Kappy King and the Puppy Kaper

Book 1: Amish Mystery

by Amy Lillard

Genres: Amish & Mennonite; Mystery

Synopsis

Content to be unmarried and plainspoken, Kathryn "Kappy" King is an odd woman out in the Amish community of Blue Sky, Pennsylvania. But she's skilled at making the special kapps local women need to cover their hair. And she might be the only one who can unearth the danger hiding in this peaceful valley....

When Kappy's neighbor Ruth Peachey turns up dead in her yard, everyone in Blue Sky believes it's a tragic accident. Until the Englisch police find the gentle dog breeder was deliberately struck down - and arrest her mentally challenged son, Jimmy, for the crime. Jimmy's sister, Edie, returns to Blue Sky to clear his name, yet no one will speak to a shunned former Amish woman, much less give her information.

Determined to help, Kappy starts digging for the truth among her seemingly innocent neighbors. But suddenly a series of suspicious "accidents" threatens Edie and the Peachey farm property Edie is determined to protect for her brother's future. Now, as danger looms large in the small community, Kappy must bait a trap for a killer snapping hard at her heels. And Edie must decide whether to make a home once more in the town she thought she'd left behind....

Release date: December 26, 2017

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Kappy King took one look at her front door and promptly marched back down the porch steps to her buggy. She didn’t even bother to take the new bolt of sheer white organdy into the house. She tossed it onto the seat next to her and climbed in. Thankfully, she hadn’t unhooked the mare when she arrived back at the house. Heaven only knew why. Maybe the Good Lord was directing her footsteps and He knew she would be needing the carriage sooner than she thought.

Sooner, indeed. This needed to be taken care of and fast. There was only one person she knew in the valley who would have the audacity to paint her front door blue without permission and that person was her across-the-road neighbor Jimmy Peachey.

She clicked the horse into motion and took a deep breath to calm her raging emotions.

Audacity wasn’t the right word. Clueless innocence, misguided helpfulness, unwanted good intentions. All these described Jimmy and more.

He was as sweet as pie, stubborn as a mule, and cute as a button on a shirt. He was wily in his own way, despite the fact that he had Down syndrome. Kappy didn’t know much about the ailment, only that it made Jimmy look a little different from other folks and act a little slower as well. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t smart. He was too smart by far, but in ways different from everyone around him.

And it had started off to be such a nice day, too.

The Peacheys weren’t her closest neighbors, but they only lived less than a quarter of a mile from Kappy. Normally, she would have marched over there on foot, but since she had just returned from the bulk goods store and her horse was still hitched to her buggy, this way was much faster.

The tall stalks of corn rustled as she drove across the main road to the driveway on the other side. Mountains framed both edges of the valley as the clouds created shadows across the green. Blue Sky was one of five boroughs nestled between Stone Mountain and Jacks Mountain. The entire area was around thirty miles long, but only four miles wide. And most all of that was farmland: wheat, corn, and more. She supposed if she had walked it wouldn’t have taken any time at all to get to Jimmy and Ruth’s, but this way was much more acceptable. Even if she was coming to find out exactly why Jimmy had felt the need to add color to her door.

She shook her head. She knew why he had done it. She just didn’t know why he had done it.

It was a common misconception that a blue-painted door in the valley meant a girl of marriage age and availability lived there. She supposed since she and Hiram Lapp had called off the wedding she was technically available, but she had already settled herself to being an old maid. Everyone in the valley thought she was odd anyway. Why not add old maid to the list?

The Peachey house seemed strangely quiet as she pulled up the drive. Cornstalks surrounded them on each side, land that belonged to Ruth and had been leased since the year Amos Peachey had passed. Ruth was nothing if not a shrewd businesswoman. But necessity had made her that way.

How long had it been now since Amos had died? Twenty years? Kappy couldn’t remember. A long time ago, at any rate. Her family had been alive then and Ruth’s daughter, Edith, had still been in the valley. Maybe fifteen. Jah, closer to fifteen, since Jimmy hadn’t yet started school.

Kappy pulled her horse to a stop and set the brake on the buggy. She could hear the dogs barking from the barn as if on the hunt for something sinister. She shook her head at herself and got out of the buggy. She really needed to quit reading those detective novels. But they were just so interesting. She had never been anyplace but Kishacoquillas Valley, Pennsylvania. And she would probably never go anyplace else. But she could live a little through books. As long as the bishop never found out. She was certain Samuel Miller would not approve of a pipe-smoking Englishman who solved mysteries with the help of his good friend Watson.

Once again, Kappy was overcome with the sense of quietness. No, that wasn’t right. It was more of a stillness, an expectancy, as if the farm were holding its breath, waiting for something else to happen.

She shook the thought away. That was ridiculous. Something else couldn’t happen because the first something hadn’t even happened yet. But as soon as she found Jimmy it would. And once she left he would know with great certainty that she did not need nor did she want her door painted blue.

“Silly tradition,” she muttered as she stalked up the porch steps. Whoever came up with such a notion should be hauled before the church. Maybe even hauled into jail. It was just plain silly. Yet now that her door had been painted, she could only hope that not many people saw it or she would be the laughingstock of the community before church on Sunday.

Not that it would be the first time.

She ignored the quiet that didn’t really exist, and the noise of thirty or so barking dogs, and knocked on the front door. She shifted from foot to foot waiting on someone, most likely Ruth, to come to the door.

She knocked again, uncomfortable just walking in as most of her neighbors were prone to do. No one walked into her house uninvited and she couldn’t see doing the same. If that made her an odd duck, then so be it.

No answer. Surely, someone knew she was there. How could they not with the dogs barking like crazy? Unless no one was home.

Kappy took a step back and eyed the door thoughtfully, as if the little bit of distance would provide some answers.

The paint on her door had still been tacky to the touch when she had pulled up to her house, which meant it hadn’t been long since Jimmy had left. But how long? And had Ruth allowed him to cross the street by himself? She didn’t think so.

The noise of the dogs grew louder, as if they had found another reason to bark. What was going on over there? She had been over to the Peacheys’ plenty of times, and never had she heard the dogs acting like this. With one last look at the door—the nice, plain, white door—she skipped down the porch steps and around the back of the house.

Like her house, the Peachey place was a two-story white structure with a large barn off to one side. An open hay barn sat a little farther back, but now it held the yellow-topped buggy that belonged to Ruth Peachey. But that would mean . . .

Ruth was somewhere in the house or the barn. And since there was no answer at the house . . .

Kappy started across the side yard to the barn, a red jewel shining in the sun.

She stopped for a moment, thinking she’d heard something, then she shrugged it off and continued across the yard.

The barks grew louder with each step she took, and for a moment Kappy wondered if Ruth had gotten some new stock, dogs that weren’t familiar with the noises of the valley.

It wasn’t like they were friends or anything, she and Ruth. Just friendly-enough neighbors. Truth was, Kappy wasn’t friends with many people in Blue Sky, but was that any fault of hers? Not in the least. She couldn’t help what people thought of her. She couldn’t control if someone believed she was a bit on the peculiar side. The Good Lord knew what was in her heart and that was all that mattered. Wasn’t it?

Kappy resisted the urge to cover her ears as she stepped into the barn. The barks were almost deafening. Yet amid the woofs and howls, she thought she heard another noise, this one distinctively human. “Ruth?” she called.

Not a reserved person, she surprised herself by easing cautiously forward. “Ruth?”

Still no answer.

Light filtered through from the other side of the barn. The door was open, but Ruth’s horse was nowhere to be seen, most likely put out to pasture for the afternoon.

“Hush!” she hollered toward the large pen containing Ruth Peachey’s prized beagle pups. They were so loud she could barely hear herself think! The dogs quieted for a moment, then started back up again.

Kappy shook her head, then rounded the corner that led to the pasture. She stopped short.

Jimmy Peachey stood there, his feet nearly buried in the hay. Tears ran down his reddened cheeks. He twisted his hands in his straw hat, crushing it as he sobbed.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he chanted as he rocked back and forth.

His mother lay prone at his feet.

Kappy rushed forward. Jimmy didn’t move, didn’t stop chanting, as she knelt beside the woman. Ruth’s storm-gray eyes stared unblinkingly at the rafters overhead.

The dogs continued to bark, blocking out all thoughts. Kappy moved by instinct, holding a hand under Ruth’s nose to see if she was still breathing. No warm breath brushed her fingertips, and she saw no rise and fall of Ruth’s chest. No movement of any kind.

Just the dogs barking and Jimmy chanting and rocking back and forth. Back and forth.

Kappy checked the woman’s breathing once more, unwilling to accept her first answer. But there was no breath. And that could only mean one thing.

Ruth Peachey was dead.

Kappy was on her feet in a heartbeat. “Jimmy, what happened?”

He shook his head, tears still streaming. “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“Where’s the phone?”

Somehow he managed to pull himself together enough to point toward the front of the barn. She rushed into the tack room where Ruth had set up an office for her breeding business. Binders, ledgers, notebooks filled the shelves, but Kappy only had eyes for the phone sitting on the desk. The light on the answering machine blinked red, signaling that there was an unheard message. She grabbed the receiver and dialed.

“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

“Come quick,” Kappy said. “It’s my neighbor. I think she’s dead.”

By the time the ambulance and the police arrived, Jimmy had stopped crying. Kappy threw a handful of treats into the dog pen, but it took the pups only a couple of seconds to devour the kibble and they were back to barking once again. She supposed it couldn’t be helped. That was what dogs did. They barked, and beagles were the worst.

“Miss?”

Kappy whirled around, coming eye-to-shirt-buttons with the tallest man she had ever seen. Or maybe it was his swarthy appearance that made him appear so . . . big. She craned her neck back to look into his dark eyes.

“Are you Kathryn King?”

“Jah.” Though no one had called her that in years.

“Miss King, I’d like to talk to you for a moment.”

She nodded, though she wasn’t sure why anyone had called the police to begin with. It wasn’t like there had been a crime committed. Ruth had fallen and hit her head. Maybe she’d even had a heart attack first. After all, everyone in the valley knew that she had a bad heart. They’d needed an ambulance, not the deputies.

“I’m told you were the first one on the scene, is that correct?” He held a small plastic-looking stick over his cellphone.

“I guess. I mean, Jimmy was here.”

He was taking notes, scribbling with the plastic stick on the screen. “Jimmy Peachey, right? Her son?”

“Jah. That’s right.”

“Did you see anything else?”

“Just Ruth.” Kappy shuddered. She was certain she wouldn’t be able to close her eyes tonight without seeing Ruth’s unblinking stare.

“No one else was on the premises?”

“No. Why?”

He looked up from the tiny hand-held screen and gave her an indulgent smile. “No reason.”

She nodded. “Jah. Fine, then.” She moved past him, but stopped as he spoke again.

“Just don’t go leaving the county for a while.”

Just like the Englisch, making more out of something than need be. She waved him away with one hand and continued toward Jimmy.

Someone had given him a bottle of water. He cradled it in his hands, only half of it gone. Around his neck he wore a device Kappy knew would alert an ambulance or the police in case of an emergency. She wondered if perhaps they could have saved Ruth’s life had they thought to use it to summon help.

No sense looking backward. God’s plan was already in motion.

“Are you okay, Jimmy?” she asked.

He shifted, rocking back and forth as she had seen him do so often. But only when he was upset about something. His head was bowed and she wondered if perhaps he was praying. Right now praying sounded like a fine idea.

He squeezed the bottle, the plastic making crinkling protests as it took its former shape once again. He squeezed. Crinkle. Squeeze. Crinkle.

“Jimmy?”

“Jah?” He looked up as if only then realizing that she was there.

“Are you going to be okay?”

His red-rimmed eyes filled with tears. “My mamm is gone.”

Kappy reached out to pat him on the arm, but stopped herself when she remembered that he didn’t like to be touched. Her hand dropped back to her side. “Are you going to be all right here by yourself?” Was he even capable of staying on his own? She had no idea.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“Is there someone we can ask to stay with you?” The only family she knew he had was a wayward sister.

He shook his head as the bishop pulled up. He was a heavy man with a large round belly that stretched the limits of the buttons on his sky-blue shirt. As was their tradition, he wore one black suspender diagonally across his chest, a necessary accessory as well to keep up his low-slung black trousers. He climbed down from his buggy and started marching over to where they stood. Well, as much as a man of his girth could march. He got halfway across the yard before one of the deputies stopped him.

The two men talked for a moment, but Kappy didn’t hear what was said. There were too many people, too many dogs still barking. Now she knew what had them all agitated. Someone strange had come onto the property, and that person had killed Ruth Peachey.

The bishop nodded to the tall deputy, shook his hand, then wobbled over to where Kappy and Jimmy stood.

“Jimmy.” Samuel Miller nodded in Jimmy’s direction, then to Kappy. “This is a sad day. A sad day indeed.”

Jimmy’s tears spilled down his cheeks. “My mamm is gone.”

Samuel’s lips pressed together and he nodded, his gray-streaked beard billowing in the wind. “I know, Jimmy.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Jimmy wailed.

As far as Kappy knew, Jimmy was at least twenty. He was old enough that he had bowed to his knees and joined the church, but he had never lived anyplace other than the home that sat behind them.

“Don’t worry, Jimmy. The church will take care of you.” She murmured the words, not really absorbing their meaning; they were just something she had been told her entire life. Had the church taken care of her after her parents’ death? She supposed they had.

“You’ll need to take care of him, Kappy.”

“Me?” She looked from the bishop back to the crying young man. What was she supposed to do with him?

“Jah,” the bishop said. “Spend the night here so he doesn’t have to be alone.”

“But—” Kappy protested. “I have a business to run.”

Which was true. Because she was the only kapp maker in the valley, all the women came to her for their head coverings. She needed to be at her house in case someone came by to purchase a new kapp. Well, maybe not in case they wanted to buy a kapp, but how was she going to sell kapps if she wasn’t home making them?

“Then let him stay at your house.”

“My house?” Her voice was strangely akin to the squeak of a mouse.

The bishop shrugged. “You have plenty of room.”

It was true, but she still wanted to protest, to tell the bishop no, but she knew—no one told Samuel Miller no. And someone had taken her in. Her maiden aunt had, just after Kappy turned ten.

“Samuel—” she started, but he interrupted before she could say anything more.

“My wife has gone to her sister’s in Lancaster. When she gets back, Alma can help. Until then, you need to rise to your Christian duty.”

She couldn’t take total responsibility for Jimmy. She wouldn’t. But perhaps it was time to give back.

“Jah. Okay. Fine.” She tried to make her voice sound gracious and caring, but she was afraid it just came out annoyed. If the bishop noticed, he didn’t comment.

“You hear that, Jimmy? Kappy is going to let you stay with her for a while.”

A while? Maybe she should have asked when Alma was due back.

Kappy was accustomed to being on her own. “A while” sounded way too long for her comfort.

Jimmy looked up, something akin to horror on his face. “Stay with her? You mean at her house?” He started shaking his head even before he stopped speaking. “No-no-no-no-no-no.”

“Jimmy, you can’t stay here alone.” Kappy was surprised the gentle words came out of her mouth. She’d never been much good at the softer side of things. She blamed the death of her mother and then being raised by her crazy maiden aunt. No one was so bold as to actually call her aunt crazy, but she was. Kappy knew it, as sure as she knew her own name.

He continued to shake his head. “I can’t go. What if Mamm . . . what if she comes back and I’m not here?”

Kappy wished she could take his hands or something, anything to get his attention off the ground and on to her face. That way she would know that he was listening to her. “Look at me, Jimmy.”

He did as she commanded.

“I’m sorry. Your mother isn’t coming back. Not until time for the funeral. You understand, don’t you?”

He sniffed, but gave a small nod.

“You can stay with me at my house, or”—she took a deep breath and wondered why she was even going down this road—“I can stay here with you.”

Jimmy seemed to think about it for a moment. “Do you have any dogs?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“What about rabbits?”

“No. No rabbits.”

“Do you have any gerbils?”

“No.”

“Don’t you have any pets at all?”

Not unless she counted her horse and the stray cat that came up from time to time. “Uh, not really.”

“Then can we stay here?”

Kappy tried not to frown. “Of course,” she said. But tomorrow morning, first thing, she would have to go back to her house and leave a note on the door in case anyone came by for a prayer kapp. And with the way her luck was going, everyone in the valley would need one while she was babysitting the neighbor.

Kappy taped the note to the front door and stepped back to inspect her work. Go around back. Leave your money in the jar by the door. Write special orders on the notepad on the table. Thanks.

It would have to do. The door was still blue, but that couldn’t be helped, either. Unfortunately, Jimmy needed her. And then she had needed him.. . .