Hot Fudge Frame-Up: A Fudge Shop Mystery (30 page)

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.