Oh, Fudge!

by Nancy CoCo

  “Yes,” Tori said. “I was close to figuring out who when I was kidnapped,” Tori said. Her voice sounded frustrated. “I wish I could remember who I was thinking did it. But I can’t.”

  “At least you remembered Mr. Sikes’s voice,” I said. “It saved me. Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome, cuz,” she said.

  “If your mom ever lets you back on the island, promise me you’ll stay at the McMurphy.”

  “I promise,” Tori said. “Take care of yourself, Allie.”

  “You do the same,” I said.

  We hung up. “I’m glad you and Tori buried the hatchet,” Frances said.

  “I think we’ve been through enough,” I said.

  “Me, too,” Frances said. “Will you be up to walking in my wedding tomorrow?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I said.

  “Good,” Frances said. “I’ll let you get some rest.” She kissed my forehead. “Call your mom. She’s worried about you.”

  “I will.”

  I closed my eyes and tried not to dream of being trapped on a boat.

  Chapter 28

  Trent came by later that night. Jenn opened the door and let him in. “Hey, Trent, come on in. I’ve got to take Mal for a walk.” She hooked up Mal’s leash. “You two be good now.”

  “Hi, Allie,” Trent said and came in and sat down on the couch next to me.

  “Hi, Trent, how’s Chicago?”

  “Fine, good. I didn’t come here to talk about work. I need to know how you are.” He took my hand and looked at my bandaged wrists. “I understand they had you tied to a pipe in a boat set for demolition.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’d rather not think about it.” I rubbed my wrists.

  “I’m sorry about things,” he said. His gaze was filled with sincerity. “Tori and I have been friends for years.”

  “I know,” I said. “I keep running up against that here. Everyone has been here longer than me.”

  “It’s not personal,” he said.

  “Kissing my cousin is personal,” I said. “Pushing me away when things get tough—that’s also personal.”

  He took my hand in his. “I love you, Allie. I want to be in your life. I want you to be in mine.”

  “You have a funny way of showing it,” I said and blew out a long breath.

  “Can we start over?”

  “How?”

  “Let me take you out.”

  “It has to be after tomorrow. Frances and Douglas have rescheduled their wedding.”

  “I heard.” He paused. “I thought I could be your plus one.”

  I chewed on the inside of my lip. “I wanted you to be my plus one, but now . . .”

  “Now you know that I’m sorry and I love you.” He ran his hand over his face. “When I think about you being abducted, that you could have died, it eats me up inside.”

  “It’s not always about you, Trent,” I said.

  “I know that,” he said with frustration.

  “Maybe we should take a break,” I suggested.

  “What? No, I don’t want to take a break,” he said. He ran his fingers through mine. “Please, Allie, listen. Let’s start over.”

  I put my hand over his. “Trent,” I said, “you’re always off on some business trip or other. Your family doesn’t like me because I don’t have your country club experiences.”

  “I don’t give a darn what my family thinks.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “When push came to shove, you shut me out.”

  “I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “I get hurt no matter what,” I said. “I’m not certain we work. There’re just too many differences. You were raised on the island. The people here still consider me a fudgie. You have multiple businesses, I have only the McMurphy. My life is my work. Your life is your work. We aren’t seeing each other.”

  “All small things,” Trent argued. “I’m in love with you, Allie.”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m trying to tell you that I’m not certain how I feel—except alone and exposed and raw from watching you kiss Tori.”

  “Allie—”

  “No, I think we need a break,” I said.

  “Fine,” he said and stood. “I respect your wishes, Allie, because I love you. I’ll give you some space if that’s what you need.”

  My heart broke. “It is what I need. At least for now. Go back to Chicago, Trent.”

  “I want you to know that I’m not letting you go that easy,” he said. “I will be around, Allie. When you’re ready, know that I love you and nothing is going to change that.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Okay, can you go now?”

  “Sure.”

  He left and I stared at the flowers he’d left resting on the table. I should get up and put them in water, but at the moment I wasn’t motivated enough to do anything but close my eyes and let Mella patty-cake my side. Her nails were prickly, but there was something comforting in knowing she wasn’t going anywhere.

  * * *

  The next morning, I went downstairs to be with Sandy while she made fudge. There was a knock on the door just before eight AM. I opened the door to find the ladies from the senior center. “Allie, are you okay?” they asked as they tumbled into the McMurphy.

  “I’m okay,” I said and tugged my sleeves over the bandages on my wrists. I was sore from large bruises I’d gotten from my efforts to get free. At least I hadn’t needed to break my hand to get out. It meant I could go back to fudge making soon. “Come on in. I have coffee.”

  “We brought you cookies and doughnuts,” Mrs. Finch said and lifted a big pink box from the Island Bakery.

  “Sounds yummy,” I said. “Come in and have a seat.” I waved toward the sofas and the wingback chairs in front of the elevator in the lobby. They were closest to the coffee bar that was ready with coffee twenty-four hours a day for our guests.

  “How are you after your ordeal?” Mrs. O’Malley asked. “Was it horrible? What did you do? Did the twelve hours seem forever?”

  “Was Mr. Sikes evil with his threats? How did he capture you?” Mrs. Finch asked.

  I smiled. “You all sound like Liz McElroy.”

  “Inquiring minds,” Mrs. Green said with a soft smile.

  They each got their coffee and sat down, snitching doughnuts or cookies depending on their mood. I had a cup of coffee in my hand. Sandy was making the last batch of fudge until the eleven AM demonstration. I settled into the couch and answered all their questions.

  “So Mr. Sikes claims he didn’t murder anyone?” Mrs. O’Malley said.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “That means there is a killer still out there,” Mrs. Finch said.

  “It could be,” I said.

  “Barbara did have a lot of enemies,” Mrs. O’Malley said. “You think a woman killed her?”

  “That’s the thought,” I said. “Although it takes a lot of strength to murder someone with a gardening trowel, a man would most likely use a different object. Not one quite so blunt.”

  “Well, Barbara did have a lot of women angry because of how she manipulated their husbands.”

  “She did sleep around a lot and it didn’t matter to her if the man was married or not,” Mrs. Green stated.

  “But if an angry woman killed Barbara, who killed Dan?”

  “It is a quandary,” Mrs. Finch said. “If the two murders aren’t connected then we have two murderers.”

  “I think we only have one,” I said. “If Dan helped Mr. Sikes smuggle things into the Butterfly House, then he might have done something else illegal on the side. Whoever he worked for found out he was going to be caught and got rid of him.”

  “So the obvious creature is the wife of whoever had an affair with Barbara last,” Mrs. O’Malley said, a look of satisfaction on her face.

  “We need to discover who was sleeping with Barbara last and work it out from there,” Mrs. Finch said.

  “I thought we knew that
already.”

  “Well, we were clearly wrong,” Mrs. O’Malley said. “We need to dig deeper.”

  “How are we going to do that?” I asked.

  “Oh, honey, the grapevine knows all,” Mrs. O’Malley said with a grin. “We simply need to put out the word.”

  “Let me know when you know,” I said. “I’ll tell Rex.”

  “Oh, honey, don’t get Rex involved just yet. We have to get the guilty party admitting to the crime.”

  “Like they do on the crime shows,” Mrs. Finch said. “Maybe we can finagle it so that they confess on tape.”

  “That would be marvelous,” Mrs. Finch said with a clap of her hands.

  “Where is Frances?” Mrs. Green asked as she looked at her watch.

  “I gave Frances the day off,” I said. “She and Mr. Devaney have rescheduled their wedding for later this afternoon.”

  “Oh, well, nice of her to tell us,” Mrs. O’Malley said in a pique.

  “It’s my fault,” I said. “I was supposed to send out new e-mail invitations, but I got—how shall we say it?—tied up with something.”

  “Ha!” Mrs. Finch said and slapped her knee. “Good one.”

  “Okay, dear, all is forgiven,” Mrs. O’Malley said.

  “We need to get going,” Mrs. Finch said, looking at her watch. “We have a water aerobics class in fifteen minutes. Enjoy your doughnuts, dear, and we’ll see you at Frances’s wedding. It’s still at sunset, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Still at sunset and at Turtle Park.”

  “Great. Bye, dear.”

  They all gave me careful hugs and kisses on the cheek.

  I frowned at their backs. There was still a killer out there. It was kind of them to offer to find out who had the most to gain from Barbara’s death, but it worried me that they were putting themselves at risk by asking.

  If anyone was aware of the dangers of asking the wrong people the right questions, it was me.

  Chapter 29

  The day was uneventful. I could only supervise Sandy with the fudge demonstrations. My injuries made things difficult to make fudge on my own. Jenn had Frances back at the salon getting her hair done. I just left the salon with my own hair done in a top bun and hair sprayed to within an inch of its life. I swear it was shellacked in place. But I had to pick Mal up from the groomer. She was also being bathed and brushed and having bows put on her ears. We were going to look marvelous for the wedding.

  I picked up Mal. My adorable pup looked extra adorable with pale blue bows. I carried her so that she didn’t get dirty on the streets busy with foot traffic and horse traffic. Finally, I was able to put her down and travel the back alley. She was happy to do her business at her favorite place of business.

  “Allie McMurphy.”

  I turned to see Wanda Sikes step out of the growing shadows behind my stairs. “Oh, Wanda, you startled me.”

  “You are a meddling sort, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Because of you my husband is in jail right now.”

  “No, I think he’s in jail because he kidnapped me.”

  “If you hadn’t taken the diamonds out of the Butterfly House he wouldn’t have needed to take such a drastic step.”

  I noted that Wanda wore a track suit. She had on athletic shoes, her hair was in a tight ponytail. There was a glint from something metal in her hand. I took a step back as she advanced.

  “Wanda, I’m not responsible for your husband’s incarceration,” I said and raised my bandaged wrists. “I have the wounds to prove it.”

  “You took the diamonds,” she went on. “Now you have the seniors asking questions they shouldn’t ask. It’s no one’s business who Barbara was sleeping with. She’s dead. Her affair is over.”

  She raised her hand and I saw she held a knife. My heartbeat picked up and I reached down, grabbed Mal, and held her to me. “Barbara was sleeping with your husband, wasn’t she?”

  “You know, I knew others would always betray me, but not Barbara. She was the one person I could always count on,” Wanda mused.

  “Until you found out her latest conquest was your husband.”

  “I didn’t think it was true. Barbara wouldn’t do that to me. I was her best friend for life—through thick and thin.”

  I swallowed at the crazy glint in Wanda’s eye. “You met with her that morning at the Butterfly House.”

  “No,” Wanda said. “No, you don’t know anything.”

  “I know you have a knife.”

  She glanced at her hand as if it didn’t belong to her and then looked back at me. “I followed Barbara that morning.”

  “You saw your husband leaving her home, didn’t you?”

  “Fred was always a weak man, but he was my weak man,” she said.

  “You followed Barbara to the Butterfly House and confronted her.”

  “She could do anything she wanted but she crossed a line when she went after my Fred.”

  “You argued,” I said and took another step backward, pulled my phone out. I hit the button on my phone twice and it dialed the last person I’d talked to—Rex. I hoped that even if he didn’t answer, his voice mail would record Wanda.

  “She had the audacity to laugh at me. Me! Her best friend.”

  “It made you angry.” Mal wiggled in my arms when Rex’s voice said hello on the other end of the phone. “Wanda, put down the knife.” I prayed Rex could hear me over Mal’s happy barking.

  Wanda’s eyes were lost in memory. “She said that I, of anyone in the world, should know what she was capable of. I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that she would betray me like that.”

  “You picked up the garden trowel.”

  “She wasn’t even the least bit afraid,” Wanda said. “She said I didn’t have the strength to do anything with it. She laughed harder and said I was a weak pathetic woman who couldn’t keep her husband happy. She said I deserved to lose him to her. She said more terrible, horrible things.”

  “So you stabbed her.”

  “I saw red,” she said. “I didn’t think. I just struck. I didn’t mean to hurt her, just to make her stop laughing. Stop betraying me with her words. The things she told me. I had to make her stop.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran,” Wanda said. “When I realized that Victoria was coming in the back door, I ran out the front.

  “She saw you jog by the greenhouse.”

  “I had my hood up,” Wanda said. “There’s no way she could have identified me.”

  “Did you know about your husband’s smuggling?”

  “No,” she said and shook her head. “Barbara told me. She told me that she knew more about Fred than I ever would. She called me a fool, but I fooled her, didn’t I?”

  “Who killed Dan?”

  “Dan?” She shrugged, her gaze focusing on me and Mal. “He had to die. He was ready to go to the police with what he knew once he realized you were tracking him down. Tori had gone to visit him. He said he could keep one of you from knowing the truth but not both. He was going to go to the police.”

  “So you killed him.”

  “It’s easier the second time,” she said. “It gets easier every time you do it.”

  “Do what, Wanda?” I asked as loud as I could so that Rex could hear.

  “Kill someone,” she replied and advanced on me. She raised her arm with the knife. “I’m sorry, Allie, but you crossed the line when you put my husband in jail.”

  “He did that to himself,” I said and stepped back far enough to press myself against the fence that separated me from the hotel behind the McMurphy. “Put the knife down. The alley behind the McMurphy is no place to kill someone.”

  She rushed me. I flashed my phone light into her eyes and she shouted, pausing a fraction of a second. It was long enough for me and Mal to run. My goal was to get inside. I hit the stairs running. She was right behind me. I fumbled with the keys to my apartment as she grabbed at my leg. I kicked he
r back and she fell two steps; I stuck my key in the lock. I could feel Wanda closing in.

  “Police! Freeze!” Rex’s strong voice cut through my panic. I froze for a second and so did Wanda, but then she swiped the knife toward me, barely missing me.

  I pushed her back. Mal barked in my arms. Rex let off a shot and I froze as everything seemed to go into slow motion. The sound of the shot rang in my ears. Wanda crumpled at my feet, the knife rattled to the deck floor. I pushed the door open behind me and stepped into the cool darkness of my apartment. Rex raced up the stairs and called 9-1-1. “Yes, Charlene,” he said into his radio. “Shots fired. I need backup and an ambulance at the back of the McMurphy.”

  I heard her say something. Rex pushed the knife away from Wanda’s reach. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay,” I said. Mal wiggled in my arms, begging to be let down. Mella wound her way around my trembling legs.

  “Don’t let the animals out,” he warned.

  I closed the screen door and put Mal down. Then I leaned against the door frame as officers arrived. “Is she dead?”

  “No,” Rex said and pressed on Wanda’s shoulder wound. Wanda moaned. Rex looked up at me. “You were smart to call me.”

  “How much did you hear?” I asked as sirens filled the air. Officer Brown came running up the stairs.

  “Enough,” Rex said.

  “Is everyone all right?” Officer Brown asked, his gun drawn.

  “I’ve got a suspect down,” Rex said. “Everyone else is okay.”

  My legs gave out and I collapsed on my kitchen floor. Mal barked at all the men gathering on the porch. George came up and assessed Wanda’s wounds. I held my pup to keep her from pushing the screen door open. I watched as they hauled Wanda off on a stretcher.

  “What will happen to her?”

  “She’ll be airlifted to Cheboygan,” Rex said. “George said they will have to do some surgery to take care of the gunshot wound.” He hunkered down in the kitchen beside me. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “How’s my hair? Jenn will kill me if I mess it up before the wedding.”

  Rex laughed. It was a nice round sound that warmed my heart. “It looks perfect,” he said with a shake of his head. Mal jumped up and licked his cheek. Mella rubbed against him. “I guess you found another killer.”