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

by Sally Berneathy

  We went through a couple more guards, signed in and were finally seated in a large room with half a dozen rectangular tables surrounded by chairs. A man and woman at one of the tables on the far side of the room leaned toward each other, talking quietly. Except for the armed guard standing beside the door, it was actually pretty mundane. No bars between tables or men in stripes sitting around whittling with homemade shivs.

  Fred and I sat on one side of a table in the middle of the room.

  “Don’t we have to talk on phones through thick glass?”

  “You watch too much television. George Murray was convicted of dealing drugs, not being a serial killer.”

  A door whooshed open, and I turned to see a man in a blue shirt and blue work pants being escorted to our table by another guard. The man in blue wasn’t wearing handcuffs or leg irons.

  He sat down across from us then smiled up at his escort. “Thanks, Ed.”

  Ed? He was on a first name basis with the guard? Weren’t guards and prisoners supposed to hate each other?

  Ed nodded and moved away to stand beside the other guard.

  Fred rose and extended a hand across the table. “Fred Sommers.”

  The prisoner shook Fred’s hand. “George Murray.” He stood about average height, had brown hair and brown eyes. Except for a tattoo of an angry eagle on one forearm and a tattoo of a heart with lopsided initials on the other, he looked quite ordinary.

  “Lindsay Powell,” I said. The words came out as kind of a croak, so I cleared my throat and tried again.

  Suddenly he didn’t look so ordinary anymore. Something shifted behind those dark eyes. He recognized my name.

  “Lindsay lives in your grandparents’ old house,” Fred said.

  “Yeah?” was Murray’s only reply.

  “There have been some odd occurrences in that house.”

  Murray grinned. “Odd? You mean like ghosts? Surely you folks don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”

  Fred straightened his glasses though they hadn’t been crooked and returned Murray’s smile. “More like flesh and blood people digging around in Lindsay’s basement.”

  Murray’s grin remained in place, but it looked strained as if his facial muscles were fighting to turn down instead of up.

  I thought we’d come to talk about the beige car registered in his name, but this line of questioning was interesting. He definitely knew something about my basement.

  “We talked to your grandparents,” I said. “They mentioned you spent some time with them before you, uh, when you were younger.”

  “You talked to my grandparents?” His face softened, he folded his hands, and his gaze dropped to the table as if the tough guy didn’t want us to see his tender side.

  “You love your grandparents, don’t you?” I asked, feeling a sudden rush of tenderness. Fred shot me a glare and kicked me under the table.

  Murray lifted his gaze and glared at me too. “Course I do! Everybody loves their grandparents. What do you think, I’m some kind of a psycho?”

  Yes. “No, of course not!”

  “We thought you might have some idea of what those people were looking for in your grandparents’ old basement.” Fred resumed control of the questioning.

  Murray shook his head. “How would I know?”

  Fred shrugged. “Boys are curious. They explore hidden places that adults ignore. Perhaps you came across a secret bookcase with old books or a hidden room with an antique chest.”

  I turned my head slowly and looked at Fred. Where was Mr. Practical coming up with this fanciful stuff?

  The corner of Murray’s mouth twitched. “Nah. That’s just an old house. Nothing special about it. I’m surprised it’s still standing. Probably fall down around you one day.”

  I shifted on the hard, wooden chair. Now in addition to everything else, I’d be watching the ceiling for signs of collapse.

  “It’s a solidly built structure.” Fred sounded intent on reassuring me. He probably didn’t want me calling him in the middle of the night if a piece of ceiling molding came loose.

  Murray lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “Yeah, whatever. Look, I don’t know anything about anybody breaking into your house. Sorry I couldn’t help you.” He started to rise, but Fred lifted a restraining hand, and Murray sat down again.

  “Do you know why your former cellmate, Rodney Bradford, wanted to buy your grandparents’ old house?”

  There it was again, that darkness at the back of his eyes. He forcibly lifted the corners of his mouth in a makeshift smile. “Me and Rodney got close, talked a lot. You do that when you’re in a place like this. I told him about my grandparents, how my visits with them were the best times of my life. I guess he just wanted to pretend they were his grandparents and he had all them good times.”

  Fred nodded. “I guess that makes sense. He married a woman he loved and thought they could have a good life together in that little house where other people had been happy.”

  The darkness got darker and the smile more forced. The corners of his mouth were actually turning white with the effort. “Exactly.”

  “He met Lisa while he was in prison. Did you know her?”

  Murray gave up the effort. His face sagged into a scowl. “Why would I know her?”

  “You and Bradford were cellmates. You were close, talked a lot. Surely he told you about the woman he loved.”

  Murray hesitated. “Yeah, sure, he told me.”

  “You didn’t approve of his relationship with Lisa?”

  “It don’t matter whether I approved or not. None of my business who he married.”

  “She’s going to end up living in your grandparents’ house,” I said.

  He sat upright, suddenly intent. “What? Where’d she get the money to buy a house?”

  “She doesn’t need money. You see, I don’t actually own the house outright. My estranged husband and I own it together, and he’s offering me a really good deal in the divorce if I’ll let him have the house. He and Lisa are getting married as soon as our divorce is final, and then she’ll be living in your grandparents’ old house where you had such good times when you were growing up.” Lying for a good cause doesn’t count, either.

  Murray’s hands clenched on the table, his knuckles white.

  “I guess that’s something you’re gonna have to work out with your husband. Look, I got kitchen duty this week. I need to get back to work.” He rose, and this time Fred stood with him. I remained seated. Fred wasn’t finished with him yet.

  “Of course. Just one more question. Your car, the beige Ford you owned when you were sent to prison, what happened to that car?”

  Murray looked at Fred, then me, then the guard, then the wall on the right and the wall on the left. “My car?”

  “Yes, your car, the beige Ford.”

  “I don’t know. I might have left it with a friend. Or maybe it was in a garage being worked on. Could be my grandparents have it. Did you ask them?”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  “Then maybe you ought to ask them. I’m in the slammer. Some old car doesn’t matter to me in here.” He started toward the door. “Ed, I’m ready to go.”

  Fred grabbed his arm. “Thank you for talking to us.” He forcibly shook Murray’s hand again then held it for an extra beat, his gaze on the man’s forearm.

  Murray yanked his hand away, gave Fred a totally freaked-out look and practically ran for the exit.

  “Okay,” I said, rising to stand beside Fred, “what was that about? Why were you so interested in his tattoo?”

  “The initials.”

  I shrugged. “They’re ugly, like the artist was drunk when he did it.”

  “Or like a really bad tattoo artist, maybe a self-styled prison artist, tried to turn one set of initials into another.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  My cell phone rang as we were walking down the long hall that led out of the prison.

  Trent.

  “You had a fire at
your restaurant this morning and you called the police to report it as arson, but then you, what? Forgot my number?” He didn’t sound happy. Fine. See how he liked being left out of the loop the way he was always doing to me.

  “You know I can’t divulge information relating to an ongoing investigation,” I replied.

  He was silent for a moment, probably deciding whether to be mad at me or ignore me. He chose the latter. He usually does. “Where are you now?”

  “In prison.”

  “What?”

  “Just kidding. I’ll be home in half an hour. Why?”

  “I want to see you and make sure you’re okay. You’ve had a bad morning. I really wish you’d called me.”

  “It was early. You were still asleep. You know what time I go in to work, and I went in even earlier this morning.”

  “Okay, fine, it doesn’t matter. How about I stop by in a couple of hours and bring over a pizza or something?”

  “That would be good. I’ll be waiting.” I disconnected and put my phone in my purse.

  Fred and I pushed through the last door, outside into the sunshine. Prison might be less frightening and more mundane than I’d anticipated, but it sure did feel good to breathe free air again even if that air was about ninety-five degrees and muggy.

  We settled in Fred’s car and were soon cool and comfortable as we headed home, driving in the middle lane. Not too fast, not too slow. Well, way too slow for me.

  “Murray doesn’t seem to care for Lisa,” I said.

  “It’s not like you to understate things, Lindsay. I thought the man was going to have a stroke when you told him Lisa would be living in your house.”

  I smiled. “That was a good one, wasn’t it? I wonder if Lisa was dating…well, doing whatever you call the prison version of dating an inmate…with both of them.”

  “I think you’re on the right track. The initials in that heart have been changed and not by a trained tattoo artist. The ‘K’ is lopsided and overly large, as if it might once have been an ‘L’ until somebody added two strokes below. The ‘D’ is fuzzy around the edges and has a really thick left side. Could have been a ‘W’ at one time.”

  I leaned back and considered that. “LW. Lisa Whelan. So you think Murray and Lisa had a prison romance thing going, Murray had her initials tattooed on his arm, and then Bradford stole her?”

  “He knew enough about her to know she couldn’t afford to buy your house.”

  “He did, didn’t he?”

  “But I think he knew her before he went to prison. While the heart tattoo is certainly not the work of someone like Ed Hardy—”

  “Who?”

  Fred rolled his eyes and sighed. “Let me rephrase. While the heart tattoo is not the work of an expert tattoo artist, it’s the same quality as the eagle, and it’s a lot more professional than the two changed initials. Based on that information, it’s possible Murray and Lisa were together before Murray was convicted and sent to prison.”

  “I get it!” I turned to face him. “Murray was dating Lisa and told her where he hid drugs or whatever. Then Murray went to the slammer and became buddies with Bradford. He introduced his cellmate to his girlfriend, and the cellmate stole her then got out of prison before Murray, and the two of them tried to get Murray’s grandparents’ old house because Lisa knows that’s where Murray hid whatever it was he hid.”

  “That theory brings us to another interesting question. Neither Bradford nor Lisa had any money. How did they plan to buy your house?” He never took his eyes from the road, not even for an instant, but I could feel his gaze on me. He probably did it using psychic waves. Or psychotic waves. Whatever.

  I thought about it for a minute then groaned and sagged back against the seat as several more pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Rick.”

  Fred nodded, his expression grim. “It’s possible that your many accusations of Rick’s malevolent intentions were justified.”

  I stared at the road ahead and let all the implications sink in. “Lisa and Bradford needed to get the house, so they made a deal to share whatever’s in there with Rick, the current owner. One of the current owners. That is so—” I threw my hands into the air, unable to come up with a word horrible enough to describe such a scenario.

  “I believe the word you’re looking for is possible,” Fred said. “Or perhaps probable.”

  “Not really.” I sighed. “But unfortunately, it all fits. If there’s money involved, Rick will be right there.”

  Fred was silent. He does that a lot, but this particular silence seemed very loud. He was waiting for me to continue, but I had nothing more to say on that subject.

  Or did I? Rick struck some kind of a deal with Lisa and Bradford to help them take my house away from me and split the buried treasure three ways.

  Only Bradford was dead, so now it would only be a two-way split. More for both of them.

  I groaned again.

  “Exactly,” Fred said, breaking that shrieking silence. “Rick may be involved in Bradford’s murder.”

  I dug around in my purse, hoping to find a chocolate bar or even a few crumbs from a brownie. The realization that I was once married to an arsonist/murderer was a pretty stressful event. “Do you think we could find a convenience store and get me a Coke?”

  “Yes.” He hit the accelerator, cut across two lanes of traffic and took the closest exit. For Fred, that was an expression of deepest sympathy.

  ***

  I was so ready for Trent when he arrived later that evening with a pizza. Henry was on my heels and tried to dart out the door when I opened it. I shoved him back inside—Henry, not Trent—where he began pacing, yowling and pleading his case with Trent. I could have told him that was pointless with Mr. Stone Face. Very appropriate name Fred had given him.

  As soon as Trent set the pizza box on the kitchen table, I threw myself into his arms. He held me for a few moments, patting and stroking and murmuring soothing words. It was quite lovely but necessarily brief. The pizza was getting cold.

  I got plates and napkins while Trent opened a couple of Cokes, and we sat down to feast on a deep dish everything-but-the-kitchen-sink pizza.

  I started talking as soon as I finished my first piece. I figured if Trent had his mouth full of pizza, it would be more difficult for him to interrupt with pointless questions such as “You what?” and “Are you nuts?” and “Why did you do that?”

  Sure enough, I’d barely begun to tell him about our interrogation of Murray when he choked and sputtered and said, “You what? You went to prison? Why did you do that? Are you nuts?”

  I ignored him and went on to tell him everything, explaining about Rick’s perfidy and his and Lisa’s involvement in arson and murder.

  When I finished, he looked at me for a long moment, shook his head, went to the refrigerator and got another Coke. I wondered if I should talk to him about that. Wouldn’t do for a cop to get addicted to Coke.

  I ate another piece of pizza while he sipped his fresh soda and considered the new evidence Fred and I had uncovered.

  Finally he leaned back from the table and regarded me intently. “Assuming you’re right, where’s the mysterious treasure Murray hid in this house? If Fred couldn’t find it, I’d be willing to bet the farm it’s not here.”

  “Yeah, Fred and I talked about that on our drive home. He says he doesn’t like to make unsubstantiated guesses, but if he did something that rash, his guess would be that the first intruder found what he or she was looking for.”

  “Hmm. Did Fred make an unsubstantiated, rash guess as to who that first intruder might be?”

  “Murray’s new girlfriend, KD. Even as we speak, he’s trying to figure out who KD might be. She got the goodies, but Lisa and Rick don’t know that, and they’re still trying to get my house, or get into my house, as the occasion may be. Remember when Rick came over here, all upset because Fred and I had interviewed Lisa? He seemed surprised that somebody had broken into my house. My theory is that the seco
nd break-in was all Lisa’s doing, that she’s trying to get the treasure and then double cross Rick. Maybe she’s planning to murder him like the two of them did to Bradford. That would solve a lot of problems.”

  “For you, not for her.”

  “Oh, well, yeah.” I shrugged. “I guess I was thinking only of myself. You’re right. If she kills Rick, she won’t have the money to buy my house. It was just a pleasant thought. But you must admit, the rest makes sense.”

  “Not completely. You said Lisa had no cat scratches.”

  “I know. That’s an unresolved issue, but everything else fits, including the possibility that Lisa would have access to Murray’s old car if they’d been together when he got tossed into the slammer, and that would point to her being the one who came to Paula’s house and the one who tried to get in here the night of our barbecue.”

  Trent slid back his chair and stood.

  Henry was immediately on his feet too, striding hopefully toward the door.

  “Let me help you clean up,” Trent said, “and then let’s take this poor animal for a walk. Maybe we could put him on a leash.”

  I snorted. “Never had a cat, did you?”

  Henry stood on his hind legs and batted at the door knob.

  Trent set the box with the leftover pizza in the refrigerator and looked at Henry. “No cats, just dogs.”

  “Cats and leashes don’t mix well. I’ll tell you what you could do if you really want to help Henry. Take Lisa and Rick in for questioning. You can hold them for twenty-four hours without filing charges. I saw that on TV. With them safely in custody, I can let Henry roam and check out his territory.”

  I tried to pick him up and console him—Henry, not Trent—but he was having none of that and squirmed out of my arms.

  Trent sighed. “I can’t bring them in without some kind of evidence. You’ll just have to give Henry some more catnip.”

  “Is that your solution for everything? Drugs? Really?”

  He reached for the plates we’d used, but I jerked them away and took them to the sink myself. “I ask you for one little favor, put my ex-husband and his girlfriend in jail for one stinking night, and you won’t do it. You are so freaking uptight.”