Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates (A Chocolate Covered Mystery) (10 page)

“Oops. Look at that.” I pointed to her
Sorry, we’re closed
sign. “I’ll try again another time.”

“Okay, then.” He watched me leave, still wary.

W
e hosted an emergency meeting of the Great Fudge Cook-off Committee in our now dust-free living room. Heavy clouds had moved in and light rain was falling, just teasing us with the deluge that was predicted for later.

The mood was understandably somber. Seeing the group together made me realize even more that Denise was gone.

Erica had asked Beatrice Duncan if she could spare time from the hardware store to help, and she had graciously accepted. Truly, I didn’t know how Beatrice could fit one more thing into her schedule. Besides the parade committee, she regularly volunteered at the library, her church and the Humane Society in the next town, in addition to working in her son’s store. But Erica believed that when something needed to be accomplished, it was best to ask a busy person; they knew what they were doing and how to make it succeed.

Beatrice wasn’t happy at the moment. “I don’t know what to do with that Fitzy. He’s only seventy-five and would forget his head if it wasn’t bolted on.” She chuckled and tugged her blue Duncan Hardware golf shirt out of the elastic waistband of her beige capris. “Did you get that? He’s a locksmith and I said his head was bolted on.”

Erica smiled, trying to be polite but she didn’t like mean humor against her elders.

“Anyways,” Beatrice went on, “he just shouldn’t be in charge of the parade this year. Everyone’s bending over backwards for him because he’s getting up there and his palsy is something awful sometimes, but I don’t know if he’s gonna be able to handle it.”

“Then he’s so lucky he has such a great team to make sure it all goes off without a hitch,” Erica said, smoothing feathers and being bossy at the same time.

Jolene sat beside me. “I looked for that cat like you asked, but it wasn’t anywhere around.”

“Thanks anyway,” I said, thinking about the coming rain. The cat couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere just a few days ago. Obviously it had a home and I should stop worrying.

I didn’t have any chocolate to serve, so I busied myself with the pizza as Erica sat down and pulled out some notes. Any normal person would be exhausted after spending the day with her sister in such a difficult time, but she seemed as energetic as ever.

“No matter what anyone says,” Erica began, “we’re holding this cook-off and it’s going to be awesome.”

That brought tentative smiles to everyone’s face.

“I do have some good news and some bad news,” Erica said. “What do you want to hear first?”

Jolene raised her hand. “I always want my bad news first.” Today she and Steve had rushed over after karate, Jolene in her white
gi
and Steve in another ratty T-shirt, this one reading,
DFTBA. Don’t Forget To Be Awesome
.

“The lesser of the bad news is that all of the hotels had some cancellations,” Erica said. “The story ran on one Baltimore station and they’re worried that the news of Denise’s murder has made West Riverdale less appealing.”

Less appealing? No kidding.

“What’s the worse news?” Steve asked.

She paused. “Hillary Punkin is rescinding her offer to judge the contest.”

“What?” I screeched. Even though a little bit of relief hit me first, outrage won.

“Her ‘people’ follow our social media and because of Reese’s blogs, they aren’t sure Hillary should be associated with . . . tainted . . . chocolate,” Erica said.

I flushed deeply with embarrassment.
Tainted
.

“They hadn’t made it definite yet that she would attend, so they aren’t making any kind of announcement that she’s not,” Erica said. “They said something about keeping her schedule open, so it’s not definite either way.”

“What’s the good news?” Beatrice asked.

“The health department is holding off on investigating and will wait to decide once the tests from the police are complete.”

“When will that be?” Steve asked.

“Unofficially? I heard the tests on enough of the samples taken by the crime-scene techs should be completed tomorrow. Assuming they’re clean, we can make more solid plans for reopening.” Erica flipped through her notes. “Possibly as early as Saturday, as the mayor was hoping.”

She went on to the next topic. “I’d like to hold a special meeting and press conference with anyone associated with the cook-off and festival—sponsors, artists, vendors, advertisers, any press who would like to come, even contestants. I already passed the idea by Gwen and she’s more than happy to help us reassure everyone. Can we pull it together by tomorrow night?”

“Where would we hold it?” Beatrice asked. “The community center?”

“Good idea,” Erica said.

“Maybe the chief would make a statement as well saying their investigation is moving forward,” Steve suggested. “Help everyone to feel better.”

I escaped into the kitchen while they discussed more details.
I probably shouldn’t even attend that meeting
, I thought, as I loaded more pizza slices on a tray. I’d just be a reminder of the reason we were in this mess.

Steve followed me into the kitchen, pretending that he needed more water. “How ya holding up?”

I sighed. “Probably about as well as can be expected.” We’d tacked a sheet over our investigation project plan on the wall. Luckily, Steve was too polite to ask about it.

“We all know it’s not you,” he said. He took the tray from me. “You run a clean shop.”

Unexpected tears threatened.

“Ah, don’t go getting all mushy,” he said, but his brown eyes were a little wet too. “You know this town is behind you one hundred percent.”

He headed toward the door. “We all just gotta make sure the police find this asshole,” he said, whispering the last word.

“Steven Roxbury, are you cursing?” Jolene demanded as we joined them.

• • • • • • • • • 

I
t was barely seven by the time the meeting broke up, and Erica and I decided to have a drink at the Ear. If we happened to learn something about Opal, then yay for us.

“Guess who wants X-rated chocolates?” I asked Erica on the drive over.

She laughed. “Who?”

“Beatrice.”

“Really? For what?”

“She wants to surprise her bridge club.” I tried imagining a bunch of little old ladies sitting around card tables playing bridge and eating tiny anatomically correct chocolates. “But I’m not supposed to let Howard know.”

“I can imagine he wouldn’t be pleased,” she said. “What did you tell her?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“Wait,” Erica said. “Is that what Jolene wanted to talk to you about by the door?”

“Yep.” I laughed. “She wants them as a gag gift for her teacher friends.”

“That’s why she was talking about girl power?”

“Yeah,” I said. “She wants me to just own the whole X-rated chocolate thing and be proud.” We turned onto the Ear’s street. That was so not going to happen.

After talking to Henna, I understood why Opal bought rounds of drinks every fall. She made a freakin’ fortune once school started and parents ordered their senior portrait packages. I’d overheard the gossip from customers that she spent a lot of time at the Ear, claiming it was her “Cheers bar” where everyone knew her name. Every month or two, she’d go too far and end up making some kind of drunken scene that I’d hear about in the shop the next day. She’d stay away for a week or two until she could face her bar buddies again. She’d drink diet soda for a while, but soon she was putting away the tequila and returning to her partying ways.

The rain was falling a little heavier now, making the half-full asphalt parking lot black and shiny. Erica backed her electric car into a spot close to the exit.

“Think we’re going to have to make a fast getaway?” I asked.

“Just want to be prepared.” She got out and looked at the other cars as if trying to figure out who was there. Knowing her memory, she probably deduced a bunch of them.

The Ear was set back from the road, a low, white wooden building that snuggled in amongst huge gnarled trees now protecting a bunch of patrons on a smoking break from the rain. The Ear sign blinked in its old-fashioned red-neon glory. Paint was peeling in some places, but it almost seemed deliberate, as if it was pretending to be a sleazy bar. Like a suburban kid walking out of his McMansion wearing his pants pulled down like a rapper.

A banner flapped in the wind encouraging people to
Get Your Preak On at the Ear!

I opened the door to the sound of people talking and laughing over Carrie Underwood singing about taking a Louisville slugger to her cheating boyfriend’s car, and the smell of stale beer, peanuts and sweat.

The bartender, Jake Hale, smiled as we walked in and said, “Welcome.” He gave me a wink, letting me know he hadn’t forgotten the time I’d tried to buy a six-pack of beer from him when I was sixteen.

Opal sat hunched over in the back of a booth with a bunch of women in their forties or fifties. She stared into what looked like a glass of soda while she poked at the ice with a tiny red straw. Her friends seemed to be oblivious to her self-imposed isolation, laughing uproariously at a joke and clinking their margarita glasses.

The rest of the bar had a sprinkling of tables and booths filled, but a lot of noise came from the pool room in the back.

By unspoken agreement, Erica and I sat down at the corner of the bar as far from Opal and the raucous pool room as we could get.

“What can I get for you two lovely ladies?” Jake looked like a casting call for a friendly neighborhood bartender. Tall and handsome in that easygoing way, with unstyled brown hair that needed a cut and an untucked green flannel shirt over weathered jeans.

I checked the beer labels on tap. “How about 1634?”

“Excellent choice,” he said cheerfully. “Good for you for supporting our local businesses. And it’s delicious. And for you, milady? A chardonnay perhaps?”

Erica ignored his teasing and tried not to stare at Opal. “The same.”

“How’s your brother?” Jake called to me from in front of the tap.

“Good,” I said. Jake had played football with Leo way back in high school. “Getting back in the swing of things.”

“How’re Sydney and Alex?” Erica asked. She was also the encyclopedia of everyone and anyone’s names, relatives and history of any significance, but I was still amazed that she remembered the names of Jake’s kids.

“Great!” he said. He gave us our drinks and pulled a framed photo of his family from a shelf that held liquor bottles. “Here’s a picture from our last trip to Florida.”

“Beautiful,” Erica said, while I murmured some nonsense.

He returned it to its place of honor and took a few minutes to handle the order of a waitress who looked a lot like him. Jake had a huge family and usually employed at least a few cousins at a time.

“How are we going to talk to Opal?” I whispered to Erica.

“I don’t think we can.” She frowned as she peeked over at her table. “It’d be too obvious in front of all those women.”

“Maybe if she goes to the bathroom,” I said right before Jake returned.

“I was real sorry to hear about Denise,” he said. “I still can’t believe it. She was sitting right there just two weeks ago.” He pointed to an empty cane-backed chair by a small table close to the door.

“Really?” I felt a shiver run down my spine, as if her ghost sat there now. “Did she come here a lot?” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. She seemed more likely to go to the brass and fern bar with a dance floor in the next town.

He shrugged. “Once in a while.”

“Was she with someone?” I asked.

I guess I wasn’t being subtle enough for Erica, because she changed the subject. “I was thinking that you should put a coupon in the fudge cook-off program,” she said. “It doesn’t cost that much and you’d get a lot of tourists stopping in. Did you hear the Best Western is sold out for the whole Memorial Day weekend?”

Jake looked surprised. “You’re still going ahead with that?”

“Of course,” Erica said. “Too many businesses in town are depending on it.”

“People were saying that maybe it’d be cancelled, because of, you know . . . Denise,” he said.

“I’m sure Chief Noonan will find the perpetrator and that will allay everyone’s concerns,” Erica insisted. She always sounded more snotty when she was upset.

“Any speculation going on about who did it?” I asked. “You must hear a lot, being in the center of things here.”

He picked up a pint glass with an etched Bass label and started drying it. “She had an argument with someone when she was here,” he said reluctantly, as if worried about breaking some kind of bartender code.

I tried to hide a quiver of nervousness. Or excitement. “With who?”

Erica sent me a look. She was just dying to correct me and say “whom.”

“Some guy,” he said. “He was pretty pissed off.”

“Did you recognize him?” Erica asked. “Was it Mark?”

“Of course not,” he said. “He and Colleen come here for their date nights.”

I asked, “What did they argue about?” at the same time Erica asked, “What did he look like?”

We stared at each other for a minute and then she nodded, letting me go first. “They argued?” I asked.

Jake smiled at our little control issue. “She showed him some photos and he blew a gasket,” he said. “He grabbed them and she laughed at him. That really drove him nuts.”