Dying for Chocolate Read online

The general refilled his glass, sipped the scotch, and looked out at the mountains.

  “Snap out of it,” I ordered. “Did you and Adele have a fight, or what? Where would she go with Sissy?”

  He tipped up the glass and drained it. He asked softly, “Where’s the detonator?”

  “I don’t know,” I said firmly. I picked up the bottle of scotch and walked out to the kitchen. I tried the intercom again. Arch? Arch? My voice echoed through the whole house. There was no note on the desk, the refrigerator, or anywhere else that I could see.

  I ran up the stairs. Up, up to the third floor, my heart thudding in my chest the whole time. Arch’s room was a wreck. Nothing unusual about that; he had been a neat child until this past year. I went into the bathroom. No note. But his bathing suit was not hanging on the shower curtain rod where he usually left it.

  I called Andrea’s house. Was Arch over there, had he called, had they seen him? No to all of the above. What was I getting upset about? He went places all the time without telling me. But not the day of a drowning, and especially not when I had told him specifically to stick around. Where would he have gone?

  I looked around my room. No note on the mirror. No note on the bed. I allowed myself to collapse on the comforter. I looked at my watch. It had been three hours since I had left him here.

  I tried to focus on a mental image of him. My heart said, Where are you?

  It was then that I looked down at the rug, a warm speckled mix of Easter egg hues—purple, pink, green. The pattern swam before my eyes.

  Near the edge of my bed was a playing card. I bent over to look at it. I had not brought a deck of cards when I moved into the Farquhars. Where had it come from? I stared at it in disbelief.

  Someone had been with Arch. Someone had been watching him. Someone had prevented him from leaving a note. But like a magician, he had used sleight of hand, distracting his watcher so that he could surreptitiously drop a card, a careless act, apparently unnoticed.

  A note. A card. A signal of distress. I lifted the seven of spades from the floor.

  27.

  I called Schulz. “Arch is gone,” I heard my disembodied voice saying. “I can’t find him. I’m losing my mind.”

  He said, “Back up. Begin with when you left the parking lot.”

  “John Richard couldn’t get Arch because the security gate was locked and the general wouldn’t let him in. He said he could see through his scope that Arch wasn’t with him. Which was true. Tom. I know Arch is in trouble. He left our old danger code.”

  Schulz was calm. He asked questions: about the card, about Bo, about when everyone had disappeared, about where Julian could go, about Sissy.

  He said, “I’ll call the girl’s parents. If we haven’t found him by tonight I’ll put out an APB. You call Arch’s friends, Adele’s friends, see if you can come up with anything.” He hesitated. “Something you should know. It’s been six hours since they got Harrington’s body out of the pool. I had the coroner make a preliminary check for what I suspected, and it looks as if it was there.”

  I struggled to focus back on the floating body of Brian Harrington. “What?”

  “He didn’t drown. There wasn’t any water in his lungs. But his insides were burned up. My guess would be by cantharidin.”

  I was numb. I said, “I’ll make those calls and drive around to look for Arch. Think I should go talk to Weezie Harrington?”

  “We already did. She said Brian was restless last night, told her he was going out for a walk to look at the stars.”

  “And?”

  “That was the last time she saw him. She says. The guys believed her.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think, Miss Goldy, that you should be careful.”

  I phoned Weezie. One of the women who had come to be with her answered. Weezie would be grateful for my sympathy. At my request she asked the assembled group about Arch. No, nobody knew where he was, no one had seen him on the street. I said I would be coming over to talk to Weezie myself, if that was okay. It was.

  I called Marla. Adele wasn’t there and she didn’t know where she could be. Marla said, “Should I be worried about my sister? She never worries about me.”

  “I don’t know why she would be with Sissy, who can be pretty hostile sometimes. I really don’t even know what’s going on,” I said truthfully. “If you want to worry about somebody, worry about Arch.”

  Marla said she would call Arch’s friends. I gave her a list of numbers and asked her to drive over by our old house and check to see if any of the neighbors had seen him.

  “I know he loves you, Goldy. He wouldn’t run away.”

  A rock formed in my throat. I whispered, “Sure,” and signed off.

  I steeled myself and called John Richard.

  He said, “Now what?”

  I said, “Arch is missing. I need you to get a new attitude and help out.”

  He said, “Whose fault is this?”

  I hung up.

  The general responded with a nod when I said I was going to ask Weezie some questions and look for Arch. I asked him again if he had any idea where everyone had gone.

  He shook his head. I picked up the Mace. He said, “An ambush.”

  The van whined all the way down the driveway. I decided to do a street-by-street search for Arch in Meadowview before showing up at the Harrington house. Even if I did not find him, at least it would make me feel that I was working on it.

  The sky, covered with pearly haze most of the day, now boiled with dark clouds. Here and there gray wisps of moisture hung over the mountains. If Arch was with Julian, they both would soon be soaked. If Arch was with Sissy . . . but why would he be with Sissy?

  I rolled down my window. As if on cue, raindrops pelted the windshield. Thunder rolled like gunfire in the distance. I called Arch’s name as I chugged in first gear along Sam Snead Lane, Arnold Palmer Avenue, Gary Player Parkway.

  Nothing. There were not even any playing children I could ask; they’d all been driven in by the rain. I headed back to Weezie’s.

  I parked the van behind the Audis, Buick Rivieras, and Lincoln Continentals lining the Harrington driveway. The cars belonged to women, I discovered when I went inside, who knew the Harringtons from the athletic club and the country club. They cooed, hugged, and whispered to Weezie and each other. They were happy to see me, but puzzled. One woman asked, “Are you a friend of Weezie’s?”

  I swallowed an angry response. A svelte brunette who had been sitting across from Weezie on a leather recliner asked us if we wanted anything. I said, “Coffee,” to be rid of her, plopped into her empty spot, and mumbled my condolences.

  Weezie raised bloodshot eyes. Her mane of silver-blond hair was wildly askew. She said, “Thanks. Did you find Arch?”

  “No, but people are looking, and I’m going to keep searching when I leave here. Are you sure you never saw him this afternoon?”

  “Not once. This has been a nightmare. I have to believe . . .” Her voice broke. “I have to believe there was a reason for his life. He was a good person.” Her eyes searched mine. “Wasn’t he?”

  “He was,” I said without hesitation. “He did lots of good things in the community. And I know he adored you. Very much.”

  I didn’t know if she knew I was lying, but she started crying anyway. A startled face appeared at the kitchen door: What had I said to cause such an outburst? I waved the person off and left the recliner to sit next to Weezie.

  I said, “It’s okay,” and patted her back.

  “He didn’t love me,” she sobbed.

  “Sure he did, yes he did, he told me so himself.”

  “He did?” She sniffed and opened the red eyes wide at me. “When?”

  I stalled. I said, “Let’s see, let me think. When did he tell me he loved you. Why, uh, during that party last night, when he helped me with the dessert.”

  “I thought I heard you two arguing up there.”

  “Oh no, it was just so
mething about the dessert. You know.” As white lies went, it didn’t sound too bad.

  Weezie snorted and said, “Did he tell you where he was going after we went to bed? Did he say he was going to meet somebody?”

  “Gee, no, I don’t think so. No, definitely not. Probably he had insomnia, Weezie. I have it myself.”

  “And do you go swimming to get rid of it?”

  “Well, no, that never occurred to me “

  She burst out crying again.

  “He was jealous,” she said between sobs. Her eyes narrowed in a glare of accusation. “He thought I was seeing Philip Miller,” here she lowered her voice, “that I was sleeping with him. That was a lie, a grotesque rumor.”

  “It’s a small town,” I said, again trying to sound consoling. “You know how people talk.”

  She was not listening to me. Her head was in her hands. “I just wanted him to love me,” she said fiercely. “That was all I wanted.”

  I felt the molecules in my hand draw back, draw away from Weezie as my mind began to spin. I had learned something from “The Purloined Letter.” The narrowed possibilities had been before me all along. I murmured something about needing to go look for Arch and made my exit.

  Philip had known Brian’s life had been in danger. He had started to tell me about it. He had wanted my help, and that was why he had called me before the Elk Park Prep brunch. It was this that someone had heard on the phone. This that had prompted the incident in the Aspen Meadow Café.

  J want to talk to you about food, Philip had said to me.

  But why? Because I was the one who was researching the question, Can you make someone love you?

  They had found Spanish fly in Philip’s briefcase after the accident. The accident that was not an accident.

  I rushed back to the Farquhars and took the Mace inside with me. There was something I had to find, something I had seen only once. I came through the security gate and crept around the house. The general had fallen asleep on the deck with his mouth open. His loud, drunken snore reverberated through air cooled by the late shower. I put one of the crocheted afghans over him and tiptoed into the study.

  Where would it be? I searched through drawers. The clock in the study clicked the minutes away. I hauled out a pile of papers and sifted through them. Nothing. The general’s file cabinet was next. The first drawer held everything from Army to Explosives: Conventional, History of, New, through Intelligence, Domestic, Foreign. The first file in the next drawer was given over to IRA and the last was half an inch of papers on Qaddafi, Muammar. The last drawer started off Radicals and ended with War. Now that was a cheerful thought. I slammed the drawers shut, then had an idea. Intelligence, Domestic. The file nearly fell through my hands. Within a minute I held the piece of mail I had been hunting. I put it on top of the pile from the desk and sat down.

  The envelope had been addressed to Julian. That was what had thrown me off.

  Inside was his birth certificate.

  Why was it in the study, concealed in a file? I put the certificate back in the envelope and tapped it with my finger. Because. Because unknown to the Bureau of Vital Records, and unknown to Julian, someone else had been the first one to do the seeking.

  I heard a small noise behind me. I looked up. My hands covered the address on the envelope. The ink seemed to burn through my fingertips.

  Adele gave me a polite, inquiring look. She said, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  28.

  I bluffed. “Actually, no,” I said with a smile I hoped was both apologetic and casual. I had to get information from her, had to find out about Julian’s past and her own. And how much other people knew, like the general. I had to stall until Bo woke up. I also knew that in a potentially dangerous situation like this, I had to call Schulz.

  I said, “Arch is missing. Have you seen him?”

  She shook her head and pulled her mouth into an O of surprise. “No . . . where could he be?”

  “I’ve looked all over the neighborhood, and Marla is calling his friends. Did you see him go out with Julian? The general doesn’t seem to know anything.”

  “Well, neither do I. I didn’t see him go out with Julian, but I do need to talk to you about that. Do you know when Arch left? Was it after the police finally drove off? I went to lie down for a while, it was all so trying.” She opened her eyes wide. “The police had quite a few questions about your argument with Brian Harrington last night.”

  I said, “I didn’t kill him.” I took a deep breath. “My main concern is the whereabouts of Arch.”

  “What in Bo’s study would tell you where Arch is?”

  I thought wildly. “Well . . . I’m looking for some cards. They were Arch’s. Sometimes he tricks me. . . you know how he is. So if this is a trick, I need to play along. You know?” As I got up I pushed a box of pencils onto the floor with my left hand. With my right I moved some papers from the bottom of the pile to the top before setting the whole pile down. I leaned over to gather the pencils.

  “Cards?” said Adele. “I don’t know. Perhaps he left them in the kitchen. Shall we look?”

  I stood up. “Sure.” I felt in my right pocket and fingered the seven of spades. This would be my only chance to call Schulz undetected. I had to think of a way to pull this one out. What made it all worse was that I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. Or who the enemy was.

  “No cards here, I’m afraid,” Adele said. She patted through the piles of bills, gardening catalogs, and manila envelopes in the kitchen desk drawers.

  I slipped the card from my pocket into the knife drawer. “Oh, my goodness, look here,” I said. “He wanted to leave it where I would find it. Now we need to call the wizard.”

  “I beg your pardon?” She stared at the card in my palm.

  “Indulge me, Adele, maybe this is it. I promised Arch I would practice, and maybe this will help out,” I said as I punched in the buttons for Schulz’s number and prayed that he would be at his desk.

  “Schulz.” His voice.

  Adele said, “May I ask whom you are calling? Are you calling Weezie? Please give me the phone.”

  I held up one finger and said, “Is the wizard there, please?”

  “Oh, jeez, Goldy, don’t make me do this, what the hell is going on? Did you find Arch?”

  I said again, more merrily, “Is the wizard there, please?”

  He sighed. He began, “Clubs, diamonds, spades—”

  “May I speak to him, please?”

  “Okay,” said Schulz, “so spades? Now what? Let’s see, ace, king, queen, jack, ten, nine, eight, seven—”

  “Hold the line, please.”

  Before I could do anything, Adele took the phone from my hand and listened. She looked at the receiver and then at the card. She said, “No, thank you.” Then she shrugged. She tap-stepped across the kitchen floor and hung up the phone.

  “Well?” I demanded. “Did he know it was the seven of spades?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “It was a man, and he said, ’Do you want me to come over?’ so I said I didn’t and that was that.”

  Adele straightened up. She flicked one piece of lint off the beige cashmere sweater and another off the matching slacks. “I’m so tired, let’s sit down,” she said as she tap-stepped over the yellow Italian tile toward the living room. “I need to talk to you about Julian. He’s taken the camping equipment and gone off somewhere.” She paused by the pink sofa and looked around, apparently confused. She said, “Where’s Bo?”

  This is what quicksand feels like, I thought. Nothing to hold on to and sinking deeper by the minute. But I had to keep Adele talking, no matter what.

  I said, “Asleep on the porch. Had a bit too much to drink, I think.”

  She shook her head and leaned awkwardly against the back of the sofa. “God! What’s happening? Brian drowned, and now, God knows.” She eyed me. I had come up beside her. We stood in silence, both unwilling to commit to speaking freely, much less to sitti
ng down.

  “You look exhausted,” she said. “Have you had anything to eat today?”

  Schulz’s question. I said, “No.”

  “Oh, Goldy. You of all people. You should have something to keep you going.”

  A swell of fatigue made me shiver. I realized I had even missed my daily injection of espresso. All normal patterns of living had been disrupted by the discovery of Brian Harrington’s corpse.

  I had to keep her talking. Had to make her feel I knew something, but perhaps not everything. I said, “Want coffee?” She shook her head. “I’ll be right back.” I made myself a double espresso and came back out to the living room, where Adele had settled into one of the lime-green damask chairs. I sat on the pink sofa, sipped, and waited. From the porch came the undulating noise of the general’s snores.

  Finally Adele said, “Sissy and I went looking for Julian. He was so upset when the police were here. He talked to Arch for a long time. I just assumed they had gone off together.” She took a deep breath. “I’m afraid Julian may have found some very distressing correspondence and asked Weezie Harrington about it. This may have had the most dire consequences.”

  I said, “Where do you think Julian could have gone after reading this correspondence?”

  “To the Harringtons, perhaps. Oh, it’s such a long story—”

  “Why to the Harringtons?”

  We both stopped talking at once. There was a long silence while we looked at each other.

  I said, “Do you want to talk?”

  Someone buzzed the security gate.

  “Julian!” I said with false enthusiasm and leaped up to check the camera, press the admittance button, and open the front door. Schulz’s car ascended the driveway. I darted back to the study to make sure the general was still asleep. He was. But the Mace was gone.

  “You okay?” Schulz asked when he came through the door. “The seven of spades a trick or not?”

  “Just chatting with Adele. We think the general is asleep,” I said with a false sprightliness that hopefully warned him, Be careful. Then I introduced him to Adele.