Laurett grinned. “Mr. Vannos, there be white men plenty in Jamaica.” She was on the verge of another laughing fit, but this time the joke was on me, who’d jumped to a stupid racist conclusion based on circumstantial evidence.
“But Laurett, the chocolate you gave that guy was loaded with cyanide.”
Her face stiffened instantly. “Vannos, I give him nothing. He took it.”
“But I saw you decorating them.”
“Sure I was, but I didn’t give him that, and I sure didn’t put poison inside.”
“Then how did the poison get into it?”
“I don’t know. Someone put it inside there before I took the flower off. Then Trek ate it when I leave the kitchen.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You took the decoration off the truffle?”
“Sure I did. That candy was all covered with fingerprints. I couldn’t put that on a silver plate. So I fixed a new one with the same flower.”
“So the truffle that killed Trek was supposed to go to someone else, one of the three special guests?”
“Sure-you’re-right.”
“So, whose was it?”
Laurett looked at me with absolute blankness.
I pressed her. “Well?”
She maintained her stoney stare.
“Laurett,” I entreated as quietly as I could over the microphone, “who was supposed to get that truffle?”
Finally, after long moments of silence, her face softened into sadness, and she said, “It was for Mr. Kingsley.”
This was the key then. Someone had wanted to kill Prentiss Kingsley.
Laurett repeated herself. “That truffle, the almond one, was for Mr. Kingsley, but it looked bad, so I changed it for another one. That’s what I was fixing in the kitchen when you come in. When I took them other ones out to the party, Trek ate that one. But it was all an accident.”
“No, Laurett. It wasn’t an accident. It was a mistake. The deadly truffle just went to the wrong person.”
“But I didn’t do it, Vannos.”
I had to believe her, didn’t I? What else could I do? Laurett’s natural dark beauty gave her that advantage, the one that made you want to believe her. It was the same with good-looking men. Beautiful people can lie to you point-blank, but their face is such a marvel of surface and shadow that you tend to believe anything that comes from its lips, even the lovely lies.
“Laurett, who’s in charge of making those truffles?”
“That’s Old Misery herself, Mary Phinney. She’s the boss lady at the factory.”
I thought a moment and remembered hearing the name. “Wasn’t that the older woman you were arguing with last night in the kitchen?”
She hardened her face again. “Before you ask any more, Mr. District Attorney, I will explain. Mary Phinney is with Gladys Gardner for a hundred years or more.” Laurett cackled lightly at her own joke. “She was not too happy with the new store.”
“But why pick on you?”
“Because Mr. Kingsley and Miss Lisa and that young Danny, they all hire me, and Mary Phinney want that job herself.”
“To manage Le Jardin?”
“Mm-hmm,” replied Laurett with a Buddha-like grin and a curlicue inflection in her voice that mocked the likelihood of a henna-haired crone managing an upscale boutique.
“Laurett, since you were in charge of presenting the special truffles, you must know what flavors the other two guests of honor had, right?”
Laurett nodded with a sly grin. “Even the police didn’t ask me about that, Vannos. Young Danny had orange—Grand Marnier, it’s called—and Miss Lisa …” Laurett smiled at the intentional misnomer. “Miss Lisa have plain, just like herself. Heh-heh.”
“What else did you tell the police?”
“Only what they ask me. But did they believe one word? No, they think I’m just trying to put the blame on someone else. Now, why would I do that? You tell me.”
Seeing no graceful way to continue on that tack, I changed the subject. “Nicole’s lawyer friend said he’ll represent you at the inquest.”
Laurett grinned broadly. “His eyes got a big surprise to see a beautiful black woman waiting for him here last night.”
“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Laurett,” I said. But I was thinking that horse’s ass was more appropriate for Charles. I started getting my coat on. “I’m going now, Laurett. I’ve got some new leads, thanks to you.”
“And I’m thanking you, Vannos, for taking care of Tobias. I make it up to you when I’m out of here, I promise that.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I got up and left the visiting room. On my way out, I went over the new facts Laurett had laid out. Branco must have known them too. I wondered if he was following up on any of it, especially the fact that Prentiss Kingsley was the actual intended victim. Or was the mighty Branco content to let the case roll along to a hearing with the evidence as he saw it?—just a mixed-race domestic argument that had culminated in the ultimate violence.
I phoned Nicole from the WDU to tell her I’d be back to pick up Tobias after my next stop, the Gladys Gardner Chocolate Company, where I wanted to talk with Prentiss Kingsley and warn him that someone might be trying to hunt him down. It wouldn’t hurt to meet Mary Phinney there either, since she’d presumably been in charge of making the candy. When Nicole found out my destination, though, she said, “I think a field trip to a chocolate factory would be a delightful way for a young boy to spend some time with his Uncle Stanley.”
“But Nikki, I’ve got to talk to people. How am I supposed to do that with a kid in tow?”
“You should have thought of that earlier.”
“What if something happens to him? It will be on your conscience for not baby-sitting him.”
“What’s going to happen, Stanley?”
“I don’t think they make bulletproof vests small enough for him.”
“Your arguments are futile. I’m running a salon, not a daycare center.”
“I can just see the little tyke, wounded by a stray bullet ….”
“Stanley, stop this cops-and-robbers nonsense. You get back here and take the boy with you.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.
She hung up.
Back outside, the bright morning sun was trying to warm up the snow-frozen ground, but to no avail. February in Boston means cold, period. I headed back to the shop, troubled by my growing doubt over Laurett’s innocence. Perhaps her story about Prentiss Kingsley was true, but the truffles I’d taken from her apartment still rankled me. Had she brought them home just to practice loading them with poison? But then, whom would she be trying to kill, and why?
6
DOWN THE GARDNER PATH
I GOT BACK TO THE SHOP AROUND TEN-THIRTY. Tobias wanted lunch already. True, he hadn’t had much of a breakfast with me, but I wasn’t hungry yet, at least for food. Last night’s rich party fare was still sticking to my ribs and hips. But I was hungry for more facts related to the killing. And I wanted to warn Prentiss Kingsley that the deadly truffle from last night had really been intended for him. If Laurett was telling the truth, then Prentiss Kingsley was in mortal danger; and if she wasn’t, well I wanted to find that out too. So for the moment I promised Tobias we’d have lunch sometime during our outing to the Gladys Gardner factory. In my mind I’d already decided we’d eat on our way home from candyland, after my part of the mission was accomplished.
We took a cab to the factory. For some reason, the driver assumed that Tobias and I were tourists, and he recommended that we stop in at the outlet store, where we could buy the famous Gladys Gardner chocolates at half price. My heart and tummy trembled at the opportunity, but my new dietary restrictions didn’t allow such wantonness. Tobias, however, bounced up and down on the car seat, insisting that we go in. So only to appease him did I sacrifice my nutritional self-discipline. Besides, a bit of chocolate might satisfy him until later. After all, it worked for robust Alpine skiers.
The cab left us at the small store, which was half a block away from the factory’s main entrance. The inside of the store reflected a half-hearted attempt to reproduce the romantic ideal of an old New England kitchen, a place that somebody’s grandmother in colonial Vermont once cooked in, supposedly. But the Formica pine tables and the plastic brick fireplace—filled with empty cartons instead of a welcoming blaze—provided insufficient ambience to counter the grimy acoustic tile ceiling, the flickering fluorescent lights, and a dusty, painted cement floor. Only the showcase glass sparkled amidst the general drabness of the place. And the air was heavy with chocolate, which at that hour was almost disturbing. It wasn’t the pleasant kind of aroma that eased you into the day, the same way coffee and toast or fresh muffins do. Rather, the concentrated smell of chocolate was disquieting, almost sexual. The visit to the store would probably only re-energize Tobias, rather than calm him, as I was hoping.
The woman behind the counter might have been the model for the fake oil portrait of old Dame Gardner, or whoever she was, that hung high up behind the counter, strategically placed to be the visual focus of the store. It wasn’t sweets these folks were selling so much as the idea, the fond remembrance of a doting, loving grandmother figure in everyone’s past. Even if you never had one, you could pretend you did. I wondered if Dame Gladys would ever be modernized the way Betty Crocker had been, transformed into an urbane superwoman, the kind who does, rather who delegates the vaccuuming while wearing pastel eyeshadow and stiletto pumps.
Gladys’s flesh-and-blood facsimile smiled at us benignly, but I sensed that her contrived courtesy began and ended at the threshold, during business hours and for customers only. She expected us to buy some candy, and to do it quickly. She stared at us for a while, expectantly, and when we didn’t order right away, she turned her back on us and knelt down behind the counter. I gazed longingly at the contents of the display case. One inner voice was saying, “Go on, you deserve it, while another one parried, “Straight to the hips, lard-ass.” From behind the counter I heard the sounds of heavy boxes being pushed and yanked and scraped along the gritty cement floor. After a few minutes the woman rose back up again and faced me, a little flushed from her exertions.
“Is there something you want here?” she asked gruffly.
Her look was cool and indifferent, then suddenly it changed to absolute horror at the sight of something going on behind me. I turned around and saw Tobias reaching for a gigantic, red-flocked, heart-shaped candy box. The thing must have been two feet wide with five pounds of chocolate inside. He was pulling at it from the bottom, where it rested on a display shelf.
The woman yelled, “Don’t touch that!”
But the big box was already slipping from its Lucite stand. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, reminding me of those horrible school days, of having to play softball during “phys-ed” class, when I was always assigned to the outfield. Whenever a batter swung and hit the ball, I would follow its airborne flight, then casually but methodically move myself away from its path. It didn’t take the class bullies long to figure out my technique, so they’d purposely hit the ball toward my side of the field. Hell, it was a guaranteed base hit, if not a home run. I suppose, in a way, I was doing my part to cultivate their goodwill toward sissies.
But the imminent threat of paying even half-price for a five-pound gift box of Valentine’s chocolates spurred me on to more heroic feats. For a few seconds, I imagined myself a professional ballplayer whose life depended on this single catch— Creative Visualization, it’s called. Me, who’s never once caught a ball, I dove and lunged and slid and … yes! … caught that baby with nary a scuff on its faux-velvet covering.
Lying on the hard floor with the big heart safely in my grasp, I saw the film of my life resume its normal speed. I got up and replaced the box on its stand, then pushed it far back from the edge of the shelf. I did the same for all the other boxes within Tobias’s reach.
“Curiosity killed the cat,” said the woman with a warning tone.
“And almost killed half a day’s tips too,” I added.
Oblivious to the micro-crisis he’d just caused, Tobias remarked, “I want some candy, Uncle Stan.”
The woman asked with sudden interest, “He’s your nephew?”
I nodded cautiously. “Kind of.”
“In that case,” she said, “I’m sure we have something for the little man.” She’d switched back again from crabby shopkeeper to generous granny, a role that strained her limited acting talents. She handed Tobias a single piece of chocolate over the counter. He took it without a verbal response, so I prompted him.
“What do you say, Tobias?”
He studied the piece of chocolate without a word.
I nudged him. “Say thank-you, Tobias.”
Instead he poked his finger into the bottom of the candy. When a pale orange-colored cream oozed out, Tobias said, “I don’t like this,” and handed the goopy mess back to the woman. “I want those,” he demanded, pressing his now sticky fingers onto the spotless glass of the counter’s showcase and pointing to an arrangement of dark chocolate caramels, and then to a pyramid of solid chocolate cubes.
I said meekly, “I guess I’ll take a quarter pound of dark caramels.”
From behind the counter, the woman grabbed a handful of chocolates from a box, rather than upset the display case. Then instead of ringing up the sale on the register, she slapped the bag on the counter top. “We don’t want the boy to leave here disappointed, do we?” she said. But her face had a look that meant, Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?
I reached for my wallet, but the woman shook her head. “You’ve got your chocolate. Now have a nice day,” she said brusquely, and folded her hands together on top of the counter. The beneficent matriarch had changed back into a nasty nanny whose patience we’d pushed too far. Tobias and I left the shop. Within seconds, he had the bag open and had jammed four of the chocolates into his mouth. His cheeks bulged like a greedy little hamster’s. I snatched the bag away from him and said, “No more for now.” Chocolate wasn’t the best thing for his empty stomach.
I led him by the hand toward the factory entrance, two massive oak doors set under a huge granite archway a short distance from where we were. As we started walking toward the doorway, a gleaming lavender-colored delivery van appeared out of nowhere and screeched to a halt at the curb beside us. The side of the van was hand-painted with vivid purple irises arranged over the name Le Jardin Chocolatier spelled out in elaborate cursive script. Even in midwinter the van’s lustrous paint seemed immune to road grime. The driver’s window opened and a familiar head emerged. It was Rafik, the handsome French-Canadian man from last night’s party.
“Stani!” he called out with a broad smile. How did he know the diminutive form of my name? Only Nikki and my maternal grandmother could use it with impunity. Well, and perhaps Rafik now.
“What are you doing here?” I asked with a happy hop in my nether regions.
“I am working.”
“But don’t you work for Le Jardin?”
“Is all the same company.” He pointed to the Gladys Gardner factory.
“It is?”
“Oh, sure. But mebbee now Le Jardin will close.”
“You mean after last night?”
“Is big scandal, no?” Then, gesturing toward Tobias, Rafik asked, “Is this your boy?”
I shook my head. “I like men. Remember?”
Rafik shrugged. “Many gay men have children.”
The proof that sexuality and logic are unrelated.
“Why are you coming here?” he asked.
I explained that I wanted to see Prentiss Kingsley. In response Rafik raised one eyebrow, much the way Nikki often does. Was it a Parisian hallmark?
Rafik said, “Is too bad. Mr. Kingsley—he’s not here today.”
Damn! A wasted trip. “Do you know where he is?”
“I think mebbee at his summer house.”
“I
n the middle of winter?”
“Is very beautiful there.”
“Where?”
“Is called Abbey-gail, I think.”
“Abigail,” I said. “Abigail-by-the-Sea.”
Rafik nodded, and he was right, too. It is very beautiful there.
Then Rafik winked mischievously. “Mebbee you like to see how they make the chocolate now?”
I shrugged. “Why not? We’re here.”
“I take you.”
“But it’s just down the street.”
“Get in,” he ordered.
I opened the passenger door and shoved Tobias up onto the seat, then squeezed myself in behind him. Rafik slammed the accelerator to the floor, and we departed in the style of the best gangsters, tires squawking on the pavement.
“Where’s the fire?” I asked.
“No fire,” he said with a grin. “I like to drive.”
Rafik raced the van around to the back of the building and swerved sharply into the truck entrance. The sudden turn threw Tobias and me off balance and sent us tumbling toward Rafik. At the loading dock, he backed the van up, rubber tires squealing, and banged it against the rubber guardrail on the dock. Nothing like a hard-driving man. He told us to wait while he went inside to make arrangements for our tour of the factory. After a few minutes he emerged from the building and galloped to the van. “Is all set,” he said energetically as he opened the van door. “Go in there.” He pointed the way through a doorway on the loading dock. “Ask for Mary.” Then he added, “Is good you have the boy here. Looks okay to the boss.”
That devious logic had escaped me, but now I saw its value, especially when investigating at a chocolate factory. I silently thanked Nicole for insisting I bring Tobias along with me.
“Are you coming too?” I asked.
“I have to work now. You can get back yourself?”
I nodded. “I’m a big boy, Rafik.”
He replied with a wink. “I hope so.”
I took Tobias by the hand and led him into the factory. Rafik waved good-bye and disappeared through another door.
Love You to Death Page 7
