All Fudged Up (A Candy-Coated Mystery) (19 page)

“Did you notice that we’re the only ones not wearing ribbons?” I sat across from Trent Jessop in a sun-filled coffee shop on the end of the marina. The shop itself was painted yellow with white trim. It boasted of lunch favorites and tea-time specials.

There were a handful of baristas and waitstaff. They had whispered when I walked in and the stares and whispers grew frantic as I approached Trent at his table. The entire place went quiet when I sat down.

Trent looked up from his menu. His dark hair shimmered where the sun hit it. The man was ridiculously handsome. His skin had the bronze look of a man comfortable in the sun. Today he wore a light blue denim shirt, the sleeves rolled up halfway. His broad hands were clean and well-groomed, but the air around him smelled rich, of expensive cologne and leather with just the right amount of sun-warmed skin.

“People are still wearing those silly ribbons?” He glanced over at the staff, who had gathered at opposite ends of the counter. The purple ribbon group grinned at him. The one waitress wearing a green ribbon glared at him. He muttered something this side of dark, then looked at me. “Let’s dispel this whole feud idea right now, shall we?”

What happened next, I swear happened in slow motion. You know when certain moments of your life are played out in slow motion as if they have more meaning than other normal moments?

Putting down his menu, Trent got halfway out of his chair and leaned across the table, his lovely face a mere breath away. “Ready?”

He kissed me. It wasn’t a peck either. The kiss involved lips, hands caressing my hair, my jawline, and the right amount of tongue.

The man took his time and I felt it right down to my toes. When we broke contact, he sat back in his chair, looked over at the staff, who had scattered, then picked up his menu as if nothing happened.

Meanwhile, I sat frozen, leaning halfway over the table. Seriously, who does that?

“The key lime pie is good here.” He had the good grace to give me a moment to come back to earth before he lowered his menu.

“I’m an apple fan.” Thank goodness my mouth worked even while my brain was still lost in the sensation of that stupid kiss. By the time he lowered his menu, I sat back and studied my menu.

“It’s not time for fresh apples.” He motioned with his hand for the waitress and she hurried over. “If you like fruit, I’d suggest the strawberry.”

“Are you ready to order?” The waitress had a name tag that said “Tiffany.” She was cute with her light brown hair pulled up into a ponytail. Her eyes were lined with black in a cat eye and there was a tiny crystal piercing on the side of her nose.

“I’ll have a large coffee and a slice of your strawberry-and-cream-cheese pie.” Okay, I was not doing what he said, but it did sound good.

“I’ll have the same,” Trent said as if he hadn’t just manhandled me in public.

I did notice that Tiffany had the good grace to take her ribbon off before she got to the table. She poured coffee and left. I added cream and sugar to mine. Trent drank his black.

“What did you find in Joe’s papers?” I cut to the chase as I stirred.

He raised a dark eyebrow. “Not good at small talk, are you?”

“I figure we’re kind of beyond that.” I sipped my coffee and noticed that his eyes glittered. Maybe he wasn’t cool about the kiss either.

“Right.” He mirrored me and tasted his coffee as well. “Grandfather Joe was a regular journaler.”

“Seriously?”

“Wrote down what happened every day of his life from the time he was ten. I have to say some things are best not known about your grandfather.” Trent winked at me.

I tried not to blush, but some things are beyond control. “Are you trying to distract me?”

“Maybe.” He grinned.

Tiffany stopped by the table and delivered two plates of the most beautiful pie I’d seen in a long time. Really, my mom wasn’t into cooking or baking. When I was in school, I’d been concentrating on candy. It was rare to see good pie. I dug in.

“You were going through Joe’s journals . . .” I said between bites.

“It turns out he and your grandfather were fast friends. They did everything together.”

“Let me guess, a girl got between them.” I noticed that I was more than halfway through the pie. Okay, I eat when I’m nervous. I put my fork down and picked up my coffee cup.

“Actually, no.”

“No?” I drew my eyebrows together. “What caused the rivalry?”

“There was no rivalry. It was a prank they played that got out of hand.”

“But . . . wait, how did it start?” I put my coffee down, drawn into his story. It was strange to think that Papa Liam and Joe Jessop were secretly best buddies.

“There was a falling out between George Thompson and your grandfather.”

“Yes, I know about that. Sometime in the seventies, Papa and George got into a tangle over the pool house laundry plans. It was well before I was born so I don’t know all the details.”

“According to the journals, George got greedy. Liam put his foot down so George bought out the property.”

“Okay, what does that have to do with the rivalry?”

“Liam and Joe cooked up the whole falling out so that Joe could mingle with George and keep an eye on things for Liam.”

I sat back. It made sense. Papa would never hold a grudge that long unless there was something unforgivable going on. It did make me wonder what George had done. Papa used to say, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, well, everyone knows the rest.”

“What about the springtime pranks where Joe would sneak into the McMurphy? Frances tells me that Papa would set traps for him but never caught him.”

“It was all fake,” Trent said and finished his pie. “It was the only way they could get together for the annual season meeting.”

“The annual season meeting?” I felt like a parrot, but seriously it was like discovering that the world was not what you thought. Maybe my brains really had fallen out after that kiss.

“Joe and Liam had a secret,” Trent said. “I think that secret is what got Joe killed.”

“What secret?”

“There are too many ears in here,” Trent said. “Shall we take a walk?”

I glanced outside. The sun was bright. The lake rippled gently, shimmering. The weather was perfect for a walk. “Sure.”

We paid the check and Trent put his hand on the small of my back as we walked out. I glanced at him when he touched me.

He leaned in and whispered, “Dispelling rumors of a feud.”

Right. We stepped out and instead of walking down Main, we turned in the opposite direction toward the shoreline bike trail that circled the island.

I needed something to do with my hands so I hugged my waist as we walked. It was tough to absorb what he had told me and my mind kept racing to what the secret might have been. Did it have anything to do with the half-a-million-dollar bottles of wine in the basement?

If the wine was so expensive, why didn’t Papa’s finances mirror that? Wait, he did leave me with one hundred thousand dollars for repairs, but I thought that was his retirement savings.

“The secret is a story straight out of
Treasure Island.”
Trent broke the silence.

I glanced at him. “Did it have to do with finding the wine?”

“Yes. What makes the wine so expensive, besides the fact that it was a very good vintage at a very good year during Prohibition, was the rarity.”

“Most of the bottles were lost with a ship that went down in a storm,” I said, letting him know I had done my homework as well.

“The key being most of the wine,” he agreed as we followed the bike trail around the island. “Joe, Liam, George, and Colin Ferber—”

“Wait, my old handyman? That Colin Ferber?”

“Yes.” he nodded. “That Colin was part of the foursome.”

“Weird, I never thought of him the same way. I mean, Papa had the McMurphy, George had the Oakton, and Joe had the Jessop Stables.”

“Colin’s father was the police chief here for years before he was transferred downstate. Colin grew up on island and stayed when his folks left.”

“I know he married an island girl. Her family was here, weren’t they?” I waved my hand toard the interior of the island.

“Yes. Anyway, one early November night they were all out partying at the other end of the island near Point St. Clair. Liam and Joe found a wood crate washed ashore. They opened it and saw the wine and being high schoolers did what any young guy would do. They pulled out six bottles, stashed the crate, and shared their discovery with George and Colin. George and Colin wanted to drink it all at once, but Joe and Liam convinced them to drink only two. They carried the other four bottles home to figure out what the label said.”

“I take it they didn’t take French in high school?”

“Joe wasn’t that much into school.” Trent grinned. “According to the journal it was Liam who discovered the story about the bottles. But not before the two smuggled the rest of the crate into the McMurphy.”

“They brought it in through the pool house, didn’t they?”

The path bent closer to the water’s edge. “Yes, they used the tunnel and stowed it in the back of the coal bin.”

“Wait, I read about this in the newspaper archive. There was an article that mentioned that they found the bottles but it was Prohibition time and the bottles were disposed of properly.” I watched as he picked up a rock and skipped it along the water.

“Remember Colin’s father was the police chief. They broke one bottle but sold the other three. The money got Joe noticed by my grandmother’s wealthy family,” Trent said. “Once he married a Wentworth, they were able to really expand and upgrade the stables.”

“It must be how Papa was able to keep the fudge shop as part of the McMurphy,” I mused. “Before the fifties the fudge shop was more of a luxury than a part of the McMurphy. According to invoices I found, they were in the red two seasons.”

“It’s how George went to college,” Trent said. The trail weaved in and out of tree cover, but never less than five feet from the water’s edge.

“What about Colin? How did he end up a handyman?”

“He gambled it away on a venture that didn’t work.” Trent shoved his hands in his pockets. “Meanwhile, Joe and Liam had twenty more bottles stashed away. They were smart. In fact, it was Liam’s idea to keep the find secret. If the bottles remained scarce, they remained profitable.”

“George and Colin never knew?”

“George didn’t need to know. He had married a trust-fund girl and spent most of the year in Chicago.”

“Let me guess, Colin was too mired in his own problems to figure out Papa and Joe had pulled one over on him. But I don’t get it,” I said. “How were they able to keep the secret when they sold a bottle?” I watched sea birds land on the water in a splish splash.

“They had a connection with an auction house in New York. When the newspaper story ran about the four bottles, they were all approached by Adam Jerkins. Colin and George laughed him off, but Joe kept the contact.”

“So Liam hid the goods and Joe hid the connection.”

“It was a huge game to them at first. They were careful and smart. Sold a bottle every two or three years and lived as if the money didn’t exist.”

I frowned. “I’ve been through Papa’s finances—I saw a regular deposit of ten grand. But if they sold a bottle, the money would all come at once, right? So why then deposit only ten grand a month?”

“They were smart with their money, those two,” Trent said. “Anything under ten grand does not have to be reported to the IRS.”

“If they didn’t deposit it all at once, what did they do with the money?”

“Have you checked his safe-deposit box?”

“No, I haven’t had the time. I have a key. Papa put it in my name a couple of years ago. He told me it was the fudge recipe. I didn’t check it because I have my own recipes from school.”

“Also, Joe lost a great deal in the market crash of 2006,” Trent said as we walked back to the trail. “Maybe Liam did as well.”

“I’ll have to ask Dad,” I said thoughtfully. “But Papa did help pay for my graduate degree. How is this linked to Joe’s murder?”

“Of the four men, Colin is the only one left alive.” As the trail bent closer to the water’s edge. Trent selected another stone and skipped it.

“There is no way Colin knew about the wine,” I said. “He was penniless. Papa paid for Colin’s wife’s funeral.”

Trent looked at me. “I find it interesting that George, Liam, and Joe are all dead within six months. Then someone breaks into the McMurphy and steals two high-dollar bottles of wine.”

“There’s no link. Papa died of a heart attack while playing cards at the senior center,” I said.

“Did he?” Trent tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Or were we all supposed to believe that? Look, George was found dead in his bed. The cause was never officially investigated. Everyone believed it was natural causes. The man was old and seventy pounds overweight. Liam was laughing and playing cards, then went face-first into the table. No one did an autopsy. No one questioned it until Joe died.”

“He was murdered for sure.”

“The killer got sloppy. Why? Maybe Joe knew who he was and confronted him.”

I frowned. “Did he mention anything in his journal?”

“His last entry was only two words.”

“Okay, I’ll bite, what were his two words?”

“Well, hell.”

In saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and peanut butter together, stirring constantly. Once melted, take off the heat and beat in sifted powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until it forms a cookie dough–like ball. Stir in vanilla.

Pat into a buttered 8” × 8” × 2” pan. Press chocolate chips into peanut butter. Run a butter knife through it to form desired piece size. Cover and place in fridge until cool. Once cool, run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen. Pop out and serve. Note: fudge must be cut before cooled or it will break.

Also, if you prefer swirled chocolate, melt chips in microwave with 2 tablespoons of butter, then mix and pour over fudge in pan. Swirl butter knife through the peanut butter fudge to create a marble effect. Cut into pieces. Cool in fridge.