Behind Chocolate Bars (9 page)

Then Detective Lockett walked in.

“Good morning,” I said, pouring him a coffee and wondering what he wanted. It was definitely not a social call.

“Thanks,” he said, pouring cream in and stirring.

“I hear you got a break in the case,” I said. “Congrats on winding up the investigation so quickly.”

He didn't even crack a smile. “I got a phone call this morning.”

Uh-oh. That couldn't be good. My satisfaction went out the window.

“Someone told me you and Mr. Russell were at the scene of our suspect's apartment yesterday afternoon.” He took a sip of his coffee, keeping his eyes on me.

I leaned oh-so-casually on the counter. “Yinz guys can't always trust those anonymous calls, you know dat, right?” Distracting him with Pittsburgh-ese expressions didn't seem to be working.

“This one wasn't anonymous,” he said.

I straightened.

“It was your brother,” he said. “Seems he was sure you and your boyfriend were inside Mr. Sinsle's apartment. He's concerned about your safety.”

“That's . . . interesting.” I gritted my teeth, my earlier worry now morphing into anger at Leo's meddling. “He's having some overprotectiveness issues lately.” To say the least.

“I get it. The whole big-brother thing.” Lockett nodded.

“Yeah, but that's going overboard,” I said, not regretting throwing Leo under the bus. I pulled out a tray of Lemon Zest Darks and quickly put them on a plate. “You should try these new truffles—they have an amazing citrusy zing.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Zing?”

“Zing,” I repeated.

“You know what else I heard?” He took a bite of the truffle and savored it for a minute before continuing, probably knowing the waiting drove me crazy. “The building super was happy to confirm that the two of you visited him at the same time that Leo said you were there, breaking into an apartment. And that you were asking questions about Faith's friends. How lucky was it that said friend had a mighty convenient flood that brought the super to the door so he could see the items missing from the victim's apartment and call the police?”

I'd planned for this. “Wow, what a coincidence. Bean interviewed the super for his new article on Internet security,” I said. “I just tagged along.” Shoot. It came out in my
I'm telling a bald-faced lie
voice, not anything like I'd practiced. I blamed Leo—his tattling put me off my game.

“Sounds like a great date night,” Lockett said, with obvious sarcasm. “Find anything interesting on that computer?”

“What computer?” Shoot! My eyes slid away at the last second.

He shook his head. “Look. I'm never going to give up on telling you guys to stay out of my police business, and don't think for a second that I won't arrest you for obstruction if you screw up my case.” He paused as if not sure he wanted to tell me something. “Just so you know, the papers got it wrong. We arrested Sinsle for burglary, not murder.”

I took in a quick breath. “He didn't do it?”

“We don't know for sure yet,” he said. “But we don't have any evidence linking him to the murder. Right now the only thing we have on him is burglarizing the victim's apartment.”

I blinked at him.

“I'm definitely getting him for obstruction as well.” He took a sip of coffee. “So maybe you want to stay out of my way so I don't do the same to you.”

“Don't you have a ton of paperwork to do with that arrest?” I asked, wanting to get rid of him so I could tell Erica the news.

He smiled and then his phone rang. “Lockett,” he answered.

I watched his face change and his whole body tense as he listened to whoever was on the other end. I'd seen that look before. It was his
time to hunt a killer
expression. “I'll be right there.” He hung up and got to his feet. “Gotta go.”

It looked like he'd caught another break in the case.

I
waited for him to leave and rushed back to Erica's office, where she and Zane were poring over the information Bean and I had “found.”

“Something's up.” I told them what Lockett had said, about Chuck being arrested for burglary and not murder, and about the phone call. “Can you, I don't know, call Bobby or something?”

“No,” Erica said. “He won't tell me anything.”

Zane clicked on a website that offered a live feed of what was being broadcast on the police scanner. He bypassed the Listen Here button and read from the transcribed information at the bottom of the page.

“There's nothing here,” he said. “They're keeping it off the radio.”

“Did you find anything yet from all that?” I asked, looking at Zane's computer.

“Yes.” She looked up, troubled. “She juggled quite a few men.”

“How many?” I asked.

“A lot,” Zane said. “Like thirty. So far.”

“Thirty?” I asked. “At the same time?”

He shook his head. “Over the last couple of years.”

“Anyone stand out?” I asked. “Who's got the highest MQ?” Erica had probably already started some initial estimates of what she called each suspect's “murder quotient.”

“I'm working on it,” she said. “I just need more time.” Her voice grew distant as she sat down and focused on her screen.

I went out on the back porch to get some amount of privacy so I could leave a message with Leo's therapist. I outlined what Star and I had discussed, knowing he wouldn't be allowed to call me back. I still felt better.

I took a deep breath and headed inside, but stopped for a moment to send my traitorous brother a text.
You're tattling on me?

He texted back immediately.
You doing something you shouldn't be?

The relief I felt when I saw the three dots that indicated he was responding was short-lived.
Lockett told me what you did. Stop it.

I'm still your big brother. My job is to keep you safe.

I didn't answer.

I care about you.

He knew that would work.
Don't do it again,
I sent back and put the phone in my pocket. The rest of what I had to say to him would have to wait until we were face-to-face.

I went back out front, where Kona had propped the door open, taking advantage of the warm October day. I thought about trying to find Leo at his work, to apologize for running away from him at Faith's apartment building, and also to tell him that following me was not okay. But his hours were so flexible that it would be hard to catch him in his cubicle. It was one of the reasons his job was so perfect for him. As long as he got all the data input on time, he could be there any time, day or night.

There was plenty of whispering among our customers, with a lot of glances at their phones, as if they were waiting for news that hadn't come yet. I couldn't shake the ominous feeling that something bad was about to happen.

Sure enough, May stuck her head in the store while I was serving my more traditional truffles to a group of seniors who'd taken the bus from their assisted-living center to shop Main Street. After the complaints they gave me about the Coconut Curry Bonbons I'd served two years before, I never went more edgy than goat cheese in their chocolates.

May was wearing lavender today. She waved me over while she kept an eye on her store. “Sorry I can't come in. I swear that new admin at Dr. Dwyer's has been stealing a purple flag stem every week for the past month, but I haven't been able to catch her in the act.”

“Vanilla latte, extra hot, with two Splendas?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “I just wanted to tell you that I heard from a customer that they found that poor woman's car.”

My heart started beating faster. “Okay,” I said, my worry about Dylan turning into something more concrete, like a
bunch of aimless bees joining together in a big cartoony arrow, buzzing over my head.

She looked over her shoulder and said in a stage whisper, “And the murder weapon!” Her volume rose toward the end, drawing the attention of the closest customers. She saw someone approach her store and dashed back out.

I made a beeline for Erica and waited impatiently for her to finish recommending
The Artist's Way
to a middle-aged man. He looked a little unsure about adding more art to his life, but she pointed him in the direction of creativity books and said, “I'll just let you browse. Let me know if you have any questions.”

“They found the murder weapon,” I hissed once he was out of earshot. “Which probably means they found the original crime scene.”

“That's good news,” Erica tried to reassure me. “The weapon and the crime scene could point the police away from Dylan and to the real killer.”

“What should we do?” I asked, feeling useless.

She shook her head. “Nothing we can do.”

But I could tell she was worried. “Look,” she said, “we know Dylan. He's not capable of something like that. Just hold on to that thought.” Was she trying to convince herself?

“Have you and Zane found out anything new?” I asked. The
that would clear Dylan
was left unsaid.

“Just a few more of her fake identities,” she said. “And not all on dating websites. She joined different online support groups too, like for people who had anxiety or depression.”

“Why do you think she did that?” I asked.

“It seems like she integrated herself into the group, for
months even, and then started talking about financial problems she was having. The other people on the loop would try to help her out.”

“With money, I assume,” I said.

“Yes,” Erica said. “By then, they felt like she was a real friend.”

“Did she ever help them?”

“Yes,” she said. “But never even close to the same extent, and perhaps just to keep up appearances.”

“Did anyone seem mad about that?” I asked.

The man returned before she could answer. He was holding
The Artist's Way
,
Steal Like an Artist
, and
Art Before Breakfast
. I guess he really did want to be creative.

“Have Zane show you what we dug up,” she told me, and turned to her customer.

Kona tried to hide her phone when I got to the front. “What?” I asked her.

She puffed up her cheeks and then blew out the air. “I got a text from a friend.”

“What is it?” I asked.

She pulled showed me the screen, and what it said chilled me to the bone.
i saw the police with the murder weapon of that woman. it was a bat. creepy.

“I'll be right back,” I said, and took the phone back to Erica. Even though Lockett had told us Faith had been killed by someone wielding a bat, I was still freaked out.

I showed Erica the message.

“I'll call Bobby,” she said.

I waited while she called him. She shook her head at me to let me know he wasn't answering, but she left him a message to call her.

“I'll make him tell us what he can,” she said. “And Zane and I will keep working on her files.”

*   *   *

T
he late-morning crowd spilled over into the after-lunch rush, and I didn't get back to the office for a while. When I did, Zane brought up his research on his computer, including a whole screen of photos of Faith with different names. Each one seemed to have a distinct personality that went along with the name. “Faith” went with the girl-next-door look. “Faelynn” seemed to be the artsy one, wearing an off-the-shoulder tie-dyed shirt and a rainbow-colored headband. Plain ol' “Faylinn” wore a business jacket over a red tank top and librarian glasses. She'd even modified her makeup for each personality.

“Is this for real?” I asked.

He nodded. “Look at this one.” He brought up a photo where she was wearing a wig and makeup that made her look at least fifty years old.

“Holy cow,” I said. “What was that for?”

“She went after seniors,” he said. He clicked on the dating website for mature adults. “She listed her age as fifty-seven. And said that she wanted to date men sixty and above.”

“Did she actually go on dates with them?” I asked. That would be hard to pull off.

“No,” he said. “She just talked to them online.”

“So she really was a conwoman,” I said. “How could she do that to people?”

He realized that was a rhetorical question and clicked a few buttons. Faith's emails appeared on the screen. “Look
at her Outlook. She had it meticulously organized by whoever she was supposed to be.”

Each folder had a different variation of Faith's identities. He clicked on the Faelynn folder—it had subfolders broken down into different men's names. “She kept copies of every conversation.”

He opened Excel spreadsheets. “Then she transferred the important information and tracked everything in these files.”

Holy cow. Her organizational skills rivaled Erica's. What a waste of talent.

“She was trying to get money out of all of them,” he said. He brought up a spreadsheet with the money given by various contacts, as well as gifts and their estimated values. “When she got a gift, she noted it here. And she kept track of when and where she sold them—usually on eBay or to a pawnbroker—and how much she got.”

“Which broker?” I asked, adding a visit there to our list of things to do.

“Freddy's Fast Cash,” he said. “In Baltimore.”

I looked at the spreadsheet. How did she keep track of all of this? “Wart Nose Guy? Chipped-Tooth Guy? Some of the men don't have real names.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I checked that out. She used code names sometimes.”

“So we don't know who the code names belonged to?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, it doesn't say.” He pulled up another page. “It seems like that's how she handled men until they were deeper in the process. Maybe until she was sure they were using their real names.” He clicked on a
subfolder labeled
Duds
and pointed to it. “Here are her rejects.”

“What made them rejects?” I asked.

“Not sure yet,” he said. “We can probably assume that they either didn't have money or weren't immediately taken in by her story.”

The sheer amount of information was staggering. And our list of potential suspects was already huge. “Let's get started on the ones with actual names.” Then I had a terrible thought. “Is Oscar in there?”

He nodded, and brought up the emails they had written to each other.

I felt a sense of dread climb up my spine. “Did he give her money?”

“No,” he said. “Just a necklace. That he made himself. She wrote down that it was made of wood with a gold clasp. But that's not what's interesting.”

“What?”

“I was double-checking her entries against the contact information, and I found something unusual about Oscar's Facebook account.” Normally impassive Zane looked upset.

I waited.

“It seems like Oscar started a second Facebook account to communicate with only Faith, who he thought of as Faelynn.”

“Why would Oscar do that?” I asked.

He hesitated. “It's been my experience that second accounts are usually fake.”

“And why would someone do that to Oscar?”

“It's more like, someone was doing it to Faelynn.”

“Why?”

“I'm assuming that someone who knew Oscar well enough to know he was dating Faelynn wanted to interact with her,” he said. “Someone was catfishing the catfish.”

“Oh no.” I could think of only one person who would be upset enough about their relationship to do that.

He scrunched up his face. “It gets worse.”

“What is it?”

“The account was deleted right after her murder.”

*   *   *

I
found Erica upstairs adding books to her Classics section. “We need to speak to Oscar,” I told her once I'd filled her in on Zane's latest discovery. The police were sure to know all about it by now, but from what we'd heard, Oscar wasn't talking to them.

I hadn't noticed Kayla working in the next aisle. She popped up, her curly blond hair pulled off of her face with a colorful scarf. “Should we just assume you will need us, like, all the time until you wrap this up?”

“Um,” I said. “I guess?”

“Kona and I talked last night, and we know we can't talk you out of it, but we're going to use this on you the next time you start acting like our mom, okay?”

I must have looked pretty sheepish, but she laughed. “Don't worry. I'm going to Hawaii for Christmas and can use the extra money.” I still felt guilty as Erica and I drove off.

Oscar and Dylan lived close to the elementary school, in a small redbrick house with white trim. Oscar had converted
an old barn into a workshop where he did woodwork. His bread and butter was making custom kitchen cabinets for local contractors, but he also created more elaborate furniture for a high-end shop in Frederick.

As we parked in front of the house, we heard the high-pitched whine start up from some kind of saw. We followed the noise around the side of the house to the workshop.

Oscar was guiding wood through a huge saw, following an intricate pattern, until a piece of the wood fell off. Playing it safe, we waited far back until he stopped the machine and blew on the wood to see the result.

The smell of the sawdust brought back a vivid memory of my own dad working in his garage. My mom had called it puttering, because he rarely finished what he started, never adequately happy with his workmanship. The memory was so bright, I had to blink to bring myself back to today.

“Hi, Oscar,” Erica said.

He set down the wood and took off his goggles and safety headphones and set them on a table. “Erica. Michelle,” he said with a curt nod. “What can I help you with?”