Chocolate With A Side Of Murder

by Meredith Potts

  He looked away. “I understand.”

  A subject change was in order. “It looks like you really turned a corner.”

  He nodded. “I’d like to think so. I have been sober two hundred and nine-five days now.”

  “Good for you.” I bit the corner of my lip. “How did you do it?”

  At first, he wasn’t very forthcoming. I could see embarrassment take hold of him. In the absence of an explanation, my mind tried to fill in the blanks. The problem with an overactive imagination like mine was that instead of gravitating to a simple explanation, I ended up conjuring up wild theories to explain how he had managed to get sober.

  Ultimately, when he finally mustered the nerve to explain himself, none of my theories ended up being as juicy as the truth.

  “It’s going to sound crazy, but I have been going to hypnotherapy,” Wally said.

  It took all the restraint I had to keep my jaw from hitting the floor. I had heard more references to hypnotherapy in the last week than throughout the rest of my life combined. The first time hypnotherapy had come up, I had dismissed it as a random occurrence. The second mention had hit me like déjà vu. After hearing about it a third time, it was hard to deny that a strange pattern was emerging.

  While it would be easy to dismiss the transformative claims that I had heard as nothing more than people behaving like a bunch of kooks, it would be impossible for me to deny that the Wally that stood in front of me looked far different than I had ever seen him before. So whether I was willing to believe that hypnosis was solely responsible for the change, there was no debate that he had made great strides in improving himself.

  “Hypnotherapy, huh?” I replied.

  His eyebrows arched. “That’s exactly how I reacted the first time hypnosis was suggested to me. Yet it has worked miracles. I don’t even get tempted to drink anymore.”

  Knowing his checkered past with alcohol, it was hard not to be stunned by that statement. “Really?”

  He nodded.

  It was safe to say that my curiosity had been stoked, not just about the topic of hypnotherapy, but also which specific therapist had been able to work such wonders on him. When I had heard hypnosis mentioned in the past, one name kept being referenced.

  “Have you been going to Gregory Morton?” I asked.

  His eyes widened. “Yeah. How did you know? Are you going to him, too?”

  I shook my head. “No. I have just heard a lot about him.”

  “If what you have heard is positive, it’s true. The man can make the impossible happen,” Wally said.

  “How?”

  Wally was cagey. “It’s one of those things that you have to try for yourself.”

  “Come on. Just tell me.”

  Wally remained shy. “Words don’t do justice to the power of hypnosis. Go and see him. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “You’re really not going to give me more than that?”

  “I told you. Go for a session. It just might change your life.”

  My interest in hearing a sales pitch for the hypnotist’s services dissipated. I decided to put that portion of the conversation to bed. “I’ll think about it.”

  Wally was happy to move on to another topic as well. He gazed at me. “So how are things going for you?”

  Even though he had asked me the question, he wasn’t prepared to hear the truth. Nor was I in the mood to go over the blow by blow of everything that had occurred in my life. If a vague answer had been good enough for him, it would be good enough for me as well.

  “It has been an interesting week,” I replied.

  Wally smiled widely at me. “Well, you look great as always.”

  Uh-oh.

  Where was he going with that? I didn’t like the flirtatious look in his eyes. Was he crazy? Even if I wasn’t in love with David—which I was—did Wally really think I would ever be interested in getting back together with him?

  Apparently so.

  I needed to draw a line in the sand. “Wally, I don’t want you going and getting any ideas. I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but I’m dating David Carlson, and we are very happy together.”

  “Oh, I’m not here to try to get back together with you.”

  My forehead wrinkled. “You’re not?”

  He made his opinion on the topic very clear. “No.”

  Phew.

  I wasn’t in the mood to have to wriggle out of some awkward conversation. At the same time, I couldn’t help but be filled with a sense of confusion.

  “Why are you here, then?” I asked.

  Wally had been very loose throughout the entire conversation. That changed the moment he heard my question. Suddenly, his face turned as stiff as stone. In addition, words became difficult to come by.

  I opened my mouth to urge him to respond, but before I could get my thought out, he spoke up.

  “I want to give you the apology that you deserve,” he said.

  So much for being able to bury the past. When he had brought up this topic earlier and I had quickly changed the subject, I thought that would be the end of it. Instead, it looked like I would have to talk about his demons, no matter how much I wanted to avoid them.

  There was such an adamant look in his eyes that I didn’t even bother putting up a fight.

  “I’m all ears,” I replied.

  With the ball back in his court, he took a deep breath before coming out with his thoughts. “I was an awful boyfriend. When I look back, I can’t believe how poorly I treated you.” He grimaced. “You deserved so much better than me. I’m just really sorry for the way I behaved.”

  He clearly felt better after getting that off of his chest.

  I couldn’t say that I felt the same way. While it was a nicely worded apology, the only one feeling catharsis was him. I just felt bitter and wasn’t in the mood to keep my feelings bottled up.

  “I’m sorry about how you behaved, too,” I replied.

  His eyes were as wide as saucers. “I know it doesn’t change anything, but I just want you to know that I didn’t mean for things to happen that way.”

  If he thought I was going to let him off the hook after the way he had treated me, he had another thing coming. I was the one who wanted to leave my radioactive feelings buried. He was the one to have dug them up. If he was going to force me to talk about one of the low points in my life, then he’d have to listen to my honest opinion.

  “You’re right. It doesn’t change anything,” I said.

  Discouragement was all over his face. This was playing out a lot differently than he had planned. The crazy thing was that I considered myself to be a forgiving person, but this conversation was really testing my limits. After all, Wally had put me through so much. So while he sought forgiveness, there was something I wanted more than anything—answers. Would he give them to me?

  “Clearly you didn’t mean to become a drunk,” I said. “No one sets out to turn into a degenerate. The thing that eats at me, and has been for a long time, is how you could have let things get so out of hand.”

  Wally looked down at the ground. “I wish I had a good answer for that.”

  That wasn’t going to cut it. If he wanted my forgiveness, he would have to do better than that. I didn’t care how far he had to dig. The truth was inside him somewhere.

  “Do you have any answer?” I asked.

  He stared me down with shame in his eyes. “If life has taught me anything in the last few years, it is that things rarely go according to plan.”

  The last part of his statement really stuck with me. The term “according to plan” especially struck a chord inside my head. Wally had been talking about himself, but his point resonated deeply when I applied it to my life as well.

  The more I went over his words in my head, the more fixated I became on them. After all, I had to look no further than this murder case to see how true Wally’s words were.

  If all had gone according to plan, Andrew
Stewart would still be alive. And if the universe intended for Andrew to die so early, life could have at least mercifully let David have found his killer. Yet, between David’s casework and my additional sleuthing, this case refused to go as planned.

  There was another reason I couldn’t get my ex-boyfriend’s words out of my mind. Something deeper was at play, and I wanted to get to the bottom of it.

  While the gears turned inside my head, Wally became worried about how quiet I had gotten. He tried to pull my head out of the clouds.

  “Sabrina, are you okay?” he asked.

  Finally, the answer I had been looking for came to me. For the first time since Andrew’s murder, things actually made sense. I had found the missing piece of the puzzle that had stumped me.

  None of that would help Wally. He was still caught up wondering if I was going to accept his apology. My mind had moved way beyond that. All that was on my brain right then was the murder investigation. And even though he didn’t realize it, Wally had provided me with a lead that would break this case wide open.

  Excitement came to my face. “That’s it.”

  Wally’s face contorted in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  I hated to just cut out on Wally, but I was desperate to follow up on my new lead.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  By then, my ex-boyfriend was reeling. “Go? But I just gave you a deep, heartfelt apology.”

  With far more important things on my mind now, I didn’t have the time or the energy to hold onto the grudges from the past. “Right. Look, you really hurt me, and I never thought I would get over it, but I have. I forgive you.”

  “You do?”

  I nodded while putting one foot out the door.

  Wally continued to be baffled by my behavior. “That’s great, but it still doesn’t explain why you are in such a hurry to leave.”

  Not wanting to leave him completely in the dark, I gave him a brief explanation as I darted out. “I know who killed Andrew Stewart.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  What started out as a hunch became so much more as I followed my instincts and was rewarded with some fortuitous results. All the while, David joined me as we took our investigation down a bold new road.

  Once my boyfriend and I felt like we had accrued enough material to work with, David and I took a drive over to Stewart’s Chocolates where we confronted Patrick Doherty. Not surprisingly, Patrick was anything but happy to see us.

  “What’s the big idea?” Patrick asked.

  “Drop the act, Patrick. We know you killed Andrew Stewart,” I replied.

  He scoffed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, what are you even doing here? You’re just a barista.”

  David stared him down. “I would be careful who you underestimate.”

  David nodded at me.

  I pulled an evidence bag out of my purse. Inside the bag was the pink earring that was found at the scene of the crime. I stared Patrick down.

  “Recognize this?” I asked.

  Patrick gave the earring a brief glance before shaking his head. “No.”

  “Why don’t you look a little closer?” I asked.

  Patrick shrugged. “What does that earring have to do with me?”

  “Everything. To start, it’s not just an earring. It was found at the scene of the crime,” I said.

  Patrick’s voice took on a nervous tone as he replied, “Like I said, I don’t recognize it.”

  I folded my arms. “I find that hard to believe, especially after talking to Mort Miller from Main Street Jewelers.”

  Patrick stared at me with confusion on his face. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Patrick, I don’t know who you think you’re fooling, but it’s not us. It took us a couple jewelry stores, but we finally found one that sold those exact earrings,” I said.

  “I had Mort Miller pull the security camera footage from his store on the day of the murder. He has video of you buying a pair of these exact earrings a few hours before the murder occurred,” David added.

  Patrick jumped on the defensive. “That doesn’t prove that I killed Andrew. Someone else could have bought those earrings at a previous date—”

  “We thought about that possibility,” I said. “That’s why we had Mort pull up all the receipts in the last few years that included a pair of those earrings. When we went through those receipts, we discovered that none of those purchases were made by any of the other suspects.”

  He opened his mouth to try to defend himself.

  I wasn’t about to let him get a word in before I finished my point. “Even more, we showed Mort photos of all the other suspects in this case. He didn’t recognize any of them other than you.”

  Patrick went into full denial mode. “Just because I bought a pair of those earrings doesn’t mean I killed Andrew.”

  I scoffed. “Come on, Patrick. You bought the earrings, you had a killer motive, and you have no one to verify your whereabouts during the time of the murder. Face it, Patrick, it’s over. We know you did this—”

  Patrick shook his head vehemently. “No. I didn’t—”

  “Life sometimes works out much differently than you planned, doesn’t it?” I said.

  Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You bought those earrings as a present for Leah, didn’t you?” I asked. “Only you didn’t get the chance to give them to her. Your fight with Andrew in the alley made sure of that. You probably went back there trying to change his mind about selling the place to Jake. But things didn’t go as planned. The conversation got heated. A scuffle ensued. In the heart of the skirmish, one of the earrings fell out of your pocket, but you didn’t even notice. You were too busy killing Andrew to pick up on a small detail like that. Then, once you had murdered Andrew, you were so worried that someone would spot you in the alley that you ran away as fast as possible and didn’t look back. Isn’t that right?”

  Patrick became very quiet. He averted his eyes and looked at the ground.

  When a few seconds went by without a reply, I pushed him for a response. “It’s over, Patrick. We know you’re guilty. You’re just wasting your time trying to convince us otherwise. Just come clean and admit it—you killed Andrew Stewart,” I said.

  In a fit of anger, Patrick lashed out. “If Andrew wasn’t so stubborn, he’d still be alive right now. But no, he just refused to sell his shop—no matter the price. I wasn’t going to let a deal like this fall through, especially since Andrew was only refusing to sell the place out of spite.”

  “Spite?” David asked.

  Patrick nodded. “He knew his marriage was over. That Leah loved me more than him. And that Leah and I wanted to sell the place.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “Andrew was determined to get back at us. What better way to do that than to stand in the way of the deal? I approached him in the alley that night trying to convince him to change his mind. He refused. When I saw the determination in his eyes, I knew the only way we could sell the place was over Andrew’s dead body. He shoved me and started to walk away. That was when I became desperate. Looking around, I spotted the frying pan on top of the dumpster beside me and grabbed it. In a fit of rage, I hit him in the back of the head with the pan then watched as his body fell to the ground. Worried that I would be spotted, I threw the pan back in the dumpster and dashed away.”

  I shook my head, disgusted by his actions. “You ran, all right, but you couldn’t hide from the truth. Have fun spending the rest of your life behind bars, you scumbag.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  As David hauled Patrick off to jail, a huge wave of relief washed over me. Thankfully, this case could now mercifully be closed. And while catching the guilty party wouldn’t bring Andrew back to life, at least justice would be served. Granted, it was only a small victory, but when it came to homicide investigations, this was the best resolution I could have hoped for.

  After D
avid was done booking Patrick for murder, my boyfriend took me out to dinner. But on the drive over to the restaurant, I began to wonder if another tense conversation loomed. David seemed very quiet as he sat in the driver’s seat of his car. I was unclear why. If anything, he should have been thrilled. The killer was behind bars. What more did he want? Yet relief was nowhere to be found on his face.

  I would have asked him why, but in my mind, it didn’t take a detective to figure out the source of his internal strife. My hunch was that he was torn over the fact that I had been the one to have cracked this case. That made it difficult for him to admonish me for investigating against his wishes.

  I had no doubt in my mind that if things had turned out differently and the risks I had taken had not produced a reward, that I would be getting an earful right now. That being said, the guilty party was in jail because of me. So even though I had broken standard protocol, it was hard to argue with the end result.

  Or so I thought. Was that why he was taking so long to open his mouth? Because he was trying to mount an argument against me?

  The uncertainty put me in an awkward place. Initially, I wanted to wait for David to say the first word. When the silence became a little too protracted for my taste, I stepped in and broke the ice.

  “You don’t see that every day, huh?” I deadpanned.

  “You sure don’t.”

  “Let’s hope that doesn’t become a regular feature in our lives,” I said.

  If there was one constant in life, it was stress. It couldn’t be outrun. Nor could it be avoided. It was just part of daily existence.

  Everyone dealt with stress in their own way. I had found sarcasm to be a powerful tool to combat my stress levels. Letting loose a wry one-liner every once in a while had a way of softening life’s harder edges.

  David was different. While I was deft at making light of situations, he wore his emotions on his sleeve. At that moment, his serious demeanor kept levity from entering the conversation.

  “Sabrina, there’s something I need to say,” he replied.