Death by Chocolate (25 page)

Savannah’s heartstrings
gave a painful twang.

He was building the girl a
doghouse for her new pup—a house that matched the mansion, right down to the
steep-pitched roof and white gingerbread trim.

Not for the first time,
Savannah marveled at the complexity of the human spirit—how a person could be
such a bewildering mixture of good and evil.

As she approached, they
both saw her and called out greetings. The puppy came romping across the grass
to attack her shoe. She reached down and scooped her up. The dog rewarded her
with a wet lick on her cheek.

“Look! Look!” Gilly
shouted, pointing to the doghouse. “Sydney’s made Mona a cool place to sleep.
It looks like my grandma’s house and mine too. See?”

“I sure do,” Savannah said.
She turned to Sydney, who was still kneeling on the grass, paintbrush in hand.
“That’s the most beautiful doghouse I’ve ever seen in my life. You did a good
job, Syd.”

He gave her a pleased smile
and a nod. But then he took a second look. Something in her face must have
clued him that all wasn’t well. He placed the brush in the paint can, stood,
and wiped his hands on a rag that hung from his belt.

“What’s up, Savannah?” he
said, trying to sound casual, but she could hear the tension in his voice.

Gilly heard it, too. She
looked from Savannah, to him, and back to Savannah. “Yeah, what’s up?” she
asked.

Savannah handed her the
puppy. “Is your mom at home, sweet stuff?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t want
me to bother her. She’s been all nervous since she got back from wherever she
was, and she took a bunch of her nervous pills. She told me to get lost and not
be a nuisance.”

“Oh, okay. How about
Marie?” Savannah asked. “She’s home. I saw her a while ago.”

“Then would you do
something for me? Would you go knock on her door and tell her I’m here talking
to Sydney. Ask her if she would please watch you for a little while. Okay?”

The girl’s bottom lip
trembled, and she looked down at the pink and white confection of a doghouse.
“Why can’t I stay here with you guys? I want to watch Sydney paint Mona’s
house.”

“Sydney and I have to talk
about some grown-up stuff,” Savannah told her. “I’m sorry, but you really need
to go stay with Marie for a while.”

Gilly huffed and puffed a
couple of times, but she finally walked away, holding the puppy close to the
front of her T-shirt. “All right, Mona,” she muttered as she left, “we know
when we’re not wanted. They’ve got ‘grownup stuff to do.”

After the child had gone,
Savannah and Sydney were silent, a thick tension in the air between them.
Finally, he said, “So.... what is it? What do you want with me?” Savannah
locked eyes with him and took a step closer. “I know you did it, Sydney. And
I’m pretty sure I know why. I think if you turn yourself in, you might be able
to cut some kind of deal.”

“What are you talking about?”
He kept wiping his hands on the cloth and staring at them as though they
belonged to someone else.

“Don’t, Sydney. We don’t
have time to play games. I know you killed Eleanor. You’re the one who put the
phenylprophedrine in the cocoa, knowing that she was going to use it in her
cake that night. I know you put the empty bottles and capsules back into the
plastic bag from the pharmacy and threw it into the Dumpster by the Lucky
Shamrock, where you have your beer every night.”

He shook his head. “No. It
wasn’t me. It was the person who sent those threatening letters. It was Louise.
You know that. That’s why the cops arrested her.”

“And they also released
her, as you know.”

“Yeah. I was wondering why
they let her go.”

“Because they found out
that she wasn’t even in town when that kid from the pharmacy dropped off the
phenylprophedrine. That means somebody else sent him the love letter, asking
him to get the stuff for her, and they signed the note with her name—a pretty
good copy of her signature.”

“But the threatening
letters....?”

“Same thing. You got into
her cottage and typed them up. You figured if you used Louise’s computer and
her stationery, we’d figure it was her.”

“Why would I do that?”

“To kill two birds with one
stone.... so to speak. If you murdered Eleanor and framed Louise, they would
both be out of the picture and then maybe you could get custody of your
daughter.”

He sighed deeply, and his
shoulders sagged as though he were deflating. “How do you know she’s mine?”

“I have a good friend who’s
in Child Protective Services. She saw your paperwork, your petition for
custody, based on the fact that you’re Gilly’s biological father and that
Louise is an unfit parent.”

“Louise is unfit.”

“I know. So, why didn’t you
make a legal play for the girl a long time ago? Why kill Eleanor and set up
Louise?”

He looked at her with
haunted eyes. “Don’t you think I tried that? I did! Years ago, when Gilly was
still a baby. But Eleanor had the money and the power. I had nothing but this
measly job, which she threatened to take away from me if I pursued the case. I
even offered to marry Louise, begged her to let me be a proper father to my
little girl. But other than that brief affair we had when I first started
working here, she didn’t want any part of me. I was just the chauffeur.”

“So, you kept working here,
taking Eleanor’s abuse for all these years, to be close to Gilly?”

“Sure. I certainly didn’t
do it for the money. But as long as I was working here, I could see her every
day, take care of her sometimes, be a positive influence on her.”

Savannah flashed back for a
moment on the scene at the studio, when she had held Eleanor Maxwell in her
arms and felt the life drain out of her.

“I feel for you, Sydney,”
she said, “but it wasn’t a very positive influence you exerted on your
daughter’s life, killing her grandmother. Eleanor wasn’t a very lovable person,
but she didn’t deserve to have her life taken away from her like that.”

“Yes, I realize that. These
past few days I’ve been thinking it over and.... I know what I did was wrong.
All I can say is, it seemed right at the time. I believe it was the only thing
I could do for myself—and for Gilly.”

Savannah gave him a sad
smile. ‘You know, down where I come from, the argument ‘He needed killin’ can
be considered a viable defense. But here in California, like most of the rest
of the country, that doesn’t fly. They seem to think you should leave the
killing up to the justice system.”

“And what do
you
think?”

“I think they’ve got a good
point. Leaving it to the authorities is the best way to go almost every time.
Sydney, a lot of us have good reasons to want to knock off somebody. But
mostly, we don’t actually do it. You did it. You’re gonna have to pay the
price.”

He knelt on the grass, took
the brush out of the paint can, and wiped it off. Then he replaced the lid on
the can. Without looking up, he said, “I guess your cop buddy knows you’re here
right now.”

“Yes, he knows. I asked him
if I could come talk to you, give you a chance to come in on your own.”

He tapped the lid of the
can with the handle of the brush, sealing it. ‘That’s about the only thing I
can do, under the circumstances, huh?”

“Yes, with your prints on
that pharmacy bag, he has all he needs to arrest you for murder. You should
turn yourself in, express your remorse, all that. As it is, you’re looking at
first-degree homicide, premeditated.... the works. You could get the death
penalty. You have to do everything you can to help yourself.”

He stood and looked toward
Marie’s gardener’s cottage where his daughter was. Tears filled his eyes and
spilled down his face. “And who’s going to help Gilly once I’m gone?”

“I will,” Savannah told
him. “I’m sure that Marie will. We’ll do everything we can for her.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I give you a ride to
the station?”

He nodded.

“Then, let’s go.”

Chapter

T
he champagne was cold, the
food good, the compa
ny excellent... but as Savannah
looked around her dinner table at her Moonlight Magnolia cohorts, she couldn’t say
she was in a particularly celebratory mood.

Sitting next to her at the
table, John seemed to sense her sadness. He turned to her, reached for her
hand, and enclosed it between his. “What’s wrong, love?” he said, searching her
eyes. “You’re usually in a cheery state of mind when you’ve nabbed a scoundrel.
You seem rather melancholy this evening.”

“I guess that’s because I
don’t really consider this guy a scoundrel. Just a man who did something very
wrong and very foolish.”

From across the table,
Cordele was watching and listening. She seemed to have something to say, but
was holding back.

“Go on.... spit it out,”
Savannah told her. “Obviously you have an opinion on the subject.”

Cordele shrugged. “I was
just thinking about a conversation you and I had about how important justice
is. You seemed to think then that the only way to have justice was to punish
the criminal. Looks like maybe you’ve changed your mind.”

The rest of the table fell
silent, and Savannah could feel Dirk and Tammy staring at her, maybe waiting
for a Reid family fight to break out.

But she was too tired and
too depressed to fight.

“I haven’t changed my mind,
Cordele,” she said. “Sydney Linton took a life, and he’ll get what he deserves.
I just feel sorry for little Gilly. She’ll find out about all of this sooner or
later, and—as you would put it—she’ll have some major issues to work out
because of it.”

“I thought you talked to
Angela Herriot about Gilly this afternoon,” Tammy said.

“I did. She said she’d send
a social worker right out to evaluate the situation. And I also talked to Burt
Maxwell about his daughter’s drug problems and the need for a stable, healthy
environment for his granddaughter—especially now that Sydney won’t be on the
scene.”

“What did he say?” Ryan
asked.

“He assured me that he’ll
look into getting custody of Gilly. He also said that he’ll make sure Louise
doesn’t fire Marie. Apparently he has financial resources of his own that
Martin Streck hadn’t plundered. He may even move back to the mansion and keep
Gilly there. I got the idea that he and Kaitlin might be considering something
permanent in the way of a relationship.”

“That’d be good for the
kid, too,” Dirk said.

“That’s what I figured.”

“She’s going to be fine,
love,” John said, squeezing her hand. “You worry too much.”

Cordele gave Savannah a
warm smile across the table that she wasn’t expecting. “My older sister has a
big heart where kids are concerned,” she said. “Always has had. She and my
grandmother practically raised us, you know.”

Savannah held her breath, waiting
for the other shoe to drop... the part about how awful everything had been in
spite of her and Gran’s efforts. But it didn’t. Cordele ended her statement
there, on that rare note of praise.

“How fortunate for you
that—” Ryan’s words were interrupted by a loud pounding on the front door.

Savannah glanced at her
watch. It was nine o’clock. A little late for company. Especially visitors that
practically knocked your door off its hinges.

“Who the heck is that?” she
said, getting to her feet.

Three more volleys
resounded through the house before Savannah could reach the door and open it.
Standing there on her porch was a red-faced, furious Louise Maxwell.

Savannah opened the screen
and stepped outside. She certainly didn’t intend to invite any sort of Louise
into her house, let alone an angry one.

“What do you want, and why
are you bothering me at my home?” she demanded.

Louise shook an angry
finger in her face.
“You...
are trying to get my kid taken away from me!
A social worker came out to my place this afternoon. Said he was working for
Child Protective Services, investigating a complaint that Gilly isn’t being
properly taken care of.”

“Is everything all right
out there?” Dirk said from just inside the door.

From the corner of her eye,
Savannah could see all her friends and Cordele standing behind him with
serious, ready-to-do-battle looks on their faces.

“Everything’s just fine,”
she said. “Louise here isn’t happy that I reported her to the CPS.”

“Then it
was
you!”
Louise was practically spitting, she was so furious. She took a step closer to
Savannah. “He wouldn’t tell me who reported me, but my dad says you called him,
too, this afternoon and complained about the way I take care of my kid.”

“You don’t take care of
your kid. That’s the problem. Gilly’s taking care of herself. She—”

Crack.

Savannah saw it coming. And
for a split second, she considered blocking the hand that reached out and
slapped her across the cheek. With her karate skills, she could have easily
grabbed Louise’s arm in mid-strike, twisted it, and sent her to the porch deck
with one easy movement.

But sometimes... karate
just wasn’t enough.

She let Louise slap her.

Then she pulled back her
arm, made a fist, and let it fly. A moment later, Louise was doing a graceful somersault
off the porch and onto the sidewalk. Her landing, however, was far less elegant
than her flight.

Louise ended up flat on her
back, where she rolled around on the ground, shrieking in pain and holding her
jaw. From the cracking sound Savannah had heard when she’d made contact, she
guessed was at least dislocated, if not broken.

“I’m going to sue you,”
Louise yelled as she scrambled to her feet, still holding her face with both
hands. “I’m going to have you arrested, you lousy bitch. I’m going to—”

“Oh, shut up and go home,”
Savannah told her. Then she chuckled. ‘You might wanna stop by the hospital on
the way, though, and get that jaw x-rayed.”

It wasn’t until Savannah
was back in her house with the door closed behind her, her friends and sister
gathered around her, that she started to genuinely feel happy again.

Maybe she’d gotten a guy
arrested today for murder, a guy that she really liked. But she’d also had the
privilege of decking Louise Maxwell.

The day wasn’t a complete
write-off.

* * *

After the Magnolia team had
finished celebrating and had gone home, Savannah sat in the living room with
Cordele, who seemed a bit less morose than usual. It was a welcome change.

“I was thinking of going home
tomorrow,” she said as she reached for Diamante and pulled the cat onto the
sofa beside her. “Classes start up again in about a week and a half, and I’ve
got things to do at home.”

“That’s too bad,” Savannah
said, stretching her legs out on the ottoman and settling back in her chair. “I
was thinking that since my case is closed, I’m pretty much free and clear for a
few days.”

Cordele perked up. “Yes....
and....?”

“And I was thinking that
since my sister is visiting me all the way from Georgia, maybe we could spend
some quality time together. We could hop in the Mustang and head up the Pacific
Coast Highway. Drive up to Big Sur, hike around in the woods up there, walk on
the beach, hang out, you know.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Why not? I’m not
exactly rolling in the dough, so we’ll have to stay in cheap motels and eat
fast food.... or cheap produce, if you prefer.”

“Fast food’s okay, once in
a while.”

“Sound good?”

“Sounds great!”

“There’s just one thing.”

Cordele’s smile evaporated.
“I know, I know... no talking about the past.”

“No talking about
bad
things in the past. We can’t pretend that our childhoods were rosy, but we can
set them aside for a few days and get to know each other all over again in the
present, can’t we?”

Cordele studied Savannah’s
face for a long time, then said, ‘That’s what you do, isn’t it? You just ‘set
it aside.’ That’s how you cope with what happened to us.”

“I have to, Cordele. It’s
the only way I can live.”

”Then you’ve really
forgiven them—Mom and Dad?”

“If you mean, have I
forgotten what happened? No. I remember. But I deliberately make myself not
dwell on it. It’s over.”

“Don’t you feel like....”
Cordele paused, searching for the words. “Like they still owe you somehow for
what they did... for what they didn’t do?”

“No. They don’t owe me
squat. To want something from them is to be tied to them, waiting for something
I’m never going to get. Why bother?”

Cordele sniffed and reached
for the box of tissues on the end table. “I wonder if Mom and Dad did their
best. I wonder if they were lousy parents because they didn’t know any better
or just didn’t give a damn.”

“Who knows? Who cares?”

When Savannah saw the look
of pain cross her sister’s face, she left her chair and moved over to the sofa
to sit beside her.

“
I
care,” Cordele
said. ‘That’s who.”

Savannah took her in her
arms and rocked her, as she had when she was a child. She smoothed the short
dark hair. “I know you care, sweetie,” she said. “I know you want to know. But
hell,
they
probably don’t even know. At this rate, you’re going to spend
your whole life trying to figure out what was inside somebody else’s head.
You’re going to take all those classes and read all those books, and search
your memory and your soul and you’re still never going to know.”

Cordele pulled back enough
to look into her sister’s eyes. “So what do I do?” she asked. “How do I stop?”

“One day, one moment at a
time. As many times as you need to, tell yourself, ‘It’s over. It’s gone. It
doesn’t matter anymore.’ Just like you do with those books you love so much,
you turn the page. Same book, okay, but new chapter.”

Cordele dried her eyes and
blew her nose. A faint smile played across her face. “Can we really go on a
road trip up the coast?”

“You’re damned tootin’!
First thing tomorrow morning, right after breakfast. Okay?”

Cordele’s smile broadened,
and Savannah caught a glimpse of a little girl she had known long ago in
Georgia, one she still loved dearly.

“Okay,” Cordele said. She
drew a deep breath of resolve. “And we’re going to turn the page and write a new
chapter.”

Savannah kissed her
sister’s tear-damp cheeks. “Sugar darlin’, the best is yet to come!”