Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 01 - Death by Chocolate

by Sally Berneathy

  “Hi, it’s me. You okay?”

  “Who is this?” Her words were slightly slurred. Had Paula been drinking? She refused to even have a margarita with me, saying she had to be alert to take care of Zach. “Paula, it’s Lindsay. What’s wrong?”

  “Lindsay.” She drew in a loud, shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I must have fallen asleep on the sofa. My head’s really fuzzy.”

  “Well, wake up. I just ordered a pizza. It’ll be here in thirty minutes. You and Zach want to come over?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think so. I’m really tired. We went to the park after work, and now I think we’ll stay in the rest of the night.”

  “Okay. I’ll bring my pizza to your house.”

  There was a moment of silence, then she laughed. “Have you ever heard the word pushy?” It was the first time I’d heard her laugh since yesterday morning.

  “As in pushy broad? That’s what they put under my picture in my high school annual, and I was just a novice in those days. I like to think I’ve perfected the art since then.”

  She laughed again. “You have. All right, we’ll come over to your house as soon as I wash my face and get Zach up. He must be asleep, too. He isn’t trying to climb out of his playpen.”

  “See you in a little while, then.”

  I started to hang up when she screamed, “Lindsay!”

  “What?”

  “He’s gone! Zach’s not in his playpen!”

  “So he’s learned to climb out. He’s probably been doing it a long time and just crawls back in so you’ll think you have him corralled. Where’s he going to go with that maximum security system you have on all the doors and windows?”

  “The door’s open!”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  Chapter Six

  While Paula dashed up and down the stairs and back and forth through the rooms in complete panic, I shoved aside my own rising fears and methodically searched the house and yard. When I came in from the back, she ran to meet me, her eyes wide with terror, questions and hope.

  I shook my head. “He’s not out there.”

  She turned to charge off again, but I grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to stop and look at me. “You’ve got to calm down,” I admonished, trying to convince myself at the same time. “There’s no need to worry. Zach probably woke up, saw you were asleep and made good his escape. I don’t see his orange truck anywhere. I’ll bet he took that with him, wandered over to Fred’s house and right now he’s got Fred down on the floor rolling that truck around and making dumb noises.”

  She bit her lip, and I could see she really wanted to believe that scenario. “But Fred would have phoned me if Zach wandered over.”

  I knew she wanted me to find a logical refutation for that, but I couldn’t. I had to settle for a diversionary tactic. “You call him while I go check my house to see if Zach’s there.”

  She nodded and headed for the phone, so easily taking my directions, assuming I knew what I was talking about, that I knew what to do in this kind of a circumstance.

  I didn’t, and was, in fact, almost as panic-stricken as Paula. This situation had a bad feel to it.

  I went home and searched my house. I didn’t find Zach, but I did notice Adam Trent’s card lying on my nightstand. I picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of my cut-offs.

  I was outside on my hands and knees, peering under my porch when Fred came over.

  His normally unreadable expression was readable. He was worried, too. That made me more worried. “Paula called,” he said.

  “What do you make of it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s hard to believe she left the door open. I’ve seen maximum security prisons that weren’t locked up the way she locks that house.”

  I nodded, filing away for later reference the fact that he’d seen maximum security prisons. “But there’s no way Zach could have turned that deadbolt even if he could have reached it.”

  “No, he couldn’t,” Fred agreed. “Which means she must have left the door open.”

  “I suppose it’s possible. She’s been pretty stressed since that visit from the cops.”

  We hurried to Paula’s house and, as we ran onto the porch, a sudden chill darted down my spine and a shadow seemed to fall over the place. I wondered if King Henry would treat Paula’s porch with the same disdain and fear he’d had for the porch across the street yesterday.

  And that thought recalled the hole through the hedge with the perfect view of Paula’s house.

  My own panic climbed another notch.

  Paula burst through the door. “Did you find him? We need to search the neighborhood! He’s got to be around somewhere!”

  “We need to call 911,” I said.

  After yesterday’s reaction to the cops, I wasn’t surprised when her terror escalated. “No! He’s just wandered off. He’s only a little boy. He can’t have gone far. We’ll find him any minute. There’s no reason to call the police!”

  “They have people trained to search for missing kids.”

  Fred moved closer and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We’re going to find him. All kids like to play hide and seek.” I looked at Fred in amazement at this purported knowledge of the activities of all kids. Before he met Zach, he believed we were born as adults, and all those little people were an alien race. Sometimes he still acted like he wasn’t quite sure.

  He gave me a slight shrug and a helpless look, and I could tell he was winging it the same way I was.

  He propelled Paula back into the house, and I followed.

  I went straight to the phone beside the sofa. “They’ll want pictures of Zach,” I said as I dialed 911. “Can you find some recent ones?”

  Paula hesitated as if considering the possibility of telling me again not to call 911, but then nodded and left the room.

  I gave the operator the information, concluding by asking her to contact Adam Trent and relay everything to him.

  “Why did you do that?” Paula demanded. She’d come back into the room clutching a photo album just in time to hear my request. “We don’t need that detective back here. Zach doesn’t have any connection to Lester Mackey. Why did you ask them to send that man?”

  I wasn’t completely sure why I’d done it…the hole through the hedge, the way Henry had acted on the back porch of that vacant house, that chill down my spine as I stepped onto Paula’s porch.

  “He already has an interest in you,” I said. “He’s met Zach. That should give us an edge. Anyway, the more cops we get over here to search, the sooner you’ll have Zach back home with you.”

  Within ten minutes Paula’s house and the entire neighborhood were swarming with our boys in blue. Like I said, Pleasant Grove’s a quiet place. Apparently no one on the force was busy fighting crime or even issuing speeding tickets, so the entire department turned out to locate one little boy. I never thought I’d be happy to see cops.

  Donald Creighton was among the first to arrive. I was even happier to see a familiar face, especially since I remembered how he’d stooped down to talk to Zach and admire his truck. Finding the boy would, I thought, be more than just a job to him.

  He took the pictures Paula gave him and passed them around to the officers then had her describe the clothes Zach was wearing and the orange truck.

  I was pretty impressed with the way he handled things, but Paula became more agitated with every movement he made, every word out of his mouth. I expected her to burst into tears at any minute. I was close myself. At the same time, knowing her the way I did, I suspected she wouldn’t, or couldn’t, allow herself that loss of control.

  When Creighton instructed the officers to search the house, I thought she’d implode. “I’ve been through the house a dozen times. Lindsay’s been through the house. We can’t waste time here! We need to be out looking for him!”

  Creighton took her arm and gently guided her to the sofa. “We’ve got officers combing the neighborhood, but searching the house fir
st is standard procedure. We know you did a thorough job, but we have to do it again just so we can put it in our official report.”

  Fred and I, huddled together in one corner of the room in an effort to stay out of the way, exchanged glances. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was, that another standard procedure said that parents were always the first suspects in the case of missing children.

  We crossed the room to stand behind the sofa as if we could somehow support Paula by being back there.

  “Now,” Creighton said, taking out a small notepad and a pen, “I want you to tell me every detail of what happened from the time you last saw your son until I walked in that door.”

  He had a very soothing manner, but Paula wasn’t soothed. She sat stoically rigid, her fingers pleating and unpleating the fabric of her long skirt, and repeated in a monotone what she’d already told me. “I was so sure I locked the door. I always lock the door.”

  “She does,” I verified. “She’s a fanatic about locking her doors.”

  Even as the words left my mouth, I realized I was probably making it sound as if Paula had something to fear.

  “Very safety-conscious,” I explained. “Always wears her seat belt. Checks the batteries in her smoke detector. Looks both ways, twice, before crossing the street.”

  Fred kicked my shin before I could make things any worse with my babbling.

  “You’re the next door neighbor, right?” Creighton asked.

  “Right. I’m Lindsay Powell. And this is Fred Sommers. He’s her neighbor, too.” I felt a bit like I was presiding at a tea, introducing everybody, but Creighton merely nodded. “I’ll want to talk to you both in a few minutes.”

  About that time the door flew open, and Adam Trent strode in wearing faded jeans with a denim shirt. Tonight he looked more like a human being and less like a cop. He was big and solid and exuded dependability and self-confidence. I admit, I was even happier to see him than I’d been to see Donald Creighton. Right now we could use somebody who was dependable and confident.

  He looked around the room, those dark, woodsy eyes missing nothing. When he saw me, he lifted an eyebrow. “What’s going on?” he asked Creighton.

  “Missing boy,” he said and filled him in on the details.

  Trent nodded curtly as Creighton finished. “Any signs of forced entry?”

  Forced entry?

  “Nothing readily apparent on the front door. Fletcher’s checking the back now.”

  He turned his attention to Paula, and she flinched visibly. If Creighton’s soothing manner had failed to calm her, Trent’s abrasive manner could only make things worse. “Could the boy’s father have taken him?”

  I was very interested in hearing the answer to that question.

  “No,” she answered immediately.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “He doesn’t live here.”

  “Where does he live?”

  Paula hesitated too long, her eyes darting from side to side as if looking for an answer or a way to escape. Trent and Creighton exchanged significant glances. “He’s dead,” she finally said.

  Trent folded his arms and looked to me as if for confirmation. I smiled. He could interpret that any way he wanted.

  Another officer came up. “We’ve searched the premises thoroughly. The child’s not here.”

  “Of course he’s not here!” Paula snapped. “I told you we already looked. I wouldn’t need your help if he was safe at home!”

  Fred, standing directly behind her, laid a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Are there any places in the neighborhood where you take your son…to visit a friend, go to a park, anything like that?” Trent asked.

  Paula lifted a shaky hand toward Fred and me. “He loves to go to the park on Maple and twenty-first, but it’s half a mile away, too far for him to walk, and he wouldn’t know how to get there anyway. He’s just a baby.”

  “Check it out,” Trent told the officer who’d reported in regarding the search of the house.

  Trent focused on Paula again. “How about somebody who takes care of your son, a baby sitter who might have picked him up to go get pizza and just neglected to tell you?”

  “No. Nobody like that. I take him to Time for Kids Day Care Center when I work. Other than that, I’m always with him.”

  “Anybody at the center who’s especially fond of him?”

  “Everybody loves him. He’s a wonderful little boy.”

  “What’s the address for the day care place?”

  She gave it to him, and he snagged a female officer just coming in from the kitchen. “Check this out,” he instructed, tearing a sheet of paper out of his notebook and handing it to her. “The kid’s day care. See if anybody’s seen him, if any stranger’s been around asking about him.”

  Paula emitted a strangled sound at that remark, but somehow managed to retain her stoic demeanor. “Nobody could have taken him! I’d have heard them come in!”

  But she’d been sleeping awfully soundly when I called. I went cold all over at the thought of some pervert kidnapping Zach. I couldn’t begin to imagine the torment those same thoughts must be causing Paula.

  “What about boy friends?” Trent asked her. “Somebody you’re dating who really likes Zach?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t date.”

  He lifted a quizzical eyebrow at me, and I nodded, confirming her statement. Trent made a notation in his little book.

  “You told Officer Creighton you hadn’t intended to fall asleep, that one minute you were watching your son and the next thing you remembered was the phone ringing when Ms. Powell called you.”

  She drew a shaky hand across her forehead. “That’s right. We went to the park after work, then when we got home, I put Zach in his playpen and turned on cartoons. I had a headache, so I took a couple of aspirin and sat down for a few minutes before I started dinner. The next thing I knew was when Lindsay called me.”

  “Did you have a drink to help get rid of the headache, a glass of wine, maybe? Could that be why you fell asleep so easily?”

  “She goes to work at four in the morning!” I protested, not liking the way the questioning was headed. “Of course she was sleepy by that time! I took a nap myself.”

  He scowled at me. “Do you do this ventriloquist routine professionally or just to annoy people?”

  Paula sprang to her feet. “Stop it! You’re wasting time and it’s going to get dark soon! If you’re not going to look for my son, I will!”

  Creighton rose beside her. “We’ve got half the Pleasant Grove Police Department looking,” he assured her. “We’ll find your son.”

  She gave no indication that she’d heard him, but she did sit down again and pressed her fingertips against her temples. “I had two aspirins and a glass of water. That’s all. I guess I was more tired than I realized.”

  “Are you always such a heavy sleeper?”

  “No! I’m a very light sleeper. I don’t know how I could have slept through Zach’s leaving. Usually I hear him from my room if he coughs in the middle of the night.”

  “Could I see the bottle of aspirin?”

  “Why?” I asked.

  Trent’s jaw clenched. “Because you’re giving me a headache.”

  “I’ll get it.” Paula hurried from the room as if the faster she brought aspirin to Trent, the faster Zach would be found.

  “What are you trying to do to her?” I demanded of Trent.

  “I’m trying to find a missing kid. What are you trying to do?”

  “I’m trying to take care of my friend.”

  “Why does she need taking care of?”

  I glared at him. Why had I been glad to see him? Why had I asked the dispatcher to call him? “I need to talk to you about something that probably doesn’t have anything to do with Zach, but it might.”

  “What?”

  “Not now.”

  Paula walked back into the room and handed Trent a small white bottle. />
  “This is a vitamin bottle,” he said, turning it in his fingers.

  “We buy aspirin in bulk at the shop and then we bring a few home with us when we need them,” I explained and earned myself another glare.

  “Do you mind if I take a couple of them with me?”

  Her hands fluttered helplessly. “Take the whole bottle. I don’t care.”

  “A couple’ll do.”

  “You want some water to take those with?” I asked as he slid the pills into his shirt pocket. “Or did you plan to absorb them through your shirt? I don’t think aspirins work that way.”

  “Do you have any coffee made?” he asked Paula, ignoring me.

  “What? Coffee? No. No, I don’t.”

  “Then why don’t you go in the kitchen and make a pot.”

  “I don’t want to make coffee! I want to find Zach! There’s a convenience store over on Main Street. If you want something to drink, go down there.”

  “I know you don’t want to make coffee, but I want you to. You need to make it and then you need to drink some as well as offer it to the others here.”

  Busy work, I thought, something for Paula to do to distract her from the problem at hand. Okay, I’d give Trent one point for that, but he was still about fifty points in the hole.

  “I’ll go with you,” Creighton offered.

  Paula didn’t look too happy about that, but Fred jumped into the breach. “Me, too. I could use a cup of coffee.”

  Fred never drank coffee after noon. He was pulling out all the stops in his effort to help Paula.

  As soon as the three of them were out of the room, Trent turned to me. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

  “Let’s go out on the porch.”

  Trent nodded and I followed him outside.

  “First,” I said, folding my arms and trying to look authoritative…not an easy task in cut-offs and sneakers, “I want to know what the deal is with the aspirin. You’re going to have it analyzed, aren’t you? It’s aspirin, that’s all! I bought it. I put the pills in that old vitamin bottle with my own hands and then gave it to Paula.”