Death by Chocolate (17 page)

By the time Savannah
arrived at the Maxwell estate the next day, it was ten-thirty. She and Cordele
had shared a fairly cordial breakfast and, reluctant to end a winning streak,
short though it might be, she had delayed leaving the house until absolutely
necessary. Even then, Cordele had pouted, suggesting that if Savannah cared at
all about confronting some long-standing family issues, she should hurry
home—unless, of course, she cared more about catching society’s misfits and
putting them into dark, hopeless prisons where rehabilitation was a joke.

Savannah was terribly proud
of herself. She hadn’t growled at, bitten, or even snapped at her sister. She
had simply smiled, nodded, quietly walked out of the house, got into her
car.... and peeled out of the driveway, leaving six months’ worth of normal
tire-tread wear on the pavement.

Yes, so far, it was a
banner day. No one had bled. God was good.

At the Maxwell mansion, she
found the gates wide open, so she didn’t use her ill-gotten combination to
break in. And as she passed the gatekeeper’s cottage, she saw no activity at
all.

No one seemed to be
stirring at the studio; the yellow perimeter tape that surrounded the building appeared
undisturbed. It wasn’t until she arrived at the main house itself that the
stillness started to give her the creeps. Things were too quiet. What was
missing?

Oh, yes... she thought, the
terrible threesome.

They hadn’t bounded off the
porch to attack her, as usual. And the cushioned chairs, where they usually
napped when they weren’t mauling someone, were empty.

While she couldn’t say she
particularly liked the terriers, she had grown accustomed to their shaggy
little faces. And she had derived a certain satisfaction in knowing that—for a
bagful of chicken livers—she had won them over. A feat accomplished by few.

She was beginning to think
that no one was on the property when she heard a squeal coming from the ocean
side of the house. Hurrying around the building, she found Gilly sitting on the
lawn, playing with a tiny black pup. The squeal had been a cry of delight. She
gave another one as the puppy nipped at her fingers, then jumped up and licked
her chin.

“Hi, sweetcakes,” Savannah
said as she walked across the lawn and sat down on the grass beside them.
“Who’s your buddy?”

“This is Mona Lisa,” Gilly
said proudly. “We got her at the pound today. They said they think she’s part
lab and part German shepherd, so she’s really just a mutt. But mutts are good
dogs, too.”

“Mutts are great dogs. You
say you got her at the pound?” An unpleasant thought was forming in Savannah’s
brain, and she hoped she was wrong.

“Yeah. Mom took Killer and
Satan and Hider there today. She told me that the pound people would find new
homes for them. But I heard her tell them that the dogs were mean and that they
bite people. And the guy there said, ‘Okay, lady, we’ll take care of the dogs.’
And he didn’t say it nice, either.”

Savannah winced. As an
animal lover, she couldn’t bear the thought of the three dogs taking the long
walk down the green mile. It wasn’t their fault that they hadn’t been trained
properly and were badly spoiled. She reminded herself to see if she couldn’t
remedy the situation later.

“But you got Mona here and
brought her home. That’s nice,” she said, reaching down and stroking the dog’s
glossy coat. The pup was still very young, not particularly skilled at even
walking. Wagging her tail a bit too hard caused her to topple sideways.

“Who named her Mona Lisa?”

“I did,” she said proudly.
‘There’s a song about a lady named that. It’s a pretty song and she’s a pretty
dog. Don’t you think?”

“I think she’s gorgeous.”

“Better than a husky or a
poodle or a dalmatian from the pet store?”

“Every bit as good, that’s
for sure.”

Gilly picked up a nearby
plastic chew toy in the shape of a hot dog and squeaked it at the dog. She
yelped and jumped back, growling a tiny puppy growl.

“She’s full of vinegar,”
Savannah said. ‘That’s for sure.” Gilly nodded. “My mommy said we could buy an
expensive dog from the pet store in the mall if we wanted to, because we’re
rich now that my grandma’s dead. But I told her, no, that I wanted to take one
from the pound and save its life.”

“You did a noble thing,”
Savannah said. “I’m sure that Mona will love you very much and be a good friend
to you for a long time.”

Savannah looked back at the
house and around the yard, but saw no one. “Where’s your mom?” she asked the
girl.

Gilly glanced around and
shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe at the beach over there.” She pointed down the
hill to a stretch of sand that disappeared around a point. “She likes to go
down there when she’s feeling upset. She’s been pretty upset.”

Savannah stood and brushed
the grass off her slacks. “I think I’ll go talk to her awhile. You have fun
with Mona.”

“Okay. Will you come say
good-bye before you leave?”

“I sure will. Later,
punkin’.”

Savannah headed down the
path that led to the beach, but once she was out of earshot from Gilly, she
stopped, reached into her purse, and produced her cell phone.

“Hi, Tam,” she said. ‘Yeah,
I’m over at the Maxwell place. Do me a favor, would you? Go online and see if
you can find a local Silky Terrier Rescue group. I know they have one for
dalmatians and for Boston terriers. And tell them to get down to the county
pound right away.”

She paused, listening, then
added, ‘Yeah, you might not want to mention their names or their propensity for
biting any hand that isn’t feeding them. And if anybody asks, they just need a
loving home and a bit of discipline, and their names are Moe, Larry, and Curly.
Okay? Thanks, darlin’.”

Chapter

S
avannah found Louise
Maxwell on the beach, as Gilly had suggested. But contrary to Gilly’s other
prediction, she didn’t look at all upset to Savannah.

She was lying on an
oversized beach towel, soaking up rays. And since her bikini was even more
skimpy than the one she had been wearing previously, she was absorbing more
than her share of California sunlight.

Before she saw Savannah she
was gazing contentedly at some surfers farther down the beach and humming to
herself. But the moment she noticed that she had company, Louise’s pleasant—if
somewhat dopey—smile disappeared.

“What are you doing back
here?” she demanded, sitting up on her towel. “I thought I told you that you
weren’t welcome around here.”

Savannah nodded. “Yes,
that’s what I thought you said, too. But fortunately I didn’t take it to heart.
I never worry that much about how welcome I am someplace.”

Louise jumped to her feet,
ripped off her sunglasses, and stood glaring at Savannah.

Savannah assumed this was
meant to intimidate her into a speedy retreat. But Louise had no idea how many
times Savannah had been glared at in the course of her professional careers as
a cop and an investigator. And as long as the glarer wasn’t holding a gun in
their hand.... she wasn’t impressed.

“Listen, you,” Louise said,
taking a couple of steps toward her. “I’ve inherited all of this!” She waved
her arm, indicating the house, property, and beach. “And you’d better not mess
with me, or I’ll have you arrested, or I’ll sue you, or—”

“Don’t you remember? You
haven’t officially inherited anything yet.” Savannah weighed her next words
carefully before speaking. She wanted to find out Louise’s involvement in
robbing from her mother, but she didn’t want her to tip off Martin that Dirk
was on to him. “And besides,” she said, “when you do finally get your just
dues’ you may find out that it ain’t nothin’ much to crow about.”

Louise’s face went from
enraged to confused the instant Savannah’s words filtered into her brain. “What
do you mean?”

She didn’t know. Louise was
as clueless as they came. Martin Streck might have been embezzling from her
mother, but Louise wasn’t part of the scheme.

Savannah felt slightly
disappointed. It would have been fun to nail Miss Bikini Prissy Pot with
something good.

“I said, ‘What do you
mean?’ ” Louise repeated. “You said my just dues wouldn’t be much. What do you
know about anything?”

“Who? Me? No, of course I
wouldn’t know anything about your personal business... your inheritance....
anything like that. Don’t worry about a thing, Ms. Maxwell. I’m sure
everything’s fine. I just like to run my mouth once in a while. It’s a
character flaw of mine that I’m working on.”

She turned to walk away, to
return to the house and say good-bye to Gilly. But before she did, she noticed
with a deep sense of gratification that Louise Maxwell did indeed look upset.
Quite upset.

Mission accomplished.

Savannah sat in her Mustang
outside the brick office building on Sunset Boulevard and watched the front
door. As always, the famous boulevard was a bustle of activity, and since it
was lunchtime, the traffic was bumper to bumper and the sidewalks were filled
with pedestrians on their way to their favorite restaurants or bistros.

A thousand colorful signs
screamed at passersby from every building front and rooftop, insisting that
they drink a certain booze, smoke a particular cigarette, or visit a cabaret or
comedy club. The visual clutter made Savannah grateful for San Carmelita’s sign
ordinances that wouldn’t have tolerated such gaudiness.

But the building where
Burton Maxwell had his offices, the corporate headquarters of all the Lady
Eleanor enterprises, was relatively unremarkable. The only identifying marker
was a small pink cameo-shaped sign with Eleanor’s profile that adorned the
front door of the three-story building.

It had taken Savannah half
an hour to get a parking spot in view of the door. And now that it was one
o’clock in the afternoon and she hadn’t seen any sign of Burt Maxwell coming or
going, she was beginning to doubt that this approach was going to work.

She called Dirk on her cell
phone, leaned back in the bucket seat, and took a drink of the iced tea she had
bought at a nearby McDonald’s.

“Coulter here,” he barked.
He was in a bad mood... again.

“Reid here,” she returned,
just as tersely. “What’s up?”

“I’ve been checking Streck
out all morning. And I’m startin’ to think he ain’t our guy.”

Ah, Savannah thought, the
answer to Dirk’s grouchiness. There was nothing quite like a dead end in an
investigation to cause Dirk to plummet from his usual heights of mildly
ill-tempered pissy to downright grump.

“Why not?” she asked,
dreading any further conversation on the depressing topic.

“Because I’ve been going
over these files here with the D.A. and some accountant dude she dragged in to
look at ‘em, too. They say that they can tell by looking at the way he was
draining off the money that he wasn’t near done yet. They saw that if Eleanor
hadn’t died when she had, he could have milked her for a lot more and probably
gotten away with it. Her getting killed when she did pretty much guaranteed
that he’d be caught, because he hadn’t gotten all his tracks covered yet.”

“Are they going to charge
him at least for the embezzling?”

“That’s what they’re
talking about right now. I think we’ve got a pretty solid case against him for
that, but you know how long it takes for these people to get the lead out and
move.”

“I hear ya, buddy.”
Savannah took a swig of her tea, her eyes on the still inactive front door of
the building. “Did you go talk to Louise?” he asked.

“Yep. She didn’t know. Had
no idea what I was talking about.”

“You didn’t actually mention
Martin, did you?”

“No, of course not. Just
hinted that she might not be rolling in as much dough as she thinks. By the
way, she told her little girl that they’re rich now. Nice, huh?”

She heard Dirk growl on the
other end. “I think she’s next on my list,” he said. ‘You going to see
Maxwell?”

“I’m sitting outside his
office building even as we speak.”

“You going in?”

“No, I figured I’d hang out
awhile and see if he comes out for lunch. If he does, I’ll follow him and
approach him there. It’s harder to throw somebody out of a public place than
your own office.”

“Yeah, and you like being
in close proximity to food whenever possible.”

“Hey, I think I hear Porky
calling Petunia a pig here. What did you have for lunch?”

He laughed. “Nothin’ yet,
but I’m looking at a foot-long Italian sub and a pile of potato chips.”

“Oink, oink.”

Savannah glanced back at
the building and saw the front door opening. “Hey, somebody’s coming out.” Two
young women in casual office attire strolled out, chatting between themselves,
and made their way down the street toward an outside Mexican restaurant with
umbrella tables that advertised Dos Equis beer.

“False alarm,” she said.
But then the door opened again, and this time a tall blond man in a navy suit
exited. “Bingo, it’s him. Gotta go,” she told Dirk.

“With any luck he’ll go to
a donut shop,” Dirk replied, “and you can have your favorite
lunch—custard-filled and chocolate-frosted.”

“Cram it, Coulter. Your
foot-long sub, that is.”

She shoved the phone back into
her purse and got out of the car. Following Burt from across the street, she
had no problem blending into the crowd on the busy sidewalk. It looked like
everybody and their dogs’ uncles were going to lunch.

He passed a number of
eating establishments before he finally ducked into a Starbucks.

“Nice choice,” she mumbled
as she started to walk across the street.

But the light was against
her, and she had to wait for it to go through a lengthy cycle before she and
the others waidng with her could cross. When it finally changed, they surged
forward, en masse, and she lost sight of the coffee shop’s door for a moment.

Emerging from the press of
bodies, she glanced over at the store’s entrance just in time to see a familiar
face going in. She would have recognized that short-cropped bright red hair
anywhere. Kaitlin Dover.

Bells chimed in her head
and she felt her pulse quicken as she hurried to the glass windows at the front
of the store. If Kaitlin’s and Burt’s meeting here was more than coincidental,
she wanted to know. She also wanted to see how they greeted each other.
Greetings said a lot.

She stopped at the edge of
the window and, as discreetly as possible, peered inside. An old lady sitting
at a table next to the glass gave her a questioning look, but Savannah ignored
her.

She spotted Burt Maxwell
right away, sitting at a bar against the far wall, thankfully facing away from
the front of the shop. And Kaitlin Dover had walked into the store, given a
quick look around, and headed straight for him.

No chance meeting, Savannah
thought, watching them closely.

Kaitlin walked up behind
him and said something. Immediately he sprang up from his stool, turned around,
and embraced her. He gave her a fairly fast peck on the lips, but his hands
were too low on her hips for the hug to be one between casual friends.

“Hm-m-m....” Savannah
murmured to herself.

For a moment she considered
walking into the shop and confronting them. But then she decided against it.
She had come to Sunset Boulevard to interview Burt Maxwell, hopefully to find a
new piece to the puzzle. And this juicy revelation was better than anything she
would have gotten from a chat, even if he had agreed to open up to her. Which
wasn’t likely.

Although, if she didn’t go
inside... she wouldn’t be able to get one of those amazing caramel brownies.

Oh well, she thought, as
she turned and walked back to her car. Sometimes in the line of duty you had to
make sacrifices in order to call yourself a professional.

On her way home, she would
pass by a dozen or so Starbucks. She’d stop at one of those and pick up some
caramel brownies... and some chocolate-dipped biscotti, too.