Behind Chocolate Bars (10 page)

Erica dove right in. “I know Marino said not to discuss this case, but we're hoping you can answer just one question.”

He stood still, not giving any indication what he'd do.

She went on. “Do you have more than one Facebook account under your name?”

His face changed, looking frightened for just an instant, and then it went straight to angry. “You have to leave.”

“But . . .” Erica tried.

He put his goggles and headphones back on. “I'm sorry.”
He picked up the piece of wood and started the saw, preventing any further conversation.

I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and saw Dylan standing in the window. I waved and he gave an uncertain wave back, and then backed away from the window, disappearing from view.

“W
hat do you think about bailing on the rest of the afternoon and checking out that pawnshop, Freddy's Fast Cash, in Baltimore?” I asked, wanting to make some kind of progress. “Before we head over to the Boys and Girls Club, I mean.”

“Good idea,” Erica said. “We could leverage the travel time if we picked up my laptop and you drove, so I could finish up a few items on the way.”

Erica spent most of the trip east making notes on her various to-do lists.

I tried to figure out why Oscar blocked us. He had to know we were trying to help Dylan. Why wouldn't he tell us anything? It seemed like more than just his lawyer telling him not to.

Soon we were leaving behind the rolling hills filled with
quilts of autumn colors and heading through the suburban developments to approach the real city, something I avoided as much as possible.

As we got closer to Baltimore, I asked, “How do you want to handle this guy?”

“What do you mean?” Erica asked, blinking as she came back to reality.

“We should have brought something to pawn,” I said.

“We can stop at another pawnshop,” she said. “But the difference between what they charge and what they pay is significant.” She pulled off the necklace Bobby had given her, the book pendant swaying.

“That'll work,” I said. “I'll pretend to be Faith's friend who recommended him, and you pretend that you want to pawn this gift from your ex-boyfriend.”

“And we won't mention anything about Faith's murder,” Erica said.

I followed the directions of my GPS to a rundown city street, littered with garbage and gang-sign graffiti. The windows to the shop had bars over them. We parked right in front, in a twenty-minute-free-parking zone, and I eyed the teens on the opposite corner with trepidation as we got out. We opened the door to the store, and an alarm buzzed loudly above our heads.

Inside was way different from what I expected to find. The store was neat and clean, and much larger than I thought it would be. Little neon signs announced the different products—
Watches
,
Gold
,
Musical Instruments
and much more. Stairs led to a second floor that looked like it was full of toys, bikes and collectibles.

A man in his forties looked up from arranging antique
watches; he wore a gray golf shirt with a large gold dollar sign logo. “Hello,” he said, with a deep voice like a morning-radio DJ. “What can I help you with?”

“Hi,” I said. “Are you Freddy?”

“Sure am,” he said.

“Great,” I said. “My friend Faith said you were the guy to see to get the most money for jewelry.”

He gave me a sharp look. “Faith?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She's in my . . . bowling league. As a sub,” I added when he gave me an unbelieving look.

Erica dangled the necklace in front of him. “What can I get for this?”

The gold worked as a distraction. “Let's see what we have here,” he said, taking the chain from her. “Nice.” He nodded his approval.

“Her ex-boyfriend, the jerk, gave it to her, and now she wants to get rid of the bad juju,” I said.

He ignored me and placed it on a small scale. “A little over two grams.” He turned to me. “So, I assume you haven't heard the news about Faith?”

I frowned. “What news?”

He stared at me. “She's dead.”

“What?” I asked, making my voice as stunned as I could. “What happened?”

“Don't know,” he said. Something in his voice made me believe he was genuinely sad. “But she was murdered.”

“Oh no!” I said. “I'm so sorry. Faith said you were great friends.”

He lifted his shoulder in a
no big deal
shrug. “As good as you could get with a customer. She always brought me
quality merchandise and didn't haggle much once we understood each other.”

“It was more than that for her,” I said. “Didn't she bring everything to you?”

He blew out a sigh. “Yeah. We became friends over the last couple of years and she brought all of her stuff to me. She used to shop it around but she figured out that I always gave top dollar, especially on the high-end items, so she didn't have to bother with those other guys anymore.”

“Did she tell you where she got it?” Erica asked.

“Sure,” he said. “She got a lot of gifts from men over the years and sold them for cash.” He picked up the necklace. “Sorta like you're doing.”

“How long has she been coming here?” Erica asked.

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why are you asking?”

“I just want to make sure I should sell this to you,” she said.

“I can give you seventy bucks,” he said. “You won't do any better than that anywhere in Baltimore.”

“I think you should take it,” I said. “Faith told me that she didn't have a lot of friends, so this guy is special.”

He cleared his throat. “I can go as high as seventy-five.”

Erica pretended to consider.

I tried to sound super casual. “Did Faith ever bring a necklace made with wood and a little bit of gold?”

He scoffed. “Wood? Are you kidding? What hippie freak thought that was a good idea?”

I bristled but then thought better of it. “Someone who works with wood. It was supposed to be personal, not valuable.”

“Ah,” he said. “Wait. Was that you?”

“No!” I thought quickly. “Someone else on the bowling team.”

“She wouldn't bring that to me,” he said. “Only high-quality goods.”

“Who would do something so terrible to Faith?” Erica asked, weaving the chain through her hands as if not wanting to let it go.

“Who knows?” he said. “The world's crazy.” He looked out the window. “I told her once that it was time to settle down, and she said she wanted to live fast and die young so she could leave behind a beautiful corpse.”

We stayed silent for a moment.

“I don't think she meant that though,” he said.

“Do you remember the last thing she sold to you?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was an antique ring. Very nice.”

“Did she say anything about who gave it to her?” Erica asked.

He shook his head. “Nah. It was a sale just like the others. I got a pretty penny for that one.”

I turned to Erica. “So, ready to get rid of that necklace and close the chapter on that jerk?”

She closed her hand over the necklace. “I'm sorry,” she said to Freddy. “I'm just not ready.”

I rolled my eyes. “I could've predicted this.”

“Thanks so much for your time,” Erica said, and we went out the front door.

As soon as we were in the car, I brought up a new idea. “We haven't thought much about anyone outside of her ‘dates.'”

“People she knew in real life?” Erica said. “She had to have some real friends, right?”

“Maybe Zane can check her calendar for anyone who wasn't one of her targets,” I suggested.

She pulled out her phone. “I'll text him.”

For some reason, Erica's social media campaign to make a video go viral last month came into my head. “What if . . .” I trailed off while I thought about what could go wrong.

“What?” Erica prompted.

“What if we started an online campaign with a photo of Faith and a kind of ‘Do you know this woman?' question? And ask them to leave a comment if they knew her.” I imagined all the false leads we'd get. But maybe we'd get real information that we had no idea was out there.

She thought about it for a moment. “Detective Lockett would not be pleased.” Then she tilted her head. “But maybe if Reese implemented it . . .”

“Yes!” I readily agreed. “Then he can't blame us. We'll have to be devious about it.” I mentally filed through our friends, their willingness to help us this way, and their access to Reese. Of course, she bothered almost everyone in town at some point or another. “Maybe we can have Iris mention it when Reese is eating at the diner? She could tell another customer in front of her that we're thinking of doing that and Reese will jump all over it before we can.”

Erica smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”

“Wait,” I said. “She has to stress that we're planning to ask people to give us leads in the comments section and not email us directly, so it can start a conversation and maybe jog other people's memories.”

“Good idea,” Erica said. “That way, we can see what everyone's response is instead of them emailing her privately.” She dialed the diner and had a short conversation with Iris.

“She said Reese is in there all the time,” Erica said as she hung up. “And she's happy to do it. I promised we'd eat there soon.”

We were both pretty quiet the rest of the way back. Erica went deep into her Halloween Festival spreadsheets, and I let her plan. I was about to drop her off at our house when I saw that we had guests.

Tommy's hearse was parked on the street, and Dylan was sitting on the porch stairs, with Quinn and Tommy beside him.

“Hey, guys,” Erica said with a question in her voice.

“Hi,” Quinn said.

Dylan looked miserably worried, chewing on the end of the string from his hoodie.

“Let's go in and have some hot cocoa,” I suggested and walked up the stairs beside them.

They got to their feet as I unlocked the door and followed us into the kitchen. Quinn took a seat but Dylan and Tommy seemed too agitated to sit still.

“Seems like you have something to tell me,” Erica said while I put the teakettle on to boil.

“I created the second Facebook account for my dad,” he said, his voice bleak.

“Can you tell me why?” she asked gently.

“I knew . . . that woman wasn't who she said she was, but my dad was so gullible.” The words burst out of him.

“So you did know Faith Monette,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “But she called herself Faelynn Monet.”

“How did you know she wasn't who she said she was?” Erica kept her voice gentle.

“My dad left his computer on with his Facebook account open and he had messages waiting from her. I read them. Anyone could tell she was trying to manipulate him. She said she couldn't meet him that night because her car broke down and she didn't have enough money to fix it.”

“What did you do?”

“I cleared the window. Got rid of the whole conversation with her.”

“Then what happened?”

“She wrote back, wondering why he didn't respond.”

At Erica's nod, he continued. “So I wrote, as my dad, that I had been hacked and was starting a new account. And to ignore messages from his old account until he resolved it. She fell for it—probably thinks all old guys don't know what they're doing with a computer.”

“Why did you start the secret account?” Erica asked.

“I don't know. I was going to prove to my dad that she was a liar and conman. Or conwoman. Whatever.”

“Did he give her gifts?” I wanted to confirm that the information from Faith's records was accurate.

“Just some necklace that he made himself.” His expression turned sad for a brief flash and then went back to bitter.

“What were you going to do next?” Erica asked.

“I was just trying to keep her attention on me and not my dad.”

“We were all in on it,” Quinn announced.

Tommy and Dylan looked at her, like she said something she shouldn't have.

“In on what?” Erica asked carefully, as if afraid they'd bolt.

“Nothing,” they all said together.

Dylan stood up. “We have to go.”

“Dylan,” Erica said. “You can trust me.”

He looked like he was getting teary-eyed. “I know.”

I wasn't going to beat around the bush. “Dylan. I need to know. Did you or any of your friends kill Faith?”

He looked at me, stunned and hurt. “No,” he said, his voice shaky.

Quinn's face had turned white. “How could—”

Tommy shook his head at me as they turned to go.

My apology got stuck in my throat. We watched them walk to the hearse and drive away.

“It's okay,” Erica said. “Deep down, they understand.”

I cleared my throat. “Understand what? That I accused them of murder?”

“That it makes sense for us to ask questions,” she said. “Because they're still keeping something from us.”

I stated the obvious. “Something big.”

*   *   *

T
he next morning, Erica interrupted me filling my Flag Furls with milk chocolate ganache at the counter while Kona was on a grocery store run for more cream. I often made the red-white-and-blue spray-painted flags with a white chocolate shell and milk chocolate ganache inside, but this time, the whole thing was smooth milk chocolate. They were sure to sell out even faster than the others.

She watched me squeeze the ganache out of the pastry bag for a moment and then said, “Zane and I have eliminated some of the names on the list of men Faith dated and prioritized them. We should talk to Newell Woodfellow first.”

“Newell?” I asked. “Did his mother hate him or something?”

Erica looked at me over her glasses. “I believe his full name is Newell Woodfellow the Third.”

“Ah, that explains it,” I said. “Poor guy. What do you think his nickname was in high school? Newt? Jewell? Fig Newton?”

“I wouldn't want to speculate,” she said. “Perhaps you can ask him.”

“Right,” I said. “That'll get him on our side.”

I pushed aside the completed tray and started working on the next one. “Why do you want to talk to him in particular?” I asked.

“He's by far the wealthiest person she dated,” she explained. “First, we're researching local people she actually went out with more than a few times. Then we'll look into those who sent her money and gifts, but knew her only online. Newell is one of the biggest outliers of those she dated.”