Death of a Chocolate Cheater: A Food Festival Mystery

by Penny Pike

  “So what do you want?” he asked, wiping the foam from his mouth. “If you came here to try to influence me to vote for you, that’s not going to happen. That’s why I told Reina not to tell anyone where to find me. It wouldn’t look good if I was caught talking to contestants.”

  “We’re not here for that,” I said quickly, then changed the subject. “I have to say, you still seem a bit paranoid.”

  He let out a dry laugh, then drank more beer. “Paranoid? Two judges from the competition are dead, the new guy—Delbert Morris—he just quit, and you wonder why I might be paranoid?”

  “He quit?” I asked, surprised.

  “Apparently,” Simon replied.

  “But you know about the arrest,” Jake said.

  Simon pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Yeah, right. Like that old woman had the strength to push Polly into a vat of chocolate. I’m not going to let my guard down until this festival is over. I wish I’d never signed up for it.”

  “I heard you didn’t like Polly much,” I said, remembering the blackmail threat Polly had e-mailed him. It was a safe bet that he wasn’t fond of anyone who tried to blackmail him.

  “Where’d you get that idea?” Simon said. He washed the bitter words down with another gulp of beer. I wondered how many beers he’d had so far. He wasn’t slurring his words, but his eyes were glassy and he was pouring down the alcohol as if putting out a fire.

  I wondered if I should show my hand and tell him I knew about Polly blackmailing him. He might relax a bit if that was out in the open. Then again, he might get more upset and kick us out. Somehow, I had to get him to say something about his relationship with Polly.

  “Were you sleeping with her?” I asked on a hunch. Polly was quite the flirt. Maybe she was fooling around with some of the men at the party.

  Jake stiffened and shot me a look. Simon frowned.

  “That’s none of your business,” he said. “The cops questioned me and cleared me, so if you’re implying I had anything to do with her death, you’re mistaken.”

  “So you didn’t have a relationship with her?”

  He took another gulp of beer. “Listen, Polly Montgomery slept with just about every guy she met, and maybe even some gals. That has nothing to do with me.”

  This was getting nowhere. I had to lay my cards on the table. “Simon, I know you were being blackmailed by Polly.”

  Simon nearly dropped his beer. “How do you know that?”

  “I’m a reporter. I can’t name my source. But it’s true, isn’t it? What did she have on you?”

  “Nothing. You’ve got no proof,” he said, scowling.

  I raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I do. I have the e-mails Polly sent you.”

  His face fell. “All right, yes, she sent us judges threatening e-mails telling us how to vote at the competition. But we told her to go to hell. That’s when she said she’d tell everyone about . . .” He stopped and downed his beer. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”

  “Simon, I think we can help you. What did she have on you?” I asked.

  “None of your business. I think you should leave.” He stood.

  I remained sitting and tried another tack. “How did she want you to vote?”

  He shrugged. “She was going to tell us just before we started the judging.”

  Why would she wait to tell them?

  “And now she’s dead,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, I told you. I didn’t kill her. Someone else must have wanted her dead for some reason. She was probably blackmailing them too. With two judges gone, and one dropped out, that leaves the two of us—Isabel and me—and that’s why we’re playing it safe until the festival is over.”

  “Do you really think you’re safe here?” Jake asked. “Why not ask for police protection if you’re that worried?”

  He cocked his jaw. “Let’s just say I’ve got my own protection.”

  I studied his shirt and tried to see if there might be a gun or some other weapon hiding underneath, but I didn’t get the impression he was armed. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe it was time to wrap up this interview. If Simon had a weapon and he thought Jake and I were a threat, he might just use it.

  “Well,” I said, rising. I set my untouched beer on a nearby table. “Let us know if we can help you somehow. And Isabel. We’d like to talk to her too. Do you happen to know where she is? We tried calling, but there was no answer.”

  “Simon?” A voice coming from the far end of the long room startled me.

  I looked over to see someone standing in the shadows. The dark figure stepped forward into the late-afternoon light of the window—a woman with silver hair that d her pale face and contrasted with her dark eyes. She was dressed in khaki pants and a Hawaiian shirt and wore flip-flops on her feet.

  Isabel Lau.

  She had a gun in her hand.

  Chapter 14

  Jake jumped up, ready for action. I froze and nearly wet my pants.

  “Isabel!” Simon cried.

  Yep. That was a gun she was holding. And she didn’t look happy to see us, if her expression was any kind of a tell.

  “Put it down!” Simon ordered.

  Isabel stood still, her hand shaking as she pointed the weapon in our direction. I was sure the thing would go off any second—if not on purpose, then by accident.

  Simon went over and took the gun from her hand. He lowered it, emptied the bullets, then opened a nearby desk drawer, put the gun inside, and closed the drawer.

  “What were you thinking?” Simon asked her.

  Isabel’s face went white, nearly matching her silver hair. Her lips trembled and her dark eyes watered. Suddenly, all the energy seemed to leave her body and she collapsed in a nearby chair. “I heard voices. . . . I thought . . . ,” she muttered.

  “I said I’d take care of us, didn’t I?” Simon told her. He rested a hand on her back. “There’s no need for violence.” He turned to Jake and me. “Sorry about that. I didn’t know she had a gun.”

  Isabel looked up, her eyes red-rimmed. Lack of sleep? “I told you I didn’t want any part of this,” she said to Simon.

  I frowned at the two of them. “Any part of what?” Were they referring to Polly’s murder? Had they conspired to kill her because she was blackmailing them? I felt compelled to ask: “Did you kill Polly, Isabel?”

  Isabel gasped. “Of course not!”

  “No, no!” Simon added. “What Isabel means is, she doesn’t want any part of the contest judging, and neither do I. Reina talked her into it, but when George died and then Polly—well, she still thinks someone is killing off the judges, one by one.”

  “So do you!” Isabel said. “Just because that woman was arrested doesn’t mean this is over. George’s death may have looked like an accident, but Polly’s death wasn’t a coincidence. I’m sure Simon and I are next!” She looked at Simon for confirmation.

  “An accident? A coincidence? Who knows?” Simon said. “But we’re not taking any chances anymore, with or without Wendy in jail. The only reason we haven’t quit is because Reina promised us substantial bonuses.”

  “Money’s not going to do us any good if someone wants to kill us!” Isabel argued. “That’s why Delbert quit. He found out about the murders. Now I want out of this before it’s too late.”

  “It’s already too late, Isabel,” Simon said. “The competition is tomorrow. If we back out now, we’ll lose our reputations as well as the money. Plus, it might look suspicious if we did, since we’re the only two surviving judges. And if it gets out that Polly had something on us . . .”

  Isabel glared at Simon. “Shut up!”

  “Simmer down, Isabel. They already know about the blackmail.” Simon glanced at us.

  I nodded. “We heard Polly was blackmailing you and Simon so you’d vote her way.”r />
  Isabel gasped again. Her cheeks turned pink. A look of terror filled her eyes. “How did you find out?”

  I said nothing, not wanting to give up Dillon, and looked at Jake to answer.

  Instead, he changed the subject. “Isabel, did Polly tell you who to vote for before she died?”

  Isabel shook her head, confirming what Simon had said earlier.

  “You don’t have any idea who it was supposed to be?” Jake pressed.

  “No,” Isabel answered. “Polly said she’d tell us right before we were supposed to cast our votes.”

  “And you would have done what she said?” I asked.

  Tears filled Isabel’s dark eyes again. “Like Simon told you, she said she’d expose us if we didn’t.”

  “What did she have on you?” Jake asked.

  Isabel turned away.

  “Maybe we can help,” I offered gently.

  “How?” Isabel asked, twisting her hands in her lap. “George is dead. Polly’s dead. And the police think they have the killer.”

  “We think Wendy is innocent,” Jake said, “and we mean to prove it. So when we do, the police will come looking for the most likely suspects—the two people Polly was blackmailing.”

  “Not if you don’t tell them!” she said.

  I didn’t mention the fact that they already had Polly’s computer with the incriminating e-mails. “Let us help you,” I said.

  Simon looked at Isabel, then shrugged. “Maybe they can help us after all.” He turned to Jake and me. “Do you mean that? You’ll help us if the police think we had something to do with Polly’s death?”

  “Yes,” I said. “If you’re innocent, we’ll do what we can. Jake’s a lawyer.” I didn’t mention the fact that he was currently disbarred. Jake shot me a look. I ignored it.

  “All right . . . ,” Simon said.

  “Simon!” she admonished him. “No! You promised! You said not to trust anyone.”

  Simon shook his head. “We have no choice, Isabel. If Wendy really didn’t kill Polly, then we might need this guy’s help in more ways than one.”

  Isabel crossed her arms and studied Jake a moment, then me.

  “You want to tell them, or should I?” Simon asked.

  She looked down at the floor.

  “Okay, I will,” Simon said. He turned to us. “Somehow Polly found out that Isabel had, well, spent some time in prison.”

  I blinked with surprise. Isabel being an ex-con wasn’t what I’d expected. I was thinking more along the lines of plagiarizing a recipe or maybe falsifying her qualifications to be a judge.

  “Why were you in prison?” I asked her.

  Isabel shook her head. Simon answered for her. “Homicide.”

  “What?” I blurted.

  “It was manslaughter!” Isabel argued, her face turning a brighter shade of pink. “And he deserved it.”

  That got my attention. Apparently Isabel Lau was capable of murder.

  Simon patted her back. “Isabel’s husband was abusive. Used to beat her. When he broke her arm for the second time, she’d had enough. She stopped him the only way she knew how.”

  Isabel’s demeanor abruptly changed. Her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared. She suddenly looked defiant.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  Isabel met my eyes and said, “I stabbed him, right after he passed out from drinking a bottle of whiskey.”

  I stared at her openmouthed, stunned at this confession. “But why? There are services to help battered women—shelters, counselors, housing. Why kill him? Why not just leave him?”

  “Because he threatened to track me down—and he had the resources to do that.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police?” I asked, puzzled.

  “They wouldn’t have believed me,” Isabel said.

  “But you had proof,” I said. “Your arm was broken! Twice! Surely the hospital had records of this. The police couldn’t ignore that.”

  Tears filled her eyes. “Tell her, Simon. Tell her why I couldn’t go to the police.”

  Simon cleared his throat before answering. “Her husband was a cop.”

  Whoa. I glanced over at Jake. He gave a single nod. I gathered he’d heard about situations like this, being in the law profession.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, unable to imagine what it must have been like, trapped in a marriage with an abusive man, especially one who was supposed to help and protect people. “That must have been twice as hard for you, not having any support from the police department.”

  Isabel’s hands twisted in her lap. “She ended up serving five years,” Simon said.

  Wow. Five years of her life for killing a man who’d battered her repeatedly.

  “It wasn’t so bad,” she said. “The prison cook brought me in as her apprentice, so I learned a skill. But when I got out, I couldn’t get a job,” Isabel added. “No one would hire me. The only thing I could do was cook—it became a passion of mine—but even that didn’t get me hired. I began cooking for homeless shelters and women’s centers to build my reputation before opening my own catering business. But none of that happened until after I changed my name.”

  “You changed your name?” I repeated. “How?”

  “It’s not hard,” Jake said. “If you live in California, you have the legal right to change your name simply by using your new name in all areas of your life.”

  “That’s true,” Isabel said, “but I wanted to make sure my old name was never discovered, or I’d be ruined in the food business. I went through the official process—getting a court order and filing for a petition to change my name. I had to show cause and fill out a bunch of paperwork. It took a few months, but I wanted to be certain no one would find out.”

  “Aren’t there ways to uncover a person’s real name, even after all that?” I asked. “It sounds like Polly must have found out somehow.”

  Isabel shrugged. “I don’t know how she did it. Supposedly, if you’re a victim of domestic violence, the court will keep the name change confidential.”

  “Did you post your intention to change your name in the newspaper?” Jake asked.

  “Yes. It was one of the requirements,” Isabel said. “But I chose an out-of-area newspaper.”

  Jake nodded. “Polly probably hired a private investigator to do a background check. PIs have all kinds of ways to access information about anyone—public records, Internet resources, tracing backgrounds, Zabasearch, Pipl. It wouldn’t take much, even with information that’s supposed to be confidential.”

  I wondered if Dillon had found out her real name, too, while doing his research, but I doubted it, since he’d never mentioned it.

  Apparently, Isabel Lau’s new identity wasn’t completely safe after all. I thought of Anne Perry, the famous mystery writer once known as Juliet Hulme, who was convicted of killing her friend’s mother with a brick when she was a teenager. After she served time in prison, she changed her name, adopted a new religion, and began writing murder mysteries, of all things. Years later her true identity was discovered, not by a private investigator, but by a journalist, just before a movie about the crime was about to be released—Heavenly Creatures. And that was back when there were no computer hackers or Zabasearches.

  “What about you, Simon?” I asked. “Why was Polly blackmailing you?”

  Isabel raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Simon, tell them what you did—and what would happen if your father found out—”

  “Shut up, Isabel!” Simon snapped. “At least it wasn’t murder!”

  Whoa, this was starting to turn ugly. What had Simon done that was so awful it caused such a change in his demeanor?

  Isabel’s eyes narrowed, but this time there were no tears, only venom, in those brown eyes. “You’re a pig, Simon. I can’t wait until this is all over and I never have to s
ee you again. I don’t know why I agreed to hole up in this crappy little house with you—”

  Simon cut her off. “So what are you going to do about it, Isabel? Kill me too?”

  “Okay, everyone, calm down,” Jake said. “Isabel, chill. Simon, answer the question. Why was Polly blackmailing you?”

  Simon sat down, looking as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him. After a few deep breaths, he said, “That witch found out what I did to my dad.”

  “Tell him,” Isabel insisted. “Tell him how you double-crossed your own family and why you’re living in a dump like this now.”

  “Shut up, I said,” Simon yelled. “I’m going to tell them if you’ll let me talk!”

  Isabel closed her mouth. We all waited for Simon to begin again. Finally, he said, “Like Frankie Nudo’s family, my dad gets his chocolate from the Ivory Coast. But unlike the Nudos, who are getting rich from their business, my father is going broke. He’s trying to sell off his chocolate companies as fast as he can, then move to Mexico before his business completely falls apart. And it’s all my fault.”

  “Why?” I asked. “What did you do?”

  “He ratted him out,” Isabel piped up.

  Simon glared at her. “I couldn’t live knowing the truth. All those children . . .”

  I looked at Jake. He frowned.

  “What he means is,” Isabel said, “he couldn’t live with the fact that his family was using child labor to produce their cocoa on the Ivory Coast. Did you know tens of thousands of kids help supply a third of the world’s cocoa? And most of those kids are under fourteen. They don’t go to school. They do hazardous work for long hours and little pay. They have health issues. . . .”

  I thought of Griffin Makeba, the Pie Guy at the party who’d mentioned child labor, only it sounded like he’d been referring to Frankie Nudo’s family.

  “Stop, Isabel. I know! That’s why I told the International Labour Committee. I couldn’t live with it anymore. Child labor has been going on since the early nineteen hundreds and no one’s done anything to stop it until recently. Finally people are beginning to boycott these cocoa producers and put an end to child labor. But my father wouldn’t listen.”