Oh Say Can You Fudge (2 page)

I covered my ears and let him lead me outside and a few hundred feet from the building. We stood where the surrounding parking lot gave way to woods.

“Charlene,” Rex said into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder. “We need the fire department, the EMTs, and call in a bomb squad from Mackinaw City.”

“Bomb squad?” I heard Charlene parrot.

“That’s right.” Rex studied me. “Allie McMurphy reported a phone message that someone tampered with the fireworks. When we arrived some minor fireworks started to go off. I didn’t see anyone so they were most likely lit with a slow fuse. I want a bomb squad here to check out the warehouse before anyone goes back in there.”

“I’ve got a call into Mackinaw City,” Charlene replied over the crackle of the walkie-talkie. “Do I need to send in Shane?”

“What makes you think we need a crime scene investigator?”

“Allie McMurphy’s there, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then there’s a ninety-eight percent chance she found another dead body.”

Rex’s mouth went flat, making a thin line of disgust. “Get the fire department out here.”

“Yes, sir.” Charlene didn’t sound the least bit contrite. “That girl is trouble, Officer Manning. Be careful.”

“Allie didn’t find a dead body,” he said sharply. “She called in the bomb threat like a responsible adult.”

“I’m sure she did.” The communicator went dead as they hung up.

I hugged my arms around my chest. “You’re right. He only looked dead. You should have let me go check on him. What if he needed help?”

“Let me hear your phone messages.” Rex held out his big hand.

I called up the voice mail, tapped in my password, and handed the phone to him.

His frown grew darker as he listened. “I’m going to have to keep these. They’re evidence.”

“What about Mr. Rivers? If you won’t let me, shouldn’t you at least go and check on him?”

“You recognized the guy in the office?”

“Yes, I think it was Rodney Rivers. He is the lead pyro tech I hired to do the Star Spangled Fourth fireworks shows.”

Rex shook his head. “Dead or not, I can’t take the chance that the place isn’t rigged to blow. That’s a warehouse full of fireworks. If it explodes, he really will be dead, along with anyone else inside.”

I heard sirens in the distance. The island was anti motor vehicle except for first responders. Then all rules were broken. It only made sense that we had an ambulance and fire truck. There was a limit to charm when people needed help.

“Stay put!” Rex ordered and stepped out to direct the vehicles.

I stuck my tongue out at his back. He whirled around, but I put my hands up and blinked innocently. “I’m staying right here.”

Rex was not much taller than me, but he was a big man with shoulders as wide as a mountain, a thick neck, and a shaved head in the fit manner of an action hero. In the last few months, I’d gotten to know him well. He had even asked me out once, but I’d already said yes to my current boyfriend Trent Jessop. It’s not that Rex wasn’t attractive, but Trent left me feeling like the luckiest girl alive. Rex was a bit bossy . . . if you haven’t already noticed.

Thirty minutes later, I still didn’t have my phone and had finally given up and sat down on the curb of the parking area. I watched as Sophie had flown out right after the call and came back with the crew from Mackinaw City. Three guys in thick bomb suits, with helmets in hand, strolled around the corner where the fire truck and ambulance sat.

I was far enough away from the vehicles that I couldn’t hear what Rex said to the men, but their expressions were deadly serious as they put on the helmets and carefully entered the building through the door Rex had pushed me out.

“First time I ever had to escort a bomb squad on the island,” Sophie said as she walked toward me from the far edge of the parking lot. “It must be serious for Rex to call in trolls.”

Some people called anyone from the Lower Peninsula
trolls
because they lived under (south of) the Mackinac Bridge. The suspension bridge is the longest in the western hemisphere and the fifth longest bridge in the world. People around Mackinac were proud that it was nearly twice as long as the Golden Gate Bridge, but the claim to fame ended there as it was not nearly as wide.

“Frances told him I had phone messages about trouble at the fireworks warehouse,” I said as she sat down on the curb next to me. “He got all bossy and practically dragged me out of the warehouse.”

“If Rex called the troll bomb squad he had good reason to drag you out,” Sophie said. “I’ve known him for years and have never seen him panic.”

“In my defense, I didn’t see anything to worry about until I peeked into the last office.” I hugged my knees to my chest.

“Rumor has it you found yet another dead guy.” Sophie stretched her long legs out in front of her. “Kind of have a knack for that, don’t you?”

“It’s a newfound talent.” I sighed. “I’d much rather be making fudge right now.”

“I heard you hired Sandy Everheart as your assistant. That was good. She’s one of the best chocolatiers I’ve ever met. And living on the island, I’ve met more than my fair share.”

I turned my gaze from the goings on at the warehouse to Sophie. “Sandy is good. She should have her own shop.”

“Well, some of us don’t have family businesses to go into.”

“Ouch.”

Sophie sighed and leaned back onto her hands. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right.” She straightened. “I’m glad you gave her a chance. No one else would.”

“I needed the help and she’s good . . . better than me with the chocolate sculpture.” I studied the building. “Do you think the warehouse will really blow up?”

“No, not unless the bomb guys come across something they haven’t seen before.”

I winced. “I hope they don’t blow up. I’ve seen enough death in the last few months.”

“I’m sure it’s just Rex being overly cautious—”

Sudden motion from the emergency guys caught our attention. They were running and hopping into the vehicles and moving them away from the warehouse.

“Where are they going?” I stood and drew my eyebrows together in concern.

Sophie stood with me. “This does not look good.” She took my arm and pulled me back to the woods.

Rex sent a quick shout to the last responder and ran at us. “Get back!” He waved his hands and Sophie linked her arm in mine and ran headfirst into the woods.

Panic had my heart racing and my feet pounding over uneven ground. We jumped over fallen logs. Ferns and scrub and wild raspberries ripped at our pants and tore at our shirts. Rex caught up with us and pushed us even faster until we hit the top of a hill and half ran, half slid at least one hundred feet down.

The loudest explosion I’d ever heard erupted from the trees above us. Rex shoved us into the earth, shielding us with as much of his body as possible as dust and rocks rolled over us. I inhaled dust and dry pine needle bits and coughed, my eyes watering. Pushing to sit up and get some fresh air, I watched in amazement as fireworks whistled into the air, exploding at low angles. Their color and sparkles lost in the daylight, they showered the dry woods.

“Get down!” Rex ordered, dragging me back into the dirt as a second loud explosion rumbled, raining more rocks and dust.

The walkie-talkie on his shoulder squawked. “Rex, what’s going on? Are you all right?” Charlene sounded more worried than usual.

“Call everyone you can,” he barked into the communicator. “We’ve got a potential wildfire at the airport.”

“Roger,” Charlene said. “I’m calling up the volunteers.”

“What about the airport?” Sophie asked. Her blue eyes shone in her dirt-covered face. “What about my plane?”

Another explosion filled the air. We ducked. I covered my head with my hands as rocks and branches rained down. We were lucky the small ridge above us sheltered us from most of the blast.

The scent of smoke and dirt and fireworks filled my senses. Falling ash burned my hand and I shook it off. Rex moved and I looked up to see him stomping out sparks as they threatened the dry pine needles.

Sophie and I got up. She tore off her over shirt, leaving her white athletic T-shirt on and used the shirt to beat out small fires. I kicked dirt over the sparks that fell near me. The fireworks continued to scream overhead. Their whistles and winding patterns drove them to various heights through the air, showering the area in ear-shattering explosions and sparkles of red, white, and blue.

My first Star Spangled Fourth had just become the worst disaster Mackinac Island had ever seen. Considering the War of 1812, that was saying a lot.

Chapter 2

“We were lucky that it rained all last week,” Ed Goodfoot said. “The wildfire index was low and kept the fire contained to a quarter mile perimeter.” He wore the heavy beige and yellow-trimmed firefighter’s coat, pants, and boots. He held his fireman’s hard hat in his strong, square-palmed, long-fingered hands. He had a thick smudge down the side of his strong, high cheekbones.

I stood with Ed, Rex, and a small crowd of smoke-smudged locals who had come out to stamp out any hot coals or ash left over from the warehouse explosion. In front of us, a large blackened hole gaped out of the cinder blocks in what used to be the roof of the warehouse. Glass was shattered and crumbled on the ground as the explosion had blown out every window and door. The back bay door had come up out of the hole in the roof and folded over the top of the cinder block like the peeled back top of a sardine can.

“We’ve walked the half-mile perimeter,” Luke Archibald reported to Bruce Miller, the acting fire chief. “We’re as sure as a person can be that the cinders are out.” A small man of average size, Luke wore his balding, blond hair carefully brushed back and held into place by hair gel. He wore a dark green T-shirt underneath a green and white patterned, short sleeved cotton shirt. His shirt and his jeans were soot coated. He wore athletic shoes that had been gray and blue at one point but were now dust-covered brown.

His son Sherman stood beside him. Seventeen, with shaggy blond hair, braces on his teeth, and freckles across a little nose, his hazel eyes took in the sights of explosion and mayhem with a sort of wonder. He was busy snapping pictures with his phone and sending them off to people unknown. He stood a little taller than Luke, but it was difficult to tell because he hunched his shoulders and slouched his way around. That is, when he wasn’t sneaking phone pictures.

“Thanks for your help.” Bruce was tall with broad shoulders encased in a fireman’s coat. He looked to be about forty years old, wore a fireman’s hard hat, and his brown eyes seemed to take in all the damage with a knowing eye. “We’ll have the public keep an eye out for any fires that pop up, but it’s unlikely any more damage will happen.” He moved on to another weary group of volunteers emerging from the other side of the airport.

“Those fireworks should have never exploded,” Angus MacElroy said. “I know Rodney Rivers. He knew his way around pyrotechnics. There’s no way he would have let them be handled or exposed in an unauthorized way.” His hazel eyes sparkled with indignation and intelligence.

Angus ran the
Town Crier
, Mackinac Island’s local newspaper. He was a senior gentleman who walked with a cane. His head was bald on top, with white hair around the edges and a short, cropped, white beard. He wore a blue knit cardigan over a blue and white striped polo and dark blue cotton slacks with topsider shoes. He was a big man, about six-foot-two if you caught him standing up straight—something that seemed difficult on most days.

Unlike the rest of us, he was free from soot and dirt. His old knees would never have let him search the brush for cinders and ash. Instead, he’d hung a camera around his neck and taken action shots for the paper and notes on the notepad in his breast pocket. Angus was smart as a whip, but still old school when it came to reporting. His granddaughter Liz worked with him. She had told me he even took notes in his own shorthand.

“The place was rigged to blow.” Rex wiped his forehead with what used to be a white handkerchief. It was as soot covered as his hands. “Transport and handling of fireworks is strictly regulated, but it’s also where most firework accidents happen. This was no accident. One of the guys hit a trip wire. He froze long enough for us to move the trucks back then Charles grabbed him and they hit the ground running.” Rex motioned toward the back of the ambulance.

The doors were open and Officer Charles Brown sat on the back. His shirt was off and EMT George Marron was cleaning up the blisters where the shrapnel had burned through Charles’s coat and uniform.

A young guy in firefighter gear who looked to be eighteen years old sat beside Officer Brown. The kid appeared dirty but unharmed. His brown hair stood up in short spikes and his brown eyes glittered as he talked fast and furiously motioned with his hands. He was too far away for us to hear what he was saying but it was obvious from the rise of his shoulders and the action of his hands that he was still very excited.

“Looks like the kid has a story to tell for the rest of his life,” Ed said. “Wait until the adrenaline crash. Poor kid is going to pass out cold.”

I smiled. “I know what that’s like. I’ve had a little bit of experience with adrenaline myself.”

“Thankfully no one was badly hurt. I checked on the planes and there was only minor damage.” Sophie looked a little worse for wear with dirt in her hair and soot on her face. Her once spotless uniform was a mess and yet she was still cute. Go figure.

“Every one of you was darn lucky.” Angus narrowed his eyes at me. “I still have my rabbit’s foot right here in my pocket.” He patted his breast pocket where his notepad peeked out. There was a bump at the bottom of the pocket. “So don’t get any ideas of finding any dead guys.”

“Too late,” I said and shrugged.

Angus had this idea that I was bad luck for old men. He’d started carrying a rabbit’s foot for luck against what he called my bad juju ever since Joe Jessop was found dead in my hotel. I don’t know why Angus was worried. I’d only found two dead old men so far. . . .

“What do you mean, too late?” His eyes narrowed farther.

“There was a dead man in the warehouse.” Rex shook his head and squinted at the burned-out building. “The fire trashed the crime scene.”

“Crime scene?” Angus pulled his notepad back out of his pocket. “What kind of crime scene? Messy from a fight? Was there blood from a bullet wound or did you find him hanging?”

“No details at this point.” Rex held out his hand in a
stop
fashion. He looked straight at me. “Not a word.”

“What?” I shrugged and gave him my best innocent look.

Officer Lasko approached the group, her blond ponytail bouncing as she walked. Kelsey Lasko was petite, thin, and my age. Her blue eyes sent me a thinly veiled look of contempt. “You seem to be at a lot of crime scenes, Ms. McMurphy. Why is that?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” I shrugged then put my hands in the pocket of my jacket. Thankfully, my jean jacket had not taken any burning shrapnel and remained in one dirty piece.

“Were they able to retrieve the body?” Rex asked.

Officer Lasko turned her neat, perfectly pressed, uniformed body away from me. “No, sir. It appears the blast threw the body up against the wall. We have a serious burn outline and a pile of bone and ash.”

“Now that’s interesting.” Angus licked the end of his stubby pencil and made a few notes in his pad of paper.

“That had to be more than fireworks,” Rex said. “The fireworks were stored in magazines.”

“The magazines were tampered with,” Ed said. “The fire marshal is investigating.”

“So is that arson? Or tampering with a crime scene?” I had worked up a good sweat with all the running and putting out the little coals and such. My hair stuck to my forehead where the sweat had pinned it. Now that we’d been standing for a while, the wind off the lake felt cold. I huddled inside my jacket.

“Could be both,” Officer Lasko said. “The two incidents might not even be related.”

“I say, use the duck test,” Ed said.

“If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” we all said in unison and then chuckled.

“Fine,” Officer Lasko said and held up her small elegant hands. “If it’s not a duck, we may have a killer and an arsonist on our hands.”

“Let’s hope not,” Rex said.

“Coffee, anyone?” Frances brought over a tray full of hot coffees.

“Thanks!” I said.

We all dove in and grabbed coffees. I hugged the warm cup to my chest and watched Archie frown as Sherman gulped down the cup as if it were water. Sophie hugged her coffee and sipped it as if it were ambrosia. The look on her face made me smile.

“You should come by the McMurphy,” I said. “We have a coffee bar, open twenty four-seven.”

“I may just take you up on that,” Sophie said.

“Jenn figured you all could use refreshments.” Frances pointed to my best friend in the distance.

Jennifer was five-foot-nine and a curvy size six. You couldn’t hate her for it because she was so darn nice and smart and loyal. Anyway, she had arrived on her bike with a two wheeled trailer in tow which held coolers and various small portables. Jen set up coffee, lemonade, and water dispensers on a small portable table. Her long black hair was safely pulled into a single braid down her back. She wore khaki shorts and a pink polo with the Historic McMurphy Hotel and Fudge Shop embroidered above the front pocket.

Leave it to Jenn to show up with drinks and sandwiches. The men in the group headed straight for her. I’m going to say it was the food. After all, everyone knew she was dating Shane Carpenter, a local crime scene investigator. I’d like to think I had something to do with that. I was the one who’d introduced them. Of course, it wasn’t exactly a social occasion, but they seemed to make the best of it.

“I’m going to head out, ladies,” Sophie said. “I’m beat.”

“Thanks for saving me, today,” I said. “Seriously, feel free to come by the McMurphy. We have fudge . . . and coffee.”

Sophie laughed. “Fudge is the last thing I need.” She patted her taut abdomen. “But coffee like this is always welcome.”

Frances and I watched her walk toward the runway where the planes were parked until the sound of men laughing caught my attention. I glanced back toward Jenn. She had them eating out of her hand . . . literally. “What kind of sandwiches did she bring?” I asked Frances as the pile disappeared into the hands of tired firefighters.

“Ham with cheddar cheese and turkey with Swiss cheese.” Frances tucked the tray under her arm and sipped her cup of coffee. “Are you okay?”

“Sure, why?” I asked, turning my gaze from the group.

“You’re shivering and it’s seventy-eight degrees out,” she stated.

“Stupid adrenaline.” I frowned.

“Drink your coffee. Then you should head back to the McMurphy before you fall down from exhaustion.”

“Okay, but I’ll need to let Rex know I’m leaving.” I sipped the warm brew. It tasted sharply bitter. I liked coffee for the bitterness. Some people loved it doctored up with flavors and sugar, but I liked mine with cream at the most, just enough to smooth out and give body to the bitterness. “The coffee is great.”

“Jenn made it,” Frances said. “Come on, I’ll walk you to your bike.”

I froze. “My bike! I completely forgot about it. I had parked it next to the warehouse.” I handed Frances my coffee and rushed to where my bike was parked. Thankfully, it was still there. Covered in soot and smoke, it appeared unharmed.

“The cinder blocks saved it.”

I turned to see Liz MacElroy surveying the damaged building. She stood about my height with black hair pulled back into a no nonsense ponytail, and bright blue eyes. She wore khaki cargo shorts, a baby blue tank, and a plaid, short-sleeved shirt over the tank.

“Hi Liz. When did you get here?”

“I got here as soon as I heard the explosion. The sight of sparkling fireworks in the daytime was like sending up a flare. It caught everyone’s attention.” She had a smudge on the side of her cheek that I hadn’t noticed when I first looked at her. “I spent some time with the volunteers stomping out cinders in the woods.”

“Ed Goodfoot said we were lucky it rained all last week. The ground cover isn’t too dry.”

“The best thing about fireworks is they burn fast,” she said as she stepped up to inspect the building’s exterior. “You were here when it blew?”

“Yeah,” I said then paused. “Are you interviewing me for a story?”

She flashed me a grin. “Maybe.”

“She can’t talk to the press,” Rex interrupted.

We both turned to him at the same time. “Why not?” We asked in unison. “Jinx!” we shouted and laughed.

“Because she is my witness.” Rex pulled my bike out from its spot and wiped off the seat. “But I’m not going to question you here and now. The sun is starting to set. Go home, get cleaned up, and get a good supper. I’ll come by tonight and take your statement.”

“Such service.” Liz crossed her arms, her eyes twinkling.

“You’ll get your statement along with the rest of the press tomorrow,” Rex said and handed me the bike. “For now, we’ll say that we’ve got a suspected arson and a probably homicide. Right, Allie?”

“Yes,” I agreed and took my bike from him. The handles were gritty and oily with soot.

“An arson and a murder?” Liz’s expression perked up. “What makes you suspect murder?”

“Well, there was a—”

“No,” Liz held up her hand in a
stop
sign. “Don’t tell me. Let me guess. You found another dead body.”

I made a firm line with my mouth.

“Allie,” Rex said softly and shook his head. “Go home.”

“Fine.” I let a shiver run over me. The air was cooling quickly as the sun set. The sound of crickets and night insects were a gentle but welling hum in the distance. “Bye, Liz. I’ll talk to you when I can. Bye, Rex. See you tonight.”

I walked the bike a few steps before I tested my weight on the tires and then hopped on.

“She’s dating Trent Jessop, you know,” I overheard Liz tell Rex.

“I know,” he answered as I biked away.

I liked Rex. We were good friends, but I was falling for Trent. He was in Ann Arbor on business and notably missing from today’s action. It was a story I’d have to tell him when he was on the phone. Or maybe when we were snuggling on the couch. That way, I couldn’t see the look on his face when he found out being a fudge shop owner was more dangerous than it seemed.