Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 04 - Chocolate Mousse Attack

by Sally Berneathy

  Henry trotted toward the porch and sat at the bottom of the steps, looking over his shoulder and grumbling deep in his throat. There was definitely something on that porch he didn’t like.

  “What’s going on?”

  Fred and Sophie were making their way through the uber-healthy vegetation in my yard, aka weeds. Fred held Sophie’s arm protectively as if concerned she might stumble. Walking across my nonconforming yard, it was possible she might.

  “Rick.” I pointed down the street. “He made his getaway.”

  “What did he want?”

  “May have planted a bomb.”

  Fred released Sophie’s arm. “Stay here.” He moved toward my house in long strides.

  “I was kidding.” I had to run to get to the porch before him. Why did I have to get there before him? I like being first.

  Both of us stopped when we hit the second step up to the porch and were able to see what Rick had left for me.

  Rickie sat on my porch swing, a long piece of red licorice in one hand, a Coke in the other. A battered, bulging canvas suitcase rested beside him.

  No wonder Henry hadn’t wanted to go on the porch.

  “What are you doing here?” I already knew the answer to that question.

  “My daddy said I was going to stay with you for two weeks and that you’d let me have all the Cokes and cookies I want. I want a cookie now.”

  Sophie caught up with us and stood beside Fred. “Who is this adorable child?”

  “My ex-husband’s son.” I felt a little sorry for the kid, dropped off on one doorstep by his mother and on another by his father, but we had no time to waste. Rick could be planning to leave for the airport as soon as he got home and picked up Ginger. I pulled my keys from my pocket, grabbed Rickie’s suitcase and headed toward the garage. “Come on. We’re going back to your dad’s.”

  “He’s going out of town to make money to pay child support for me.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Fred lift the boy bodily out of the swing and throw him over his shoulder.

  I set the suitcase on the driveway and lifted my garage door then backed my Celica out. Fred opened the passenger door, slid the seat forward and put Rickie in the back seat then lifted the hatch and tossed in his suitcase.

  He continued to hold the door open as he turned toward Sophie. “I apologize, but we have to leave for a few minutes. We’ll be back shortly. The way Lindsay drives, this won’t take long.”

  We’ll be back shortly?

  “Okay, I’ll, uh, talk to you later.” She sounded a little confused. Woman who sees imaginary playmate murdered meets woman who plans to murder ex-husband. We all have our little idiosyncrasies.

  “Close the door!” I shouted.

  He slid into the passenger seat and complied with my order. “Go,” he said. “If you want to get this boy to Rick’s house before he leaves, you need to press on the accelerator and make this car move. Nobody’s going to beam you over there.”

  “You can’t ride with me! You hate riding with me!”

  “My life insurance is paid up.”

  Even with the time constraints, I couldn’t resist the chance to find out something about Fred. “Who’s the beneficiary?”

  “Do you really want to sit here and talk while Rick’s getting away?”

  I hit the gas, backed out to the street, threw the car into gear and peeled out.

  “I spilled my Coke,” Rickie whined from the back seat.

  Great. I knew from experience how difficult Coke was to get out of the upholstery.

  Rick would probably volunteer to clean it for me since his son did it. Yeah, I get sarcastic even in my thoughts.

  “I don’t want to go to my dad’s,” Rickie complained. “I don’t like that woman who lives there.”

  “Big deal. Neither do I.”

  “Have you met Rick’s new girlfriend?” Fred asked.

  “No, but if Rick likes her, I’m pretty sure I don’t.” I slid around a corner on two and a half wheels.

  Rick drives a hot car, but it’s all for show. I easily caught up to him and pulled in behind him as he sat in his driveway waiting for his garage door to go up.

  Of course he saw me. He pulled into the garage and immediately started the door on its downward journey. But those doors are slow. I slid out of my car and ran under before it got halfway down. Apparently I tripped the electric beam because the door stopped then went back up.

  Rick jumped from his car. “Get out of my house!”

  “Just as soon as I return what belongs to you.”

  Fred ambled up beside me, Rickie in tow. Rick paled when he saw Fred. “What are you doing here?”

  “Returning your son.” Fred’s voice betrayed no hint of the insanity in progress. He might have been referring to a piece of mail delivered to the wrong address.

  The door to the house opened and a triple D blonde stepped out. “Honey, what’s going on? Who are those people?”

  “Go back inside, Ginger. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Her bottom lip…another triple D implant…pouted. “I thought you were taking the kid to a babysitter so we could be alone.”

  “I’ll take care of it. Go back inside.”

  I recognized his tone. He had given an order and if she didn’t comply, she’d be in trouble. I was much more familiar with what happened when I didn’t comply with Rick’s demands than with what happened when I did since I rarely did.

  I strode toward Ginger, extending my hand. She moved backward, looking at Rick as if for directions on how to handle this latest atrocity. “Hi, I’m Lindsay, the ex. So nice to meet Rickie’s latest stepmother. Did you know Rick’s buying another ticket to Hawaii so you can go together as one big happy family?”

  Her eyes widened. “You said it would be just us, Rick!”

  “She’s lying,” Rick assured her.

  I smiled. “Just kidding.”

  “Go inside, Ginger. I’ll take care of this.”

  She opened her mouth as if she was going to protest, but instead blinked and obediently went back into the house, closing the door behind her.

  Rick turned on his salesman’s hundred watt smile. “Lindsay, please, this one time, do this favor for me. We have to leave for the airport at four in the morning. How am I going to find a babysitter by then?”

  I looked at Fred. “Do you know the answer to that question?”

  “No.”

  I turned back to Rick. “Okay. I’ve asked the audience and I don’t want to phone a friend. I guess I’ll have to give up on that question. I have no idea. Good luck!”

  Fred took my arm and we started out of the garage.

  I turned back. “If you ever pull this kind of a stunt again, I’ll call social services. Do you want your son in a foster home?”

  The look on Rick’s face told me that was a wasted threat. He didn’t care if his son went into a foster home just as long as he didn’t have to be bothered with him. Now that I’d given him the idea, he might call social services just to get a babysitter. Damn.

  “Daddy, she didn’t give me any cookies. You said she’d give me cookies.”

  I could feel Rick seething behind me. Maybe he’d get so angry he’d explode. I walked a little faster so none of the pieces would hit me.

  As I backed down Rick’s driveway, my brain registered the car on the far side of the garage. Ginger’s, I assumed. It was one of those really small cars and the color was blue, not white. Definitely not the car I’d seen last night parked under the trees with a blond haired man at the wheel.

  I smiled as I thought of what that could mean. Was Rick already cheating on Ginger with a woman who drove a white sedan?

  Or maybe it hadn’t been Rick, just a stranger parked on my street at two o’clock in the morning. That sounded a little creepy.

  Of the two possibilities, I found myself hoping it was Rick being his usual obnoxious but relatively harmless self. I suppose that’s sort of like saying I’d prefer to be run
over by a bus instead of a train.

  Chapter Five

  Henry and I both had a restless night. He usually sleeps quite soundly, so when he got up to look out the bedroom window in the middle of the night, I got up too.

  Sophie, wearing the same or a similar white nightgown, moved like a ghost through the moonlight across the street to Fred’s house. He must have been expecting her because he opened the door as soon as she reached it.

  Sleepwalking or a tryst?

  I’d never known Fred to have a girlfriend. Of course, he’s so secretive, he could have had a different one every night for all I knew.

  But a couple of minutes later Fred and Sophie came out of the house together. He walked her back to her house, one arm wrapped protectively around her waist. She turned at her door, looked up at him and smiled then gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  Fred blushed. Okay, it was dark and they were on her porch under the overhang, so I couldn’t really see the color of his face but I’m pretty sure it got red.

  “We can go back to bed, Henry. Fred’s got the situation under control. He doesn’t need us.”

  And that was a good thing. I was glad Fred didn’t call me to come over in the middle of the night and help him get Sophie out of his closet again. But I have to admit, I felt a little left out.

  Fred paused in the middle of the street, looked up toward my bedroom window and waved.

  I waved back even though I was certain he couldn’t see me in the darkness. But if he couldn’t see me, why did he wave in the first place? More of the mystery that was Fred.

  Henry and I went back to bed, but he got me up again half an hour later.

  My quiet neighborhood was busy that night.

  It was the white sedan again, driving slowly down the street. From my angle at the upstairs bedroom window, I couldn’t see who was in the car. Male, female, blond, brunette, monster, alien?

  The car slowed almost to a stop in front of my house. Henry and I both leaned forward, watching intently. I half expected the passenger door to open and Rick to shove Rickie out of it. But after a significant hesitation, it moved on.

  Department of Health checking on my lawn? Rick had sent them after me once. But they probably didn’t sneak around in the middle of the night. The city would have to pay the employees overtime. That wasn’t going to happen.

  Henry’s first family looking for him, sneaking around in the middle of the night? When he’d showed up and moved in, I’d put signs everywhere and nobody claimed him. After all this time, he was my cat and I was his can opener. Nobody was going to separate us, not even with a DNA test.

  The cat in question turned away from the window and sauntered over to the bed. He wasn’t worried.

  I went back to bed too and had almost dozed off again when a strange thought occurred to me.

  Perhaps the white sedan wasn’t stopping in front of my house. Perhaps it was stopping in front of Sophie’s house. We were right across the street from each other. And that woman had secrets, lots of secrets, secrets she was keeping from herself even.

  Maybe she’d killed Carolyn. That could be traumatic enough to give her nightmares and cause her to walk in her sleep.

  A five year old dark haired kindergartener wearing a clown mask and wielding a bloody butcher knife?

  Probably not.

  I pulled the sheet over my head and ordered my mind to stop playing games and let me go back to sleep.

  When I left for work that morning I halfway expected to find Rickie sitting in my porch swing. Nothing there but a small bit of Rickie’s candy and a few ants.

  The happy couple should be on their way to the airport. Maybe they’d decided to take the kid along after all.

  I laughed at my own joke.

  *~*~*

  Paula and I prepared to feed the hungry masses. I made half a dozen Double Chocolate Cream Pies. The masses needed chocolate.

  While Paula flailed away at the cinnamon roll dough and I beat cream for the topping, I told her about Sophie and Fred’s middle of the night encounter.

  Paula spread the dough on a marble board and picked up her institutional size rolling pin. “I’ve never thought about Fred being involved in a relationship.”

  I added sugar to the whipping cream. “He may have three wives and six children living across town. It’s hard to know about Fred.”

  “I can see why he’d be attracted to Sophie. She’s beautiful.”

  “And mysterious. Fred’s a sucker for a mystery.”

  Paula laughed. “Fred’s a sucker for a beautiful face, a soft voice and big—”

  “Don’t say it!” I pictured Ginger’s triple Ds. I didn’t want to think of any comparison between her and Sophie. Totally different people.

  “Big brown eyes,” Paula finished. “What’d you think I was going to say?”

  “Nothing. Pass me the vanilla.”

  “Fred deserves somebody special in his life.”

  “He has you, me and Zach. It doesn’t get any more special than us.”

  Paula handed me the bottle of vanilla. “You know what I mean. You have Fred, Zach and me, but Trent fills a different place in your life.”

  I couldn’t deny that. I’d thought I’d never become involved in another male/female relationship after being married to Rick-head and having my emotions beaten up, bullied and abused. But my feelings for Trent had sort of snuck up on me. Okay, maybe I shied away from examining those feelings too closely or putting a label on them, but whatever Trent and I had going on was good. It made me happy. I wanted Paula to find that same happiness.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Fred does deserve to have someone special in his life. And so do you.”

  She turned back to her dough and gave it a vicious whack with that rolling pin. I flinched. “When I get Zach raised, I’ll think about it.”

  She had no intention of thinking about it. I could only imagine how terrified she must be of ever trusting another man after the abusive, psychotic, murderous jerk she’d been married to. What I’d gone through with Rick was awful but nothing compared to the nightmare she’d lived through.

  My efforts to get Matthew Graham back to talk to her again could be wasted. He could fail to show. She might not talk to him again. He could show up and be a creep. Anything or nothing could happen.

  But what if I’d refrained from getting involved with Trent because he was a cop and cops cause me a lot of grief by giving me all those unjustified speeding tickets? What if I’d taken Henry to a homeless shelter instead of adopting him?

  Sometimes you have to take chances.

  I let the subject drop, and we had a good day. Lots of people for breakfast, lots of people for lunch. Nobody died, nobody dropped off their kid and ran away. A very good day.

  The lunch crowd was winding down when Matthew Graham, Associate Professor of History, came in and sat down at the counter.

  Yes!

  Paula was serving at the far end of the counter and I was heading back to the kitchen with a tray of dirty dishes. Before I could dispose of the dishes, Paula moved down to take his order.

  I really needed to get there first and do the free dessert thing.

  He smiled at her. He had a nice smile, open and guileless. “I got your call about being your ten thousandth customer.” Pleasant voice. Soft.

  She frowned. “What?”

  Still clutching my tray of dirty dishes, I moved over beside her and gave Matthew my biggest smile. “Welcome! I’m so glad you came in! What would you like for your free dessert today? We have chocolate chip cookies, brownies and our special today, Double Chocolate Cream Pie with real whipped cream. The cookies and brownies have nuts. Sometimes we have cookies and brownies without nuts but today is a total nuts day. The pie has no nuts, though sometimes we have a wonderful fudge pie with nuts, but not today.”

  Paula gripped my arm. Tightly. I stopped babbling.

  “Why don’t you just take your time, sir,” she said, “and look over the desserts in
the case to your right. If you’d like to order something besides dessert, we have grilled chicken sandwiches and hamburgers.” With the hand that wasn’t cutting off the blood in my arm, she indicated the chalk board behind us. “We’ll be back to take your order in a few minutes. Lindsay, let me help you carry that heavy tray to the kitchen.”

  Busted.

  We marched back to the kitchen and I set the dishes in the sink.

  “You called that man and told him he was our ten thousandth customer and he should come in for a free dessert?” Paula accused in an angry whisper.

  When I’d conceived the brilliant plan to get Matthew Graham back to the restaurant to talk to Paula, I hadn’t really thought it through. Sometimes I act a little impulsively. The plan did work. I just hadn’t considered the possibility that Paula would get to him before I could set things up.

  I drew a deep breath and tried to think of something that would explain what I’d done, something other than the truth, of course.

  “Yes, I did call him. He is our ten thousandth customer.”

  “That’s ridiculous! We don’t have any system to count customers.”

  “I have a really good memory.”

  “Not that good. How did you even get his name and phone number?”

  I squirmed and looked around for a Coke. Even an old flat one would help. “He left his business card.”

  She threw her hands into the air. “So you called him and told him an outrageous lie to get him back in here? Why?”

  “Why?” When stalling for time, answer a question with a question, even if it’s the same question.

  “I’m going to take a wild guess. You didn’t do it because you’re finally free of Rick and want to explore the possibilities out there in the single world. You seem very happy with Trent.”

  “Explore the possibilities? No! I am totally happy with Trent.”

  “So my next wild guess is that you saw me talking to Matthew yesterday and decided to bring him back for me to play with.”

  When all else fails, tell the truth. “I wouldn’t put it exactly like that. You seemed to be having a good time and he left his card which meant he wanted to see you again and I knew you’d never call him.”