Speak With Confection: An Amish Cupcake Cozy Mystery Page 3

  Ephraim dropped his fork. “Eat my baart? Nee, but I didn’t get close enough to them. What do you mean?”

  I told them the whole story of how Gigi had devoured the judge’s beard. Rebecca and Ephraim doubled over with laughter. They were still laughing when there was a knock on the door.

  Amish people often visited each other at mealtimes, but still, an uneasy feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. Ephraim crossed to the door and opened it. My heart sank when I heard Detective Stirling’s voice.

  The detective strode in scant moments later, followed by a uniformed police officer. “There is a discrepancy in your stories,” Stirling snapped.

  “My, my story?” I stammered.

  “No, their stories.” He jabbed his index finger in the direction of Matilda and Eleanor.

  Both jumped to their feet. “What nonsense!” they said in unison.

  “You said you had never met the victim.”

  “But we hadn’t,” Matilda protested.

  “I have witnesses who stated that the three of you exchanged words as you were leading your goat to the entrance of the exhibition building.”

  Matilda and Eleanor exchanged glances. “A woman did tell us we had no business having our goat there, but she didn’t give her name, and we had never seen her before,” Matilda said.

  Stirling was unmoved by their protests. “You have to come down to the station and give your statements. Come with me now.” He turned to me. “And you, Miss Delight, we are impounding your car.”

  I was aghast. “My car! Why?”

  “We need to examine it for evidence of a possible crime. It will be returned to you in due course.”

  I grabbed Matilda’s arm as she made to go past me. “Should I call you a lawyer?”

  Matilda patted my hand. “No, leave it to us.” She and Eleanor walked to the door with the detective and the uniformed officer behind them.

  “I asked them to leave their guns outside,” Ephraim said after they’d left.

  “Never mind that,” Rebecca said. “Jane, you had better explain what’s going on.”

  “I must admit I’m at a loss.” I threw my hands to the ceiling. “When we arrived at the goat show, a woman yelled at Matilda and Eleanor. I couldn’t hear what she said because I was in the car, but she waved her arms and looked quite annoyed. They told me she said they had no business taking a wild goat to a goat show. Now, it seems she was the murder victim today.”

  Rebecca shook her head. “But why did they take your car?”

  I shrugged. “The victim was poisoned. Maybe the detective will look for traces of poison in my car. I don’t have clue, to be honest.”

  Ephraim drew the back of his hand across his brow. “Surely the detective wouldn’t think that two elderly ladies murdered someone because she insulted their goat.”

  “I have no idea, to be honest,” I told him. “Another lady at the goat show said nobody liked the victim. Her name was Gemma Calhoun. Apparently, she was quite unpopular. We were told that her goat always won everything. Maybe another competitor murdered her.”

  “People must take those goat shows quite seriously,” Ephraim said.

  I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe she was very wealthy and her heir murdered her. Or maybe she was having an affair and the man’s wife killed her out of jealousy. Or maybe…”

  Rebecca interrupted me. “Jane, you’re beginning to sound like Matilda and Eleanor.”

  “Oh.” I knew she didn’t mean it as a compliment. “I hope they’re all right. Detective Stirling is quite intimidating.”

  “Matilda and Eleanor didn’t appear intimidated in the least,” Ephraim said.

  I had to admit he was right. “I wish there was something I could do. You heard Matilda—she said I couldn’t get them a lawyer. I just wish there was something I could do,” I said again.

  “You could pray, of course,” Ephraim said.

  “And you could eat the rest of your dinner,” Rebecca added. “You won’t be of any use to anybody if you starve yourself.”

  I patted my stomach. “I’ve cleaned up my plate already. I hardly think I’m in danger of starving.”

  “Then have some ice cream with pretzels. You need to keep up your strength.”

  I was puzzled. “My strength? What for?”

  “To solve the case, of course,” Rebecca said. “It’s clear Detective Stirling suspects Matilda and Eleanor. And without your detective on the case, somebody has to prove him wrong.” She hesitated and then added, “Why isn’t Detective McCloud investigating the case?”

  “Detective Stirling suggested he shouldn’t because of me,” I said, my cheeks burning.

  Ephraim and Rebecca exchanged glances and then both nodded slowly.

  I could scarcely eat the ice cream with the salted pretzels despite the fact it was normally one of my favorite foods. After we finished, Rebecca insisted I eat some chocolate whoopie pie cupcakes and drink some meadow tea, but my stomach was churning.

  I jumped when my cell phone pinged. I looked down to see a message from Matilda.

  Everything’s fine. Will tell you about it tonight. Please thank Rebecca and Ephraim for us. We’ll go straight home.

  I read the message to Rebecca and Ephraim.

  “See, there was no cause for concern,” Rebecca said.

  I nodded and kept my opinion to myself. I was agitated during the short walk to my house. It was night, but there was a half moon and a strong breeze, and the shadows of branches flittering over the pathway in front of me made me jumpy. I wondered how Matilda and Eleanor would get back, but I figured that since the police had collected them, the police would take them home.

  I unlocked the door, flung it open, and gasped.

  Chapter 5

  The wall, where once hung guns, daggers and swords, was bare. Had we been robbed? My blood ran cold.

  I gasped again as someone appeared in the doorway. “Matilda!” I shrieked.

  “Were you expecting somebody else?” She was clearly perplexed.

  I pointed to the wall. “It’s all gone! Everything! The guns, the swords!”

  Eleanor appeared at her side. “Of course. Since we’re suspects in the murder case, it wouldn’t do for us to have weapons hanging on the wall.”

  “You said the guns were just for show.”

  Matilda and Eleanor exchanged glances. “Still, we can’t take any chances,” Matilda said. “We’ve just made ourselves some coffee. Eleanor, go fetch it. Jane, would you like some?”

  I looked at my watch. “What, coffee? At this time of night?”

  “We’re going to need coffee because we have some work ahead of us,” Matilda said.

  Eleanor returned with the coffeepot and three cups. “Let’s start work.”

  I was almost afraid to ask. Instead, I asked, “Was the questioning rough?”

  “We’ve had worse,” Matilda said with a shrug of one shoulder. “Still, it’s clear that Stirling sees us as suspects.”

  “Just because you had words with the victim?”

  Eleanor nodded. “He seems to be clutching at straws, so we need to find out who committed the murder and fast.”

  Two laptops were already on the coffee table. Mr. Crumbles was sitting on one of them.

  “Mr. Crumbles is upset.” Eleanor picked him up and clutched him to her. “He knows something is wrong.”

  Mr. Crumbles’ expression remained unchanged. I doubted he thought anything was wrong, but I didn’t comment. “What do we do?”

  “You fetch your laptop, Jane. We will all search Gemma Calhoun and see what we can come up with.”

  Eleanor agreed with Matilda. “At this point, we will look for anything we can and make notes. We don’t know where it could lead. There’s a pen and some paper on the table for you, Jane. If you find something interesting, speak up.”

  I did as I was asked. I sat down and wasted no time looking for Gemma Calhoun’s Facebook page. “Her privacy settings seem to be high,” I said. “I can�
��t see her list of friends. And it appears she has only shared a whole lot of memes.”

  Matilda leaned across the table. “What sort of memes?”

  “Just those silly ones where the color of what you are wearing plus the last thing you ate is your band name,” I told her.

  Matilda nodded knowingly. “No doubt that’s the only public content she has, and she keeps the rest of the content private. She probably posts a lot about goats.”

  I agreed. “That goat of hers is her Facebook header.” I stared at the photo of the goat, her back covered with ribbons.

  “She doesn’t have an Instagram account, but I found her Twitter account,” Matilda said. “There’s somebody on Facebook called Horatio Calhoun-Blye.”

  “Her husband?” I asked.

  Matilda shook her head. “I think he’s her son. He looks quite young. He has a bright yellow car.”

  “That doesn’t mean he’s young, Matilda,” Eleanor said. “Older people can have yellow cars.”

  Matilda rolled her eyes and swung her laptop around to show us a photo of Horatio standing by his car.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Matilda forestalled me. “I haven’t found anybody by that name on any other social media.”

  Something occurred to me. “I know Damon told me it was poison, but did Detective Stirling give any hints as to the type of poison or anything else?”

  Eleanor shook her head. “Detective Stirling didn’t ask us any questions about guns or knives or anything like that. He did, however, ask us if we were taking any medication and we told him that we weren’t.”

  “And he was quite rude about it,” Matilda said, her tone scornful. “He said it was unusual that women of our age didn’t take medication. How ageist of him! The nerve!”

  I nodded and sipped my coffee before speaking. “Then maybe Gemma Calhoun was murdered by an overdose of prescription medication. Still, I can’t understand why Stirling would suspect you if he believes the first time you met her was when you had that slight altercation at the show. Surely, he doesn’t think you went somewhere to procure poison to slip to her.”

  “Hence why he wondered if we were carrying medication around with us,” Matilda said. “They obviously haven’t identified the poison yet.”

  “Well, I could ask Wanda Hershberger.” I scratched my head. Wanda was an Amish lady whose daughter, Waneta, worked in the medical examiner’s office. She had helped us before, but I didn’t know if this was pushing things too far, given that Matilda and Eleanor were considered to be suspects. I didn’t want to get Wanda’s daughter into any trouble.

  Matilda nodded. “That’s a good idea. So far we only have Horatio Calhoun-Blye on our list of suspects, so we need to find out what he stands to inherit.”

  “You’re right, Matilda,” Eleanor said. “I’ve been googling Gemma Calhoun’s name for ages, and it simply brings up plenty of results from goat shows.”

  “Wait a moment.” I jumped to my feet. “What was the name of her goat, the champion one? That lady, Francis, did mention it.”

  “It’s here on the computer.” Eleanor pointed to the screen. “Liberty Hill Farm Sweetened Wine.”

  I nodded. “Then maybe Gemma bred that goat. Try searching for Liberty Hill Farm.”

  Matilda and Eleanor tapped away at their keyboards as though it were a competition.

  Matilda found it first. She swung the laptop around to show me. “There you are! I found it on an image search.”

  The image showed a sign with bold brass lettering, ‘Liberty Hill Farm,’ on a black iron gateway flanked by an imposing stone fence. Through the gate in the background of the photo was an impressive house. “There! She was wealthy!” Matilda said with satisfaction. “Therefore the main suspect should be the beneficiary of her will.”

  “Let’s get an address,” I said. “It should be easy enough to get an address, maybe from one of the online goat magazines.”

  Both of them tapped away again, but this time Eleanor was the winner. “I found it! Should we go there now?”

  Matilda made a strangling sound at the back of her throat. “Go there now? Are you quite mad? No, it’s too late at night and it’s too dark outside. We’ll go there first thing in the morning before Jane has to be at work. What you think, Jane?”

  “Sure,” I said. “And I think we need to visit Francis.”

  “Do you think she is the murderer?” Eleanor said hopefully.

  “I don’t have an opinion either way, but she would know all the gossip about Gemma Calhoun. I mean, the goat breeders seem to be a rather tight-knit community, so Francis would surely know what was going on.”

  “That’s a really good idea,” Matilda said, looking at me with admiration. “Tomorrow, we will question Francis.”

  Chapter 6

  I awoke at the crack of dawn, having been up most of the night due to the oversupply of caffeine pumping through me. I had gotten to sleep about three in the morning, and now I felt groggy.

  Somebody banged on my door. I opened one eye. “Are you awake, Jane? Let’s go!” The voice was Eleanor’s.

  I dressed and staggered to the kitchen. I reached for the coffeepot, but Matilda slapped my hand away. “I’ve made a flask. We are already running late—you can drink it while you drive. Or maybe I should drive.”

  Fear coursed through my veins. “No! I’ll drive.”

  “I’ll navigate,” Eleanor offered.

  Gemma Calhoun’s house was only thirty or so minutes away. The gates were open, but we didn’t like to go inside. “That house wouldn’t be cheap,” Matilda said in what was clearly a massive understatement.

  I agreed. “We’ll have to call Francis. But how do we get her number, and what will you say when you call her?”

  “I found her number in the list of goat breeders online,” Matilda said, “and I already called her.”

  I was aghast. “What? You already called her? At this early hour?”

  Matilda appeared unconcerned. “She’s a goat breeder, Jane.” Her tone was lecturing. “Dairy goat breeders have to be up early to milk the goats. I thought you of all people would know that, having been Amish. And didn’t you say your family had a milking goat or two when you were a child? You must know that dairy goats require milking twice a day, just like dairy cows.”

  “Still, I would be annoyed if somebody called me early in the morning, no matter how many goats I had to milk,” I said. “And what did you tell her?”

  “The truth.” Matilda smiled widely. “I told her that Eleanor and I had been taken in for questioning last night. I told her the detective in charge doesn’t like us and he was trying to pin the murderer on us. I said we needed her help to discover who the murderer really is.”

  I realized I was frowning hard. “And what did she say?”

  “She said we could drop by early. I told her you had to start work at nine.”

  I didn’t know whether to be irritated or to be in admiration of Matilda for organizing everything. “So, do we head there now?”

  Matilda looked at her phone. “It’s a little early. Jane, drive down the road and park under that beech tree. We can drink some coffee and keep a watch to see if anybody comes or goes.”

  I thought her plan a good one. After all, there was nothing else to do. We parked down the road a little way, and Matilda produced a large flask of coffee along with three cups. I felt halfway normal after consuming a cup and held my cup out for more. “Well, nobody left the house,” I said. “Maybe she lived alone.”

  “Francis would know,” Eleanor said. “Now Jane, please keep your wits about you, because Francis could well be the killer.”

  I drained my second cup of coffee and drove on. Francis lived a further half hour from Gemma Calhoun’s house. Her property was far more modest than Gemma’s although it was picturesque, a pretty house nestled at the bottom of a hill in the midst of gorgeous, green rolling hills.

  We parked outside the house. I got out and headed to the front door, but Matil
da put her hand on my arm to restrain me. “She might be in the milking shed there,” she said, pointing over her shoulder.

  She was right. We were halfway to the milking shed when Francis came out. She was wearing old, casual clothes and a worried expression. Still, she offered us a weak smile. “That was good timing,” she said. “I’ve just finished the milking.”

  “Do you have to milk many goats?”

  “Only five does,” she said.

  Something occurred to me. “What will happen to Gemma Calhoun’s goats? Who is milking them?”

  Francis chuckled. “She didn’t milk her own goats. Gemma never liked to get her hands dirty. She paid somebody to do it for her. Don’t worry about her goats. Anyway, would you like some coffee? Maybe a cold drink?”

  I didn’t want to risk becoming over-caffeinated again, and I’d already had two cups of coffee in the car. I was really in the mood for some meadow tea, but I knew Englischers wouldn’t have any, so I opted for coffee as well. We all thanked her and followed her inside.

  The private deck led to the dining area. It, in turn, led past a movable island to a spacious kitchen. I admired the hardwood flooring. We sat around the big wooden table in the kitchen while Francis brewed the coffee.

  Francis placed a steaming pot of coffee on the table and set a plain white coffee cup in front of each of us. She handed me one, and I immediately noticed the large chip in the rim. In the middle of the tray was a plate of cookies.

  Before sitting down, Francis reached into a narrow drawer in the table and produced a photo album. “This is Liberty Hill Farm Sweetened Wine,” she said. “This is where she won the Junior Champion Goat at the state show.” She shoved the photo under our noses. “And here are her milk test certificates.”

  I had no idea how to read a milk test certificate, but I said, “Wow, that’s fantastic.”

  Francis beamed from ear to ear. “Oh yes, just look at that butterfat content! And the yield! Anyone would think she was a Saanen and not a Toggenburg!”

  “Quite so, quite so,” Matilda said.

  After flipping through every page of the weighty album, Francis put it down and then gestured to the large oil painting of a goat behind her. “And that’s Liberty Hill Farm Sweetened Wine there.”