Fatal Chocolate Obsession (Death by Chocolate Book 5) Page 8

  He got out of the car and closed his door.

  “What did you just put in your pocket?” I asked as we started up the walk toward the house with gray siding and closed curtains.

  “Something I may need.”

  “Well, duh. I didn’t think you were taking an empty soda can with you.” Though Fred might be able to find a use for that.

  He didn’t respond, just kept walking. I don’t claim to be psychic, but that ordinary house seemed to radiate evil. I edged a bit closer to Fred.

  “Got it under control.” That’s about as close as he comes to offering comfort.

  We climbed the three steps to the front porch that was so small it barely qualified as such. Another thing I like about old houses. We have big porches.

  Fred pushed the doorbell. It worked. I could hear the raucous sound through the door.

  We waited.

  No one came to the door.

  Fred rang the bell again then knocked forcefully. “Open up! Immigration!”

  “They’re not immigrants,” I whispered.

  “Exactly. So they’ll open the door to tell me I have the wrong house.” He banged loudly again. “Don’t make me break down this door!”

  “I think maybe it’s illegal to impersonate an immigration officer.”

  “I’m not impersonating an immigration officer. I simply spoke the word ‘immigration.’ I can’t help what inference people take from that.”

  I liked that logic. I was learning a lot from Fred.

  The door swung open and a woman holding an ice bag to her face gazed at us from one eye. The other was swollen almost shut. Since she was short, slim and female, I assumed this was Tina.

  Fred flashed some sort of badge. He did it so rapidly the woman couldn’t possibly have seen what it was. Neither could I. Police? CIA? FBI? Termite Inspector?

  “I need to speak with Kenneth Wilson.”

  The woman lifted her bruised chin. “Have you got a search warrant?”

  She knew how this game was played. I wondered how Fred was going to deal with that request.

  “I don’t need a search warrant.” He sounded confident and tough.

  Her good eye widened.

  A door slammed somewhere in the house.

  “Excuse me.” Fred leapt from the porch and ran around the house toward the back yard. Apparently our suspect was on the lam.

  Tina started to close the door but I grabbed it. “Did Kenneth do that to you?”

  I expected her to deny it, try to convince me she’d fallen down the stairs.

  “What if he did?” she asked. “It’s none of your concern.”

  True, but that had never stopped me before. “You don’t have to take that. You can leave him.”

  “Lady, you need to mind your own business.” She tried again to close the door, but I was stronger.

  “I was Bob’s friend. Do you think he’d want you to tolerate this kind of treatment?”

  Her grip on the door loosened and she became very still. I wasn’t sure if she was going to cry in grief or scream in anger.

  “Bob’s dead.” The two lifeless words fell from her lips, making me feel her pain more surely than if she’d cried or screamed.

  “I know he is, and there’s a good chance your husband killed him.”

  She stared at me in silence. Her expression didn’t change. Either she’d already considered that possibility and dismissed it or she knew for a fact that Kenneth had killed her former lover.

  “Are you going to let him get away with it?” I asked.

  “He said he didn’t do it.”

  They’d talked about it. “Does he always tell the truth?”

  She laughed, a brief burst of hollow sound. Her open eye focused to the left of my face, refusing to look me in the eye. “Ken’s a good man. This hasn’t happened in a long time.” She bit her lip and returned her gaze to mine. “I’ve got three kids, and he takes care of all of us.”

  “As he should.”

  “Well, two of them. But my ten year old is Bob’s son.”

  “Oh.” Add another layer of motive.

  “You knew Bob?” she asked.

  I nodded. “He came to my restaurant, Death by Chocolate.” No need to specify the exact location he came to—the trash bin behind the restaurant. “We talked. We became friends.”

  “He told you about me?”

  I considered the question. In a way he kind of, sort of, had told me. By telling me Nick was hiring him, he’d led me to Nick who had told me. If I wanted to get information from this woman, there could be only one answer. “Yes.”

  “I loved him.”

  “He cared for you.” Okay, that might have been an outright lie, but it might have been the truth. Surely he wouldn’t have had a relationship with her if he hadn’t cared for her.

  Her swollen lips twitched into something resembling a smile. “I know. He cared for me, but he didn’t love me. He loved his wife.”

  “Did you still love him after he confessed everything to your husband?”

  She flinched. “I was angry with him for a long time. But I guess in the long run the truth is always better than lies.”

  “Does Ken feel the same way about the truth thing?”

  “Ken’s got a temper.”

  Laughter sounded from the side yard, and I turned. Fred, immaculate in his black suit, white shirt and burgundy tie, came across the grass with one arm wrapped around the neck of a burly guy wearing a wife-beater T-shirt and stained blue jeans. Ken, I presumed. To my surprise, Fred wasn’t choking him. They seemed to be best buds.

  “Lindsay, we’ve got the wrong house, but look who I found! We both went to the same high school!”

  I doubted it.

  “Come on in,” the man invited. “Let’s have a drink to the Bulldogs!”

  They brushed past us into the house.

  Judging from the sound of Ken’s voice and the smell of his breath, he had been drinking to the Bulldogs for quite a while.

  Tina gave me a confused look. I shrugged. I doubted Ken was likely to have an aged bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon open and breathing, so Fred probably wasn’t doing this because he wanted to drink with the man. Doubtless he had a plan, but he hadn’t confided in me.

  “Tina! Bring us a couple of beers,” Ken shouted from somewhere inside the house.

  “If he’s too drunk or lazy to get them himself, he doesn’t need them,” I said.

  Tina went inside.

  I followed right behind her. From the living room I could see Fred and Ken seated at the kitchen table. “I was married to a jerk once,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to take this. We can have a confrontation right now with Fred and me to help you.”

  She stopped halfway through the living room and turned back to me. “And then you’ll go home and just my kids and I will be here with him.”

  “Where are your kids?”

  “At my sister’s house until this blows over. Ken’s been drinking ever since he heard about Bob.” She continued through the kitchen door.

  “About time!” Ken called.

  She went straight to the refrigerator, took out two beers, popped them open and set them in front of Fred and Ken.

  Fred wrapped his fingers around his can. “Thank you.”

  Ken did not follow his polite example. Without comment he lifted the can to his lips. I had to resist the urge to shove that can up his nose.

  Without waiting for an invitation…which wasn’t likely to come…I slid back a chair and sat down between the two men then scooted my chair as far away from Ken as possible.

  Fear spread over Tina’s face as her gaze settled on Ken. I hoped he’d do something violent to protest my sitting at his table uninvited. I was looking forward to Fred taking him down. When he got him on the floor, I’d help by kicking him a few times.

  “This your woman?” Ken asked.

  I supposed it was a natural assumption since I was practically sitting in Fred’s lap in my effort to put
distance between Ken and me.

  “This is Lindsay,” Fred answered.

  “Honey, get Fred’s woman a beer.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Soda pop?”

  “No, thank you.” I would have liked a Coke but I wasn’t going to accept anything from that creature.

  Ken clutched his beer and pointed at Fred with one finger. “Hey, were you at that game a few years ago when our Bulldogs didn’t let the other team score even a field goal?”

  “Great game. That player—” Fred imitated Ken’s gesture. “I can’t think of his name. You know the one I’m talking about.”

  “Fields!”

  “Yes! That’s him. Amazing!”

  Fred was really good with BS.

  As they talked about the football team they supposedly had in common, Tina got another can of beer for Ken then slid timidly into a chair next to her husband.

  Ken set down the empty can and grabbed the full one.

  “You hear about that awful murder a couple of days ago?” Apparently Fred thought Ken had consumed enough alcohol that he could safely change the subject. “Happened in the alley behind the restaurant where a friend of mine works.”

  “No kidding? Right behind where your friend works?” Ken lifted his can for a big gulp.

  “Yeah, some homeless guy got killed. What did the cops say his name was, Lindsay?”

  “Bob. Bob Markham.” I watched Ken’s face closely.

  I was not disappointed. His drunken camaraderie changed to anger. He glanced at Tina who sat rigidly in her chair. “Yeah, well, some people get what they deserve.”

  I bit my lip to keep from mouthing off.

  Fred nodded. “Know what you mean. Some druggie living off decent people who work and pay taxes.”

  “Yeah, that’s all he was. Just some old drunk living on the streets.”

  It did not escape my notice that Fred called Bob a druggie but Ken corrected it to drunk.

  Fred lifted his beer to his lips, set it back on the table and nodded. “Beats me why the police are wasting so much time trying to find the killer. I mean, like you said, just some old drunk. He didn’t leave a lot of clues, but they’ve got this technology they can use to detect the pattern of shoe treads up to twenty-four hours after the person walked through the alley.”

  Ken frowned. “Izzat right? How’s that work? Wouldn’t there be lots of shoe prints in that alley?”

  “Not as many as you’d think. I hear they’ve nailed it down to one set of shoes.” Fred clutched his beer and smiled. “Mind if I use your little boy’s room? Stuff goes right through me. You know?”

  I tensed. Fred had taken, at most, a couple of sips of his beer. He must be counting on Ken to be so drunk he wouldn’t notice.

  “Yeah, sure. Use the one in our bedroom. The one in the hall’s a mess. Damn kids. Down the hall, last door on your right.”

  Fred rose, still holding his beer. “Thanks. Be right back. Lindsay, tell my buddy Ken all about thermography and how the cops can identify individual shoe prints and track down the exact pair of shoes that made them. She’s better at this technical stuff than I am.”

  Fred piled one lie on top of another.

  “Sure, thermography.” I leaned forward, folded my hands on the table and cleared my throat, buying a few seconds to think of what to say. “Works on the principle of heat. Your body always produces heat.”

  Ken laughed raucously. “You know it, honey!”

  I sat motionless for a moment, reminding myself that our visit had a purpose, and I should not mess up that purpose by reaching across the table and slapping that fool. “So you leave traces of your heat pattern everywhere you go. The cops can measure that heat pattern through the print of your shoes and go right to the pair of shoes that made the print.” I was pretty impressed with my own BS.

  Ken’s brow furrowed in a scowl. “So you’re saying if somebody’s wearing a pair of Nikes just like thousands of other people, the cops can find that pair of shoes? How? They’re all alike.”

  “No, they’re not. Each pair of shoes has its own pattern, just like fingerprints and DNA. No two are exactly alike. All they have to do now is find the shoes worn by the guy who murdered Bob, compare them to the prints they have, and the guy’s off to prison.”

  Did Ken go pale at that news? It was getting dark and nobody had turned on the light in the kitchen so I couldn’t tell for sure.

  He drained his beer and slammed the can down on the table. “They ought to give the guy a medal. Tina, get me another beer. Can’t you see this one’s empty? Get another one for my friend too.”

  “No, thanks.” Fred appeared behind his chair and set an empty can on the table. I presumed he flushed the contents. “We’ve got to be going. Got to find that Russian immigrant.” He held a hand across the table. “Sure nice to meet another Bulldog fan. Thank you much for the beer.”

  Ken shook his hand vigorously. “Let’s go to the next game together.”

  Fred made a thumbs-up sign. “Deal. Call me. You’ve got my number.”

  Ken followed us to the door and slapped Fred on the back as we left. I didn’t see Tina. I presumed she was still huddling in the kitchen. Maybe Ken would pass out on his way back through the living room. Maybe she’d then find the guts to grab one of her kids’ baseball bats and beat him as severely as he’d beaten her.

  That wasn’t likely to happen.

  We drove away from the ordinary house with all its extraordinary secrets. I was in a play in grade school and had to wear a bright orange tutu and an orange cardboard flower around my face. Getting away from Kenneth Wilson’s house felt almost as good as getting off that stage.

  “You gave that creep your phone number?” I asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “You told him he had your number.”

  “I lied.” He drove calmly down the street.

  “About a lot of things. Thermography? Really? And then you left me to explain it?”

  “I knew you could do it. If he tries to get rid of a pair of shoes, we’ll know we’ve got the right guy.” He turned a corner on all four wheels. Such a waste of a good engine.

  “How will you know if he tries to get rid of a pair of shoes? Are you going to sit by his garbage can all night and watch him?”

  “All I have to do is scan the video from the camera I put above the door in his bedroom.”

  “Is that what you got out of the bag and put in your pocket?” I turned around and looked at the back seat. Half a dozen canvas bags of various shapes and sizes remained. “What’s in the rest of them?”

  “Necessities. I applaud you for not going off on our suspect. I could feel your anger, and I don’t blame you. But self control is essential when you’re trying to get information.”

  “Or set somebody up.”

  “That too.”

  We rode in silence for a few moments. I hate to admit it, but there’s something soothing about Fred’s driving, sort of like a slow waltz down the street. I’d never tell him that, of course.

  That night I wasn’t soothed.

  “I sure hope we get proof against Ken and can lock that jerk away for the rest of his life,” I said. “I hate it because he killed my friend, and I hate him for what he’s doing to Tina.”

  Fred’s profile was a stern silhouette in the dark car. “The best we can do is hope to get him before…”

  It’s not like Fred to stop in the middle of a sentence, but I heard what he didn’t say. Before he kills Tina too.

  I learned nothing else during the remainder of our ride. I was tempted to reach into the back, pick up one of those canvas bags and open it. I didn’t do it, but it gave me an idea.

  I could plant a camera in Fred’s house the way he’d done to Ken and see what he and Sophie were up to.

  I burst into laughter at the ridiculous idea that I could get away with doing something like that.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  “You wouldn’t und
erstand.”

  We pulled into his driveway. “I’ll see you safely inside your house then come back and put my car in the garage,” he said.

  “I live next door. I think I can make it on my own.” I got out of the car and started across the yard. He walked beside me. “Seriously?” I asked. “Look. Henry’s on my porch waiting. If anything was going on, he’d let me know.”

  “That’s true, but you know I can’t leave something unfinished. I’m going with you.”

  As we got closer, I saw that Henry was holding something down with one big paw and ripping at it with his lion-sized teeth. I sighed. “Great. As long as you’re here, you can dispose of Henry’s gift.”

  “I don’t think that’s a mouse.”

  “Mouse, rabbit, bird, mole. I don’t care what it is, I want it gone. One time he brought me a snake.”

  We reached the porch and Fred stooped to pick up the remnants of whatever Henry had brought home. Henry snarled. Of course he did. The gift was for me, not Fred.

  “Fred will give it to me,” I assured Henry.

  “Lindsay, you need to see this.”

  “I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

  “This gift is not from Henry.”

  Chapter Nine

  Fred handed me a small object that gleamed in the moonlight.

  A crystal butterfly.

  Rick knew how much I loved crystal, so sparkly with all those pretty rainbows. He gave me a crystal unicorn for our first anniversary. I still have it—not because it has sentimental value but because it’s pretty.

  “Can you believe this jerk?” I extended the butterfly toward Fred. “His ex-girlfriend was killed less than twenty-four hours ago, and he’s still harassing me.”

  Fred pulled rubber gloves from his pocket, leaned down and picked up a tattered envelope. Yes, Henry had worked the envelope over, but gloves seemed a little fastidious even for Fred. “Are you trying not to disturb fingerprints or just being your usual OCD self?”

  “Both. Do you mind if I open it?”

  That’s Fred. Always polite, even at the scene of a stalking. “Sure. Open it, read it, take it home, shred it and burn it. I don’t care. I certainly don’t want it.”

  Fred carefully opened the envelope printed with flowers and butterflies then slid out a card with butterflies and hearts on the front. He opened it. “Butterflies are free and so are we. Come fly away with me for all eternity. I’ll shelter you from harm, and always keep you safe and warm. Anyone who troubles thee will feel the wrath of me. I didn’t know Rick wrote poetry.”