Devil's Food Cake

by Josi S. Kilpack

  He’d also said that it was about time things came full circle. And what did that mean?

  The comment hinted at a wait of some kind, or why else say it was “about time”? Plus the words “full circle” denoted revenge or vengeance, which brought her back to the question of who the intended victim really was: Thom or Mr. Ogreski. Since she didn’t know anything about Mr. Ogreski, she couldn’t help but think of what she did know about Thom. He was a former accountant and a single father of an only son who had had a history of extreme behavior before he killed himself and his girlfriend. One of the reasons given for Damon’s problems was that his mother, Thom’s ex-wife, had a history of mental illness that had ended with an overdose when Damon was little. Sadie was once again saddened by the thought of Thom falling victim to alcoholism after so many trials. She so wanted him to have a happier life.

  But who would want Thom dead now? Who had reason to exact some kind of revenge on a novelist who didn’t even live here anymore? It brought her back to the discussion she’d had, or rather tried to have, with Pete. “The girl,” she heard herself say out loud. She looked up from where she’d been staring into her chocolate and saw Shawn watching her. He’d always been very expressive and she could see he’d been watching her closely, both curious and eager to hear her thoughts. Gayle was still hovering over the cup in her hands, which she raised to her mouth every twenty seconds or so to take a small sip of the rich beverage. She wasn’t paying attention to either one of them.

  “What girl?” Shawn asked.

  “The girl Damon shot,” she said. She wondered if Pete had contacted the girl’s family yet. Would he tell her what he learned, if anything?

  “Damon?”

  “Thom’s son. About ten years ago he killed his girlfriend and himself after prom. You don’t remember?”

  Shawn shrugged, but looked thoughtful. “A little bit,” he said. “I was in sixth grade. I remember the police coming and giving an assembly on gun safety. I was all freaked out when Uncle Jack asked me to go hunting with him the next fall.”

  Sadie nodded. “I remember that. You were worried just touching a gun could make it go off.”

  Shawn’s dark skin darkened even more. “Pretty dumb, huh?”

  “Being overly cautious is never dumb,” Sadie said in her schoolteacher voice, smiling at the memory of the little boy who depended on her to assure him that hunting with his uncle was okay, but throwing water balloons at girls because they were, well, girls was unacceptable.

  “Damon was a junior that year, like Amber,” Gayle cut in. Her zoned-out state had given Sadie the impression she wasn’t listening. But of course she was. She was two feet away from them.

  “She saw them at the dance that night,” Gayle continued. “It was really hard for her when, well, you know. When he did what he did.”

  The three of them were silent as they contemplated the tragedy all over again. “So, Damon was two years older than Bre?” Shawn said, using his sister as a gauge to give both himself and Sadie a point of reference.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Sadie said. Breanna had still been in junior high school, giving Sadie’s family a bit more of a buffer between themselves and the tragedy. Shawn nodded thoughtfully before standing up and leaving the room. Sadie watched him go with a questioning look, but her attention was quickly redirected when Gayle spoke.

  “Is there any chance you have some Tylenol PM?” Gayle took another sip of her hot cocoa. She returned the mug to the table and raised one hand to rub her forehead with her thumb and fingertips. “I’ve got a horrible headache, and I’m worried I won’t be able to sleep.”

  Sadie headed for the cupboard next to the fridge where she kept all her over-the-counter medications and picked out the bottle of Tylenol PM. “I’m sure we could call Dr. Bernard and he could get you something stronger. At least for a couple nights,” she said as she filled up a glass with water.

  “I’ll try the Tylenol,” Gayle said. “I feel like I could sleep for two days straight even without it, my brain is so exhausted.” She put her elbows on the table and dropped her head down so she could massage her temples.

  “I can only imagine,” Sadie said with sympathy. Poor Gayle. Sadie put the water and the pills on the table as Shawn came back into the kitchen, a large hardbound book in his hands. He dropped it on the table with a thud, making the mugs and plates shake. Some French chocolate splashed out of Sadie’s mug, and she scowled at her son before grabbing a paper towel to clean it up.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, making an apologetic face and lowering himself into one of the kitchen chairs. About five years ago, Shawn had leaned back in one of Sadie’s old Victorian chairs and the thin legs covered in ornate designs had practically disintegrated beneath him. The chair hadn’t stood a chance against the starting linebacker for the Garrison Gator’s football team. And he wasn’t getting any smaller. The week after the disaster, Sadie had gone on the hunt for a more sturdy dining room set and eventually found one made of solid walnut. Since then she hadn’t worried about him breaking furniture. Well, at least not as much.

  “A yearbook?” Gayle asked after scanning the covers, her forehead scrunched up in confusion.

  Sadie was confused too—for about .02 seconds.

  Melinda’s French Chocolate

  1 jar (16 oz.) hot fudge sauce (Mrs. Richardson’s is the best)

  1 pint whipping cream

  1⁄4 cup powdered sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract *

  3 quarts milk, heated (amounts vary)

  Heat hot fudge in the microwave until warm and thin enough to pour, but not too hot. In a mixing bowl, whip the whipping cream and add powdered sugar and vanilla when cream begins to thicken. When cream is at the soft-peak stage, slowly add the hot fudge sauce, continuing to whip the cream and chocolate together. Serve by spooning desired amount of French chocolate mixture into a mug and adding heated milk. Stir until combined.

  Serves 8.

  * Can use mint, orange, or almond extracts in place of vanilla. (Shawn prefers mint—no surprise!)

  Chapter 12

  Shawn flipped the yearbook open. “If Damon is two years older than Bre, he ought to be in her seventh-grade yearbook, right?” He looked up at his mother.

  “Right,” Sadie said, leaning toward him as he flipped pages. There was only one junior high and one high school in Garrison, so while the kids in town attended any one of four elementary schools, once they hit seventh grade, they were interacting with every other kid their age for the rest of their public school career.

  “I just wanted to get a visual,” Shawn said, still turning pages.

  “The girl was from Sterling,” Gayle said, sitting up in her chair, but making no attempt to look at the book. Sterling was a town not much bigger than Garrison, about forty miles to the east.

  After the murder-suicide, there had been candlelight vigils and counselors to help the kids in both Garrison and Sterling cope with the tragedy. Thom had Damon buried in California, where he’d buried his wife several years earlier. Everyone had been surprised when Thom returned to Garrison, but after a few months, he moved away for good. The town had been mostly sympathetic for his situation. Few people blamed him once the level of Damon’s mental instability came out into the open, but sympathy was a weak balm for such a trial, and there would always be those who held Thom accountable for not having done more. It wasn’t surprising that he wanted a new start.

  “Here he is,” Shawn said a moment later. “He even looks like a psychopath, doesn’t he?”

  Sadie looked at the photo above Shawn’s finger. The boy in the picture looked surly and arrogant, with long hair and what appeared to be the barest trace of peach fuzz on his upper lip. He wasn’t smiling.

  “He’s, what, fourteen in this picture?” Sadie said, surprised by her own defensiveness. “I bet there are two dozen other boys with the same expression.”

  “Yeah, but only one of them took out his girlfriend and himself.”

&n
bsp; Two murders, echoed in Sadie’s brain again. Full circle. It’s about time. And yet Pete insisted Damon’s death was a suicide. Maybe the two murders referred to the girl and Mr. Ogreski—could it be that simple? But what would the connection be between them?

  Only one connection came to mind—Thom.

  The doorbell made her jump. Then she remembered that Amber was coming to pick up Gayle.

  “I’m going to use the bathroom and then get my things,” Gayle said, pushing away from the table. “Can I get these back to you next week?” She pulled at the flannel lounge pants she was wearing.

  “Of course,” Sadie said. She lifted one eyebrow and looked sideways at her friend. “I know where you live if you try to keep ’em.”

  Gayle managed a smile on her way out of the kitchen. Sadie cringed at the Got Blood? written on the back of the T-shirt and she hoped Gayle hadn’t noticed it. Once Gayle disappeared into the hallway, Sadie headed for the front door.

  “Hi, Amber,” Sadie said as she moved to the side so the younger woman could come in. The snow was coming down harder than before. Thank goodness she didn’t have to go out again tonight; the roads would be messy.

  Gayle’s daughter was dressed in pink velvet sweats at least one size too small with rhinestones lining both edges of the zippered jacket. Her blonde-streaked hair was pulled into pigtails. Except for the beginning of crow’s feet around her eyes and the voluptuous figure that took after her mother, she could have been a thirteen-year-old on her way to a slumber party.

  “Hey, Amber,” Shawn said from the table, looking up to smile at her before going back to the yearbook in front of him. Amber was five years older than Shawn, but they were acquainted with one another through their mothers.

  “Hi, Shawn,” Amber said before turning to Sadie. “How is she?” she asked in a whisper after Sadie shut the door.

  “Well,” Sadie said, wanting to be honest, but kind. “She’s a bit traumatized, as anyone would be, but she’s holding it together all right. It was nice of you to invite her over.”

  Amber nodded. “Of course,” she said dismissively. “Besides, I’ve got two junior basketball games tomorrow, and I was going to ask her to babysit anyway.”

  Sadie thought the last thing Gayle needed right now was to babysit. And the last thing Amber needed was a recent trauma victim watching over her children. After a moment, however, she offered a polite smile and tried to convince herself it was none of her business.

  “What’s this?” Amber asked, moving toward the table and leaning toward the yearbook open on the table.

  “Shawn wanted to see a picture of Damon Mortenson,” Sadie explained, walking behind the younger woman. The word “Princess” was appliquéd on the rear of Amber’s sweatpants and Sadie forced herself to look away. “He was pretty young when it all happened and doesn’t remember a whole lot.” Shawn pushed the book toward her and Amber gave him a grateful smile.

  “I wish I didn’t,” Amber said.

  Suddenly, Sadie realized Amber was the perfect person to put a little more flesh on the bones of the boy’s memory. She glanced at Shawn who winked his silent agreement. No wonder he’d relinquished the book so quickly. He’d already figured out that Amber was a good resource.

  “Um, Shawn, honey,” Sadie said sweetly. “Would you mind getting the two cake boxes from the backseat of my car? I’m sure Amber’s family would love to take one home.”

  Amber looked up at Sadie and smiled. “That is so generous of you,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Sadie said, waving away the younger woman’s thanks, despite the fact she was counting on that gratitude to serve her well.

  Shawn gave his mother an annoyed look, but did as he was asked.

  “So,” Sadie said casually once Shawn had left and Amber had turned back to the yearbook. “You were in the same grade with Damon, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a nod, still scanning pages.

  “Did you have any classes with him your junior year?”

  Amber was quiet for a moment before she nodded, still turning pages. “He was in my English class—well, until he dropped out.” Amber giggled, pointing at her ninth-grade picture. “Can you believe my hair? It’s a good thing I didn’t smoke. I could have incinerated myself if the hairspray had caught fire.”

  Sadie kept to herself that dried hairspray wasn’t very flammable, since it was the alcohol content and propellant that would feed a flame, and most of that would be evaporated by the time hairspray was dry. “You said he was in your English class,” Sadie said, drawing the topic to Damon again.

  “Yeah,” Amber said, turning the page and chuckling at someone else’s picture.

  “What was he like?” Sadie heard the back door open as Shawn let himself in. That was fast, but then he wouldn’t want to miss this conversation either. Shawn placed the two pink boxes on the counter.

  “Damon?” Amber asked, squinching up her face as if trying to remember. “Well, he was . . . weird.”

  “Weird, how?” Shawn asked. He returned to his seat at the table, but was watching Amber with just as much interest as Sadie was. She hoped he didn’t blow their cover by acting too interested. It was hard to balance the right amount of casual interest and Sadie wasn’t sure he was well enough trained to do the job right.

  Amber took a breath. “Well, he was always doing these creepy drawings in his notebook—like devils and skeletons and stuff. He was totally Goth and didn’t talk to anyone. But Mrs. Veeter loved him—that was weird too.”

  “Diane Veeter?” Sadie asked, her thoughts shifting ever so slightly. Diane Veeter had won the Colorado Teacher of the Year award right around the time Sadie herself had returned to teaching. They’d met at different functions throughout the years and developed a casual friendship. Unfortunately, Diane had been killed in a car accident eight or nine years ago. It had been a tragic loss not only for Diane’s husband, Brian, and their grown children, but for all the students she supported so passionately over the years.

  Amber looked up. “Oh, that’s right, you were a teacher too, huh?”

  Sadie nodded, not wanting to get too far off topic. “I wonder what it was Diane—I mean, Mrs. Veeter—liked about him so much.”

  Shawn had clasped his hands on the table, looking a bit too studious. Sadie would need to give the boy lessons when this was all over.

  “Well, for all his strangeness, Damon was a great writer,” Amber said casually, turning another page. “Mrs. Veeter read a couple of his things out loud in class and they were really good—deep, ya know? But it totally embarrassed him when she did it so she stopped.” Amber looked up at Sadie. “Why so many questions?”

  “Well,” Sadie said, settling on the truth, or most of it anyway. “A man was killed tonight, and he’s connected to Damon’s father. I think a lot of people are going to be asking questions about Damon.” She glanced at the hallway, wondering when Gayle might appear and thus bring the conversation to an end.

  “It’s weird he went to the dance,” Shawn interjected. Sadie threw him a little smile of encouragement. Good segue. “I mean, with him having dropped out of school and everything.”

  “I know, right?” Amber looked at Shawn, a more serious set to her face, and then back to Sadie. “It was intense. To find out they were both dead the next day was awful. Josh really beat himself up over the fact that he’d left them up at Pearson’s Pond. But his date had a curfew.”

  “Josh?” Sadie repeated.

  “Yeah,” Amber said. “Josh Hender. He was Damon’s best friend, well, only friend really.”

  Josh Hender, Sadie repeated in her mind. She knew a lot of people from having lived in Garrison for so many years, but Hender didn’t seem familiar.

  “Was Josh your age too?” Shawn asked.

  Amber nodded. “Here, I’ll show you his picture.” She flipped a few pages in the yearbook and Sadie moved closer to her while Shawn stood up from the table and headed back down the hallway�
�again. Now where was he going? But Sadie couldn’t allow herself to get distracted.

  Amber turned one more page and ran her finger down the names on the edge of the page. She stopped and tapped at the photo, turning the book so Sadie could get a better look.

  She squinted at the picture of a skinny, fourteen-year-old boy with a flattop and metallic smile. Sadie tried to recall if she knew this kid, but she came up blank. The black-and-white picture was old, and yet there was something familiar there.

  Shawn returned holding yet another yearbook. He put it on the table and sat down, cracking open the book immediately. After a few seconds, Shawn pushed the book in Sadie’s direction, pointing at one specific picture.

  A shiver ran down Sadie’s spine as she stared at the photo. It was Josh Hender’s senior picture. He was wearing a tux and, although his hair was shorter and lighter in the photo, his skin a bit tanner, and he wasn’t wearing glasses, Sadie was almost positive Josh Hender was the photographer who’d nearly knocked her on her tush earlier that evening.

  Chapter 13

  It took a few seconds for Sadie to get over her shock, and she shot Shawn a look she hoped would communicate to him that she’d made a powerful discovery.

  “What’s Josh like?” she asked, trying to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

  “Oh, I haven’t seen him in years,” Amber said, turning another page and scanning more photos. She leaned down and put her elbows on the table, causing her backside to stick out. Sadie, again, tried not to look. It was not a flattering position. “But in high school he was okay—kinda quiet. We had a couple classes together, but weren’t really in the same social group, ya know.”

  “What group was he in?” Shawn asked.

  “Well, I was a cheerleader.” Amber shrugged her shoulders as if that explained everything. “Josh was into art and video games.” She looked up at them and made a face. “Not my thing.”

  “So they were both artsy,” Shawn summed up. “Damon and Josh.”