Five-Alarm Fudge Read online

  Lucky Harbor sneezed, then raced around the corner of the stone winery building again. He stopped to peer back at me, then disappeared. I refused to think lightning could strike twice. The dog must have found a cat or woodchuck that interested him.

  Mike was about to walk away, and I tried to hold back my questions, I really did, because Dillon was standing there, but I was bursting. “Wait. Mike, did you or Fontana set the fire? Did you have anything to do with Cherry’s death?”

  Dillon groaned.

  Mike took a moment, creating suspicion in my mind. “No. I . . . I just don’t want Fontana taking the fall for it. She’s . . . fragile.”

  Dillon said, “Listen, what you do in your spare time isn’t my business, but she was with Cherry last Saturday night.”

  I said to Mike, “And you were out in your car and hit John and my manager from behind. Maybe you hit one of them on the head from behind in the church later.”

  Mike blinked. “Your manager?”

  “The Hollywood kind of manager. They drove on instead of confronting you because my manager is from a place where gang members might be in the car behind you. You don’t mess with people.”

  “Unlike your grandfather.” Mike held up the six-pack of fudge.

  Dillon asked, “So, Mike, what gives? Did you follow them? Why were you headed in that direction, the opposite way from your property?”

  I asked, “Did you go to the church in Namur that night?”

  “Stop, both of you.” He clutched the fudge to his chest. “I didn’t go to Saint Mary of the Snows. I went to see Jonas that night.”

  “That late?”

  “It’s not like we’re old people. Heck, it wasn’t even past midnight at that time. I thought maybe Jonas and I could find a compromise about the chemicals. I should have brought him your fudge.”

  I ignored his limp smile. “So you talked?”

  “We didn’t talk. There was somebody else at his house.”

  “Who?”

  Sweat popped onto his forehead again. “A woman. I saw her through the window.”

  “Jonas didn’t see your lights as you came in the driveway?”

  “Well, my one headlight was out. I shut off my lights as I coasted closer because I was curious. I could tell there was a woman in the living room with him.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I already told the sheriff.”

  Dillon said, “Tell us.”

  Mike’s face grew redder. “Kjersta Dahlgren was there. Jonas was kissing her.”

  * * *

  Dillon whistled for Lucky Harbor. The dog came but kept flicking his head toward the corner of the winery. Mike lingered at his doorway, watching us. I wondered if he was concerned we might go behind the winery for a look at what was attracting the dog.

  When I mentioned Lucky Harbor’s behavior to Dillon as we drove away from the winery, he lifted up the lavender bag sitting on the console between us. “Probably someone shot down by this perfume. It put a stop to the fight in everybody, including me, in an instant.”

  “Fontana doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s like my contest chef Kelsey King this past summer trying to make fudge with fungi. Dangerous.”

  Dillon said, “What’s dangerous is your grandmother drinking so much. Does she believe in ghosts?”

  “She believes in guardian angels and the Holy Spirit. She’s a staunch Catholic. She believes Sister Adele Brise really did see the Blessed Virgin in the woods near here.”

  “Where was that exactly?”

  “Southwest of here along the bay.”

  “Has she mentioned going to Chicago before? To find this ghost in your family?”

  “Never. This is very strange of her, Dillon.”

  “I wonder why Chicago. Any connection to Sister Adele?”

  “Not that I know of. A good question, though.”

  “I’m learning from the best. What or who is in Chicago that would tell her about ghosts?”

  “I haven’t a clue.”

  On the way to Ava’s Autumn Harvest, we stopped alongside Highway 57 as soon as we saw the scorched grass. Grandpa was right. It looked as if a small bomb had been dropped. We got out of the truck for a closer look. Lucky Harbor immediately set to work with his nose, snuffling and sneezing. Fencing wire had been cut in one area to let the fire pumper trucks through to douse the fire before it reached nearby cedars and maples or spread farther into the Dahlgren orchard.

  Oddly enough, I smelled Fontana’s perfume intermingled with the lingering taint from the grass fire. “I’m going to have to shower. We smell awful.”

  Dillon said, “Lucky Harbor, too.”

  The dog was rolling around in a patch of blackened grass. Before I let him in the backseat, I spread an old towel across it.

  We drove around the corner onto Highway C. I parked in the grass next to the stone barn. This side had been untouched by the fire.

  My mother looked worried as she came out of the stone barn. She had a broom in her hand. As I drew within a couple of yards of her, she puckered up. “What’s that smell?”

  “Fontana’s perfume.” I held up the lavender bag. “Want some?”

  “Sure. I’ll spray it around the porch at home to keep the skunks from nesting under there.”

  She took the bag from me and I grabbed her broom. “Mom, you go home. I think Grandpa’s at the farm showering. He was fighting the fire and got mixed up in that perfume, too.”

  Florine gave Dillon her evil-eye look. “You’ll keep watch over my daughter? And keep your hands in your pockets and not on her?”

  I burst out laughing.

  She gave in to a smile herself, then headed toward her Holstein-motif minivan.

  I said to Dillon, “She’s getting used to you.”

  “Not quite a vote of confidence yet, but that was progress.”

  There weren’t any customers. The scorched ground was probably scaring them off. I locked up.

  I wandered over to the Dahlgrens’ large garden, a field really, behind the house. Pumpkins needed picking. Some plump, ripe tomatoes were on the verge of rotting on the ground. I was sure several restaurants could use them. The garden shed had yellow tape across its doors, though, indicating I couldn’t get access to the tools. Or shouldn’t, anyway.

  “Why don’t we get the word out to friends and neighbors that we’re going to pick this garden for Kjersta and Daniel? Let’s try for tomorrow night. Wednesdays are always quiet.” Thursdays were when the tourists started threading into the county for their long weekends.

  “Sounds good.”

  Dillon turned to go back to the truck, but I headed to the house.

  Dillon caught up with me, grabbing an arm. “Oh no you don’t. You’re addicted to yellow crime scene tape. You have to stop this.” But he let go of me.

  I hopped up the steps. “I need to get into the house.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Mike must be lying about Kjersta and Jonas. Kjersta loves Daniel. There would not be kissing going on with Jonas. There must be some reason Mike would lie. And Fontana was definitely covering up for Mike, too. I want to look through Kjersta’s papers and notes, to see if there’s anything about the feud with the neighbors.”

  “You’re assuming the sheriff left behind something.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t think you need to get into this house. Start with Jonas. Ask him what he knows.”

  My instincts said something was about to explode with all this subterfuge by my friends here in my old neighborhood. I explained to Dillon that my former teacher hadn’t been trustworthy. He’d cooked our math grades a couple of times. “That’s why I think he’s lying.”

  “He gave you an A when you didn’t deserve it?”

  “I deserved the A. But some kids hadn’t made the grade, and if they hadn’t, they would have lost scholarships to college.”

  “That sounds half-bad and half-good.”

  “But he cheated, and that’s what
bothers me. He could be lying about Kjersta and Jonas for some reason. Maybe to protect Fontana. And why the heck isn’t Fontana in jail yet?”

  “Obviously, the sheriff hasn’t found a solid connection between her and the murder.”

  “Yet.”

  Dillon went back down the front steps, his heavy work shoes clomping against the wood. “So you think Mike and Fontana killed Cherry in his car, Mike dragged him to the basement, and then Fontana and Mike drove off with Mike hiding the car somewhere.”

  “That’s about right.” But it still bothered me that Fontana could hop in bed with Mike so soon after Cherry’s death. At least, I assumed they were sleeping together. I came down the steps, defeated.

  Dillon put an arm around me. “What’d you find out from Fontana?”

  “Not much. All I can assume is that she’s looking for the divinity fudge recipe. She thought it might be hidden in Jonas’s roadside chapel.”

  “That’s not a bad idea to inspect all the chapels. How many are there around here?”

  “Dozens. And many are part of old garages or in the back rooms of houses built in the 1800s. Every Belgian immigrant back then maintained a private chapel.”

  “It seems impossible to find a recipe that Adele scribbled on a piece of paper.”

  “But my grandfather insists it’s in the church. Gilpa is always right when it counts.” I kissed Dillon on the cheek. “Thanks for helping me. It’s fun working together and being together.”

  He hauled me into his arms and kissed me soundly until my toes itched.

  When we got back into my truck, Lucky Harbor’s gaze was piercing and steady, as if he were asking me to do something. The eerie feeling that he wanted me to go back to the winery brushed across my brain. I shook it off, giving the Dahlgren house one last look. The yellow tape was calling to me, just as something was calling to Lucky Harbor.

  Chapter 19

  Dillon and I returned to Fishers’ Harbor to get back to work. Several customers in my shop enjoyed watching me stir Belgian chocolate in my copper kettles. When it spun in the air just so, I poured the batch onto the white marble table and gave several customers loafing tools. For a time, I forgot my worries.

  But the fudge making got me to thinking about the possible lies and cover-ups going on among Jonas, Mike, Fontana, and perhaps Kjersta.

  At five o’clock, I begged Pauline to drive me down to the Dahlgren place in her clunker nondescript gray car so we wouldn’t be detected. Laura was along. The plan was that we would pick vegetables for Kjersta and Daniel, but I would find a way to sneak into the house.

  Cody’s girlfriend, Bethany, was babysitting Clara Ava and Spencer Paul.

  During the entire journey, the clinkety-clunk rattle in the undercarriage or hubcaps of Pauline’s sedan continued.

  Pauline said, “Why don’t you drive this car from now on since you wrecked it anyway, and I’ll take your yellow truck? Fair exchange.”

  “No, thanks. I like my truck. It has sentimental value.”

  “You crashed your other truck with me in it. Yeah, that’s sentimental, all right.”

  “Dillon found this truck on the Internet for me. Pauline, you forget that John is involved in all this. I’m doing this to help prove his innocence.”

  Pauline growled, “You always know when to pull that card.”

  “Is he remembering anything more about late Saturday night or early Sunday morning?”

  “I haven’t seen him much.”

  I exchanged a look with Laura in the backseat, then said to Pauline, “He’s not sleeping at your house?” He hadn’t stayed with Dillon last night.

  “No.”

  “Mercy Fogg’s?”

  Laura burst out laughing in the back. But I saw that I’d gone too far. Tears were shimmering in Pauline’s eyes as she drove.

  I offered her, “He’s going to be fine, Pauline. John wants to prove himself worthy of you. Let him and Marc chase this TV show idea for a while. Everything will turn out okay. You’ll see.”

  “They’re lawless, just like you. Nothing’s going to be fine. Your manager trashed the church kitchen to create a scene they could film. Nothing’s going to be all right when they pull stunts like that.”

  Laura and I shut up. The car felt mighty chilly the rest of the drive.

  * * *

  We parked the car behind the stone barn so it couldn’t be seen from County Trunk C. Trees blocked it mostly from view from Highway 57.

  The redbrick Dahlgren house was an old farmhouse, the kind with a storm cellar entrance outside in back and low to the ground. I guessed there’d be no yellow tape across it, and I was right. I used the jack from Pauline’s car to bust the lock. We descended the concrete steps, lowering the door above our heads.

  The basement was dry and pleasant smelling, a larder filled with canned vegetables, jars, Christmas decorations in plastic boxes, and other things that didn’t interest us.

  Upstairs on the first floor I went to the desk in the living room alcove. I riffled through the drawers while Pauline and Laura walked through the house looking for notes, file cabinets, and anything having to do with the neighbors or the university’s research.

  Laura reported back first. “There’s not even a laptop or computer tablet left anywhere.”

  I said, “Jordy’s thorough.” As I said that, the desk yielded papers from the university extension service in Green Bay from Professor Wesley Weaver. They were under a stack of sales slips for apples and vegetables to local restaurants.

  The papers were correspondence revealing that Professor and Dean Wesley Weaver wasn’t pleased with Professor Hardy’s research, which was having a negative impact on the entire department as well as their two teaching assistants—Nick and Will—who were working on their doctorates. But Weaver informed the Dahlgrens that the research project would end by September 30.

  Laura said, “The papers show that Professor Weaver was upset, not that the Dahlgrens were upset with Cherry.”

  “And it’s fairly common that research projects would end by October, because that’s the month when federal budgets end or renew. I remember that from college. Professors were always worrying about federal grants running out in the fall.”

  Pauline sat down in a nearby olive green leather chair. “What irony. The project is about to end, and he gets murdered. The person murdering him maybe didn’t know it was over.”

  With elation, I got up and went over to hug Pauline. “You’re right. This proves the Dahlgrens didn’t kill him. There’s no motive. We can take this evidence to Jordy and they’re freed.”

  Laura sat on the arm of the Dahlgrens’ green leather couch. “But that letter is dated a couple of weeks ago.” She tucked a wisp of her blond bob behind an ear. “Cherry knew his project was about to end but didn’t tell anybody.”

  “Out of pride,” I said, defending him.

  Pauline asked, “But why didn’t Kjersta and Daniel tell your neighbors? Including your parents? Why did they let Jonas stay mad at them? And Mike?”

  Her question made me twist my ponytail around in my fingers. “Obviously, something else transpired in the past two weeks. And if what Mike said is true, Kjersta was at Jonas’s the night of the murder. She saw cars on the road, she says, but she said that sighting was from her house.”

  Laura let her lithe body slide off the couch arm and down onto a cushion. “So she’s wide-awake that night. Where was Daniel during all this?”

  Pauline tapped her hands on the leather chair arms. “Sleeping like the rest of us? It certainly was one busy little country road that night.”

  I walked back to the papers on the desk. “We need to talk with Kjersta and Daniel and that professor. What about tomorrow? We need to pick vegetables anyway.”

  Pauline said, “That was supposed to be our cover tonight. And you forget I’m teaching thirteen kindergartners. Tomorrow we’re painting a mural about Snow White and the Seven Little People. I have to keep track of twenty-six hands filled with
finger paints making pictures of Grumpy and Sneezy.”

  “Now it sounds like we’re talking about Fontana’s perfume and soaps.”

  Laura said, “She gave me a bag of that stuff after my twins were born. I had to double-bag it before putting it in the trash can behind the Luscious Ladle. But it kept the raccoons away.”

  * * *

  On Wednesday midafternoon, Lucky Harbor showed up at my shop with a note in the orange floatable key holder secured to his collar. Piers helping me with claw-foot tub. Progress being made for the prince and princess. XOXO.

  The letters meant hugs and kisses. I glowed.

  Dillon inspired me. If he’d commandeered Piers to help him refurbish the inn, perhaps there was hope it’d be completed in time for the visit by my royal relatives. When there was a lull in the afternoon, I took the time to do more research online for divinity fudge information. I also remembered I wanted to look up Jane Goodland.

  On the Internet, none of the images and references said anything about any Jane Goodland being a lawyer. One photo was a mug shot of a dark-haired woman who’d been arrested for bank robbery a few years ago. Another photo depicted another dark-haired woman in England who wrote children’s picture books. She seemed like a possibility for buying our bookstore, yet she was in England. The final image was of a blond exotic dancer. Because there’d been hints around town of the lawyer being a bombshell, I wondered if the dancer was also a lawyer. I refused to believe an exotic dancer was taking over the Wise Owl bookstore.

  After school was out for the kindergartners at two thirty, I decided that I could satisfy my curiosities about Kjersta by talking to her directly in jail. I also wanted to talk with Professor Weaver in Green Bay. He could shed light on what was going on among his colleagues and Cherry.

  Lois and Dotty had come by with new fairy-tale-fudge-themed aprons they’d made for sale and agreed to work in the store until Cody could drop by later. Dotty said, “We’re working on new fudge flavor ideas for you. We think we have a good one. But it’s a secret for now.”

  Everybody had secrets lately.

  I hopped into my truck, then picked up Pauline. Laura had driven down from Sister Bay with her twins, whom Bethany was babysitting at Pauline’s house.