“Just trying to figure out my next step,” I said and snapped the cover of my iPad closed before either of them could see what I’d been reading. “Let me help you with that.” I eased off the sofa and hobbled into the kitchen to help with the bags.
* * *
While I’d read through Granny Mae’s articles, Bertie and Althea had also been busy. Very busy. Not only had they restocked the apartment’s kitchen with supplies, but they’d also filled the commercial kitchen downstairs with boxes and bags of sugar, cocoa powder, coconuts, heavy cream, and several varieties of gourmet dark chocolate.
“How did you manage to pay for all this?” I asked as I hobbled around the Chocolate Box’s kitchen.
“I maxed out my credit cards,” Althea answered with a wide grin.
“You shouldn’t have done that. I don’t know when the shop will be able to repay you . . . or if it ever will be able to.” It wasn’t as if I was going to keep the shop open. And since the police had seized the money stolen from the cash register, and Mabel’s family was promising to contest her will in the courts, who knew when we’d see a dime from the shop. “I pray the money we make at the festival will cover your costs.”
“Don’t worry about it, Penn. I’m just happy to be able to help out.” She gave me a hug but made it a quick one. “Really, I don’t want anything from you. I’m not trying to guilt you into staying or trick you. I promise.”
I gave her a sideways glance. She sounded and looked sincere, but . . .
“Thanks,” I said tightly. That damaged part of me had a hard time accepting her help—or anyone else’s, if I was going to be honest with myself. Yet with only a day and a half to go before the festival started, I needed to swallow my fear and accept all the help I could get. As things stood right now, it was going to take a miracle for the three of us to finish the preparations in time.
We were just starting to get busy with our next recipe when someone started banging on the shop’s front door.
Bertie wiped her hands on her apron and went to see who it could be. She returned a few minutes later. Her smile reached from ear to ear. Behind her, a crowd of older men and women ambled into the kitchens. Althea handed out aprons while Bertie handed each of them a hairnet. I recognized many in the crowd from the motel lobby.
“We’re here to make sure you don’t mess up the festival,” a man with a full head of bushy silver hair said as he nudged my arm. I was taken aback by his gruff tone and was about to defend myself when he winked.
“Thank you, I—” I started to say and then remembered how a couple of the ladies in the group were severely hard of hearing. “Thank you,” I shouted. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”
“Jeez, you don’t have to shout,” one lady complained while another asked, “What did she say?”
Everyone laughed.
“But how will this work?” I asked Bertie. “We still don’t have Mabel’s expertise. And without her, we can’t begin to reproduce even a fraction of the magic she put into her chocolates.”
It wasn’t Bertie who answered but another woman I recognized from the motel bunko game. “We all took Mabel’s classes. All of us. She insisted we take private lessons where she focused on just one recipe, hounding us until we perfected it.”
Each and every one of them had come here because they loved Mabel. They’d come to help.
“Mabel worried this might happen, didn’t she?” I asked Bertie. “That she might not be here for the festival?”
Bertie swallowed hard and nodded. “Not just for the festival. She taught her most precious recipes to the community so they could one day teach them to you.”
“Why me?” I asked for what felt like the hundredth time.
“Sugar, I wish I knew,” Bertie answered.
“We’re here, honey, ’cause we know Mabel put her faith in you,” one of the ladies said. Everyone nodded. “That Mabel of ours was no fool. If she thought you were the one to fill her shoes, then we support you as if you were born and bred in Camellia.”
“You’re one of us now,” another said.
“You’re family,” a third said.
Oh, how I wished it were true. But I wasn’t family, not Mabel’s. And certainly not Camellia Beach’s.
Skinny had performed the DNA test to prove he was Gavin’s father, not to make a connection between Mabel and me as I’d hoped. But none of that mattered. What mattered was the roomful of volunteers wanting to help.
“Why are we standing here, staring at each other?” I said. “We have chocolates to make.”
I stood back and watched in amazement as busy fingers got to work gathering ingredients, each making the special recipe Mabel had so diligently taught them and only them.
“We still don’t have enough of the Amar chocolates to make three days’ worth of Mabel’s special truffles,” I said to Bertie. “What are we going to do?”
Bertie thought about it for a little while before shaking her head. “We want everyone to taste her chocolates and to learn about how rare and special they are. If we mix it into other chocolates, its distinct flavor will be muted. So how do we make the Amar chocolate last the entire weekend? I don’t know.”
“I don’t either,” I said.
Since everything seemed to be under control in the kitchen for now, Bertie sent me back upstairs. I didn’t argue. I wasn’t going to be any help anyhow, not with my ankle throbbing like the devil. Besides, my mind was still obsessing over the murder investigation. I needed to continue my research. Perhaps if I looked hard enough, I’d find that all-important piece of evidence I could take to the police.
Chapter 29
It hadn’t mattered that I’d given up a night of sleep to scour the Internet and pick through the articles Granny Mae had sent. By the next morning, I didn’t have anything other than conjecture and suspicion about the murderer. I couldn’t take either of those to the police, which frustrated me to no end. How could I prove what I knew?
Grumpier than a rabid badger, I hobbled around the kitchen, ignoring how much my bruised ankle still throbbed. I dug a piece of white bread from its bag, which I shared with Stella, who followed alongside me, growling at my heels whenever I took too long to toss her a piece.
“It’s Wednesday,” Althea said in place of a greeting as she entered the apartment. She had a garment bag slung over her shoulder and a paper shopping bag hooked on her arm.
“I don’t need the reminder,” I grumbled.
Wednesday was Mabel’s funeral. It was also the day before the start of the festival. I still had no idea how we were going to serve the rare Amar chocolate to the festivalgoers. Although the chocolate I’d gotten from Cal had seemed like a treasure trove at the time, when I started to calculate how much we needed, I quickly discovered it wasn’t enough chocolate to last even a day, not even if we melted down the bars to make superminiature truffles.
If that wasn’t enough to worry about, Wednesday was also the fifth day after the will reading. The fifth day was the last day where if I happened to die, Mabel’s family would automatically inherit the chocolate shop and everything associated with it. This meant that if the killer wanted Mabel’s family to have control of the shop, today was the day to kill me. Not a comforting thought.
But the killer wouldn’t try to kill me, right? I’d already promised to hand the chocolate shop over to Mabel’s family. Unless—
No. That would be foolish.
“Hello? What in the world is going on in that mind of yours?” Althea asked. She apparently had been trying for quite some time to hand me a steaming mug. I sniffed the drink’s fragrant scent.
“What’s this?” I asked instead of telling her about the crazy idea that had suddenly popped into my mind.
“A chai latte. It’s my own secret blend.” Althea smiled slyly as she pressed a finger to her lips.
I preferred coffee to tea. I stared at the oversized mug before taking a tentative sip. A sweet and spicy mixture danced like tiny stars o
n my tongue. I quickly took another, deeper sip. “This is good. Really good. What’s in it? Do I taste chocolate?”
“Ah, you’ve discovered my secret.”
“It’s not the Amar chocolate?” I asked, a little panicked at the thought of Althea using any of the chocolate we desperately needed for the festival.
“No, no, don’t worry. It’s not Mabel’s chocolate. Now wouldn’t that taste good? We’ll have to try it sometime.” From a metal thermos, she poured the drink into two more mugs. She then stuffed the thermos back into her huge purse.
“So what else is in the tea?” I asked.
“Nuh-uh. It’s a secret.” She sealed her lips again. But she didn’t keep them closed for long. “I do have good news, though. Last night I came up with an idea about how we can make Mabel’s chocolate last all weekend.”
Bertie sauntered into the room with her flowered housecoat waving around her bare legs. She moved slowly and was slightly hunched as if she was actually feeling her age this morning. “What’s the idea?” she asked with absolutely no emotion in her voice.
“Gorp,” Althea said. Or maybe she’d burped. I wasn’t exactly sure.
“Excuse me?” her mother snapped as she pulled an egg carton from the fridge.
“Chocolate gorp. We melt the chocolate and mix in nuts, pretzels, cereal, and I don’t know what else. With the recipe I have, just a little bit of chocolate will go a long, long way.”
Bertie paused from breaking an egg into a bowl. Her tired gaze shifted from her daughter’s eyes to mine. “It might work.”
“We could test it?” Althea said. It sounded like a question. “See how it tastes?”
She stared at me and seemed to hold her breath, as if waiting for me to either agree or disagree with the idea.
“We’ve got nothing else,” I said. “Let’s test it.”
So we spent the next hour in the kitchen making a small batch of Amar gorp. While the end result didn’t equal Mabel’s knock-it-out-of-the-park flavors, it tasted . . . good.
“This might work,” I said as I ate another chocolate-covered pretzel. “If nothing else, it’ll give the visitors a small taste of what makes the Amar chocolate so special. I’ve never tasted a chocolate that even comes close to its depth of flavors. We can sell small cellophane bags of the mix. Of course we’re going to have to call it something more palatable than ‘gorp.’ How about ‘The World’s Rarest Trail Mix’?”
Althea clapped. No, she didn’t just clap. She clapped and jumped up and down like an overzealous teenaged cheerleader. She jumped around the kitchen until she’d wrapped her arms around my shoulders. “It will work. You’ll see. It’ll work. And it’s going to be fabulous.”
I tensed. No surprise there. I don’t like people hugging me. What surprised me was that I didn’t ask whether she’d consulted some so-called magical source to come up with the recipe. Instead, I simply wiggled out of her embrace and patted her arm. “I hope you’re right, Althea. I truly do.”
* * *
We spent the rest of the morning in the Chocolate Box’s kitchen, melting the chocolate and stirring in an assortment of nuts and pretzels. We then poured the mixture into small cellophane bags, tying them closed with pretty yellow ribbons. By the time we’d finished, my concussed head throbbed and my swollen ankle screamed with pain. But I didn’t care, because we’d accomplished something. With Bertie and Althea’s help, I was actually going to do this. I was going to be a chocolatier. Though I winced with every step as I climbed the stairs to Mabel’s apartment, I was smiling on the inside.
Sure, the fantasy would last only for a weekend. Afterward, I would return to the real world, return to being nothing more than an unemployed advertising manager with a pile of bills to pay. But oh . . . the next few days promised to be delicious.
I simply had to live through today to get my reward.
Mabel’s funeral was in a few hours, and we needed to get ready. Bertie, with Troubadour rubbing circles around her legs while he gave me the stink eye, disappeared into her bedroom without saying much of anything.
Althea followed her mother into the bedroom and then returned with the black silk dress she’d generously offered to let me borrow, since I hadn’t packed anything appropriate for a funeral. On her, the dress’s flowing skirt would have reached her ankles. On me, the hem didn’t extend below my midthigh. Thankfully, the rest of the dress, with its naturally loose fit, didn’t look too odd on what my grandmother referred to as my very un-Penn-like, awkwardly tall, and manly physique.
I was struggling to get my short hair to stop curling out at the ends when a loud knock sounded on the front door. Althea called out over Stella’s barking that she’d get it.
After tossing Stella several treats, I hobbled into the living room just as Althea let Harley into the apartment. He was dressed in a somber black suit that perfectly fit his trim body. “Are you about ready?” he asked Althea.
“My mom is putting on a little more makeup. I picked up some of the waterproof variety at the drugstore this morning. We should be ready soon,” she said and then returned to Bertie’s bedroom.
“You’re driving?” I asked, not sure why it surprised me.
“I am,” he answered. He was looking past me instead of at me. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about what happened to you the other day. I should have walked you home. I should have—”
“I’m an adult.” I bit off the sharp-tasting words. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much. I’m not one of your fictional Southern belles who needs or wants a strong man to rescue her.”
“But I should have—”
“Detective Gibbons dropped off that envelope,” I said, cutting him off before he could blame himself for not saving me from that tumble down the stairs. Who knew what might have happened if he’d followed me home. Derek might have hurt two people instead of just one. And if Harley had gotten injured trying to protect me, then I would be the one feeling uncomfortable and guilty on top of all the hurts I’d suffered.
“The detective left the envelope,” I repeated. “He said it contains a copy of the DNA report that Skinny had ordered. I thought you might want to have it.”
The tips of Harley’s ears turned bright red as he gazed at the envelope lying on the table. With a quick motion, he snatched it up and, after folding it over several times, stuffed it into his pocket.
“What are you going to do with it?” I asked.
“Destroy it, of course.”
“What about Gavin?” Even though I knew I had no right to say anything, Skinny had been my friend, and I felt as if I had to speak up for him, since he couldn’t speak up for himself. “Doesn’t he deserve to know?”
Harley seemed startled by the question. He leaned back on his heels and appeared to think about it before saying, “I suppose I should tell him, but not today. One day when he’s older and ready to hear about it, I’ll tell him the truth about his father. And don’t worry, I won’t make him sound like a monster. Right now, with the uncertainty of the divorce and the animosity between his mother and me, Gavin is already questioning his place in my life and in Jody’s life. Could you imagine what it would do to him to be told that a man who was no longer living was his father? I’m already fighting nearly every day to make sure he feels loved and safe.”
I nodded. “You’re a good man, Harley Dalton.”
He bit his lower lip and shifted from foot to foot as if his shoes were a few sizes too small.
Had I forced him into promising to do something he felt he shouldn’t? “If you change your mind and throw the results away, I won’t say anything.”
“No, you’re right, Penn. Telling Gavin is the right thing to do. I’ll give him the report as soon as he’s ready to hear it. I promise. Sometimes, despite the trouble it causes in our lives, we all are called to action not because it’s safe or easy, or because it makes us look good, but because doing so is the right thing to do.”
The right thing.
My heart suddenly pounded wildly in my throat.
The right thing.
Yes, I was going to go through with it. The crazy idea that had popped into my head early this morning no longer seemed that crazy anymore. In fact, it felt like the right thing to do.
I was going to catch a killer.
Today.
Surprisingly, the thought of baiting a killer wasn’t what had my body suddenly shaking. No, it was the thought that I needed help. Asking for help meant I needed to put my trust in someone. And that, quite frankly, terrified me.
I drew a deep breath. And then another one.
“This isn’t easy . . .” I said. But what needed to be done needed to be done.
“The funeral?” Harley asked. “No, it’s not going to be easy. Mabel is going to be fiercely missed by everyone who knew her.” He patted his jacket pocket. “I have a box worth of tissues squirreled away in every available pocket.”
“No, not that. Though I am dreading the service. It’s going to be hard to say good-bye to her and even harder to face her family after everything that has happened. I’m afraid they’re going to blame me.”
He started to say something. I cut him off. If I didn’t speak now, I would lose my nerve. And unless I wanted to put myself in grave danger, I needed him. “What I’m finding hard to do right now is to ask for help. And I need help. I need your help.”
“My help?” He wiggled his finger in his ears. “Did I hear that right?”
I hoped I looked sincere as I nodded. “You heard right. I need your help.”
“Doing what?” he asked. “Wait, don’t tell me. You want me to drive myself back to the police station to save you the hassle of calling your detective friend to have me picked up and arrested again.”
I could tell by the exasperated tone of his voice that I had some work to do to win his trust. Fine. I could do that.
“I know who killed Mabel and Skinny.” I held up my hands and quickly added, “I know it isn’t you. At least I hope it isn’t. But I don’t have any proof that I can take to the police.”
Asking for Truffle: A Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery Page 24
