Five-Alarm Fudge (31 page)

Pauline’s bug-eyed look told me she was trying to signal me about something.

When Mike came around the corner with Maria, his round head flushed at the sight of all of us and the opened freezer chest. I couldn’t tell if his reaction was innocent surprise or panic because he was guilty. He said he didn’t know anything about the chemicals.

Jordy asked, “When was the last time you opened this chest?”

“Months ago maybe. The freezer unit isn’t working right anymore. I haven’t had a chance to haul this to the recycle center.”

I picked up the broken lock from the ground. “Is this yours?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t put it on there. Try Jonas Coppens. The punk is determined to ruin me.”

I said, “He’d have no reason to bring his chemicals over here. But I did see that you closed off the gate in the fence between you two. Why?”

“Because of Daniel Dahlgren.”

Jordy shifted his stance on that name. “What about Dahlgren?”

Mike seemed to shrink by several inches. “My land abuts the Dahlgren property to the west. We’ve been friends for a long time.” His face wrinkled, as if he were in pain.

Jordy scowled at him. “Well?”

“It’s personal.”

Maria was taking notes.

Mike was sweating. I felt sorry for my former math teacher.

He said on a rush of expelled breath, “I had an affair with Fontana when she was married to Daniel. I love her.”

His bedding Fontana came as a surprise. While she had never dated two men at the same time, she couldn’t bear to be alone. She moved from one man to the next as easily and swiftly, in my opinion, as water moves downstream. Fontana having an affair meant she must have been at a very low
point in her marriage to Daniel. I felt bad for her because of all her mistakes of the heart.

Jordy asked, “What does this have to do with Jonas allegedly putting these chemicals here?”

“Jonas wants me out of the way . . .”

I said, “So he can have Fontana.”

“No,” Mike said. “Jonas wants this land back. I bought this land from his parents almost thirty years ago. After they were killed in the car crash, he hasn’t been the same. It’s like he’s trying to go back in time and recreate what his parents started with. It’s as if he thinks he can resurrect them if he puts everything back in place the way it was before he was born.”

Jordy called the BUG Fire Department and requested the Hazardous Materials Unit to come out. Maria went back to her car to retrieve a fingerprinting kit.

Pauline and I returned to my truck and got in. Lucky Harbor hopped in, too.

I asked Pauline, “What were your faces all about?”

“John was here. They’re going to find his fingerprints on that freezer.”

“How do you know he was here?”

She pulled a man’s watch from her purse. “I found this on the ground under the taller weeds the goats somehow missed near the freezer. It’s John’s.”

I smelled the watch. It possessed the piquantness of pesticides. “You better air out your purse. Get a whiff.”

I passed it under her nose. Pauline recoiled as I asked, “How do you know this is John’s?”

“The words ‘Star Sales Promoter’ are on the back.” She showed me. “This is a watch he got from his old employer, the riverboat cruise company.”

“John will love being questioned about why he was out here. You know he was obviously here filming.”

“I keep losing him to these little intrigues. Which seem to be your doings.”

“Don’t blame me for John’s adventurous spirit. Maybe you should speak up more, Pauline. Since you met him you’ve become a mouse.”

“I can’t believe you said that. Are we fighting?”

“No. Never. But you need to tell John off. Dillon told me the truth to my face the other night. It didn’t feel good at first to learn I was going overboard on everything—”

“So true.”

“Just listen. I realized he was right. He cares about me. If you care about John, talk to him about what’s bugging you. Use your teacher voice, too. I like your teacher voice.” Her teacher voice was operatic and authoritative, designed to stop a kid before he ran into the street in front of a car.

Pauline smiled. “Thank you. My kids mind when I use it. But I wouldn’t want to scare John.”

“Scare him. He needs the real you.”

Before we could leave, a fire engine and a Haz Mat truck cruised past us to the corner of the building. Close behind was Dillon’s white construction truck with Cody in the passenger seat and Sam in the backseat.

Lucky Harbor and I raced over. The dog was all over Dillon, happier than heck to see him. I was, too.

I asked, “What’re you guys doing down here?”

Cody and Dillon had on firefighter gear. Sam was still dressed in his office duds of a white shirt, tie, and tan pants.

Dillon said, “We don’t get real-life Haz Mat training much in Door County, so we all got the call. I picked up Cody and Sam was with him and here we are.”

Dillon and Cody rushed to observe and help load chemicals onto the Haz Mat van.

Sam came up to me.

I said, “He’s growing up.”

Sam said, “Who? Dillon?”

I had to chuckle. Pauline did, too.

*   *   *

Pauline called John as I was driving the two of us without the dog back up the county to Fishers’ Harbor at around five thirty. Sam had told me the church ladies were handling the fudge shop. They’d brought new sparkly doodads to sell.

Fearful of what I’d find at the shop, I was speeding up Highway 42.

“Slow down,” Pauline said. “This is when the deer like to come out.”

It was dusk. The sunset was in my rearview mirror. Buildings ahead of us on the crests of hills were painted gold. Sunsets were why some visited Door County. It’d been a long time since I’d gone to Fred and Fuzzy’s Waterfront Bar and Grill near Sister Bay to watch the sun drop on the horizon. I mentioned aloud how that little spot in the woods behind the Bay Ridge Golf Course was romantic, that I wanted to grab Dillon sometime and watch the sun drop.

Pauline said, “You’d be bored and find a body floating in their bay.”

Pauline called John again. “John and Marc are still out on the
Super Catch I
with your grandpa. John says they were filming earlier at the winery. He forgot his watch.”

“What’d he say about our discovery?”

“They’ll make it part of a TV story about how international terrorism was foiled in Door County.”

“You’re at your best when you’re being sarcastic, P.M.”

“What John needs are mindfulness exercises I use with my kindergartners to bring him back to reality.”

“So you don’t think he’s going to be successful with his TV show proposal?”

“No.”

Her answer was so simple that it made me sad. She didn’t believe in John? I had to change the subject. “Tell me about your kindergartner exercises.”

Mindfulness had been the rage in Hollywood for years. People took expensive classes to have somebody tell them to focus on their breathing.

“We do belly buddy breathing. Kindergartners love their bellies and belly buttons. We practice putting a hand on our own bellies for three or four breaths. It calms them down.”

“The thought of you rubbing John’s belly is pretty funny.”

“If only we were in such proximity for even a minute, I would love rubbing his belly. Anything at this point.”

As Pauline and I headed toward Juddville, almost to Fishers’ Harbor, an idea popped into my head. “John and Marc have taken a lot of video and photos. I never thought to ask them what they might have shot that night they went to the church.”

“But John said the church was dark and he got hit on the head. They ran for their lives. I doubt they were thinking about filming.”

“Maybe they were filming and didn’t realize it. You know how it is when you panic. If you’re holding something, you grip it tightly. They could have been pressing buttons on their phones or cameras in their hands and took shots they don’t even realize they have. Marc is Mr. Automatic with his phone. It’s always on.”

A moment of stunned silence passed as we rolled along behind a car from Illinois. What if solving this was as simple as searching John’s or Marc’s cell phone?

Pauline said, “You’re good at this sleuthing stuff, Poirot.”

“Even if I have no restraint, Hastings?” Arthur Hastings was Hercule Poirot’s army captain friend.

“I concede I admire your creativity.”

“But we still don’t know who put that pin in the doll.”

“Probably Jonas. Mike seems to think he’s gone off the deep end.”

“As soon as we get home, I’m calling Jonas,” I said.

“Are you going to tell him that Mike’s in love with Fontana?”

“I’m not entirely convinced that’s true. Fontana is playing the field. I don’t think she’d do that if she felt something was unresolved with Mike.”

“Do you think she’s telling the truth about what happened at the church and school with Cherry?”

“Not the whole truth. She babbled about that whole making-love thing at the schoolhouse, and I doubt she walked home alone on the country roads. Fontana knows how to take care of herself that way.”

“Don’t you find it weird that she neglects her own roadside market in order to be around you?”

“What do you mean ‘around me’?”

“She thinks you found Cherry’s body. You were close to him at the end. I think she’s watching you. That’s why she’s working at the winery and over at Jonas’s farm. She wants to keep an eye on Ava’s Autumn Harvest. She’s probably jealous of your relationship with Dillon. She could have set the fires to make you leave the neighborhood to her. She
most definitely could have filled that roadside chapel with items from your fudge shop and stuck that pin in the head of the doll that looks like you.”

“But Grandma or Grandpa would have said something if they noticed her at the fudge shop.”

“But your grandparents aren’t there that often. Neither are you lately. Your fudge shop is operated by Cody, or Bethany, or Lois and Dotty or the other church ladies. And sometimes, frankly, there’s nobody behind the counter. Fontana could have stopped by one of those times and hauled out an armful without paying.”

Everything about her words disturbed something in my soul, but the soap opera of Fontana was shunted aside when we pulled up in front of my cabin on Duck Marsh Street. Across the way my grandmother was struggling to get two large suitcases in the back hatch area of her SUV.

Pauline and I piled out, then hurried over.

“Grandma, where are you going?”

“Now, Ava, don’t get all upset. I’m going to Chicago for a couple of days.”

“Does Grandpa know?”

“He’s busy. I’ll be back before he notices I’m gone.”

I pushed down the bag she was attempting to lift to the back of the SUV. “That’s not true. Grandma, we’re all busy, but if you’re mad at him, this isn’t the way to handle it. One of us should go with you to Chicago. What is this ghost about?”

Grandma was trying to lift the bag again, but I snatched it and shoved it toward Pauline.

I grabbed the other suitcase from the SUV and shut the back hatch lid.

Grandma pushed both hands through her big white hair in frustration. The wind was catching it in a shape that made her look like a tipsy vanilla ice-cream cone. “I have to go to Chicago. It’ll clear everything up.”

Her normally creamy complexion was ruddy, as if she’d been crying. I dropped the suitcase in my hands in order to hug her. I melded one of my cheeks to hers in desperation. “Grandma, please tell me what’s going on. Please. Pauline and I won’t tell a soul. We’ll help you. If you want to go to
Chicago, I’ll call Dotty and Lois and have them take over the fudge shop for the long weekend.”

Her body went limp in the cradle of my arms. “You’d go to Chicago with me?”

“If that’s what you want. Let’s go inside and talk about it.”

Pauline and I escorted her with the bags into my grandparents’ cabin. My heart was thumping hard against my breastbone.

Grandma headed straight for the kitchen while Pauline and I dumped the suitcases in the bedroom.

When the two of us returned to the kitchen, Grandma was already pulling out a big Belgian pie tin a foot across in size. Pumpkins sat on a board waiting to be cut and scooped for pie filling. She did her best thinking when she made pies.

But all of us were too agitated to be trusted with big knives to cut up pumpkins. Going to the refrigerator where I thankfully found cream cheese, I waved it around and said, “Let’s make truffles instead.”

Pauline said, “Perfect. My kindergartners love making those. I’m an expert.”

Truffles are an easy Belgian treat. The ingredients are simple: eight ounces of cream cheese, three cups of powdered sugar, twelve ounces of semisweet chocolate, and any flavoring you like.

Grandma beat the cream cheese and sugar together while I melted chocolate.

Pauline heated cups of water in the microwave for tea. The thought of something warm felt good. The kitchen window was open and cool air was crawling in like a stealthy cat from the marshland and harbor, dropping to the floor and weaving around us. I closed the window a smidgen, but the crisp evening air would be needed to cool the chocolate down in order to make the truffles.

At first, we settled for small talk about the flowers going to seed out back and the blackbirds flocking to fly south. We speculated on when a killing frost might come.

But then I got to the subject at hand. “Grandma, why were you heading for Chicago?”

“Family ghosts. My relatives aren’t real.”

Pauline and I exchanged a look across the table. We were
sitting down now, creating one-inch balls of creamy chocolate. We handed them to Grandma to roll in cocoa before placing them in a pan with wax paper in the bottom.

I said, “Now you’re confusing me. The Van Dammes are real. They’d have to be real or you wouldn’t have been born.”

With cocoa-covered hands, Grandma picked up her cup of tea from the table. “I suppose it’s time I told somebody. You have to promise not to tell your parents or your grandfather, though.”

“Okay. What is it?”

“I hope it’s not too late to tell the prince and princess not to come.”