Death is Semisweet (20 page)

“I haven’t helped. Janie, who I’m sure is the culprit, has disappeared. But there is no actual proof that she did anything more than go a little off at Christmas dinner. So maybe it
isn’t
her and maybe it’s Uncle David, who I’m sure has been harboring a grudge all these years. And then yesterday the secretary at Foster’s called to tell me there wasn’t going to be a New Year’s Eve party and she started talking about how she’d never forgive herself if Claude was found guilty. I was pretty sure if I could get her to the restaurant she’d confess to something, but she didn’t show up. No one has come forward to say they saw her, Janie, David, or anyone else for that matter, breaking the windows across the street at my café or painting stuff on the building. And this is a busy street. Claude is still indicted for manslaughter but I’m pretty sure he didn’t do it. I can’t make any of the pieces fit together.”

“I’m just glad they canceled the damn chocolate party. That would’ve been asking for it.”

“Me too. Did I tell you we’re going to be open tomorrow?”

“Murray told me. How’d that happen?”

“Since New Year’s Eve is on a Sunday I let the staff decide. Did they want to open and make money or stay closed and spend money? They decided they wanted to work and that’s all right with me. We’ll need the bucks for sales tax in January.”

“Where’s Iris?”

“Picking up her boyfriend at the airport. They’re going off to Bali next week,” Heaven said, letting Sal know by her tone of voice she wasn’t happy about it.

“Let it go, H.” Sal brushed loose hairs off the neck of the bartender. “She’s a good kid. It could be a lot worse. He could be an old druggie musician and not be rich as a lord. I guess he’s both, rich and a lord.”

Heaven was staring out the window, not really listening to Sal, although she knew what he was saying. Suddenly she jumped up, pointing her finger toward the west. “That’s her. That’s Marie Whitmer,” she shouted and ran out the door.

Marie was walking purposefully down 39th Street, her handbag held tightly in front of her with both hands. She was looking at the address numbers on the businesses, as if she had no idea where Café Heaven was.

Heaven ran across the street to intercept her. “Marie, where have you been?”

Marie was startled but she stopped and nodded to Heaven. “I have been battling with this. I told my husband not to answer the phone. There were several calls from that woman detective. What did you tell her?”

Heaven glanced over at Sal’s. He was watching her through the window intently, as if this little sixty-year-old lady was going to jump on Heaven. She waved at Sal, then smiled at Marie. “Let’s go in my restaurant and have a cup of coffee. We don’t have to talk out here on the street,” she said, and started to walk toward the café. Marie followed, still clutching her purse.

As soon as they entered the café, Heaven sat Marie down, ran in the kitchen and grabbed some chocolate cake, poured two cups of coffee, went back in the kitchen and grabbed some half-and-half and came back in the dining room.

“I couldn’t eat that,” Marie said, her eyes filling up with tears. “It’s chocolate. It reminds me of the mess Claude is in because of me.”

Heaven took the offending cake back in the kitchen without a word. “Quick, what else do we have sweet that’s not chocolate?” she whispered to Pauline Kramer.

“Pumpkin cheesecake,” Pauline said and reached in her pastry cooler. She expertly cut two slices and handed them to Heaven who took them and tried Marie again.

This time Marie sniffed and took a small bite with her fork, nodding her head in appreciation. “I know you think you can help me but we might as well just call up that Bonnie Weber person and have her take my statement.”

Heaven was excited. So the secretary did it. “Marie, I think you should have a lawyer present. I’m sure Bonnie, Sergeant Weber, would tell you the same thing.”

Marie looked at Heaven with a puzzled expression. “I can’t imagine why. I was just trying to be helpful.”

Heaven thought she’d heard wrong. “Well, it’s hard to imagine how downing an airship and killing Oliver Bodden would be exactly helpful, but I’m sure you had your reasons. Did the brothers take you for granted?”

Marie Whitmer stood up, looking at Heaven strangely, and picked up her purse. “I think I need to talk to my son. He’s an attorney. I will call you later today.”

“No, Marie. Don’t go,” Heaven practically wailed. ’You can tell me everything.”

Marie was already opening the door to 39th Street. She never looked back.

I
t was too quiet.

Heaven had come home to change clothes and say hi
to Iris. As she fretted about Marie, she’d spilled an entire two-pound sour cream container full of raspberry dressing on her chef’s coat, her tights and her shoes and socks. Even with the extra chef’s coat she had at the restaurant, the rest of her outfit was sticky. She started up the stairs and peeled off the outer layer of clothing, calling out as she went. “Iris? Stuart?”

When she got to the top of the stairs, she knew she’d made a mistake. The door to Iris’s room was open and she could see her daughter lying in bed, naked and asleep in a tangle of covers. She and Stuart must have come back to the house and made love. Heaven was embarrassed. She should have called before she came home in the middle of the day. She walked softly toward her own room when she heard a cough come from the bathroom.

When Heaven had redone the living quarters of the bakery, she’d put a rather glamourous bathroom in her suite, and redone the existing bathroom between the two rooms in the hall for Iris. Each woman had a studio or office space, a giant bedroom and their own bathroom. Iris’s just happened to be down the hall a little bit from her bedroom.

Heaven stopped in front of the door to this bathroom. Something wasn’t quite right. She supposed Stuart was in there and it was certainly none of her business but there it was, smoke coming out from under the door. She tried the door and it opened.

The scene surprised her. “You asshole,” she hissed.

Stuart Watts was leaning against the shower, smoking a huge joint. He turned around and smiled at Heaven. “Hello, love. As I remember, you like to toke a bit. Want some?”

Heaven closed the door to the bathroom behind her
and slid down on the floor next to the wall. Her legs were shaking. She breathed in the sweet smell of expensive marijuana. “Please don’t tell me you put my daughter in danger by flying across the ocean with this shit. Please don’t tell me that.”

“Of course not, love. I got it from my son when I was on the coast. Calm down,” he said and took a big toke.

Heaven could almost feel the way it was relaxing his muscles, his brain sending signals of well-being to the rest of his body.

He turned and held out the joint to her. “Come on, love, I know you want to.”

Heaven got to her feet and opened the bathroom door. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said tiredly.

She put on clean clothes and left the house as fast as possible. She wouldn’t chance changing her mind.

“
H
eaven, that woman finally showed,” Joe said at the pass-through window. “Marie something. Murray said to tell you.” He grabbed three Blu Heaven salads from the window and disappeared.

Heaven looked around helplessly. It was eight-thirty on a Saturday night and she was on the saute station, along with the lunch chef who was working nights this week. “Brian, I swear to God I will only be gone five minutes or you can come out and pull me back by my hair.”

“Go,” Brian said and took one of her saute pans full of scallops and moved it nearer to him.

Heaven, usually happy to see what was going on in the dining room, tried not to look to the left or the right, tried not to make eye contact with customers or employees. Marie Whitmer was standing next to a nice-looking
lyoung man in his thirties, short brown hair, sport jacket, serious demeanor. This must be the lawyer son, Heaven thought. She didn’t wait for introductions. “Marie, I’m glad you came back but this is a really bad time. I actually cook in my own restaurant so do you want to eat something at the bar and wait until I can talk or what? Did Bonnie talk to you? I told her about our conversation earlier.” She turned to the son and held out her hand. “Hi, there. I’m Heaven Lee.”

The son picked up on the urgency, shaking hands briefly. “Paul Whitmer, and I’ve made an appointment with Sergeant Weber, but my mother insisted on talking to you first. She has an elevated view of the importance of what she did vis à vis giving out information. I doubt very much that this has anything to do with the problems that have befallen Foster’s.”

What was this giving out information line? “I’m afraid I don’t understand. I thought your mother had something to confess?” Heaven wished she’d written down exactly what Marie had said to her.

The son looked at his mother and continued. “Foster’s bought a company in Philadelphia several years ago, Smithson’s Samplers. It was quite famous but badly run. Foster’s closed it and laid off most of the staff. An employee of that company died of cancer a few years after the buyout and a grief-stricken loved one of that employee befriended my mother over the phone and over the years, asked her questions about Foster’s. The answers to those questions were probably not for public consumption. Their initial contact was because the employees’ insurance had not been properly extended and due to that there were some problems with the healthcare. The loved one didn’t blame my mother for this, or Foster’s, it seemed. It had been mishandled at the
Philadelphia end. My mother actually helped the loved one to receive compensation from the insurance company. Of course, the former employee was still dead, compensation couldn’t change that. But my mother and the loved one continued their phone calls long after the problem was dealt with. Mother now feels some of the questions this person asked and she answered were not appropriate for someone outside the company.”

Heaven took a big breath. She had a million questions and no time. Obviously she and Marie had been talking about different things. “I understand that you want to protect your mother legally. But I have no legal standing whatsoever so talking to me doesn’t count. Could you tell me the name of the person your mother talked to?” Now Heaven turned toward Marie. “I don’t suppose Janie Anderson or David Foster fit that description?” All of her suspects were going down in one fell swoop.

Marie looked at her like she was crazy. “No, it was a woman named Kathy Hager. It’s a little embarrassing for me to talk about this because the person in her life, the person who died, was another woman. Kathy was so nice and she was just brokenhearted, I can tell you that. I didn’t give it too much thought, but now, remembering things she said … I don’t think for a minute Kathy would do anything destructive but she did know about Oliver Bodden and the blimp ahead of the time those things were public knowledge. As I said she was a very nice women, even if she was a—”

Paul Whitmer held up his hand. “Mom, I’m sure this Kathy Hager has nothing to do with the Foster mess. But we came here because you felt uneasy and we’ll tell the police, just in case.”

Heaven took Marie Whitmer’s hand and kissed it, much to the older woman’s surprise. “Tony, will you get
my friends a chocolate martini on me,” she said and then realized that was probably pushing the chocolate theme too far. “Or whatever they want, please,” she yelled at the bartender over the din. “I’m sure your son is right. You didn’t give away any state secrets and you can’t be responsible for what Kathy or your bosses have done. I’ve got to go. Thank you,” Heaven said as fast as she could. She found Murray talking to a six top and smiled at the guests while pulling him aside. “Call Bonnie and beg her to meet me here at ten-thirty, after she talks to Marie. I should be able to get out of the kitchen by then. And ask Joe if he knows where Kathy Hager lives.”

“I don’t know, H. You know the law. The house is pitch dark. If you can’t observe a crime being committed, how can you justify breaking in to stop a crime? Are you sure this is the right address?”

Heaven held up a cocktail napkin with writing on it to show Bonnie. “Joe has one of those electronic address books, so yes, I’m sure this is the right place. Remember why we decided to make this a casual visit, just you and me instead of a formal police thing? So we could improvise. We turn on some lights if we need to later and say whatever it takes. Bonnie, Kathy may be in there and just asleep. When we knock on the door she’ll probably let us in and we’ll take a look around and find out she’s a messy housekeeper or she keeps girlie porn but I’m sure we won’t find Janie.”

Bonnie opened her car door and got out. “Then why are we here?” she asked sourly. “This Kathy Hager never mentioned to you that she was hooked up in any way with Foster’s and to me, that stinks. Even when she told
you about her lover’s insurance problems she didn’t say that it was caused by the evil Foster’s Chocolates and, boy, am I glad they’ve had a patch of bad luck.” She looked over the top of her car at Heaven. “Why are you backpedaling? Are you scared?”

“Of course not. Did I mention she went pheasant hunting so she must know how to shoot a gun?”

“Yes, and I mentioned that you shoot pheasants with a shotgun, not a rifle like what took down the airship. But it does establish that she can shoot at least one type of gun and the fact that you brought it up right now establishes that you’re scared.”

Heaven slammed her car door and marched up the sidewalk toward the house, head held high, not looking back at Bonnie. “Nice house. Brookside is a nice neighborhood.”

Bonnie hurried to catch up to her friend. “Slow down. Let me do the talking,” she barked as she climbed the steps to the front porch. “Kathy, hello, Kathy Hager,” she called, knocking on the front door.

Heaven peered in the front windows of the house. “I see a couch, two leather chairs.”

Bonnie gestured to her. “Get away from that window. You know better than that.”

“Try the door,” whispered Heaven.

Bonnie’s hand moved instantly down to the doorknob and when it turned, she held up her hand for Heaven to stop. “Stay here. It may be a set-up.”