Murder Freshly Baked Read online

  Acclaim for Vannetta Chapman

  “. . . a fun read for both mystery and Amish fiction readers.”

  —RT BOOK REVIEWS, 3-STAR REVIEW ON MURDER TIGHTLY KNIT

  “[Chapman] adeptly fleshes out her characters and weaves in facts about the Amish faith without overwhelming the narrative. Readers of inspirational fiction and fans of Beverly Lewis will delight in this gentle mystery.”

  —LIBRARY JOURNAL, FOR MURDER TIGHTLY KNIT

  “Readers will enjoy figuring out the murder mystery while also growing close to the characters as they fall in love, learn more about one another, and grow deeper in their faith.”

  —BOOKLIST, FOR MURDER TIGHTLY KNIT

  “Chapman’s latest is a mix of mystery and romance with vivid characters, a realistic setting and themes of loss, trust and love. The puzzle pieces are revealed slowly so readers can piece the clues together themselves up until the shocking conclusion. A glossary and discussion questions are included.”

  —ROMANTIC TIMES, 4-STAR REVIEW, FOR MURDER SIMPLY BREWED

  “Vannetta Chapman keeps the action suspenseful, and the who-done-it mostly unpredictable as her Amish and English characters work together to solve the mystery. Out of even such dreadful circumstances come moments of grace: between Amber and her Amish employee Hannah and between Amber and Tate, who had each given up on love.”

  —BOOKPAGE.COM, FOR MURDER SIMPLY BREWED

  “Vannetta Chapman has crafted a tightly woven tale in the best tradition of the cozy mystery . . . Chapman’s light touch and thoughtful representation of the Amish culture make Murder Simply Brewed a delightful read for an evening by a warm fire, a cup of tea in hand.”

  —KELLY IRVIN, AUTHOR OF THE BEEKEEPER’S SON AND THE BLISS CREEK AMISH SERIES

  “Murder Simply Brewed combines all the coziness of an Amish home with the twists and turns of a great suspense. With a little romance thrown it, you can’t go wrong! Vannetta Chapman has crafted a charming story that shows things aren’t always as they first appear.”

  —BETH SHRIVER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE TOUCH OF GRACE TRILOGY

  “Vannetta Chapman’s Murder Simply Brewed is a heartwarming whodunit that is sure to satisfy fans of both Amish romance and cozy mystery.”

  —AMANDA FLOWER, AUTHOR OF A PLAIN DISAPPEARANCE

  “A wonderful story of first love, second love, and a murder that pulls them all together in a page turning way. Murder Simply Brewed is a must read for all Amish fans!”

  —RUTH REID, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE HEAVEN ON EARTH AND THE AMISH WONDERS SERIES

  Other Books by Vannetta Chapman

  THE AMISH VILLAGE MYSTERY SERIES

  Murder Simply Brewed

  Murder Tightly Knit

  Murder Freshly Baked

  THE SHIPSHEWANA AMISH MYSTERY SERIES

  Falling to Pieces

  A Perfect Square

  Material Witness

  Where Healing Blooms, novella included in An Amish Garden

  An Unexpected Blessing, novella included in An Amish Cradle

  ZONDERVAN

  Murder Freshly Baked

  Copyright © 2015 by Vannetta Chapman

  ePub Edition © May 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-32508-6

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Chapman, Vannetta.

  Murder freshly baked / Vannetta Chapman, Vannetta Chapman.

  pages ; cm. -- (Amish village mystery)

  ISBN 978-0-310-32217-7 (softcover)

  1. Amish--Fiction. 2. Murder--Investigation--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3603.H3744M86 2015

  813'.6--dc23

  2014048152

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

  Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Publisher’s Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Interior design: James A. Phinney

  15 16 17 18 19 20 / RRD / 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Mary Sue Seymour

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Glossary

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

  —1 Corinthians 13:1

  Author’s Note

  While this novel is set against the real backdrop of Middlebury, Indiana, the characters are fictional. There is no intended resemblance between the characters in this book and any real members of the Amish and Mennonite communities. As with any work of fiction, I’ve taken license in some areas of research as a means of creating the necessary circumstances for my characters. My research was thorough; however, it would be impossible to be completely accurate in details and descriptions, since every community differs. Therefore, any inaccuracies in the Amish and Mennonite lifestyles portrayed in this book are completely due to fictional license.

  Glossary

  ach—oh

  boppli—baby

  bruder—brother

  danki—thank you

  dat—father

  Dawdy Haus—grandfather’s home

  dochder, dochdern—daughter, daughters

  Englischer—non-Amish person

  freinden—friends

  Gotte’s wille—God’s will

  grandkinner—grandchildren

  grossdaddi—grandfather

  gudemariye—good morning

  gut—good

  in lieb—in l
ove

  kaffi—coffee

  kapp—prayer covering

  kind—child

  kinner—children

  loblied—praise song

  mamm—mom

  naerfich—nervous

  narrisch—crazy

  nein—no

  Ordnung—set of rules for Amish living

  rumspringa—running around; time before an Amish young person has officially joined the church, provides a bridge between childhood and adulthood

  schweschder—sister

  wunderbaar—wonderful

  ya—yes

  One

  The Village

  Middlebury, Indiana

  May

  Amber Bowman was looking directly at Ryan Duvall when he died.

  Pam was standing to her right, wearing a skirt made of bright pink and purple fabric, a purple blouse, and a pink scarf. Hannah and Jesse were on her left, both in their customary Amish clothing—Hannah wearing what looked like a new peach-colored apron over a darker peach-colored dress, and a white kapp. Jesse wore his dark blue pants, suspenders, and a lighter blue button-down cotton shirt. In that moment, the image of her three closest friends froze in Amber’s mind.

  Her husband, Tate, had stepped away to take photos of the crowd as they moved through the parking lot, but now he was positioned in front of her closer to the finish line. He was taking pictures to update the website Events page of the Amish Village, the facility where Amber, Pam, Hannah, and Jesse worked. In fact, most of Amber’s employees were standing outside on what had begun as a fine May morning—sunny, and a pleasant 59 degrees according to Amber’s smartphone. The dogwood trees had finally begun to sport their blooms of yellow flowers surrounded by white petals. The spring flowers her grounds crew had planted nodded merrily in the sunshine. The smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls caused Amber’s stomach to give a nice strong rumble.

  It seemed the entire town of Middlebury had turned out en masse to cheer on their friends and family who had chosen to participate in Race for a Cure. Participants and spectators alike wore small ribbons representing the type of cancer they’d battled—yellow, purple, blue, peach, and the ever-present pink. The colors were as varied as the age and particulars of the people. Colored ribbons had been tied to the trees, and balloons swayed in the slight breeze.

  Ryan Duvall had crossed the finish line, clearly the winner of his 40-plus division. Ryan had recently turned forty, and most folks felt sure he would win because he’d won the 26 to 39 division the year before. She was just a little surprised he had still decided to compete today.

  There was applause, cheering, and good-natured teasing as Ryan raised his arms in victory. Amber saw a mixture of pride and satisfaction in his eyes, quickly followed by a look of surprise. A harsh explosive sound echoed through the morning air, louder than the sound of a firecracker popping, and Ryan slumped to the ground.

  “What’s going on?” Pam placed a hand on Amber’s shoulder and attempted to stand on her tiptoes, but Amber was already moving toward Ryan.

  “Where’s she going?” Hannah asked, and Pam must have answered, because Hannah began talking to Jesse in a mixture of Pennsylvania Dutch and English. Amber never heard their replies, because at that moment there was a scream, and the good townsfolk of Middlebury, Indiana, became a panicked mob, intent on putting distance between themselves and Ryan’s tragic end.

  Tate pulled the camera strap from around his neck and handed the camera to Hannah as he rushed forward. Amber and Tate reached Ryan’s side at the same moment. Shrugging off his outer shirt, Tate rolled it into a bundle and pressed it against what was left of Ryan’s chest.

  “Pressure on the wound,” Tate murmured, waiting to move until Amber had her hands pressed firmly on top of the cloth.

  She glanced down at the wound in Ryan’s chest, then looked away as bile rose in her throat. Slowly she forced her gaze back to the man lying on the ground. Ryan’s wavy black hair was wet with sweat. His face was unnaturally pale.

  “Is he—”

  “He’s bleeding out. Looks like the bullet went through his heart. I’ll check for a pulse.” But one look in Tate’s eyes told her all she needed to know.

  The white T-shirt Ryan had been wearing read “Forty and Loving It.” The letters were splattered and torn from the violence of the wound, and the cloth had turned crimson. Tate moved so that he was positioned alongside Ryan’s head. Pressing his index and middle fingers to Ryan’s neck, he checked for a heartbeat at the carotid artery.

  The sounds around them faded to background noise.

  To Amber it seemed she heard the cries and shouts as if from a great distance. Some woman continued to scream. A child asked a parent what was wrong. The person who had been running the portable public address system, moments ago announcing the names of each person as they crossed the finish line, now urged caution. The piercing wail of an ambulance added to the chaos. It had been stationed in the parking area in case a runner needed oxygen or fluids.

  But fluids wouldn’t help Ryan.

  Oxygen wouldn’t bring him back.

  Amber closed her eyes and prayed with all her might—prayed that God would have mercy on Ryan, that God would save him.

  She became aware of Pam’s hand on her shoulder, her voice soft and low, her accent Southern, urging her to come away. “Let the paramedics have him, honey.”

  “I have to . . . I have to hold this.” Tate’s shirt was now slick in her hands.

  Tate stood and shook his head once. Jack Lambright, who had worked at the Village as a boy but had been with the EMS for at least five years now, jumped out of the ambulance and crouched beside Ryan. He spoke into his radio, his voice urgent and clipped. She heard him say “GSW” and “fatality,” and then Tate was pulling her to her feet, circling his arms around her.

  Amber’s teeth began to chatter, and her legs turned rubbery and weak.

  “Not here, love. Make it to the curb.” He practically carried her there and insisted she put her head between her knees. She pulled in deep breaths, one after another, as her world tilted, then stabilized.

  She was vaguely conscious of Tate on one side and Pam on the other. Tate rubbed her back in small circles. Pam asked what the world was coming to that a town couldn’t hold a charity run without violence. Hannah and Jesse stood behind her. Amber couldn’t make out their words, which were now all in Pennsylvania Dutch, but she knew they were praying.

  It wasn’t until Sergeant Gordon Avery stepped into the now-cleared area surrounding Ryan’s body that she struggled to her feet. Planting her hands on Tate’s and Pam’s arms to push herself up, she left a bloody residue on both of them.

  “I want this immediate area completely cleared,” Gordon growled. Nearing fifty, he’d been with the Middlebury Police Department for most of his career, and at nearly six feet tall and 220 pounds of solid muscle, people immediately followed his orders. “Secure the perimeter and the parking lot. I don’t want a single person in this crowd leaving until we have a chance to question them.”

  Cherry Brookstone, a more recent Middlebury PD recruit, stepped forward and said something to Gordon about a complaint filed. She glanced around and then added “restraining order” and “Preston.”

  “Find him and bring him in. We’ll need to question him.” Gordon turned to Jasmine, who had been with the Middlebury PD less than a year. “I want statements from everyone. Someone saw who did this.”

  “I did.” The words seemed to come from far away, and they took all the strength Amber possessed to speak them.

  Now Gordon turned to stare at her, his expression quickly flickering from surprise to sympathy to disbelief. “You saw the person who did this?”

  “No.” Amber corrected herself even as she stepped closer and looked down again at Ryan’s body. Tate’s shirt had been cast aside and replaced with clean dressings, but even the paramedic had given up any pretense of helping Ryan.

  It had all come together in her mind, the momen
t she saw Jack Lambright kneel beside Ryan. Unrequited love and a tragic ending. Didn’t such stories grace the national news nearly every week? And now it had happened, here in their peaceful town of Middlebury.

  Amber felt their eyes on her—Tate, Gordon, Pam, Hannah, and Jesse. Even Jack stopped what he was doing to turn and stare.

  “No, I didn’t see who pulled the trigger, but I know who killed Ryan.”

  Two

  One month earlier

  Amber walked through the Village, her crochet bag slung over her shoulder. The temps were still rather cool, and she was glad she’d thought to wear her sweater. Though it was nearly noon, spring was taking its time warming their area of northern Indiana. She’d spent over twenty years in Middlebury, so it sometimes seemed she’d lived there her entire life. And the Amish Village?

  The small collection of shops, restaurant, bakery, and inn and conference center seemed as much her home as the ranch house she shared with Tate. Hard to believe it was practically this time last year that she and Tate had been thrown together, solving the first murder to happen in Middlebury in quite some time. God had found a way to bring good out of even those dire circumstances.

  At the age of forty-four, she’d fallen in love for the first time—palms-sweating, heart-racing, speech-stealing love. Their relationship broke several stereotypes. They’d been longtime neighbors who barely tolerated one another. Tate was seven years older and not interested in dating—Amber had been looking for love but did not expect to find it next door. Tate farmed—Amber managed a business. The first sparks flew as they puzzled over threatening graffiti, and their love blossomed as they hunted a killer. Tate had asked her to marry him soon after the murder was solved, and they’d celebrated with a small, sweet ceremony on the Village grounds at the end of the previous summer. Not the stuff of romance novels exactly. More like a televised murder mystery series.

  Amber still wondered at how things had turned out. She marveled that God had taken the sterile, uniform life she had built and turned it into something amazing. He had given her a chance at true love and a family and joy. He’d refined her faith. He’d offered her a choice—trust him or go on with the life she’d so carefully constructed. When she’d found the courage to accept God’s way, life had become more than she’d ever imagined.