Five-Alarm Fudge

by Christine DeSmet

  “What now?”

  We were jostling over ruts. “John probably can’t sleep for his nerves. He sent his demo tape to some producer a couple of weeks ago. He’s on pins and needles waiting to hear. That’s why he left your bed last night.”

  Pauline’s heavy sigh almost sounded like a tire going flat on the truck. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  “No, you always want to be right. There’s a difference.”

  Pauline and I traveled in silence, then down the remainder of the long, straight gravel lane that parted the pastures and strips of hay, wheat, and corn. Far off to the southeast I could make out Ava’s Autumn Harvest.

  We stopped in the gravel circle in front of our redbrick farmhouse and next to Mom’s SUV. The house was to the right or north of the gravel, and the big red barn with its attached creamery and other outbuildings sat to the south side of the gravel area.

  Giving Pauline’s forearm a squeeze in friendship, I said, “Let’s see what Mom knows. She might have clues to solve this before the sheriff even has a chance to have his Sunday noonday meal.”

  Pauline stared back at me, agape. “Sometimes you say the strangest things. Even I know what your mother must be doing inside your farmhouse.”

  * * *

  Mom was in the hallway between the living room and kitchen vacuuming the beige-carpeted stairs up to the second floor. She was still in her good church clothes—patent leather ballerina flats and a lovely muted forest green A-line, short-sleeved dress. It had a matching jacket, but that was tossed over the corner of a sofa in the living room. Her elbows jabbed the air as she pushed the sucking nozzle over the carpet.

  “Mom!” I called above the noise.

  I had to take the nozzle from her and turn off the vacuum.

  “Mom, Pauline’s here. We went to Saint Mary’s. The body was Tristan Hardy.”

  Mom fell into me, wrapping her arms around me. Her shoulder-length, wavy dark-brown hair fluffed about my face. “Oh, honey, no, not Cherry. I didn’t know. I got the heck out of there fast.” She let me go, taking back the hose and vacuum. She was gripping the appliance so hard that her fingers were white. “Please tell me the paramedics got there in time and shocked him or something.”

  I grimaced.

  Mom stared down at the vacuum. “He’s been here in our home as a guest with his professor friends and those PhD students from the university so many times. We’re all family. He was always working on new ways to manage our crops and pastures. And he liked my cheese curds. He and Professor Weaver always bought several bags to take back to their department.”

  Pauline and I led her to the kitchen.

  I said, “Let’s make some coffee.”

  When we got to the kitchen, Mom set to work washing breakfast dishes by hand. There was no use reminding her she had an automatic dishwasher. I dried dishes while Pauline ground coffee beans and then plugged in the coffeemaker.

  While we worked, I asked my mother, “Did you go into the choir loft?”

  She paused with her hands in the soapy water, staring out the kitchen window that overlooked the farm buildings and pasture. “No, why?”

  “There was a fire up there sometime between the time we cleaned the church yesterday and the time you found Cherry.”

  “I smelled smoke but thought it might be coming from the kitchen appliances, so I checked on them and then went into the basement. I didn’t smell the smoke there and assumed somebody was burning leaves nearby. I started cleaning in the basement. It smelled down there, a little like pickling spices, so I knew I must have been whiffing somebody’s kitchen next door. What was on fire? What damage did it do?”

  “I don’t know.” The imagery of the knife and blood on the music for “Ave Maria” flashed across my memory. I took a guess. “Maybe the music in the organ bench.”

  “Do you think somebody meant to burn down the church? To hide the murder?”

  “All conjecture, Mom. And we don’t even know for sure if he was murdered.”

  Mom pulled the plug on the sink drain, letting it slurp down the soapy water. “You don’t think Cherry would have started that fire, would he? How strange of him.”

  “I’m sure the sheriff will figure it out. Let’s have some coffee.”

  When I went to the cupboard for cups, I was surprised to find the antique collection of floral china cups that had been willed to my grandmother by my grandfather’s deceased friend Lloyd Mueller.

  Before Lloyd’s death, I’d been invited into his large library in his home and discovered he collected history books and community cookbooks that contained references to my ancestors. Pauline, Laura, and I also saw his extensive collection of delicate china cups and saucers in his dining room, including those made in the late 1800s, such as the Redon Limoges cup and saucer made especially for sipping chocolate drinks. Laura knew a lot about antique chinaware and enlightened Pauline and me about their value. The Limoges cup in front of me had pink roses on it with a gold-trimmed, scalloped rim with gold at the bottom of the cup. The saucer was scalloped, too, with a gleaming gold edge.

  “Mom, these are Grandma’s precious cups from Lloyd. Why are they here instead of at her cabin in Fishers’ Harbor?”

  “She made me take them. She said they were raw reminders of the past.”

  “But these cups aren’t from her past. These are Lloyd’s past.”

  “Yes, but Sophie said there’s already too much fuss about cups.”

  Pauline said, “She was referring to the cup that John found.”

  “Mom, do you know why Grandma isn’t keen on the princess coming here to look at that cup?”

  With great care, I set some of the Royal Albert and Royal Doulton cups on the counter for us to look at, along with a German chocolate cup with a large pink rose on it from Silesian Germany that had a crown and swords between the words. There were large green leaves with a peach color in the background.

  Pauline said, “So delicate. All with roses. I loved his rose garden.” She touched the rose on the German china cup with a finger, stroking it lightly, as if she were touching a baby’s cheek for the first time.

  I said, “I’ll take these cups and saucers back to Grandma this morning.”

  Mom reached for one of the chinaware sets. “Let’s use them. I need something to calm my nerves. Let’s pretend we’re ladies of leisure, like the princess.”

  We settled into the opposite end of the kitchen around the table that could seat twelve. A large bay window overlooked our backyard and Mom’s garden.

  I asked Mom again about Grandma.

  She said, “I don’t know, honey. She won’t tell me.”

  Pauline said, “Maybe she’s sad. Sometimes family reunions make us sad as well as happy. We think about everybody that’s not there anymore. I learned that long ago from my kindergartners. One of them told me once he was sad when Christmas came because his grandpa could never be there again.”

  I remembered Grandma fussing with the flowers amid the gravestones yesterday. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Mom rose abruptly and left the room. Pauline and I exchanged a curious look.

  Soon, drawers in the living room desk whooshed in and out, closing with click-clacks and bangs. When Mom returned to the kitchen, she was wearing a big round button on her short-sleeved green dress. She sat down across from me again. The oversized button, maybe four inches across, said on its perimeter AVA’S FUDGE—FIT FOR ROYALTY.

  She handed us each a button. “I wanted everything to be perfect for you, Ava. My little girl, part of royalty.”

  The buttons had a depiction of the Namur church amid the farmland in the top half, with a picture of Oosterlings’ Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge & Beer on the harbor in the bottom half. My heart swelled with the thoughtfulness.

  “Thanks, Mom. This is beautiful.”

  My mother patted the button on her chest. “I was going to surprise you with these at the kermis. Instead we need
them now. I had Father Van den Broeck bless these.”

  “The priest at Saint Francis?”

  “Yes. They looked enough like prayer cards to him that he obliged with a sprinkle of holy water on them. They’ll protect you as you do something about this mess, Ava. We must have the church for the kermis. And Cherry would want that, too. He’d love to know there was a royal requiem for him, and the kermis will do that. You have to help the sheriff and his people get this mess cleaned up before the kermis.”

  A requiem was a Mass said for the dead.

  “Mom, do you realize what you’re saying? You never want me involved with trouble.”

  “I got you into this mess. I found that body. I should not have been there vacuuming in that basement. I should have had more faith in your ability to clean. I keep forgetting you’re not a teenager anymore. I shouldn’t have called you and put the burden on you. I should have walked away entirely.”

  Pauline and I exchanged a look.

  I said, “But then nobody may have found him for days. Mom, you did the right thing.”

  Mom thought for a moment. “Don’t tell your father I found that body.” She raised her delicate cup up from its saucer in a salute. “Ava, Pauline, put your buttons on. Those are your badges. Nothing much of any import has happened in my life but marrying Pete and birthing you, Ava, and raising you, Pauline, like another daughter. Now I’m about to meet a prince and princess. Nobody is going to ruin this for me. Even Cherry wouldn’t want the kermis ruined. Why else was he in that church? He must have been looking for the fudge recipe, too. You have to save our fall kermis.”

  Mom was making sense, which scared me even more than blessed buttons. I was starting to recognize my own thinking patterns in the way she had worded that little speech. Things that shouldn’t make sense were sounding logical. When you turn into your own mother, you know you’re in trouble.

  After Pauline and I got into my truck, I said, “I should tell Dad about these buttons. Maybe Mom needs a vacation. She didn’t sound right.”

  Pauline took off her button and buried it in her voluminous bag. “You and your mother are totally on the same wavelength. For once. Your father wouldn’t believe it.” She put a hand out. “Give me your button.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a holy button. Your priest said some incantation over it. Let’s keep them out of sight until we learn their powers.”

  I stared at her for a millisecond until we both burst out laughing.

  She said, “Your mom said they were supposed to be a surprise at the kermis. Let’s save them for then.”

  “Those things really are blessed. Mom wouldn’t lie about that. She never lies. Except about finding that body, of course.” I started the truck. “That was really nice of her to do for me. Mom’s hard to figure out at times.”

  “She’s practical, pragmatic, and polite.”

  “Is it P week for your kindergartners?”

  “Yup. The P words are going up all over the room this afternoon for tomorrow.”

  “Add the words ‘prince,’ ‘princess,’ and ‘perpetrator.’”

  After we pulled out of our circular driveway, I said, “We have to get a look in that choir loft. But first we’re going to talk to John about last night. Your problems are more important, Pauline. Try calling him again.”

  “Why bother?” Her voice cracked. “He didn’t come back last night and he hasn’t returned any of my calls. He’s in love with the thought of fame, not me. Ava, I think he and I are over.”

  Chapter 7

  Pauline was not happy with us stopping to open up Ava’s Autumn Harvest that Sunday morning. But tourists were like chipmunks; once the day warmed up, they came out of their burrows, and I needed the dough. I put Pauline to work setting up the pecks of apples on the flatbed wagons with the pumpkins.

  Pauline said, “I need to get back so I can work on my classroom.”

  “No, you need to hunt down John. You two are not splitting up.”

  “Though I know you’re dying to say ‘I told you so.’”

  “He’s older than you by around twenty years and sensitive about his age. I just want you to be careful. You’re young and pretty.”

  “Arm candy. I know.”

  Her agreement made me feel worse. When Pauline and I disagreed, there was vitality in our relationship. “You’ll find him and then you’ll talk. Did he mention what he was up to today?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  She didn’t remember, because she was upset with him. She couldn’t think, because she didn’t make fudge to help her think. But she had me.

  I had Pauline help me set out what little fudge I had left under a shady umbrella. Although fudge doesn’t melt unless you torture it with direct fire practically, I still didn’t like its sugary crystals bombarded with sunlight. A cool fall breeze feathering around us as we worked would give the fudge a perfect, sapid soul when it touched the tongue. Like wine, which I asked Pauline to set on the outdoor tables as well, fudge flavors intensified on the tongue when they went from cool to warm.

  A phone call to Grandpa revealed he was on the Super Catch I on the bay with his fishermen and their boys yet. He sounded bored. Cody was manning the bait-and-fudge shop.

  While still on the phone, I wandered inside the stone barn so Pauline couldn’t hear me. “Is John out on the water with you?”

  “No, and funny thing, A.M., Moose was expecting him. But he never showed up.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Moose had another boat arranged for him to take out for some filming. Moose couldn’t rouse him with phone calls and messages.”

  I hung up with Grandpa, then called Dillon. Blackbirds were chattering in the background in the backyard of the Blue Heron Inn.

  After I asked Dillon if he’d seen John, he said, “Maybe he had too much to drink last night and ended up sleeping it off on the side of the road somewhere.”

  “That’s not like John.”

  “Depends. It’s a guy thing. He’s had a lot on his mind lately. I guarantee he’ll be mortified when he wakes up any minute now with a hangover. He’ll want to buy two dozen roses for Pauline. Let me drive around and look for him.”

  His offer warmed something elemental in me. “That’s why I love you. And I never thought it’d be reassuring to hear that somebody got too drunk to drive. I’m sure that’s it. I know he loves Pauline.”

  After I hung up, Kjersta Dahlgren showed up in the barn while I was putting price signs up on the shelving island with the jams and jellies. Her face appeared drawn.

  Kjersta said, “I heard about Cherry.”

  “Already?”

  “The sheriff stopped by only minutes ago to ask me and Daniel questions about Cherry and all the disagreements we’ve been having with his lack of action with Jonas Coppens.” She shivered, crossing her arms in an obvious attempt to hide her nervousness.

  Dread kicked me in the backside. “You and Daniel are suspects?”

  “I’m scared. The sheriff asked if we saw anything last night.”

  “Did you?”

  “I saw two cars pass here around eleven maybe, heading toward Brussels.”

  And taking the turn in Brussels took a person to the Namur church. My head naturally connected everything to John, who seemed missing. “You didn’t recognize the cars?”

  “It was dark. But one car didn’t have lights on. I only saw it because the car behind it was traveling close and then the one in front braked. I saw the brake lights. Then after a few moments, they both sped up and kept on going. I figured it was teenagers.”

  “Had to be,” I said, admonishing myself for jumping to conclusions.

  I helped Kjersta harvest a few cabbage heads and pumpkins. Her cabbage heads were nearly as big as bushel baskets, as were many of her pumpkins. It took two people to lift some of them.

  In exchange, Kjersta offered to take over the cash register in the stone barn, so I grabbed Pauline. We got in my yellow pickup and
headed north to Fishers’ Harbor.

  I skipped telling her what Kjersta had said about the cars last night. The county had twenty-eight thousand residents plus thousands of tourists in it; anybody could have been on that road heading toward the church. I told her what Dillon had said.

  “But why would he go out drinking like that? What’s weighing on him?”

  “Maybe he’s thinking about proposing to you.”

  The truck cab went silent for a full thirty seconds.

  Pauline said, “I never thought of that.”

  We listened to the engine hum for a moment.

  She said, “I’ve felt him working up to a proposal several times, but then he backs off. This TV dream of his has always been his priority.”

  She was delving into her doubts again, which wasn’t like her. Was that what love did to a person? I said, “He’s nervous because he wants everything to be perfect for you. Maybe John’s going to surprise you at the school this afternoon. Think about it. You’re there all alone, after all. No kids. No principal. All very private. John loves drama.”

  I wiggled my eyebrows.

  Pauline laughed. “All right. I won’t worry about John. Tell Dillon thanks. By the way, when are you going to let him propose? Have you two hammered out the date for that in your silly agreement?”

  I almost ran off Highway 57. “It’s a verbal agreement and it’s not silly. There’s nothing wrong with us wanting to let our love grow the old-fashioned way.”

  She scoffed. “Liar. You’re dying to act like rabbits.”

  “If only your kindergartners could hear you now, Miss Potty Mouth.”

  That got a laugh. “I want to be married to the right guy and be married for a long time like your parents and your grandparents. Their love is solid. I’ve never had ‘solid.’ Except with you and your family.”

  That touched me so that I had to grip the steering wheel extra hard. Her parents weren’t always happy. I remembered being seven and ten and twelve and Pauline would stay a week at a time because something bad was going on at home between her parents. They argued a lot and threw things. Her house was a mess of broken dishes and broken hearts. There was probably special meaning this morning in the way we shared the coffee in those priceless antique cups. Such things weren’t possible in Pauline’s parents’ house.