Five-Alarm Fudge

by Christine DeSmet

  After Sturgeon Bay, where the canal zone split Door County into its lower and upper halves, the road also divided, with Highway 57 leading to the southeast shore and Highway 42 heading toward the bay side of Lake Michigan. We were in Fishers’ Harbor on Green Bay within a half hour. Main Street, which was also Highway 42, was clogged with cars and people—those chipmunks—out now for lunch and shopping.

  At around eleven o’clock, I dropped off Pauline at the school on the southeast edge of the village, then doubled back to the harbor and Oosterlings’ Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge & Beer. Cars lined the parking lot. The bay sparkled. Sailboats and touring boats glided by. The Super Catch I was in its slip, so that meant Grandpa was back.

  The cowbell on the door clanked when I went through the front door. The place was packed. I gloried in the awesome smells of chocolate fudge, vanilla, cherries, and coffee.

  Cody called out, “There’s Miss Oosterling! Princess Oosterling! Glad you’re here to put a sparkle in our day like a crown atop your head.”

  Customers laughed. Cody had always been like that. He made me smile no matter what. Since the first day I’d hired him in May, he called me “Miss” in the shop. He coped well with his Asperger’s condition by using laughter. Now at nineteen he’d entered technical school to pursue a degree in criminal justice. His goal was to be a police officer or fire department captain or warden overseeing the local parks. Cody’s dream was to wear a star on his chest. He liked me calling him “Ranger.”

  After wending my way through the crowd, I whispered, “Ranger, Sunday is usually a good day for us, but this seems especially packed. Any clue why?”

  “Yeah. They’re going on a wine tour with John. He told them to meet him here when they bought the tickets yesterday. We haven’t seen him, though.”

  I shrank into myself.

  Cody noticed. “What’s wrong with John?”

  “Dillon thinks John was out too late last night and overslept. He’ll be here, I’m sure.”

  I tied on one of the fancy aprons that my shop sold. This one was pink crisp cotton, with ruffles on the edges and straps, and red cherries on the front bib and the skirt pockets. Aprons weren’t my style, but last summer I’d learned their power. Men loved to salivate over a woman in an apron. Women loved wearing them because their grandmothers had worn them, but the women also didn’t mind the looks they got from the men. I now sold aprons that sported my fudge flavors on them, such as my signature Cinderella Pink Fudge.

  Cody said, “Don’t leave before you give Sam the cookbooks. He’s waiting in back.”

  I hurried to the back. My ex-fiancé, Sam Peterson, was in the storeroom across from the small galley kitchen. He’d opened a box and was pulling out slim cookbooks.

  “Hey, Sam. You found the right boxes, I see. Everything else in here is pretty much bait shop supplies and kilo chocolate bars.”

  I’d brought several boxes of the cookbooks I’d inherited from Lloyd Mueller to the shop to peruse during my downtime. Sam had called me about taking cookbooks to his office for his Monday group meeting. He ran a group for people like Cody with mild forms of autism spectrum disorder. During their meetings, they worked on life skills, which lately included learning how to cook. Sam also wanted to use the old community cookbooks to encourage discussions about the emotional connections to food. Sam had explained to me last spring that some with Asperger’s could experience difficulty with comprehending emotions, but talking about what their grandparents served at meals was a tool that helped them learn one meaning of “love.”

  Sam’s presence always gave me pause because he was perfect. Today he wore a crisp white button-down shirt. He was two years older than I, and taller, blond with short hair combed with a side part. He had been a football hero in our high school. He still maintained massive shoulder muscles that made a white shirt look sexy as heck.

  His blue eyes twinkled, even in the dim light of the storage room. “You look good in pink.” Although he knew I was dating Dillon again, he didn’t hide his hope to win me back.

  “Thanks, Sam. Want me to help haul these to your car?”

  “No, I can manage. Just the two boxes, right?”

  “Yeah. I still have to look through the others. I’m looking for connections to the prince and princess.”

  He stood there, staring at me, stalling. Sam stood like a statue when he had something really important to say.

  “What’s wrong, Sam?”

  “Fontana Dahlgren called me. This morning.”

  “Oh? She interested in dating again?”

  Sam, despite being a mature man, turned red. His hairline twitched a little, which always marked his nervousness. “I don’t know about that, but she asked for my help. She said the sheriff had asked to meet with her. She said that her ex-husband’s wife had fingered her in a murder investigation.”

  I sagged. “Kjersta said the sheriff had been asking her about who had been driving by her house. I’m sure he asked about anybody who had been with Cherry yesterday before he died. That would include Fontana. She was all over him during the tour in the church.”

  “So why would she feel like a suspect in his death?”

  My mind recalled the scene at Ava’s Autumn Harvest. “Sam, maybe you should stay away from Fontana. Fontana and Cherry were arguing about something yesterday at my market.”

  Sam’s eyes widened in shock. “You didn’t say that to the sheriff, did you?”

  “No.”

  He picked up the two boxes of cookbooks, flashing me an accusing look.

  “Sam, stop it. I didn’t finger Fontana for murder.”

  “She says you want to run her out of business.”

  “That’s silly. She sells soap and perfume and I sell pumpkins and fudge.”

  Sam shrugged. “Okay. Sorry I accused you.”

  “Sorry that you believe everything Fontana tells you. Sam, you’re not getting together with her on the rebound, are you?”

  He chuckled. “I’m not pining for you. You and Dillon deserve each other.”

  I arched an eyebrow, and he continued quickly. “That came out wrong. You’re two dynamic people who are like matches and dynamite. You work as a couple. Me? I don’t need explosions in my life.”

  “Then leave Fontana alone. I hear there’s a lawyer by the name of Jane Goodland who’s maybe moving into the Wise Owl. Why not say howdy to her? Milton can let you know when she stops by.”

  “Have you seen Jane? I don’t think I could handle her. Or her dog.”

  Shaking his head in derision, Sam escaped fast, heading into the shop and then disappearing into the sea of customers.

  I was cutting a new batch of Worms-in-Dirt Fudge at the front window, giving away tiny samples to customers, when the school bus that John used for his tours pulled into the parking lot. To my surprise, my nemesis, Mercy Fogg, lumbered out, her mop of blond, curly hair whipping about in the breezes buffeting off the harbor. She was dressed in a dark uniform that shockingly included a tie. For once, she didn’t look too clownish. She had a habit of putting together odd combinations of clothing and colors. I was so stunned at her attire that my mouth stayed open the whole time she strolled through the parking lot, across the docks where people milled, and then into my store.

  “Ava O,” she said. “What gives?”

  “What do you mean, Mercy?”

  “John and I have a tour right now.”

  I sagged. “I know. We can’t find him.”

  “I found him.”

  I raced from my end of the table toward her near the door, but she backed off, bumping into a customer on his way out. I realized I had the fudge cutters in my hand yet. I put the sharp tool down on my white marble table, motioning her closer for privacy. “Where did you find him?”

  “In my bus.” She motioned over her shoulder with a thumb. “Came outta my house this morning to clean it up for today’s tour, and there he was, lying in the aisle on the rubber tread like a big coho salmon. I thought he was d
ead.”

  My heartbeat skittered about. “But he’s not dead.”

  “No.”

  “He’s still in the bus?”

  “Hell no. Something happened to him. He didn’t wake up at first. I had to dump cold water on his face. He mumbled something about a church and a fight, and then things went black.”

  The blood drained from my head. I looked over her shoulders and out the window toward the bus. “Where is he now?”

  “My house.”

  I reached out to grab her shoulders.

  She flashed a look of disdain. “The uniform is new.”

  I backed off. “Sorry. You look nice.”

  “Nicer than usual is what you really want to say.”

  “Mercy, take the compliment before I stuff it somewhere you won’t like. I need to see John. To help him. Pauline’s worried.”

  “She better be. The guy could be a murderer.”

  A groan escaped me. “You heard about Tristan Hardy already?”

  She popped a piece of the dark-chocolate fudge with gummy worms in her mouth, munching. “This stuff can stick to your bridgework, you know that?” She dug around in her mouth with an index finger.

  Mercy was stalling on purpose to frustrate me. Ever since I’d moved back to town and found success with fudge, she niggled at me. But I felt for her. She’d once been our village president, then gotten ousted by a nineteen-year-old bartender in the election. Mercy was trying to regain her position in the herd, as my dad would say. And you never trusted the alpha animal, because she could charge at you when you least expected it. “Mercy, what did you hear about Tristan? And why would you think John is a murderer?”

  “I got on my bus, plunked down in my driver’s seat, and I’m eating a doughnut, one of those cherry doughnuts with the glaze with the cherry bits in it—”

  “Stay on the point, Mercy. What did you hear about Cherry?”

  “I turned on my bus radio. The radio said he was bludgeoned to death and they’re looking for the murderer. I get up then thinking about blood, looking at my hands stained from the red cherry doughnut, then turn toward the back of my bus and I find John Schultz sprawled on the floor with blood on his hands.”

  I screeched, “Blood?”

  The entire fudge shop went silent as customers looked at us. I hustled Mercy outside.

  Chapter 8

  I trotted onto the yellow school bus in the harbor parking lot. The aisle was narrow. John Schultz was a hefty guy.

  I asked Mercy, who stood behind me, “How did you get him out?”

  “He drags okay. It’s wider down there on the floor.”

  “You dragged him? Out of the bus? Didn’t his head hit on the steps?”

  “Hell no. I only dragged him to the front. Then I was able to turn him around. His shoes fell off on my lawn, though. They disappeared. I think my neighbor’s new golden retriever puppies stole them. They’re cuter than sin, but those dogs are mouthy.”

  “Never mind about the puppies. Give me your house keys.”

  Mercy lumbered off the bus steps and back into the sunshine. “He’s fine. Just needs some sleep.”

  I followed down the steps. “Give me your keys. I’m going to get John while you’re taking those people in my shop on their tour.”

  “I drive. I don’t yack at people like you. I’m not their tour guide.”

  My head felt ready to explode, but I wouldn’t give Mercy that satisfaction. She had a brochure hanging out of a pocket. I snatched it. “You don’t get paid unless the tour runs, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wait here.”

  I hurried inside the shop, hustled past the minnow tank and onward to the far aisle where I found my grandfather giving a little boy a plastic set of bright orange bobbers. After the boy and his dad sauntered on, I asked, “Gilpa, you know everything about Door County, right?”

  “Not everything. What’s going on, A.M.?”

  “There’s an emergency. John’s not feeling well. I have to go pick him up at . . . at . . .” I gulped. Grandpa didn’t much like Mercy. “At Mercy Fogg’s house.”

  “Holy Hannah, what’s that woman done to us now?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. That’s why I need you to be a tour guide to all these people.” I waved toward the women and girls lined up buying fudge, cute aprons, purses, and sparkly kids’ stuff that sported logos for my special flavors. I unfolded the brochure. “They’re going to a couple of lighthouses, the farm with the ostriches, a vineyard, and the White Fish Dune’s State Park and its nature center.”

  “I’ll fetch your grandma. This’ll take her mind off her royal relatives.”

  Gilpa and Sophie had the people on the bus in no time. Mercy was impressed with my quick work that earned her some dough. She loaned me her house keys.

  Cody agreed to man the shop, but I encouraged him to call his girlfriend, Bethany, to help. I usually gave a fudge-making demonstration at the copper kettles around one o’clock. Cody might have to pinch-hit for me.

  I hopped in my yellow truck in the parking lot and within a minute was at the Blue Heron Inn. Dillon, covered in plaster dust, was in an unfinished bedroom upstairs.

  Breathless from the race up the stairs, I said, “I need your help.”

  “Of course, Ava.” He dropped his hammer and then loped toward me. “What’s up?”

  Once he heard the ghastly story about Mercy and John, we hopped in his white construction pickup truck with Lucky Harbor in the backseat, his tail slapping the vinyl.

  We wended over to the school to pick up Pauline. She shared the backseat with the panting water spaniel.

  Dillon skidded and fishtailed through the back streets and alleys until we found Mercy’s quiet street. Houses were set back in lots filled with cedars, pines, and maples, with forest land behind the homes and a rural road not far beyond that. Her house was a modest bi-level, brown with white trim and a white door in the middle with a garage to the right. We parked in her driveway.

  I unlocked the front door, and then we hurried up the steps to the main floor.

  Pauline called out, “John? Sweetie? It’s Pauline.”

  For a moment we stood in place, adjusting our eyes to all the colors. Mercy was apparently in love with folk art. Her walls, furniture, and furnishings sported every mismatched color and pattern imaginable, but it was all rather quaint in a county fair way.

  Lucky Harbor set to work sniffing around the house.

  Dillon said, “Now we know what she’s been doing since she lost her job as village president last year.”

  Every chair in her dining room was painted a different color—lime green, shocking pink, yellow with black polka dots, and one with purple and teal stripes. But there was no John. The living room was the same.

  Pauline said, “If John is here, my eyes can’t pick him out.”

  Dillon yelled, “John, where are you?”

  A muffled noise emanated from a short hallway.

  We found John in a bedroom festooned with flower patterns. The bedspread sported splotches of yellow daylilies against a white background.

  Pauline rushed to John, easing her hips onto the bed. “Honey, what happened? How are you?”

  “Where am I? How’d I get here?”

  Pauline collapsed on him, hugging him, her black hair shifting like a river’s currents over his face and chest. Then she kissed his face several times.

  Again he said, “Where am I?”

  Pauline took one of his hands in hers. “You’re with me, sweetie.”

  Dillon and I exchanged a look. He put an arm around me, but the pleasant gesture didn’t cure my wooziness over my secret: John had told Mercy something about being in a church and a fight. And John was disoriented now.

  He appeared okay physically. But then as Pauline went to help him up, the bodice of a nightgown appeared on John’s burly chest. It had little yellow ducks on it.

  Pauline screwed up her nose. “What are you doing wearing a nightgown?”
>
  Dillon chuckled. “You look mighty pretty, John, but let me find your clothes.” Dillon started pawing in a clothes hamper nearby.

  John sat up against the pillow. Pauline stuffed another pillow behind him. He said, “Not sure how I got into this or why. I remember being naked in a bathtub, though, with somebody washing me off. That wasn’t you, Paulie Pal?”

  Pauline gasped, “No, John.” Her shoulders straightened. “You left our bed to come over here with Mercy?”

  He said, “Is that where I am? How’d I get here?”

  I sat down on the opposite side of the bed. “Mercy said she found you on the bus. With blood on your hands.” I’d told Dillon and Pauline about the blood previously. “John, do you remember how you got on the bus?”

  “No.”

  Pauline asked, “What did you do last night?”

  “I got in my car to go buy something. I don’t know what now. I remember driving, but I don’t know where I went. I remember being outside my car. Maybe checking a tire? I vaguely recall somebody had stopped, or maybe I stopped behind somebody else. Maybe I had stopped to help them. I don’t know.” He lifted a hand to the back of his head. “I got a bit of a knot somehow.”

  Dillon said, “I can’t find your clothes. But we need to get you to the hospital. Do you feel up to me helping you down the front stairs?”

  John nodded, one of his hands examining the knot on the back of his head. “I’m not feeling dizzy anymore. Maybe I slipped and fell on the road and Mercy found me. I can’t remember if she said anything. You find my car?”

  Dillon said, “We only learned you were here minutes ago. I’ll find your car.”

  Pauline scurried about the room, opening closet doors and drawers. “You and Mercy are probably about the same size around the waist.” She held up baggy denim jeans. “Will these do?”