First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery (26 page)
Read First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery Online
Authors: Christine DeSmet
Gilpa hadn’t been part of the unfortunate mishap. He didn’t know the plan that had gone awry. Poor man tried to be his cheerful self but got an earful as we boarded. He pressed the
Super Catch I
into full throttle for Hannah’s sake. She was wailing.
Pauline and I huddled in our chairs near Gilpa—away from the others who wanted to toss us overboard like their precious diamonds. While sitting there, I thought about how weird the mishap was. We’d all gone out in the boat according to plan, which was good, and then we’d got into trouble, which was bad—but that was my pattern. Everybody expected I’d get into trouble. So who needed the “expected” trouble? Did Jeremy Stone? I suspected already he hadn’t thrown real diamonds in the drink. Or did somebody at home want us out of the way so they could sneak into the Blue Heron Inn and abscond with diamonds and more?
“Mercy Fogg,” I muttered as Gilpa eased the
Super Catch I
into its slip at Fishers’ Harbor. A shiver of realization like none other gripped me. I felt as if I’d been the one half-drowned in the icy lake. I had discovered who the murderer was. But could I be sure?
Pauline asked, “What about Mercy?”
“We have to find Mercy and ask her some questions.”
“I knew she did it! Mercy the murderer.”
“No, Pauline, I don’t think so. I need to get her help in putting some pieces together.”
“You’ll have to go it alone. I’ve got to meet some other teachers tonight to go over the upcoming field trip regulations.”
“Shoot. But I’ll meet up with Cody at the shop as soon as we disembark. It’s about time he began telling me about his deputy duties with Mercy.”
But when I got to the shop, Cody wasn’t there. Neither was my grandmother. It wasn’t like either of them to abandon the shop. Only Harbor was there, sleeping on his towels. I untied him, then called my grandmother.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “When I left, Cody said he was going to be in charge of the shop until you got back. I thought it’d be okay.”
I didn’t want to worry her. “It’s very okay. He probably had to go with Sam to see Jordy again.”
But a phone call to them didn’t unearth Cody. I broke down and called his parents, Arlene and Tom. They hadn’t seen him. They asked me if I thought he could kill somebody. I made the mistake of choking and they hung up on me. I swallowed the lump in my throat, then hugged Harbor. He whined, as if in sympathy.
Or maybe he was just hungry. I tossed him some of the last of Gilpa’s beef jerky treats from a sales shelf and a package of cheese curds out of the cooler.
It was going on six o’clock, the dinner hour at the Blue Heron Inn. The guests would probably take a full hour to wash up after our harrowing trip, and Hannah Reed would be driving down to Sturgeon Bay to see her husband, Will.
I decided that the best thing to do next was to close up my shop and head up the hill to fill in Isabelle on my version of what had transpired. I was sure that the gang of guests would offer their own various versions, all of them not true. I still couldn’t fathom Jeremy Stone tossing those diamonds away like that. If he truly had done it, his action served those greedy people right. By now that pouch had probably washed out several hundreds of yards into Lake Michigan, lost forever like the many ships that had gone down with their booty aboard, never to be found.
I sneaked a peek at the fudge cooling in pans set out on the white marble table. Grandma had laid a dish towel over the top. I pulled it off gingerly. She had followed my diagram to a T. This introductory flavor of Fisherman’s Catch Fudge was going to dazzle the guys. She’d also made a flavor for little boys. The rich, extra-dark Belgian chocolate in both batches smelled divine. But it was the secret ingredients that I whiffed and spied that had me smiling. My mouth was watering. But tasting had to wait. I put the cloth back over the special new fudge flavors.
But now I was hungry. I hoped Izzy was making a luscious dinner; I’d invite myself to join them. I’d probably clear the place out; none of those people would want to sit with me. Especially once I announced who the murderer was.
Harbor followed me to the kitchen. I halted so fast at the sight before me that Harbor’s nose and head smashed into my backside.
Sacks of sugar had been busted open. Sugar had showered the floor.
Harbor was lapping at it fast with his tongue.
My new jugs of glucose and inverse sugar—like honey—were upside down over strainers in the sink. Every kilo bar of chocolate had been opened, as if somebody suspected those of being gold bars. But I knew what they’d been looking for—those darn diamonds.
This was Mercy’s doing. I suspected she was trying to throw me off a bit so she could apprehend the murderers herself. The real murderers wouldn’t risk taking the time to do this.
Gilpa startled me by walking in. “What in the Sam Hill—?”
“Somebody looking for more hot ice, Gilpa. This’ll take me a while to clean up.”
“You could just let that dog lick it all up. Or I can take care of this, Ava honey.”
“No, Gilpa. You’ve had a long day. And Grandma needs you, I’m sure. She made some wonderful fudge for me today. I’m sure she’s tired.”
“Where’s Cody? He can help with this.”
“That’s just the oddest thing. He’s not here.”
“You think he did this?”
“No. I think he’s off worrying about prom. That’s how he is lately—flighty.” That gave me an idea. “Would you mind going over to the old mansion? He might be there. That’ll let me go up to the inn and connect with Izzy and her guests about this.”
“They were all out with us. They didn’t do it.”
“Yes,” I admitted with a sigh. “It appears they didn’t.”
“You don’t suppose Cody’s parents would do this? I know they’re not happy with you or me lately.”
It had occurred to me, too, that they were suspects. The revelation had thrown all my theories into the air. I had to draw new diagrams in my head to figure out the physics of all the clues and connections of people to the clues. But Cody’s parents needed a lot of money to keep Cody healthy and provide him with services—even a home—for now and in the future. They fit a profile of people who might need to steal diamonds and glass Steubens.
Ironically, this new angle gave me clarity. I was beginning to figure out the jigsaw puzzle of the murders.
“Thanks, Gilpa.”
“For what, Ava dear?”
“For being you.” I gave him a huge, long hug before taking off up the hill.
I was hoping to find Izzy fast and fill her in on my theory. Izzy wasn’t at the inn, however. John Schultz came down the stairs with a beer in his hand and said, “There was a note in the kitchen that said she’d be back later, that we were to help ourselves to salad fixings for dinner.”
He and I eyed each other as if we were in a kickboxing cage ready to fly at each other. I said, “Listen, John, whoever you are, if you killed two people I’ll, I’ll . . .” I scrutinized this guy in his Hawaiian shirt under a hooded, zippered sweatshirt, baggy shorts despite the weather, and huarache sandals, and all the wind went out of me. “You’re not a killer, are you?”
“No.”
“But you’re also not a trip organizer, either. What do you do?”
“I really am a trip organizer.” He filched into a pocket, then handed me a card. “Look me up on the Internet. You haven’t done that yet?”
His card showed all his social network addresses. My face grew hot. “I was
that
wrong?”
He nodded, then went on his way. I felt so foolish. Some detective I was. This made me wonder if I was wrong about Mercy again. I’d just assumed she was innocent, but what if that was her plan all along?
I was about to turn around and leave when the stairs beckoned me. Mercy had been up there on Sunday. I also realized Jeremy Stone was probably upstairs working on a story. I needed to talk to him about his possible headline for me: “Fatal Fudge Femme Fatale Flubs Foolishly.” Pauline would use my story to teach a social studies unit to her kindergartners. I could hear her voice now. “Now, kids, don’t grow up to be like Ava Mathilde Oosterling.”
As I passed by the Earlywines’ room, I heard only subdued talking this time. Taylor’s room was open; she wasn’t there. It looked like she’d packed. She was probably downstairs, hoping to get early permission to leave. By now somebody had likely called Sheriff Tollefson.
I decided to take one last look at Rainetta Johnson’s room. Part of me wondered if Cody were hiding there, too. He wasn’t. The closet and the room were pristine clean, ready for the next guest.
An inspection again under the bed and mattress yielded nothing new.
The dresser drawers were clear. I realized I’d never looked behind the dresser and mirror. To my surprise, the mirror was so tall that it hid a door that allowed access to the community bathroom. If Izzy moved the dresser and mirror over toward the window wall, this room could become a suite with its own private bath.
My whole body froze.
That was how
it
happened.
That was how Rainetta Johnson was murdered. Somebody had gone in through the bathroom, then moved the dresser into place later.
I got down on my knees to look at the wood floor under the dresser and in the path of the wheels. The antique wheels were also made of wood. They wouldn’t scratch much if the dresser was rolled carefully, but if one was in a hurry and shoved the wheels sideways and thus not let them turn . . . one would find the scratches I did a few feet to the right of the dresser, along the bare wall closer to the chair and window. The scratches were slight. But they were evidence somebody had moved the dresser to and from that spot—to hide the door to the bathroom, the escape route for a killer. The killer had to be quick. The person had to have strangled Rainetta Johnson, ducked through the bathroom, then snuck back in the room to roll the dresser and mirror back into place.
My brain ticked off the suspects. Mercy, Sam, Cody, the Reeds, and John Schultz. And Jeremy Stone. All of them were here, and all were strong enough to move this empty dresser and mirror. Strong enough to commit murder.
I considered what Gilpa had said about the Fjelstads. I would have heard if they’d been at the party on Sunday, and since I hadn’t, did that mean they’d been sneaking around there, too, like Cody? They were still suspects of sabotage at my fudge shop. Were they capable of killing for diamonds to support their son? I didn’t want to believe this theory, but what about a friend of his who was only a year older—village president Erik Gustafson? Erik lured us all to the dining room for wine on Sunday, but maybe that was part of a plan to perhaps get Rainetta tipsy. Was Erik using Cody? Their plan hadn’t worked so well because the diamonds got in my pink fudge and shocked Rainetta, so she hurried upstairs. But she then discovered Cody—or somebody else—wanting to rob her. Since I knew Cody wasn’t capable of wrongdoing, a picture of that “somebody else” was flowering in my brain.
That awful feeling like the flu came over me again. My ten thousand taste buds detected sour skullduggery for fame and fortune.
This time, I knew for sure who had killed Rainetta Johnson.
My knees went weak. I had to focus for a moment to steady myself before I ventured out of Rainetta’s room. My list of suspects was mighty long by design—by design of the killer who had been like a conductor of an orchestra of suspects. The wiliness of it scared me. This person was dangerous. But I had no solid proof. I had to come up with a plan.
I
eased from Rainetta’s room, listening for others in the Blue Heron Inn. Only my pounding heart interrupted the quiet. I treaded lightly to Jeremy Stone’s door to peek in. He wasn’t there.
Back in the main hall, I entered the common bathroom. Down in the backyard, Jeremy and John were starting the grill. Salad fixings rarely sufficed for a meal for men in this region. My phone said it was six thirty.
I went to the blue-carpeted stairway, but paused, thinking about my next move, yet again mesmerized by the way the Steuben glass statues sparkled. From this angle high above the room below, I could see why Isabelle loved these amorphous crystals. There was magic in them. Her fond memory of picking up the diamond with her mother in the Arkansas field came to me. For Isabelle Boone, the Steubens were more than just pieces of nostalgia. This glass surrounding her probably felt like one of our Door County Belgian hugs. Sadness overwhelmed me. I’d been too busy to realize she might be lonely here.
Isabelle wasn’t back yet, so I decided to leave her a personal note, and not one for all to see in the kitchen. I went to her living quarters, hoping to find it unlocked like everything else in the Blue Heron Inn. But it wasn’t. She was probably fearful of her crazy guests. I jiggled the doorknob hard, risking being heard. The lock popped. I slipped inside.
As I was writing a note for her to call me when she got back, my phone rang. It was my grandmother.
“Honey, I haven’t heard from your grandfather. Is he at the shop still?”
“No, Grandma. Neither of us is there. I closed up. I’m up at the Blue Heron Inn. I asked him to see if Cody was at the mansion. We can’t seem to locate Cody again.”
“Oh dear. I’m fine, but that man must be draggin’ butt by now. Send the old coot home.”
I decided to go over to the mansion myself and get the “old coot.” I was heading down the hill when Mercy Fogg marched toward me, her dyed blond curls bouncing with every heavy step. She barked out, “Where’s my Cody?”
“I was about to ask you that.” Her possessiveness made me shiver, despite Jordy’s odd tenderness toward her. “You’ve been using Cody to play detective. Have you come to any conclusions about who the murderer is? Or who you’d like to blame it on?”
“I’m not sharing my theories with you. Now, please excuse me, Ava.”
She began marching past me. “Isabelle’s not home and Cody’s not here either.”
“Oh.” She stopped, then turned around. “Isabelle told me Bethany wanted Cody to meet her at the mansion earlier to look at the place for the party. I guess Isabelle must’ve gone over there, too.”
“My grandfather’s there now, so maybe they’ll all come trooping back here soon.”
“I hope so. I have to talk with her right away.”
“What about?” I asked, curiosity prickling up my back as I took in Mercy’s worried face.
She marched up to Isabelle’s front porch and then inside as if she owned the inn. I followed, knowing instinctively that Mercy knew something important. My insides felt like a California trembler had started. I repeated, “What do you need to talk to Isabelle about?”
We stood in the foyer amid the Steubens. In my imagination, I forced a movie to play out of Mercy ripping the sacks open at my shop, her hiding the necklace, and her moving a dresser after choking Rainetta Johnson and stuffing my fudge in her mouth. The images didn’t fit. This woman of almost sixty drove a snowplow in winter and a school bus year-round. This was a flag-waver woman. Jordy’s instincts were right. As much as I wanted her to be guilty, Mercy Fogg wouldn’t do things that could send her to jail. I wondered now if her constant pestering of me had somehow helped protect me from the killer. Was Mercy being protective of me? What did Mercy know?
She kept perusing all the glass statues, as if counting them, so I asked, “Is there something about the statues that Isabelle needs to know?”
“Yes. Somebody has been trying to steal these. Maybe they already have stolen a few right out from under Isabelle. I want to warn her that I think somebody might try to murder her next.”
I gasped. “You’re sure? How?” I could feel Mercy and myself converging on the same conclusion as to the murderer’s identity.
“Like Rainetta, she’s too trusting. This place has no locks that work. I begged Rainetta to stay with me.” Her bottom lip trembled.
This made me swallow. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask her about her relationship with Rainetta Johnson.
“Mercy, I need to go find my grandfather. He’s over at the mansion with Cody, and my grandma wants him to come home. I left a note for Isabelle for her to call me when she gets back. I’ll call you when I see her if you don’t want to hang around.”
“Thanks, Ava. Maybe they’re late because they’ve found treasure in the basement, or more dead bodies.” She chuckled, but I could see she was struggling to keep her composure.
She hurried out.
Expecting Isabelle to come back at any moment, I decided to wait a few more minutes at the Blue Heron Inn. Why would somebody want to murder her? I sat on the bottom step of the staircase, staring up at the Steubens. Maybe only thirty seconds went by before the sparkling glass throughout the room seemed to chime loud warnings at me. Mercy’s words rushed back to terrify me.
They’ve found treasure in the basement, or more dead bodies.
Treasure? Bodies? Cody said he’d heard something from the basement the other day. I’d been thrown down the stairs. A body had been found in the basement. Why was I sitting here? They were in danger! But so was I. Somebody had wanted me dead then. What about now? Could somebody be watching me, just waiting to get me alone? I flipped my head back and forth. I saw nobody in the foyer, but my heart was racing.
I looked around for a weapon. Nothing in the foyer would do. There were just amorphous artwork crystals. But then I remembered a
certain
alignment of crystals that could serve as a weapon.
I raced into Isabelle’s private quarters and to her fireplace. I grabbed the poker with my good hand. That would be unwieldy to use with only one hand. I set it back down, then grabbed a solid hunk of glass that I could throw better—the glass unicorn.
I took a moment to call Jordy, but got the lady officer at the front desk.
She said, “He’s across the peninsula with some traffic accident.”
“Send anybody. Now! I’ve just solved the fudge felonies, but I’ve got people in danger of losing their lives at the mansion.” I gave her the address.
Then I raced down the hill, the unicorn weighing heavily in the crook of my arm and against my sweatshirt.
• • •
Cradling the unicorn in my good arm, I burst into the mansion. “Hello? Gilpa? Cody?”
There wasn’t a sound except wind gusts rattling loose siding outside. Because it was going on seven o’clock, the sun was west of the house. The interior was now in sepia tones. I needed a flashlight—that was what I hadn’t grabbed at Isabelle’s place. I couldn’t believe how stupid I was. But I prayed the unicorn would bring me luck and the dangerous peril here was only my imagination gone awry.
I thought briefly of going upstairs because the person had been there before. But my gut told me that I’d find my grandfather and Cody in the basement. I was icy cold all over, even under my sweatshirt and after running all the way here from the Blue Heron Inn.
“Hello?” I called again, holding my breath to listen.
After no response, I hurried to the kitchen. The basement door was open. Fright sent the atoms making up my body cells into a frenzied overdrive. I hid the Steuben unicorn weapon under my sweatshirt, hugging my wrapped left wrist to myself to make the statue’s bulge look less obvious. I took a deep breath, then put a boot on the first step.
Then another boot.
A shuffling emanated from the bowels of the basement.
“Grandpa? Cody? Isabelle?”
Had the worst happened? I feared descending any farther into the half-light down there at the bottom of the stairs. My hands grew sweaty. Perspiration was popping out on my face, too, prickling my forehead and upper lip.
Maybe I’d heard only mice running around. I waited, listening. A truck lumbered by out on Main Street. My mind remembered Conrad Webb sprawled across the floor. Had the sheriff’s office done a chalk outline? What was down there now? Maybe I was being crazy and Gilpa and Cody had left. Maybe Bethany had wanted to go out for burgers and a malt. Isabelle was likely back at the Blue Heron by now; we’d missed each other on the street somehow.
I went down all the way for a quick and reassuring look.
I saw nothing on the floor. No chalk line. Then I spotted light limning the seams of a door across the basement, maybe thirty feet away. Swallowing against my dry throat, I ventured over. Maybe the sheriff’s people had left the light on by mistake.
“Hello?” I called.
My hand went to the doorknob, but it burst at me before I could turn it.
I yelped as I stumbled back a few steps.
Isabelle stared at me, looking ghostly. She held a pistol in one hand.
Stupidly, I asked, “What’s that in your hand?”
She smiled, then lowered the pistol. “I just wanted to be sure the place was safe for the prom party next week.”
The room behind her was maybe eight by eight feet, big enough for me to stretch out in if I lay on its dirt floor. It had rock walls. It had to be an old root cellar. But there was an opening beyond in the opposite wall with a short wall of about a foot high. Was that mystery room an old coal bin? The short wall would hold the coal that was dumped into the cavity from the outside and the surface above. It was a pitch-black maw, though, and any old trapdoor to the outside had long ago been boarded up and sodded over. My brain banged about in my skull in warning.
I managed to croak out, “Are you hiding more things you’ve taken from Rainetta Johnson?”
A flicker in Isabelle’s gamine dark eyes told me everything I needed to know. “Yes,” she admitted, to my surprise. Her shoulders eased. “I can’t trust any of my guests anymore. But you know that.”
“Mercy Fogg doesn’t trust them either. She thinks you could be in danger.” I cradled my bandaged arm with my good hand, hoping I wasn’t going to accidentally drop the unicorn in my terror.
“And what do you think?”
“Izzy, let’s go back to the inn and talk.”
A shuffling sound behind her drew my attention. A moan rose from the black cave.
Isabelle shifted slightly, pulling the pistol back up into place.
My gaze darted past her to the short wall and the floor, where I spied several glass paperweights of various sizes, some the size of baseballs. They’d be heavy. Especially if they hit you on the head. I swallowed a whine in my throat.
“Izzy, your paperweights were never missing or borrowed by your guests at all, were they? You brought them here to use as weapons.” The whine in my throat turned into a maddening scream of anger. “What have you done to my grandpa? To Cody?”
I moved to get past her, but her pistol popped and a bullet zinged past me into the basement. The bullet pinged and ricocheted onto something with a
thwack
, then rattled across the tile floor until its movement died.
I stared wide-eyed at my friend. My former friend. She was short, petite, cute—and totally crazy.
“How can you do this, Izzy? Please, just let them go.”
“I can’t. Cody was always snooping. He knows everything I’ve been doing. And your grandfather, I’m sorry about him, but he came and I had no choice.”
“Where’s Bethany?” After she just stared at me, I said, “You made that up to get Cody here. You made up a lot of things, didn’t you?”
She didn’t respond. I feared she was trying to squirrel up her courage to shoot me dead. Maybe she was pausing because I had meant something to her.
I willed tears to stay out of my eyes so she could see how furious I was as I looked down at her and her pistol. “So what did you do? Shoot them? Let me get them to the doctor. You can run, Izzy. Just run now.”
“There’s no need to run. You’re going to join them, and then I’ll brick you all in.”
That was when I noticed she’d prepared for this. Bricks and instant-mix concrete were in a corner. She even had jugs of water.
“This is what you were going to do with Conrad Webb. You almost got away with his murder.”
“I still plan to do so. I can get away with them all.”
“Maybe you can throw the blame on other people easy enough for Rainetta’s death, but people will want to know where I disappeared to.”
“I doubt it,” Isabelle said, her gamine face taking on color again. “They’ll think you ran back to Los Angeles.”
A sickly realization curled in my innards because she was right. Nobody believed I really wanted to stick around little Fishers’ Harbor. “And by the time they find out the truth, where will you be?”
“Right here. With my Steuben collection. I might need to expand to another space, though. And this house looks like a good bet. It’s half again the size of the Blue Heron with twice the basement space.”
The thought of her living here with my body and the bodies of my grandfather and Cody in the basement horrified me. My throat burned with the names I wanted to call her. Instead, I tried another tack.