All Fudged Up (A Candy-Coated Mystery)

by CoCo, Nancy

  “How about Fudgie?”

  Frances frowned. “She’s too white for a name like that.”

  “Piddle pot?”

  The pup tried to eat the pee pad. She grabbed the plastic and paper pad between her teeth and shook her head. I tried to grab the pad and the puppy ran away with it, resulting in a mad dash around the lobby and a battle of wills. I triumphed finally by grabbing the pup, picking her up, and pulling the pad out of her mouth. “No, no!” I said and looked around for a place to confine her. “I need a playpen.”

  “You should get a second crate—one for down here,” Frances said.

  “No, I don’t want to have to lock her up like that.”

  “It’s good for pups to be crate trained. It gives them a space of their own and sets boundaries.” Frances eyed me. “Part of being a grown-up is learning to set boundaries.”

  “Okay, I have a feeling we’re not talking about the puppy anymore.”

  “I’m talking about Colin. Has he shown up for work yet?”

  I shook my head no.

  “That man needs to be fired.”

  “But he’s worked for Papa for years,” I said. “How can I fire him?”

  “Easy, you hire someone else. Someone who actually shows up and does work.”

  I frowned and cuddled the pup, who decided she was going to sleep. “So I have two handymen?”

  “No, you fire Colin when he comes in to work, if he comes in to work.” She took the dog out of my hands and gave me a stern look. “The lobby bathroom fixtures are leaking again. The windows in room 206 are stuck and that’s only the beginning.”

  I blew out a hard breath. “You’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right. Call the newspaper and put in a classified. I’ll take the pup and find you a dog crate that’s the right size.”

  “Fine.” I picked up my phone and remembered the fire escape. “Frances . . .”

  “Yes?” She studied me through her thick glasses. They were round plastic frames that reminded me of that old cartoon character Mr. Magoo.

  “Is there a reason the fire escape is so well oiled?”

  Frances drew her brows together. “Maybe Liam told Colin to oil it so that it would be safe for you on the third floor.”

  “Do you really think that Colin would oil the fire escape but not fix stuck windows or leaky faucets?” I had to ask her. It bothered me that it was so easy to climb up on the back balconies of the McMurphy.

  “Now that you say it like that, I suppose the answer is no. Perhaps Liam did it?”

  “Can you see Papa climbing the fire escape with a WD-40 can?”

  “No, not this last year.”

  “It’s a mystery.”

  “Are you thinking that’s how Joe Jessop got into the McMurphy?” She cuddled the sleeping dog against her chest.

  “I don’t know, but I think it bears looking into.” I moved up the stairs. First stop was the second-floor back door. The floor was deathly quiet. My footfalls were muffled by the dreadful carpet. The plaster on the ceiling mocked me. Benny said it could not safely be painted. My best bet was to bring in a plasterer and redo all the ceilings. I shuddered at the thought of how much that would cost.

  Truth be told, the money Papa had left me disappeared at an alarming rate. If I didn’t get customers in here soon I’d be more than broke. I’d be penniless in a falling-down money pit.

  I checked the back door. It was properly locked. I unlocked it and stuck my head out. The fire-escape ladder was still up from when Mr. Beecher and I put it up the night before. I probably ought to have Colin or his replacement tie the ladder so that it wouldn’t be so easy to scale.

  I checked the doorjam. It looked a bit rough, as if someone had tried and failed to punch it open. The thought made my skin crawl. What if whoever murdered Joe had tried to come in through the fire escape? What if they had tried on the third-floor apartments?

  The fact that it could have been me dead in the second-floor utility closet had not gone without notice. I tried to push the thought away, but it suddenly overwhelmed me. I braced myself on the locked door. I didn’t want to die. I had only begun to lay the foundation to live.

  My cell phone rang and I pulled it out of my pocket and did my best to stand up straight. “Hello?”

  “Allie, it’s Frances. Officer Manning is here and he has a warrant to check your apartment.”

  “What?” I took off toward the stairs.

  “You have to stop him. He’s coming up. I’ll call my cousin.” The phone went dead in my hand as I strode to the stairs. I caught him on the landing. The man could rock a uniform.

  “Hello,” I said. “Frances tells me you have a warrant?”

  “Yes, I have a warrant to search the entire building—that includes your apartment.” His blue gaze was sympathetic. “I will need you to unlock all the rooms and let me in upstairs.”

  “Wait.” I took the warrant he handed me. “What is your cause? Was the stain on the floor downstairs blood? If so, what does that have to do with my apartment?” I tried to read the warrant but it looked like a bunch of legal stuff that I couldn’t make heads or tails of.

  “The coroner declared Joe Jessop’s death a murder.” His voice was as grim as his face.

  “Well, I kind of figured that when I saw him lying there with blood all over his face.”

  “Allie, I need to search the entire building,” he said in a strangely calm voice.

  “So that stain was blood?”

  “No, that stain is still undetermined. It is not relevant to Joe’s murder and my current investigation.” He tilted his head and repeated, “I need to search the entire building. The warrant gives me that power.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll open up the apartment.” I headed up the steps and took the keys out of my pocket. “While you’re searching, could you check the back doors for any evidence that they were broken into?”

  “Why?”

  “Because the whole place is falling apart, but the ladder to the fire escape was down and rolls silent as the day it was made. That seems fishy to me.” I unlocked my apartment. “Doesn’t that seem fishy to you?”

  “I’ll check it,” he said. “Now you have to go.”

  “Wait, I have to go? Does that mean I don’t get to watch you go through my underwear drawer?”

  He paused and flashed me a look. “I don’t make it a habit of going through women’s underwear drawers. Officer Lasko will be looking through your drawers.”

  “Who’s Officer Lasko and why is his going through my drawers any different than you going through my drawers?”

  “Because I’m a woman.” A small blond woman in a blue police uniform stepped into the apartment. She tugged on blue latex gloves.

  “Oh, good,” I said. “I’ll tell you what I told Officer Manning. I think someone has oiled the fire escape so they could break into one of the back doors unnoticed. I don’t know if it was Joe or his killer, but I’d like you to check it out.”

  “How do we know you didn’t fake a break-in to cover your tracks?” she asked.

  “Kelsey, no,” Officer Manning said, his tone soft but official.

  “Is she for real?” I asked, then stopped when a thought crossed my mind. “Let me guess, Joe Jessop was your grandfather.”

  “My relationship to Joe has no bearing on this case.”

  “Wait, is that a purple ribbon on your Kevlar jacket?” I turned to Officer Manning. “Yeah, I’m not leaving. I’ll be here to ensure that anything you find is actually there and not planted, because I did not hurt Mr. Jessop. I only found him in my hall closet. Besides, I thought everyone was innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Oh, you’re guilty and we’ll prove it,” Officer Lasko said with venom in her voice.

  “I want someone else searching my place,” I said. “Or I’ll have my lawyer claim anything you find is not useable in court due to prejudice of the searching party.”

  Officer Manning crossed his arms over his chest.
“Kelsey, get out.”

  “What? No, I’m here to search the McMurphy.”

  “Not anymore,” he said. “Call Brown and get him down here.”

  “Yes,” I sneered. “Call Officer Brown.”

  “If I were you, I’d be quiet,” Officer Manning advised me. “Officer Brown is not exactly a fan of yours either.”

  I snapped my mouth shut and sat on the arm of Papa’s old, stuffed green chair. It still smelled of his cigars. Grammy Alice would have cringed if she’d known he smoked in the chair after she was gone. I could almost hear her say that he was lucky he didn’t set himself on fire.

  There was a wicked silent battle of wills until Officer Lasko finally gave up and huffed out. She left the door open and I was glad. I didn’t want to be alone with Officer Manning. I might confess to something I didn’t do just to feel safe. The man had a gun and he knew how to use it. Besides, he had this whole action-figure, tough-guy bit going on. I think I kind of liked that.

  “What do you think you’ll find?” I asked, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Nothing,” he said softly. “But we have to check.”

  “Only a fool would keep a murder weapon in their apartment where you can find it,” I mentioned and crossed my arms. “Please do check the doors. I have a security service coming in the morning to install a system. I’d like to feel safe until then.”

  “You do realize that Lasko was right,” he said. “Even if we find evidence of a jimmied door, there’s no proof of when it was done. For all we know your grandfather did it two months ago, or you did it last night.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “But we’ll make sure there’s a patrol in your alley every couple of hours tonight.”

  “Thanks,” I said out loud while my brain screamed no! How hard would it be for a killer to break in and finish me off between the first patrol and the next? “At least you’ll find my dead body sooner, I suppose.”

  He gave me another one of his humorless cop stares and I realized I’d said that last part out loud.

  “Okay then.” I sat down in Papa’s chair and waved my hand. “Start searching.”

  “If you interfere I will have you tossed out.”

  “I get it.” I crossed my arms. “I’m kind of getting used to being tossed out.” I sounded defiant but deep inside I was worried. I had not gone through Papa’s things and the idea that these strangers would go through them first made me angry with both them and myself. It didn’t matter that I’d been busy. It didn’t matter that I didn’t want to face the grief going through his stuff would cause. What mattered was that I didn’t do it and now the police would.

  Officer Manning put on a pair of blue gloves and started in the living room. I watched him do a thorough search moving around the room in a grid pattern. He went through Papa’s bookshelf, searching behind the books. He opened box after box and searched through them.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Evidence.” Officer Brown stepped into the apartment and pulled on a pair of gloves.

  “How do you know what’s evidence?” I was sincerely curious. How did they know? I’d seen plenty of newscasts in Chicago where the police came out with bags and boxes of possible evidence and I often wondered how they judged what to take and what to leave. Had they ever lost a case by leaving the wrong thing?

  “We have an idea based on the crime scene and the autopsy,” Officer Manning said. “We also look for anything that may be contraband from illegal activity and take that.”

  “Illegal activity?” I stood and shoved my hands in my back pockets. “Like drugs?”

  “Or stolen goods,” Officer Brown said and went into the tiny galley kitchen that opened to the living area. “Anything that might give us a motive behind the killing.”

  “If you find anything, will you let me know?” I leaned to talk so that Officer Manning could hear me as he moved to the bathroom. “I haven’t cleaned out the place since Papa died.”

  “Everything we take will be cataloged and inventoried,” Officer Brown said. He was suddenly in front of me. “It would be better if you went downstairs.”

  “I want to be here,” I said. “I feel a little weird about you guys going through my bedroom.”

  “We’re professionals.” His tone was smooth. “It’s business, not personal.”

  “It will feel personal to know one or both of you were riffling through my underwear.”

  Officer Brown turned a lovely shade of red. “Officer Manning will go through your drawers. He’s had two wives so I’m sure he won’t judge.”

  “Two wives? Really?” It was hard to imagine anyone leaving the calm, handsome-in-an-action-hero-sort-of-way man. “Why?”

  “The island is a little isolated. It’s great for vacation but it takes a certain kind of person to live here year-round.”

  “And Officer Manning is that kind of person?”

  “He grew up here,” Officer Brown said. “Now I need to ask you to step out.” He took my elbow and turned me to the door, then waved his left hand and gave me a gentle push with his right.

  “Fine, but I’m sending in my lawyer as soon as he gets here.” I stepped out into the hall. “Let me know if you find Papa Liam’s pocket watch, will you? I’ve been looking for it.”

  Officer Brown closed the door and I leaned against the wall. Were they really looking for evidence or where they simply trying to get me to give up and go back to Chicago?

  Grammy used to say I could be stubborn for stubborn’s sake. Is that what I was doing here? There were two policemen that I barely knew going through my stuff, and worse, they were going through Papa’s stuff looking for clues to the murder of a man on the floor below the apartment. I mean, a man was murdered for crying out loud and all I cared about was continuing my remodel so that I could welcome guests back to the McMurphy. That was a little harsh. No wonder people wore purple ribbons. They didn’t know me.

  I’d been living as if Papa were still here. As if this were his hotel, his fudge shop. Heck, I hadn’t even bothered to get to know anyone in town who wasn’t one of Papa’s friends. I certainly hadn’t been interested in anything the community did. No wonder they had trouble wearing a green ribbon. I couldn’t even bring myself to name the puppy Frances had given me, because if I named her she would be mine. If she were mine, then that meant I was really going to stay here and make the island my home.

  If I were going to make this island my home I needed to decide to do it and commit. That meant changing my driver’s license. Even though there were no cars allowed on island, having a driver’s license and bills naming the McMurphy my home meant it was all very real.

  I’d been waiting to see if I could make a go at it. That was the wrong way to do it. From now on I would think of it differently. The McMurphy was my home and if I was lucky I’d be running it until the day I went toes up at the senior center. Preferably with a margarita in one hand and a piece of chocolate raspberry fudge in the other.

  Chapter 14

  “I’m in trouble.” I sat down hard in a sheet-covered wing-back chair in the lobby.

  “I told you to let William handle the police.” Frances sat across from me in an equally paint-splattered, sheet-covered chair. The puppy slept in her lap and she randomly ran her hand over the sweet baby’s soft fur.

  “It’s not the police,” I said. “I have no friends.” Frances sent me a sharp look and I pulled back. “I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant to say is that I have not made any attempt to become a part of the community. I’ve spent the last three weeks here concerned about the McMurphy and ignoring the people who make Mackinac Island the beautiful place that it is.”

  “What brought on this revelation?”

  “The fifty-two green ribbons I bought today.” I put my elbows on my knees and my chin on my fists. “And the five remaining purple ones.”

  “Trent Jessop has lived on island his whole life,” Frances said.

  “I can
’t even bring myself to hire my own handyman or name my own dog.” I waved my hand at the sleeping pup.

  “Let me guess.” Frances leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “This is where you toss up your arms, say it’s no use, and slink back to Chicago.”

  “She can’t leave until we finish our investigation,” Officer Manning said behind me.

  He had two bags of something in his hands. I stood and grasped the chair. “I have no plans to leave. What’s in the bags?”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get a full inventory.” His expression gave nothing away.

  My heartbeat sped up. “I haven’t gone through Papa’s things yet. How will I know what you’ve taken? What if you leave something off the inventory?”

  He tilted his head and looked at me as if I were a small child. “Are you accusing me of stealing?”

  I hugged myself and fought back the tears. “No. I’m sad that you now know more about what Papa Liam left in the apartment than I do.”

  “I’m sorry about that, Allie.” His tone was gruff. “I’m doing my job.”

  “I know, please be careful with whatever you took. It might not mean anything to you but it might mean the world to me.”

  Frances got up and put her hand on my shoulder. I took the puppy from her and buried my face in its soft warm fur.

  “We’re done here,” he said. “Officer Brown and I will see ourselves out. “One piece of advice . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Get dead bolts put on your back doors.”

  He and Officer Brown left as respectfully as you could carrying bags of things from someone’s house.

  “Officer Manning sure is dedicated to his job,” I said to Frances. “Doesn’t his girlfriend get upset that he spends hours searching other people’s homes instead of coming home for dinner?”

  “He quit dating after his second wife left,” Frances said and went over to the reception desk and started her computer.

  “Well, I wonder why?” My sarcasm always came out when I was tired or upset. To downplay how mean I sounded I looked at Frances. “No, really, Officer Brown said he had two wives. They both left him . . . why?”