Fudgement Day (Chocolate Cozy Mystery Book 3)

by Wendy Meadows

  Mrs. Horn sniveled and wiped tears from her frosty cheeks. “Someone help me get him out of the cold. He’ll freeze out here.”

  “No,” Olivia said.

  Every eye turned to her. Even Mr. Walter paused and glanced over from the other side of the porch.

  “What do you mean, no?” Mr. Horn asked.

  “I mean no. You don’t know if he has head trauma or not. You can’t move him until the ambulance gets here. You could make it worse.”

  Mrs. Horn sobbed and cast herself across her son’s back. “My Jason,” she said.

  “Everyone back inside,” Mr. Horn said, in those same commanding tones he’d used to condemn his son. “Into the dining area.”

  “Gregory?” Mrs. Horn didn’t rise. “Gregory, he’s not breathing. Gregory!”

  Mr. Horn circled to his wife’s side of Jason’s body. He grabbed the underside of her upper arm and wrenched her upright. “Inside,” he repeated and guided her toward the door.

  Mr. Walter followed, along with the rest of the group. Shifty gazes darted from person to person. They gathered in the dining area, and Olivia resumed her seat. The waiters had neglected to remove the pea soup, which had gone tepid.

  She didn’t touch it. Sebastian and his friend Kerry stood in the corner of the room, whispering frantically. Olivia didn’t bother calling him over. He’d only feel torn between comforting his friend and his mother, and she needed Sebastian’s hugs far less than that poor girl.

  Mr. Walter watched them from the far entrance to the room, nearest the kitchen, and the Horns huddled together beside the mantelpiece.

  Mrs. Horn cried and buried her face in her husband’s jacket.

  Time passed, achingly slow. And finally, the distant sirens grew closer and closer and blared to a halt outside the Horn house. A crew of medics filtered past them, followed by none other than Olivia’s least favorite person in the world, Detective Keane.

  Another ten minutes ticked by, and Detective Keane came back in.

  “I want everyone to stay here. I’m going to question each of you separately,” he said.

  “Question us?” Mr. Walter asked.

  “What do you mean? Why?” Mrs. Horn asked, between wet sniffs.

  Detective Keane sighed. “I’m afraid Jason Horn has passed,” he said, and his gaze fell on Olivia in her seat.

  Shock shattered the atmosphere of grief, but that sorrow redoubled instantly. Jason Horn was dead.

  And, clearly, Detective Keane thought this was a murder case.

  Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head from side to side. Not again. This couldn’t be happening again. She’d just freed herself of the investigative bug.

  “Miss Cloud?” Detective Keane asked. “You’re with me.”

  Two other officers strode into the room. One of them, a young woman with a kind face, halted beside the Horns and gave Jason’s mother a sympathetic look.

  Olivia rose from her seat and followed Keane out into the hall, then through to a living room, complete with brown leather couches and yet another fireplace. Logs crackled in the grate. Logs. Burning logs, which cast light. Why hadn’t they lit the fire in the dining area? Could the murderer have premeditated—

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Keane said and folded his bulky arms across his chest.

  “What?” Olivia asked and injected innocence into her voice.

  “I know that look by now, Miss Cloud. You’re going to try to interfere in this case,” Keane stated. He brought out a notepad and pen. “I won’t have it. Do you understand?”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’m tired of finding you around murders, Miss Cloud.”

  “It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose,” Olivia said.

  “Oh?” Keane clicked his ballpoint pen. “Only time will tell. For now, you can give me your version of the events.”

  “My version?” Olivia pursed her lips. Murder or not, it was no excuse to act this way with her. She’d done nothing but attend a rather uncomfortable dinner party.

  “That’s correct. What happened this evening?”

  Olivia took a deep breath and told him the awkward tale of the fight and Jason’s exit right afterward.

  “The lights just went out?” Keane asked and scribbled a note.

  “They flickered, and then they went out. Mr. Horn told us not to worry and asked a guy named Jeff to turn them back on. I assume he’s one of the waiters or chefs or something,” Olivia said.

  Keane wrote down Jeff and underlined it twice. “Then what happened?”

  “Mrs. Horn started screaming. The lights came on, and Mr. Horn and I were the only ones still at the table,” Olivia replied.

  Keane’s eyebrows crawled upward. “Just you two. You’re sure?”

  “Positive,” Olivia said. Gosh, someone had to have murdered poor Jason. Did that mean they were suspects?

  A block of ice dropped into the pit of her stomach. Did that mean Sebastian was a suspect?

  She’d worked hard her entire life to make sure her son would lead a good life, a full one with an education. Other mothers and families weren’t as privileged.

  “You found the body and then what happened?”

  Detective Keane made Olivia tell him the exact details. Who’d entered and exited when. What they’d said and done. Which direction they’d come from. Everything. Over and over again until Olivia was sure her head would pop clean off her shoulders from the pressure and deluge of questions.

  Finally, he gestured toward the door. “That will be all for now, Miss Cloud. Don’t leave town.”

  “I didn’t plan on it,” she replied and headed for the hall to find her son.

  Chapter Four

  “How’s Sebastian taking it?” Jake Morgan asked, leaning his forearms on the circular wooden table in the center of Olivia’s chocolate shop. “Is he all right?”

  Jake hadn’t met her son, but he’d been supportive the minute Olivia had called him and told him about what had happened.

  “As all right as he can be, given the circumstances,” Olivia replied and crossed her ankles. She took a sip of coffee and swirled it around the inside of her mouth. She swallowed and dabbed her lips with a napkin. “He slept on the sofa last night. I don’t think he wanted to be in the house where it happened.”

  Sebastian hadn’t gotten up yet. The poor kid had cried himself to sleep, and that said a lot. He wasn’t a macho tough guy, sure, but he wasn’t overly emotional, either. He’d lost a friend.

  Dodger had already offered himself up as a replacement. Olivia had found the pair wrapped in each other’s arms and paws that morning.

  Jake nodded and popped a caramel fudge drop into his mouth. He bit down, and a genuine smile lit his face for a moment. It faded again. “I went down to the station the minute I heard about the murder,” he said.

  “And they’re definitely calling it that?” Olivia asked.

  “Keane has his mind made up. Apparently, the evidence is irrefutable,” Jake said and swallowed the last of his chocolate. “The trouble is, they won’t tell me what that evidence is. I’ll have to wait until one of my contacts has a shift before I push for more information.”

  Olivia picked up a sachet of sugar. She tapped it against her palm; the soft flap and crunch of granules satisfied her. “What information do you have?”

  Jake puffed out his cheeks and blew out a long stream of air. “Olivia—”

  “Jake. Do you really think you’ll be able to dissuade me if I decide to investigate this?” she asked. “Get real. You know I can’t let this one lie.”

  Alberta would rejoice the minute she heard. Mostly because the old woman was determined to tie Jake and Olivia together.

  “All right,” Jake said after a minute. “Fine. I can’t expect you to hold back on this one.”

  “Wait, why not?”

  “Because you’re a suspect,” Jake said, “and so is Sebastian. Everyone who was in the house is a suspect. They say there’s no way it cou
ld’ve been anyone else.”

  “How could they possibly know that?” Olivia asked.

  “I can’t say just yet. Like I said, I need to speak to my contacts first. Keane won’t give me anything,” Jake replied and shrugged his shoulders.

  Alberta halted beside their table, bearing a coffee pot and a smile. “Hello, dear,” she said, to Jake. “Everything all right over here?”

  Olivia didn’t reply. She glared out at the street where pedestrians strolled by in their puffed-up coats, and cars trundled past them, their occupants warm and safe. The snow clouds still hadn’t dropped their flakes.

  “Olivia, dear?” Alberta touched her on the forearm.

  “She’s just worried about Sebastian,” Jake said quietly.

  He was right. Olivia didn’t care much about herself in this situation, but her son—he had to go back to college and get his degree. And that meant it was up to her to clear his name.

  “No evidence,” she muttered.

  “Yeah,” Jake said.

  Alberta didn’t lift her fingertips from Olivia’s arm.

  Olivia met her oldest A’s gaze. “Then I’ll have to find the evidence for myself.”

  Chapter Five

  The Horn residence didn’t have a fence surrounding it, though the beginnings of one—planks, wire, and other building materials—sat beneath the trees near the front of the house. The Horns weren’t home, either.

  Olivia and Jake strode down the side of the house banked by the forest on one side, the empty house on the other, and the dark gray clouds overhead. Claustrophobic wasn’t the word for it.

  Anticipation hung thick in the air.

  What would they find around the corner?

  The evidence in question had to be there. “Did they finish their investigation?” Olivia asked.

  “I have no idea. I don’t think so, though. They would’ve had to work through the night, and if I know Detective Keane, he’ll want to take his time on this one.” Jake paused and the grass, brittle from cold and lack of water, crunched beneath his boots. “You know what that means, right?”

  “We can’t go onto the porch,” Olivia replied. “It’s not my first rodeo, Morgan.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said and sped up again.

  They hurried past the wide windows that looked in on the empty dining room—at least the tepid pea soup had been taken away—and around the corner.

  A yellow police line blocked them from accessing the wooden porch. The spot where Mr. Walter had stood, right beside a swing seat, was cut off, along with the back stairs and the single plaster sculpture beside the back doors—a cherub holding a flute.

  Olivia frowned. She hadn’t noticed that yesterday. Then again, she hadn’t noticed much but poor Jason on the floor.

  The back doors that led into the kitchen were bolted shut, their multiple square window panes empty of light and free of dust.

  “So, there we go,” Jake said, after a second. “We can’t get in there.”

  Olivia rolled her eyes at him. “We’re not done yet,” she said. She clamped her hand down on his arm and dragged him right up to the line.

  She released him again because touching Mr. Morgan’s arm gave her those squirmy high-school-girl feelings which only ended up distracting her in these situations.

  Olivia squinted at the back porch. White powder was scattered across the stairs. No, not white, it was gray. She met the cherub’s pupil-less eyes and frowned, then gazed at the other side of the door.

  “That looks like it should be part of a set,” she said and pointed a gloved finger at the sculpture. “Don’t you think?”

  “Really?” Jake asked. “Two of those things? I think one baby angel is enough for any house.” He grimaced at it.

  Olivia couldn’t help but laugh, and her breath misted in front of her face. “I’m not talking about the style choice.” She rose onto her tiptoes as far as her stiff winter boots would allow and caught sight of darkened circle of wood. “I’m right,” she said. “There’s a spot right there for another sculpture.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that the cherub’s brother was the murder weapon,” Olivia said, and gestured to the powder on the stairs. “And that’s what happened on impact.”

  “There would be bigger chips of plaster if that were the case,” Jake said.

  “True,” Olivia replied, “but maybe the cops already cleared that away.” The more she looked at the sculpture, the deeper the sensation of certainty settled in her gut. “That was the murder weapon.”

  “Olivia, you can’t—”

  “Quit being the voice of reason,” she said and turned her back on the police line and the crime scene. She brushed hair from her forehead. “Here’s my question,” she said.

  “What?”

  “How do we know it was someone in the house?” She asked. “It’s plausible that an outsider could’ve tripped the power right when Jason left the house. They could’ve made it look like someone else killed him.”

  “I guess,” Jake said. “I’m not sure if the police are investigating that avenue, though,” he said.

  “Never mind what the police are investigating,” Olivia said. “It makes perfect sense. The killer had the perfect murder on their hands.”

  “How do we know someone cut the power and it wasn’t just a freakish coincidence?” Jake asked.

  He had a point. The lights had flickered before they’d gone out. If the power had been cut, they would’ve been plunged into darkness immediately, and Mr. Horn had acted as if it was a regular occurrence.

  “Jeff,” Olivia said, under her breath. “Who’s Jeff?”

  “I don’t know,” Jake said and nudged her with his elbow. “Should I be jealous?”

  Olivia’s cheeks were already pink from the cold bite of the wind, but Jake’s joke only served to redden them further. She cleared her throat and ignored the comment. “There’s more to this case than meets the eye.”

  “You want to rule out the folks in the house, don’t you?” Jake asked.

  “No,” Olivia said. “That would be biased. I’m just saying that just because we were all on the premises doesn’t mean it was one of us. I mean, look at that.” She spread her arms to encompass the wilderness at the back of the house.

  The conifers reared just feet from the back porch.

  “You’ve got that look again,” Jake said. “That ‘Olivia’s going to do something crazy’ look.”

  Olivia sighed. “Don’t pretend you don’t like investigating with me,” she said and set off toward the woods. If someone had been out there, watching them, waiting for an opportunity to strike, there had to be evidence to prove it.

  A few footprints, even.

  Jake rushed up beside her, and warmth curled through Olivia’s belly. She wasn’t ready to date him, or even to forgive him for what’d happened before, but it sure was nice to have a friend with her as she headed into the creepy forest behind the murder house.

  Chapter Six

  Olivia stepped over twisted roots and crunched across leaves. She dodged around tree trunks and peered at the misshapen forms of crumbling boulders. The trees weren’t lined up particularly closely, which meant a lot of light and air filtered between them.

  “How much farther?” Jake asked between huffed breaths.

  “Oh, please, we’ve been walking for two minutes,” Olivia said. “You can see the house from here.”

  The view of the Horn residence wavered between the trees. It confirmed Olivia’s initial suspicions—someone could’ve spied on them and plotted Jason’s murder from the forest. But why? Why would anyone want to hurt the kid?

  He’d seemed nice enough, after all. Polite, studious—

  Jake grabbed hold of her sleeve and tugged her to a halt.

  “What?” she whispered, and another plume of mist exited her mouth.

  “There,” Jake said and jerked his chin forward.

  Olivia followed his guidance and laid eyes on a blackened stump be
tween two trees. Strange images peered up from it, carved into the wood. “What on earth?” She trudged toward it, but Jake held her back.

  “That can’t be safe, Olivia,” he said. “Let me go first.”

  “We can discuss sexism later, okay? I’ve got investigating to do,” she replied and pried his fingers from her arm.

  Olivia strode into the clearing and halted beside the disfigured stump. She planted her fists on her hips and scanned the surrounds. The stump must’ve been burned and carved ages ago. Weeds grew out of a crack in its side.

  “What are they?” Jake asked and stepped up beside her. His gaze darted from the stump to the area around it.

  Olivia crouched beside the stump and clasped her hands together. She twisted her head to one side and thinned her lips. She stretched out one finger and traced the line of the symbols carved into the side of the stump.

  One looked like a roman numeral. The other was an image she didn’t recognize—two zig zag lines parallel to each other. “I wonder what it is,” she muttered.

  “That’s the zodiac sign for Aquarius,” Jake said, crouching down beside her. “These are all zodiac signs, Roman numerals, and some pictures I don’t recognize.” He pointed at a horrid, grinning face etched into the wood.

  “Wow,” Olivia said, and rose from the forest floor. She brushed leaves and mulch off the legs of her jeans. “It’s pretty creepy. And it confirms my suspicions. Someone was out here. Someone was in the forest watching.”

  “You can’t say that for sure,” Jake said. “There’s no real evidence that—”

  “Oh yeah?” Olivia asked and circled the stump. She halted beside a makeshift fire pit, hollowed out in the mud and stocked with freshly burnt logs. “How about this?”

  “That could be days old,” Jake said, but he sounded less certain this time.

  Fine, powdery flurries dropped onto his lapel. The snow had finally come. It drifted from the heavens and settled around them. The temperature dropped by the second.

  “Come on, Olivia,” Jake said. “Let’s get back to the shop and have a coffee.”