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a little something I’d kept from Abigail and saw no reason to ’fess up to now. My plan was to stay on the island, find the killer, save Rudy and save my job.
    Sheldon buzzed my butt and I picked up a text from my older sister Lindsey. It read: Made partner. Celebrate tomorrow Travelle @ 8.
    I did a quick reply of: On Mackinac for work. Major congrats. Well done. Catch up later. Lindsey was brilliant and beautiful and deserved the promotion. If there was a poster child for most perfect daughter, Lindsey was it. I ordered her flowers online, figuring I’d pay for them with my new promotion when this all worked out, right?
    Five minutes later, after snagging one of Rudy’s bikes, I was pushing the oxidized heap of brown metal down Main Street, dodging horses, wagons and tourists staring at my scraped and bloody knees.
    “Well, my goodness, are you okay?” asked a woman in a white apron and flowered skirt as she hustled out of Irma’s Fudge Emporium. “I saw you take a tumble while I was making up a batch of chocolate-nut. If you haven’t ridden a bike in a while, it takes some practice to get the hang of it again. Just off the ferry, are you?”
    “Came in last night. I’m helping Rudy fix up his shop, since he has a bum leg.” I swiped a trickle of red from my leg. “If I live that long.”
    The woman pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “Why, I know who you are. You’re that fudgie girl from Chicago we’ve been hearing about. Come on inside and I’ll find the Band-Aids and patch you up. Can’t have you bleeding, it gives the island a bad name.”
    She dropped her voice. “I’m Irma, and none of us here in town thinks Rudy’s responsible for the Bunny Festival. That’s code for Bunny’s little mishap last night so the fudgies don’t pick up on what we’re talking about. Since we’ve already got the Lilac Festival, the Fudge Festival, the Horse Festival and the Jazz Festival, a bunch of us doing breakfast down at the VI, that’s what we call Village Inn, decided the Bunny Festival fits in nice to what goes on around here. Personally I wanted to call it the Dust Bunny considering dust fits Bunny’s present set of circumstances, but I got outvoted.”
    “Any idea who the grand marshal of the Bunny Festival might be?” I limped inside the empty emporium to find a decor of English pub meets Martha Stewart, with dark oak on one side and three long marble-top tables on the other. Wads of paper and cardboard littered the floor.
    “There’s a list of folks wanting her out of the way.”
    I sank down into a chair. “Always thought small towns were chicken soup, borrowing a cup of sugar and marrying the boy next door, not sending someone off a cliff.”
    “There’s the soup side and then there’s the sending side. Last year when Big Ray won the Great Chili Cook-off we have every year, John from over at the VI objected and there was talk of a duel. Ray’s been walking with a limp ever since. People get feisty no matter where they live.”
    So much for Sutter’s milk-and-honey theory. Irma headed for the old display case with enough fudge to give me a visual sugar high. “If you want my opinion on who gets top billing for doing in Bunny,” Irma said to me, “Dwight gets my vote. SeeFar has been their family cottage for over a hundred years and is worth a bundle. Dwight’s a screwup and always looking for a payday. He’s got a sister, but she married some gazillionaire in Florida. My guess, Dwight inherited the house all by himself and is happy as a clam right about now.”
    “Think he’d talk to me?” I picked gravel out of my knee.
    “If you dress like a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader and shake your pompoms—and I’m not talking about the ones at football games.” Irma made a gagging sound at the shaking part and handed me a box of Band-Aids and a wet towel.
    I patted my knees. “What’s with all the paper on the floor? Redecorating?”
    “My last batch of fudge was a total