Death by Chocolate

by G. A. McKevett

  The Lady might be an inconsiderate, bossy old bitch who woke people up at two in the morning.... but she still made a mean truffle.

  Chapter

  2

  At five minutes to one, Savannah pulled her 1965 Mustang onto the cobblestone driveway and stopped at the wrought-iron gate with the ornate, scrolled “E” in its center. On an equally elaborate pole to her left was the communications security box with its assorted buttons and dials. She maneuvered the car close to it, leaned out the window, and punched the button marked visitors.

  A few moments later, a soft female voice inquired from the speaker, “Yes? May I help you?”

  “Savannah Reid, here to see Lady Eleanor,” she replied. Within seconds, the gate swung open and she drove inside, practically giddy with anticipation. She couldn’t have been more excited if she had been holding a golden ticket to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

  Hundreds of times she had driven down Seaside Avenue and glimpsed the peaked tops of the Queen’s castle, a Victorian-style mansion, one of the oldest and most prestigious homes in the county—though few of the county’s residents had seen more than the gray roof with its grand turrets and a bit of its white gingerbread trim.

  As she drove along the tree-lined road, past the gatekeeper’s cottage and through acres of beautifully landscaped lawns and gardens, she felt as though she had stepped back in history, to a more gentle, graceful time. She half expected to see women in long skirts playing croquet while their girlfriends protected their ivory complexions by sitting beneath fluttering white canvas pavilions to sip their afternoon tea.

  Halfway down the drive, she had to stop the car and wait for a pair of peacocks to cross, their long iridescent plumage sweeping behind them.

  Ah, she thought. I have stepped through the looking glass. This is wonderful!

  So far Lady Eleanor’s domain was everything she had ever dreamed and more. And if she got the job, she might actually get to spend time here in this fairyland. The very thought of anyone’s body needing to be guarded in this gentle world seemed inconceivable. What bad thing could possibly happen amid such splendor?

  She rounded a curve in the road, and suddenly the house was before her. A dark, dusky rose beauty, trimmed in white with balconies, stained-glass windows, and a wide porch that wrapped all the way across the front of the house. White wicker furniture with thick floral cushions invited the weary traveler to take a load off and enjoy the ocean view beyond.

  The estate canines were less hospitable, Savannah realized the moment she opened her car door and set foot on the cobblestone driveway. Three tiny, silky terriers bounded off the chairs on the porch where they had been napping and raced toward her, fangs bared, growling and yipping like a pack of starving mini-wolves.

  “Well, hello there,” she said in her best dog-wheedling tone as she knelt to hold out the back of her hand for the first one to sniff. “Are you the welcoming committee? Ow! Damn it, you little booger!”

  She sprang to her feet and grabbed her nipped finger, which was leaking drops of blood. The mangy pooch had chomped her!

  Looking down at the tiny creatures who circled her feet, lips quivering, gaping jaws frothing, the pink bows in their hair belying their ferocity, she wondered if someone had trained them to go for the Achilles tendon.

  She glanced up at the house and thought she saw a movement of bright color, like a giant parrot, at an upper window. Thinking better of retaliation, she decided not to kick the fellow who had just sank his fangs into the toe of her new kidskin loafer.

  His buddy jumped on her, leaving muddy streaks from the knee to the hem of her taupe linen slacks.

  “Back off, you flea-bitten varmints,” she said in a low, but menacing tone, “or I’ll bring my two cats out here next time, and they’ll eat you mutts for breakfast.”

  “All right, all right, come back here, boys,” said the same soft female voice Savannah had heard on the speaker at the gate. “Hitler, Satan, Killer! That’s enough!” Instantly, the terrible terriers tucked their tails and headed back to the porch and their cushioned chairs as a tall, thin woman in full black-and-white maid’s garb stepped out of the front door and onto the porch.

  “Please, Ms. Reid, come inside. Their bark is much worse than their bite,” she said, beckoning Savannah with a dust cloth she held in one hand.

  Savannah looked down at the blood drops on her finger. ‘Their bite’s pretty good, too, for their size.” She stepped up onto the porch and looked at the dogs, who were circling on the cushions and settling down for naps. “What did you say their names were?” She couldn’t believe she had heard correctly.

  The maid’s pale cheeks flushed, and she shrugged her thin shoulders. “I didn’t name them,” she said, then lowered her voice and added, “I never would have named poor, innocent animals such... but.... well.... Please, come inside.”

  Savannah stepped through the door, heavy with leaded beveled glass, and into a foyer with a black-and-white marble-tiled floor. A mahogany staircase, ornately carved with cupids, roses, and lilies, curved to her right, while an arched doorway to the left opened into a formal parlor.

  “If you’ll have a seat,” the maid said, waving a hand toward the diamond-tucked, burgundy velvet settee, “I’ll get you a cup of cappuccino. Mrs. Maxwell will be with you.... ah... soon.”

  But Mrs. Maxwell didn’t join her soon. Savannah had plenty of time to cool her heels, sip two cups of cappuccino from a delicate English porcelain cup, and memorize every piece of antique furniture in the room, from the glass-front bookshelves filled with leather-bound classics to the jeweled dragonfly Tiffany lamp in the corner. It was nearly two o’clock when the maid appeared again and said with subdued enthusiasm, “Lady Eleanor will see you now on the verandah.”

  Not particularly eager to encounter the furry-faced fiends again, but anxious to get the bodyguard show on the road, Savannah followed the maid through the parlor and a vast dining room to the back side of the house, which faced the ocean.

  The San Carmelita beaches and skies were in fine form, the morning fog having burned away and the golden afternoon light glimmering on the waves. Swimmers in wetsuits rode the surf in the distance, and a flock of pelicans, looking like a gaggle of prehistoric pterodactyl, dipped and dove overhead.

  And off to the right, sitting at a table beneath a giant umbrella, was.... a woman who bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to Savannah’s Gourmet Network heroine. Where was the auburn hair, piled in luxurious profusion on her regal head? Where was the Victorian costume that bespoke of genteel aristocracy?

  The woman at the table wore a gaudy tropical print caftan that was cut much too low and displayed an unladylike amount of sagging, unattractive cleavage. On screen, Lady Eleanor looked pleasingly plump, but without benefit of corset and costume, she appeared seriously overweight. Her salt-and-pepper hair looked as though she had cut it herself with scissors, leaving only a ragged inch-long bristle.

  On the table before her was spread an enormous breakfast of everything from pancakes to bagels, cream cheese, and lox.

  Lady Eleanor was shoveling in the bounty as though she were expecting to be executed at sundown. She barely looked up from her burdened plate to wave a hand at the empty chair on the other side of the table.

  “Sit,” she commanded through a mouthful of Danish pastry, which she washed down with a celery-sprigged Bloody Mary.

  Savannah did as she was told, feeling a bit like a cocker spaniel. Would she be expected to roll over and play dead, too?

  “Want some?” Eleanor pointed to a plateful of chocolate donuts.

  But Savannah was long past any sign of an appetite. Eleanor’s openmouthed chewing and the syrup and butter on her fingers and chin had worked better than any over-the-counter suppressant.

  And Savannah had thought Dirk had bad table manners. Next to Eleanor, Dirk was Cary Grant.

  “No, thank you,” Savannah said. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out a pen and a spiral notebook
. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to discuss business with you. Exactly what your needs are and—”

  “My needs are simple. You shouldn’t have any trouble understanding them.” A quick swig of Bloody Mary, then she continued in that same, grating, nasal voice she had used earlier on the telephone, the one that had nothing in common with the cultured British accent heard by millions on television. “I need you to find out who’s writing me nasty letters. Because once I find out who’s doing it, they’re dead.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  But Savannah didn’t see. Looking into those narrow, squinty eyes with their wicked gleam, she wasn’t sure if Lady Eleanor meant “dead” as in figuratively or literally. Maybe she should find out before she took the job. The term “accomplice to murder” floated across the movie screen of her imagination in flashing red neon letters.

  “And,” Eleanor continued, ‘You have to keep them from killing me.... if that’s what they’ve got in mind. I want to get them first.”

  “Ah, yes, of course. I—”

  “And most of all”—more food cramming, more chomping—“you have to stay out of my hair, because I can’t stand having anybody too close, breathing down my neck. Makes me nuts.”

  “Too close, hmmm.” Savannah couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to be close to this person. Chocolate fantasyland or no, Savannah wasn’t too hot on the idea herself at that moment.

  “Do you think you can manage that?”

  Savannah quirked one eyebrow and gave Eleanor her most pointed, professional, semi-sarcastic look. “Piece o’ cake, Lady Eleanor, if you’re willing to cooperate with me. If you’ll behave yourself in a way that will enable me to guard you properly. Are you willing to meet me halfway?” The Queen of Chocolate paused in half-chew, her mouth hanging open, her eyes slightly bugged. Apparently she wasn’t accustomed to having her subjects talk back to her.

  She stared at Savannah for several long seconds, then swallowed hard and reached for a cinnamon roll. ‘Yeah, I guess.” She shoved half the roll into her mouth at once and added, “Get lost and let me finish my breakfast. Then I’ll show you those nasty letters.”

  Gee, Savannah thought. I can hardly wait.

  “How nasty were they?” Tammy asked as she and Savannah sat at opposite ends of Savannah’s sofa and compared notes on their day.

  “Nasty enough,” Savannah replied, lifting one of her two black cats, Diamante, onto her lap and stroking her glossy coat. After spending the afternoon with the terrible threesome silkies, it soothed her soul to be in the company of a peaceful, benign animal. That, and the cup of coffee generously laced with Bailey’s.

  “How many were there?” Tammy curled her bare feet under her and nibbled the celery stick in her hand. Tammy was always munching vegetables. “Live” food, she called it.

  Savannah had decided long ago to love her anyway. Nobody was perfect.

  “Three,” Savannah replied. “All mailed from Los Angeles. How’s that for narrowing down the possibilities?” She sighed.

  “What did they say?”

  “In a nutshell? Basically, ‘Shape up and treat people better, or you’re going to die, you stinking bitch.’ ”

  “That blunt?”

  “Oh, yeah. No frills around the edges, just your generic death threat.”

  “Handwritten?”

  Savannah sniffed. ‘Yeah, right. No such luck. Typed. A word processor. Arial font 14.”

  “Fourteen? That’s bigger than average. Maybe the typer has a vision problem.”

  “That occurred to me, too. Or maybe they just wanted to make sure Eleanor didn’t miss a word. The words were in bold, too. Exclamation marks everywhere.”

  “Sounds juvenile.”

  “Maybe.”

  Savannah’s second miniature black leopard, known as Cleopatra, hopped onto her lap and jostled with Diamante for the best petting position. Both had started off their lives as ordinary housecats, but nobody starved in Savannah’s household. No one was even allowed to feel a hunger pang. And after years of a never-ending flow of Kitty Kiddles and assorted goodies from Savannah’s hand, the oversized twosome could have easily felled a zebra in Africa.

  Savannah offered them a sip from her coffee/Bailey cup. Only Cleopatra accepted. Diamante preferred her coffee black.

  “I know,” Tammy said, “that you think Lady Eleanor is the greatest, but—”

  “Thought she was the greatest. She’s a pig. And I say that with all due respect to the porcine population. I wish I’d never met her in person. Boy, talk about a letdown.”

  “When goddesses tumble from their marble pedestals....”

  “Something like that. I gotta tell you, it’s a painful thing, losing one of your idols.”

  “Anyway, I know you thought a lot of her,” Tammy continued, “but this gig sounds like it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Maybe you should pass on it.”

  Savannah stroked first one cat, then the other, feeling them arch to enjoy her touch to the fullest. She looked down at the tiny teeth marks in her finger. Hitler, Satan, Killer—how sick was that?

  She thought of the woman with the spiky gray hair, the gaudy muumuu, and the voice that felt like a parmesan cheese grater raking across her nerves. The commands to “sit” and “get lost.” The harried, weary look on the gentle maid’s face. The death threats that had the tone of someone who was, very simply, fed up with Lady Eleanor.

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t need the hassle right now,” she said, feeling a cloud lift from her head and shoulders, a cloud that had been floating around her since that rude 2:00 a.m. phone call.

  “Good.” Tammy crunched on her celery. “I think that’s wise. Let Eleanor find another flunky to guard her royal heinie.”

  Savannah thought a few seconds more, weighing all factors. “Did you pay the bills this morning?” she finally. asked.

  “Some of them.”

  A long, heavy silence stretched between them.

  “How many of them?”

  Tammy sighed. “I paid last month’s electricity. The phone from the month before last.”

  “The mortgage?”

  “Nope.”

  “Insurance?”

  “Uh-uh. The electric and phone tapped you out.”

  “When’s the last time you paid yourself?”

  “Last March.”

  “That long, huh?”

  Savannah drained the last of her coffee. Tammy finished off the celery stick and started on the carrots before she said, “So, when do you report for Eleanor Guard Duty?”

  “Tonight at eight P.M. That’s when she starts taping.”

  “A taping. Hmmm. That should be interesting. You know... kinda nice.”

  “Gr-r-r-r…”

  Chapter

  3

  ”Gee,” Savannah whispered to the maid, who she had recently found out was named Marie, “somehow I thought the show was filmed in her actual kitchen, like she says it is on TV.”

  ”A lot of people think that,” Marie said as she walked around the set with a garbage bag in hand, picking up the plastic cups and paper plates left behind by the film crew. “At first we taped in the kitchen in the house, but it was so much trouble setting up and breaking down each time. So a year ago they built this studio here in the barn. Well, it used to be a barn, but they got rid of the animals and....”

  Marie’s voice trailed away, and so did she, leaving Savannah standing on the periphery of a bustle of activity that she knew absolutely nothing about. Half a dozen people, wearing strange headgear, T-shirts, and shorts, scurried around, some of them carrying notebooks or stacks of papers, others handling microphones, lights of all different sizes and colors, and other terribly technical looking meter-type equipment that Savannah didn’t recognize.

  But even more foreign than the taping set in front of her was the transformation of Eleanor Maxwell. Gone was the disheveled, slovenly woman of the afternoon. Standing behind the kitchen counter, dressed in a high-necked ivo
ry lace blouse, wearing an auburn wig of perfectly coifed ringlets, twists, and rolls, was the Lady Eleanor of Gourmet Network fame.

  Speaking with the distinction of a diction coach at a British school for young ladies, the woman stirring the wonderfully fragrant chocolate mixture on the stove seemed to be from another world, far removed from the gal in the muumuu, shoving bagels and lox into her face, washing them down with Bloody Marys.

  For half a second, Savannah allowed herself to fantasize about this gracious lady’s evil white-trash twin who kept the real Lady Eleanor imprisoned in some sort of dungeon beneath the house and allowed her to come out for air only during tapings.

  “A bit more what you were expecting?” asked a female voice behind her.

  Savannah turned to see the woman who had earlier been introduced to her as Kaitlin Dover, the show’s producer.

  From the moment she’d met her, Savannah liked Kaitlin. Petite, slender to the point of looking underfed, the thirty-something Kaitlin looked as though she had inherited her red hair and golden freckles from some Irish ancestor. And maybe a bit of Irish charm, too.

  From the way her large brown eyes met Savannah’s openly and honestly, to the perpetual half-grin she wore that seemed to be bravely covering some sort of personal pain, Kaitlin Dover came across a genuine person. And after spending the better—or rather, the worst— part of the afternoon with Eleanor, genuine seemed all the more appealing to Savannah.

  “Yes, this is who I was expecting when I arrived for my appointment this afternoon,” Savannah said, keeping her voice low as the crew moved in a swirl of activity around them. “I’ve been a fan of Lady Elean.... well, this person’s for a long time.”

  Kaitlin’s freckled face beamed with something that looked like satisfaction. She took the pencil she had been scribbling with on a clipboard and stuck it in her short, tight red curls above her ear. ‘That’s the idea,” she said. “To create a character that the world embraces.”