Five-Alarm Fudge (16 page)

“No, you’d be devastated if Pauline ever left Fishers’ Harbor.”

“Well, yeah. We’ve got our groove back.”

Dillon began unloading the wheelbarrow on the edge of the street. “Let’s not jump to conclusions yet about John. Please don’t tell Pauline any of this. John swore me to secrecy. He wants to spring this good news about Hayward on her. For him, getting a Hollywood manager is a big deal.”

I sighed heavily, trying to relieve the tightness in my stomach. “Wait a minute. You said John felt like he’d been hit from behind in the church?”

Dillon laughed. “I guess we got sidetracked. Yeah. That’s how he lost his memory.”

“John and Marc probably stumbled across the murderer in that church on Saturday night.”

Dillon stopped stacking wood scraps to enfold me in his arms. “I was hoping you hadn’t noticed that part.”

“John and Marc could be in danger. Somebody could be scared that the two of them could turn in the killer.”

“Maybe they did. Maybe that’s why Kjersta is in jail.”

*   *   *

When I got back to the shop, my grandpa left to lead a fishing excursion using the
Super Catch I
. After serving a couple of women tourists who wanted Cinderella Pink Fudge for a party, I called my mother to see how Ava’s Autumn Harvest was faring on a Monday afternoon.

“Honey, the cars keep whizzing right by. I got suspicious and finally hopped in the SUV to see what was going on. I found several cars parked at Saint Mary of the Snows with people milling around and taking pictures. One man was hoisting another guy up to look through a stained glass window. Word has gotten out.”

“About the prince coming?”

“I don’t know about that. I pretended I was a tourist, too, and only heard people talking about finding holy fudge.”

“They didn’t get inside the church, did they?”

“No. Somebody put more yellow tape up this morning. That church is wrapped like a Christmas present. All it needs is a bow on top.”

“It needs a steeple. Maybe we should put out a donation jar there.”

“I thought of that. But I didn’t have one. I only had your Ava’s Autumn Harvest brochures in my pocket, so I left those on the doorstep. Several people picked them up.”

“Did that help our sales?”

“No. Some people looked confused and put the brochures back.”

I was crushed, but then she added, “Then I told them my daughter was the one appointed to make the holy fudge. One man said you must have holy hands and he wanted any kind of fudge made by you.”

“Holy hands?” A groan escaped my throat. “This isn’t good.”

“But maybe it is. I know this is wrong to say, but if
tourists break into the church, they’ll mess up the crime scene, right?”

“And you’re thinking there’d be no way to connect it to you. Mom, you didn’t murder anybody. And nobody is going to find out you found the body. I found the body. That’s our story and we have to stick to it.”

She sighed over the phone. “Did you find out anything more from the sheriff?”

“No, but Kjersta warned us to watch out for Fontana. Have you seen her around much? Dad said he saw her trying to break into Jonas’s little chapel.”

“I don’t know why she’d be trying to break in. That woman could just get Jonas’s key anytime she wanted.”

“How’s that?”

“Everybody around here knows they’ve been sleeping together.”

That didn’t surprise me, certainly. “So, why do you think Fontana would have to break into Jonas’s chapel?”

“Maybe they had a little fight after she was seen driving around with her top down with Michael Prevost. I mean the car’s top, of course, though sometimes there’s very little on her top, too.”

“Fontana and Michael? When was this?” My old math teacher didn’t seem like her type. I wondered why Mike Prevost would bother hooking himself up with a woman who wanted her ex-husband back but who also seemed after Cherry and Jonas.

Mom said she’d seen Fontana and Michael together that very afternoon.

After hanging up, I made a new batch of Rose Garden Fudge. The rose petals and rose flavoring infused the shop with a perfume beyond compare.

Next, I checked the barometric pressure. Because of the fishing and boating that we loved, Grandpa had all kinds of thermometers and barometers on the walls of his bait shop. In my research in Lloyd’s books, one person had written that you can’t make divinity fudge unless the barometric pressure is thirty inches or over, which meant clear weather was at hand. We had that this afternoon. But humidity also had to be low, around fifty percent.

One of the earliest references I’d found for divinity candy came from a 1905 recipe. It was a simple recipe using a pint of “golden drip syrup,” a pint of sweet milk, a cup of granulated sugar, and a tablespoon of butter. That seemed simple enough, yet I couldn’t imagine Sister Adele Brise having access to much “golden drip syrup,” though perhaps she could have used honey or maple syrup if they’d tapped trees in the late 1800s.

Another recipe from 1907 was more to my liking. The ingredients were simpler, and possibly what the nuns would have had on hand in the late 1800s. This recipe called for melting a cup of sugar in a pan, then pouring that into a cup of cold milk. That was set over a fire to cook; then two more cups of sugar were added, with yet another cup of cold milk. The milk and sugar concoction was then cooked again. How clever of them back then. They were expanding and contracting the crystals, and expanding them again.

The ingredients were then taken off the fire. A teaspoon of butter was added, just as I would do today. The whole batch was beaten until it cooled, finally being spread into a buttered pan.

Another recipe basically took that concoction of milk and sugar and poured it over egg whites that had been beaten stiff.

I was assembling ingredients in the kitchen of my shop when the cowbell
clink-clanked
.

“A.M.? A.M.? Where are you?”

It was Pauline. It was a little past two thirty in the afternoon. Her kindergartners had gone home. She must have broken all speed records in Fishers’ Harbor to get here.

“I’m in the kitchen.”

She appeared in the doorway, bracing herself against the doorjamb. This had to be serious, because she hadn’t bothered to bring her giant purse with her. She was still dressed in her washable polyester black slacks and a simple red blouse that could stand kindergarten accidents. But her long brown-black hair looked messy as a horse’s mane after a harrowing quarter-mile derby. She was breathing so hard she couldn’t talk.

“What the heck is wrong, P.M.?” When we were kids, and
sometimes in trouble, my grandpa started calling us the shortcut initials of “A.M.” for Ava Mathilde and “P.M.” for Pauline Mertens. He’d say things like “This shines on you all A.M. and P.M., but now tell me what trouble you two girls have gotten yourselves into.” These days, the initials that signified our bond as friends often slipped out of our mouths when things grew serious.

“Haven’t you turned on the news, A.M.? Or gone online?”

“No, I’ve been busy doing research on divinity fudge.”

“Forget the fudge. The medical examiner held a news conference. They’ve arrested Daniel Dahlgren for murder and John was taken in for questioning. He’s under suspicion.”

I was already flinging ingredients back into the refrigerator. “I’ll drive. He’s still in Sturgeon Bay?”

“Yes. But that’s not the worst of it. That Buck knife we saw in that organ bench allegedly belongs to your father. And it’s tied to the murder.”

I jerked in place. “Who says?”

“Fontana Dahlgren. She was at the press conference. Crying about Cherry’s murder. As if she ever really loved him.”

“As if, indeed. Come on.” There was no way that knife belonged to my father.

We raced back out to the parking lot, found her nondescript gray sedan, and were soon out of town and flying down Highway 42.

Within minutes, a squad car pulled up behind us.

Chapter 13

W
ith the squad car’s red and blue beams strafing me through the rearview mirror, I had to pull over. Pauline was shuffling about in her purse on her lap, muttering.

Deputy Maria Vasquez leaned into my open window. “A bit of a hurry?”

Pauline said, “It’s about the murder.”

Since the deputy had to know everything said at the press conference, I focused on John’s plight. “It’s unfair, Deputy. John got hit on the back of the head in the church on Saturday night, probably by the real killer. But that wasn’t the worst of it. John lost his memory and ended up sleeping at Mercy Fogg’s house. She found him in her bus.”

Maria winced, leaning closer. “Is this for real?”

Pauline corroborated it.

I continued. “We found him in Mercy’s nightgown. Mercy was going to feed him meat loaf with marshmallows in it. Colored ones at that. John shouldn’t be questioned at the Justice Center. He’s not well. Anything he says will be tossed out by a judge.”

I turned to Pauline and rolled my eyes. I had no clue about judges.

Maria said, “This is probably the stupidest attempt ever to get out of a ticket. But . . .” She sighed. “Your father is somebody I respect. Since he may be involved, you can follow me.”

As we pulled back onto Highway 42 behind the county
cruiser, Pauline took her hand out of her purse with one of the buttons my mother had given us. Pauline waved it in front of me. “Touch your button.”

“What for?”

“Swear on it you won’t keep stuff from me again.”

“What stuff?” But I knew. I’d kept things about John from my best friend. I wondered how much she knew. I waved off the button so I could keep my eye on the speeding squad car in front of us. “I’m sorry. Dillon made me promise. Besides, you were still in school this afternoon when I learned about John and Marc.”

I told her most everything, but I kept the secret about John’s singing at the choir tryouts. That was his surprise for Pauline and one that I didn’t have the heart to spoil for her.

Pauline rubbed the button. “At least these work.”

“How so?”

“I was rubbing this the whole time you were talking to Maria. No ticket. And we’re getting a department escort all the way to jail.”

“That doesn’t sound so lucky. And I didn’t think you believed in hocus-pocus. But thanks for helping me by rubbing the button.”

“Oh, it wasn’t for you. I was rubbing that blessed button to save John. You’re on your own.”

“Thanks a lot.” I knew she didn’t mean it. “Can you rub it some more for my father? I can’t believe they think that Buck knife is his. My father had nothing to do with Tristan Hardy’s death. My father was never at that church much at all. The churchwomen were the ones inside most of the time.”

Pauline said, “What if your mother brought his knife along to use it to clean crevices or scrape wax from candles off the floor or pews?”

I called my father, put him on speakerphone, then handed off the phone to Pauline.

“Where are you, Dad?”

Pete said he was home. “They said it’d be okay to talk with them later, after the milking. Jordy came out to confirm with me that the knife is mine.”

My heart lurched. “It can’t be. No way.”

“Ava, calm down. Somebody must have stolen it. We get a lot of visitors here to watch us milk and watch your mother make cheese.”

That was my dad, so even-keeled. “What about Mom?”

“She’s still at your market. I doubt she heard about the press conference. I’ll tell her everything once she comes home. I’ve already hidden her vacuum cleaner.”

A chill came over me. This shouldn’t be happening to my family. “Take care, Dad. I love you.”

“Love you, Ava Mathilde.”

Once we were at the Justice Center on South Duluth Avenue in Sturgeon Bay, I texted Dillon with a quick update. We also saw John’s car in the parking lot, so that had been found.

The woman behind the window handed us name tags to wear.

Pauline peered at hers. “These are really nice. Better than our school tags.”

“We’ll ask the lady on the way out where they order them.”

“Sarcasm will not help, A.M.”

“Just keep rubbing the buttons in your purse, P.M.”

We had to cool our heels in the waiting room for a half hour, reading and rereading all the plaques to the officers who had served our county. Sheriff Jordy Tollefson’s picture made him look older, I thought, even weary. There was justice in that if he were about to drag my father and mother into his murder investigation of Tristan Hardy.

Finally, a door burst open. Out marched John Schultz with my manager, of all people. John fell against Pauline in a bear hug.

While they babbled about his needing a lawyer, Marc and I met in the middle of the room, shaking hands cordially. Marc was bald, but had one of those rare, perfect heads and was handsome in a fish-out-of-water sort of way. He flashed the typical Hollywood, expensive killer smile. His blue eyes were seductive behind the black designer eyeglasses. He probably owned a year’s worth of glasses. I’d never seen him in the same pair twice. He was shorter than me by a couple of inches, and was reported to be sixty-two years old in online listings, though he told people fifty-five.
He played tennis, racquetball, and ran in every charity race he could find. Among the L.A. crowd, he was known for being against drug abuse. But he was too earnest when it came to making money. Money was Marc’s drug.

“Hey, hey, hon, it’s awesome-sauce nice to see you.” He rose on his toes to air-kiss me on both cheeks. “You’ve been working on product for me? Not much else to do here, right? Where am I, anyway?”

He’d said that with a smile.

“You call it the flyover zone, Marc. Wisconsin. In Door County,” I said. “It looks different in the daylight.”

He didn’t respond to my hint about his activities on Saturday night. I added, “I hear you’ve taken on John Schultz as a client.”

Marc’s blue eyes seemed to turn green with dollar signs. “I like to think of John as a partner. He’s a man of ideas, like me. Say, you want to catch a drink later and talk about your next script?”

It intrigued me that Marc thought John’s idea for a show based in Wisconsin would be popular with a broad audience, but it didn’t totally surprise me. Agents and managers loved discovering new talent and “product.” Discovering new “product”—which might include a proposal for a new travel series—garnered respect in Hollywood. Marc also loved being a manager. He truly enjoyed discovering new talent, and if the next “find” came from the flyover zone, all the better. But being dogged about such things was both Marc’s skill and his flaw.