Confection is Good for the Soul: An Amish Cupcake Cozy Mystery Read online

  I ran into the living room and said to the bishop, “Excuse me for a moment, won’t you?” I sprinted out the front door. “Eleanor, Matilda!” I screeched. “Help! There are goats in the kitchen!”

  Just as I yelled, the washing line ran past me, powered by about ten partially dressed goats.

  The next half hour was a blur, a time I never wish to remember, but by the time Rebecca got home, Eleanor and Matilda had somehow managed to sort out the goats. Maybe it was the bishop’s prayers that did it.

  The goats were all firmly locked in their field, and I had made the bishop several cups of sugar-laden meadow tea to soothe his nerves. I’m not sure if it had worked, but at least some color had returned to his cheeks. I wished I could have had something stronger than tea, but unlike some Amish communities, Rebecca’s community did not drink alcohol. I made do with cake and coffee instead.

  Thankfully, I had brought a plate of pumpkin whoopie pies I had baked the night before.

  When Rebecca arrived, I quickly followed her to the barn and helped her unharness her horse. I tried to break the news to her gently about the goat incident. I don’t think I did a very good job because by the time I had finished, her mouth was wide open and her eyes were as big as saucers.

  I concluded my tale on a positive note. “But don’t worry, the bishop’s happy inside eating whoopie pies.”

  “I wonder why he came early?” she asked. “This is awful. Whatever will he think?”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t mind at all,” I said in what I hoped was a confident tone. “I explained that Matilda and Eleanor had rescued the wild goats.”

  Rebecca sighed. “Those goats are terribly ill-disciplined. I just don’t know what we’re going to do with them.”

  “I’ll help Matilda and Eleanor find somewhere else for them,” I said.

  “I don’t think anyone else would be willing to have those goats.” She sighed again. “Oh well, standing round here wishing won’t accomplish anything. I’d better hurry to the house and speak with the bishop.”

  The bishop was happily munching whoopie pies when we entered the house. Matilda and Eleanor were sitting next to him looking for all the world like naughty children. I noticed they avoided looking directly at Rebecca.

  “Hullo, Bishop Miller,” Rebecca said. “Wie gehts?”

  I wondered why Rebecca asked the bishop how he was. I held my breath, wondering if he would tell her how he really was.

  Thankfully, he didn’t have a chance to respond, as Rebecca pushed on. “I’m terribly sorry about the incident. Jane explained it all to me.”

  “It was perfectly fine,” the bishop said with a warm smile. I really did admire the patience of the Amish—had I been chased by a goat and lassoed by Eleanor, I probably would have throttled Eleanor and Matilda or at least subjected them to some choice words. He came straight to the point. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Rebecca, but Mrs. Jenkins asked me to speak with you and I agreed.”

  Rebecca sat opposite the bishop and I went to the kitchen to make her a cup of meadow tea. We had already thoroughly cleaned the kitchen and the missing Shoo-fly pie was the only clue to the goats’ misdemeanors. When I returned with the meadow tea, the bishop was speaking. “Mrs. Jenkins believes that you somehow stole her idea to turn Amish sour cream spice cakes into cupcakes and are selling them in your store.”

  “Nee, that’s not true,” Rebecca said in even tones. “I’ve been selling those exact cupcakes for years.”

  “Jah, I know you have,” the bishop said. “They’re my wife’s favorite actually, and I know she’s bought many sour cream spice cupcakes from you. I really don’t know what to say to this lady because she has her mind made up. Anyway, I promised her I’d speak with you, so that’s what I’m doing now.”

  Matilda spoke for the first time. “What do you think Judy Jenkins will do next? Will she come back and ask you if you were able to stop Rebecca from selling the cupcakes?”

  The bishop’s eyes twinkled. “Maybe she will, but just leave that to me. I don’t think I’ll need to speak with you again about this, Rebecca. I simply wanted to keep you up-to-date with what Mrs. Jenkins said. Also, I promised Mrs. Jenkins I would speak with you about it.” With that, he stood up. “Well, I’ll be on my way.”

  “I’m terribly sorry about what happened earlier,” Rebecca hurried to say, and Matilda and Eleanor added their apologies.

  As the bishop was halfway to the door, he turned around. “Oh, I almost forgot.” He tapped his long gray beard. “Mrs. Jenkins said she’s having a book launch party this week and if you haven’t stopped selling the cupcakes by then, she’s going to make a public announcement about your store.”

  We all gasped. “What sort of public announcement?” Rebecca asked him.

  The bishop shook his head. “I have no idea. Try not to concern yourself, Rebecca. We can only be responsible for our own actions and not the actions of others. You have done nothing wrong. Mer muss uff sich selwer achtgewwe.”

  With that, he headed for the door with Rebecca following him.

  “What does that mean?” Matilda whispered to me.

  “It means, ‘You have to take care of yourself’,” I whispered back. “Anyway, this isn’t good.”

  “We’re going to have to attend the book launch to find out what she says,” Matilda said in low tones.

  “But Judy Jenkins has seen me, so I can’t go,” I said. “You two will have to go.”

  “But she has seen both of us,” Eleanor protested. “I know! We’ll go in disguise.”

  “I’m not going dressed as an Amish lady again,” I protested, keeping an eye on Rebecca who was standing at the door, waving to the bishop.

  Matilda held up one hand. “Of course you can’t go as an Amish lady or Judy will think you’re Rebecca. After all, you’re twins.” She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “No, that won’t do it all. We will have to disguise our appearances.”

  I shook my head. “That will never work.”

  “It will work,” she countered. “We need to know exactly what she says about Rebecca and we can record it. That way, maybe Rebecca could get a lawyer to make her retract the statement.”

  “The Amish never take legal action against anyone, no matter what they do to them,” I said. “You know that!”

  “Then I’ll threaten Judy. And I’m aware that a recording wouldn’t be admissible in court, but if she says anything derogatory in front of a crowded room, there will be plenty of witnesses. The recording will be for my own information to remember what she said.” Matilda snapped her fingers. “I know! We can all go disguised as men. Then she’ll never recognize us.”

  “As men!” I said in horror. “She will see straight through those disguises. Everyone will know we’re not men. We’ll just make fools of ourselves and we’ll stand out like sore thumbs.”

  Matilda and Eleanor exchanged glances. “Never you mind about the disguises,” Matilda said with a wink. “Eleanor and I happen to have quite a good disguise kit.”

  I narrowed my eyes and shot her a look of suspicion. “Why on earth would you have a disguise kit?”

  “We were actors once,” Matilda said. “We were, um, stage actors and we had to provide our own make up.”

  “Yes, it was such a small theatre company that they couldn’t afford make-up. Stage make-up is quite expensive,” Eleanor added.

  I stared at them. Something just didn’t seem right about their story. And what was worse, I had thought it bad enough going somewhere in disguise as an Amish woman, but now I was going to have to go in disguise as a man.

  Something told me this was all going to end horribly.

  Chapter 3

  I had hoped Matilda was joking when she said we would go to Judy Jenkins’s book launch disguised as men, but I found out I was wrong. Now I was sitting on a chair while Matilda applied make-up to my face. “What are you doing?” I asked in alarm.

  “I’m applying latex,” she said. “When it dries, your fa
ce will go back into shape, but the latex will give your face a nice, wrinkled appearance.”

  “When has anyone ever used the words ‘nice’ and ‘wrinkled’ in the same breath?” I asked her.

  Matilda simply laughed while continuing to poke at my face. After what seemed an age, she stood back to admire her handiwork. “Perfect. Go and look in the mirror.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry when I saw my reflection. Rather, it seemed the reflection belonged to someone else, because the face staring back at me looked nothing like my own. I did indeed look like a man.

  Matilda handed chef’s whites to me. “Here, put these on, and wear the toque blanche as well.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “The hat, of course. And here are the black-and-white houndstooth pants. The jacket’s quite loose. Remember not to speak at all. Simply nod or shake your head if you can, but if you do have to talk, try to deepen your voice.”

  When Matilda walked away to apply her own make-up, I practiced speaking in a deep voice. By the time she had returned, also looking like a man, my throat was raspy and sore. Still, to look on the bright side, I figured since my voice was raspy, I would sound like a man after all.

  It wasn’t long before I was driving Matilda and Eleanor to the book launch. It wasn’t far away, and I felt horribly self-conscious. Eleanor and Matilda looked altogether too comfortable in their disguises. “Where did you learn how to do such good disguises?” I asked them for the umpteenth time.

  Matilda sighed long and hard. “Honestly, Jane, if you’ve asked that once, you’ve asked it a thousand times. The answer remains the same. We used to be in a small theater company.”

  “Sure,” I said, “and the company didn’t have any money for make-up so you had to supply your own.” I was aware my tone was sarcastic, but I didn’t much care.

  “That’s right,” they said in unison.

  A fresh bout of nerves hit me as soon as I got out of the car. “Now, get into character and try to think like a man,” Matilda said, “and do your best to leave the talking to us.”

  I was relieved to see that the book launch was not invitation only, and was in fact open to the public. It had said so online, but I had been concerned. I was sure Matilda and Eleanor would have thought up something dramatic to get in if it had been invitation only, but thankfully it wasn’t going to come to that.

  We hurried inside the door and huddled together. Several people shot glances our way, although they didn’t seem overly curious. My mustache tickled so I rubbed it.

  Matilda tapped my hand away. “Stop it,” she hissed.

  “But it’s prickly,” I complained.

  She shook her head at me.

  “Where’s Judy Jenkins?” I asked her. She simply shrugged.

  The room was a flurry of activity. A giant cupcake had the pride of place in the middle of the room. To me it did look something like an Amish sour cream spice cupcake, although I couldn’t be sure due to the fact it seemed to be made of foam or cardboard.

  People were milling around singing the praises of Judy Jenkins. “Do you work for Judy?” a passing woman asked Matilda.

  She shook her head.

  “Isn’t it so terribly exciting!” the woman gushed. “The launch of Judy’s first cookery book. It’s already a huge success online.”

  “But I thought it was launched today?” Matilda said in a deep voice.

  “Oh, it’s been a pre-order for ages at all the major online stores,” the woman said, “and it was released a few days ago. It’s a bestseller.”

  The woman hurried off. Eleanor pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped at the screen. After a few moments, she shoved the phone in front of us. “She’s right—it’s number one in its category, but it’s only seventy cents and all the other books in that category are over six dollars. Even at the best in its category, it can’t be making much money.”

  “Let’s mingle,” Matilda whispered.

  I was at a loss as to how to mingle when I couldn’t speak, so I simply traipsed after Matilda and Eleanor. After all, Matilda did an awfully good rendition of a man’s voice.

  A woman was holding court, so we hurried over to listen to her. She looked quite glamorous with long curly auburn hair and impeccable make-up. “That’s Karen Francis, Judy’s manager,” one of the fawning minions standing around told us.

  We smiled and nodded.

  “Welcome, all of you, to the launch of Judy Jenkins’s cupcake book!” the manager said. “It’s the number one online cupcake ebook bestseller.”

  A loud murmur of appreciation went up around the room.

  Karen Francis was still speaking. “And given the huge success of the book, Judy is going to launch a cupcake baking course for only seven hundred and fifty dollars per person.”

  Matilda, Eleanor, and I gasped, but no one took any notice of us. Everyone else seemed to be terribly excited.

  “Of course, the book was released last week. The reason we are holding the launch party now is so I can announce that the book is a USA Today bestseller, a New York Times bestseller, and a Wall Street Journal bestseller.”

  The ensuing thunderous burst of applause nearly deafened me. Karen held up a hand for silence. “And, of course, that’s why we are announcing the cupcake course. There will also be another course on how to write and market a cookbook. This course will also be seven hundred and fifty dollars, although if someone does both courses they will be offered a twenty percent reduction in course fees.”

  Everyone clapped wildly.

  “I can’t believe they’re all so gullible,” Matilda whispered to us. “The poor things.”

  “They must think it’s a get rich quick scheme,” Eleanor said. “After all, they can see how many copies Judy Jenkins sold.”

  “I suppose she’s got the results to prove it,” I said doubtfully.

  There was still no sign of Judy Jenkins. Just as I was wondering where she was, someone called out to Karen who had just finished her speech. “When will Judy Jenkins be here? Will it be soon?”

  Karen shot her a wide smile. “Of course! Judy is going to sign autographs for only fifty dollars, and when her first edition book eventually comes out in hardcover, she will sign it for you for free. She’s going to make a grand entrance presently.”

  I noticed a man leaning against the back wall. He looked somewhat stressed and was rubbing his head from time to time. Eleanor followed my gaze. “According to the images I’ve seen online that is Judy’s husband, James,” she told me. “He doesn’t look too happy, does he?”

  “He sure doesn’t,” I said. “I wonder why?”

  “Maybe he’s worried about the cost of the book launch,” Matilda said.

  “But the book’s a bestseller,” I said. “She must have sold several thousand of copies to be a USA Today New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller.”

  “That is a lot of seventy cent books,” Eleanor agreed. “Maybe he just doesn’t like going out in public. Maybe he’s afraid one of his wife’s adoring fans will corner him.”

  As we watched, that was exactly what happened. A group of women converged on him. He looked like a deer in the headlights.

  “I wonder what Judy’s big entrance will be?” Matilda said.

  A man apparently overheard because he stepped over to us and put his finger to his lips. “Don’t say I told you, but she’s going to jump out of the cake.”

  “What cake?” Matilda said in a deep voice. “That cake?” She pointed to the monstrosity in the center in the room.

  He laughed and nodded. “I’m Brian Birch,” he said sticking out his hand to shake Matilda’s. “I’m the IT guy.”

  “I’m Richard Langley. These are my associates, Walter Skinner and Melvin Frohike.”

  It was all I could do not to gasp. I recognized those names as from The X-Files. When it was my turn to shake Brian’s hand, I did my best to squeeze it as hard as I could so he would think I was a man. He did not seem
to notice anything amiss, although he did grimace.

  “So you work for Judy, do you?” Matilda asked him, once more in the deep voice.

  He shook his head and then nodded. “I don’t work for her as such, but she does contract my services. I set up her website, and now manage it and her social media. Her husband has asked me to take photos of the launch party for the website.”

  Matilda nodded. “I don’t mean any offense, but why does he want you to take the photos? I would have thought it a job for a professional photographer.”

  “Judy did want a professional photographer, but her husband wants to cut costs. He said I could easily do it. If they don’t look good, I can always Photoshop them.” He broke off with a laugh.

  I wondered why James and Judy Jenkins would need to cut costs given that she had a bestselling book, but I wasn’t about to ask.

  Just then, music blared and the lights dimmed. Three large spotlights were at once trained on the cake.

  “And now, presenting the bestselling author, Judy Jenkins!” Karen yelled, pointing in a dramatic fashion at the cake.

  Everyone crowded around the giant effigy of a cake to look. Nothing happened. Judy’s husband hurried over and knocked on the lid.

  Still, nothing happened. After a few moments, he opened the lid and called Judy’s name.

  No one emerged. James lifted the lid and then looked inside the cake.

  He let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  Chapter 4

  Two men appeared and removed the top section of the cake. Everyone crowded around the cake. Some women cried while others gasped in horror. Matilda, Eleanor, and I pushed our way to the front. There, lying in the bottom of the cake, was Judy Jenkins.

  I was certain she was dead.