Death by Chocolate

by Steven Henry

  “Evening,” she said. “Guess what? I’m off work early.”

  “That’s grand,” he said. “And what exactly were you planning on doing with your unexpected free time?”

  “I was thinking of going home, having a nice, relaxing shower, taking it easy, maybe getting some takeout for dinner.”

  “And would these plans be solitary, or would you be wanting company?”

  She smiled to herself. “I’ll be home in half an hour,” she said. “You want to come looking, you know where to find me.”

  Exactly thirty minutes later, there was a knock at Erin’s apartment door. She’d just finished walking Rolf and was giving him his supper. The apartment had a lock on the outer door, but Morton Carlyle wasn’t the sort of man to let something like that stand in his way. There he was in the hallway, a slender, handsome man, impeccably dressed, with silver hair and intensely blue eyes. He had a bottle of wine in one hand and a paper bag in the other.

  “I hope you’ve no objection to Italian,” he said with a smile.

  “C’mon in,” she said, stepping back from the door and holstering her Glock.

  “Still answering the door with your revolver, I see.”

  “A serial killer tried to take me out last year,” she reminded him. “I can’t believe you don’t carry, after all the shit that’s happened to you.”

  “I’m not licensed. One of New York’s finest, encouraging me to break the law? I believe that’s called entrapment.” He set the bag and bottle on the kitchen counter. “As I recall, you’ve a fondness for spaghetti, with meatballs.”

  “Everyone likes spaghetti,” she said, but she was secretly pleased. They’d gone out for Italian only once, almost a month ago, and he’d remembered her order. That was Carlyle. He didn’t miss much, and never forgot anything.

  “If you’re ready, we can set the table,” he said.

  “I actually still need to shower,” she said. “I just got home.”

  “Not to worry,” he said. “I’ll get things ready, pour the wine.”

  “You could do that,” she said, giving him a smile. “Or you could join me.”

  He returned the smile. “I suppose the food can keep a few minutes.”

  * * *

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Lorenzo Bianchi?” Erin asked, later.

  They were sitting at her small dining table, spaghetti in front of her, Carlyle with a plate of gnocchi. Rolf lay at Erin’s feet, keeping an eye on Carlyle. She’d accepted him, so the K-9 did too, but the dog wanted the Irishman to know he’d better keep in line.

  Carlyle raised an eyebrow. “Old Sewer Pipe? I know him, aye. That is to say, I know of him. We’ve not met face to face, and I doubt he’d think of me as a friend.”

  “Some bad blood?”

  “Something of the sort.”

  “What can you tell me about him?”

  Carlyle took a sip of his Chianti. “The lad came up through his family in Brooklyn, in the sanitation business. He handled a few dustmen’s lorries.”

  It took her a second to translate. “Garbage trucks?”

  “Aye.”

  “Bianchi was part of the Garbage War, back in the ‘90s,” Erin said, remembering something her father had told her about Carlyle. “That was when you were getting started with the O’Malleys. Did you blow up Bianchi’s trucks?”

  “There’s no statute of limitations on arson, darling,” he said gently. “Are you certain you’re wanting to ask me that?”

  Erin shook her head. “No one got hurt in any of those bombings.” She knew, because she’d checked. It was the one series of crimes she was sure Carlyle had been involved in, and when they’d started seeing each other, she’d had to know. He’d been a suspect in half a dozen truck bombings, but all of them had happened at night, in deserted parking lots. The O’Malleys had been trying to put their competitors out of business, but as Carlyle had explained to Erin once before, blood was an expense best avoided. He’d taken pains not to hurt anyone. At least, that was what she told herself.

  “Right now, I just want to know about Bianchi,” she said, steering clear of the subject of Carlyle’s past activities. “His name got brought up in a case.”

  “My understanding is that he’s not particularly active on the street,” Carlyle said. “If you’re investigating a murder, I’d be astonished to find him involved. He’s somewhat older than I am, darling. Street crime is a young hoodlum’s game.”

  Erin nodded. “Can you find out if he knows anything about poisons?”

  His eyebrows went up again. “I’ll see what I can discover. While we’re on the subject of hobnobbing with my associates, there’s a small matter I’d like to discuss.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Evan phoned me just after you called this evening. He’s suggested a sit-down at the Corner. He’d like to invite you to attend.”

  Erin’s stomach tightened. Evan O’Malley was Carlyle’s boss, the head of the family. She’d never met him in person.

  “Was that an order he gave you?” she asked.

  “He phrased it as a request,” Carlyle said.

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow night. Eight o’clock.”

  “That soon?”

  “He doesn’t like his movements known terribly far in advance,” Carlyle said. “It’ll be an informal gathering. We’ll use the back room. It’ll be a social gathering, an evening of cards.”

  “What kind of cards?”

  “Evan’s quite fond of poker. Texas hold ‘em, specifically. You needn’t be concerned about the wagering. I’ll be happy to stake you.”

  She stared at him. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You want me to play poker with a mob boss?”

  “And his lieutenants,” he said. “And myself, of course. I imagine most of the others will attend, too. You’ll know Corky, naturally. Then there’ll be Mickey, Liam, and maybe Veronica. And Finnegan.”

  “Why are we doing this?” she asked.

  “You know perfectly well,” he replied. “As long as we’re peddling the fiction that you’re my source within the department, Evan wants to get a look at you. Cards are his way of taking the measure of a lad, or a lass.”

  “And you think this is a good idea?”

  “I think it’s necessary. I’ve managed to postpone this meeting as long as I can, getting him used to the idea of you. I’ve prepared the way as much as I can. Now it’s time to see the thing through.”

  Erin shook her head. “You remember I’m not actually working for the O’Malleys, right?”

  “Oh aye,” he said. He paused to take a bite of gnocchi and another sip of wine. “You do know the best way to lie, don’t you?”

  “What’s that?”

  He looked her straight in the eye. “Don’t. Tell the truth. Tell all the truth you can.”

  “And let the other guy fill in the blanks with what he wants to believe,” she agreed. “But you’re better at it than I am. You make it look easy.”

  “There’s nothing easy about it, darling,” he said. “I’d be lying myself if I told you there was no chance of trouble. Some of the most dangerous folk I know will be in that room. But you’ll have allies, too. Corky’s in my corner, and I’ll watch your back. We’ll manage it, no fear.”

  She smiled a little shakily. “This is making me wonder if this whole thing is worth it.”

  “Meaning me? Us?” He reached across the table and caressed her cheek. Her skin tingled at his touch. “Surely you don’t mean that.”

  “No,” she said, but a little part of her still wondered.

  * * *

  That night, after Carlyle had gone home, Erin lay in bed and tried to think. Rolf was curled up at her feet, but the bed felt empty. Six weeks, and she still wasn’t even sure what to call the thing she had with Carlyle. An affair? A fling? He said he loved her, and to Erin’s knowledge, he’d never told her an outright lie, but even if that was true, was it enough?

  They were pl
aying an extremely dangerous game. They’d agreed there were two ways to satisfy his colleagues. The first was to pretend he’d turned her, made her into a dirty cop on the O’Malley payroll. She’d never taken money from Carlyle, but money laundering was one of his jobs in the O’Malleys, and she knew he could cook the books a little further so it looked like she was getting payoffs. To keep up the fiction, she could feed the Irish Mob little tidbits of information, and make sure their rivals went down. The other option was to play the part of a lovesick woman whose head had been turned by a handsome Irishman.

  They’d decided to focus on that angle. It had the advantage of being mostly true. However, it was also riskier, in that the other O’Malleys might not buy it. No wonder they wanted to see her face to face.

  In the meantime, of course, she had to keep doing her real job, while avoiding tripping any switches at Internal Affairs. She had a friend there, Kira Jones, a former Major Crimes detective, but Erin didn’t know whether she could trust Kira to warn her of trouble upstairs.

  If the NYPD got suspicious, her career was in jeopardy. She might be fired, or even prosecuted, depending on what happened. If the O’Malleys found out she wasn’t really working for them, they’d probably try to kill her, and Carlyle, too, for good measure.

  The bottom line was, if she didn’t love Carlyle, she had to be out of her damn mind doing what she was doing with him. No matter how good the sex was.

  She smiled to herself. The sex was good, no doubt about that. Great, even. But was it worth risking her life?

  Tomorrow, she’d find out whether she could fool a bunch of violent, paranoid gangsters. That thought didn’t help her get to sleep.

  Chapter 4

  Following a restless night, Erin and Rolf were the first members of the Major Crimes team to arrive at work. The top message in Erin’s inbox was a notification that Norman Ridgeway’s autopsy was done. The advantage of working Major Crimes was that their cases went to the front of the queue. Erin fortified herself with another cup of coffee. Then she and Rolf went down to the basement, into the domain of the Medical Examiner.

  Sarah Levine didn’t even look up as Erin and her dog entered her lab. The ME was peering at a sectioned piece of some human tissue or other, intent on her work.

  “Morning,” Erin said.

  Levine blinked and stepped back from the microscope. “That’s true,” she said after consulting the clock over the door.

  “You’ve got the Ridgeway results?” Erin prompted. Rolf stayed at her side, but his nostrils were twitching. The ME’s lab had some of the most interesting smells in the whole precinct.

  “Yes,” Levine said. She picked up a folder and flipped it open. “Norman Ridgeway, age thirty-six. Male, Caucasian, seventy-two inches in height, weight one-ninety. Cause of death, cardiac arrest as a direct result of acute cyanide poisoning. I didn’t need to do a full blood workup. Cyanide presents with obvious symptoms. The poison was ingested shortly before death.”

  “Was it the candy?” Erin asked.

  “I’ve confirmed through stomach contents and dentition that the victim ingested at least one piece of chocolate at approximately the time of death,” Levine said. “The absence of other food particles in the teeth suggests the chocolate was the medium by which the poison was introduced. Additionally, I tested the remaining chocolates in the assortment. One uneaten piece also tested positive for a lethal dosage of cyanide. Almond nougat, according to the label on the packaging.”

  “So, it’s officially a homicide?”

  Levine nodded. “Correct. Unless the victim knew the chocolates were poisoned, in which case it would be suicide, either assisted or solo.”

  “Anything else the autopsy told you?” Erin asked.

  “The mouth swab turned up trace amounts of lipstick, coral pink in color. The same color of lipstick turns up in trace amounts elsewhere on the body, particularly on the—”

  “I get the picture,” Erin said quickly. She didn’t need that image, especially with Ridgeways corpse lying right there beside them.

  “The lipstick suggested that I could probably retrieve usable DNA from both the mouth swab and all other points of contact,” Levine went on.

  Erin nodded. Amber Hayward had been wearing coral pink lipstick, and it had looked a little smudged. “Is that it?” she asked.

  “The victim was sexually active within the twenty-four hours preceding death.”

  “No shit,” Erin said. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “I’m referring to a prior encounter,” Levine said. “I found some trace fluids. He’d showered between encounters, but some evidence was left behind.”

  “With the same woman?”

  Levine shrugged. “I’ll know when we run a DNA cross. If we had blood samples, we could compare blood types more quickly, but the encounter appears to have been insufficiently forceful to result in blood loss to either party. The DNA will be three months’ turnaround, given the current lab backlog.”

  Erin wrinkled her nose at the other woman. “So, you’re saying it’s a bad thing he didn’t like it rough?”

  The Medical Examiner shrugged again. “The more violent the encounter, the more forensic evidence is likely to remain.”

  “It might be better not to describe it that way to the Lieutenant, if he ever comes down here.”

  “Voltaire said, ‘To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.’” Levine paused. “Of course, he said it in French.”

  Erin was startled. “You’ve read Voltaire?”

  “Only the stuff he wrote about death.”

  * * *

  Erin gladly retreated from the formaldehyde stench of Levine’s laboratory, back to the Major Crimes office. Webb had gotten there while she’d been downstairs. He was frowning at their whiteboard, a cup of coffee in one hand, his customary unlit cigarette in the other.

  “We need to know what Ridgeway was doing before he died,” Erin said by way of greeting. “And who he was doing it with. I think we might have another suspect.”

  Webb raised his eyebrows. “Do tell.”

  “He was getting it on with the hygienist when he died,” she said.

  “Yeah, we know.”

  “According to Levine, he was doing something similar within the past day.”

  “The hygienist again?”

  “Maybe. But she thinks maybe not.”

  Webb nodded thoughtfully. “Okay, we need to make sure. Get in touch with the Hayward girl, find out if she was the partner. If not, then we need to know who else was in the picture. If there’s another girlfriend, and she’s the jealous type, maybe she figured a way to poison him. Hell, maybe she thought she’d take out him and Hayward both.”

  “Or maybe Hayward’s jealous herself,” Erin added. “And she fed Ridgeway the chocolate.”

  Webb nodded. “You’re right. Good work, Detective. Not even nine in the morning, and you’ve lengthened the suspect list by two. Maybe a little later, we can start whittling it down again.”

  Vic came out of the stairwell, holding a big soda cup. “Give me good news,” he said. “I struck out with the Feds yesterday. They’ve got this firewall of petty bureaucrats in the RICO division. I wasn’t able to get through to anyone important.”

  “Levine finished checking our victim, and the candy box,” Erin said. “One of the other chocolates was poisoned. Almond flavored.”

  “Good,” Vic said. “I don’t like almonds.”

  “Hides the cyanide taste,” Webb said. “Not that it’d do our victim any good. Your average Joe doesn’t keep an antidote kit lying around.”

  “It makes sense not to poison all the candy,” Erin said. “Especially if you want to throw off suspicion by eating with the victim.”

  “Risky,” Vic said. “You ever try to track down your favorite flavor in one of those boxes? Get it turned around, you might get a mouthful of poison. Or worse, coconut shavings.”

  “That’s worse?” she asked.


  “Cyanide kills you,” he replied. “You only wish coconut could.”

  “Sorry they don’t make vodka-flavored chocolate,” Erin said. “For your sake.”

  “Sure they do,” Vic said. “You clearly don’t shop at the right stores.”

  “This is all very interesting,” Webb said. “But—”

  “—we’ve got work to do,” Erin and Vic chorused in unison.

  Webb gave them a sour look. “Okay, we’ve got four suspects, currently. Rocky Nicoletti, Paulie Bianchi, Amber Hayward, and an unknown second girl. First order of business, we need to identify the Jane Doe. We’ll start by doing a dump of Ridgeway’s phone. It should be down in Evidence.”

  “I’ll do it,” Erin offered.

  “I’ll go after Bianchi,” Vic said, a little too eagerly.

  “No,” Webb said flatly. “I told you yesterday, we have to move carefully with him. Rocky’s still in a holding cell. I want you to lean on Nicoletti a little harder. My gut says he’s not our guy, but he’s the only one we’ve got right now. Shake him. See what falls out of his pockets.”

  Vic grinned. “One shaken loser, coming right up. What’re you gonna be doing, sir?”

  “Taking one for the team,” Webb said. “Since you hate the FBI so much, and you couldn’t manage to talk your way around a couple of useless desk jockeys, I’ll get in touch with the Feebies. If I can convince them to give us the green light on Bianchi, that’ll open up some options.”

  * * *

  Erin checked Ridgeway’s phone out of Evidence and took it to the tech guys. These cops could break the encryption drug lords used to lock their bank accounts; a Manhattan dentist presented no obstacle at all. Their method, however, was a little disturbing.

  “He’s got a biometric access,” the techie told her. “We need his password, or we just need his index finger.”

  “Can it still be attached to the body?”

  He shrugged. “If you insist.”