Peppermint Fudge and Fears

by Patti Benning

  “And all of these taffies; they rot the teeth. So many flavors, it’s no wonder children gorge themselves on the stuff. You’re selling poison. You know that, don’t you? You’re deliberately contributing to the health crisis that young people today are facing. You’ll see it for yourself soon enough. When one of those poor souls drops dead from —”

  “Are you going to make a purchase, Mr. Smith?” Candice interrupted, more sharply than she meant to. Something about what he was saying had struck too close to home after seeing Leila drop from her seat at the gingerbread making contest. Of course, it wasn’t as though the woman had died because she ate too much candy; it was just a sensitive subject for her.

  He blinked, surprised. She usually bore his rants with silence as she organized shelves or tidied up the receipts. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “My usual. Those ginger lozenges do wonders for my stomach. Not all sweets have to be made of poisons, young lady. You’d do well to remember that. There are too many artificial ingredients in foods these days. It’s no wonder doctors have seen such a rise in—”

  “Here you go,” she said curtly, handing him the brown paper bag with his ginger candies inside. “That will be three dollars and fifty cents, Mr. Smith.”

  She handed him his change and picked up the inventory book they kept under the register, trying to look busy. He seemed to take the hint; he left with only a “good day,” and none of his usual comments about how she was poisoning today’s youth. She was glad. She didn’t think she wanted to hear all of that today. Not that she was ever in the mood to hear it, but usually she could brush his comments off without much thought. He was elderly, and like Allison had said, he was alone. It didn’t do any harm to let him talk, not usually.

  She looked up as the door shut behind him, feeling just the slightest bit guilty for being so short with him. She didn’t have to dwell on it for long, though. The door reopened almost immediately and another customer came in. Candice smiled at the young woman in greeting, then waved at the little girl who was holding her hand.

  “Welcome to Candice’s Candies,” she said. “Have you been here before?”

  “No, we’re just passing through town on our way back from a doctor’s appointment. I promised Lily here that she could pick out whatever candy she wanted if she didn’t make a scene when she got her shots.” She smiled down at the girl who Candice was guessing was her daughter. “She was great, so here we are.”

  “Well, you came to the right place. We sell both candies and chocolates that we make here in this very store, and big name brands. We’ve got pretty much anything you could want, and if you like a specific candy that we don’t sell, feel free to add it to the suggestion jar. Go ahead and take your time, and if you want to sample anything, just come and ask me.”

  She stayed at the register as they walked around the candy shop, occasionally glancing up just to make sure they didn’t need help with anything. Suri came in before they were done, and Candice waved her over.

  “Hey,” she said softly. “Go ahead and put your stuff away in the back and clock in, but I need to talk to you about something as soon as I’m done with these customers. It’s about what happened at the contest.”

  Suri nodded, looking concerned. “Okay. I’ll come find you as soon as I’m clocked in, and out of this coat.”

  She slipped into the back just as Lily and her mother finished their shopping. They approached the register, and Lily set a double handful of candies and chocolate down on the counter.

  “All of that,” her mother said. “I’m going to pay for it this evening, when she’s bouncing off the walls, but a deal’s a deal.”

  Chuckling, Candice took out a small paper bag and put the candy inside, adding it up on the register as she did so. When her fingers landed on an unfamiliar piece, she hesitated.

  “Where did you find this?” she asked, holding it up. It was a hard candy, yellowish in color, and transparent with small flecks of something in it. It was wrapped loosely in a clear plastic wrapper with a floral print on it Candice thought looked vaguely familiar — but that definitely wasn’t one of hers.

  “On the floor,” Lily said with a shrug.

  “This isn’t one of our products. Another customer must have dropped it. Sorry, I can’t sell it to you. Why don’t you go pick out something else?”

  Lily nodded and darted over to the shelves. When she came back, Candice finished ringing up the order and ran the woman’s card. She smiled and waved as they left, but her heart wasn’t quite in it. The strange piece of candy, tucked away in her pocket, was in the back of her mind.

  Chapter 9

  Once the candy shop was empty of customers, Candice returned to the kitchen to switch places with Allison again, and to find Suri. She didn’t know if the other woman knew that Leila had passed away, but she wanted her employee to hear it from her and not be blindsided by the information if she saw it on the news or heard it through the town’s rumor mill.

  “Oh,” her employee said when she heard the news, her eyes widening. “That’s horrible. Do they know what happened? It isn’t contagious, is it?”

  Candice raised an eyebrow. That hadn’t even occurred to her. “I don’t know. I doubt it. Last I heard the doctors didn’t know the cause of death, though.”

  “I can’t believe she died. We were sitting with her. We were talking to her. She seemed fine. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen.”

  “I’m sorry, Suri. I know it’s a shock. If you need a couple of hours to yourself this morning—”

  “No. Thanks, but no. I’ll be okay. I need the hours. It just needs to sink in.” She hesitated, then added, “Thanks for telling me, Candice. I know you didn’t have to, and it means a lot, that you thought of me.”

  “Hey, no secrets here,” Candice replied with a smile. “If I think something might affect you, I’ll definitely tell you.”

  To her surprise, Suri frowned and seemed to withdraw. “Thanks,” she muttered. “I’d better get to work.”

  With that, she left the kitchen, leaving Candice alone with the cooling fudge.

  Candice was glad when her shift ended that afternoon. The candy that the girl had found had been on her mind all day. She waited until she got home to take Leila’s coat out of the trunk. She was half afraid that the empty wrapper she had found in the pocket that morning would have somehow gotten lost, but it was still there. She took it out and carefully compared it to the wrapper that was on the yellowish candy that had been found in the shop. They matched.

  She smoothed the plastic beneath her fingers as she thought. Judging by the lumpy quality of the candy that was still inside its wrapper, and the poor job whoever had made it had done of wrapping it, the candies were either homemade or made by an amateur, and there weren’t any other candy shops nearby that made their own wares. Something about finding that the wrapper in Leila’s coat pocket matched the one on the candy bothered her. If asked, she wouldn’t have been able to say why, not exactly. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.

  Frustrated, Candice took the candy and the empty wrapper inside and put both inside a plastic baggie, which she then slipped into her purse. She and Eli were supposed to have dinner with her parents tonight; she could bring it up then and see what they had to say.

  It got dark early during winter in northern Michigan. It made the drive to her parents’ house that evening feel longer than it usually did, though the little stone house looked as bright and cheery as ever when they pulled up the driveway. She could hear Maverick’s deep bark from inside the car and smiled. It had been too long since she had seen her mother’s dogs, and she missed Maverick’s goofy, happy personality, and Keeva’s sweet expression when she laid her head on Candice’s knee. Since Keeva was an Irish Wolfhound, her head was about twice the size of Felix and usually a bit more drooly than her cat was, but Candice could never bring herself to push the dog away.

  She and Eli got out of the car and made their way up the path so
meone had cleared to the porch. The door opened before Candice could knock on it, and a mostly black German Shepherd pushed out past a pair of legs. He stopped barking as soon as he caught their scent, but that didn’t calm him down — with his tail wagging frantically, he started leaping around them in excitement, never quite touching them even when some of his bounces came up to eye level.

  “Hey, Mav,” Candice said, laughing. “Calm down and I’ll pet you.”

  After a few more seconds, the dog had gotten enough energy out that Candice could pet his wiggly body. Keeva was watching from the door, her expression showing her disapproval of Maverick’s exuberant behavior. When she saw Candice looking at her, though, her tail began to sweep back and forth. Moira was standing next to the dog, shaking her head.

  “We’ve been trying to work on his excitement at the door,” she said with a sigh. “It’s not going well. Sorry, you two. Come on in.”

  They stomped their boots off and went into the house, Maverick following behind them and finally calming down enough that they could take off their boots and coats without tripping over him. Candice paused to greet Keeva before hanging her coat up in the closet. Once all of her snowy outerwear was put away, she gave her mother a quick hug.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, sweetie. Hi, Eli.”

  “Hi, Moira,” he said. “It smells great in here.”

  It did. Candice breathed in deeply. It smelled like home.

  The three of them sat down around the kitchen table while David carved a pot roast. Once the food was ready, he joined them, and they began loading their plates. It was the perfect food for the weather, and it wasn’t until they had all enjoyed the meal in silence for a few minutes that conversation started again.

  “How is everything, Mom? I know I saw you this weekend, but I didn’t really get a chance to ask after the deli and stuff.”

  “We’re doing great. The ingredient of the month has been popular. It’s lentils this month. I’ll count the votes right before Christmas to see what it is next month.”

  Her mother had set up a jar on the counter at the deli where people could cast their votes for the ingredient of the month. Every week, Moira would make a new soup featuring that ingredient. Candice thought it was a fun way for her mother to challenge herself in the kitchen. Some ingredients, like onions, were easy, but others, like cheese, took a bit more creativity.

  “I’m sure people love being involved in what food you serve,” Candice said. “My suggestion jar is kind of similar, but I don’t experiment with new recipes as often as you do.”

  “Your shop has much more variety than the deli, though,” her mother pointed out. Candice had to admit that was true. She sold over a hundred different types of candy and chocolate — they weren’t all made in house, of course, but many were — and her mother only offered two different types of soup per day, plus maybe fifteen or so different types of cold cuts and bread.

  “Have you had any more trouble with that guy?” Eli asked. “What was his name… not David…”

  “Davey,” David said. “Thank goodness. And no, as far as I know, Moira hasn’t seen him since the tire slashing incident.”

  Candice shivered. Davey had, at one point, been a potential hire for the manager’s position at the deli, but when Moira told him that they had decided to go with another applicant, he had shown his true colors. After being kicked out of the deli for verbally abusing her and the other employees, he had slashed Moira’s tires and written a message on the window in soap; You’ll be sorry.

  They hadn’t heard from him since, and it had been over a month, but Candice was still worried about him. He knew where her mother worked, after all.

  “Let’s not talk about him,” she said with a shiver. “Have you heard anything new about Leila, David?”

  “No. It will be a couple of weeks, at least. Last I heard, they had sent something off to the lab for a toxicology report.”

  She frowned. “You mean like poison?”

  “It could just be routine, since her cause of death is unknown,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

  “I found something,” Candice said, suddenly reminded of the baggie in her purse. “Leila’s coat was left behind when the ambulance took her away. I grabbed it, thinking I would be able to return it to her later, but then I learned she’d passed away. I went through the pockets to make sure there was nothing important, and I found an empty candy wrapper.” Her parents raised their eyebrows, but she ignored them. “Then, earlier today, someone brought a candy wrapped in the same style of wrapper up to the register. I know for sure that it’s not one of mine. The two wrappers are an exact match. I have them in my purse. The candy itself looks homemade. Doesn’t that seem… odd to anyone?”

  As she spoke, she became less and less convinced herself. It seemed like she was grasping at straws. She had been sure that there was some ominous link between the candies and Leila’s death, but now it just seemed kind of silly.

  She was grateful when David said, “Why don’t you bring them here? I’ll take a look.”

  “Thanks.” She retrieved the candy and empty wrapper from her purse and sat back down, handing the baggie over to David. “I’m probably just imagining things. It just seemed weird to me when I found it.”

  “I can see if Lenny can get this sent to one of the lab guys so we can see what’s in it,” David said. “It is a bit strange, especially with Leila’s death and symptoms. It’s possible that these candies aren’t safe to consume, either accidentally on part of whoever made them, or on purpose.”

  “Thanks,” she said again. She felt a bit better. Talking to her family always helped. “I’ll try to put it out of my mind for now. With Christmas coming up, I’ve certainly got plenty on my plate.”

  Chapter 10

  True to her word, Candice put the strange candies out of her mind for the next few days. The candy shop was busier than ever, with people coming in to buy bags of candies and boxes of chocolates as gifts and stocking stuffers for loved ones. They sold more gift cards than they ever had in the past, and Candice was glad to see that the candy shop’s reputation was growing again. It was nice to be known as “the place with the good chocolates” instead of “the place that burnt down.””

  Her peppermint fudge was popular, and she ended up showing Suri how to make it so they could keep up with demand. When she went into the kitchen to find each square of fudge carefully decorated with crushed candy canes in the shape of a Christmas tree, instead of just spread across the top of the whole thing like Candice had done, she thought again about giving her employee a raise. Suri brought an artistry to the candy shop that Candice had never even thought of.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Candice called out as she left the candy shop on Wednesday afternoon a week before Christmas.

  “What?” Suri’s head popped up from where she was stocking a lower shelf full of name brand candies. “No, sorry, I won’t be in tomorrow. Something came up. I asked Logan to cover my shift. It should be on the schedule.”

  “Oh. I haven’t checked the schedule since I made it. Sorry, that’s fine. As long as someone’s here, it doesn’t matter. Is everything all right, though? You’ve had to find someone to cover your shift unexpectedly a few times.”

  “It’s fine,” Suri said, giving her a tight smile. “I’ll make sure it happens less in the future. I really didn’t mean to cause any problems.”

  “Like I said, as long as someone’s able to cover your shift, it doesn’t matter. I just want to make sure everything’s all right for your sake, Suri. You’d come to me if it wasn’t, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” her employee said, not quite meeting her eye. “Have a good day, Candice. It’s such a lovely afternoon out. Enjoy the snow.”

  “Thanks. You too.”

  She left feeling confused and a bit hurt. Suri was definitely hiding something from her. She didn’t expect to know everything about her employee’s lives, and maybe she was being
a bit unfair to the other woman, since she was used to working with Allison and Logan, both of whom she had known for years and who she considered close friends. Still, it bothered her a little that Suri was so secretive. She thought that they were all pretty close at the little candy shop, and she wished their newest employee would open up a little bit more if she had something going on in her personal life.

  Suri had been right about one thing. It was a truly lovely afternoon. The sky was pure white, and snow was falling slowly; not enough to make driving dangerous, but enough to add to the natural beauty of the area. One thing Candice really loved about living so far north was the snow. She couldn’t imagine enjoying winter as much if she lived somewhere that got the cold without the beautiful snow to go with it.

  When she pulled up to the farmhouse, Eli’s car was gone, but David’s was parked at the microbrewery. She smiled as she passed it by, making a mental note to stop in for a visit later. She could guess by the tracks in the snow that he had brought Maverick with him, and knew that the dog would be thrilled to spend a few minutes playing a game of fetch with her.