The next room in the basement was empty. Another small space, it smelled of chalky dust and time standing still. It spooked me. A brick chimney stood in the far corner. A rusty lid covered a hole in the brick where a furnace pipe used to fit.
I said, “Check the sills at the tops of the walls and the joists. I’ll check the chimney. I can almost sense that Sister Adele was here.”
Laura said, “Do you honestly think Sister Adele came down here? With a recipe?”
“Sure,” I said. “She may have had to toss wood in the furnace now and then. Maybe she spent a whole bunch of time down here. This space would’ve been cozy with the furnace blazing. She probably had a rocking chair in a corner at one time. She could have built a secret cubby behind a brick for her valuables.”
Pauline scoffed. “What valuables? She was a nun. Don’t they vow a life of poverty?”
Laura answered for me. “She had a rosary. I’m sure she thought that was valuable.”
“And she had the recipe,” I reminded them.
Pauline said, “Have you ever thought your grandfather made up this story to keep you busy looking, and thus keep you from spending too much time with Dillon?”
“I’ve thought of that, but both Grandpa and Grandma are sincere about this fudge story.”
“I still don’t get why nobody found it before now.”
“Pauline, it took a gazillion years for people to find and authenticate the Shroud of Turin.”
“So now you’re comparing this divinity fudge recipe to the Shroud?”
“Yes. If the Blessed Virgin Mary ate this divinity fudge, then the recipe is just as priceless.”
My fingers scrabbled across the rough, dust-laden edges of the brick and cracked mortar, checking for a hiding place. A pebble of mortar popped onto the concrete floor.
Pauline backed away a step. “Watch it. I can’t get these clothes dirty.”
My BFF had worn her favorite outfit today because she’d be meeting up with her boyfriend, John, a tour guide, at the potluck picnic lunch for the church cleanup committee. John was on a bus somewhere in the county with thirty leaf-peeper vacationers from Chicago. The lunch would be held at my new market.
I popped off the metal covering over the chimney hole. Rust and soot flakes spewed out. They fell to the floor near my feet, sullying my running shoes. There was no recipe. I reached down for a handful of rust, wiped it on my pink T-shirt, then bombed the front of Pauline’s shorts.
Pauline gasped, brushing at her shorts and legs. “What are you doing?”
“Proving to Grandpa that we were trusty fudge archaeologists doing our best to unearth ancient, sweet divinity hieroglyphics.”
“When Lent comes around next spring, I’m giving you up instead of booze this time. And forget your Christmas present this year.”
With a smile, I pushed the thin metal covering back in place. “Must I remind you that it was Grandpa who rescued John last summer when John got left behind on his diving expedition by that creep? And John was the one who found the ceramic cup that Grandpa thinks belongs to Grandma’s ancestors at the bottom of Lake Michigan. That’s why Grandpa called up the royals in the first place. The initials on the cup are ‘AVD,’ which might be the other Amandine Van Damme way back in Grandma’s lineage. John finding the cup led to the idea of bringing the current Princess Amandine here for the kermis, and that sparked Grandpa’s memory about the story of Sister Adele and this church and the divinity fudge. So you’re the cause of this search for a recipe, not me. I’m actually the one getting filthy in order to help you and John.”
Laura was giggling.
Pauline pulled madly on her long braid to vent her frustration. “You always manage to turn things upside down and around so that you’re never at fault.”
“And you love me for it. What’re you getting me for Christmas?” I peered up at her in a wide-eyed dare.
Pauline took a deep breath, looking down her nose at me in a double dare.
A dead black-and-red box-elder bug was stuck in her hair above one ear, which I didn’t mention. Instead, I reached up with my thumb and smudged the tip of her nose.
She smudged me back.
Laura said, “Hey, what about me?”
We burst out laughing. Pauline and I wiped our hands on Laura’s blue-and-white-striped blouse and gave her cheeks a sooty pat.
“Perfect,” I said. “Grandpa will believe we did our best, and we can put his silly story to rest.”
Laura took a selfie photo of us with her cell phone. “It’s almost noon. I have to get back to start the bread and relieve my babysitter.”
Laura was the mother of twins born in July. Little Clara Ava had my first name as her middle name, and Spencer Paul got his middle name from a shortened “Pauline.”
I said, “Nobody’s leaving yet. We still have the choir loft to inspect.”
“Your grandpa will never know if we skip that,” Laura said.
Pauline huffed, “But Ava won’t lie to him. Cripes, let’s go get it done.”
“Thanks, Pauline,” I said. “Just ten more minutes, Laura, and then you’ll be free to go home to Clara Ava and Spencer Paul.”
We headed up the stairs to the kitchen, then went into the nave. We marched up the center aisle through shafts of colors striping the pews from the stained glass windows.
Laura said, “Wasn’t a Fontana Dahlgren on the list for helping us clean the church? We could leave the loft for her to clean. By the way, who is she?”
Pauline and I shared a mutual snort. Laura was our new friend, whom we’d met last spring when she opened her bakery, so she didn’t know Fontana.
“Fontana’s outside bothering Jonas Coppens. My grandmother calls her a floozy,” I said. “Fontana is mad at me, and that’s why she’s not in here helping.”
Fontana, divorced from Daniel Dahlgren, ran Fontana’s Fresh Fare, another roadside market a few miles south of mine on Highway 57. She sold her own homemade soaps, perfumes, lotions, and makeup, along with a few pumpkins to lure the tourists. My market, which focused on pairing fudge flavors with local wines, and fresh organic vegetables, fruits, and dairy, sat on land owned by Daniel and his new wife, Kjersta. Fontana had already stopped by my market to suggest that it was unfair competition for me to be located so close to hers, despite our goods being so different. I suspected the real reason Fontana was upset was that I’d made friends with the new wife of her ex.
Pauline added, “I heard she didn’t qualify for the choir that will sing for the prince at the kermis. Maybe she’s pouting and refuses to step inside the church now.”
“It’s more likely she took a look at our names on the cleaning crew and discovered no men to flirt with, so she said the heck with it.”
“Jonas is a hottie,” Pauline said, spritzing lemon oil on a long pew that stretched across the back wall.
Laura set to work dusting the front railing of the loft while I tackled the antique pipe organ.
I filled Laura in on Jonas. We’d grown up with him. He’d lost his parents in a car accident when he was in his twenties. He now ran the family farm northeast of our farm and across Highway C, which intersected with the village of Brussels. He’d never married, but I’d heard plenty of times from my parents that he’d be quite the catch.
Pauline said, “Fontana is merely practicing on Jonas. The prince is her target. I’m surprised she’s not at one of the spas getting a pedicure so her feet look good in glass slippers.”
Poking about for hidden doors and drawers in the organ, I moaned that we hadn’t even found odd scraps of old newspapers I could take to Grandpa. He and I loved treasure hunting in old books and anything with the printed word.
Laura, who was wiping at the organ’s pipes halfheartedly, said, “At least we didn’t find a body in the church.”
“Yet,” Pauline said, coming to
stand next to me at the organ.
I gave her a punch in the upper arm, then raised my right hand. “I swear that no bodies will be found in this church now or during the prince’s visit. Grandpa won’t have to add ‘and Bodies’ at the end of our shop sign, though the alliteration should be appreciated by you, Pauline.” She loved word games for her students. “Besides, I’ve changed.”
Their loud guffaws echoed back from the altar at the opposite end of the church. Two tall angel statues with candles on their heads stood sentry at the steps up to the altar. I imagined they were laughing, too.
Laura pulled a piece of cobweb from her hair. “Does your family believe you’ve changed into somebody who doesn’t always get in trouble?”
Pauline said, “Not if they’re hot to marry her off to a prince and have her move over to Belgium. Sounds like a way to get rid of her. We should chip in for plane fare.”
With smugness, I said, “I won’t invite either of you over to my castle, at this rate. Pauline, a dead box-elder bug in your hair just dropped off to the floor.”
She bent down with a paper towel to pick up the bug. “Aha! It’s the dead body we knew we’d find.”
“And that’s the last one,” I reassured them. “I have no time for crime anymore.”
With Dillon’s help, I was refurbishing the Blue Heron Inn in Fishers’ Harbor, which my grandfather and I had recently acquired with a big, frightening mortgage loan. It sat on the steep hill overlooking our bait-and-fudge shop on the docks. With the inn, my new roadside market, my fudge shop, the prince’s impending visit, and keeping a semblance of a romance alive, I was doing my best to stay out of trouble.
I stopped inspecting the organ for secret doors, then plopped my butt on the bench, giving in to frustration. “I was really starting to like the idea that the recipe might exist.”
“What about the bench you’re sitting on?” Laura asked.
With gleeful, silly hope, I launched myself up, opened the bench lid, then screamed as I jumped back, letting the lid drop with a loud clap.
Pauline came closer. “What—?”
I pointed at the bench. “A bloody knife.”
We three huddled around the closed bench, staring at the lid. I said, “Open it, Pauline.”
“No way. Maybe it’s just your imagination.”
We gave Laura an imploring look. She shook her head. “I faint at the sight of blood.”
I lifted the lid. Slowly.
We stared down at a hunting knife—about seven inches long and smudged with red on its blade and white bone handle.
Laura choked out, “Maybe that’s cherry juice.”
I said, “I work with cherries in my Cinderella Pink Fudge. That’s not cherry juice.”
The smeary knife lay across sheets of music. Dried blood droplets mimicked musical notes on the five-lined staff of “Ave Maria.”
I leaned in closer.
“Don’t touch it,” Pauline said.
“I’ll call the sheriff.” I had my phone out already.
She snatched it from me. “You’re not getting involved. You know you have bad luck. We’re walking away from this and letting somebody else find it.”
Laura had paled. “That’s a good idea. I need to get back to my babies.”
Pauline shut the lid of the bench with a bang.
A sudden corresponding loud thud from below made us jump. We stared wide-eyed into one another’s eyes. My heart was racing.
Voices—chattering—drifted up to the loft. The noise had been a door likely slamming against the wall after being caught by the breeze.
We scrambled to look over the railing. It was John’s tour.
I whispered, “Crap. They’re not supposed to be here. This is cleaning day.”
Pauline plastered on a smile, then waved at John below. She whispered back to me, “I don’t want John involved in whatever your bloody knife means. The last time he tried helping you, he almost ended up dead.”
“It’s not my knife.”
“You found it. And I know how you are. Criminally curious.” She looked down her nose at me with her sternest teacherlike demeanor. “I’ll make sure they don’t come up here. Forget the knife. Promise me.”
But she hurried down the stairs to the nave before I could actually promise.
Hot Fudge Frame-Up: A Fudge Shop Mystery Page 34