Free Geared for the Grave (A Cycle Path Mystery) by Duffy Brown

grabbed for the phone and Fiona beat him to it, clutching it in her hand. “You can’t do that ’cause we were doing you a favor. The phone rang, no one was around, so we took the order.”
    Dutchy towered over me, backing me toward the wall, a scowl creasing his forehead. “I heard you talking. What does Dwight have to do with this? And what don’t you want him to forget?”
    “Dwight’s the one who made the call,” I said, lying my little fudge-stained heart out as best I could. “He wants five pounds of chocolate-pecan delivered, and I told him I wouldn’t forget to tell you.”
    “Dwight?”
    “Says he’s your biggest fan. Just add it to his bill.”
    “What bill?”
    “Drop it off at SeeFar tomorrow. Put it on the back porch. He’s on a sugar high,” Fiona said.
    “That’s a nice order.” Dutchy looked confused, and Fiona and I seized the moment of Dutchy contemplating his bank account to duck under his arm and hustle out of the shop, not stopping till we got to the street,
    “I think he bought it,” Fiona gushed as we blended in with the foot traffic.
    “Now maybe, but when five pounds of fudge gets dropped off and Dwight calls Rita’s Fudge Shoppe wanting to know what’s going on, we’re toast. My grandpa Frank talked me out of being a lawyer because I suck at lying. He said things never got better when I opened my mouth; just a lot more complicated.”
    Fiona gave me a friendly shoulder bump. “Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s wrong, but at least this time your mouth was filled with really good fudge.”

T he sun sank into Lake Huron, a big ball of fire against the gray blue of deep, cold water. I hadn’t seen Irma since the great fudge encounter of the unbelievable kind, so I couldn’t tell her I contacted Winslow. That I’d gotten myself into a holy mess with the phony fudge order was something I intended to keep to myself, since it involved stuffing my mouth with maple-nut from her stolen recipes. But right now the big question was, where the heck was Irma?
    I added another paint-primed bike to the thirteen others as Rudy scooped Bambino from the left pocket of the pool table and plopped down in the wicker rocker. He eased a straightened coat hanger between his thigh and the plaster cast, a look of relief on his face as he maneuvered the wire to a certain spot.
    “Dang cast is so blasted itchy, it’s driving me nuts,” Rudy said. “Only good thing is that it takes my mind off the fact that we’ve only rented out eight bikes the whole blessed day. At this rate I’ll be bankrupt by Thanksgiving. When I bought the shop four years ago, I thought of it as vintage bikes on a vintage island. Now my bikes are just old, really old.”
    “Old can be good.”
    “If it’s Scotch and wine.”
    “We need a gimmick. A saying.”
    “‘Geezers a go-go’?”
    “I was thinking more like chocolate candy that melts in your mouth and not in your hand, or cereal that goes snap, crackle and pop.”
    Rudy thought for a minute then let out a long sigh. “I got nothing. I’ll hobble on over to Doud’s and get a few groceries. Least I can do is feed you for all your work. The bikes you painted look good—a lot better than they did before—but they’re still just old.”
    “A word of warning: Skip the tater tots and pizza,” I offered as Rudy strapped a shopping tote to his crutch. “You never know what or who those things have been sitting next to in the freezer, if you get my drift.”
    Rudy gave me a smile and a two-finger salute. “Got it.”
    Rudy fed Bambino and Cleveland a treat each, then stomped off. I scratched my chin and my neck, probably in sympathy to Rudy and his itchy cast. A family of four strolled by the shop, took one look at the red-primed bikes and kept on going. Okay, this was just what I needed: a local focus group. If I got some feedback, maybe I’d find out there was something I could do to fix the bikes that wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg.
    “Excuse me,” I