Hot Fudge Murder

by Cynthia Baxter

  Emma kept sticking her head in, not only to replenish her supply of ice cream goodies but also to report on the celebrities she’d spotted. It seemed that those stars in her eyes paled beside the actual stars who were standing around in Pippa Somers’s living room, eating my ice cream.

  “Kate, you wouldn’t believe who I just saw out there!” she cried as she dashed in to refill an empty tray. She named a hunky movie star who had been the model for Omar DeVane’s line of men’s sunglasses. She gleefully added that the actor’s date was just as famous, a young actress whose legs were as long as the list of movies she’d made.

  “How about Omar’s business manager, Mitchell Shriver?” I asked casually, pretending to be absorbed in getting exactly the right amount of coconut to stick to the vanilla ice cream ball in front of me. “Is he out there?”

  “Yup,” Emma replied. “He was talking to that supermodel who used to do ads for Calvin Klein. He was bragging to her about a trip he’s about to take. Apparently he’s planning to dash off to a really exotic place.”

  That certainly got my attention. “A trip?” I repeated.

  “He said he’s leaving tonight, right after the memorial service,” Emma reported breathlessly. “Isn’t that glamorous?”

  “Very,” I said, doing my best to sound only minimally interested. “Did he happen to mention where he’s going?”

  Emma shook her head. “He kept acting flirtatious with the model, refusing to say where he was going no matter how much she teased him about how secretive he was being.”

  Alarms were going off in my head. So Mitchell was about to leave the country—for a location he wasn’t willing to reveal. And I had a feeling that the reason he’d decided to disappear so suddenly had nothing to do with a fashion show.

  “And Federico?” I asked as calmly as I could. “Did he come, too?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “You should see him! He looks like he’s here for a fashion shoot instead of a memorial service. He’s wearing a suit that’s the same color as that vanilla ice cream. And his necktie is turquoise silk, and there’s a matching handkerchief sticking out of his pocket . . .”

  I’d have bet a month’s rent for Lickety Splits that there was a plane ticket in his pocket, too.

  As soon as Emma left with her refilled tray in hand, I tried calling Detective Stoltz again.

  “It’s Kate McKay,” I began my voice-mail message, trying to keep my frustration out of my voice. “Detective Stoltz, the two people who I’m nearly certain murdered Omar DeVane, Federico and Mitchell Shriver, are at Pippa Somers’s house right now. She’s holding a memorial service for Omar. But Mitchell is planning to leave the country tonight. I suspect that Federico is, too. They have to be stopped! I have a piece of evidence that I’m dying to show you, one that supports my theory . . .”

  My head was spinning as I tried to come up with a way to keep Federico and Mitchell from leaving Pippa’s house—especially since I had a feeling they planned to drive straight to the airport to escape to a safe haven far, far away. And as long as they weren’t convicted of murder, they would still be in line to inherit a huge piece of Omar DeVane’s estate and live happily ever after . . .

  I was wracking my brain, trying to think up a way to keep them here until Detective Stoltz showed up, when I heard footsteps behind me.

  “Back already?” I asked, assuming it was Emma. “Those people certainly eat a lot of ice cream.”

  When I didn’t get a response, I turned.

  But it wasn’t Emma who was standing in the doorway. It was Mitchell and Federico.

  And in Mitchell’s hands was Federico’s turquoise necktie.

  Chapter 17

  “Grocery stores didn’t start selling ice cream until the 1930’s, and by WWII, ice cream had become so popular that it turned into somewhat of an American symbol (Mussolini banned it in Italy for that same reason). Ice cream was great for troop morale, and in 1943, the U.S. Armed Forces were the world’s largest ice cream manufacturers!”

  —http://www.almanac.com/content/history-ice-cream

  My heart pounded with sickening force, and I could feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins.

  Meanwhile, my mind was racing so fast that I bordered on panicking.

  Stay calm, I told myself. Act as if everything is normal—at least until you can figure out what to do.

  I thought of yelling, but by this point the amount of noise generated by the crowd outside was on par with a Led Zeppelin concert.

  Instead, I moved on to Plan B. Casually I reached across the counter and adjusted the flame on the three Sterno cans that were keeping the bowls of hot fudge warm. While the flame was currently at a moderate setting, I turned them up to the highest possible level. I also stuck a ladle into one of them, pretending I needed to give it a stir.

  “Hey there, you two,” I said with forced gaiety. “This is turning out to be a big ice cream eating crowd. I just hope I brought enough!

  “I’m so glad my ice cream is such a bit hit,” I went on. “Not only the hot fudge sundaes, either, which of course were Omar’s favorite food. But the guests really seem to like the Coconut Balls. The Donut Sundaes, too. Of course, it’s hard to resist anything that’s smothered in hot fudge . . .”

  As I babbled on, I noticed that Mitchell didn’t appear to be listening. He seemed much more focused on stroking the necktie he was holding in his hands. Yet his piercing eyes were fixed on me.

  As for Federico, I watched in horror as he reached back and closed the door.

  My attempts at warding off panic were starting to fail. But I did my best to act as if nothing was wrong as I said, “If either of you would like to help yourselves to a few of these Coconut Balls I just made, feel free to—”

  “You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Federico hissed. I noticed that once again, there wasn’t even a trace of an exotic European accent.

  Not that it mattered anymore. At the moment, the man’s country of origin was the least of my concerns.

  “When you pushed her down those stairs,” Mitchell growled, “you should have pushed a little harder. I knew I should have done it myself.”

  “Who knew that a lady who sells ice cream for a living would turn out to be such a snoop?” Federico shot back.

  “Hey, I do a lot more than sell ice cream!” I exclaimed indignantly. “I create unique flavors, I cater events like this one . . . then there’s my new Lickety Light line!”

  I had to remind myself that this was hardly the time to get defensive. At least not about something like my career.

  Not that Mitchell or Federico were even listening.

  “Federico and I had such a good thing going,” Mitchell said, spitting out his words. “At least until you came along.”

  “We were just trying to keep from getting cheated out of something we deserved,” Federico added. “If only Omar had left everything the way it was—”

  “But you both loved Omar!” I cried. “What about all those lovely things you said about him, Federico? You said that he was such a warm person, that he was a genius, that you’d always miss him . . .”

  “I will always miss him,” Federico replied coldly. “And he was special in many ways. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t foolish when it came to his money. Imagine, giving his entire fortune away to a bunch of do-gooders.

  “What about us?” he went on, his voice becoming angrier. “What about people like Mitchell and me who really deserved his money? The people who stood by him, who helped make him who he was . . . who enabled him to make all that money in the first place!”

  “He’s right,” Mitchell said, his tone tinged with the same bitterness. “I spent my entire life helping Omar make money. We sat next to each other in practically every class since the third grade, for heaven’s sake. Even back in those days, I was always lending him lunch money or helping him get an after-school job.

  “And ever since he started his own business, I was the one who advised him,” he went
on. “I bargained with suppliers to get him better deals. I found investors when he needed to expand, talking complete strangers into backing a young designer that no one had ever heard of. The day he opened his boutique on Madison Avenue, who do you think was there at six a.m., washing the windows and polishing the doorknob?”

  “I worked at least as hard as you did,” Federico piped up. “Do you think I liked kissing up to editors and buyers and all those other people whose support Omar needed? If I had a nickel for every endless phone conversation I endured, feeding the ego of some—some fabric salesman or some idiot who wrote for an insignificant web site or even some obnoxious socialite who was making ridiculous demands on Omar but who we had to keep on our good side because she was a regular customer . . .”

  “But he paid both of you, didn’t he?” I couldn’t resist pointing out.

  “He paid me well enough,” Federico replied haughtily. “But it was nothing compared to what he had. I mean, just look at Greenaway. It’s like Versailles. Have you seen my studio apartment in the West Village? It’s the same size as Omar’s bathroom. His guest bathroom!”

  “Same here,” Mitchell grumbled. “Although my house in Scarsdale isn’t too shabby. Still, it’s not like I was able to come even close to living the way Omar lived.”

  “And finally, it was our turn to get our share!” Federico cried. “Once he died, we were each going to inherit enough to live like kings for the rest of our lives.” Scowling, he added, “Until he came up with that ridiculous idea of changing his will and leaving all his money to charity instead!”

  “What a waste,” Mitchell commented with a sneer. “Giving it all away to strangers!”

  “He owed us!” Federico shrieked.

  “Leaving his fortune to his foundation instead of to us—” Mitchell began.

  “It was preposterous!” Federico cried. “The man had to be stopped!”

  I stared longingly at the locked door, wishing I could will myself onto the other side of it. But I knew I couldn’t make that happen. I considered screaming, but the level of noise out there, combined with the fact that the kitchen separated me from the rest of the gathering, made me afraid that all that would accomplish would be making the two men in front of me even angrier.

  I moved my right hand to my waist, then eased it around behind me to the back pocket of my white pants. When Mitchell suddenly came rushing toward me, his face red with fury, I pulled out the scissors I’d hidden away in my back pocket.

  “Don’t come any closer!” I cried, holding the scissors out in front of me so they were pointed right at his chest.

  Mitchell stopped in his tracks.

  But only a second or two passed before I felt the scissors being yanked out of my hand.

  Federico had come up next to us, catching me completely off guard, and snatched them away before I realized what was happening. For someone who was so spindly, he was surprisingly strong.

  I stood facing my attackers, aware that I probably had only seconds to come up with a way to defend myself against two men, both of whom were determined to get rid of me.

  Fortunately, I’d had the presence of mind to think a few steps ahead.

  So instead of panicking, I reached across to the counter and grabbed the ladle that was sitting in the bowl of fudge sauce. As I expected, the handle had gotten really hot.

  No wonder, since I’d turned up the Sterno so high. In fact, the fudge sauce had started to boil.

  Death by chocolate, I thought.

  With that, I quickly dunked down the ladle as deep as it would go, filling it with steaming fudge sauce. Then I flung it at Mitchell, splattering his entire face with boiling hot liquid.

  “Arghhhh!” he cried, dropping the necktie as his hands flew to his eyes. “That burns! Ow-w-w-w-w!”

  “What do you think you’re—” Federico was already reaching down to pick up the fallen necktie.

  But I was ready for him. I dipped the ladle again, then threw a big glob of hot molten fudge right at him, once again aiming for the face.

  “Ah-oo-oo-oo!” he moaned, swiping at his eyes.

  By that point, both men were yelling, their voices much louder than I knew mine would ever be. A few seconds later, the door of the butler’s pantry flew open.

  Pippa Somers stood in the doorway, her eyebrows knit with concern. Peering behind her, I saw that a few other people were coming toward the butler’s pantry, curious about what was going on.

  Pippa froze. “What on earth is going on in here?” she cried. “Kate? Mitchell? Federico? What’s happening?”

  I looked over at Mitchell and Federico, both dressed in their fine clothes but with globs of hot fudge sauce all over their faces and hands. The molten chocolate had also dripped down to their collars, the fronts of their shirts, and, I was pleased to see, Mitchell’s necktie. As for Federico’s tie, it still lay on the floor, splashed with big brown stains.

  Pippa frowned. “Honestly, do you really think this is the best time for a food fight?”

  “This isn’t a food fight,” I replied calmly. “This is the conclusion of a murder investigation. Call the police, Pippa. Omar DeVane’s murderers have finally been identified. These two men just tried to kill me, too. They came in here to strangle me with a necktie, the same way they murdered Omar.”

  Mitchell and Federico glanced at each other, their expressions horrified. I could practically hear the gears inside their heads turning. And then, moving at the same time like two dancers doing a carefully choreographed step, they both turned and headed for the door.

  But Marissa was blocking it.

  So was the man who I assumed was her escort, given the fact that one arm was draped protectively around her shoulders.

  I’d never been so happy to see Pete Bonano in my life.

  Especially since he was wearing his police uniform and everything that went with it. Including a gun. And handcuffs.

  He wasted no time in cuffing the two killers together.

  “You are both under the arrest for the murder of Omar DeVane,” Officer Bonano announced seriously. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”

  “It was all his idea!” Federico cried, glowering at Mitchell. “He’s the one who found out that Omar planned to change his will! He’s the one who masterminded the whole thing and even came up with the idea of leaving the country . . . Anyone who knows me knows I’m not smart enough to plan something like this!”

  “Be quiet, you idiot!” Mitchell shot back. “Did you hear what he said? They can use anything you say against you!”

  “But you planned the whole thing!” Federico whimpered. “I’m the one who kept telling you we’d never be able to pull it off, remember?”

  He was still whining as Pete Bonano led them away, meanwhile calling for backup. Mitchell kept trying to shut him up, scolding him like a child.

  They were back to bickering. But this time, it was for real.

  * * *

  It took only a few minutes for a police van to arrive and take away the two suspects. Detective Stoltz showed up, too, his face expressionless and his posture rigid. His four-star-general-style demeanor gave absolutely no indication that something momentous had just happened.

  After the van left, he paused at the edge of the living room, surveying the stunned crowd of guests, who were standing around awkwardly. I assumed he was looking for Pippa, the homeowner. Instead, he walked straight over to me.

  “I got your messages, Ms. McKay,” he said seriously. “A little too late, it seems.”

  I was trying to decide whether to respond politely with “No problem!” or more honestly with “Y’think?”

  But before I had a chance to say either, he said, “You’ve done a good job here.” He hesitated for a moment, then added, “A really good job.”

  I didn’t know the man well enough to be able to read him, but I was pretty sure I saw admiration in his eyes.

  It vanished
as quickly as it had come.

  “But next time, if there ever is a next time,” he went on in a stern voice, “I’d appreciate it if you’d leave the investigating to the pros.”

  He didn’t wait for my answer. Instead, he turned around and left.

  I blinked a few times, trying to process what had just happened. I thought I’d been paid a compliment. Then again, I wasn’t completely sure.

  Once the excitement was over, the guests went back to standing around in cocktail-party-style groups. But the entire atmosphere had changed. A feeling of heaviness hung over Pippa’s house.

  “Perhaps we should all just go home,” she suggested, not speaking to anyone in particular.

  “No, we should stay,” Gretchen insisted. “We came here to honor Omar and his memory, and that’s exactly what we should do.”

  “All right,” Pippa agreed with a little shrug. “As long as Kate is willing to keep going, we should all carry on.”

  “I’m up for it,” I assured her. And I was, aside from the fact that I felt so weak that I needed a hit of ice cream. Fast.

  In about ten seconds flat, I gobbled down three Coconut Balls and two Donut Sundaes. Pants came in all kinds of sizes, I reminded myself. Meanwhile, the rest of the guests were chatting away loudly about the drama that had just unfolded in front of them.

  Willow came over to me, her face distraught. Emma was right behind her, her expression almost identical.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Willow asked anxiously.

  “Those two creeps tried to kill you!” Emma exclaimed.

  “I’m fine,” I told them both. “Really.”

  Emma threw her arms around me and gave me a big hug.

  “Okay, ’Cream Team,” I told them. “We’ve still got a job to do. Let’s keep that ice cream coming.”

  I was about to do exactly that when I felt someone touch my shoulder lightly. I turned and found myself face to face with Marissa.

  “Are you okay, Kate?” she asked breathlessly.

  “I am now,” I replied. “Thanks to Pete. Speaking of Pete, how long have you two been an item?”