Behind Chocolate Bars (11 page)

I raised my eyebrows. “Outliers? Someone named Newell is certainly an outlier wherever he goes.”

She smiled and went back to her office, returning in a few minutes. “That's odd.”

“What's odd?” I asked while refilling the plastic bag with the chocolate ganache.

“His personal secretary said he won't meet with us,” she said.

“Really? Why?” I stopped. “Wait. He has a personal secretary?”

She shrugged. “She was very nice about it, but said he had no time to meet with us.”

“Guess we have to track him down.”

“He belongs to the Dulany Hills Country Club.”

“Whoa,” I said. “Country club
and
personal secretary? He's got mega bucks.”

“Seems like it,” she said. “They have their annual gala tomorrow. Want to go?”

“No!” I said. “We can't crash something like that. I'd stick out like a sore thumb.”

“It's a Halloween party,” she said. “You can wear a costume.”

“I doubt very much the country club folks actually wear costumes. Unless they're those foofy masks like from Elizabethan times.”

She paused to think. “You may have a point.”

“Newt sounds like a pretty rich guy to fall for Faith's tricks,” I said.

“Brains don't always go along with wealth,” she said, and went back to her office.

I finished the second tray of Flag Furls and took off my gloves to pull up last year's gala photos on my laptop. Sure enough, no costumes. Just endless photos of mostly middle-aged to elderly couples, the women wearing dresses that had recently been on some designer's runway.

Then I remembered that I was hoping to go out with Bean after May's cat lottery party. Oh well. Dylan came first.

Erica came back to the kitchen and I spoke first. “I should go as the help.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Our torte supplier did their desserts last year,” I said. “I'll see if she'll be there this year and offer to be a server.” I pointed to a photo of a man in his sixties with a woman
who looked like she was barely out of her twenties wearing a slinky silver dress that went to the floor and had a slit to her upper thigh. “You can get away with a dress like that but I can't.”

Erica was almost a foot taller than me, and I tended to look like a fireplug when I wore anything shiny. Which hadn't happened since my high school prom.

“You'd look gorgeous in that,” she said, ignoring my snort. “But splitting up is a good idea. So our intentions are not so obvious. Phoenix is a member, and I'm going to ask if I can attend with him and his partner,” she said.

“Partner? I didn't know Phoenix was serious about anyone,” I said, immediately curious about the kind of man Phoenix would fall for. “Do we know him?”

“I guess we'll find out,” she said with a smile.

*   *   *

I
met with Phoenix in the store kitchen, where we'd have some privacy. He was pleased that I'd pulled together my profit and loss statements, but wasn't happy that I didn't have my marketing plan with associated costs running up to the winter holiday season. He didn't seem to believe the
too busy with the Halloween Festival
excuse or the
I've been investigating a murder for a friend
excuse, but I let him stare at me in disapproval with barely an eye roll. “I'll have it next week.”

“Fine,” he said. “But why are you still investigating? Once again, I'm going to warn you that you should leave all of this skullduggery to the very competent police.”

“We're just trying to help Dylan,” I said.

“I understand,” he said. “But there is no need. I know for a fact that the police are doing everything they can to find the real killer.”

“How do you know?” I asked. “People get falsely arrested all the time. Can you imagine Dylan in a prison cell?”

“I understand,” he repeated. “And I'll leave it at that.” He slid copies of the papers we'd discussed into a folder and handed it to me. “On another note, I'll have one of my employees gather the numbers to figure out if merging finances will work. I'd like to set up a meeting with both you and Erica next week as well. I'd appreciate it if you could email me your marketing numbers before then.”

“Okay,” I said to get him off my back, but I wasn't sure how I could fit in the hours I'd need to think of a new and exciting marketing tactic along with cost projections.

Erica popped her head into the kitchen. “Phoenix. I'm so glad I caught you. Do you still belong to the Dulany Hills Country Club?”

“Yes,” he said. “Why?”

“I need to get into your next big event,” she said. “The Halloween gala tomorrow night.”

He looked confused but said, “Sure.”

“We just need to talk to a member who's on the guest list,” Erica explained.

“How do you know who's on the guest list?” His face cleared. “Is this about your investigation?”

“Would that be a problem?” I asked.

“Not at all,” he said, with an undercurrent of humor that I didn't understand. “Glad to help any way that I can.”

“Oh good,” Erica said. “Can you add me as your guest?”

“Sure. We can even pick you up.”

“Thanks!” Erica said, and left, letting the door close behind her.

He turned to me. “You're not going?”

“I'll be there.” I pretended to hold a tray on my hand. “As a server.”

He smiled. “Undercover?”

“Kind of,” I admitted. “So you're bringing someone? Other than Erica, I mean.”

His smile turned into a grin. “Yep.”

“Do I know him?” I asked, trying to figure out what was so humorous.

Phoenix laughed out loud. “I'm fairly confident you do.”

His delight was infectious. “Is it serious?” I asked. “You seem so happy.”

He nodded. “Very serious.”

“Who is it?” I asked in a rather demanding tone.

“I'll let that be a surprise,” he said with a chuckle.

B
ean brought a bunch of meatball subs from Zelini's to the store for lunch. We sat on the back porch, and I had my mouth full of gooey deliciousness when Erica came out with her phone.

“Reese wrote an article that Chuck Sinsle was released on bail,” she said.

I finished chewing. “Do you want to go and talk to him?”

“I don't know,” she said. “Bobby made sure I knew the police are watching him. Twenty-four, seven.”

“Shoot,” I said. “Can we call him?”

“They might be monitoring his phone too,” Bean said. “Just call the super and offer him fifty bucks to give Chuck a message. And the message is that you'll give Chuck fifty bucks to show up somewhere to meet.”

“Why would Chuck meet with us?” Erica asked. “If he
talked to the super, he might know that you were responsible for him being caught with Faith's belongings.”

My mind was stuck on the money. One hundred bucks? “That's a lot of money for just the chance at some information,” I said. “Is that how all you reporters get your information?”

“You'd be surprised.” He took out his phone and handed it to Erica. “Use this to call him.” When she hesitated, he said, “Do it. It'll work.”

*   *   *

O
f course, Bean's idea worked like a charm. We were celebrating finishing the last major bit of the haunted house construction with an impromptu pizza party at the Boys and Girls Club when Bean got the message. Chuck had agreed to meet us in the food court of a mall on the other side of Frederick at noon the next day. Our Saturday was going to be crazy busy. It looked like we should add bribery to our investigation toolbox.

Bobby and Bean were supposed to be helping the Duncans, but, along with the teen volunteers, they seemed to be enjoying playing with the haunted house features more than anything. They especially liked trying to scare the heck out of each other.

Erica came in while we were sitting around the table in the quiet room, eating pizza and listening to the comic book kids razzing each other about how high they'd jumped when the mechanical spider had come at them from the corner. She dropped a kiss on Bobby's head and I was surprised and delighted with the absent-minded show of affection in front of everyone.

Bobby grabbed her hand as she pulled away and smiled.
She'd told me that they had agreed to disagree about her pursuing an investigation that he believed should be handled solely by the police, and not let it affect their relationship.

The teens quieted for a moment and then grabbed an entire pizza to take to the beanbag chairs in the corner.

“What can you tell us about Chuck?” I asked Bobby, quiet enough so none of the non-grown-ups could hear.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Come on,” I said. “You arrested the guy.”

“I have my orders.”

“From Lockett,” I said sourly. “Why can't you officially clear Dylan?”

“I'm not answering that,” he said and took a huge bite of his pepperoni pizza. Then he mumbled nonsense to prove he couldn't speak with so much food in his mouth.

Bean laughed.

I waited for Bobby to swallow his food and asked, “Hey, what happened to Reese's Internet craziness?”

Our little ploy had worked and Reese had implemented our social media blitz idea right after breakfast. Her “Do You Know This Woman?” article, with a photo of Faith, was nearly word for word what Erica had said to Iris. The comments section already had dozens of replies.

Bobby's face darkened. “The chief paid her a visit, and she decided to abort that particular effort.”

“But it seems to still be happening,” I noted happily. That was the problem, and the benefit, of social media. Once something was out there, it was way out there. Even though Reese had taken the article off of her blog site, it had been duplicated on a dozen other sites, and was still spreading. People claiming to have known Faith were piling up in the
comments sections of all the other websites that had reprinted her article, and Zane was having a hard time figuring out which leads were credible and which were from crackpots.

Bobby scowled even harder. “It's a damn pain. She could be warning off the actual killer.”

“I heard she's very busy investigating a lot of false leads,” I said.

“We can only wish her good luck on talking to the head of the CIA,” Bobby said sarcastically, referring to only one of the crazy conspiracy theories people had floated in the comments.

Erica sat down and the conversation moved to opening night at the festival. It didn't take long for our little party to wrap up. We'd all spent so much time at the Boys and Girls Club working on this festival lately that if we could take a break, we did.

Bean walked me out to the parking lot, but before we reached my minivan, Leo drove up too fast on his motorcycle and stopped with a skid right in front of me.

Bean instinctively dragged me back with an arm around my waist.

“Leo!” I yelled. “What the hell?”

Leo cut the engine, swung his leg over and put himself right in Bean's face. “Did you take her to the murder site?” He was red with anger, a vein popping out of his forehead.

I pulled on Leo's arm, trying to move him back. “No,” I told him emphatically. “What's going on with you?”

He looked at me like he didn't believe me. “Then why did Meg Johnson say she saw you at Green Meadows?”

That blabbermouth. She must have been the driver of the
minivan who paused to look at us that night. Did she have night vision goggles or something?

“That's not the murder site, just where the body was dumped.” I tried to make it sound totally reasonable.

“What were you doing there?” His voice rose.

I ignored the question. He knew the answer. He just didn't like it. “Leo, what's wrong?”

Bean took a step closer. “Everything's okay, Leo.”

“No. It's not.” Leo turned toward Bean and pushed his chest with two hands, a furious expression on his face. “You're supposed to be protecting her and instead you're putting her in danger for your own selfish reasons.” He pushed him back again, harder.

Bean put both hands up, not responding. “Leo, you need to calm down. She is fine. We didn't do anything dangerous.”

“How do you know?” Leo yelled. “How do you know it's not dangerous until it's too late?”

I stepped in between them and grabbed his arm. It was hard as rock. “Leo. Look at me. I'm fine. What is this about?”

He wrenched his arm away and stared at me, breathing hard.

“Leo?”

Then he took a step backward, off balance.

“Worst day ever?” I asked him, my voice quavering. That was the expression we'd used on each other whenever something bad happened, ever since our parents had died—the absolute worst day of our lives. It was our code for making sure the other one was okay.

He turned around and limped fast toward his motorcycle, driving away in a roar.

*   *   *

E
rica came over to the counter the next morning as I was sending another text to Leo. I'd tried to catch him again right after daybreak, but he'd already left his apartment. Or maybe he'd never come home the night before.

“Zane's actually found someone worth talking to from Reese's social media campaign.”

“You mean our social media campaign,” I reminded her.

“Don't go spreading that around,” she said. “Anyway, Zane contacted a man who says he was one of Faith's victims, and he responded.”

“Really? What did he say?”

“He said his ex-wife might have been mad enough to kill Faith,” she said. “They got divorced because Faith convinced him she needed thousands of dollars to leave her abusive husband. He wiped out his bank account, stole money from his employer, and gave the money to Faith. Then she dumped him. He got fired, and his wife divorced him over it all.”

“And now he's throwing his ex-wife under the bus?” I said. “What a winner. Sounds like he has more of a motive than she does. I'm not so sure we should trust him.”

“It's worth a visit,” Erica said. “He gave us all of her information.”

*   *   *

W
e decided to check out ex-wife Whitney before we met with Chuck. She was lucky to have escaped that dog, in my opinion. Of course, that was based on nothing except
the knowledge that he'd cheated on her with Faith and then implicated her in a freakin' murder with no evidence.

Erica had called ahead to make sure Whitney was working. She'd certainly landed in a nice place. Zolo was an expensive women's clothing boutique that operated under the assumption that if you had to ask how much that scrap of material called a dress was, you couldn't afford it. And if you didn't wear a size zero or two, you shouldn't waste the salesperson's time.

Inside, only a few racks held clothes, in various shades of black, gray and white. “Did I just go color-blind?” I whispered to Erica, who ignored me.

Only one salesperson was there, and her discreet name tag said
Whitney
with
Manager
under it. She looked like a grown-up Barbie doll, minus the implausible curves, with blond hair, a perky nose and huge fake lashes. She gave us a discreet up-and-down review and said, “Welcome to Zolo. May I help you find anything in particular?”

While her tone was warm, her expression wondered,
And can you afford it?

“Whitney,” Erica said, her tone just as warm. “Just the person I'm looking for.”

Whitney went still. She may have wanted to raise her eyebrows, but didn't. Maybe she'd had a recent Botox treatment or something.

Erica went for it. “We're wondering if you've heard about the death of Faith Monette.”

Whitney gave one short bark of laughter. “Who
are
you?”

Erica introduced us as if this was a social visit, and then explained. “We'd like to talk to you about Faith Monette.”

“Faith?” she said. “Why?”

“We heard that you knew her,” Erica said. “Can you tell us about her?”

“How did you—?” She stopped and looked at both of us. “My idiot ex-husband sent you here, didn't he?”

Erica tried to be diplomatic. “He suggested you may have had a reason—”

“To kill her? He thinks I did it?” Whitney asked, and then gave a barking laugh again. “Aw, honey. That woman did me the hugest favor of my life.”

“What do you mean?” I couldn't help but be suspicious.

“I married that lug right out of high school, and he turned into the biggest loser ever. If she hadn't scammed him, I'd still be working long hours in a job I hated while he bagged groceries and played video games all day.”

“So you weren't angry with her,” Erica asked.

“Oh, I was at first,” she admitted. “Like,
Housewives of New Jersey
mad. I even went to her apartment to confront her. But then she calmed me down and told me not to blame Ed.”

Erica and I both kept quiet, letting her talk.

“And she showed me what she did to all those men.” She stopped talking for a moment, as if remembering that time. Then she blinked and seemed to come out of her reverie. “Okay, I know this is going to sound bad. But I was really angry, and not just at Ed for being an idiot. Yes, he cleaned out our account and stole money from his job to give her. But I was mostly mad at myself for staying in a bad marriage for so long. And a bad life.”

“You could do more,” Erica said, encouraging her to talk.

“Exactly.” Whitney was happy that she understood. “Anyway, she taught me how to . . .”

“Be a catfish?” I asked.

“Exactly.” She thrust her chin up as if proud. “And how to get men to give me money. And much more. If they liked me, it helped my self-esteem. A lot. I understood why she did it. So I tried it for a while. Just a little bit. But after I divorced that dud, I didn't find the need to mess with men anymore. I haven't looked back.”

Erica smiled. “You're obviously doing great here. What's next?”

“This is just a stepping stone,” she said. “Don't tell the owner but I've been taking classes on entrepreneurship and I'm saving up to buy a franchise. Not sure which one yet, but I'm going to be a business owner.” She looked around the store. “And I have Faith to thank for it.”

“You have yourself to thank for it,” Erica said.

We'd all gotten off the point. “So you haven't seen Faith since then?”

“Oh no, I saw her,” she said. “We used to have coffee once in a while, but then I realized that she was wasting her time, and life, on something so negative. I tried to tell her that she should try a different way that didn't hurt people. She said she had a new plan. She was going to get rich the old-fashioned way—”

“By inheriting it?” I asked.

“No.” She looked at me like I was little crazy. “By marrying it.”

Of course. “How was she going to make that happen?”

She shrugged. “No idea. I wished her good luck. I never saw her again.”

“Why does your ex-husband think you're still mad?” I asked.

“He
wants
me to be mad,” she explained, exasperated.
“He's living in some fantasy world where I'm still in love with him, and if I wasn't mad about Faith, I'd still be with him. But I have moved on. Like really moved on. I'm dating a great guy. I've got it all.”

“Maybe he's still in love with you,” Erica suggested. “Do you think he . . . ?”

Whitney knew what she meant. “Killed Faith?” She shook her head. “Not a chance. He wouldn't exert that much energy on anything.”

“Do you think your husband implicated you as some weird attempt to get you back?” I asked.

“Who cares?” Whitney said.