Death by Chocolate (10 page)

Chapter

S
avannah sat in her favorite
chair, an overstuffed, wingbacked monstrosity covered in a cabbage-rose chintz.
A matching ottoman supported her feet and a sleeping Diamante. Cleopatra stood
on the arm of the chair, batting at the fringe on the shade of the floorlamp
that supplied reading light for the person relaxing there.

Dirk, Tammy, Ryan, and John
sat around her diningroom table in the next room, the files that Dirk had
confiscated that day spread out before them. Chatting among themselves, sipping
tea and coffee, and nibbling the chocolate chip cookies she had baked for them,
they made a cozy picture.

It was a sight that would
have normally warmed Savannah’s heart. Usually, she would have been there with
them, sipping, nibbling, and chatting.... her favorite pastimes. But her job
for the evening was to read the journal she had found in Eleanor’s nightstand.
And the more she read, the sadder she felt.

Eleanor’s writings had been
anything but eloquent. In the simplest and sometimes terse language she had
described her daily torments.

Written in that large,
flowing hand with purple ink, her words touched Savannah, giving her a greater
appreciation for the woman than she had held before. No wonder Eleanor Maxwell
had been difficult: she was terribly unhappy and almost completely alone.

A couple of passages
impressed Savannah as being particularly honest and poignant.

My kid hates me. My only
child wishes I were dead. What does that say about me? She says I messed her
up, that it’s my fault she’s miserable. I guess it is. But I didn’t know I was
being such a rotten mother. I thought I was doing okay at the time, or I would
have done something different. The last thing any mother would want to do is
mess up her kid. Make her child hate her. She acts like I did it on purpose.
Out of spite. Who would ever deliberately do something like that?

And other passages relating
to the breakup with her husband described the pain of betrayal.

I know he’s in love with
someone else. I remember when he loved me, so I recognize the signs. I keep
thinking about them together. Picturing him making love to her, saying sweet
things to her like he used to say to me. But I can’t see her face. I wonder, is
she a stranger, someone I’ve never met, someone who‘s a member of his world and
not mine? Or is she a friend, somebody I see every day, someone who looks me
right in the eye and knows? And knows that I don’t know. And secretly laughs at
me.

He lies to me. He says,
“I’m going here, I’m doing that.” And I know he isn‘t. I call him a liar and he
says I’m crazy, I’m imagining things. I don’t know which is the worst, the
cruelest. Being unfaithful to me or trying to make me think I’m crazy. I hate
him. I may kill him. And when I find out who she is, I might kill her, too.
Especially if she’s a so-called friend.

“Are you okay, Savannah?”

Savannah jumped, startled
out of her reverie, and looked up to see John Gibson standing in front of her
chair, watching her with soft, compassionate eyes.

“What? Oh....” She looked
down at the open diary on her lap. ‘Yes, I’m all right. Just depressing
reading, this journal. Eleanor’s life wasn’t pretty.”

With the consummate grace
that was John Gibson, he sat on the end of the sofa close to her, reached for
her hand and folded it between his own. “I have to tell you, love,” he said, “I
wish I had never given you this referral. It has obviously cost you much more
in sorrow than it would ever have paid.”

“That isn’t your fault, and
you have nothing to feel bad about. Anytime I take a job, I know that it could
end up badly. It’s the nature of the work.”

He patted her hand. “But
not this badly.”

“True. My clients usually
survive my services.”

“And Mrs. Maxwell would
have, too, but for her health problems. I’m sure you’ll feel much better when
you get those laboratory results and know, once and for all, that she died of
natural causes.”

Savannah glanced at her
mantel clock. “It’s after seven. Dr. Liu would have gone home by now. We won’t
hear from her until tomorrow morning at the earliest.” As though taking some
perverse cue, the phone on the end table next to Savannah’s chair rang.

She gave John a quick,
nervous look. “Or maybe not,” she said, picking it up. “Hello?”

A voice with a thicker
Southern accent than her own answered, “Hey, Savannah, it’s Cordele.”

Cordele, one of her many
sisters in Georgia, was the one least likely of her eight siblings to ever
call. Savannah’s mouth went dry as she considered all the tragic possibilities,
starting with her octogenarian grandmother. “Cordele, what is it? Is Gran—”

“Everybody’s fine. Gran
sends her love.”

“Oh, good.” She placed her
hand over her chest and could feel her heart pounding. John was looking at her
with concern. “Everybody’s fine,” she repeated, nodding to John. “So, what’s
up?”

“Me.... in a few hours. I’m
flying out there to see you.”

Mixed emotions flooded
Savannah’s system. She loved all of her siblings dearly, but they weren’t the
easiest people on earth to entertain. And without much notice, and in the
middle of a case...

“I don’t know if this is
the best time, darlin’,” she said as gently as she could. “We’re pretty crazy
around here right now and—” My nerves are shot to hell and back, she added
silently. “I don’t know if it’s a good time for a visit.”

“I knew you’d say that,”
Cordele replied, “that’s why I went ahead and paid for the flight.
Nonrefundable, non transferable.... all that.”

Savannah felt her nostrils
flaring slightly. They always did that when she felt she was being grossly
manipulated by a member of her own family.

“You really should have
called first,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “I would have—”

“You would have told me not
to come,” Cordele supplied. “And that’s why I didn’t call you first. It’s very
important that you and I talk. We have some issues we need to work through.”

Those last few words caused
a trickle of ice to shiver down Savannah’s back. A psychology major in college,
Cordele could be a pain in the ass with her “issue solving.” She seemed to have
a never-ending supply of issues.

“Really, Cordele,” Savannah
said, trying not to let her voice shake, trying not to start screaming, “this
isn’t a good time for—”

“There’s never a good dme
to work through family problems, Savannah, but it absolutely must be done.”
Savannah’s hackles rose. Her sister’s authoritative, self-righteous tone made
Savannah want to box her ears soundly with a frying pan.

“Cordele, if you want to
come out here and go to Disneyland or hang out on the beaches, fine, but I’m
not in the mood for—”

Beep.

Her “call waiting” had cut
in. She glanced at the caller I.D. and saw it was from the coroner’s office.

“Cordele, I’m getting
another call, and I have to take it. It’s very important and—”

“So are the things I have
to discuss with you.”

“I know, but—”

Beep.

“I’ll see you tomorrow morning
at LAX, nine forty-five,” Cordele continued. “I’m coming in on Sunrise
International, flight three ninety-six from Atlanta. Pick me up. Bye.”

“Cordele, I don’t know what
I’ll be doing tomorrow, I—”

Beep.

“Damnation!” Savannah
punched the
flash
button. “Hello,
Dr. Liu.”

“Hi, Savannah,” came a
calm, quiet voice of reason. “Did I call at a bad time?”

“Oh, only a little worse
than usual. What’s up?”

“Is Dirk there?”

Not only was Dirk there, he
was breathing down her neck and had been since she had uttered the words “Dr.
Liu.”

She handed him the phone.

Everyone had vacated the
dining room and was standing around her chair, collectively holding their
breath.

“Coulter here,” he said. He
listened, nodded, then frowned. “Are you sure?”

“What? What is it?” Savannah
whispered.

“And would that cause a
heart attack?” he continued, i waving her off. “How much?”

“How much what?” Tammy
wanted to know.

“Where would somebody get
that?” he said.

“Get what?” Still sitting
in her chair—but on the edge—Savannah reached out and tugged on the leg of
Dirk’s jeans.

Ryan and John said nothing,
but watched anxiously. “So what’s your final word? What are you ruling it?”
Dirk grimaced and gave Savannah a thumbs-down. “Okay, thanks.... I guess.”

He clicked the phone off
and laid it on the end table before answering the flurry of “Who? What? When?
How? Where?” he was getting from the circle of eager eavesdroppers around him.

“Poisoned,” he said.

“What do you mean,
poisoned?” Savannah asked, jumping to her feet. ‘You mean, like rat poison,
cyanide, arsenic and lace?”

“Like phenylprophedrine, or
something like that,” he said. “Dr. Liu got the lab results back, and her
bloodstream was full of it.”

“Wait a minute,” Tammy
said. “I saw something about that drug a few weeks ago on the Internet. They
were discontinuing it because several people had died.”

“Yes.” Ryan nodded. “I saw
a news byte about that. I believe phenylprophedrine was being used to treat
cold symptoms, but it interacted badly with some heart medications. Didn’t a
lady die in Florida and a man in Oregon?”

“Yes, I think that’s what
the article on the Internet said,” Tammy agreed. ‘They were heart patients, and
the drug interaction caused their blood pressure to soar and—”

Savannah held up both hands.
“Wait! Everybody quiet! ” She turned to Dirk. “So Eleanor died of a drug
interaction?”

“Yep.”

She sagged into her chair,
her knees weak with relief. “Then it was an accidental death. Thank God.”

“Not so fast,” Dirk
replied. “Dr. Liu says she had a lot in her system, way more than she would
have taken if she’d just been treating a cold.”

Everyone was silent,
digesting this. Finally Tammy said, “So.... maybe suicide?”

John pointed to the journal
that Savannah had placed on the table next to the telephone. ‘You said the poor
girl was dreadfully depressed. Do you suppose it’s possible she took her own
life?”

Savannah turned to Dirk.
“Is that what Dr. Liu is ruling it? A suicide?”

Dirk stared at her for a
long moment, as though trying to make up his mind about something.

“Come on,” she said. ‘Just
spit it out, for pete’s sake.”

“Naw, she thinks it’s more
likely a homicide. And I agree with her. I mean.... that would be a stupid way
for somebody to kill themselves.... overdosing on cold medicine.”

Savannah sat back in her
chair and rubbed her throbbing temples with her fingertips. “Boy,” she said.
You know it’s bad when you’re actually hoping for a suicide. How warped is
that?”

“Well, I guess you know
what this means, boys and girls,” Ryan said.

“It means,” Savannah
replied, “that I let my client get murdered right under my nose.”

“No, that’s not what it
means at all.” Ryan sat down on the ottoman and placed a comforting hand on her
knee. “It means we have a killer to catch. It’s the least we can do for Lady Eleanor,
Queen of Chocolate.”

“Here, here,” John said,
patting Savannah’s shoulder.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Whatever.” Dirk turned and walked back into the kitchen. “But if I’m going to
have to keep lookin’ at these boring papers, I’m going to have to have some more
of those cookies. Van, you wanna throw some in the oven.”

Savannah thought of Cordele
boarding a plane in a few hours and coming to California to work out some
familial “issues.” She thought of Lady Eleanor, dying in her arms of a fatal
drug interaction.... just as some coldblooded killer had intended she would.
She thought of her dear friend, Dirk, and his need for physical sustenance
during these trying, difficult times.

“Eh,” she said, “bite me.”

At nine forty-five the next
morning Savannah was standing outside the baggage-claim area in the Sunrise
International terminal cursing herself for not having the chutzpah to just not
show up as demanded. Let Miss Smarty-Pants Cordele find her own way from LAX to
San Carmelita—or better yet, back to Georgia.

She had a lot of nerve,
arriving out of the blue and expecting chauffeur service on top of room and
board. Who did Cordele think she was, anyway, the Queen of Sheba, the Czarina
of Timbuktu?

Savannah had sincerely
entertained the thought of just letting her sister cool her heels awhile at the
airport before coming to get her. After all, she had work to do. Dirk was at
the mansion, investigating, as he should be, and she should be there, too. But
no, she had gotten roped into baby-sitting her almost-thirty-year-old sister.