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All Fudged Up (A Candy-Coated Mystery)

Page 19

by CoCo, Nancy


  “Was that Mal barking?” Jenn asked as she came down the stairs.

  “Yes, weird right?” I snuggled with my puppy. “She doesn’t seem to like Emerson.”

  “I kind of agree with Mal, there’s nothing much to like.” Jenn patted Mal on the head. “Listen, I ran upstairs to see if I could find a guest list for Officer Brown.” She waved a paper in her hand. “I knew I had one in my computer, so I printed out a copy.”

  “Was Mr. Finley on the list?”

  “No, I had invited him, but he had declined. He said he was going to be out of town for the evening.”

  “You don’t think that was code for spending time with a mistress, do you?” I asked and put Mal down.

  “Really, a mistress? I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Think about it,” I said and locked the front door. “He told you he was going to be out of town. Then we find him floating face-first in a pool wearing only boxers covered in red hearts. If he were having a fling, he could tell everyone he was going out of town and no one would suspect he was slipping away for a weekend of fun.”

  “Wouldn’t they expect him to go out by ferry?” Jenn pondered.

  “There’s also the airport. He could have taken the ferry out and then a private jet back onto island. Met his lover with the intention of taking a plane back to the mainland and then coming back in the ferry where everyone could see him.”

  “You have a suspicious mind.” Jenn shook her head at me. “What if he did have plans to be out of town and then came back and surprised his killer?”

  “Well, yes, I guess that could be possible as well.” I gave in, picked up a box of decorations, and took it to the first-floor utility closet. “I suppose I might tend to think the worst.”

  “Besides.” Jenn followed me. “No one has found the girlfriend.”

  “So you did think that, too.” I put the box on the shelf and stepped out to see the two guys coming down the stairs. Mal ran up and jumped on Trent, who tousled her head and kept on going. Mal followed him as if he were her favorite person in the world.

  “The place is clear,” Officer Brown said. “Whoever attacked you had to have gone out the front door. The back is all locked up.”

  “Emerson said he didn’t see anyone,” I said. “I don’t know how that can be.”

  “Did Mal bark or carry on at all when your attacker ran up the stairs?” Jenn asked.

  “She was in her crate.” I shrugged. “I don’t remember her barking before I let her out and she growled at Emerson.”

  “This little baby growled at Emerson?” Trent reached down and picked my puppy up and gave her strong pets.

  My heart melted more than I’ll admit to even you. Seeing him hold my puppy like she was a baby made me think of babies and all the wonderful sexy things that went with them.

  “I know, right? She hasn’t met a person she didn’t love. Maybe it was his coat. He said it was an authentic period piece.” I shrugged. “I’m simply not sure.”

  “Hey, we all have people we don’t like, so do dogs. It doesn’t mean anything,” Jenn said.

  “It wouldn’t hold up in a court of law,” Officer Brown said and winked at Jenn.

  “Did you get the tunnel door off the hinges?” I asked. “I sort of forgot about it in the heat of my attack.”

  “No, we needed the hammer,” Officer Brown said. “Its badly rusted hinges and warped materials mean we’ll have to break it down.”

  “It can’t be that important to your investigation,” I said. “No one must have opened it in years. I’ll have Mr. Devaney open it up in the morning. If it’s okay with you all, I’m not going back down to the basement tonight.”

  “It’s fine with us,” Officer Brown said.

  “Here.” Trent handed me my dog. “Why don’t you and Jenn go on upstairs and lock yourselves in the apartment. It’s been a hell of a night. Brown and I will stand watch down here.”

  “Do you think it’s safe?” I asked and bit my bottom lip. “Do you need to check with the others investigating the pool house?”

  “Yes, but one of us will be down here all night,” Officer Brown said. “Someone is terrorizing you and the people of Mackinac Island. It’s time we got to the bottom of things.”

  “Before the season starts,” Jenn added.

  “Exactly.” Trent nodded. “Do you want me to walk you two up?”

  “I think we’re fine,” I said and looked at Jenn, who nodded. “Thanks. I’m sorry I misjudged you.”

  “Maybe when this is all done, we can get a drink and get to know each other better.”

  He was so sincere that it made a shiver go through me. “Sure.”

  “Good. Good night, ladies.”

  “Good night.” Jenn pushed me up the stairs. I unlocked the apartment with shaking hands and put Mal down the moment we got inside.

  Jenn turned the dead bolt and leaned against the door. “Well, that certainly turned out different than I imagined.”

  “I know.” I sat down on my couch. It was then that I noticed the bruise on my knee. “Yikes.” I poked at it.

  “Ouch.” Jenn said. “Let me get some ice for that.”

  I leaned my head back and listened to her in the kitchen dumping ice from the ice tray into a cloth. Suddenly, I was very, very tired. It must have been the adrenaline drop.

  “You look exhausted.” Jenn handed me a towel with ice in it. I placed it on my knee and only winced a little. “Was it scary?”

  “Was what scary?”

  “When the guy attacked you?” she asked and sat on the arm of the couch. Her flapper dress sparkled in the lamplight.

  “It’s scarier now than when it was happening,” I said. “It all happened so fast.”

  “What exactly did happen? I mean, we heard a commotion and a short scream and we went running only to find you scrambling up the stairs with a hammer in your hand.”

  I closed my eyes and rested my head against the back of the couch, trying to remember exactly what happened. “I grabbed the hammer off Papa’s tool bench, then this guy grabbed me from behind.”

  “Where did he come from?” Jenn asked. “He wasn’t in the tunnel with us.”

  “I have no idea. He was behind me and put his hand over my mouth and pulled me against him.”

  “Okay, now that’s scary.” She sat on the couch and patted my hand. “What did you do?”

  “I tried to remember what you’re supposed to do—you know, in self-defense.”

  “Yes.”

  “I tried to step on his instep, but he anticipated that and stepped back. So I realized I had a hammer in my hands and I swung back, thinking I could hit his groin.”

  “And?”

  “I grabbed his thumb when he tried to make me drop the hammer. I must have hit his thigh somehow because he cursed and let go of me. But he didn’t double over or anything.”

  “You said he ran up the stairs?”

  “Yes, but first he grabbed the two unbroken bottles of wine from the box.” I made a face. “Don’t you think that’s weird?”

  “Really weird,” she said. “What’s the big deal about some wine?”

  “I have no idea. Let’s research it.” I hobbled over to my desk and started up my computer. Mal jumped up, licked my face, and curled up in my lap. “Yes,” I cooed. “You’re my big guard doggie. It’s my fault you were stuck in your crate.”

  The search engine came up and I entered the name from the wine bottle. “Oooh,” I said and pursed my lips.

  “What?” Jenn looked over my shoulder.

  “It’s a very rare wine. It looks like most of the great vintage was lost in a massive storm that sunk the cargo freighter it was shipped on. The ship went down during Prohibition and the vintage was being smuggled from France through Canada. The vintage was lost except for a few rare bottles.” I read on in silence. “Check this out. The last bottle sold at auction went for a whopping five hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Holy shit!” Jenn cursed. �
��That means your attacker potentially stole a million dollars from your basement.”

  “No wonder he ran off with it.” I sat back. “Pete Thompson told me that Papa had a source of income other than the McMurphy. Do you think he was referring to this wine? Where did Papa get it? Who else knew about it?”

  “You’d better call Officer Manning,” Jenn said. “I think we cracked his case wide open.”

  Key Lime Island Fudge

  5 cups white chocolate chips

  4 tablespoons cream cheese

  1 can sweetened condensed milk

  1 lime—squeeze juice and grate peel

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  Butter an 8” × 8” × 2” pan. Line with wax paper or plastic wrap. Squeeze juice from lime, save juice, and grate the peel. Set aside. Using a double boiler fill of the bottom pan with water and heat on medium high until the water is boiling. Then you can turn the heat down to low and in the top section, place sweetened condensed milk, white chocolate chips, and cream cheese. Stir constantly until chips and cream cheese are melted. Remove from heat. Add vanilla, lime juice and rind bits and stir until combined. Pour into pan or crust. Cool completely. Cut and serve in colorful cupcake papers. Store in covered container.

  If you want, you can prepare a graham-cracker crust:

  1½ cups finely ground graham-cracker crumbs.

  cup sugar

  6 tablespoons butter, melted

  Mix until well blended. Pat into pan. Bake at 375°F for 7 minutes—cool completely.

  Chapter 32

  “A half a million dollars a bottle?” Rex whistled. “That’s a whole lot of motive.”

  “Do you think Joe was killed over the wine?” I asked. It was after midnight and Rex stood in my living room looking at my computer screen. He was every inch the police officer in his full uniform with a gun on his hip. There was something predatory about him that made a girl feel protected and nervous at the same time.

  Jenn lounged in Papa’s easy chair. We had both changed out of our flapper gowns. Jenn wore leopard-spotted leggings and a black tunic. I wore jeans and a purple T-shirt. My hair was still in the braid that Jenn had woven for the cocktail party.

  “If he was, it still doesn’t disprove you as a suspect.” He glanced at me.

  “Why not?” I drew my brows together.

  “The wine was in the basement of the McMurphy and everyone is aware of your dwindling resources as you remodel.” He was dead serious.

  “I have enough money for the season,” I argued.

  “I imagine that a million dollars would give you more than one season. People have killed for less.”

  “I know of someone who was killed for a carton of cigarettes,” I reasoned. “If you think of it that way, then everyone on island has motive to be a killer.”

  “Not everyone had a million dollars stolen from their basement.”

  I stood. I have to admit that my nerves were more than a little raw. “I didn’t kill anyone. Someone tried to kill me.”

  “And Mr. Finley,” he added. “George told me that Mr. Finley didn’t have any water in his lungs.”

  “So it wasn’t an accidental drowning in the pool tonight?” Jenn sat up.

  “It doesn’t look like it.” Rex’s jaw clenched.

  “But he could have had a heart attack and fell in the pool, right?” I asked.

  “That’s for the coroner to determine.” Rex had the best poker face ever.

  “We have two dead men—both of the same age—and a box of expensive wine, all but two bottles broken. The two that remain were stolen when a man attacked me. I don’t understand how you could think I might even remotely be a person of interest.”

  “This isn’t about what I think. This is about the facts. The facts are that no one saw this person who attacked you. Two bottles of wine worth a cool million disappeared and you were the only one in the room. Two men are dead. One in your utility closet and the other in a pool house during a party you hosted.”

  “You are only saying that because you don’t have a clue who’s really doing this or why.” Yes, I was defensive. I liked this guy. Why did he continue to blame these terrible things on me?

  “For all I know your Papa smuggled that wine into the McMurphy. He told you where he kept his treasure and Joe Jessop found out about it. He confronted you and you killed him.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Jenn said. “You should go through your lawyer.”

  “We don’t need to get all hasty,” Rex said, his eyes twinkling for the first time as his cop persona slipped. “I do have another theory.”

  “Are you going to let us in on it?” Jenn asked.

  “Now, that wouldn’t be very professional of me,” he said. “For now, I’m going to keep a security patrol on the McMurphy. We’ll come through every four hours.”

  “Is that because you think we’re in danger or because we’re under lock and key?”

  “You may leave anytime you want. In fact, I’d prefer you stayed elsewhere—”

  “I will not!”

  “And that is why we’ll be doing security checks until we have someone in custody or at the very least an answer to who attacked you.”

  “Fine.” I refused to budge from where I stood, which was basically toe-to-toe with the man. I didn’t want to admit that my heart raced and my skin flushed. He was infuriating and he thought I was some kind of serial killer.

  All I wanted was to be a successful fudge shop/hotel owner. I wanted to fit into the community and maybe someday see as many green ribbons as purple.

  “Good. Thank you for your cooperation.” He nodded at us. “If you find more of those wine bottles, I expect you to let me know. Whoever is killing may be killing for them and I don’t want you harboring anything that might get you killed—even if it’s worth two million dollars. It’s not worth your life.”

  “If we find it in the McMurphy, it belongs to the McMurphy, right?” Jenn asked.

  “Unless someone can prove otherwise, yes. I’m not calling you thieves. I’m trying to look out for your safety.”

  I let him out the apartment door.

  “Lock it behind me,” Rex said. “Dead bolt.”

  “No problem.” I slammed the door closed and threw the dead bolt. I turned to see Jenn grinning at me from the couch. Mal chewed on a toy and glanced at me, wagging her tail.

  “That guy is hot for you,” Jenn said.

  “He thinks I’m a murderer,” I pointed out.

  “Which makes you off-limits and even hotter.” Jenn waggled her eyebrows. “He’s a local, right?”

  “And twice divorced.”

  “Even better, he doesn’t strike me as a man who makes the same mistake twice.”

  “Wait . . .”

  “You said that he married two different women and divorced them for two different reasons . . .”

  “True.”

  “Then he knows for sure what he wants now. It looks to me like he plans to go after it as soon as he solves this case.”

  I rolled my eyes and picked up my puppy. “He wants someone who will remain on island. I’m not certain I can make it beyond the first season.”

  Chapter 33

  The next day I left Frances and Jenn to cross-reference the guest list with the packages of fudge while I searched the office files. If Papa Liam knew anything about the expensive wine, he didn’t tell me. The best part was he never threw anything away.

  It was family tradition.

  We kept anything and everything about the McMurphy we thought might even remotely become interesting in the next couple of hundred years. This meant that the office had rows of file cabinets with files dating back to the grand opening of the McMurphy fudge shop in 1865. It’s how we were able to prove to the historical committee that fat pink stripes were authentic to the time period.

  “All right. If there is any logic to these files, then the earliest files would be on the lower left and t
he newest files on the upper right,” I told Mal as she sat on her haunches and studied me with blinky, black button eyes. “Let’s test that theory.” I went to the top right-most cabinet and opened it. Sure enough, it was dated from last year. “Thank you Papa Liam for making sense.”

  Now all I had to do was figure out where the 1930s were and go through the files one by one until I hit present day. If those bottles of wine had been smuggled in, there was some record of it—no matter how slight. If there was a record, perhaps it would help me discover who else might know about the wine.

  “Let’s start with the year the wine was labeled.” I found the appropriate file cabinet and pulled out the folders in that drawer, took them back to Papa’s big oak desk, and plopped them down. Mal waited for me to sit before she jumped up and curled up in my lap.

  I was about two hours into the files when the phone rang, startling me out of my thoughts. “Hello?”

  “Allie?” It was a decidedly male voice and the rumble had the full attention of my nerves.

  “Yes.”

  “Trent Jessop. I’ve been going through Joe’s things and I think we need to talk.”

  “Will I need my lawyer?” Why was I always such a jerk to this guy? “I’m sorry, I don’t know where that comment came from. I’ve been buried in McMurphy files looking for clues.”

  “Right. Should we meet in a neutral place?”

  “Like where?”

  “Let’s meet at JL Beanery. Do you know it?”

  “The little coffee shop across from the Island House Hotel?”

  “Yes. Say in an hour?”

  I glanced at the clock on Papa’s shelf. It was already one in the afternoon. “Sure.”

  “Great.”

  He hung up and I ran my hand along Mal’s back. She sighed and tried to curl up tighter on my lap. “I wonder what that was all about?” I picked her up, kissed her on the nose, and set her back in the chair as I replaced the files I had with the next decade full.

 

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