Five-Alarm Fudge

by Christine DeSmet

  * * *

  When the three of us walked out of the building and then headed for my truck, Pauline said, “Maybe Cherry following John’s tours around had nothing to do with dementia. Maybe Cherry was stressed-out.”

  We got in my truck, then drove back into the Green Bay streets. I said, “I would be stressed, too. Sounds like his colleagues were pressuring him to quit, and his students didn’t seem thrilled with him either. It’s hard to get rid of a tenured professor.”

  “Not if you murdered him and made it look like self-defense,” Pauline said.

  Laura said, “I’ve pulled up the department listing.” In the rearview mirror I could see her tapping her smartphone. “It has nine faculty members, but only Weaver is doing orchard and grapevine research like Cherry was doing. Nick Stensrud and Will Lucchesi are the only students assigned to Cherry and Weaver.”

  Pauline said, “Nick and Will seem nice enough. Somebody who says ‘federal fudge fiasco’ doesn’t strike me as a killer. Ava, I think you need to keep those other colleagues of Cherry’s as suspects, because bullying is a serious issue.”

  “The ones we didn’t meet yet.”

  “Yeah, seven other profs. What if one or two of them had agreed to meet Cherry that night in the bar next to the Namur church and got in a fight? What if right there on the road the colleague pushed Cherry and he stumbled backward and hit his head?”

  Laura added, “They panicked, stuffed the body in the basement, ran into Marc and John accidentally, and everybody ran.”

  Their story sounded so plausible that none of us said a word more. Horrible accidents happen in real life. I cringed thinking what could have happened with my grandfather brandishing that knife at Mike. However, moving Cherry’s body had been the fatal mistake. It looked like murder.

  I pulled into a Walmart parking lot so I could stop the truck and use my phone to call Jordy.

  Pauline decided to buy her class some cheap supplies. Laura and I pitched in with cash to help purchase watercolor sets, crayons, whiteboard markers, cleaner for the board, ruled pads, and a full cartload of paper towels. I invited Pauline to bring the class to my fudge shop tomorrow. I’d have the kids build a lighthouse tower mimicking one of Door County’s eleven lighthouses and canal lights using squares of fudge. We could put one of the Rapunzel dolls at the top and let her long golden yarn hair flow down. It’d make a perfect weekend window display. I offered to give a portion of the proceeds from the Rapunzel Raspberry Rapture fudge to Pauline’s class fund.

  Pauline asked, “What’s your next fairy-tale flavor?”

  “I don’t know. But we need to come up with a new one, because Dotty and Lois are dreaming up something.”

  Laura said, “But aren’t you already making divinity fudge?”

  Pauline said, “That’s in honor of Sister Adele. She needs another fairy-tale flavor, one for every season of her first year in business.”

  I said, “Dillon and I came up with Goldilocks.”

  Pauline shrugged. “Golden fudge? Yellow? Pineapple? Not your best yet.”

  Back in the truck, we returned to the murder case.

  Laura said, “They did an autopsy, right? Maybe they already know if Cherry suffered dementia or had any health problems.”

  “Whatever was wrong with Cherry’s behavior, I’m starting to believe he was likely killed in his car, and then his body was put in the basement to hide it.” I reminded them about the missing Ford Fusion and the apparently handmade bloody smudge on the basement wall.

  Pauline, in the front passenger’s seat, said, “If Kjersta was having a fling with Jonas, and if she was complaining to Professor Weaver about Cherry, it does seem to point back to her and Daniel possibly wanting Cherry out of the way. You said Jordy suspects Daniel feared that his place was losing value. So Cherry was ruining them or perhaps threatening to do so. Plus, his weird behavior was weirding them out.”

  “Sadly, you could be right,” I conceded.

  It was around six thirty by the time we were driving into Door County. It was dusk, with sunset only an hour away. I was intent on watching the roadsides for animals that could leap out when Laura said from the backseat, “Isn’t that smoke over there?”

  Black smoke curled above treetops maybe a mile ahead of us.

  Ava’s Autumn Harvest?

  I pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

  Chapter 21

  A fire had destroyed most of Jonas Coppens’s goat barn by the time we arrived. I had pulled into the Dahlgren place and next to my own barn before I realized nothing was on fire. We barreled next door.

  The BUG volunteers were on the scene, including my grandfather. He’d stuck around the farm that day and since our farmstead was within view, he’d seen the flames and called it in, then rushed over with my father to help put out the fire using water hoses.

  Jonas wasn’t home, but somebody said fortunately he’d loaned his goats to Michael Prevost’s workers for the day to clean up weeds around the winery building. The sheep were housed in another shed and fenced yard. They were okay.

  The fire department was able to locate Jonas by phone. He was on his way.

  Pauline, Laura, and I stood out of the way in the stubble of the nearby hayfield. The goat barn was an old machine shed only yards away from the house that Jonas had weatherized years ago.

  My friends and I pitched in with my father to take Jonas’s twenty goats in a stock truck over to our farm for safekeeping for the night. Dad had built a rather large chicken run with wire over the top to keep hawks out. It was perfect for goats because they loved to climb fences and escape.

  It was eight o’clock and dark by the time Jonas arrived.

  After helping with the goats, Pauline, Laura, and I had stopped again on our way back to personally offer more help to Jonas.

  In the eerie silvery light of the farm’s floodlight on a pole in the driveway, Jonas leaped from his truck without even shutting the door. He stood in shock while accepting hugs from us all. I told him we’d moved his goats.

  He hugged me tightly, not letting go for a long while. “Thanks, Ooster.”

  In a daze, he said he’d been in Fishers’ Harbor picking up spare parts for a tractor and had even stopped at the fudge shop to say hi. He’d visited with my grandmother.

  As he looked about the commotion of firefighters packing up and neighbors coming and going, he said, “Do they know what happened?”

  I snagged my grandpa. He was as black as the shadows around us. The whites of his eyes shone like headlights. He smelled of scorched wood and old asphalt shingles. His white hair was mostly black with soot and melded with the night.

  “Jonas, sorry. What a shame. It appears to have started in the southeast corner, not too far from the doorway.”

  “The old outlets?”

  “Could be. Did you keep the goats away from them?”

  “Of course. Wire cages over anything that way.”

  “Anything stored there that might have spilled?”

  “Spilled? You mean like gasoline? I never keep that in the garage. Hey, you’re not saying this looks suspicious, are you?”

  Standing beside Jonas, I sensed his body tensing.

  My grandpa slapped a hand on one of his shoulders in a friendly man-to-man way. “Jonas, it’s just something we have to consider. Especially since there was a fire next door yesterday on your neighbor’s property.”

  Jonas sagged. “This is awful.” His voice was a whisper. “Who would do this?” Then he growled. “That bastard.”

  He probably meant Michael Prevost. His other enemies were in jail or dead.

  Grandpa gave Jonas’s shoulders a shake. “Don’t go there. This is probably only lousy bad luck with an aging electrical receptacle.”

  Grandpa followed me, Pauline, and Laura to my truck.

  Jonas pulled a flashlight from his truck and went off to inspect his shed. The darkness of night was now filled with dots of light roving about the site.

  After I
slung myself in the truck seat and closed the door, Grandpa poked his head close to mine through the open window. I turned on the overhead light. He said, “I want you girls to be careful. And, Ava, don’t be alone anymore over at your market, you hear me?”

  A chill pierced me like a sharp icicle.

  Grandpa patted my shoulder. “Honey, this is all my fault.”

  “How can that be?”

  “For the want of a nail, a kingdom was lost.” He referred to an old poem about a shoe falling off a horse and the horse not being able to run and save somebody. “If I hadn’t invited that prince and princess, there wouldn’t be all this furor. We wouldn’t have people messing with us. Big events like royalty visiting always bring out the weirdos. We have to worry about security and people trying to get attention.”

  “By setting fires?”

  “Yes. Everybody’s on edge. Your grandma’s right. She knew there’d be trouble. That poor woman.”

  My heart went out to him. “No, Grandpa, don’t talk silliness. You had nothing to do with these fires. We’ll fix this.”

  “This’ll take more than you and me fixin’ somethin’.”

  Pauline pulled out the buttons with the picture of the church and fudge on them, explaining how they’d been blessed and were lucky buttons.

  Grandpa harrumphed, but added, “Keep rubbing them. Can’t hurt.”

  * * *

  It was close to eight thirty that night by the time I got Pauline and Laura home in Fishers’ Harbor. The warm air had escaped out of the atmosphere, but I eschewed a sweatshirt in my hurry across my back lawn. Grandma was closing up Oosterlings’ Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge & Beer.

  “Grandpa might take a while in getting home, Grandma.” I told her about everything. But my mother had already called her about the fire.

  Grandma said, “Jonas bought some of your beer fudge when he was here earlier. Said some of the hired hands love the stuff. He also bought your Worms-in-Dirt flavor for their kids.”

  Children loved the chewy gummy worms sprouting out of the dark Belgian chocolate fudge.

  Grandma was laying clear plastic wrap lightly over the fudge in the window for the night. “The only thing right around here these days is your fudge.”

  “Thank you, Grandma. You’re so sweet.”

  That gave me an idea. From the shelf under my counter, I dug out a few of the vintage cookbooks. “Would you help me make divinity fudge, Grandma?”

  “If you’re making it the old-fashioned way, you need egg whites and you’re out of them. Want me to run back home for some?”

  “That’d be great. Thanks.”

  I was heartened that Grandma appeared to be in a happier mood. Maybe Dillon’s mother wouldn’t have to be pressed into service to talk with Grandma. As I paged through another old cookbook put together by a Lutheran church group long ago, I admitted to myself I wasn’t sure I wanted a former mother-in-law—who might be a future mother-in-law—helping with my family’s affairs. But why did I have that feeling? Weren’t Dillon and his mother going to eventually be my family? Was I feeling that things were happening too fast between Dillon and me? Or worse yet, was I not trusting my relationship with Dillon to last?

  My silly doubts brought me to thoughts of Fontana. She flitted from man to man with nary a worry. Or did she?

  A scratch at the front door told me Lucky Harbor was visiting. After putting the cookbook down on my counter, I checked to make sure I had crackers in the pocket of my denim shorts, then went to the door. He had the floatable key holder on his collar.

  Dillon’s note said Wish you were here. Cuddlier than Piers. Finished plumbing the tub. Treating him to sandwich at Troubled Trout. Miss you.

  The note indicated how full our lives were. We had a commitment to help each other thrive within the community of Fishers’ Harbor. The commitment felt like pleasant glue holding our relationship together. I suddenly longed to be back on that yacht floating under the moonlight with Dillon.

  I put the wishes aside to herd Lucky Harbor out the door. The harbor lights illuminated the area. No boat was docked at our pier and hadn’t been since my grandfather sent his fishing trawler, Sophie’s Journey, to a salvage yard. A twinge of sorrow struck me. I knew that Grandpa was still feeling pangs of loss for his boat.

  I tossed the crackers into the air over the water. Lucky Harbor’s nails scrabbled against the wooden decking as he loped down the pier. He leaped far into the water, landing with a big splash.

  What made him happy was so simple. Maybe Dillon was right. The key to my happiness was simplifying. But how? I liked everything I was doing. Everything I was doing was building my future and laying the groundwork for a day when my grandpa and grandma could retire for real and not worry about me.

  Grandma came in through the back door with a carton of eggs. “Your mother delivered these today. Her Brakels sure are prolific. Divinity fudge needs the freshest of eggs.”

  Brakels are handsome Belgian chickens with golden feathers on their necks and breasts. We’d had chickens all my life. I’d been told long ago the chickens were from a flock that came from Grandma’s relatives as a wedding gift. When she and Grandpa moved to Fishers’ Harbor, they’d left the chickens on the farm where there was more room for them. The descendants of those chickens were entertaining goats tonight.

  My grandmother and I went into the small galley kitchen. I pulled out the sugar tub and measured out a couple of cups while Grandma separated two egg whites from their yolks. Grandma also blanched a half cup of almonds.

  The recipe also called for a half cup of water and a half cup of corn syrup.

  I said, “Since corn syrup wasn’t common here during Sister Adele’s time, do you think there’s a way to make this fudge without it?”

  “We can sure try. But we need a stiff product. We don’t want white soup.” Grandma knew, as I did, that corn syrup had its own scientific properties and helped create candy. “Let’s add more egg whites to the last stage instead of corn syrup and see how that turns out. I’ve always used corn syrup for divinity at Christmastime, so this is new to me, too.”

  “I’ll go lighter on the sugar so it doesn’t weigh down the whites. We can work on beating it enough to work the air amid the sugar crystals.”

  We let the sugar and water boil longer than called for in the recipe, though I wanted to be careful I didn’t turn the sugar brown with caramelizing.

  Soon, my thermometer showed we’d reached a light crack stage at two hundred sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit. Grandma used an electric beater to create a fluffy cloud of the egg whites. I drizzled the hot sugar over the whites, with Grandma beating nonstop. Then I added the almonds, along with a touch of lemon extract.

  We poured the frothy white mixture into a buttered pan.

  Then we stared at it.

  “It looks a little soupy to me,” I said. “I’m not sure this is going to set up. Corn syrup has a different scientific principle in its makeup. We’re missing that element.”

  Grandma was wiping her hands on a towel, mostly to think. “Do you have any marshmallows?”

  The word made me think of Mercy Fogg’s evil meat loaf that Dillon’s dog had scarfed up, to an unpleasant ending.

  Grandma said, “Didn’t you tell me that marshmallows were invented back in Sister Adele’s time?”

  “Maybe even in the time of the ancient Egyptians with those marsh plants.”

  “Well, then, this is authentic with marshmallows. Let’s pretend the immigrants from Belgium got them from France and brought some on the boat. Maybe they roasted them over fires on deck.”

  She was so earnest that I laughed heartily. “I like your style, Grandma.”

  We melted marshmallows enough to fluff them up and add them to the mix in a bowl. We poured the mixture again into the pan.

  “Looks stiffer,” Grandma said. “Give it time.”

  It looked like a mess to me. “It’ll be cool by morning. We can make frosting out of it if it doesn’t s
et up.”

  “I’ll whip up cinnamon rolls in the morning. We’ll use it on them. Now let’s go home. I need to get to bed early. Got a big to-do tomorrow.”

  “Oh? What’s that, Grandma?”

  “For some gol-darn reason your boyfriend’s mother wants to treat all the Namur church workers to a breakfast at Al Johnson’s.”

  She was referring to Al Johnson’s Swedish Restaurant in Sister Bay. It was near Laura’s bakery and cooking school, the Luscious Ladle. The food at the restaurant was divine, including Swedish pancakes topped with Swedish lingonberries, and with butter from my parents’ cows, plus Al’s homemade syrups. The green grass roof sported a couple of grazing goats, too, always a draw for tourists and their kids.

  “That sounds like a wonderful thing, Grandma.” I wanted to work up to asking her about going to Chicago and finding ghosts. “You could use a minivacation. You’ve been working hard lately.”

  We began cleaning up the kitchen.

  “I wouldn’t be going, but your mother said she’d be along. I figure she can protect me from Cathy Rivers. She’s acting like your mother-in-law already and I feel that’s premature. Sam thinks so, too.” Grandma slapped a cupboard door extra hard.

  She still hadn’t forgiven Dillon for his role in my jilting Sam Peterson eight years ago.

  I asked, “What does Sam say?”

  “He hasn’t said anything. I can see the words in his eyes.”

  “Does he have a PowerPoint presentation about me in his eyes?”

  “Bah.” She waved me off with a hand as she tidied my kitchen counter.

  I was sloshing the beaters in soapy water. “You worked hard on the churchyard. Why not accept this with grace and enjoy the free food?”

  “Instead of partying, we should be cleaning the inside of that church. When is that sheriff ever going to take down that tape?”

  “That’s up to him.” I took a deep breath and dove off a cliff. “Grandma, do we have any relatives in Chicago?”

  “If we do, I don’t know about them.”

  She slammed another cupboard door. I’d have to take a screwdriver to all my hinges tomorrow.