Death of a Chocolate Cheater: A Food Festival Mystery (19 page)

“I heard there was another message,” the female tech said. I peered around Jake and recognized her from yesterday.

“Yep,” I said.

“I’ll show you.” Jake stepped down from the RV and led the techs to the front of the Airstream. As I walked by, I told Jake I’d be in the house helping Aunt Abby prepare for the day while the techs did their work. We agreed to meet at Aunt Abby’s bus an hour before the festival opened and to go together to interview Griffin and Harrison.

When I entered the kitchen, Aunt Abby and Dillon were elbow-deep mixing, stirring, and filling whoopie pies. Basil wagged his tail at Aunt Abby’s feet, no doubt hoping for a dropped morsel.

“What can I do?” I asked as I donned an apron.

“Sure you’re not too tired from making whoopie?” Dillon said, an evil grin on his face.

I grabbed a sponge from the counter and threw it at him. Hit him right in the butt.

Basil barked.

Food fight!

It was on!

Aunt Abby nipped the food fight before it got too crazy, but only after Dillon had managed to smear chocolate on my fresh Big Yellow School Bus T-shirt. And
that
was after I got some in his hair.

“You two will be the death of me,” she said after we settled down. “Dillon, go wash your hair. And, Darcy, go soak that shirt before the stain sets and get a fresh one.”

I hung my head like a disciplined pet and returned to the RV to soak my shirt and get a fresh one, then went back to whipping up whoopie pies. After Aunt Abby prepared the mini cake/cookies and made the mocha buttercream filling, Dillon put the cake/cookies together. My job was to finish them off with chocolate frosting and jimmies. Yep, there’s a special name for chocolate sprinkles—jimmies. Who knew?

The work was repetitive, assembly-line style, requiring no mental effort, so I thought about my suspect list, who were all victims of Polly’s blackmail scheme.

Simon Van Houten didn’t want his father to know he’d ratted out the family company’s use of child labor.
Did he kill Polly to keep her quiet—and prevent that article she was saving from being published?

Isabel Lau didn’t want anyone to know she’d served time for killing her abusive husband and changed her name to make sure no one would discover her past. Did she kill Polly in order to keep her identity—and past—a secret?

Frankie Nudo was sleeping with Polly, maybe hoping to win her vote. But then, did he kill her when he found out she was sleeping around?

Monet Richards faked her cooking credentials, claiming she’d attended Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, but apparently she’d been lying about this for years. Did she kill Polly to keep her from exposing the truth?

Then there was Griffin Makeba, who had been buying chocolate from Simon’s company at a deep discount to keep him from airing the company’s dirty laundry. That couldn’t have helped the company’s profit margin. Did he kill Polly because she found out he was blackmailing the Van Houtens?

And finally, Harrison Tofflemire, who had stolen the plans for his famous Chocolate Falls machine from a Canadian company and was being sued. Did he kill Polly because she found out about the lawsuits and threatened to put a black mark on his reputation?

They all had their reasons. But were those motives strong enough to actually commit murder? Apparently, for one of them, it was.

After finishing up the last batch of whoopie pies, we packed them up and loaded them into Aunt Abby’s Prius, filling it to the brim.

“You really need to get an SUV or a van,” I said to her when the last of the treats were in place. “This car is too small for your business.”

“It gets great mileage,” Aunt Abby said. “Those big old SUVs drink gas like it’s water. No, thank you. I’ll keep my green car.”

“You only drive a few miles to the Marina and back! I hardly think you’ll go broke with a bigger car.”

“If I get a new car, it will be all electric,” she said.

I gave up. “All right. I’ll see you at the festival. Jake and I are going to talk to Griffin and Harrison before the event begins, so I’ll be a little late to work.”

“Be careful, Darcy,” Aunt Abby said. “I appreciate you trying to help my friend, but those warnings you got on your car and the Airstream make me very nervous. Like they said, they know where you live. I don’t want you to get hurt. I couldn’t live with myself if you did.”

I went over and gave my aunt a hug. “I’ll be fine, Aunt Abby. Jake’s going to meet me, so I won’t be alone. And I’ll be careful. I promise.”

“You mean the world to me, you know,” Aunt Abby said. Were those tears in her eyes? “I love having you here. And not just because you’re a big help.”

“I love being here too. And I appreciate the job, even though I sometimes don’t act like it. Working in your food truck is growing on me.”

“I knew it would,” Aunt Abby said. “And you’re getting better at it every day. You might turn into a good cook after all.”

Before I took this job—out of desperation—I barely
knew how to microwave a frozen dinner. But I did have good taste, so to speak, and I read gourmet cookbooks like they were romance novels. Now, thanks to my aunt, I could make a great mac-and-cheese meal—for hundreds of people.

I took off my apron and went into the RV to check on the shirt I’d been soaking. The techs were gone, and so was Jake. However, the stain was still there. I’d have to look into some stain-removal products. I grabbed my purse, stepped out of the RV, and locked it behind me.

I met Dillon and Aunt Abby in the driveway. Dillon pulled on his helmet, hopped on his dirt bike, and sped away. Aunt Abby got in her car and drove off with a cheery wave. I headed for my VW, parked on the street, and noticed the ragtop still had patches of discolor where the chocolate had been. Must really be tough removing chocolate stains if three car washes couldn’t do it. I slid into the driver’s seat and inhaled the smell of chocolate that lingered inside. It made me hungry for a Snickers bar.

I arrived at the festival gate at ten, drove through after showing the guard my pass, and parked in the staff lot near Aunt Abby’s car, where she and Dillon were unloading boxes of whoopie pies. I glanced across the way at Jake’s Dream Puff truck, but apparently he hadn’t arrived yet, so I grabbed a few boxes and helped carry in Aunt Abby’s supplies for the day.

“I’ll be back soon,” I said to Aunt Abby after we’d hauled in all the boxes. I headed over to Jake’s Dream Puff truck to see if he was inside. The sign in the
window read C
LOSED
and the truck showed no signs of life inside. I wondered what had caused him to be late meeting me.

Drop-Dead Gorgeous?

I headed over to the Coffee Witch for one of Willow’s magical concoctions, bought two Voodoo Ventes—one for me and one for Jake—then returned to his truck to see if he’d arrived.

Still no sign of him.

I checked my watch. The festival would be opening in forty-five minutes. Time was running out.

I set Jake’s coffee on the shelf outside his truck window, wrote
MEET ME AT T
HE
P
IEHOLE
on the outside of the paper cup, then headed over, my own coffee in hand. This time I would step things up in terms of my questioning. The longer Wendy remained in jail and the real killer went free, the worse it would be for her—and maybe the rest of us—in the long run.

I could see through the service window that Griffin was preparing pies for the day’s onslaught. Wishing Jake was with me, I knocked on his open door. In spite of the fact that Griffin might be a murderer, I didn’t feel that nervous, since there were all kinds of food trucks nearby who would hear me if I screamed.

“Come in!” Griffin called out.

I stepped inside. “Hi, Griffin.”

He looked up from the bowl of liquid chocolate, and I immediately thought of the chocolate that had been poured over my car and RV windows. “Oh, hey. You’re Darcy, Abby’s assistant, right?”

“Yes. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all. What can I do for you?” he said as he stirred the chocolate.

“Uh . . . I wondered if you might be interested in contributing a recipe to the food truck cookbook I’m writing. I’d love to include one of your chocolate pies. I can’t pay anything, but it would be free publicity, and you’d get a copy of the book.”

“Sounds cool.” He began pointing to the various mini pies he’d lined up along the counter for display. “Which one do you want? I have Death by Chocolate Pie, which is fudgy. Chocolate Addiction, which is chocolate bourbon pecan. My personal favorite—Chocolate Orgasm—that’s chocolate banana cream. Or you can have a recipe for Chocolate Crack, aka chocolate peanut butter, or Satan’s Chocolate—French Silk, or Chocolate Decadence, which is a chocolate marshmallow mousse pie.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of chocolate pies. They all sound wonderful. You pick.”

“Okay. When do you need it by? I’m kind of busy right now, but I could get it to you next week.”

“That would be great,” I said. I took a sip of the coffee I was carrying. “That looks yummy,” I said, indicating the bowl of chocolate. “Smells good too. What kind of chocolate do you use?”

“Only the best,” he said proudly.

“From the Ivory Coast?” I asked, getting to the point.

Griffin stopped stirring and looked up at me. “No!” he said a little too sharply. “Why would you say that?”

“No reason. I thought that particular chocolate was supposed to be the best.”

“You’ve been listening to the wrong people. Did you know that African chocolate is made by children—enslaved children who work themselves to death? I would never be a part of that. My chocolate comes from South America, where it’s fair trade. I pay more, but at least I don’t feel guilty.”

Wow. If what Dillon had learned about Griffin was true, he was a real hypocrite, not to mention a good liar. Not only was he blackmailing the Van Houtens to get his chocolate cheaper, but he couldn’t care less about those kids. Despicable.

“Did Polly know where you got your chocolate?” I pushed on, checking to make sure my escape route was clear if I needed to run out quickly.

Griffin frowned. “What do you mean? Why would Polly want to know anything about my chocolate?”

“I heard a rumor that you were getting your chocolate at a discount, while other people had to pay full price. I wondered how you managed that.”

Griffin’s eyes narrowed. He took a step toward me, a large chocolate-covered metal spoon in his hand.

“I thought you came here to ask me for a recipe. What’s with all the questions? It sounds like you’re accusing me of something.”

Where was Jake when I needed him?

I was ready to flee, but I wasn’t leaving until I had some answers. “I just wondered if Polly found out about your special deal and you got angry and . . .”

“You think I
killed
Polly?” He forced a laugh. “That’s just stupid! I had no reason to kill her. Where did you come up with such an idiotic idea?” He took another step closer to me. I took a step back.

“I must be wrong, then,” I said, trying to defuse the growing anger I saw in his dark eyes. “Sorry. You know rumors. . . .”

“Spreading rumors like that can get you in a lot of trouble, lady,” Griffin said. He stared at me as if trying to figure out what I knew—or what he was going to do next. “What happened to Polly could happen to you if you’re not careful.”

Now, that was a threat.

In the corner of my eye, I saw one of his fists clench.

“You’re right, Griffin. I’ll have to be more careful. I’d better let you get back—”

He slammed his fist on the counter, scaring the bejesus out of me. I dropped the cup of coffee, spilling liquid all over the floor.

“You’re not leaving until you tell me where you heard this ugly rumor,” Griffin snarled. He waved the large spoon menacingly in his raised hand.

It was time to go. I spun around and darted for the door.

Griffin grabbed my arm. “I
said
, I want to know who told you I was buying chocolate at a discount!”

I dug in my purse, which was hanging off my shoulder, and pulled out my cell phone. Griffin slapped it out of my hand. The phone went flying down the steps.

He tightened his grip on my arm. “Tell me!”

I shrugged my purse off my shoulder and swung it at him. He ducked and released my arm.

In that split second, I practically leaped from the top of the steps to the ground, barely landing on my feet.

Griffin stood above me, glaring, his brown eyes wild with murderous intent.

I snatched my cell phone from the ground and backed away, glancing around frantically for help—or at least witnesses—in case he decided to follow through with his threat immediately. I spotted Harrison Tofflemire standing outside his truck, looking in my direction. His two daughters were also outside, but they were too busy flirting with Frankie Nudo to notice me.

I ran to Harrison, hyperventilating from my fight-or-flight reaction to Griffin’s anger. “Harr . . . Harrison . . .” I wheezed, and bent over to catch my breath.

“Are you all right?” Harrison said, glancing across at Griffin’s truck, then back at me. “What’s all the ruckus?”

“Griffin . . .” I puffed. “. . . I . . . he . . .” I looked back. There was no sign of him.

“Here, let me get you some water. I’ll be right back.”

To be safe, I followed him up the steps of his truck, not wanting to remain outside alone. Not after Griffin’s threats and that look in his eye.

Harrison pulled a bottle of water from his refrigerator, opened the cap, and handed it to me. I drank
several gulps and felt my heart rate begin to slow down.

“Thank you,” I said.

“No problem. What happened? You looked like a frightened rabbit. Something spook you?”

I nodded. “Griffin. I was talking to him in his truck and”—I hesitated, not wanting to tell Harrison the truth—“and he got upset about something, so I left. . . .”

“I heard yelling,” Harrison said, “but I didn’t know where it was coming from. Chefs around here do a lot of yelling, so I don’t pay much mind to it. Did he hurt you?”

“No.” I glanced at my wrist where Griffin had grabbed me. It was red, but not bruised—at least not yet. I thought about having him arrested for assault, but what was I thinking? I’d gone in there alone, made some serious accusations, and essentially provoked him. If I called the cops, I’d just make him even angrier, and it would prove nothing.

“He’s a hothead,” Harrison said. “Always mad about something. He hates Simon Van Houten because he thinks his father’s business is involved in child labor. He hates Monet for giving him the cold shoulder. He hates Frankie because Frankie’s a player. And he hates me because I’m so successful and my daughters won’t have anything to do with him. Just blow him off.”

Harrison
was
successful, but according to Dillon, with someone else’s invention. This was going to be my opening to question him, but I was still shaking from my encounter with Griffin. Maybe now wasn’t a good time. Then again, time was of the essence and this
was the perfect opportunity. And Harrison’s daughters were around, so he surely wouldn’t get violent.

I decided to go for it. Surely I wouldn’t be attacked twice in one morning. Would I?

“You’ve really done well for yourself, haven’t you?” I asked him after taking another sip of water.

“I’ve been lucky,” he said modestly. He pulled over a roller cart holding the larger of the two chocolate waterfalls. The stainless-steel appliance, shaped like a pyramid, stood about five feet tall, one of the largest I’d seen. “This baby sold more than a hundred thousand units last year.” He patted it as if it were a pet. “I’ll be using it for the contest this afternoon. The smaller one is less complicated, so I’ve been using it for the festival, but I’m bringing out the big guns for the win.”

“How did you come up with the chocolate waterfall idea?” I asked, baiting him.

“Simple, really,” he said, beaming with pride. “You see, this here’s the base, which contains the motor, heater, and the controls.” He pointed as he listed the parts. “The motor turns the auger. The auger is like a giant corkscrew that brings the chocolate up from the base to the top. The heater keeps the chocolate melted, and the controls operate it.”

Okay, so he knew the basics of a chocolate waterfall. That wasn’t what I had asked. I listened patiently as he went on.

“The tiers—these layers here—fill up with molten chocolate. When the chocolate reaches the top tier, it overflows and cascades down, like hot lava, or a waterfall.”

He switched on the smaller machine, poured some chocolate chips onto the base, and they instantly began to melt.

“You have to use chocolate that has a lot of cocoa butter, or you have to add oil.” He poured in more chocolate chips, and soon the base was full of melted chocolate. “Once it gets going, you can dip just about anything in the chocolate—fruit, cake, marshmallows, your finger.” He grinned.

My mouth was starting to water from the smell of the heated chocolate. Harrison switched on the pump and magically, the chocolate began to rise up the central auger—a metal tubelike thingy with small circular blades attached every inch or so—and spill over the top.

“Here. Try some.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bowl of strawberries. He handed me a skewer and gestured to the bowl. I stabbed a medium-sized strawberry with the skewer and inserted it slowly into the liquid wall of cascading dark chocolate. When I pulled it back out, the berry was completely coated in chocolate.

“Go on. Eat it,” Harrison said, watching me.

I bit into the chocolate-covered strawberry.

Incredible.

I was going to have to get me one of these Chocolate Falls.

“Good?”

“Delicious!” I said after I finished the strawberry. “So, how did you come up with the idea of creating this machine?”

Harrison shrugged. “Just came to me, you know. I
was thinking about how popular chocolate fondue was, but not so easy for a big group of people to enjoy. Then I saw this champagne fountain at a wedding once, and put two and two together. Chocolate Falls! My own invention.”

“But there are other chocolate fountains on the market, aren’t there?” I persisted.

“Yeah, but mine was the first, and it’s the best. I have a secret patent for it that I don’t share with anyone.”

“Funny,” I said. “I thought a Canadian company invented this version in the 1980s. You said you came up with the idea in 2002?”

Harrison switched off the machine. The grin on his face was gone, replaced by a frown. “Where did you hear that?”

“I don’t know. I must have picked it up when I was writing food reviews for the newspaper.”

“Well, it’s not true. It’s
my
invention. I created it and I perfected it. Lots of companies have tried to copy me, but none of them know my secret. You’d better check your sources carefully next time.”

“I will,” I lied. “Oh, I know where I heard it. From Polly Montgomery.”

I watched Harrison closely for a reaction. His face twisted in disgust.

“Polly? That drunken old slut? She was nothing but a backstabbing, two-faced gossipmonger who should have been run out of the industry. I don’t mean to speak poorly of the dead, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. There was no love lost between us.”

“Were you and Polly . . . ?” I couldn’t bring myself to
say it. I didn’t have to. He answered the implied question.

“Yeah, we had a thing, but it was a long time ago,” Harrison snapped. “Before I knew what a well-heeled liar she was. I don’t know what else she told you, but I wouldn’t believe a word of it if I were you.”

So Harrison and Polly had also been an item. Was there any man safe from Polly’s generous charms?

Before I could ask another question, Harrison said, “Look, I gotta get ready to open. The festival will be starting in a few minutes. Meantime, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything about me and Polly. My girls don’t know, and I don’t want them to think casual sex is okay.”

“Of course,” I lied, figuring his daughters were way ahead of him on that. “I just have one last question.”

“What’s that?” Harrison said, irritation etched on his face.

“Do you have proof you invented the Chocolate Falls before anyone else?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

I was about to go out on a limb here. “Did Polly have reason to think you might have stolen the idea from that Canadian company?”

“I guess I didn’t make myself clear, missy,” Harrison said, his eyes narrow and focused on me. “If you say or print anything about me, my relationship with Polly, or even hint that Chocolate Falls wasn’t my invention, my lawyer will have you up on slander
and
libel charges faster than you can melt chocolate.”

*   *   *

I escaped Harrison’s truck without injury, probably
because I fled the moment he’d threatened me. As I passed Jake’s Dream Puff truck, I saw the C
LOSED
sign still in his window, along with the coffee I’d left him.

“Aunt Abby?” I said after boarding the school bus. “Have you heard from Jake?”

“No. I haven’t seen him, dear,” Aunt Abby said. “But I’m glad you’re back. Fifteen minutes until showtime and I’m still not ready. Could you unwrap those whoopie pies and put them in the paper cups?”

Nodding, I donned an apron. Dillon opened the boxes of ready-made whoopie pies, while I used tongs to place them in the colorful fluted paper cups, ready for the first wave of festival attendees. “You haven’t heard from him at all?”

“Who?” Aunt Abby asked.

“Jake! He’s still not in his truck. That’s not like him.”

“No, dear.”

“Dillon?”

“Nope,” he replied. “Maybe he had car trouble.”

Maybe,
I thought.
Maybe not.

Maybe something was wrong.

It wasn’t like him to ditch me when he’d said he’d meet me—at least, not without calling to cancel first. And it wasn’t like him to be late opening his food truck, especially today, the second and last day of the festival. If Reina found out he hadn’t shown up, she’d have a fit.

My cell phone rang.

“That’s probably him now,” Aunt Abby said, pulling out more paper cups.

I retrieved my cell phone—which now had a crack
in the glass—and checked the caller ID. Aunt Abby was right.

“Jake! Where are you?” I said a little too frantically. Thinking about the recent threats I’d received, I’d worried he’d gotten some too, since we’d been working on this murder investigation together. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Darcy. Are you?”

“Yes, but you were supposed to meet me this morning.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I hope you didn’t go ahead without me,” he said.

I didn’t answer.

“Oh, Darcy, no. Look, this thing is becoming more serious than I realized. I’m at the hospital—”

“The hospital! Why? What happened? Are you all right?”

Aunt Abby and Dillon stopped what they were doing and looked at me, alarmed.

“I’m fine. My cop friend called after you left. There was another hit-and-run accident late last night or early this morning.”

“Oh no! What happened? Someone you know?”

“It was J.C. He was run down while walking out of his apartment.”

“Oh my God. Is he . . . okay?”

“He’s in a medically induced coma. It doesn’t look good.”