Death by Chocolate

by G. A. McKevett

  “A character? To create?”

  Kaitlin gave her a long, measured look, as though deciding how open to be with this newcomer to the set. ‘Yes,” she finally said, “creating characters. Conjuring the magic inside the viewers’ minds and imaginations. That’s showbiz.”

  “Even in a cooking show, huh?” Savannah watched as a young man patted the shine off the Queen of Chocolate’s nose between takes.

  “Lights, camera, action.... and it’s all make-believe.... done with smoke and mirrors. Even for a cooking show.” Kaitlin sighed. Savannah noticed how dark the circles were under her eyes. She was too young to look so tired.

  “I was surprised that you started taping this late,” Savannah said, glancing down at her watch. It was almost eleven and they had only gotten down to business about half an hour before. “Don’t most TV shows tape in the afternoon or early evening? I mean.... I heard that the Tonight Show is done in the afternoon and....”

  “We tape when Eleanor is ready to tape,” Kaitlin said, her eyes trained on the star of the show, who had dropped her genteel facade the moment the cameras stopped rolling and was dishing out verbal abuse to a long-suffering hairstylist who was trying to set her wig right for the next take.

  “She’s a bit of a night owl, huh?” Savannah said, noting the look of pure, bitter hatred that fleetingly passed over Kaitlin’s pretty Irish face. It was gone when she turned back to Savannah and said in a sweet, even tone, “Oh, yes. Eleanor prefers the darkness to the light.”

  “And why do you suppose that is?”

  Kaitlin shrugged. “So many, many things become clear by day.”

  “Things she’d prefer not to see?”

  Kaitlin’s eyes cut back to Eleanor, who was shoving a crew member out of her way as she stomped off the set, shouting, “Damned stupid idiots.... I oughta fire all of you! I’m gonna go back to the house to take a break. And don’t call me until you get your shit together!”

  “A break.” Kaitlin shook her head wearily. “She’ll be drunk as a skunk by the time she gets done with her ‘break.’” She left Savannah’s side and strolled to the center of the set, where nobody seemed particularly surprised. “That’s it for tonight, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll try again on Wednesday. Thanks.”

  In less than ten minutes, Kaitlin and her crew had cleared out of the barn-converted studio, and Savannah was left alone to wander down the cobblestone driveway back to the main house.

  Perhaps under different circumstances she might have considered the moonlit walk romantic: the silver light spilling over the lawns, the smell of the sea mingling with that of nearby eucalyptus trees, the house’s stained-glass windows glowing in the jewel colors of ruby, sapphire, and topaz, and the hypnotic, rhythmic sounds of the waves washing onto the beach below.

  But there was another, unsettling sound. The soft snuffling of someone crying. A child.

  Savannah saw her sitting in the gazebo, a young girl of about six, with long, straight dark hair that covered her downturned face like a privacy curtain. She had her knees drawn up under her chin, her arms wrapped around her bare shins. She wore a bright pink T-shirt and matching shorts, and in the moonlight Savannah could see sparkles, like glitter, on her sneakers.

  Savannah walked across the lawn to the gazebo and stepped into the white, ivy-draped structure. “Hi,” she said softly.

  The child looked up her with enormous eyes full of sadness that went straight to Savannah’s heart. Being the oldest of nine siblings, Savannah had seen more than her share of pouting and whining, but this youngster’s sorrow was obviously genuine and deep.

  “What’s the matter, sweetpea?” she asked in her best big-sister voice as she sat across from the girl on the circular padded bench that surrounded the interior of the gazebo.

  Shrugging her shoulders, the child sniffed and wiped her hand across her nose. Savannah reached into her slacks pocket, pulled out a clean tissue, and offered it to her. The girl took the tissue and blew heartily into it before tucking it into her own pocket.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked again. “Did something bad or sad happen? Did one of those terrible terriers down there take a bite out of your shorts?”

  The child shook her head, but Savannah saw a trace of a smile cross her face. “Naw. Hitler’s the only one who ever really bit me, and he doesn’t do it anymore, ‘cause I smacked him on the butt with a flyswatter.” Savannah chuckled. “Well, I can’t say that I think hitting innocent animals is a good idea, but”—she held up her bandaged forefinger—“I do understand. I have to admit that if I’d been holding a flyswatter or a rolled-up newspaper this afternoon when I met Hitler, I would have whalloped him, too. Self-defense and all that.”

  “I know. They’re mean, those little dogs. Mommy says that Grandma spoils them rotten and that’s why they’re bad. Doggies are supposed to be nice, not going around biting people for no reason at all. I told Mommy I wanted a good dog, like a golden retriever, but she said that Satan and Hitler would eat another dog alive. So I can't have one until all three of them die. Maybe a coyote will come down out of the hills and eat them some night. I hope so.

  The wicked gleam in the little girl’s eyes took Savannah aback for a moment. She had seen that particular light in the eyes of criminals she had arrested on the force, and it seemed inappropriate on one so young.

  “My name’s Savannah,” she told the girl. “And you are...?”

  “Gilly. Gilly Sarah-Jane Maxwell.” The child reached into her pocket, pulled out the tissue, and blew into it again.

  “And Lady Eleanor is your grandmother?”

  “Yeah, but we don’t call her ‘lady.’ Just people who don’t know her call her that, because of television, you know. My mommy calls her a bitch.”

  Savannah cringed. After her own Granny Reid’s strict Southern upbringing, she couldn’t get used to a child cursing... or being cursed around.

  “I’m sorry,” was all she could think to reply.

  “Yeah, me too. I like my grandma okay... except for when she drinks booze and smells bad and talks bad. Then she’s no fun to be around.”

  Glancing across the lawns to the mansion, which was now mostly dark except for the kitchen lights, Savannah said, “Like tonight?”

  Gilly sniffed and nodded. “Yeah. I went down to visit her, but she was already, you know, weird. She told me to get lost. She doesn’t usually do that. Sometimes she lets me watch her cook. I’m the only one who can.”

  So much for gleaning any chocolate secrets, Savannah thought. “Do you live in the mansion with your parents?”

  “No. I live in the gatekeeper’s cottage with my mom. Her name is Louise. I never saw my daddy. Mommy says he was rich and very, very handsome, but she didn’t want to marry him, ’cause she didn’t really like him that much. She says I’m ill’jitmutt. And the kids at school say I’m a bastard.”

  Again, Savannah’s heart ached.... and her fingers itched to wrap themselves around any mother’s throat who would say something like that to a child.

  “Those are ugly words for such a pretty girl,” she said softly as she reached over to brush Gilly’s long, stringy hair out of her eyes. The child was in great need of a hairbrushing, a hug, and a gentler, healthier environment. “My daddy wasn’t around much when I was a kid, either,” Savannah said. “But I had other people who loved me. I’ll bet you do, too.”

  Gilly thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeap. Marie likes me and Sydney, too.”

  “Who’s Sydney?”

  “He works for my grandma. Drives her to Los Angeles and stuff. And he lets me help him wash her big, black car sometimes. And my grandma loves me.... when she’s not... you know... and my mommy does. Mommy’s just got really bad nerves because of Grandma being such a bad mom to her when she was a kid. Mommy has to take a lot of nerve pills, or she gets all mixed up and sad and mad and stuff, and sometimes she has to go away... you know... for a rest.”

  “A rest, hmmm.” Savannah was fairly sure Mom wasn�
�t checking into the local Motel 6 for her “rests.” Rehab clinics, maybe, for popping all those “nerve” pills? “Where do you live when your mom’s away... resting?”

  “With Grandma or Grandpa. He loves me, too, but he doesn’t come around here anymore, ‘cause Grandma said if he did, she’d call the cops and get his sorry butt arrested. They’re divorced.”

  Savannah jotted that one down in her mental notebook, along with the other information she had gleaned in this small but child-candid conversation. Ten minutes spent talking to a pure soul with no guilty secrets could be more informative than hours interrogating a hardened street criminal.

  Savannah glanced around at the dark, shadowed areas of the lawns and listened to a pack of coyotes yipping in the distant hills. Lady Eleanor’s estate struck her as more spooky than romantic at night, despite its Victorian elegance.

  “Do you usually hang around outside this late?” she asked the girl, who had taken the tissue out of her pocket and was dabbing at her eyes again.

  “It’s not that late,” she replied with a sniff.

  Savannah glanced at her watch. “Actually, it’s almost eleven-thirty. That’s pretty late on a school night. You do go to school, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m in first grade. But if I don’t want to go tomorrow morning, I’ll just tell Mommy that my stomach hurts and she’ll let me stay home. Besides, Mommy’s already asleep. She doesn’t care if I stay up and run around, as long as I don’t wake her up when I come in.” Savannah reached over and tweaked the girl’s bangs. “Well, I’ll tell you what I think... and I had eight little brothers and sisters, so I know a lot about kids and bedtimes. I think you’re still growing, and in order to grow big and strong, you have to sleep. Because that’s when it happens—the growing, that is.”

  Standing, Savannah took Gilly’s hand and pulled her to her feet. The child looked up at her, impressed by her height. “Looks like you got lots of sleep. You’re taller than my mommy and Grandma. You’re as big as Sydney!”

  “That’s right. And when I was your age, I was always in bed and snoring by eight-thirty.”

  Gilly surveyed Savannah’s figure. “Is that when you grew big the other way, too?”

  Savannah laughed and shook her head. “No, darlin’. I grew tall by sleeping, but I got wide by eating your grandmother’s raspberry truffles.... and a lot of other yummy things.”

  She took the child’s small, warm hand in her own and walked her across the lawn to the road. Pointing her toward the gatekeeper’s cottage, she said, “You scoot along home now and get to sleep as soon as you can. You’ve still got a lot of growing to do.”

  “Will you be around tomorrow?” Gilly asked as she skipped backward down the road, swinging her arms like a clumsy albatross chick trying to fly.

  “I hope so.”

  “Me too. See you then.”

  Savannah waved. “Later, gator.”

  Once the child was safe inside the cottage, door closed behind her, Savannah continued down the road to the mansion and Grandma.... Grandma who smelled bad like booze, talked weird, and had told her sweet grandchild to “get lost.”

  “Oh, goodie, all this and Hitler, Satan, and Killer, too,” Savannah muttered to the oleander shrubs on either side of the road. “And how much do you wanna bet that Grandma will throw me out of her kitchen.... chocolateless.”

  Savannah didn’t have to be told that this time she should go to the back door of the mansion rather than the front. Knocking on the front door was an honor that only free agents were afforded. Since this afternoon, she had joined the unhappy rank of servants at Chateau Eleanor. So much for things like respect or courtesy.

  And she wasn’t surprised when no one answered her knock, other than the dreaded threesome, whom she could hear growling and yipping on the other side of the door. Their tiny toenails scraped as they clawed at the woodwork while snuffling along the edges of the door, trying to get her scent.

  “Watch it, hairballs,” she muttered. “You don’t know who you’re messing with.”

  Determined to get inside despite the ravaging canines, she tried the knob and was both relieved and concerned when the door opened.

  Why hire a bodyguard if you don’t bother to lock-your doors at night? she thought as she stepped into a small room that served as a utility room and pantry. In an instant, the dogs were upon her, the bolder of them-burying his fangs in the toe of her loafer, which he had perforated earlier in the afternoon.

  She reached down and snatched him off the floor, holding him by the scruff of the neck. The bit of fluff snarled and snapped as he dangled from her hand. Holding him only inches from her face, she looked straight into his beady little bugged eyes and said, ‘The next time you bite me, you foul creature, I’m going to smack you with the Sunday edition of the L.A. Times, and you’ll be flatter than a fritter.”

  To emphasize her point she tightened her grip and gave him a slight shake, like a mother dog would give a naughty pup. Instantly, the terrier realized he had been demoted from alpha dog, and he seemed to deflate in her hand. At her feet, the other two appeared to sense the shift of power, and their growls changed to whimpers.

  Gently, she placed him on the floor at her feet and gave him a soothing scratch behind his ear. “There, there... now you’re not such a bad boy after all,” she told him as she knelt and stroked first one, then the other of his companions. “And neither are you. You fellas just need to be reminded that you aren’t rottweilers or Dobies, that’s all.”

  When she stood, she glanced up and saw Eleanor Maxwell standing in the door that led to the kitchen, watching her with a slightly amused look on her face and a large glass of red wine in her hand. For once, the hard nastiness was gone from her face, and Savannah caught a glimpse of a woman she could actually like. Then she decided the warmth on Eleanor’s face was nothing more than a drunk, sappy grin. Savannah had seen the expression many times on her own mother’s face, a mother who had spent most of her days—and nights— perched on a bar stool.

  “You like dogs?” Eleanor asked. ‘You look like an animal lover.”

  “Some of my best friends have been cats and dogs,” she replied. ‘They’re kinder than most people. They listen better, and are a helluva lot more loyal and faithful.”

  “More faithful.... that’s for sure.”

  Savannah heard it: that distinct note of pain in Eleanor’s voice. She had been recently betrayed, and judging from the tears that sprang to her eyes, deeply hurt.

  Savannah reminded herself to check out the circumstances of Eleanor’s divorce. Another woman, maybe? A woman who, even though she had won the first round of the matrimonial battle, might have chosen to send a few death threats to the ex-wife?

  “Come have a glass of wine with me,” Eleanor said, turning around and walking back into the kitchen without waiting for an answer.

  Savannah glanced down at the dogs and thought, You guys aren’t the only ones around here who are accustomed to having the upper hand.

  She followed Eleanor through the kitchen and out to the patio on the sea side of the house. Two chaise lounges had been pulled out to the edge of the patio, overlooking the moonlit ocean. The area was dimly lit by the glow of several ship’s lanterns that hung from the branches of a nearby olive tree.

  On a small wrought-iron table sat a bottle of wine that was more than half empty. Beside the bottle was a second glass. Apparently, Lady Eleanor had been expecting company. Savannah wondered if the anticipated arrival was her.

  Eleanor sat on one of the chaises, uncorked the bottle, and began to fill the other glass.

  “I don’t drink when I’m working,” Savannah said. “But I’ll be happy to sit with you for a spell.”

  As she lowered herself on the other lounge chair, she saw that Eleanor was still pouring.

  “I don’t want somebody to sit with,” she said, holding the glass out to Savannah. “I want somebody to drink with.”

  Savannah gave her a cool half-smile. ‘Then you�
��d better offer me an iced tea or a Pepsi,” she said softly but firmly.

  Eleanor Maxwell returned the chilly smile without blinking. “I’m not as easily intimidated as Killer is,” she said. ‘You’ll have to do a lot more than pick me up and shake me to get the best of this old girl.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of trying to best you, Lady Eleanor. That’s not my job. I’m here to protect you, remember?”

  “Yeah, right. Protect me. It’s a sorry day when somebody’s got to seek protection from their so-called loved ones.” She drained the last swig from her own wineglass, set it on the table, and settled back with the one she had poured for Savannah.

  “So, you think it’s one of your friends or family who sent you the letters?”

  “Probably. Who else would want to upset me? They love to torment me, the whole bunch of them. They’re jealous, you know, because I’m trailer trash who’s made good.”

  Savannah blinked, taken aback by her candor. Few people she knew—or had ever known—would have given themselves such a distasteful label.

  “People don’t mind so much if you’re born with money,” Eleanor continued, “but it really irks them when you rise above your circumstances.”

  Stretching her legs out in front of her, Savannah felt a wave of fatigue roll through her from head to toe. It had been a long, stressful day... though, come to think of it, not that long, and she had certainly experienced worse days. Again, she wondered if she was somehow past her prime. Or maybe she was coming down with something.

  “On your list of jealous loved ones,” she said, pulling herself back to the duties at hand, “who would you put at the top of the page under ‘Irked’?”

  Eleanor took another long drink from her glass and gazed out at the dark sea a few moments before answering. “There are at least three people who all have to share the number one spot on the list,” she finally said. “My daughter... who blames me for every damned thing that’s ever gone wrong in her empty, ridiculous life; my ex-husband... who’s bitter that I dumped him after he ‘made me the success I am today’; and Kaitlin.... for the same reason. To hear them tell it, she and Maxwell are responsible for all of this.” She waved her hand, indicating the house and gardens.