Five-Alarm Fudge

by Christine DeSmet

  I didn’t want to bring up Fontana’s name, since Sam had dated her.

  Grandma and Sam stared at me. The refrigerator’s buzz filled the room.

  I told them, “Kjersta told me her theories about everybody being upset with Cherry, but that’s all I really know.”

  Sam fingered the toast on his plate. “Your father is concerned, too. He called me this morning to help you.”

  “I’ll call Parker Balusek.”

  Sam got off his chair. He poured me a mug of coffee, then topped off Grandma’s cup. “Fontana called me this morning. She gave a statement to the sheriff last night. She says she’s sure Kjersta killed Cherry.”

  “Sam, just because she’s an old girlfriend . . .”

  “Fontana was sobbing.”

  “Of course. She’s a good actress when she wants to be. Be careful. You know she’s jealous of me and Kjersta because of my new market doing well. And let’s not get into the issue of her wanting to torture her ex-husband by dating the entire male population around Brussels and Namur. I don’t believe she’s a ‘floozy’ as my grandmother calls her. Fontana isn’t the type to go to bed with men indiscriminately, but she wants to be loved by somebody. In her desperation I’m not sure she makes the best decisions concerning her actions.”

  “Maybe I could discuss the issues with her.”

  The urge to do something with my hands—either make fudge or throttle Sam—overwhelmed me. “Sam, Fontana isn’t one of your social work clients. The issues are clear. The wrong person is in jail. Kjersta is our friend.”

  I had to do something. I got up. “Grandma, can you cover the fudge shop? Grandpa’s not there, so don’t worry about having to talk to him about yesterday.” I hugged her. “He’s concerned about you, Grandma. He’s sorry. He loves you buckets.”

  She was sniffling as I said to Sam, “Don’t worry about lawyers. I’m turning myself in.”

  * * *

  The Door County Justice Center in Sturgeon Bay was a contemporary edifice of brick with limestone rock accents and four gray rock columns out front. Yellow lilies that hadn’t succumbed to early frost waved in the breeze. A stained glass window depicted Miss Liberty. I went through the maroon-colored doors, then walked to the protective glass window and spoke through the tiny holes.

  “I’m Ava Oosterling. I’m giving myself up.” I didn’t really want to say that, but I knew it would fast-track me to the sheriff.

  The woman behind the glass gave me an odd look, then consulted her computer. “Yup, the sheriff is expecting you.”

  That rankled me. Somehow Jordy knew I’d show up after he arrested Kjersta.

  When I was being patted down, I suddenly knew why the woman gave me the odd look. I was still wearing the pink apron from my shop. I’d worn it over to Grandma’s house, too, evidently. I decided to leave it on. Maybe it would soften up the sheriff.

  A deputy escorted me to the little room with the blue plastic chairs and six-foot table. Pauline and I, as well as my entire family, had gathered here in the past to discuss a few matters of accidents and murder.

  Ten minutes went by in the frigid room. The cold wait was a sheriff’s tactic. Jordy wanted me to be shivering so I’d spill everything fast and then leave.

  Sheriff Tollefson finally stomped into the room, sharp as usual in his tan uniform, his brown hair short but with fashionable waves in it. He plopped down a pad of paper and pen, then eased into the chair across from me.

  His brown eyes ogled my attire. A corner of his mouth twitched. “Thank you for saving me the trouble of tracking you down today.”

  “You can’t really think you’re going to arrest me.”

  “You and Pauline.”

  I shivered for real. “We were merely cleaning the church. His body was there. That’s it. And there’s no way Kjersta killed Tristan Hardy. Come on, Jordy, you know the Dahlgrens.”

  “Must I continue to remind you that it’s Sheriff Tollefson when I’m on duty? We went through this last summer.”

  He was starting to waste my time, which always turned up the heat inside me. “Well, Sheriff, there is no way Kjersta killed anybody. She grows organic vegetables and cherries and apples.”

  “So ‘organic’ somehow inoculates a person from committing murder? What if I think she committed an organic murder? It was organic to her personality. Now, tell me about her. I know Daniel, but Kjersta is fairly new to me. She married Daniel when?”

  “A couple of years ago. Right after his divorce from Fontana.”

  He made notes. “Your family was upset with Tristan, too?”

  My instincts said I was toying with a rattlesnake. “He and Professor Wesley Weaver and their students came to my parents’ home a few times to talk about the study they were doing. It was through our own county cooperative extension service. My parents were both very cooperative.”

  “Cooperative with the cooperative?” Jordy shook his head, then made notes. “Wesley Weaver and Tristan Hardy were friends?”

  “Colleagues. I suppose they were friends, too.”

  Jordy’s pen scratched again on the paper.

  He asked, “What do you know about Jonas Coppens? In relationship to Tristan Hardy and Kjersta Dahlgren?”

  It was another rattlesnake question that could bite Kjersta. She’d told me she thought Jonas capable of murder. But that was supposition. I shuddered.

  “Cold?” the sheriff asked.

  “No. My apron keeps me cozy.” I searched my brain for things to say that would keep my friends safe. “Jonas was getting the blame for a lot of trouble. He and Kjersta weren’t on good terms, but all of us were questioning the slowness of Tristan’s research. We were tired of the mystery about chemicals and bugs not getting resolved.”

  “Kjersta said that Tristan Hardy took samples of food on Saturday from your roadside stand, including your fudge.”

  I brightened. “Yes, he did. He likely ate it before it went anywhere.”

  “I’ve been told he dumped stuff off at the university that afternoon. But we can’t find his car. There are likely more materials in the car we’d like to look at. Have you seen a blue Ford Fusion around?”

  “No.”

  Jordy harrumphed. The sheriff then sat back in his chair, his hands going behind his head, where he laced his fingers together in a relaxed mode probably meant to trick me. “Maria Vasquez says that your friend’s boyfriend got some knock on the head.”

  “How does she know that?”

  “Incidents of violence are reported to us by the emergency room doctors. She also heard this morning that the guy who owns Prevost Winery had a headlight on his passenger side broken when he ran into somebody who he described as wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I recall somebody who wears those things. Do you?”

  The rattlesnake in the air between us had just bit me. Jordy had the upper hand. But there was no way I was going to give up my best friend’s boyfriend this easily. “I didn’t witness anything. And if you’re going to question Mike Prevost and believe him, think again. The guy got my grandmother drunk yesterday. In my way of thinking, Mike is not a very reliable witness.”

  Jordy popped his hands from off his head, then leaned across the table at me. “Drunk?”

  I told Jordy the tale of woe about my grandparents leading the tour yesterday to help out John Schultz.

  He shook his head while scribbling across his pad with his pen. “I hope Sophie’s feeling okay this morning.”

  “She’ll be fine after about two pots of coffee to get over the dehydration. Sam Peterson is with her.”

  “Ex-fiancés are good for something, I guess.”

  “That was uncalled for, Jordy.”

  “You’re right. Sorry, Ava.”

  I was getting the upper hand back. “What evidence do you have that Kjersta murdered Cherry?”

  “I can’t give you all the details.”

  “Can I talk with her?”

  “That’s not advised.”

  “But not illegal. You fo
rget I’m familiar with the rules here. She’s allowed limited visits. Maybe she and her attorney put me on the preapproved visitor list.”

  After scowling at me, he went to ask the status. He evidently had no intention of arresting me. I suspected that was only what my panicked parents thought might happen.

  I was shown to Room B117, which was labeled ATTORNEY VISITS. Kjersta and I, sans sheriff, sat in blue chairs again, but this room was much smaller, more like a church confessional.

  Kjersta wore a jail jumpsuit. With her pixie haircut and big brown eyes, she almost looked fashionable and straight off some TV show about women in prison. But the whites of her eyes were red from crying.

  “I didn’t do it, Ava. I didn’t kill Cherry.”

  “I know.” Oddly, my gut betrayed me with a tiny lurch. I felt ashamed for doubting her. Sam and the sheriff had done a number on me. “But they must have something on you. What’s the alleged evidence?”

  “Evidence, ha. The evidence is perfume.”

  “Perfume?”

  “They say that perfume was detected on Cherry’s clothing that matches what I wear and sell.”

  This amazed me. “Are you sure there’s no other evidence?”

  “I can’t think of anything else. And my lawyer hasn’t been told anything much yet.”

  “They must have something else on you, Kjersta, that they’re not telling you.”

  She shuddered. “Sheriff Tollefson seems fixated on the perfume for now.”

  “The sheriff has a good nose?”

  “He got a whiff of me yesterday, and he decided I smelled like the clothing they took off Cherry. The sheriff was aware of how upset I was about Cherry’s lack of action to stop the chemical drift from Jonas’s farm. He also found out that I make homemade organic scents now. He put two and two together.”

  I sat back in my chair, flummoxed. “But you wear natural scents, like the new soaps you created. You create scents from clover.”

  Kjersta leaned forward, tapping her worn fingernails on the table. “Yes, and we both know who else wears natural scents, though more pungent. Fontana.”

  “Did you tell the sheriff you think it’s her?”

  “I tried. He doesn’t believe me. I told the sheriff that Fontana and Cherry were arguing and she’s been dating him. But she only dated him to work up to this—me being jailed. She wants me out of the picture so she can have Daniel back. Somehow she manufactured this murder to get rid of me. And watch out. You know she wants you out of business, too. Before this is over, you and your family will be ruined. I guarantee it.”

  Chapter 11

  The notion of my family possibly being ruined by Fontana sent me straight to the farm to warn my father.

  It was midmorning, but my dad was still milking cows with the help of his herd manager.

  The milking parlor sent cows through on an assembly line. It had ten milking stalls—five on each side of a pit area that put my dad and the herdsman at almost eye level with each cow’s udder. Dad would do what’s called the “dip and strip” first, or washing the teats and making sure each was healthy by squirting out a little milk by hand.

  Then the herdsman put the milking cups on each teat. Whooshing suctions and pulsations in the hoses drew the milk out of the udder. The glass vacuum tubes along the top of the stanchions that looked like hamster trails sucked the milk all the way to either of two rooms, depending on how my dad flipped the switch. One room had a holding tank for that milk to be shipped away for packaging as milk and yogurt people bought in a grocery store. The other room was the creamery where Mom made cheese and butter, and skimmed cream for my fudge.

  With the milking machines set up on the cows, Dad sauntered over to me at the area reserved for visitors. To honor our upcoming visitors, he’d painted the black, yellow, and red Belgian flag on the wall behind me as well as the Wallonia Province flag, which was yellow with a red rooster in the middle.

  Dad wore clean blue jeans, a blue chambray shirt, and tall black rubber boots that were spotless. He walked them through a shallow rubber tub filled with disinfectant.

  “Hi, honey.”

  I relayed to him what I’d found out in Sturgeon Bay.

  “Perfume?” He wrinkled up his nose. “Seems a bit flimsy to jail somebody based on perfume.”

  “I know. I’m sure the sheriff has some other evidence that he’s not sharing with Kjersta or anybody in the public yet so that he can get a clean confession from somebody. Do you remember anything weird in the last few days? Anything that could help get Kjersta freed?”

  “Such as?”

  “Did Fontana Dahlgren stop by?”

  “No.” He trained his eyes on the Holsteins. “I’ve been seeing Fontana a lot, though, in her little red Mustang zipping around the countryside.”

  “Really? Like where?”

  “All over. I was out baling hay over near Highway C one day last week and she had stopped near that roadside chapel at Jonas’s place. She pulled on the door, but it appeared to be locked.”

  “How odd. She’s not the church kind. Though it wouldn’t hurt her to attend.”

  My dad chuckled, then sobered. “Maybe you should lock up the stone barn and call it quits for the season. At least until this murder case is solved. With Kjersta in jail, and Daniel doing his chores off in his orchards, you’re there all alone now. I don’t like that.”

  His caring almost brought me to tears. “Thanks, Dad, but I’ll be fine.” Then Kjersta’s words echoed in my head. “Watch out. You know she wants you out of business, too. Before this is over, you and your family will be ruined. I guarantee it.”

  “Did you notice anybody driving by our farm on their way to Namur the night of the murder? It could have been past ten o’clock.”

  Dad said, “I was in bed by that time and sound asleep. Maybe your mother recalls something. She’s a light sleeper, always complaining about waking up at three in the morning and never getting back to sleep until it’s time to get up.”

  Mom was next door in the creamery. She was dressed in white and wore a hair net. “Thank goodness you weren’t arrested yet, Ava. Do I need to worry?”

  “No, Mom.”

  At the front counter, I helped myself to blocks of cheddar cheese and bags of fresh cheddar cheese curds to sell at Ava’s Autumn Harvest. I marked down what I was taking on a pad of paper. Mom entered items on her computer tablet in the evenings.

  After she finished swishing water in a big stainless steel sink, she came over, still wringing her hands. “I haven’t told your father I found the body. I just can’t do it.”

  I sagged. That was not what this family needed—more secrets being kept from one another. We were going to implode with secrets.

  But I respected my mother, and after all, I was the one who volunteered to take the rap for finding Cherry’s body. After catching up my mother on what had transpired with Kjersta, I asked her about cars going by on Saturday night or very early Sunday morning.

  Her brown eyes went as wide as Kjersta’s. “Come to think of it, I did hear cars. But not at three when I’m usually awake. Around midnight. One roared pretty good. I figured it was high school kids laying rubber on the road like they do sometimes.”

  Her answer gave me nothing. Fontana loved to show off in her Mustang, but a lot of people showed off by speeding on our back roads. The killer could be in Chicago or Chechnya by now. But Kjersta thought Fontana was a suspect. I’d known Kjersta since first grade. She’d never bossed me around or tried to make me over like Fontana. Fontana had always wanted to shape the world to her liking. It was so darn easy to blame her for Cherry’s death. But could I believe it?

  * * *

  Daniel Dahlgren blamed his ex-wife, Fontana, but not Jonas. After I set out the cheese and curds at my stand, Daniel had come out of his house to join me.

  The wind whipped his wild blond waves. He had that same rangy, cowboy demeanor that Dillon possessed. A big belt buckle cinched his confident gait. As he drew close, th
ough, I could see that worry clouded his blue eyes.

  “Daniel, I’m so sorry.” I updated him on my visit with Kjersta at the Justice Center.

  He was fussing with my price signs.

  “I can do that, Daniel. Why don’t you head off to see your wife?”

  “Kjersta asked me to help you. I saw her earlier this morning. She told me to make sure nothing happened to your market. She wanted to be sure Fontana didn’t make us shut down.”

  “But what could Fontana do?”

  “She’ll think of something.”

  “I’m not afraid of Fontana.”

  “I am.” Daniel was restacking blocks of cheddar cheese. “My wife is in jail because of my ex-wife.”

  He said that with a catch in his throat that ruptured my soul. These people were my friends. But I’d been away for eight years. I’d missed a lot of growing and changing among my friends. Maybe some changes weren’t so good. I ached to feel as though I belonged to my tribe again, but I wanted my tribe to get along as it had done long ago. An urgency to help them—to be meaningful to my friends—overwhelmed me.

  Daniel and I brought the vegetables out of the barn from their overnight storage and stacked them on the flatbed wagon and tables. I put out the fudge I’d brought along. Two customers pulled in right after we were set up. Daniel left to do fall pruning in his orchards.

  After I made the two sales, nobody else showed up for an hour.

  On a whim, I set up an honor jar for money, then got in my truck and headed down Highway C the short distance to Jonas Coppens’s property.

  I pulled to a stop past his driveway and a few feet this side of the roadside chapel along the road. Jonas’s parents had built it years ago when I was a kid. The chapel’s foundation was about the dimensions of my pickup truck.

  As my dad had told me, the door was locked. That was unusual. Most roadside chapels were open to the passersby who wanted to escape their busy world and take a moment for solitude and prayer. With the way my life was going lately, I wanted to lock myself inside one of these chapels and never come out again. I wondered why Fontana had been trying to get inside.