Hot Fudge Murder

by Cynthia Baxter

  “So it seems,” Willow replied calmly. “But do we want it to be famous as a spot where an infamous murder occurred?”

  She certainly had a point. Of course, I’d heard that expression about how there was no such thing as bad publicity. Believe me, it was a saying that those of us who worked in public relations joked about constantly. But I’d never really believed it. There were too many people—places, too—that had had their reputations ruined by exactly that.

  But Emma and Ethan were as excited as if it was Christmas morning—and they’d both been very, very good that year.

  By that point, it was time to open. Emma and I stood behind the counter, ready for what I hoped would be a busy day ahead. Willow and Ethan, meanwhile, made themselves comfortable at one of the round tables, both of them absorbed in their phones.

  Yet even though it was past eleven, my usual opening time, and even though the OPEN sign on the front door was displayed for all to see, by one o’clock not a single soul had wandered into the shop.

  “Now that’s ironic,” Emma said, standing with her elbows resting on the glass countertop and her chin in her hands. “Even though Wolfert’s Roost is packed with people today, not one of them seems the least bit interested in eating ice cream.”

  “It’s early,” Willow pointed out, glancing up from whatever was on her screen. “Aren’t things always slow until midafternoon?”

  Ethan nodded, sending his straight black bangs swaying. “Totally,” he said. “My mom always taught me not to eat dessert until after I’d had my lunch.”

  “Your mother must not have known about Peanut Butter on the Playground,” I muttered. “It’s got swirls of real peanut butter and jelly in it. If that isn’t a stand-in for lunch, I don’t know what is.”

  Emma turned to me, her cheeks flushed. “Kate, since things are so quiet here, would you mind if I went outside for a while? This is the most exciting thing that’s happened in this town, like, ever! I want to see if there’s anyone out there I recognize!”

  “Sure,” I said. “There’s no reason to spend the afternoon here in the shop when there’s nothing going on.”

  “Thanks!” she replied, already tearing off her apron. “Oooh, maybe we’ll see that cute TV reporter who covers hurricanes and tornadoes. He looks so sexy with his hair wet!”

  She and Ethan scurried off, ready to enjoy Wolfert’s Roost’s moment in the spotlight.

  As for me, my mood was becoming droopier and droopier.

  “Don’t reporters like ice cream?” I moaned to Willow.

  “Sure they do,” she replied. “They’re famous for always wanting to get a scoop.”

  “Ha, ha,” I said sullenly. Then I brightened. “I know: I should put out a big sign that says, ‘Get your scoop here!’ ”

  Willow laughed. “Not a bad idea.” She rose from the table and packed away her phone. “I’m going to run over to Hudson Roasters and get myself some coffee. Want anything, Kate?”

  “I’m good,” I assured her, even though I wasn’t anything even close to good.

  She’d barely left before the door opened and someone walked in.

  “Finally,” I mumbled.

  Standing up straighter and brushing away a few stray strands of hair that had come loose from my ponytail, I smiled at the customer. He was in his thirties, I guessed, with slicked-back black hair and a Johnny Depp–style facial thing going on, sort of a mini beard with a dot mid-chin that brought the word “hipster” to mind. The button-down shirt and neatly pressed khakis he was wearing made him look more dressed up than the usual day-tripper. But I figured he might have just gone to church—or that maybe he was a local businessperson himself. I actually settled on the latter theory, since he was carrying a pad of paper.

  “Welcome to Lickety Splits,” I greeted him. “What can I get you?”

  “Great little shop you’ve got here,” he said, squinting at the menu hanging on the wall behind me. “Cool flavors. Honey Lavender ice cream? Peanut Butter on the Playground? Seriously? Those sound like something I’d be more likely to find in one of Brooklyn’s trendier neighborhoods than up here in the sticks.”

  I found myself growing defensive. I didn’t know if he was genuinely surprised or if he was simply incapable of hiding his inherent snobbery. I was tempted to say something like, “Believe it or not, we have electricity and flush toilets ‘up here,’ too!”

  But because I am a responsible, mature, professional businessperson, I simply said, “Thanks. Would you like to sample any of our flavors?”

  “You know what? I think I’ll take a vanilla cone,” he said. “Small.”

  “Coming right up,” I said.

  I grabbed the scoop and was tempted to dish out the smallest “small” the world has ever seen. But I remembered the thing about being responsible and mature and gave him the small size I routinely served.

  As I handed it to him, he said, “Gotta love the basics, right?”

  “My Classic Tahitian Vanilla takes the concept of vanilla to an entirely new level,” I informed him. “Taste it. You’ll see.”

  He stuck his tongue into the softball-sized scoop as tentatively as if I’d just given him a blob of mud-in-a-cone and dared him to try it.

  “Hey,” he said, his face lighting up “this is really good.”

  “ ‘Good’ is what we do here,” I informed him. “Cash or credit?”

  “Are you the owner of this place?” he asked as he handed over a credit card. I was accustomed to people using plastic even for small purchases, but somehow this particular guy doing it annoyed the heck out of me.

  “Owner, manager, ice cream chef, bookkeeper, custodian, you name it,” I replied.

  “How long have you been in business?” he asked

  “Since the beginning of June,” I said as I ran his card. “Which means Lickety Splits has been open for about six weeks.”

  “So you’re new to the area,” he observed.

  “Yes and no,” I said. “I grew up in Wolfert’s Roost. I left for college, then came back a few months ago for personal reasons.” I handed him back his card.

  “Well, you’ve certainly mastered the art of ice cream,” he said. By this point, he was positively devouring his cone. Practically pushing it into his face, as if he couldn’t get enough of my Classic Tahitian Vanilla. I couldn’t help smiling. This phenomenon was something I’d seen before.

  “Thanks,” I said. I was starting to like him a bit better. Or at least dislike him a bit less.

  “So I understand this cute little town of yours didn’t always have such a cute little name,” he said chattily. I got the impression he intended to eat his entire ice cream cone while standing in that exact same spot.

  “That’s right,” I said. I was back to disliking him. In fact, I was beginning to wish he’d leave. Or at least eat his ice cream cone while sitting at one of the tables. In silence.

  “But you apparently know all about it already,” I said evenly. “And I bet you also know the original name.”

  He smiled smugly. “Modderplaatz. Which, in Dutch, means ‘muddy place.’ That may have seemed like a good name in 1699, when this little piece of heaven on earth was founded. But apparently a decade or two ago, some genius in town decided the place would be more attractive to tourists if they came up with a different name. Something that sounded less like—well, like a Dutch word that means ‘muddy place.’”

  “If you were as thorough in your research as you should have been,” I said crisply, sounding like everyone’s least favorite high school teacher, “you would have learned that the town’s new name came from the title of a story collection of the great writer Washington Irving, who lived in the Hudson Valley. You know who he is, don’t you? ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’? ‘Rip Van Winkle’? Maybe you read those famous stories in your freshman English class? Freshman year of high school, I mean?”

  He just smirked.

  “Anyway,” I went on, jutting my chin out even farther, if that was possible
, “Washington Irving named one of his story collections Wolfert’s Roost, and Miscellanies. The name came from a real person named Wolfert Acker. But you probably didn’t know any of that.”

  “Nope,” he replied. “And I didn’t know that Wolfert Acker lived in Irvington, not that far from here, during the colonial period. Or that he was an important guy in government, working as an adviser to Peter Stuyvesant, the head of New Netherland, later known as New York. I also didn’t know that Acker’s place was called Wolfert’s Roost, which is Dutch for ‘Wolfert’s Rest.’ ”

  If I’d disliked this guy before, I now disliked him even more. Even though he’d clearly done his research.

  I checked the door, wishing another customer would come in so I could get away from this guy. No such luck.

  “So what about this Omar DeVane thing?” he said.

  He was certainly a chatty fellow. “Terrible,” I said. “The whole town is shaken up by what happened.”

  “I bet,” he said. “But honestly, was the guy well-liked around here? I mean, weren’t the locals put off by all the folks from New York City who were moving up to the Hudson Valley? After all, those city people have been flocking here because of the region’s quaintness, but what they’re doing is changing the very character of the place, aren’t they? Ruining it, in other words?”

  “You’re asking an awful lot of questions,” I said. And then the wheels in my head that had been turning slowly suddenly picked up speed. Super-cool facial hair, pad of paper, questions. . . “You’re a reporter, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Jason Littleton. I write for the Tattletale.”

  I noted that he told me the name of his publication with pride. But the Tattletale was one of those trashy newspapers you can’t help noticing when you’re in line at the supermarket, steaming over the fact that the person in front of you has at least two dozen items when the sign clearly says, 12 ITEMS OR LESS. It’s one of those papers that proclaims ridiculous things like “Kim Kardashian Gets Butt Reduction Surgery!” or “Kanye West Tells Taylor Swift He’s Sorry!”

  I found myself wishing I’d followed my first instinct and skimped on his cone.

  Instead I decided to help him write his headline.

  “Actually, the residents of the Hudson Valley are happy to share our beautiful area with anyone who wants to enjoy it,” I told him. “And Omar DeVane was a good neighbor. For example, rather than using a caterer from New York for his party last night, he hired local companies, including mine.”

  The reporter’s eyes lit up. “So you were there last night?”

  I instantly felt cornered. I found this man so distasteful that the last thing I wanted to do was give him any information. Especially since that was what he wanted most. In fact, I suspected it was the very reason he’d come into my shop in the first place: to pump some of the locals.

  “I was there,” I said evenly.

  Jason leaned forward. “How about giving me a quote? Maybe something about what went on there last night at Omar’s wild party . . . ?”

  “Omar’s party wasn’t wild!” I cried. “For goodness’ sake, it was a bunch of lovely, well-dressed people getting together to celebrate an incredibly accomplished man . . .”

  “Lovely?” Jason repeated. “Seems to me one of them wasn’t so lovely.” Leaning in even closer, he said, “Any idea who that might have been?”

  “No,” I replied coldly. “No idea at all.”

  “Let me ask you one last thing,” he said. “Think they’ll ever get to the bottom of this? Figure out who really killed the great fashion designer Omar DeVane?”

  My mouth dropped open. It had never even occurred to me that that wouldn’t happen. While Detective Stoltz may not have been my favorite person in the world, I had no doubts about his ability to successfully investigate a murder.

  I suddenly found myself feeling uncomfortable. Was it even a possibility that Omar DeVane’s murderer wouldn’t be caught?

  “I’m sure that, in the end, justice will be served,” I said, sounding ridiculously prim.

  “Maybe,” he said with an unctuous smile. “But from my perspective, I hope they take a long, long time to find the killer. That way, the Tattletale will get a few weeks’ worth of crowd-pleasing headlines out of this little caper.

  “I can see them now,” he went on, his eyes narrowing. “ ‘Fashion Designer’s Killer Still Not Hemmed In.’” He waved one hand through the air, as if he was highlighting the imaginary headlines. “Or better yet, ‘Omar DeVane’s Murderer Still At Large. Or Extra Large.’ Hey, here’s one more: ‘Fashion Mogul’s Murder Investigation Is Anything But Seamless.’ ”

  I was not the least bit amused by his attempts at being witty. The last thing I wanted was for Wolfert’s Roost to remain in the news week after week, unable to shake off its brand-new identity as the scene of a high-profile murder.

  I was relieved that the door suddenly swung open. Three giggling girls around thirteen or fourteen years old spilled into the shop.

  “Ice cream!” one of them yelled. “We need ice cream!”

  The other two let out shrieks of laughter that were guaranteed to make the rest of us feel bad that we weren’t in on the inside joke. Or maybe relieved.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I said to the reporter, “I have other customers to take care of.”

  “Sure,” he said with a crisp nod of his head. “We were done here anyway.”

  As I watched him sashay out of the store, I hoped the steam coming out of my ears wouldn’t melt the ice cream.

  Chapter 5

  Reuben Mattus, who founded Häagen-Dazs in 1960 with his wife, Rose, invented the company’s name because he wanted something that sounded Danish. He meant the name to be a tribute to the Danes’ exemplary treatment of their country’s Jewish residents during World War II. The Danish language has neither an umlaut (ä) nor a digraph (zs).

  —Wikipedia.org

  “What did I miss?” Willow asked when she came back to the shop a few minutes later. In her hand was a paper cup of joe that was nearly the size of a bucket of popcorn. No wonder the woman had so much energy.

  “Not much,” I replied. “Just a slimy reporter in search of that scoop you were talking about.” Grimacing, I added, “He was apparently hoping for a tidbit that was as sleazy as he was.”

  Before she had a chance to ask me for more details, Emma and Ethan burst in.

  “It’s crazy out there!” Emma cried. “I can’t believe how many reporters and TV people there are in town!”

  “I’d been hoping there’d be some big ice cream eaters in that crowd,” I commented woefully. “But so far it doesn’t look that way.”

  “Things might turn around,” Willow said, as encouraging as always. “It’s getting hotter every minute.”

  Ethan, meanwhile, was glued to the window. “It looks like Wolfert’s Roost becoming media central isn’t the only interesting thing that’s going on today,” he observed. “Check out the shop across the street.”

  Emma was the first to join him. “Oh, look!” she cried. “A couple of guys just hung up a sign!”

  “Finally,” Willow commented. “We won’t be kept in suspense any longer.”

  “Please don’t be an ice cream store,” I said under my breath as I joined them at the window.

  A small knot formed in my stomach as I watched two men lift a big sign into place. But the knot dissolved as soon as I read it. The new business in town was about as far away from an ice cream shop as you can get.

  “Hudson Valley Adventure Tours,” Emma read. Frowning, she added, “I wonder what that’s all about.”

  She’d barely gotten the words out before the two men climbed down the ladder and we got our answer. Printed on the sign, right below the shop’s name, were the words KAYAKING, CANOEING, TUBING, HIKING, BIKING, ROCK CLIMBING, SPELUNKING.

  “A tour company,” Willow said. “That’s a great idea! This is such a fabulous area for outdoor activities. Not only for visitors, eit
her. We locals can benefit from something like this, too.”

  “Whoa, sounds mega-cool!” Ethan observed with his characteristic eloquence. “I’d like to do a bunch of those trips. Hey, I wonder if they do bungee jumping! I’m dying to try that!”

  “Me, too!” Emma agreed, her eyes wide. “Bungee jumping sounds totally awesome!”

  I was about to assure Emma that no matter how awesome bungee-jumping sounded, as long as her mother had her entrusted in my care she wasn’t about to try it. But then the door of Hudson Valley Adventure Tours flew open.

  A man strode out of the shop, someone I didn’t think I’d seen before. If I’d seen him, I was pretty sure I’d have remembered.

  My initial impression was that the Vikings had landed. Or at least one Viking. He had thick, curly blond hair, just shaggy enough to give him a rugged, outdoorsy look. He was at least six feet tall. Yet while he was lanky, his brick-red T-shirt, printed in black letters with the words HUDSON VALLEY ADVENTURE TOURS, was tight enough to reveal an awe-inspiring set of muscles. Chest, shoulders, biceps, triceps . . . the whole deal.

  He was exactly the kind of guy you’d want to accompany you on a spelunking adventure.

  Or maybe some other kind of adventure.

  I was so busy admiring him that it took me a few moments to grasp that he was headed in our direction.

  “Hey, that guy is on his way over,” Ethan said, reading my mind. “That’s so cool. I can ask him about bungee jumping.”

  I noticed that, behind me, Willow was running her fingers through her short hair, as if she wanted to be sure it was in place. Apparently she, too, had noticed our new neighbor’s unusual level of hotness. I half-expected her to pinch her cheeks to put some color in them, Scarlett O’Hara–style.

  I realized that finding the four of us standing side by side, staring out the window of Lickety Splits and watching his every move, might not be the best way to make the acquaintance of our newest neighbor. I also realized that the last thing I needed was a crush on the guy who ran the shop right across the street from mine. The only thing more unwelcome was the prospect of the people around me teasing me about it.