Deadly Chocolate Addiction (Death by Chocolate Book 6)

by Sally Berneathy

  I flinched. In the light the dark liquid was red. I liked it better when it was black.

  He pushed past me and stepped carefully around the body. “Someone stepped in the blood and left footprints leading in that direction.” He pointed toward Paula’s house.

  I looked where he was pointing and saw no one in the open spaces. Everybody except me kept their back yards trimmed. Mine was the only one with bushes so thick Fred had often warned me “somebody could hide a dead body in there and you’d never know it.” If only they’d hidden this one in those bushes.

  Chapter Eleven

  I called Trent. He said he’d alert the necessary people and that I should remain calm and touch nothing.

  “I just chased a man out of my house with a rolling pin and found a dead body in my back yard. I am not calm, but I can promise you I won’t touch anything except maybe a can of Coke.”

  I called my closest neighbors, Paula and Sophie, to let them know what was going on so they wouldn’t worry. “Just an anonymous dead body,” I assured each of them. “Nobody we know.”

  They both asked to speak to Fred. I could understand Sophie wanting to chat with him. She may be having an intimate relationship with him. But my reassurance should have been enough for Paula. After the last couple of years, surely she knew I could handle dead bodies with almost as much expertise as making chocolate chip cookies.

  Then we waited. Fred and I were both barefoot but he didn’t seem to mind the chill. My toes were taking on the color of my pajamas.

  “Ever walk over hot coals?” I asked.

  He scowled. “That’s a strange question, even for you.”

  “Your feet seem to be impervious to cold. I thought they might also be impervious to fire.”

  The first emergency vehicle screamed down the street with lights flashing, effectively ending our conversation about feet.

  “They’re here,” I said.

  “I noticed.”

  “We’d better go talk to them.”

  “You go. I’ll stay with the body.”

  “He’s not going anywhere.”

  “You’ve become quite adept at stating the obvious tonight.”

  “Yeah, okay. I’ll send them back here.” I would have preferred that Fred go with me, but I was eager to get away from the dead man.

  I went to the front yard and directed first the EMTs then the other arrivals to the back where Fred and John Doe waited.

  Within ten minutes various members of the Pleasant Grove police and fire departments were milling around all over my yard. Every emergency vehicle they owned, all five of them, flashed bright colors up and down the street.

  Lights came on in neighboring houses. Doors and windows opened. People in robes and slippers came out on their porches to see what was going on. I was hosting another middle of the night block party and once again I was without cookies to serve the guests. Fortunately, no one left their porch and came close enough to notice my hostess deficits.

  Gerald Lawson got out of a dark sedan and crossed the yard toward me. The multi-colored lights danced across his steel gray hair in flamboyant contrast to his stern expression.

  Odd that he arrived before Trent when I’d called Trent first and assumed he’d rush to the side of his freaked out beloved.

  A vivid green demon inside my brain whispered that perhaps he was already at the side of his beloved.

  Lawson approached. “You okay?”

  I shook my head. “Where’s Trent?”

  “He’ll be here soon. Let’s go see what you’ve got this time.”

  It was as close to comforting as Lawson got.

  He and I trekked through the cold, damp grass to the scene of the crime. Lawson was wearing shoes. He probably didn’t know the grass was cold and damp.

  People in uniforms hovered around a central location, taking pictures, putting things into tiny bags, and talking in words of at least five syllables.

  Fred greeted Lawson with a handshake as if this were a business meeting or something normal.

  “Fred found the body,” I said, trying to shift the focus from me.

  “In your back yard,” Lawson said.

  “I found a dead squirrel in my front yard last week. You going to blame me for that one too?”

  Both men looked at me strangely.

  Lawson took out his little notebook. “So you found the body, Mr. Sommers?”

  “I’m going inside to get some shoes,” I said. “My feet are freezing.”

  No one objected so I went inside my warm, secure home.

  Damn.

  Finding a body had taken over my brain. I’d momentarily forgotten about the black and red chaos created by Henry. This would doubtless be considered part of the crime scene. I thought about the time Rick’s car had blown up in his driveway with Rick’s woman of the week inside. His house had been closed off for several days with that ugly crime scene tape. I didn’t want to be locked out of my house.

  On the other hand, I wanted the intruder/murderer caught.

  Suddenly my feet weren’t the only cold part of me. A sliver of ice slipped inside my chest.

  An intruder wearing black.

  The same intruder who’d broken into Kathleen’s hotel room?

  Kathleen claimed the alleged intruder had been looking for a key. She told him she gave the key to me.

  Now someone had broken into my house.

  Had he been looking for the key Ransom left me?

  If Henry hadn’t stopped him, would he have come upstairs and demanded I give him that key?

  What could it possibly unlock that was so important someone would break into two places to get it?

  My mouth was suddenly as dry as a cookie forgotten in the oven for half an hour.

  Not only had someone broken into my house, he’d murdered a man outside my house. The action had ramped up.

  Ransom’s hotel room had been searched when he was killed. Was his murderer looking for that key?

  Ransom had thought something was important enough it had to be locked away.

  From his wife?

  She thought the man who came to her room demanding a key was talking about the key to Trent’s apartment. If she was genuinely confused, that meant she knew nothing about the key or the man trying to find it.

  That still didn’t mean she was innocent of setting up her husband’s murder.

  I hurried upstairs and changed into jeans and a sweatshirt as well as wool socks and boots.

  Henry opened one eye then rolled over and went back to sleep. He’d had a tough night protecting his home.

  So had I.

  I went downstairs and out the back door.

  The crowd was still there.

  The body was still there.

  Fred saw me. “We need to come inside,” he said. “See if your intruder left any evidence.”

  “He did.”

  Fred and Lawson entered.

  “Your kitchen’s a mess,” Lawson said.

  I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. “That’s the evidence. My cat took some DNA samples from the guy who was in my house. You can thank him later.”

  “We’re going to have to get the forensic guys in here. You should probably leave the premises while we do that.”

  Fred nodded. “Let’s go to my place and have some hot chocolate.”

  “Sounds good, but I need to get Henry.”

  Fred shuddered. He considers Henry a walking hair dispersal system. “Why? He doesn’t like hot chocolate.”

  “Yeah, but he likes to attack strangers who come into my house.” I looked through the window at the people milling around in my yard. “Your forensic guys are strangers to him.”

  “You can’t take your cat,” Lawson said. “He may have more evidence under his claws.”

  “And you’re going to collect that evidence?” I snorted. “Good luck. Unless you want to deal with Henry’s Mr. Hyde persona, you should let me hold him while you do it.”

  “Your ca
t’s always been friendly when I’ve been around him.”

  “That’s because Trent’s always been around at the same time. He likes Trent. Why isn’t Trent here?”

  “I don’t know.” Lawson headed back outside toward the lights and party.

  Really? I’d asked the tough question, put myself out there, and all he could say was I don’t know?

  Fred took my arm. “Come with me. You might not be able to find your way to my place alone.”

  “I think I can find my way across our yards,” I protested. “There aren’t a lot of turns to confuse me.”

  “There’s no point in taking any risks.”

  “Risks? You seriously think I might get lost?”

  “No.”

  I gulped. “Oh. You think there’s a chance the man in black…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  We went to his house. He brought me hot chocolate. I wrapped my hands around the warm cup and settled back on his sofa. I would have really liked to just lie back and relax. Let the comfort and security surround me. But I couldn’t until I’d settled a couple of things.

  “The intruder, the guy in black,” I said, “he could be the same man who broke into Kathleen’s hotel room looking for that key.”

  Fred settled in his recliner. “The thought occurred to me. If she really did tell that man she’d given the key to you, he could have come looking for you. If the man wants that key, he must know what it unlocks. This begs the question, if the key fits a padlock and this mysterious person wants whatever it guards, why doesn’t he simply cut off the padlock?”

  I shook my head and tried to focus my sleep-deprived brain on the question. “I give up. Why doesn’t he?”

  “It could be in some public place where he doesn’t dare cut it off. We have to assume he knows where the lock is located. Otherwise, possessing the key wouldn’t do him any good.”

  “Henry took samples of his DNA. Maybe we can track him down and torture the information out of him. What about the dead guy? Do we know who he is?”

  “No one of my acquaintance.”

  “Don’t evade my question. You had plenty of time to go through his pockets and search for identification before anybody official got there.”

  He set his cup on the coffee table. “He had no identification on him.”

  “That brings up a whole new set of questions. We need answers, not more questions. How was he killed?”

  “He was stabbed and his throat was slit.”

  I licked my dry lips. “That’s how Ransom was killed.”

  He nodded. “The victim had a gun, but it appears he got into a scuffle with your intruder and never had a chance to fire. My guess would be that the dead man was hiding in that jungle in your back yard, and the intruder came through behind him.”

  I shivered. The same man I’d pursued with a rolling pin had murdered a man in my back yard. “Did you get his fingerprints so we can identify him?”

  “I didn’t have my fingerprint kit with me.”

  “You’ve got enough blood on your pajamas to do a DNA test.”

  He looked at the red stain on the end of his white sleeve. I was surprised the force of his gaze didn’t bleach it as white as the rest of his garment. “I doubt we need to do that. I’m sure the police will have an identity soon.”

  “Okay, so we’ll just wait for the cops to identify him and you can hack into their database and find out who he is.”

  “Or we could watch the evening news report. You should finish your chocolate then stretch out on the sofa and try to get some sleep. I’ll bring you blankets and a pillow.”

  Sleep beckoned, but there was one more question I had to ask. “Do you know where Trent is?”

  “No.”

  “I guess this means you didn’t put that bug in his apartment.”

  He left the room and returned with two soft blankets and a pillow.

  Hot chocolate and a warm bed. I didn’t reprimand him for not bugging Trent’s apartment.

  

  I must have dozed off. I woke to the feeling of soft lips on my forehead.

  I knew those lips.

  I opened my eyes a slit.

  In the pale glow of the lamp, Trent smiled a pale smile. “Good morning.”

  I laid a hand across my eyes and groaned. “Is it time to get up already?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  I looked at my watch and groaned again then sat up, yawned, and pushed back the blanket. “Yeah, it’s almost time for me to go to work.”

  My eyes adjusted to the light and I saw a red scratch on Trent’s cheek.

  I was suddenly wide awake.

  Had Kathleen with her long red nails given him that scratch?

  In passion or anger?

  Was she the reason he’d arrived late?

  “What happened to your face?”

  He lifted a hand to the affected area and grimaced. “Your cat didn’t like having his nails scraped for DNA.”

  “Oh, good. I mean, it’s good that you scraped his nails for DNA, not that he scratched you.” What I really meant was that it was good Henry had made the scratch, not Kathleen.

  “He took down a couple of the guys before I got there. Lawson’s hands look like he got in a battle with a meat grinder and lost.”

  “I told him he should let me hold Henry.” I was sorry he’d hurt Lawson and whoever else had tried to hold him, but I was also secretly proud of my cat. He’d stood up to men who weighed ten times what he did. I’d give him some extra tuna when I got home.

  I staggered to my feet and yawned again. “I need to tell Fred I’m leaving.”

  “Good night, Lindsay.” Fred’s voice came from out of the darkness beyond the lamp.

  Trent took my hand. “He let me in. Did you think I broke in?”

  “Maybe. Good night, Fred. Thanks for the hot chocolate and the blanket.”

  Trent and I went from the lamp light in Fred’s home to the total darkness of pre-dawn.

  “Why were you so late getting over here?” I asked.

  “Let’s talk about it when we get to your place.”

  Not a good sign that he didn’t want to answer my question until we got to my place.

  I took a couple more steps and stopped on the brown grass area. “Okay, we’re on my property now. Let’s talk.”

  I’ve seen cops on TV make suspects talk when they didn’t want to. I’m sure Trent’s done his share of that. But I’ve never seen a TV show about a chocolatier forcing a cop to talk when he didn’t want to. That morning was no exception.

  We continued to my house in silence. Trent unlocked the front door.

  I’d given him a key to my house because I loved and trusted him.

  He’d given Kathleen a key to his apartment.

  I chose not to finish that thought.

  As soon as Trent pushed the door open, Henry charged out, glared at both Trent and me, and disappeared into the darkness.

  He’d be back before I left for work. He knew where the food in his bowl came from.

  We went inside. When the cops had searched Rick’s house, they’d left things tossed around carelessly and fingerprint powder everywhere. “Looks better than when I left it.”

  “I made the boys clean up. There are a few benefits to dating a cop.” He moved over to the sofa and sat, patting the cushion beside him. “Come sit down. We need to talk.”

  I edged toward the kitchen, trying to delay the inevitable. “Want me to make you a cup of coffee?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “No, thank you. The night’s been bad enough already.”

  “How about a Coke?”

  “Thanks. A Coke would taste good right now. You’d better have one too.”

  I did not like the sound of that at all. He was going to tell me something so bad I needed a Coke to deal with it.

  That nasty green monster, jealousy, niggled around the edges of my brain again.

  Okay, it was doing more than niggling. It was eating away at me
. This was an ugly feeling made up of hurt and betrayal and anger and the fear of loss, of not having Trent in my life. Now all those country songs made sense. Now I understood why wives killed their cheating husbands.

  I didn’t like the feeling one little bit.

  I took my time getting our Cokes before heading back to the living room.

  I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear what Trent had to say. If he told me he’d been with Kathleen when I called, I would hold my head high and deal with it…while baking cyanide cupcakes for the both of them.

  I handed Trent his can, sat down beside him and popped the top on my Coke. A long drink of the fizzy, refreshing beverage made me feel half awake which was better than half asleep.

  He took my hand and looked solemn. “We identified the dead man in your back yard.”

  “What? The dead man… This isn’t about…?” I stopped myself before I said that woman’s name. “You identified him. Good. I hate it when strangers drop dead in my back yard. Who was he?” I would have some information before Fred. I’d be able to tell him something for a change.

  Unless he’d already discovered it while I was asleep.

  “His name was Leon Scranton.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know him. Should I?”

  “No. He’s a drug dealer.”

  Suddenly I knew where this was going. I wasn’t sure how we were getting there, but the destination was Rick.

  “After you called, I went down to the station to talk to Rick.”

  He hadn’t spent that time with Kathleen. Relief surged through me and drowned that jealous creature even as anger at Rick clenched my teeth. “Go on.”

  “We cut a deal with Rick and Clayton. They both claim they didn’t know anything about drugs hidden in the chocolate. In exchange for them leading us to the dealers, they get no jail time.”

  “I’m glad Clayton won’t go to jail, but are you sure you can’t get Rick for something? Maybe for being obnoxious?”

  He grinned wryly. “If I could do that, we wouldn’t have enough room in our jails for all the prisoners.”

  “That guy, the dead one, came here looking for the missing drugs, didn’t he?”

  “It’s possible. We had to buy some time to get the bag set up to look exactly like the original one. Rick was supposed to convince the men that you’d left the bag at the restaurant, changed the locks, added an alarm system, and he couldn’t get in until tomorrow morning when you open. Rick put them off, and Ryan said it sounded like he did a good job.”