Chocolate Dipped Death

by Sammi Carter

  I sprinkled a little sugar into my smile. “I’m sure he would. Now, can we please talk about something else?”

  Rachel shrugged, and I took that to mean that she agreed.

  Bea scowled and asked, “Like what?”

  Nothing that would make Bea think about Rachel and her eating habits or Jawarski and me. I seized on an idea that had occurred to me earlier that morning. “Well, like, what we should do when the contest gets under way again. We can’t just go on as if nothing has happened. We need to acknowledge Savannah’s death somehow.”

  Tiny pinch marks formed over Bea’s ski-jump nose. “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I just think we should do something . Maybe somebody could say a few words. . .”

  “You want them to be nice words?” Rachel asked. “Because if you do, you’re going to have to hire somebody who never knew her.”

  “That’s pretty harsh,” Bea said, pulling a roll of gold-edged labels from the supply cupboard and slapping them onto half-pound bags of taffy I’d filled earlier. “I hope you don’t let her husband hear you talking like that.”

  “Of course I won’t,” Rachel said, “I’m not stupid. Besides, I feel sorry for the poor guy. Not only did he have to put up with Savannah twenty-four hours a day for however many years they were together, but now he has to go through this. God only knows what else Savannah put him through.”

  “The good thing is, people are concerned,” I said. “I talked to Faith Bond the other night. She was planning to check on Miles and make sure he has everything he needs.”

  “Well, that’s good.” Bea’s scowl relaxed slightly. “I didn’t realize Faith knew Savannah.”

  “She would have known her in school,” I said. “At least a little. Our graduating class wasn’t that big.”

  “Well, I hope theirs isn’t the only church that makes an appearance at the lodge. If you want my opinion, the entire town should rally around that poor man.”

  “I’m sure people will, once word gets out,” I assured her.

  “Not if Delta has anything to say about it,” Rachel said somberly. “She’d like to see him leave town and never come back.”

  I nodded, still bothered by the lack of familial closeness. “And she’ll get her wish, I’m sure. He’ll have to start that new job in New York soon, won’t he?”

  “Is he going to New York?” Bea stopped working and frowned at the price stickers I’d made earlier. “I thought he was going somewhere else. The half-pound bags are three forty-nine, Abby. Don’t you have Grace’s price list?”

  “I do. I decided to raise the price last week. When did you see Miles, and what gave you the idea he was going someplace besides New York?”

  Bea found a pen and started writing new price stickers. “I really don’t think that’s wise, Abby. People are used to the way Aunt Grace did things when she was alive. That’s why they come to Divinity. If you start changing everything now, you could lose business.”

  Tension knotted in my neck. “I’m not changing everything,” I said, struggling to keep my voice sounding normal. “I changed one thing. One tiny little thing. I raised the price of a half-pound bag of taffy by a dime. I hardly think ten pennies are going to cause a revolution.”

  Bea stared at me, unflinching. “You’re missing my point, Abby.”

  I stared back. “Actually, Bea, I don’t think I am. You want to tell me how to run the store. The point you seem to be missing is that Aunt Grace left Divinity to me. That means she trusted me to make decisions, to raise prices, to add products or even discontinue them if I think that’s what’s best for business. Nowhere in her will did it specify that I had to take a family vote every time I want to blow my nose.”

  Bea’s shoulders stiffened, and her chin lifted. “Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody ever said anything about taking a family vote, and all I’m doing is trying to help. Obviously, you don’t appreciate it.”

  “I do appreciate it,” I assured her, still thinking I might be able to sound calm and rational. “I just need you to support me instead of second-guessing me.”

  “I see. So you want me to just keep my mouth shut when I see you making a mistake?”

  Yes! “No. I want you to let me make decisions and then see what happens. Some of them might be mistakes, but making mistakes is part of learning, isn’t it?”

  “Under other circumstances I’d say yes, but your mistakes could destroy something near and dear to all of us.”

  First Karen, now Bea. How many other cousins were out there filled with resentment over Aunt Grace’s will, waiting to see me fail? I hoped not many. I wasn’t sure I could stand up to the whole family.

  You have to understand one thing about the Shaw cousins. They don’t respect a quitter, and they don’t respect anyone who won’t fight back. We might have some knock-down-drag-outs from time to time. The finger-pointing and name-calling might get a bit severe. But you’re a whole lot more likely to keep their respect if you go nose-to-nose, give as good as you get.

  “You’re so certain I’m going to destroy Divinity,” I shouted, “you’re standing here with your arms out, waiting for the chance to catch what falls. Well, I just might surprise you, Bea. I might not destroy the store after all.”

  “You will if you mess with Grace’s formula for success.”

  “Grace didn’t have a formula,” I snapped. “She rolled with the punches, and she changed with the times. That was the best thing about her. If she’d taken your attitude, we’d still be charging forty-nine cents for that half pound of taffy. And I don’t think Aunt Grace would be all that happy listening to you insult the customers.”

  Cheeks aflame, Bea tugged off her apron and tossed it onto the counter. “It’s obvious that I’m not appreciated around here, so I’ll leave. You can mail my check.”

  In case you haven’t caught on by now, my family is a passionate lot. Some might even say we tend toward the melodramatic. “You can’t quit. There’s no way I can handle the party this weekend and run the store. And what about my appointment with Ruth Cohen?”

  Bea stopped with her hand on the door and glowered back at me. “I have absolutely no idea what you’re going to do, Abby, but I’m sure you’ll figure it out. After all, this is your store. So go ahead. Do what you want with it. Just don’t ask me for help next time you run into a brick wall.”

  She slammed the door behind her, and I turned, wild-eyed, to Rachel. “What just happened?”

  “I think she quit.”

  Thank you, Captain Obvious. “Was I wrong?” Clearly, there was only one right answer to that question, but Rachel didn’t seem to realize it. She gave a laugh and gathered her things. “Oh no you don’t. I’m not getting in the middle of a Shaw family argument.”

  “But—”

  “I have to get back anyway. My break is over.”

  And just like that, she was gone, leaving me alone with a store to run and half a dozen samples to make before tomorrow’s meeting. I was just naïve enough to think things couldn’t get any worse.

  The rest of the day went by in a blur of customers, telephone calls, and planning everything I could on paper, since I couldn’t spend time in the kitchen. I told myself that writing everything down would save me time once I closed the shop and started cooking.

  I had just finished a sale for a woman wearing far too much makeup when the phone rang. Grabbing the cordless with one hand and several boxes of peanut brittle I needed to reshelve, I scooted out from behind the counter. “Divinity Confectioners, making every day a little sweeter.”

  “Abby? Brenda Hayden here.” My confused silence must have warned her that I didn’t place her name because she added, “from the classifieds at the Post? You talked to me the other day about a want ad in this week’s paper?”

  “Oh. Sure. Yes. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m afraid we have a problem. I didn’t get a chance to run the credit card you gave me until this morning, and the bank won’t honor
the charge. It says here that your account is over its limit—?”

  I dropped one box of brittle but managed, barely, to hang on to the rest. “Impossible. That’s a business account. I don’t use it for anything else.”

  “Well, I’m sure you can clear that up with your bank. Our problem is that without payment, we can’t run your ad.”

  “I’ll stick a check in the mail. You should have it by tomorrow.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be good enough,” Brenda said. At least she managed to sound regretful. “The deadline is five o’clock today. If I don’t have your payment, I have to offer the ad space to someone else.”

  “But you can’t do that! I need that ad to run.”

  “It’s only four o’clock,” she said, trying, I’m sure, to be helpful. “There’s plenty of time to get your payment here before five.”

  “Except that I can’t leave the store because I’m alone here. By the strangest coincidence, that’s why I need that ad to run.” The past few days had taken their toll. I didn’t mean to get testy with Brenda. I just couldn’t seem to help myself.

  “Listen,” she said, showing remarkable patience, “I understand completely. I just need you to understand that my hands are tied. Sloan has issued a moratorium against extending credit to anybody. If I let you slide, even until tomorrow, he’ll fire me.”

  Sloan Williamson is the editor/owner of the Post, and though I seriously doubted that he’d fire anybody, I wasn’t certain enough to put her job at risk. Having one of us on the line was enough.

  “Just see what you can do to get the payment over here, okay?” she said. “I’ll hold your spot as long as I can, but I’m only here until five thirty, and I can’t even guarantee it that long.”

  I assured her that I understood, slid the rest of the peanut brittle onto the shelf, and started running down my A-list for the third time in as many days. When my sister-in-law, Elizabeth, answered on the first ring, I hoped my luck was changing. But when she worried that she couldn’t make the drive to town in time herself and suggested that I call Dana, who just happened to be in town with Wyatt, hope dwindled again.

  Unfortunately, time was running out, and I didn’t see many other possibilities dancing out there on the horizon. Lucky for me, Dana answered her cell phone and promised to come right over—which I took to mean that her dad wasn’t sitting right there monitoring her every word. And that, I figured, had to be a good sign.

  Dana arrived ten minutes later, red-cheeked from the cold and still sporting a rod through her tongue. I was encouraged to discover that not only had Wyatt caved in at some point, but there was a fairly good chance that my customers might actually understand Dana when she spoke to them.

  Vowing to catch up on all the details later, I grabbed my checkbook and dashed outside just as a group of teenage boys piled out of an SUV laden with snowboards and headed toward the shop. Looked like Dana was in for a good time.

  Long afternoon shadows stretched across the street, and I stood for a minute, watching my breath form clouds around me, while I debated whether to take the long way around or climb the three sets of stairs that led up the mountain to Escalante Street. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a no-brainer, I’d have hopped in the Jetta and driven myself there. But the roads were already clogged with tourists, and my watch said four thirty. I didn’t want to take any chances.

  I was seriously contemplating my last will and testament when I finally reached the end of my climb. The temperature couldn’t have been more than twenty degrees, but I’d worked up a healthy sweat as I climbed. I did my best to ignore the trickles of perspiration snaking down the sides of my face and inching down my back, and kept walking.

  With just ten minutes to spare, I pushed into the Post’s brick-front building and asked for Brenda Hayden. She kept me waiting so long, I was starting to get antsy again, but finally a short, round, redhead with no eyebrows and a smile that lit up her face cruised toward me with one hand outstretched. “Abby? Brenda. I’m so glad you were able to get here on time.”

  “You’re not the only one.” I shook her hand and pulled the check from my pocket. “So we’re okay? The ad will run as scheduled?”

  “We should be fine. Sloan wants me to phone the bank to make sure this will clear.” She leaned in closer and dropped her voice. “You know, because of the other thing. That’s not a problem for you, is it?”

  “Not at all. There shouldn’t have been any problem with the credit card, either.” I was ninety-nine percent certain that my balance was at least eight hundred dollars below my limit, and I knew I hadn’t ordered that many supplies.

  Brenda smiled. “I’m sure it’s just some kind of book-keeping snafu.” She started walking back the direction she’d come, nodding to indicate that I should walk with her.

  I figured she probably wanted me to wait until she cleared my check, and I was happy to do it. I’d rather not make another mad dash up the steps if I didn’t have to. I followed her down a long corridor lined with offices, some of which were empty, while others buzzed with activity as the staff tried to put this issue of the Post to bed.

  “You’re lucky we had space enough for a few want ads this week,” Brenda said as she ushered me into a cramped office at the end of the hall. “Sloan cut out everything he deemed unnecessary to make room for the Savannah Horne murder. What a tragedy.”

  I agreed that it was and made myself relatively comfortable in a hard wooden chair in front of her desk.

  Brenda patted the mounds of paper covering her desk, apparently looking for something. After a minute, her face brightened, and she pulled the local phone book from beneath a stack of colored file folders. “That poor, poor man,” she said as she flipped through the Yellow Pages. “My heart just aches for him.”

  I assumed she was talking about Miles, so I agreed again. “It would be hard enough to lose your spouse, but to have it happen in a strange place would make it all that much harder. Have you heard whether his family will be coming?”

  Brenda found the number she wanted and dialed. “What family?”

  “I thought he had family,” I said, trying to remember why I thought that.

  “Not according to what he told Sloan this afternoon.” Apparently on hold, she cradled the phone between neck and chin and leaned onto her desk eagerly. “He told Sloan that he’s alone in the world now. Did he tell you something different?”

  I thought back, trying to separate actual conversations from impressions and assumptions, and finally shook my head. “I’m not sure why I thought that. I’ve heard so many things over the past few days, I probably misunderstood.”

  The expectant smile faded from Brenda’s face, and she punched a couple of numbers on her phone. “You and me both. I swear, if I didn’t write everything down—” She broke off, spent a few minutes speaking with someone at the bank to verify that I actually had money, and finally disconnected with a smile. “Looks like you’re in business. The ad will be in tomorrow’s paper. You should start getting calls soon.”

  Terrific. Positive steps. That had to be better than waiting around for Karen to come to her senses and realize what a mistake she’d made. If I waited for that to happen, I might never leave the shop again.

  Chapter 15

  The sun had disappeared behind the mountains when I stepped outside again, so I decided to take the long way back to Divinity. Dana would be all right for a few more minutes, and my legs were still shaky from the climb. I didn’t trust myself to go down three flights of steep, narrow stairs in the dark.

  Maybe I should have gone straight back to the shop, but when I reached the corner of Prospector and Forest and spotted Paisley’s yellow bug sitting in front of the Curl Up and Dye, I decided to take a brief detour.

  I was still bothered by that offhand comment about Miles having no family. Still trying to remember why I thought he had. If anybody knew the answer, Delta would. Yes, I still thought she might be the one who ran Savannah down, but I didn
’t intend to let her know that I suspected her. And maybe I would have to dance around Paisley’s efforts to give me a makeover, but it was just one quick question. I would be in and out. Surely, I could hold Paisley off for that long.

  Paisley was in the middle of giving a haircut when I came through the door, but she beamed with delight when she saw me, abandoned her customer, and bounced up to the counter. She’s a short woman with freckles that she tries to hide under a thick layer of foundation and powder.

  It doesn’t work.

  Unlike her clientele, Paisley’s hair changes style and color at least once a week. I think she considers herself a walking billboard for the salon. I think she might be more effective if she wasn’t perennially popping a wad of gum.

  This week’s hair was pale blonde and layered, shades of Farrah Fawcett in her Charlie’s Angels days. In honor of her look, Paisley wore a pair of pink leggings, an oversized shirt belted at the waist, ’80s style, and a pink tunic—paisley patterned, of course.

  She held out both arms as she came toward me, as if we were the dearest of friends. “Abby! It is so great to see you here.” Chomp! Pop! Chomp! Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I’m almost finished with Natalie, and I don’t have another appointment between now and closing.”

  I backed up a step, but I also tried to look regretful. It seemed like the polite thing to do. “Thanks, Paisley, but I’m not here for a cut. I’m looking for Delta. Is she working tonight?”

  Paisley’s face fell. “No.” Pop! Snap! “She asked for a couple of days off. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why.”

  I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed maybe. I didn’t want to drive out to Delta’s house just to get the answer to one little question. “Do you know if she’s at home?”

  “Well, now, I’m not sure.” Paisley tapped the comb she held against her hand and popped and chomped some more. “She asked for the time off, but I didn’t ask what she was planning to do with it. I can call and ask if you want me to. No sense driving all the way over there for nothing.”