First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery

by DeSmet, Christine

  Chapter 4

  Grandma’s idea had given me permission to think of creating a fudge shop extraordinaire that would surpass anything the Disney corporation could create. When a customer entered the shop from now on, I’d overwhelm all five senses with rainbows of colors, contrasting taste sensations, textures of sugar crystals, the scents of ingredients like warm caramel and butterscotch but also lavender and roses infused into my fudge, and customers would hear the pleasant canoodling of wooden paddles within my copper kettles. I had faith that the church ladies would be the spark of a holy fudge revolution in Door County.

  A little past eleven, with Grandma Sophie fully engaged in contacting her friends, I turned my thoughts to the list of suspects. If I worked fast enough—as fast as my grandma seemed to think I should—this case could be solved and out of our hair by tomorrow. The phrase, “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium,” struck me. That old phrase was about those obnoxiously fast bus tours of Europe, but now I was fairly humming, “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgian fudge.” Tomorrow was Tuesday. All would be well.

  It struck me that Isabelle Boone would be serving lunch at the Blue Heron Inn right now, which meant her eight guests—oops, seven now—would be in the dining room and not upstairs. Which meant I could poke around at the crime scene.

  Somebody had put my fudge in Rainetta Johnson’s mouth to make it look like I’d killed her, but who? And why had I been targeted? Why would somebody put diamonds in my fudge? How had they done it, exactly? Did Rainetta have any connection to the diamonds? Or that New York heist? And where had Sam disappeared to after he’d gone upstairs before Rainetta? Was Sam part of some plot to target me? Was this his cruel payback for what I’d done to him eight years ago? All those years ago, during college, I’d been dating Dillon off and on, but when Dillon hit the road for months at a time, Sam and I struck up a closer relationship. It blossomed into something I didn’t expect. I thought it was love. It looked like Dillon was out of my life for good, and Sam felt comfortable, safe, and he’d always watched out for me. Things proceeded too fast toward a wedding, though, and I got cold feet. On the night of my rehearsal at the church, the week before our wedding, Dillon came back. My heart panicked like some poor deer standing in the middle of the road in the headlights with a car coming from both directions. And I leaped into Dillon’s car. Vegas was our next stop. Could Sam still hold a grudge for my jilting him?

  Goose bumps rippled over my flesh. Anger flickered to life inside of me. It wasn’t anger with Sam at all. Being accused of murder made me mad.

  The sun was out, filtering its spring beams through the reddish first leaves and whirligig seed pods of the maples on my street, which helped me shake off the gooseflesh. I dropped off my jacket at my house, rolled up the sleeves of my sweatshirt, then exchanged my heavy and noisy work boots for quiet rubber-soled jogging shoes.

  I hiked fast up the steep hill to the Blue Heron Inn, gasping for breath by the time I reached it. After creeping across Isabelle’s wood porch, I waited to see if I’d been spotted. But nobody came to the door. Eerie déjà vu drenched me in a cold sweat. I’d been here alone once before. Not even Pauline knew about it because I was so embarrassed. On Friday night, on impulse, I had scrawled a quick note to Rainetta Johnson, inviting her to visit my shop. Then I’d rushed up to the inn when I’d seen everybody, including Isabelle, leave for the fish boil. I’d left the note in the room Isabelle had previously told me she’d cleaned and readied for Rainetta. Since the sheriff hadn’t said anything about the note, it must have been thrown in the trash and taken out before he and his crew inspected the room. I almost felt disappointed for Jordy Tollefson not finding it; he seemed determined to arrest me.

  I eased into the grand front hallway with its blue-carpeted staircase opposite me. Yet again the mass of crystal and glass Steuben figurines filling the enormous hall mesmerized me. The refracted light from the chandeliers played about the room like fairies flitting.

  Most of the collection was clear glass, though for the first time I noticed a shelf on a wall to my left with a row of glass paperweights swirling with colors. I must not have noticed them last night because they were above the table where my fudge had sat in its ill-fated pink glory. The deadly debacle of my debut. Pauline would be proud of the alliteration.

  I looked about the area for Izzy’s favorite piece, the unicorn, but didn’t see it. Perhaps a guest had bought it. Izzy had said Rainetta Johnson offered her a pittance for it. Maybe the snooty Reeds snapped it up as a souvenir of the murder.

  Voices in the dining room reminded me of my mission, so I hurried on stealth feet up the carpeted stairs.

  The dark hallway gave me chills. I paused at the head of the stairs to let my eyes adjust. I could still visualize where Rainetta had sprawled across the hallway by her door.

  As I sneaked along the carpet, wary of the old wood possibly creaking underneath, I noticed some of the doors hung ajar. The doorknobs and locks were antiques. The guests likely had to use old-fashioned, big keys to secure their doors, if the keys or locks even worked. We had doors of that sort back on the farm when I was a kid. You could jiggle those darn keys in the locks for five minutes and still not get the lock to engage.

  Rainetta’s door had police tape across it jamb to jamb. My heartbeat sped up as I stood in the hallway, my hand on the cool, brass doorknob to her room. The voices babbled downstairs from the back of the house somewhere; utensils pinged against steel bowls and pans. They were fixing the meal together. But one of them could hike up here at any moment. I ducked under the tape, then slipped inside Rainetta’s room, closing the door silently behind me.

  The sweet, innocent smell of carnations hit me. A huge bouquet of at least two dozen pink carnations with a purple bow around the vase sat on a small side table straight ahead but slightly left of a window. It made me sad to see them abandoned. I had left my note on that table for Rainetta. I lifted the vase to check for it; the note wasn’t there.

  There was a blue-and-cream-colored flowered chair that matched the blue-and-cream flocked walls. The polished dark wood floor had scatter rugs in front of the chair and bed.

  The bed, to the right, was rumpled, a mess really. Sheriff Jordy Tollefson and his crew likely looked high and low for my poison fudge or for hairs missing from my head to test for DNA. My hands fluttered up to run through my brown hair, which I’d left loose. No hairs came off.

  A hefty, antique walnut five-drawer dresser with an ornate mirror hugged the wall to my immediate left. Straight ahead and next to the chair and flowers was the window overlooking the Lake Michigan bay and docks. To the right of the window, an antique walnut desk held a flat-screen TV on one end. The TV was unusual; the inns around here assumed you stayed at a B and B to get away from such trappings. Izzy had mentioned Rainetta being demanding, though. I looked around for the chocolates Izzy said she’d come up to put on the pillows but didn’t see them. Jordy’s deputy probably ate the darn things.

  The desk had a five-by-seven white pad of paper and pen next to the TV. Curious that it hadn’t been taken in the evidence gathering, I tiptoed over, and to my surprise saw that it was a small pad with the logo for a Hollywood studio. The pen had the same insignia. These were Rainetta’s personal items! The police likely didn’t take it because there wasn’t anything written on the pad; the family would need to pick up her personal effects later.

  Family? Who were they? I needed to read Jeremy Stone’s stories to see if any family members had been quoted or referred to. I wondered who would be visiting Fishers’ Harbor. And my fudge shop. Thinking of Jeremy and his sleazy attitude and photo taking yesterday made me pick up the notepad. I didn’t want him having it. I wanted to hand it back personally to Rainetta’s relatives and tell them how sorry I was about everything, maybe tell them that I was in the same business as Rainetta—show business—and that my grandmother loved her movies. I twisted my hair into a ponytail, then slipped the Hollywood studio pen through it. I didn’t have a po
cket big enough for the pad, so I stuffed it under my sweatshirt and tucked it into my jeans.

  The dresser drawers called to me next. The two small drawers at the top didn’t yield anything. But when I opened the first big drawer below, I found a pair of white panties, a woman’s half-slip, and a pink chiffon scarf of the kind elderly ladies like to tie over their hair to keep their hairdo in place against the wind. Women didn’t usually mix their scarves with their underwear. Maybe Rainetta had been laying out clothing for the following day, taking items out of her luggage and plopping them into the drawer as she sorted through things.

  Her luggage was gone. Either Jordy had it or Izzy had put the luggage away for the relatives to pick up. I looked about for the closet door. It was only a couple of steps past the TV.

  To my surprise, the closet was jam-packed with a couple dozen different designer outfits, from dresses to skirts, blouses, and suits. Many things were pink or lavender, Rainetta Johnson’s signature colors. There were silks, satins, sparkly beading on some things.

  The clothes suddenly vibrated, moving on their hangers.

  I leaped back, my breathing on hold.

  Somebody was hiding in the closet!

  I ran for the door.

  • • •

  A hoarse whisper rasped the air behind me. “Miss Oosterling, it’s me.”

  “Ranger?”

  Cody Fjelstad’s red-haired head poked out from the mass of clothing lined up on the hangers. His freckled face bore a mask of distrust for me, which broke my heart.

  I sat on the corner of the bed farthest away from him. “What’re you doing in Rainetta Johnson’s closet?”

  “Are you going to report me, Miss Oosterling?”

  “No, unless you don’t talk to me. Why aren’t you in school?” I knew the answer and felt bad instantly for being stupid enough to ask. “Never mind. The kids will tease you about the fudge. Ranger, nobody really knows how the lady was killed. And it’s not your fault.”

  “But I made the fudge she ate and she choked on it, the sheriff said.”

  “The sheriff also said there were diamonds in the fudge.”

  “Diamonds? There were? How many?” He popped from the closet. “Is that your new recipe?”

  He was practicing his sarcasm again with me. But he obviously had known nothing about the diamonds. At least not consciously. Somebody else had to have slipped them into the fudge ingredients that had been confiscated yesterday by the sheriff’s department.

  “No. We’re sticking to fairy tales and fisherman ideas for our fudge recipes,” I assured him. “Now tell me why you’re here. And how did you get up here without somebody seeing you?”

  “The back stairs.” He pointed toward the hallway.

  But I didn’t recall seeing any back stairs. I opened the door a tiny crack to look out. All I saw was the room across the hall and the shared public bathroom door to the right. “Cody, I don’t see any stairs.”

  “They’re in the room across the hall. I snuck up the back way when I climbed in the window in the back porch this morning. It was cold out.”

  This was no time to scold him for breaking into a house. Especially since I’d done the same. The Blue Heron Inn had an enormous screened porch replete with gliders that overlooked a lawn, flower beds, a vegetable garden, and beyond it all—Lake Michigan. I’d been on that porch once in my whole life and recalled a couple of closed doors on the house wall. Perhaps the room across the hall was originally a servant’s quarters, with the stairs giving the help easy access to the back of the old inn for doing chores, gardening, or, well, serving. Whatever the case, those stairs explained how Sam Peterson had disappeared so fast yesterday from the crime scene.

  “Whose room is that across the hall?”

  Cody shrugged. He had the thumb of one hand hooked in a front belt loop of his jeans, but the other was hidden behind his back.

  I ventured around him for a good look, but he stealthily turned and hid his hand. I focused on the closet. “She sure loved pink and purple.”

  “It’s sad for you. She would’ve bought all your Cinderella Pink Fudge. Especially if it had diamonds in it. Your fudge is the best.”

  When I turned around, I found him grinning at me. The old Ranger was back. “That’s nice of you to say, Ranger.” Or was he buttering me up to hide something?

  “She was a nice lady. We have to find who killed her.”

  “Is that why you’re here in her room instead of in school or at my shop?”

  He sat hard on the bed, bouncing up and down a couple of times, his one hand clearly around some object. The poor kid looked ready to cry. “Bethany liked me when I was making fudge for the movie star. She doesn’t want to go to prom with the killer of the movie star. There’s a difference, you know.”

  “Oh, Ranger,” I cooed, sitting down next to him. Sam had told me Cody didn’t like being touched, so I kept my hands on my jeans-clad thighs. “Bethany won’t think you killed anybody.”

  “You’re right, Miss Oosterling. That’s why I made notes. You want to see what I heard this morning?”

  He headed for the desk, stuffing something into a pocket before looking for the notepad I’d picked up.

  “Here it is.” I sheepishly brought the notepad out from under my sweatshirt.

  Cody took it, flipped up a few pages, then showed me several notes he’d made on a hidden page, including: Hannah and Will don’t care if fudge lady goes to jail. Sooner the better.

  “There’s a funny face, Ranger. Does that mean you laughed or they laughed?”

  “They did.”

  “And when did you hear these words?”

  “When I was in the room across the hall this morning, I heard them through the wall. They talk loud. Do you think they want you in jail because they killed the movie star? Can they get away with murder? If you’re arrested, does that mean they get to leave here?”

  I swallowed hard. It suddenly felt creepy to be sitting in this room with the possibility of Will and Hannah Reed barging through the door at any moment. Time had slipped away on me.

  “We have to go, Ranger. Now. Show me the back stairs.”

  We wended our way through what had to be Jeremy Stone’s room. It was filled with bags and books, notes scattered like spring apple blossoms on the wind, a laptop recharging. His room was bigger than Rainetta’s, a suite really, but it lacked the view of the lake. In front of a love seat was a sofa table with an expensive bottle of white wine from a local winery and two glasses. The wine bottle looked empty. My curiosity was piqued. Who had he been entertaining in his room? Who would put up with him?

  But we had to hurry. The stairs split in two at the bottom, with a short passage to the kitchen and another to the porch. We chose the porch and our escape.

  • • •

  As soon as Ranger and I got down the steep hill and onto level ground near the docks, Ranger strutted ahead of me, clearly not heading down the street toward the school. Once we hit the dock area, he passed the pier where my shop sat. I called to him. He paused long enough for me to catch up, but his hazel eyes held a stormy look that matched the wind-whipped lake.

  “Ranger, what’s wrong? Aren’t you coming to help me make fudge?”

  He shook his head.

  “But I thought you just said you wanted to help me.”

  “I am helping you. I’m going to solve the murder so Bethany respects me. Don’t you remember?”

  “Is that why you have something from the movie star’s room in your pocket? What did you find?”

  His mouth flinched.

  “Ranger, you can’t take things from that room. You have to give it to me or take it back there. Or give it to the sheriff.”

  “Not until I solve the mystery.”

  I’d known Cody Fjelstad only a little over two weeks, since Sam had set him up for the part-time job. Although Cody and I had become close enough, sometimes I was at a loss as to how to respond to him. “But the sheriff will solve it. It might be
best if you come back to my fudge shop and look for clues there to help him. We can look for more diamonds.”

  He shook his head vigorously. “I can’t go back to your shop, Miss Oosterling. I can’t help the sheriff, either. He thinks I messed with your fudge. He won’t be letting me wear a badge until I prove I’m innocent.”

  So that was what this was about. Cody’s sole goal in life was to become a man who wore a badge. He wanted people looking up to him. “Ranger, I’ll get you a badge to wear. You can be my deputy of fudge.”

  My attempt at lightheartedness died when he looked off toward the water with a sad twist to his mouth. The wind ruffled his curly red hair. “I’m a man, Miss Oosterling. Giving me a toy badge to wear is insulting. I expect a lot more from you. Sam said you were a nice person. I trusted you. But now you’re treating me like a baby.”

  He strutted away down the docks, ignoring the lake-water spray bashing him. A few fishermen waved at him from their moored boats, but I could tell he ignored them.

  My heart felt as empty as those fishermen’s nets. I had no choice but to call Sam Peterson.

  • • •

  “You sure have a way with men,” Sam said, after marching into Oosterlings’ Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge. The cowbell voiced a violent cling-clang.

  My grandpa, who had been on the phone for the past half hour begging for parts for his boat motors, seemed to sense that a storm squall had overtaken the inside of the shop. He got off his phone, mumbled something about being gone for an hour, waved offhandedly as he passed Sam, then set the cowbell to banging again. My shoulders hunched up at the sound.

  Sam, every short blond hair on his head in place, his blue eyes ablaze, looked particularly tall and menacing when he sauntered over to where I was screwing a new shelving unit together in anticipation of fudge glory by later today or tomorrow. His tread on the wood floor was heavy, like damning exclamation marks. He wore cowboy boots, denim jeans, and a light blue shirt stretched across his broad chest and shoulders. He still sported all the muscles he’d built playing football in college and then on the Green Bay Packers practice squad for a couple of years.