Suspendered Sentence (An Amish Mystery) by Laura Bradford

window shades. A quick glance at the digital clock beside her bed reassured her she hadn’t overslept.
    Slipping out of her bed and into her slippers, she pulled her door open a crack and listened. But, try as she could, she couldn’t make out any of the sounds she’d come to equate with morning since moving in with Diane.
    There were no creaky floorboards as her aunt made her way down the stairs and into the kitchen . . .
    There was no soft humming as the woman moved from room to room on the first floor, opening drapes, fluffing pillows, and preparing coffee for the guests’ breakfast that would commence in just under an hour . . .
    And there was no greeting of the paperboy at the front door . . .
    Instead, there was only deafening silence, punctuated every so often by a rhythmic scraping that sounded as if it was coming from the front porch, or, perhaps, the stone walkway that linked the inn to the parking area. Pushing the door shut once again, Claire turned, crossed to the window, and pulled back the shade, sucking in a breath at the unexpected winter wonderland below.
    A thick blanket of muting snow covered the porch roof, the yard, the driveway, the guests’ cars, the tree-mounted birdhouses, the main road, and the Amish fields in the distance. Rays of morning sun reflected off the glistening snow-covered limbs outside her window and accounted for the added brightness in her room. And as she stood there, watching, a quick blast of snow from somewhere underneath her window, followed by the now-familiar rhythmic scraping sound, filled in the final piece of the puzzle.
    Pulling her hand from the shade, she reached into the closet, retrieved the parka she’d pushed to the back when spring had begun to announce its premature arrival two weeks earlier, and slipped it on. A quick trade of her slippers for some boots had her out the door and down the stairs in record time.
    Only this time, instead of heading to the kitchen as she would every other morning, she zipped her coat all the way to the top and stepped out onto the porch, shaking her head at a smiling Diane as she did.
    “Did you know it was supposed to snow like this?” she asked in greeting.
    “I did when I closed the drapes in the parlor around nine thirty. It was falling fast and furious.” Diane propped her shovel against the porch rail and tightened the wrist straps on her waterproof gloves. “When I came up to bed, I poked my head in your room to tell you but you were fast asleep in your clothes and I didn’t have the heart to wake you. So I simply covered you with your afghan and tiptoed my way back out of your room.”
    “I guess I was more tired than I realized after we got everything cleaned up after dinner. I’d intended to put on something more comfortable and then come back down and spend time with you in the parlor, but I guess I fell asleep.” She met her aunt beside the railing and leaned forward enough to see the main road. “It doesn’t look like a plow has come through yet.”
    “Oh, it’s come through. It’s just snowed again since then.” Diane pointed to the top of her car in the small parking area beneath the snow-covered weeping willow tree. “Near as I can tell, we’ve gotten a good ten inches, maybe a foot. Either way, I think it’s safe to say you’ve been given a much-needed and well-deserved day off from the shop.”
    She looked from Diane, to the car, to the road, and back again. “You mean I shouldn’t open the shop?”
    “You shouldn’t open the shop.”
    “But why?” she asked.
    “Because any tour buses scheduled to come into Heavenly today have canceled on account of the weather, and the locals aren’t going to venture out of their homes to buy much of anything besides cat litter for their sidewalks and provisions for their refrigerators. Heavenly Treasures doesn’t sell those items so you might as well stay closed and take a little time for yourself. You’ve earned it, dear.”
    Rocking back