Asking for Truffle

by Dorothy St. James

  He shook his head again. “No. It doesn’t make any sense. If she knew anything, she would have said so right off.”

  “Not necessarily. Not our Mabel,” Bertie said as she headed toward the stairs. “She was all about the dramatic reveal. She didn’t warn Penn about the will and had asked me not to tell her about it either. She’d said she wanted it to be a happy surprise.”

  “It was a surprise all right.” Just not a happy one.

  “Still, it doesn’t seem right. Why would Harley want to kill Mabel? He knew what was in the will, and it didn’t affect him. Unless he thought he deserved to get the shop,” Cal reasoned.

  “Why in the world would he think that?” I asked.

  Cal shrugged. “How should I know? He lives in the other apartment. Perhaps he thought that gave him some kind of ownership right. Or perhaps he simply needed the money. He needs money, you know? The divorce and moving here cost him more than he could afford.”

  I tripped over my own feet and tumbled a few steps down the back stairway when I heard that first part. “Harley? He lives in the other apartment?” I’d moved in next door to a potential killer?

  No, he wasn’t a killer. Despite what his own brother thought about him, I no longer believed Harley could be responsible for Skinny’s death.

  Bertie seemed to agree. She shook her head. “Harley didn’t do this. He couldn’t.”

  “My brother, the boy you once knew, has changed, Miss Bertie,” Cal said as he followed us down to the chocolate shop’s back door. “Something happened to him during the divorce. He’s turned darker and more secretive. It’s been worrying me for the past year. I don’t think moving back here did him any good.”

  Once inside the shop, Bertie grabbed the same yellow pad of paper I’d used to uncover Mabel’s to-do list. She gave me a hard look and then shifted her gaze to Cal, who was peering into the empty display case. Her brows raised. “I’m going to make a detailed inventory of anything I can find in the kitchen and storerooms. Why don’t you talk with Cal?”

  She wanted me to talk with Cal? About what? My confusion must have shown clearly on my face.

  Bertie moved closer to me and whispered, “I know, despite what that detective said, you’re still going to investigate.” She gave a gentle nudge in Cal’s direction. “So go and do some investigating.”

  Cal had straightened and was staring at us. “What can I do to help?” he asked.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have any of Mabel’s Amar chocolates squirreled away somewhere,” I said, only half joking.

  “Is that all?” He flashed one of his devastating smiles, the kind that made my knees feel kind of wobbly. “Actually, I do. Remember I used it to make your hot chocolate yesterday?”

  “You have some? Really?” Even a small amount could prove invaluable. “Could we have it for the festival? I’d offer to pay you for it, but the robbery . . .”

  “Of course you can have it. And don’t worry about payment. I’m relieved there’s something I can do to help. Come on.” He held out his hand. “I left some at the beach house.”

  He led me to his dad’s old beach house a block off Main Street.

  “I know it’s not much to look at,” Cal said with a slight shake of his head. “The house has been in the family for a couple of generations. My grandfather built it as a summer house. My parents added indoor plumbing, insulation, and a heating and cooling system so they could live at the beach year-round and raise a family in Camellia.”

  I looked at the newer mansions on either side, with their large windows and cement board siding. They ate up nearly all the space allotted to them. What was left was mostly paved over for parking. Lanky palm trees that didn’t look anything like the native Palmettos stood in regimented lines within thin planting strips along the property line.

  In contrast, the Daltons’ house sat back from the street. Sand dunes rose and fell all around the home. The yard was teeming with tall sea grasses and random clumps of palmettos that leaned this way and that. Orange and yellow wild flowers bloomed despite the cold weather. There was something stunningly beautiful about the wildness of the yard and the understated white board-and-batten cottage. An oak tree that had to be at least one hundred years old hid half of the house behind its twisting trunk. But I could clearly see the home’s wide front porch, with its weathered, unpainted boards. It called out for someone to linger in one of the rocking chairs that were scattered about.

  “I don’t know,” I said while practically running up the steps of the welcoming porch. “I think it’s lovely.”

  “Really? You think so? If I had complete control of this place, I’d tear it down and let Jody build one of her company’s stock beach houses.”

  “Like next door?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Nice, aren’t they? So modern and spacious. But Harley is part owner, and he doesn’t want anything to change. Ever.”

  My gaze traveled back to the large homes dwarfing the Daltons’ home and tried to picture an island filled with houses and condos that were too big for their modestly sized lots.

  The buildings in town would be sleek and modern instead of the aging shacks that currently populated the island. But that kind of progress would also wipe out the forest of ancient oaks with their wind-sculpted limbs and the wild palmettos that had grown where nature had planted them, many in thick clumps. Worse, those darling orange and yellow flowers that bloomed despite the cold would probably be deemed weeds and pulled.

  Had I, as the president of the business association had warned, started to fall in love with the island as it was?

  I shivered at that thought. “Let’s get that chocolate of yours,” I said.

  Cal led me inside the cottage. Dark pine paneling dominated every room. An African mask frowned at me from the living room wall. Exotic wooden statues stood in proud poses on side tables. A colorful tapestry hung on the wall leading to a dark hallway.

  I ran my hand over the head of one of the statues. “This isn’t the kind of decor I’d expect to find in a beach house.”

  He lifted the figurine I’d been caressing and placed it on the fireplace mantel. “It’s just junk I brought back from my business travels.”

  “Junk?” None of it looked like junk. They weren’t the plastic, touristy gewgaws my first stepmother used to bring back from her overseas trips. “It looks like authentic African artwork.”

  Cal shrugged. “Don’t know why I bought any of it. Hell, I don’t remember buying even half of it.”

  “You don’t seem like an impulse shopper,” I said.

  He laughed. “We all have our faults.”

  Despite the eclectic decor and well-worn furniture, I liked the house. It felt cozy. “Why doesn’t Harley live here?”

  Cal just looked around, as if that was answer enough.

  “But if he doesn’t want to let you tear it down, he must like the place,” I said as I followed him into a kitchen that looked like it hadn’t been renovated since the 1970s. “You’d think he’d want to live and raise his son here, where he grew up.”

  “You’d have to ask him,” Cal said with a shrug. “Ah, here’s the chocolate.”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Cal opened a cardboard box lined with parchment paper. Lying inside the box were nearly as many chocolate bars as had been stolen from the Chocolate Box.

  Chapter 21

  “This is the Amar chocolate? Mabel’s superspecial chocolate?” My voice quivered. This couldn’t be her chocolate. Not this much. She’d said over and over again how precious it was, how rare. Why would she give so much of it to Cal?

  “You tell me.” A playful smile creased his lips. He handed me the box. “Take a whiff.”

  I breathed in the chocolate bars’ deep, earthy aroma. A touch of espresso scent teased my senses. “This is it!”

  In my excitement, I nearly dropped the box. Cal lifted it from my hands. “It is,” he said.

  “But how? Why? Why did she give you so much of her special chocolate?�
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  His smile grew a little wider. “Because she liked me.”

  “She must have liked you a whole bunch,” I said.

  “Almost as much as I think I like you,” he said and kissed me.

  I kissed him back, not because I felt anything special toward him, although I supposed I might one day develop an attraction for the younger Dalton brother. He was certainly easy on the eyes, and his hording of Mabel’s chocolates may have saved the Sweets on the Beach festival. From what I’d learned from the other business owners who were helping with organizing the events, without Mabel’s chocolates, there really wasn’t much of a festival.

  When we broke apart, Cal apologized. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Um, um . . . probably not,” was my brilliant reply. But honestly, after what had happened with the Cheese King and with all the other disastrous relationships before him, I wasn’t ready to get involved with anyone, not even someone who looked like the hero from a blockbuster action movie.

  The walk back from his family’s beach house started out silent and awkward. At least I felt awkward. He seemed his usual unflappable self, the kind of guy who was always comfortable in his own skin. Finally, he looked at me and asked, “I suppose you’re investigating the break-in, your friend’s death, and now Mabel’s death?”

  “I suppose I am,” I said gloomily. It wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. “And I’m trying to figure out how to pull together the Chocolate Box’s booth for the festival with absolutely no budget. At least we have chocolate, thanks to you.”

  “Do you think they might be connected? The break-in and the murders, I mean?”

  “Who knows?” Wanting to change the direction of the conversation, I asked him, “Do you know what kind of work Derek does?”

  Cal looked at me and smirked.

  “What?” I asked.

  “‘Derek’ and ‘work’ are two words one never hears in the same sentence. He might be old, but he still acts like a trust-fund baby. He flunked out of law school and then out of business school. Even though he lives in a bachelor’s apartment in Charleston, he spends most of his time warming barstools out here in Camellia Beach.”

  “So his inheritance provided him with enough money to support that kind of lifestyle? Must be nice.”

  Cal shook his head. “I think he ran through his inheritance years ago. He’s constantly hitting up anyone he can find for a loan. Since you’re new around here, I’m sure you’ll be next.”

  “Really?” That put Derek’s admonition about how money corrupts into a new light. Instead of warning me to take care around money, perhaps he was—in his own twisted way—confessing to the horrible things he’d done to feed his own lust for money.

  If Skinny had found a way to prove I was Carolina’s long-lost child, Derek wouldn’t inherit the obscene amount of money his mother had left for Carolina. If she couldn’t be found, Derek and the rest of his siblings would get the money, which would be a strong motive for murder.

  But, dang it, he had an alibi. He’d been slamming drinks with Cal the night Skinny had been killed.

  “After you give the shop back to Mabel’s family,” Cal said as if choosing his words very carefully, “what are you going to do with Cabruca?”

  “Cabruca? You mean Mabel’s cat? Um, Bertie’s keeping him.”

  “Not Troubadour. Cabruca is the South American village where the Amar chocolates are grown exclusively for the shop, remember?”

  “Oh, right. I honestly hadn’t thought about the village,” it embarrassed me to admit.

  Mabel, and her father and grandfather before her, had supported the villagers, making sure they were paid a fair wage for the chocolate they produced. She even went without luxuries a woman in her position could afford so she could build the village a new school.

  Obviously, Mabel had been interested in my money. And my father’s money. She’d picked me to carry on her legacy because my family had the means to support a Brazilian village located deep in the Amazon rainforest.

  Of course I could do that kind of charity work from anywhere, as long as I could convince my grandmother to give me greater access to my trust fund.

  “If you’d like, I might be able to use my contacts through my business to try to sell the chocolate contract,” Cal said slowly. “The right company would be able to not only bring modern conveniences to the town, but it could also help the village increase production of their rare chocolate bean.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” I said as we approached the shop. “After we survive the Sweets on the Beach festival, I’ll have to give it some serious thought.”

  I hugged the box of chocolates to my chest. “Thank you for this. And for everything. Bertie will be thrilled too,” I said as I jogged up the steps to the Chocolate Box, eager to tell Bertie that we’d be able to make at least part of the chocolates on the festival menu.

  Cal didn’t come with me. And when I turned to look for him, he was gone.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

  * * *

  Bertie was happy to see the chocolate, though equally confused about why Mabel would have given Cal so much. “She tended to hoard it, rarely using much in our chocolate recipes,” she said, frowning at the chocolates stacked within the cardboard box. “That was one thing that was going to be so special about the festival. For the first time, she planned to make several of her 100 percent Amar chocolate recipes to offer for sale to the general public. It’s not something she’d hand out to anyone.”

  “Maybe she was grateful to Cal for visiting the Cabruca village and bringing news of the school’s progress?” I suggested.

  “Or maybe he stole it,” Harley said as he emerged from one of the back rooms.

  I shook my head. “You Dalton boys sure are quick to accuse each other of wrongdoing. What are you doing here?”

  “Bertie asked for my help with inventory.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me as if daring me to kick him out.

  I merely asked, “Don’t you have a law firm to run?”

  “It’s Sunday. And”—he cleared his throat—“considering what you found this morning . . . you know . . . with the pills, I thought Bertie shouldn’t be alone.”

  “She wasn’t alone.”

  “You weren’t here,” he countered, his arms still crossed.

  I crossed my own arms and took a step toward him. “I’m here now.”

  He took a step toward me. “Are you telling me to leave? Will you call the cops if I don’t?”

  “Children, children!” Bertie clapped her hands. “I don’t have the energy for your bickering. So, please, let’s get back to work. We have too much to do and not enough time already.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Harley said.

  “You don’t really think Cal stole this chocolate?” I asked.

  “I don’t know what to think,” was all Bertie would say.

  As we worked, I asked Harley why he didn’t live in his family’s beach house.

  “Because of Jody,” he said as he stirred a pot of melting chocolates.

  “Jody?” That didn’t make sense.

  He nodded. “If she thought I had control over the beach house, I’d be back in court with her suing me for half its worth in a skinny minute. I don’t have the cash to pay her for half, so the lawsuit would force me to sell it.”

  “To her development company?”

  He nodded.

  I wasn’t sure if I believed that.

  “That Jody woman has tried to get her greedy hands on it before,” Bertie said as she poured heavy cream into the pot Harley was stirring. “Our boy has kept ownership of the house in his father’s estate so she can’t touch it.”

  “Something like that,” Harley said. “Bottom line—if I live there, it causes trouble. So I let it stay empty.”

  “Cal stays there,” I said.

  “Sometimes . . . when he’s in town.”

  “Which isn’t often,” Bertie added.


  Since none of that seemed pertinent to the murders, I decided to ask them about Derek and his finances. Harley didn’t have much to say about Mabel’s youngest son, and Bertie was like a hurricane focused only on pulling together enough basic ingredients to start making chocolate truffles by the afternoon. Neither provided me with any new information.

  Harley left around three that afternoon, which was probably a good thing. Bertie and I were mixing up a batch of the hazelnut chocolate truffles Mabel had taught me to make when Jody knocked on the shop’s door.

  I wiped my hands on a towel before letting her in.

  “I was hoping we could talk,” she said, “about the Chocolate Box’s future.”

  “I’m not keeping the shop, remember?” I said.

  “Just hear me out,” she said. “Please.”

  I invited her to sit down at a café table and poured her a cup of coffee from the pot Bertie and I had been refilling throughout the day.

  She took a sip of the coffee before whispering, “I’m in a terrible fix.”

  “How so?” I whispered back.

  “Remember I told you I’d already made a large down payment on this building?”

  I nodded.

  “Edward claims that since he wasn’t a party to the deal, I’m going to have to renegotiate after you sign the land over to him and his siblings. And even then, he said he can’t promise they’d sell to my company. He went on and on about the highest bidder and that another company has already talked with him about purchasing the shop.”

  “Really?” I sat back and steepled my fingers. “But didn’t you tell me you’d already made an agreement with Mabel? Do you have anything in writing to prove it?”

  She stared into her coffee mug as if it held the answer. “Not exactly,” she finally said. “Derek had assured me he was acting as his mother’s financial agent. Since he was always hanging around the shop and sometimes working the cash register, I believed him. I signed the agreement with him. I gave the deposit check to him.”