A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) (28 page)

“It’s just cheese,” Charles yelped. “What difference does it make if I take
a few photos of cheddar?”

She stared him down
like a seasoned schoolmarm. I suspected she might have been in that line of work before the cheese factory. “Please respect our rules.”

“Next year, we are going on the vacation of my choice
,” Charles muttered. “To the Grand Canyon. No one stops you from taking photographs of the Grand Canyon.”

Bitty patted her husband’s arm. “That sounds nice.”

Two by two, we followed Mercy into the work room of the cheese factory. The Amish women wore hairnets over their prayer caps and latex gloves on their hands. It was another example of the Old World meeting the new.

I slid to the back
of the pack.

“You use electric
ity?” Jimbo asked. Accusingly he pointed to the fluorescent lighting overhead and the sockets along the wall.

Mercy
pursed her lips. “You didn’t raise your hand.”

Jimbo
shot up his hand but spoke before her was called on. “You use electricity.”

“Our bishop allows the use of electricity for our businesses. Not all Am
ish districts operate this way. It’s up to each individual bishop to decide when and how modern conveniences are allowed.”

Jimbo
chewed on this for a moment.

Mercy scanned the group. “Any other questions?” she asked as if it was a dare.

Everyone shook their heads.

“
Gut
. Let’s move on.”

The tour
ended forty minutes later and spilled out into the cheese shop where the travelers had the opportunity to shop and taste-test the cheeses.

Jimbo’s
eyes gleamed when Mercy explained about the tasting.

“Please only take one piece of cheese per flavor per person.” Mercy looked pointedly at
Jimbo.

He placed a hand to his round stomach and narrowed his eyes.

In the shop, the tourists fanned out with their shopping baskets. I hid a smile as Jimbo stuffed three pieces of baby Swiss in his mouth.

Gertie reached into her purse and pulled out a plastic bag of her fish jerky. She held it to Mercy.

The Amish woman blinked. “What is this?”

“Give it a taste. It will change your life,” Gertie insisted.

Mercy wrinkled her nose. “I don’t believe I want to give it a taste.”

Gertie shook the jerky at her. “You don’t know what you’re missing, and this will make an
excellent cheese flavor.”

Mercy placed a hand to her hip.
“But what is it?”

“
Fish jerky. I made it myself.”

Melinda scanned the room as if on the hunt for the closest window to throw herself out of.

Mercy grimaced. “
Danki
, but I would not like to taste it, nor do I believe our customers would want it as a new flavor of cheese.”

“Why not?
” Gertie asked.

Mercy pushed the loose tie from her prayer cap behind her ear. “It is not an appealing flavor.”

Gertie wagged the jerky at her again. “You have chocolate-mint cheese in this store. You don’t think that people gag when they choke that down? Jimbo won’t even touch it, and I’ve seen him eat a hamburger after it has fallen on the floor at a highway rest stop.”

Like a prairie dog
, Jimbo’s head popped up from the tasting table at the mention of his name. A piece of provolone hung from his mouth.

Melinda tugged on the sleeve of Gertie’s cardigan. “Gertie, why don’t we wait outside?”

“Fine,” Gertie said. “I’ll enjoy my jerky in the sun.”

Outside, I found
Hudson sitting on a bench overlooking the valley. The cheese shop was perched on the high hill. From that vantage point, I could see for miles. Below an Amish farmer and his team plowed a field.

Hudson
crushed his empty can of Diet Coke in his hand and dropped it into his cooler. “Find your murderer yet?”

I ignored his question. “Everyone should be out of the factory
in a few minutes.” I rested my hip against a log fence.

He smirked. “It must be hard since I came off free and clear to the police. I know you wanted to pin
the murders to on me.”

I glared at him. “You’re not off my list.”

He was in front of me in a second and caused me to lean back on the fence. I felt the wooden boards give slightly under my weight. I prayed it held. It was a long way to the bottom of the valley.

“Don’t mess with me, little girl,” he growled.

The chatter of the approaching tourists interrupted us, and Hudson took two huge steps back. I remembered how to breathe again.

“Chloe,” LeeAnne trilled. “Wasn’t that tour delightful? I learned so much about cheese.”

I willed my pulse to settle. “It was nice.”

“Look at the view,” Nadine said

Fred shook the fence. “I wouldn’t touch that,” he said. “It’s not stable and could give at any moment. It would be a bad trip for anyone who sat on it.”

Nadine smiled proudly at her husband. “Fred used to work in construction. He knows this type of thing.”

I smiled at her, but my eye trailed to Hudson. He grinned at me. Why did I have the feeling he wouldn’t feel the least bit of remorse if I had toppled over the edge?

Chapter Thirty-One

Our next stop in Holmes County was Berlin, the most ‘touristy’ of all the towns in the county. Appleseed Creek had a sleepy quality that Berlin lacked. The town buzzed with automobile, horse and buggy, and pedestrian traffic up and down Main Street.

S
hops lined either side of the road and sold everything from Amish gifts to New Age crystals. Clearly, the Amish weren’t the only ones taking advantage of the tourists. Hudson parked the bus behind a craft mall. The itinerary scheduled two hours in the picturesque town, which would be plenty of time for the travelers to shop and grab a bite for lunch. An Amish man was at the front of the mall selling homemade ice cream and kettle chips.

Gertie was the last passenger o
ff the bus. “Chloe, why don’t you walk with Melinda and me through town? I would like the site described by an Amish expert.”

“I wouldn’t say I
’m an expert, but I’m happy to walk with you and tell you what I know. My legs are feeling a little cramped after so many hours on the bus.”

Gertie looped her arm through mine. “Come along, Melinda,” she said over her shoulder.

I twisted my neck to see Gertie’s companion walking a few paces behind. Melinda grimaced but her face cleared when she caught me looking.

“Do you want to stop in any shops
?” I asked Gertie. “You might find a nice souvenir to take home.”

“
Pish, I have no need for any more trinkets in my home to collect dust. I can’t live much longer, and then Melinda will have the task of throwing them away.”

“Gertie, that’s no way to think,
” I said.

“Ahh, don’t think
I’m ready to buy the farm, my dear. But don’t begrudge me if I look forward to my great reward either.”

I could see her point, but at the same time
, it made me terribly sad.

Melinda cleared her throat.

Gertie wagged her finger and continued her forward motion. “Melinda doesn’t like it when I talk about death. She’d hated to lose her cushy job.”

Melinda sighed so deeply that her breath
tousled Gertie’s pin curls. “I don’t feel that way about you, Gertie.”

Gertie snorted.
“That’s what you may say now. Let’s not waste any more timing running our mouths. Walk with me, dear.” Gertie looped her arm through mine and started down the sidewalk.

Melinda followed us.
I know she was only doing her job, which was to watch over Gertie, but her eyes bore into my back.

“How is Pearl?” Gertie asked.

“She’s doing as well as can be expected. I’m glad she’s back at the inn. I know it’s difficult for her to be around the bus tour, but the thought of her staying in that other hotel all by herself.” I didn’t add Brock Buckley was a big part of that. My relationship with Brock and Curt was far too complicated to tell Gertie during a stroll through Berlin.

“
She should rejoin the group. She is missing the trip.” Gertie touched the colorful silk scarf knotted around her neck. “Seems to be a waste of money to me not to.”

I skirted around a woman with a stroll
er coming the opposite way on the sidewalk. “She’s grieving.”

“
She and Ruby were close for cousins.”

“Aren’t co
usins typically close?” I asked. I didn’t know because I didn’t have any. Both of my parents had been only children.

“I suppose,” she mused.
“Have you figured out who the killer is?”

“
After Becky told us about your crime solving, I borrowed Melinda’s little computer phone and Googled your name. I must say, Chloe Humphrey, I was surprised how many murders were linked to you in the local news.”

I swallowed. “Becky spoke out
of turn. I’m here as the stand-in tour guide. I was the first person Chief Rose thought of when she was asked about a replacement.”

Gertie walked along with her cane.
“If she didn’t find a replacement, then the tour might have ended. All of the police chief’s suspects would have driven away to Indiana or even back to Mississippi.”

I gasped.

“I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. Oh!” Gertie dropped my arm as we came across an English man operating an Italian sausage cart. She scrounged through her patchwork handbag and came up with a fist of bills. “Melinda, go buy us three Italian sausages with extra peppers.”

I stepped to the side of walk to let a couple pass.
“That’s so sweet of you to offer to buy lunch, Gertie, but—”

“You
’re far too skinny. I know the waif look is in right now, but it’s not what real men like your Timothy want. They want someone they can hold onto. You don’t want him to leave you for a curvier girl now, do you?”

“I guess not,” I said. The sausage did smell good. “No peppers or onions on mine though. Melinda, I
’ll help you carry.”

Melinda gave me the tiniest of smiles. While we stood in line
, which was growing longer by the second, Melinda said, “Gertie can be very persuasive, can’t she?

“
How did you become her companion?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I asked
to work for her. I knew she traveled and needed someone to keep her company. I was tired of my old job.”

“What did you do before?”

She removed a stack of napkins from the dispenser and came back to our spot in line. “I was a teacher.”

“What did you teach?” I asked.

“Middle school.” She didn’t elaborate.

“That’s a tough age.”

“It can be, but I loved my students. But after putting thirty years in, I was done and ready to move on to something else. Working for Gertie, despite all her eccentricities, has been a good fit for me.” She paused. “It’s given me an opportunity to accomplish my goals.”

Just as I was about to ask her what those goals were,
Charles caught my eye across the street. He photographed a monarch butterfly balancing on a daffodil leaf.
What other photographs had he taken?
Specifically what photographs did he take Saturday morning at the Troyer farm?

Melinda and I carried our sandwiches back to the Gertie, who somehow found an empty
Adirondack chair in front of a florist shop. She perched on the end of it.

“How’d you find an empty chair, Gertie?” I asked.

She tucked her pocketbook beside her. “I told the young man sitting here I was old enough to be his great-great grandmother and would likely die if I didn’t have a place to sit. Never underestimate the power of guilt.” She pointed a wrinkled finger down the street. “A fresh squeezed lemonade would hit the spot with these sandwiches.”

I handed Gertie her sandwich. “I’ll get them.”

“No, no. I’ll do it,” Melinda said. “You visit with Gertie.”

Before I could protest, she said, “You are doing me a favor by entertaining her.
”

“Melinda was telling me how she started working for you.”

“I met her at our senior citizen center in Tupelo. She was a volunteer there, and I took a shine to her right away. She has a calm and steady presence. It must have been from all those years of teaching eighth graders how to dissect frogs.”

“Dissect frogs? She was a science teacher
?” I asked.

Gertie nodded.

“You’ve been to so many places. How did you pick this trip to Amish Country?” I took a bite of my sandwich.