Hot Fudge Frame-Up: A Fudge Shop Mystery (22 page)

* * *

At around six o’clock, I put on my nicest black jeans, a red nautical blouse with rolled-up sleeves, and black leather sandals and gathered my hair into a ponytail with a red ribbon.

I checked in at my fudge shop. Kelsey had left, but Piers was helping Cody wrap fudge for a customer. I bit my lip to hold back from asking about the box and ring. Piers was explaining the finer points of the candy, including not refrigerating it. “You keep that there fudge at room temperature,” he said in his booming voice. “You can freeze it if you must, but seal those suckers tightly to keep the fudge from soaking up the aroma of the salmon you just caught in our lake and shoved into your freezer before rushing off to take in the stage play over at the park.”

He said “our” lake. This new Piers vexed me, but I wondered if helping a woman pregnant with twins had softened him somehow. Or was this “good ol’ boy” act only a cover? What had he done with that box and ring? I’d ask him later.

I headed to the Troubled Trout early in order to question Erik. I found a seat at the far end of the bar, my hands shaking a little at the prospect of Erik being a possible murderer, or at the least a thief. Erik did a double take, but I asked for an expensive wine to mollify him, then asked to see the betting cards. The square with the biggest dough on it for dancing with me was for a Spuds Schlimgen.

“Who’s Spuds?”

Erik set a glass of Door County’s finest cherry-and-moscato wine blend in front of me. “Spuds Schlimgen? Mows golf courses. Last I heard he was taking care of Alpine, Stonehedge, and Peninsula.”

“A friend of Lloyd’s?”

“Golfing buddy, yeah. They’ve been in here for drinks together.”

I figured if this Spuds guy asked me, I’d say yes. But I had to keep to my plan of action to get my grandparents back together. After shoving my credit card over to Erik, I said, “Put a hundred on Dillon Rivers for me, okay? That buys several squares, right?”

His eyes went wide. “You and Dillon?”

“A woman can hope.” My insides were whirling. The fat lie had serious ramifications. “We’re having dinner here tonight.”

I’d worn red on purpose. Men noticed red. They also thought it was romantic—Valentine’s Day stuff. Erik would likely be telling everybody at the bar later tonight he’d seen Dillon and me canoodling. By ten o’clock the whole town would know. By tomorrow the church ladies would have their social media networks sizzling with the news. I wanted all of it to happen. It was my plan.

But before Dillon got here, I needed to ask Erik important questions.

“Erik, what’s really going on with the harbor? Any news?”

His body stiffened as he poured a beer from a tap for another customer. When done, he came back to me. “Lloyd’s lawyer has to go over everything, and they can’t get into Lloyd’s safe until Friday.”

“What’s in the safe? The will?”

“That, I’m sure, and I guess they’re looking for personal papers directing the actions of the trust. Parker told me a trust relies on the notes kept by the owner of the trust.”

“So nothing can move forward until all the papers are gathered up, including those in the safe.”

“Yeah.”

I also thought about the missing box. Did Piers have it in his possession yet?

“Erik, Alex Faust said he saw you being given money by Piers Molinsky a week ago. True?”

Erik grinned instantly, naturally. Not a cover-up. “True. Piers is from Chicago. He actually thought that we need our palms greased here to get things done. He heard about the publicity over Lloyd selling his real estate and Piers wanted to be considered highly in the bidding for space in the new development for a muffin shop.”

“Competition for my fudge shop?”

“I guess so.”

That rat. I’d been cutting my own throat by giving him Cinderella Pink Fudge to experiment with. But then I thought about Lloyd’s throat, and his gruesome ending. “Erik, did you have anything to do with Lloyd’s death?”

“What the hell? No!”

Customers turned heads our way. We waited for them to resume their chatter. As I turned back to Erik, I happened to spy the jar of crayons behind him.

“Those crayons behind your bar—the threats to me and my fudge judges have all come in orange crayon, neatly written. Did you write any of those notes?”

“Are you crazy?” He seemed genuinely shocked.

“Have you noticed anybody odd taking the crayons with them instead of returning them to the jar?”

“You mean like somebody maybe taking them to write those nasty threats? You know, anybody can get crayons everywhere.”

I had to laugh at myself. I really wished solving the mystery of the notes was as easy as matching a mere crayon. “I guess I’ll have to give up on the crayon angle, won’t I?”

“Yup. Besides, the only person out-and-out stealing my crayons is Verona Klubertanz. She hangs on to everything when she comes in with Travis for our mac and cheese. She even stole some crayons off the table over there yesterday when Libby was waiting for a food-to-go order for the professor.” He nodded toward a nearby booth.

That made me perk up. “What were they up to?”

“She said Professor Faust had a book signing arranged for another lighthouse, and she was helping him since she was going to stay away from the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse for a while out of respect for Lloyd. Funny thing was, I gave her a bunch of my crayons because she said the lighthouse had a coloring contest and the docent called Libby to bring some along.”

“Why is that funny?”

Erik shrugged. “Just seems like a coincidence you ask about crayons, and Libby asked for my crayons, too. Everybody wants these old stubby crayons of mine all of a sudden.”

I wasn’t tracking on the crayons anymore. Maybe Kelsey had pilfered them from Libby in the past, or maybe not. Putting that behind me, I asked a more important question. “Why were you and the professor at the house when we were there in the garden? What’s the real reason, Erik?”

He shrugged again but this time turned as red as cherry wine. “He knows a lot of stuff. He’s a professor, Ava. I’m nineteen. I’ve never been to college. I asked him to help me.”

Then I swallowed hard and coughed up the big question. “You had a pad of paper in your briefcase. I saw it at the funeral. Same type of paper was used for the notes around the rocks.”

The corner of his mouth twitched ever so slightly while he went to pour a drink for a customer. When he came back, he said, “When we were at Mr. Mueller’s house, the professor and I collected a lot of things off the desk, papers that belonged to the village about the real estate stuff. I guess the pad of paper was on the desk.”

This felt like a dead end, and Erik seemed innocent enough, yet his stories always had an aura about them that intrigued me. Was he a good liar? And if Erik was innocent, did that leave Kelsey King as the main suspect?

By the time Dillon got to the Troubled Trout, I wanted to leave instead and get back to fudge making. That would help me sort this out. I also needed to talk to Libby. To warn her about Kelsey. Grandma had been right. Libby had to be the fudge judge referred to in the note. But I was also chickening out about asking Dillon for a favor this evening. I realized what I was about to ask him was all wrong.

* * *

Dillon and I sat in a booth. With my heartbeat rushing. I was staring across the table at a handsome man who could take my breath away in a rose garden. I told him so.

Dillon took my hands in his on top of the table. Sparks skipped up my arms. I think other people saw the sparks, because they paused as they passed our booth. I must have turned as red as my blouse.

My cowboy’s eyes were undressing me. I, in turn, imagined myself in a bad screenplay I might have written, the one where I was ripping the shirt off Dillon’s broad shoulders, with the buttons arcing in the air like the sparks between us.

The meal of lake trout with a medley of fresh vegetables was probably nice, but we barely ate; food wasn’t what would satiate us.

Once we’d pushed our food around our plates enough, Dillon said, “I have my mother’s hot car. How about we have Erik put this in a picnic basket for us? Enjoy an evening drive with the top down? The car’s top, that is, but if you want—”

“Dillon!”

“You match the paint job.”

Amused and trying to ratchet my breathing down to a manageable level, I said, “Now, that’s a line to endear a man to a woman’s heart. And that reminds me, I need to call your mother.”

“What about?”

“I need a U.S. senator’s help with something. She said she knows a few.”

“Indeed she does. What’s this about?”

“Can’t tell you. It’s part of a surprise I’m planning for the fudge prom on Saturday night.”

“So I have to wait?”

“Yes. And spend lots of money bidding on fudge and pies for charity.”

“Can I take you as my date?”

My insides flip-flopped in utter turmoil. “Maybe. Clearly, though, Spuds Schlimgen thinks more highly of me.”

“Spuds? That old duffer? He hangs out with Al Kvalheim. What about us young guys? Give me a shot.”

His dark eyes softened. The honesty found in them made me want to slide under the table. I didn’t deserve this guy as a friend. “Dillon, I have to confess something.”

“This sounds bad.”

“It is. Earlier today a sudden plan came to me that would get my grandparents back together. The plan involved you and me pretending we were dating again, and in that way my grandfather would get all concerned and come back to live with Grandma across the street to keep an eye on me.”

My mouth went dry. I grabbed for the last of my water in the glass sitting and sweating near the candle on our table.

Dillon stared at me for what seemed like an hour. He sat there still as stone.

I was starting to sweat. “I’m sorry. It was a bad plan. I don’t know why I thought you’d go along with such a thing. It’d be using you, and you’re too nice for that. You’ve changed. It was mean of me to hatch such a stupid plan, considering what we used to mean to each other. Please forgive me, Dillon.”

I exhaled a huge breath. But I still couldn’t breathe; I waited for him to say something.

He finally thumped his fingers on the table; then he broke into a wide smile. “It’s not a bad plan. I just asked you to give me a shot. It’s real. I asked you first. So, do you want to date me or not?”

“For real?” Not only was sweat pouring down my back, but my heart was doing some kind of circus trapeze trick inside my chest and wouldn’t stop.

“Yeah. Let’s start over. You’ve changed a lot, too, in eight years. You’re a really interesting person, and there are eight years of life we’ve both lived that have shifted our souls a little. We’re practically new people.”

“But our dating would still be a scandal.”

Dillon laughed heartily enough that heads turned. He leaned toward me with a glint in his eyes. “Isn’t that exactly what you wanted?”

“Yes, but—”

“I loved you once enough to marry you, and I love you enough now to help you get your dear grandparents back together. I don’t see much wrong with your plan at all. In fact, it’s not a bad plan. It’s a very good plan all around.”

He grabbed his water glass and raised it in a toast.

I felt as if he’d put a cushiony safety net under me, but my heart was still flipping about on that trapeze. I smiled again, thinking about the hundred dollars I’d just put down on his name behind the bar. Now it seemed like kismet to have done so.

Wiggling to get out of the booth, I said, “Let’s take a ride in that car of your mother’s. After I run an errand. Meet me back at my cabin?”

“I could drive you. What’s the errand?”

I wished I could lie, but my conscience wouldn’t let me. “I have to drop off a pie at Sam’s place.” My nerves were jangling louder than my shop’s cowbell in my head. “My grandmother thinks that will make Sam fall in love with me again.”

“I hate to give you bad news, but the guy
has
fallen back in love with you.”

The cowbell in my head just rang louder in alarm. “And you?”

He had an arm around my shoulders, his hand rubbing my arm as if to warm me as we walked out into the crisp evening air. “Totally in love.”

I gave him a big kiss in front of everybody in the parking lot of the Troubled Trout.

Dillon let me drive the red Corvette back to my place. He left to go check on Lucky Harbor while I drove in the yellow pickup truck with the strawberry pie to Sam’s house.

Sam smiled when he saw me. I wished he were smiling for the pie, but I knew better. And I felt bad about what I had to tell him.

“Hi, Sam.” I was standing awkwardly on his porch, which was flanked by lovely red rosebushes. A porch swing was just begging for company, but all I wanted to do was flee. But Sam invited me in, and I accepted. I owed him that much.

He took the pie to his kitchen. I stood in the living room.

The inside of the small home was stunning in unexpected ways. I’d thought I’d see quaint quilts and lots of homespun, traditional decor in earth tones, but instead the interior was sleek in white, with a white couch. The paintings on the walls were by the best photographers and landscape painters of Door County. Red roses in a vase sat atop a glass table in front of a stone fireplace that cradled crackling flames.

When I told him I was back together with Dillon, he merely nodded, as if he didn’t believe me. “I see,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t expect this, either.”

He chuckled in a stiff way that made me feel worse for coming here.

I said, “The place is beautiful.” It was the wrong thing to say. My jaw began to tremble. I wanted to cry. Sam had created this nest for the two of us.

It seemed then that the moment stretched on forever.

Sam finally nodded. “Thank you for bringing the pie and for telling me about you and Dillon. I’ll always be your friend. I’m always here if you need me.”

I rushed forward to give him a quick kiss on his cheek, then thought better of it. I touched his good arm instead, giving it a squeeze. I nodded to his other arm and shoulder. “How are you doing?”

“One day at a time, but I should be healed within a couple of weeks if you need a partner to climb lighthouse towers with again.”