was speaking about half the time. She spoke in Englisch riddles to me.

“I want you to be careful. You told me that people can be misleading on this dating app. They post a picture of themselves when they were much younger or use someone else’s picture altogether, and if you can erase your nose, who knows what others are capable of,” I said.

“The nose thing wasn’t on purpose.”

“It never is,” I said and fanned myself in the heat. It was still morning, but morning in the August, the dog days of summer as they say, and even in my short-sleeve cotton dress, I was toasty.

Lois touched her hair. The purple-red spikey tufts on the top of her head didn’t move. She told me once she had to use three different styling products to get her hair to stand upright like that. I didn’t know how she did it. I had never used a styling product on my hair. I knew what it would look like every day. I would twist my long white hair into a bun at the nape of my neck and finish the look with a white Amish prayer cap held in place with hairpins. My clothing choices were just as simple. I wore a plain, solid-colored dress—usually navy blue—and sturdy, black walking shoes. Knowing what I was going to wear everyday did take a lot of the guesswork out of my life.

Lois Henry was my dearest friend in the world, but she was as far from Amish as a person could be. She had that hair—the red/purplish spike kind—she loved bright clothes with multiple patterns, and she never met a piece of costume jewelry or container of eye shadow that she didn’t like. The massive patchwork purse over her arm held everything in the world, or so it seemed. Lois’s purse was the stuff of legend; she could pull just about anything out of it at any time, including a brick. Surprisingly, that brick had come in handy on more than one occasion, so who was I to judge?

She always wore makeup and did her hair, but today, she had gone all out. Her hair was like concrete—not even the thick August humidity was going to take it down—and she wore a purple leopard-print jumpsuit and bright green sneakers.

There was quite the range of fashion at the fair, from plain Amish to Englisch teenagers in shorts so short that the inside of their pockets hung below the hems. But even in that crowd, Lois stood out.

“Virgil would never lie about his pictures on the app. He’s an upstanding man. Why do you think I’m meeting him here? I don’t have time to waste on deadbeats. I’m sixty-eight years old. Chances are he’ll be my next husband. Possibly even my last. That’s debatable though.”

She wasn’t making a joke there. Lois had been married four times already, so it was entirely possible she had multiple husbands in her future.

“Whoa,” I said the same way I told my horse, Bessie, to slow down when she was pulling my buggy. “Whoa. Why are you talking about marriage at all? You haven’t even met him yet.”

“Millie, when you know, you know.”

I folded my arms. “When you know you know? Could this be how you ended up being married four times already?”

“Listen,” Lois said. “I’m not one of those ‘slow burn’ people like you are.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Uriah Schrock? Need I really say more? The two of you have been dancing around each other ever since he returned to Harvest months ago. I don’t have time for that. If I want to be able to walk down the wedding aisle under my own steam and without the aid of a walker, I need to lock Virgil down.”

I rubbed a spot between my eyebrows because I felt a headache forming there. I loved Lois dearly, and I didn’t want her to end up in another bad marriage. She’d had three. Her only good marriage was to her second husband, who left her widowed until she married again.

Lois sucked in a breath. “Oh, I see him. He’s as handsome as his picture. I don’t think he used a filter at all.”

I stood on my toes trying to see. “Where? Where?”

“Millie, stop that; you’ll make a scene,” Lois hissed.

“I’ll make a scene?” I asked, but I stopped trying to look over the crowd.

Lois put a hand to her heart, and the late morning light sparkled in the bright gemstones of her many rings. “He’s standing by the ticket booth waiting for me just like he said he would. Isn’t that the most romantic thing?” She turned to me. “How do I look?”

“Colorful,” I said.

“Perfect. Now, you have to leave.”

“Leave?” I asked.

“You need to get to the quilt barn to hang your quilt anyhow. You don’t even have to buy a ticket. You get to go in as one of the presenters through the other entrance.”

“I know I can, but I want to be with you when you meet Virgil.”

“You can’t be. I don’t want it to look like I need my friend to check him out,” Lois argued.

I believed I did need to check him out for Lois’s sake. She wasn’t as discerning as I thought she should be when it came to men.

“Shoo. Shoo.” She waved me away.

“You’re shooing me away?” I asked.

“Yes, I don’t want Virgil to think I brought a friend because I didn’t trust that he is who he says he is.”

“You might trust him, but I don’t. I want to see him and make sure he’s deserving of you.” I adjusted the heavy quilting basket on my arm. My wrist was beginning to ache from holding it for so long. The quilt itself had to weigh thirty pounds. It was for a king-sized bed.

“Please, Millie.” She looked over her shoulder. “Let me meet him alone first. I’ll come to the quilt barn where you’ll be, and we can bump into each other all natural-like.”

I frowned. “Fine, but I don’t like having to wait. Don’t take too long making your way to the quilt barn. I need to see him.”

And approve of him, I mentally added.

“I won’t. Go!” She peered over the heads of the people in line again.

Shaking my head, I stepped out of the ticket line and walked a little ways down the chain-link fence that surrounded the fairgrounds until I reached the vendor and presenter entrance. There was a small security shed by this entrance, and a large jovial Englisch man in overalls and a bucket hat smiled at me as I approached.

“Good morning, Millie. It’s going to be a hot one today.”

I glanced up at the glaring orange August sun overhead. It was slightly shrouded in a haze of humidity. Sal Dungle, the fairground’s security guard, was right. It was indeed going to be a hot one.

“Are you sure you’re going to be able to stand it in the quilt barn with no AC?”

“Sal, you know I don’t have air conditioning at home—I will do just fine,” I said.

“If you ask me, all those non-Amish ladies are going to melt right into the concrete slab. They aren’t built for these conditions.” Sal grinned. “That might be good for you though, right? You can’t win the quilting competition if you aren’t present for the judging. One of you Amish ladies will be a shoo-in because you won’t faint from the heat.”

“Let’s hope everyone is present for the judging, so the best quilt wins. I also think judging is based on the quilting, not whether you can stand the heat.”

He chuckled. “That’s tough enough from what I hear.” He then waved in a young girl carrying a chicken. She walked upright as if she was quite pleased with the hen she would be presenting to the judges.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“The head judge is Tara Barron.” He whispered the name.

I searched my memory, trying to recall the name Tara Barron, but no one came to mind. Based on her name alone, I assumed she was an Englischer. Her name didn’t sound Amish in the least.

“I’m sure I will be able to handle her, and if I have any trouble at all, I know Lois will be ready to jump to my rescue.” The basket was growing very heavy on my arm at this point, and I knew it was time to move along. If I didn’t set the basket down soon, I would have a permanent bruise.

Sal laughed. “I sure wouldn’t mess with Lois.” He waved me through the gate.

The fairgrounds were filled with the heady scent of manure, hay, and fried food. It took me back to my childhood when my family would come to the fair together. It was one of my favorite memories. That was one of the few times when we truly interacted with the Englisch community. When I was young, the Englisch and Amish communities were much more divided. Now, the lines blurred. Of course, even as a child, I saw Lois every day because she was my next-door neighbor and came to our house all the time to escape her difficult home life. However in those cases, she was entering my turf, not the other way around. Going to the fair had felt like being allowed into the Englisch side of the county with its rides, games, and bright colors.

To my left, I saw a line of games. There was everything from a basketball hoop to a ring toss to a water pistol shooting competition. As I walked down the line of booths, which were doing a good business by the looks of it, the operators shouted in their loud voices for me to come give their games a try. At the end of the game line was a trailer that had been transformed. One end was like a normal trailer, but the rest of the sides and the roof of the trailer were made of chain-link fencing, making a cage of sorts. AXE THROWING FOR STRESS RELIEF was emblazoned on the side.

A young Englisch man stood in the trailer holding a hatchet over his head. He took one step forward and let the hatchet go. The blade dug into the wooden target. “Great job!” the game operator said, and the young man inside jumped up and down with excitement.

Two young people stood by the cage. “Virgil is going to be so mad when he learns you misplaced one of the axes,” said one, a young man who didn’t look a day over sixteen.

My ears perked up at the name Virgil. Was it the same man that Lois was meeting at the fair? It had to be. How many Virgils could there be at the fair on opening day?

The woman he spoke to was just as young. “I didn’t misplace it!” she snapped. “It was right here.”

He rolled his eyes. “It didn’t grow legs and walk off.”

“Well, then that means someone took it,” she snapped.

“That’s not better than its being lost,” he hissed back. “In fact, it’s a whole lot worse.”

I shook my head. I remembered when the fair’s most dangerous game was darts. The axe-throwing seemed a bit extreme. It was a little worrisome to me that the axe-throwing workers weren’t keeping track of their equipment. And how responsible was Virgil to hire these young people who had lost track of one of the axes?

Ahead of me was the horse barn and horse show paddock. I turned right there and passed the line of food stands. My stomach growled. I promised myself that I would get a corn dog just as soon as I could break away from the quilt barn. I wondered if there were any blueberry desserts at the fair. I loved blueberries.

The quilt barn was actually the barn where all the craft judging would be held, including flower arranging, needlework, photography, and other artwork. However, the quilt competition was the premier event. It even rivaled the cattle judging that would happen three barns away. At least it rivaled it in prestige for the winner. Not nearly as many spectators came out for the craft judging as they did for the animals.

The building itself was a white pole barn on a concrete floor. The barn was made of metal, so it felt as if I was walking into a hotbox just as Sal had warned me. All the windows and doors were wide-open, and three huge industrial fans circulated the humid air. I was glad I’d left my large black bonnet at home. It was far too hot for a day like this.

Presenters were all over the barn displaying their work. Quilters hung their prize-worthy quilts on giant mobile walls that could display every inch of the quilt to the public and the judges.

“Millie!” Raellen Raber waved at me from the other end of the large barn.

I waved back. Raellen was a member of Double Stitch, the quilting circle in my Amish district in the small village of Harvest. The group had five members, but Raellen, Iris Young, and I were the only ones who were entering the fair’s quilting competition this year. The bishop’s wife, Ruth Yoder, had also wanted to enter a quilt, but she’d missed the deadline to submit a photograph of her piece to be considered. Knowing Ruth as well as I did, I guessed that she would be at the fair sometime today to complain about that very fact.

I made my way toward Raellen but paused when an Englisch woman stepped into my path. “Observers aren’t supposed to be in the quilt barn yet, just presenters.” She had short, bobbed blond hair and wore jeans and a checked shirt. She held a list in her hand. There was a large purple ribbon on her chest that said JUDGE.

“I’m a presenter. My friend over there”—I pointed at Raellen—“is going to help me hang up my quilt.” I showed her my basket. “She’s a presenter too.”

The woman pressed her mouth into a thin line. “What’s your name?”

“Millie Fisher.”

She consulted the list. “Your name is on here,” she said somewhat reluctantly.

“I’m glad to hear it. May I ask your name?” I nodded at the ribbon. “Judge?”

“Tara Barron. I’m the head judge for the quilting competition and the president of the fair board. I do not abide any foolishness in my barn or anywhere else on the fairgrounds for that matter.”

Ah, so I had now met the judge Sal had warned me about. As for the foolishness comment, I looked down at my Amish garb. I was a sixty-something Amish widow. What foolishness could I get into? I wanted to ask her that. Then I thought of all the tight spots Lois and I had found ourselves in over the years and kept my mouth shut.

Tara looked over my shoulder at someone else coming into the barn. Her face paled slightly, but when I turned to see who she was staring at, I couldn’t tell. There had been numerous people behind me hurrying here and there to get ready for the various arts and crafts events.

“Miss Barron, are you all right?” I asked.

My words snapped her out of her stupor, and she scowled. “Good luck in the competition.”

She stalked away.

I didn’t for a second believe she meant that.

“I see you met Tara,” Raellen said in Pennsylvania Dutch when I joined her on the other side of the pole barn.

It wasn’t lost on me that she spoke in our language so the Englischers in the barn would not know what she was saying.

I replied in kind. “She seems to be a tad on edge.”

“Well, imagine if your quilt shop just burned down and you had to judge a bunch of quilts right after. You’d be on edge too,” Raellen said.

I blinked. “She had a quilt shop that burned down? Where? I thought I knew all the quilt shops in Holmes County.”

“It was a brand-new one in Millersburg called the Thread Spool. From what I heard, it’d only been open a month before it went up in flames. I went there once with Leah to see what fabric she had, and it was a nice selection. She also had some gorgeous quilts there. Some patterns I had never seen before. If I’d had more time to shop, I would have asked about them, but Leah had to leave because she was watching her grandchildren after school. It’s a real shame about the shop. I was planning to go back.”

Leah Bontrager was another member of our quilting circle. She was close to my age and the most practical member of the group. “If the two of you knew about the shop, I’m surprised that you didn’t tell the rest of us.”

“We didn’t want to bring it up at the meeting because the quilt shop is run by an Englischer, and you know how Ruth feels about that.”

I nodded with understanding. I knew very well how Ruth felt about what she considered Amish businesses being run by non-Amish people. Ruth was the self-appointed leader of Double Stitch. She believed she should have the title because she was the bishop’s wife.

“But I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of the fire.” Raellen lowered her voice just a bit, but not enough that a passerby couldn’t overhear. “It happened maybe two or three days ago. There were worries it would jump to other buildings downtown. Can you imagine if the county courthouse went up in flames?” Her eyes glowed as if she could see the inferno. “They say it was arson, and the fire marshal suspects Tara and her ex-husband.”

“Her ex-husband?”

She nodded and took a step closer to me as if she was ready to tell me the whole story about Tara Barron and her ill-fated quilt shop. I wasn’t surprised. Raellen was a sweet woman with a big heart, but she also was a terrible gossip. It didn’t matter if you were Amish or Englisch, she wanted to know your business and you could be sure that she would talk about it. At times this tendency of hers to gossip helped Lois and me when we were in the middle of one of our investigations, but as Raellen’s friend and neighbor, I found it an unwelcome habit.

Just the same, I was aware I wasn’t telling her to stop. I had an odd interest in crime, and hearing about a fire that might have been arson piqued my curiosity. However, there was one very important detail I had to know before she went on. “Was anyone hurt in the fire?”

She shook her head. “Nee, praise Gott for that. It happened in the middle of the night. Maybe one or two in the morning to be more specific. There was no one there. This is both a gut and bad thing. Had someone been there, they would have called for help before the building was too far gone to save it, but at the same time, no lives were at risk.”

I nodded. “Why would the police suspect Tara, and why is her ex-husband involved?”

“The insurance money, of course. You know all the Englischers insure everything. They don’t have a community to lean on like we do.” She shook her head. “It must be very difficult to be Englisch.”

I glanced around the quilt barn for Tara, but I could no longer see her. Raellen was right. It did seem that the Englisch insured everything from their cars to their businesses to their homes and even themselves. That was not the Amish way. Instead, we relied on the community when tragedy struck. If a building were to burn down, everyone in the district would pitch in to rebuild the lost structure. The Englisch had to depend on strangers and insurance companies to do that. It indeed sounded difficult to be Englisch.

Raellen gestured to the quilts around us. “I certainly wouldn’t want to be around all these beautiful quilts when I had lost so much. Wouldn’t it just be a constant reminder of the tragedy?” She patted her prayer cap on the top of her head as if to reassure herself that it was still there. “Then again, if she was the one to burn the place down, maybe it doesn’t matter to her.”

“Raellen,” I said. “Watch your words. People could be listening.”

“I’m not speaking Englisch.”

“I know that, but there are plenty of Amish in this room who could overhear you, and you know how news travels in the community.”

She cocked her head. “Apparently, it doesn’t travel fast enough since you hadn’t heard about the fire.”

“I’m sure I would have if I hadn’t been working at my niece’s greenhouse the last few days helping her plant inventory for the end of the season. This is the first time I’ve even seen Lois this week; there has been so much work to do.”

Raellen seemed to consider my explanation. “I’m surprised Lois didn’t go find you and tell you. She must have known. I’m sure it was all the chatter at the Sunbeam Café.”

The Sunbeam Café was where Lois worked when her granddaughter, Darcy Woodin, the café owner, needed a little extra help. Most of the gossip in Ohio’s Amish Country ended up being exchanged there at some point. However, I think I knew why Lois hadn’t mentioned it. She was far too preoccupied with her upcoming date with Virgil who didn’t use filters, whatever those were. The last few days she had talked about what she planned to wear and planned to say when she met him, and little else. Under those circumstances, I could understand how the fire had slipped her mind.

When Lois fell for a man, she fell hard and with abandon. I didn’t say this to Raellen of course. The only time a person told Raellen anything was when they wanted the news to spread. She had the loosest lips in the district. Not. . .