Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 04 - Chocolate Mousse Attack (13 page)

“That was the year we had all the big floods in Missouri,” Harold said. “It rained almost every day, so we didn’t get outside as much as usual, but still, we’d see them in their yard in between showers, go over and talk. Everything seemed fine. Then one morning when I was leaving for work, I saw the moving van pull up to their door.”

“I went over to talk to them,” Cathy said. “They seemed different. They were usually friendly and relaxed. Very nice people. But that day they seemed tense. When I asked why they were moving,
Bob said he got an offer he couldn’t turn down. Jan didn’t say anything. In fact, she barely looked at me. She just kept packing. I asked what kind of job it was, and he wouldn’t say.”

“How did Sophie handle the move?” Fred asked.

Cathy shook her head. “I don’t know. She wouldn’t come out of her room. I assumed she was devastated because she’d have to leave her home and her friend. You know how attached kids become at that age. I wanted to go in and talk to her, but they wouldn’t let me.”

Fred and I exchanged glances and both sat forward. “Her friend?” I repeated. “She had to leave her friend?”

“Yes, the little girl who lived in your house, Fred. Little blonde-haired beauty. I think her name was Carolyn.”

Chapter Fourteen

Carolyn was real, not imaginary. She had lived and died in Fred’s house, and Sophie had seen her friend murdered.

I looked at Fred. He looked at me.

Thick silence filled the small room, broken only by the raspy song of cicadas calling from the trees outside and the ticking of the Murrays’ grandfather clock over in the corner.

I didn’t realize how long we’d been quiet, assimilating what it all meant, until Cathy spoke again. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, of course not,” I assured her. “It’s just that, well, Sophie thinks Carolyn was only her imaginary friend, that she didn’t really exist.”

Cathy set her cup on the coffee table and looked up. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “That poor girl. Losing her best friend and then her parents, I suppose it’s only natural that her life before that would seem like a dream. Maybe that’s the only way she could deal with everything that happened.”

Harold sat forward in his chair, reached over and took his wife’s hand. “That’s sad, not to remember a friend. She doesn’t think her parents were imaginary too, does she?”

I bit my lip. I didn’t want to tell them the Flemings
, people they’d liked, had lied to their daughter. That was something they probably didn’t want to hear.

“No, she remembers her parents.” Fred had no such
emotional compunctions. “It’s just Carolyn. The reason she thinks the girl is imaginary is because that’s what her parents told her.”

Harold frowned. “That’s strange. Why would they do that?”

A very good question, one to which I had no answer.

“But you met Carolyn?” Fred moved closer to the edge of the sofa and set his cup on the table beside Cathy’s. He was as intent as I’d ever seen him. Still about two on a scale of one to ten, but for Fred, that was pretty intent. “You actually saw her?”

Cathy looked at me questioningly as if she didn’t understand why Fred would need verification of what she’d already told him. I shrugged. I wasn’t responsible for Fred’s eccentricities.

“Yes,” she said. “We saw her. Lots of times. She was a quiet little blonde girl. Sophie’s opposite in all ways, but the two were best friends. She was very real. Not imaginary, I assure you.”

“How about her parents? Did you know them?” Fred leaned forward, hands on his knees. Extremely intent, relatively speaking.

Cathy and Harold exchanged glances and Harold made a noise that almost sounded like a snort. “They were a little unusual.”

Coming from the people who contended their drug dealer grandson was
a good boy
, that could only mean Carolyn’s parents had been
very
unusual.

“Carolyn’s mother stayed pretty close to home most of the time,” Cathy said. “I tried to talk to her several times, but she never had much to say. She was kind of shy but seemed like a really nice person, a good mother. But the father—” She looked at Harold.

Cathy wasn’t the type woman who looked to her husband for permission to say something. I waited for them to tell me the father had horns and a tail.

Harold shook his head and compressed his lips. Off the top of my head I’d say they really disliked Carolyn’s father. “He
wasn’t there a lot.”

“She said he traveled.” Cathy arched an eyebrow as if to say she did not for one minute believe the man travelled.

“He visited a couple of times a week.” Harold lifted his hands, palms up. “I admit, when he was there, everything seemed to be fine. He took them places, played with Carolyn. From what we saw, Sarah and Carolyn both adored him.”

“Her name was Sarah?” I asked. We had a name for Carolyn’s mother. That made her real too. But where was she? Murdered along with Carolyn? Or was she the murderer?

“Yes,” Cathy affirmed. “Her first name was Sarah.” She hesitated and again looked at her husband.

“She never gave us her last name,” Harold said. “We don’t think she was married to Carolyn’s father. We do think he was married to somebody, just not her.”

Cathy nodded in agreement.

Now we were getting somewhere. Dr. Dan Jamison had owned the house, and he was married to somebody, somebody with enough money to keep him in medical school and take care of his younger brother, somebody he wouldn’t want to discover he had a mistress on the side. Would he kill his mistress and his daughter to keep that wife with all the money?

“Do you know the father’s name?” Fred asked.

I gulped the last of my Coke and set the can on the table, all my attention focused on the Murrays.

Harold looked at his wife. “Do you remember his name? Sarah always referred to him as her husband, and Carolyn called him
Daddy
. But one day when I saw them in the yard, I strolled over to introduce myself. Made him look me in the eye and shake my hand even though it was pretty obvious he didn’t want to.” Harold frowned. “Now what the heck was his name? Something simple. Ben? Jim? Tom? Dave?”

“Dan?” I suggested. Okay, I was putting words in his mouth, but it wasn’t like we were on a quiz show and he was required to figure out the answer all by himself.

Harold snapped his fingers. “Dan! That’s it. But he wouldn’t give me a last name.”

“This Dan, what did he look like?” Fred asked.

“He was quite good looking,” Cathy said. “Tall, brown hair, brown eyes.”

Dr. Dan, the Plastics Man.

“What did Sarah look like?” I asked.

“Blond hair, blue eyes, fair skin, just like Carolyn. She was a pretty little thing.”

“Did she work?”

“No. She was proud to be a stay-at-home mom.”

I thought of the picture in Dr. Dan’s office. His wife was blond, but my mother’s description of Natalie Jamison did not fit with the image of Carolyn’s mom.
Shy, proud to be a stay-at-home mom?
Besides, Natalie would never live in an old house in my neighborhood. No, definitely not the same blonde.

“When did they move away?” Fred asked.

“It’s hard to say exactly when since we didn’t see them very often, but it was the same year the Flemings moved, the year we had all the flooding.”

“Did you see them move
out?” I asked. “Did a van show up one day like with the Flemings?”

Cathy shook her head. “No. They just disappeared. One day we saw a
For Sale
sign in the yard. We thought maybe the father finally did the right thing, married her and maybe moved to another town. Why are you asking all these questions? Has something happened to Sarah and Carolyn?”

Fred leaned back in a semblance of his usual casual demeanor. “We’re not sure. We’d just like to find them. You never heard from them after they moved? A letter, a phone call?”

“No. Not a word. I often wondered what happened to them, but about that time we started having problems with George, so we really weren’t paying a lot of attention to anything outside our own family.” She looked from one of us to the other, concern obvious on her face. “What’s going on?”

I didn’t see any reason to keep the truth from her. They weren’t suspects and we weren’t pretending to be somebody like mold experts or stripper talent scouts. “Maybe nothing,” I said. “Or maybe something. Sophie keeps having a nightmare about Carolyn being dead.”

Cathy lifted her hands to the sides of her face. “Oh no!” She looked at Harold then back at us. “But it’s only a dream, right, a bad dream because living in that house has brought up memories of her childhood friend?” I could tell when she asked the question that she knew that wasn’t what I meant but Cathy and Harold are the ultimate optimists.

“No, we think she actually saw Carolyn die. When she was five years old. In Fred’s house.”

Cathy sucked in a sharp breath. “Did
he
kill her?”

I didn’t have to ask who
he
was. The father. Dr. Dan. “We don’t know. Maybe.”

“Did he kill Sarah too?” Cathy’s pleasant features were horror-stricken.

“Maybe,” I said.

“Lindsay, you’re speculating,” Fred protested. “We don’t know for sure that anybody was killed. All we have is Sophie’s dream.”

“Memory,” I corrected. “We have her description of that poor little girl being murdered and we have the fact that Sarah and Carolyn disappeared the same time Sophie’s family moved away followed by the death of her parents under mysterious circumstances.”

Cathy’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know the Flemings died under mysterious circumstances.”

“They died from a gas leak, and last night somebody tried to kill Sophie by creating a gas leak in her house.”

I had everybody’s attention, but not in a good way. The Murrays were upset and Fred was annoyed. For the second time that day I realized that attention is not always a good thing.

*~*~*

It was getting dark by the time we left the Murrays with promises to let them know what we discovered about Carolyn and her mother, to have them over one evening so they could meet Sophie and to attend a party at their place when George came home.

“Why didn’t you want me to tell them what we suspect?” I asked as Fred drove toward home, never exceeding the speed limit, poking along as if we had all the time in the world.

“Because we don’t know for sure that Carolyn’s dead.”

“How sure do you need to be?”

“A body would be adequate proof.”

“Fine. We’ll rip up the floorboards in your bedroom and see if we can find a body.”

He ignored me and turned a corner, keeping all four wheels on the ground. I’d driven that car once, and it had a lot of wasted power.

“Hey!” I turned toward him. “That’s not a bad idea!”

“Rip up my floorboards? It’s a terrible idea!”

“Not rip up your floorboards. I mean the other idea that occurred to me after I said that. We should get some luminol and test your floor and walls for blood.”

“Actually, that’s not a
bad idea except I had the floors sanded and resurfaced and new sheetrock on the walls before I moved in.”

“Damn! Why do you have to be so fastidious? I don’t suppose—”

His gaze left the road long enough to shoot me a glare. “No, I did not save the old sheetrock or the sawdust.”

I folded my arms. “You picked a lousy time to ignore your OCD tendencies.”

“Do you want to go to Sophie’s with me to tell her what we learned tonight?”

I looked at him smugly. “So you admit we did learn something?”

“We learned that Daniel Jamison may be Carolyn’s father. We don’t even know that for sure, but perhaps we can use that information to spark Sophie’s memories. Maybe she’ll remember seeing him when we describe him.”

He just couldn’t admit he was wrong.

*~*~*

Fred pulled his car into the garage and we got out and started across the street. We were halfway there when Sophie’s porch light came on and her front door opened.

Interesting. “Think she has dinner waiting for us?” I suddenly realized I was hungry. Chocolate chip cookies are great, but they only go so far. I was ready for a pizza, double pepperoni, extra cheese.

Fred took my elbow and urged me forward at a faster pace. “Something’s wrong.”

Since I knew Fred could see her expression with his telescopic night vision, I hurried.

“Come in,” she said when we stepped onto the porch. I could hear the tension in her voice and see it on her face. Once again, Fred was right. “There’s something you need to see.”

Chapter Fifteen

We followed her inside and I stared in awe at the beautiful living area she’d created from the ugliness that had been there before. High ceiling, hardwood floors, a plush off-white sofa with colorful pillows and inviting chairs in matching colors, wall decorations and pictures that looked as if they had been fashioned just for that room. It was a room created by an interior designer. It was Sophie.

Except for the rectangular cardboard box sitting on the coffee table and its ghastly contents.

Sophie took a seat on the end of the sofa, as far away from the box as she could get, and folded her hands in her lap. “That was waiting on my porch when I got home from work.”

Fred sat down directly in front of the box and leaned closer. “Have you touched it?”

“I touched the box but not the doll.”

The baby doll was old, at least twenty years. It looked like something I’d played with when I was young. In fact, it looked very much like some of my dolls. Her blond hair was matted, her dress was dirty, and her head had been severed from her body. Not that I decapitated my dolls deliberately. It just happened. But this one did not look like an accident. The incision appeared to be recent and precise, as if done with a sharp surgeon’s knife.

“That’s Carolyn’s doll,” Sophie said quietly. “She was real.”

“Yes,” Fred agreed. “She was real. Are you certain this was her doll?”

She nodded. “When I opened the box, the memory of the day she got that doll hit me hard. It was a birthday gift from her father.”

I sank into a turquoise chair, and
sank into
was the right phrase. It was soft and plush and molded to my body. I could sit there for a day or two if somebody would bring me chocolate and pizza. “You remember her father?” I asked.

She bit her lip and nodded. “Yes. I don’t think he lived with them. Maybe they were divorced. But when he came to visit, Carolyn was ecstatic. He always brought her toys, and usually he’d bring something for me too.”

That picture didn’t exactly coincide with the impression I had of Dr. Dan. But people thought Ted Bundy was a nice man.

Fred took Sophie’s arm gently. He’d never taken my arm gently.

But he had fetched me a Coke with a straw when I was in the hospital after being poisoned. Okay, I had seen Fred’s gentle side before. Still, the way he was looking at Sophie was…gentle.

“Sophie,” he said quietly, “I need you to do something that’s not going to be easy.”

She nodded, her dark gaze focused trustingly on his face. Of course I trust Fred…with my life. But not with that total, unquestioning trust I saw in her eyes. I was going to have to talk to Sophie about the mistake of giving that complete trust to anybody, even Fred.

“I want you to lean back, relax, close your eyes and focus on that scene you keep dreaming about, Carolyn’s death. I want you to tell me every detail you see, what she’s wearing, what the room looks like, any other people you can see.”

Obediently she leaned back against an emerald green pillow. Instead of making her look like a corpse, the color brightened her skin. If I didn’t like her, I could hate her.

Fred held her hand in one of his and stroked it with the other. That was a little much. I made a face and tried to get his attention, but he was focused completely on Sophie.

“Relax, Sophie. Let the clouds swirl around you and take you to a safe place. The clouds are warm and comfortable. They’re settling around you, wrapping you in their warmth. You’re going to remember your dream about Carolyn, but it’s going to be like watching a movie, not like you’re really there.”

Omigawd! He was hypnotizing her! I knew she shouldn’t trust him so completely!

I sat forward and started to protest, to break the spell. But I couldn’t think of any reason why I should, so I kept my mouth shut and watched in fascination. Fred continued to speak softly to Sophie. I made a note to stay wide awake if he ever spoke softly to me.

“Sophie, can you see Carolyn?”

“Yes.”

“What’s she doing?”

She rolled her head and gave a slight moan.

“Relax. You’re watching a movie. You’re not personally involved. Where are you while you’re watching this movie, Sophie?”

“Hiding in the bedroom closet.” Her voice was small, like that of a child. That was creepy.

“Why are you hiding in the bedroom closet?”

“I wasn’t sleepy so I sneaked out and came over to play with Carolyn. I’m not supposed to go outside at night.”

“So you came over to see Carolyn in the middle of the night.
Why are you hiding in the closet?”

“Somebody came to see her mommy. We heard them yelling, and then we heard somebody coming upstairs, so I hid in the closet. I didn’t want her mommy to tell my mommy. I’d get in trouble.”

“Who came to see Carolyn’s mommy?”

Sophie fidgeted. “He hurt Carolyn.”

“Relax.” He stroked her hand again until she calmed and her breathing was once more quiet and even. “Did this person come into Carolyn’s room?”

“Yes.”

“What happened when he came into her room?”

“She cried. He hurt her.
He had a knife. I was scared. I got out of the closet and ran home and told Mommy and Daddy.”

“Did you see the person who hurt Carolyn?”

She shook her head slowly from side to side. “I didn’t want to look. Carolyn was bleeding.”

“Did you see the face of the
person who hurt her?”

“No
, but Mommy and Daddy saw him.”

I sat forward. That got my attention.

Fred showed no sign that he was surprised, but I knew he was. Well, I thought maybe he was.

“When did your mommy and daddy see him?”

“He tried to get me and hurt me too. He chased me home. Mommy sent me to my room and they talked to him for a long time.”

“What did they say?”

“I don’t know. I was in my room crying because Carolyn got hurt. When he left, Mommy came up to my room. She was crying too.”

“What did your mommy say when she came to your room?”

“She hugged me and said I should go to sleep and everything would be okay when I woke up.”

“I want you to focus on that moment you ran out of the closet an
d went past the man who hurt Carolyn. You caught a glimpse of him. Focus on that glance. Isolate it from the rest of the movie and look at that one frame.”

She moved her head from side to side and gave a small whimper. I think Fred flinched when she made that sound. Maybe he just burped. Hard to tell in the dim light.

“Can you see the man who hurt Carolyn?”

“Sort of.”

“Was that man her father?”

Sophie was quiet for a long time. “
Maybe,” she finally said.

“Was he tall
?”

“Yes.”

“Was his hair dark or light?”

“Dark, like mine.”

“Can you tell me anything else about him?”

She clenched her hands into fists. “He hurt Carolyn.”

Fred looked at me as if asking if I had any comments or questions. I shrugged and let out a long breath I suddenly realized I’d been holding, unable to breathe while Sophie told her story.

“Sophie, when I tell you to open your eyes, you’re going to be wide awake. You’ll feel rested and refreshed. You’ll remember everything you’ve seen, but it will be like a movie. You won’t be upset. Open your eyes, Sophie.”

She did, lifted her hands to her face and promptly burst into tears.

Apparently he wasn’t as good at the hypnosis thing as he thought he was.

He looked at me and for the first time I saw panic on his face.

I sat upright, held my arms out in a semblance of an embrace, and mouthed the words, “Hug her!”

He wrapped tentative arms around Sophie. “Relax,” he said. “It’s only a movie.”

I dashed to the kitchen and was relieved to see that Sophie had Cokes in her refrigerator. I grabbed one and took it to her.

When I returned, she’d regained her composure for the most part and was wiping her eyes with a tissue. “Thank you,” she said as she accepted the Coke. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break down like that. It’s just that now that I know Carolyn was real, her death hit me like it happened yesterday.” She smiled at Fred. “It’s not your fault. I cry at sad movies.”

Fred sat beside her, once again in control, but now I had his number. He could take down a murderer with a well-aimed kick, drink coffee with mobsters with no worries and hack into government files without a second thought, but he didn’t know what to do with a crying woman.

“I’m sorry I brought up painful memories,” he said.

She shook her head. “They were always there, tormenting me behind the scenes. They had to come out eventually. Now we need to find the man who murdered Carolyn.”

“You’re certain she was dead?”

“When I ran out of that room, she was lying on the floor, covered in blood, and that man was standing over her
with a knife. I never saw her again. And now this doll—” She waved a hand at the box on her coffee table. “Yes, I’m certain she’s dead.”

“What about her mother? Did you see her that night?”

“No. She wasn’t in Carolyn’s room. Only the man came upstairs. Do you think he killed her too?”

“At this point, we don’t know what happened to her. Can you tell me anything else about the man’s face?”

She wadded the tissue in her hand. “I was so upset about Carolyn, I didn’t pay any attention to him. I didn’t look at his face. He appeared to be a monster, tall and dark, a monster who hurt my friend and wanted to hurt me. You think it might have been her father?”

“It’s possible. You said earlier her father was a kind man. Do you remember anything else about him? Was he abusive? Did he spank Carolyn? Anything to suggest he could be a killer?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember him ever spanking Carolyn. The only times she got in trouble were when I instigated something, and then her mother would send me home and send her to her room.”

“How did he act around Carolyn’s mother?”

“They were affectionate, often hugging, holding hands. Once Carolyn and I caught them kissing, and we giggled about that for days. I can’t imagine that he killed her. Maybe it was a home invasion.”

“That’s always possible. But if the killer followed you home, why didn’t your parents call the police?”

She frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe he threatened them.”

Or bribed them.
I thought of the large deposit made to the Flemings’ bank account and their sudden move out of state.

Had their deaths been a tragic accident or
the result of someone who didn’t trust them to keep his secret?

“Please.” She gazed intently into Fred’s eyes. “Find out who killed my friend.”

He gazed intently into her eyes. I felt sort of like an intruder. “I’ll try my best,” he promised.

I stood, ready to sneak out and leave them alone
. But Fred rose too, and Sophie stood with him.

“I think you should plan to spend the night at my house again,” he said.

She smiled bravely. “I’ll be fine. My deadbolt is quite secure, and now that I’ve faced reality and brought up the memory, I don’t think I’ll have the Carolyn nightmare again. That means I won’t be leaving my house with the door open.”

He nodded. “If you do, I’ll come over here with you and check the place thoroughly.”

We left and she stood in the doorway watching us.

We reached the end of the sidewalk and stepped off the curb onto the street. “You ever been in love?” I asked.

“I suppose that depends on how you define the word,” he replied. “Would you say you’re in love with chocolate?”

Of course I wasn’t going to get a straight answer out of him.

“Wait!” Sophie called.

We turned as she hurried down the porch steps toward us.

“I think I remember something else.” She gave Fred an uncertain look then continued. “The man, just before Carolyn cried out, he said,
I’m sorry
.”

I looked at Fred and could tell he was thinking the same thing I was thinking. Did Dr. Dan suffer remorse because he was forced to kill his second family to maintain his first?