Death by Chocolate

by G. A. McKevett

  Dirk’s eyes got just as icy. “Do I need a friggin’ search warrant to count the friggin’ bottles? That would mean I’d have to come back here again and have yet another one of these scintillating conversations with you. And as appealing as that may be, I—”

  “All right, all right. Come on.”

  She directed them behind the closed counter and to a door in the back. With a key on the ring that she had in her pocket, she unlocked the door and directed them inside. “Don’t touch anything,” she said.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dirk replied.

  Savannah held up both hands. “Me either.”

  The druggist shuffled around some boxes, rearranged some, and finally thrust one of them at Dirk. ‘There you are,” she said. ‘Thirty-six bottles of phenylprophedrine.”

  It didn’t take Dirk long to count. He skimmed his fingers over the contents of the box, looked up and gave Savannah a broad grin. “Thirty-four,” he said.

  “Thirty-four?” Mildred snatched the box away from him and conducted her own tally. “You’re right,” she said, although her tone suggested that those words were foreign in her vocabulary. “Two of them are missing.”

  “Who else has access to this room?” he asked.

  “Just myself and my assistant, Karen, have keys.”

  “Do you have a delivery boy?”

  She nodded.

  “A young kid, tall and skinny?”

  “Well, yes. Tony’s slender and tall. Why?”

  “Does he ever come into this room?”

  “I... well... I suppose he might from time to time.... to get something for me or for Karen if we ask him to.” Mildred’s icy crust was beginning to develop some cracks. Her voice quivered a bit as she said, “Did you say you’re investigating a murder? Tony’s a good kid. He’d never—”

  “I didn’t say he would,” Dirk replied. “Where is Tony right now?”

  “Out making a delivery.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “Anytime now. Sometimes his old car breaks down and he’s gone a long time, but I think it’s been running better lately.”

  Dirk nodded. “Right. Well, before he gets back I need you to do something else for me. I need to know how many times Tony has made deliveries to a customer of yours, Louise Maxwell, and the dates of those deliveries.”

  “But... but...” Now Mildred’s lower lip was trembling, and her hands shook as she replaced the box of phenylprophedrine on the shelf. “I don’t want to get Tony in trouble. Like I said, he's a good boy, my cousin's oldest son.”

  “Don't worry about it, Mildred,” Dirk said with only a touch of sympathy warming his words. “I've got a feeling that, with or without your help, Tony's already in trouble.”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know Louise Maxwell, Tony, because I hate people who lie to me,” Dirk told the teenager, “and you don’t want me hating you right now. I’m the only friend you’ve got.”

  Tony Doyle was doing exactly what Dirk intended him to do in the “sweat box”: sweat—profusely. Of course, with the temperature in the eight-by-ten-foot room being a balmy 85, Dirk, Tony, and Savannah were all three damp of brow and moist of armpit. Tony was sitting at a stainless-steel table, his hands clasped tightly in front of him.

  Savannah had pulled a chair into the corner where she sat... and observed.... and listened. Watching Dirk in action was always an entertaining pastime. With his flair for the dramatic, he could have played Hamlet onstage. Only his aversion to tights and tunics had kept him from a promising acting career.

  He paced, as much as the tiny room would allow, back and forth behind his interviewee, leaning over him, raising his voice until it bounced off the gray walls and rattled the kid’s nerves.

  “You delivered drugs to her house six times last month alone. And almost every time your ‘car broke down’ and you were gone for hours, right?”

  Tony shrugged his shoulders, which were broad for his age. He had the build of a football player and was definitely what girls his age would have called “cute.” Savannah could imagine women her own age—and Louise’s—thinking the same thing. With his curly dark hair, bright green eyes, and muscular body, she understood why Louise might have kept ordering from Rx Shop.

  The question was, what else had she asked him to do?

  Dirk was getting around to that.

  “Did she give you an extra-special tip?” Dirk said, leaning over the boy’s head and talking down at him. “Was that why you were so late getting back to the store... because you were busy collecting?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Tony insisted. “I deliver a lot of stuff to a lot of people, and most of them give me a tip.”

  Dirk walked around the table so that he could face Tony and let the kid read his expression when he said, “You deliver a lot of phenylprophedrine? You have a lot of people who ask you to sneak that out of the back room for them.... or is Louise the only one who offered you a little nookie in exchange for that?”

  Bull’s-eye. The boy’s face turned a lovely shade of crimson. He stared down at his hands and clasped them even tighter.

  “N-n-n-oo,” he stammered.

  “Oh, yeah. You did.” Dirk leaned his hands on the table and stared at the boy, his face only a foot away from his. “She asked you to get her a couple of bottles of phenylprophedrine, and you did, and you got lucky. We already know that. We know all about it. Why else do you think we dragged you in here?”

  Tony’s eyes darted to Dirk, to Savannah, and back. “I.... I don’t know why. I mean.... even if I did.... it was just two bottles of some discontinued stuff. Is the shop saying I stole from them? I can pay them back. They can take the money out of my paycheck.”

  “We’re not worried about petty theft here,” Dirk said. “Together the bottles were probably worth less than ten bucks. It’s what they were used for.”

  Savannah watched, noting the confusion that flooded his face. Tony was a cutie, but he wasn’t clever enough to be a good liar.

  “What do you mean? It was cold medicine. She had a runny nose and a cough.”

  “Is that what she told you?” Dirk said.

  “Yeah, she said that phenylprophedrine was the only thing that really dried up a cold for her, and she couldn’t get it anymore because it had been pulled off the shelf.”

  “Do you know why it had been pulled?” Dirk asked. Tony thought for a moment. “Yeah. It wasn’t good for people with bad hearts, or something like that. But she said she was healthy, except for her stuffy nose and a cough.”

  “You told her it wasn’t good for people with heart conditions, and she told you she was healthy?”

  “Yeah... well.... no. Her note said that she knew it had been pulled off the shelves because it wasn’t good for some people, but she said it wouldn’t hurt her, that she really needed some for her cold.”

  Savannah shot Dirk a quick look. “Her note?” she said. “She asked you for the phenylprophedrine in a note?”

  “Yeah. She sent me notes sometimes, left them in my mail slot at work, ‘cause I was always gone out on deliveries.”

  “What kind of notes?” Dirk asked. “Love notes, stuff like that?”

  Tony blushed. “Yeah, she sent me a couple.... you know.... after...”

  “After you and her got down and dirty?” Dirk added. Nodding, he said, “Yeah. But it wasn’t dirty or nothing. We were in love.”

  “Were?” Savannah asked. ‘You’re not anymore?” Tears flooded his eyes. “Well, I am, but I don’t think she is. She hasn’t called me, or ordered anything from the pharmacy, or left me any more notes.”

  “Let me guess,” Dirk said dryly. “She fell out of love about the time you gave her the phenylprophedrine.”

  “I haven’t heard anything from her since then.” His confusion deepened. “Why.... do you think that was all she was after? But it was just stupid cold medicine!”

  “Are you telling me that you really don’t know what she wanted
that stuff for?” Dirk was leaning so close to Tony that their noses were nearly touching. “Don’t lie to me, damn it. I can help you out here, boy, but if you lie to me, I’ll fry your ass, I swear.”

  “Her note said it was for a cold. Really.” Tony suddenly brightened. “Hey, I’ve still got it. I kept the letter. If you want to read it, you can.”

  Dirk smiled. Broadly. He gave Savannah a loaded look.

  “Did Louise type her letters or handwrite them?” Dirk asked.

  “She typed them.... on her computer, I think. And she signed it, ‘Love, Louise’ with a little heart to dot the ’i‘”

  “Oh, yes,” Dirk said. “We definitely want to look at that letter right away.”

  Savannah didn’t have to ask; she knew they were thinking the same thing. Wouldn’t it be interesting if that note were written in a certain large Arial font?

  Chapter

  21

  Savannah recognized the tan parchment stationery even before she got a look at the type of print on it. Tony was holding the paper out to Dirk with a trembling hand, and in his other hand he held a cigar box with several more letters on the same stationery. A treasure trove!

  She could tell that Dirk was trying hard not to show his excitement as he took the page from Tony with a gloved hand and looked it over. He showed it to Savannah, and she, too, swallowed a smile.

  I gotcha, you rat-bitch, Louise, she thought. Send nasty letters to your mommy, will you? Write a kid love letters and get him to help you kill her, huh?

  But she said nothing... simply nodded.

  Nothing felt better than when you got a break in a case, unless the bad guy, or gal, was also somebody you really, really disliked.

  Tony seemed to sense their satisfaction, and he stopped trembling for the first time since Dirk had picked him up at the drugstore. After being questioned at the station, he had brought them to his house in downtown San Carmelita, where he lived with his mother, and invited them inside. He had practically run into his bedroom and then came out with the cigar box in hand, eager to help in any way.

  Dirk never exactly bubbled over with gratitude, but he did lay a gloved hand on the kid’s shoulder and say, “It’s a good thing you came clean with this, Tony. This letter puts you pretty much in the clear and helps us with our case.”

  Tony flushed with joy that bordered on giddiness. Then a shadow of concern crossed his face. ‘You’re not going to do anything to Louise, are you? It was just a couple of bottles of medicine, right?”

  Dirk shot a guilt-laden look at Savannah, and she quickly stepped forward. ‘You can’t worry about Louise, Tony,” she said. “If she’s got problems, she caused them herself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Savannah weighed her words, wanting to be honest with the young man, but not spill more than was necessary. She had learned long ago that in the course of an investigation, you had to dole out information strictly on a need-to-know basis.

  “I mean,” she said, “that Louise didn’t treat you very well, Tony, and you don’t owe her a thing. You just remember that, okay?”

  He nodded, still looking confused. ‘Yeah, okay.”

  At that moment the front door of the house opened, and a woman who vaguely resembled Mildred the pharmacist walked inside. She didn’t look at all pleased to see the gathering in her living room.

  She would be even less pleased when she found out who they were and why they were talking to her son.

  Dirk shoved a business card into Tony’s hand and took the cigar box from under his arm. “Thanks a million, buddy,” he said. “Give me a call if you have any questions. I’ll be in touch.”

  As he and Savannah sailed past Mom, she said, “Who the hell are you?”

  “Public servants, ma’am,” Dirk replied. ‘Just servin’ the public.”

  “Protect and serve,” Savannah added as they darted out the door.

  They reached the sidewalk and Dirk’s Buick without further interference.

  “Pretty good,” he said as they climbed inside. ‘The kid didn’t lawyer up, and he gave us our first big break.”

  “And his momma didn’t take a bite outta your ass.” She smiled and looked at the cigar box which he was slipping into a brown paper evidence bag. “All in all, not a bad afternoon’s work.”

  When Dirk found out that he wasn’t going to be able to get a search warrant for Louise’s place until the next morning, Savannah decided to call it quits early and spend some quality time with her sister.

  But upon arriving home, she found the reception decidedly chilly. Cordele was sitting in Savannah’s favorite reading chair, writing in a rather somber-looking black journal of some sort and had little to say to her in the way of greeting. The cats sat on the ottoman in their usual places, one on either side of her feet.

  At least they were happy to see her. They jumped off the footstool and ran to her, mewing, tails arched like big black question marks.

  As they tangled themselves around her ankles, she bent and stroked their glossy coats, wondering as always at the quality of unconditional love offered by animals.

  “Okay,” she said as she led them into the kitchen, “your love is somewhat dependent upon a never-ending supply of food and a clean litter box, but...”

  After scooping some smelly goop into each of two bowls and refreshing their water, she went to the refrigerator and looked inside. “Hey, you want a glass of lemonade?” she called to Cordele. “I just squeezed it this morning. It’s the real thing.”

  “Does it have sugar in it?” came the first words heard from the living room.

  “Ye-e-es.”

  Whoever heard of lemonade without sugar? she thought as she poured herself a tall glass. What a chucklehead.

  “I can make you some iced tea,” she offered, trying to sound more generous than she felt. “No sugar.”

  “With caffeine?”

  She gritted her teeth. “I wasn’t going to add any, but it’s just regular ol’ tea, so...”

  “Then it has caffeine. No, thank you.”

  “At least she said ‘Thank you,’ ” Savannah muttered. “Otherwise I might have had to beat her into a—”

  “Are you talking to me?”

  “No. Just mumbling to myself.” She took her lemonade and walked into the living room, resisting the urge to run upstairs to her bedroom and nail the door shut. “Are you hungry for supper yet?”

  “No. I’ve been working on my journal this afternoon, and, to be honest, I’ve sort of lost my appetite.”

  Savannah sank wearily onto the sofa and propped her feet on the coffee table. To heck with it. Who cared if one’s tabletop got scratched? Who cared if one’s younger sister sat on a fence post and spun clockwise.... or counterclockwise, for that matter?

  “Lost your appetite, huh?” she said. “Been reminiscing again about rotten cats caught in briar patches?” Cordele shot her a hostile, hurt look over the top of the journal. “No-o-o. My entries are about painful, wounding events that are a little more recent.”

  “How recent?”

  “Yesterday. Today.”

  “Damn, that’s what I was afraid of,” Savannah mumbled and buried her nose in her lemonade glass, taking a long, long drink.

  As Cordele sat, radiating disapproval, wrapped in silence, Savannah knew that she was expected to inquire. She was supposed to ask about her transgressions du jour and then beg for forgiveness.

  Funny, she just wasn’t in the mood to play the game. So, she sipped her lemonade and radiated her own brand of silence. Gee, she was happy she’d come home early! Who would have missed this?

  “In case you’re wondering...” Cordele began.

  I wasn’t. Really. I’m not that curious.

  “…I’ve recorded the amount of quality time you and I have shared since I arrived on Tuesday. It’s now Friday. That’s four days. And in those four days”—she opened her journal and scanned several pages before continuing—“we have spent a grand total of four hours a
nd fifteen minutes of semi-intimate time together. I flew all the way to California for four hours and fifteen minutes with my oldest sister. Pretty pitiful, huh?”

  Savannah set her lemonade on the coffee table. Screw the coaster. Who cared about circles when they were about to commit murder?

  “How about the barbecue we had?” she asked. “That alone was four hours.”

  “We weren’t alone. You had your friends over. It wasn’t quality time.”

  “How about the beach?”

  “That was included.”

  “And the mall?”

  Cordele thumbed through a few pages of her journal. “It’s in there. One hour and twelve minutes.”

  Savannah snapped. She turned on Cordele like a rabid squirrel. “Do you mean to tell me that you’ve been keeping track since you got here... right down to the minutes? Is that what you’re telling me, Cordele Reid, that you’ve been counting the cotton-pickin’ minutes that we’ve spent together and writing them down there in your little black book?”

  Cordele hitched her chin upward. Her lower lip trembled. “Yes, I certainly have. Writing in my journal is a coping mechanism for me.”

  Savannah drew a deep breath. “Cordele, I want you to stop and think about this objectively for a moment. Doesn’t that strike you as just a wee little bit anal-retentive and petty, not to mention downright stupid?”

  Okay, she had meant to say that a tad more diplomatically, but.... the words were already out.... hanging like lead balloons in the air between them.

  “Not at all,” Cordele said, tears glistening in her eyes. “I record things in my journal that are important to me. Family is important to me. You”—gulp... sniff—“are important to me.”

  “You’re important to me, Cor—”

  “Not that I can tell. You’ve been gone nearly the whole four days, and when you are here, you’re distant, emotionally unavailable to me.”

  Savannah looked upward and silently prayed, Lord, help me understand my sister, like Gran said I should. Please, give me patience.