Death of a Chocolate Cheater: A Food Festival Mystery

by Penny Pike

  “Wendy Sue Spellman,” the detective began, “you’re under arrest for the murder of Polly Montgomery. You have the right to remain . . .”

  I didn’t hear the rest of the standard reading of her Miranda rights. The words were blocked out by my aunt’s shrill voice as she accused the police of everything from harassment to police brutality to incompetence. Dillon held on to her and tried to calm her down.

  “Abby?” Wendy pleaded. Her eyes were filled with fear as she stepped down from her truck. The first officer turned her around and bound her bony wrists with plasticuffs.

  “Is that really necessary?” Jake said, his lawyer instincts apparently kicking in. “Look at her. She’s hardly dangerous.”

  “Sorry,” Detective Shelton said to Jake. Then he glanced at Aunt Abby. “Just going by the book.”

  It was hard to imagine this petite older woman harming anyone, let alone bonking them over the head and pushing them into a vat of chocolate. She didn’t look like she had the strength, let alone the inclination.

  “Can I at least come with her?” Aunt Abby pleaded.

  “No, ma’am,” the first officer said. “She’ll be booked at 850 Bryant. You can see her there after she’s been processed.”

  “But this is ridiculous!” Aunt Abby argued, looking at the detective. “She didn’t kill Polly. She had no reason! If anyone is a murderer, you might want to look at the two other judges Polly was blackmailing!”

  “Mom!” Dillon tried to hush up his mother. It didn’t matter. The cops weren’t listening anyway.

  “Do you have an attorney?” Jake asked Wendy.

  She shook her head, her face a reflection of confusion and terror.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll find you someone.”

  She nodded, her eyes glistening. The second cop pulled out police tape and strung it from one end of Wendy’s truck to the other, while the first officer began to lead Wendy away. The detective stood a few feet away, overseeing his officers.

  Wendy turned to my aunt. “Abby, please help me. . . .”

  The officer guided her forward between the two trucks and into the back of one of the waiting patrol cars. The detective climbed into the passenger seat of the car, and moments later, Wendy Spellman was on her way to the San Francisco Police Department.

  “This is crazy!” Aunt Abby bellowed, then stood staring after the patrol car, her mouth agape. “Insane! Ludicrous! Absolutely stupid! How could he do this?” she sputtered.

  Dillon wrapped his arm around her and led her toward the steps of the bus, then eased her down to a sitting position on the top step. She sat there shaking her head and muttering.

  I looked at Jake. “Do you really have a friend who can help Wendy?”

  He nodded and pulled out his cell phone, but before he could punch in a number, Reina Patel came storming out of nowhere, her face red, her expression livid.

  “What the hell is going on here? I saw police cars!”

  Frankie and Monet, hovering nearby, pointed to Wendy Spellman’s Chocolate Candyland truck. Apparently their argument had been interrupted by the arrival of the police.

  Reina turned around and gasped at the sight of the crime-scene tape. “What’s going on? Where’s Wendy? Why is there police tape on her truck?”

  When no one answered, she looked at me. “Tell me! What’s happened? Why’s everybody standing around?”

  I swallowed. “Uh . . . Wendy was just . . .”

  “Arrested,” Jake said, thankfully finishing my sentence.

  Reina frowned. “What for?”

  “Murder!” Harrison Tofflemire’s voice boomed from a few feet away. He stood among the other food truckers, flanked by his two partially clad assistants. “The cops said she murdered Polly Montgomery!” The girls covered their pouty mouths in some sort of fake sympathy.

  Reina shook her head. “No, no, no! This can’t be happening. Arrested for murder? Now? It could ruin everything! Oh my God, how am I going to spin this? Think, Reina. Think!” She tapped the side of her head as if to wake up her brain and began pacing back and forth.

  Hmm, I thought. Once again, it looked as if Reina was more concerned with the status of the Chocolate Festival than the arrest of an alleged murderer. I was a little put off by her seemingly callous behavior, but then I wasn’t responsible for running a festival that would rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from thousands of people.

  Griffin stepped forward, frowning, as usual. “Well, at least they caught the killer, so the rest of us can relax now. I don’t see why the show can’t go on as planned. I’ve made a lot of pies for this event, and I’m not about to feed them to the pigeons because of this.”

  Reina stared at him for a moment, her eyes narrowed. Then she snapped her fingers. “You’re right, Griffin. There’s no need to panic. We’ll open as usual. No one needs to know what happened here.”

  “What about the cops?” Monet asked. “Surely some of the people waiting in line saw them drive up and then take Wendy away in handcuffs.”

  Reina spun around. “Yes, Monet, but they don’t know why Wendy was arrested. And even if they start asking questions, I’ll spread the word that she . . . I don’t know . . . didn’t have a license . . . or . . . tried to bribe a judge—”

  Aunt Abby rose from her seat on the bus step. “You’ll do no such thing! Wendy Spellman would never do either of those things. I won’t allow you to make up some lie about her!”

  “Would you prefer they find out the truth—that she was arrested for murdering one of the judges?” Reina said, crossing her arms defiantly.

  Aunt Abby looked befuddled.

  “Listen, Reina,” I said, stepping in for Aunt Abby. “You don’t have to say anything. Probably only a handful of people saw what happened, and if anyone asks, we can just claim we don’t know anything. Because we don’t. Wendy may have been arrested on suspicion of committing a crime, but that doesn’t make her guilty.”

  “Fine,” Reina said, dropping her arms to her sides. “Well, it’s too late to move her truck, but we have to do something about that hideous police tape. It’s disturbing and distracting.”

  “You can’t remove crime-scene tape,” Jake offered. “That’s illegal.”

  Reina walked over to Wendy’s truck and studied the tape for a moment. Then, with a flick of her finger, she began turning the tape over so the words “Crime Scene—Do Not Enter” were no longer visible. The now-plain yellow tape was hardly noticeable against the colorful chocolate-dipped candies that decorated the truck. When she was done, she pulled a black marker from a pocket and wrote on the window in giant letters, TEMPORARILY CLOSED DUE TO EMERGENCY.

  Reina replaced the cap, then stood back and admired her work. “There. That should do it—at least until the cops come back and search for evidence, or whatever it is they do. Anyway, back in your trucks, people. It’s go time!”

  We all stood there in a daze for a moment. Then Reina clapped her hands and yelled, “Move it!” The chocolate chefs headed back to their trucks.

  “The gall of that woman,” Aunt Abby mumbled as she trudged up the bus steps.

  I glanced around for Jake, wondering if he’d gotten ahold of an attorney for Wendy yet, but he had disappeared. I figured he was probably back in his truck too, and I hoped he hadn’t forgotten to make the call. Reluctantly, I followed Aunt Abby onto the school bus, dreading the start of the festival when I wasn’t in much of a festive mood.

  “Wendy did not murder that woman!” Aunt Abby huffed as she handed Dillon a napkin. He had helped himself to a whoopie pie and managed to leave telltale evidence on his upper lip and fingertips. I shook my head at him, but he ignored me.

  Aunt Abby turned to me, her hand on her hip. “Darcy, I want you to help my friend Wendy.”

  “Of course, Aunt Abby, although I’m not sure what I can do. Jake will find a q
ualified attorney to represent her.”

  “Yes, I know he will,” she said, “but you have a knack for this sort of thing.”

  “What sort of thing?”

  “For solving murders,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I almost laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She eyed me, one eyebrow raised to its apex.

  “Listen, I only helped out last time because you were a suspect. I’m no cop. I’m not even an investigative reporter. I’m a—that is, I used to be—a restaurant critic, and now I’m your assistant in your busterant. I don’t know the first thing about finding out who murdered Polly Montgomery. That’s Detective Shelton’s job, and he’s good at what he does.”

  “I guess you’ve forgotten. Wes, er, Detective Shelton, is dead to me, now more than ever. If it hadn’t been for you that last time, I might be serving up beans to dangerous inmates right now.”

  “But, Aunt Abby—”

  “Darcy, I need you.” She turned to Dillon. “You too, son. I’m sure you can dig up more on your computer. Let’s get through the morning; then, when it dies down, I want the two of you to find out what you can about Polly Montgomery. We already know she’s a blackmailer. What other secrets was she hiding? And who wanted her dead?”

  I sighed and looked at Dillon. He nodded.

  “All right, Aunt Abby. We’ll do what we can,” I said. “But I think Wendy’s best bet is Jake’s lawyer friend.”

  “Do your best. That’s all I ask,” Aunt Abby said. “Darcy, you’re great at interviewing people for the newspaper. Use that when you talk to people. Dillon, you know what you need to do. Use your computer skills to find out what you can. The real killer has to be someone who was at the party last night, so start there—especially the judges. I still think it’s got to be one of them, since Polly was blackmailing them.”

  A voice came over the loudspeaker, interrupting any more thoughts of murder, motive, and suspects. I recognized Reina’s slightly accented voice.

  “Welcome, chocolate lovers, to San Francisco’s twentieth annual Chocolate Festival!”

  Oh boy, I thought. Let the Chocolate Hunger Games begin. . . .

  * * *

  If another murder had occurred during the Chocolate Festival rush that morning, I doubt anyone would have noticed. The crowds were overwhelming and kept the three of us hopping in Aunt Abby’s bus for four straight hours. Luckily, my aunt had enough whoopie pies to feed the masses—and her twist on the old favorite was a huge hit. Several people used their tickets for seconds and thirds, skipping opportunities to taste other trucks’ treats. If the chocolate lovers’ reactions to her entry into the contest were any judge, Aunt Abby would win the competition, hands down and thumbs up.

  The craving for chocolate started to die down around three o’clock. Either everyone had had their fill, had used up all their tickets, or had crashed from the sugar rush. Fine with me. I craved a break.

  “I need caffeine!” I said to Aunt Abby as she dumped the bucket of collected tickets into a large plastic bag. Attendees had paid twenty dollars for ten tickets, which they used for their chocolate choices. The chocolate vendors would be reimbursed after the festival, based on their total number of tickets. Each vendor received a dollar, while the other dollar went to the event organizers to cover expenses.

  “Want anything?” I asked her and Dillon.

  “I’ll just make some tea here,” Aunt Abby said.

  “I’ll have a double-shot mocha frap with extra caramel,” Dillon called out.

  I waited a second to see if he’d pull out some dollar bills from his pocket, but of course he didn’t. What was I thinking?

  “Be back in a few minutes,” I said as I disembarked the bus.

  I headed straight for Jake’s truck to see if he’d heard from his cop friend or his lawyer friend, but the BE BACK IN 5 sign was in the window. I glanced over at the Coffee Witch, thinking he might have stopped there for a coffee, but there was no sign of him. I wondered where he was.

  I waited in the short line to order. When I reached the window, Willow gave me a big smile. It hurt to look at the ring piercing her lower lip. I cringed a bit every time I saw it.

  “’S’up, Darce?” she asked, leaning her chin on her fist. “Your usual?”

  I nodded. “And one of your Alchemy blends—the one with chocolate and caramel—for Dillon. A double, please.”

  “Gotcha.” While she went to work on the coffee drinks, I looked around at the dwindling crowd, then glanced at Jake’s truck again to see if he’d returned.

  His door stood ajar.

  I leaned back to see if I could catch a glimpse of him inside.

  Out stepped Lyla, his supposed ex-fiancée.

  A surge of heat enveloped me. What was she doing in Jake’s truck again? What had they been doing?

  And why had he put the BE BACK IN 5 sign in the window?

  “Any dirt on the arrest of the killer?” Willow asked, sliding the two coffee drinks toward me.

  “Huh?” I tore my eyes away from Jake’s truck.

  “You know, Wendy something. The old lady the cops arrested from the candy truck. What’s-her-name.”

  “Wendy. Wendy Spellman. No news that I know of. Have you heard anything?”

  Everyone in the food truck business knew that if you wanted information, you bought a coffee from the Coffee Witch and Willow would tell you everything you wanted to know. She usually heard whatever went on around the trucks and was happy to share any news.

  “Nada,” she said. “I didn’t know the murdered lady or that Wendy lady, except for meeting them at the party last night. But the murdered lady was kind of a beeotch. I tried to talk to her and she acted as if I were invisible. The only time she paid any attention to me was when I was talking to the camera guy. He’s pretty hot. She came running over and whispered something in his ear and pulled him away like he was her boyfriend or something.”

  “Really?” Willow had my attention. Did the mature Polly have a thing for the younger J.C.? “Any idea what she said to him or why she did that?”

  Willow shook her head. “Nope. I tapped my number into his phone before he left, but then that woman who was in charge—Reena? She pretty much kept him busy the rest of the night.”

  “Reina,” I said, correcting her, pronouncing it Rayna. “Did you talk to Wendy last night too?” I asked.

  “A little. She was all bubbly and happy. Nice lady. I wonder why she killed that judge. Although, if you gotta die, what a way to go—dipped in chocolate.”

  Shaking my head, I wrote Willow’s insensitive words off to her youth and took the two coffee drinks. I decided to skip Jake’s truck—my questions could wait until Drop Dead was gone—but as I turned to head back to the school bus, I nearly bumped into him.

  “Whoa!” Jake said, steadying me as I held on to my coffees. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You okay?”

  I nodded. Luckily, the coffees were lidded and I hadn’t spilled a drop. I looked around for his ex. No sign of her.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Uh . . . did you get a chance to call a lawyer for Wendy? Or talk to your cop friend about the murder?”

  He nodded. “Is there somewhere we can go and talk for a minute?”

  Uh-oh.

  “Sure. Just let me drop Dillon’s coffee off at the school bus. Why don’t you find someplace to sit over in the shade and I’ll meet you.” I gestured toward a lawn area filled with folding chairs for weary chocolate eaters.

  I returned to the bus and handed over Dillon’s coffee drink through the service window, saying, “I’ll be right back.”

  Jake was sitting in a chair apart from the other people, next to an empty chair. I sat next to him, still holding my coffee.

  “So what did you find out?” I asked.

  He took a deep breath. “It’s not looking go
od for your aunt’s friend Wendy.”

  “Why? What do the police have on her?”

  “They found something at the bottom of the vat of chocolate when they drained it.”

  “They drained it?” It hadn’t occurred to me that the cops would do that, but it made sense. “What did they find?”

  “A metal candy mold.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “Shaped like a knife.”

  Uh-oh. I remembered that Wendy made chocolate novelties using various molds, including ones shaped like silverware. I had snagged a chocolate knife at the party.

  “Are the police sure it belongs to Wendy?”

  “It looks that way. They tried to get prints from it but couldn’t because of the chocolate. Still, if it’s hers, if she had her name on it, it places her at the scene before everyone entered the room, since no one saw her near the vat afterward.”

  “But how would one of her molds get inside the vat? Surely she didn’t take it with her and drop it in.”

  Jake shrugged. “It’s circumstantial, but Shelton apparently has more evidence.”

  “Like what?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “What about the gash on Polly’s head? Do they know what caused it?”

  “Shelton thinks it’s some kind of jagged stick. Could be anything.”

  “Did they find it?”

  Jake shook his head. “They’re searching for it.”

  If they found some kind of heavy stick with Wendy’s prints—and it proved to be the murder weapon—that would be the end of it. She’d surely be found guilty. So what was the murder weapon—and where was it?

  “So Detective Shelton actually thinks little old Wendy hit Polly over the head with some kind of heavy rod or whatever, then pushed her into the vat of chocolate? That makes no sense.” I tossed my coffee into a nearby recycle bin, no longer interested in it. “And why the knife-shaped mold?”

  “Shelton thinks maybe she meant to stab Polly with it. Apparently, the thing is pretty sharp—like a knife.”

  “But why would she stab her with something like that when she could use a real knife?” I asked. “Why a candy mold? And why bring along a big stick?”