Hot Fudge Frame-Up: A Fudge Shop Mystery (8 page)

“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.

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.”

We walked the truck’s perimeter. My purse turned up under a tuft of clover in bloom, but the small chest—which wasn’t light enough to be flung too far—was nowhere to be found.

The deputy and Dillon inspected the truck.

Pauline said, “Do you suppose somebody took it while we were stunned in the truck for a couple of minutes?”

Dillon asked, “What was in the box?”

“Any valuables?” Maria asked with renewed interest.

Nausea was filling me suddenly. “Yes. The box belonged to Lloyd Mueller.”

“The dead guy?”

I nodded.

Maria said, “Is there a chance anybody would want to harm you to get this box?”

“Yes.”

* * *

Maria asked that we finish making our report at the sheriff’s office. We sat in Jordy Tollefson’s interrogation room at a six-foot plain brown table and on blue plastic chairs. I’d been here before—too many times.

Jordy Tollefson wasn’t happy to see me. “Maria says somebody may be out to harm you because of a wooden box.”

Mercy Fogg came to mind. Had she found out I had the box with her incriminating notes and come after me? Or had Piers Molinsky found out I knew about him bribing Erik? Was he afraid I’d ruin his career?

“All I know for sure is that somebody aimed their car at me.”

“You’re saying the car was a weapon?” Jordy asked. “This wasn’t just an accident?”

“Your deputy brought up the possibility.”

Jordy laid out blank forms in front of him from a file folder and began writing. He knew my address by heart, not a great testimony to me. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.”

“That was yesterday.”

“Maria tells me you said the box had jewels in it. You’re not involved in another jewel heist, are you?” He was referring to the diamonds that had been stolen in New York before ending up in my fudge in May.

“No. There was just the one ring, and miscellaneous costume jewelry. The ring looked valuable. It’s a green emerald engagement ring about the size of my fingernail.” I showed him a pinkie finger, complete with broken nail.

“That’s a whopper of an emerald.”

“It was a whopper of an accident. There’s a thief loose in Door County, Jordy. Maybe worse.”

Pauline groaned. “You don’t know that. Could we come back later? She’s not coherent because she needs stitches in her head.”

“My brains aren’t falling out, Pauline. I know what I feel and what I’ve seen. There was bad karma swirling around Lloyd right before he died. Several people could have been upset with him, even mad at him, maybe scared he’d tell their secrets.”

“Like what? Explain your evidence to me.” Jordy sat back, looking me straight in the eye.

What did I have for solid evidence? I swallowed hard. I looked from Pauline to Jordy and said, “Well, one secret that both Pauline and I witnessed was Lloyd confessing that he was bothered by Kelsey King being too ‘friendly,’ as he called it. Then I saw them having a disagreement at the fish boil.”

Shaking his head, Jordy continued filling out the form. “You realize that’s not hard evidence of a damn thing, don’t you?”

Pauline said, “Let me take her to the hospital.”

Jordy kept his eyes trained to the form. “She’s not bleeding on my papers, so let’s finish this up. Ava, describe the box and contents, please.”

“I didn’t see much of the contents beyond Mercy’s crappy poems professing love and threatening Lloyd. Mercy was saying she’d tell Lloyd’s wife about him hoarding her ring or other things. Those aren’t the exact words, but it was clear Mercy suspected him of hiding valuables from Libby. At least that’s what my grandfather and I concluded.”

“So you’ve involved Gil?” Jordy shook his head again as he wrote.

“Actually, he involved me. I knew nothing about the box until Grandpa said Mercy was looking for me earlier today. Then he remembered the box.”

“Why was Mercy looking for you?”

“I don’t know. Something about the fudge judges. I haven’t asked her.”

“Well, don’t ask her.”

“Why not?”

“I want to talk with her first.” Jordy sat back. “But I don’t have much here unless she confesses. Maria said there were no skid marks. It looked like you and the other vehicle cleanly missed each other. Did you hear a horn?”

“No horns. I was in the ditch fast. I guess I was trying to outrun the car.”

“You don’t remember being bumped by the other vehicle?”

“No.”

“What’d it look like?”

“A blur. Darkish.”

“Dark what?”

“Like a big mouse maybe.”

“A big mouse?” Jordy looked at me queasylike.

Pauline offered, “She has a mouse in her kitchen. He’s grayish brown.”

Shaking his head, he muttered while writing, “A dark blur, mouse colored.” He handed me the form. “If it looks like we got all the details correct, please sign.”

While I read, I noticed the neat, printed lettering. “You know, Jordy, this looks just like the orange crayon lettering on that note we found in the lighthouse.”

Jordy paled, as if I’d caught him missing a crucial clue. “What’s your point?”

“I’m not accusing you of throwing the rock. I was just noting how neat your printing is when you’re here in your office. You’re relaxed, right?”

“Yeah. I still don’t get your point.”

“If the person writing the threatening note was relaxed, it probably rules out an excited kid doing mischief. What do you think, Pauline?”

She rubbed her aching elbow. “True. Kids in a hurry usually slant their letters every which way or run them together.”

I asked Jordy, “Could we look at the note again from the lighthouse?”

He gave me a puckered expression I’d never seen before. But he gathered up the files and my signed statement, then left. He came back with the plastic bag. We peered at the note through the plastic.

Pauline said, “Very careful lettering, neat. Moderate orange color, medium hand pressure.”

I said, “The person was comfortable with the crime he, or she, was about to commit.”

Jordy sat back, blowing air across his lips. “Since when did you become a handwriting expert?”

“Just now. I get these flashes of inspiration.”

“You were hit in the head inside your truck. The truck inspired you.”

“Whatever the cause, doesn’t it seem plausible that the note’s threat is connected to Lloyd’s death and my accident? The note says somebody will die. Lloyd died. And somebody is after me. Somebody followed me. And for some reason they picked up that box.”

“But Lloyd Mueller’s death looks like an accident. Maria confirmed that it was very dewy and slippery up there on the tower.”

“You don’t believe it was a suicide any more than I do. You’re a pro. You have to think murder until you rule it out. That note targeted me.”

“It said
somebody
will die if you don’t lose the fudge contest. So stop making fudge if you believe that note is serious and don’t want others to die.” Jordy speared me with a serious stare.

“I can’t stop. I have to make a living. And besides, my fudge is my art. A reporter in May called me a fudge sculptor.”

Pauline grabbed my arm. “We need to get you checked out at the hospital.” She turned to Jordy. “I was in the truck, too. That car came right at us. Then the wooden box disappeared while we were hanging in the truck. Somebody is trying to frame Ava or harm her.”

“Frame her? For what?” Jordy leaned forward.

“Ava was your suspect in a murder back in May. What if somebody’s trying to blame Lloyd’s death on her and her family? To throw you off?”

I added, “It’s a hot fudge frame-up, Jordy. Start questioning perps.”

He leaned forward over the note to peer at us pointedly. His shoulders appeared broader, more menacing. “Door County has a population of about twenty-eight thousand people. Add to that the several thousands vacationing here right now. Which adults do you two propose I start questioning?”

“Just Mercy Fogg,” I said, incredulous as to how dense Jordy was today while I’d been hit on my noggin and was feeling brilliantly clear. Maybe he was hungry. I was feeling a little hungry and dizzy myself. The clock on the wall behind him was striking noon. “Mercy will still have the wooden chest hidden in her trunk if you get to her fast enough.”

“What kind of car does she drive?”

He had me. I said, “I only see her driving school buses or county road graders. Look her up in the vehicle license database.” He winced as I went on. “Pauline and I have to get to the hospital. And I sorely need to get back to make fudge. Jordy, did you know science has proven that chocolate fudge makes people amorous?”

His face turned red. “What’s your point?”

“If you take some of my Cinderella Pink Fudge with you to question Mercy, she might want to spill her guts about what she did. Sam uses my fudge at his client meetings. I bet feeding fudge to prisoners would work better than lie detector tests and torture. Can we go?”

“Not fast enough,” he said.

But I sat there, captured by my revelations, bubbling in my head like Belgian chocolate. My gut said Lloyd’s death was murder. I couldn’t prove it, but murder suspects popped up: Mercy and Piers, Erik and Kelsey, and some mysterious wannabe buyer of a good portion of Fishers’ Harbor. I
needed
to make fudge now because that could reveal the killer. I rattled off the suspects to Jordy.

Jordy rose off his chair with the Baggie in hand. “I can’t question Mercy or anybody just because you suggest it, Ava.”

“This is sounding more and more like working in television. My executive producer nixed most everything I came up with.”

“Maybe you had bad ideas.” He leaned over the table at me. “Don’t stir up trouble that can hurt Libby. If rumors explode, Libby’s going to be devastated. If there’s been a murder, let me handle the nightmare that will create for Libby. Getting lawyers involved will turn Fishers’ Harbor upside down, and we just got over a big legal mess with you in the middle of it.”

“It sounds like you’re warning me to keep quiet.”

“Ava Oosterling.” He spat out my name like it was a swearword. “You don’t get it.” He tapped a finger on the table like a repeater rifle. “I’m trying to tell you to stay safe. Rumors can get out of hand and become dangerous. One little peep out of you that Mercy Fogg may have harmed Lloyd and you could ruin her job driving the school bus and working for the county. Then she’ll sue your tiny little ass off and win.”

After he left the room, Pauline said, “I think he likes you. That ass comment was sort of sweet.”

* * *

Jordy called a wrecker service to haul my truck to a salvage yard, but I intervened to have it delivered to an auto body shop on the outskirts of Fishers’ Harbor; I couldn’t bear to give up on my yellow truck.

The sheriff dropped us off at the hospital. I called Mom to have her pick us up and take us home. Three stitches pulled my scalp back together. Pauline and I got pamphlets about concussions. No X-rays were taken because we seemed in good shape, but we were advised to have somebody check on us regularly for the next twenty-four hours. If we got headaches, we were to head to the emergency room.

Escaping death had given me an adrenaline rush. Pauline was less enthused about that method for boosting one’s energy. But I was eager to make fudge with a new flavor. Fairy tales popped into my head: Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood, the Princess and the Pea, Snow White, and Thumbelina. There were other tales, too, that could warrant magical fudge flavors, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, or Robin Hood and Maid Marian. There were beautiful Native American tales, too, and tragic ones like the maiden who’d allegedly been separated from her lover, and after he died she wanted to join him, so she leaped from a high, rocky bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The town of Maiden Rock, Wisconsin, got its name allegedly from that tale.