Chocolate Dipped Death Read online

  I’d seen the body, and though I couldn’t get the image out of my mind, I had an equally hard time thinking of that cold, grayish thing as Savannah. I tried to wipe the image from my mind. “So you still don’t have any idea who was driving?”

  Jawarski propped his feet against my desk. “Not yet. We’ve been questioning staff and guests at the lodge, but nobody admits to seeing anything that might help us. One of the desk clerks noticed Savannah heading toward the back doors early that morning. A member of the housekeeping crew saw her crossing the parking lot, but that’s where the trail ends.”

  “Nobody saw the car that hit her?”

  “Nobody admits to seeing it.” Jawarski ran both hands across his face and groaned aloud. He sounded as exhausted as I felt—maybe even more so.

  If we’d been dating, I might have suggested skipping the pizza, climbing the stairs, and crawling straight into bed—to sleep. But we weren’t anywhere near ready for that. I forced my eyes open a little wider. “What about Miles? What did he see?”

  “He says he didn’t see anything.”

  “He was awake when she left, wasn’t he?”

  Jawarski shook his head. “He knew she’d gone jogging because she runs at the same time every morning, and her exercise clothes were gone when he woke up, but he didn’t actually get up himself until a few minutes before he called you.”

  “Six thirty?”

  “That’s what he says.”

  Something in Jawarski’s tone caught my attention. “You don’t believe him?”

  His lips curved slightly. “I don’t believe him, but I don’t disbelieve him. We always look at the spouse when someone dies under suspicious circumstances. You can find some very interesting stuff that way.”

  Made perfect sense to me. I’m not generally bothered by murderous tendencies, but even I’d had a split-second urge to do away with Roger when I walked in on him rolling around on my bedroom floor with WhatsHer-Name.

  Okay . . . and another when he told me about the baby they’d created.

  But Jawarski and I hadn’t progressed to the point of discussing our past romances, so I nodded, slipped a piece of toffee from the dish at my side, and passed the dish to him. “And have you found anything interesting about Miles and Savannah?”

  Jawarski helped himself to two and grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “As a matter of fact, I would. I was dragged into this mess against my will, and I’ll admit that I’m curious.”

  Jawarski’s expression grew serious. “Yeah, you were dragged into it, weren’t you?” His voice was soft and gentle. Enough to start that tingling again. “You got a little more than you bargained for out there yesterday, didn’t you?”

  The past few days had left me tired and overly emotional. A little sympathy was going a long way. “I’m fine,” I said, but it took effort to keep the pathetic whine tumbling around inside me from coming out in my voice. “I just can’t imagine who would want to kill Savannah.”

  Jawarski tapped his foot against the side of my desk. “Judging from the information I’m getting, I don’t think the question is who wanted to kill her, but who didn’t?”

  So Karen wasn’t his only suspect? Good!

  “What about Evie Rice?” he asked. “She hated Savannah, didn’t she?”

  “I guess so, but I can’t picture Evie stealing a car and running down another human being with it.”

  “People do strange things when they’re pushed to the limit. Who else?”

  I felt a little guilty witholding information from Jawarski about my cousin’s own run-in with Savannah. “There’s always her sister.”

  “Mrs. Walters?”

  I nodded. “She and Savannah didn’t really get along. I talked to Delta the other day, and she didn’t have anything good to say about her sister.”

  Jawarski eyed me cautiously. “Anyone else?”

  I wasn’t going to mention Karen, and I hadn’t had a chance to follow up on Marshall Ames and his mysterious letter, so I shook my head. “Not unless you count everyone Savannah screwed in high school—literally and figuratively. That probably amounts to half our graduating class, and I’m not counting the classes that graduated before and after we did.”

  “Popular woman, huh?”

  Outside, a car door slammed, and heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs to my apartment. I started to slide out from under the afghan, but Jawarski motioned for me to stay put. “I told you I’d order the pizza. That makes it my treat.”

  “You’re a charmer, Jawarski. I feel like a princess.”

  He grinned over his shoulder. “Good. That was my plan.” He hurried through the kitchen, paid the bill, and carried the pizza back to my office. Leaving the pizza in my care—a risky decision—Jawarski headed into the kitchen for the beer.

  It had been a long time since anyone had pampered me—even to the extent of beer and pizza delivered to my office—and I had the uneasy feeling that this kind of treatment could go straight to my head if I let it. He came back carrying two bottles of Coors, paper plates, and napkins, and we spent the next fifteen minutes attacking the pizza like a couple of starving puppies. Finally, only one piece remained in the box, and I was far too ladylike to eat it, so I curled under the afghan again and watched Jawarski polish off the last of his beer.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  He quirked an eyebrow at me and settled back in his chair again, one foot tapping against the desk. “You asking about the murder investigation or something else?”

  There was no clear answer to that, so I took the safe road. “The murder. What will you do now?”

  “Keep looking. Keep checking. Talk to everyone who knew Savannah and do what we can to retrace her steps that morning.” He sat back in his chair and linked his hands across his stomach. “And I want to talk to Karen. Find out what she knows. When do you expect her back?”

  I felt the pleasure rush from my body. “Is that why you came by? So you could interrogate my cousin?”

  Jawarski’s foot stopped moving. “I’m going to have to talk to her, Abby. We have a witness who heard her threaten Savannah the night before the murder and a handful more who will testify that she went ballistic at O’Schuck’s.”

  “She’s a suspect?”

  “She’s a person of interest. Good thing she has an alibi, huh?”

  The pizza and beer started churning like taffy on a puller inside my stomach. “Alibi?”

  “She was here, right? She told Svboda that she got here about two thirty that morning.”

  I nodded quickly. “That’s right.”

  “So she’s off the hook.”

  “Yeah.” I forced a smile and hoped Jawarski couldn’t see how phony it was. “That’s great.”

  The conversation wandered onto another topic, and I made no effort to drag it back. I tried to follow what Jawarski was saying, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the empty sofa bed when I got up the morning Savannah disappeared, and the way Karen looked when she came back. I didn’t like knowing that she’d lied to the police about where she was. I liked even less knowing that she’d used me to do it.

  Chapter 13

  Tired, cranky, and determined to get some answers, I pulled into Karen’s driveway a few minutes before seven the next morning. Only a few wispy clouds dotted the horizon, and the sun, a pale lemon yellow, gave off enough heat to thaw some of the frozen landscape. It wouldn’t last. By nightfall, all the running water would turn to ice again, but the warmth was a welcome respite.

  Karen’s split-level house was still dark when I arrived, but I didn’t let that discourage me. It was a school day. She couldn’t sleep forever.

  I parked, blocking her side of the garage, then trudged up the walk to the front door. Little pebbles of snowmelt glowed pale blue in the snow and crunched underfoot—an odd touch of normalcy in a world that no longer made sense.

  Karen finally stumbled down the stairs after the third ring and wrenched the door open. With her
fiery hair tousled by sleep, a pair of Sergio’s sweats bagging on her bony butt and chicken legs, and a wrinkled nightshirt hanging unevenly from her thin shoulders, she looked only marginally better than when she showed up at my door drunk.

  A sort of general irritation at being woken up turned to a very personal irritation with me when she realized who I was. Glaring hotly, she folded her arms tightly across her chest and blocked the doorway. “What are you doing here?”

  Good to see you, too. “We need to talk.”

  “Go home. I’m sleeping.”

  “After we talk.”

  “Later,” she snarled. “I’ll call you.” Moving faster than I would have expected considering the state she was in, she tried to slam the door in my face.

  I caught it with one hand and held it open. “I’m not leaving, Karen. Get used to it.”

  She raked her fingers through her matted hair. “Why? What do you want?”

  I decided to start with the easy questions. “I need to know if you’re planning on coming to work this morning.”

  “I haven’t decided yet. Frankly, I’m not sure I want to keep working with you.”

  The feeling was growing more mutual by the second. “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?” I said. “Why are you so mad at me?”

  Karen gripped the door with both hands and tried again to shut me out. “If you were paying the slightest bit of attention,” she growled as she struggled against me, “you’d already know the answer to that.”

  I fought her using my shoulders and hips. “I am paying attention. I just can’t figure out what’s going on. Are you really angry with me, or are you just making up an excuse to take some time off?”

  Karen stopped pushing abruptly. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  I staggered inside, almost losing my balance in the process. “You don’t have to make yourself angry with me. If you want time off, just say so.”

  Her eyes sparked. “What makes you think I have to make myself angry with you?”

  “Well, it’s just that—” I sensed movement at the top of the stairs and glimpsed Karen’s daughter, Paige, watching us with wide doe eyes. I smiled and tried to look reassuring. Judging by the look on her face, I don’t think I succeeded. I wasn’t going to tell her what Jawarski said in front of Paige, so I skirted around it. “Look, Karen, I know you’re upset with me, but I need you down at the store. Can’t we work out whatever this is?”

  An acid laugh dripped out of Karen’s mouth. “You need me.”

  “Yes, I do—and don’t try to say I don’t tell you that. I tell you all the time. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I’ve got to tell you, I’m worried.”

  “Well don’t be. I’m fine.”

  “You could have fooled me.” I took a step closer and lowered my voice. “Whatever is bothering you, let’s talk it over. Get the kids off to school, and then let’s sit down together, just the two of us.”

  “No. There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “I think there is.”

  “And I think you’re wrong.” Resigned to having me in the house, Karen shuffled up the stairs toward the kitchen. Paige darted out of sight, and I wondered if Karen was making the kids as nervous as she made me.

  “This is Bea’s doing, isn’t it?” Karen shot back over her shoulder. “I heard she helped out at the store yesterday.”

  “She was there,” I admitted, “but—” I stopped short when I saw the kitchen. Dirty dishes lined the counters and filled the sink. An empty fast-food bag lay crumpled on the floor, and old soda seeped through the bottom of a paper cup. Karen had never kept an immaculate home, but she’d never let things go like this before—at least not that I’d seen.

  Karen didn’t seem to notice. “Well that’s just great. What business is it of hers what I do? That’s what I want to know.”

  “She’s concerned about you.” I took another look at the kitchen. “So am I.”

  Growling under her breath, Karen set to work making coffee. “Bea doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but she sure likes to stick her nose in everyone else’s business.”

  I watched her for a few minutes, taking in her jerky, nervous movements, the irritation that seemed to ooze out of her pores. “What’s going on, Karen? Why are you acting like this?”

  She looked at me from behind a veil of tangled hair. “Like what?”

  “Like this.” I waved a hand to encompass the house, the yard, the neighborhood . . . her. “The kids have to be to school soon, don’t they? You’re barely even awake.”

  “So?”

  “So?” I stared at her with my mouth hanging open. “Are you sick or something?”

  She raked her fingers through her hair again and shook her head. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”

  But I was worried about it, and anybody with two eyes and a brain would have been, too. “Where’s Sergio?”

  “Gone to work already. Why?”

  Why? I checked over my shoulder to see if Paige was still there, but I couldn’t see her. “Would it have killed him to clean some of this before he left? Or did he leave this mess as ‘punishment’ for you being gone?”

  Karen glared at me as if I’d just called her baby ugly. “You’re as bad as Bea. Maybe worse. You haven’t even been around for the past twenty years, and now you’re suddenly an expert on me and my life?”

  Her anger floored me. I didn’t know whether I was more angry or hurt, but I did know that I was tired of people flinging my past in my face. “This may come as a shock to you and everyone around here,” I snapped, “but it’s not a crime to live somewhere else for a while. And there’s no law on the books that says people can’t come back.”

  “Well you ought to know about the law.” She spat out the last word as if it tasted foul.

  “Is that what’s bothering you? The fact that I moved away and went to law school?”

  “No. What’s bothering me is that you moved away, went to law school, and forgot the rest of us even existed until you needed something. You didn’t have time for us when you were married to Roger, but the minute your marriage fell apart, guess who came scurrying back?”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but in a strange and twisted way, she had a point. I finally found a few words and hurled them at her. “That was then. This is now.”

  “And what happens tomorrow, Abby? Huh? How long are you going to stick around? Forever? Or just until something better comes along?”

  “How should I know the answer to that? Life isn’t something you plan, Karen. Things happen. You meet people. Surprises come along. I didn’t plan to be here now, I didn’t plan to find my husband having sex with his mistress on my bedroom floor, I didn’t plan to divorce him and move back to Paradise—but here I am.”

  She snorted and turned away.

  “All I can tell you,” I shouted, “is that I don’t plan on going anywhere. I plan to stick around and run the shop and learn the business and live my life.” I paced in the tiny space that housed her dining table, dodging books and backpacks and countless other things that had been left on the floor. “If you felt this way, I sure wish you’d said something about it before now. This isn’t exactly the best time to have a meltdown, you know.”

  Wrong thing to say. I knew it the second the words left my mouth. The spark in Karen’s eyes turned into a raging fire. “Oh? So you can’t plan anything, but I have to plan my ‘meltdowns’ around you? You know what? Go to hell, that’s what. I quit.”

  I was too angry to care. “Fine!”

  “Fine! Now get out of my house and leave me alone.”

  “Gladly.” Seething, I thundered down the stairs and slammed out of the house. The rattle of the glass in the window made me feel marginally better, but only for as long as it took to get back to my car. Within thirty seconds, I started thinking that I shouldn’t have let Karen walk out on me, but I was still too consumed by self-righteous anger to turn around and go back.

 
If Savannah encountered this kind of attitude when she came back to Paradise, I thought as I ground the Jetta into reverse, she probably threw herself in front of that car. At that moment, I didn’t blame her.

  I was still fuming when I pulled up in front of Sergio’s office building twenty minutes later. I didn’t have time for this, but I had to know what was wrong with Karen, and I needed Sergio to talk sense into her. I just hoped he’d agree.

  The parking lot was nearly empty, which I took as a good sign. The more private our conversation, the better. Inside the lobby, I scanned the directory, found the suite number for Vance and Stroud, Attorneys at Law, then hot-footed it up the stairs. I found the right suite with no trouble, but the glass door leading into it was locked tight.

  I knocked, softly at first, then louder and longer until an annoyed-looking Sergio came to see what all the fuss was about. When he recognized me standing in the dimly lit corridor, his step faltered. In the next heartbeat, he pasted a broad smile onto his equally broad face and unlocked the door.

  When we were younger, Sergio had the sturdy build of a football player. Now all that muscle has turned to something else, and the broad chest Karen used to rave about has sunk to a spot just above his belt. His thick hair is thinning, his hairline receding, and the pepper is liberally streaked with salt. Don’t get me wrong—he’s a great guy. I like him a lot. But he’s not exactly what you’d consider a stud, and I had a hard time picturing Savannah being interested enough to jeopardize her marriage over him.

  He swung the door open, and his thick brows beetled over his broad nose. “Abby? What are you doing here?”

  I pushed inside without waiting for an invitation. “We need to talk.”

  “Now?” He shot a glance over his shoulder and frowned back at me. “This really isn’t a good time.”

  I ignored him. “I just came from the house. I want to know what’s wrong with Karen.”

  “You came from my house?”