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

by Sally Berneathy

  She shrugged. “I once thought I’d committed murder.”

  “Even if you had killed David, that would have been like stepping on a rabid brown recluse spider just as it tried to bite you.”

  Paula frowned. “I don’t think spiders get rabies.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like Fred. You know what I mean.”

  She grinned and sipped her drink. “Yeah, I do. And you know what I mean. This whole thing with Rick and Lisa and that man dying outside our restaurant has got to be bothering you.”

  I let out a long sigh and drained my non-crystal wine glass. Having close friends is great except when they insist on being close. I examined the feelings I didn’t want to examine. “The Rick that tried to burn down Death by Chocolate and killed that woman is not the same Rick I married. Well, he probably is, but I didn’t know it. I married Rick because he was fun and because my parents didn’t like him. It broke my heart when I caught him with Muffy and he said he loved her and wanted a divorce. But even before that, I’d noticed signs that he was not the person I thought I married. I just kept hoping he’d become that fictional person again.”

  I stood. My glass was empty while Paula’s was still full. I’d have to fix that inequity. I went to the kitchen to refill my glass.

  Zach charged in and held up his sippy cup. “More wine!” I poured juice for him, cheap wine for me, and we both returned to the living room.

  Paula looked up as I came in. “Now you’ve learned he has a dark side even you never suspected.”

  “Determined I’m going to face this, are you?” I plopped onto the sofa and drew in a deep breath. “Yes, I’m freaked out that he could be capable of such terrible crimes, although some of his real estate deals were a little shady. I guess it’s only a short step to go from scamming a few extra fees to taking a person’s life.” A horrible thought occurred to me. “He’s going to need an attorney. I hope he doesn’t ask Dad or one of the partners at Dad’s firm to defend him.”

  “Surely not. Your dad only does real estate law. He won’t even get you out of your speeding tickets.”

  “Yeah, but he and Rick have become sort of friendly enemies since we split up. My parents will be back from their cruise on Monday. Who knows what they’ll do when they find out everything that’s been going on? They’ve kind of bonded with Rick in their common belief that the divorce is all my fault because I’m irresponsible and undependable.”

  Paula didn’t reply.

  “Hey!” I sat upright and looked at her. “As my best friend, this is the point where you jump in and assure me that’s not true.”

  “Of course it’s not true.” She said that way too easily. “I was just wondering why he did it.”

  “Why?” I hadn’t actually considered that question.

  “Yes, why? If the two of them had a plan to get your house and find a lot of money, and she was the one with the information, why would he kill her?”

  “Who knows? Maybe she was going to dump him the way she dumped Murray.”

  “She couldn’t. She had no money. She was dependent on him to get your house. I don’t know. It’s not adding up.”

  “We need to get Mr. Computer Head involved in this discussion. He’ll sort out the pieces.” I set my wine on the table, went to the front door and opened the screen to go outside and over to Fred’s.

  Rick stood on my porch. Even in the dusk of evening, I could see he looked pale and rumpled.

  “What are you doing here?” I looked past him to see if my yard might be full of cops come to capture him and take him back to jail. “They arrested you for murder. You should be behind bars.”

  “No, they didn’t arrest me. That boyfriend of yours took me in for questioning. They couldn’t hold me. I haven’t done anything wrong.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and shifted from one foot to the other. “I need to talk to you. Can I come inside?”

  “No. I have company.”

  He shrugged. “It’s almost Zach’s bedtime so they’ll be leaving soon.”

  “How did you know Paula and Zach were here? Have you been eavesdropping?”

  He got a busted expression on his face. Didn’t happen often that The Conman was busted. I savored the moment. “I heard their voices, that’s all,” he said.

  “You were eavesdropping! My mother would have you beaten and shunned if she knew that. Get off my porch. Go away. No, you can’t come inside.” I turned back into the room and found Paula standing directly behind me.

  “Talk to her, Paula,” Rick begged. “You said it yourself, I had no reason to kill Lisa. She and I had a business deal.”

  “What do you want, Rick?” Paula’s voice was firm and cold.

  “I need to talk to my wife.”

  “Oh, here we go with the wife business again! Get off my porch!” I shouted.

  Rick took a step backward and held up his hands. “Okay, okay. I realize I don’t have the right to call you that any longer, but please let me have just a few minutes of your time so I can explain and apologize.”

  “Apologize? I think I’m going to puke.”

  “Puke?” Zach repeated, coming up to the screen door and pressing his face against the mesh. Great. I’d taught him another new word to add to his Lindsay vocabulary of words like damn, freaking, bloody, and a few other colorful phrases his mother didn’t really care for.

  I turned back to Paula. “Go ahead and take Zach home. I’ll talk to Psycho Man.”

  Paula pulled Zach close to her as if to protect him. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Neither do I, but I’ll do whatever it takes to get this jerk off my porch.” And I wanted to hear more about his business deal with Lisa.

  Paula reluctantly agreed. If she’d been alone and not responsible for Zach’s safety, she’d probably have insisted on staying. “I’ll call you every ten minutes, and if you don’t answer, I’ll call 911.”

  “I got a better idea.” I walked over to my purse lying on the floor, retrieved my cell phone and punched in a number. “Fred? Rick’s at my house. If I don’t call you in thirty minutes, would you please come over here with your machine gun and blow him away?”

  “What makes you think I have a machine gun?” I heard Fred’s response, but Rick didn’t.

  “Thank you,” I said, disconnected the call and smiled at Rick. “You have thirty minutes.”

  Paula and Zach left, and Rick came in. Again I closed only the screen, leaving the wooden door open. “So Fred won’t have to blow it away. I hate it when he does that.”

  Rick sat on the sofa and looked at my glass. “Got any more wine?”

  “Yes.”

  “I could sure use some.”

  I started to refuse, but then decided I might get more information out of him if he was drunk. I went to the kitchen and filled a plastic glass with wine then gave it to him.

  “Thank you, Lindsay.” He drank half the glass in one gulp and made a face. He’d never cared for my taste in wine.

  I took a seat in my recliner and made no move to reclaim my glass. I needed all my wits about me to deal with a murderer.

  “I didn’t kill Lisa,” he said. “Can you close that door and turn on the air? It’s hot in here.” He was sweating.

  “I’m comfortable. The door stays open.” I looked at my watch. “Twenty-six minutes. You know how precise Fred is about everything.”

  “Look, I’m sorry we tried to take your house. Okay? Lisa said her old boyfriend hid a lot of money somewhere in this house. But, in my defense, I was offering you twice what the house was worth.”

  Finally I knew what everybody was looking for. Money supposedly hidden in my house. “You were offering? So the purchase price would have come from your assets?”

  Rick shifted uncomfortably and drank some more of the wine he didn’t like. “Lisa and Bradford came to me with a business deal. I’d front them the purchase price, and they’d share the money we found with me.”

  “So you were offering to
pay me twice what this house is worth using money that’s community property and half mine anyway?”

  He almost looked embarrassed at being caught. Almost, but not quite. Rick the Salesman always has a comeback. “We’d have returned the place to you after we found the money.”

  “There’s no money. Fred’s gone over this house, basement to attic. Nothing. You’re too late. Lisa came in and dug it up the day Bradford was killed.” Even though Fred and I had concluded it couldn’t have been Lisa who’d found the money, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to gouge Rick. “You’ve been scammed, Mr. Kramer, just like you’ve done to so many people. Karma can be a bitch.”

  Rick shook his head. “Lisa didn’t break in here, and she didn’t find the money. She didn’t know where it was. Bradford got Murray to admit that he’d hidden the money in his grandparents’ house, but then Murray found out that Bradford and Lisa were working together, and he clammed up. Wouldn’t tell Bradford where. That’s why we needed to get the house. We were going to tear it down if we had to.”

  “And then give it back to me?”

  “What?”

  “You said you were going to return this place to me after you found the money. What you meant was, you’d give me back a pile of rubble, right?”

  He swallowed and moved his fingers to his throat to loosen an imaginary tie. He was wearing a Polo shirt, so that didn’t work very well.

  “Were you here the whole time Fred was searching your house?” he asked.

  “No. He did it while I was at work.”

  Rick beamed and shot up from the sofa. “That’s it! Fred found the money and kept it for himself.”

  “Sit down, you moron. That’s ridiculous. I trust Fred completely, and besides, he’s already rich.” He might be.

  Rick sank down again. “Lisa didn’t break into your house and she didn’t get the money.” He drew in a deep breath. “But she did set fire to Death by Chocolate.”

  I clenched my fists. “Now that poor little Lisa’s dead, you’re going to put all the blame on her?”

  “It was all her! I had nothing to do with the fire. Why would I burn down a restaurant I own half of?”

  “So I’d give you this house.” But I was no longer so certain of his guilt.

  He clasped his hands in his lap, looked down at them and shook his head. “It was all her doing. She came up with the idea, said if you lost your source of income, you’d have to sell the house to us. But I told her, absolutely not. I told her we were not going to harm you or cause you any problems.”

  “You are such a decent human being.”

  He smiled as if he thought I really meant it. “When you called and told me what had happened, I knew she’d done it anyway. I went to her place and confronted her. She admitted it, said she took the key off my key ring one night when she was at my place and I was asleep. She didn’t know what time you went to work, so she didn’t realize you’d catch the fire before it got out of control. That proves I had nothing to do with it. I know how early you go to work.”

  I slammed a fist onto the chair arm. “You told her not to do it, so you think that absolves you of guilt? You got involved with that woman, so you’re just as responsible as she is.” I reached over and retrieved my glass of wine from the coffee table. I needed something to calm me. Trent was right. If I’d had a gun at that moment, I might have shot Rick.

  He straightened and looked me in the eye. “When Lisa admitted what she’d done, we had a big fight and I left. Somebody saw me leaving, and that’s why the cops are trying to pin her murder on me. But I didn’t do it. She was alive when I left. So that leaves the question of who burned down Lisa’s trailer and killed her.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again and drained my wine. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me. Are you suggesting I had something to do with it?”

  “I told you I was divorcing you so I could marry Lisa.”

  “And you think I’d kill her out of jealousy?” I burst into laughter.

  Rick wilted. “Probably not.”

  “Maybe her fire was an accident, like the cops said mine was.”

  He shook his head. “They found gasoline everywhere. It was deliberate.”

  “I was being sarcastic.”

  “Meowr.”

  I looked at the door and saw a ghostly white figure with blue eyes standing on the other side. “Henry! You’re home!” I got up and let him in. I expected him to go straight to the kitchen for food and water after his evening on the town, but instead he leaped onto the sofa and sat down a cushion away from Rick, watching him intently. My knight in white fur.

  “Don’t make any sudden moves,” I warned Rick. “He hasn’t eaten yet.”

  Rick licked his lips nervously. “There’s money somewhere in your house,” he said, never taking his gaze off Henry. “About ten million dollars, give or take a few thousand. We just need to find it, and we’ll both be rich.”

  I gulped. “Ten million? Are you sure? That’s an awful lot of money.”

  “I’m sure. Lisa was with Murray when he stole it from the drug dealers.”

  I sat bolt upright. “It’s drug money? This story just gets worse with every word that comes out of your mouth. Bad enough you got involved with an arsonist, but those drug people are dangerous!”

  “Relax. Nobody knows Murray took it.”

  “Excuse me? He’s in prison! Somebody knows!”

  “No, no. He and Lisa ran a scam on two big time drug dealers, and each one thought the other one took the money. Murray’s in prison because she turned him in. After it all came down, after she put her life on the line and helped him, he refused to give her half. He was going to keep it all and run away with his new girlfriend.”

  “His new girlfriend? Murray had a new girlfriend before he went to prison? He dumped Lisa, not the other way around?”

  “Yeah, he dumped her for another stripper. People like him just don’t have any morals.”

  I was too interested in what he was saying to upbraid him for his hypocrisy about morals. “There’s another woman involved in this? Is she tall and blonde?”

  “How would I know?”

  I shook my head and sat back in my chair. “I don’t suppose you would know or care. So Murray dumped Lisa, refused to give her the money she helped him steal, and she turned him in to the cops?”

  “Yeah, she called in an anonymous tip and reported him for having drugs in his car. He did, of course. She got even with him, but it didn’t help her find the cash. Then she got in contact with Murray’s cellmate, Rodney Bradford, and made a deal with him. If he’d find out from Murray where the money was, when he got out, they’d get married and split it.”

  “I see. He got out and told her it was in this house. But neither of them had the money to buy the place, so they tracked the house to you and enlisted your aid.”

  He shrugged and tried to look boyish and innocent. It was a good attempt, but I knew him too well. “Then Bradford died, and Lisa and I tried to carry on.”

  “You tried to carry on? That’s an interesting way to put it.”

  “Hey, it’s not like that. Lisa and Bradford weren’t in love or anything. She only married him so she could throw it in Murray’s face because he dumped her. She wanted to have the money and share it with another man the way he’d tried to share it with another woman.”

  “But it was the real thing with you and Lisa. You loved her. You were going to marry her.”

  “Oh, that. I told you, it was just a business deal. Lisa thought you’d feel better about letting me have the house if you believed it was romance. You have such a soft heart. That’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you.” He smiled. The jerk actually had the balls to smile.

  “I understand. You were just looking for the easiest way to scam me out of my home.”

  “No!” He looked aghast. Well, he made an effort to look aghast. “It was a stupid scheme. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve just been so upse
t with this crazy divorce you insist on going through with.”

  “Oh, do not twist this to try to make it sound like it’s my fault you’re a conniving jerk!”

  He lowered his head in a mock gesture of contrition. “I’m sorry, Lindsay. I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do to make this right?” He rose and took a step toward me. Henry made one of his jungle sounds, and Rick froze.

  “Yes, there is,” I said. “Sign the divorce papers.”

  Eying Henry nervously, Rick sat back down on the sofa. “Does everything we once had mean nothing? I’ve always loved you, and I always will.”

  “You don’t, and you won’t. Give it a rest. There’s no money in this house, and if I do find any, I’ll take it straight to the cops. You won’t get even one coke-dusted hundred dollar bill.”

  He shot to his feet again, oblivious to Henry’s snarls. “It’s here! Murray told Bradford he hid the money here! If you don’t have it and Fred didn’t take it, ten million dollars is still hidden in this house, and my name is still on the title to this house!”

  Fred kicked the door open and strode in with a machine gun.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rick suddenly remembered an appointment and had to leave.

  Fred leaned the machine gun against the wall and shook his head. “I never know what you’re going to ask me to do next.”

  I rushed to the kitchen to get a Coke. Time for something stronger than wine.

  I returned with two sodas, one for me and one for Fred. “Where did you get that?” I asked, indicating the intimidating hunk of metal.

  “From my attic.” He accepted the Coke and sat down on the sofa a cushion away from Henry. My guard cat relaxed and closed his eyes. The two might not be best buds, but they respected each other.

  Fred hadn’t really answered my question about the origin of the gun, but I knew there was no point in pursuing it. “Is it loaded?”

  “I’ll do a lot of things for you, Lindsay, but I refuse to blow away your ex-husband. I have no moral objection to the act, but it is illegal and a lot more trouble to get out of than a speeding ticket.”

  I was pretty sure that meant the gun wasn’t loaded. I set my drink on the coffee table and moved over to examine it more closely. “Can I shoot it?”