Free Five-Alarm Fudge by Christine DeSmet Page B

Hardy.
    She started crying harder as I put my yellow pickup in gear.
    “Sorry. I said that wrong. John didn’t kill anybody, I’m sure.”
    We headed back toward Brussels, passing green cornfields bursting with fat ears for harvest later on. It was a little after nine o’clock. I decided to stop at our farm. It would cheer Pauline up.
    We bounced over our long gravel lane. The sun was heating up the day fast and small whirlwinds were stirring the dust enough to nettle my front hood.
    Pauline sniffed. “Everybody knows that John has gold rush fever. He’s obsessed with proving himself after that company fired him last spring.”
    “He did threaten to sue them for age discrimination, which saved Fishers’ Harbor and my fudge shop this past summer. They were about to buy up all kinds of property if they could swing it. John is our hero. He sent his former employer packing. John is not a killer. You know what I think?”
    “What now?”
    We were jostling over ruts. “John probably can’t sleep for his nerves. He sent his demo tape to some producer a couple of weeks ago. He’s on pins and needles waiting to hear. That’s why he left your bed last night.”
    Pauline’s heavy sigh almost sounded like a tire going flat on the truck. “I suppose you’re right.”
    “I’m always right.”
    “No, you always want to be right. There’s a difference.”
    Pauline and I traveled in silence, then down the remainder of the long, straight gravel lane that parted the pastures and strips of hay, wheat, and corn. Far off to the southeast I could make out Ava’s Autumn Harvest.
    We stopped in the gravel circle in front of our redbrick farmhouse and next to Mom’s SUV. The house was to the right or north of the gravel, and the big red barn with its attached creamery and other outbuildings sat to the south side of the gravel area.
    Giving Pauline’s forearm a squeeze in friendship, I said, “Let’s see what Mom knows. She might have clues to solve this before the sheriff even has a chance to have his Sunday noonday meal.”
    Pauline stared back at me, agape. “Sometimes you say the strangest things. Even I know what your mother must be doing inside your farmhouse.”
    *   *   *
    Mom was in the hallway between the living room and kitchen vacuuming the beige-carpeted stairs up to the second floor. She was still in her good church clothes—patent leather ballerina flats and a lovely muted forest green A-line, short-sleeved dress. It had a matching jacket, but that was tossed over the corner of a sofa in the living room. Her elbows jabbed the air as she pushed the sucking nozzle over the carpet.
    “Mom!” I called above the noise.
    I had to take the nozzle from her and turn off the vacuum.
    “Mom, Pauline’s here. We went to Saint Mary’s. The body was Tristan Hardy.”
    Mom fell into me, wrapping her arms around me. Her shoulder-length, wavy dark-brown hair fluffed about my face. “Oh, honey, no, not Cherry. I didn’t know. I got the heck out of there fast.” She let me go, taking back the hose and vacuum. She was gripping the appliance so hard that her fingers were white. “Please tell me the paramedics got there in time and shocked him or something.”
    I grimaced.
    Mom stared down at the vacuum. “He’s been here in our home as a guest with his professor friends and those PhD students from the university so many times. We’re all family. He was always working on new ways to manage our crops and pastures. And he liked my cheese curds. He and Professor Weaver always bought several bags to take back to their department.”
    Pauline and I led her to the kitchen.
    I said, “Let’s make some coffee.”
    When we got to the kitchen, Mom set to work washing breakfast dishes by hand. There was no use reminding her she had an automatic dishwasher. I dried dishes while Pauline ground coffee beans and then plugged in the coffeemaker.
    While we worked, I asked my mother, “Did you go into the choir loft?”
    She