“I don’t know what that had to do with anything.”

  “I’m just surprised that they don’t suspect you.”

  “Suspect me? Why would I hurt the man whom I wanted to care for me the rest of my life? It’s ludicrous.”

  I opened my mouth to argue.

  “As for the other girlfriend, Deputy Little has already spoken to her. She’s not a suspect because she’s still in Florida. However, I gave the deputy her name and number so that he could verify that I knew about the relationship and I didn’t care. Love had nothing to do with Blaze and me.”

  I blinked. “You told the sheriff’s department about the girlfriend?”

  “Of course, I did. I’m an attorney and judge. I know the worst thing I can do is withhold information. I was as open and upfront with them as I was with you.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You think I killed my fiancé?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “You have as much motive as anyone else involved, perhaps even more.”

  She unlocked a rental car with the key fob in her hand. “If I’d done something wrong, wouldn’t I have already left town?” She climbed into the car and drove away.

  I kind of wished that I would have that much confidence when I was in my eighties, but since I couldn’t muster it up in my thirties, I had serious doubts.

  I didn’t see Aiden until he came back to my house to crash around nine that night. I knew he was not only working on Blaze’s murder case, but on other BCI cases that he couldn’t even tell me about. He was exhausted, and it made me wonder how he would be able to keep up this pace after he went back to Columbus. How would our relationship be able to withstand it?

  The next day was Cyber Monday, and we would have lots of sales because of the popularity of Bailey’s Amish Sweets. However, it was manageable because foot traffic in the shop was low. Both Charlotte and Emily could work on fulfilling orders. Growing up Amish, neither one of them had computer experience. Charlotte was starting to learn since she’d left the church. But to make everything easier for all of us, I printed off all the online orders and checked the computer every hour as new orders came in. Emily and Charlotte worked off the printed sheets while Maami watched the front of the shop.

  It was midmorning when Emily said, “Oh!”

  Charlotte and I spun around. I think after being chased by turkeys—which we’d decided not to tell Emily or Maami to save them worry—we were both on edge.

  “What?” we asked in unison.

  “We are out of powdered sugar. I was in charge of ordering last weekend, and it looks like I left it off the list. We need it for so many recipes.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. “That’s no reason to panic. We’ve been under a lot of pressure these last several weeks. If we make a small mistake or forget something, that’s all right. Business is booming . . . we can hire more help.”

  “But we can’t have more people working in here at the same time,” Emily said. “We are already on top of each other.”

  I bit my lip to hold back my idea of building an auxiliary candy factory that would support Swissmen Sweets. I thought the girls would be behind the idea, but it would not be an easy decision for my grandmother. Bringing the expansion up now, amid so much work and such high stress . . . I didn’t think that was best.

  I just had to get past Christmas; then, I promised myself, I would talk to Maami. It was less than a month away. I had held the idea in for this long—what were another few weeks?

  “Do not worry about it,” I told Emily. “I can have powdered sugar overnighted to us. In the meantime, I will run to the market and buy enough to get us by today.”

  Emily started to remove her apron. “I should be the one to go. I was the one who made the mistake.”

  I waved away her suggestion. “Keep your apron on. It would be good for me to get out.”

  And it would give me a chance to slip away and speak to Clyde Klem. I just hoped he was working at the market that day.

  “Emily,” Charlotte said. “Don’t you know that Bailey wants to sleuth?”

  “And buy powdered sugar.”

  “Right,” Charlotte snorted.

  I shook my head. Sometimes this new English version of Charlotte was all sass.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Before leaving the shop, I grabbed my coat and a scarf. The weather had changed overnight. Wednesday would be the first day of December. I probably should have put on gloves and a hat as well, but I was going to fight that for as long as possible, which wouldn’t be too long. Freezing rain and snow were predicted for later in the day as temperatures dropped.

  I suspected after the long holiday weekend and with the poor forecast, the shop was going to be slow that day. I didn’t think any of us would be sorry for that. Anyone who worked in retail of any sort had to recover from working over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. It was the most profitable of the year but also the most exhausting.

  The market was a street over from the square. It was in a long, one-story building that had been in the same place since my grandfather was a boy. Little had changed inside either. It was an old-fashioned Amish grocer that sold items in bulk and carried just the bare necessities. If you were in need of ten pounds of flour or a cheap toothbrush, it was the place to go. If you wanted fancy pre-made meals or exotic spices, it was best to make the forty-minute drive to Canton to go shopping there. I guessed Ansel, the store manager, wouldn’t even know how to get those items if you asked him to order them for you.

  One thing that they did have was powdered sugar, and the five-pound bag that it came in would be perfect for our needs at the shop for one day.

  I stepped inside the market and grabbed a small shopping cart. It wasn’t like the shopping cart you could get at an English supermarket. It was half the size and looked as if it was made for a child. However, it was perfect for the market since the aisles were narrow and the corners were tight.

  I pushed it to the baking aisle and grabbed the powdered sugar. All the while I was on the lookout for Clyde Klem. He wasn’t in the baking aisle, so I took a lap around the small store and found him stocking Amish noodles in the back.

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  He looked up from his task with a scowl. Clyde wasn’t what you would call a friendly Amish man. He was the type of Amish guy that most tourists who came to the county expected. He was quiet, reserved, and spent a good amount of time scowling over his Amish beard.

  “Can I help you?” he asked in a tone that clearly said he hoped the answer was no.

  “Maybe, I’m Bailey King, and—”

  “I know who you are,” he interrupted me. “But I don’t know what your name has to do with helping you find something in the market.”

  “It doesn’t. I actually wanted to talk to you about Zara Bevan.”

  He sat up with a jolt and muttered in Pennsylvania Dutch. I didn’t know many words in the language but since moving to Holmes County, I had picked up on the less than flattering ones. He said a good number of those.

  “Are you upset because she was the judge on your case and sent you to prison?”

  He glared at me. “Leave me be. I did my time. There is nothing more I have to say.”

  “Did you know Zara was here for Thanksgiving?”

  His jaw twitched, and I was convinced he wasn’t going to answer me. Instead, he surprised me by saying, “I saw her at the community Thanksgiving feast. As soon as I did, I gathered up my wife and children and we left. I would not attend the same function as that woman. She is worse than a snake.”

  “There was plenty of seating away from Zara, or you could have eaten inside the church. Why did you think that you had to leave?”

  He straightened up to his full height, which was half a head taller than me. “What I do or what I have my family do is none of your concern.” He picked up the box of noodles and stomped in the direction of the storage room.

  “Do you know her fiancé was killed at Thanksgiving?”

  He stopped and looked at me. His jaw was tense. I thought if he clenched it any harder, he might just crack his teeth. “Then I would say that he was lucky. He is much better off dead than married to that horrible woman.”

  His tone was so furious and sharp that I found myself taking a step back.

  “You have very strong feelings about Zara, don’t you?”

  He glowered at me. “If she had done to you or someone you loved what happened to me, you’d have very strong feelings too.”

  “What did she do?” I asked.

  “She didn’t give me a second chance. Even Gott gives a man a second chance.”

  “You mean she sent you to prison. What were you in prison for anyway?”

  “Why should I tell you?”

  “You’re right. It wouldn’t be hard for me to find out, but it would be a lot faster if you just told me.”

  He glared at me.

  I waited.

  After a long moment in which he didn’t speak, I asked, “Were you arrested because you hurt someone?”

  He held a package of noodles in his hand, and I could hear the noodles snap as he ever so slowly tightened his grip. Crack, crack, crack, the noodles went.

  I grimaced, hoping that Clyde wasn’t imagining my head as he crushed those noodles.

  “Nee,” he said.

  “No to what?” I asked.

  “I never hurt anyone. I have never hurt anyone. I took a lawn mower.”

  I blinked. “A lawn mower?”

  He dropped the noodles back in the box. I was grateful to see that. I hoped no one bought them unless they liked their noodles pre-crushed.

  “Ya, and I was going to put it back. I was seventeen and my daed told me to mow the lawn. In my district, we are not allowed to use gas-powered mowers. We were just supposed to use push mowers, but I saw my neighbor had left his gas mower out. He wasn’t home, and I borrowed it to mow the lawn.”

  I didn’t like the direction that this story was going.

  “The neighbor came home, saw what I was doing, and called the police. He told them I stole his mower. When I said that I was borrowing it and planned to take it back, no one listened to me, not the neighbor, the police, or my daed. My father was just so ashamed that I would break district rules and cut corners when I should have been using a push mower. I was arrested.”

  “They convicted you and sent you to prison for that?”

  “It was for six months, but it was enough. My family would have nothing to do with me after that. Luckily, I had an aunt who took me in. Without her I would be lost.” He narrowed his eyes. “So if you ask me if I care that the judge who sent me to prison for borrowing a lawnmower is having a hard time, I do not.”

  “What’s going on back here?” asked Ansel Beachy, the manager of the Harvest Market. Ansel was a heavyset man with a mostly bald head except for a few gray tufts that didn’t seem to want to lie down. His salt-and-pepper beard was coarse. He loved to talk and had always been kind to me when I came into the market, even early on when the other Amish residents of Harvest weren’t sure what to make of me. “Oh, Bailey,” Ansel said. “Can I help you with something?”

  I nodded to my cart. “After a busy weekend, I just stopped in to restock.”

  He smiled. “The market was packed all weekend too. I was happy for the business, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m happy for a quiet Monday.” He glanced at Clyde, who hadn’t moved since Ansel arrived. “Clyde, where are you going with that box? Shouldn’t those noodles be on the shelf already? I gave you that task well over an hour ago.” Ansel’s tone was kind but firm.

  Clyde’s jaw twitched. It seemed to me that he didn’t care for being questioned by anyone, not even his boss.

  Ansel said something to Clyde in their language.

  Frowning, Clyde carried his box back to the spot he had been in just a moment before and went back to stocking. He didn’t even look at me.

  Ansel looked back in my direction, and his forehead creased. “Is that all you need, Bailey?”

  I glanced at Clyde. There was no way he was going to speak to me now. “This is it.”

  “Let’s go up front, and I will check you out so you can be on your way.”

  It might have just been me, but I felt I was being shuffled out of the market. I followed Ansel to the front of the store. An Amish mother and four children came inside, and Ansel greeted them in their language. The mother gave me a shy smile before ushering her children into an aisle.

  I set the bag of powdered sugar onto the counter, and Ansel rang me up.

  “You had a busy weekend too, you said?”

  He nodded. “Very busy. Since last Wednesday. It was nice to have yesterday to refresh.”

  “You were busy on Wednesday and Thanksgiving Day too?”

  He nodded. “We were closed on Thanksgiving, but I kept finding myself running in and out of the store as people needed things for the community meal. Since my store is so close to the square, many times it was easier to ask me to grab any forgotten items than having whoever forgot the item go all the way back home to get it.”

  “Did Clyde help you with any of that?” I asked.

  “Clyde?” Ansel asked, his brow wrinkling again. “Nee, the market was officially closed that day, so I was the only one who went in and out of the store.”

  “Did you see the man collapse during the meal?” I asked.

  “Ya, the Englischer at the head table? I did see that. I heard hours later that he died. Was he ill?”

  “Peanut allergy.”

  Ansel’s eyes went wide. “If he had a peanut allergy, then why was he asking for church spread?”

  I stared at him. “Blaze asked for church spread?”

  “Blaze? Is that’s someone’s dog?”

  I shook my head. “It was the name of the Englischer who toppled over.”

  Ansel shook his head. “It seems that more and more Englischers are giving their children names that are better suited for pets.”

  “When did Blaze ask for church spread?” I asked.

  “He didn’t ask directly, but someone came to the market as I was leaving and said that the man from Florida—Blaze I guess—would like church spread.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I didn’t see.”

  “You didn’t see who it was?”

  He shook his head. “I had a huge stack of boxes in front of me to take to the square. They covered my face and I couldn’t peek around them to see who was asking. I know it was a young Amish man from his voice, and I could see his plain black shoes. I needed to get the items to the square, so I told him where the church spread was and to go in and grab it. My hands were full. I had a few more items to come back for, so I knew I would return to lock up the market.”

  I stared at Ansel. What he was telling me was that he’d probably spoken to the killer just as he was collecting the murder weapon.

  “That will be $7.45 for the powdered sugar,” Ansel said, not knowing what part he had played in Blaze’s death. I wasn’t going to tell him.

  I handed him a ten-dollar bill and collected the powdered sugar and my change. I turned just before I reached the door. “Ansel?”

  He looked up from the counter, which he was now wiping with water and vinegar. “Ya?”

  “If you heard that young man’s voice again, would you recognize it?”

  He folded his cleaning cloth. “I don’t know that I would. He sounded just like every other Amish young man to me.”

  That was no help at all.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Instead of going back to Swissmen Sweets, I decided to walk over to the square and take a look around. Maybe if I went back to the scene of the crime, something would jog my memory. I was trying to remember if I’d seen anyone, especially a young Amish man, carrying a container of church spread at any point before, during, or after the meal. Nothing came to mind.

  Midday on Monday, the square was deserted. After the holiday weekend people were back at work and school. Also the quick drop in temperature might have kept away anyone who might be out for a walk.

  I was certainly regretting my decision not to wear a hat.

  The Christmas decorations that sparkled at night were all off and hung forlornly from the trees and the gazebo until they would be called on to brighten the square that evening.

  I tucked the bag of sugar in the crook of my arm and texted Aiden. I told him what I had learned from Ansel at the market. I knew that he or Deputy Little would want to talk to Ansel about the young man collecting church spread.

  There was no evidence other than the holiday decorations that had been put up directly after the meal that a Thanksgiving gathering had ever happened on the square.

  I thought of everyone who was at the table with Blaze and Zara. Of the forty sitting there, there wasn’t an Amish young man.

  I knew there had been many Amish at the meal, but the only young man I had taken any note of was Leon Hersh. Leon had said that he was told to keep an eye on Blaze and Zara for the entire meal. I do remember Leon pacing around the square before the meal, but I’d thought he was just nervous about following Margot’s orders for the day. Could it be possible he was the one who went to the market and got the church spread?

  My brow wrinkled as I walked by the gazebo. Just as I came around to the gazebo steps, there was a squeal and a blur leaped at me. I screamed and squeezed the powdered sugar bag so hard, it burst open and I was enveloped in a white cloud. I started coughing.

  When the cloud of sugar dissipated, I looked down to see Jethro, who was also coated in white sugar. He gazed up at me with concern on his piggy face.

  “Oh dear.” Juliet came running down the gazebo steps. “Jethro was just so excited to see you that he got a bit carried away.”

  Margot came down the same steps at a much slower pace. She didn’t look nearly as excited to be there as Juliet and Jethro.

  Juliet picked up Jethro and began wiping powdered sugar from his face. The pig stuck out his tongue and licked himself. To be honest, he didn’t seem to be all that upset about the sweet predicament he found himself in.