The Sweets of Doom

by Wendy Meadows

  “Something’s up,” David murmurs. “I better go see.”

  “Can I come?” I offer.

  His eyebrows twitch. “I don’t think so. Stay put and leave it to the cops.”

  Just then, a white van rolls to a stop in front of the same house. We all read the black lettering on the side: Forensics Team.

  “Something is definitely up,” Zack remarks. “It doesn’t look good.”

  “Stay here,” David snaps, and sets off across the street.

  I hang around on the porch. My feet itch to get over there and find out what’s happening. In a few minutes, floodlights blaze all over the yard. The police set up a cordon around the property and the forensics team troops in and out doing their thing.

  While I watch, Kyle Davidson pokes his head out of his house. He saunters onto the sidewalk and meanders along it a short way. He stops next to the cordon to watch the goings-on. Seeing that gives me the impetus I need.

  I jump off the porch and cross to his side. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  “I have no idea,” he replies. “I saw the lights through my window. Do you?”

  I shake my head. “We just came out on the porch and saw the cop car pull up. I hope it’s nothing serious.”

  “It must be,” Kyle points out. “They wouldn’t call out the forensics team if it wasn’t serious.”

  “I wonder what happened,” I say. “The new people just moved in last week. I don’t know anything about them.”

  “It’s a single dad and one teenage son,” Kyle tells me. “That’s all I know. The dad waved to me day before yesterday when they were moving some stuff in. That’s all I know. I haven’t seen them since.”

  I go back to looking at the house. One of the forensics guys passes close to me. I see my chance and call out, “Excuse me! Could you tell us what’s going on in there?”

  A thunderous voice startles me into spinning around. “Don’t tell her anything!”

  I look up. David towers on the house steps and glares down at me. “I told you to stay put.”

  “Can’t you at least tell us what’s going on?” I ask. “You can’t expect us to just ignore all this activity. We’re going to find out sooner or later. Why not just tell us?”

  He throws up his hands. “I really ought to have you locked up as a public menace every time something like this happens. I swear, Margaret…”

  “Every time something like what happens?” I interject. “Don’t tell me someone is dead in there.”

  His chin falls on his chest. “Why do I even try to fight it? Yes, someone is dead in there. The man who bought Allie and Roger’s old house is dead, okay? Now will you please go back inside?”

  Kyle looks shocked at the news. Nevertheless, he does what the detective said and returns to his own house. I wait until he leaves before I lower my voice to a confidential murmur. “Let me help you. Please. We’ve been through this before, and you said I was good at this sort of thing. At least tell me what happened.”

  David blows out his cheeks. “I might as well. You’re going to get involved in this no matter what I say. Heck, you might be involved already after finding that note. It said something about a pentagram, didn’t it?”

  I stiffen. “What do you mean? What does the note have to do with anything?”

  Looking resigned, he inclines his head toward the front door. “Come inside and you’ll see.”

  I tag after him into the house and stop dead inside the threshold. I can’t stop staring at everything with my mouth open.

  Hundreds upon hundreds of candles illuminate the place. In the sitting room adjacent to the entrance, a bundle of smoldering sage dangles from the chandelier. The pungent smoke clouds the room, and the candles give it a mystical air.

  A large white pentagram drawn in chalk marks the Persian carpet. Strange symbols designate the five points of the star. A bowl of what looks like blood, along with a skull from some animal, sits in the center. Sprinkled powder surrounds the display.

  A man slumps against one of the Edwardian high-backed chairs nearby. His head droops to one side, and he wears a long purple-black robe emblazoned with stars and crescent moons.

  I gasp out loud. “Holy mackerel!”

  “You’re telling me,” David says. “This is the victim, obviously. His name is Jose Santiago. He bought this house two weeks ago, just moved in last Monday. He didn’t even get a chance to unpack the boxes upstairs.”

  I pick my way into the room, making sure not to disturb the scene. “Are there any signs of foul play?”

  David waves his hand at the room. “Well, this place looks to me like a sign of foul play, don’t you think? Unless he died of pulmonary failure from inhaling this smoke, I’d say he was mixed up in something pretty foul.”

  “It looks like he was doing some sort of ritual,” I remark.

  “We’re dusting the place for fingerprints to find out if anyone else was around, but so far, there’s nothing to indicate he wasn’t doing it alone.”

  A choking sound draws my attention to a parlor across the hall. I peek inside and see a young man sitting on the couch. A police officer talks to him in low tones.

  “That’s the victim’s son, Michael,” David murmurs in my ear. “He’s sixteen. He’s still in high school, but he’s got his own car. He works in an ice cream parlor down in Peterborough. He just got home from work and found his father like this.”

  “Does he know of any strange activities his father might have gotten mixed up in?”

  David shakes his head. “He was as surprised by all this as we were. He said his father was very steady and hard-working, and I believe him. Jose raised this kid almost single-handedly for the seven years since Michael’s mother left them for greener pastures. The kid gets straight A’s. No way is he involved with any of this hocus-pocus.”

  I study the house. “Who would do this, then? Who would go to the trouble of killing him? Someone must have hated him a lot.”

  “Hold your horses, sweetheart,” David tells me. “We don’t know he was killed. We’ll send the body down to Peterborough for an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Until we get the ME’s report back, we can’t think of this as a murder. Understand?”

  “Okay. I understand.”

  He nods toward the door. “Now I think you better skedaddle. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  I slope back to my own house. I expect to find Zack on the porch, but he’s nowhere in sight. I pause there to cast a wistful glance back at the crime scene—or whatever it is. I didn’t want to leave. I want to be over there investigating with David.

  I don’t believe for an instant Jose Santiago died of natural causes. If, as David suspects, Jose wasn’t involved in the occult or whatever, someone went to a lot of trouble to make it look like he was.

  I slink inside and shut the door. I don’t find Zack in the living room or the kitchen, so I go upstairs. I can look forward to another long day on my feet at the candy store tomorrow. Now that I’ve lost the energy of the police investigation, exhaustion overwhelms me.

  I head for my bedroom when Zack calls me from down the hall. “Come in here a minute, Mom. I want to show you something.”

  I sneak closer. He never invites me into his room and I dread what I’ll find. Does he have stale, moldy old sandwiches flattened into his pillow?

  To my eternal relief, his room is in immaculate shape. His bed is made and I don’t see a single article of clothing lying around, which makes me self-conscious. He keeps his room a lot nicer than I keep mine.

  He sits with his back to me at his desk. His finger clicks his computer mouse. “Over here, Mom.”

  I crane over his chair back. “What is it?”

  “It’s your new website. See?”

  I gape at the screen. Big, bold lettering across the page reads, Margaret Nichols, Private Investigator for Hire.

  I blink, but I can’t bring myself to accept what I’m seeing. “What the bejeezus is this?”

&nb
sp; “It’s your new website, Mom.” He flashes me a grin. “I set it all up for you so you can start taking cases on your own and get paid for it.”

  My jaw hits the floor. “What? Do you know what David will do when he finds out about this?”

  “He can’t do anything to stop you,” Zack replies. “I researched all the licenses and permits and everything you need to make this happen. He said you were really good on these cases. You know you really like solving them, so why not get paid to do it?”

  I shake my head and walk away. “I can’t go into business for myself. I’m just a candy peddler.”

  He stumbles getting out of his chair. “What’s the matter? Don’t tell me you plan to fink out on this after all the work I put in.”

  “I’m not finking out on anything,” I call over my shoulder. “I never asked you to set up a business website, and I never planned to get paid to solve cases. I’ve got all I can handle running the store.”

  He dogs my footsteps to my room. “Aw, come on, Mom. You know you can’t get enough of these cases. At least give it a shot.”

  “I don’t have time to give it a shot. Good night, Zachary. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  I swing the door shut. I hate to say I slam it in his face, but when it comes right down to it, that’s exactly what I do.

  I fling myself down on my bed. A website—me? What next! I can’t have a website. I can’t be a private investigator for hire. The whole idea is too preposterous to consider.

  Dang that Zack! What was he thinking?

  3

  I slouch onto the living couch and kick off my shoes. I groan when I rub my aching feet. I’m getting too old to stand behind a counter all day. I barely catch up on sleep every night before I have to go back to the store and do it all over again.

  I almost burst into tears when someone knocks on the front door. Zack calls to me from the kitchen. “That’s for you, Mom.”

  “How do you know that?” I fire back.

  He doesn’t respond. Pots clatter in the sink and a loud hiss of steam answers me.

  I pull my head down between my shoulders and crouch into the sofa cushions. “I don’t care who it is. I’m not getting it.

  The knock comes again, louder this time. Zack calls out, “Aren’t you going to get that?”

  “No, I’m not,” I snarl.

  Zack scuttles into the room drying his hands on a dish towel. “You have to get it.”

  “Why do I have to get it?” I grumble. “I’m tired. I’m not getting it. You get it.”

  “You have to get it. He came all this way to talk to you.”

  I freeze in my seat. “Who did?”

  “Michael Santiago. He’s here to talk to you about his father’s murder case.”

  I blink up at him. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “I just told you. He’s here to talk to you about his father’s murder case. He wants to hire you to investigate. I saw him at the police station. One of the detectives ordered a box of chocolates for his fiancée, and I was there delivering it at the same time Michael was there to find out the autopsy results. Jose was poisoned with something… I can’t remember the name. It was something hard to pronounce that I’d never heard of. Michael was really upset, so I told him about you. He wants you to look into his father’s case.”

  I pick my jaw up off the floor. “Have you gone completely around the bend? I am not a PI. I’m a… I’m a…”

  He cocks his head waiting for me to say something. “You’re a what?”

  “I’m not a PI,” I stammer. “I run a candy store, and I have an unnatural sense of curiosity. That’s all. No one is going to hire me to look into anything.”

  “Then you can do it for free,” he breezes back.

  I gape at him. Who in the sam hill is this man? I realize right then and there I don’t have a clue who Zachary Nichols is or what he’s capable of. I can hardly believe the little boy I raised grew into this.

  He snaps his dish towel over his shoulder and goes to the door. He opens it, and disembodied voices drift to my ear from the front hall. “Hi, Michael. Sorry about that. Come right in. Mom’s in the living room. Go right in.”

  I shrink back on the couch. I can’t win. The footsteps come closer. I wallow in my defeat a few seconds more before I rocket to my throbbing feet when Michael Santiago enters.

  I hold out my hand and put on my best nice-to-meet-you smile. “How are you, Michael? Please take a seat. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” The boy I saw at the house the other night sits down opposite me. He perches on the edge of a chair and casts anxious glances around the room. A rim of red discolors his eyes. He must have been crying a lot lately, and who could blame him?

  I let myself down slowly onto the couch. “So I hear you got the ME’s results.”

  He nods down at his hands. He tries to speak and winds up whispering in a husky voice. “Yeah.”

  My heart goes out to the kid. He lost the only person in the world who cared about him. Now he has no one and nowhere to turn. I soften toward him. “I’m so terribly sorry for your loss. Is there anything I can do? Do you have a place to stay?”

  He nods. “That police detective arranged for me to stay with your neighbor Kyle Davidson. I have an uncle in Cincinnati, but when the cops contacted him about taking me, he flat out refused and I can’t go stay with my mom. No one wants me.”

  His voice cracks when he says it. I can’t bear to watch his lip quivering. I scoot to the chair next to him and squeeze his arm. “I know things look black right now, but you’re not alone. The whole town of West End wants you. Whoever did this to your father is only one person. Look at Kyle. He’s taking care of you, isn’t he?”

  He nods down at the floor and doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m not saying that you staying with Kyle could become permanent, but there are people who care about you and who will help you. You don’t have to face this alone. Now come on and tell me about the ME’s report. Can you remember the name of the poison?”

  He shakes his head. “It was some Latin word or something. Not even the detective had heard of it before.”

  I frown to myself. “That’s strange. I’ll have to ask Detective Graham about it. Did the autopsy turn up anything else?”

  He shakes his head again. “There was some blueberry muffin in his stomach. The cops think the killer laced the muffin with the poison.”

  “I don’t suppose it would be all that out of the ordinary for your father to eat a blueberry muffin, would it?”

  His head shoots up. “Actually, it would. He never ate that stuff. He kept a strict Paleo diet, and he always said he was gluten intolerant. I don’t see him eating it.”

  “That is odd,” I remark. “Can you think of any circumstances where he might have eaten something containing gluten?”

  “He used to eat birthday cake at birthday parties,” Michael replies, “or he would eat food with gluten if someone invited him over for dinner or something like that, just to be polite and not to hurt their feelings. That was the only time he made an exception. He was very strict about it.”

  “That’s interesting. That means something unusual must have happened to make him eat the blueberry muffin. Can you think what that might have been?”

  “I couldn’t tell you that,” he replies. “I was away at school all day. I didn’t come home until after my shift in Peterborough, and that’s when I found him.”

  “What time was that?” I ask. “What time did you leave for school and what time did you come home and find him dead?”

  “He dropped me off at school at nine in the morning. I got home at seven-thirty in the evening.”

  I frown again. “He dropped you off at school, and then he went home again, ate the muffin, and died before seven-thirty in the evening?”

  “Yeah, that’s another weird thing. He shouldn’t have been home during that time. He always left for work straight from school after drop
ping me off. He usually got home after me. He shouldn’t have gone home again—not for anything.”

  “I suppose when you found him you saw that strange set-up in your living room,” I remark.

  His eyes widen. “Yeah. That was really weird.”

  “You told the detectives your dad was never involved with any of that stuff.”

  “Never!” he exclaims. “He worked sixty-hour weeks. He didn’t have time for any of that, and even if he did, he wouldn’t have been involved with anything like that.”

  “It does seem unusual that he would do something like that and then wind up dead the very same night. Maybe the killer had something to do with it. Did you see anything else out of the ordinary around the house?”

  “I didn’t look.” He casts his eyes to the floor again. “I was so shocked I sort of froze up. I finally called the police and then just sat there and stared until they came. I couldn’t believe he was actually dead.”

  “That’s okay,” I murmur. “I understand. I can find out all about it from the detective.”

  He raises his eyes to my face. “So will you take the case? I don’t have a lot of money, but I do have some savings my dad put away to send me to college. I could use that to pay for…”

  “You don’t have to pay me,” I interrupt. “You keep your college money.”

  “Are you sure? I really don’t mind paying for it.”

  I shook my head. “Well, maybe I mind taking money from you to investigate this case. My son thinks I’m going to become a private investigator for hire, but I’m really just a busybody who can’t mind her own business. I’ll see what I can find out about your father’s case, but I don’t want any money.”

  “Really?”

  “Really,” I tell him. “Now I think you better get back to Kyle’s. It’s dinner time and he’ll be wondering where you are.”

  He grabs my hand and nearly pumps my arm off my shoulder. “Thank you so much, Miss Nichols. You don’t know what this means to me. If there’s anything I can do to repay your kindness, just tell me and I’ll…”

  My cheeks flush. I back him toward the front door, but he won’t stop shaking my hand in his. “Don’t thank me when I haven’t done anything yet.” I guided him onto the porch and gently extricated my hand from his grasp.