First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery

by DeSmet, Christine

  Sam’s name flew out before I could stop myself. My face burned and my stomach soured with panic. Had I just betrayed Sam?

  Destiny said, gathering her papers, “Sam’s with the Fjelstad boy now. What should I be talking to him about?”

  “I don’t know.” It was hard to talk with my grandparents staring at me. There was no way I wanted to tell them that the guy I was once engaged to had a “thing” for the dead movie star, who might have had a “thing” going on with Mercy Fogg, the recent past president of the village board of Fishers’ Harbor. My grandparents would accuse me of making up stories befitting my soap-operaish The Topsy-Turvy Girls.

  Destiny apparently read my mind, because she got up, clearly ready to leave. As she came around to our side of the table, she said, “Listen, y’all. We have a lot of work ahead of us. You’re all gonna get sick of me, but that’s how it is. Mr. Oosterling, I promise to get you out of jail soon. Now, here’s your homework until we meet again.”

  She proceeded to give us several questions to work on overnight. One of the questions was: Is anybody jealous of your good fortune?

  After Grandma and I got into Sam’s car to return to Fishers’ Harbor, I asked, “What good fortune? We seem to be the most hexed family on the planet. Nobody would be jealous enough of us to want to frame us for murder.”

  Grandma Sophie piped up from the backseat. “We have each other and lots of love. A lot of people don’t have that, honey.”

  Sam agreed. “You’re lucky.” Sam didn’t talk about his own family all that much. His parents were divorced and his siblings were scattered around the globe. I knew it affected him. Maybe part of the reason I hadn’t married him was because I suspected he might have fallen in love with my family more than with me.

  As we were zooming northward up Highway 42 toward Egg Harbor, he said, “And maybe Destiny is smart about people. Didn’t she say she majored in human resources? She probably took psychology classes.”

  “Just yesterday,” I sniped. “She hasn’t lived life. How is she going to defend us against a murder charge and for stealing jewelry? The DA is going to eat us alive.”

  Grandma piped up from the back, “I’m hungry. What’s for dinner? You two want to come over?”

  “No,” Sam and I said in unison, flashing each other a look that said, “It’s not good to look like we’re a couple in front of a grandmother.”

  I added, “No, thanks, Grandma. I’ve got to get back to close up the fudge shop. But I’ll be over to cook dinner within the hour, if that’s okay.”

  “I’m bored staying inside all the time with this leg. It felt good to go to the jail just now, so you know how bored I am.”

  We all laughed.

  She said, “Let’s go over to the Troubled Trout for some greasy food. My treat.”

  She was determined that Sam and I would be eating together and with her. I had the feeling she was plotting something. Intrigued, I agreed to go. “I’m in the mood for cheese curds and a good beer. Sam?”

  “Why not?” he said. “It’s probably best I keep an eye on you, anyway. Every time I leave you, something bad happens. Mostly to me.”

  For a smidgen of a moment I thought he meant my marriage to Dillon Rivers. Then I hoped he’d only meant Cody. I’d forgotten to ask. “What’s going to happen to Cody? He’s not going to be arrested or anything, is he?”

  “He’s cooperating. So far. But he’s impulsive.”

  “I noticed.”

  “It’s his parents who worry me. Cody let slip something about you okaying some party for him at the empty mansion.”

  “Prom,” I said, sagging inside my seat belt. “I promised him he could hold the party there.”

  “What the heck were you thinking? That scrap heap of old lumber is nowhere near code.”

  “What would it take to get it up to code?”

  “Tens of thousands of dollars. Rainetta Johnson’s pledge.”

  “Hollow pledge now,” I said. “It’s tough to write a check when you’re dead. But there has to be a way to make Cody’s dream come true.”

  “Get real, Ava. This is how you are. Your head in the clouds. Or stars. Hollywood stars. It’s why you left. Every time I give you a reality check, you check out and run.”

  From the back, my grandmother said, “Now, now, you two sound like an old married couple.”

  Scalding embarrassment came to my face. I’d forgotten she was there. I was getting distracted a lot lately.

  Sam flexed his fingers around the steering wheel. He was grinning.

  • • •

  After we ate cheese curds, burgers stacked tall with slices of Swiss and cheddar cheeses, and wafted a cherry-laced beer from a local brewery, Sam dropped off Grandma and me at her house. It was past eight, dusk, and chilly and damp. The rain had stopped, but the wind outside was fierce and howled past the windows. Nothing mysterious transpired at the Troubled Trout, but I could feel Grandma Sophie aching to tell me something.

  “Grandma, what’s up?” I asked, after I helped her get to the living room couch in front of her television set. She settled into her corner next to the arm and little table where she kept magazines.

  “Plenty,” she said. “We Oosterlings are in a pickle.”

  “I’m so sorry. I feel like all of this happened because I came back and opened a fudge shop.”

  “Well, maybe it did.” She said it in a matter-of-fact way, not accusatory.

  I sat down next to her. She patted my knee, then said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

  I scoffed. “I haven’t a clue what I’m doing, Grandma. Except I’m here to help you, which I thoroughly enjoy.” I hugged her, then kissed her soft cheek.

  “But you’re all over the place, trying to do too much at once. Each of us can be successful at only one thing at a time. We build our lives in that way. You put down a foundation, then you build a wall, and that wall holds up the next wall and the next.”

  “I guess I don’t know your point.”

  “What’s your foundation? Is it your fudge shop? If it is, take care of that first. Or is it Sam? Or helping Cody? Or maybe you yearn to go back to Los Angeles?”

  “Are you afraid I want to leave already?”

  Grandma Sophie reached for her remote and turned on the television. A sitcom was on, one that had great ratings. Grandma said, “I sense that you’re scared and don’t know what you want exactly.”

  “Maybe I am. But I’m only thirty-two.”

  “Destiny Hubbard is twenty-three, and she knows exactly what she wants from life and she’s going to get it by twenty-five, I have a feeling.”

  Oh dear. This was starting to sound like Sam’s lecture about me acting like I was twelve. “Grandma, I’m okay. Don’t worry about me. And don’t try to fix me up with Sam.”

  “Don’t try to tell your grandmother what to do. And you needn’t be so rude to him.”

  That hurt. She was thinking about us arguing in the car. “Sam and I disagree a lot. It’s why it’s lucky we never married.”

  “Honey, that man has nothing in his life, nobody. He hasn’t loved anybody since you left.”

  She didn’t know about his dalliance with Rainetta Johnson, though that was probably mostly Rainetta making a pass at Sam, a handsome and still-in-shape former football player. I had a twinge of jealousy over the thought of the two of them alone in the Blue Heron Inn.

  I gave her a quick hug again and stood. “I gotta go. I’m exhausted.”

  “Not so fast. Would you please bring me my jewelry box, honey?”

  This could get into territory where I didn’t want to tread. But she shooed me away to the bedroom. I brought the big cherry wood jewelry box back to the room and set it on the table beside her.

  She opened it, then looked up at me. “You can have it all. Including the necklace your grandfather bought me that Christmas after we saw Rainetta Johnson in the movie down in Madison.”

  The box was filled with bona-fide antique gold jewe
lry, sparkly earrings and broaches, and pearl strands that Pauline wouldn’t let anywhere near kindergarten kids.

  My jaw went slack. “You’re being silly. I can’t take your jewelry.”

  “Honey, it’ll help pay for doing what you have to do next in your life. It’ll help you make choices. There’s enough in here that you can double the size of your fudge shop or buy a ticket back to Los Angeles. What’s your heart’s desire?”

  I stared blankly down at her jewelry. This was the oddest moment in my life. A shameful part of me wanted her jewelry because money was freedom in a way, but there was even more shame in the truth revealed in this moment: I wasn’t sure what I wanted from life. She was right.

  I closed the lid, picked up box, and then marched it back to her bedroom. When I returned, I said, “Grandma, I see your point. I wanted to set up a fudge shop, and yet I’ve been letting the church ladies take it over. I’ve been worrying about my old show, but I don’t know why I care. And Sam’s been trying to be a friend, and I could at least let him be just that instead of fearing he wants more. Does any of that make sense?”

  She beamed. “It’s a start. You’ve got a long way to go on setting priorities, but that’s a start. Now come here.”

  We did one of those Belgian hugs that felt so good it could cure sprained or broken bones. My wrist was feeling a lot better already. I hoped I was helping her leg heal, too.

  • • •

  On Thursday morning Cody showed up at the shop with something akin to a cinnamon bear but with a tail that wagged. I was cleaning my copper kettles with one arm when the shaggy dog loped over to leap up at me and lick my face.

  “Cody! Help!” I had kneeled down to meet the dog closer to his height, and I was laughing in between my shrieks. The dog’s tongue was lapping all over my chin, where I’d likely swiped with a hand covered with the essence of cream and sugar.

  Cody said, “Down, Harbor!”

  The dog had big, perky flaps for ears, a long nose, and a huge swish of a tail. He was all puppy from the gangly look and big paws. He appeared assembled from parts of collie, curly poodle, and golden retriever with Dodge Ram truck for good measure. He was full of cockleburs and looked damp.

  “Where did you get this thing?”

  Cody had his arms firmly around the dog’s neck now, though the attention seemed to have sped up the wag in the tail. “He was trotting down the middle of the street, lost. Sit, Harbor.”

  The dog plunked his hindquarters on the floor. The tail now thumped on the wood floor.

  “He’s obviously trained. Not bad for a puppy. Don’t get attached,” I chided.

  “Harbor likes you. See how he stares at you? He’s talking to you. He’s smiling.”

  “He’s panting. And how do you know he’s called Harbor? Does he have a tag?”

  “Nope. No collar. He jumped in the harbor, though, and looks like a Fishers’ Harbor mascot, so I called him Harbor.”

  The dog’s big brown eyes wouldn’t leave me, which was disconcerting. “We have to call the Humane Society to see if anybody’s missing him.” Just what I needed this morning, a dog in my shop, a clear violation of the health code. Mercy Fogg could easily shut me down with this.

  When Cody let go of Harbor, he rushed up to me again. I stuck my good arm out in time. “Harbor, no.”

  He complied, snuffling loudly along the glass-enclosed fudge shelves as if picking out his favorites. His panting tongue and nose smeared the glass.

  Seeing Cody happy with the dog made me wonder about Cody and yesterday. “You’re not mad at the sheriff questioning you again?”

  “I’m mad. But he said I didn’t have to be in jail right now.”

  “Why did he want you in jail?” I paused over the kettle I was wiping dry with a towel.

  “He says my stories don’t add up. My dad was really pissed about that. He thinks I want the attention to impress Bethany.”

  I was afraid to ask, but did anyway. “Do you want to impress her?”

  “Sure.”

  “Did you lie? You know that murder is a serious issue.”

  “I don’t know if I lied, Miss Oosterling. If Miss Fogg lied to me, how would I know? I’d repeat her lie, but I wouldn’t be lying because I wouldn’t know.”

  “Good point.” I could see that sorting this out would require Sam’s expertise, so I changed the subject. “Ranger, we can’t have that pup over on our side. You’ll have to tie him in the bait shop somewhere.”

  It was only six thirty in the morning, and the humane shelter didn’t open until ten o’clock, so I’d have to put up with the big gangly pup for a while. Harbor flounced in front of me and sat, as if begging me not to report him. His brown eyes beseeched me.

  “All right,” I said to the dog, feeling myself being sucked in like an idiot. “If you can behave, you don’t need to be tied up.”

  I led Harbor over to the bait shop area, pulled a package of beef jerky off a wire and handed it to Cody to open. Harbor whirled about with excitement, his tail whopping bobbers off a shelf and onto the floor. They popped about like Ping-Pong balls all over the place. They were too small to be safe for him to mouth them as toys, so Cody and I had to pick them all up and retrieve one out of the dog’s mouth. Harbor hopped up to lick my face again. We got more tail wags. I was exhausted already and it wasn’t even seven in the morning.

  Cody grabbed some towels and put them on the floor, then pointed to them. “Harbor, lie down.”

  And Harbor did. Go figure.

  “Whew. Thanks, Ranger. You want to start a new fudge batch boiling for me? I have a hard time yet because of my wrist.”

  “Sure thing, Miss Oosterling. How long before your arm’ll be healed?”

  “With the way you bandaged it, soon. It feels better this morning already.”

  The back door banged. Isabelle walked in, looking oddly horrid, as if she’d had no sleep. Her pale skin was ashen. She’d tossed on a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants; it was uncharacteristic of her to be seen in public this way. And of all things, she was cradling her precious Steuben glass unicorn statue in her arms.

  “What’s wrong, Izzy?” I asked, unlocking the cash registers for the day.

  “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Did what?” My gut lurched at her tone.

  “Everybody was ready to go home today, and this morning the sheriff stops by—getting me out of bed at six, no less—to tell me and my guests they have to stay longer, that they’re ‘persons of interest.’ You told the sheriff they’re all suspects for murder and they all stole diamonds. The sheriff and his deputy are going through my inn right now. They’re going to break my Steubens, Ava!”

  She peered down at her unicorn as if it were a precious baby.

  She took a deep breath before continuing, then sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blame you.”

  “Let me go back up to the inn with you. I can handle Jordy.”

  Izzy slumped against the cash register counter. “It’s not you I’m upset with. It’s all of them. I can’t take their squabbling anymore, Ava. I can’t take their complaints about the choice of food or wine for dinner or lunch. They complain about my choice of music in the front hall. They complain about one another, mostly. But who cares! They’re murderers and thieves.”

  She spun and left so fast she might have been a fairy riding out on her flying unicorn.

  Cody said, “Wow. Maybe I should tell her that I said all those things to the sheriff, not you.”

  “No. Don’t go up to the inn, Ranger. That’s not a good idea.”

  I had a feeling this was going to be a very bad day.

  Chapter 15

  That Thursday wasn’t all bad. I got so engrossed in the art of loafing fudge with one hand that time escaped me.

  At ten that morning Destiny Hubbard and my grandfather walked down the pier. Both did a jig in the middle of the shop, which made Harbor leap from his bed of towels by the beer cooler. I was the only one there. Cody had
gone to school, happily so with his new buzz cut. He said he was a “new man.” I suspected he felt Bethany would love the look.

  Gilpa crowed, “I’m a free man! Isn’t Destiny great?”

  Harbor had his paws on Destiny’s shoulders before I could intervene. I couldn’t do much with my bandaged arm but say, “Harbor, sit.”

  He did, his tail swishing the floor as he stared at me with his big brown orbs. I slipped him a piece of beef jerky.

  Gilpa asked, “And who’s this?”

  I hugged my grandpa, explaining about Harbor being a stray, then asked Destiny, “How did you do it? Bail had to be enormous.”

  She was brushing dog hair off a red pantsuit that made her cute as a Christmas elf. “I studied all the theories about Rainetta Johnson and convinced the authorities that with that much circumstantial evidence only and nothing concrete, they had to reduce the bail. Considerably.”

  Gilpa hauled an arm around Destiny’s shoulders. “We got bail down to only this shop. They left my boat alone. I gotta go take a look at ’er and get myself ready for weekend tours.”

  I almost told him about the smoking engines, but didn’t want to break his happy mood. He gathered tools, then hiked out. The bell clanked behind him. His footsteps faded on the wood pier.

  Harbor watched him through the windows, then put his front paws up on the edge of the marble loafing table for a gander at my fudge.

  “No, Harbor!” I raced to pull him down with one arm. “Sit.”

  He did. Then he snuck a lick of my hand.

  I sighed. “At least he knows some tricks. Ranger found this mutt this morning. I have to call the Humane Society. And I have to wash my hands again. You want to come back while we talk?”

  I headed to the kitchen.

  Destiny’s heels echoed on the floor. “Having a dog is good psychology. Maybe you should skip calling about him for a couple of days at least.”

  “Why?”

  “Nobody looks guilty when they have a cute dog by their side. The press will be back when news leaks out about the Reeds and the other guests all possibly being arrested for a conspiracy. Nothing like this has ever happened in Wisconsin or maybe anywhere.”