Hot Fudge Frame-Up: A Fudge Shop Mystery (15 page)

* * *

We circled inland and drove the rural road that would take us by Lloyd’s on the southwest edge of the village. Instead of turning into Lloyd’s lane from the main road where people might spot us, I parked Grandma’s SUV around a corner on the rural road with woodland between us and Lloyd’s house. “If anybody asks, we’re here picking berries in the woods,” I said.

Laura was puffing as we made our way through the acre of maples and pines and tall grasses. We were inside Lloyd Mueller’s house within minutes. I locked the door behind us. Laura hurried to the restroom not far from the front door.

The beauty of the atrium with the stained glass skylights and warm woods on the floors stopped me again.

Pauline dropped her purse in awe. “So he just took out the floor above? That was a bold architectural move in such an old house. I never heard about this.”

“That was Lloyd. He quietly went about his business.”

“Too secretive, though, if you ask me. If he asked your grandpa to hide a box, and he lets Mercy put her signature on a contract without telling anybody, I’m not sure Lloyd can be trusted at all. Maybe he and Mercy had something going on.”

My conniptions returned because she was right. “Mercy and Lloyd? A pair?”

“A secret affair would explain a lot of stuff. Except why would she threaten to get rid of Lloyd? Isn’t that what the first note said?”

“No, it didn’t.” That note was burned into my brain. I repeated it out loud.
“Somebody will die if you don’t convince Lloyd to throw the contest. Miss Oosterling must not win.”

“So Mercy merely wanted you to lose. She didn’t care who died.”

“She’s always wanted my business to founder. She probably thinks I’d move back to Los Angeles. If so, she and Lloyd then wouldn’t have so much opposition to selling the building and land under it for the expansion of the harbor they planned.” My theory was all too plausible.

“Maybe that’s why Lloyd was so eager to have you move into the Blue Heron Inn? He wanted you to feel agreeable, even if the bait shop got torn down. Boy, this plan of theirs was almost too pat.”

“Except somebody got too eager and greedy and murdered Lloyd and messed things up a little for the lovers. If Mercy and Lloyd were lovers.” I sighed. Now the theory didn’t feel right. “Lloyd was my grandpa’s best friend. And Lloyd was trying to protect Libby from Mercy.”

“Are you sure? Or was it all just a cover-up for an affair? Maybe what you witnessed at the fish boil that evening was more of a lovers’ spat with Kelsey.”

She’d just made my stomach twist in on itself. I wasn’t sure of anything.

Laura rejoined us. “Where do we begin?”

“Laura, you stay downstairs and hunt through drawers, and, Pauline, you go upstairs.”

“Why do I have to go upstairs?”

She’d always wanted to be boss, from the time we played house at the age of five. “You have to go upstairs because you’re the tallest. You can look in the tops of closets the easiest.”

“I suppose that makes sense, but if somebody comes, I can’t escape like you two. I’ll be stuck upstairs and they’ll find me.”

Laura said, “Like I’m going to be able to run?”

“Pauline,” I said, giving her a stink-eyed look, “nobody will put a pregnant woman or a schoolteacher in jail.”

“Oh yes, they will. Women give birth in prisons all the time and schoolteachers end up teaching poetry to felons.”

“You’re wasting time. I’ll take the library in back. Meet me there when you’re done.”

We started to head off to do our spying, but then Laura noticed the cups and saucers in their cabinet. “All in pink flowers. Pink, like your famous fudge.”

I hadn’t made the connection when I looked at them previously.

Laura made her way down the glass cabinet like a kid at a Christmas store window. “Wedgwood Avon Cape Cod. Just like my grandmother had. And Royal Albert bone china. The Royal Country Roses pattern. Royal Doulton’s ‘May’ pattern. Made in the late 1800s in England.”

Pauline and I came in for a closer look. That’s when I noticed a couple of cups and saucers were missing. Previously I’d seen shelves that were packed. But the lower shelf—the one that might go unnoticed at first—now sported cups with spaces between them as big as a hand, as if somebody had hastily reshuffled all the cups to hide thievery. I said as much to my friends.

Laura said, “But who would come in here and take a couple of cups?”

We all looked at one another with a slow burn growing on our faces. I said, “Kelsey? Maybe Mercy? If either had something going on with Lloyd, she would’ve been in here.”

“What about Libby?” Pauline asked.

“She’s visited for years. Why would she wait until now to steal two cups? But it’s a good point. Maybe the cups had sentimental value.”

Pauline said, “We should give her a call about this before we report it to the sheriff.”

“Indeed,” I said. “But it feels like Kelsey’s doings again. I just don’t trust her.”

“Another big lead?” Laura asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, remembering Jordy’s need for hard evidence. “We’ll call it a soft and loose connection.”

Pauline said, “Whatever the connection, it’s odd that he dissed your cherry pink fudge when he seemed to like pink cups.”

Laura pointed out, “But maybe he dissed pink because these cups belonged to Libby and they’d fought over them.”

We agreed that seemed plausible, unfortunately. But we were here to find out why Lloyd was murdered and to find anything to do with my fudge shop building, not about Lloyd’s cup collection.

As I passed the bottom of the staircase, I recalled the gun cabinet was tucked into the alcove on the other side. Even from a few feet away I could see that a rifle was missing. Unlike the cup shelves, you can’t rearrange rifles. They fit in slots and sleeves within a cabinet. One was missing. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck lifted. I made a mental note to call Dillon as soon as we were done here.

In the library, we paused to appreciate the rose-garden view. Many shades of pink bloomed amid the full rainbow of colors. Who had come here to steal just two cups that had pink roses on them? If Libby wanted her collection back, why not just take the entire thing?

I scanned the room for a good place to start. With three walls filled with books, this could take forever, especially if Lloyd liked hiding things in books or fake boxes that looked like books. I recalled the spot where he’d withdrawn the cookbooks. If Lloyd had been trying to tell me something in code, that was the place to start.

I leaned down and grabbed slim volumes of Lutheran cookbooks from the 1980s. I was born in that era, so I thought there might be a secret message from Lloyd. I found great recipes for “Potato-Wiener Surprise” and “Tater Tot Hot Dish” and a dessert bar called “Chewios” and recipes for “Cowboy Cookies,” “Raspberry Bars,” and “Rocky Road Fudge Bars.” I was salivating and getting hungry. It was right before lunch. The pie section of the book had me drooling, too. I even smelled the old book to see if the pie aromas were present. I remembered that Pauline and I ate paper when we were kids.

A German section of the cookbook included Schwarzauer, a fruit soup, and Pfeffernüsse Cookies, which required ground coriander seed. Kelsey King would like that recipe. I had to give Kelsey her chops; maybe combining plants and spices with sugar could yield a great fudge. Just leave out her silly dirt. I decided to borrow the cookbook for reading later. Nobody would miss it and I would bring it back somehow, sometime.

The next handful of books to the right of the gap where Lloyd had chosen his books yielded something more interesting. A slim volume held recipes for preserving fish and creating fish dishes, contributed by fishermen and even a captain of a fishing boat plying Lake Michigan in the late 1800s through the 1930s. There were sketches and photos, and one sketch of a building was a dead ringer for Oosterlings’. It was unique that this book’s recipes came entirely from men. I flipped twice through the book to make sure. Some names were familiar. A Hans Mueller was perhaps a relation of Lloyd’s? His grandfather perhaps. Perhaps he had been married to Ruth Mueller, the name I’d come across previously. Hans had a recipe for cooking white fish in a beer sauce. My family liked fish sautéed on endives with beer, too. Germans and Belgians were close geographically in Europe and close in what their palates enjoyed.

Then, out of the blue, as I turned a page, there was the name:

Oosterling.

I sat on the floor cross-legged for a closer look.

There was no picture or sketch. The name Bram Oosterling was paired with the name Clément Van Damme under a recipe that showed how to bake freshwater salmon with mustard. Belgians love mustard. My parents and grandparents kept at least a dozen varieties of mustard in their cupboards. They even trekked to Middleton, Wisconsin—a suburb of Madison—once a year to the National Mustard Museum to buy selections from the thousands of mustards for sale. My dad was partial to the strong, stone-ground brown mustards. If he was in a hurry for a quick lunch or snack, he’d make himself a mustard sandwich—just mustard on hearty, stone-ground bread. After I introduced him to Laura’s great cheesy bread, Pete had insisted that if he had to choose a last meal on earth, it’d be toasted cheesy bread with brown mustard and a tall glass of cold Holstein milk.

This Bram Oosterling being in the same book as Hans Mueller made me wonder: Could the Mueller-Oosterling association years ago possibly have anything to do with Lloyd being so lax with his land contract with my grandfather? Perhaps Lloyd didn’t demand payments from my grandfather the way he should have because our ancestors had been friends. Or was there some pact they’d made? Did the Muellers owe something to the Oosterlings, instead of the other way around? But why? For what? That train of thought felt dangerous, though. Somebody might think my grandfather would want Lloyd dead to avoid losing the bait shop!

That book went on top of the Lutheran church cookbook to take home to show my family.

I was about to get up from my cross-legged position when I spotted it—a safe in the wall. “Found something!”

The safe was hidden low on the wall and directly behind the books Lloyd had given me. I got on my knees to try the combination lock, but the door wouldn’t open.

Pauline pounded down the staircase and came into the room. “I found something, too!”

She held sheaves of oversized papers. “These were in a dresser in what must have been Libby’s room. They evidently didn’t sleep together when they were married.”

I got up. “I found a safe, but we’ll need tools to pry it open or out of the wall.”

“These are plans for a new harbor.” She unfolded architectural papers and laid them out on the table. “Look here.” She pointed to lines that clearly showed a row of condos. “The marsh is still there. In fact, all of Duck Marsh Street is still there, but it looks like it’s marked for rehab of some sort. But look at this.” She tapped the condos again. “See the tiny print?”

For some reason architects are trained to print on the head of a pin. I stuck my nose down to the paper and read
Oosterlings’ Fudge Shop
. Next to it was
Oosterlings’ Bait Shop.

“The plan is for separate shops?”

“A shop all your own, in a row of quaint shops built as the first floor under the condominiums. Look. There’s even a window for window service. People wouldn’t even need to come inside the shop for their fudge fix.”

I could see that Pauline thought I’d love it. But two things bothered me: Our historical bait-and-fudge shop building would be gone, and I wouldn’t be sharing any space or cocoa-laced coffee or the aromas of Fairy Tale Fudge flavors with my grandfather. Gilpa needed me. And I needed his cheery confidence in me. My heart felt like somebody had taken an ice cream scooper and hollowed it out.

I asked, “This was in Libby’s room tucked inside a drawer, right? As if somebody wanted to hide it from somebody else.”

“Maybe Lloyd was hiding it from Mercy.”

“Could be. She was the former board president, and she’s still eager to control our town. And if Lloyd and Mercy were having an affair, I doubt he’d let her go into Libby’s old room. Lloyd cared about Libby.”

Pauline grew thoughtful, tugging at a strand of her long hair. “Libby came over here now and then, right? They’d enjoy breakfast together once in a while.”

“Yeah. Why?”

“If Kelsey or Mercy were pressuring Libby about getting in here to steal things, maybe Libby had started hiding important items from view in order to protect Lloyd. He was a pretty casual guy. Look how he invited us in and just handed you a bunch of cookbooks on the spur of the moment. Maybe Lloyd saw an opportunity to begin giving away his valuables to friends so that Kelsey and Mercy wouldn’t get their hands on them.”

“You may be right.” Professor Faust’s words about buried treasures in old houses came to mind. We’d found one safe, but were there more?

Laura waddled fast into the room, flushed. “I heard voices outside the front door. Then somebody jiggling the lock. Now what?”

“We hide.” I chucked my books and the architectural drawing into Pauline’s big purse.

“Oh no, you’re not going to get me in trouble.”

“Shhh. Give me your scissors, P.M.”

“Are you planning on stabbing somebody? All I have are kindergarten scissors with rounded ends.”

“Good enough for what I have in mind. Now hurry outside. Both of you.”

P
auline, Laura, and I were in Lloyd Mueller’s rose garden when Alex Faust and Erik Gustafson surprised us by staring at us through the windows from inside the library. They must have come straight there from the front door, which made me curious. Did they know about the safe? Why were they in the house? I had made a lunch date with the professor earlier, but it didn’t look like he was tracking me down for that. He and Erik looked as surprised as we were to be meeting like this.

I waved at them, then clipped a rosebud stem with Pauline’s kindergarten scissors.

Pauline whispered, “You’d better come up with something good or we’re toast.”

“Pauline,” I whispered, “trust me.”

I handed off the prickly rosebud stem to her as Professor Faust and our village president came into the backyard. The professor had his briefcase along, but Erik also carried one, which I found odd. Laura handed Pauline a folded tissue to help handle the thorny stem.

“Well, hello, Professor Faust,” I said. “And, Erik, how are you?”

The gray-haired professor and the nineteen-year-old stood there, looking befuddled. Erik’s face was red, as if he hadn’t had as much time as I to create a lie about the reasons for being here.

The professor said, “Did you walk over here from downtown? We didn’t see a car out front.”

Pauline said, “We came through the woods. We’re doing a favor for Libby Mueller.”

Pauline flashed me a bug-eyed look, directing me to finish the lie.

“We were just at Libby’s delivering pies and we told her we’d help with the funeral tomorrow, so here we are picking a big bouquet of Lloyd’s favorite flowers to sit beside the casket.” I flexed the kindergarten scissors in my hand while I smelled another rose I’d just clipped. “Did you know these are organic? The leaves look wretched as a result of no spraying. However, the blossoms are pure as sunshine.”

Erik shrugged, looking even more confused. “That’s really nice.”

“So why are you two here?” I asked.

Erik’s head whipped toward the professor in obvious panic.

Professor Faust said, “Erik wanted my help. He says there seems to be some trouble with the real estate dealings concerning the harbor area.”

I said, “Meaning Mercy Fogg might own it, including my fudge shop.”

The professor slapped a hand on Erik’s shoulder. “That’s exactly why we’re here.” He held up a key. “I got a key from Libby. She said it’d be okay to look around for Lloyd’s papers.”

“Yes, indeed,” Erik said, “I would like to resolve this before tomorrow’s funeral.”

Guys Erik’s age never talked so formally. Had Mercy used some lie to get Erik to come here and snoop? Was a past village president helping the current village president? Erik was a fudge judge who’d possibly been bribed by Piers, and Mercy hated me. If they were all in cahoots together, I was “fudge smudged” in this plot. But what was Professor Faust’s role in this subterfuge?

I directed my question to Erik. “What about the secret buyer? Has that person talked with Mercy yet? And have you been paid to keep your silence about the buyer?”

Erik, though still muscular from his football playing days last year, appeared to shrink. “Huh?” He glanced at his phone. “Hey, I guess we’ll have to do this another time, Professor. I gotta go to work. Ronny needs me for the lunch hour.”

The professor said, “Sure thing, kid. I’ll drop you off.”

“Nah. I can hike over to the bar from here.”

Erik disappeared fast around the corner of the house. He bartended regularly at the Troubled Trout. In a small village, being president isn’t even a half-time job; it mostly pays in stipends to cover expenses.

I said, “Erik’s finding out that being an elected official can require a lot of hours and grief.”

“Indeed.” The professor looked at us with suspicion, which made me nervous. I felt like a kid in school and he’d report us to the principal for cutting class. “He told me that everybody wants something from him.”

“Yeah, and did he mention they sometimes give him money to get something? I heard that Piers Molinsky offered him money, probably to throw the fudge contest Piers’s way.”

“That’s unfortunate. But the lad didn’t take the bribe, I’m sure. And you’re down a fudge judge. Have you canceled the contest? My feelings won’t be hurt if you do. My book research is heading in a new direction anyway. Away from food for a while, thank goodness.”

“Libby might pinch-hit for Lloyd.”

The professor nodded his approval. “What a lovely thing.”

“I thought you loved writing cookbooks.”

“Historically based cookbooks were the quickest way to publish with a modicum of respect and keep up with my tenured history colleagues, who seem to cough out books at will. I’m quite intrigued now by the mealtime customs and tableware brought here by the immigrants coming to the Great Lakes. My interest has been piqued by the cup that John Schultz found.”

Pauline screamed next to me, “Really? He’s rich?”

I worked my jaw to get my hearing back.

Alex said, “From the picture of the cup he sent me on his phone, my guess is that it could be quite valuable, perhaps gifted to a maid or laborer by a king or queen, if not stolen of course.”

Pauline’s eyes gleamed. “So you and John think there’s more?”

“Oh yes. I’m aboard his ship, pun intended. He texted me to see if I knew a shipwreck expert. Mr. Schultz and I might collaborate on a travel show featuring the hunt for Lake Michigan treasure.”

“That would be fantastic!” Pauline readjusted her purse on her shoulder, standing even taller next to me. She looked ready to burst into song.

I hated to burst her bubble. “Pauline, you forget that John is videotaping my fudge contest. That takes priority at the moment.”

“You’re just jealous.”

The professor chuckled. “Perhaps it’ll all work out if the fudge contest is canceled anyway. I suspect Libby might change her mind about your offer of becoming a judge, what with her being a grieving widow of sorts.”

“She seemed okay with it. It wasn’t my idea, actually. Kelsey King was at Libby’s and the idea popped out of her mouth.”

“Miss King?” He drew in a big draft of the rose-scented air, as if to choose his words carefully. “She’s off her rocker. I’ve been researching the contestants.”

“What’d you find on Kelsey?”

“She was arrested once for cooking with weed and selling the cookies.”

Laura laughed. “Pretty common, but did she ever get into more serious trouble?”

I asked, “Or make weed fudge?”

Pauline asked, “Do you think that’s why she’s been in the park? She’s looking for marijuana plants?”

I said, “At least we know why she might have been singing on the tower.”

We all laughed. But then I sobered. “Maybe I need to disqualify her? Maybe I
should
cancel the contest. The sheriff is right. Lloyd might still be alive if it hadn’t been for my fudge contest bringing the likes of Kelsey and Piers to our town.”

The professor asked, “Certainly you’re not blaming them for Mr. Mueller’s death?”

The way he worded that brought red-faced embarrassment to me. “No, not yet, anyway. It’s just that I think they thought they’d get a lot more out of this fudge festival than merely making fudge.”

“More money?”

“Yes. And it all makes me feel funny about the dance coming up. How can we even think of dancing at a prom after Lloyd’s death?”

Laura said, “No, don’t think that, Ava. I’m determined to make you a dress and I want that dress to be worn at the prom by the fudge fairy queen. Which will be you.”

Professor Faust said, “Kelsey’s arrest was expunged from her record. It was a first-time offense.” Then he grinned with a hiked eyebrow. “Any chance I could be your date, Ava? You’ll wear one of those aprons? I thought you were fetching online in the yellow one.”

“Online?”

“At the
Door County
newspaper site under its Happenings button.”

“Drat. It was that chunky guy with the beard and his phone camera.”

“Chunky guy who?” Pauline asked. “A new man in your life?”

“Just a guy buying bait yesterday. He liked my apron.”

Laura said, “Watch out. Men read a lot into an apron. They see a whole lifetime unfold before them, such as holidays with you and him in the kitchen, preparing the turkey with the children. I wore an apron when my husband was home on leave and look at me now.”

The professor chuckled.

I was saved by a “woof” as Lucky Harbor galloped around the corner of the house, his pink tongue lolling out the side of his mouth. He leaped up on my front, panting as he got grass stains and dirt all over me.

“Where did you come from, Mr. Harbor?” I asked, pushing him down.

The dog went to the professor next, sniffing around his shoes and his pants legs.

Dillon rounded the corner. “Sorry. Lucky took off over at the auto body shop. Ava, you must have driven by.”

“I thought I was incognito in my grandmother’s SUV.”

“He must have smelled your perfume, Ava. And yours, Professor.”

Dillon pulled his dog away from sniffing the professor. Lucky Harbor stared at me in a potent way, whining. I hadn’t said “fudge,” but I suspected he smelled fudge on the professor and me. I asked the professor if he’d had fudge today.

“Yup. Training my palate for Saturday.”

I tossed the dog a Goldfish cracker.

Dillon was stepping about the garden. “My mother has to see this garden. Ava, can you get away for lunch with us instead of dinner tonight? Then I’ll bring her over here afterward; you can come with.”

Pauline flashed me a mix of surprise and admonishment. She hated it when I didn’t tell her every detail of my life. But lately she’d been keeping a lot of stuff from me concerning John Schultz.

I said, “I was going to grab lunch with the professor. I had some questions for him. We set it up earlier this morning.”

Professor Faust waved me off. “Oh, my dear, another time is fine. It was a great coincidence to have met you here in the backyard of Lloyd’s home.”

But then I wondered about us all leaving now, with the professor being left here alone. The safe was in plain sight. “I suppose you need to look around for the papers inside for Erik?”

“Oh no, my dear. I need him with me. It’s like researching in a museum. These days you need an escort. I’d hate to be accused of stealing anything from Mr. Mueller’s home.”

“Might we talk some more soon about local history and the buildings on the harbor?”

“Beyond what’s already noted in my cookbook?”

“Yes. There has to be a reason a buyer insisted on remaining secret. Erik said nothing to you?”

“Nothing. I’ll go to the library in Sister Bay. They have a nice collection of local history books. Perhaps we’ll find out that treasure is buried in the harbor or under floors, as we spoke of previously.”

He walked away around the side of the house, leaving me to wonder again if the box from under the fudge shop floor might have a long-forgotten note about the ownership agreement between Lloyd and Grandpa. Perhaps the box itself was valuable.

“Earth to Ava,” Dillon said.

“What?”

“Can we meet with my mother for lunch? She’s never been to the Troubled Trout.”

Pauline and Laura stood with their heads ping-ponging between Dillon and me. Both wore sly smiles. I had to confess my drooling wasn’t just for the meal I imagined at the Troubled Trout. Dillon standing like Adonis amid roses made this woman’s heart experience a kerfuffle. His eyes shimmered like smooth, shiny stones on our beaches with fresh Lake Michigan water rippling over them with mystery.

Swallowing to get back my composure, I said, “I’ll meet you there as soon as I take Laura and Pauline home.”

“Nothing doing,” Pauline said. “Give me your keys, Ava. You go with Dillon and I’ll take your grandma’s SUV back. I’m parked at the harbor anyway.”

She trotted away and Laura waddled off before I could protest.

Dillon grinned at me in that way that made the sun brighter.

My head said to run after my friends. My body turned to jelly when an old familiar glint in his eyes held me prisoner.

The air grew still and redolent with a powerful force.

Dillon swept me into his strong arms for a kiss that tasted like the essence of roses.

I tried to protest. Really, I did. It was totally his fault that I kissed him back.

His big hands were all over me, starting a fire between us. He was whispering my name over and over. It couldn’t have been me who whispered his name in return, fanning the sparks. It must have been the bees buzzing, and the breathlike breeze drifting between us.

Dillon unloosened my ponytail. My hair tumbled down across my shoulders. He nuzzled under it to kiss my neck. The rose perfume in the yard and the hint of salty man made a cocktail that teased, bringing back memories. Would Dillon pick me up, carry me inside, rush right up the stairs and into a guest bedroom? Nobody would know. . . .

Then Lucky Harbor barked.

Dillon and I parted. We stared at each other in shock.

I said, “That was a mistake.”

“It didn’t feel like it.” Dillon backed up a step, licking his lips as if to keep tasting me.

“No, it’s the setting.” I gulped at the air to recover my composure, filling myself with the redolent bouquet of roses. I could even taste their essence on the air.

“Lucky for us Lucky interrupted us.” He touched his mouth with two fingers, then touched my lips. “Sorry. I got carried away. It’s just, you look so cute lately, and when I saw you earlier in the apron—”

“Those darn aprons.”

He laughed, but I ordered my feet to work and headed toward the sunroom. “I’ll go back through the house and lock up.”

“What was the professor looking for in there?”

Dillon followed me inside, but he stayed businesslike. I filled him in and then led him to the safe. He crouched down, then gave the lock a spin but couldn’t open it, either.

I asked, “Is there another way to get it out of the wall?”

“Sure, Ava. Use a crowbar to rip the bookcases off the wall and bring in a big saw to manhandle this old plaster and make a mess.”