The Ice Cream War, a Mystery of Hot Fudge and Murder

Mary has her own troubles, a law degree that she is afraid to use, a father who thinks that at thirty five she ought to be married and then an old high school classmate, Jerry, returns from California to visit his crazy aunt and opens an ice cream shop. The problem is, Mary has an ice cream shop in the same little town and the ice cream war begins, at least for Mary. Jerry doesn’t seem to understand since he is giving away his ice cream. Things cannot go on like this for long and they don’t. A body is found in Jerry’s shop the evening of his first day open. The victim turns out to be an old girlfriend of jerry’s from California and she was shot to death at close range. Jerry seems to know a lot about street life and “wasting people” and oh yes, a lot about the drugs, bath salts that are found on the murdered lady. Even so Mary cannot believe Jerry could have murdered anyone and she reluctantly decides to try to prove someone else did the shooting.
There is no lack of other candidates for her to choose from: Jerry’s aunt May is crazy after her husband George ran off with al the money he could get a hold of, ran off with his secretary Jessica. They made it to Florida but haven’t been heard of in four years since. George did own a gun that could have killed Jerry’s friend. May’s brothers are making sure what money is left is not being spent by May so they can inherit it. They see Jerry as a threat and try to convince him to leave their town, try to convince him with tire irons and baseball bats. There are some other locals that are convinced May has money her husband didn’t take with him. If this were not enough one of Jerry’s friends from California shows up and turns out to have been following Jerry. Dhe arrived the day before the murder.
But Mary and Jerry have other things to worry about, like the vast that the DEA is convinced Jerry was supplying bath salts and that he killed his girlfriend. The DEA would like to arrest him and the murderer would like to kill him and Mary is try to run an ice cream shop hoping that Jerry isn’t arrested or killed but mostly that he doesn’t give away all her ice cream since he is working in her shop until his can be reopened. It is hot July though and things will work out if everyone will just relax and eat a little ice cream. They do.