Oh Say Can You Fudge (23 page)

Chapter 2

“Was that a squeak?” the new male said. “Or a laugh?”

“She’s in shock.” I heard Officer Manning reply.

Could a person die of embarrassment? Maybe if I buried my face in the carpet and drew the pale blue blanket over my head, it would all go away.

The two hunkered down beside me. Someone put a hand on my back. It was a comforting gesture. I would have said something nice about it if I weren’t afraid of biting my tongue with my stupid chattering teeth. Tears filled my eyes. I’m sure it was frustration. I mean, I don’t cry easy.

“Miss, can you sit up?” the second voice said gently, causing more tears to track down my cheeks. Shoot. Don’t be nice to me. Don’t you know that nice is the worst thing you can be to a girl on the verge of losing it?

I sat up and wiped the tears off with the sleeve of my chamois work shirt.

The second voice belonged to a guy with deep brown eyes and the high cheekbones of a true local. He wore a blue uniform as well, but this one said “EMT” on it. He was lean with broad shoulders and competent hands. My vision narrowed, and I saw stars.

Mr. EMT had me flat on my back with my feet higher than my head before I knew what was going on. Shoot, he hadn’t even bought me a drink first.

“Thanks,” I muttered through gritted teeth as he adjusted the blanket around me and then pulled out a blood pressure cuff. With silent movement, he pumped up the cuff, released it a little, and pumped it again as he listened. I have no idea what he heard as all I could hear was my heart pounding in my head. He put his fingers on my wrist and checked my pulse. I noted that his name tag said George Marron.

“I’m ”—chatter—“fine ”—chatter—“really.”

“Take a deep breath. In through your nose and out through your mouth.”

I did what he said and concentrated on his soulful eyes until I could talk. “Not used to finding”—breathe in, breathe out—“a dead person in my closet is all.”

George’s calm gaze watched me. It was kind of embarrassing getting all this attention when there was a dead man down the hall.

“Was I right?” Officer Manning asked as he stepped out of the crime scene.

The EMT nodded.

“Do you want to take her down to the clinic?” Officer Manning tipped his head and studied me as if I were a specimen in a zoo.

“No!” I tried to sit up, but George put his hands on my shoulder and kept me down.

“She’ll be fine.”

“See.” I huddled under the blanket. “I’ll be fine.”

Officer Manning frowned. “Is there anyone you can call?”

“Um, why?” I had to ask. “It’s only a little shock. I don’t need a ba . . . ba . . . babysitter.”

“You can’t stay here tonight,” he pointed out. “This is a crime scene.”

“Oh.” It was my turn to frown. “The whole hotel?” Distracted by this new development, I was able to use my elbows to hold myself up. The blanket pooled around my jean-covered lap.

“The season starts in four weeks. I’m in the middle of renovations.” Not that I didn’t have a backup plan. My hotel management degree had taught me how to be frugal and efficient. But I was stubborn and didn’t want to use Plan B. That meant at least a three-week delay in opening, giving my competitors a significant advantage.

Wait . . . Was that why someone had killed Joe, to try to run me out of business?

I pushed the silly thought away. School had taught me that people would do the craziest things to see a competitor fail. But good sense told me most people drew the line at killing someone. What was the point of that? Right? Besides, it wouldn’t take such a dramatic act to see a person fail. It was far too easy to lose money in any small business, more specifically the competitive fudge shop business here on island.

After all, Mackinac Island was known as the fudge capital of the world. Everyone here took their fudge very seriously—including my Papa Liam.

“Always have a backup plan,” Papa Liam had drilled into my head growing up. “Creative thinking helps.”

“We’ll need you out of the hotel at least for tonight while we work,” Officer Manning said. “Longer if need-be.”

“What? No. There’s no need-be.” I sat all the way up. George checked my blood pressure again. I waited patiently for him to be done before going on. “I have a business to run.”

Well, get back up and running. Papa’d let the hotel wear down a bit the last two years while I was in culinary school. I’d been shocked at the shape of the place when I’d taken over.

It’s why I’d started the renovations right after Papa’s death. He’d already done most of the groundwork with the Mackinac Island historical society. I knew he wouldn’t want me to put my dream of running the family business aside just because he’d gone toes up, or in Papa’s case nose down, unexpectedly.

“At least let me continue with the renovations in the lobby.” I tried not to beg. “If I have any delays, I’ll lose my subcontractors.”

I glanced at George, looking for support in my hour of need. He stood and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting, I assume, for Officer Manning to tell him what to do next.

Officer Manning narrowed his eyes. His mouth tightened slightly. “Subcontractors are the least of your worries, Ms. McMurphy. Is there someone you can call?”

“Frances Wentworth.” She was a retired school teacher who’d spent the last twenty years working for Papa Liam in the summers as front-desk clerk and reservation organizer.

“Call her,” he ordered. “George, come with me.” With that, both men took off down the hall and disappeared into the closet.

I lay back down and blew out a long breath as I stared at the hall ceiling. It needed painting. The white color was no longer eggshell, and in fact the plaster had cracked into the most interesting of shapes.

“Call her,” Officer Manning said from down the hall. The man had stuck his head out to check on me.

“Yes, sir.” I did my best interpretation of a salute and pulled my phone out of my pocket. “I could stay in a motel,” I muttered; then I realized that I was on an island in the off-season and—the most important thing of all—the other hotels were also my competitors. Not that they had anything to worry about at this point.

I mean, I had a crumbling ceiling, half-completed renovations, and a dead body in my closet. Everyone would be taking bets I’d even open by the start of the season.