Free First-Degree Fudge: A Fudge Shop Mystery by Christine DeSmet

drawers called to me next. The two small drawers at the top didn’t yield anything. But when I opened the first big drawer below, I found a pair of white panties, a woman’s half-slip, and a pink chiffon scarf of the kind elderly ladies like to tie over their hair to keep their hairdo in place against the wind. Women didn’t usually mix their scarves with their underwear. Maybe Rainetta had been laying out clothing for the following day, taking items out of her luggage and plopping them into the drawer as she sorted through things.
    Her luggage was gone. Either Jordy had it or Izzy had put the luggage away for the relatives to pick up. I looked about for the closet door. It was only a couple of steps past the TV.
    To my surprise, the closet was jam-packed with a couple dozen different designer outfits, from dresses to skirts, blouses, and suits. Many things were pink or lavender, Rainetta Johnson’s signature colors. There were silks, satins, sparkly beading on some things.
    The clothes suddenly vibrated, moving on their hangers.
    I leaped back, my breathing on hold.
    Somebody was hiding in the closet!
    I ran for the door.
    • • •
    A hoarse whisper rasped the air behind me. “Miss Oosterling, it’s me.”
    “Ranger?”
    Cody Fjelstad’s red-haired head poked out from the mass of clothing lined up on the hangers. His freckled face bore a mask of distrust for me, which broke my heart.
    I sat on the corner of the bed farthest away from him. “What’re you doing in Rainetta Johnson’s closet?”
    “Are you going to report me, Miss Oosterling?”
    “No, unless you don’t talk to me. Why aren’t you in school?” I knew the answer and felt bad instantly for being stupid enough to ask. “Never mind. The kids will tease you about the fudge. Ranger, nobody really knows how the lady was killed. And it’s not your fault.”
    “But I made the fudge she ate and she choked on it, the sheriff said.”
    “The sheriff also said there were diamonds in the fudge.”
    “Diamonds? There were? How many?” He popped from the closet. “Is that your new recipe?”
    He was practicing his sarcasm again with me. But he obviously had known nothing about the diamonds. At least not consciously. Somebody else had to have slipped them into the fudge ingredients that had been confiscated yesterday by the sheriff’s department.
    “No. We’re sticking to fairy tales and fisherman ideas for our fudge recipes,” I assured him. “Now tell me why you’re here. And how did you get up here without somebody seeing you?”
    “The back stairs.” He pointed toward the hallway.
    But I didn’t recall seeing any back stairs. I opened the door a tiny crack to look out. All I saw was the room across the hall and the shared public bathroom door to the right. “Cody, I don’t see any stairs.”
    “They’re in the room across the hall. I snuck up the back way when I climbed in the window in the back porch this morning. It was cold out.”
    This was no time to scold him for breaking into a house. Especially since I’d done the same. The Blue Heron Inn had an enormous screened porch replete with gliders that overlooked a lawn, flower beds, a vegetable garden, and beyond it all—Lake Michigan. I’d been on that porch once in my whole life and recalled a couple of closed doors on the house wall. Perhaps the room across the hall was originally a servant’s quarters, with the stairs giving the help easy access to the back of the old inn for doing chores, gardening, or, well, serving. Whatever the case, those stairs explained how Sam Peterson had disappeared so fast yesterday from the crime scene.
    “Whose room is that across the hall?”
    Cody shrugged. He had the thumb of one hand hooked in a front belt loop of his jeans, but the other was hidden behind his back.
    I ventured around him for a good look, but he stealthily turned and hid his hand. I focused on the closet. “She sure loved pink and purple.”
    “It’s sad for you. She