Chocolate Dipped Death Read online

  “What about Savannah’s husband?”

  I have to admit that Miles made more sense as a suspect than Karen did, but I had a hard time picturing the distraught man who’d been at Divinity all day as a cold-hearted killer. “I don’t think he could have done it,” I said. “He’s been here for the past two days.”

  Jawarski licked candy from his fingers. “All day?”

  “Most of them.”

  “You want to run through the timetable for me?”

  The past forty-eight hours felt like a week. I had to think for a minute to remember everything. “Miles Horne called me early yesterday morning,” I said. “I think it was around six thirty.”

  Jawarski pulled the notepad from his pocket and scribbled something. “You were already at work?”

  “No. In fact, he woke me up.”

  Jawarski lanced me with one blue eye. “He had your home phone number?”

  “I didn’t give it to him, if that’s what you’re asking. But this is Paradise. I’m in the book.”

  He made another note and nodded for me to go on.

  “When he called, Miles said he wanted to talk about the disagreement over the contest. He thought that Evie owed Savannah a public apology, and he wanted me to arrange it.”

  “And you agreed?”

  “Not exactly. I was almost certain Evie would refuse to make any kind of apology. I agreed to meet with the Hornes because I was hoping I could get them to compromise.”

  Jawarski’s head snapped up. “So you met with both of them?”

  “No, Miles came alone. Savannah was out jogging, and he wanted to talk to me before she got there.

  “Did he say why?”

  “He was worried because Savannah and her sister don’t get along. Savannah wouldn’t tell him why, and he was hoping I would.”

  That earned me another sharp look. “Why you?”

  “Because I’m in the same boat Savannah was—at least that’s what Miles told me. I moved away, and I came back. He said I knew how hard it can be to insinuate yourself back into the community, and he thought I’d be sympathetic toward Savannah.”

  “And were you?”

  I shrugged again. “Not really. Or maybe I was a little. I didn’t exactly like her back in high school, but she seemed different when I talked with her that night.”

  “You talked with her? Was that before or after the argument with Evie Rice?”

  “After. I ran into her while I was walking Max.”

  Jawarski stopped writing. “So you saw her alone? What time was that?”

  “Ten thirty, maybe eleven. I didn’t really notice the time, but all the excitement had died down and, like I said, I was taking Max for a walk, so it couldn’t have been much earlier than that.”

  Jawarski bent and scratched Max’s knobby head. “You get around, don’t you boy?” Max responded with a noisy lick of the fingers, and Jawarski lifted his gaze to mine again. “So you spoke with her?”

  “For a few minutes. Not long.”

  “How did she seem?”

  “Fine. Maybe a little more quiet than usual.” I worked up a sheepish smile and added, “More human, I guess. That’s why I agreed to meet with her and Miles the next morning. I thought the Savannah I spoke with Friday night might have been open to a compromise with Evie.”

  “The old Savannah wouldn’t have been?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll never be sure, but I doubt it. Savannah could be . . . unpleasant.”

  “In what way?”

  I could have given him a nice long list, but what purpose would it serve? For all we knew, her death was an accident, so why stir up mud unnecessarily? “There’s nothing specific,” I said, trying to look honest and forthcoming. “She just had an abrasive personality. You know the type.”

  Jawarski nodded slowly. “I do. But her husband seems to think that a number of women here in Paradise hated her.”

  “She wasn’t the most popular girl in our class at school,” I admitted, “but hate?” I shook my head. “I think that’s too strong to describe how people felt about her.” Unless, of course, they came in second place in a contest or had too much to drink. I resisted the urge to glance at the mess Karen had left in my living room and kept my eyes locked on Jawarski’s instead. “Why are you asking about that, anyway? You don’t even know how Savannah died. All of this is pure speculation.”

  He stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment. “Call it gut instinct. And you’re right. I don’t know how she died, but I will.”

  There was a faint warning in his words, but I ignored it. After all, I had nothing to worry about. “Are you through grilling me? Because it’s been a long day, and I’m exhausted.”

  Jawarski’s personality changed again right in front of my eyes. “Do you want me to stay here with you?”

  It was a tempting offer, but I made myself shake my head. I’ve never been one of those women who gets nervous when she’s alone, and I wasn’t going to let myself start now. Besides, Karen would come back eventually, and I didn’t want Jawarski around when she did. “I’ll be fine, thanks.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. I have Max, don’t I?”

  Jawarski ran a skeptical glance across my face, but he didn’t argue. I stood to face him, and for one brief moment, I thought he was going to put his arms around me. A tiny flutter of anticipation danced around low in my belly. After a long moment, Jawarski turned toward the door to the living room. I couldn’t decide whether I felt relieved or disappointed.

  He stepped across a mound of Karen’s things and opened the front door. “You’ll call if you need anything?”

  “Sure,” I agreed. And maybe this time, I actually would.

  Exhausted, emotionally spent, and aching for a hot bath, I slumped down the hall to my bedroom. I wondered where Karen was but I told myself not to worry. She could be back with Sergio for all I knew, and when she got around to wanting her stuff back, she knew where to find me.

  No sooner had I started picking up pieces of the paper towel roll Max had shredded sometime that morning, than someone knocked on my front door. With his stump of a tail wagging at the prospect of a visit, Max trotted toward the sound. I followed a little more slowly.

  Maybe Jawarski had come back, but if all he wanted was the answers to more questions, I wasn’t interested. Maybe it was Dooley checking up on me, but I wasn’t in the mood for company. Finding Savannah had left me shaky and uncertain, and I needed time and space to figure out how I felt.

  I yanked open the door, fully prepared to send whoever it was on their way, but it wasn’t Jawarski or Dooley. My niece stood in the dim spill of light, her thin arms wrapped around herself, her small face clouded with misery.

  “Dana?” I asked tentatively. I’m embarrassed to admit that I still have trouble telling sixteen-year-old Dana and her twin sister apart. Both have chin-length blonde hair, both have wide, expressive brown eyes. Their noses, chins, and mouths are virtually identical, and now that changing diapers isn’t an option, I’m not likely to see which one has the small jelly bean-shaped birthmark on her hip.

  Usually, I have to take my cues from Wyatt and Elizabeth or from the girls’ brothers to identify the twins, but I didn’t have that luxury tonight. This was the first time either of the girls had come to me on her own, and I wanted desperately to do and say all the right things.

  My niece nodded. “Can I come in?”

  Giving myself a mental pat on the back, I shoved the door open the rest of the way. “Of course. Is something wrong?”

  “Kind of.” She came inside, shivered elaborately, stared at Karen’s mess, and dropped like a stone onto the floor in front of the ugly plaid couch.

  More than anything, I want to be for Wyatt’s kids what Aunt Grace always was for me: a soft place to fall, a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to when I couldn’t talk to Mom and Dad. I have a lot of time to make up for. Even knowing all of that, the nervousness that gripped me caught me by
surprise.

  “Let me take your coat,” I suggested. “Then you can tell me what’s wrong.”

  Dana shrugged out of her parka and pushed it toward me. “I need you to help me with thom-thing,” she said without looking at me.

  Her voice sounded funny—almost as if she was talking around a mouthful of peanut butter. I draped her coat over a pile of Karen’s clothes and sat where I could get a good look at her. “Are you all right?”

  Dana nodded and pulled her knees up against her chest. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure? You sound . . . different.”

  She slid a glance at me. “Do I really? Ith it bad?”

  “Not bad, exactly. Just different.” I leaned forward so I could see into her eyes. Wyatt and Elizabeth had recently separated, and the kids weren’t taking it well. They needed more care and understanding than ever, and I wanted to dish up just the right amount of both. “Why don’t you tell me what’s up?”

  Dana dropped her forehead to her knees and sat that way for a minute or two before she finally lifted her head again and opened her mouth. It took me a second or two to recognize the green ball on her tongue for what it really was. When I did, my heart plummeted to the floor. “You pierced your tongue?”

  Nodding miserably, Dana shut her mouth again. “Mom’s furiouth.”

  I thought about Elizabeth, keeper of traditional family values and director of the choir for her church, and nodded slowly. For all of that, Elizabeth is the free-thinking one in the family. Compared to my brother, she’s practically a raving liberal. “I’ll bet she is. What does your dad say?”

  Dana scowled up at me. “He doethn’t know yet. That’th why I’m here. Mom thays I have to tell him mythelf.”

  An internal warning bell went off, but I ignored it. “When are you going to do it?”

  Dana turned a set of dark brown puppy dog eyes on me full force. It was an unfair advantage, and I’m pretty sure she knew it. “Would you help me, Aunt Abby?”

  “Help you?”

  “Come with me to tell my dad,” she said, her voice still thick and unnatural sounding. “Please? I don’t know what to say to him.”

  And she thought I did? Every rational instinct I had screamed at me to stay out of this. But what kind of aunt would I be to say no?

  “When are you going to tell him?”

  “Mom says I have to tell him tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “She says I have to before I come home,” Dana mumbled unhappily, “or I can’t go to the dance on Friday.”

  Once she told Wyatt, the dance would be out of the question, but I decided not to say so and dash all hope. “So what do you want me to do?”

  Dana scratched Max behind one ear, and he sank onto the floor beside her. “Come with me to see my dad. Help me explain.”

  Explain? This? To my brother? Apparently shoving a metal rod through your tongue also scrambles the brain. Who knew?

  No. Not a chance. Never in a million years. Absolutely not. The words were all right there, but I couldn’t get a single one of them past my own tongue. Apparently, guilt does a bit of scrambling, too, because I actually felt my head bobbing up and down as if I agreed to help her. Dana launched herself from the floor and threw her arms around my neck, and for a few minutes I actually believed that things were looking up.

  Chapter 10

  Sid Lancaster has been serving greasy burgers and toxic coffee to the good old boys of Paradise for as long as I can remember. In all that time I don’t remember the diner changing—not one little bit. From the chrome-and-Naugahyde stools, to the stained booths, to the curtains at the windows, everything’s so old it’s almost retro chic.

  At any time of the day or night, you can step inside the glass doors at Sid’s and be guaranteed to find three things: the scent of coffee left too long on the burner, Sid standing behind the stove wearing a greasy apron and a white paper cap, and at least one pair of Wrangler jeans planted firmly on a stool in front of the counter.

  I found a parking spot near the front door and tried to convince Dana to wait while I made sure Wyatt was inside. I had about as much success with that as Elizabeth had trying to convince Wyatt to give up red meat.

  Together, Dana and I trudged through the snow through the glass-enclosed foyer and into the overly heated diner. When I saw Wyatt’s Wranglers hitched onto a stool next to Toby Yager’s, I let out a silent sigh of relief.

  I’d heard rumors that he’d been sighted having dinner with a couple of single female coworkers over the past few months. No doubt, Elizabeth had heard the same rumors, which is probably why she was keeping Wyatt at arm’s length. I was afraid that she’d end up creating what she feared most if something didn’t change soon. The longer Elizabeth kept him cooling his heels about coming home, the more determined he seemed to be to screw up his entire life.

  Now that we were inside and surrounded by chipped yellow Formica and peeling red Naugahyde, Dana’s bravado faded. She walked two steps behind me all the way to the far end of the counter where Wyatt sat with his back to us. We were almost upon them before Toby recognized me, and Wyatt spun around on his stool to see who Toby was looking at.

  My brother is five years older than I am, and half the time he looks like someone who just stepped off the cover of a Tombstone video. Since leaving home, his dark hair has grown shaggy, and the mustache he’s been cultivating since the summer he turned eighteen droops well past his chin.

  He gave me a once-over that lacked warmth, but when he noticed Dana cowering behind me, his entire demeanor changed. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, holding his arms wide and inviting his daughter close for a hug. “What are you doing here?”

  I willed Dana not to speak, and for once someone listened to me. She turned those helpless eyes in my direction. I smiled encouragement, then took a deep breath and nodded toward an empty booth. “Mind if we talk to you for a minute?”

  Wyatt grew immediately suspicious. “Why? What’s up?”

  “We just need to talk to you,” I said, and to Toby, “this shouldn’t take long.”

  Toby’s probably in his mid-thirties, heavyset with a solid layer of muscle under the flab. He keeps his head shaved, but a fine layer of whiskers covers his cheeks and chin at all times. Guess you never know when you may have a facial hair shortage. “Take your time,” he said, waving us away. “Me and Wyatt was just chewing the fat anyhow.”

  Dana flashed me a look filled with gratitude and, feeling auntlike and protective, I slid into the booth beside her before Wyatt could.

  “So what’s all this?” he asked as he sat across from us.

  I gave him a don’t-worry smile. “Dana just needs to talk to you for a minute.”

  In retrospect, maybe the don’t-worry was a mistake. Wyatt’s thick black brows knit together, and his mustache drooped a little lower. “And she needs help to do it?” He speared his poor daughter with a stare that made him look like Grandpa Hanks. “What’s going on, Dana? What’s this all about?”

  Dana clamped her lips together and looked at me as if she expected me to make everything all right. Sucker that I am, I actually tried. I smiled at my brother and hoped I didn’t look as nervous as I felt. “The thing is, Wyatt—”

  He sent me another Grandpa Hanks glare. Don’t get me wrong. Grandpa was just about the nicest guy who ever lived . . . until somebody crossed him. Then he was a force to be reckoned with. I’m not a chicken. I just didn’t want to reckon with Wyatt tonight.

  “Do you mind, Abby? I’d like Dana to tell me whatever it is that’s bothering her.”

  Color flooded Dana’s cheeks, but the girl ignored the question and embarked on an extensive study of her fingertips.

  “I’m sure you’d like Dana to tell you,” I said, trying my best to sound empathetic, “but Dana asked me to come with her, and she’s obviously uncomfortable.”

  “Uncomfortable? With me?”

  Yeah. Go figure. “Maybe uncomfortable is the wrong word,” I said quickly.
“But she is a little worried that you’ll be upset with her.”

  Grandpa Hanks disappeared. The ogre glaring at me now was pure Wyatt Shaw. “What for?”

  I waved away the question and tried to keep my tone light.

  “Promise you won’t fly off the handle?”

  “I’m not promising a damned thing. I don’t care which one of you does it, but one of you had better start talking. Now! ”

  There didn’t seem to be much point in avoiding the issue, so I nudged Dana gently with my elbow. “Show him.”

  Her surprised gaze shot away from her fingertips and up to my face.

  “Show him,” I said again. “He’s going to find out sooner or later, and the longer you wait, the worse it’s going to be.”

  Defiance followed quickly by resignation flashed through Dana’s big brown eyes. I suppose she wanted to refuse, but even if she pulled that post out of her tongue, her dad would still find out what she’d done. Her mother and at least one or two friends knew, and secrets just don’t last long in Paradise.

  With a grudging scowl that made her look way too much like her father, she opened her mouth and stuck her tongue partway out. Wyatt’s expression changed slowly as he realized what he was looking at; then he shot to his feet—or at least he tried.

  The booth caught him in the midsection, and he fell back onto the bench bellowing like a bull elk. “What the hell is that?”

  A dozen heads shot up, and I could feel every eye in the place turning to watch us. I kept my voice calm and hoped Wyatt would follow my lead. “That,” I said, “is your daughter’s new tongue . . . ring.”

  Looking all of about five years old, Dana finally made eye contact with her father. “It-th a barbell.”

  Blood rushed into Wyatt’s face. “What in the hell is it doing in your mouth?”

  “I put it there.”

  “I can see that,” he shouted. “I’m not blind. What I want to know is why?”

  “Becauth it-th cool, and becauth I like it.”

  I half expected steam to erupt from my brother’s nose and ears. “Who did this to you?” he demanded. “Tell me right now so I can kill him.”