Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry by Denise Swanson Page A

Cherry’s secret ingredient, they had still arrived at the factory in time to join the last tour group. Skye and her mother donned the hairnets and hard hats they were handed and followed the group into the production area.
    Their tour was being led by Brandon Fine. The handsome young man seemed less sullen than he had when he was first introduced at the press conference, and Skye wondered what had improved his mood. Maybe he had just been bored, or hungry, or had to go to the bathroom that morning. Skye certainly had experienced all three.
    As they walked, Brandon said, “This is an older factory. Much of what you see is original equipment from when it was first built.” He gestured to the left and said, “This is where the raw materials—such as sugar, powdered eggs, corn syrup, cocoa, and seasonings—are stored.”
    Skye poked her head into the enormous room and saw huge bins and sacks the size of refrigerators stacked on wooden pallets.
    Next they were led to an area where Brandon pointed down. “The metal plate you see in the floor is actually a scale. While your recipes may call for two cups of flour, ours call for two hundred pounds.”
    As if on cue, a man wheeled an empty stainless-steel container onto the scale. He reached up to a pipe running above the tub and turned a valve handle, then walked over to a panel with digital numbers. Underneath the display was a series of switches. He flipped one, then another, and oil began to flow into the container.
    May poked Skye in the ribs with her elbow. “Good thing your father isn’t here to see this. Next thing you know he’d be running pipes for his beer into the living room.”
    The worker caught Skye’s glance and snickered as he continued to add ingredients to the tub. When he was finished, he looked around and muttered, “Where did Shorty get to? I can’t move this thing by myself.”
    “Never mind, Moose,” Brandon said. “I’ll give you a hand.” He joined the factory worker, and they rolled the container over to what looked like a giant milk shake machine.
    As the group followed, Brandon said, “There is now over five hundred pounds of raw material in this vat.”
    As the ladies oohed and aahed, he reached up and grasped a switch.
    Moose yelled, “No!”
    But Brandon flipped the toggle to the ON position, and the huge mixer growled into life, catching the dangling cuff of Brandon’s shirt in its beaters.
    Before anyone else could react, Moose slammed down a big red button and all the machinery in the immediate vicinity went still.
    The sudden silence was startling. No one said a word for a long moment; then voices rose in concern. Brandon waved away offers of help, inspected the damage to his shirt, and said, “Everything’s fine. Moose, have them turn the power back on.”
    As soon as the machinery roared back into service, Brandon said, “It will take over thirty minutes to mix this batch, so we’ll move on to the extruding area.”
    May held Skye back and whispered, “What do you think would have happened if they hadn’t turned off the power?”
    “He would have lost his arm, maybe his life.” Skye tugged on her mother’s hand. “Come on. We’d better keep up. I don’t want to take a misstep and become part of the frosting.”
    As they hurried past Moose, they heard the factory worker muttering to himself, “Those spoiled-brat gran’kids know just enough to be dangerous. We told ’em not to let ’em lead the tours.”
    Skye and May joined the group in watching what looked like unending rows of cake pans passing on conveyor belts. As the pans went under short lengths of hoses, batter was extruded into each one; then the pan moved into a long oven.
    Skye commented, “Sure wish we had this setup for the next school bake sale.”
    “Yeah! And the family reunion, too,” May added.
    They ended the tour in the packaging area, where rows of women in white uniforms and hairnets placed the finished product into boxes, sealed the