Chocolate Covered Murder

by Leslie Meier

  “Sure.” Lucy didn’t want to think about work or murder or Eddie’s drug overdose; she wanted to enjoy herself. She took a sip of her wine and reached for Bill’s hand.

  “I went to the hospital today to visit Joyce Rennie—her husband is in the play and they just had a baby girl—and I ran into Barney and Marge,” said Rachel. “They said Eddie was in the ER, but then they hurried off. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  Darn it, thought Lucy. Here we go. “It was drugs,” she said. “He OD’d... .”

  Everyone fell silent for a moment.

  “Poor Marge and Barney,” said Rachel.

  “Is he going to be okay?” asked Pam.

  “Doc Ryder said he’d make it, but he almost died,” said Lucy.

  “PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder,” murmured Rachel. “It’s not unusual after what these kids go through over there.”

  “That’s true, as far as it goes,” said Lucy. “But Doc Ryder told me there’s been a recent epidemic of overdoses. He wants us to do a story about it.”

  “We already ran that interview with the governor’s wife,” said Ted, in a defensive tone. “I’d like to give it a rest, maybe revisit the issue in a month or so.”

  Lucy struggled to hold her temper. “Sooner would be better than later,” she argued. “We could save lives.” She felt a nudge on her ankle and realized Bill was signaling her that she’d said enough on this particular topic.

  “Drugs are a fact of life these days,” said Ted. “They’re everywhere. It’s hardly news.”

  “Sadly, that’s true,” offered Rachel, with a sad smile.

  Recognizing defeat, Lucy glanced around the room. Chris and Brad Cashman were seated at a nearby table, along with Frankie and the Faircloths, as well as some people she didn’t recognize. It seemed a lively group, however, and there were frequent bursts of laughter. She looked around for Corney but didn’t see her; maybe she was busy with some last-minute details.

  Lucy had only had a sip or two of wine before the high school–student waiters began serving the fruit cup appetizers that preceded the VFW’s famous rib roast dinner.

  “Canned fruit!” exclaimed Sue, picking out the tiny bit of maraschino cherry and popping it in her mouth. “I haven’t had fruit salad since I was a kid.” She cautiously speared a bit of pear and tasted it. “Now I know why I haven’t had it—it’s gruesome.”

  “I kinda like it,” said Sid.

  “Me, too,” said Lucy, digging in as the DJ started playing a Four Tops tune. “It takes me back—in fact, this whole thing is like a trip down memory lane.”

  “I wonder if that’s what Corney had in mind,” said Rachel. “Somehow I think she was going for something more glamorous.”

  Lucy glanced around the room, but once again didn’t see any sign of Corney. “There was a committee, wasn’t there?”

  “The activities committee is pretty square,” admitted Pam, who was an active Chamber member and served on the publicity committee.

  “Old guard,” agreed Ted, cocking his head at a table of older men and their tightly permed wives. “Insurance, insurance, real estate, and banking.”

  They were laughing at his joke when the waiters took away the chunky glass compotes that had held the fruit salad and brought plates loaded with huge slabs of beef, mountains of mashed potatoes topped with craters of gravy, and haystacks of grayish French-cut green beans amandine.

  Sue’s eyes widened in horror as her plate was set in front of her. “This explains a lot,” she said, pushing it away and reaching for her wine.

  “What do you mean?” asked Pam, who was busy cutting her meat.

  “The fat epidemic!” explained Sue. “Huge portions, tons of salt, it’s no wonder Americans look the way they do if this is how they eat.”

  “Oh, you’re right,” said Rachel. “You know I prefer organic food and Bob and I mostly eat grains and veggies, but once in a while,” she said, taking a bite of beef and savoring it, “I just love a big piece of juicy red meat.”

  “Amen,” said Bob.

  By the time the dessert plates—cherry pie à la mode—and coffee cups were removed, Lucy was feeling guilty about slipping off her diet and was uncomfortably aware of her control-top panty hose. The DJ was playing a slow dance so she begged Bill to take a turn on the dance floor. “I’ve absolutely got to move or I’ll burst,” she said, grabbing his hand.

  He got up reluctantly, earning sympathetic looks from the other guys, and followed Lucy onto the dance floor where a handful of couples were moving to the music, mostly swaying back and forth. Lucy had endured cotillion dance classes when she was in seventh grade, letting repulsive pimply boys in button-down shirts and sports jackets that smelled of cleaning fluid put their arms around her so they could learn the waltz and fox-trot, and she found it frustrating that nobody, including Bill, seemed to know how to dance anymore.

  Still, it was nice to slip her right hand into his and feel his other arm around her waist, and Bobby Darrin sure knew how to melt a girl’s heart. She tried to keep her toes out of his way as they moved around the patch of parquet that served as a dance floor, trusting him to keep her from colliding with the other dancers.

  The Faircloths, she noticed, danced beautifully together and made a lovely picture as they glided smoothly, perfectly in step with each other. Frankie and her partner, fellow real estate agent Bud Olsen, were having a good time, laughing as they struggled to keep time to the music and each other. When the inevitable happened, and they crashed into Lucy and Bill, there were giggles and apologies all round. Frankie just had time to tell Lucy the Faircloths had finally made an offer on a Shore Road house before Bud swept her away in a dramatic twirl.

  “Did you hear?” she asked Bill. “Frankie sold a house to the Faircloths.”

  Bill was interested; real estate had been at a virtual standstill for months. “Where?” he asked.

  “I think she said Shore Road.’

  “The only place for sale out there is the old McIntyre mansion,” said Bill. “It’s listed for a million and a quarter.”

  “I wonder what they offered,” said Lucy.

  “Check with Frankie,” urged Bill, as the song ended. “Maybe they’ll be looking for a contractor.”

  Lucy noticed that Frankie was making her way across the room in the direction of the ladies’ room, so she followed and eventually joined her in front of the mirrored counter, and began to refresh her lipstick.

  “So the Faircloths finally found a house they liked,” said Lucy.

  “Finally is the word,” said Frankie, with a huge sigh. “I must have showed them fifty or more houses. I swear we covered the coast from Kittery to Camden several times over. Then they decided to make an offer on the very first place I showed them.”

  “The McIntyre mansion?”

  Frankie nodded, leaning forward and running her finger along her eyebrow. “It needs work, but they said they’re excited about remodeling.”

  “How much did they offer?” asked Lucy.

  “Just under a million,” said Frankie, screwing up her lips. “It’s a low offer, but the place definitely needs updating. The wiring and plumbing are last century, the kitchen is a nightmare. I don’t know if the McIntyre kids—well, they’re all in their forties, not really kids—it’s a question of how much they want the cash. If they don’t need the money, they could decide to wait for the market to improve.”

  “It must be hard for them to let it go,” said Lucy. “They’ve spent every summer there since they were kids.”

  “They told me they don’t get to use it much, now that their folks are gone. One is in Turkey, works for some bank; a couple of others are out on the West Coast. It’s a big responsibility and they can’t keep it up. It needs a roof; just keeping the lawn mowed is a big expense.”

  Lucy nodded. It was a familiar story. “Well, I hope the sale goes through. It would be a nice commission for you—and maybe a job for Bill.”

  “And I could use it
,” said Frankie, dropping her lipstick into her purse and clicking it shut.

  Lucy was following her out the door when her cell phone rang, so she sat on the droopy, slipcovered sofa to take the call, afraid it was one of the kids. That whole awful episode with Eddie was stuck in her mind. No matter how well you thought you knew your kids, how much you trusted them, there were always surprises and experience had taught her that trouble always came when you were least expecting it. Wasn’t that always the way? When she and Bill finally got a rare night out together, some emergency invariably seemed to come up. But when she glanced at the phone, she saw it was Corney who was calling.

  “Hi!” she said, wondering what had kept Corney from the ball. “Where are you? I thought you’d be dancing the night away.”

  “I wish,” whispered Corney. “I think I’m being held against my will.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Trey suggested we have a little, you know, before going to the ball and I foolishly agreed. I read in a magazine that sex gives you a terrific glow, much better than makeup.”

  “I read that, too,” said Lucy.

  “It didn’t exactly work out.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Corney’s voice got even lower. “He suggested handcuffs, said they’d be fun.”

  Lucy resisted the temptation to laugh. “And?”

  “Well, here I am, stark naked and handcuffed to my bed. Thank heavens the cell phone was on the night stand. I could just manage to reach it, kind of shoved it along with my nose until I could grab it.”

  “Where’s Trey?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. He left me here. I need you to come and free me.”

  “He left?”

  “Yes.”

  Lucy didn’t understand. “He handcuffed you and then left? Left the house?”

  “Yes! I begged him to unlock them but he just laughed and walked out.”

  “What a bastard!”

  “Yeah.” There was a pause. “So will you come?”

  “What he did is against the law,” said Lucy, primly. “This is a matter for the police.”

  “Are you crazy? I’m naked. This is Tinker’s Cove! Do you think I want the Kirwan kids and Barney Culpepper seeing me like this?”

  “You have a point,” said Lucy. “But what can I do? I don’t have the keys.”

  “They’re right here. They’re on the dresser. I can’t reach them.”

  “Okay,” said Lucy, finally accepting the fact that she was going to have to leave the party to help Corney. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll be here,” said Corney. “I’m sure not going anywhere.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  When Lucy returned to the ball she found Bill standing with a group of friends near the bar. They were all holding glasses of beer and were engaged in a loud, play-by-play discussion of the Superbowl. Lucy didn’t want to interrupt them, they were all in high spirits with plenty of laughing and backslapping and she didn’t want to be a ball-and-chain sort of wife. Instead she caught Bill’s eye and held up her car keys, then tapped her watch. She hoped he’d take her sign language to mean she was leaving the party for a few minutes.

  He didn’t. Looking puzzled, he left the group and crossed the room. “What’s going on?”

  “I have to leave for a few minutes ... ,” she began.

  “Why? Is one of the kids in trouble?”

  “No, no,” she hurried to assure him. “It’s Corney.” She paused, trying to come up with a reason why Corney needed her. “It’s her car. It won’t start and she needs a ride.”

  “Want me to come? I’ve got jumper cables, maybe I can get it started.”

  What was it with men? she wondered. She’d been after Bill for weeks to replace the toilet seat in the powder room. She’d even bought a new seat and tried to do the job herself but wasn’t strong enough to loosen the bolts that held the broken one in place. Somehow he wasn’t interested in a little job that would take him two minutes, but now when she didn’t want his help he was suddenly Dudley Do-Right.

  “Don’t be silly,” she said. “You’re having a good time with your buddies and I’ll be back in no time.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked. “I don’t mind going. It’s cold and you’re not really dressed for it.”

  Lucy realized he had a point. Unused to walking in heels, she’d had to hang on to his arm just to cross the icy driveway. She hadn’t wanted to mess up her hair by wearing a hat and her good black coat wasn’t nearly as warm as her parka.

  Lucy was about to give up and confess the truth when Sid, who had loosened his collar and stuffed his tie into his jacket pocket with one end dangling out, joined them and punched Bill in the arm. “Whassup, buddy?” he asked.

  “Lucy needs me... .”

  “No, I don’t,” said Lucy, interrupting him with a smile. “I can handle this.”

  “Well, that’s good because the Bruins game is on the TV in the bar and Montreal’s got two players in the penalty box.”

  Bill was clearly torn. “Go on,” she said. “I’ll be back before those Canadiens are back on the ice.”

  “Okay,” he said, as Sid clapped an arm around his shoulder and dragged him off to join the crowd of men gathered in front of the TV.

  Buttoning her coat as she stepped outside, Lucy had second thoughts about her mission. The temperature had dropped while they were inside, and a stiff breeze had blown up. The cold air hit her like a slap in the face and she hurried to pull on her gloves. Her ears were already burning from the cold and she covered them with her hands as she slipped and slid across the icy parking lot. She almost fell when she reached out to open the car door but saved herself by grabbing the roof.

  Finally in place behind the steering wheel, she realized the car wasn’t any warmer than the parking lot. At least she was out of the wind, she told herself, as she started the engine and cranked the heat up as high as it would go.

  The roads were deserted as she drove along under the star-filled sky. There was no moon but the stars were very bright. Orion was hanging so low she felt as if she could reach out and touch the archer’s belt; the Big Dipper pointed to the North Star, just as it had in the days when escaping Southern slaves followed it to freedom in the North. In fact, a number of houses in town were said to have been stops on the Underground Railroad that led to Canada.

  Corney had recently moved into a brand-new house on Shore Road and Lucy remembered how she’d proudly showed off all the modern advances—gas fireplaces that turned on with the touch of a remote, jacks in every room for phones, TVs and computers, a dream kitchen with granite countertops and energy-saving stainless steel appliances, even a heated toilet seat.

  Lucy wasn’t jealous; she loved her antique home with all its quirks. But at this moment, driving through the dark and silent streets, she wouldn’t mind a heated car seat. She was shivering in her short silky skirt and lace blouse—even under her coat they felt cold against her skin. Why hadn’t she dressed like Rachel, in a long skirt and sweater? She suspected Rachel had worn warm boots under that long skirt, too. Which reminded her, she kept an old pair of boots in the car for emergencies, along with a blanket.

  Warm air was finally beginning to blow from the vents when she turned onto Shore Road and approached Corney’s house, which sat on a double lot overlooking the ocean. It was a gorgeous spot in summer, when you could sit on the porch and watch the sailboats tacking back and forth, but winter was a different story. Tonight, the ocean was angry and she could hear the waves rhythmically pounding the rocks below. Lucy was wondering if Corney regretted her choice of location when she noticed that Trey’s Range Rover was parked in the driveway.

  What did this mean? she wondered, as she braked and came to a stop in front of the house. All the windows were dark but Lucy knew Corney had expensive, custom-built window coverings that blocked the light. Inside, every light could be on and you’d never know it from the outside if the shades were drawn.<
br />
  Lucy sat there a minute, wondering what to do. Corney had said Trey was gone, but if he had left, he was back. Or maybe he’d just left the bedroom and was lurking inside. Perhaps he’d even gone back to the bedroom and picked up wherever he’d left off with Corney. Lucy was tempted to leave; she certainly didn’t want to interrupt the pair in a romantic moment.

  Maybe romantic wasn’t exactly the word, she thought, considering the handcuffs, and maybe Trey was a kinky guy who got off by abusing women. Sometimes that sort of thing went too far. Corney had called for help, she couldn’t drive away without making sure everything was okay.

  She couldn’t just walk up and ring the bell—what should she do? Time was passing, pretty soon Bill would start to worry. She had to do something and do it fast, she decided, turning into the driveway opposite Corney’s. Nobody was there this time of year; the Whittleseys were summer people.

  Bracing for the shock of cold air, she opened the door and went around to the back of the car, where she opened the hatch and found her emergency stash. She draped the blanket over her head and wrapped it around her shoulders and shoved her feet into the boots; then she clomped across the street feeling like a Muslim woman in a chador. Except that she doubted any devout Muslim woman would be out alone at night trying to peep into her neighbor’s windows.

  Reaching Corney’s porch, Lucy looked for a gap in the blinds or curtains, without success. That meant she’d have to walk around the house, on the lawn, where the snow wasn’t shoveled. She stepped off the porch, expecting to sink into deep snow, but found instead that a crust had formed that supported her, though it occasionally broke through. Even so, her feet went down only a few inches when that happened, so she soon reached the rear porch, where a patch of light on the snow revealed an uncovered window. She hurried across and peered inside, discovering the kitchen.

  It was empty, and so was the adjoining dining area and family room. Lucy stood there, noticing that nothing was out of place. The counters were bare, the farmhouse sink was empty, only one pot, a large cast-iron frying pan, was sitting on the stove. There was no sign of a struggle, no evidence that anything was wrong.