Chocolate Dipped Death Read online

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I’m not even sure if I’ll attempt it tonight. I have a million things to do.” And I didn’t want to warn Delta that I was coming. I think you get a more honest answer when you catch someone off guard.

  Since I wasn’t about to become a paying customer, Paisley popped a bit more while she ran a glance from head to toe—one of those assessing looks that inevitably makes you squirm, I don’t care who you are. “You’re not going to upset her are you?”

  “I don’t plan on it.”

  “Because she’s upset enough.”

  “I’m sure she is. I promise I’ll be careful.”

  Apparently that wasn’t good enough. Paisley narrowed her eyes and locked on me with a frown. “What do you want to talk to her about?”

  “Nothing bad, I promise.” I turned toward the door, ready to put an end to the conversation.

  “Because the thing is,” Paisley went on, undaunted, “I heard that you were getting kind of friendly with Savannah’s husband.”

  That stopped me in my tracks. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t mean that way,” she assured me quickly. “But everybody’s talking about how he was at your shop the day Savannah died. And now, with what that attorney told Delta, I’m not sure either of you are on her list of favorite people.”

  I took a couple of steps away from the door. “What attorney, and what did he tell her?”

  Paisley flapped a dismissive hand. “Whatever attorney she’s been using to settle her mother’s estate.” Chomp! “Apparently, he told her this morning that Miles is going to inherit Savannah’s half, after all. Can you believe that?” Pop! Pop! “Poor Delta. Things just keep going from bad to worse for her.”

  “She didn’t expect Miles to inherit?”

  “Well, no! I mean, why would she?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe because Savannah and Miles were married?”

  Paisley tsked and slipped the comb into the pocket of her smock. “Savannah told her that she and Miles had separated their assets. She promised Delta that Miles wouldn’t get his hands on anything that was their mother’s.”

  “Are you sure about that?” I wondered why Savannah would have done that. Maybe more importantly, why Delta wanted it done.

  “I’m absolutely sure. Delta hates Miles. Always has. That’s why she and Savannah didn’t speak to each other for so long.”

  That surprised me. “They didn’t speak because of Savannah’s marriage to Miles? I thought it was because Savannah left Delta here to take care of their mother.”

  Paisley popped twice and waved away my silly notion. “No. Delta wasn’t upset about that. Not really. She knew what Savannah was like, and she knew Savannah would have been miserable here. What really frosted her was the way Miles acted.”

  “What way was that?”

  “Oh, you know . . . like he was so much better than everybody else. This job in New York was really a corker, you know? Before this, he was just the world’s most annoying man, always talking about Harvard and making sure Delta and Charlie knew how smart he was. But this really put him over the top. He’s been shoving everything he does under Delta’s nose since the day he met Savannah. Like he just has to remind her that Savannah married him while Delta was stuck here in Paradise with old Charlie.”

  “Old Charlie” had been unemployed so many times over the years, I don’t think anybody seriously expected him to hold down a job anymore. It wasn’t that he was lazy or even a bad worker. He’d just been seriously unfortunate in that department.

  I was having a real struggle to readjust my thinking and figure out how this fit with the hit-and-run that killed Savannah. “So Miles is annoying. Is that why Delta hates him?”

  “She doesn’t trust him, either. And that’s all I know. You’d have to ask her the rest.”

  “Thanks, I think I’ll do that.” I turned toward the door again, then remembered one last question. “Has Delta ever mentioned whether Miles has family?”

  Paisley gave that some thought and shook her head. “I don’t remember. Sorry. But listen, anytime you want to come in here and let me fix you up, you just let me know, okay? You let us get to work on your hair, those eyebrows, and that little shadow on your upper lip, and you’ll feel like a new woman.”

  Gee, thanks! I left there feeling almost as attractive as the night Grandma Hanks told me my shoulders were too broad for the lace dress I wanted for my graduation from junior high school. I guess some things never leave you.

  I stayed up half the night finishing the samples I wanted for my meeting with Ruth Cohen, but by the time I crawled into bed I was satisfied with my efforts. Early the next morning, my sister-in-law showed up to work the store so I could meet with Mrs. Cohen and, hopefully, move Divinity up another rung on the ladder of success.

  By nine o’clock I had my hair as under control as it ever gets and started packing the Jetta with samples. I heard the phone ring, but since I’d stuffed myself into one of the suits left over from corporate law days and jammed my feet into heels, I wasn’t moving all that quickly. By the time I hobbled inside, the ringing had stopped.

  I checked voice mail and found a message from Jawarski. I was just telling myself what a pleasant way that was to start the day when he ruined everything.

  “Got the autopsy results back. Thought you might be interested to know that the ME found poison in her system. Amitriptyline. I’m not planning on making that public right away. Want to see if I can shake things up a bit. But I wanted you to know.”

  My hand was shaking as I disconnected. I tried calling him back, but he was already busy with something else, so I left a message and stared at the wall in front of me.

  Poison!

  It was almost too terrible to think about.

  I paced around the kitchen for a few minutes, but I couldn’t bear to do nothing. I wasn’t scheduled to be at the lodge until ten thirty, but in desperation I decided to follow up on that question I wanted to ask Delta Walters.

  Delta and Charlie live in a sleepy neighborhood on the outskirts of Paradise, in the sagging two-story frame house that used to belong to Delta’s mother. Last I heard, Charlie was between jobs—but like I said, Charlie is usually between jobs.

  Delta’s green Ford was sitting in the driveway, so I parked on the street and followed the narrow trail someone had scooped out of the snow and ice to the front door.

  I rang the bell twice and was just turning away when the door creaked open on rusty hinges, and Delta peered out at me. She was still in pajamas covered with a ratty chenille robe. Her hair stuck out on one side and lay flat on the other. Dark ridges of old mascara formed rings beneath red, puffy eyes. She looked horrible. But was she grieving her sister’s death? It seemed unlikely if she’d been behind the wheel of that rental car, and even less likely if she’d been cold-blooded enough to poison her own sister. At least with a hit-and-run I could delude myself into thinking it had been a crime of passion.

  Maybe Delta was grieving the news that Miles was entitled to half of everything she owned. She blinked a couple of times, as if she was having trouble focusing on me. “Abby? My goodness. You’re all dressed up today. What are you doing here?”

  “Paisley told me that you’d taken a few days off.”

  Delta nodded and squinted into the morning sunlight. “Yes, but—”

  “I’m sorry about Savannah,” I said quickly. “Are you holding up okay?”

  She looked me over with eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I’m holding up, but that’s about all I can say. But I’m sure you didn’t come over here to ask me that. What is it you want?”

  So much for the polite small talk portion of our visit. Since I wasn’t sure if she was a killer or a mourner, I decided to ease into what I really wanted to know. “I guess you probably know that we postponed the finish of the contest at Divinity. I’ve been thinking that it might be nice to have a short memorial for Savannah before we get started again.”

  “A memorial? In a candy st
ore?” Delta laughed softly and fiddled with the worn collar of her robe. “Well, I guess that’s more appropriate than a church.” From inside the house, an electronic buzzer sounded, and Delta seemed to realize for the first time that I was still outside. She stepped aside and motioned me through the door. “My coffee cake is ready to come out of the oven. Would you like some?”

  I couldn’t tell whether she wanted me to say yes or no. I wasn’t sure I could eat even a crumb and still sit down in the skirt I was wearing. And I wasn’t all that eager to eat something baked by someone who might have spare poison hanging around the house. But I’d just gotten started, and refusing would look suspicious, so I nodded and moved into the overheated, overcrowded house. Large pieces of heavy furniture lined every inch of wall space and jutted into the center of the living room. Gold brocade drapes, out of style for at least the past thirty years, blocked out most of the daylight, and the scent of cinnamon warred with the musty smell of a house that hadn’t experienced fresh air in far too long.

  When I realized that Delta was watching me, I worked up a smile and said, “You have a lovely home.”

  She gave a little shrug and headed toward the kitchen. “You’re not a very good liar, Abby. The house is a mess, and you know it. There’s too much furniture and not enough light, but it’s what I’m used to.” She waved me toward a round table in the center of the attached dining alcove and snatched up a couple of pot holders from the counter. “So you want to have a memorial for Savannah? Do you mind telling me why?”

  “She was a contestant,” I said again. “It doesn’t seem right to just go on as if nothing has happened.”

  Delta pulled the cake from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool. “Well, fine. What does any of this have to do with me?”

  I made a solemn vow not to eat a single bite unless she ate some first. “You’re her sister. I thought you might like to know, in case you wanted to be there. And, of course, if you want to say a few words—”

  Delta’s head shot up and a tight laugh escaped her lips. “It’s a lovely sentiment, I suppose, but I guarantee you don’t want me saying anything.”

  “But she’s your sister.”

  “Was.” Delta pulled a couple of plates from an overhead cupboard. “The fact is, Savannah hadn’t been a sister to me in years. She left right after high school and couldn’t be bothered with any of us she left behind.”

  That kind of comment always made me uncomfortable. Hit too close to home, I guess. “You didn’t stay in contact?”

  Delta gathered forks from a drawer. “Oh, sure. I’d say, ‘Hey, I need help with mother,’ and she’d say, ‘Leave me the hell alone.’ It was an ideal relationship . . . on her side.”

  Her bitterness didn’t surprise me, but I wasn’t comfortable with it. “Okay,” I agreed cautiously, “I won’t ask you to speak, but you’re welcome to come if you’d like. I’m sure there are a lot of people who’d like to offer their condolences, and I’ll bet there are people willing to help in whatever way they can.”

  Delta’s sharp laugh sliced through the stuffy air. “One of your friends helped me already, didn’t they?” She slapped two pieces of cake onto the plates and carried everything to the table. “Whoever it was should have left well enough alone.”

  “You think someone connected with the contest killed Savannah?”

  Delta slid a piece of cake in front of me and plunked herself down in a chair. “It was either somebody who waited twenty years to get their revenge, or somebody who had something to lose right now. Which do you think?”

  I wasn’t about to point out that she had a strong motive herself. Not while I was sitting across the table from her and she had sharp objects at her disposal.

  She didn’t seem to notice my silence. “If you want my opinion, I think Evie Rice did it.” Not for the first time, she sounded disconnected, as if we were discussing the death of a stranger. It bothered me as much this time as it had the last.

  “I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “This seems too cold-blooded for Evie.”

  Delta forked up a mouthful of cinnamon cake and stared at it for a long moment. “You could be right, I guess. There’s no shortage of people who hated my sister. I guess it could have been just about anybody.”

  “I know she wasn’t the most popular person in the world,” I said, “but I don’t think Paradise is overrun with people who wanted to kill her.”

  “Maybe not now.” Delta’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “But half those people probably wanted to kill her at one time or another. I’m afraid you won’t find many people around here who’ll appreciate what you’re trying to do with this memorial service of yours.” She finally put the cake into her mouth, and I felt myself relax.

  “Maybe not, but I still think it’s something I should do. Do you have any suggestions about who I might ask to speak?”

  She eyed me skeptically. “How would I know?”

  “You knew Savannah better than anyone when she lived here,” I pointed out. “There must be someone who was a friend back then and who’s still around here.” Someone who isn’t on the suspect list. “Marshall Ames was in our class at school,” I said, watching her reaction from the corner of my eye. “Maybe I could ask him.”

  “Marshall Ames? Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  I choked down a mouthful of dry coffee cake. “No. Is there some reason it should be?”

  “I take it you don’t know about Savannah and Marshall?”

  Faith had mentioned something hadn’t she? But I really didn’t know anything. Since I couldn’t speak, I shook my head. If there was poison in the cake, it sure wasn’t in liquid form.

  “Well, suffice it to say that Marshall has hated Savannah for years.”

  Sorry. Not sufficient. I needed to know way more than that. “I talked to Marshall the other day. I didn’t get that impression at all.”

  “That’s because Marshall is very good at hiding what he feels.”

  I forced down another bite of cake and asked, “Do you know why he hated her?”

  “Oh, it was typical Savannah, really. Marshall had quite a thing for her from the time they were about fourteen.”

  “Marshall did? I would never have guessed.”

  “Then you must not have seen the two of them together. This was all back when Mother was still young and vital. She knew Marshall’s mother somehow. I forget exactly how, but we spent quite a bit of time together in those days. Anybody in the same room could have seen how Marshall felt about Savannah, but she wouldn’t give him the time of day.”

  That did sound like vintage Savannah, and it matched what Faith had told me. But Marshall had seemed so . . . so what? Innocent?

  “It didn’t matter so much when they were young,” Delta went on, “but when they got into high school and Savannah started dating—” She broke off with a scowl and corrected herself, “By the time Mother knew she was dating, it became pretty clear to everyone that she wasn’t . . . How should I say this? She wasn’t exactly discriminating.”

  That was a very nice way of putting it. “So what happened?”

  “Well, even then, even when she was going with almost any boy who’d look at her twice, she acted as if she didn’t even know Marshall was alive.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “She and I lived in the same house, didn’t we? I saw it all. Marshall asked her out I don’t know how many times. She always said no, and always in the meanest way possible. Marshall wasn’t stupid, either. You’d have thought that eventually he’d get it, but he was like that Energizer Bunny. He just kept going and going and going . . .”

  “So she was mean to him, but he didn’t seem to notice. That’s hardly a motive for murder twenty years later.”

  Delta held up a hand to stop me. “Things might have kept going like that forever, but during her senior year, Savannah finally said yes.”

  That surprised me. “I don’t remember the two of them going out.”

&n
bsp; “That’s because they didn’t. Savannah told that poor boy she’d go to the Senior Ball with him, but she accepted a date with another boy for the same night. Poor Marshall showed up here dressed in a rented tux, carrying a corsage of roses, and driving his daddy’s Cadillac, only to find out that Savannah was already gone with someone else.”

  “That’s sad,” I agreed, “but people get stood up every day.” It had even happened to me a couple of times. I ate the last of my cake and pushed the plate to one side so Delta wouldn’t get any bright ideas about offering me seconds. “That’s not a reason to hate someone for twenty years.”

  “Oh, it was more than just that. Savannah wasn’t content with just standing him up. She taunted him with it afterward. For months after the ball, she’d laugh about it, treat it as if it was the biggest joke—not the fact that she’d stood him up, but that he’d been stupid enough to take her seriously in the first place.” Delta carried both plates to the sink. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but you didn’t know Savannah that well, did you? You don’t know how cruel she could be.”

  “No,” I said. “Maybe I didn’t. I was talking to someone the other day who said she overheard Marshall and Savannah talking about a letter. Do you know what that could be about?”

  Delta shook her head. “Probably some love missive Marshall wrote to her.”

  “Then or now?”

  “Then. Definitely. I think he eventually got over her, or maybe he just wised up.”

  She sounded so harsh, I winced inwardly. “Savannah seemed different to me when I talked to her the night before she died. She even sounded like she might be thinking about staying here.”

  Delta turned back toward me, wearing a touch of pity in her expression. “Savannah here? For good? That would never have happened. Savannah loves—” She cut herself off, and an expression I couldn’t read darted through her eyes. “She loved things. She loved money. She loved the kind of life she couldn’t get here in Paradise.”