Death by Chocolate (23 page)

Chapter

W
hen Savannah, Dirk, and
Tammy found Louise on t
he beach, she was so totally
enthralled with Ryan and her conversation with him that she didn’t even notice
the threesome approaching from behind.

Ryan glanced their way for
only a second, but it was long enough for Savannah to give him a thumbs-up and
for him to smile and nod imperceptibly.

As they made their way
along the beach, Savannah could feel the loose sand slipping into her loafers,
but she didn’t mind at all. She wouldn’t have minded if there had been sharks
nipping at her ankles. Taking in Louise’s hot-pink bikini trimmed in lime green
and the provocative way she had posed herself, lying on one side, playing with
her long blond hair as she chatted with Ryan, Savannah had to control herself
not to cackle like the wicked witch in the story of Snow White.

The gal who considered
herself the “fairest of them all” was about to get herself busted—and by Dirk,
who absolutely loved to make an arrest when he felt one was warranted. Savannah
could tell by the smirk on his face as he strode through the sand beside her
that he was overjoyed with this turn of events.

And several steps behind
them was an equally cheerful Tammy.

Dirk wasted no time. He
walked up behind Louise, reached down, grabbed her arm, and in one smooth
movement, hauled her to her feet.

“Hey! What the hell do you
think you’re doing?” she shrieked, wriggling around like a worm on a hot
sidewalk. “Let go of me!”

But Dirk didn’t let go. He
had grabbed much bigger and meaner characters than Louise and hadn’t let go. In
seconds, he had her hands behind her and her wrists cuffed.

Ryan stood, brushed the
sand off his legs, and picked up his towel. “I suppose my work is done here,”
he said.

“Your... your work?” Louise
whirled on him—at least, as well as she could, considering the fact that Dirk
was holding her in a death grip. “What do you mean, ‘work’? Are you part of
this.... this....?”

“Arrest,” Dirk supplied.
“It’s called a felony arrest.”

“But we were getting along
really good and—” Louise shook her head, as though unable to absorb the
realities unfolding around her.

“Actually,” Ryan said, “we
weren’t really clicking as well as you thought. You see”—he looked her up and
down—“you’re just not my type.”

She looked crushed. “You
don’t like blondes?”

“Oh, no. I love blondes....
brunettes.... redheads.” He flashed her a breathtaking smile.

Dirk snorted and Tammy
giggled.

“I just don’t like
you.”

“But... but...” Louise
looked as if she were going to burst into tears any moment as Ryan tossed his
towel over his shoulder and strolled away.

“See you guys later,” he said.
“We’ll bring the champagne. About seven this evening?”

“You got it,” Savannah told
him.

“Champagne?” Louise tried
to jerk her arm out of Dirk’s grasp and yelped at the pain it cost her.
“Somebody tell me what is going on around here.”

“I’d be happy to,” Dirk
replied. “I am placing you under arrest for the murder of your mother, Eleanor
Maxwell. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right,
anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...”

“Murder my mother?” Louise
glanced over her shoulder and gave him a hate-filled look. “How could I kill
her? I told you I haven’t even had contact with her for ages.”

“Yeah, and that was a lie,”
Savannah said. “Thanks to you, she was recently in the hospital, getting her
head sewn up. I’d say that’s some pretty close and personal contact.”

Dirk continued to read
Louise her rights as he turned her around and pushed her down the beach toward
the path that led back to the house. The second he had finished, she asserted
one of her basic rights.

“I want my lawyer,” she
said. “I’m not saying a word until I talk to Marty.”

“You better pick another
lawyer,” Savannah told her. “Marty’s got some serious problems of his own. He’s
in the pokey himself right now.”

“For what?” she demanded.

“For stealing all of your
mom’s money,” Dirk told her. “You know—the money you killed her for.”

“He
stole
it? How?
You mean, like embezzled it?
All
of it?”

She was looking pale under
her tan, and Savannah almost felt sorry for her. Within a space of three minutes
she had been dumped by a gorgeous man she had just met, arrested for murder,
and told she was flat broke.

But then... Savannah smiled
to herself and flashed forward to an evening of sipping celebratory
champagne.... it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person than Louise
Maxwell.

As soon as Dirk left with
Louise in tow, Savannah paid a quick visit to Marie’s cottage and asked her to
take care of Gilly when she got home from school—maybe even for a few days, as
Louise would be “away.” Marie had happily agreed and hadn’t asked the usual,
nosy questions that might have been expected under the circumstances.

Savannah decided that if
she ever won the lottery and could afford a seaside mansion, she wanted a
housekeeper just like Marie. Discreet and not overly curious. Two excellent
qualities in domestic help.

Having the issue of Gilly
resolved for the time being, Savannah left the Maxwell estate with a lighter
heart than she’d had in many days.

She dropped Tammy off at
her apartment complex and turned her Mustang toward the grocery store and her
mind toward the night’s culinary festivities. As usual when they wrapped up a
case, the Moonlight Magnolia crew would get together, eat and drink too much,
and slap each other on the back, verbally and literally.

It made life worth living.

Her menu was coming
together in her head: a honey-baked ham, some of her own potato salad, sliced
fresh tomatoes, and maybe she’d throw together some onion rolls. Pecan pie and
ice cream for dessert.

And, of course, Ryan would
bring a bottle of Dom Pérignon, that delightful champagne that positively
exploded with a million tiny bubbles against your tongue and lifted your
spirits to all new heights.

Yes, the evening would be a
pleasant one, to be sure. Cordele’s nose would probably be out of joint that
they were entertaining Savannah’s friends rather than spending “quality” time
together, discussing the bad ol’ days, but.... what the heck?

This was such a perfect
day—with Louise’s arrest and all—that Savannah was determined that nothing
would ruin it for her.

Nothing... except a phone
call from Dirk, just as she was picking out tomatoes in the produce section.

“It ain’t goin’ so good
over here,” were his opening words.

Savannah dropped her
choices into a plastic bag and tied the top, holding the cell phone between her
chin and shoulder.

“Have you got Louise in the
sweat box?” she asked. “Yeah, but she ain’t sweatin’.”

“Turn up the heat.”

“It’s already up to ninety,
and she’s cool bordering on frosty. Says she was out of town the whole week
around when the kid from the drugstore says she had him get that medicine for
her.”

She dropped the phone and
had to fish it out of some nearby bell peppers. “Out of town? Doing what?”

“She says she was cleaning
out in a drug rehab center in San Diego.”

“Well, was she?”

“I don’t know. I called
down there and they’re checking. Gonna get back to me. Can you do me a solid?”
Savannah looked at the contents of her grocery cart and could feel the evening
and all its celebrations slipping away. “Sure,” she said. “What is it?”

“I wanna stay here in case
the clinic calls and keep leanin’ on her. Can you go over to the drugstore and
ask that kid again if he’s got the date right? I already called, and he’s there
for the next forty-five minutes.” She sighed. “No problem,” she said. “I’m on
my way.”

* * *

Savannah found Tony in the
pharmacy’s storage room breaking down empty cardboard boxes. He didn’t seem
surprised to see her. Apparently Mildred had told him about Dirk’s call.

He also didn’t appear particularly
happy to see her, but then, that was to be expected. There was nothing quite
like the grim possibility of another round in the sweat box to dampen one’s
spirits.

“Don’t worry,” she told him
right away. “I just wanted to make sure of a couple of things that we talked
about the other day.”

“Yeah, okay.”

He put away the utility
knife he’d been using and sat down on a nearby box. “What’s up?”

“The date that you gave
us.... the day that you actually took those bottles out of the storage closet here
and gave them to Louise, are you sure about that?”

He folded his hands and
stared down at them. Savannah could see that he was, quite literally,
white-knuckling it. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure.”

“May I ask how you can be
so sure of the exact date?” He nodded and looked terribly sad for one so young.
“I remember because it was my birthday. And I was really looking forward to
seeing her.”

“Did she know it was your
birthday?” Savannah asked, preparing to hate Louise all the more if she had
implicated this kid in a murder plot on his birthday. But then, somebody who
would poison her own mother wouldn’t have qualms about something as mundane as
using a teenage boy who was deeply, helplessly in lust with her.

“Yeah.... I guess she did,”
he said. “I mean, I told her it was going to be when we talked the week before
on the phone.”

“Did she mention it when
you saw her? Like wish you happy birthday, or—”

“Naw. I didn’t even get to
actually see her that day.” A bell went off in Savannah’s brain—an unpleasant
one that sounded a lot like a neighbor’s car alarm going off in the middle of
the night. “You didn’t see Louise?” she said. “But you said you gave her the
bottles of medicine.”

“I left them there between
the screen and the door, like the note said.”

Savannah recalled, word for
word, the contents of the letter that he had handed over to them. “But I read
the note. It didn’t say anything like that.”

“Not
that
note,” he
said. ‘The note that was stuck to the door when I got there.”

Savannah held up one hand.
‘Just a minute. Let me get this straight. She left you that letter in your
cubbyhole at work—the one you gave to us—asking you to bring the stuff out to
her. But then, when you took it to her cottage there on the estate, she wasn’t
there, just a note on the door asking you to leave it behind the screen?”

He nodded. ‘Yeah. And
that’s why I was so bummed. Here I do this thing for her—stealing something
from my work—and taking it out to her, and she wasn’t even there to meet me.
And her knowing it was my birthday and all.”

“I can see why you were
disappointed.”

Tony wasn’t the only one
who was bummed, she thought. She wasn’t exactly thrilled with this new turn of
events herself. Dirk would be even less happy.

“Have you seen Louise or
spoken to her since then?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Nope. I
kept waiting for her to at least call and say ‘Thanks for the stuff,’ but when
she didn’t, I figured it was over.”

He looked up at Savannah
with eyes that registered his hurt, but also some wisdom born of painful
experience.

“Yes,” she said, “that was
smart on your part, dropping her, that is. You’re a good guy; you can do a lot
better than her.”

He shrugged. “I don’t
really want anything to do with any girls right now. No offense, but they’re
more trouble than they’re worth.”

Savannah laughed and patted
him on the shoulder. “Can’t argue with you there, Tony, my man. As a single
person myself, I can say.... it may not be as much fun but it’s a whole heap
simpler. You take it easy now, hear?”

“Yeah. Okay. Did that help
you with your investigation?”

She tried to paste on a
cheerful face. “Oh, yes. That was a major help. Thanks.”

As she walked away, she
muttered, “With help like that, I think I’ll just go hang myself. And Dirk will
probably wanna swing right alongside me.”

Savannah sat at her kitchen
table, staring dejectedly at the phone in front of her. Through the archway
leading into the living room, she could see Cordele in her usual spot, the
wingback chair, reading, cats on either side of her feet. Or at least Cordele was
pretending to read while Savannah made her unpleasant calls. She hadn’t turned
a page since Savannah had begun.

The first call had been to
Ryan and John to tell them to keep the champagne on ice but tonight’s
cork-popping was on hold. They had been kind and sympathetic. As investigators
themselves, they knew the pain of having a case unravel in your hands.