Death by Chocolate Lab

by Bethany Blake

  Bryce didn’t supply his name. “What do you want? And what makes you think you can barge in here?”

  Bryce was definitely pushing his luck, playing twenty questions with a man who was usually on the other side of interrogations, and I felt I had to intervene.

  “Jonathan, this is Bryce Beamus,” I said. “He’s Steve’s son.” I decided to seize the opportunity to cram a lot of information into my introduction, to bring Jonathan up to speed. “Bryce is also a founding member of PUFAT, disagreed with his father’s use of chemical kennel cleansers, and arrived from Seattle about a week ago—in a Jeep.”

  Bryce shot me a confused, wary look. “Why did you say all that? And what does my Jeep have to do with anything?”

  Jonathan, meanwhile, processed everything rapidly. “Is that your vehicle out front?” he inquired—without so much as offering me a look of gratitude for all the helpful knowledge I’d acquired in a short time. “And were you at Winding Hill Farm with your father the night of August eleventh?”

  Bryce’s face had flushed bright red during his tirade, but when Jonathan asked those two questions, all that color drained away, along with Bryce’s macho, confrontational attitude. Suddenly, we were confronted with the lost puppy again. A lost, petulant puppy.

  “I’m not answering anything without a lawyer,” Bryce grumbled, hanging his head and wrapping his arms around his thin frame, like he was locking himself away. He pursed his lips, and he sounded like a pouting child when he declared, “I’m not speaking anymore!”

  “That’s fine—for now,” Jonathan said. He managed to be intimidating, despite the fact that a Chihuahua continued to dance around his feet. “But don’t go anywhere, because I have a feeling we’ll be talking again. Soon.”

  Given that Bryce was staring straight ahead, pretending like he didn’t hear Jonathan, it seemed like the evening was about to wrap up, so I went over to where Socrates was still staring out the window. He had a far-off look in his eyes, which indicated he was meditating, and I spoke softly, not wanting to jolt him. “Come on, Socrates. It’s time to go.”

  He looked up at me and blinked a few times, gradually bringing himself back to the material world, while I straightened and realized I was right next to Steve Beamus’s trophy-slash-bookcase. The one that had interested Jonathan the first time we’d been at Steve’s. There was a lot of gold glittering in there on the trophies topped with dogs, but I was immediately drawn to the leather-bound book I’d noticed among the paperbacks.

  Opening the case’s glass door, I took it out and read the title.

  What the . . . ?

  “Daphne, are you coming?”

  Jonathan’s voice broke into my thoughts, and I looked up to see that he was standing in the foyer, next to the grizzly bear, both of them glowering. Artie continued to wriggle at Jonathan’s feet.

  Bryce was perched on his stool again, silent and slumped over, like a lifelike robot whose battery pack had died.

  “Daphne?” Jonathan prompted. “Are you done here, too?”

  “I’m coming. I’m coming,” I said. I summoned Socrates, who had benefited from his time of quiet contemplation. He seemed like his old self again after the trauma of nearly being scratched at the base of his tail. “Are you ready to go?”

  He was not only ready but eager, too, and trotted swiftly to the door.

  I started to return the book to the shelf, then, on impulse, tucked it under my arm.

  Jonathan held open the door for me and the dogs, and we all passed through without a word—or a woof—to each other. Nobody even said good night to Bryce.

  I had a few questions for Jonathan, regarding his unexpected appearance at Steve’s, and I was pretty sure he was saving up some choice words for me, too, but we didn’t talk the whole time he walked me, Socrates, and Artie to the van.

  While I got in on the driver’s side, Jonathan opened the passenger-side door for Socrates, who climbed onto the seat with effort. Artie could’ve easily jumped up, too, but he stood silently begging for help from Jonathan, who tried to wait him out but eventually muttered, “Fine,” before lifting the Chihuahua. A few seconds later, he had both dogs buckled into their safety harnesses.

  It seemed like I was going to get away without a lecture on meddling in murder investigations—assuming my VW would start.

  Holding my breath and crossing my fingers on my free hand, I stuck the key in the ignition and gave it a turn.

  Chapter 36

  “Are you sure you put gas in your van?” Jonathan asked as I pulled my seat belt over my shoulder and across my lap. Actually, the seat belt belonged to Jonathan, since Socrates, Artie, and I were riding in his truck again. The front seat smelled faintly of lemony iced tea. “Maybe I should check . . .”

  “No, I’m pretty sure I really broke down this time,” I said, clicking the belt into place. “I put five dollars in the tank on the way here.”

  “Were you starting with an empty tank?” Jonathan asked. “Because you only put a few dollars’ worth in using the gas can the other night. And Beamus’s house is nearly ten miles from town. What kind of gas mileage does your van get?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, wondering if maybe I should’ve put a little more gas in the tank for the round trip. “I’m not a mechanic or . . . or any other kind of car expert.”

  “You’re not a detective, either,” Jonathan noted as the truck bumped off the gravel lane and onto the road back to Sylvan Creek. “Yet you keep playing one.”

  The inevitable lecture was about to start. “Someone needed to solve the riddle of the mysterious Jeep,” I informed him. “And so I did.”

  “‘The riddle of the mysterious Jeep’?” Jonathan echoed. “Who are you? Nancy Drew?”

  Okay, “riddle of the mysterious Jeep” did sound like the title of an old Carolyn Keene novel. But he was missing the point.

  “I am a practically certified pet-care expert who got a lot of information out of Bryce Beamus just by sharing a glass of soy milk,” I told him. “Meanwhile, the techniques you learned at the police academy earned you nothing but silence.”

  “Yes, I suppose that blank stare that managed to come off like a temper tantrum is some strategy he learned as an animal-rights protestor,” Jonathan said. “And, I have to admit, it’s pretty effective. Usually, when a subject goes silent during an interrogation, he does it defiantly or fearfully. But with Beamus . . . There was nothing in his eyes. It was like he was dead.”

  I wanted to ask Jonathan just how many “subjects” he’d interrogated, especially in his past life, but I couldn’t do that without letting him know I’d researched him.

  “If you thought Bryce’s passive-aggressive resistance was annoying, you should’ve seen him when he was angry,” I said. “It was scary.”

  “Which is why you shouldn’t have been there alone.”

  I shifted in my seat, the better to watch him when I asked, “Why were you there?”

  A muscle in his jaw worked, like I’d struck a nerve with the question. “I knew you were going to break into Beamus’s again,” he said. “I knew you believed that whoever drove the Jeep would be there. I told myself that, first of all, you were probably wrong. So you saw a Jeep coming in the opposite direction on this road the other day? That didn’t necessarily mean anything. And even if you were right . . .”

  “Like I was.”

  He pretended not to hear that. “And you barged in to find that someone was in Beamus’s house—or you ran out of gas again late at night in the woods, with a hyperactive Chihuahua and a sluggish basset hound in tow. . . .”

  Socrates once again broke his silence, woofing loudly in objection to that description.

  “He’s actually quite agile,” I said in Socrates’s defense. “He just doesn’t like to move quickly.”

  Jonathan also ignored that comment. His fingers flexed, then tightened around the steering wheel. “I kept telling myself that nothing that might happen to any of you was my problem, even if you all
got attacked by a bear. . . .”

  He was starting to ramble, and I was grinning. “You were worried about me!” I said, laughing. “Admit it! You were worried that I might get myself into trouble!”

  He looked over at me, his brows knit. “I don’t see how a propensity for getting into trouble is amusing.”

  I didn’t explain. Jonathan was again missing the point, which was that we were becoming friends. Friends who aggravated each other, but friends, nevertheless.

  That was a good thing, right?

  “Hey,” I said more seriously. “Thanks for coming out to Steve’s tonight. I honestly know how to take care of myself. I was nearly imprisoned in Africa once, and I survived that on my own. But . . . thanks.”

  He glanced at me again, frowning. “Africa? Prison?”

  I dangled my beaded key chain from my index finger. “I told you, it’s a long story,” I reminded him, wishing I hadn’t even brought it up.

  “I’m sure you can fend for yourself,” he agreed, with a quick look over his shoulder. “To be honest, I was mainly worried about the Chihuahua. That thing can’t afford to lose any more body parts to bears.”

  Artie yipped gleefully, like he was grateful for Jonathan’s concern, in spite of the accompanying insult. I was going to have to caution Artie about the dangers of one-sided bromances—after I convinced Jonathan that Bryce Beamus was very likely Steve’s killer. A much stronger suspect than Piper.

  “Can we please talk about Bryce now?” I requested. “I have a lot to tell you about his relationship with Steve, his involvement with PUFAT, and his hatred of products like Clean Kennel. He really resented Steve for using that.”

  “How did that even come up?” Jonathan asked. “You couldn’t have arrived more than fifteen minutes ahead of me. How did you cover so much territory with him?”

  “When not in the presence of a detective, Bryce is naturally prone to over sharing,” I said. “Plus, people tend to open up to me.”

  As I made that boast, I realized that one person never shared anything with me. I was riding in a truck with him.

  Maybe Jonathan and I weren’t really friends, after all. I knew everything about Moxie, from her shoe size—six—to the fact that she suffered from chelona-phobia, or a fear of turtles. We’d discovered that together during a disastrous fifth-grade class trip to a small zoo called Reptiland.

  But if Jonathan had any debilitating fears—and I doubted it—I wasn’t going to learn about them that night.

  All at once, he nodded to the book I’d forgotten was on my lap, and suggested, “How about you first recount highlights of your therapy session with Bryce and then explain why you stole that from a dead man’s house?”

  Chapter 37

  I had learned more about Bryce than I’d even realized, and it took me almost all of the trip to bring Jonathan up to speed, since he asked questions every half mile or so.

  Before I knew it, we had arrived at Winding Hill. As Jonathan pulled the truck into a small gravel parking area between the farmhouse and the barn, I noted that most of the windows in the house were dark. Piper had left the back porch light on for me, though, and a night-light glowed in the kitchen.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I told Jonathan. We’d ridden home with the windows open, enjoying the breeze, but now that we’d stopped, the heat seemed to close in around us. The air was heavy with the sweet smell of lavender and gardenias. Mr. Peachy, who did most of the gardening, had outdone himself that year. I moved to open the passenger-side door. “I guess I’ll see you around. . . .”

  But Jonathan wasn’t calling it a night yet. He shut off the engine and got out before me, then pulled open the rear door on his side. “Seriously, Daphne,” he said, picking up Artie, who squirmed and tried unsuccessfully to kiss Jonathan’s cheek. In one smooth but effective move, Jonathan simultaneously pulled back and pushed Artie’s muzzle away. “I don’t know if Bryce Beamus committed murder,” he continued, “but if he did, think of how dangerous your situation could’ve been.”

  “Yes, yes, I understand,” I said, letting Socrates out, too. He shambled off toward the door, letting me know, in no uncertain terms, that he was ready for bed. “But nothing happened to me. I’m fine.”

  Jonathan had come around to my side of the truck, where he set down Artie, who collapsed at Jonathan’s feet and promptly fell asleep. Apparently, spending so much time with the man he inexplicably worshipped had worn him out.

  “You’re fine—this time,” Jonathan cautioned me. “But please stop investigating, all right?”

  “I can’t promise anything until I know Piper isn’t your chief suspect,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  I wanted Jonathan to say that Bryce Beamus was now the prime suspect in Steve’s murder, but he didn’t do that. All I heard were crickets and the creaking of the barn’s old beams, although the night was very still and humid. In the distance, the sky was starless and ominously black. The wind would probably pick up soon, and the encroaching clouds would obliterate the full moon, which was bathing Piper’s property in soft light, causing the white gardenias and moonflowers to glow like tiny lanterns.

  “Do you need a ride to get your van tomorrow?” Jonathan finally asked. “Or can you find someone to take you?”

  He’d done enough for me, and I said, “I suppose Piper can give me a ride. Or my mother.”

  The prospect of calling Maeve Templeton for help was grim, but I’d probably have no choice. Piper had recently vowed never again to pick me up when the VW broke down.

  Of course, that was assuming I’d actually suffered engine trouble.

  “Hey,” I said, acting far too nonchalant. “Although I’m sure I’ll need a tow, you wouldn’t have that gas can with you, would you?”

  Jonathan went to the back of the truck, opened a cover, and pulled out a red plastic container. “I thought you’d never ask.” He started to hand over the gas can, then pulled it back. “But before I give you this, as a gift, for you to keep . . .”

  I opened my mouth to object; then I realized I might as well accept his offer. He would never run out of gas, and he probably had his oil changed more than once every few years, too.

  “Before I give you this,” he repeated, “you have to promise me that you won’t confront Bryce again if he’s there tomorrow, when you get your van.”

  I doubted Bryce would talk with me after how we’d left things, and I raised my hand and positioned a couple of fingers in what I hoped was a “Scout’s honor” sign but which might’ve been Dylan’s “hang loose” gesture. “I can promise that.”

  “Good,” Jonathan said. “Although Scouts actually use the right hand.” Then he gestured to the book I’d borrowed, not stolen. “Also, would you please tell me why you took that book, which also interested me when I first saw it at Beamus’s?”

  “You noticed this, too?” I asked, slipping the volume from under my right arm, where I’d had it tucked. That was why I’d used my left hand for the pledge. I held the book so we could both read the title—or titles—which were written in bold gold script on the dark cover.

  Macbeth—Othello—Hamlet—King Lear.

  “Why would a guy whose only other books were spy thrillers in paperback own a leather-bound collection of four plays by Shakespeare?” I mused aloud. “Doesn’t it seem strange?”

  “Yes,” Jonathan agreed. He held out his hand. “May I see it?”

  I didn’t want to part with the anthology, since he obviously judged it as potentially important, and I’d been the one with the foresight to take it. But he kept standing there with his hand out, so I finally offered it over. “Here.”

  Jonathan opened the front cover, and I hoped he didn’t intend to read four tragic dramas by Shakespeare while we stood there, with lightning starting to flicker on the horizon.

  Jonathan didn’t seem interested in the plays, though. He was looking at the very first page, which I would’ve expected to be blank. He bent closer, his eyes moving back and
forth, scanning something illuminated by the moon.

  “What is it?” I asked, because obviously he’d discovered something of interest. “What did you find?”

  For a moment, he must’ve forgotten that I was a civilian. Or, more likely, given how late it was, he didn’t want to deal with me badgering him for a half hour, until he inevitably told me what I wanted to know. He probably just wanted to go home to bed.

  “There’s an inscription,” he informed me.

  “Well, read it,” I urged. “What’s it say?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jonathan lifted the anthology again and read aloud. “Dear Steven, I fear that the fault was not in the stars, but in ourselves. Yet tragedy can also be beautiful, as these plays prove. I can only hope that someday our pain will yield fruit that is more sweet than bitter. Love always . . .” Jonathan’s voice trailed off, as if he didn’t want to tell me who had signed that curious, if somewhat melodramatic and cloying, note.

  “Give the book back,” I said, pulling it from his hands and reading quickly, in case he planned to snatch it away from me.

  He didn’t do that, though, and I skimmed the note, then checked the signature, although I doubted I’d know the author, if I could even read the handwriting. A lot of people just scrawled their names.

  But that wasn’t the case here.

  In fact, although the signer had used only her first name, I recognized the distinctive script immediately—in part because I saw it all the time. On checks that I cashed for walking three rottweilers.

  Virginia.

  Chapter 38

  “Can we please go get my van soon?” I asked my mother, who sat across from me at a table in an alcove at Giulia Alberti’s café, Espresso Pronto. We were by a window, and outside the morning sun was shining on Sylvan Creek’s pretty main street, which was starting to bustle with activity. I wanted to get moving, too, and I told Mom, “I have things to do today.”