Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 02 - Murder, Lies & Chocolate

by Sally Berneathy

  “I mean, did this Diane person have cat scratches on her?”

  “No, but the police are not as convinced as you are that the murderer and your intruder are the same person or even that Henry left scratches on your intruder.”

  “Oh, really?” Trent was going to be in so much trouble when I got hold of him. He could have at least assured his buddies that I knew what I was talking about. “So I guess they’re not concerned that Paula’s visitor and my potential intruder were both driving a car registered to George Murray?”

  “No, they’re not.”

  I wiggled my bare toes, increasing the blood flow to my brain, considering what all that meant. “We need to find out who’s paying the personal property taxes on that car. Not likely Murray since he’s in prison. Could be his grandparents. I’ll bet they know who has possession of it and who would be driving it. And to think, they seemed so innocent!”

  “The records show that Murray’s paying the taxes and getting the license plates renewed.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Possible but not likely. It’d be pretty easy for anybody to use his name to do all that. The government just wants money. They don’t care who they get it from.”

  “I see.” I chewed my bottom lip and thought for a minute. “Then I guess we need to talk to Murray.”

  “He’s in prison.”

  “So? Inmates can have visitors. I see it on TV all the time.”

  Fred studied me for a long moment before he finally spoke. “Lin, I don’t think you have a very good idea of what a prison is really like.”

  I set my empty Coke can on the coffee table and swung my legs to the floor. “I probably don’t, but I’m going to find out. I can go by myself, or you can go with me, but I’m going.”

  “Okay. He’s in a local facility twenty minutes south of here. I’ll see if I can schedule an appointment for us.”

  That was easy. Suspiciously easy. He was already planning an excursion or he’d never have given in without a fight.

  “When?”

  “I’ll get back to you on that.”

  “How should I dress?”

  He gave me a look that suggested I’d asked a stupid question. “It’s not a formal event. I think your jeans will be fine.”

  “What will our names be?”

  “You’ll be Lindsay Powell, and I’ll be Fred Sommers. Honestly, Lindsay, sometimes I worry about you.”

  “You mean we’re not going to pretend to be private detectives or mob members or the Prize Patrol?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Sounds a little boring, but I guess I’m in anyway.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Knowing Rodney Bradford’s old girlfriend was in custody did not help me sleep even a little bit better that night. I insisted Fred go home. After cleaning my house all day, he deserved a good night’s rest. I slept with my cast iron skillet beside my bed. Henry was pretty much sobered up from his catnip bout, and I trusted his guard cat abilities. Nevertheless, I woke before the alarm and decided I might as well go in and get an early start on my chocolate creations.

  I was still a little groggy as I drove through the pre-dawn darkness, but as soon as I pulled into my parking space in the alley behind Death by Chocolate, I came wide awake. Something was wrong. Light should not be coming through the kitchen window.

  I sat in the car a moment trying to rationalize. Maybe, just maybe, after Trent’s disturbing call about Diane Hartman’s arrest, Paula and I had been so distracted we’d forgotten to turn off the light in the kitchen.

  I did not believe that.

  Heart climbing up into my throat, I flew out of my car and over to the door…which was unlocked. Something else that shouldn’t be.

  Could Paula and I have both forgotten to check the door?

  Maybe.

  Not likely, but anything was possible.

  I sent up a silent prayer that we’d both suddenly, unaccountably, become forgetful and careless, then I flung open the door.

  Fire!

  Flames shot up from the stovetop to the ceiling.

  I slammed the door closed. Cut off the oxygen. I remembered that advice from somewhere.

  I yanked my cell phone from my pocket and, hands trembling so badly I could barely hit those stinking little numbers, called 911.

  This could not be happening! Death by Chocolate was my dream, my home away from home, the place I’d struggled for years to establish. I loved this place. Besides that, it paid the bills.

  The 911 operator said she’d have someone there immediately and requested I stay on the line.

  “No!” I hung up.

  I could not let my chocolate shop go up in flames without trying to do something.

  I ran around to the front and went in that door. It was smoky, but the flames were confined to the kitchen. For the moment.

  I grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and lugged it to the kitchen door. Taking a deep breath, I opened that door.

  Smoke and heat rushed out, and I stumbled backward, dropping the extinguisher, clutching the edge of the counter to keep from falling.

  I righted myself, grabbed the extinguisher and went back to the open door. Death by Chocolate and I were not going down without a fight. I couldn’t see what I was doing, but I lifted the nozzle and began spraying.

  Those damned fire extinguishers don’t last very long. I was just pushing forward into the kitchen when the worthless hunk of metal sputtered and died.

  I tossed it aside and ran to the ice machine behind the counter, grabbed a large bowl, filled it with ice and tossed it into the kitchen.

  At that moment the back door burst open, and men in yellow and black uniforms rushed in. Probably the first time in my life I was happy to see a man in uniform. Usually they just want to write me traffic tickets.

  My first impulse was to dash in and help, but I hadn’t been very successful so far. I decided to go out and close the door, cut off that particular supply of oxygen to the fire.

  I started out the front door with the intention of going around to the back again, but met more firefighters who asked me to get out of the way. Just that one time, I decided to comply with an order. I went outside to stand on the sidewalk and watch helplessly through the plate glass window.

  Damn, I needed a Coke but the Cokes were all inside with the fire.

  A car pulled up to the curb and Paula jumped out. “What’s going on? Why is there a fire truck in our alley? Why do you have black streaks on your face?”

  I ran to her and restrained her from going inside. “It’s on fire!”

  In the ghostly light from the street lamps, her face went even more ghostly. “Oh, no! What happened?”

  I flung my hands through the air in helpless frustration. “I don’t know! It’s in the kitchen. I tried to put it out. We need to get a better fire extinguisher. That damned thing wouldn’t put out a candle flame!”

  Paula straightened, regaining her composure, and took my arm. She handles crises better than I do. She’s had more experience. “It’s going to be okay,” she assured me. “The fire department’s here. You have insurance. We can’t do anything right now. Let’s go sit in my car until it’s over.”

  So rational.

  “No! I’m going to pace up and down this sidewalk and worry. I can’t sit quietly in your car and fiddle around while Death by Chocolate burns!”

  “All right. I’ll pace and worry with you.” Paula’s a good friend.

  It seemed like we’d been pacing for an hour or two, but Paula said it was only a few minutes before a fireman came out holding his hat in his hands. I took that as a good sign, that he didn’t need the head protection anymore.

  “Did one of you call 911?”

  “I did. Is the fire out?”

  “Yes, ma’am. You’ve got one heck of a mess in there, but we got to it before much damage was done.”

  I burst into tears and hugged him.

  He laughed and pushed me away. “I’
m pretty dirty, ma’am.”

  I stepped back. “I don’t care. Thank you so much for saving my place!”

  “Glad we could help. You ladies need to be more careful in the future. The fire started in a pan of grease left on the stove with the burner on. If we’d been a few minutes later, the whole place could have burned down.”

  I looked at Paula. She looked at me.

  “We did not leave a pan of grease on the stove,” I said quietly.

  “And we did not leave a burner turned on,” Paula added.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He didn’t believe us. “I need to get some information from you, and then we’ll let you get back into your place so you can start the clean-up.”

  We gave him the information he needed for his report, and he gave us what we needed to file an insurance claim.

  Finally they were all gone, and Paula and I went in to survey the damage.

  It was definitely a mess. The kitchen walls were black, and the whole place smelled like smoke. The floor was covered in foam, probably mostly from my efforts with the fire extinguisher. I hadn’t managed to get any of that goop on the stove where the fire had blazed. The sturdy equipment was coated in soot but basically undamaged. A large black pan sat on top of the stove. That pan had been bright stainless steel yesterday.

  “This fire was deliberately set,” Paula said. “We need to call the police.”

  “Yeah. They’ve been so helpful the other times I called them.”

  She went to the back door and locked it. “Let’s go in the other room, sit down and discuss this.”

  I nodded. “I could use a Coke.”

  We got drinks then sat at a table close to the front door which we propped open to get some clean air.

  I took a healthy swig of my soda. It burned and bubbled down my throat and helped clear out the taste of smoke. “The back door was unlocked when I got here.”

  Paula folded her hands on the tabletop. “Apparently our mysterious friend has another set of lock picks.”

  “And since Diane Hartman is in jail, I’m going to take a wild guess and say she didn’t break in here and set that fire. Maybe she murdered Bradford, but I don’t think she’s the one who broke into my house or came to visit you, and I know she didn’t do all this.” I waved my hand around the smoky restaurant.

  Paula nodded. “This adds a new angle. If somebody is trying to find something hidden in your house, why burn down your restaurant?”

  I finished my Coke then got up from the table and went rummaging for leftover chocolate. I found a piece of cake, ate a couple of bites, and suddenly everything fell into place. Chocolate has a beneficial effect on the brain. “Rick did it!” I said.

  Paula turned to look at me. “Rick’s a jerk, but even he wouldn’t burn down your restaurant.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Are you so sure?” I moved back to the table with a fresh Coke for me and a slice of cake for Paula. “Think about it. He and Lisa want my house. If I lose my restaurant, I’ll be more inclined to sell him the house to get the money to reopen this place.”

  She shook her head doubtfully. “I don’t know. That may be reaching a little. I realize you have plenty of reasons to be angry at Rick, but you do tend to blame him for everything bad in your life.” She held up a hand before I could protest. “Granted, he’s responsible for ninety percent of the bad things in your life. But remember when you got three speeding tickets in the same day and you said it was Rick’s fault?”

  I glared at her. Friends weren’t supposed to remember things like that. “It was his fault. He made me mad, and I wasn’t watching carefully enough for cops.”

  She rolled her eyes, shoved back her chair and stood. “I’m going to get you some more chocolate, and we’re going to call the police then make plans to get this place cleaned up so we can reopen.”

  “Fine, but think about this. Rick and his new girlfriend want my house. They want it bad. When I refused, he threatened me. Don’t fight me on this or things are going to get ugly. It doesn’t get much uglier than burning down my chocolate place.”

  Paula returned to the table with a cookie for me. She hadn’t finished her Coke or her cake. Caffeine and chocolate deficit would explain why she wasn’t thinking straight.

  “The back door was unlocked when I got here,” I said. “It’s conceivable that mysterious woman has another set of lock picks, or maybe she didn’t need them. I changed the locks on my house last fall after your psycho ex tried to poison me, so Lisa and Rick would have had to pick that lock to get in, but Rick still has the spare keys to this place. Maybe he just unlocked the door with his key, he and Lisa waltzed in, poured some grease in a pan, turned on the stove and left.”

  Paula drew in a deep breath, released it in a whoosh and sat back in her chair. “You know what? It actually is possible. We really need to call the police.”

  “You do that, for all the good it’ll do.” I pulled out my cell phone. “While you’re doing that, I’m going to talk to Rick.”

  I had to call him twice. The first time, it went to voicemail, but the second time he finally woke up.

  “Death by Chocolate is still standing. I came in early before the fire had a chance to do any real damage.”

  “Lindsay? What time is it? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fire you and poor little Lisa set in my restaurant. The police are here, and they said they’ve found fingerprints.” Okay, I know I said I don’t approve of lies, but lying to Rick doesn’t count. It’s on the same level as lying to the IRS. Neither Rick nor the IRS is honest enough to deserve the truth.

  “What are you talking about?” he repeated, but this time he was wide awake. I had his attention.

  I hung up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Same old story. The cops came, the cops went. These cops did take me a little more seriously since the sidewalk in front of my restaurant was the scene of a murder only a few days before.

  All morning I halfway expected Rick to come charging in, demanding to know what was going on, schmoozing with the cops, proclaiming his innocence. I guess that means I only half believed my own accusations of his guilt. When he didn’t show up, I realized it actually was possible, even probable, that he did try to destroy my place. That thought made me a little sick to my stomach, but a can of Coke soon put that right.

  It was noon by the time Paula and I got everything taken care of, including contacting a professional service to clean and repaint. They estimated they could have us back in business by the weekend. Since Saturday was our slowest day. I put a sign on the door saying we’d be closed until Monday.

  Then I went straight to Fred’s house.

  He opened the door and frowned. “You look terrible. Why do you have soot all over you? Why do you smell like smoke? Did you burn some cookies?”

  “Rick tried to burn down my shop.” I pushed past him, heading across his hardwood floor toward his leather sofa. On those surfaces, anything I dribbled could be easily cleaned.

  “Wait!” He produced a large white towel and threw it over the sofa. “Now you can sit. You’re covered in soot.”

  I sank down onto the towel-covered sofa. “I know that. Stop obsessing about a little soot. We have bigger things to obsess about. Did you hear what I said?”

  He sat in the matching recliner. “I heard you. I’m waiting for you to continue. Did you catch Rick in the act?”

  “No.” I told him why I thought Rick was guilty.

  He nodded. “That’s actually a very logical conclusion.”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “That Rick would try to burn down Death by Chocolate? No, that doesn’t surprise me. He did threaten you, and the man has no scruples.”

  “No, you sound surprised that I came to a logical conclusion.”

  “You’re not always logical when it comes to Rick.”

  I wiped a hand across my grimy forehead then held the grimy hand an inch above the immaculate forest green leathe
r arm of Fred’s sofa. “Take that back.”

  For a split second, he looked uncomfortable. But only for a split second. I might have imagined it. “Do you want to go visit George Murphy in prison?” he asked, successfully distracting me from any malicious activity I’d been contemplating.

  “Yes.”

  “Go take a shower and meet me back here at four.”

  Fred has a way of winning arguments without ever raising his voice.

  ***

  I showered, fed Henry and was so exhausted I took a short nap in spite of my cat’s noisy demands to go out and prowl. I considered letting him roam for a while now that I was certain Rick and Lisa were the intruders. Rick wouldn’t harm a defenseless cat. On the other hand, I would have never thought Rick would burn down a defenseless restaurant. After consideration, I decided Henry had to remain inside.

  We needed to figure out what was going on with my house and put a stop to it soon before Henry called the ASPCA and reported me for cruelty.

  I was at Fred’s house by 4:00. He inspected me carefully before he let me sit in his white Mercedes.

  “I showered,” I told him through gritted teeth.

  “You might have missed a spot.”

  I slid into his car and slammed the door.

  Even with his speed-limit driving, we arrived at the small prison in less than twenty minutes. Creepy to think it was that close.

  We stopped at a gate. Fred handed the guard something. The man looked, handed it back, pressed a button that opened the gate, and waved us on through.

  “What did you give him?” I asked.

  “Identification.”

  “What kind of identification.”

  “Valid identification.”

  “How did you manage to get us in as visitors on such short notice?”

  “I asked the right person.” He pulled into a parking spot.

  I was going to be spending a lot of time at home the next few days, waiting for Death by Chocolate to be clean again. Maybe I could spy on Fred and learn some of his secrets.

  “Are you coming with me or staying in the car?” he asked.

  I put my spy plans on hold and got out.