Authors: Christine DeSmet
Pauline said, “This would contaminate a lot of land and crops.”
“And keep Professor Weaver’s department in business trying to figure out what was wrong on the local farmland.”
“But a bigwig professor at the university in Green Bay? Are you sure? He’s been on your farm a lot over the past few years. Why would he be messing around with chemicals? He’s Mr. Organic, like Cherry was.”
“That’s what we have to think about. It’s why I think Nick and Will are part of this murder plot.”
“There are several people in that department.”
“True,” I said, putting my phone in my pocket. “But it was Weaver and Nick and Will who were always out in this neighborhood. Kjersta said that Fontana had dated Wes Weaver.” I took the flashlight from Pauline. “Cherry knew about the divinity fudge recipe because Fontana blabbed about it.”
“But murdering a colleague all because of your fudge in his test tubes feels beneath a professor.”
“Pauline, murdering a college professor, period, is beneath anybody.”
“Okay. But there’s got to be more to his motives. And to involve Nick and Will? They’re in their twenties and bright, with no reason to murder Cherry.”
My friend was breeding doubts inside me. Professor Weaver wouldn’t risk his career to murder for a recipe, or even for a grant. Certainly Nick and Will didn’t care about the fudge. But maybe dissing my fudge was reason enough to be suspicious of them?
The bottom of the ravine had a few bare areas where it washed out in storms regularly, but it was dry bare ground now. Vines wrapped everywhere. We were focusing so much on not tripping that we almost walked right into the car.
My flashlight illuminated a taillight, which reflected back at me.
The blue car was hidden well under layers of woody brush. I tugged at some of it. A license plate appeared. I handed off the flashlight to Pauline and then snapped a photo.
A rustling in front of the car startled us.
In the beam of my flashlight, Professor Weaver stood up. He’d been hiding.
My stomach did a jerky dance. “What are you doing here?”
“As in why did I kill Cherry?” He said it in a sarcastic way, a confident, conclusive way that told me he was here for the same reason we were—to collect evidence.
I said, “You didn’t do it. I know who did. You do, too. You’re protecting the killer. Why?”
“Let me explain.” The professor’s eyes flashed wider in my beam of light as he came around the car and raised a pistol.
Pauline screamed.
A shot exploded and then Pauline crumpled to the ground.
Chapter 31
W
hen I woke up, it was pitch-black night and my face was mashed against the grass.
My heartbeat pulsated like a bass drum in my ears. Somebody had whacked me on the back of the head.
I shook my head to loosen my fuzziness.
Pauline and I were tied up next to each other with our hands behind us. I couldn’t tell if she was bleeding from the gunshot I recalled. Was I bleeding? It didn’t feel like it. My ankles were encircled maybe a dozen times with masking tape. We were laid out alongside the car on our stomachs. A limb on the ground was poking into my legs.
A person was moving about in the darkness, piling branches on top of us, essentially burying us. Weaver? I tried to speak, but my tongue met with part of my sweatshirt that had been ripped off my person, stuffed in my mouth, and taped. Tape wound around my head and ponytail. My scalp prickled with each movement as the tape pulled my hair.
I shoved my legs enough to nudge Pauline awake. Her eyelids popped open, then went wide with terror. Part of my sweatshirt was taped into her mouth, too.
When I saw that the person was beginning to pour something around us and on the branches, I wiggled madly. I rolled and bucked.
The person’s shoe met my head. I let out a muffled “Ow-mmmph.” I wanted to say, “You idiot asshole.”
He said, “It’ll be over soon.”
It was Nick Stensrud.
He ripped the tape off my mouth and said, “Do you have the recipe on you?”
I spat out my ripped sweatshirt sleeve. “There is no recipe,” I said, feeling like Judas denying my grandfather’s belief in it. “You killed Cherry for no good reason. I thought you didn’t like testing fudge in your test tubes.”
“Sister Adele’s recipe is worth money.”
“Money you need to replace the grant Cherry ruined for you.”
“He was ruining my department.”
“No, he was ruining your thesis and your chances of becoming a newly minted professor. You were afraid pretty Cinderella Pink Fudge in your test tubes would make you a laughingstock by your doctoral committee.”
He tore the brush back, then roughly pulled me up and slammed me back against the car tire. He thrust Pauline against the car door next to me.
I said, “You bought all the goods from my store and tossed them in the chapel to spook me. And Fontana knew it was probably you, though she might have feared it was Professor Weaver. My father saw her poking around the chapel. I bet she wanted to return the stolen goods. She came to your offices to talk to Weaver about it and you.”
I could barely see him in the dark, but his pause told me I was striking the bull’s-eye.
Nick said, “He threatened her, told her to stay out of this. It’s her fault.”
“For being scared? For wanting what’s right? You were hoping you could blame her.”
“Where’s the recipe?”
I scooted to get my back away from the tire’s hubcap. My face was itching horribly from bug bites that I couldn’t do a thing about. “I don’t have the recipe. I’m sure you’ve been through all my pockets by now.”
“That and your friend’s purse.”
Pauline kicked and gurgled gagged words that were likely the equivalent of “Give me back my pretty purse, you pyro, pukey pervert!”
I said to Nick, “I don’t suppose you left us our phones. I was thinking of calling out for the delivery of marshmallows to roast with our fire.”
“The bears will pick up your phones when they come to dine on the human barbecue. Without marshmallows. Now tell me where the recipe is.”
“I put it in a bank vault. Only my fingerprint can open the vault lock.”
Pauline’s wide-eyed gaze questioned my answer.
Nick squatted down from outside the cage built of branches. “Which finger?” He snapped a Buck knife from its sheath.
I realized my mistake. He was going to cut off my fingers or at least the tips to get my fingerprints. “Looks like you bought your own knife. You took my father’s Buck knife the last time you were at our farm. Did Cherry find it on you or in your lab? Cherry was onto you. Did he take my father’s knife from you so that he could return it? I bet he scolded you. And you hated him for treating you like a dumb kid instead of a nano away from being a faculty member.”
“Nobody can make a living on a teaching assistant’s salary.”
“Salary? You were being paid on the grant, and once it was over, you would lose your job.”
His silence told me I was right.
“So, Nick, you met him last Saturday morning at the church. You were out together doing research before the tour maybe? At some point you stopped by the Dahlgrens’ and borrowed a shovel for digging. It came in handy later at the church.”
“That unused church was a good place to talk. That’s all we did.”
“I’m not a fool. You meant to kill him in the church, didn’t you? You probably heard Jonas come to work on the landscaping and got spooked. But Cherry got cut on the arm with the knife. I bet if we looked at your hands closely or pushed up those long sleeves you’re wearing, we’d find a nick or cut.”
“Shut up.”
“No. You like listening to me because I figured it out.
Maybe I amaze you? Maybe you feel sorry that I got mixed up in this?”
“I like your family. Please . . . shut . . . up.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” My brain was trying to figure out how to get out of this mess. But all I had for a weapon was words. “You like smart people. I’m smart. But Cherry was smart, too. Your career was about to be over because he knew you were spreading chemicals around the countryside and dosing orchards and grapevines so your research could stay on track. You were hoping the feds would renew your grant and your job. Because you’re so smart.”
He turned his head away and I heard him spit off into the ferns. When he turned his face back toward me, the starlight spying through scudding clouds illuminated his forehead, cheeks, and chin in blue light. He looked crazed.
I continued, still conjuring an escape. “You made up some story to get him to meet you at the church Saturday night. Maybe you thought the knife would still be inside the church? You told him it was still there and you were going to report him? Maybe you reminded him that his blood and fingerprints were all over it?”
“I didn’t know he was hopping aboard that tour and would come back or that you’d be there. I drove by a few times while you and your grandma were cleaning the buildings and graveyard.”
“Did it make you nervous to think I might have found the knife, considering I’ve got a reputation for being like a dog on a bone with crimes?”
“I’m sorry, Ava. I have to do this. I don’t have a choice.”
My throat was too parched to swallow in fear. “You killed Professor Hardy, didn’t you, because you knew he was going to report you to the chancellor? Cherry knew that Weaver was scared, maybe scared of you, and didn’t have the guts to stand up to you.”
The only sound was the whispery rustle of leaves in the trees hugging the ravine’s slopes.
“Where is Weaver?” I asked.
“Dead.”
Dread seized me. Anger came next—a hot, molten
fountain rising inside me like one of my copper kettles overflowing. We were all going to die because of a selfish, pyromaniac punk.
He put the knife away, then brought out a pistol. Nick parted the twigs he’d stacked over me, then shoved me forward to the ground. My face mashed into trampled grass. Nick then placed the pistol in my hands behind me. He pressed my fingers around it.
I asked him, “You really believe the sheriff will think I killed Weaver?”
“Why not? You were driven to do it to protect your friends and family. I’ll tell the authorities how Weaver was dosing the land around here, how he set the fires. Heck, he even stole clocks and timing devices from our lab to do it.”
After getting my fingerprints on the pistol, he set it aside somewhere on the forest floor. Where Jordy would find it after I’d been toasted to a crisp.
Setting my body up to a sitting position against the car again, Nick said, “Professor Weaver is in the trunk of this car, where you put him.”
I could smell the sour fear on Nick’s body. I spat at him. And missed.
I said, “Tell Grandpa and Grandma I love them. Mom and Dad, too. And Dillon. And Cody. Sam, too. And Moose and Milt. And Lucky Harbor. And—”
“I bet your grandpa can tell me exactly where to find the recipe. He loves a good story. I listened to my share of them when he was visiting on the farm or when I happened to stop by the shop in Fishers’ Harbor. I’ll buy him a beer and console him, tell him I was sweet on you.”
“You bastard. My grandpa knows nothing.” Fear crystallized over every inch of my skin like hoarfrost.
“I’ll tell him about how I’m the one testing your fudge in my test tubes. He’ll reveal where the recipe is. I’ll ask him to donate it to our Belgian collection at the university. The chancellor will reward me handsomely.”
I scoffed. “Then you’ll have to fight over it with the prince and princess coming from Belgium. That recipe was promised to them.”
Nick scowled, clearly confused. If only I could get him to leave for some reason.
I said, “It’s true. My grandfather has an agreement with Prince Arnaud and his mother, Princess Amandine Van Damme, to put the recipe in a museum in Belgium for two years after we find it. Go check it out with my grandpa. The recipe will return here to our Door County Belgian Heritage Foundation in Namur after that. It’s Grandpa Gil, not you, who will be honored by your chancellor.”
He made motions to put the torn fabric back in my mouth, so I grasped at something that had been niggling at me. “Why did Fontana break up with Professor Weaver?”
“He broke up with her. She was going to ruin him. I told him what she was really like. She flirted with everybody, including me.”
“You bastard. Are you stupid enough to think you could be good enough for Fontana?”
“That’s not it at all. Now you’re being stupid. I hate stupid people.” He stuffed the ripped sleeve in my mouth, then twisted more masking tape around my head to hold it in place.
Within minutes, the trickle of chemicals and the thud of plastic containers touched my eardrums. I smelled gasoline, too. And spices.
Nick disappeared from my view. From a rustle I heard, it sounded as if he was to my right and in front of the car. Pauline and I were near the back driver’s-side tire, with the darkness and something like an eagle’s nest worth of sticks between us and Nick. After a sharp slap of his hand on the car hood, I heard feet hitting the ground and branches snapping, receding fast. He had to be running to get away. A chill came over me. He must have struck a match.
The whoosh came. It was at the front of the car. Tongues of fire ignited and skipped along a ring on the ground surrounding Pauline and me.
Within minutes the fire would climb the branches laid over us. Then we’d be smothered in flames when the gas tank exploded.
Chapter 32
T
he fire fed on the dried branches webbed over us and the car.
I was scared but not a fool. I dumped myself over to lie low below the branches above me that were catching on fire. Pauline went prone, too.
Our only way out was to bust through the branches. But I had to roll right at the fire. I rolled. The branches didn’t give. I rolled back, hoping I’d rolled out anything on fire on my person. My taped-down hair seemed to be okay.
I rolled and shoved again, squeezing my eyes closed. Putrid smoke stung in my nose. Smoky branches slapped across my head, hitting the masking tape.
On the third try, Pauline and I synchronized. Our bulk toppled the fiery mass of branches in our wake as we wiggled and rolled across the ground heading down the slight slope behind the car.