Five-Alarm Fudge

by Christine DeSmet

  “Miss Oosterling, it’s a grass fire.” He was reading his phone screen. “BUG is arriving already. They’ll knock it down.”

  Cody was referring to the Brussels-Union-Gardner Fire Department—known as BUG. Three townships shared the department that relied on volunteers.

  “I should go down there,” I said, removing a pink apron with sparkly glass slippers on it.

  “It says no buildings were involved, but the fire came up to the back of Ava’s Autumn Harvest.”

  “And if my mother hadn’t been there, it might have burned through the wooden doors on either end.” My heart was racing.

  “Call your mom again,” Cody said.

  His coolness amazed me. This time when I called her, Mom answered. She said a few cedar trees and wooden field posts had been destroyed. Cinders in the air had landed on the wooden shingles of Ava’s Autumn Harvest. Mom had hosed it down before the fire department got there. I was sick thinking about what might have happened if some of the wooden rafters had caught fire and the roof had collapsed. Dillon had spent considerable time repairing that roof and laying a new wooden floor. All of his efforts would have been in cinders, as well as my new business.

  My mother was talking in the background to a volunteer firefighter. She came back on the phone. “Ava, they were asking me if I knew of any reason somebody might want to set a fire here.”

  “They think arson?” We were close enough to roadsides that I assumed it had been caused by a cigarette tossed from a vehicle into the dry weeds and grasses.

  “I don’t like this,” my mother said, whispering into the phone. I could barely hear her. “This could be somebody warning you to stop asking questions about Cherry’s death. What if they ask me about the body?”

  “Mom, slow down.” Hmm. Dillon’s words to me last night were still resonating. Mom was charging mighty fast into the murder case. Just as I’d been doing. “Don’t say anything to anybody. Let the firefighters make their conclusions. They’re not going to find a clue that scientifically proves a relationship between you, I mean me, finding a body and a grass fire.”

  When I got off the phone, Cody was staring at me. “Your mother found that body?”

  I sank into my steel-toed shoes. “Don’t tell anybody.”

  “You got mad at me once for keeping secrets.” He was referring to last May. He’d learned a lot about people who might have been involved with the diamonds in my fudge ingredients, but my lack of trust caused him to run away to Chambers Island out in the bay.

  After we sent a few customers on their way with big boxes of fresh fudge, I said to Cody, “You’re right. But you know my mother.”

  “Florine likes to clean a lot. What if she has Asperger’s, too?” He was already preparing shiny ribbons for fudge boxes. He enjoyed shiny, sparkly things, which I’d learned could be common with Asperger’s. Cody used this to his advantage; he was part artist.

  “I doubt she has Asperger’s, but I don’t think she’d survive a night in a jail cell.”

  “It’d be a clean jail cell.”

  His hooting laugh made me smile. I helped fold and ready a few fudge boxes. “Will you keep the secret, Cody? It means a lot to me and my mother.”

  “Sure, Miss Oosterling. Can I help find the murderer?”

  I almost said, “No, thanks, I’ll do it myself,” but instead said, “If I think of a way, I’ll let you know. Thanks for offering.”

  Within the half hour, as I was getting ready to leave to drive down to Brussels, my grandpa came stomping in through the back hallway. He was covered in black soot.

  “Did you hear, A.M.? Somebody tried to torch you.”

  Although in his seventies, he was still a member of the BUG Volunteer Fire Department. In rural areas, we accepted all the volunteers we could get.

  I rushed into the kitchen to get a wet rag and came back. “What’re you talking about, Gilpa?”

  I handed Gilpa the rag to wipe his hands and face, but he set it aside on his sales counter as he shuffled about in his junk drawer where he kept tools.

  “The other volunteers think it was a cigarette, but I saw a spot of scorched earth that looked like somebody tossed a can of gasoline or something. One of those molly drinks.” He meant Molotov cocktail. “It was intentional. Lucky your mother was there to put out the damn thing.”

  Tools—screwdrivers, needle-nose pliers, stubby pencils with erasers long gone—flew out of the drawer and onto his counter while more swearwords flew out of his mouth.

  Standing the heck out of the way, I said, “You must have broken all speed records to get back here so fast.”

  “Yeah, because somebody’s trying to scare you and I’m putting a stop to it.” He held up a knife in a leather sheath. It was his old Buck knife. “Aha! Found it!”

  An edgy feeling tromped through my stomach. “What are you doing with that, Gilpa?”

  “That darn Sheriff Tollefson showed up.”

  “That’s good.”

  “No. He said you’d been in the church and had made a mess.”

  Before I could explain about Marc tossing the kitchen for some film shoot, Grandpa whipped the knife out, flashing the blade under the overhead light. “I’m going to show this around to people and see who gets scared and who looks guilty. If they look guilty, they usually are.”

  “Isn’t the knife a bit of overkill?”

  “Somebody left my son’s Buck knife in that church, and then Cherry turns up dead. Now they’re messing with you—my granddaughter. I’m gonna solve this murder case just like that.” He snapped the fingers of one hand. “Then Jordy Tollefson won’t be bothering my family. He’s got you and my son—your daddy—under his thumb. I’ll cut off his thumb if I have to.”

  My stomach was doing tricks that would put the Cirque du Soleil trapeze act in Las Vegas to shame. “You can’t go around threatening people with a knife, Gilpa. And what’s brought this on? You’re never like this.”

  He stood tall and proud—a skinny man with a sooty face and looking like a raccoon, with the knife held out in front of him. His black-streaked white hair stood out every which way like Einstein’s. “Ava honey, you’ve got to understand I’m defending my family. The word is out that a prince and princess are coming. People might be treating us differently now, for good or bad reasons, including offering too many free drinks and getting Sophie drunk.”

  “So this is about Mike Prevost letting Grandma drink too much. You think he started the fire?” I wasn’t tracking on my grandpa’s thought process.

  He gulped in a big breath while handily sheathing the knife. “Did you find the recipe while you were in the church?”

  “No. Maybe we should talk about that—”

  “No time for talking. Time for doing. The recipe is there. I feel it in these old bones. You find the recipe and I’ll defend us.”

  With that, he grabbed one of the cardboard beer six-pack carriers we used for the Fisherman’s Catch Tall Tale Fudge flavors for men and filled the six-pack with fudge. He then stomped out the front door, pulling it so hard behind him that the cowbell clanked only once before it dropped off the door. I rushed over to pick it up.

  Cody said, “I’ll fix it.”

  Grandpa’s SUV roared outside. He left the parking lot.

  I called Pauline before I realized she was still in school. I felt lost without her. A peek up at our clock told me Laura was probably nursing her babies for their noon feeding. I certainly couldn’t call on Grandma to stop Grandpa. Dillon was up the hill hammering away, and he and Grandpa still weren’t buddies.

  When Moose sauntered down the docks from the Super Catch I, I raced outside. “Moose, my grandfather is getting weird. What’s going on with him?”

  “Beats me. He handles the fishing tours with no problem.”

  “Never any trouble?”

  “No trouble. Nothing goes wrong with my new engines. He doesn’t even sweat on hot days, because my boat has air-conditioning.”

  The sudden we
ight of the world rested on my shoulders. “Do you think he’s bored?”

  “Didn’t occur to me. Why?”

  “He took a knife and some fudge just now and I think he’s going to attack Mike Prevost down at his winery.”

  “Want me to head on down there?”

  “No, you’ve got customers.” Fishermen were collecting near the Super Catch I at the other end of the dock.

  After Moose went into the shop, I called Dillon. “I need your help.”

  Within two minutes, Lucky Harbor, Dillon, and I converged at my yellow truck parked in front of my cabin on Duck Marsh Street.

  The brown water spaniel woofed as I broke speed limits passing cars with tourists gawking at the gorgeous lake scenery and art shops.

  My hands crimped around the steering wheel.

  Dillon said, “Your grandfather wouldn’t use the knife, would he?”

  “Grandpa is a tad feisty when it comes to defending Grandma and his family. And he needs something to do.”

  “Maybe this fire is only some kid thinking he’s messing with the family that has royalty in it. Kids do that sort of thing. They get jealous.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Not everybody appreciates royalty. Some people think they suck from the public trough and sit around eating bonbons.”

  “Right there’s the trouble. They should be eating fudge.”

  Lucky Harbor pushed his nose in the back of my neck and licked me. I couldn’t take my hands off the wheel, so he’d have to wait to get his “fudge.”

  Dillon reached over to tug at my ponytail in a gesture that never failed to send a tickle down my middle. “Maybe it’s not you that somebody wants to scare. It could be the Dahlgrens.”

  “Because they’re murder suspects?”

  “Sure. Somebody’s upset over Cherry’s death.”

  I thought about Fontana. She had some kind of affection for the man. But would she bother setting a fire? That seemed improbable. A chill did a sidewinder track up the back of my neck, because I wondered if my mother was right. Dillon had said last night I’d been way too active asking questions in the past two days. Could it be true that somebody didn’t like me doing that? Had the person started this fire to keep me preoccupied? It was conjecture, but I couldn’t help myself.

  * * *

  We sailed over the Sturgeon Bay Canal Bridge, sliding through a red light without anybody stopping me.

  In another fifteen minutes we’d turned off Highway 57 and were traveling down the narrow, blacktopped country lane belonging to the Prevost Winery and vineyards. Because it was north of where my market sat, we didn’t see the burned area yet.

  I didn’t see Grandpa’s SUV in the parking lot. With relief, I assumed he’d probably gone to Ava’s Autumn Harvest after all. But I felt compelled to warn Mike. I got out.

  A bright red Mustang convertible with its top down sat near the sidewalk. I groaned. I was sure it was Fontana’s car.

  Lucky Harbor raced off.

  Dillon said, “Don’t worry. I’ll get him. He always circles buildings looking for animals to flush.”

  I shivered. The last time Lucky Harbor circled a building lickety-split, it had been the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse outside Fishers’ Harbor where he’d discovered my grandpa’s friend Lloyd Mueller dead. Lloyd had been pushed off the tower. Later, Lucky Harbor showed up to help save me from the killer.

  Shaking off the memory, I focused on finding Michael Prevost. In addition to the attractive, two-story stone building, there was an old farmhouse Mike had fixed up with tan vinyl siding. Behind it was a white barn used for a machine shed. Around us, the rolling hills were striped with rows of grapevines, many with leaves starting to turn autumn colors. On a far slope several workers picked grapes. I also saw Jonas Coppens’s sheep grazing in a couple of rows to feast on weeds and old grape leaves.

  Inside the winery, to my surprise, Fontana Dahlgren stood behind the cash register ringing up a customer. I sniffed the air; it had the taint from Fontana’s distinctive homemade, spicy perfume that reminded me of hot, mulled cider boiled with lilies perhaps, or lavender.

  Once the customer had moved on, I said, “Did you close your roadside market?”

  “No. I put out a sign for people to come here today. Mike’s letting me sell my products here.”

  “Is Mike around?”

  “Not at the moment. He left me in charge.”

  She fluffed her red hair, which I begrudgingly had to admit was gorgeous. Her face was flawless, too. A dress in autumn gold fit just right.

  Fontana looked me up and down. I was wearing a white T-shirt and denim shorts and still had on my heavy work shoes with the steel toes. My ponytail was half undone because of the wild ride in the truck with the wind whipping in the windows.

  Fontana reached behind the counter, then handed me a small lavender-colored bag. “Free samples. Nail file. New goat milk soap I made yesterday. It’ll help take some of the red out of your complexion.”

  Ignoring her jab, I accepted the bag and looked inside, then coughed from the pungent aromas of those lilies and maybe pickling spice. “Made from Jonas’s goats?”

  She nodded.

  “My dad caught you trying to break into Jonas’s roadside chapel the other day.”

  Her freckles faded. “I was thinking Adele’s fudge recipe was hidden in there.”

  “Nice comeback, but that chapel isn’t that old.”

  “The recipe can be anywhere. Maybe it was stolen from that church long ago and hidden somewhere else.”

  “Pardon me while I call Michael.” I took out my phone.

  “He said he had an errand to do in his back forty somewhere. He went off in his truck.”

  I put my phone away, but I wondered what else she could tell me. “So, you two are an item?”

  She flipped her red hair off her shoulders. “He cares about me.”

  “No, you care about him helping you escape the blame for Cherry’s death. A whole busload of people saw you arguing with Cherry the day he died.”

  Her gasp told me a lot. “Keep your voice down. I already gave my story to the sheriff.”

  Leaning over the counter, I asked, “Did you have anything to do with Cherry’s death?”

  Her gaze flickered about, but I couldn’t tell if the action was from guilt or pure embarrassment. “What is wrong with you?” she hissed. “I’m scared to go into any church, and I’m certainly not going to go down into a church basement. That direction is Hell.” She pointed down to the floor. “There’s fire down there.”

  “It’s interesting that you would mention a fire. Did you set the fire next to my market?”

  One of her hands covered her gasp this time. “I just gave you a gift and you treat me this way?”

  “Did Mike kill Cherry? You were with Cherry. You had to be there.” She blinked hard while I continued. “Did you have a tryst at the schoolhouse, then drive off? You drove Mike’s car, and he drove off in Cherry’s. Right? I suppose Mike is off in the back forty hiding Cherry’s car?”

  As I said the words, a realization that felt like a bucket of ice being tossed down my back startled me. “Did you kill Cherry in his car? Is that why the car had to disappear? There’s blood in it? Who helped you? Who dragged the body into the church and put it in the basement?”

  With her hands shaking, Fontana fumbled for her cell phone from a designer purse sitting behind the counter. “I’m calling the sheriff.”

  “Go ahead. He enjoys talking with me.”

  I walked out of the winery on rubbery legs, incensed and still carrying the obnoxious lavender bag in one hand. My conscience scolded me to remember Dillon’s words about my obsession with the case. But I felt certain Fontana was hiding something. She was neglecting her own roadside market and cozying up to Mike for some reason.

  I had little time to think it over, though, because in the parking lot Dillon was smack dab in the middle of an argument between Michael Prevost and my grandfather.
My grandpa was pointing dangerously into the air with his Buck knife.

  Chapter 18

  Grandpa had the knife in one hand while the six-pack loaded with fudge dangled off the other hand. He was railing at Mike about the way he’d treated my grandmother.

  Dillon had both arms out, trying to motion them to back off.

  Grandpa hollered at Mike, “You bastard. Taking advantage of a good woman like that.”

  Mike’s face wrinkled in red rage. “She willingly took every drink I gave her. Sophie is a lush.”

  Grandpa lunged around Dillon and almost caught Mike’s arm with the dangerous Buck knife.

  I filched in the lavender bag and within a blink was spraying Fontana’s awful spicy perfume at everybody as if it were pepper spray.

  Lucky Harbor started barking at our feet, making us jump.

  Grandpa halted to sneeze three times. He lowered the knife, replaced it in its sheath, then handed the knife and the fudge to Mike.

  Mike said, “What the hell is this for?”

  Grandpa sneezed again. “It’s a gift. That’s my old knife. I always give my enemies a gift. To butter them up. And to forgive them for being assholes.”

  Dillon smirked.

  I wasn’t sure what to say or do. Grandpa was not himself.

  Amid batting at the perfume in the air, Mike handed the knife back. “Thanks, but you keep the knife. I’ll keep the fudge, gladly. You know your granddaughter was always good in my classes. Ava, sorry about everything with your grandmother.”

  Grandpa waggled a finger at Mike. “You’re covering up something, Mike. Why was my wife drinking too much?”

  “Sophie asked me for advice about going to Chicago.”

  I asked, “Why?”

  “I mentioned I was going to Chicago soon to visit wine stores. Your grandmother said she wanted to look into some family ghost.”

  Grandpa harrumphed. “You’re making this up. You got her drunk and then she started seeing things.”

  Mike said, “No. She talked about the ghosts first, then started slamming wine.” Grandpa stalked away to his SUV, then drove off.