Gingerbread Danger

Book 9: Amish Candy Shop Mystery

by Amanda Flower

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

Synopsis

For fans of Laura Childs' Tea Shop Mysteries and Ellery Adams'  Culinary Cozy Mysteries, the Ohio-set Amish Candy Shop series combines a fascinating look at Amish life with the fun of candy making, plus the romance between chocolatier Bailey King and her county sheriff fiancé.

Amish Candy shop owner and star of TV’s Bailey’s Amish Sweets, Bailey King has a lot to be excited about.  She’s happily engaged to Aiden Brody, newly appointed county sheriff, and her candy factory is finally having its grand opening in Harvest, Ohio—just before Christmas! Bailey is ready to let the sweet celebrations
begin . . .

With the help of local community organizer Margot Rawlings, Harvest will have a Candy Land themed Christmas on the village square—featuring Bailey’s recently perfected recipe for gingerbread men. When the big day comes, everything is going well—until bitter news arrives. One of Bailey’s Amish friends has been killed in an apparent accident just outside the candy factory. Aiden is promptly on the case—with more than a little input from Bailey . . .

Together, they soon learn that the victim was working for some powerful men in the county, and in doing so was spying on his own Amish community. Still, Bailey is determined to find the perpetrator. If she can’t cut out the killer from the rest of the suspects, her gingerbread men won’t be the only ones in danger of disappearing . . .

Release date: October 22, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

If you have never had to clean taffy off a pig, consider yourself lucky. I wasn’t one of the lucky ones.

Jethro, my future mother-in-law’s polka-dotted potbellied pig, was covered from his snout to the tip of his curly tail in sticky gingerbread taffy. He smelled like an exploded gingerbread house. Not that I had ever smelled such a thing, but I could imagine this would be the scent. The little pig looked up at me with his big brown eyes in a clear call for help and maybe just a hint of blame. If I had not brought him to Swissmen Candyworks, my candy factory tucked away in Ohio’s scenic Amish Country, he would not be in this predicament.

In my defense, I hadn’t had much of a choice in the matter. My future mother-in-law had foisted the pig on me at the last second. She’d said that the ladies of her church were having a present-wrapping party in the church’s Fellowship Hall and Jethro would be in the way. It seemed to me that Juliet always thought Jethro would be in the way when it came to church activities.

While Jethro made his plea, instrumental Christmas music played over the sound system—the holiday was just a week away. “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” was on heavy repeat as it was my assistant, Charlotte Little’s favorite Christmas song now that she’d left the Amish faith. I wasn’t sure what that said about her taste in music in her post-bonnet days.

Swissmen Candyworks had officially opened just before Halloween. The opening date was firm in my mind because I wanted to take full advantage of all the candy-loving holidays that rolled in at the end of the year: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Christmas was the busiest time for the Candyworks and for the candy shop, which I co-owned with my grandmother. Amid everything that I had to do, I certainly didn’t have time to wash a pig—or watch a pig, for that matter—but here we were.

My very first concern was that Jethro might be hurt. Molten taffy was nothing to mess around with. The taffy before it is pulled had to reach 254 degrees Fahrenheit. That was hot enough for second- or even first-degree burns if a person, or in this case a pig, wasn’t careful.

Thankfully, the taffy he had gotten himself tangled up in was cool enough to work with, but unfortunately, it was still warm enough to be terribly sticky. Not to mention he smelled like the inside of a gingerbread house, and the scent mingled with the aroma of the lavender essential oil that Juliet insisted he needed to have massaged into his hooves each morning to keep him healthy. Have I mentioned that Jethro is spoiled? No one was rubbing essential oils into my feet, that was for certain.

I brushed my ponytail over my shoulder. The last thing I needed was taffy in my curls. “I don’t have the slightest clue how you get into these situations, Jethro. It’s like you seek out trouble, but only when you’re in my charge. Would you do anything like this when you were with Juliet?”

He looked up at me with mournful brown eyes, pleading with me not to be mad. I sighed. There wasn’t much I could do to withstand that look. It got me every time. It was also the reason I was pigsitting . . . again. Both he and Juliet had mastered that pitiful expression.

Behind me, I heard what I thought was a mouse squeak, but it was actually a person. Lida Lantz, one of the many new hires in the candy factory, was standing at her stainless-steel worktable with a look of abject terror in her eyes.

“Lida, are you all right?” I asked.

My question spurred her from squeaking to speaking, which I was most grateful for.

“I’m so sorry, Bailey. I just don’t know what happened. I was cutting and wrapping taffy. I didn’t even know Jethro was in the room. I never would have let him come in here. You said he was only allowed in the gift shop and lobby area. I’m very gut at following rules; I can assure you it’s true.” She took a breath. “I only knew he was there when I heard the crash. I would never let him in the candy packing room.”

“Nor should you.” I smiled to soften my words. “But Jethro does all sorts of things that he’s not allowed to do. He gets away with it because he is so darn cute—and believe me, he knows how to wield his cuteness to his best advantage.”

She shook from the top of her prayer cap to her black sneakers. Lida was a sixteen-year-old Amish girl who wore a plain purple dress, white apron, sensible shoes, and a hairnet over her white prayer cap. She was very pretty, with red hair and green eyes, but unfortunately, she also appeared to be in a constant state of nervousness. She vibrated with tension. I hated to think of how Jethro’s action might send her over the edge.

She’d begun working at the factory in November and I still hadn’t been able to put her at ease, so I tried to give her tasks that didn’t require her to deal with the public much.

That morning, I had set her on the task of measuring, cutting, and wrapping taffy. She was currently wrapping peppermint taffy while the gingerbread cooled, but now that most of the gingerbread taffy was on Jethro’s back, I doubted we would be putting out that flavor at the Candy Land Experience.

Just thinking about the Candy Land Experience threatened to give me a migraine. In truth, it was a great idea to attract more tourists to Harvest during the holiday season, but just like washing a pig, it wasn’t something that I had time to add to my overflowing to-do list.

She tucked a strand of red hair behind her ear. Her nose was bright pink and her eyes shimmered with barely restrained tears. “I’m so sorry this happened. Is he hurt? Please tell me that he’s not hurt. I could not live with myself if I hurt the pastor’s wife’s pig.”

I smiled at her, doing my very best to put the young woman at ease. “He’s not hurt. He just smells like a gingerbread house. There are much worse things he could—and has—gotten into. Most of those don’t smell as nice.”

“You’re sure?” Tears welled again in her eyes.

“I’m positive. Don’t beat yourself up. Jethro is Jethro. There is no other pig in the world that gets into half as much trouble as he does. I should have told you he was in the building and to keep the door shut while you were working in case he wandered in. He has a snout for sweets, and if he smells something tasty, there is no stopping him. He must have slipped out of the lobby when the salesladies weren’t looking. I can’t blame them. The shop is busy today and they are setting up for the gingerbread house competition. Besides, it’s not their job to sell candy and keep an eye on my future mother-in-law’s pig.”

I thought about what my fiancé, Aiden Brody, would think when I told him of Jethro’s latest adventure. He was constantly telling me to say no to his mother when it came to pigsitting. That was easy for him to say. He was her son. I was the almost daughter-in-law. There was a big difference.

Lida relaxed a little. “I still feel responsible. He could have been horribly burned if the taffy was just a few degrees hotter.”

I nodded. “That is a concern. I will have to put more limitations on Jethro when he visits the candy factory, especially this week.”

I took a deep breath as I thought about the week ahead. Between Christmas orders, the factory still finding its stride, the Candy Land Experience, and my parents coming to visit for the holidays, I was about to lose my mind.

Of those events, the one I was most nervous about was the Candy Land Experience, which was the brainchild of community organizer Margot Rawlings. Margot never met a theme party that she didn’t like, so in addition to the traditional living nativity that Harvest had on the square every Christmas, she was staging a life-size Candy Land game that families could play day and night. Swissmen Sweets and Swissmen Candyworks would stock it with sweet treats at the candy stations along the game board, but because Margot was organizing it, I was afraid of what else she might want me to do for the event. There was always something more when it came to Margot.

“You’re impossible,” I said to the pig.

At my feet, Jethro snuffled, as if he didn’t like the sound of that.

I shook my finger at him. “Don’t you even start. Look at yourself. You’re a mess. Now I must give you a bath, and neither one of us is going to enjoy it.”

Jethro licked at the taffy on the tip of his snout.

“Do you want me to clean him up?” Lida asked in a timid voice. “I feel so responsible. It’s the least I can do.”

I couldn’t ask her to do that. Washing a pig wasn’t the most enjoyable chore in the world, but I was the one who’d brought Jethro to the factory in the first place. It was as much my fault for his current state as Jethro. Besides, this would not be my first pig scrub down, but it was certainly the first involving taffy. I had no idea how I was going to get it out of his hair.

Contrary to popular belief, pigs aren’t bald. They have coarse hair all over their bodies. In some breeds, you can see the hair better than others. In the case of Jethro, you had to look very closely, but it stood out more when encrusted in taffy. He looked as if he had thin spikes all over his portly form.

I shook my head. “No, it’s my fault he’s here. Juliet asked me to keep him with me while she and the church ladies had their gift-wrapping party. He probably would have been better off at the church, but she was afraid he’d run off with the baby Jesus statue from the nativity or something equally scandalous if left to his own devices.”

Lida’s eyes went wide, and I remembered that the sixteen-year-old had not been working for me for very long. She didn’t know my long history with Jethro and his questionable behavior.

And thinking about what I’d said, I was sure the idea of absconding with baby Jesus was shocking to her.

I sighed.

“You did nothing wrong,” I repeated for her benefit. “I should have left him at Swissmen Sweets with my grossmaami. He knows how the candy shop works and is less likely to get into this kind of trouble. Plus, he’s much better behaved for my grossmaami than he ever is for me.”

She nodded, but her brow was still furrowed in concern. She went back to her task of cutting the pulled taffy into bite-size pieces and wrapping those pieces in wax paper. She seemed hesitant while she worked. She measured each piece of taffy precisely with a ruler. At this rate, she would be lucky to make one hundred pieces in her eight-hour shift. However, I reminded myself her boss was watching her. Me. That would make anyone nervous and take extra care not to make a mistake. She would speed up when she was more comfortable with the task, I was sure.

“I’ll take the pig and wash him up. If you could clean the floor and throw away all the taffy that fell on it, that would be a great help.”

She set her knife on the table. “Yes, of course.”

I smiled at her. “Danki.” I picked up Jethro and held him out in front of me so he wouldn’t get taffy on my clothes.

He didn’t even fight me. I believed he regretted Taffygate already.

Before I left the room, I said, “Oh, I remember why I came here. Do you know where I can find Zeph? I need him to clean the front walk again since it snowed.”

She jumped. “Zeph?”

I cocked my head. “Yes, your brother Zeph.”

“I—I don’t know. I got a ride into the village with a friend. I—I don’t know where he is.”

I pressed my lips together. “All right. I’m sure he will turn up soon.”

She returned her attention to her taffy. “Ya, he always does.”

“Now, add the peppermint extract to the fudge and stir.” Dressed for Christmas, Charlotte stood in front of her class. She wore a green sweater, white jeans, and her red hair was held back from her face by a wreath-shaped barrette. “Just a few drops are enough. You don’t want to overdo it. Too much peppermint can really be a shock to your taste buds.”

She walked around the room and nodded as each student carefully dropped peppermint extract into their white fudge mixture. I knew the next step would be adding food coloring and making a swirly design on top of the fudge with a toothpick. I knew this because the fudge she was teaching the seven ladies in the class to make was my old family recipe and our top-seller this time of year.

Although we make all sorts of candies at Swissmen Sweets, and now the Candyworks, too, fudge was the most popular. I believed when people came to visit Amish Country, eating authentic Amish fudge was always one of the things to do on their vacation. We were happy to sell it to them.

Before Charlotte walked to the next station to advise the student, she looked up and saw me holding out Jethro in front of me as if he was an infant with a stinky diaper. I then realized the distinct gingerbread color of the taffy might lead her to think it was something else entirely.

“Oh! Bailey! Did you come to observe the class?”

I shook my head. “Just passing through. Jethro got into a bit of trouble, as you can see, and I need to clean him up.”

“Oh, Jethro!” a women with short black hair cried out as if she was seeing a celebrity on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “Can we get a picture with him?”

“What is that on him?” another woman asked in a disgusted voice. She was clearly having diaper thoughts.

“Gingerbread taffy. Don’t worry, nothing is hurt but his dignity,” I said.

Jethro looked back at me as if he were questioning that.

“I want a picture, too,” another voice rang out.

I could feel the cell phones begin to point at me. I turned my body to shield Jethro from their snaps.

“Let me get him cleaned up first and we will be happy to do a photo shoot with all of you. This is not the kind of publicity Juliet would want about her pig on social media. As she says, he has an image to uphold.”

“Of course he does. He’s the most famous pig since Babe,” the woman with black hair said. “Don’t you agree, Jenny?” She nodded at the woman in the station next to her, Jenny Patterson, a fiftyish woman with short blond hair and cat’s-eye glasses that she wore around her neck on a chain.

Of all the women in the class, Jenny was the only one I had met before, and that was because she was the president of the Harvest Garden Club. Jenny had been a regular at the candymaking classes since they started. She never missed a class and always brought a friend or two with her. In fact, this class was made up entirely of members of her garden club. I was grateful for that. The best way to spread the word about the business was word of mouth, and Jenny was doing an excellent job of it.

The Garden Club was sponsoring the Candy Land Experience on the square, so Jenny and I had had countless conversations about the types of candy to offer at the event and where the different candy stations would go.

To keep the game fun and lessen the competitive aspect of it, on certain blocks throughout the life-size board, regardless of whether the player was winning or losing, they would get a piece of candy made right here at the factory. It was a great way to advertise my new business venture and to keep everyone playing in the Christmas spirit.

“What happened to him?” Jenny Patterson asked with anxiety in her voice. “Is he hurt? He has to be at his very best for the live nativity. We can’t lose another participant!”

“You lost a participant?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, the donkey we had lined up went into labor. Can you believe it? Whoever heard of a donkey having a baby in the middle of winter? I blame it on her owner for not scheduling that better.”

I decided not to make a comment on the donkey situation. I guessed that between Jenny and Margot, who undoubtedly had had a few choice words to say about the absent donkey, enough had been said on the subject.

“Jethro’s fine. He’s just had a little run-in with a batch of cool gingerbread taffy.” I emphasized the word “cool” so that the class members wouldn’t be concerned that Jethro had been burned.

“At least he will smell like Christmas,” one of the women said.

“He does,” I agreed. “And I think I will for the rest of the day, too.”

“Bailey, how are you faring with all the robberies happening in Harvest?” the woman with short hair asked. “Are you afraid your shop or even the Candyworks will be next?”

I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t ask her what she was talking about. I knew all too well. Over the last month, a number of the Amish businesses and even a few of the most prominent Amish homes had been broken into. Whenever a home or business was hit, everything of value was taken.

“I heard the yarn shop on Apple Street was robbed last night,” she said. “Doesn’t that strike a little too close to home for you? Your candy shop isn’t too far from there.”

It was too close to home, and what made me even more anxious was knowing that my maami lived alone in the apartment over the candy shop. It was the first time she had lived alone in her entire life. My grandfather had lived with her most of her life, and when he passed away, I had moved in. Then, when I moved out, Charlotte lived with her for several years. When Charlotte married Deputy Little during the summer and moved in with him, Maami was left living alone for the very first time. She insisted that she was doing well, but the robberies had me worried.

I was so concerned that I’d asked her to move into my little rental house a few blocks from the candy shop until the perpetrators were caught, but she refused.

The candy shop had been her home for over fifty years; she wasn’t going to leave it now. However, with one of the robberies so close, I might have to take more drastic measures to keep her safe.

“I hadn’t heard about the yarn shop. Is the owner all right?”

“From what I’ve heard no one was hurt, just like in all the other break-ins,” the woman with dark hair said. “But I can’t see that always being the case. One of these times, the culprits are going to pick the wrong house or business and there will be a confrontation that will end very badly.”

I shivered at her prediction.

“Why hasn’t your fiancé found out who is behind all of this?” Jenny wanted to know. “How hard can it be to find the person who is robbing all these Amish businesses and homes?”

My back stiffened. Aiden was the sheriff of Holmes County. He had been appointed sheriff by the county commissioners when the last sheriff’s career ended in disgrace. I had learned rather quickly after his appointment that county citizens came to me with their problems in the hope that I would pass them along to Aiden, and he would ultimately fix them. As much as I wanted to help, being Aiden’s carrier pigeon had gotten old really fast.

“Aiden is doing his best,” I said. “Believe me, he wants this case to be closed as much as everyone else in the village does. But there are a few special circumstances involved.”

“What special circumstances?” Jenny wanted to know. “A robbery is a robbery.”

I bit my lip because I knew Aiden wouldn’t want me to say any more about it. However, if I were at liberty to speak, I would have pointed out that, indeed, all the robberies had occurred at Amish homes and businesses. None of those places had security systems or cameras, and every place was hit in the middle of the night when no one was there. There were no witnesses, and the criminal or criminals were smart. No physical evidence was left behind. No hair. No fingerprints. No nothing.

I kept my lips sealed. It was time to get on with my task. Jethro was getting very heavy in my outstretched arms. He didn’t look particularly comfortable either.

The dark-haired woman narrowed her eyes. “What do you know that you’re not telling us? We live in this village, too. We have a right to know what is happening to our friends and neighbors.”

“Truly, I don’t know much at all,” I said, hoping she would let me leave it at that. I turned to Charlotte. “Have you seen Zeph Lantz? He was supposed to be here an hour ago. I need him to clear the walk.”

“He’s out there now. I saw him go by the window with the shovel,” Charlotte said.

I wrinkled my nose. “I must have missed him. I’m going to get Jethro cleaned up and then drop him off at Swissmen Sweets before meeting my parents at the inn.” I did my very best to keep my voice neutral as I said this.

Charlotte cocked her head. She knew just how nervous I was about my parents’ visit. It was only the second time they had come to Holmes County since I’d moved here years ago. I was dreading what they would say when they saw the factory. They lived in Connecticut in the house where I had grown up, but they didn’t spend much time there. As they were both retired, they traveled the world, going everywhere from Paris to Bali. They had been to so many countries at this point, I had lost count.

Now that they had been to so many faraway exotic places, I could just imagine what they would think when they returned to Harve. . .