In Hot Fudge And Cold Blood

by A. R. Winters

  "Right. Yes, I suppose so." I wasn’t exactly sure what Sarah was getting at, which coincidentally was also my normal state of affairs when conversing with her.

  Ding!

  I looked over to the door to see Priscilla entering. She was the co-owner of the Black Cat Café and Sequoia Bay’s reigning queen of gossip.

  "Hello!" said Priscilla cheerily. She looked around the shop, beaming.

  I knew why she was so happy. The murder. Not that she relished in death, but she did relish in talking about it: the victim, the suspects, the motives. A death, especially a suspicious one, was Grade A gossip and Priscilla craved it.

  "Good morning. What can we do for you today?"

  Our shop was a bridal store, and I knew for a fact Priscilla wasn't getting married again any time soon. Her reasons for visiting my shop were purely personal.

  "I just came by to drop this off," said Priscilla, waving a black and white printed flyer in my direction.

  "Oh? What's that?" said Sarah, her eyes locking onto the flyer.

  Ever since she'd taken up scrapbooking, every piece of printed media in Sequoia Bay had become interesting to Sarah, who was rapidly filling up her various scrapbooks with all kinds of mementos.

  "I guess you heard, right?" said Priscilla, nodding at me.

  I frowned at her.

  "Oh, of course! You were there!"

  As if she'd forgotten for even the slightest moment.

  "We're holding a memorial service. Well, Randi is, in her candy shop. For Sandra. Everyone's invited."

  "That's very good of Randi," I said. "Especially since Sandra had so recently cut off her supply of fudge."

  "Fudge!" screeched Kiwi from on high.

  "Oh, there's my good boy!" said Priscilla up to Kiwi. She had a soft spot for the bird and often treated him to entirely too many cheese puffs when we visited her café.

  Kiwi beamed down at us, pleased to have Priscilla in the shop again. She really gets me is what he’d told me after our last visit there, when she had refilled his bowl of cheese puffs three separate times.

  "Can I take one of the flyers, too?” asked Sarah.

  Priscilla handed one over to each of us.

  "I was thinking of making a special scrapbook, for Sandra," said Sarah as she examined the flyer. "So that we can remember her and her fudge."

  "That’s so thoughtful," said Priscilla.

  "Good idea," I said, though I didn't think it was particularly a good idea. Sandra wouldn't be able to appreciate it, and I doubted many other people would be interested.

  "Say, Aria, did your mother speak to Donovan?" asked Priscilla.

  "I don't know," I said. "I imagine she probably did. Donovan knew Sandra, and Mom found the body."

  "Oh yes, I heard Sandra and Donovan were quite... close. Your mom's probably relieved."

  I shook my head. "No, I'm sure she's not. Finding a body would have been very traumatic for her."

  Priscilla nodded again. "I suppose you would know about that!"

  I gave her another frown. I do like Priscilla, but sometimes she can be a bit too much.

  I wanted to forget the unfortunate incident with the dead bride in my shop, not be reminded of it at every opportunity.

  "You know that Molly Anderson has been acting up."

  I didn't bite.

  Sarah did.

  "Oh? What's she been saying?"

  Priscilla leaned in toward us, as if telling us a secret.

  "Well, she's been acting distraught, like she's upset by Sandra's passing. But we all know she hated her! She'd been trying to get her fudge business shut down for ages, but now she's acting as if she's incredibly upset by it all!"

  “Just because she didn't want fudge-shoppers outside her house doesn't mean she wanted Sandra dead," I pointed out.

  "Perhaps," said Priscilla. "But it seems a bit suspicious to me."

  "Ooh, suspicious?" said Sarah. "Do you think she was involved?"

  Priscilla shrugged her shoulders airily as if she wasn't the slightest bit interested.

  "Who knows? That's for the police to investigate. All I’m saying is it's odd that she's suddenly so upset about the death of the woman she hated."

  And that was enough gossip for me. Having been the victim of gossip myself on more than one occasion, I suffered from a severe aversion to it now.

  "Thanks for the flyer, Priscilla. We might see you later, around lunchtime."

  She looked like she wanted to say more, or at least stay and speculate some more about Sandra’s death, but I wasn't interested. It was my mom who found the body and I was second on the scene. Surely it wouldn’t be long before we were subjects of Priscilla’s suspicions.

  "See you later, girls."

  "Pretty lady!" shrieked Kiwi.

  "And goodbye to you, too! Come by for some cheese puffs soon," she said to Kiwi up on the bookcase.

  He cocked his head at her. "Fudge?"

  Priscilla giggled.

  "Sometimes it seems like he understands us," she said.

  I nodded. "But sometimes it seems like he willfully misunderstands us.”

  Kiwi cackled and the other two women laughed.

  "Bye, dears!"

  As Priscilla headed toward the door, I turned to Sarah. "Are you really going to make a scrapbook about Sandra?"

  Sarah nodded at me firmly.

  "I feel I should. We all have our gifts and talents, and I think it's our duty to share them with the world."

  If Sarah's special talent was scrapbooking, it was a very recently discovered one. If the event had happened a year earlier, she would have instead of been composing a musical about Sandra's life. Two years ago, it would have been sculpting a clay model of her.

  “In fact, I’m going to go with Priscilla now and see what other things she can suggest.” Sarah hurried toward the door. “Hey! Wait up!”

  Ding!

  As Sarah flew out, a rather rotund woman with a purple headscarf, oversized mirrored sunglasses, and a bulky winter jacket entered the shop in her wake.

  "Hello," I said to the strangely familiar woman. "What can I help you with today?"

  The woman slowly took off her large sunglasses. Her eyes looked familiar. She unwrapped the headscarf, and as her face was revealed, I blanched.

  Even with the added bulk, I immediately recognized that Botoxed, collagen-filled, wrinkle-free visage.

  Chapter 8

  "Mom?" I asked.

  She slowly nodded, as if the weight of her newly-chubby head was too much for her to bear. I guessed that, at least metaphorically, it was.

  I ran my eyes up and down her in shock.

  Mom took pride in her appearance. In truth, that was an understatement: Mom took way too much pride in her appearance and invested entirely too much time, money, and magic to make herself look the very best she could. From injections and nips and tucks to glamour magic to cover up what the surgeons, beauticians, and stylists couldn't, Mom never stopped working on her appearance.

  One of her favorite things to do when we were out was to pretend that we were sisters—completely ignoring how it made me feel to be the so-called sister of a woman a quarter of a century older than me, and I always phrased it as a quarter of a century because it had a delightful effect on my mother's mood.

  Today, however, she did not look her best. She was wearing jeans with an elastic waistband, which seemed to be stretching and growing wider before my very eyes.

  "Oh no!" she said, fear in her eyes.

  There was a loud ripping sound as some of the fabric in the seat of her pants tore.

  "Witch!" screeched Kiwi.

  I grinned up at him. While it was true that Mom was a witch, she didn't like to be called one with that particular tone.

  Mom waddled across the room to one of the floor-length mirrors next to the bookcase. Usually they were used by young, blushing brides admiring their beautiful dresses and the way they made their figures look.

  This time, I was worried th
e mirror Mom was staring into would shatter.

  My mother turned around in a slow-motion twirl, peering over each of her shoulders as she spun so that she could take in the full effect of her appearance.

  "Did something happen, Mom?"

  She glared at me and let out a muffled mmhmm.

  "Did you try and cast a spell on someone? To make them look like," I pointed at her, “that?”

  “Mmhmm.”

  "And it backfired?"

  “Mmhmm.”

  I'm terrible. Really. I couldn't help myself. I started to giggle. It was a tiny giggle at first. But once I had started, I couldn't stop. Before I knew it, Kiwi had joined in with me, his laughter more of a screeching cackle than a human laugh.

  "Sorry... Mom..." I said between laughs and breaths.

  I had to lean against the counter with one hand to stop from falling over because I was laughing so much. My legs went weak and my whole body was wracked with shuddering giggles.

  "Aria!" she shouted, her first real word since entering.

  It just made me laugh harder. Then Kiwi jumped off his bookcase and landed on top of Mom's head, letting out loud screeches as he did so.

  "Aria!" she shrieked again, swinging her flabby arms around her head.

  Kiwi hopped off her head to avoid her flailing ham-sized fists and landed on the counter next to where I was leaning.

  "I'm... sorry... Mom... it's... just..."

  She slumped down into one of the armchairs that was generally used by the mothers or grandmothers of brides while they waited. She looked so sad, sitting there, that I was finally able to bring myself under control.

  "Sorry, Mom. You look miserable."

  She glared up at me but didn't respond.

  "Like a big fat lump of... sadness."

  "Aria!" she repeated.

  "Sorry, Mom. I'll control myself. I will. Promise."

  I wiped my eyes, surprised by the amount of tears that had collected in the corners and run down my cheeks. "Tell me what happened."

  "It’s Sandra's fault," said Mom with her best approximation of a scowl.

  "Sandra's? But she's... you know."

  Mom nodded and she couldn't disguise a hint of pleasure on her face.

  "I know you heard the rumors. About how Donovan had been spending a bit too much time over at her fudge house."

  With a nod, I confirmed that I had indeed heard the rumors. I didn’t bother bringing it up that Sarah and I had tried to talk to her about it.

  "I needed to do something, didn't I?" Mom held her hands out in front of her, palms up, like she had no other choice but to do what she did.

  "I suppose..."

  "I had to. So I went to see her. Just to talk. And do you know what happened?”

  Presumably this wasn’t when Sandra had died, so I shook my head.

  “She laughed at me! Laughed! Can you believe it?”

  “No,” I lied. “How could she?”

  “Exactly. And you know I will not stand being laughed at, so I made a plan.”

  “Oh? What was the plan?”

  Please don’t say drown her in fudge, please don’t say drown her in fudge, please don’t say drown her in fudge.

  “I decided to cast a spell on her."

  "What kind of spell?" I asked with suspicion.

  "A nice one," said Mom with a wicked smirk.

  "Really?" Somehow, I doubted that.

  Mom nodded her head up and down, her new jowls cascading.

  "I cast a spell to make her grow, and to make her eat fudge."

  "Grow and eat fudge? That’s it?”

  Mom nodded. "Eat all the fudge."

  I had a sudden vision of Sandra again, face-down in her giant pot of fudge. Is that what had happened? Had Mom cast a spell and made her kill herself in her own giant vat of liquid fudge, drowning while she desperately tried to eat it all?

  "Mom... that's not good. That really doesn't look good at all."

  She nodded her head slowly. "I know. I look terrible," she complained.

  "That's not what I meant. I mean if you cast that spell on Sandra..."

  “At this rate, I’ll have to have to join Walnut Wanda's Weight Warriors," said Mom with a frown, having moved on from talking about the spell she cast.

  "Walnut Wanda? Who's that? What kind of mother names her daughter Walnut?”

  “She runs a weight loss group called Walnut Wanda’s Weight Warriors.”

  “Yeah, I got that. Why’s she called Walnut Wanda? Does she look like a walnut?”

  Mom giggled and for a moment she was briefly cheered up. For once, I actually felt sorry for my mom rather than annoyed with her. Knowing how much she cared for her looks, her current situation must have been her own personal nightmare.

  “Nope. She’s called that because she’s deathly allergic to walnuts. She nearly died after eating some of Sandra’s fudge earlier this year.”

  “What happened?”

  With some effort, Mom shrugged, clearly not used to having to lift up quite so much weight with the gesture.

  “Sandra sold her a batch of fudge that had some walnuts in it, a couple of months back. She ended up in the emergency room and nearly died. She claims Sandra tried to kill her, but I’m sure it was just an accident.”

  “It seems like Sandra had more enemies than just you, Mom.”

  “A very hated woman, that Sandra. I don’t want to say that she got what was coming to her, but…”

  I shook my head at her to cut that train of thought out right away. “And she runs a weight loss group, this Walnut Wanda?”

  Mom nodded and began to rummage around inside her jacket. A moment later, she pulled out a flyer and handed it over to me. I could already see Sarah adding it to her collection—if she didn’t have this one already.

  “So she runs a weight loss group, but she was eating fudge?”

  Mom nodded again.

  “That’s the thing about her group. You can eat anything you want! Even fudge!”

  “Uh huh. And that works, does it?”

  Mom gave me another heavy shrug.

  “That’s what the flyer says. As long as you stay within your points, you’re fine. The fudge does take up a lot of points though.”

  “Right,” I said dubiously. “Where did you get the flyer?”

  Mom shifted her bulk around in the armchair uncomfortably.

  “It was on Sandra’s door when I got there the other night.”

  “The night we found her dead?”

  Mom looked at the flyer I was holding again and looked back at me.

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t that interesting? It looks like someone has a motive.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? What are you thinking, Aria?”

  I paced slowly across the shop. I wanted to meet this Walnut Wanda, to see what she was like. While I can’t magically judge whether or not someone’s a murderer by looking at them, I can sometimes look at their auras and make a pretty fair judgment of their characters.

  “Let’s go down there. We’ll meet her, tell her that you’re thinking of signing up.”

  Mom shook her head violently. “Me? Joining Weight Warriors?”

  “Well, you have to admit, you could stand to lose a few pounds now, Mom.”

  “Aria! My spell may have gone a little bit wrong, but surely you’re not suggesting I debase myself by joining Walnut Wanda’s Weight Warriors?”

  “Hey, it was you who suggested it. And you had the flyer.”

  “I was kidding!”

  Mom crossed her arms and gave me a sullen look.

  “Come on, we’ll just go and meet her. See what she’s like.”

  With reluctance, Mom gave me a slow nod.

  After crossing the shop and opening the front door, I peered back at Mom who was, with some difficulty, lumbering back to her feet.

  “Come on, my little weight warrior!” I called behind me and almost skipped out of the shop.

  Chapter 9

  W
alnut Wanda’s Weight Warriors was located in a strip mall outside of the historic downtown area. We parked outside and made our way across the half-empty parking lot to the brightly decorated shopfront.

  It was sandwiched between a bakery on one side and a music shop on the other, neither of which was particularly busy.

  “It’s funny how she calls herself Walnut Wanda, isn’t it?” I said to Mom.

  “She does that because she thinks it makes her special,” said Mom with a sniff. “She wants everyone to know about her deadly allergy. That’s why she calls herself Walnut: to get people to ask about it.”

  I wasn’t sure if Mom knew that for a fact or if she was just making it up to be mean; it was hard to tell with her.

  “Slow down, Aria.” Mom was huffing and wheezing as we walked across the lot, even though I was walking at my normal pace. “And why’d you park so far away?”

  I held my tongue and my laughter. I didn’t want to be bickering with my mother when we went in to meet Wanda. Mom paused outside the door, catching her breath before we went in. When she indicated she was ready, I pushed the door open, entered, and held it open behind me while Mom shuffled in behind me.

  “Hi, Weight Warriors!” said a cheery voice.

  We were standing in the lobby of the club, and it was simply but tastefully decorated with encouraging slogans and catchphrases along the walls, and some sturdy-looking chairs for waiting. The owner of the cheery voice stepped out from the glass doors of an office that was directly off the lobby.

  Walnut Wanda was a slim blonde woman who appeared to be in her late thirties. She was beaming at us with a headlight grin and soulful, compassionate eyes.

  “Hi,” I greeted her. “We’ve just come by to check the place out.”

  Mom said nothing.

  “Please, follow me into my office and I’ll go over our programs.”

  Before we could respond, she had already led the way, so of course I started to follow her. Mom nudged me.

  “She thinks we’re here to join,” she said in a low voice. “She thinks we’re fatties!”

  “Shh. Just play along!”

  Mom didn’t offer me any further response, but she shuffled along with an air of resentment as we followed Wanda into her office.