Five-Alarm Fudge

by Christine DeSmet

Their large garden had plenty of bounty in it, but we’d never keep up with picking everything. I hoofed it over to the two acres of garden. Tomato plants were loaded with red fruit hanging down onto straw mulch.

  Pauline joined me. “Fontana never did anything like this when she was married to Daniel. All she did for work was her nails.”

  Her words made me think about the act of murder. “It takes a lot of work to kill somebody. As much as I’d like to blame her for Cherry’s death, I don’t see her busting a nail over such a thing.”

  “Though if there were a crowd in the church that night, she could still be involved. She was a cheerleader and pretty strong. Remember the flips she used to do? And the way she could walk across the gym on her hands?”

  “True.” I turned around to the ker-thunk, ker-thunk of a baling machine punching out bales of third-crop hay not far away, including across the road in my family’s field. Hired help was driving the tractor.

  I sagged from the thought of the dozens of workers who might have stolen a knife from my dad, then entered that church and killed Cherry. Yet I knew Jordy was smart. He was looking for perpetrators with a strong motive. He had likely questioned a lot of workers already. I wondered whether any temporary farm help were on the suspect list. My father hired such strangers all the time. A chill fizzed like frost across the fine hairs on my arms.

  I did an about-face and then marched for the squad car out on the road.

  Pauline ran to catch up. “Now what are you doing?”

  “Asking Maria who they’ve questioned.”

  But Maria wouldn’t talk about the case. I didn’t even have any fudge left to bribe her. So I slammed myself in behind the wheel of Pauline’s car and then we headed down the road.

  “Slow down!” Pauline yelled, buckling up.

  “Maria’s following us again.”

  “I don’t care. This car needs TLC.”

  “Tender loving care? It’s not human.”

  “It has over a hundred thousand miles. It needs a rest after we were speeding earlier.”

  “It’s a car, Pauline, a machine. Machines don’t need rests. You need a new car anyway. This thing is boring.”

  In a last-minute decision, I yanked the wheel into a sharp right turn into Jonas Coppens’s driveway. To my dismay, Pauline’s small sedan slid on the gravel, then fishtailed into a doughnut spin.

  Chapter 14

  The car landed in the stubble of a chopped cornfield a few yards off Highway C on Jonas’s land. We were facing the highway, staring at Maria’s squad car hood. She’d driven in with us. We got out of our vehicles.

  Maria waved dust away from her face, then removed her aviator sunglasses. “What the hell were you trying to prove?”

  Pauline echoed, “Yeah, what the heck?” She slapped at her black slacks and red blouse.

  I said to Pauline, “You need new tires. Those have no tread left.”

  Maria peered up at me with brown eyes evoking the ferocity of a bear. “The last time you did this sort of thing, you rolled your truck.”

  “I’m sorry. Really. I won’t do it again. But I am on private land, Deputy.”

  Maria put on her aviator sunglasses in clear disgust. Then she got in her car and drove it onto the road, heading toward Ava’s Autumn Harvest. She was obviously keeping an eye on me from a distance, but at least she wasn’t at my elbows.

  “I turned in here to get rid of her. My plan worked.”

  Pauline choked on the dust still whirling in the wind. “You had no plan. You were driving like an idiot. If you wrecked anything on my car, you’re going to pay for it.”

  “Nothing is wrecked. But you need new tires.” I wanted to tell her that her gray sedan was a dusty, forlorn heap of metal.

  Jonas came roaring down the driveway on a tractor. He pulled to a stop and shut off his motor. “Are you all right? Need a tow?”

  He alighted from the tractor and the first thing he did was head to Pauline’s car to inspect the tires. Then he peered at me. “No flats. You didn’t rip anything on the undercarriage?”

  I said, “The car’s undercarriage is fine.”

  Pauline huffed. “We’ll see.”

  Jonas said, “Why don’t you start it up and drive it back onto the lane and we’ll see if it’s okay?”

  Pauline pushed around me to get to the driver’s seat. While I stood next to Jonas, she started the car, then drove the gray car slowly from the cornfield back onto the gravel lane. A rattle that sounded like clunkety-clunk-clink, clunkety-clunk-clink made me wince.

  After she got out of the car, Pauline whipped her hair back, firing at me, “You wrecked my car, Ava Mathilde Oosterling.”

  I held up my hands because she looked as though she wanted to wrestle me to the ground for a pounding. Her face was redder than a tomato. I felt awful. “I’ll get it fixed. There are probably rocks in your muffler.”

  “My muffler is new. It doesn’t have holes in it.”

  “You bought a new muffler for this old thing?”

  “I love this car. You didn’t throw away your grandma, did you, when she broke her leg?”

  Jonas laughed. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Do you want to come up to the house for a beer?”

  Pauline said, “No, thanks.”

  I said, “Sure. We need to talk about helping the Dahlgrens with their harvesting.”

  Jonas flinched. His gaze flitted toward the Dahlgren house to our south and across the fence.

  I said, “You don’t really believe they killed Tristan Hardy?”

  “With the shovel covered with Tristan’s blood? What else am I supposed to believe?”

  “What shovel?”

  “The garden shovel. I was working on the fence near their place early this morning after Kjersta was arrested when the sheriff came back with some help, some expert on blood and evidence of that sort. They rousted Daniel from the house. I guess to get keys. They entered your market, then the Dahlgrens’ garden shed, and then the sheriff came out with a shovel. I heard Daniel yelling something like ‘that’s not his blood.’ They obviously didn’t believe him. They hauled him off in handcuffs.”

  A chilly breeze rattled around my ribs. “So that’s what they have on him. They think Daniel used a shovel to kill Tristan.”

  Pauline said, “There’s not much use for us to go over to the church now.”

  But I thought otherwise. We got in Pauline’s car, with her driving, and went clunkety-clunk back onto Highway C. I asked Pauline to turn right toward Brussels and Namur.

  Pauline grumbled, “I hope this means we’re stopping at the station so a mechanic can look at my car while you pay the bill.”

  I ignored her. “Jordy has a shovel as evidence, and even if it’s got blood on it that belongs to Tristan, why would Daniel and Kjersta be dumb enough not to wash it off by now? Something’s not jibing with this.”

  Her shoulders heaved in a sigh. “Good point.”

  “Somebody planted that shovel in their shed.”

  “But it was locked.”

  “I doubt that. My market is always locked, but I doubt that a mere garden shed is locked all day and even at night. Most of us don’t lock our sheds and barns.”

  “So somebody stole their shovel?”

  “It might not even be their shovel. A pointed shovel or spade is standard equipment around here.”

  “So Fontana bought or found a shovel, whacked Cherry, then snuck it back to Kjersta’s garden shed?”

  “Maybe.” I hesitated voicing my next thought. “Kjersta told me she thinks Jonas was involved. It wouldn’t take much for him to walk over to the Dahlgren place. But . . .”

  “Jonas is a nice guy.”

  I told Pauline what Kjersta had said about Jonas writing to Cherry’s dean two weeks ago, and that Fontana enjoyed fomenting jealousy between Jonas and Cherry over dating her.

  Pauline turned at the intersection in Brussels. “Being upset with the professor doesn’t strike me as much of a motive for whacking him
over the head with a shovel. And think of all Jonas has been through after his parents were killed in that car accident years ago.”

  “I know. He held on to the farm by himself through his hard work. But I’ve noticed he seems nervous or odd lately, not himself. When I was looking at his roadside church earlier today, he came down his lane on his bike with a letter for the mailbox, but then he didn’t put the letter in the box. And just now, back in his field, he got off his tractor and looked first at the car tires and not us, as if he wanted to avoid direct eye contact.”

  “He has a right to be nervous, don’t you think? He didn’t like Cherry dragging his feet about the research. Jonas must realize he’s as much a suspect as you are.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Ava, you make Jonas nervous. You would make me nervous, too. In fact, I don’t even want to be with you right now. I’d rather be like your mother—doing something like sweeping. By the way, send her over to my classroom. The school doesn’t have enough budget for a janitor.”

  Although she was speaking the truth about the school budget, that lightened our mood. We checked the rearview mirror a few times to make sure Maria wasn’t following us, then stopped in the blacktopped parking area next to Saint Mary of the Snows in Namur. Pauline grabbed her bag. I checked my pocket for my cell phone.

  A corn chopper was grinding through the field north of the church, but there wasn’t anything else going on around us. Nobody was outside the handful of buildings on the east side of the church or across the road.

  The redbrick church had yellow tape across all the doors, including the side door next to the parking lot.

  Hefting her purse onto her shoulder, Pauline asked, “So, what are we looking for? Footprints outside in the grass?”

  I held up a key. “We’re going inside. My grandmother’s key.”

  “Does she know you have it?”

  “Of course not.”

  Pauline shook her head as if I’d be getting detention for this.

  After I reached around the yellow tape, we ducked under it to enter the church. We passed the space for the wheelchair lift and went up the short stairs and past the restrooms.

  The taint of smoke still hung in the air. The smudges on the wall up near the loft stairs were still evident, reminding me of the days ticking away before the prince would arrive to visit the church. The low sun pushed through the stained glass windows that needed to be washed, giving the interior a sepia tinge.

  I led the way to the loft stairway where yellow tape remained.

  Pauline grabbed my arm. “There’s going to be soot all over up there. They’ll be able to tell we’ve been here.”

  “Nobody’s going to look for us here today. It’s Jordy’s dinnertime.”

  “We’ll get dirty.”

  “Did you forget you’re still wearing your classroom clothes?”

  She peered down at her red blouse and black slacks. I had on my usual blue jeans and a long-sleeved pink T-shirt and sturdy athletic shoes. I twisted my hair into a knot at the back of my head. Then I ducked under the tape.

  The tap of Pauline’s black flats on the stairs echoed behind me.

  In the choir loft, there was smoke residue everywhere, which saddened me. All our cleaning earlier had been for naught. It would take a lot of elbow grease to get the church back into shape before the royal kermis.

  The piano bench was charred, with the lid closed.

  “Don’t touch it,” Pauline said. “It could still have John’s blood in it.”

  I opened it anyway. There was nothing inside. The sheriff had taken all the music sheets, ashes and all. “There’s no blood, Pauline.”

  “So why was the knife tossed in there? And by whom?”

  “My dad said that anybody could have stolen it from the farm. I’m sure he gave the list of visitors we keep to the sheriff. But I suppose anybody could sneak around our farm in the dead of night and take a knife if it were left out in the barn or creamery and the doors had been left unlocked.”

  “Wouldn’t you hear people? What about your dogs?”

  “The dogs sleep with Mom and Dad.” We had an old cattle dog that snored louder than Mom and lay on the bed, and a tiny white, fluffy bichon frise that burrowed under Dad’s pillow to sleep. “But Mom said she heard a car out on the road around midnight on Saturday night.”

  “That could have been somebody on your place who was leaving, roaring as they hurried out of your driveway, making a fast getaway.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Thanks, A.M., that’s brilliant.”

  “Just trying to keep up with you, P.M.”

  “What if Cherry and Fontana were on the road and coming up behind the person who’d been at our farm? Fontana lives only a few miles away, by her market.”

  Pauline began to tiptoe carefully between the smoky choir loft pews toward the staircase. “So you’re thinking the person sneaking around your parents’ farm thought Cherry had taken down his license plate? Then when Cherry and Fontana stopped at the church for whatever reason, the person followed Cherry and Fontana into the church, and the person killed Cherry.”

  “Supposition totally, but plausible. You’re getting into this, Pauline.”

  “No. I’m eager to make sure John isn’t pulled into this murder thing. That was his blood, after all, in that bench.”

  “Yes, but we found the knife on Saturday morning and Cherry was killed on Saturday night. Until we find a connection between the murder and the knife, John’s free, though the sheriff may have questions.” I held back telling her that Jonas had seen John in the church Saturday morning early. “I’m sure he must have done some errand in the loft before we went up there, cut himself, freaked about finding a knife, and now he doesn’t recall it because of the bump on his head.”

  “If only he’d get his memory back. The bits and pieces he recalls aren’t reliable.”

  We went back down the staircase to the nave.

  On our way to the basement, we had to go through the kitchen. We found it ransacked.

  “This is ridiculous, rude, and wrong,” Pauline said.

  Tomorrow was probably an R day in school. “It sure doesn’t look like anything the sheriff or his crew would do.”

  Flour and sugar were spilled out of their sealed containers. Every box had been tossed out of the cupboards.

  Pauline asked, “Do you suppose they were looking for the recipe?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  I tiptoed around the mess, trying to avoid the flour so I didn’t make tracks. Pauline stayed at the door to the nave clutching her purse.

  A banging suddenly resounded from below us.

  Chapter 15

  Marc Hayward called to us, “Who’s up there?”

  I yelled back as I hurried to the basement, “What are you doing here? How did you get in? And where’s your car?”

  We soon stood together in the doorway to the room where Cherry’s body had been found. My manager—and now John’s manager—was holding the steel cap that went over the vent in the wall.

  “Hi, Ava.” He wiped off a hand covered with a white substance, then reached out to Pauline. “You’re Pauline, right?”

  After her nod he said, “Isn’t this a great place for filming?”

  I panicked. “This is a crime scene. What are you doing down here, or even in this church?”

  “I have to ask you the same thing.”

  “Trying to . . . get myself off the hook.”

  “Ah yes, but John explained that it was your mother who found the body down here.”

  I gave Pauline an evil look for spilling that secret to John, then said to Marc, “You’re not going to tell anybody, are you?”

  “Heck no.” He pulled a roll of masking tape out of his pocket. “Can you show me exactly where your mother found the body? I’ll mark it for the actor so he knows where to lie.”

  “Actor?”

  “For John’s travel and food show. It’s imperative that we make a short trail
er right at the scene of the crime in this church for authenticity. It’ll be a great way to introduce this tourist site and the hunt for the fudge recipe. We need a trailer to show around to the executives in order to sell the show. Nothing too involved, really. We’ll be in and out of here in no time, upload it to the Web, and then send it to a head of development or two or six.”

  I wanted to grab Pauline’s purse and bop Marc on his bald head. “Get out of here or you can be arrested.” And then my mother and I would probably be found out. “Did you cause the damage in the kitchen?”

  I got my answer when he abruptly turned to put the steel plate back in place in the furnace chimney hole. The white substance on his hands had to be flour from the kitchen.

  Pauline filched about in her purse, probably to rub those darn holy buttons again.

  Marc said, “The kitchen is set up for filming a scene about this story.”

  “But that’s a lie. There was no messy kitchen when my . . . when I found the body. And how did you get in here?”

  He held up a key.

  Pauline sighed. “Does everybody in the county have a key to this church?”

  Marc put it back in a pants pocket. “John had one.”

  Pauline asked, “Where’s John?”

  “Over at the school looking around. We thought we’d film that, too, with an actress pretending to be Sister Adele Brise. We could use a stand-in. Want to help?”

  A headache threatened to throb in my forehead. “Marc, please, get out of here before you get us all into serious trouble.”

  “You’ve changed since you moved back to Door County.”

  His words gave me pause. “How?”

  His gaze flicked up and down my person. Finally, he said, “You seem taller.”

  With that, he marched up the stairs. Footsteps shuffled about in the kitchen, then echoed across the nave.

  Pauline had a way of raising one dark eyebrow that made her look like an eagle about to scoop up a fish off our bay.

  “Pauline, I didn’t invite him here, so don’t blame me.”

  “He’s going to end up getting you into deep trouble. I feel it coming.”