Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 01 - Death by Chocolate

by Sally Berneathy

  He walked out the door onto my porch, then turned back. “I’m probably going to regret this, but that apartment you asked about earlier is approximately three miles from here, over on Sycamore. Pretty close.”

  Before I could get over my shock and press my advantage by asking more questions, he strode down the walk to his car.

  At least I had a start now. Not a specific address, but Sycamore was a short street. There couldn’t be many apartments on it.

  I chug-a-lugged the rest of my Coke and was on the way to the kitchen for a shot of chocolate when Fred came to the door.

  “Come on in,” I invited. “We need to talk.” And I needed to figure out a way to convince him to come with me to locate and talk to Lester Mackey’s landlord.

  What an interesting coincidence that the first three letters of convince are con.

  ***

  I did convince Fred (or conned him; whatever) to go with me and was sleeping the sound sleep of the happily guilty when Henry, making horrible, jungle-cat noises, woke me at two a.m.

  From the first night, he’d insisted on sleeping curled around my feet. I let him. It was kind of nice, having a male in bed who didn’t give me any flack and only wanted to keep my feet warm. But it wasn’t nice to be awakened at two a.m. to a racket like that.

  I turned on the light and saw him standing with his paws on the window sill looking out the open window, his tail erect and the hair on his back standing up.

  That certainly made the hair on the back of my neck stand up and my mouth go dry.

  I barreled out of bed and charged over to the window, my gaze going straight to the vacant house across from Paula’s. It was quiet and dark in the moonless night, but the red tail lights on the car disappearing up the street caught my attention.

  The tail lights of an SUV.

  I’m pretty night-blind and the street lamp had apparently burned out, but I didn’t need to be able to see clearly to know that the color of that SUV was Hunter Green, and the license plate belonged to Rick.

  I sat down on the bed and laid my head in my hands. I could only speculate as to what he was doing at my house at that hour. Had Muffy kicked him out? Had he slipped her some ersatz aspirin like Paula had taken, then sneaked out when she went to sleep, hoping for another illicit rendezvous with me?

  Surely if he’d knocked, I’d have heard him. Or maybe not. Maybe I was sleeping so soundly, I didn’t hear him and he gave up and left.

  A good thing, too, because who knows if I would have had sense enough to send him away? I’d like to think I would have, but two in the morning is a lonely time of the night. People do crazy things at that hour.

  I said virtually the same thing about Saturday evening, didn’t I?

  Okay, so some of us are capable of doing crazy things at any time.

  “Let’s go back to bed, Henry. We’ve got another hour.” I turned off the light and lay down.

  Henry continued his caterwauling, becoming more agitated instead of less. I hadn’t really expected to be able to go back to sleep, but I wouldn’t even be able to relax if he kept up that noise.

  “Give it a rest, buddy! Rick’s gone. I saw him drive away.”

  I tried to convince myself I was grateful I had a watch-cat.

  A visiting watch-cat. I had phoned in an ad to the Pleasant Grove newspaper as well as the Kansas City Star. His owner would come to claim him any day. I needed to remember that, especially since I was becoming kind of attached to him. He was good company, warm and fuzzy, undemanding (even feeding him is a snap; just open a bag), listened well and, Fred assured me, would never cheat on me since he had only testicular remnants. Now he’d shown himself to be a good watch-cat. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted his owner to find him.

  After a few minutes, he finally gave up and came back to bed, as calm as though nothing had happened. If scientists could just figure out the chemical make-up of cats, Prozac would be out of business.

  Of course, we might all be chasing mice and coughing up fur balls, but I suppose nothing is without side effects.

  In the meantime, I stared into the quiet darkness until the alarm shrieked in evil triumph at three a.m.

  Half an hour later I trudged downstairs, dressed in my cooking clothes—shorts and T-shirt—and carrying my serve-the-customer clothes—long peasant skirt and matching blouse. Paula had selected the latter as our uniform. It matched the trendy atmosphere, she said. She cooked in her uniform and an apron. I didn’t dare have my uniform in the same room when I cooked, or it would have more chocolate than my brownies. Besides, I didn’t have any reason to hide my arms and legs. Okay, they’re fish-belly white and have a few freckles…but no scars. I suspected that was the real reason for Paula’s choice of our uniform.

  As I crossed the living room, the light scent of the yellow roses drifted over to greet me. My first response was a warm glow at the familiar fragrance and what it meant. But immediately memory kicked in and reminded me how things had changed. I should have pitched the damned flowers.

  I went to the kitchen and got a cold Coke from the refrigerator, popped the top and took my first drink of the day, savoring the feel of the bubbles dancing over my tongue and down my throat. That helped my mood a little.

  However, opening the front door to find a large basket holding three Easter eggs set my mood back. I knew they were from Rick and it was a really neat thing to do and I hated that it gave me a little warm spot in my heart. He used to do that a lot…give me “unbirthday presents,” send me a Valentine in the middle of June, put up the Christmas tree and sing carols in August.

  Henry sniffed the basket and its contents then stepped away disdainfully and sniffed or sneezed or whatever that thing was that he did. Obviously he hadn’t forgotten the instant-coffee-in-the-briefcase caper.

  Neither had I.

  Nevertheless, knowing I shouldn’t, I picked up one of the eggs and studied it in the light from the street lamp. It had a picture of a house. Another showed two people holding hands, the man with blond hair and the woman with red curls. The third was an intricate heart with our names inside. The pictures were small and sketchy but recognizable. Rick was fairly artistic and painting on canvas or eggs had, like everything in his life, always come easily to him. Even so, he must have spent quite a bit of time working on those eggs.

  The basket was much larger than necessary to hold those eggs, and I wondered if Rick had planned to leave something else but Henry had frightened him away.

  I decided I’d take the over-sized basket with me as I drove to work, pitch the eggs into the street one at a time, then entertain myself all day with thoughts of hundreds of cars running over them, squishing Rick’s art work into the pavement.

  As I headed toward my garage, Henry strolled over to inspect a dark object lying on Paula’s sidewalk. His posture and tail carriage indicated he had the same opinion of the object as he’d had of our visitor last night. Had Rick left another present after all, a present that somehow ended up on Paula’s walk?

  I walked over to check it out, and about that time Paula’s door opened. She and Zach came outside. Zach was doing a pretty fair imitation of a kid awakened at three-thirty in the morning who’s still half asleep, but he managed a wave and a sleepy, “Anlinny!”

  “Morning, Hot Shot!”

  Henry stepped back from the object as I approached, and it occurred to me that his attitude last night and just now was pretty much the same as it had been on the porch of the house across the street. Surely Rick hadn’t been skulking around that house, leaving his scent to freak out Henry.

  Nah. He preferred to do his skulking in hotel rooms and his own bedroom.

  Maybe cats had a limited range of reactions…sleepy, happy and totally freaked.

  I stooped and lifted the object, a teddy bear. A mangled teddy bear with a red-streaked hole in his chest as if someone had carelessly ripped out his heart. Rick was a little confused, I thought. The bear should have been a female.

  “Lester!�
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  I looked up to see Paula standing beside me with Zach in her arms. Her eyes were wide and her face pale. I wondered how many times her body could do that routine before it became permanent. Kind of like when I was young and my mother told me not to cross my eyes because they might stay that way. Actually, I wasn’t completely convinced that Paula’s fright mask hadn’t already become permanent. Teddy bears, even wounded ones, don’t usually terrify people.

  “This bear’s name is Lester? How do you know that?” I asked. I can only plead the ridiculous hour of the morning that it took me a couple of seconds to grasp the full impact of what she’d said. “Are we talking about Lester Mackey? I thought you didn’t know the man.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t.”

  “Then what—”

  “Lindsay, you can’t ask me. You can’t know.”

  I threw my hands into the air. “Do you have any idea how crazy this is? Okay, you’ve got secrets about your past that you don’t want to share. Fine. Far be it from me to pry. But this is the present and you’re my friend and I live right next door to you and work with you all day! Sooner or later, I’m bound to find out what’s going on. Do you think you could at least give me a clue as to what possible significance a stuffed bear can have in all this?”

  She looked chagrined…but determined to keep her secrets. And I’d always thought I had the market cornered on obstinacy.

  I studied the mutilated bear. “It’s the chest thing, isn’t it? You think somebody’s threatening to cut a hole in your heart?” I lifted the basket of eggs. “It’s not you. I had a visit from a demented un-Easter bunny last night about two o’clock. I’m sure the bear was supposed to be a part of this package. Rick either got scared and tossed the bear when Henry started making a God-awful racket or else some animal, maybe a ‘possum or a raccoon, dragged it from the basket over to your walk.”

  She shook her head. “No. It was meant for me.”

  “Paula, you’re being paranoid! Look. Big basket with only three eggs. The bear’s heart has been ripped out. That’s what Rick’s trying to say I’m doing to him.”

  “There’s blood everywhere.”

  Everywhere? There were only a few streaks of red on his chest. I filed her comment away with Fred’s knowledge of maximum security prisons. Someday I’d figure out my friends’ secrets.

  “It’s not blood. It’s…” I hesitated, sniffed the bear and could feel myself blushing. “It’s raspberry syrup.”

  That got her attention. I was afraid it would. “Raspberry syrup?”

  “That’s right. Come on, we need to get to the shop.”

  I plopped the bear into the basket of eggs and started back toward my garage, but her voice stopped me. “Why would anybody pour raspberry syrup around a hole in a stuffed bear’s chest?”

  “Trust me. Rick would. Let’s go. Time’s wasting. We’ve got bagels and doughnuts to make and coffee to brew.”

  She didn’t budge. “Why would Rick put raspberry syrup on this bear?”

  I heaved a martyred sigh. “You won’t tell me anything about your past life and Fred won’t tell me what he does all day, but the two of you expect to know every detail of my life!”

  Paula waited expectantly, hopefully. What the hell. I only had a few remaining shreds of privacy. I might as well sacrifice them to reassure my friend. “Rick always said my—” I gestured vaguely toward my breasts and could feel my face getting hotter, probably lighting up the night like a neon sign. “He thought…well, you know, raspberries. And then he found this raspberry syrup and he’d pour it—” I gestured again and Paula burst into laughter. At least my humiliation had lightened her mood.

  “Okay, I get the picture!”

  “Good. Then let’s go to work.” I took a couple more steps toward my garage.

  “Lindsay?”

  I turned back.

  “Thanks. For everything.”

  I shrugged and grinned. “Don’t you dare smirk the next time I make my Chocolate Cake to Die for with Raspberry Sauce.”

  She went to her car which stayed parked in her driveway in good weather because the garage door was so hard to open, and I lifted my own garage door. It seemed especially recalcitrant that morning…which didn’t help my disposition. I cursed Rick softly but fervently as I entered the garage. Embarrassment, anger, loss of sleep…none of those things quite managed to override the sentimental feelings he’d stirred with those stupid eggs and that mangled bear. Okay, the bear verged on macabre, but it was clever.

  I tried to revive my post-leaving fantasies of the various ways I could kill Rick…strangulation, stabbing, gunshot, trauma to the head with a rusty iron skillet…

  I noticed a length of nylon cord lying on the garage floor and added hanging to my list.

  In fact, what I should do is hang the bear and give it back to him. Maybe then he’d get the message and leave me alone.

  I scooped up the cord, fashioned it into a reasonable facsimile of a hangman’s noose, and put it around the bear’s neck. “It’s just for show,” I told him. “I won’t tighten it. Anyway, Rick already murdered you with that slash to the heart.”

  I got in my car and started the engine. If I hurried, I could run by his house, hang the bear and still make it to the shop in time to get everything done. Surely the traffic cops wouldn’t be looking for speeders at this hour.

  They weren’t, and I managed to leave the bear dangling from a limb of the tree outside Rick and Muffy’s front door, get to work, and have everything ready by the time the first customer arrived.

  I considered leaving the eggs at his house, too. But that would have been a waste of good eggs. Instead I peeled them, ground the pretty shells in the garbage disposal, and Zach and I ate the hard-boiled eggs for breakfast.

  Everything was going well and I was feeling quite proud of myself until Rick called at nine thirty-five.

  I was up to my elbows in chocolate cheesecake when the phone rang. Paula had just left to take Zach to day care, so I dashed into our pseudo-office and snatched up the receiver. “Death by Chocolate. This is Lindsay Powell.”

  “That was pretty crass, Lindsay,” Rick said.

  I assumed he wasn’t talking about my phone greeting. “I’m crass? You’re the one who cut out the poor little bear’s heart.”

  “I cut out his heart? I did no such thing. You cut out his heart and then hung him! Muffy was completely freaked out! Do you know what it’s like to look out your window and see a bear hanging from a tree, a bear you gave as a present to someone you care about?”

  “Do you know what it’s like to leave your house at three thirty a.m., half asleep, and find a bear with a gaping hole in his chest?”

  There was a moment of silence. Then in a quieter, slightly confused voice— “He really had that hole when you found him? Lindsay, I drew a heart on that bear with raspberry syrup. I didn’t cut that hole.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No, I didn’t. You didn’t?”

  “Well, I guess some animal likes raspberry syrup and nibbled a little too deep.”

  “That’s disgusting!”

  “Crass,” I agreed.

  “I’m sorry, babe. I wanted it to be a fun surprise for you, not something to shock your sensibilities. I’ll just have to bring you another bear. I have plenty of raspberry syrup.” Rick’s voice dropped into a low, intimate tone.

  “Do not bring me another bear or send more flowers!”

  “Did you enjoy the roses? Were they fresh?”

  “They were beautiful. I enjoyed them, but I’d rather you didn’t send me any more. Why are you doing this? Did you and Tuffy have a fight?”

  “Muffy. No, we didn’t have a fight. It’s just that she’s not you. I miss you. Can’t we try to work things out?”

  I ordered my lips to say the word No! in an emphatic tone, but my throat and vocal chords ignored me.

  “How about dinner tonight?” he asked, correctly interpreting my hesitation.

&n
bsp; “I already have plans.”

  “Tomorrow night, then.”

  “I’ll call you. I have to go now. A buzzer just went off in the kitchen.”

  “Did you like the eggs?” He couldn’t resist tossing in one last tug at the old heartstrings.

  “They were okay. A little too done.”

  “A little too—you ate them?”

  “Yep. You know how crass I am. Gotta run. Bye.”

  I hung up the phone, shoved some of Zach’s colorful plastic toys off the sofa and sank down, trying to sort out the kaleidoscope spinning around in my head. Rick’s persistence and my weakness were a part of that mass confusion, but not the major part.

  The hole in that bear’s heart had been cleanly cut as if with a knife or scissors. There were no irregular rips and no evidence of sharp animal teeth. If Rick hadn’t done it, who had…and why?

  Chapter Eight

  I went straight home from work and changed into pantyhose, white blouse, black skirt and blazer for my visit to Lester Mackey’s apartment building. I had some sort of illusion that I should look official, a female version of the Men in Black. I actually looked more like I was going to a funeral, which was what I’d bought the outfit for in the first place, but it was all I had that even remotely qualified as official looking.

  When I rang Fred’s door bell, I was loaded for bear, as it were, prepared to do battle if he tried to back out of going. As soon as he opened the door, I began a hurried account of the murdered teddy bear.

  When I stopped to take a breath, he asked if I knew what I might be getting into. I lied and said I did.

  He stepped outside and I noticed he was wearing a dark suit, too. I hadn’t even realized he owned one. Probably bought his for funerals, too. Whose funerals? Who did he know besides Paula and me?

  “We’re taking my car,” he said adamantly, indicating his 1968 mint-condition Mercedes. White and gleaming like a toothpaste ad, it sat in his driveway, ready to roll. “Your driving sends me into cardiac arrest,” he explained.

  That was fine with me. Not only would this be my first ride in his pampered vehicle, but if we’d taken my Celica, I’d have had to clean out my front seat for him to sit there. That task would take a while and possibly uncover Coke cans dating back to my high school years.