Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 02 - Murder, Lies & Chocolate

by Sally Berneathy

  As soon as I entered my front door, my cat, King Henry, strolled leisurely across the hardwood floor to greet me. He’s a large animal, twenty-three pounds of solid muscle, white with gold markings on his face and tail. He moved in last fall and has been in control ever since.

  He wound around my legs, purred and looked up at me with Frank Sinatra blue eyes. I leaned over and stroked his thick fur. “Glad to see me, big guy? I saved the homestead today. You could have been out on the streets again, homeless, like you were when you came here. Remember?”

  He didn’t. He gave a soft “rowr,” turned and led me to the kitchen where he showed me his empty food bowl. That bowl got empty a lot. And we’re not talking an ordinary kitty size dish. His head was too big to allow him to eat from one of those. I’d bought him a doggie bowl instead, and he did not like to see the bottom. I dutifully refilled it, and he dug in.

  Music sounded in the distance. Wild Bull Rider. My ring tone for my other neighbor, Fred.

  I pulled my not-all-that-smart phone from my purse.

  “Why did you tell the police you killed a man?” Fred asked in greeting.

  “How on earth do you know that?” Fred rarely left his house, kept the shades closed all the time, spent his days on the computer as a day trader (ha!) yet somehow always seemed to know more than the local psychic.

  “If Rodney Bradford died from natural causes, you’ll probably be okay, but it’s not a good idea to bring yourself to the attention of local law enforcement when you drive as fast as you do.”

  “If he died of natural causes? Does this mean you don’t know what killed Bradford? I’m astonished there’s something you don’t know!”

  Henry went to the back door, stood on his hind legs and tried to turn the knob with his paws. Subtle, he’s not. I opened the door to let him outside.

  “I have no idea what caused Bradford’s death,” Fred said. “The police haven’t finished the autopsy.”

  “So you get your information from the cops?” I asked, ever hopeful of tripping him up and learning something about him. It wouldn’t surprise me if he got information from the police database. I knew for a fact that he sometimes hacked into computer systems where he shouldn’t be hacking. Well, almost a fact. As close to as a fact as I was ever going to get with Fred.

  Let’s just say I had a strong suspicion he was a hacker.

  He ignored my question. “I’m making beef bourguignon. Would you like to join me for dinner?”

  “How do you know I haven’t already eaten?”

  “I don’t know, but since you just arrived home, I assume you haven’t had time to eat. Feeding that hair factory who lives with you would be your first priority.”

  Fred pretended he didn’t like Henry and Henry pretended a supreme indifference to Fred. Actually, I don’t think Henry was pretending.

  Fred complained about Henry’s shedding, and Henry tossed out a few extra hairs every time he got close to Fred.

  “I’ll bring dessert,” I told Fred. I could almost hear him smiling. “Would you rather have chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese filling or chocolate fudge with peanut butter swirls?” I was teasing him. I knew the answer. “Or we could have both,” I added.

  “That’ll be fine. Come over as soon as you get Henry back in the house.” He hung up. Fred doesn’t believe in protracted farewells.

  There was no point in trying to figure out how he knew Henry was outside. I called my cat inside, grabbed the chocolate goodies I’d brought home from the shop, and headed next door.

  Fred’s house is older than mine, but you’d never know it. Everything down to the last splinter of wood and chip of paint is perfect. Last winter a piece of baseboard molding in his hallway separated from the wall by a fraction of an inch. I suggested he caulk it. I’ve caulked much wider gaps in my molding. Enough caulk can hide a multitude of sins. But Fred completely replaced the molding on both sides of his hallways so there’d be no gaps and both pieces would match perfectly.

  Once I squashed a spider on his hardwood floor—but that’s another story.

  Needless to say, his yard is also perfect—every blade of grass exactly the same length, every leaf on every bush and tree symmetrical, all his flowers bright and in full bloom. Having my less-than-perfect yard next door has been good for him. It’s taught him tolerance. Or maybe it’s just taught him to look the other way when he leaves his house.

  Fred answered my knock. “Bread just came out of the oven,” he said and turned to head back to the kitchen.

  Is there anything that smells better than freshly-baked bread? Okay, maybe my freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, but bread’s a close second.

  I followed the aroma and Fred’s tall, lanky frame through his shadowed living room to his kitchen with its wall of windows looking out on a forest of trees in his back yard. Those are the only windows in his house not covered by blinds. Of course, the trees create an effective curtain of greenery. Fred does not suffer from claustrophobia.

  He busied himself at his stove, and I sat down at his shiny oak table that, like the wire-framed glasses he wears, never gets smudged. With his white hair—always immaculate, of course—I’d guess Fred’s age to be somewhere between forty and sixty. It’s hard to be more exact, and he’s not going to tell.

  He served the beef concoction with a side of fresh asparagus, home-made bread with real butter and wine from a bottle with a cork in it. Fred never does anything by half.

  I took a bite of the beef. “This is wonderful.” Fortunately Fred’s culinary expertise doesn’t extend to chocolate. If it did, I’d have to kill him. There’s only room for one chocolatier in this town.

  “Thank you,” Fred replied as he meticulously transferred every mushroom from his plate to mine.

  “Not that I’m complaining about getting extra mushrooms, but why do you use them if you don’t like them?”

  Fred looked at me as if I’d just asked why the sun always rose in the east. “I put them in because the recipe calls for them. I take them out because I don’t like them.”

  It had been a stupid question.

  “That guy who got killed, Rodney Bradford, he wanted to buy my house for a lot more money than it’s worth.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “How did you know that?”

  Fred paused in the process of slathering butter on his bread. “You just told me.”

  “Oh. Well, why do you think he made that offer?”

  Fred ate a bite of beef, a bite of bread and a bite of asparagus. “I have no idea,” he finally said. “Do you?”

  I sipped the rich red wine from a cut-crystal glass and shook my head. “Not really. Rick said the man’s grandparents used to live here, and he wanted the place for sentimental reasons. You knew the previous owners, didn’t you?”

  “I moved in here a year before they left. You know a year isn’t time enough for me to develop a social relationship.”

  I smiled. “Except with me.”

  “You’re difficult to avoid. Besides, those people never offered me chocolate.”

  “Nevertheless, I know how nosy you are. You’re bound to have noticed something. Did you ever meet their grandson?”

  I waited while he ate another sequence of beef, bread and asparagus. “I believe I do remember a younger man coming to stay for a few weeks about five years ago. It could have been a grandson.”

  “Five years and how many months?”

  Fred paused in his eating and looked thoughtful.

  “I’m kidding! I don’t really need to know how many months. I was just—never mind. What did the guy look like?”

  Fred shrugged. “I don’t recall a lot about him. Medium height, thin brown hair.”

  The man could have gained weight, his hair could have gone gray and Fred, who stood well over six feet, probably had a different definition of medium height than I did. “Do you remember his name?”

  “I don’t believe we were ever introduced.”

  “I suppose it co
uld be the same guy. Maybe he really did want my house for sentimental reasons. But even if that part’s true, I’d be willing to bet that Rick was up to something.”

  “Or Bradford was up to something. He just got out of prison.”

  “What?” I almost choked on a piece of potato from the beef concoction.

  “I said, he just got out of prison.” Fred can be annoyingly literal.

  “When?”

  “Two months ago.” He calmly cut another slice of bread, the mundane act at odds with the information he’d just imparted.

  “What was he in prison for?”

  “Committing a crime.”

  Not that literal. He was jacking with me. He does that a lot. “Any crime in particular?”

  “Of course. They don’t send people to prison for nonspecific crimes.” He ate a few more bites, making me wait. I poked him with my fork.

  “Patience, Lindsay,” he said. “You need to learn patience. Bradford served three years for burglary. Homeowner woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and caught Bradford heading out the door with the silverware. It was a house in Prairie Village over on the Kansas side. The silverware was the real thing. The homeowner chased him outside and got his license plate. The police found other stolen items in Bradford’s home, and the man went to prison.”

  “I thought he looked like a criminal! Well, I thought he looked like a mobster. I guess I was giving him too much credit. So he was just a petty burglar.” I sipped my wine and contemplated the fact that Rick was involved with a convicted felon. Could I somehow use that knowledge against him, force him to sign the divorce papers by threatening to expose his friendship with a criminal?

  Probably not. Who’d care? He was already involved in half the shady real estate deals in the Kansas City area. One more criminal associate wouldn’t make a noticeable difference.

  Fred chewed, swallowed and took a sip of wine. “It does give rise to the question of why a petty burglar wanted your house so badly.”

  That was a very good question. “Maybe he needed a place close to your house so he could know when you were gone, break in here and steal your old movies.” Fred had one entire room dedicated to movies, especially old movies. They’re organized by VCR tape vs. DVD, then, within those physical categories, all are in order by title and cross-referenced on a dedicated computer by actors and subjects. Did I mention he’s a little OCD?

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Or maybe he planned to break into your house and hack into your computer and find out just what it is you do all day.” I was being sort of facetious, but not totally. It was possible that Rick’s felonious client wanted access to Fred’s house and Fred’s secrets. Those secrets could be valuable. That seemed much more likely than his wanting my house because his dear old grandmother once lived there.

  Fred ate his last bite of beef and drank his last sip of wine. Of course they ended at the same time. “I doubt Bradford would be smart enough to do that.”

  “He could be just a front man for somebody bigger, somebody who is smart enough.” Another thought occurred to me. “And rich enough. If Bradford was stealing silverware for a living, where did he get the money to make such an outrageous offer on my house?”

  Fred set his glass on the table and nodded. “Valid point. Maybe the reason he wanted your house has something to do with the reason he was killed.”

  “He was killed? When I talked to you a few minutes ago, you said you didn’t know how he died! Do you know something I don’t know?”

  “I know lots of things you don’t know. Did you bring the chocolate?”

  He knew I brought the chocolate. The plastic containers were sitting on his counter. He was trying to change the subject.

  Rodney Bradford’s autopsy might not be complete yet. The cops might not know the cause of Bradford’s death, but I had a sick feeling we’d all soon hear that the man had been murdered.

  Chapter Three

  I turned down Fred’s invitation to watch an old movie after dinner. I wouldn’t have minded another viewing of The Day the Earth Stood Still (the original, no remakes for Fred), but I wanted to have time to talk to Paula before we both had to call it a night in order to get up at 4:00 a.m.

  Paula’s house was on the other side of mine. In the gathering dusk, I crossed Fred’s golf-green yard, my easy-care yard and Paula’s normal yard. When I reached her front porch, I was surprised to see the interior door open, only the screen closed. That was a good sign compared to the days when she had all the doors and windows triple-locked in a futile attempt to stay safe from her crazy ex-husband.

  “Anlinny!” Zach spotted me and charged to the door, pressing his small hands, nose and forehead to the screen and looking really strange. Anlinny is his way of saying Aunt Lindsay. He was a big boy of two and a half and spoke most words semi-coherently, but I fear I will still be Anlinny when he graduates from college.

  I grinned down at him. “Hi, Hot Shot.”

  “Lindsay,” Paula said, pulling Zach aside and opening the door. “Come on in.”

  “Got cookies?” Zach asked hopefully.

  “No,” Paula said firmly. “You’ve had enough sugar for one day. You can visit with Aunt Lindsay for fifteen minutes, then you’re going to bed.”

  Zach opened his arms, and I reached down and scooped him up for a big hug. He was a happy kid with his mother’s blonde hair, blue eyes and sweet disposition and, thank goodness, none of his father’s evil traits.

  I carried him over to the beige sofa and sat down with him in my lap.

  Paula’s house is the same era as Fred’s and mine. Pretty much the whole neighborhood is except for that one place up the street that burned down in the ’50s and got replaced by a really ugly square building.

  Inside, however, our homes are very different. My house is furnished with bright colors and mismatched odds and ends I found at antique stores and garage sales. Fred’s is solidly masculine and sedately tasteful without a piece of lint or dust. Paula’s house, in spite of her attempts to create a bland setting with nondescript furnishings, is a riotous place of toys and games. In her attempts to hide from the world, Paula tried to make her person and her home invisible. However, Zach took care of adding a touch of individuality with his colorful toys. I bought him several of those toys like the bright red fire engine, the bright orange truck, the bright green ball…you get the idea.

  Zach tolerated my hugging on him for about thirty seconds then slid down and charged across the room. That kid has only two speeds—damn the torpedoes or sound asleep.

  “I’m glad you came by.” Paula moved a coloring book off the sofa and took a seat beside me. “That man dropping…” she glanced in Zach’s direction “…dropping to the sidewalk in front of the restaurant was disturbing.”

  “Disturbing? Yeah, you could say that, but only if you wanted to make a gross understatement.”

  Zach trotted over clutching the green ball that was almost as big as he was. “Play!” He handed me the ball then ran across the room and plopped down facing me.

  I moved to the floor and rolled the ball to him. He laughed in delight and rolled it back to me. Men are so easy to entertain at that age. Come to think of it, give them a ball at any age and they’re happy. Football, golf ball, baseball…men are fascinated with their balls.

  “How about a glass of wine?” Paula offered.

  I’d already had a glass at Fred’s, but it wasn’t like I’d have to drive home. I could easily crawl over to my house if the need arose. I rolled the ball to Zach again. “Sure, and pour an extra big one for yourself.”

  “Oh?” Paula gave me a questioning glance then disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Have you been a good boy?” I asked Zach.

  He clutched his ball, shook his head and giggled. “No!”

  “That’s my boy,” I encouraged.

  “Can I have Coke?” he asked hopefully.

  I glanced up to see Paula returning from the kitchen wit
h two glasses of white wine and a red sippy cup. The red sippy cup was a gift from me since Zach always wanted to drink from my red can.

  “Of course,” I said even though I knew the cup probably contained juice or milk.

  Paula gave Zach his cup and sat on the sofa, handing me a glass of wine then drinking delicately from the other. Paula’s petite, blonde and tiny, and most of her movements are fluid and delicate. I’m tall and gangly with freckles and messy red hair and have been known to trip over the grain in my hardwood floors. I’d hate her, but she’s so nice, that’s just not possible.

  I resumed my seat on the sofa and lifted my glass to Zach in a toast. He raised his sippy cup, and we both said, “Cheers!” then drank.

  “Bottoms up,” Paula advised her son. “It’s your bedtime. You want to get to sleep in time to see all your dreams.”

  “No!” Zach dropped his sippy cup to the floor and charged across the room to me. “I want to stay with Anlinny!” He grabbed my knees and looked up, his expression that of a man about to be hanged. “I stay with you!”

  I leaned over and pulled him into my lap. “How about I take you upstairs and tuck you into bed?” I smoothed his soft hair and kissed the top of his head.

  “No!”

  Over the last couple of months, that had become his favorite word.

  Paula rose. “Yes. Say good night to Aunt Lindsay.”

  “No!”

  Eventually the two of us got him upstairs and into bed. I think he was asleep before his head hit his Lion King pillowcase.

  Paula left the door slightly ajar, and we returned to the living room.

  “All right,” Paula said, resuming her seat on the sofa, “we have alcohol, and I brought home a couple of leftover cookies if we need them. I think we’re ready to talk about the possible side effects of a dead body in front of our restaurant.”

  I sat next to her and took another drink of wine. If I hadn’t already eaten two cupcakes and one piece of fudge, I’d have asked her to bring on the cookies. I do love chocolate. “Fred says that man just got out of prison.”