Sticky Sweet

by Connie Shelton

  “Can your department pay a quick call to be sure they went back home?” he asked.

  “How’s the hunt for Ramona Lukinger coming along?” Rodriguez countered. “I still want the woman extradited back here so we can press charges on behalf of Mr. Efram.”

  “I’m as frustrated as you are,” Beau assured the other cop. “I’ve got an officer watching her apartment, but we’ve seen no movement there since the day we searched the place. There’s a BOLO out for her car, but since buying cinnamon rolls early yesterday morning—which provided the lead on the vehicle’s plate number—it hasn’t been seen. She’s either hiding out somewhere or she’s switched vehicles. I’ll trade my icy roads and eight inches of snow for your sunny California day, any time.”

  “Okay. Didn’t mean to get testy,” Rodriguez said. “We’re all doing our best. I’ll see if I can find out what the Eframs’ story is.”

  Beau spent the next hour checking with his deputies to see if there had been any sightings of the red Mercedes, although with his entire department and the town police on alert, surely he would have heard about it. He topped up his coffee mug and got a bag of cookies from the vending machine—knowing what a disappointment they would be after Sam’s bakery delights—arriving back at his desk at the exact moment the duty officer informed him he had a call from a detective Rodriguez.

  “That was quick,” Beau said. By the amount of background noise, he guessed the detective was on a hands-free mobile phone.

  “I’m leaving the elder Efram’s house now. Hiram admits he and his son went to Taos. He says they hadn’t made much progress in tracking down Ramona or Percy Lukinger, but they saw a news story about a man who was killed in a car accident and knew police were looking to identify him. The picture on the TV matched the man they remembered as Ramona’s brother. Danny Efram mistakenly understood the story to say a woman was also killed, and they believed their chance at getting their money back was now gone. When I told Hiram Ramona had not been involved in the accident, he got pretty excited, although I doubt they’ll turn around and come back after her. He’s expecting me to bring her back.”

  “I wish I had an instant answer for you on that, Jorge. We’re working on it.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “One other question. At any time during your investigation, would you have reason to believe anyone in the Efram family has access to prescription drugs—specifically benzodiazepines?”

  “Like, are they dealing or something?”

  “Well, I was thinking of someone in the healthcare field—a doctor, nurse, pharmacist—anyone like that?”

  “No one’s mentioned it to me. Hiram was retired from real estate, back when big fortunes were being made out here. Danny tried his hand at it but, frankly, he doesn’t quite have the charm of a natural salesman. I get the feeling he and his wife are sort of professional country-clubbers. Golf, lunches and dinners out, hanging around the pool seem to be their style. Why?”

  “We’ve discovered a link between the cause of death and some anti-anxiety drugs called benzodiazepines.”

  “Those have to be pretty common, and it sounds weird to me as a murder weapon, but I’ll keep my ears open. You can always get that sunny California day if you want to come out here and question these guys.”

  Beau laughed. “Keep that option open for me. A month from now, I’ll be more than ready to get out of the mountains.”

  He hung up the phone and reached for the cookie packet, only to realize he’d already consumed them all. He wadded the cellophane and tossed it toward his wastebasket. Missed. A heaviness hung over his mood. Lots of clues, lots of suspects—but none of it was coming together.

  Chapter 42

  The snowplow had no sooner finished clearing her employee parking lot than Sam saw the first of their cars arrive. Benjie, bless him, was the most diligent of her people. It was a pleasure working with a guy who genuinely loved his work. She watched from her second-story window as he parked and walked to the back door. She had moved the chocolates for Bookman’s presentation, placing them on the desk in her office so they didn’t get damaged or accidently packed up and shipped out.

  She’d spent the two hours since she arrived this morning stewing over what type of gift boxes she could come up with. Each had to be special, and it should represent the country the charter tour would visit that day. Although this was an exclusive trip to be taken by very wealthy people, the boxes couldn’t be so artistic as to be prohibitively expensive or so one-of-a-kind that she couldn’t come up with hundreds of them.

  As Stan Bookman had explained it, the planes would carry eighty passengers—forty couples, although on some trips there would be singles. She had to plan on fifty copies of the gift box for each flight. Book It Travel hoped to fill a tour each week, so four hundred boxes a month during the travel season.

  From experience, Sam knew her client tended to dream big; if he could fill a plane every day, year round, he wouldn’t hesitate to call upon her to meet the demand. And she was due to show him the nine gift boxes, filled with each unique assortment, tomorrow afternoon. Yikes.

  She had stared at the chocolates until her mind went completely blank. Granted, it didn’t help that she’d become sidetracked this week by the weather, by Beau’s case, and the appearance of Missy Malone again yesterday. At the moment, she could see only one solution—handle the carved box and see what visions came to her. Only problem was that she hadn’t thought of it soon enough, so she would need to make a trip home to get it.

  She walked downstairs, feeling a little overwhelmed.

  “Hey, Sam,” Benjie said when she reached the kitchen. “Wait ’til you taste the new flavor combination I’m going to try. I think having the day off yesterday was good for my creative juices. I came up with a few new ideas.”

  Sam’s smile felt weak as she reached for her coat on the rack at the door. Day off—she wished she could remember what that was like.

  “Everything okay?” he asked, his smile wide and his eyes bright.

  She stopped in her tracks and really looked at him. The entire burden of creation didn’t have to fall to her.

  “Benjie … I have to admit I’m stumped for ideas right now. How would you like to help?”

  Lisa and Dottie walked in the back door just as she said it. Both had rosy, winter brightened cheeks and smiles. “Help with what?” Lisa asked.

  Sam let her coat drop back to the hook. “Let’s get everyone here. I’ve got a question for you all.”

  By the time Ronnie, Lucinda, and the other two chocolatiers had arrived, Sam felt her enthusiasm meter rise a touch. She had them pull chairs into the kitchen, where the smells of chocolate and flavorings, along with the sight of the decorative molds and icing tools often inspired her.

  “Okay, I need ideas,” she said, her notepad and pen handy. “Toss me whatever comes to mind.”

  It lifted her mood just to see the anticipation on their faces. She randomly picked a country from the list on Bookman’s itinerary.

  “Okay, everyone. If you were in India and were given a very special present, how would it be packaged? Describe the box for me.”

  “Does it have to be a box?” Lucinda asked.

  As one of the shippers who only packed and labeled shipping cartons, Lucinda didn’t get much creativity in her job, Sam realized. She needed to listen to these kids and their ideas and literally think outside the box.

  “I’ll be a little more specific,” Sam told them. “If it can hold a dozen of our chocolates without damaging them, that’s the goal.”

  Lucinda fairly wiggled in her chair. “I’d make it be the Taj Mahal, only the front would open like a dollhouse, and inside would be little compartments—like rooms, maybe—and each compartment would hold a piece of candy.”

  Sam felt her pulse quicken. “I love it! Anyone else?”

  Suddenly, they seemed shy. Lucinda’s idea had been such a good one they were afraid
to compete.

  “Any and all ideas,” Sam said. “Toss them at me.”

  “A Hindu shrine? Or, like, a reclining Buddha?”

  Sort of a mix of cultures, but Sam could sort all that out later.

  “Okay, what if you were in Australia and you’re visiting the Great Barrier Reef. How would that gift be delivered?”

  “A big seashell,” Ronnie indicated the way a giant clamshell would fit together and open.

  “How about Morocco?” Sam began tossing out the destinations and writing ideas as fast as she could.

  “Aladdin’s lamp,” Lisa said. “I can picture the genie saying ‘open the top of the lamp for your surprise’ and I would be really blown away with that.”

  “A treasure chest would be so cool for Samoa,” Benjie said. “Picture something that washed up on the beach and you were just walking along and found it.”

  After thirty minutes, the torrent of ideas had slowed and the team had discarded a few of the less-workable ones, leaving Sam with some terrific ideas—and the daunting job of locating the containers that would be prototypes. Bookman’s budget was generous, but she had to be realistic and keep in mind the bottom line—she couldn’t lose money on this deal. And the packaging had to be replicable. As much fun as it could be to have every box one-of-a-kind, that simply wasn’t feasible.

  She started with the internet. Her normal packaging suppliers offered nothing along these lines. She’d already chosen their most unusual boxes for her everyday chocolates. On to a few of the art and craft sites, where she was able to find a crafter who made clamshell jewelry boxes. She called the woman, who instantly picked up Sam’s excitement and said she had originally designed her boxes larger than the ones she was currently offering on her website. She would be happy to overnight ship a couple of her early efforts for Sam to use as prototypes, and, yes, she could gear up for greater production if the client approved the design. She had two nieces who were eager to come into the business with her.

  Sam ticked the seashell box off her checklist. One down, eight to go.

  By noon, she’d only come up with three more and was feeling a little panicky. She still had to make enough of the candy to fill the unique containers, and she had to be ready for the meeting with Stan Bookman in less than thirty hours. When one of the shipping clerks offered to go out and bring back sandwiches for lunch, Sam had a brainstorm.

  “Let’s shut down for two hours and go on a treasure hunt,” she said when the whole crew assembled in the kitchen. She ripped a sheet of paper into five strips and wrote a word or two on each. “Divide up into teams. We need five items. Your mission is to scour this town until you find the item on your paper. Get creative. If you buy the item in a shop, ask the owner if we can get more of the thing at a discount. Make notes on your paper if there are options or variations.”

  As the employees moved into groups, she handed each team fifty dollars. “This is a pretty generous amount,” she warned them. “We can’t spend this much for every box. Ideally, I’d keep the cost around twenty, if possible. But for prototypes, we can justify a little extra. We’ll call it R&D.”

  Smiles all around the room. Sam could see their brains clicking away with ideas as they read the descriptions on their assignment.

  “First team back gets a little bonus,” she said. “And there will be a prize for the most amazing rendition.”

  The smiles turned to whoops of excitement and they all rushed for their coats. Sam looked around the empty kitchen and realized she’d just brought chocolate production to a complete halt. She set Benjie’s racks to one end of the worktable and brought out the exquisite pieces she’d created during her frenzied night. She loved the way the light caught glints of gold atop glossy chocolate ovals. An egg shape with white-chocolate finish and alternating chevrons of dark chocolate, topped by miniaturized loops of chocolate ribbon was a show-stopper. But she had to admit that the mirror-finished truffle with its swirl of fuchsia glaze and a fresh raspberry on top was probably her favorite.

  A chocolate Incan pyramid with a sun-god mask, cones with molten lava centers dusted outside with cocoa powder to give a matte finish, delicately thin chocolate cups filled with caramel … all of them made her heartbeat quicken. Now, if she could only remember the recipes and flavor combinations.

  Chapter 43

  It felt as if she had barely started on the new chocolate pieces when the teams began to return with their finds. Ronnie and Lucinda returned first, having only spent ten dollars of the fifty Sam had given them; she allowed them to split the remaining forty as their bonus. They had found a charming basket woven of grasses, and the animal design on top easily fit the theme and feel of the Serengeti Plain in Tanzania. Sam had to admit she was impressed at the ability to pick such an unusual piece from the offerings here in Taos.

  They all got a laugh over the colossal colored egg Dottie had thought would represent Easter Island, but when she pulled out the real item, a stone box with fitted lid, carved to look as if it had been created by the Rapa Nui themselves, Sam and the rest found themselves staring in wonder.

  “I couldn’t imagine how you would find a stone box that didn’t weigh a ton,” she told Lisa and Dottie, “but this is beautiful and actually fairly lightweight.”

  “The woman at the shop said it was carved of a special stone. It fools everyone. We all expected it to be really heavy.”

  “Can we get more?” Sam asked.

  Lisa had written a note with the name and phone number of the factory in the Philippines.

  “The shop owner gave you this information?”

  “At first, she was hoping to get the order herself, but when I told her how many we would need, she backed away. She said her profit on them is very small. It’s a tiny shop, and I don’t think she wanted to take the chance.”

  Sam looked at the box again, and the note. “Okay, then. I love the box. If Mr. Bookman does, too, I’ll send the lady a finder’s fee for her generosity.”

  One by one, the other items came out. The trickiest had proven to be Lucinda’s idea for a dollhouse-like Taj Mahal. But Benjie and his two chocolatiers had come close. They’d found an artist who’d created papier mâché replicas of the famed St. Francis Church with its bell towers and crosses. The little churches opened on hinges to show the altar and pews inside.

  The woman artist had been in a chatty mood in her gallery this afternoon. She had actually visited the real Taj Mahal once, and said she would love to try to create a more Eastern version of a building with minarets and other details. She had set to work on it right away, but asked for a week to complete the piece. It wouldn’t make Bookman’s deadline for tomorrow’s meeting, but Sam had a feeling this would be such a special piece he would be thrilled to see it on his next trip through town.

  Everyone voted for the Easter Island stone box as the most innovative piece, although if the hinged church building had actually been of the Taj Mahal, all agreed it would have won. Sam decided if the finished piece actually turned out as beautifully as it had been described, both the team who had located it and the artist should be rewarded with something of an after-prize.

  Of course, the challenge would be to create dividers to hold the individual pieces of chocolate without destroying the beauty of the artistic piece. Sam glanced toward the rack of chocolates she had made and narrowed her eyes in concentration. Ideas began to form.

  “Do you mind if I completely take over one of the worktables?” she asked Benjie.

  Without another word, he began moving all the standard production gear to one table, clearing the other for the newly found containers and Sam’s unique chocolates. She opened each of the containers, eyed the candy, and began to choose pieces for each of the tour locales. Trial and error, frustration with the fit and configuration of certain pieces; she was dimly aware of the employees leaving and the sun setting as she fitted small fluted paper cups into the spaces and added the candy.

  Standing
back, she was pleased with the results, as far as they went. Unfortunately, everything she had made so far came nowhere near filling the nine containers she needed for the presentation—now only twenty hours away. She’d resisted, but it was now apparent the magic box would be her only way to meet this deadline.

  With no other choice, she dashed out to her truck and raced home. A quick note to Beau, explaining it would be another late night, and she grabbed the carved box from the safe. She’d forgotten lunch and it was nearing their normal dinner time, but leftover chicken from the fridge would have to do.

  Five minutes later, she was headed back to the chocolate factory, resting the palm of her left hand on the box on her lap. Before she reached the turnoff to the Victorian, her body had begun to warm from contact with the box, and she glanced down to see the dull wood now glowed with a golden light, and the colored stones were sparkling. She set it aside, not wanting to be awake all night long.

  In the kitchen she surveyed the work she’d done so far while she polished off two pieces of chicken and an apple. She was pleased with the creativity of the new designs—Bookman would notice she had included exclusive chocolates and a few techniques she’d not used before. She began to think of the containers she’d ordered online. They would arrive by overnight delivery tomorrow morning. With no time to come up with new designs after their arrival, she should have the contents ready for each package ahead of time.

  She trotted up the stairs and collected the pictures of each item she’d printed from its sales page. The giant clamshell would be a challenge, she thought as she walked down to the kitchen. The shape didn’t exactly lend itself to the conventional display for a box of chocolates. She stared and pondered.