Dying for Chocolate Read online

  What I did not know was that Brian Harrington was right behind me.

  While I was assembling the plates for ice cream to have with the biscotti, he cleared his throat to let me know of his presence. I whirled and gave him my meanest stare.

  I said, “Don’t come near me. Don’t try anything. If you make me ruin another dessert, I’ll call 911.”

  He said, “Calling 911 won’t do you any good.”

  I intentionally raised my voice. “No funny stuff, Mr. Harrington. I’m not kidding. Keep your distance. I’m busy.”

  “Lower your voice this instant,” he hissed. “I want to talk to you about Philip Miller.”

  “Make it fast,” I said as I searched for the almond fudge ice cream.

  “Just look at me, will you? Goldy? Please? I have this feeling you’re the only one who will understand.”

  I slapped the ice-cream boxes down on the kitchen island, pressed my lips together, and gave him the benefit of my attention. “You have two minutes.”

  “Look,” he said, “I haven’t always done the right thing. I mean, I admit it.”

  “Do I look like a priest?”

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that. . . sure, I didn’t like the guy. He was a pain with his do-gooder liberalism trying to put hardworking builders and developers on the unemployment rolls.”

  “Hey! Spare me the Right Wing Economics lecture, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” he went on, “and I heard the rumors about him with my wife. I’m not sure those are true. Are you?” His eyes questioned me.

  “I don’t know,” I said truthfully. “I didn’t know him all that well myself.” I moved the ice-cream boxes around on the island. I added, “Although I thought I did.”

  “Right. Well.” He sensed the end of the two-minute warning. “Here’s the thing. Okay, I didn’t like him. He could have undermined my project. He could have been involved with my wife. But. . . twelve days ago, he called me. Very mysterious. He said my life was in danger. I said, Is this some kind of threat, you Greenpeace of shit?”

  “Your two minutes are up,” I announced loudly.

  Brian Harrington regarded me earnestly. “I hung up on him. Tossed and turned all night. Next day I drove over to the club, I don’t know why, thought I might run into somebody I knew, have a Bloody Mary. I was sneaking around though; didn’t want anybody to know I was there. Thought 1 was losing my mind! I saw a phone and panicked. Dialed 911. Told them they had to come help me, my life was in danger.”

  I stared at him.

  “I chickened out,” he said. “You know, I was just so paranoid, I thought the cops might be in on it, too. So I left. Next thing I knew, Philip Miller was dead.”

  24.

  The anonymous phone call.

  I said, “Have you told the police?”

  “I tried that once and I couldn’t go through with it. With Miller gone, what could they do now?”

  “A lot more than I can. Look, I’m in the middle of a job.” His head and shoulders slumped in defeat. Well, what did he expect me to do? I found a pen and then reached for a paper cocktail napkin. “Here’s the number of a friend of mine at the Sheriff’s Department.” I jotted down Schulz’s number. “Call him and tell him what happened. He’s an investigator looking into Philip’s death.”

  Brian gave me his earnest look again. “I just didn’t want you to think that I had something to do with your boyfriend’s accident.”

  “Why do you care what I think?”

  “Well, the implication of what my wife was saying . . . the innuendos . . . it’s a small town. You know, with all my real estate developments, everyone always thinks I’m such a son of a bitch.” He lifted his eyebrows.

  “With all the money you make, it can’t bother you that much.”

  “Oh, but it does, you cute little thing! If only you knew! Sometimes I wonder, how long must I endure such pain to the psyche?”

  “Such pain to the. . . ?” The Styrofoam cones scraped against my fingers like chalk going the wrong way on a blackboard. “How long must you endure . . . ?”

  He closed his eyes and shrugged.

  How long must Aspen Meadow endure such pain to the palate?

  “You son of a bitch!” I yelled.

  Brian Harrington opened his eyes wide and jumped back. “Now what? I told you I didn’t have anything to do with your boyfriend’s . . . Oh! Don’t tell me you’re still mad about that cake!”

  “I suppose your middle name is Peter, eh, Pierre?”

  “I don’t know what you’ve been drinking while you’ve been catering, but you must have me confused—”

  Julian poked his mowed blond head into the kitchen. “Hello in here! The general sent me up. Can the two of you chill out so we can have dessert?”

  I said, “Chill out yourself, Julian. I’ve just found my anonymous food critic.”

  Julian glanced from one of us to the other. He said, “Who? Him?” He sucked air into his cheeks, blew it out at Brian Harrington, then set his mouth in a frown. “What have you got against Goldy?”

  “Nothing! Nothing! Why are people always accusing me of things I didn’t do?” Brian Harrington turned on his heel and marched out of the kitchen.

  Julian said, “Whoops. Guess you won’t be doing any more catering for the Harringtons.”

  I slammed the Styrofoam cones on the tray. “Nothing would give me more pleasure. Now, Julian, if you really want to be helpful, would you please take these matches and try to do a better job with the sparklers than Brian Harrington did with the charcoal?”

  When we arrived at the sliding glass and screen doors that opened onto the patio, a drumroll was issuing from the tape recorder. The guests had turned their attention to the pool. Arch was standing on the diving board. I almost dropped the tray. His hands were cuffed behind him.

  “Open this door, open this damn door,” I demanded of a startled Julian.

  “I haven’t lit the—”

  “Just do it!”

  Julian scraped the screen in its tracks. I wiggled through, hurried across the concrete, and slapped the tray down on the buffet table. I sent Arch vibes: Don’t dive off that board with your hands cuffed, don’t dive, don’t. . .

  His body lifted and nipped. There was a splash. I counted. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. . .

  No Arch.

  I did what any mother would do. I ran to the pool and jumped in. Water drenched my clothes, pulling me down. I kicked off my shoes, took a deep breath, and went under. Arch was standing on the bottom of the pool, thrashing about with the cuffs. I swam and kicked fiercely until I got to him. I grabbed him under the armpits just as the cuffs came off. Lunging from the bottom of the pool, I tugged him upward as hard as I could.

  “Braaugh!” he gargled when we splashed through the surface. He coughed and choked on the water. “Stop!” he shouted. “Stop! What are you doing? Mom! Jeez! You’ve ruined everything!” He broke away from me and doggie-paddled to the side of the pool.

  “I was trying to help you,” I sputtered, to no avail.

  Effusive clapping greeted us when we climbed up the ladder. Arch gave me his most hateful look.

  “You screwed everything up! Why do you always have to embarrass me?”

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” When I could bear his angry eyes no longer, I stared down. My clothes were soaked. Puddles were forming around my feet.

  “Did you plan it that way?” cried Weezie. Her voice was shrill with delight. “That was quite a performance!”

  Arch slunk into the house. I went after him and plodded upstairs to change. When I got to the third floor there was a tightness in my throat. Next door Arch crashed about, looking, I assumed, for dry clothes. I found tissues, wiped my face, and coughed.

  All I had ever wanted was to be a good mother. I hadn’t thought it would be that difficult. I read the books. I took my child to the pediatrician, the park, and the playground. 1 read to him and spent time with him and helped with the schoolwo
rk. I’d never even had a regular job until it was a financial necessity. I just wanted to take care of Arch. I thought all I had to do was love him, keep him safe and well, and do the best I could. In turn, he would turn out well-adjusted, happy, and appreciative.

  Right.

  The sun finished its slide into the mountains. The air was suddenly chilly. When I was putting on a sweat suit and dry sneakers, there was a knock at my door.

  “Mom, it’s me.”

  I wrapped a towel around my wet head and opened the door.

  He avoided my eyes. His voice was shaky. He said, “Mom, I know you want to help. But it’s just not working.”

  “Honey, please. I thought you were drowning.”

  “Well. I just wanted to tell you. I’m definitely going to ask Dad if I can go live with him for a while.”

  Somebody had told me once, In times of crisis, do nothing. I wished I had remembered that before The Poseidon Adventure.

  Now I said, “Let’s talk about this tomorrow. You’ve got guests downstairs.”

  The show went on. The biscotti-cum-sparklers were a hit. Now that the excitement was over, both adults and children conversed quietly. I felt low. I didn’t know whether I wanted to eat a dozen biscotti or none at all, so I settled on three. They were heavenly: the thin coating of dark chocolate blended exquisitely with the breath of anise and crunch of almonds, and melded perfectly with the hazelnut-flavored French roast coffee. The planet Venus floated in a dazzle of brightness just above the western horizon. The perfumed evening breeze brought the guests’ voices down to hushed tones. The guests discovered the delights of dipping biscotti into their demitasse before eating them, and there was much exclamation over the result.

  That afternoon the general had placed torches at the edges of the concrete. Around nine o’clock, he lit them. He sat down next to Adele and drew a small jewelry box out of his pocket.

  He said, “For my bride,” and smiled with such adoration that something closed in my throat. Adele unwrapped the ring and held it up. Sapphires and diamonds glittered in the torchlight.

  But Adele’s smile was forced. After the gift she avoided Bo’s eyes. Maybe her back was bothering her. Perhaps she felt bad that she didn’t have something for him. Maybe it just wasn’t a very good party.

  I could sympathize with that assessment; I wasn’t very happy either. I didn’t want to think about Arch, about his living with John Richard, about how John Richard would ignore him. The guests filtered out. Their voices full of gratitude rose into the night air. I did the dishes and crawled upstairs, exhausted.

  Scout the cat sensed sadness. He followed me up to my room and gathered himself into a ball in one corner of the bed. I thanked him for his company, treated myself to an emergency chocolate in the form of a Toblerone bar, and reflected on the rest of the evening. The interchange with Brian Harrington had been bizarre. I guess I hoped he would call Schulz, although I didn’t really care. The implications of Harrington’s political and social conflia with Philip Miller could lead to a maelstrom of gossip in our little town. Good, that would serve Brian Harrington right, if he was indeed Pierre.

  I closed my eyes, let the chocolate melt slowly in my mouth, and tried not to think about the Mountain Journal. This same group of people (minus kids and extraneous adults) had been at Weezie’s aphrodisiac banquet, subject of the last derisive review. Had I once again entertained Pierre the critic? Alias Brian Harrington? He would probably interpret the pool incident as my trying to save Arch from an earthquake.

  People will tell you chocolate is a relaxant, but I don’t believe it. The soothing power evaporated once the Toblerone was no more. I couldn’t sleep. I remembered my rebuttal for the Mountain Journal was due the next day. If Brian Harrington was not the critic, who could it be? Julian and Sissy were both in high school, which was a little young to be so venomous. The general and Adele seemed sympathetic. Weezie. Maybe she had indeed been sleeping with Philip Miller. The criticism could be her revenge against me. But that didn’t feel right either. You never know who your enemies are. I turned on the light and got out pen and paper.

  To my anonymous, misspoken critic, the infamous Pierre,

  Perhaps I should not say he misspoke himself, like someone working for Richard Nixon. This was someone who really did not like me. His taste buds had deteriorated. After his lobotomy.

  Dear misguided son of a bitch,

  No, that wouldn’t do either. I put down my pen and tried to think positive thoughts. Let go of it. For all the time I had denied, stuffed, repressed, and done other unhealthy things with anger during my marriage to John Richard, I had paid for it with rage during the divorce. Ventilate first. I went into the bathroom, twisted a towel into a rope, bit on it, and screamed. Okay. I splashed cold water on my face and opened the bathroom window.

  Again I thought I heard splashing noises out by the pool. It was probably Julian. Whoever it was, I’d be damned before I would try to save two people from drowning in one night.

  I plopped down on the bed and frowned at the paper. What was my real worry with this cruel person? Did I really care about him or his silly ideas? I did not. I only cared about preserving my business. This dolt would not get the satisfaction of a response from me.

  Dear supportive clients and friends,

  Thanks to all of you who have called, visited, or written in response to the spiteful reviews my culinary work has received in the pages of this newspaper.

  Thanks to all those who have pointed out the wild inaccuracies of the menus reported and the cowardliness of the critic who refuses to sign his name. And thanks especially to all the clients who have remained loyal and enthusiastic in giving me your business.

  I remain,

  Goldy the Caterer

  I still had not resolved the name issue, but that was the least of my problems at the moment. It felt good to get my feelings on paper. I looked around my room to see if there was any other unfinished business. What the heck, I was on a roll.

  The Poe book sat—reproachfully, it seemed to me— on the bureau. The thought of starting the school project made me immediately sleepy. But as I snuggled under the covers, I remembered Arch saying that three other kids in the class were making tapes of telltale heartbeats. One kid’s father, he had earnestly informed me, was even a cardiologist, and his tape was coming with a murmur! It made me wish Edgar Allan had written something along the lines of “Brutalized in a Baltimore Bakery,” but you can’t have everything.

  I got up and flipped open to “The Purloined Letter.”

  Within a paragraph Poe had me by the cerebrum, if not by the throat. His narrative wove around the insight that the way to thwart a villain was to think the way he did, and follow those paths of thought until villainy was undone. This without a major in psychology, no less. The story was mesmerizing. I went to sleep satisfied that by having read it, I was on the road to reclaiming good-mother status. Now all we needed was a school project to go with the story. This, too, I would have to point out to Arch, would be an undertaking for which his father would have no interest.

  When you have read Poe just before sleep, your dreams are full of persons identified only as D— and G—, with events happening in 18—. Nevertheless, I awoke refreshed and ready to tackle the custody crisis.

  Scout meowed to go out. I tiptoed down the first set of stairs, disarmed the security system, slipped silently down more stairs, and let Scout out on the patio. The door to Julian’s room was closed. Rather than risk having him emerge suddenly and see me standing foolishly by the door, I followed Scout out onto the cold ground.

  The early-morning sun cast dark pools of shadow across the landscape. Tops of the far mountains were hazily lit. The near mountains were immersed in dark green, like still, silent hills at the bottom of a lagoon.

  I crossed my arms and breathed the cool, piney air. Arch just didn’t appreciate me, I thought for the thousandth time. This time of day reminded me, for example, of one of my volunteer jobs at his M
ontessori school. My job was to go in early and replenish paper, mix new batches of tempera paints, and set up the special projects of the day. The teachers asked all the Morning Moms, as we were called, to check the animal cages first thing, in case any member of the rodent-and-bird menagerie had died during the night. Given my hatred of rodents, I had done this job with some trepidation. Luckily I had avoided the job of animal undertaker. A Morning Mom in my car pool had been confronted with the corpse of a baby gerbil, and it had not been pleasant.

  I shivered. Scout had not returned. Perhaps if he had, I would not have experienced the unwelcome and ghastly return of my worst fears as Morning Mom. For there, floating face down in the Farquhars’ pool, was Brian Harrington.

  25.

  I knew it was Harrington from the gray hair floating serenely, like the tendrils of a flower, around his head. I knew him from his clothes. I knew he was dead. What I did not know was who was screaming. The general appeared on the patio in his West Point bathrobe. He grabbed me and shook me, saying, What is it, what is it? The screaming voice was mine.

  I shouted at the general to call 911 and then Schulz directly. I ran up to check on Arch. He wasn’t in his room. I panicked and stumbled back down to the main floor. Arch was in the kitchen, leaning over a bowl of Rice Krispies to check for sound.

  “Don’t go outside,” I said, my voice choking. “Something awful has happened.”

  He looked up and straightened his glasses to regard me more clearly.

  “You look awful, Mom,” he said. “What’s wrong?”