First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery (16 page)

T
he caravan down to Sturgeon Bay to the county sheriff’s department on Wednesday morning included me in my yellow truck with Sam driving, at his insistence, and my parents ahead of me in their beat-up farm van painted black and white like a Holstein cow. I suspected they still had a full load to deliver—if their customers still wanted to deal with them. My parents carried cream, butter, and cheese in ice chests, so the food was safe for a while.

So many transgressions were piling up behind the Oosterling name, I was afraid that any day now we’d be banished from Door County by Sheriff Tollefson. The county budget went only so far, and I could hear the
ka-ching
of expenses spent on the Oosterlings already.

Passing the farmland and Holsteins reminded me of the cookie jar Mom had given me.

“Go ahead and say it again. I’m stupid,” I muttered to Sam. He’d been unnaturally quiet on the ride.

“You’re not stupid. At least not all the time.”

“Don’t you dare bring my marriage or ex into this.”

“You take actions without consulting me first, without consulting anybody first.”

“I’m a grown-up. I’m supposed to be able to make my own decisions.”

“You’re thirty-two going on twelve sometimes, Ava.”

“That was a mean thing to say. If I wasn’t wounded, I’d sock you in the chops.”

“Just what a twelve-year-old does. I was right.”

“You see. That’s why I couldn’t marry you. You always have to be right.”

Sam chuckled. “It’s my job. And being right isn’t a bad thing. Why can’t you ever trust me? Or trust anybody who has good advice for you?”

I rolled down the window for air. The mist had gone away by the time we cruised through Egg Harbor. A bracing, crisp air met us as we climbed hills overlooking Lake Michigan in the distance. I tried to clear my head by taking deep breaths. I didn’t know why I couldn’t trust Sam completely. To trust meant you gave all of yourself over to another person. At least that was how I felt it should be. I know that’s how Grandma Sophie and Gilpa felt about trust, and it was what my parents believed. But their trust was all balled up with love. Maybe I was afraid of love.

After thinking I could trust—and love—Dillon Rivers, my trust-o-meter was shot. I was a worn-out oven when it came to trusting men; I couldn’t trust the temperature I was feeling. Even if I felt something warm toward a man now, like I felt sometimes for Sam, I assumed that heat wouldn’t stay steady or last. Looking back on things, I had probably been in love with the thought of marrying a football player, which was Sam. I trusted him eight years ago when he said he loved me, too. Sam and I had talked about traveling, getting jobs away from Door County after we got married. That summer before our wedding, I’d been applying for all kinds of jobs in big cities, thinking Sam was doing the same.

Then, at my bridal shower, Sam gave me a gift—the key to a house. He’d bought a house in Fishers’ Harbor. Everybody at the shower—most especially my mother—thought it was the sweetest, most wonderful, loving gift a man could give his bride-to-be. But I hadn’t helped pick it out. I felt rotten, though, once I saw the house. It’s a beautiful one-story brick cottage, with original stained glass in parts of the front bay windows overlooking an open porch with a porch swing. There were even a few heirloom roses in bloom at each corner of the porch. How could I not love the house? But then Dillon had come along . . .

I had to trust and love that man. Don’t laugh. If you ever met Dillon Rivers, you’d understand why women have to have him. He was like, well, like a piece of my best fudge—an intense, pleasurable experience. And you craved more of it—him—all the time. Addicting. Dillon was about adventure and freedom and the feeling that I had control of my choices.

My brain didn’t want to revisit all the reasons I had ditched Sam for Dillon, who ultimately broke my trust-o-meter.

As we rode along, I couldn’t answer Sam Peterson. I didn’t know why I messed up with trust all the time. I was saddened about that, and my heart and soul were like cold and empty copper kettles at the moment. I knew I wanted to try to trust. But how could I start when I was scared of more painful failure?

We slipped into the parking lot at the justice building just south of the canal that split Sturgeon Bay. The solid, serious look of the red bricks and tan rock of the new and modern building gave me shivers.

My grandfather was processed like a common criminal, fingerprinted and given jail clothes and a pillow, of all things. It was like they were merely putting him down for a nap. We weren’t allowed more than a brief visit, and since we had no lawyer to intercede, we left him with promises of coming back tomorrow. They wouldn’t even let me hug Gilpa good-bye. They probably thought I’d slip him a fudge cutter.

Sam had the presence of mind to ask when we could see him tomorrow; the woman in uniform at the desk said that visiting hours for males were on Thursdays only and in the evening only. Sam asked about getting permission from the lieutenant for other visits and for getting a public defender. The woman crisply said that Gilpa could make those requests. She handed Sam some forms.

My dad was muttering, “Mother isn’t going to take this well.”

He meant my grandma Sophie, of course.

“Dad, I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”

“No, honey, it’s not. Your grandpa lied for some reason.”

“To protect me.”

“I know. He loves you. We all do.” Dad engulfed me in a hug that was totally Belgian. It lasted and lasted and lasted. If that hug were a fudge flavor, it would have the world beating that proverbial path to my door on the dock in Fishers’ Harbor.

We stood next to my truck and their black-and-white Holstein van. A breeze gusted about, flapping the flag flying above us. Dad opened his driver’s door, then paused to shake his head. At times he looked startlingly like Grandpa, except his hair, which was now whipping about, was brown instead of silver. “Honey, maybe we need to close that fudge and bait shop for now.”

“No!” My sharp retort embarrassed me. “Sorry for yelling, but no, Dad. We can’t. We need the money now more than ever.”

Dad winced. “But you’re going to kill yourself trying to keep it running. And you seem to be a target for whoever’s involved in this murder. It scares me. That’s the real reason I want you to close it. Close it and come home. We love you.”

I gulped. Tears pushed at the backs of my eyes. “Thanks,” I mumbled. “I appreciate that.”

Mom had gotten in the van on the other side, but she leaned toward us and called out, “This person is dangerous. Don’t mess around with this, Ava. This isn’t like your silly TV show.”

Mom couldn’t know how that hurt me. Okay, the stupid show
was
silly. But that was because the executive producer never let me write enough of the episodes! I could write better than any of those guys. I had a vision for the show, but the executive producer had another. I know Mom didn’t mean to slight my time in Los Angeles. Or did she? I guessed I’d spent eight years out there for what? To learn how to make fudge in my spare time? What my parents really wanted was for their only child to be happy, married, and having grandchildren. And to be safe.

We got in our vehicles. Mom and Dad peeled south of Sturgeon Bay to head toward Brussels and the farm, while Sam and I headed the other way across the bridge for Fishers’ Harbor.

“Thanks, Sam, for coming along. And asking all those questions we were too shaken up to ask.”

“Buy me a beer sometime.”

That was what guys said when they didn’t want you to make a big deal out of a favor they’d done for you. Sam had made me smile just now. Maybe someday people would say after a kindness was done for them, “Buy me some Oosterling fudge sometime.”

The notion brought back the reporter calling me a “fudge sculptor.” That made me smile, too.

I let out a sigh as the landscape of redbrick farmhouses with white trim and fields of alfalfa awakening from winter slid by. A green-and-yellow John Deere tractor and corn planter crawled along a field in a sure and steady way.

“What am I going to do about the shop, Sam? I sure wish we could find Ranger. He’d love taking over the bait shop for Gilpa.”

“Then we’ll have to find him.”

I collected my courage to tell him about the mishap at the mansion yesterday.

Sam eased up on the gas pedal to look at me. “I’m glad you’re okay. And I’m glad you told me about him sneaking into the Blue Heron Inn and then getting mad at you. Maybe that information will help the sheriff find him.”

“How so?”

“He’s been gone since Monday night, two nights now. He’s had to sleep somewhere, and he’s had to have gotten food somewhere. Maybe he’s established a pattern already. We can call all the businesses in Fishers’ Harbor.”

“That won’t take long.” We had a smattering of tourist gift shops, a few small galleries, a jeweler, a couple of restaurants and bars, but then you were out of town and heading for Sister Bay and sights like Al Johnson’s Restaurant roof with its goats. Where Ranger had ended up with Mercy.

“But Ranger could have stolen a car that hasn’t been reported yet for whatever reason.”

I thought about the curtained windows of the house behind the historic mansion. Those owners were out of town perhaps. I told Sam we had to check to see if one of their vehicles had been stolen.

Sam agreed. “He could be anywhere in Door County. If he’s broken into places, there might be a pattern of breakins we can check on with the sheriff.”

“He likes shiny things,” I said. “Sorry if that makes him sound childish.”

“Well, he’s only eighteen and still in high school. High school kids of any type do foolish things sometimes. That’s a good clue. We just have to think of a place with something shiny he likes and then we’ll find him.”

“Ugh, like shiny watches. Given to him by Mercy Fogg. Mercy might know where he is, Sam. I wanted to talk to Jordy about Mercy, too. He should keep an eye on her. She was clearly trying to pin the murder on me today in my shop in front of all those cameras. First she tries to shut me down, and today she threatened to sue me. She’s gone over the edge. Sam, is it too ‘out there’ of me if I say I’m pretty sure Mercy murdered Rainetta and involved Cody in it?”

“Sounds like you’re trusting your gut. That’s not a bad thing to trust,” Sam said.

His words opened a tiny window of my heart. I confessed more of my thoughts about the situation with Mercy, about how she might have been jealous of Sam’s relationship with Rainetta Johnson.

Sam whistled a note of concern. “She’s starting to scare me. We need to talk to the sheriff about this right away.” He slowed the truck as if to turn around.

“I was about to do that when Gilpa got arrested by mistake. And I’m a little scared of her, too. She’s unpredictable and desperate, obviously.”

“Ava, please don’t be in your shop alone anymore. If there’s nobody around to help you, call me.”

The warmth of his offer zipped through the open windows in my heart. “That’s kind of you. Thanks. But you’re too busy to be at my shop all the time.”

“I meant that my office knows people looking for part-time jobs. We can send people over.”

So much for the flash of warmth toward Sam. The thought of strangers working in Oosterlings’ Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge didn’t sit right with me, but I didn’t say anything to Sam as he sped up again and we drove back into Fishers’ Harbor. I needed a plan, but I had nothing. What I had to do next was obvious—make a new batch of Cinderella Pink Fudge. By now I knew that immersing all five of my senses into my special fudge was like going to a clairvoyant and having my cards and tea leaves read.

• • •

Sam tried to drop me off at my cottage so I could freshen up, but my small side street was clogged with vehicles. I knew I wasn’t ready to face Grandma Sophie with a bunch of her church-lady friends all gathered around wringing their hands or praying, so I had Sam drive to the next block.

Oosterlings’ Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge had a fair amount of fishermen hanging around, as if waiting for me. Sam came inside with me on the off chance Cody had returned, but he hadn’t. Sam took over the bait shop cash register to ring up customers wanting live minnows while I trotted into the back and washed up in my kitchen. Pain still pulsed in my left wrist. But I managed to shuffle around my shelves and refrigerator with the other hand. I had enough ingredients to make another batch of fudge. Sam helped me pour everything into the double boiler at the front of the shop next to the copper kettles. He had to leave then for an appointment with a client, so to pour the mixture into the kettles would require a new recruit. Ironically, I was saved by Carl “Moose” Lindstrom—Gilpa’s archenemy.

The tall, robust, ruddy-faced Swede, who was closer to my dad’s age than Gilpa’s, burst through the door, the cowbell clanging to announce him.

“Hey,” he said, stomping in his rubber boots and running a hand over the thin, graying stubble on his big head. “Is it true? Gil knocked over the lady for the jewels? Gil catchin’ a little nooky with a movie star makes quite a story.”

My whole body burst with indignation until I saw his smile. “Moose, don’t joke, please.” The lovely white chocolate was bubbling just right. “Can you stir this for a few minutes? I hurt my arm. I’ll set the timer. Just fifteen minutes.”