In Cold Chocolate

by Dorothy St. James

  “If that’s true, then you have no reason to get upset with me for asking questions around town,” I said.

  He growled much like Stella had growled at Althea last night. “You don’t know what trouble you’ll stir up when you start asking questions about people’s personal lives. The victim was having multiple affairs. Often with married women. And doing who knows what else.”

  “I simply want to talk with the lady who was with Cassidy the night he died. She must have seen something. Certainly she gave you important information to help you with your investigation.”

  “I know you mentioned another witness, a woman, that night. But she wasn’t at the crime scene when we arrived. Chief Byrd says the same thing. He didn’t see her either.”

  Muumuu Woman had run off? “Who was she?” I wondered aloud.

  “At this time, Penn, I don’t know.”

  “Well, I know who she could be.” My heart started to beat a little faster. “She could be our killer. She could be the one who owned that second gun, the gun that your ballistic tests show killed Cassidy. Jody could be telling the truth, you know. She could have picked up the second gun without thinking it’d just been used to murder a man.”

  Now, even more than before, I knew I needed to find her. I needed to find the woman in the flowered muumuu.

  Chapter Ten

  “Did we sell all of the salted sea turtles this morning?” I asked Bertie after the morning crowd had left and before the mid-afternoon crowd descended for their milkshakes.

  When we’d opened, the display tray had held over fifty of the little treats. And now it was empty. We rarely sold out of any of our stock in one day, much less in one morning. But this was the first day we were selling them. And I’d posted a sign on the door explaining how the shop was donating fifty percent of the profits from the sale of the salted sea turtles to the Camellia Beach Turtle Watch Program. So it was possible that they could have sold out.

  Bertie came over to the display case and peered inside. “I don’t remember selling but a few of them.”

  “I only remember selling a few as well,” I said.

  I checked the cash register and the credit card receipts. There wasn’t enough cash in the drawer or credited by any of the credit card companies to suggest that we’d sold even half of the chocolate turtles.

  “You don’t think someone stole them?” I tried to remember who had been in the shop earlier. It’d been the regular crowd. Hadn’t it been? I wasn’t sure.

  Bertie looked at the display case again. “I can’t imagine how anyone would have gotten away with taking the entire tray of turtles without someone noticing.”

  We looked for them in the storage coolers in the back of the store just in case one of us had inadvertently carried the tray of turtles to the back. They weren’t there.

  “Johnny Pane,” I called to the painter who had become such a fixture in the shop lately I’d nearly forgotten about him. He was at his usual position behind the curtain of clear plastic draping and on top of a ladder, his brush moving with great care over the ceiling.

  “Ma’am?” he called back down without altering his brush stroke. “What do you need?”

  “Did you see anything odd happening over at the counter earlier today?” I asked.

  “Odd, like how?”

  “Like someone stealing chocolates out of the case?” Bertie called up to him.

  He didn’t answer right away. When he did speak, he spoke as if carefully drawing out each word, “Well … nothing … slithered across the ceiling. That’s all I’ve been looking at. Can’t say I noticed much else. Did something go missing?”

  “A whole tray of somethings,” Bertie said.

  “I suppose we need to call Chief Byrd and report this.” I was tempted to bite my tongue for saying it. The last thing I wanted to do was involve someone who believed I was cause of all trouble on the island. But he was the law around here, and he’d be angrier than a badger if we didn’t call him.

  Bertie scratched her head and huffed. “Yes, I suppose we’ll need to tell him.”

  Neither of us moved. We simply stood there staring at each other while Johnny Pane continued his work on the ceiling.

  “Why would someone steal just the salted sea turtles?” I looked at the display case again. None of the other trays were empty. I was still hoping to find an explanation for the missing chocolates because if we solved it, we wouldn’t have to call the police chief. “Do you think it’s a prank? It’s got to be a prank.”

  “Honey, I don’t know what to think.” Bertie sat down on the stool behind the counter and rubbed her leg. “But I do know that you raise old Hank’s blood pressure every time he sees you. Why don’t you go run an errand while I put in the call to dispatch?”

  “Are you sure?” I hated to leave her with the hassle of dealing with Chief Byrd.

  “I’m sure. Go on with you now. I know you’ve been itching all morning to go looking for that woman who’d run away from the crime scene anyhow. And you’re running out of time if you’re going to have any hope of keeping that promise you made to Gavin.”

  I stripped off my apron so quickly, a seam ripped. I only felt a slight twinge of guilt at letting Bertie handle the police chief alone. After all, she was right. I had a murder to solve.

  * * *

  The first step in solving Cassidy’s murder was simple. I needed to find Muumuu Woman. I needed to talk with her. I needed to find out why she’d left the crime scene. If she wasn’t Cassidy’s killer, she must have seen the gunman.

  After leaving Bertie to deal with the stolen chocolate sea turtles, I hurried upstairs, clipped a leash to Stella’s collar, and headed over to the Pink Pelican Inn. Harriett had been standing right next to the Muumuu Woman while she’d screamed loud enough for people in Portugal to hear. And Harriett knew pretty much everyone on the island. Certainly she’d recognized my key eyewitness. While Harriett didn’t live at the Pink Pelican Inn, she did tend to spend most of her days with her friends who did live there.

  The Pink Pelican Inn was a bright pink concrete-block one-story beachfront motor lodge from the 1950s. It served as a shabby punctuation at the end of Main Street. When I first saw the place, I pegged it as one of the worst eyesores I had ever seen. Now that I’ve lived in Camellia Beach for several months and learned to love the quirky lost-in-time feel of the island—I still thought it was an eyesore. But it’s an eyesore with a purpose. Because it wasn’t a high-end hotel, the cost of the rooms was ridiculously low. Many of the older residents used the motel as a de facto retirement home.

  The thought that the fascinating islanders were able to live out their golden years on the beach, in a tight-knit, walkable community, and alongside young cash-strapped surfers made the eyesore one of my favorite places.

  I walked under an eight-foot tall wooden cutout of a faded pink pelican that hung over the lobby’s front entrance. The bird had an equally faded green fish tail sticking out of its oversized beak. And the sign tilted precariously to one side as if it’d had too much to drink.

  Inside the lobby, several of the long-term residents were heatedly dissecting the latest town gossip from their perches on wicker rocking chairs. A lively bunko game was taking place at one of the tables.

  I scanned the room, but didn’t see either Harriett or Lidia.

  Stella yelped happily and wagged her tail as I made my way over to Deloris, the hotel’s desk clerk.

  “Good morning!” I shouted. Deloris was notoriously hard of hearing.

  Deloris’ entire face lit up when she spotted Stella. “My little szczeniak!” she exclaimed in a booming voice that rivaled Lidia’s. “Are you as feisty as ever?”

  Stella barked and jumped up and down. She knew what was coming and looked forward to our visits with Deloris. The desk clerk reached over the counter and handed my little pup a chew stick that was nearly twice the size of her tiny head. With a growl, Stella ripped the treat out of Deloris’ hands.

  Deloris laugh
ed. “Yep, my little puppy, you’re as feisty as the first time I met you.”

  “She’s calming down a little,” I said even as Stella grred while she tore at the chew stick with her nubby little teeth. “Is Harriett or Lidia around this morning?”

  “Who?” Deloris shouted.

  “Lidia’s out at the pool,” a man in one of the rocking chairs answered for her.

  “What?” a woman sitting next to him shouted.

  “That’s the new chocolate shop owner,” another woman answered.

  “I know that,” the first woman said. “Everyone knows Penn. She brings us those lovely chocolates every Friday.”

  “Is it Friday already?” the second woman said.

  “That was yesterday.”

  “What?” she shouted.

  “Yesterday!” the other woman shouted back.

  “That’s when that Cassidy fellow got himself killed,” the second woman said with a huff. “Heard she’s investigating.”

  “What’s there to investigate? Jody shot ‘im,” the man said.

  The first woman smacked her lips. “That Cassidy liked to wrap himself in trouble. Watched everyone in town with those hawk eyes of his.” She started rocking her chair harder. “Wouldn’t be surprised if it were one of his victims that killed him.”

  “Ain’t you listening to me?” the man shouted to the first woman. “Jody shot ‘im.”

  She waved her hand as if trying to push him away and then grumbled something about not believing anything one hears on the news anymore. “Wouldn’t be surprised to hear Ethel Crump pulled the trigger after what he’d done to her.”

  The second woman nodded in agreement. “She’d had good cause to kill him after the grief he’d caused her. That man…” She smacked her lips and started rocking with agitated vigor.

  Ethel Crump? The woman who was older than the island’s trees? Those women believed her capable of murder? That was interesting.

  I moved to go question the women in the rocking chairs about Ethel when Deloris grabbed my arm. “That detective from the county came looking to talk with Lidia too,” she said. “He’s been by the pool with her for close to an hour.”

  “Really?” I said surprised by that.

  While I wanted to know more about Ethel’s troubles with Cassidy and I still wanted to talk with Harriett, I also needed to hear what Lidia was saying to Detective Gibbons and (more importantly) what Detective Gibbons was saying to Lidia. If he was certain he had the killer in custody, what brought him out here?

  Nearly jogging, I made my way out onto the ocean-side patio and pool area. Stella followed, dragging the oversized chew stick along with her. The pool, though not much larger than the size of an oriental rug, was clean and crystal clear. The rusty metal lawn chairs that surrounded the small pool offered incredible sweeping views of the Atlantic Ocean.

  No one was in the water. The few tenants who’d braved the stifling heat had retreated to a cluster of lawn chairs under a canvas awning. The narrow strip of shade felt almost bearable when combined with the stiff sea breezes coming off the ocean.

  Lidia had her back to the ocean. She was nodding as she spoke. Detective Gibbons perched on the edge of one of the lawn chairs as if worried the chair’s ancient plastic straps wouldn’t hold his weight. Or perhaps he was worried the chair’s rusty metal rails would stain his crisply pressed suit pants. His back was to the motel wall. He held a small notebook in his beefy hands. His head tilted to one side as he listened intently to Lidia.

  Much like Chief Byrd, Gibbons carried quite a bit of extra weight around his middle. However, unlike Byrd, Gibbons wore his weight like a pro. His light gray suit had been carefully tailored to fit his shape. Since it was already nearly ninety degrees out with close to one hundred percent humidity, he’d shed his suit’s coat. It was carefully folded and hanging over the back of one of the empty chairs. His neatly pressed white shirt gleamed.

  He continued to listen to Lidia and jot notes into his casebook as I walked up. But I could tell by the way his expression changed—a slight lift to one corner of his mouth—that he’d seen me.

  “My bad Penny,” he said without looking in my direction. “Why am I not surprised?”

  “The name’s not Penny,” I said. “And you shouldn’t be surprised because I called and warned you what I planned to do,” I answered and then quickly added, “Wicked hot out, isn’t it, Detective?”

  While the Camellia Beach custom to talk about the weather before launching into any important business drove me crazy, sometimes (like now) I used it to my advantage. “You should follow the example of the police in Bermuda and wear shorts in the summer months.”

  His sharp gaze flashed in my direction. A ghost of a smile appeared. “No one wants to see my knees.”

  “Ooh! I think you’d look smart in Bermuda shorts,” Lidia said in that booming voice of hers. “And you wouldn’t have to worry about getting overheated.”

  He shook his head as he stood. “If you think of anything else, Ms. Vanderhorst, give me a call.”

  Startled by his movement, Stella dropped what was left of her chew stick and started barking. The detective had seen her antics enough times to ignore her bad behavior. He retrieved his jacket from the back of the chair and then started walking toward me. I quickly scooped up my little pup and held her tight to my chest to keep her from nipping at the hem of his pants.

  Gibbons paused just long enough to say, “Don’t forget what happened the last two times you stuck your nose where it didn’t belong,” before heading toward the motel’s lobby.

  “That sounded like a threat,” Lidia said once Gibbons was gone.

  “It wasn’t a threat,” I assured her. While the Charleston County detective didn’t approve of my propensity to investigate happenings on the island, his concern for my safety made my heart feel all warm and squishy—a rare experience for me. My heart tended to stay prickly most of the time. “He actually worries about me. He worries about everyone on the island.”

  “You shouldn’t hold your dog like that.” Since Lidia’s back was to the pool, she had to turn in her chair to face me. She was dressed in jeans shorts and an old T-shirt with a smiling cartoon dog on the front. Her jet-black hair had a purple tinge, which I hadn’t noticed before. Her hair had been cut into an easy-to-manage pageboy style.

  “I suspect I’m here to talk about the same thing Gibbons wanted to talk to you about.” I walked over and took the chair Gibbon’s had vacated so Lidia and I could talk without her having to twist into an awkward position.

  “Your little dog,” Lidia said with a nod in Stella’s direction, “she’s nervous. You shouldn’t hold her like that. It’s only making her feel even more powerless.”

  “I pick her up when I’m worried she might bite someone,” I explained as I put Stella back on the ground.

  “She bites?” Lidia frowned at my little pup. Stella looked back at Lidia and started barking so hard her front paws came off the ground with each high-pitched yip.

  “Unfortunately, she does.” I handed what was left of Stella’s chew stick back to my greedy pup. “She’s getting better. It’s been over a month since she’s bitten me.”

  Lidia’s frown deepened. “She bites you? You’re her owner, right?”

  “Someone gave me her as a gift last winter.” Stella gnawed at the chew stick while barking at the stern look Lidia was giving her.

  Lidia shook her head. “Gift or not, you need to get your dog under control.”

  My cheeks burned. I might complain about Stella, but it rankled whenever others disparaged her behavior. I didn’t know anything about her history. I’d received the full-grown papillon as a present from my thoughtless boyfriend this past winter because he’d thought she’d look good in a Gucci purse. The first thing she did when she met me was bite my nose.

  While I’d gotten rid of the boyfriend (he’d considered dogs accessories and didn’t know I’ve never owned a Gucci purse), I kept Stella despite (or perhaps b
ecause of) her flaws.

  “I’ve never had a dog before. We’re still working out how to get along,” I explained while Stella continued to bark. Since she’d finished off her chew stick, I tossed her a piece of bacon.

  Lidia looked me hard in the eyes. “What your dog needs is training.”

  “No kidding.” I tossed the still barking Stella yet another piece of bacon. “Hush, now.”

  Thankfully, this last treat seemed to satisfy her. And since Lidia still kept her eyes on me and not on my little hellion, my little dog suddenly decided the older woman was no longer a threat. After finishing her treat, she started sniffing around the chairs in search of fallen scraps of food.

  I glanced around to make sure Stella wasn’t going to bother the other people relaxing under the awning. An older man had his chin to his chest as he snored away. A white-haired woman had her nose buried in a romance novel. She was so engrossed in what she was reading I didn’t think she noticed either me or Stella. And a young surfer dressed in board shorts was tapping away on his smart phone, equally oblivious to everything going on around him.

  “Do you have some time to talk about what happened the other night?” I asked Lidia.

  “That’s what the detective wanted to talk about. I suppose I don’t mind rehashing things with you too. Maybe the more we talk about it the less I’ll feel horrified by the thought of a man being murdered practically in front of us.” She shook her head unhappily. “It was just … awful.”

  “It was.” I shivered at the memory. “It must have even been worse for that other woman who must have seen it all happen. I can still hear her screams. Do you know who she is?”

  “Gibbons wanted to know the same thing,” Lidia said. I was glad to hear the detective had taken my phone call seriously. Gibbons was one of the good guys. He wouldn’t rush an investigation just because all of the evidence made it appear as if Jody was the killer.

  “Of course I saw the woman,” Lidia said. “We all did. But I didn’t recognize her. Perhaps Harriett knows her.”