Hot Fudge Frame-Up: A Fudge Shop Mystery Read online

  “You don’t think the preservation society would sue Lloyd, do you?”

  “Perhaps. I have to be honest—that would be my advice. History is important to me.”

  This type of pressure might have pushed Lloyd to take his own life. With trepidation, I asked, “What was Lloyd’s reaction to this?”

  “I didn’t talk with him about this specifically. I suspected Lloyd was intent on selling the properties, so it’d do me no good to get in some argument. We had to get along as judges, after all, for your fudge contest. But Erik agreed with me and felt honoring the stories behind the cabins could be a historically significant project for Fishers’ Harbor. He said he’d speak with Lloyd. I was going to speak with Lloyd today. God rest his soul.”

  “But this notion of preserving the cottages can’t be new.”

  “You’re correct. Many months back when I was researching my cookbook’s chapter on Door County, I discovered Lloyd owned a lot of real estate and knew a lot of history about the area. I heard about Lloyd’s offer to buy the Blue Heron Inn if he could scrape together the money. It’s an unfortunate irony that as he’s about to buy the inn where a death occurred, his own death occurs. It’s like the Blue Heron Inn is jinxed.”

  A prickly unease crawled over me because Lloyd had been so joyous about me moving into the empty inn.

  I excused myself to find my grandfather, taking Lucky Harbor with me.

  Once outside, the brown dog skittered fast down the wooden planks of our pier, heading straight for Sophie’s Journey. He leaped over the boat’s railing, then disappeared inside. As I got closer, I could see him inside the open cabin, licking my grandfather’s face. The dog then launched into the water to paddle for the shallower, reedy marsh area where he loved to catch frogs.

  My grandfather was covered in black oil, which was, as always, in his thick silver hair. His mood was as dark as his looks. With a mug of coffee in his gnarled hands, Gilpa sat at the small table bolted to the floor in the middle of the cabin. I sat down across from him. The trawler rocked on a wave that washed in from a passing speedboat.

  “Sorry about Lloyd, Gilpa.”

  He nodded, watching the dog plop about for frogs. Gilpa’s eyes were rheumy, the lids red. “His passing isn’t good at all.”

  “He was a good man.”

  “Did I ever tell you he got a hole in one at the golf course but never bragged about it?”

  “Yes, Gilpa. You were both in your twenties, I believe.”

  “Lloyd spent his entire life trying to get another hole in one.”

  “I saw him yesterday on his way to golf. He remembered I liked science. And he gave me cookbooks.”

  “He was kind to our family. He let us buy the house instead of renting. Same for the bait shop.”

  I’d heard the story before. Lloyd had bought the cabins and bait shop not long after college. He’d inherited money, but he’d always worked hard at odd jobs, saving every penny. After I was born and my grandparents moved off the farm, Lloyd sold them the house and shop. That’s how they came to transplant themselves from the Belgian community around Brussels and move here amid the Swedes and others of Fishers’ Harbor. I suspected the deal’s terms had been generous; my grandparents had been poor, and still weren’t all that well off.

  “Gilpa, do you want me to put up a sign inside that there are no more fishing excursions today or this weekend?”

  “No, Ava honey. Just like that dog, I need to be in the water. Lloyd would want me to get that ‘hole in one’ today. He used to always catch bigger fish than me, too. He was good at everything.”

  “So are you, Gilpa.”

  He gestured toward the back of the boat. “Not with these damn engines. Hunks of metal are defeating me today.”

  “Maybe Lloyd left you a pile of money and you can buy yourself a new boat finally, one with big, shiny new engines.”

  “Oh, I doubt that. Libby’s getting it all, I’m sure, or a big share of it. He loved her still, you know.”

  “I think she still loved him, too. Which confuses me when I think of him committing suicide right where Libby worked. He wouldn’t do that to her if he loved her.” But doubt nagged me. “Would he?”

  Grandpa sipped his coffee. “Your grandma says he treated Libby with a raw deal, but divorce and bachelorhood suited Lloyd. He just liked doing things without consulting others. He always was a private man.”

  “He told P.M. and me that he was signing a contract with somebody tonight. Do you know who that was?”

  “You mean the buyer for Duck Marsh Street and your cabin? He wouldn’t even tell me. But I respected that. His business was his business; my business is mine. We Belgians don’t go sticking our noses into other people’s affairs. We don’t need trouble. The Old Country taught us that in World War Two. Gotta stay neutral.”

  “But Belgium was overrun by everybody, Grandpa. It wasn’t that they were just neutral. It was that the Belgians chose not to get in a fight.”

  “Which makes me wonder about you.”

  “In what way?”

  “Those goofy fudge makers of yours fighting like that yesterday in your shop was a shameful thing.”

  His scolding was given with love. I said, “I won’t let it happen again.”

  “Good. I understand that P.M.’s boyfriend stirred up this batch of fun called the fudge contest, but don’t let the doofus turn it into a circus, honey. You let guys run your life before on that little TV series and don’t get me started on you-know-who.” He meant Dillon Rivers. “A.M. and P.M. are my favorite superheroine duo. You have special powers and must rule your own life. Remember that.” He winked at me.

  I winked back. “Thanks, Grandpa. I love you.”

  “Love you.”

  When I got up to go, he said, “Mercy Fogg was here earlier looking for you.”

  I sagged. “What did she want?”

  “Something about how two of the judges had to disqualify themselves from the judging because they were doing underhanded stuff. Whatever that means.”

  Oh, crap. The bribe came to mind. Rumors must have spread around town already. I told my grandpa about Piers allegedly handing Erik some money, and Lloyd learning about it. “Lloyd also told Pauline and me that Mercy’s not to be trusted.” A fact I now realized I’d forgotten to mention to Jordy and that I hadn’t pursued with Lloyd. “Do you know of anything going on between Mercy and Lloyd?”

  My grandpa spilled his coffee on his hands. “Dammit. Sorry for my French, but I just remembered something.”

  He made his way off the boat posthaste while muttering, “Mercy is more than a busybody. Come with me. I want to show you something. At least I hope it’s still there.”

  Lucky Harbor leaped up onto the pier, then shook lake water all over us.

  The three of us went around to the back of the shop. The dog had to stay outside. Grandpa led me into the storage room that was opposite the kitchen.

  The room was sixteen by twelve and filled to the brim with boxes of supplies for our respective shops. My boxes of books and other things that Sam had moved for me were stacked near the doorway. Shelves lined all the walls except for a small window facing south and the end of the harbor’s parking lot. I had planned to get Cody to help me turn the space into some semblance of a sitting room with a sofa hide-a-bed this weekend. With Lloyd’s death, though, I assumed I’d be able to stay in my cabin longer.

  My grandpa shoved aside boxes until he got to the back corner.

  “What are we looking for, Grandpa?”

  “A box Lloyd gave me to hang on to maybe five years ago.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “You’ll have to look at it to believe it.”

  Gilpa knelt on the floor in the back corner. He whipped out his pocketknife and used the little corkscrew to poke into a wooden plank. He pulled up a trapdoor. />
  “Has that secret door always been here?”

  “Since the day I bought the place. This room was filled with old fishing nets then.” He stretched an arm down into hole. “When I cleared out the nets, one of them snagged on a sliver of wood and when I pulled hard, up came the door. It was probably put in by a fisherman long ago when he needed a place to hide his wages while he returned to his trawler on the lake. They could be out there for days and weeks sometimes.”

  “No banks around here in those days.”

  From the maw below the floorboards, he pulled up a roughly hewn wooden chest about the size of my grandmother’s jewelry box, about a foot wide by eight inches front to back and six inches deep. Gilpa set it on the dusty floor. Rusted iron hinges held the lid in place. There was no lock, just an iron pin through the front latch. Grandpa wiggled the pin, but it wouldn’t budge. He got up, then put the box against the wall before giving it a kick to loosen the rust. The pin rattled loose.

  The box was filled with letters and small jewelry boxes, and autographed golf balls.

  Grandpa said, “This is Lloyd’s honesty box.”

  “What the heck is that?” I knelt beside him.

  He opened a ring box. “It’s still here. Safe and sound.”

  While he sighed with relief I marveled at the lovely emerald sparkler in a rectangular cut. After my unfortunate adventure in May in which diamonds had been hidden in my kitchen and my fudge, I hesitated touching the ring. “Why is this here, Gilpa?”

  “Lloyd gave me these things for safekeeping. This was Libby’s engagement ring. He didn’t want Libby to get her hands on it.”

  “Why?”

  “Honey, the reason for their divorce was Libby’s gambling.”

  “Oh my. Does Grandma know about this?”

  “She’s always known that Libby and Mercy Fogg have enjoyed gambling over at the casino.” The Oneida Casino was near the airport on the west edge of Green Bay, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes from Fishers’ Harbor when traffic is light. “But your grandma doesn’t know about this box. Lloyd didn’t want anybody to know. I’ll have to hand this over to the executor of his estate.”

  “So Lloyd saved things of Libby’s he didn’t want her to pawn?”

  “That’s right. Lloyd was sentimental. He knew that one day Libby would have quit gambling and then regretted getting rid of her ring. He felt that someday she’d be honest with herself about herself.”

  “Thus the name ‘honesty’ box. That’s interesting because for all his sentimentality, Lloyd was about to turn Duck Marsh Street into a condo development. Professor Faust just told me that months ago he’d suggested somebody try to convince Lloyd to preserve my cabin and the others. The professor was about to talk to Lloyd about it just before he died.”

  “I don’t know about their discussions. But Faust is right. There was plenty of brouhaha about the cabins months ago. It’s died down lately. Lloyd was a shrewd businessman, far shrewder than I ever cared about being myself, and condos would certainly help my business and yours. We’d have many more people with money living right outside our back door.”

  No wonder I hadn’t heard much about the property since coming home. My grandpa was all for razing the cabins for the sake of our business.

  He handed me the emerald engagement ring. The gem glowed in the sunbeam coming through the small window. “Why didn’t he put this in a bank deposit box?”

  “Because Libby and Mercy could find out about the ring at a bank if anybody talked. He didn’t want to be bugged about it. He planned to quietly give this stuff back to her someday.”

  “He was a kind man, and yet he kept these things from Libby, which was sort of mean. I don’t know what to think of him now.”

  “He meant well.”

  “Grandma was also mighty mad at him for tossing me out of the cabin and tossing Libby out of the marriage and the big house he lived in.”

  Grandpa patted my shoulder. “Don’t you worry about your grandma. I’ll tell her about this box as soon as I can today. She’ll understand about my promise to Lloyd.”

  I handed the ring back. “But we came here because I’d mentioned Mercy Fogg.”

  He put the ring back in its box, then began fishing about in the other small boxes and letters in the chest. The oil residue on his hands was smudging the envelopes. He came up with a fistful of letters tied together. “These must be it.”

  “What?”

  “Love letters. Or threatening letters. Probably both. From Mercy.”

  This time I didn’t hesitate. I snatched a couple of smudged envelopes to look inside. “Mercy is a horrible poet.”

  “But very good at rhyming threatening notes. Look at this one.”

  I read aloud the note he handed me. “Lloyd, Lloyd, handsome as any star on celluloid/Date me, love me, share with me a life/Or I’ll tell everyone I know that you stole from your wife. Oh, Grandpa, this is nasty. And how did she know Lloyd kept things from his wife?”

  “I’m sure Libby speculated about precious things she couldn’t find, and then Mercy took up the cause and confronted Lloyd. He likely told her to mind her own business, but it was too late. Mercy had guessed what he was doing.”

  “Mercy is always trying to run things her way. Trying to run my life at times, and Libby’s life, it appears.”

  “Nothing came of it, but I’m sure this chest is filled with all kinds of evidence of her threats. If the poor woman ever sued him, Lloyd would’ve come here to fetch this to stop her silly stuff and clear his name.”

  Cold reality crackled through me. “Grandpa, we need to show this collection to Sheriff Tollefson.” I reminded him of the rock and note thrown through the lighthouse window. “Maybe Mercy did that to cause trouble for Lloyd? Maybe she wanted to rekindle something with him?”

  Grandpa shook his head. “I don’t know about that, Ava honey. It’s been about five years since Lloyd gave me anything to put in this box. I was sure her mooning over him was over.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Pauline texting that Laura Rousseau had been released from the hospital.

  “Grandpa, Pauline and I are going down to Sturgeon Bay to pick up Laura. I could take the box with me and give it to the sheriff for safekeeping until we know who the executor is for Lloyd.”

  He ran an oily hand over his already-smudged face, which now had a tear streaking down it. “I’m gonna miss Lloyd.”

  I fell into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Gilpa.”

  * * *

  I left Lucky Harbor with Gilpa. A half hour later Pauline and I were in my yellow pickup truck with the chest in the backseat and going down Highway 42 when a car failed to yield at the stop sign to my left on a country road intersection. I swerved, but then we were sailing in the air.

  Chapter 8

  I came to hanging sideways in my seat belt. The truck had come to rest on its side.

  Pauline was lying against her door and the ground below me where her window was open to the grass.

  “Pauline?”

  She grunted. “I think we rolled all the way over.”

  “I wasn’t going fast enough to do more.”

  “For once.”

  By the time we unbuckled—carefully with arms bracing at all angles—several people had stopped on Highway 42 to render aid. We climbed out through the window of my door by using the steering wheel as a step. A woman handed me tissues. “You’re bleeding.”

  Blood was trickling down the left side of my face from somewhere on my head. Pauline was working kinks out of an elbow and had grass sticking out of an ear.

  It took about twenty minutes for Deputy Maria Vasquez to show up, lights flashing. She joined us in the grassy field. “Everybody okay?”

  The sun made me squint. “Yeah. Just a cut.”

  She wore an official brimmed hat today with her
brown-and-tan uniform. Her glossy black hair was in a neat braid that draped over a shoulder. She took our report as the tourists went on their way. None of them had seen what had happened except one person thought he’d seen a dark car heading off down the crossroad. My yellow truck was a dented mess, but our seat belts had saved us.

  Dillon showed up in his white construction company truck. He trotted down the embankment. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, we’re fine,” I said, accepting a fresh tissue from him. “Somebody ran a stop sign and I swerved to get out of the way.”

  Dillon’s fingers probed gently at the top of my head. “You might need a stitch or two.”

  Pauline came to look. “Yeah, your brains are oozing out.”

  I had to smile. I said to Dillon, “We were headed to the hospital anyway to pick up Laura.”

  Deputy Vasquez said, “I can take you.”

  “No,” Dillon said, “I can take them.”

  Before this got ridiculous, I said, “Dillon, we’ll go with the deputy. I’m sure making a report will take a while and you’ve got to get back to Al and your crew.”

  His dark eyes intensified with concern. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “Just shaken up.”

  “I’ll get your things from the truck. A couple of purses?”

  “And a wooden box. It was in the backseat.”

  He hoisted himself up and onto the tipped truck’s driver’s door, then lowered himself inside. He popped up with Pauline’s giant purse, but not my cross-body bag with my wallet and cell phone.

  He hopped down. “No other purse. There wasn’t a box.”

  “It couldn’t have just disappeared like that.”

  Deputy Vasquez said, “Your windows were open. People don’t realize the centrifugal force that happens in a rollover. People get flung out right through the windows if they don’t wear seat belts. Your purse and box are here someplace.”