Five-Alarm Fudge

by Christine DeSmet

  She managed a smile as she turned to head back to her squad car.

  I gathered the dog and prince and we headed to my market down around the corner of Highway 57 and County Trunk C.

  The mystery of the freezer bothered me like something in a tooth you can’t get out. A couple of times I flicked a glance in my rearview mirror and Lucky Harbor was giving me a stone-cold stare that said everything.

  * * *

  Ava’s Autumn Harvest was packed. A thrill shot through me. I could already hear the pleasant ding of the cash register in my head. I had to park six cars down the road. Lucky Harbor tried to do circles in his excitement in the backseat, but I told him he had to stay in the truck this time.

  “Word is out that a prince is coming,” I said to Prince Arnaud, nodding to the unusual crowd on the rural road as we got out.

  “I am—he is—good for your business. Beaucoup.”

  Very good indeed. But I needed to find a lot more help for me and my poor mother. She looked frazzled. Her lovely dark hair was tied back with a red bandanna that was coming undone from its knot at the nape of her neck.

  Prince Arnaud played his role of a visiting journalist. My stomach was churning as I introduced him in front of other people and my mother as Mr. Malle. I couldn’t even say “Arnie” for fear my mother would think of “Arnaud” and then screech and spoil his wish to be incognito. He took photos of the flatbed wagons loaded down with bags of cheese curds, apples, pumpkins, and several flavors of my fudge. Nobody took a second look at the tall man in the jeans and Green Bay Packers sweatshirt.

  When my mother broke from the crowd at the wagons to head off to the stone barn to cash out a customer, I followed her to ask how she was doing.

  She said, “That journalist is handsome, don’t you think?”

  “Very, but I have Dillon.”

  She grimaced. “Do I need lipstick? Will I look okay in the pictures?”

  “You’re beautiful. I need to show him the neighborhood. But I’ll be back soon. Should I find more help? Maybe Dotty and Lois could help.”

  “I’ll manage on my own. I’ve seen what they can do to the fudge shop.”

  We laughed.

  Moments later, Arnaud and I were back in my yellow truck with Lucky Harbor.

  I drove past our farm and went on to Namur to drive past Saint Mary of the Snows Church. Several cars were parked at it and on the road. Panic swept through me like a gale-force wind off the Lake Michigan bay. Tourists were wandering around the grounds of the church and school. License plates were from Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

  Several people were poking about among the headstones under the tree out front.

  The crime scene tape was still over the doors, but one person was trying to boost another so he could see through a window of the church.

  Arnaud and I got out of the truck so he could take a few shots of the exterior of the church and grounds. He said in referring to the guy in the window, “He is observing the area of the recipe, non?”

  My body flushed hot. “May I keep it a surprise until the kermis?”

  “Oui, certainement. I will enjoy the surprise along with my mother.”

  His response relieved me. I didn’t want to reveal a fake place where I’d allegedly found the still-missing fudge recipe that he thought was now in a bank vault. My hands were sweating because of the compounded lies my grandfather and I were telling. Lucky Harbor woofed, which encouraged me to get us back in the truck. I did a U-turn on the rural road and then sped back eastward to the farm.

  Arnaud loved our farmstead the moment his feet touched the gravel turnabout between our house and the barn and creamery. My father, Peter, gave the prince a big Belgian handshake that lasted through all the small talk about how he’d arrived and stayed overnight at the Blue Heron Inn and eaten the divinity fudge recipe. My father’s eyebrows shot up, but he didn’t pursue the issue. Thanks, Dad.

  Peter escorted Arnaud through the creamery. Arnaud loved wearing the booties and hair net. My father explained how my mother made cheese, butter, and cream, and how next year my family would have cheese ready for the international competition held in Madison, the state capital. Arnaud kept swooning as Dad fed him a white cheddar cheese curd fresh from the vat.

  “It squeaks,” Arnaud said with glee.

  When they got to the cream separator area, my dad promised to use some of the Holstein gold to make hand-cranked ice cream later that night for dessert.

  As we walked from the creamery to the dairy barn and modern milking parlor, I felt proud of my father for all that he’d accomplished. Our farm had grown from a few dozen cows when I was young to two hundred highly prized Holsteins now, plus all the calves and special Belgian chickens who were sharing their pen still with Jonas Coppens’s goats.

  We also showed the prince Mom’s big garden, and our small orchard of fruit trees and the berry patch.

  Peter explained how we’d gone from a farm relying too much on chemicals to one that was pure organic. My dad mentioned the feud going on and the tragic murder of Cherry.

  Arnaud said, “The kermis and introduction of Sister Adele Brise’s fudge will have healing powers. Belgian chocolate brings a smile to people who need a smile. Ava will be at the center of bringing peace to a lovely land.”

  I blinked. So did my father. We were stunned by his eloquence. At first, his words seemed silly, but then I realized Dillon had told me something similar about how I needed to simplify my life. Making the best fudge in the world was good enough for my life. A pleasant new feeling, like a white dandelion blossom being set free on a breeze, stirred inside me.

  My father led the prince to the haymow. The ground rose to provide tractor and wagon access to the haymow that was above the milking parlor. I loved the smell of new-mown and baled hay. It was a clean smell that made me take deep breaths.

  My father introduced “Arnie Malle, the journalist” to our hired hands—two college students from the Czech Republic—who had been helping put up the third and last crop of hay off our large alfalfa fields. To my surprise, Nick was there.

  “Hey, Ava. Nice to meet you, Mr. Malle.”

  Nick explained he was taking hay samples back to his lab.

  I asked, “You’re not thinking there’s something wrong with the third-crop hay?”

  Nick shrugged, running a hand through his neatly cropped dark hair. “I doubt it, but this hay does come from the area close to the road and across from the Dahlgren and Coppens places where chemical usage is apparent.”

  “You can’t mean to say that our hay isn’t purely organic?” I was in shock.

  Fortunately, my father had walked onward with Arnie to show him the baling operation.

  Nick said, “Whatever my findings are, I’ll let you know the results before I publish them.”

  “Publish?”

  “Well, yeah. That’s the whole point of a PhD thesis. We publish from our research.”

  “Cherry focused on the orchards. I thought that was your focus, too. You were testing my fudge.”

  “I’m testing the fudge in the lab for Cherry’s grant. But my focus is on hay. I’m here today to hurry up on my hay research.”

  “Why the hurry?”

  “Because Professor Weaver wants me to have something more going for me than the fudge research when Cherry’s grant closes on October one. If I don’t have significant research done on the hay, I might not have a chance at a grant for that.”

  It was all too much about grants for me to pay attention, but something about it all bothered me because it involved Cherry and my fudge in the test tubes. I hurried off to rejoin my father and Arnaud.

  My father took the bales off a wagon that had come in from a field, then placed each bale on a conveyor belt with steel teeth on it. The bales traveled up the belt and into the barn, where they dropped atop an already high stack of bales. Arnie shed his Green Bay Packers sweatshirt to pitch in.

  My gaze was riveted on the prince. He wore a bl
ack T-shirt underneath that hugged his broad shoulders. Somehow I hadn’t expected him to be that buff. Dad found him a pair of leather work gloves, then pointed him up the ladder to help stack the bales into rows. I’d done that chore many times in the past. Though it was hard work, there was something satisfying about watching bales fall into place as neatly as big green dominoes. A farmer with a barn full of hay stored for the winter was considered successful.

  I left them to the task, eager to call Pauline. It was her lunch hour at school back in Fishers’ Harbor. I stood in the middle of our gravel circle at the farm, soaking up the crisp autumn air. The breeze tugged at my ponytail. Lucky Harbor was nosing around the chicken run watching the goats. My parents’ border collie was watching over it all.

  After Pauline said hello, I said, “Lucky Harbor and the prince and I found a freezer behind Mike’s winery. It’s locked and it’s suspicious.”

  “The prince is here?”

  “Yes. But he’s a journalist now and not a prince. I’ll explain later. When are you off school? We have to find out what’s in that freezer.”

  “We’re done at the ordinary time. Two thirty for the kindergartners.”

  “Great. I’m going to help Mom at the roadside market for a while. Meet me there.”

  “What makes you think I want to go snoop in a freezer?”

  “Because Lucky Harbor smells something that isn’t right.”

  “Maybe Fontana stored her perfume in there.”

  I hadn’t thought about that. “I would have smelled that stuff myself. But maybe there are other chemicals in there. Or a body. We need to know.”

  “No, you need to know. I don’t need to lose my job breaking into a freezer.”

  “Pauline, bring Mom’s holy fudge buttons along and everything will be all right.”

  “No, it won’t.”

  “Stop being stubborn, Pauline. You’re my best friend.”

  “Why can’t you collect something besides dead bodies and trouble? As hobbies go, this isn’t a very good one.”

  “Do you want to meet the prince or not? And by the way, don’t tell anybody he’s here. He’s incognito.”

  Pauline blew her disgust into the phone. “I’ll see you at three o’clock.”

  Chapter 25

  The prince was enthralled with the farm and wanted to go out on the tractor to watch the baling of the hay, so I left. I mentioned it was lunchtime. Arnie took one look at the Brakels and asked for fried egg sandwiches. My dad was thrilled; those were a favorite sandwich, made with sliced tomatoes and stone-ground mustard lathered on homemade oatmeal bread. I made those within minutes and handed their lunch up to them on the tractor.

  Back in my truck with Lucky Harbor and heading toward my market, I was approaching Jonas’s property when I noticed the roadside chapel was tilted. I stopped across the road. I snapped a leash on Lucky Harbor to make sure he stayed with me.

  We crossed the road. The white wooden siding on the front of the tiny chapel was chipped and marred, as if a car had rammed into it. I spotted tracks in the grass. The ditch was shallow here, so a car or truck could easily have pulled over and nudged the small building. I didn’t spot big marks in the grass, though, or rubber on the road to indicate somebody had hit the brakes.

  Many yards down the road I could see cars still coming and going at Ava’s Autumn Harvest. Perhaps a tourist had tried to do a U-turn in the road here and slipped into the chapel.

  Lucky Harbor sniffed throughout the grass, then started scratching at the door of the chapel. The door was still locked, but the doorjamb was askew from the impact of whoever hit the building. With little pressure the jimmied lock popped. As I stepped inside, I dropped my jaw.

  The chapel was filled with items from my fudge shop.

  Dolls, purses, aprons, and Cinderella Pink soaps sat on the floor, the kneeling rail, and the altar. There were glass jars of the blueberry and raspberry jams that I sold for Dotty Klubertanz’s son and daughter-in-law, who ran the mercantile store on Main Street in Fishers’ Harbor.

  Why was Jonas storing things out here? And why did he buy them? An odd, creepy feeling washed over me. I backed out of the chapel.

  I drove up Jonas’s driveway.

  After I parked, and got out with Lucky Harbor, I found Jonas’s place oddly quiet. The goats were still at my parents’ farm in the chicken run, so there was no bleating. His small flock of sheep was north of the buildings in a pasture.

  The wind rustled through the crimson-tinged leaves on a maple tree nearby. The air still smelled of the burned-down shed, now a pile of blackened rubble several yards from the house to the south.

  Beyond the rubble, and beyond cornfield stubble and a hayfield, I recognized a stretch of new fencing. Thinking Jonas was working somewhere along the fence, I hiked down the gentle slope with Lucky Harbor.

  Crows cawed off in the tops of trees. Nobody was around. I was sure the area used to have a gate to let Jonas’s sheep through to Mike’s vineyards that lay beyond the woods on the Prevost side. There were no gates now all up and down the fence line. I wondered which of the two men had done away with the gates. Their war had evidently escalated.

  I went to the house intending to knock on the front door, but I paused when I heard women’s voices. It was a radio talk show playing loudly. A commercial came on for vitamins. I couldn’t help myself—I stepped over to the picture window near the front door to peek in.

  Fontana—of all people—was in a pink, long-sleeved leotard and tights rolling around on an exercise ball.

  I rapped on the window. Fontana fell off the ball, then popped up wide-eyed at me.

  I raced back to the door. She yanked it open as I laid my hand on the knob. I almost fell into her lithe body encased in pink, stretchy fabric. Her red hair was in a knot on top of her head tied with a pink satin ribbon. She looked adorable—and sneaky.

  “Jonas isn’t home, Ava.”

  “Never mind him. What are you doing here?”

  “Consoling Jonas.”

  “But you said he’s not home.” I peered behind her. “Where is he? Doesn’t it take two to console?”

  She hugged the edge of the door, blocking my entry. “He went to the lumberyard to get an estimate for building a new goat barn.”

  “That still doesn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”

  “Jonas Coppens is a friend.”

  “But how friendly?”

  Fontana narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be this way, Ava. Those frowny grooves aren’t attractive.”

  “Don’t you get it, Fontana, that it’s easy to be suspicious of you? Don’t you care that by your being here like this, people will think you killed Tristan Hardy so you could get rid of the only thing preventing you from getting what you want?”

  She blinked in a way that told me I was onto something. But she straightened her spine and stood taller. “What do I want?”

  “You want Daniel back and if you can’t have him, you’ll take the next best thing. Jonas. Or Michael. Both own a lot of land and have thriving businesses. You’d love to get your hands on that land so you can live next door to Daniel, even if it means killing somebody.”

  “You still think I killed Cherry?”

  “Yes. Because his research was disturbing Daniel. And causing a rift between Jonas and Michael. What you obviously didn’t know was that Cherry’s research grant was up in a few weeks and I think he was about to be fired or demoted somehow.”

  Tears glistened in her eyes.

  She started to close the door, but I stiff-armed it open and walked in. She was shorter and skinnier than me. I could take her down if I had to.

  The living room was immaculate but had her touches everywhere. There were fragrant soaps and flowers on every other surface in bowls and vases. I walked to the coffee table, picked up the remote, and turned off the radio that was telling me to buy a cream that would save me from going through painful eyelid surgery.

  When I turned around, Fontana had flou
nced onto the sofa, her legs outstretched across the cushions, a pillow over her stomach and chest.

  I grabbed a pillow from a nearby chair and threw it at her.

  She caught it before it whopped her in the face. “What did you do that for?”

  “To wake you up. This is not a game, Fontana. Cherry was murdered. Don’t you care? You two were dating. You were with him that night. What the hell happened?”

  Darn her, but her eyes puddled up big now.

  “Stop that, Fontana. I know you’re faking.”

  “I’m not. I wish I could be as strong as you, but I . . . can’t get anything right in my life. I never have been able to get anything right.”

  I sat down in the chair opposite her. “What’re you talking about? You always watched out for me in grade school. You were always perfect. You were the best cheerleader, the one with all the dates. You’re artistic with your homegrown makeups and soaps and fragrances. And you’re in darn good shape.”

  After a deep breath, I asked, “What really went on at the church last Saturday night?”

  She swiped at her eyes, then hugged the pillow in front of her. “Cherry and I made love. It was the sweetest, most tender—”

  “I don’t need the details.”

  “But I thought you wanted to know what went on?”

  She had me. I sighed. “Okay. Just go easy on the details.”

  “We made love in the back of his car.”

  “The blue Ford Fusion, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I don’t know.” She sniffled. “It disappeared. We were making love in the schoolhouse and after he left to get something from the car, he never came back.” She grabbed for a tissue from a flowered box on the table next to the sofa.

  “You made love in the car and at the old schoolhouse?”

  “Almost. I know he’s older than me, but he still has it. We didn’t quite get to do it in the schoolhouse. He disappeared before that.”

  She talked about him in the present tense, as if he were still alive. As if she cared about him. But this could be an act. The schoolhouse intrigued me. I recalled the bedroom upstairs that had looked used when Pauline and I sneaked in to search the place for clues.