First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery (25 page)

P
auline didn’t seem to mind that John Schultz was a liar; she was so excited about the prospect of being with him on a boat tour that she was littering my cottage’s floor with alliterative lettering dropping out of her mouth. I’d gone to my cottage to get a sweatshirt and jacket; we’d frozen yesterday in our journey to find Cody. Pauline now wore a heavy Scandinavian sweater she’d bought years ago at the gift shop of Al Johnson’s Restaurant in Sister Bay. She also had on grubby rubber shoes, much better for getting wet than her fancy pumps.

“Those pumps were perfect before you popped me in the pool,” she said, still upset. “It was the first time I was a fashionista at school, if only for five minutes when I changed clothes, but as always when I’m with you, the flying fickle finger of fate finished me.”

We were aboard the
Super Catch I
at three o’clock with Gilpa beaming at the helm. He’d showered off most of the grease and oil, though some lingered in his hair. If you got close enough to him, you smelled WD-40 instead of Old Spice. But man oh man was he happy, grinning from ear to ear, a kid in a candy store, as the saying goes.

At first, the guests of Isabelle Boone’s Blue Heron Inn came aboard in polite wonder, too. They’d been told that the tour was a gift of the townspeople. But Jeremy Stone, Gilpa, and I knew the truth. We hoped to net information—if not confessions—out of this school of diamond filchers and murderers.

The boat was a thirty-two-foot Grady-White, big as a house around here. When Gilpa started her up and backed off the pier, his face opened in admiration for the quiet, smoke-free engines. His instrument panel was a luxury for him, too, with its state-of-the-art electronics. The boat had radar, sonar, 3-D lake-bottom mapping, GPS, VHF radios, weather and sea conditions sent through a Sirius satellite system.

“Heck,” he said, “this thing has autopilot. I don’t have to drop anchor to drop trow in the toilet.”

The restroom, or head, was something to behold, too, with its fancy pedestal sink and faucet and sleekly tiled shower. Hannah Reed said, “It’s practically as big as what we have at the Blue Heron Inn. I can’t wait to leave that dump.”

Pauline said, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

The teacher in her was coming out, but it made me smile to see Hannah toddle off to the back of the boat, which was outside. At any moment, when Gilpa engaged the four-stroke engines to top speed, Hannah would get drenched with spray. But to my dismay, this big boat was so smooth that nothing happened. It was like we were in a flying living room. We even had a flat-screen TV, stereo CD/iPod system, and the kitchen area was replete with all the appliances and loads of snacks, wine, and my fudge.

At first, our plan to make them spill their guts looked like it’d backfired. John Schultz announced he was going to fish, probably so he could keep busy and thus ward off his seasickness. The men took over the fishing rods at the back of the boat. They appeared to be getting along, which disappointed me. I figured fighting could push them into spilling secrets.

Taylor Chin-Chavez began pouring wine. This was a brilliant idea for loosening tongues, so I helped her with heavy pours for everybody. We had a crisp apple wine and a Cabernet, both made in Door County.

“Taylor, have you found a lighthouse you like yet?”

Her scowl said it all. She flipped her silky black hair over a shoulder. “Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to take the tour yet, and our visit to Chambers Island was a bust.”

Gilpa spoke up. “I can take you there now, if you like. This boat is seaworthy for any kind of waves and storm. I guarantee it.”

He was already sounding as if it were his boat.

Hannah, who was lounging on the tufted couch with her glass of Cabernet, said, “I’d love to see something. We haven’t gotten to see anything here much at all.”

I said, “But you’re newlyweds. I’d think you wouldn’t care if you saw anything.”

Her cockeyed, chopped hairdo went even more cockeyed with a twist of her head in reaction to my words. “You have no appreciation for what I’ve been through. Or any of us.”

I was standing at the bar, which allowed me to look down on Hannah, which gave me a tiny thrill. “Oh, I think I do. Somebody with plenty of time on their hands hid their diamonds in my sugar.”

“You think I did it?” She slammed back a swallow of her red wine. “You might try that lady over there.”

Her gaze flickered to the couch on the other side of the boat where Ryann Earlywine, dressed in a leather jacket and cowgirl boots, sat munching on a piece of my fudge. Ryann laughed, her mouth working like a cement mixer. “I had nothing to do with diamonds being stolen or going into any fudge. This is good, by the way.”

Her compliment still didn’t make me miss the fact that she’d just lied to everybody, and she’d done it knowing I’d taken the pouch of diamonds from her and her husband on Tuesday evening. A bold move on Ryann’s part.

“I’ll package up some more fudge for you to take home with you. Maybe with an extra sparkle in them.” I winked, which made her scowl and turn white. “I have a new batch cooling right now back at my shop. Do you want fairy wings and glitter, too?”

“Please. My daughter will love it.”

Taylor sat down next to Ryann with a glass of the apple wine and a piece of my fudge. She looked quizzically at the pale pink cherry-vanilla confection. “I’ve sculpted with almost every medium but fudge. Pieces of this could be used to construct replicas of buildings in Door County.”

Pauline said, “Like sand castles made with fudge. My kids use gumdrops to create houses and igloos.”

The idea so excited me that I bubbled at Taylor, “Replicas of the lighthouses you love!”

Taylor said, “Maybe you could hold a contest for the best fudge lighthouse.”

“Maybe you could sculpt a replica out of clay for the prize,” I said.

“Chambers Island Lighthouse could be the theme of the first contest. We didn’t get to go inside it on Sunday because of the storm, so I’m looking forward to stopping there. We can make notes on its exact architecture.” Taylor got up, all excited, stuffing my fudge in her mouth. She mumbled, “This is ambrosia.”

I said, “Food of the gods and goddesses? High praise from an artist. Thanks.”

We women voted for the lighthouse tour, so with Gilpa at the helm and happy to make a big, beautiful turn in Lake Michigan, we headed westerly to Chambers Island.

The waters were choppy, but our floating house handled them well. It was cold, though, all of forty degrees out on the water. That kept the women inside the cabin, where Gilpa was whistling while playing with all his radar and sonar gadgets. The men stayed outside, huddled up, stoic against the elements, trolling for trout and salmon. I didn’t have much hope that Jeremy Stone was getting any new information from them. They were bonding into fast friends as they fished and drank beer. The boat was equipped with cup holders along the back rail, and every one of them held a can of beer. But I couldn’t judge, not when we women were becoming experts at pairing wines with my fabulous fudge fit for goddesses.

As we disembarked at the private marina, I had a feeling of déjà vu, really more of a creepy feeling that we’d missed something yesterday about the island and the lighthouse. It was no stretch to wonder if this were a rendezvous point for stolen goods.

Pauline had the feeling, too, she said as we walked along the path toward the lighthouse. The others were ahead of us. Gilpa stayed with the boat. Pauline said, “If this were in a movie you’d written, I’d swear that this was where the pirates buried their treasure.”

I stopped her on the path. “Three of them were here on Sunday, when Gilpa got stranded. Do you suppose one or all of them on that boat took advantage of that and made a connection here with another boat? They probably got out to stretch their legs while my grandpa worked on the boat.”

“And they hid diamonds at the lighthouse for pickup later?”

“It’s usually locked,” I said.

“But it wasn’t when we came yesterday.”

“But we know Cody had unlocked it.”

“Or had he?” Pauline asked. “But either way, we might be able to think back and figure out who’s the culprit. Who appeared to be the most eager to get on this boat or go to the lighthouse?”

“Taylor,” I said.

“Indeed. But Hannah and Ryann were just as excited to get out of the inn.”

“And Hannah was strangely poking around my shop.”

“Using the church ladies like a cover,” Pauline said, smirking. “Looking for jewels or diamonds to pick up or plant.”

I sighed. “But like Jordy said, excitement over an idea doesn’t make it true or have the force of the law behind it. Not until we hear a confession. Though Hannah and Ryann trying to accuse each other of something on the boat was mighty close to one.”

“Ryann was out here on Sunday with your grandfather, and Hannah was back at the Blue Heron. Do you think they planned it that way? Maybe they were scouting for a way to smuggle the diamonds away from the Blue Heron and onto a boat?”

“Possibly. Along with a few Steuben statues and anything else they could get out of the Blue Heron without Isabelle noticing. That collection has to be worth a million or more. These people wouldn’t all be scrambling for the action if it were much less.”

Our shipmates’ voices rose above the lap of the nearby water and wind whooshing through the pines. That made me grin. At last Jeremy Stone and I were getting somewhere with our little plan.

“Come on, Pauline. We might have solved a murder case.”

Screams rent the air then, though. Pauline and I turned on our inner juice and ran full force like we used to do across a basketball court chasing down a ball that meant the game.

• • •

Hannah Reed was standing at the railing from her perch atop the lighthouse, waving her hands at us. “Help! Hurry! My husband’s in the water! He’s drowning!”

By the time I got to the water’s edge below the knoll of the lighthouse grounds, everybody including Hannah was looking out at the water. John Schultz was swimming back in with a lifeless body under an arm.

As he was coming within wading depth, Pauline and I shed our boots and splashed in. She also knew CPR, something the school district asked all the teachers to learn. We grabbed at Will Reed and relieved John of him. A sharp pain lanced up my arm, but I gritted through it. John collapsed out of breath onshore while Pauline began working on Will. I called the Coast Guard.

Boyd flung his jacket over Will’s bottom half to keep him warm.

“What happened?” I asked.

Boyd Earlywine offered, “We don’t know. We were looking around the place. I was inside.”

“Me too,” said Ryann.

“I was in the tower,” Taylor said.

Hannah was crying, bent over her husband’s head on the ground. He was not opening his eyes, but Pauline was giving him CPR.

Hannah screamed, “Somebody tried to kill him! You bastards.”

Pauline pushed Hannah back so we could turn Will over. I knelt down to help, saying to them all, “This is somebody’s doing. The man didn’t just leap in the water for no good reason.”

“He went in because of me,” Jeremy Stone said as he trotted up to us.

Echoes of “You?” went up around me as I stayed in my crouch to help Will. But I looked up to excoriate Jeremy with my scorn.

His nose was twitching. “He and I went up to the top of the lighthouse tower for a look. I showed him the pouch I had. Told him I had the diamonds he was looking for.”

Everybody gasped. A few repeated, “Diamonds? You have the diamonds?”

Ryann Earlywine said, “What’d you do with the diamonds?”

Boyd Earlywine grabbed Jeremy’s jacket front in an ominous way. “You had the diamonds?”

John Schultz hauled Boyd off Jeremy. “Those were the diamonds in Taylor’s room.”

“I don’t know how they got there. I swear,” Taylor said, pleading for my help.

While Pauline was thumping Will’s back to drain him of water in his lungs, I thought I heard another thumping sound. I stood up in time to spot a Coast Guard helicopter coming up the bay from the west.

I asked Jeremy, “Did you really throw that pouch into Lake Michigan?”

“Yes,” he said. “I flashed the pouch in his face; then he chased me down the staircase and out here. When I got to the beach, I used my best baseball throw.”

“Are you nuts?” I said, rhetorically.

“Wasn’t it our plan to figure out who stole the diamonds and murdered Rainetta and her manager?”

“Our plan was for you to talk about the diamonds, yes, but not to throw the evidence in the lake!”

Our saying that so loudly wasn’t good. The guests began talking at once and accusing me of being the vilest person alive. One person even said my I should rename my Cinderella fudge “Fickle Fudge” because that was what I was. And those were their nicest “F” words.

The Coast Guard landed at the airstrip within a minute. John Schultz and Jeremy Stone hustled Will up the knoll, and then the helicopter crew met us and took over. They had a stretcher and all the right equipment. Within only another minute, they’d loaded Will for the ride to the Sturgeon Bay hospital.