Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 04 - Chocolate Mousse Attack

by Sally Berneathy

  I put on my blinker to move over a lane. The car behind me sped up so I couldn’t. “I’m not going fast enough to worry about it, thanks to traffic, stoplights and jerks. Anyway, I’m on my Bluetooth, and I was sitting in the parking lot when I hit your speed dial. I can make chocolate chip cookies and talk to Paula at the same time. I really think I can handle driving home and talking to you at the same time.”

  The car in front of me, the one being herded down the street by a young girl with a cell phone stuck to her ear, slowed. I tensed. The traffic light ahead was still green, but if she dinked around long enough, it would eventually turn red and stay red for a long time.

  The light turned yellow and she stopped.

  I sighed. “I’m currently parked at a two-hour red light,” I said to Trent. “Do you want to hear my stories or not?”

  “I want to hear your stories. I just don’t want to hear the sound of crunching metal.”

  The light finally turned to green, but the idiot in front of me was paying more attention to her conversation than to my need to get through that intersection before I was eligible to collect Social Security. I tapped my horn. Okay, I leaned on it.

  Trent sighed. “I don’t even want to know who you’re honking at or why.”

  The girl finally noticed the green light and moved on. I made it through on yellow. “Good,” I said, “because I don’t want to tell you. Okay, moving on. First, I met the new owner of the house across the street and Fred called at two this morning to ask me to come over and coax her out of his closet.” That diverted his attention from the subject of my driving.

  I was on the highway, almost finished with Sophie’s story, when I crested a hill, saw a motorcycle cop with a radar gun and slammed on my brakes. The officer immediately stuck his radar gun in his belt and climbed on his bike.

  “Damn! Damn, damn, damn!”

  “Please tell me you’re not getting another speeding ticket.”

  I drove past the cop, pulled docilely over to the shoulder and fumbled in my purse for my license. I knew the routine.

  “Lindsay? You still there?”

  The motorcycle cop, lights flashing, sped right past me, chasing another car.

  I laughed. “It wasn’t me! He didn’t give me a ticket! He’s after somebody else!”

  “That’s good.”

  “Yeah, but that means somebody was going faster than I was. That’s kind of humiliating.” I merged back onto the highway, relieved but a little sad.

  By the time I pulled into my driveway at home, I had finished Sophie’s tale and the story of Rick’s babysitting needs.

  “Call me if you need help,” Trent said. “You probably haven’t heard the last of Rick and little Rickie.”

  “I know.” I got out of the car and lifted my garage door then checked up and down the street. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see Rick’s car parked there or even the man himself sitting in my front porch swing. He’s the top salesman at Rheims Commercial Real Estate for a reason. He is relentless and doesn’t understand the word no.

  “Cookout at my house on Saturday night,” I said. “You get to meet the new neighbor who has a fondness for Fred’s closet.”

  “Cookout? In this heat? How about I bring pizzas?”

  I was tempted. I do love pizza but I also love sitting outside on summer nights. “We’ll see. It’s only Wednesday. We’ve got plenty of time to figure out the details.”

  We hung up and I walked across the yard to my house, enjoying the faint scent of clover and the buzz of bees as they darted among clover and various other blooms. Grass is a lot of trouble not to mention that it’s boring. I prefer to let the natural process of evolution prevail in my yard. Only the strong survive.

  Needless to say, Fred doesn’t share my dedication to nature. I’ve caught him tossing weed killer granules onto my lawn in the middle of the night. That certainly messes with the process of evolution and gives the grass an unfair advantage. But clover and dandelions are strong. So far the grass is losing the battle in spite of Fred’s foreign aid.

  I opened my front door and Henry met me, launching into his usual I love you so much, Mom, and I don’t need anything from you in return but if you want to give me some food, it will show how much you love me routine.

  I poured nuggets into his German shepherd size bowl then added half a can of something disgusting and smelly.

  He dug in immediately, properly appreciative of the food I’d slaved over a hot can opener to produce.

  Henry appeared out of nowhere a couple of months after Rick and I separated and I moved into this place. I’d made the mistake of letting Rick spend the night and was feeling guilty, sad and desperate to get rid of him when King Henry strolled into my house and my life, announced he was staying and Rick was going. I’d never been able to find his previous owners and had no idea of his lifestyle before he claimed me. Perhaps he had offspring I knew nothing about. Perhaps one or more of them would show up on my doorstep one day the way Rickie had.

  “Henry,” I said as I watched him gobble down the disgusting food, “we’ve never talked about your former life, and it doesn’t really matter. We both started with clean slates as far as I’m concerned. When you came here, you’d already made the decision not to have children, but Rick’s mother made that decision for him when he was fifteen and he still managed to produce Rickie. So I just want you to know, if you have some descendants out there…” I paused, thinking about having another amazing cat like Henry. Then again, the kids could take after their mother. Maybe that’s why he’d left home in the first place. “If you don’t want to bring your kids home to meet me, if you don’t ever want to talk about them, that’s okay with me. Your decision.”

  He continued eating. I took that as a sign he didn’t want to talk about his past.

  I went upstairs to take a quick shower before going over to find out if Fred knew anything else about his nighttime visitor and to tell him my latest Rick-head story.

  When I pulled off my cutoffs, I found the card that Paula’s admirer had left. In all the kerfuffle of Rick’s intrusion, I’d forgotten about that guy.

  Matthew Graham, Associate Professor of History at a local college. Beneath his business phone, he’d handwritten the word home and another phone number. He was good-looking, employed, educated and probably not married or he wouldn’t have given out his home phone. Four points in the positive column.

  I stood there in my bedroom turning the card over and over and trying to decide what to do. If I gave it to Paula and pointed out that he obviously wanted her to call him, she’d crumple the card and toss it in the trash. Maybe even burn it and flush it. No retrieval possible.

  Being married to a psycho abuser like her ex, David Bennett, was enough to make any woman reluctant to have another relationship. But I’d been married to Rick-head for eight years and I’d jumped right back into the water when I met Trent. It was time for Paula to at least dip her toes in the shallow end.

  I picked up my cell phone and punched in the handwritten number on the card.

  “Hi. You’ve reached Matthew Graham. I’m not available at the moment but if you’ll leave your name and number, I’ll call you back.”

  “Hi, Matthew Graham. This is Lindsay Powell from Death by Chocolate where you had lunch today. Congratulations! You were our, uh, ten thousandth customer, and you’ve won a free chocolate dessert of your choice. Hope to see you at Death by Chocolate soon to enjoy your prize!”

  Nobody can resist my chocolate concoctions. He’d be there.

  Yes, that was a very pushy, controlling thing for me to do. I’m a pushy, controlling person. Deal with it.

  I showered, grabbed some leftover Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake and headed for Fred’s house. Henry walked with me but left as soon as Fred answered the door and he knew I was safe. He takes his guard-cat duties seriously. If anything happened to me, he’d have to figure out how to use the can opener, a difficult task with no opposable thumbs.

 
“Come in and join us,” Fred invited. “Sophie’s here and we’re having coffee.”

  “Trade you chocolate for a Coke.” I handed him the plastic container and went inside.

  Looking beautiful in a soft blue blouse, matching ankle pants and sandals that showed off her dark red toenails, Sophie perched on Fred’s forest green leather sofa. “Lindsay, how nice to see you again and under better circumstances than the last time.” She smiled but looked a little tense. Had I interrupted something more than a chat over coffee?

  Nah, they couldn’t be drinking coffee and doing anything intimate. Their breath would smell too awful.

  Still I felt a little uncomfortable as I sat down next to Sophie. “Definitely a better day. We got our air conditioning at the shop fixed. Are you getting all settled in your new home?”

  Fred appeared with a cold Coke and three plates holding slices of my mousse cake. I might have made something out of the fact that he was using his good china, but he always used good china. I’m not sure he even has anything else.

  Fred took a seat in his recliner and sampled my cake. “Excellent as always.” He turned his gaze to Sophie. “Lindsay makes the best desserts in the world, but don’t ever drink coffee at her house.”

  It was all true so I couldn’t feel insulted. What I did feel was a little left out. Fred’s my friend. I’ll share him but only if I can keep the number one slot, and I sensed secrets between Fred and Sophie.

  Sophie took a bite of mousse and turned to me. “He’s right. This is delicious.”

  “Thank you.”

  We all ate and drank in tense silence. Well, Sophie and I seemed tense. Fred didn’t, of course.

  Fred set his plate and fork on the coffee table. “Sophie remembered who Carolyn was.”

  Fred was including me in the secret. I felt better immediately.

  “She was my imaginary friend when I was young.” Sophie bit her lip and held the edge of her plate tightly. That was odd. Thoughts of my imaginary childhood friends, Augie Doggie and Topatee, always made me smile. Perhaps Carolyn hadn’t been a particularly nice friend.

  “I had imaginary friends,” I said. “We had a lot of fun but we got into a lot of trouble too. They always did what I wanted and sometimes that didn’t turn out so well, like the time we played pirates and buried my mother’s jewelry in the back yard. I’m not sure whether Mom was more upset about her jewelry getting dirty or Dad about the mess I made in his golf-green lawn. Did you and Carolyn get in trouble?”

  Sophie smiled tightly. “Yes, we did. We played dress up with Mother’s clothes and makeup. We sneaked out at night and played hide and seek in the dark. The usual things kids do.”

  “But you forgot her completely until now?”

  Fred tightened his lips and glared at me, letting me know I was being rude and pushy. I ignored him.

  “It’s normal to suppress memories after a traumatic incident like the death of her parents,” he said.

  I had just been reprimanded. I made a note to reprimand Fred later for reprimanding me.

  “My aunt didn’t encourage imaginary stories. Over the years, I guess I just moved it to the back of my mind.”

  “Do you remember what your imaginary friends looked like, Lindsay?” Fred asked.

  “Sort of. Vaguely.” Not really. “Is this another test? Do you remember what your imaginary friends looked like?” I was always trying to find out personal things about Fred and he was always refusing to tell me.

  Of course he ignored my question. “Sophie remembers Carolyn very clearly.”

  Sophie nodded. “She had blond curly hair which I envied, blue eyes and fair skin. And her mother looked a lot like her.”

  “Your imaginary friend had a mother? My friends taunted me with the fact that they didn’t have a mother and father who told them what to wear and when to go to bed and to finish their broccoli. Did your imaginary friends have parents, Fred?”

  “When was the last time you saw your imaginary friends, Lindsay?” Fred asked, again ignoring my question.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I grew up and got interested in other things. It’s not like they came by for a farewell party one day.”

  Fred looked at Sophie. She swallowed, leaned forward and carefully set her plate and fork on the coffee table. “I remember the last time I saw Carolyn. It was when she was murdered in Fred’s bedroom.”

  Chapter Four

  My fork rattled against my plate. I realized my fingers were twitching. I took a big gulp of Coke in an effort to swallow the shock rising in my throat. “You were in Fred’s bedroom? You saw Carolyn get killed?”

  I’m not an expert on imaginary friends, but I was pretty sure they didn’t often die violent deaths. Only real friends did that.

  “Maybe Carolyn wasn’t imaginary,” I said quietly. “Maybe she was a real person who lived in this house and you witnessed her murder.”

  Sophie gave a tight smile and shrugged. She was trying to appear nonchalant but it wasn’t working. “I used to believe it really happened. I remember talking about it to my mother and father and then my aunt after my parents died. They all told me it was a dream, that Carolyn was imaginary. This house was vacant the whole time we lived here.”

  I looked at Fred questioningly, trying to ask him silently if that was true, if the house had been vacant.

  He frowned. “Are you having a seizure, Lindsay?”

  So much for my theory that he was psychic.

  I turned back to Sophie. “You must have been in this house before. You knew your way around. You went straight to Fred’s bedroom when you came here last night.”

  She nodded. “My mother said I loved to sneak over here and play, that I told her Carolyn and her mother lived here.”

  “I guess that makes sense. Mysterious, deserted house. Some kids would have populated it with witches and vampires and zombies.”

  Sophie’s smile relaxed. “I was an only child, so I populated it with a best friend whose mother was a really good cook.”

  I looked at Fred again. He looked back with no expression. It was not possible he didn’t see the absurdity of this conversation. Sophie’s friend had to be real.

  “Your imaginary friend had an imaginary mother who was a good cook? You ate over here, in an empty house? What did you eat?” Dust?

  “I pretended we ate pizzas and hot dogs and ice cream. Carolyn’s mother let us have all sorts of food we only got at my house for special occasions. Surely you had tea parties with your imaginary friends.” She was beginning to sound a little defensive. I couldn’t blame her. I was being nosy and tactless.

  “Yes, we did have tea parties,” I admitted. “But when Mother showed me how to pour air out of an empty teapot and pretend to drink from an empty teacup, I told her that was silly and demanded we have Coke and cookies for our tea parties.”

  “Your imaginary friends drank Coke and ate cookies?” Fred asked.

  If that wasn’t just like a man. Not a peep out of him when Sophie with her perfect skin and hair and eyes told an absurd tale about imaginary people and imaginary food. Then he called me out on my imaginary friends? I’d let him know later what I thought of such behavior.

  I lifted my chin and glared indignantly at him. “I ate and drank for them when Mother wasn’t looking.”

  “And you think she didn’t know that?”

  “I think as long as I was sitting quietly, not making a mess, eating and conversing with people who didn’t make a mess, she was happy. Sophie, did you have Carolyn over to your house for dinner?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did your mother set a plate for her?”

  “Yes.”

  I leaned toward her, watching her expression carefully. “Did you eat her food for her?”

  Sophie licked her lips and looked uncomfortable. “I guess so. It was a long time ago. Does it matter?”

  Of course it mattered, but she didn’t seem to want to deal with it. “Probably not.”

  She rose abru
ptly and smoothed her hands over her slacks. “I should go. Thank you for the coffee, Fred, and the cake, Lindsay. And again, I apologize for last night.”

  Fred and I both stood. I suddenly felt guilty about interrupting the two of them. Yeah, a minute ago I’d been jealous and desperate to insinuate myself into the conversation. But who knew the conversation was going to be so intense? So personal? “You don’t need to leave,” I protested. “I just came over to bring Fred his chocolate fix. I need to get home and, uh, feed my cat.”

  As if Henry heard me lying, a horrible noise came from Fred’s front door, a noise like a feral cat in the jungle about to take down a village. I’d heard that noise before, and it never meant anything good.

  I dashed across the room and yanked open Fred’s front door just as Henry charged the screen and ripped it to shreds. I could only hope it hadn’t been a treasured antique. Yeah, screen doors are usually rusty relics, but Fred’s wasn’t rusty though it didn’t look new either. It was hard to tell with him.

  Henry calmed as soon as he saw me. Well, at least he stopped yowling and being destructive. Instead he growled deep in his throat, paced to the edge of the porch then back to me, switching his tail the entire time. I opened what was left of the screen door and walked onto the porch. Henry trotted toward my house.

  I looked in that direction and saw Rick hurrying down the sidewalk toward the black BMW convertible parked and running in the street.

  “You have got to be kidding!” I protested to the universe.

  I ran toward the car, but he got there before me. I barely had time to slap the trunk as he slid into the front seat and screeched away.

  Henry trotted up, gave Rick’s car a scathing look as it disappeared around the corner, then turned back toward the house, looking over his shoulder to be certain I was following. I stood for a moment grinding my teeth, wondering what he’d done to my house that made him want to get away so fast. Only one way to find out. I turned to follow my cat.

  “We might need to call Trent and have him send out the bomb squad before we go near the house, Henry. The way Rick peeled out of here, he may have left us a little present. Guess he wasn’t happy that I refused to take care of his kid.”