First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery Read online

  I’d been in the house only once since I’d left town eight years ago in a hurry, but that visit had been a quick nighttime errand in low light. I’d heard customers rave about the collection of Steuben glass Isabelle had assembled. The famous Steuben glass artists out in New York had ceased operations in 2011, so I knew the value must have gone up considerably for Isabelle’s collection. I was eager to see it all under bright lights.

  As I reached to ring the doorbell, I heard heated debating from within.

  When Isabelle opened the door, her normally sophisticated gamine looks were pinched and she was out of breath.

  I asked, “What’s going on?”

  “Rainetta.” She took the box. “I leave for a minute to go upstairs to turn down her bed and put chocolates on her pillow and come back down to find Rainetta has everybody arguing over what needs money first in Fishers’ Harbor.”

  I stripped off my jacket and shook off the snowflakes before hanging it on the coat tree. “How about you put my fudge on their pillows from now on? And how about she invest in my fudge?”

  “She’ll love your idea. Fairy tales and Hollywood? A perfect match. And I’m tired of hearing Al Kvalheim talk about spending Ms. Johnson’s money on new storm sewers and grates.”

  I laughed. I eagerly sent my gaze searching for the famous actress. I didn’t see her at first amid the throng of at least a hundred townspeople wearing their Sunday church clothes and enough aftershave and perfume to scare even a skunk. Panic set in. I couldn’t breathe.

  I whispered, “I didn’t bring enough fudge, and the new batch isn’t quite done.”

  Isabelle whispered back, “We’ll make sure Rainetta gets the first piece. Others will just have to bid for the rest. I’ll tell everybody it’s part of the fund-raiser.”

  “You’re a genius, Izzy. Thanks!”

  I still couldn’t breathe much, but now it had to do with the beauty around me. The two-story-high reception hall was packed with displays of expensive glass. Everybody kept their elbows tucked in and barely moved while talking.

  Glass is made of amorphous crystals, which means they’re random molecules and light can go through them. Glass sparkled from every surface high and low, with rainbow chips of light in flight under the overhead chandeliers. There were crystal birds and animals—many life-sized, including a seagull. Other items were smaller abstracts or vases, swirls of fire-roasted molecules of sand that bent the light into colorful beams splashing on the cream-and-blue wallpaper. Making glass was probably like making fudge—only a few thousand degrees hotter.

  But my appreciation of Isabelle’s collection was interrupted by the loud discussion near the magnificent blue-carpeted staircase dead center in the house.

  “That’s Rainetta Johnson,” whispered Isabelle, nodding with raised eyebrows toward an impeccably coiffed blond woman of a regal age wearing an expensive lavender pantsuit.

  To my surprise, the object of Ms. Johnson’s animated discussion was Sam Peterson.

  I asked Isabelle, “What’re they arguing about? Seems like Sam’s taking the wrong tack to get his donations.”

  This party wasn’t just the opening of the refurbished inn or my fudge debut; it was a fund-raiser to help purchase and redo another historic home in town. It would become a group home for people like Ranger who wanted to live independently. So Sam’s being here was logical, seeing as how he was a social worker. I’d never known Sam to raise his voice. I could see that the arguing was mostly one-sided, though. Rainetta was smiling and embracing others with some funny asides even as Sam kept pressing some point with the actress.

  “Let’s not worry about it,” Isabelle said. “Sam’s overly eager, perhaps, to sell her on the group home.”

  “Poor Rainetta. Sam should relax. You told me she loved Door County.”

  “She does, but she’s a shrewd business lady. Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  Isabelle and I skirted the edge of the fray to the round serving table that Isabelle had reserved for the Cinderella Pink Fudge. After she put the box of fudge down gingerly, she lovingly picked up a six-inch glass unicorn from the back of the table.

  “My favorite piece,” she said with glistening eyes. “I wanted it here on the table with your fudge. Fairies and unicorns go together in tales. I thought maybe it would bring good luck to your Cinderella debut.”

  “Thank you, Isabelle. That’s a lovely thing to say.” I gave her a hug, though a careful one so as not to break the unicorn.

  “Rainetta loves this piece,” Isabelle said.

  “She has good taste.” The unicorn had the exquisite definition of a horse with a horn. Little girls could easily imagine fairies riding on its back.

  “That’s the problem. She wants to buy it.”

  “Then sell it to her,” I said, feeling a speck of jealousy as I stood among Isabelle’s riches.

  “I can’t. She wants to buy it for half what it’s worth. That lady isn’t rich because she gives money away. She drives a hard bargain. And she’s making that known to everybody.”

  “And doing it with a smile. She looks radiant. As if she’s truly come home here in Door County and Fishers’ Harbor.”

  “Indeed. But some of the locals don’t trust her. They think she’s got to have a hidden reason to help us.”

  The odd thing about it was I’d heard that Rainetta was always generous. So something wasn’t jibing here, particularly with Sam’s behavior. If he was getting her upset over a group home investment, it didn’t bode well for selling her something as silly as fudge, even though I was determined to elevate it to an art.

  Isabelle set the unicorn back down. “And Ms. Johnson was perfectly charming to our new village board president, but I overheard Erik say he thinks she’s a stuffy old lady.”

  Through a slim fissure in the crowd, I caught a glimpse of our new president—Erik Gustafson, a wunderkind of nineteen who’d shocked the town in April by deposing the fiftysomething Mercy Fogg. Mercy, who was milling about, voicing her opinion to Erik about our lack of a stoplight, had reigned supreme here for more than twenty years. I groaned, turning back to Isabelle. “Mercy wants the great Rainetta Johnson to buy us a stoplight?”

  Isabelle nodded. “Decidedly boring.”

  “Hmm, but suddenly Sam doesn’t look bored,” I noted. “If anything, it looks like he’s given Rainetta some kind of green light.”

  Rainetta had a hand cupping his chin. The legendary dame looked like she was about to kiss Sam! I squelched a gasp.

  Sam was only a couple of years older than me. Sure, he was good-looking. He was six foot, still had his football player’s physique, and had Adonis blond hair in crisp, thick waves. What woman of any age wouldn’t want to be on the guy’s arm and set her fingers to walking through that hair? But Rainetta? She was more than thirty years older than Sam.

  I asked Isabelle in a quiet voice, “Where’s the reporter when we need him?”

  Isabelle had told me earlier that Jeremy Stone was staying at the inn. I wondered why he was still upstairs when the action was down here. Stone worked for the Madison Herald, a daily morning newspaper out of the capital. He roved the state reviewing everything from A to Z: arts to zoos. He loved “quirky.” I had high hopes for him finding pink cherry fudge with fairy wings on top “quirky.”

  Isabelle said, “He’s probably sending in a story already about how hideous my party is. Sam is ruining it by hogging Rainetta’s attention.”

  “I won’t let him.”

  I flipped open my fudge box sitting on the table, grabbed a pink cellophane–wrapped and winged bite-sized morsel of Cinderella Pink Fudge, then wended my way through the throng. I was getting looks, and only then realized I’d forgotten to change clothes. I still wore my messy, long baker’s apron dotted with pink cherry juice that looked like bloody finger smudges.

  I held out my hand with the fudge in it and delivered my memorized Oscar-winning speech to Rainetta. “Hello, Ms. Johnson. I’m Ava Oosterling, from Oosterlings�
� Live Bait, Bobbers & Belgian Fudge. I’d love it if the guest of honor would have the first bite of Fairy Tale Fudge. This flavor is the Cinderella Pink Fudge. I hope it lets you feel like you’re Cinderella at the ball, Ms. Johnson.”

  My eyes were sucked out of their sockets by the circle of purple amethysts the size of dollar coins that she wore about her neck. They were inlaid in a museum-quality setting of gold leaves. Certainly she could afford to endorse my fudge fantasies.

  “Fudge?” she said, her blue eyes soaking up the purple in the amethysts. “How quaint and perfectly wonderful, but I’m allergic to chocolate.”

  The blood drained from my head. She hadn’t even tasted my fudge.

  I prayed like any sane Cinderella would and tried again. “This isn’t dark chocolate. This is white, made from sugar and soybean oil. No caffeine either. The texture is creamy and smooth . . . like your skin.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows at my inane and all-too-spontaneous words. She stared at the pink confection in crinkly cellophane I was placing in one of her hands.

  Sam huffed at me and said, “Excuse me while I find the little boys’ room.” He marched up the staircase.

  Sam obviously was miffed I’d interrupted him and Rainetta. He wasn’t normally brusque with me, except about my boyfriend choices in the past.

  Isabelle rushed up with a crystal goblet of pink wine made from Door County cherries, which Rainetta didn’t take. Isabelle persevered. “Ms. Johnson, please come with us to the dining room, where we can toast you.”

  “I recommend the cherry wine,” I said, indicating the proffered glass in Isabelle’s hands. “My fudge is made from cherries from that same orchard.”

  Rainetta tossed her head back in a genuine laugh, relaxing me a little. Her helmet of blond waves didn’t move a speck. “I’m impressed by your homework. I love the orchards here in spring.”

  Then she ripped off the pink sparkly string and opened the pink cellophane to reveal the tiny sugared fairy wings. The crowd was so quiet I heard the furnace kick in.

  Rainetta nibbled a corner of my pink confection. Then to my horror, she winced. “Perhaps I’ll finish this in my room. I’m not feeling well.”

  She spit the fudge back into the crinkly, pink cellophane. Then, with my fudge still in one hand, she hurried up the stairs, disappearing into the upper hallway that ran down the center of the B and B.

  My mouth went dry.

  People began to murmur. And stare at me. With ugly frowns, the kind we use around here when somebody spills a beer or the Packers miss the Super Bowl.

  Isabelle had gone so pale I could see blue veins under the winter white skin of her temples.

  The chandelier above us bombarded the Steuben glass figurines and all of us with rainbow darts. Rainetta’s lingering perfume billowed into an invisible cloud that was suffocating me. My dream of talking with her about actors’ swag bags evaporated.

  I muttered to Isabelle, “She hates my fudge.”

  Isabelle laid a hand on my arm. “Of course not. This is Sam’s fault.”

  “How so?”

  “Whatever they were talking about upset her. I better go see to her. But first, egads, we need music, don’t we?”

  She flipped a switch on the wall beneath the staircase before hurrying up the stairs. Hot jazz jolted us. Even the glass figurines on the shelves and tables vibrated.

  The crowd kept staring at me.

  Our wunderkind board president, Erik Gustafson, said, “This isn’t going the way I expected.”

  From the outer edges of the crowd, Mercy Fogg croaked, “You can still resign if you like, Erik. It takes a grown-up to handle the likes of Ms. Johnson.”

  Mercy bullied her way around a couple of men in suits and lumbered up the stairs.

  I felt sorry for Erik. A year ago he was playing football with the high school team, and now he was in the middle of this groveling for money that small towns have to do in order to survive.

  I told Erik, “Maybe you could serve wine and stall a little by talking about new things you want to do for the village.”

  “Like the new playground equipment we need?”

  “Perfect idea,” I said. I silently prayed Gilpa would be coming soon with the other four guests to resuscitate the party and charm Rainetta Johnson.

  Erik called out, “Who wants cherry wine? I’ll pour.”

  “I’ll help,” I said, wanting to slam back a glass fast.

  Erik and I had passed along only a few glasses of wine when Isabelle’s scream sliced through the jazzy sax riffs.

  I charged up the powder blue carpeted stairs with several people in tow.

  In contrast to the glittering brilliance downstairs, the upstairs hallway was dimly lit with only two blue glass globe sconces. But doors popped open from the guest rooms, their lamplights helping to illuminate Isabelle standing in horror at the other end of the hallway.

  Rainetta was laid flat on her back on the carpet, half in and half out of her room.

  I rushed down the hallway. A woman screamed behind me. A door slammed.

  Isabelle trembled. She shook her phone in her hand. “I called nine-one-one.”

  “What happened?” I asked, going immediately into action to pump at Rainetta’s rib cage.

  Isabelle said, “I used the bathroom; then I knocked on her door, and she staggered out, choking. On your fudge.”

  Chapter 2

  Rainetta’s lips were indeed smudged pink from my fudge, but before I could pry her mouth open to clear the passageway, the local volunteer paramedics were there, with Sheriff Jordy Tollefson right behind. He’d likely been just blocks away from here directing the traffic coming through town because of the party.

  “Get back, folks,” Jordy said. “What do we have here?”

  I was huffing and puffing from the palpitations, relieved to have the paramedics rush in. “She’s not breathing,” I screeched in panic. “I started CPR immediately.”

  Jordy was a thin, tall guy, a runner in his forties with a boy-next-door face, brown eyes, and shorn hair showing from under his official hat. He got down on the floor with the paramedics—Nancy and Ronny Jenks, a middle-aged married couple who ran a bar on the edge of town.

  Nancy and Ronny slapped on the defibrillator, making us all gasp when nothing happened except Rainetta bouncing. To my horror, the pink fudge fell out of her mouth; it appeared that in death she spit out my fudge in disdain.

  “What happened?” Jordy asked, his eyes probing all of us, but landing back on me for some reason.

  Isabelle said, “Ms. Johnson said she fell ill after taking a bite of the fudge; then she came up here. I found her coming out her door choking and then she collapsed.”

  I wanted to fall dead myself on the spot. I feared what was coming.

  “Where’s the fudge?” Jordy asked.

  “Downstairs,” Isabelle replied.

  “Nobody touch it. Where’d it come from?”

  Everybody looked my way.

  The reporter, Jeremy Stone, snapped a cell phone picture of me, saying, “A fudge fatality.”

  Headline speak. Kindergarten-level alliteration. Which could ruin me. I cleared my throat, my mind racing for fancy answers, but all that came out was “It’s just fudge.”

  Jeremy noted, “Not ‘just.’ It’s pink. Whoever heard of pink fudge? What flavor is it?”

  “Cherry and vanilla,” I stammered, not sure why I felt compelled to tell him anything.

  Jordy cut in. “Ava, you’ll have to come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because a woman has expired with your pink fudge in her mouth.”

  Isabelle said, “It’s called Cinderella Pink Fudge.”

  Jeremy Stone wrote that down.

  Jordy had a grip on my elbow that made my arm ache.

  “Jordy, come on,” I said. “You know my family. You know me.”

  “Not really. You ran away eight years ago. That was a mess, too, created by you.”

  “The
poor woman may have just had a heart attack. It’s nothing more than that.”

  Somebody behind me coughed; it sounded like they were stifling a nervous chuckle. Jeremy Stone had a small recorder in his hand, which he held up. A door opened next to us and a young couple stared out, looking like frightened possums, their dark eyes darting about in fear.

  The paramedics weren’t having any success in resuscitating Rainetta. My Cinderella Pink Fudge lay in an unhealthy wad looking more like spent bubble gum than the artwork I’d created earlier. It’d taken me approximately four hours to make that fudge. As a murder weapon, it had needed only about ten minutes.

  Jordy made everybody go downstairs so the paramedics could remove the body.

  Isabelle scooted fast in front of everybody to lead them down. I suspected she was concerned about the figurines being knocked off her tables in the hubbub. She turned off the jazz music she’d put on minutes before the horror began.

  Jordy escorted me down the stairs, his hand manacling my elbow.

  For some reason, I tried to act normal, as if this weren’t real, as if it were only one of Rainetta’s movies, though it’d be called Fatal Fudge and badly reviewed by Jeremy Stone. As we descended the long staircase, I said, “Did you hear anything about my grandfather? I probably should get back to the shop right away.”

  “I don’t think you’re going anywhere,” Jordy said.

  We were back on the oak floors of the grand foyer area and Jordy wasn’t letting go of me.

  He asked, “Where’s the fudge?”

  I led him to my Cinderella Pink Fudge with its marzipan fairy wings and slippers atop the pieces.

  Isabelle lifted the Steuben unicorn off the table. The sheriff shook a quart-sized Baggie out of his pocket, then chucked several pieces of pink fudge into it, squishing them down, ruining the wings and slippers so that he could zipper the bag shut. My fudge looked like a mass of pink mud.