Chapter 30
Berlin Candies was on Main Street in Berlin, easily the busiest street in Holmes County. Even this late in the afternoon, the street was congested with buggies, cars, and buses. A long line of tourists walked along the street perusing the small shops that sold everything from fabric for quilts to mystic stones. Berlin, unlike Harvest, was a true tourist town, and even though the businesses there were mostly related to Amish culture, other businesses had moved in too. The precious stone shop and a trendy clothing boutique were taking advantage of the tourists that came to Holmes County.
Berlin Candies was in a flat-faced storefront that had been painted dark blue with a large white awning running its length. Right next to it was the hardware store, Holmes County Tools. I assumed I was looking at Jeffrey Galwin’s store. It was a little after four, and all the shops in Berlin closed at five.
By some miracle, I got the parking space right in front of the candy shop. It was tight, but my compact fit in the spot with only a moderate amount of scraping along the curb.
As I shifted the car into park, I noticed a CLOSED sign on Berlin Candies’ door. “The shop is closed?” I asked.
Lindy opened the car door. “Josephine closed it for the ACC. It was just the two of us working there, and she thought it was more important that we were both at the competition.”
“It seems like a gamble to be closed on such a busy weekend. There was no one else who could watch the store? Perhaps a family member or a friend from the district?”
She frowned. “Josephine didn’t trust many people, especially with her shop.”
“But she trusted you?” I asked.
“As much as she trusted anyone.” She climbed out of the car.
I got out of the car too, grabbed one of her crates of supplies from the back seat of my car, and followed her to the glass front door of Berlin Candies. I balanced the heavy crate in my arms, waiting for Lindy to unlock the door. She was turning the key to the shop in the lock when a thin man with long arms stomped out of the hardware store next door. His glasses sat at the tip of his nose. “Finally, one of you is here!”
Lindy pushed open the door to the shop and turned to face the man. “I—”
“I can’t have this going on,” the man bellowed for anyone on the street to hear. “All the comings and goings from this shop have to stop. I’m trying to run a business next door. I don’t know what all you are doing with this candy shop, but it is most certainly not selling candy.”
Comings and goings? I wondered. Hadn’t Lindy just said the shop had been closed for at least two days? And she was at the ACC all of that time. Who else had been visiting Berlin Candies?
I stepped forward. “Can we help you?”
He glared at me. “Who are you?”
“Bailey,” I said, looking him in the eye. “I’m a friend of Lindy’s.”
“I’ve never seen you here before.” He glared over my shoulder at Lindy. “Now you are bringing your friends around because Josephine is dead? Is that it? You finally got the shop all to yourself, have you? Are you the one who’s sending people here to size the place up? Are you already making changes before Josephine is even buried in the ground?”
Lindy stepped back as if his words were blows. “I—I—”
“Wait a second. What are you implying?” I wanted to know.
“Just what everyone on the street knows. That Lindy has been waiting for this day for a long time. I have too. I can’t say I’m sorry that that horrible woman is dead. I have nothing good to say about her.” He pointed at Lindy. “She didn’t like her either. I won’t let her deny that. Josephine was awful to her. Maybe,” he said, looking at Lindy, “you finally snapped. Was that what happened?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Lindy was staring at her feet. “The same could be said for you, because you obviously didn’t care for Josephine,” I said. “I’ve only known you for two minutes, and you have made that abundantly clear.”
“Make no mistake about it. I hated the woman.” He swung his long arms, causing me to step back. He didn’t seem to notice as he went on. “She was nothing but a thorn in my side.”
“And where were you yesterday morning?” I asked, keeping my distance.
A slow smile curled his lips. “I see what you’re getting at, but it’s no use. I didn’t do anything to that Amish woman. If I had wanted to hurt her, I would have long ago.”
It was close to what Lindy had said earlier when she’d mentioned that if Jeffrey had wanted to kill Josephine, he would have done it much earlier.
“And how do we know that you just didn’t snap?” I straightened up so I could look him in the eye.
He laughed. “I wasn’t anywhere near Harvest when she died.”
“Where you were you?” I persisted.
“I was right here in my store. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my two employees who were in the store yesterday morning and two customers, one of whom was Amish. That should be enough proof for you. It was enough for the Sheriff’s Department.”
I inwardly sighed. Of course, Aiden would have already spoken to Jeffrey. He would have done so at his first opportunity. It seemed that I was always two steps behind him. I reminded myself that finding out who’d killed Josephine wasn’t a competition.
Jeffrey went on. “The vultures are already circling now that she’s dead. The candy shop, like my store, has a prime location. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone makes an offer to buy it before her body is in the ground.”
I could understand that. When I’d first arrived in Harvest in September, my grandfather had been dealing with a greedy developer who wanted to buy his shop because of its prime location across from Harvest’s town square. My grandfather had refused to sell, but the developer wouldn’t give up without a fight.
Berlin, because it was on Route 39, a main state road that traveled east and west, bisecting Holmes County, was an even better location. I wasn’t surprised that developers and others had already come to look at the property.
I glanced at the candy shop. Through the window, I could see that the shop was twice the size of my own and had a beautiful collection of displays. Jars of hard candy shone in the fading sunlight streaming through the window, and colorful boxes of chocolate and caramels were on display. Even though Berlin Candies was in competition with my own store, it would be a shame if the shop was bought out and turned into something else, but maybe that had been the plan all along and the reason Josephine had been murdered.
I felt like something was about to click. Maybe Josephine’s murder was about her shop. If the men of her district seemed too eager to examine her shop, what else could it be? What else did she have that someone would want? She was a widowed Amish woman with no children. That wasn’t to be envied. However, she was a successful businesswoman and one of the best candy makers around. That was certainly something to envy and want, but was it something to kill for? That was the part I wasn’t so sure about.
“Who have you seen here?” I asked Jeffrey. “Who in particular?”
He scowled. “There were a couple of developers who were nosing around this morning. I don’t know their names, but I know their type. They wore suits and sunglasses. No one in Holmes County dresses like that, not even the Englischers.”
I frowned. It would have been a lot more helpful if he could have gotten the names of the men.
“And her brother-in-law was here,” he added. “He had a key, so he was able to get inside.”
“Sol Weaver?” I asked.
“That’s right. Sol came once by himself, and then he came back a second time with another Amish man, a younger one.”
I was willing to bet that the other Amish man had been Deacon Clapp.
“Did they meet with the developers?” I asked.
“Not that I saw,” he said.
It sounded as if the hardware store owner had been watching the entire time. There was no doubt in my mind that Jeffrey Galwin had kept a close eye on Berlin Candies when Josephine was alive and was keeping an even closer eye on it now that she was dead.
“While the two Amish men were in the shop, I dropped in.” Jeffrey folded his arms. “I wanted to know what was going on. If they are going to sell the place, I want to know about it. I mean, I’m the one who is going to have to live with the new owners as neighbors, not them.”
“What did they say?” I asked.
He curled his hands into fists at his sides. “They said that it wasn’t any of my business, and they would do with the candy shop what they saw fit.” His face turned a dark shade of red. “It is my business. My store is right next door. What they plan to do with this building and who moves into it has an impact on me, whether they believe that or not.”
That’s where he was wrong. It wasn’t really his business to know what Josephine’s family planned to do with the candy shop, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. Even so, I wished that they had told him their plans. Jeffrey was angry enough to blurt out what they were if he’d known them.
He pointed at me. “If you find out that they are selling this place, you tell me.” He pointed at Lindy too. “That goes for you too.”
Neither of us promised him anything.
He stomped back to his store, stopped at his front door, and said, “Tell those Amish bishops or whatever they are to stay away from my property or I’m calling the police.” He slammed the door so hard after himself, I thought the glass would break.