Death by Chocolate (12 page)

Savannah and Dirk watched
through the open door as the maid walked away on unsteady legs. “I’ll come by
and check on you later,” Savannah called after her. ‘Just try to get some
rest.”

They continued to watch
until she disappeared behind the garage. ‘You’re gonna check on her, huh?” Dirk
finally said. “Maybe you can squeeze something outta her. Maids know everything
that’s going on in the house they work in. She’s probably got some juicy stuff
to tell.”

Savannah gave him a
sideways look and a nudge in the ribs. “Squeeze her? Please. The woman’s
obviously distraught. I was just going to offer her a shoulder to cry on if she
needed it.”

She closed the door and
walked back to the kitchen. “Of course,” she added, “if I get the opportunity
to squeeze her a bit while she’s crying, so be it. You know, housekeepers are a
fount of information.... not to mention good ol’-fashioned gossip.”

By the time Tammy joined
them in the kitchen, Savannah and Dirk had already collected several boxes of
staples from the kitchen cupboards and pantry.

“We found the recipe for
the Death by Chocolate Cake,” Savannah told her, “and we’re taking what’s left
of the ingredients, like flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cocoa, and so on.”

“That way you can tell
which one was contaminated?” Tammy pulled on a pair of gloves before looking
through the items in the boxes.

“That’s right, kiddo,” Dirk
told her. “If there’s phenylprophedrine in the cake itself, it probably came
from one of those ingredients.”

“You figure the killer knew
what she was going to be baking and put it into one of these?”

“That’s what I’d do,”
Savannah said. “It would be a lot easier than trying to contaminate the actual
batter when she was baking it.”

“That’s the problem with
poisoning...” Dirk began to put each item into its own bag and affix the orange
evidence labels to seal them. “Unlike a shooting or stabbing, or even a
strangling, the killer doesn’t have to be present at that actual moment of
death. Conceivably, they could plant the stuff weeks before. Although I don’t
think that happened in this case.”

“Why not?” Tammy asked.

“Because,” he replied,
“according to Kaitlin Dover, the show’s producer, Eleanor didn’t announce what
dish she was going to cook until just a day or less before the show.”

Savannah walked over to the
broom closet and pulled out the loaded shotgun that Eleanor had mentioned.
“Whoever it was,” she said, “had to know what ingredients she’d be using ahead
of time to contaminate one or more of them.”

“What’s that doing there?”
Tammy asked, pointing to the gun.

“Just your standard,
double-barreled, twelve-gauge home protection device,” Savannah replied,
cracking the breech and removing the shells. “With a child on the premises—not
to mention possibly a killer—we don’t really need to have this thing loaded.”

She popped the shells into
her pocket. Searching a nearby shelf, she found a box full of ammo next to some
corn flakes. She removed those, too, and replaced the gun.

“So, are we about done
here?” she asked Dirk.

He looked around the
kitchen, down at the boxes filled with their bags of potential evidence, and
nodded. ‘Yeah, I think this should be enough to send the boys and girls at the
lab into a tizzy. They hate this much work anytime, let alone on a Friday
afternoon, when they’re all looking forward to starting their weekend.”

“Too bad,” Savannah said.
“If I have to work on the weekend, why shouldn’t they?”

“Were you planning on
working this weekend?” Tammy asked as they each took a box and started for the
door.

“Heck yeah,” she replied.
“What do you think I’m going to do? Sit around the house with Cordele and
rehash old family grievances?”

Dirk nodded. “I see your
point. Investigating a homicide is a lot more fun than that rehashing family
crap.”

“Much more fun,” Savannah
agreed. “But then, so is getting a triple root canal... a Pap smear.... a
mammogram...”

They were loading the boxes
into the trunk and backseat of Dirk’s Buick when they saw Louise Maxwell
walking down the driveway toward them. She was wearing bright red short-shorts
and matching cropped tee that showed several inches of bare midriff. She walked
with a definite sashay to her hips that south of the Mason-Dixon Line might
have branded her as a loose woman.

“Oh, goody gumdrop,”
Savannah said. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

“Who’s she?” Tammy asked.

“The daughter, Louise.
Otherwise known as the person least likely to grieve Eleanor’s passing and the
most likely to benefit from her demise.”

Dirk perked up. “Oh yeah?
Well, I think we should get acquainted.”

Savannah noted Louise’s
purposeful stride and said, “I think that’s a given.”

“What the hell are you
people doing on my property?” Louise demanded.

At that moment, three furry
mini-missiles flew off the verandah and streaked toward Louise, barking,
growling, snarling, and showing their tiny incisors.

“Oh, shut up, you stupid
mutts,” she said, kicking out at them. “You’re all going to the pound; you just
wait and see.”

As though understanding her
words, the dogs backed off. One returned to his chair on the verandah, and the
others soon followed. Savannah was impressed. Louise had quailed the terrors
without garlic chicken livers.

Dirk was already on his way
up the driveway, his badge out, his grimmest and most officious face on. “I’m
Detective Coulter, SCPD, I’m investigating your mother’s death. First, I’d like
to say I’m sorry for your loss.” ‘Yeah, right.” Louise looked over his
shoulder. “What are
they
doing here?” She pointed an accusing finger at
Savannah. ‘You have no business being here anymore. Get off this property. And
if she’s with you”—she nodded toward Tammy—“she goes, too.”

Savannah walked over to
Louise and forced herself to smile, at least a little. Your mother hired me to
find out who was sending her those threatening letters. She paid me up front. I
have to finish the job.”

“You don’t have to finish
anything! She’s dead, and I’m in charge now. You’re out of here.”

Dirk cleared his throat.
“Well, technically, Ms. Maxwell... you
aren’t
in charge. At least, not
yet. If your mother left you this property in her will, you’ll get it once the
estate is settled, but for right now, everything’s still pretty much up in the
air.”

Louise glanced over toward
the house and noticed the bright yellow crime-scene tape that Tammy had strung
around it. “What’s that!”

Dirk stepped closer to her,
his eyes watching every nuance of emotion on her face. “It’s a police barricade,”
he said, “to keep anyone from entering the residence for the time being.”

Savannah, too, was watching
Louise carefully. You could read so much into those first moments when someone
was informed.

“Ms. Maxwell, you have to
prepare yourself for some hard news,” he said.

Her face turned pale behind
her suntan. “And what news is that?”

“We have reason to
believe,” he continued, “that your mother’s death wasn’t from natural causes.”

Her mouth opened and closed
several times, as if she were gasping for air. “What are you talking about? It
was a heart attack. I heard it was a heart attack. She had a bad heart. She was
on medicine for it.”

“I know,” he said. “But we
believe that the heart attack was induced.”

“Induced?”

“Caused by something....
someone.”

“Like what? Who?”

Savannah was watching
closely, evaluating. And she had to say that Louise seemed more nervous and
scared than upset. Most people were upset when they found out that a relative
had been murdered.

Interesting.

“That’s what we’re
investigating,” Dirk replied. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you much more right
now.”

Savannah decided to take a
verbal stab at it. She stepped forward. “But I’m absolutely sure that we’ll
find out who did it,” she said evenly. “We almost always do.”

A flash of fear, then
anger, crossed Louise’s face. Then her expression went as blank as a freshly
erased chalkboard.

But Savannah had seen it.
And Savannah knew that Louise knew that she had seen it. Savannah looked at
Dirk. He had seen it, too.

“And when we do find out,”
Savannah added, just for good measure, “you’ll probably be one of the first to
know.”

Louise seethed for a
moment, her fists clenched at her sides. For a few seconds, Savannah thought
she might come at her, and she briefly enjoyed the mental image of throwing Ms.
Louise Prissy Short-Shorts on her butt with a karate takedown.

But just as she was getting
into the idea, the sound of running footsteps caused them all to turn toward
the garage. Sydney was racing toward them, a stricken look on his face. “Is it
true?” he asked breathlessly when he reached them. “I was just talking to
Marie, and she says that Miss Eleanor was murdered. Was she?”

“I’m afraid it’s a
possibility,” Dirk said. “And you are....?”

“This is Sydney Linton,”
Savannah said, “Mrs. Maxwell’s driver and handyman. Sydney, meet Detective
Coulter, SCPD.”

Dirk extended his hand, but
Sydney seemed too distraught to notice the gesture.

“But how? Who? I mean....
who could do something like that?” Sydney covered his eyes with his hands for a
moment and shuddered. “I know Miss Eleanor was a difficult person, but... to
kill her? It’s got to be some sort of mistake.”

“We aren’t really sure of
anything yet,” Savannah told him. ‘That’s why Detective Coulter here is
conducting an investigation.”

“But the question is,”
Louise interjected, “why are
you
here? I want you out of here.”

“We’re not going through
that again,” Dirk told her. “I think you’d better turn around and march back to
your cottage, find some of your own business, and mind it.”

Louise turned, but said
over her shoulder, “I’m going to call my attorney and tell him—”

“Ah, you don’t need to do
that,” Savannah said. “At least, not until... I mean.... not unless you’re
under arrest.”

Louise shot her a look that
could barbecue a rare steak to well-done in a minute, but she left. And not too
soon for Savannah.

Savannah watched her for a
moment, and when she returned her attention to those around her, she saw that
they were all staring at her: Dirk, Tammy, and even Sydney.

“What?” she said.

“You don’t think....”
Sydney sputtered, “that Louise would have....?”

Dirk gave a slight shake of
his head, and she knew she needed to cool her dislike for Louise. It wasn’t
smart to flash too much of your hand in front of anybody, let alone
everybody.

“We don’t know anything
yet,” Dirk replied. “Really. We’re just checking a few things.”

Sydney seemed to calm down
a bit. He raked his fingers through his thick hair, and the thought crossed
Savannah’s mind that he wasn’t at all hard on the eyes. Whether in his tuxedo,
serving tea, or in his present jeans and denim shirt, he was well-built and had
a certain boy-next-door appeal. She wondered if he and Marie had ever been an
item. To her understanding, neither was married.

“Well, I’m glad you’re here,”
he told Dirk. “I hope nothing like that happened to Miss Eleanor. I hope that
her death was from natural causes. But if it wasn’t, I want you to catch
whoever did it.”

He glanced quickly up the
hill at Louise’s retreating figure. Savannah took note of the look, and so did
Dirk and Tammy. They all three exchanged knowing glances.

“Is there anyone in
particular you can think of who might have wanted to hurt Mrs. Maxwell?” Dirk
asked him.

Again, another sideways
look up the hill. “Well, not enough to kill her,” he said. “Like I said, she
was a difficult person. You saw that yourself, Savannah.”

“Yes. I did. By the way, do
you recall seeing anyone or anything suspicious around here the last few days?
Anything out of the ordinary?”

He thought for a long moment
before answering, “Not that I can think of. But if I do remember anything, I’ll
be sure to let you know.”

“Thanks,” Dirk said. “We
appreciate it.”

Sydney excused himself, and
Savannah, Dirk, and Tammy finished placing the evidence parcels into the back
of the Buick.

“You two wanna follow me
over to the lab?” Dirk asked. “I’ll take you out for a burger or something
after we get done there.”

Savannah nearly gasped.
“Wow, free food! I never thought I’d hear those words out of—”

“Oh, shut up.” His lower lip
protruded. “That’s what I get for trying to be a gentleman.”