“He’s not a murderer.”
Izzy whispered, “But he was here.”
With grave concern casting a shadow over Sam’s face, he asked me, “When was he here? Just now?”
“No,” I said, my teeth chattering more from nervousness than the cold. “A couple of days ago.” My brain could barely process the horror of it. “No, three days ago now. He said he was here Monday afternoon and heard noises in the basement. It spooked him out so much he said he didn’t want to live here after all.”
“But he was thrilled that the prom party would be held here.”
“Probably because I volunteered to chaperone it. He knew there’d be others around. This place wouldn’t be scary because he wouldn’t be alone.”
“Where is he now?”
“I assume at school. He was excited about showing Bethany his new haircut.” Tears stung my eyes. “Do you think he could have harmed Rainetta and this man and not realize he killed them? They were accidents? Maybe he was stealing something and they tried to stop him and he panicked?”
“Stop talking, Ava. Trust me. He’s not capable of these things.” But his Adam’s apple bobbed. He’d swallowed hard, as if he wasn’t so sure about Cody anymore. “I’ll go inform his parents right now before they get another call from the sheriff’s department. Arlene and Tom are going to want to move away after this.” Sam gave me another hug. “Hang in there, Ava. Cody didn’t murder this guy. Or Rainetta. Cody needs you to believe in him, even if he changes his story to suit the day of the week. That’s just him. Okay?”
“Thanks, Sam.”
After he left, Isabelle and I stood with our arms around each other, visibly vibrating with our shivers, waiting for the sheriff to come out. I stared at the broken window, realizing now that a dead man had been lying in the basement when I’d fallen down the stairs on Tuesday.
The front door of the mansion creaked open. The sheriff’s deputy held open the door. Volunteer EMTs Nancy and Ronny Jenks were on each end of the stretcher, which carried a body bag. We moved aside, then watched them navigate the few steps to the lawn. The ambulance was only a few feet away, parked on the meager spring grass. Within a minute, Ronny and Nancy steered the vehicle through the quiet crowd, finally wending around the news vans to get back onto Main Street.
But as soon as the ambulance disappeared, the newspeople crushed up the porch steps toward Sheriff Tollefson, Isabelle Boone, and me.
The reporter who’d called me a fudge “sculptor” days ago, yelled out, “Was your fudge involved this time, Miss Oosterling? Was fatal fudge found in the basement?”
So much for being my friend. Sheriff Tollefson herded Izzy and me inside the mansion and closed the door.
Izzy gasped, “Did you hear her?”
“Fickle-faced,” I said, “and it’s too bad Pauline isn’t here. She would have loved the ‘fatal fudge found’ question.” I noticed Sheriff Tollefson acting oddly. “Don’t tell me my fudge was found down there?”
“Unfortunately for you, it was.”
• • •
I couldn’t believe it. Cinderella Pink Fudge was found in Conrad Webb’s jacket pockets. He had two pieces, both with diamonds in them.
After Sheriff Tollefson mollified the news hounds by speaking to them on the front porch, he escorted me back to Oosterlings’ Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge. Isabelle hurried back to the Blue Heron Inn to face her angry guests.
Harbor was gone, which made me panic until I rushed back outside to look down the pier. He was with Gilpa in Sophie’s Journey. I heard lots of cursing, which Harbor seemed to like. He was wagging his fluffy puppy tail rapidly.
When I ducked back inside, I couldn’t think. Not with the sheriff standing there in his uniform and shiny star, hanging on to his hat in his hands and with his gun on his belt. So I grabbed a fresh apron for myself and tossed another to Jordy.
“What’s this?” he stammered, catching it with one hand.
“I’m making fudge before you take all my ingredients again.”
“I won’t be doing that this time.”
“Why not?”
“The fudge he had was old, likely from the batch you made for Sunday.”
I was curious. “Did you taste it?”
“Now, why would I put evidence in my mouth?”
With a sigh, I said smoothly, “I was hoping to know what kind of shelf life it had, which could help you pinpoint the time of the murder. Working with cocoa butter and cream is tricky. White chocolate is made mostly from cocoa butter and it melts easier. But white chocolate holds flavors longer, and it coats the mouth more than dark chocolate. The taste sensation is more intense with white chocolate. The ten thousand taste buds inside your mouth send a big flag to the anterior cingulate in your brain, and this explosion creates emotions and your mood, Jordy. Are you in a white chocolate mood today or a dark chocolate mood? That’s why infusing taste sensations into white chocolate is like nuclear science. The whole thing is either perfect or it blows up. Do you want me to draw you pictures again?”
“No!” He was sweating. “Stop it.”
“You weren’t good with science in school, were you?”
Jordy shook his head in derision that tickled something inside me. He said, “No more diagrams of chemical formulas. This is a murder case, not kindergarten drawing time and not science class.”
“Cody didn’t murder those people. And neither did I.”
“Everybody’s a suspect until I hear a confession.”
“Did you get anything close to that earlier today from Will and Hannah Reed?”
“Well, no.”
“You didn’t try hard enough. This murder case is all about simple crystals—diamonds or fudge. Let me show you what it takes to make fudge. Maybe if you understand the process, it’ll help you see how ridiculous it would be for me, Cody, or Gilpa to be involved with a murder using fudge. But maybe we can come up with some angle on the diamonds that will help us.”
“Us?”
“Jordy, the diamonds were found here in my fudge, so come into my ‘science lab.’ You have no choice if you and I want to solve this case.”
I led Jordy back to my kitchen and pantry. I held up my wrapped arm. He got the picture—I needed help. He collected the cream, butter, and the kilos of white chocolate bars that had come in yesterday. I was used to working with chocolate in the form of chips or coins, but I liked the bars better.
“They look like bars of gold,” he said.
“I like to think my fudge is that valuable. Have you checked the commodities market recently for the price of gold?”
He looked afraid of my facts again, so I added, “Gold bars are worth thousands of dollars.”
“We’re here to talk about diamonds.”
“And people like the Reeds and Earlywines who might be in the market for such things.”
By now he had his arms filled with “gold” bars, pounds of butter, and containers of cream.
“Where do you get all this stuff?” Jordy asked. “There’s still a chance that your suppliers had something to do with the diamonds.”
“The dairy products are from our farm, Jordy. Mom and Dad aren’t getting diamonds out of those udders. This chocolate came straight from Belgium in five-kilo boxes containing foil-wrapped bars—like gold. The luster dust came from France, not New York where the heist was.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“We’ve been tracing the paper trail and Internet trail of the deliveries coming here.”
“Looking for a connection to the diamonds? I’m impressed, Jordy.”
He heaved a shoulder up in a shrug, which told me he hadn’t found a connection yet. I continued on with the analysis of my fudge ingredients.
I had also ordered glucose in big jugs, which is like corn syrup. I pointed out to Jordy, “It’s harder to hide small diamonds in liquid glucose. It’s a super-refined sugar.” Glucose was commonly used in fancy candies. I was ready to experime
nt with using a Belgian candy chocolate glaze on top of my fudge, which was paintable.
Jordy was impressed with all the gadgets like my Felchlin chocolate warmer, my induction burners, which slid out on a tray from under a cabinet and didn’t use any flame, and my industrial microwave that could handle stainless-steel pans inside of it. He took a look at the framed pieces of paper on the wall that showed I was certified in safe food handling. That made me nervous.
“Mercy must have been sad to see those,” Jordy mused. “Foiled her attempt to shut you down but good.”
Jordy didn’t realize I didn’t yet have a license to operate. I had just up and started making fudge two weeks ago when I arrived and moved in. Somehow Mercy had missed that lack of an operator’s license, too, in her ardor to find my place unclean and unsafe.
“Do you know why she hates me so much?”
“She doesn’t hate anybody. She’s probably jealous of you and wishes you could be friends.”
I scoffed. “Jealous?”
We headed to the front as Jordy said, “She’s lonely, Ava. She got voted out of office, and now she has no purpose. You have a purpose with your shop. Mercy’s always been a common laborer, worked in factories and been a truck driver most of her life before she got elected.”
“I didn’t know that.” He was certainly making my head spin in a new direction about Mercy, but I still didn’t trust her. “Her nastiness seems to be a symptom of something deeper going on, Jordy.”
“She lacks a lot of self-confidence maybe. She never went to college, like some people around here who’ve scratched out a living just fine without it.”
The blood drained from my body to pool in my feet, making me feel hollow. I remembered spouting my snarky “college sorority girl” remark at Mercy right in front of the reporters, and Mercy getting madder after that. I’d been cruel, though unintentionally, of course. But still, I felt bad about my treatment of Mercy.
I said to Jordy, “I’ve found out recently from Cody that she’s really on our side in all this murder investigation. She’s been sniffing around on her own. She thinks the Reeds are your culprits.”
“What else has she found out?”
“You’ll have to ask her. And Cody, man to man this time, not sheriff to perpetrator. To Mercy’s credit, she probably respected Cody more than the rest of us and made Cody her deputy of sorts, and that’s why he got suckered into doing things that are wrong. I’m not sure those things were even Mercy’s fault. Cody’s impulsive by nature and just does things his way. The only thing that kid wants more than anything is to wear a badge.”
“That puts a new spin on things for me. Thanks, Ava.”
Jordy put down all the supplies on my cash register counter. With the apron covering up his badge and his boyish brown hair, Jordy was far less intimidating, though his pistol holster still stuck out from his side. He helped me pour ingredients into the boiler next to the copper kettles.
He said, “Not much for customers today.”
“Well, besides you telling all the newspeople we wouldn’t be talking for a couple of days until the ME’s report comes out, there’s the issue of ‘pink.’”
“Pink?”
As I handed him the four-foot wooden stir ladle, I nodded toward the pink paper on the cash register counter, pink ribbons for tying up fudge gifts, and over on the shelving units, pink accessories for girls and women, including pink coin purses and teacups for both moms and daughters. “It seems in my quest to draw women down to the docks, I’ve also kept the men away.”
“Then come up with manly fudge.”
“The church ladies have tried that. They made a few flavors with nuts. Still didn’t do much.”
Jordy chuckled. “Men like grease and dirt under their nails. Think of a flavor for that.”
“The flavor of dirt? Grease?”
He shrugged as he stirred. “You’re the fudge expert. I’m only the expert on figuring out who murdered Rainetta Johnson and Conrad Webb.”
“And neither one of us is doing all that well, are we?”
“At the moment, no.”
It was a huge thing for Jordy to admit defeat. I felt sorry for him. But not too sorry. I was still scared that I was a silver bracelet away from being hauled off to jail. How had my fudge ended up with Conrad Webb? There was also Gilpa being under suspicion for stealing Rainetta’s necklace and diamonds. And unfortunately, I’d hidden those things on his boat, so now we could easily be accused of smuggling them out to other boats on Lake Michigan. I could see that some high-powered New York attorney wouldn’t have much to do to blame us and get a murderer off scot-free. Destiny Hubbard wouldn’t have a chance. She was smart, but inexperienced.
As I watched Jordy stir the creamy confection goo over the heat, I asked, “Did you find any more diamonds at the Blue Heron Inn this morning?”
“Not a damn one,” he said.
What had happened to those diamonds Pauline and I had hidden in Jeremy’s room? Maybe Pauline hid them too well. I hadn’t even thought to ask her where she’d hidden them. Or had Jeremy or somebody else found them already and taken them off the property? That could be, but where? I promised myself to inspect every inch of my entire shop again soon.
“Moose said he thought the Coast Guard was inspecting boats for stolen goods. Do you know what that’s about?”
Jordy stopped stirring. “Our office is working with them, yes. And, yes, we’re wondering if there’s more than just the smuggling of diamonds going on. Don’t tell the media.”
My heartbeat sped up. “So it’s true. You’re looking for pirates.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” He took off his apron and handed it to me.
I laid the apron on the counter, and with my throat so dry, I could hardly swallow, I ventured into treacherous waters. “Pauline Mertens and I saw the Earlywines the other day with a pouch of diamonds.”
That made him pause in his step and put on his official hat. “A pouch? Full of diamonds?”
“Yes. I have to assume they stole them or got handed them by somebody at the inn. I thought at first they stole them from Rainetta Johnson, but I’m not sure anymore. I don’t think Rainetta knew that this was all swirling around her.”
“What about her manager?”
“Jordy, there’s a possibility he was behind it all. Rainetta’s Q Score in Hollywood tanked a long time ago, so maybe he wasn’t doing well financially. He also likely knew about the family feud over the diamonds.”
“And how did you know about her connection to that feud? How’d you know she was part of that family?”
“Jeremy Stone.”
“I’ll have another talk with him.”
I ached to suggest that Jordy inspect Jeremy’s room for hidden diamonds, but something stopped me. I guessed it was trust. I trusted Jeremy Stone to have told me the truth. I couldn’t blow that trust and get him arrested, even if I didn’t like the guy. Besides, with my luck Pauline would confess and point the finger at me and I’d be behind bars in the blink of an eye.
I had a bigger challenge in front of me. What flavor of fudge would entice men back to the bait shop? Jordy said dirt and grease would work. All of us ate a certain amount of “grease” or cooking oil when we enjoyed our fried cheese curds, but cooking oil didn’t belong in fudge. As for dirt, I’d just read a foodie blog about Europeans and Japanese chefs putting dirt in their dishes. But I wasn’t about to toss some of our Door County sand and clay into my fudge. But as I stirred the bubbling ingredients with the wooden ladle while staring at the bobbers, bait, and snacks over on Gilpa’s side of the shop, ideas began to pop into my head.
Chapter 17
I started a second batch of fudge, this one with extra-dark Belgian chocolate. Now I had a white batch with vanilla but no cherries cooling in one copper kettle and the boiler cooking up a dark batch. I realized I needed somebody to whip the fudge mixture in the copper kettles. My wrist still wasn’t up to the task. I hadn’t heard from Sam yet, or Cody,
and I didn’t dare call. I knew I’d hear any bad news soon enough. With the sheriff just up the hill at the Blue Heron Inn, the bad news was bound to run down the hill, inundating me again like a flooding river.
I tromped down the pier to Sophie’s Journey. Gilpa was covered in oil again, and even worse, so was Harbor. The once cinnamon-colored, curly dog now looked like he’d been used to clean out a chimney.
“Gilpa, what in the world happened?”
“I had a bucket of rusty bolts sitting in a can of oil, and he tripped over it. And then he rolled in it before I could stop him.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sure he’ll be back with his owner within the day.” I called the animal shelter on the spot to report our odd dog. Then I got back to business. “I was wondering if you could help me whip the fudge, but I can see that’s a bad idea at the moment.”
“Why not ask your grandma?”
“Her leg won’t let her stand.”
“Perch her on a tall stool. She’s bored watching all that TV. She told me, too, she didn’t much like her church-lady friends taking over your store like they did. She didn’t mean for that to happen.”
“I know. But that was my fault. I’m in charge now. Because of Grandma.” The memory of her lecture made me feel taller and prouder. “I’ll go ask her right now if she’ll come over.”
Grandma Sophie acted like I’d just given her the biggest honor in her life. I helped her hobble on her crutches across the street, then mince her way over the threshold of the back door. She hobbled with my help to the front shop area, where she took over stirring bubbling dark chocolate that was about ready to whip in the copper kettles. She smiled as she sniffed approval. “The cows are being fed good hay. That fudge smells like the clover and alfalfa blossoms in the cream.”
“Ah, just like we’re making fine wine,” I said. “The wasps and flowers imbue the Door County grapes with unique flavors of our region.”
“And the Oosterling cows and the Oosterling hay made on our Door County land make the best fudge anywhere. Just like grass-fed cows makes the best cheese. What’s in the earth ends up in your fudge.”
First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery Page 22
