Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 03 - The Great Chocolate Scam

by Sally Berneathy

  “That’s interesting. So all that prattle about Rick deserting her and his son was just BS?”

  “I said there’s no evidence that Rickie is Rick’s son. I didn’t say there was any evidence he isn’t. Grace could have put unknown father on the birth certificate so she’d be eligible for government assistance for the boy. She’s getting a check for him every month. That would be a scam Rick would come up with.”

  I sighed. “Yes, it’s exactly something he would come up with. Find any evidence they were married or living together?”

  “No marriage certificate on file. You were Rick’s only wife.”

  “Damn.”

  He turned onto Rick’s street, and I cringed, looking around for bits and pieces of Rick even though I knew the cops had taken away all the evidence of the explosion. Still, it was creepy.

  “By the way, Grace Ganyon isn’t her real name,” Fred said.

  “What a surprise. What is it?”

  “Gail Haskell.”

  I shook my head as we pulled into the driveway. “What about Marissa?”

  “Mary Kramer.”

  “And the boys?”

  “Daniel Ray Kramer and Michael Lee Kramer.”

  “Which is which?”

  “Who knows?” Fred set the parking brake.

  “I’m afraid to ask what Rick’s real name is.”

  “It’s actually Richard Wayne Kramer.”

  “Astonishing. That’s the first thing I know of that Rick didn’t lie about.”

  I shuddered as I got out of the car. I didn’t see any pieces of Rick’s SUV or of Rick, but the driveway was scorched black from the explosion. Just a few days ago Rick and some unknown woman had pulled out of the garage to the very spot where Fred’s car was parked. They were going somewhere, preparing to move on with their lives. Maybe Rick was even thinking about me when the blast hit, considering the fact that he was on his way to sign our divorce papers.

  Nah. He was probably thinking about the woman who got blown to bits or maybe about whatever he was planning to do with the property he bought from Bryan Kollar’s parents.

  Fred and I walked across the porch and up to the ornate front door, oak with beveled glass panes. I remembered when Rick and I were building the house and picked out that door. Well, actually, he picked it out and I said okay.

  Fred bent over the lock, did some magic, and the door opened.

  We entered and Fred locked the door behind us.

  The house had a faintly chemical odor, probably from something the cops did. I looked around at the room and the furniture that had once been familiar.

  No wonder Trent never complained about my relaxed style of housekeeping. Cops were slobs. Fingerprint powder dusted most of the furniture, and they’d left footprints on the champagne beige carpet. In the kitchen was more of the fingerprint powder, open drawers with the contents spilling out, dishes on the counter. Pigs.

  “You search down here, and I’ll take the bedrooms upstairs.” Fred turned and started to leave.

  “Wait! What am I looking for?”

  “CDs, an external hard drive, a flash drive, a memory stick.” I must have looked blank because he continued, “If you don’t know what something is, set it out for me to look at.”

  “Got it.”

  I was glad I didn’t have to go through the bedrooms. That would bring up some really unpleasant memories. Just being in the house was bad enough. It stole the sense of security and comfort I’d wrapped around myself the last couple of years and made me feel alone and unsure, the way I’d felt when I was married to Rickhead and we’d lived in the house.

  When we’d moved in, I’d been excited about the large, spacious kitchen, a place to create my chocolate desserts. However, I’d opened Death by Chocolate shortly afterward so I really never did much cooking in the kitchen. I wondered briefly if Muffy or Becky or any of the others had used my former kitchen. They used my former husband so why shouldn’t they use my former kitchen? Kind of a package deal.

  I set about snooping through all the drawers and cabinets.

  Half an hour and several hundred kitchen utensils later Fred strolled into the room holding a hair brush in one hand and a red plastic rectangle about an inch long in the other. “I think I found it.”

  “A used hair brush? That’s disgusting! As ultra-fastidious as you are, I can’t believe you’re taking one of Rick’s brushes.”

  Fred gave me a disdainful look and lifted the brush. “This is a sample of Rick’s DNA.” He held up the red rectangle. “And this is a flash drive which we hope holds backup files for Rick’s computer.”

  “That little thing?”

  “Eight gigabytes.”

  “Is that a lot?”

  “Enough for data file backup.”

  “Where did you find it? How did the cops overlook it?”

  Fred smiled. “In his own childish way, Rick was actually pretty clever. He hid it in plain sight in a bowl of those rectangular cinnamon candies. Just a good thing none of the cops had a sweet tooth.”

  “Well, let’s get home and tell the rude relations they’re set to move in. We can leave the door unlocked. Who cares if somebody breaks in and steals something?”

  Fred glanced over his shoulder toward the living room. “Actually, that won’t be necessary. When I came down the stairs, I saw Marissa’s Cadillac approaching the house. They’re probably on the porch by now.”

  “Damn. Since your car’s in the driveway, I guess we can’t sneak out the back door this time.”

  “I believe our best option is to open the front door and make a run for the car. If anybody grabs you, scream loudly.”

  “Got it. On the count of three…”

  We made it past the screaming, grasping relations. “Enjoy!” I shouted, dodging Marissa’s hand.

  We got in Fred’s car and crept slowly away. They could have caught us if they’d chased us, but they didn’t. They didn’t want us, just the house. When I looked back, the porch was empty. They were all inside destroying Rick’s precious possessions. I smiled.

  “You could drive a little faster,” I said, eager to get home, put my sheets in the laundry and call Trent to plan an evening of fun and frivolity. “Aren’t you excited about getting home to check out this backup thing?”

  “Of course I am.” Fred sounded as excited as I’ve ever heard him, which is about 1.5 on the excitement scale.

  “Then live dangerously and go five miles over the speed limit.”

  “No,” Fred replied.

  I let out a loud sigh and settled in for the thirty minute ride.

  Finally I was home alone with Henry who was waiting on the front porch. “Come in and have some catnip,” I invited. “You’re entitled after the last two nights.”

  I stripped my bed and put the sheets in the washer then called Trent. Of course he didn’t answer. I left a message and gave Henry a saucer holding his drug of choice. He gave me a Cheshire cat grin of gratitude then turned his attention to the catnip.

  He took a few dainty snorts then, unable to restrain himself, began licking and nibbling. Finally he put his face in the saucer and rolled in the remnants. He looked up, gave me another grin, this time with his big blue eyes slightly crossed, and lay down beside the saucer, purring loudly and happily.

  My sheets were clean and dry and on my bed, and I was getting a little concerned when Trent finally called me back.

  “I’m all alone except for Henry who’s drunk and passed out,” I said, trying to sound sexy, though that’s a little difficult when discussing a drunk cat. “Got clean sheets on my bed and all I need for a perfect evening is a cop to share that bed.”

  “I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound at all sexy. “I’ve got to work late.”

  “How late?” I had a sinking feeling I would be going to bed alone again, a retroactive virgin for another night, maybe for the rest of my life.

  “Very late. We think we’ve found the identity of the woman who died in the explosion with
Rick, but we’ve got to be very certain before we do anything. She’s married to somebody big.”

  Chapter Eleven

  There are certain disadvantages to owning a business that’s open to the public. The biggest one is that anybody who wants to can stroll in and sit down.

  I was cleaning up in the kitchen after lunch when Paula returned from the main room with a big tray of dirty dishes and a scowl. “Don’t go out there,” she said. “Go out the back door, and I’ll tell them you left for Spain this morning.”

  “Oh, no. Marissa or Grace?”

  She set her tray down on the counter and looked disgusted. “Marissa, Grace and Rickie, Jr. Can’t you hear them?”

  I regularly tuned out the noise of customers, but when she said that I became immediately aware of the clamor.

  “You need to get your skinny butt back to Crappie Creek!” Marissa’s loud voice. “This is none of your business. You’re not entitled to anything of Rick’s! If my son had wanted you to inherit, he’d have married you.”

  “He would have if he wasn’t scared of you!” Grace’s nasal tones. “I’m not asking for anything for myself, just for Rick’s son, your grandson!”

  “That brat is neither my grandson nor is he Rick’s son!”

  “He may not be your grandson, but he is Rick’s son!”

  “What are you implying, you idiot bimbo?”

  I wondered about that myself. What she was implying, I mean, not whether she was an idiot bimbo. That part was clear and indisputable.

  “I don’t hear the kid,” I said. “Does that mean you bound and gagged him or is he just sitting quietly in a corner destroying the building while his mother hones her bitch skills?”

  Paula opened the dishwasher and began loading dishes. “You’re close. I caught him trying to get into the dessert display case to help himself, so I gave him most of what we had left…about a dozen cookies, four brownies, a piece of chocolate pie and half a pan of fudge.”

  We both smiled.

  “What a kind, generous gesture,” I said. “He’ll probably throw up on Rick’s carpet tonight.”

  “And he’ll be on a sugar high and drive everybody crazy for the rest of the day.”

  The thought of Rickie with his normal obnoxious behavior accented by all that sugar was an awesome image.

  I considered Paula’s offer for me to leave, actually cast a longing look at the back door. I had no doubt Paula would be able to handle those people, but I couldn’t do that to her. I wiped down the counter and sighed. “I’ll go see what they want this time. They have a place to stay, and I saw plenty of frozen dinners in the refrigerator. What else could they want?”

  “I think they’re fighting over that piece of property Rick bought from Bryan Kollar’s parents.”

  I frowned. “Really? The old flour mill that’s been in his family for generations, blah, blah, blah? Something’s definitely going on with that property. Maybe they’ve discovered oil in the parking lot.”

  I took my cell phone out of my pocket and called Fred, my own personal Google.

  “Did you have fun last night playing with Rick’s computer backup files?” I asked as soon as he answered.

  “Yes, I did. I think I know why Rick was suddenly eager to sign those divorce papers.”

  “Does it have something to do with the Kollar flour mill?”

  Fred was silent for a moment. “You’re getting pretty good at this. How did you find out?”

  “Marissa and Grace are sitting out front in Death by Chocolate, fighting about it.”

  “Those people are kind of like a fungus that grows on you, and you can’t get rid of it, not even with two tons of Gold Bond Powder.”

  “The Fungi Folks. Very appropriate. So what was Rick planning to do with the flour mill that involved making a lot of money?”

  “About a month ago he started buying up all the property in the area. From the documents on that flash drive, it looks like he’s planning to build a shopping center.”

  “Really? Isn’t that kind of out in the middle of nowhere?”

  “So was the Plaza at one time.”

  “You think Rick had advance information that the area’s going to be hot?”

  “Probably, but I don’t have enough data to speculate at this point.”

  “I know, just the facts. But you do have enough data to speculate that he wanted to be divorced from me before he finalized this big deal, right?”

  “We’ll never be able to prove it, of course, but that does appear to be the case. He was planning to make a lot of money and didn’t want to share it with you.”

  “That’s our Rick.”

  “He’s been conducting all this business using a separate bank account he set up right after the two of you split.”

  “What?” A familiar anger I thought had gone away with Rick’s death rose up again. “The SOB had a bank account where he’s been stashing money so I couldn’t find it? That so ticks me off! I have never made any effort to take his money. He’s known all along what I want. I’ve never even asked for an accounting of what he owns! If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill that worthless, suspicious, conniving rat!”

  “We tend to judge others’ morals by our own standards. Rick can’t be trusted, so he doesn’t think you can be trusted either.”

  “Fine, whatever. He’s dead now so I can’t even yell at him.” I certainly did not wish Rick undead, but I would have liked to tell him what I thought of him just one more time. I guess it’s true, when people die you always think of things you wish you’d said to them. “Grace and Marissa can fight over the properties and that bank account. I want nothing to do with any of it.”

  “There’s more. Supposedly Rick withdrew fifty thousand dollars from that bank account the afternoon of the day he was killed, roughly two hours after the time of his death.”

  The implications of that hit me like a punch to the gut. I’d have sat down if there’d been any place to sit. Instead, I leaned against the counter and tried to come up with an answer other than the obvious one. “What are you saying? How is that possible? Someone withdrew money after Rick was killed? Are you saying Rick’s not dead?”

  He heaved a sigh at my ignorance. “I said supposedly he withdrew the money. My guess is that it was somebody who looks like Rick and had access to Rick’s personal information.”

  “Clint or Brad.”

  “When I saw one of them outside your window in the middle of the night, I thought for a minute it was Rick,” he reminded me.

  “That would mean they knew he was dead as soon as he was dead, a day before they supposedly got to town.”

  “Exactly.”

  I had to sit down then even if it was on the concrete floor. “Grace said Marissa might have killed Rick because she wanted in on a deal he was working and he told her no.” Marissa was beginning to make my mother look like Mother of the Year.

  Like an evil creature conjured up by my dark thoughts, Marissa burst through the kitchen door. “Lindsay, I need—why are you sitting on the floor?”

  I scrambled to my feet. “What? What do you need, Marissa?” I emphasized the name so Fred would know I was confronted by a possible murderer and might need rescuing.

  Paula came up behind me. “You know you’re not supposed to be in the kitchen,” she said firmly. Had she overheard enough of my conversation with Fred to know she might be taunting Rick’s murderer?

  Marissa rolled her eyes. “How am I going to talk to Lindsay if she never comes out of the kitchen and I can’t come in here?”

  “What do you want?” Paula demanded, her voice cold. All things considered, I’d rather face a murderous Marissa than mess with Paula, all five feet, two inches of her.

  “I want to know what my son had in mind for that piece of property Bryan Kollar is so hot to get back,” she said, her voice losing its phony graciousness and becoming as cold and hard as Paula’s.

  “I think you already know,” I said, joining the cold, hard voice club.
“You wanted in on the deal, but Rick refused.”

  Her eyes narrowed and became blue ice. “Why do you have your hand pressed to your head? Are you on your cell phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “My boyfriend Trent, the cop.” I figured my boyfriend the cop would be more threatening to her than my neighbor the nerd since she hadn’t seen Fred in action.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little rude to be on your cell phone when you’re having a conversation with a real person?”

  “Hey, you interrupted my phone call, not vice versa!”

  She shrugged and again became Miss Affability. “I’m meeting Bryan on the property in half an hour. I just wanted to know what the situation was before we began the bargaining process.”

  “You don’t have anything to bargain with,” Grace said from behind Marissa. It was a big kitchen, but it was getting crowded really fast. “I’m going out there too, and I’m going to tell Bryan that’s my son’s property, not yours.”

  Marissa whirled on her. “You need to stay out of this. You’re way out of your league, and you’re going to regret it if you don’t back off.”

  I froze. Had Marissa just threatened to kill Grace? Not that she’d kill her in person, of course, but she had two underlings. “Where are Clint and Brad?”

  Marissa glared at me for a moment as if trying to discern my thoughts. “Why do you want to know?”

  Oh, just wondering if they’re hiding out at the flour mill, getting ready to blow up Grace’s car, or maybe still at home planting a bomb under her bed. “No reason,” I said. “Just wondered why they weren’t with you today.”

  “They’re grown men. I don’t keep track of them.” She whirled and stormed out of the kitchen with Grace right behind her. Both were shouting.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Fred said.

  “Yeah, I suppose we need to be there to keep Marissa from killing Grace.”

  “That too, but mostly we need to find out what’s going on. I’m curious about this flour mill that everybody wants.”