Assaulted Pretzel
More Praise for
Hearse and Buggy
“A really great, well-written mystery. The characters all had depth and dimension, and were easy to relate to. Even unlikeable characters were the kind that you ‘loved to hate’…The plot itself was excellent—the culprit was revealed at exactly the right time, and it was someone I did not guess…A delightful book, and I cannot wait to visit Heavenly again!”
—
Fresh Fiction
“Undoubtedly one of the best cozy mysteries I’ve read this year. It is meaty, with an intriguing background, and it provides an education as to the Amish culture. And, Bradford’s characters are some of the best developed, most interesting ones I’ve come across in a cozy mystery. With
Hearse and Buggy
, Bradford has taken the Amish mystery and successfully made it her own.”
—
Lesa’s Book Critiques
“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…Fans will enjoy her inquiry as Laura Bradford provides a delightful Amish cozy.”
—
Genre Go Round Reviews
“An entertaining opening act.”
—
Gumshoe Review
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Laura Bradford
HEARSE AND BUGGY
ASSAULTED PRETZEL
Assaulted Pretzel
L
AURA
B
RADFORD
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.
ASSAULTED PRETZEL
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2013 by Laura Bradford.
Excerpt from
Hearse and Buggy
by Laura Bradford copyright © 2012 by Laura Bradford.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
BERKLEY
®
PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-61946-9
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / March 2013
Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.
Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.
Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.
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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
| ALWAYS LEARNING | PEARSON |
For my family, with all my love.
Chapter 1
C
laire Weatherly was just reaching for a slice of Ruth Miller’s second-to-none Shoo Fly Pie when she heard it—the slow rolling rumble of an approaching storm that threatened to put the kibosh on the treat she’d been hankering for all week. Shielding the plate with her body, she dove her fork into the gooey goodness and—
“You did
what
?”
“I made some calls. Gathered some numbers. There’s no comparison.”
“I didn’t tell you to make those calls!”
“You didn’t
tell
me? Are you
kidding
me?”
Poof! The fork in her hand, the pie on her plate, and the feel of the autumn sun on her face were gone. In their place was the whisper of moonlight across the bottom of her comforter and the very real sound of two people arguing in the room across the hall.
She willed her eyes to close and her thoughts to return
to the food festival that had seemed so real only moments earlier, but she couldn’t make it happen. The approaching storm in her dreams had shown its true colors.
Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the ceiling and searched for faces to accompany the angry voices. The constant comings and goings in her aunt’s century-and-a-half-old Victorian necessitated a gift with names that Claire simply didn’t possess. Still, she tried, cycling her way through the various guests who inhabited the rooms around hers…
Was it Doug and Kayla Jones?
No. Those were the honeymooners in Room Two. Arguing was the farthest thing from their radar…
The Grandersons?
No. That was the elderly couple in Room One whom Diane had been hosting at the inn every fall for the past sixteen years. Sleep was a far higher priority for the Wisconsin duo than fighting…
Claire struggled onto her elbow and wiped the sleep from her eyes. Room by room she mentally moved her way around the second-floor hallway.
Was it Melinda Simon, the young public relations executive who’d checked in along with her boss and his wife?
Sure enough, the visual accompaniment to the ever-rising voices in Room Six took shape in Claire’s mind, spewing out a positive identity in short order.
Rob Karble—president of the world-famous Karble Toys—and his wife, Ann, had checked into Sleep Heavenly shortly after Claire had returned from work that evening. Friendly enough during dinner, the couple had opted to skip Diane’s hot fudge brownies in favor of a long walk along the streets of Heavenly. When they returned some ninety minutes later they’d seemed happy.
Obviously, something had changed since they’d returned from their walk and retired to their room for the night.
“But to draft a memo without even talking to me?”
“Would it have
mattered
, Rob?”
“I—”
“You know as well as I do, the answer to that is no. You’ve had nothing but tunnel vision since you and Melinda concocted this idea.”
“Because it’s a good one!”
“A good one? I think that remains to be seen, don’t you? But either way, my plan makes it even better. Lucrative, even.”
“Does it always have to be about money?”
Claire imagined Ann’s teeth unclenching long enough to release the laugh that seeped its way underneath her door. “Did that just come out of your mouth?”
“It did.”
“Stop the presses, ladies and gentlemen, Robert Karble is questioning whether we need to make a decision based on money!”
Something resembling a snort was quickly followed by Rob’s clipped voice. “Look, I’ve run this show for nearly twenty years now. And in those twenty years I’ve realized more profits than you could have ever dreamed
because
of the way I do things. So back off!”