Chapter 1.
I was on my lunch break, sitting in the apartment I shared with two feisty octogenarians. I looked in despair at one of said octogenarians trying to train her cat, Mr. Crumbles, to walk on a leash.
“Eleanor, you’ve gone quite mad,” Matilda scolded her. “You’re feeding that cat too much.”
Eleanor was holding onto the end of the leash tightly. The leash was attached to a harness around Mr. Crumbles. Every few seconds, she threw a few cat treats in front of Mr. Crumbles. He walked forward, ate them, and then looked up at Eleanor expectantly.
“It’s working a treat,” Eleanor said.
“The only treats involved are the ones you’re giving him.” Matilda jumped to her feet and waved her arms in the air. “At least you got rid of that silly pole.”
Eleanor shot her sister a dark look. “You wanted that pole as much as I did. I only removed it because Rebecca insisted that we did. And I don’t know why! After all, it saved Jane’s life.”
I had to admit she was right. If Mr. Crumbles hadn’t swung around the pole and sailed into the air straight into my would-be assailant when he did, I might not be here now.
Matilda put her hands on her hips. “This really is the last straw, Eleanor. You can’t take that cat outside the apartment on a leash.”
“Plenty of people do,” Eleanor countered. “It’s all over YouTube. In fact, I think I’ll start a YouTube channel just for Mr. Crumbles.”
Matilda gasped and sat down hard, causing me to spill my hot tea into my saucer. As I removed my teacup from the saucer and wiped the underneath with a tissue, Matilda said, “Eleanor, you can’t go public. What if someone sees us?”
I was intrigued. “Who would see you and why would you care?”
Eleanor and Matilda exchanged glances. “No one, of course. I don’t know what I was saying,” Matilda said. “Have you heard from your attorney yet about those papers your ex-husband wanted you to sign?”
I knew she was changing the subject, but equally I knew she wouldn’t tell me if I pressed her. “The lawyer thinks I will have some money, but he doesn’t want to get my hopes up until he looks into it a bit further. He has an associate who works in this particular field of contract law, so he’s getting his opinion first.”
Eleanor took the harness off Mr. Crumbles. “Jane, that’s wonderful. What will you do with the money?”
“I don’t know if there is any money,” I cautioned her. “And if there is, it might not be much.”
“What if it’s enough for a house?” Eleanor said.
Matilda sighed. “I’d miss you, Jane, if you left.”
“I’m sure it won’t be enough for a house,” I said with a laugh.
Eleanor rubbed her hands together with glee. “What if it is? You could buy a farm. We could put the goats there.”
I groaned aloud. The goats were a sore point with my sister, Rebecca. Eleanor and Matilda had rescued some wild goats only recently and had put them at my sister’s farm. When my sister and her husband had agreed to have them there, I’m sure they thought they were nice, well behaved goats, but these goats were proving to be anything but nice or well behaved.
A raised voice drowned my reply.
“It must be that dreadful woman again,” Matilda said. “Quick, Jane, go down there and help your sister.”
I hurried down the stairs to my sister’s cupcake store below, my heart in my mouth. A particularly unpleasant woman, Judy Jenkins, had accused Rebecca of stealing her allegedly new idea for Amish sour cream spice cupcakes.
Judy Jenkins was a self-proclaimed, and as far as I knew, untrained, chef who was about to release a cake cookbook featuring an Amish sour cream spice cupcake on the cover. It was irrelevant to her that Rebecca had been selling those very cupcakes for years. Judy Jenkins had been in the store several times yelling at Rebecca and accusing her of stealing her ideas.
The overbearing woman had rented premises not far from the cupcake store and was planning to go into the retail cupcake business in opposition to Rebecca.
I opened the door to see Judy’s big round face pressed close to Rebecca’s. I could see Rebecca was shaken, so I hurried to stand next to her.
“Would you please keep your voice down, Mrs. Jenkins?” I said in a firm tone. “You’re scaring away the customers.”
Mrs. Jenkins gestured wildly around the shop. “There are no customers.” Nasty red blotches appeared on her face.
“Exactly,” I said. “That is precisely my point.”
Mrs. Jenkins appeared taken aback to have someone stand up to her, no doubt as Rebecca had always been gracious to her. Of course, the Amish would never raise a hand against anyone, and most would not even speak up in their own defense. They were a peaceable community, and to say they didn’t like conflict was an understatement.
Mrs. Jenkins drummed her stubby fingers against one of the display cabinets. “She’s still selling those cakes!”
“My sister is Amish in case you hadn’t noticed,” I said slowly, gesturing up and down my sister: her hair in a bun under her prayer kapp, her plain dress, her apron. “Rebecca has been selling Amish sour cream spice cupcakes for many years.”
“It was my idea to turn Amish sour cream spice cakes into cupcakes!” Mrs. Jenkins’s voice rose to a high pitch. She pounded her meaty fist on the countertop, making all the cupcakes rattle.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” I said in even tones. “Rebecca and I are twins and so I was raised Amish. Our mother always made Amish sour cream spice cakes.”
Mrs. Jenkins shook her finger in my face. She smelled overpoweringly of wet dogs and cat litter trays. The more she shook her finger, the more dog hair flew into the air. I was glad the health inspector was not present.
“Be that as it may, but you’re trying to confuse me. I would have no problem if your sister sold Amish sour cream spice cakes. My problem is that she’s turned them into cupcakes and that was my idea! Why, my book has been on pre-order for ages, long enough for your sister to steal my ideas, and it’s recently been released! As you very well know, I have my own invention, an Amish sour cream spice cupcake, on the cover.”
I was doing my best to remain patient. “I am well aware you claim it’s your idea, but my sister has been selling those cupcakes for years. If you take a good look around this store you will see she has Amish whoopie cupcakes, Amish Shoo-fly pie cupcakes, caramel apple coffee cupcakes, and Long John roll cupcakes. She’s turned all standard Amish cakes and desserts into cupcakes. Why, she’s even designed an Amish funnel cake cupcake and that was very difficult to do.”
Judy looked as though she would explode. “I knew I wouldn’t get any sense out of you! I hope the bishop can knock some sense into your sister.” With that, she left the shop in a rage, shaking her fist.
“Are you all right?” I asked Rebecca.
“Yes,” she said, although her face was white and drawn.
“What’s this about the bishop?”
Rebecca looked down at her shoes. “I didn’t want to worry you, but the bishop called Ephraim in the barn early this morning and said he has to come and speak with me about my Amish sour cream spice cupcakes.”
I was in disbelief. “The bishop?” I shrieked.
Rebecca nodded.
“But surely he knows you wouldn’t have stolen that idea?”
Rebecca held up one hand to reassure me. “Of course. The bishop knows I didn’t steal the idea from Mrs. Jenkins, but Mrs. Jenkins made a complaint and he told her he would speak with me. He’s simply doing what he said he would do.”
“I suppose so, but I don’t like it. Rebecca, I’m coming with you.”
“You don’t have to do that…” Rebecca began, but I interrupted her.
“Yes, I do. That Mrs. Jenkins was probably on her best behavior when she spoke with the bishop, but I’ve seen the woman more than once and I know what she’s like. I can imagine she puts on a good act to people she wants to impress.”
“But you really don’t need to defend me,” Rebecca protested. “The bishop knows I haven’t done anything wrong. It’s just that he was put in the position of telling Mrs. Jenkins that he’d speak with me, so that’s what he’s doing. He told me as much.”
“I still think it’s best if I come,” I said.
Rebecca reluctantly agreed. “Actually, Ephraim won’t be home until late because he’s out with some of the menner helping Mr. Lapp to build a new fence. It would be lovely if you would stay to have dinner with me.”
I wiped Mrs. Jenkins’s dirty fingerprints from the countertop. “Matilda and Eleanor said they wanted to check on the goats today, so I’ll go with them. Hopefully, they’ll be finished with the goats by the time you get there.”
Rebecca wrung her hands on her apron. “Oh, those goats.”
I stopped spraying the countertop and looked up. “Have they been naughty?”
“Very naughty,” she said with a sigh. “Jane, would you flip the sign on the door to ‘Open’? I closed the store when Mrs. Jenkins came in.”
“That was wise,” I said with a laugh. I walked over to the window and flipped the sign, but as I did, I looked out the window and gasped.
