Assaulted Pretzel Read online

  More Praise for Hearse and Buggy

  “A really great, well-written mystery. The characters all had depth and dimension, and were easy to relate to. Even unlikeable characters were the kind that you ‘loved to hate’…The plot itself was excellent—the culprit was revealed at exactly the right time, and it was someone I did not guess…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…Fans will enjoy her inquiry as Laura Bradford provides a delightful Amish cozy.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “An entertaining opening act.”

  —Gumshoe Review

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Bradford

  HEARSE AND BUGGY

  ASSAULTED PRETZEL

  Assaulted Pretzel

  LAURA BRADFORD

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA / Canada / UK / Ireland / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.

  ASSAULTED PRETZEL

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

  Copyright © 2013 by Laura Bradford.

  Excerpt from Hearse and Buggy by Laura Bradford copyright © 2012 by Laura Bradford.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  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) Inc.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-61946-9

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / March 2013

  Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.

  Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.

  Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.

  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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON

  For my family, with all my love.

  Table of Contents

  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

  Hearse and Buggy

  Chapter 1

  Claire Weatherly was just reaching for a slice of Ruth Miller’s second-to-none Shoo Fly Pie when she heard it—the slow rolling rumble of an approaching storm that threatened to put the kibosh on the treat she’d been hankering for all week. Shielding the plate with her body, she dove her fork into the gooey goodness and—

  “You did what?”

  “I made some calls. Gathered some numbers. There’s no comparison.”

  “I didn’t tell you to make those calls!”

  “You didn’t tell me? Are you kidding me?”

  Poof! The fork in her hand, the pie on her plate, and the feel of the autumn sun on her face were gone. In their place was the whisper of moonlight across the bottom of her comforter and the very real sound of two people arguing in the room across the hall.

  She willed her eyes to close and her thoughts to return to the food festival that had seemed so real only moments earlier, but she couldn’t make it happen. The approaching storm in her dreams had shown its true colors.

  Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the ceiling and searched for faces to accompany the angry voices. The constant comings and goings in her aunt’s century-and-a-half-old Victorian necessitated a gift with names that Claire simply didn’t possess. Still, she tried, cycling her way through the various guests who inhabited the rooms around hers…

  Was it Doug and Kayla Jones?

  No. Those were the honeymooners in Room Two. Arguing was the farthest thing from their radar…

  The Grandersons?

  No. That was the elderly couple in Room One whom Diane had been hosting at the inn every fall for the past sixteen years. Sleep was a far higher priority for the Wisconsin duo than fighting…

  Claire struggled onto her elbow and wiped the sleep from her eyes. Room by room she mentally moved her way around the second-floor hallway.

  Was it Melinda Simon, the young public relations executive who’d checked in along with her boss and his wife?

  Sure enough, the visual accompaniment to the ever-rising voices in Room Six took shape in Claire’s mind, spewing out a positive identity in short order.

  Rob Karble—president of the world-famous Karble Toys—and his wife, Ann, had checked into Sleep Heavenly shortly after Claire had returned from work that evening. Friendly enough during dinner, the couple had opted to skip Diane’s hot fudge brownies in favor of a long walk along the streets of Heavenly. When they returned some ninety minutes later they’d seemed happy.

  Obviously, something had changed since they’d returned from their walk and retired to their room for the night.

  “But to draft a memo without even talking to me?”

  “Would it have mattered, Rob?”

  “I—”

  “You know as well as I do, the answer to that is no. You’ve had nothing but tunnel vision since you and Melinda concocted this idea.”

  “Because it’s a good one!”

  “A good one? I think that remains to be seen, don’t you? But either way, my plan makes it even better. Lucrative, even.”

  “Does it always have to be about money?”

  Claire imagined Ann’s teeth unclenching long enough to release the laugh that seeped its way underneath her door. “Did that just come out of your mouth?”

  “It did.”

  “Stop the presses, ladies and gentlemen, Robert Karble is questioning whethe
r we need to make a decision based on money!”

  Something resembling a snort was quickly followed by Rob’s clipped voice. “Look, I’ve run this show for nearly twenty years now. And in those twenty years I’ve realized more profits than you could have ever dreamed because of the way I do things. So back off!”

  “Back off? Did you just tell me to back off?”

  Uh-oh…

  Claire threw back her comforter and swung her feet over the edge of her bed. People like the Grandersons and the Joneses came to Heavenly, Pennsylvania, for the peace and tranquility synonymous with the picturesque Amish town. Awaking to a veritable knock-down, drag-out fight wasn’t supposed to be part of the experience.

  Wiggling her feet into her slippers, Claire stood and made her way over to her door, a host of potential argument-busters flitting through her thoughts. She could knock on their door and ask them to keep it down or she could be more subtle…

  “What is it with you, Rob? What do you find so fascinating about these people? Why are you trying to be their white knight?”

  Slowly, Claire opened her door to reveal the softly lit hallway that traversed the second story of Heavenly’s premier bed-and-breakfast. Here, the wooden floors were polished to a warm glow and the walls were lined with period sconces that cast a magical aura across the narrow footway.

  “I…I’m not trying to be anyone’s white knight!”

  “Oh no? Then think like the businessman you’ve always been and send out this memo.”

  “And if I don’t?” Rob hissed.

  “If you don’t send it out, I will.”

  “Ann, I swear, if you send that memo, I’ll…I’ll—”

  “You’ll what, Rob? Yell? Stamp your feet? Puh-lease. You and I both know you’re not the one who’s in a position to hurl a threat. I am.”

  Claire took two steps forward and coughed—once, twice. And, just as she’d hoped, the arguing ceased in favor of the kind of quiet that would have had her eyes rolling back in her head by now over the perfection that was Ruth Miller’s Shoo Fly Pie.

  Figures…

  But maybe, if she was really lucky, she could drift right back to sleep and into the same magical dream that still had her stomach rumbling with hunger despite the full-blown turkey dinner she’d eaten mere hours before bed.

  Yup. It was official. She was hopeless. Completely and utterly hopeless.

  Shaking her head in self-disgust, Claire pivoted back toward her room only to freeze, midway, as she caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye.

  Curious to see who else had been roused from their dreams by the Karbles’ heated argument, she turned in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of Melinda Simon just before the door to Room Three clicked shut, the hint of a smile on the statuesque blonde’s face sending an inexplicable shiver down Claire’s spine.

  Chapter 2

  One look at the dark circles under her aunt’s eyes and Claire knew she and Melinda hadn’t been the only ones roused from sleep in the wee hours of the morning. Even so, a quick check in the mirror before she’d headed down the stairs to help with breakfast hadn’t yielded the kind of tension evident in the sixtysomething’s face and stance.

  Diane was upset. Or, at the very least, concerned. Either way, Claire hated seeing her aunt being anything other than her normal sunshiny self.

  Desperate for a way to fix things, Claire stopped beside the basket of fresh-from-the-oven blueberry muffins and inhaled deeply, willing the effects of their mouthwatering aroma to work their way into her yawn-infused voice. “If I hadn’t been so excited about today, I’m sure I would have slept through the noise, Aunt Diane. Truly.”

  Diane set the ceramic butter crock on the counter beside the muffins and dropped onto a nearby stool, releasing a weary sigh as she did. “That’s sweet of you to say, dear, but, considering Mrs. Granderson was ruminating about the ruckus with the new bride across the hall this morning, you’d have been the only one, dear.”

  So much for wishful thinking…

  She pulled a second stool from beneath the counter and sank onto its cheerfully upholstered cushion, her hands quickly giving way to the temptation that was her aunt’s baking. “I know my only experience with the Karbles was at dinner last night, but they didn’t strike me as the type to fight like that, you know?”

  Diane’s bifocals slipped down the bridge of her nose only to be pushed into place with a defiant shove. “It was a disagreement, not a fight. I just wish they could have had it at a different time and in a different place. I mean, they have so much to be excited about right now…” With a wave of a hand, her father’s oldest sister returned to her feet and the quietly efficient pace that was as much a part of her makeup as the gray-streaked hair and heart-shaped face. “But it’s over now and that’s all that matters, right?”

  Claire took a bite of muffin and considered her aunt’s words. “Do you think there’s any chance we’ll see a resurrection of the argument over breakfast?”

  “Since the two of them headed out of here about twenty minutes ago, I’ll say no. And with the reception they’re sure to get in town today, I think everything will be fine by the time they return.”

  She took a second bite, glancing at the clock on the microwave as she did. “At least they left together, right? That has to be a good sign.”

  Diane breezed around the kitchen, gathering the necessary plates and cups needed to serve a hearty breakfast for five of Sleep Heavenly’s seven registered guests. “Actually, they headed in separate directions—Mrs. Karble for her morning run, and Mr. Karble toward parts unknown with a notebook in one hand and a camera in the other. But they did kiss before they left so I’ll take that as the good sign.”

  Popping the last of her muffin into her mouth, Claire stepped off her own stool and grabbed the necessary silverware and napkins to round out her aunt’s place settings. “Do you think there’s any way I could wiggle my nose and have us skip over breakfast and go straight to the festival?”

  Bingo! The smile she’d been waiting to see since she walked in the room finally spread its way across Diane’s plump lips followed by the face-lighting sparkle that Claire equated with some of the best parts of her childhood. “If I thought that would work, dear, I’d be wiggling along with you. And I actually know what’s in store. You’ve only heard whisperings.” Diane pushed her way through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room with Claire hot on her heels. “All that is good about living in Heavenly will be on display in a twenty-booth radius today. With food.”

  Claire felt the excitement welling up inside as she headed around the table in the opposite direction of her aunt, stopping in front of each empty chair to fold a napkin and arrange the inn’s best silver in preparation for the morning meal. “Esther is dying for me to try something called Schnitz and Knepp. She says I’m going to love it.”

  Diane stopped midstep and closed her eyes, a peaceful expression playing across her face. “Mmmm. And she’s right. You will.”

  Taking the remaining stack of plates from her aunt’s hands, Claire made her way back around the table, depositing one at each spot as she went. “What is Schnitz and Knepp, exactly?”

  The woman padded back into the kitchen only to return with a platter of her famous French toast and a gravy boat filled to the brim with maple syrup. “Schnitz is the Pennsylvania Dutch word for dried apple slices. For that particular dish, it’s cooked with pieces of ham. Knepp is a kind of round bread dumpling. A thick sauce is part of the mix and, well, it’s delightful.”

  The answering rumble of her stomach was quickly drowned out by her aunt’s warm welcome to each of the guests as they emerged through the open doorway on the far side of the room. It was nine thirty and time to focus their attention on the couples who had chosen to make Sleep Heavenly a part of their visit to the heart of Amish country. Some, like the Grandersons, had been to Heavenly before, their reservation at Diane’s bed-and-breakfast as much a given each year as any hol
iday ever was. Others, like the honeymoon couple who gazed into each other’s eyes as they claimed their spot at the large mahogany table, were there for the first time, blissfully unaware of the power the simple town and its people was about to wield on their hearts.

  But Claire knew. Because while she hadn’t been part of a couple when she arrived in Heavenly eight months earlier—quite the contrary, in fact—she, too, had been unprepared for the lasting impact Heavenly, Pennsylvania, would have on her life.

  Still smarting from the breakup of her five-year marriage to Peter, Claire had come to Heavenly at Diane’s urging. Within weeks she knew she’d found her new home—a place where the simplicity she’d always craved was not only at her doorstep but knocking at her heart as well. Less than six months later, she signed on the dotted line of a rental agreement that allowed her to open her very own gift shop—Heavenly Treasures—and become a true member of the community that had unknowingly given her back the gift of hope.

  She’d found it in Diane’s quiet and steadfast support.

  She’d found it in the warmth of her new Amish friends—Esther King and Eli Miller.

  She’d found it in the joy of starting fresh on little more than a dream.

  She’d found it in the courage Jakob Fisher displayed every day in his decision to return to a town where his Amish roots would forever impact his work as the local police detective.

  And she’d found it in the unexpected friendship she’d forged with Eli’s older brother, Benjamin.

  Yes, her aunt was right. Whatever had sparked the disagreement between the Karbles during the night was sure to be erased the moment they ventured into town. Heavenly just had a way of doing that for people…

  “Was everything okay last night, Ms. Weatherly?”

  Claire shook the fog from her thoughts and forced her focus onto the woman standing over Virginia Granderson with a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice. Somehow, someway, the tension that had hovered around her aunt like a can’t-miss storm cloud only twenty minutes earlier was gone, in its place the sunny smile and encouraging words that were synonymous with Diane Weatherly.