Murder of a Chocolate-Covered Cherry

by Denise Swanson

  “I’ve called in all off-duty and part-time officers, and they’re keeping the perimeter intact and rounding up anybody they find nearby. Luckily only you and your mother were here promptly at six for the practice. The other contestants have been showing up a few at a time, and my officers have been able to stop them at the gate.”

  “Except for Diane,” Skye reminded him. “I wonder when she arrived.”

  “Good question. May said that you two got here just a few minutes before the mayor came running out.” Wally paused until Skye nodded her confirmation. “Dante and the screamer are still not making any sense.”

  “Do you want me to try to talk to them?”

  “Might as well give it a try.” Wally nodded toward the chocolate fountain. “I’d like to know if they saw anything or only stumbled across the body. Ms. White was too clean to have committed the murder—unless she did it naked and then re-dressed.”

  “Now there’s a picture I could have done without.” Skye winced.

  “Sorry.” Wally patted her arm. “We’ve called for Grandma Sal to come out and identify the body.”

  “Do you want me to look?” Skye hated to do it, but knew that the sooner they knew who the victim was, the better their chances of solving the case.

  “It would be a help, but you don’t have to. We can wait.” Wally put an arm around her shoulders.

  “No, I can do it.” Skye gazed into the warm depths of Wally’s eyes and gained strength from them.

  “Okay.” Wally led her to the chocolate fountain.

  Simon had laid the victim out on the floor. The rest of the crime scene belonged to the county techs, but the body was the coroner’s domain. He was taking a temperature reading to help determine the time of death, and Skye tried not to notice the sharp probe going into the body’s liver. Instead she concentrated on the face. She leaned forward and looked closely. As she had suspected from the expensive sandals, the chocolate-covered corpse was Cherry Alexander.

  CHAPTER 8

  Add Vanilla

  Uncle Dante?” Skye found the mayor sitting on a bench, clutching a gray wool blanket around his shoulders and staring into space.

  It wasn’t like her uncle to remain on the sidelines—he was too fond of the limelight to wait for someone to seek him out. His normal MO would be to charge into the crime scene, try to order Wally around, and generally make a nuisance of himself. Clearly he wasn’t okay.

  May sat next to her brother, patting his hand and murmuring soothing words. When Skye approached, May looked up with a worried crease between her eyebrows. “I saw Simon go in. Who’s dead? What happened?”

  “Cherry Alexander,” Skye answered, then wondered if she should have kept that information to herself. “Don’t tell anyone else. Treat the info as if you heard it while at work— confidential.” Skye answered her mother’s last question: “We don’t know what happened. How’s Dante? Has he said anything?”

  “I can’t get him to talk. I even tried to get a rise out of him by mentioning that this would probably be the end of the good publicity for Scumble River, but he still didn’t respond.”

  “Have the EMTs looked him over?” Skye didn’t see an ambulance in the parking lot.

  May shook her head. “They had their hands full with that cookie blogger. She was screaming and twitching and causing all sorts of commotion. I heard they thought she was having a stroke or a seizure or some such thing, so they’re transporting her to the hospital.”

  It crossed Skye’s mind that Diane might be putting on an act in order to get away from the cops. “Did Anthony go with her?” It would be a lot easier to escape from the hospital than from the police station.

  “I think so.” May’s voice was taut, her fingers twisted in a knot. “They asked if Dante was okay, and I said he wasn’t hurt, so they gave me a blanket for him and then left. Did I do something wrong?”

  “I don’t know.” Skye squatted in front of her uncle and studied him closely. His breath was coming in small, fast gasps, his skin was blotchy, and the area around his mouth had a bluish cast. Skye chewed her lip, then handed Dante’s cell phone to May. “Mom, you’d better ask for another ambulance. I think he’s going into shock.”

  May fumbled a little, but eventually managed to turn the phone on and dial. “Thea? It’s May. We need another ambulance at Grandma Sal’s.”

  Once Skye was sure May was making the call, she tuned out her mother’s voice and focused on her uncle. “Dante, everything is okay now. The police are here and you’re safe.” She pressed him back so that he was lying on the bench and elevated his feet by putting them on May’s box of utensils. “Just forget what you saw and relax.” She kept her voice a hypnotic tone as she loosened his shoelaces, belt, and tie. “Think of your favorite place.”

  Dante didn’t react. He appeared to be conscious, but completely unresponsive.

  “The ambulance from Brooklyn is on its way,” May reported.

  “Good.” Skye unbuttoned Dante’s shirt, then without looking away asked May, “Do you have a gallon-size Ziploc? One that hasn’t been used?”

  “Yes.” May dug through the canvas bags next to the bench, found the unopened box, and extracted a bag. “Here’s a brand-new one.”

  “Hold it open,” Skye instructed as she eased her uncle’s shirt off him and carefully put it into the bag. “Close it up and don’t let it out of your sight.”

  May nodded, closed it, then stared at the plastic sack as if it might sprout wings and fly away.

  Skye turned back to her uncle, and as she pulled the blanket higher around Dante’s shoulders she noticed that his undershirt was soiled, too, and this spot didn’t look like chocolate. She lifted the white cotton tee and examined his upper torso; there was a jagged wound smeared with dried blood just above his belly button. The chocolate on the front of his outer shirt had masked the bloodstain. Dante had been stabbed!

  Skye was torn between staying with her uncle and finding Wally to report this new development, but before she could decide she heard an ambulance siren. In minutes a man and woman rushed over to them and began issuing orders and firing questions.

  As Dante was being wheeled away, he suddenly became alert and grabbed Skye’s hand, saying, “Don’t let them cancel the contest. Promise me you’ll make Grandma Sal keep it going.”

  She was saved from answering when the EMTs lifted the gurney into the ambulance.

  “Here, take this.” Skye’s mother shoved the Ziploc bag containing Dante’s shirt into her daughter’s hands. “I’m going with him.” May grabbed her purse and hurriedly climbed in beside her brother, clutching his cell phone and muttering, “I need to call Olive and Hugh, and you need to get hold of your father.” She aimed the last bit at Skye.

  “No!” Skye swallowed back a frustrated shriek. “Call Olive, but don’t tell her what happened. Just say that Dante’s injured and going to the hospital. Do not say anything else and do not call anyone else.”

  May nodded distractedly, and Skye wondered if her mother had even heard her. Since May was armed with a cell phone and knew how to use it, Skye decided she needed to fill in Wally ASAP, or the news of Dante’s wound would be all over Scumble River before the chief of police even knew about it. Wally had been a little cranky lately, and Skye didn’t think being scooped by the town gossips would improve his mood.

  Skye passed Simon and his assistant, Xavier Ryan, wheeling a gurney bearing a black body bag down the side-walk toward the parking lot. She nodded to both men, but kept walking.

  While she had been with her uncle the county crime scene officers had arrived, and the warehouse was buzzing with voices and activity. She found a tech she knew and handed him Dante’s shirt, explaining how it came to be in her possession. He put the Ziploc into his own evidence bag, noting the information she had given him on the outside.

  Circling the crime scene, Skye made her way over to the table in the rear corner of the dining area, where Wally was seated, talking to Grandma Sal and Jared.
JJ and Brandon were at a table in the opposite corner of the room. Both young men had cell phones pressed to their ears, but neither seemed to be having much luck with reception as they took turns yelling, “What? Say that again. No, I said dead, not bread.”

  Skye caught Wally’s eye, then made a questioning face. Should she join them or wait somewhere else? He nodded and indicated a chair next to him.

  Skye sat down, and Wally introduced her. “This is Ms. Denison, the psychological consultant for our police department.”

  Grandma Sal smiled. “You’re also one of our finalists. Right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then maybe you can help me convince my boy here that the contest must go on.”

  Skye was caught by surprise. That was the last thing she had expected to hear the older woman say. “Well, I hadn’t given it much thought.” In fact, she had figured that Grandma Sal would be horrified by the murder, and would want to put as much distance between it and her company as possible.

  Grandma Sal’s son spoke up before Skye could say more. “Going on with the contest would be disrespectful to Ms. Alexander, and put an undue burden on the rest of the contestants. We certainly can’t expect them to do their best under these conditions.”

  Wally looked at Skye. “What do you think? The techs say they’ll be done by this afternoon, and I would like to keep everyone together until we figure out what happened here. If we cancel the contest, all the participants will scatter. I can’t order that many people to stay put. Their lawyers would be all over me.”

  “I think the challenge should go on, for several reasons.” Skye paused to gather her thoughts. “First, as you say, it’s better for the investigation if everyone stays around. Second, it isn’t really fair to the finalists who have worked so hard to get here to have it canceled. And third, going on with the contest will provide some closure to the people involved. Perhaps you could even give out an extra prize, the Cherry Alexander Award for something or other.”

  “Perfect.” Grandma Sal clapped her hands. “We’ll push everything back a day. I’m sure no one will mind sticking around an extra twenty-four hours.” She turned to her son. “Jared, you and the boys make sure everyone gets the word that we’re going ahead, and the cooking starts at ten a.m. tomorrow. You can use the phones at the factory, and I’ll meet you there when I’m done here.”

  Her son shook his head, but stood up and walked over to JJ and Brandon. Neither of the “boys” looked pleased with Jared’s news, but both followed him out the door.

  Wally asked Grandma Sal a few more questions, then rose and held out his hand. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

  Grandma Sal shook Wally’s hand, nodded to Skye, then headed toward the exit.

  As soon as Grandma Sal was out of sight, Skye said, “We need to talk.”

  He picked up his pen. “Shoot.”

  “When I went out to check on Dante, I found a stab wound on his stomach. He’s on his way to the hospital.”

  “Son of a bi…!” Wally stammered to a stop. His jaw worked for a while, but he finally said, “What happened?”

  “He’s in shock and not able to communicate, except to order me to make sure the contest goes on.”

  “He and Grandma Sal are two of a kind.”

  Skye shook her head. “Let’s just hope they aren’t a ‘dying’ breed.”

  “So, he didn’t mention that he’d been stabbed, and you have no idea how he got the wound?”

  “That pretty much describes the situation.”

  “Any guesses?”

  “It depends.” Skye shrugged. “We arrived here at six o’clock on the dot, and Dante came running out of the warehouse maybe thirty seconds later. Was Simon able to give you a time of death for Cherry?”

  Wally consulted his notes. “Reid said the body temp was ninetyseven-point-four. Bodies cool at about one and a half degree per hour, and she was one-point-two degrees below normal. Which means she could have been killed just a few minutes before you were knocked over by Dante.”

  “I take it that the chocolate fountain wasn’t heated at the time?”

  “No.”

  “But then”—Skye narrowed her eyes—“why wasn’t the chocolate hard?” She had noticed it was in liquid form when she was trying to calm down Diane.

  “Grandma Sal said the fountain chocolate is like the syrup you pour over ice cream. It never solidifies.”

  “Okay, then it’s my guess that Dante wrestled with the killer and was cut by him or her. Was Cherry stabbed or drowned or both?”

  “The only injury Reid found was at her hairline above her right eye. There were lacerations and a depression in the skull, indicating she had been hit on the head with something like a hammer or mallet.” Wally tapped the table with his pen. “Unfortunately, Reid can’t say yet if it was the blow or the chocolate that killed her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Drowning is a diagnosis of exclusion. If the medical examiner doesn’t find any other cause and there’s fluid in her lungs, he’ll call it a drowning.”

  “Maybe once they wash the body they’ll be able to tell us more. Hard to see bruising while she’s covered with chocolate.”

  “Yep. Let’s hope Reid missed something.” Wally pushed back his chair. “I guess I’d better get to Laurel Hospital and see if the mayor is talking yet.”

  Skye followed him as he headed out and waited as he had a word with the techs and his officers, but as he reached his squad car she put a hand on his arm and said, “We really need to talk. Did you get my message about Ashley Yates’s disappearance?”

  “Yes. Quirk moved on it last night. He didn’t find her, but her mother admitted that this isn’t the first time Ashley has gone missing for a couple of days.”

  “Really?” Gee. What a shock that Mrs. Yates hadn’t mentioned that to Skye, instead blaming the school. “But how about Xenia and her blog?”

  “Xenia was home, just like her mother claimed, but— surprise, surprise—when Quirk questioned her she claimed the blog wasn’t hers, and it has since disappeared into cyberspace.” Wally’s expression showed his disbelief. “Quirk’s got the county computer expert looking into that.”

  “Good. Xenia bragged to the other kids about the blog, so I’m sure she’s lying about it not being hers. Not to mention she’s quite a hacker, which is how she got her story about Ashley into the newspaper without Trixie or me catching it. So she wouldn’t have any trouble getting rid of the blog if she wanted to.” Skye let go of Wally’s arm. “Was that why you couldn’t make the dinner last night? Was that the emergency you mentioned?”

  He shook his head, the expression on his face strained. “No. That was something else.”

  She opened her mouth to ask what, but Wally was already sliding into the driver’s seat and closing the door.

  He rolled the window down and, as he started the engine, said, “I don’t have time to get into it right now. Are you free tonight?”

  She nodded, a feeling of alarm making her chest hurt. What was going on? Was he breaking up with her?

  “Okay. Unless something else happens I’ll be at your place around seven, and I’ll bring supper.” He stuck his arm out the window and took her hand, raising it to his mouth for a kiss.

  The touch of his lips sent a flame into the pit of her stomach, and the warm expression in his brown eyes curled around her heart.

  She sensed his reluctance to let go, but when he did he said, “Everything will be fine. I promise.”

  As Skye watched the cruiser drive away, it occurred to her that Wally had said he’d come to her house. That was odd. Although they’d never voiced their concern, it seemed that every time she and Wally even touched each other anywhere in her house, something exploded or caught on fire or flooded. Since Thanksgiving they’d been spending most of their time together at his house.

  Why did he suddenly want to meet at her house? She frowned. Was Wally planning to tell her something that would end their relation
ship for good, and so had no intention of touching her? She blinked back a tear and forced herself to think positive thoughts.

  When Skye finally turned away, she realized that she needed a ride. Her mom had left with Dante, taking the keys to her car with her. And all newcomers were being turned away at the factory’s gates, which were being monitored by the police.

  Shoot. She’d have to go over to the plant, ask to use a phone, and get someone to pick her up. But who? She had no idea where Uncle Charlie or Vince was, since they were also contestants and would have been turned away at the gate a couple of hours ago. Her dad refused to answer the phone.

  Skye thought for a moment. Heck, anyone she called for a ride would expect her to tell them everything that was going on, which she couldn’t do. Maybe her best bet was to go to the gate and see if anyone she knew turned up. It would be easier to be evasive with an acquaintance than a friend.

  Slinging her tote bag over her shoulder, she started toward the main road, about a quarter mile away. She kept to the pavement, not wanting to get her new running shoes dirty. About halfway there she noticed a swathe of white caught in the bushes that lined the driveway. It was probably just garbage, but something about it seemed familiar.

  She stepped closer, trying to avoid the mud. Just as she reached out to touch it, it fluttered in the wind, and Skye realized she was staring at a discarded factory jumpsuit that was smeared with chocolate, and maybe blood. Oh, shit. This must belong to the man she and May saw running in the parking lot that morning. Darn. In all the confusion she’d forgotten to tell Wally about the guy—and he could be the killer!

  What to do now? Better to let the techs get it, but did she dare leave it? What if it blew away? Okay, she’d wait until someone came in or out, and ask them to get a tech. This kind of situation made her wish for a cell phone.

  Twenty minutes later her plan to wait didn’t seem like such a good idea. Finally an elegant black Lincoln limousine coming from the direction of the factory purred into view. Skye waved it to a stop, and leaned in as the passenger window eased down. Inside were Grandma Sal, Jared, JJ, and Brandon.