A Killer Carol Read online

  Praise for the National Bestselling Amish Mysteries

  “The best cozy mystery debut I’ve read this year.”

  —Harlan Coben on Hearse and Buggy

  “The characters are interesting and delightful. The setting in the wonderful town of Heavenly, Pennsylvania, is just that, heavenly. Mixing Amish and ‘English’ town folk is intriguing. . . . I recommend this book to any reader interested in Amish novels [or] cozy mysteries, or who just wants to read a fabulous book.”

  —Open Book Society

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

  —Publishers Weekly

  “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.”

  —Genre Go Round 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

  “Just Plain Murder is an intricately plotted, character-driven story that welcomes readers back.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Bradford

  Amish Mysteries

  HEARSE AND BUGGY

  ASSAULTED PRETZEL

  SHUNNED AND DANGEROUS

  SUSPENDERED SENTENCE

  A CHURN FOR THE WORSE

  JUST PLAIN MURDER

  A KILLER CAROL

  Emergency Dessert Squad Mysteries

  ÉCLAIR AND PRESENT DANGER

  THE SILENCE OF THE FLANS

  DIAL M FOR MOUSSE

  Southern Sewing Circle Mysteries

  writing as Elizabeth Lynn Casey

  SEW DEADLY

  DEATH THREADS

  PINNED FOR MURDER

  DEADLY NOTIONS

  DANGEROUS ALTERATIONS

  REAP WHAT YOU SEW

  LET IT SEW

  REMNANTS OF MURDER

  TAKEN IN

  WEDDING DURESS

  NEEDLE AND DREAD

  PATTERNED AFTER DEATH

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Copyright © 2019 by Laura Bradford

  Penguin Random House 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 Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9781984805911

  First Edition: September 2019

  Cover art 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.

  Acknowledgments

  This is always one of my favorite parts of the book publishing process—getting to say thank you to the people who have helped make this book happen in one way or another. For this go-round, I’d like to thank my cover artist, Mary Ann Lasher. Every cover in this series has been amazing, truly. But this one? Wow. She absolutely outdid herself.

  I’d also like to thank my editor, Michelle Vega, and the whole Berkley Prime Crime team for their faith in me as a writer. Thanks are in order, too, for you, my readers—you are why this book, and this series, continues. Keep spreading the word so I can keep writing these stories!

  And last but not least, a huge thank-you to my family. Their patience when I’m writing (and oftentimes zoning out) is invaluable to me.

  If you enjoy this book, and this series, come see what else I write at laurabradford.com.

  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

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Claire Weatherly backed away from the butcher block paper, her thoughts, her gaze, riveted on the single taunting question mark she’d underlined a half-dozen times over the past hour. Every detail she’d painstakingly planned for Heavenly’s first ever Christmas festival was right there in front of her in red and green marker.

  The Living Nativity was all set now, thanks to Esther and Eli Miller’s promise of three sheep . . .

  Santa Claus was secured for a five P.M. arrival atop Heavenly’s sparkly new firetruck . . .

  The horse-drawn sleigh that would transport festival-goers from one end of Lighted Way to the other had been located and rented . . .

  Annie’s friends had agreed to sing Christmas carols by the gazebo . . .

  The Amish teen tasked with manning the open fire so folks could roast their own chestnuts had confirmed his participation . . .

  The flyers she’d created the previous weekend were already posted on every shopkeeper’s door, and buzz was growing . . .

  The—

  “That is a lot of things for one person to keep track of.”

  Slanting her attention toward the open doorway, Claire smiled at the Amish woman standing just a few feet away, studying the paper with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. “Ruth Miller—I mean, Yoder! How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough to know you have been working very hard on your plans.” Ruth stepped forward, collected her hug, and then reclaimed their original distance to study Claire from head to toe. “But not quite long enough to know why you look so worried.”

  Claire opened her mouth to protest her friend’s assessment but instead perched against the edge of her simple metal desk and allowed her shoulders the sag she could no longer hold back. “It’s just that I want One Heavenly Night to be perfect. For everyone. I mean, I know there will be things that work and things that don’t. It’s new, so mistakes will be made. But it’s my first real sizable contribution as a Lighted Way business owner, and
I want it to be the best it can be.”

  “And you do not think it will be?” Ruth asked, her naturally arched brows inching upward toward the snippet of blond hair peeking out around the edges of her white prayer kapp.

  Claire looked again at the paper. “It’s missing something. It’s not something big, or probably even all that important, really, but whatever it is, I feel like it’ll tie the proverbial bow on everything.”

  “If you need another cow, Samuel can bring over Nettie or Nellie. And if it is a goat, he could bring over Gussy.”

  “No, the animal portion of the Living Nativity is all set, although I’ll keep that in mind should one of your brother’s cows or goats come down with a case of stage fright.”

  “A cow is just a cow,” Ruth said, drawing back, her startlingly blue eyes momentarily dull. “And a goat is just a goat. They do not get stage fright.”

  Claire’s answering laugh filled the tiny work space. “Technically, I was kidding. But it’s the unexpected stuff that tends to throw a monkey wrench into stuff like”—she swept her hand toward the papered wall—“this.”

  “I saw Esther today,” Ruth said, stepping all the way into the office. “She is very excited for your festival, too. Everyone in our district is.”

  “I’m glad.” And she was. Really. It was just tempered, quite heavily, by a healthy case of nerves she couldn’t quite get under control . . .

  “What do you think it is missing?”

  Claire swung her gaze back to her plans and shrugged. “I don’t know. One final touch that will put a smile on everyone’s face.”

  “Perhaps this”—Ruth held out her hand to reveal a small rectangular piece of candy wrapped in green wax paper and tied at each end with red ribbon—“will put a smile on your face while you figure it out.”

  Claire’s stomach rumbled in response as she took the treat. “What is this? It looks so festive.”

  “It is one of Hannah’s caramel candies wrapped for the holiday.”

  “One of Hannah’s caramels?” she echoed, untying both ribbons. “Ooooh, I love Hannah’s caramels.”

  “Then I am glad I brought you one.”

  “I am, too.” She folded back the top edge of the green waxed paper, took a bite of the candy, and gave in to the moan of pleasure the first bite always demanded. “Oh. Wow. So, so good.”

  Ruth nodded knowingly. “Yah. People still buy my apple pies, but it is Hannah’s caramels that are the favorite now.”

  “Trust me, it’s not a reflection on your pies,” Claire said between chews. “It’s just that the newbies to Lighted Way aren’t getting lured up the steps by their smells the way they did when you worked there. Now I think it’s more about what kind of treat they’re hankering for when they go into the bake shop on their own accord. Maybe they want caramels, maybe they want brownies, maybe they want cookies . . . But if they opt for a piece of your apple pie, I have no doubt they’ll be every bit as addicted as your unending allegiance of fans.”

  Shyness drove Ruth’s gaze toward the floor while hunger pulled Claire’s attention back to the remaining candy in her hand. “I love this wrapper . . .”

  “It was what you said to Samuel and the other shopkeepers that made me think of such wrappers,” Ruth said, looking up.

  “What I said?”

  “Yah. Samuel said it was when you spoke of”—Ruth gestured toward the papered wall again—“your special night.”

  Claire waved at the woman’s words with her candy-holding hand. “It’s not my special night, Ruth. It’s for everyone who lives in Heavenly. It’s for the grown-ups and the kids and everyone in between. If the holiday window displays in front of Glick’s Tools ’n More, and Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe, and Glorious Books, and Heavenly Brews, and Taste of Heaven(ly), and your Samuel’s furniture shop lull people back to shop along Lighted Way the next day, that’s wonderful. But the real fun, the real memories, the real reason for doing this, will be happening outside—on the sidewalk and by the gazebo, and down in the park area. That’s where people will be celebrating the season and visiting with their neighbors. Assuming, of course, people even come . . .”

  “You do not think people will come?” Ruth asked, stepping back.

  “I can’t know for sure. Not yet, anyway.” Claire finished the last bite of caramel and then carefully folded the green paper in her hand. “It’s the first time doing this. There’s no precedent.”

  “It is all Esther and I talked about this morning.”

  “So then you’ll both be there? With Samuel and Eli, too?”

  “Yah. Many Amish will be there. They have said so when Samuel and I have been visiting.”

  She peeked at Ruth, her thoughts tilting between her friend and the festival. “You and Samuel have not finished your post-wedding visits yet?”

  “Sunday we will finish. With Mary and Daniel Esch.” Ruth leaned her slender frame against the wall, her eyes, if not her thoughts, returning to the paper and Claire’s notes. “When we learned Samuel’s hope would not be so, I wished we had visited them first. But he is a good man. He understands God’s will and does not question.”

  She knew Ruth was talking, even knew it was something she probably wanted to hear, but at that moment all she could really focus on was the green wrapper, the red ribbons, and—

  “Wait . . . Oh my gosh—Ruth! This is it! The missing piece!” Holding up the wrapper and ribbons, Claire unleashed her growing smile on Ruth. “These candies! Wrapped up just like this! Can Hannah make more? For us . . . for this?” She jerked her chin and Ruth’s attention back to the board as the elusive last detail finally clicked into place. “It—it doesn’t even have to be just caramels. It could be peppermints, or—or brownies, or wait—no, I’ve got it! We’ll do cookies . . . shaped ones. Maybe a snowman or a reindeer or something like that. And they could be decorated really sweetly, so they look extra special when the kids untie these red ribbons and pull off this green paper!”

  Ruth furrowed her brow. “I would need to cut the wrappers larger for a shaped cookie . . .”

  “You cut this wrapper yourself?” she asked, looking down at the wrapper and ribbons once again. “You didn’t buy these?”

  “I bought the paper and the ribbons, but I cut them to the right size, just as I do with the white paper the caramels are usually wrapped in.”

  “I can help cut them during quiet times here, and maybe Hannah could do the same at the bake shop. And I’m sure, if we needed more help, Esther would lend a hand, especially if we timed it to when the baby is sleeping. And maybe, after each cookie is wrapped up, we could stick on one of those little Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe stickers you always used on your pie boxes.”

  Ruth reached out, touched the wrapper, and then pulled her hand back, the hint of a smile lifting her already high cheekbones even higher. “Would you need many cookies?”

  “I don’t know . . . maybe a hundred, maybe . . .” Turning back toward her desk, Claire grabbed her festival notebook and flipped to the second page. “Yeah, I’m thinking you’ll need to make more like a hundred and fifty just to be safe. I’d rather have some leftovers than not have enough for every child who comes. If we have a surplus, I could always take the leftovers to the police station, or some of the Amish schools around town, or even the library, for that matter.”

  “One hundred and fifty is a lot of cookies and a lot of wrappers,” Ruth said.

  Rising up on the toes of her ankle-length boots, Claire closed the notebook, hugged it to her chest, and let loose a tiny squeal. “I’d be willing to help bake so it wouldn’t take too much of your time from Samuel. And as for Benjamin and Eli, it’s not like Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe would be donating these cookies at its own expense. The Lighted Way Business Association would pay you for the cookies just like we’re paying to rent the sled and the horse and the chestnuts and everything else we need to pull this thing
off.”

  “They would buy them?”

  “Absolutely. Just tell me what you would’ve charged for them when you were working at the bake shop, and we’ll pay the same amount.”

  “A hundred and fifty cookies, you say?” Ruth asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “For one night . . .”

  Claire swapped the notebook for the red marker, pulled off the cap, and held it to the butcher block paper. “That’s right, one night—One Heavenly Night, to be exact . . . So? What do you say? Do you think Samuel will be okay letting Shoo Fly Bake Shoppe borrow his new wife for however long it’ll take to make, decorate, and wrap a hundred and fifty Christmas cookies?”

  “It would only take a few hours,” Ruth mused, tapping her finger to her chin. “And it would certainly help with . . .” Waving away the rest of her sentence, Ruth nodded at Claire and the marker. “Yah. I think a hundred and fifty cookies will please Samuel very much.”

  Chapter 2

  Claire lowered the red and white porcelain mug to her lap and sagged back against the wooden swing, defeated. “For a moment there, I’d actually dared to hope the steam was playing tricks with my eyes, but it’s not. The gap is there, the gap is real.”

  “Gap?” Aunt Diane tucked her chin inside the turned-up collar of her down coat.

  “In the lights. See?” Claire pointed at the colorfully lit spruce tree just beyond Sleep Heavenly’s front porch. “It’s about midway up, and then slightly to the right.”

  “Midway up, slightly to the right, and”—Diane dismissed her visual tour with a flick of her hand—“I don’t see any sort of gap.”

  “No, it’s there. Squint,” she said, demonstrating. “You’ll see it.”

  Diane looked back at Claire. “Why? Who walks around squinting?”

  “You don’t do it because people walk around that way, Aunt Diane. You do it just in case. So you can know it’s perfect.”