Hot Fudge Murder

by Cynthia Baxter

I laughed. While I hadn’t known what to expect, I hadn’t anticipated that Omar DeVane’s brother would be so likable. Or so down-to-earth.

  “My whole history is here,” Arthur continued. “While other people notice the cracks in the ceramic tile in the entryway, I see the floor that Elmer and I used to look at while we sat on the bottom step, putting on our roller skates. The plastic cover on this La-Z-Boy chair is split, but that’s not what I see. Instead, I see my father, stretched out on it with a big glass of iced tea, telling funny stories about what happened at work that day.

  “And that gash in the wall? That’s from Elmer and me horsing around. Our mother was always screaming at us about not throwing a ball in the house, but of course we didn’t listen. And that hole was from the time Elmer dove over the couch to catch a baseball and smashed my parents’ framed wedding photo clear into the sheetrock.

  “Besides, I love this neighborhood,” he added. “Sure, it’s changed a lot over the years. But the changes were gradual enough that I’ve gotten used to them. The old couple that used to run the dry-cleaning shop around the corner may have sold it quite a while ago, but the new owners have been here so long by now that they’re as much a part of the neighborhood as the old owners were.”

  “Personally, I’m a big believer in sticking with whatever is comfortable,” I told him. Glancing down at the black sleeveless shirt and khaki pants I was wearing, I added, “You can see that by the way I dress.”

  “I’m with you on that,” Arthur said with a chuckle. And then he grew serious. “Elmer loved this place, too. More than that big flashy apartment on Park Avenue, the one with the huge windows and the six bedrooms and the doorman. Whenever he came here, he’d plop down in this chair and say, ‘Arthur, there’s no place in the world that feels as good as it feels here.’ ”

  His eyes had filled with tears. I impulsively reached over and gave his arm a squeeze. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said. “I know what it feels like to lose someone you love. Both my parents died when I was still a child.”

  Arthur nodded. “That’s probably even worse.”

  “I don’t know how anyone can compare one person’s grief with another,” I said. “Sadness is sadness. Pain is pain. Who’s to say how much it hurts? Besides, what’s the point?”

  “True,” he said. “But I’m being a terrible host. Can I get you something? Coffee or tea?” With a self-deprecating laugh, he added, “Believe me, my coffee maker works a lot better than my dishwasher. It’s a French press. State of the art.”

  I laughed. “Actually, that would be great.” I hadn’t intended to stay very long. But Arthur was turning out to be such a congenial host that I already felt as if the two of us were old friends.

  Besides, I got the feeling he welcomed the company.

  “Come into the kitchen so we can talk while I make the coffee,” he said, even though the rooms in his apartment were small enough and close together enough that we could probably have conversed easily no matter where we stood.

  “My parents moved here in 1968,” Arthur said chattily as he bustled around the kitchen, filling a dented copper kettle with water and setting it on the electric stove. “This apartment has two bedrooms. Elmer and I shared a room our whole lives. He’s two years older than I am, and I couldn’t wait for him to move out so I could have our tiny bedroom to myself. But once he left, I missed him terribly.”

  “It sounds as if you two were best pals,” I said. I’d just sat down at the rectangular kitchen table, blue Formica with squiggles all over it.

  “We were extremely close,” he said. “From the time we were little, we used to lie in bed at night, chattering away into the wee hours. We used to talk a lot about what we wanted our lives to be like when we grew up. Elmer always wanted a grand, glorious life. He used to dream about riding around in limousines and having famous friends.

  “As for me,” Arthur added, “I never wanted any of those things. I knew I was destined for something much simpler.” Glancing around, he said, “Which, as you can see, is what I got. I never married. I used to keep dogs, two at a time so they’d have each other for company. But it hurt so much when they got old and passed away that I decided I couldn’t keep putting myself through that.”

  As he poured hot water into the French press, he said, “In high school, Elmer was always the popular one. The guy with the big ideas. Like for one of the school dances, he came up with the theme ‘Night in the Black Forest.’ He created a fairy-tale extravaganza. The gym was decorated like the woods in a storybook, with gingerbread houses and a castle and even a pond for the Ugly Duckling display. Strings of tiny white lights were hanging everywhere, glittering like stars. The musicians dressed up like elves, and some of the kids came in costume . . . The whole thing was pure magic.

  “But everything Elmer touched was special,” Arthur went on, sitting down opposite me. “He was so focused. He’d decide he wanted to do something, and he’d just go ahead and do it. That’s harder for most people to pull off than you might think.”

  I knew exactly what he was talking about. Everyone has dreams. But how many people actually make them come true?

  “Speaking of Elmer’s childhood,” I said, trying to sound casual, “I understand your brother and Mitchell Shriver were quite close while they were growing up.”

  “Mitch? Sure,” Arthur replied. “He was practically part of our family. The two of them were inseparable. Mitch came over pretty much every day after school. Weekends, too. Most nights, my mother would automatically set a place for him at the table without even asking if he planned to stay for dinner.”

  “So he was almost like a third brother in the family,” I observed.

  “Yes and no,” Arthur said. He thought for a few seconds. “It’s funny, but I remember that even as a kid, I always got a sense that there was some competitiveness on Mitch’s part. Elmer was definitely smarter than Mitch, always coming up with the big ideas. He was more popular, too. Mitch was more of a follower, if you know what I mean.

  “He seemed happy enough to come along for the ride, but I couldn’t help wondering how he really felt about always being the sidekick,” he continued. “He always backed Elmer up, but he never got any of the glory. Like when Elmer came up with the fairy-tale theme for the school dance, Mitch was the one who stayed up half the night stringing those little lights all over the gym. But of course Elmer got all the credit.”

  I wondered if that feeling of always being in Elmer’s shadow had followed Mitchell into adulthood.

  “Still, they were always together,” Arthur said. He paused to pour us each a cup of coffee, then brought a carton of milk and a ceramic sugar bowl over to the table. “A lot of people hate their high school years,” he went on as he sat down opposite me. “Me included. But I think the fact that Elmer and Mitch had each other made it one of the happiest times of their lives.”

  “And it seems as if they remained fast friends into adulthood,” I commented, wanting to push him a bit further.

  “Mitch was with Elmer throughout his whole career,” Arthur said. “He and I lost touch, though. I haven’t spoken to him in years.” Shaking his head sadly, he added, “But I’m sure he’s as crushed by this as I am. It’s almost like he lost his brother, too.”

  “There are so many people who are devastated by his loss,” I observed. “Not only those who knew him personally, but also the ones who knew him as a designer. In fact, I imagine you’ve been inundated with calls from people who want to interview you about your brother. Magazines and newspapers and television stations . . .”

  “On the contrary,” he said. “Hardly anyone has bothered to track me down.” Gesturing toward his surroundings with both hands, he said, “You can see that I was not part of the same world as my brother.”

  With that, he rose, opened a cabinet, and pulled out a package of Archway oatmeal cookies.

  “These are my favorite,” he said, almost as if he’d read my mind. “I’ve loved them ever since I was a ki
d.”

  I smiled. “And Elmer’s favorite was hot fudge sundaes.”

  A look of surprise crossed his face. “Yes!” he cried. “I’d forgotten all about that!”

  Arthur’s eyes clouded over. “It’s not that surprising that I’ve forgotten little details like that, given how things between Elmer and me changed over time,” he said. “If there’s one thing you learn in life, it’s that nothing lasts forever. As adults, Omar and I spent less and less time together. He was always flying off to Paris or Milan or some exotic island for a fashion show or an opening or a photo shoot. He was so darned busy.

  “We’d get together maybe four or five times a year,” he continued. “He’d come over for the big holidays, and we’d have a quiet dinner. Just the two of us. He always came over on my birthday. His, too, whenever he could manage it. But on his birthday, it was much more likely that a bunch of his jet-set friends would throw him a big to-do at some fancy restaurant in Manhattan. Elmer always invited me, but I rarely went. As I said, I’ve never felt as if I fit into that world.”

  Shaking his head sadly, Arthur said, “Over the years, I had no choice but to get used to being without him. And then, of course, in an instant everything suddenly sped up. When I got the terrible news last spring, without any warning, I had to start getting used to the idea of being without him forever.”

  “Terrible news?” I repeated, frowning. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

  Arthur looked taken aback by my response. “You didn’t know? I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It wasn’t exactly public knowledge. I guess I simply assumed that you and Elmer were pretty close since you bothered to come all the way to the Bronx to find me.”

  I could hear my heart pounding as I asked, “Didn’t know what?”

  Arthur swallowed, shifting his gaze down to the floor. “He was sick.”

  The air in the room suddenly felt strangely thick. Or maybe it was just that I was having difficulty catching my breath.

  “Sick?” I asked. “How sick?”

  Arthur cast me a wary glance. “Sick as in dying. Elmer only had a few months left to live. At least, that’s what his doctors were predicting.”

  It took me a few seconds to fully comprehend what Arthur had just told me.

  Omar DeVane had had a fatal disease.

  This put a new spin on everything. The fact that someone had murdered a man who was going to pass away within a few months made the whole episode even more of a shock.

  “How much of a secret was his illness?” I asked, my head still spinning. “Who knew about it?”

  “Quite a few people,” Arthur replied, “at least in his inner circle. Elmer cared about the fashion empire he’d built very, very much, and he wanted to make sure it would continue after he was gone. So most of the people who were close to him knew how sick he was. He was working with all of them, deciding how his estate would be divided up, who would take on which set of responsibilities after he was no longer around to run things, and other important details.”

  I struggled to digest this bolt from out of the blue. This new bit of information had cast new light on absolutely everything. If Omar had told everyone in his entourage that he had only months to live, that meant just about everyone on my list of suspects had no reason to kill him. Federico, Pippa Somers, Gretchen Gruen, Mitchell Shriver . . .

  Each and every one of the people I’d considered suspects, in fact.

  I was going to have to do some serious rethinking.

  It wasn’t until I was standing by the front door, about to leave, that I remembered one more thing I’d wanted to mention.

  “By the way,” I said, “Pippa Somers, the editor of Flair, is holding a memorial service for your brother this weekend. I don’t know if she remembered to invite you, but I thought you might like to come. I’m sure you’d be more than welcome.”

  Arthur shook his head. “Thanks, but I’ll pass. I meant what I said about not fitting into his world.”

  “I understand completely.”

  Instinctively I leaned over and hugged him.

  As we separated, I noticed that his eyes had filled with tears.

  “I’m glad so many people cared about my brother,” he said in a choked voice. “But none of them loved him the way I did.”

  * * *

  As I made my way home, I was reeling from what I’d just learned from Arthur.

  That same thought kept playing in my head: If Omar DeVane had had a fatal disease and only a short time left to live, why would anyone in his inner circle have wanted to kill him?

  Did that mean his murderer was someone other than the four people I’d been considering the main suspects? Here I’d thought I was getting close to figuring all this out, and instead it was turning out to be very likely that was I merely trekking further and further in the wrong direction.

  I was exhausted by the time I got back to Wolfert’s Roost.

  When I drove back from the train station and 59 Sugar Maple Way came into view, I felt like throwing my arms around the entire house. Arthur had been right about the importance of home. I was struck by the fact that, just like him, I was living in the place I had always thought of as my real home.

  And my certainty that I’d made the right decision was reinforced as I walked inside and found Grams sitting at the dining room table, sipping a cup of tea.

  I noticed that she was wearing a nice outfit once again: a lavender tunic top with a string of bright purple beads and button earrings to match. Yet I immediately picked up a negative vibe. Something was off.

  “How was the senior center today?” I asked cautiously, joining her at the table.

  “Fine,” she said. She let out a deep sigh, then added, “I suppose.”

  Just as before, I was surprised by her ambivalence. “What did you do there?” I asked.

  “Quite a bit, actually” she replied. “A nutritionist came in and gave us all tips for healthier eating. And then there was a Scrabble tournament. There were eight different games going on at the same time.”

  “That sounds like fun,” I commented. “And the lecture must have been informative.”

  “Yes, it was definitely worthwhile,” Grams agreed. But she still looked deflated. “It’s just that . . . I wish we could do more.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Here’s this group of smart, interesting people with plenty of time on their hands,” she said. “And we’re simply wiling away the hours, playing Scrabble and learning about new ways to use spinach. I wish we could find a more productive way to put all our energy and our knowledge and our life experience to good use.”

  She let out another sigh, this one even deeper than the first. “I mean, it’s wonderful that we’re all getting together and making new friends and learning things. But I’m frustrated that we don’t have any real purpose.”

  I had to admit that she had a point.

  “What do you have in mind?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure, exactly,” she replied thoughtfully.

  I reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “If anyone can come up with a good idea, it’s you,” I told her. And I meant it.

  * * *

  Before long, I was back to obsessing about Omar DeVane.

  But rather than thinking about the fact that he had apparently had a fatal illness, what I was fixated on was what his brother had told me about his childhood friend and current business manager.

  According to Arthur, even when Omar and Mitchell were kids, Mitchell had felt competitive toward his more accomplished pal. And Arthur’s use of that word—competitive—continued to gnaw at me.

  I wanted to talk to Mitchell Shriver again.

  Fortunately, the man had given me an excuse to do exactly that.

  Chapter 14

  In the late 1970s, New Jersey ice cream shop owner Richard LaMotta created the Chipwich. The treat consisted of four ounces of ice cream sandwiched between two chocolate chip cookies and stud
ded with chocolate chips. Vendors with carts, most of them students, sold them on the streets of New York City for a dollar each.

  —https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chipwich

  On Saturday morning, as soon as I went through the usual routine of opening Lickety Splits for what was bound to be another quiet day and leaving Emma in charge, I headed back to Greenaway.

  This time, it was because I wanted to talk to Mitchell. What had impressed me most about my conversation with Arthur was the realization that Omar’s business manager probably knew Omar better than anyone else in the world. Perhaps even better than his own brother, given the way that Omar and Arthur had grown apart over the years.

  If anyone had insights into what was going on in the man’s life that may have motivated someone to kill him, it was Mitchell.

  I was also curious about those file folders he always seemed to have with him. He acted almost possessive of them. Or maybe he was merely an efficient business manager, someone who was constantly worrying about numbers.

  I certainly wanted to find out.

  The back door at Greenaway was open, just like last time. But through the screen I could see Marissa in the kitchen, surveying stacks of dishes that were lined up on one of the counters. It seemed to me that she was trying to decide what to do with them. Not wanting to barge in on her, I knocked.

  “Hey, Kate!” she called to me. “Come in. It’s nice to see you again.”

  I smiled at her warmly as I went inside. “Nice to see you, too. But I’ve come to see Mitchell. Is he here?”

  “Everyone is here,” Marissa replied with an exasperated sigh. “Pippa is upstairs, sorting through some of Omar’s things. Sheets and towels, souvenirs he picked up on his travels around the world, that sort of stuff. It’s actually very helpful, since no one else has the heart to do it. Gretchen is here, too. She decided it’s not worth going back to the city since she’d have to come up again tomorrow for the memorial service at Pippa’s. The last time I saw her, she was tweaking her eyebrows or filing her nails or doing some other self-improvement task. Federico is holed up in his room, packing his own things.”