Guns, Wives and Chocolate

by Sally Berneathy

  I looked at Fred’s house. No light shone from any of the windows. He could be awake, sitting in the darkness, doing a mind-meld with aliens.

  But it probably wasn’t a good idea to disturb him on the sole excuse that my cat was being weird. He and Henry don’t always see blue eye to blue eye. They’re too much alike. Except Fred doesn’t eat mice. As far as I know.

  I had my phone and my stun gun. If the house was on fire, I would call 911. If we encountered anything more than a mouse, I could stun the intruder then call Fred to help me haul off the body.

  I followed Henry.

  He slipped silently onto Grace’s porch and planted himself in front of the door, tail waving high in the air.

  He wanted to go inside.

  I did not.

  “Door’s locked.” Why was I whispering?

  A light flashed inside the house.

  Damn.

  It was the wrong season for fireflies. Somebody was inside Grace’s house.

  I took my cell phone from my robe pocket and prepared to call Fred. I fumbled with the phone and almost dropped it. My hand might have been shaking a little. I’d been sort of kidding when I told Henry there could be a drug dealer, a murderer, or another wife lurking in the night.

  The light flashed again, briefly illuminating a face.

  My hand steadied as hot anger bubbled up from my gut and replaced the chill of the night.

  George was inside Grace’s house.

  I didn’t need Fred’s help on this one. I put my phone in my pocket and took out my stun gun.

  The front door swung open at my touch.

  Henry darted inside.

  I entered and flipped on the overhead light. “What are you doing here?”

  George cursed and sprinted across the room toward the kitchen...toward the back door.

  He was not going to escape so easily.

  “Sic him!”

  Henry and I charged.

  George was on the threshold of the kitchen when I caught him, shoved my stun gun against the flannel shirt covering his back, and hit the button. He screamed, flailed his arms, and fell forward.

  I screamed, flailed my arms, and almost fell backward.

  My shock was mental, surprise at how effectively the plastic thing worked.

  George’s was physical.

  He wasn’t dead. He thrashed around on the floor and said some words I won’t repeat.

  I stood over him, holding my stun gun at the ready. “I’m going to tell your grandmother what you said!”

  He cursed some more.

  Henry moved closer, looked him in the eye and snarled, baring his half inch fangs.

  George shut up and lay quietly.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked again.

  His gaze shifted from Henry to me and back again. “Grace wanted me to check on things while she’s…you know…gone.”

  “I hate it when somebody lies to me.” I zapped his knee.

  He screamed and cursed and twitched some more.

  This device was a good deal. With a real gun, he’d have been dead from the first shot. Torturing him was much more satisfying.

  “Let’s try that again. What are you doing here?”

  “Go to hell, bitch!” He tried to sit up.

  Henry hissed.

  I zapped George’s thigh. “That’s bitch-with-a-stun-gun-and-a-bad-temper! Next time it’s going to be your crotch.”

  His angry expression said a lot of evil words, but he refrained from verbalizing them.

  I wouldn’t have really placed my nice purple stun gun on his crotch. Who knows what disgusting creatures might leap out and contaminate my new toy?

  “I’m also the bitch who’s dating a cop. Maybe you’d rather talk to him so the both of you can explain to your parole officer what you’re doing in Grace’s house in the middle of the night.”

  His eyes tightened to dangerous slits.

  I took a step back but kept my weapon trained on him.

  With my free hand I slid my phone from my robe pocket and held it in front of my mouth. “Call Detective Adam Trent.” I don’t have a phone that responds to oral commands, but George didn’t know that.

  “No! I’ll tell you!”

  “It’s ringing,” I said. “You better talk fast.”

  He mumbled something.

  I zapped the air. “Speak up!”

  “Dumford.”

  “Dumford? Howdy Doody?”

  “Hang up, damn it!” George shouted.

  “Oh, yeah. Uh, cancel call.” I returned the phone to my pocket. “What about Dumford?”

  “Can you put that other thing in your pocket too?”

  “No.”

  “Can I get up?”

  “No.”

  George put a hand over his eyes—blocking the ceiling light or blocking my ability to see his eyes and know if he was lying? “The money Chuck stashed. I gotta find it and give it to him.”

  “Good grief! Not bad enough Chuck’s dead, Howdy Doody wants to steal money from his widow?” One of his widows.

  George was silent for a long moment. His hand still covered his eyes, but I could almost feel them shifting back and forth, searching for a reply that wouldn’t get him zapped again. “It’s Dumford’s money. Chuck stole it from him.”

  “Stole it from him? Broke into his house? Robbed him at gun point?”

  “Chuck sold some stuff and didn’t give Dumford all the money.”

  Now we were drilling down to the truth. “Stuff? Drugs?”

  “Let it go. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “Of course I don’t know unless you tell me. But you do know who you’re dealing with...a crazy bitch with a bad temper, a stun gun, and the home phone number of a cop.”

  George’s lips…the only part of his face I could see…squeezed tighter.

  Henry sat upright, his gaze fixed on something behind me.

  “The lady asked you a question.”

  I spun around at the sound of the familiar voice.

  “Fred! About time you got here.” I was surprised by his sudden appearance but not surprised he was there. He’d probably been watching the entire scene on his laptop. It was courteous of him to give me time to try out my new toy before he stepped in.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “You know how difficult it is to get blood out of white carpet.”

  I didn’t know, and I didn’t believe Fred knew either. He’s much too fastidious to make a mess like that.

  “The old carpet in here needs to be taken up anyway,” I said.

  “Not necessary. I brought a shower curtain.”

  George took his hands away from his face. His eyes were pools of fear. “I saw you at the party. You’re the weird guy who came to see me in prison.”

  I grabbed Fred’s arms and looked back at George. “Don’t call him weird! He doesn’t like to be called weird. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “It’s okay,” Fred said quietly. “You need to leave to get ready for work, Lindsay. I’ll take care of our friend.” He stepped around me, lifted one hand and let a shower curtain slowly unfold.

  George scooted backward, closer to the doorframe. “No! Lindsay, you’re friends with my grandma. Don’t leave me.” He swallowed. Actually, it was more like a gulp. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Fred shrugged. It’s amazing how he can look nonchalant and deadly at the same time. “Breaking and entering, trespassing, possession of a gun when you’re a convicted felon—”

  “I don’t have a gun!” George protested.

  Interesting how Fred had so easily elicited that valuable information.

  “You’ve got one chance to go home to your grandparents instead of back to prison.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “One chance.” I had no idea what that chance was.

  “You need to answer Lindsay’s question as to whether Chuck was selling drugs for Gaylord Dumford, then elaborate on your statement that Chuck d
idn’t give Dumford all the money.”

  George squirmed into a sitting position against the side of the doorway. “I just got out of the joint. I don’t know nothing.”

  “George, I’m a busy man. I don’t have time to play games. Right now we’re willing to let you walk away and pretend tonight never happened. And the key word in that sentence is walk. If you’d rather, I can carry you out of here in pieces.”

  George swallowed hard and looked up. “Meth,” he said. “Chuck distributed meth for Dumford. He skimmed money off the top. Dumford sent me to get it back. That’s all I know.”

  “Did Dumford kill Chuck?” Fred asked.

  George’s mouth opened then closed like a fish gasping for air. “I don’t know nothing about murder! I just came here to find the money.”

  “Money Chuck stole from Gaylord Dumford?” Fred asked.

  George gave a jerky nod.

  “That seems a foolhardy thing for Chuck to do.”

  “Yeah,” George agreed. “It was. It’s that new woman he married. It’s all her fault. She changed him. He wanted to get out of the business. You get in bed with Gaylord Dumford, you’re there for life. That dude’s bad crazy.”

  “So Chuck knew Dumford was bad crazy, but he stole money from him anyway?”

  George was lying about something, but I didn’t think it was the part about Dumford being bad crazy. “I’m telling you,” he said, “Chuck went nuts after he married that woman. He wanted to go straight, and he had to have some money to get started on. It wasn’t like he had a college degree. All he’d ever done was be Dumford’s errand boy.”

  I made a mental note to tell Grace that Chuck had given up his life of crime for her. Maybe he really did intend to leave all those other women. That would be some solace for her while she worked in the prison laundry.

  “Is that what Chuck and Dumford were talking about at the party?” I asked. “Did Howdy Doody poison Chuck because he stole money from him?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Dumford just told me he wanted to come to the party so he could talk to Chuck.”

  “Wait!” I said. “Howdy Doody knew Chuck would be at the party?”

  “He knew Chuck was moving in across the street. He knows everything.”

  “You didn’t invite all your friends just to distract me while you dug up my basement?”

  “No!” He fidgeted and looked away. “Well, maybe, but Dumford came because he had business with Chuck. I didn’t have any part of that. I just asked my grandma to do the party on that day at your house and—”

  “What business did Howdy Doody have?” I asked. “A chance to murder him?”

  “No. I don’t know. He wanted to keep Chuck hooked. Chuck was the best. He had all those...uh...connections.”

  “All those wives, you mean.”

  George shrugged.

  “I need Dumford’s phone number and address,” Fred said.

  “I don’t have it.”

  Fred flapped the folded shower curtain lazily. “This conversation terminates in five minutes. The method of termination is up to you.”

  George reached into his pants pocket.

  He’d said he didn’t have a gun, but George had been known to lie.

  Fred didn’t move.

  I lifted my stun gun. Was I going to have to save Fred?

  George withdrew his cell phone.

  Fred took it from him.

  “Hey!” George protested.

  Fred extended the shower curtain to me. “Hold this.”

  I took it with the tips of my fingers even though I was certain Fred had never really wrapped bodies in it. Fairly certain. One can never be certain of anything where Fred is concerned.

  “Password,” he said.

  “One, two, three, four,” George said.

  That was dumber than me using Henry’s name for my Internet password.

  Fred checked several things on George’s phone then tossed it to him.

  George caught it in both hands.

  “Now get out and do not return.”

  “I gotta find that money. You don’t get it. He’ll kill me.”

  Fred took the shower curtain from me, rocked back on his heels, and regarded George calmly. “You need to decide who you’re more frightened of, me or Gaylord Dumford.”

  George rose slowly to his feet. “You’re getting in way over your head, man.” He stumbled across the room and out the front door.

  I looked up at Fred. I’m tall, but he’s taller. He’s even taller than Trent. How much trouble were we getting into that it would be over Fred’s head?

  As we walked through the living room, Fred dropped the folded shower curtain into an open box.

  “Not yours?” I asked.

  “I didn’t think Grace would mind if I borrowed it for a good cause.”

  “I knew you’d never wrap a body in a shower curtain.”

  “Of course not. The material’s too flimsy.”

  “Does that mean...?” I hesitated.

  Fred switched off the light. “Are you going to finish your sentence?”

  “Nope. Let’s go. Come on, Henry.”

  Chapter Eleven

  An hour later I staggered through the back door of Death by Chocolate, not really ready to begin my day.

  Paula looked up, her knife poised halfway through slicing cinnamon roll dough. “Are you exhausted from dealing with all those women on Grace’s lawn last night or does this have something to do with the lights in Grace’s house early this morning?”

  I found a clean apron and slipped it over my head. “Both. I need another Coke.”

  “Another, as in your second?”

  “It’s too late to start counting.” I took a can from my private stock in the refrigerator and popped the top. “I don’t count your cups of coffee.”

  “Grumpy as well as tired. You need some protein.” Having delivered her sane advice, she returned to slicing the rolls.

  “I’ll put an extra egg in the brownies.”

  I gulped down a handful of nuts as I began the creation of the dessert of the day, Ding Dong Cupcakes. Thus fortified, I told Paula the details of Chuck’s wives and George’s break-in.

  As I talked, measured cocoa powder, and breathed in the scent of cinnamon rolls baking, my tension abated.

  Paula took a pan of hot rolls from the oven and set it on a rack to cool. “I saw those women in Grace’s yard when I came home from work. I only met Chuck the one time, but I didn’t picture him as a bigamist or being involved with drugs.”

  “A bigamist is married to two people. Chuck would be a septamist.” I slid the cupcakes into the oven and rinsed out my mixing bowl.

  “If Grace knew that, she would have a motive to kill him.”

  The stainless steel mixing bowl clanged when I set it on the counter. “Ever hear the phrase, innocent until proven guilty? She didn’t know any of that, and she didn’t kill him.”

  Paula said nothing.

  I measured brown sugar and butter for chocolate chip cookies, my everyday special dessert. “I told you about that weird friend of George’s who came to the party and offered Chuck a joint.”

  “The one who looked like a cartoon character?”

  “A puppet, but yes, that’s the one.” I related my encounter with George.

  Paula mixed the frosting for the cinnamon rolls. If I hadn’t known her so well, I wouldn’t have noticed the tension that gathered around the corners of her mouth and the jittery movements of her hands.

  I finished my story.

  She was silent for a moment, quietly gathering steam.

  “It’s only been a few months since Rick got you involved with those drug dealers,” she finally said. “One was murdered in your back yard. Have you forgotten that?” She stirred the frosting with a vengeance. If that sugar hadn’t been powdered when it went in the bowl, it would be now.

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten. I eat a lot of chocolate. It has antioxidants. My memory’s fine.”
<
br />   Paula stopped punishing the innocent frosting, looked at me, and sighed. “I’m not so sure it was a good idea for Fred to give you that stun gun. You’ve always been a little reckless and impulsive, but going to an empty house in the middle of the night to confront a convicted felon who broke into that house? That wasn’t good judgment.”

  “Henry led me over there. He wouldn’t lead me into anything dangerous. If anything happened to me, who’d dispense his catnip?”

  I dragged out my cookie sheets, rattling them vigorously. I thumped them onto the counter, making so much noise Paula couldn’t say anything rude about Henry being only a cat. She doesn’t get it, that being only a cat is comparable to being only a psychic genius. I forgive her. I didn’t understand that until Henry moved in and educated me.

  However, plopping the dough onto the cookie sheets didn’t make a lot of noise.

  Paula was doing something at the far end of the kitchen with her back turned toward me. “Henry’s only a cat.”

  “I won’t tell him you said that. It might put your life in danger.”

  The rest of the work day moved along nicely. Nobody left without paying, nobody was rude to the server. The worst thing that happened was that we ran out of Ding Dong Cupcakes before we ran out of customers. The two people who didn’t get a cupcake accepted a brownie instead, so all was well.

  Then I left the restaurant, the place where my only responsibility was to create desserts and serve them to people who were grateful. As soon as I got home, I’d serve cat food to Henry, and he’d be grateful.

  The thought that loomed over me like Edgar Allan Poe’s pendulum swinging closer and closer was my upcoming evening phone call with Trent. I’d avoided talking to him last night. Two nights in a row would make him suspicious or worried or both. And now I had even more secrets. If I told him about my early morning encounter with George, I’d have to tell him about the money Grace was hiding and where that money came from.

  It was possible…likely?...Chuck’s choice of career had brought on his death. I was in possession of information that might exonerate Grace, might bring a murderer to justice, but she trusted me to keep that information a secret.

  How far did friendship go? Was I supposed to let her rot in jail while I kept her deceased husband’s secrets? Protecting Chuck’s reputation to the detriment of her freedom did not seem like a good idea.