Truffled to Death (A Chocolate Covered Mystery) (8 page)

“That’s too bad about the robbery,” I said. “All your beautiful things.”
My beautiful bowl
.

He shrugged. “They already belonged to the museum, but it sucks anyway.”

I took a sip. “Yum,” I said. “I don’t think your mom likes all that publicity. Especially with the professor’s death.”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Adam and his ideas.”

I filed that one away. “He wanted to make the donation? That’s nice.”

He scoffed. “My mom doesn’t think so now.”

“It sucks that such a nice idea got ruined,” I tried. “Did you hear that the police questioned us? We had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, they’re nuts,” he said. “Our lawyer is keeping them off our backs, which is good because I do
not
want my mom finding out where I was.”

I nodded. “Would she be mad?”

He snorted. “She’d have a fit.”

“Sounds like you were doing something interesting.”

“Nah,” he said. “I was just babysitting Jennie at a party. That’s the part that would crank off my mom.”

“How long did the party last?”

But I’d pushed it too far.

His eyes turned suspicious. “Our lawyer says we’re not allowed to talk about it.”

“I’m sure the police will let us all know when they figure it out.” I grabbed a plastic lid and carefully put it on. “Are you still going ahead with the other donations?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s a done deal. There’s a lot of stuff they didn’t get.” He slouched toward the cash register. “You want anything else?”

My cue to leave. “No,” I said, pulling out a five-dollar bill. “Thanks so much for the caffeine. I can’t get enough today.”

He gave me change and I put it in the tiki jar with a handmade
Tips are for kids!
sign. “Thanks,” he said. “Have a good day.”

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

I
cleared the table after the elementary school’s coffee klatch moms left, their normal stop on Tuesday mornings after dropping their older kids off at school and then playing in the park with their younger children. One of their toddlers had insisted on playing peekaboo with me every time I came close, yelling, “I see you,” and then squealing with laughter while hiding behind the totally see-through slats of the chair.

One of the moms, Samantha, had taken one bite of a Mocha Supreme and not finished it. I grinned and took the evidence to show Kona. “Samantha’s pregnant.”

Kona laughed as she wiped down the counter. “Diagnosis by truffle?”

“You’ll see,” I said. “Sometimes pregnant women can’t handle the coffee flavor.” No coffee? I couldn’t imagine. “Can you check website orders?”

“Sure.” She clicked a few keys on my laptop behind the counter. “Oh my God. There are a ton!”

“Really?”

She turned it around so I could see.

“Wow!” Then I got a sick feeling in my stomach. “Do you think it’s because the professor . . . ?”

“Don’t go there,” she said. “It’s just because the news reminded all those people at the reception how amazing your chocolates are.”

I took a few deep breaths, staring at the screen. Then I met her eyes.

“It’s still pretty creepy,” she admitted.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

A
t noon, I got a call from our next-door neighbor, Henna Bradbury. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your house is filled with crime scene investigators.”

“What?” I yelled. “I’m gonna kill Chief Noonan.” Did I say that out loud? I looked at the customers staring at me. “I mean, what a funny guy.”

“Oh my goodness,” Henna said. “There’s a police officer coming this way. Bye!”

Erica was back in her office, holding an ancient, leather-bound book in her hand and talking to a customer for her rare book business on the phone. “I know. It’s terribly disappointing. But I’m confident that it’s not a first edition.”

“I need to talk to you now,” I whispered loudly.

She held up one finger. “Of course,” she said to whoever was on the other end. “I’ll do that right away. And again, I’m sorry I don’t have better news.” After a few “uh-huhs” and “that’s fines,” she finally hung up.

Before she could ask, I told her, “The crime scene techs are at our house!” I felt frantic at the thought of strangers going through my stuff. My clothes. My dirty underwear. And oh no, my high school diaries.

Her eyes widened, but her voice was calm. “That’s okay,” she said. “We have nothing to worry about.”

“Should we go home?” I asked.

Erica thought for a minute and then said, “No. Let them come to us. I have a date with a flash mob.”

I
was on pins and needles, waiting for Detective Lockett to arrive. Erica looked relaxed during her production meeting with Wink from the museum, teachers Jolene and Steve Roxbury, who had snuck away during their lunch break, and Janice the Costume Lady. Janice worked with all the local high school drama classes and junior theaters to transform kids into characters on a shoestring budget. They all seemed very excited about the video they were planning, but not too busy to ignore my new fall assortment of truffles.

I’d asked Erica if the flash mob was a good idea given the professor’s death, but they’d all decided that positive press was more important than ever.

Wink wore a bright yellow sweater vest with tiny blue stripes, his starched white sleeves folded up neatly to right above his elbows. His pants were rolled into a little cuff,
showing off his contrasting psychedelic socks. Rolled up was big with this guy. “Is that allspice in those pumpkin truffles?” he asked.

I smiled. “Good taste buds.”

“Genius!” he said. “I’ve never tasted anything like it.”

“What’s with the getup?” I asked Jolene, who wore an African-print turban around her hair and matching dress.

“It was ‘Diversity Day’ at school.” She used finger quotation marks. “The new principal has a bunch of ideas for eliminating bullying on campus.” She sounded dubious. “We’re all supposed to wear something that shows our heritage.”

The colors were gorgeous against her dark skin. “You look beautiful,” I said and turned to her husband, Steve, who wore a neon green golf shirt and outrageously loud, orange plaid Bermuda shorts. “Where’s your outfit?”

He flashed a grin. “Can’t get any more WASP-y than this.”

Jolene drew him away to discuss backdrops with Wink, and I cleaned up their dishes.

Detective Lockett held the door for Colleen and her three children and then strolled in behind them. Even though her divorce was not what she’d planned, she seemed happier than she’d been in a long time.

Her two-year-old twins made a beeline for me. “Aunty Schmell!” they yelled and grabbed onto my legs. I wasn’t much of a kid person, but made an exception for Colleen’s. Nine-year-old Prudence waved and headed over to the bookstore, which she loved almost as much as Erica did. The twins let go of me and raced for the play area on Erica’s side. I was sure Erica was about to pull out her recording device. Ever since she realized they were losing their twin talk the more they learned how to really talk, she’d been trying to save
what was left. If Colleen wasn’t careful, she’d write a paper on the whole thing.

Lockett raised his eyebrows. “
Aunty
Schmell
? Can I call you that?”

“Not if you want to live,” I joked, and then realized that was probably not something to say to a cop investigating a murder. “I thought you needed probable cause to search someone’s home.” Being involved in a prior homicide investigation had its advantages.

“You want to talk about this out here?” he asked. “Erica should join us.”

I rolled my eyes and collected Erica, who was sitting on the floor in the play area reading a book about a snoring bear to a toddler on her lap while the twins ran cars up and down her back.

I pointed out Lockett. “You’re needed in the back,” I told her, not bothering to keep the resentment out of my voice.

“No problem,” she said and then spoke to Colleen, who put down the box of books she’d begun to stock on the shelves.

Erica’s assistant Zane was working at her desk, looking like the preppiest kid in Maryland with his khaki pants, blue button-down shirt and argyle vest. I think he had vests in every known shade of pastel. Maybe he and Wink shopped at the same vest store.

He turned around in his desk chair and Lockett nodded to him. “Hey, West, you keeping your nose clean, kid?”

Zane looked deadpan. “As far as you know, yes.”

“Great,” I said. “Now he’ll get a search warrant for you.”

Zane seem unfazed and spun back to focus on his screen.

“You want him to stay for this?” Lockett asked Erica.
When she nodded, he pulled out a few sheets of paper and handed over a very official-looking warrant. “I’d like to know why you left the house at midnight the night of the murder.”

“What?” I asked. “How do you know that?”

Erica looked over the papers. “I’m sorry, Zane. Can you check the post office box?”

“No problem.” His wide-eyed
let me out of here
expression made it clear he was happy to escape.

We waited for him to be out of earshot and Erica explained to me, “My car tracks my usage, including pretty detailed GPS monitoring.” She turned to Lockett. “Right?”

When he nodded, she continued in a calm voice. “It’s easily explained. I couldn’t sleep and wanted to tell Bobby what had happened with Dr. Moody. He didn’t know anything about my . . . history with the professor.”

“And did you?” Lockett leaned casually against the doorjamb but he couldn’t hide his intense expression.

“I’m sure the data tells you that I stopped outside Bobby’s house and then left after five minutes.”

“Why?”

Her voice faltered. “I was embarrassed. That was a difficult time in my life when I made several bad judgment calls and I didn’t want anyone, especially Bobby, to know.”

“And that’s the only reason?” he asked.

I moved to stand beside her. “That’s the only reason,” I insisted.

Erica put a hand on my shoulder. “I would prefer this not get back to Bobby.”

Lockett nodded, which seemed pretty noncommittal to me.

“As I’m sure you know, Bobby and I have a complicated
relationship and we recently began dating again.” She held her chin up. “I was considering taking our relationship to another level. Unfortunately, it was terrible timing. In more ways than one.”

“So you didn’t tell him anything,” he clarified.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t even get out of the car.”

He nodded, as if her statement matched what he already assumed. “We checked your store’s security footage, and it corresponds with what you told us.”

“Of course it did,” I said. “Did you see anything useful on it?”

“Erica,” Colleen rounded the corner.

“Are you done with me?” Erica asked.

“For now,” he said.

“Why does that always sound vaguely threatening?” I asked him as Erica and Colleen headed over to the bookstore side.

He shrugged. “Probably because you’re always
vaguely
guilty of something.”

As long as he was here being a pain, we should get something out of it. I stopped halfway down the back hall and turned to face him. “So nothing on the video?” I asked. We’d looked at it too, but he was the expert.

“No.”

“What were you looking for in our house?” I asked.

He stared at me for a long moment and then answered, “We have the autopsy results. The coroner determined that Dr. Moody was killed by a small, sharp tube, which was not found near the body.”

“Like a straw?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said. “And Lavender Rawlings insisted she saw items that could’ve made such a wound in Erica’s office.”

“For the love of—” I broke off and took a deep breath. “Lavender is a vengeful idiot who doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about.”

“We know,” Lockett said. “But she made quite a stink so we followed through.”

“Did you find the so-called murder weapon at our house?” I asked.

“If I had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said. “A piece of the murder weapon broke off and lodged in a rib.”

I had a sudden vision of a scene from the
CSI
show demonstrating the internal workings of how victims died in horrific, bloody detail, and felt a little faint.

“Are you okay?” Lockett asked.

I nodded. “I’m fine.”

“The tube was made of jadeite,” he said. “Have you ever heard of it?”

“Jade, yes. Jadeite, no,” I said. “What is it?”

“I’m told that it’s a stone used a very long time ago to make Maya bloodletting tools.”

It took me a while to find my voice. I definitely paled this time. “Like for human sacrifice or something?”

“Exactly.” He grimaced. “You don’t want to know what they did with them.”

If it freaked out an experienced homicide detective, I definitely didn’t want to know.

“So I should let you know if I see any jade tubes lying around?”

“Jadeite,” he corrected me. “Sure.”

“I’m assuming you can’t find them at the Duncan Hardware Store,” I said. “You know, aisle fourteen for gardening, ceiling fans, and bloodletting tools?”

He smiled. “Not unless they sell items worth about one hundred thousand dollars.”

“What?” My voice was shocked. “He was killed by something that was worth one hundred thousand dollars? How big was it?”

“Not big,” he said. “Say seven or eight inches long.”

“That’s like twelve thousand dollars an inch.”

He sighed.

I stated the obvious. “So you’re going with the assumption that this had something to do with the disappearance of the display.” Then I remembered that it had contained some tubes. “Wait. Weren’t some of those things used in the display?”

“Yes,” he said.

I felt a little sick to my stomach. “So one of them was used to . . . ?”

“We won’t know for sure until we recover the murder weapon,” he said.

Lockett seemed in no hurry to leave, and I got an uneasy feeling. “Can you tell me again why you’re here?”

He stared at me. “Gary River said you were in his coffee shop asking weird questions.”

“I was just getting coffee,” I insisted, but at the last second my glance slid away. I knew I’d blown it. I had to get better at that interrogation stuff. “But you have to suspect someone in that family.”

“They all have alibis,” he said. “Stop asking them questions.” He pushed off from the wall and left.

Erica joined me back in her office, and I told her about the murder weapon and Lavender’s accusations. “She’s definitely out to get you,” I said.

Erica didn’t seem concerned. “She’s grieving. All those emotions have to go somewhere.” She opened her laptop and clicked a few times. “A bloodletting tool. That’s fascinating.”

“Really?” I asked. “I’d have gone with incredibly gross.”

“You’re not far off,” she said. “Much of Maya art documents their many rituals, including perforating their, let’s just say their most sensitive places, to collect blood on paper. Then they’d burn the paper as an offering.”

I so didn’t want to hear about that. “Did I really need those images in my head today?” No wonder Lockett had seemed squeamish about it. “There were some in the display case.”

“As we suspected, his murder could easily be connected to the robbery.” She turned to Zane, who came back with a bunch of mail. “Did you have time to research Farley Olsen?”

He dumped the stack of envelopes and packages and dug through his desk for a few sheets of paper. “He’s not really a security guard. He’s an actor.”

“Has he at least played a security guard on TV?” I asked, but neither of them responded to my joke.

Erica read from his research. “He works part-time at Eastern University of Baltimore.”

“The professor’s college?” I walked over to read over her shoulder. “That’s pretty suspicious. Maybe it really was an inside job.”

“The police have to know this,” she said. “They must’ve cleared him.” But her voice was thoughtful.

“Can you ask Bobby?” I asked.

She gave me a
you gotta be kidding
look.

Zane was looking at us with interest.

“Any chance you can get a, like,
totally legal
peek at the professor’s past students and see if there’s anyone with some correlation to West Riverdale, or the museum, or something?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “I can do that.”

“But it won’t get you into trouble, right?” I asked.

“Nah,” he said. “A lot of this stuff is posted on public sites. Easy pickin’s.”

“Not that we’re investigating or anything,” I said.

He snorted and turned back to his computer. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can be
not investigating
for you.”

We left him alone with his sarcasm and went back to work. My chocolates weren’t going to sell themselves.

•  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •  •

R
eese the crazy reporter banged on the front door again right after we closed. “Michelle. Erica. I need to speak to you.”

“I’m not opening it,” I told Erica. “It’s been a long, long day.” The delightful scent of almost-burnt sugar wafted through the store as Kayla expertly stirred the caramel in the kitchen. It would cool overnight and I could finish my half-sized Fleur de Sel Caramels in the morning. We all called them my “gateway drug” for good reason. I gave them away on the street to lure potential customers into my store, and no one could resist their gooey sweetness mixed with a tang of sea salt.

Erica did the honors. “What can I help you with, Reese?”

Anyone with half a brain would know from Erica’s tone
that she was simply being polite. But not Reese. “The whole town is horrified by the gruesome murder of Dr. Addison Moody. Can you tell me your relationship and why you’re considered a suspect?”