Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery Book 4) Read online

  More Praise for the National Bestselling Amish Mysteries

  Shunned and Dangerous

  “Superb . . . [A] thought-provoking mystery . . . The reader discovers the nuances of a culture that is foreign to most of us. . . .[Bradford] uses human relationships as the basis for her outstanding mysteries.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  “Laura Bradford once again transports her readers to the heart of the Amish country . . . Readers . . . will love Bradford’s attention to detail and her obvious love for the Amish people . . . [A] great addition to the series!”

  —Debbie’s Book Bag

  Assaulted Pretzel

  “Bradford concocts a clever whodunit . . . Her characters possess depth, and her mastery of the Amish culture adds a dimension to her work that readers likely will find fascinating.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “Delightful . . . Well-portrayed characters and authentic Amish lore make this a memorable read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Bradford is adept at creating characters that readers will care about. Her books are fascinating with the combination of mystery, Amish culture, and relationships.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  “The Amish customs and traditions are fascinating and blend nicely into the mystery, while the author’s ability to provide an authentic sense of community makes this story engaging.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Engaging characters fill this well-plotted mystery. The Amish community of Heavenly is realistically depicted and English (as the Amish call non-Amish) characters are woven into the community in believable ways.”

  —The Mystery Reader (four stars)

  Hearse and Buggy

  “A really great, well-written mystery. The characters all had depth and dimension, and were easy to relate to . . . The plot itself was excellent . . . A delightful book, and I cannot wait to visit Heavenly again!”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Undoubtedly one of the best cozy mysteries I’ve read this year. It is meaty, with an intriguing background, and it provides an education as to the Amish culture. And, Bradford’s characters are some of the best developed, most interesting ones I’ve come across in a cozy mystery. With Hearse and Buggy, Bradford has taken the Amish mystery and successfully made it her own.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  “An engaging amateur sleuth that interweaves Amish society with an enjoyable whodunit. Claire is a terrific protagonist whose wonderful investigation enables readers to obtain insight into the Amish culture . . . [A] delightful Amish cozy.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Bradford

  HEARSE AND BUGGY

  ASSAULTED PRETZEL

  SHUNNED AND DANGEROUS

  SUSPENDERED SENTENCE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

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  A Penguin Random House Company

  SUSPENDERED SENTENCE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2015 by Laura Bradford.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14826-0

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / March 2015

  Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.

  Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For my family, with all my love.

  You really do make my world so much brighter.

  Acknowledgments

  Regardless of the book I’m writing, I invariably come across a question that sends me in search of answers. Sometimes, in respect to the Amish Mysteries, those questions mean a research trip to Lancaster County (I love my research trips). Sometimes, those questions send me rifling through my pile of books and newspaper clippings (thank you, Kevan Deardorff). And sometimes, those questions lead me to my cell phone and the really smart folks who inhabit my contact list.

  J. D. Rhoades was one of those “smart folks” this go-round as I played with the plot for Suspendered Sentence. His willingness to answer my law-related questions (sometimes several rounds of questions) proved invaluable. Thank you, Dusty!

  Equally important to the writing of each book, is the support I get from my readers. Your letters (via my website), posts on my social media pages, and willingness to come say hi when I’m doing an event always provide just the right boost at just the right time. Thank you!

  Contents

  Praise for the National Bestselling Amish Mysteries

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Bradford

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 1

  Claire Weatherly didn’t need to trade glances with her aunt to know what the woman was thinking. It was as palpable as the flames that danced in the hearth and the contentment she felt as she watched them.

  Life was good. Great, even. And the man seated beside her on the floral couch was, without a doubt, a contributing factor in that assessment. The only question that remained was whether he was there as the friend she repeatedly tried to convince herself he was, or the something more Diane’s eyes were desperate to convey via their usual arched brow or deliberate blink.

  Oh, how she wanted to lose herself in the kind of certainty reserved for the unhurt, but fear held her back. Instead, she turned yet another page of the paperback mystery novel she’d stopped absorbing the moment Jakob Fisher showed up at the door of her aunt’s inn, and mentally pleaded with herself to enjoy the moment.

  “
I think you were about fifteen when I opened the inn, weren’t you, Jakob?”

  Claire lifted her head just in time to catch the detective’s faint nod. “I will never forget your smile the day you came out to my father’s farm to buy some pumpkins for your front porch. It was different than any I’d ever seen on an adult.”

  “Different?” Claire echoed across her book. “How so?”

  He trained his hazel eyes on her, eliciting a slight but audible intake of air from her lips in the process. “I don’t know. I guess the adults in my world at that time were more subdued. They smiled, sure, but not like your aunt did that day.”

  “As I remember it, I wasn’t the only one smiling that day,” Diane teased before rising to her feet to add a log to the fire. “In fact, you were so smitten by that young girl walking along the road, I’m surprised you noticed anything else.”

  Jakob’s momentary hint of confusion was quickly chased from his face by an expression more befitting a painful memory, piquing Claire’s curiosity in the process. “Do tell. Please.”

  Hesitation gave way to an answer peppered by starts and stops. “That would have been Elizabeth Troyer.”

  “That was Benjamin’s Elizabeth, right?” The second the words were out, she cringed. “Wait. You don’t have to answer—”

  He shrugged. “Yes. Benjamin’s Elizabeth. But she was not Benjamin’s at that time.”

  She noted the lingering bitterness in the man’s voice at the mere mention of Benjamin Miller and held it against everything she’d learned about the pair since moving to Heavenly, Pennsylvania, thirteen months earlier. The two men had grown up together, their proximity in age and common interest in all things outdoors helping to forge a friendship within the confines of their small Amish community. When they hadn’t been helping their elders on their respective farms or sitting side by side in their district’s one-room schoolhouse, the boys had often met at the creek to catch frogs, skip stones, and swim. It was a friendship that had soured, though, as they approached their teenage years, thanks to a jealousy Jakob’s own father had stoked in his son. Jakob’s departure from the Amish fold before his twentieth birthday simply served to sever the tie completely.

  Diane returned to her upholstered lounge chair on the other side of the oval hooked rug and sank into its depths, a worried expression creasing her brow. “I didn’t mean to bring up a sore subject, Jakob. I’m sorry.”

  “No apologies needed. Elizabeth’s heart did not belong to me. I accepted that fact seventeen years ago.”

  “Is that why you really left the Amish?” Claire whispered.

  He shifted his body ever so slightly, grazing his shoulder against hers as he did. “No. I left because I wanted to help solve John Zook’s murder—as a policeman.”

  It was a decision that had cost Jakob everything, not the least of which was any hope of a relationship with his childhood family or anyone else from his former Amish life.

  “When Elizabeth first told me of her feelings for Benjamin, I was angry. I saw it as yet another way I didn’t measure up. But, years later, when I had time and distance to reflect, I knew it was more than that. Elizabeth had changed during Rumspringa. At first, it was a change that brought us closer. But then, like everyone else, she could not accept what I wanted to be.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I was fascinated by the police long before Zook was murdered. The uniforms that made my family and friends wary, excited me. I wanted to know what they did and where they went. During Rumspringa, while my Amish friends were wearing English clothes and listening to English music, I was spending my time talking to police officers and watching what they did. When Rumspringa was over, my fascination with law enforcement had only grown. Which is why, looking back, I should have known baptism was not right for me. But I resisted. Had I not, I could be a part of my sister’s and brother’s lives now.”

  It was a part of the Amish culture she would never understand. The notion that a man like Jakob could be excommunicated from his family for choosing to serve the public simply didn’t sit well. But it was not hers to judge, as Diane always said. Had Jakob made his decision to leave prior to baptism, everything would have been different.

  “And Elizabeth?” Claire prodded. “She was bothered by your fascination?”

  “When her own Rumspringa was over, she was very quiet. I remember her crying a lot. She would never really say why, but she’d let me hold her sometimes when she was really upset. Oftentimes I would ask her if she was sure she wanted to be Amish. Each time I asked, she insisted she was.

  “I was skeptical until the moment I told her I was thinking about becoming a police officer. She got so upset at the mention of me becoming a cop that I knew, at that moment, that she was confident in her decision to be baptized.”

  Diane reclaimed her copy of the Heavenly Times from its spot atop the end table and smoothed it across her lap. “Did you happen to know that young Amish girl who left during Rumspringa and never came back?”

  “Sadie Lehman?” Jakob clarified. “Sure, I knew her. She was Elizabeth’s closest friend. They were like two peas in a pod, as my mother used to say. They played together, dreamed together, went on Rumspringa together. Having Sadie take off like that in the middle of it all was hard on Elizabeth. She thought they were friends, she thought they would be baptized together.”

  Diane clucked softly under her breath. “Hence the tears that you dried when Elizabeth’s Rumspringa was over . . .”

  “Hence the tears I dried,” Jakob confirmed. “But it was Benjamin, not me, who was finally able to convince Elizabeth that Sadie’s decision was God’s will.”

  There was something about Jakob’s tone that made Claire want to reach out and smooth away any and all lingering hurt from his features, but she resisted. There was simply too much uncertainty where his feelings for her were concerned.

  “And then, only a few years later, it was Benjamin who had to accept God’s will.” Diane shook her head slowly, the downward turn in the room’s atmosphere beginning to weigh on the sixty-three-year-old’s shoulders.

  Jakob stiffened ever so slightly beside Claire. “What happened to Elizabeth, exactly? All I’ve ever been told is she passed away shortly after she and Ben got married.”

  “Oh, Jakob, it was such a sad, sad tragedy,” Diane murmured. “It was early December, if I remember correctly. She was walking out near those thick woods next to Bishop Hershberger’s farm and—”

  “Wait. That’s hunting season.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  Jakob raked his fingers through his dark blond hair, groaning as he did. “Awww no . . .”

  Claire looked from Diane to Jakob and back again. “What? What am I missing?”

  Pitching forward on the sofa, Jakob dropped his head into his hands. “She was killed by a stray bullet, wasn’t she?”

  Her gasp wasn’t loud enough to drown out Diane’s affirmation and Jakob’s subsequent, louder groan. “I . . . I had no idea,” she stammered. “I . . . I just assumed she’d been sick or something.” A glance to her right confirmed she wasn’t the only one who’d made a similar assumption.

  “In some ways, I think an illness would have been easier for Benjamin. It would have given him time to prepare. But a simple case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time? There’s no way to prepare for something like that . . .” Diane’s words whispered off only to return on the heels of a weighted sigh. “They’d been married less than three weeks. Three weeks.”

  She searched for something to say—for Jakob, for Benjamin, for the woman who’d clearly meant so much to both men—yet she was speechless.

  “I always knew it would take someone mighty special to make that poor man even consider the notion of getting married again. It’s just a shame that—”

  Desperate to keep her aunt from finishing, Claire cleared her throat, then trained her attention on their guest. “Hey . . . you okay?”

  Jakob’s hesitation gave way to a
reassuring pat on her hand. “Yeah. I’m okay. I’m just stunned. Stunned and saddened for Elizabeth . . . and Ben.” Then, squaring his shoulders, he plucked a familiar red-and-white-checked bag from the pocket of his coat and handed it to Claire. “I stopped by Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe after work today and thought maybe you’d like one of Ruth’s famous chocolate chip cookies . . .”

  The rustle of newspaper on the other side of the rug did little to disguise her aunt’s cluck of approval, but it didn’t matter. Diane was right. It was a sweet gesture. By a sweet man.

  “I’d love one, Jakob, thank you—”

  “I’m still not sure what I think of this.” Diane adjusted her reading glasses atop her nose and then tapped the paper with the back side of her hand. “But I know Ryan O’Neil must be absolutely beside himself.”

  Reluctantly, Claire broke eye contact with Jakob to address her aunt. “Who is Ryan O’Neil?”

  Jakob’s non-cookie-holding hand shot into the air. “Wait. I know this. He was the mayor of Heavenly during the last few years I lived here as a teenager.”

  “That’s right. And he held that office for another three terms before losing to Don Smith about seven or eight years ago. Folks around here thought Ryan would run again the first chance he got, but his pride was wounded and he never did.”

  Claire took a bite of Ruth’s cookie, savoring the instant burst of chocolate. “Mmmm, okay, so what’s going on now?”

  “His son, Mike, is throwing his hat in the ring for the next mayoral race.”

  “Yeah, some of the guys in my department were talking about that this morning. They seem to be divided on how he’d be as mayor. The ones who grew up around here seem to find the notion funny; the ones who didn’t, think he’ll do a decent job.”

  “That’s because the ones who grew up around here remember the Michael of old and it’s not a very flattering image. Especially in conjunction with someone who wants to hold a position of power in our town.” Diane took one last look at the article, then peered up at Claire’s sofa mate. “Do you remember Mike from back then, Jakob?”