Death of a Chocoholic (10 page)

The following morning when Hayley drove Blueberry back over to the vet's office for his appointment, Dr. Palmer still wasn't in. Marla instructed Hayley to fill out the necessary paperwork and told her she could pick up Blueberry on her lunch hour. If the doctor prescribed medication and it wasn't ready, Hayley could always stop by after work.

Hayley felt she was leaving Blueberry in good hands.

Especially since he was licking Marla's fingers.

What on earth did he like about her so much?

Hayley then raced home, yelled at the kids to get up and get dressed, and then jumped into the bathtub for a fast shower before heading off to work. The water was cold and she shivered as she lathered up with bodywash. She prayed there wasn't something wrong with the water heater. After rinsing off, she shut off the water and stepped out of the tub, grabbing a plush white towel off the rack to dry herself.

She suddenly heard loud guffaws coming from downstairs.

She ran the towel over her wet, matted hair, shook it out, and then pulled on her robe. She tied it around her waist and opened the bathroom door. She popped her head out.

Hayley heard Dustin gasping for air as if he was unable to breathe.

“Is everything all right down there?”

Dustin was still gasping.

“Dustin?”

“Everything's fine,” Gemma shouted before erupting into a fit of giggles.

Hayley couldn't believe it.

Gemma was laughing at something.

Finally a crack in the armor.

Some humor to bring her back to a semblance of normalcy.

Perhaps whatever was bothering her had finally been resolved.

Her kids were actually bonding over something ridiculously funny, and she was grateful for that.

Hayley slid on her fuzzy slippers and shuffled down the stairs to see what TV show she had to thank for snapping her daughter out of her doldrums.

The television in the living room was shut off when Hayley hit the landing. She veered toward the kitchen, where the kids were seated at the table, staring at Dustin's iPad.

Dustin tried taking a sip of juice, but then his eye caught something on the screen. He spit it out, dribbling juice all down the front of his t-shirt.

Hayley couldn't help but laugh herself. She rarely saw her kids so hysterical.

She turned the iPad toward her to get a look at what was entertaining them so much.

Her face froze.

It was a YouTube video.

The ill-fated taping of Bessie Winthrop's chocolate-baking segment.

And at two minutes and thirty-five seconds into the video, Hayley was throwing up brown goop all over the place and wreaking havoc on the set.

“Oh, dear God, no!” Hayley cried.

“You're a YouTube sensation, Mom! Already forty thousand hits!” Dustin said, eyes wide, totally impressed. “That's awesome!”

“Forty thousand?”
Hayley said, her heart sinking.

Dustin tapped a key. “I just refreshed the page. Now you're up to sixty-two thousand!”

Hayley slammed her fist down on the kitchen table. “Those little punks! They promised to erase this take.”

“Mom, you can't blame them. This is pure gold! It's all about racking up hits on their channel. They couldn't keep something this great under wraps!”

Now that Hayley was in the room, Gemma was making a concerted effort not to smile or laugh anymore. However, as her eyes drifted back toward the iPad screen, she couldn't help herself. She couldn't hold it in. She buried her face in her hands and let loose, howling.

“This isn't happening. Do you think a lot of local people have seen this?”

“People all over the world are seeing this! You're famous now!”

Hayley used to dream of being famous.

For her cooking.

Not for eating too much chocolate and throwing up on camera.

Be careful what you wish for.

Hayley tried not looking at the iPad screen anymore. Why punish herself? But it was like a six-car pileup. As traumatic as it was to stare at the carnage, she just couldn't help herself.

At that moment in the video, the on-screen Hayley foolishly thought she was done being sick and began apologizing to Bessie; but then she instantly threw her hand to her mouth and began spasming all over again. She was struggling to keep the chocolate down with unsuccessful results.

Dustin fell off his chair, hitting the floor, holding his sides as he laughed uproariously. “This is classic. I already posted it on Facebook. All my friends are sharing it.”

“I'm so happy you kids find such enjoyment in your mother's humiliation. I'll be sure to remember this.”

Gemma got up from the table and grabbed her backpack. “I'm going to be late for the bus.”

“You want me to give you a ride to school today?” Hayley asked, looking for any excuse to stop watching the YouTube video.

“No, thanks,” Gemma said, her back to her mother. She was out the door in a flash.

Well, at least Gemma laughed a little this morning. Granted, it was at Hayley's expense, but she was happy she was at least able to get a smile out of her sullen daughter.

Hayley slapped the protective cover over the iPad and handed it to Dustin. “That's enough of that. Shouldn't you be more in a rush? The bus will be here any minute.”

“Can you give me a ride to school?”

“No, I want to take Leroy for a walk before work.”

“But you were going to give Gemma a ride!”

“Yes. But she didn't post that video on Facebook. Now move. Do not miss the bus!”

Dustin sighed and then slung his Avengers backpack over his shoulder and dragged his feet out the door.

“Have a good day,” Hayley chirped.

“I'm already having one,” Dustin said, smiling. “I have a famous mom!”

“Don't forget your lunch,” Hayley said, picking up a brown paper bag and tossing it to Dustin, who caught it with one hand and shot out the door.

Hayley padded to the laundry room, fished some sweatpants and a t-shirt out of the dryer, and dropped her robe. She got dressed and then slid into some winter boots and a heavy coat before yanking on a thick brown wool hat over her still-damp hair. Then she crossed to the coatrack in the foyer and picked up Leroy's long, metal-studded blue leash. Leroy was already at the front door, with his tiny tail wagging and his tongue panting with excitement.

He was probably just happy Blueberry was MIA this morning.

Hayley hooked the leash around Leroy's collar.

It was already seven-thirty. She had to be at work by eight, so it was going to be a short walk. The temperature had dropped overnight. There was frost on all the windows of the houses in the neighborhood. Leroy didn't seem to mind the cold. He trotted along, just happy to be out.

Hayley tried to put the YouTube video out of her mind. The whole thing would probably blow over quickly and her life would hopefully get back to normal.

A car approached and two kids were in the backseat as their mother drove. At the sight of Hayley, the kids started pointing excitedly at her as if she were SpongeBob SquarePants or some other celebrity. Hayley turned around after the car passed her. She saw the kids, with their chubby, openmouthed faces now pressed up against the back window, laughing hysterically and still pointing at her.

Perhaps it would take a little more time than she originally thought for this thing to blow over.

Hayley cut through a side street and into a stretch of woods, heading for a thicket of trees, where Leroy could do his business.

She suddenly sensed a presence.

Someone behind her.

Following her.

She looked back.

There was no one in sight.

The YouTube video had been posted online less than twelve hours ago and she already had a stalker?

She heard someone cough.

Hayley spun her head around in the direction of the sound, but she still saw no one. Leroy lifted his leg and let out a steady stream of urine, soaking the exposed root of a pine tree. The dog had a happy, relieved look on his face.

Hayley's eyes focused on a puff of white smoke coming from behind a tree, just to her right.

Was someone hiding behind it smoking a cigarette?

Then she realized it wasn't smoke at all.

It was water vapor from someone breathing out the cold air.

Hayley gulped.

Someone
was
following her and trying to stay out of sight.

“Who's there?” Hayley shouted, tightening Leroy's leash.

Under normal circumstances, at the sound of his master being threatened, Leroy would start barking incessantly, protecting Hayley, scaring off anyone who might want to do her harm.

But that was before Blueberry.

Whatever sense of bravery Leroy once possessed was long gone; it had been completely knocked out of him by a feline terrorist. He was scared of everything now. As he finished tinkling the last few drops, he dashed behind Hayley's leg and remained there in case there was imminent danger.

Hayley went for her cell phone in her coat pocket, but then she remembered she didn't bring it with her.

But the stalker didn't know that.

“I'm calling 911 right now,” Hayley warned, pretending to be punching numbers into her phone.

“No need for that,” a man's voice said before Cody Donovan stepped out from behind the tree.

“Cody, you scared me silly,” Hayley said, breathing a sigh of relief. “What the hell are you doing out here? You live clear across town.”

Cody stepped forward. He looked somewhat disheveled. He had bed head; there were sleepy seeds caked to his face; underneath his half-open gray winter coat, he was wearing pajamas, which had little cartoon deer all over them.

“I set my alarm extra early this morning and slipped out before my wife realized where I was going.”

“So, where are you going?”

“Here. To see you.”

“Me? Why?”

Cody raced forward, grabbing Hayley's hands in his and squeezing them so tightly that her bones nearly cracked.

“I need to talk to you. About us.”

“Cody, unless you want to approve me for a mortgage refinance, we have nothing to talk about.”

Cody wasn't going to let it go that easily. “I never stopped having feelings for you, Hayley. You must know that.”

“Actually, no, I didn't. You're married. . . .”

Cody let go of her hands and threw his arms around her in a bear hug, drawing her close enough so that he could plant a wet, sloppy kiss on her lips.

Hayley's arms were pinned so she couldn't punch him.

The next best thing was a swift kick to the shins.

Cody howled in pain, releasing her.

“I'm going to forget this ever happened, Cody. I suggest you do too.”

“But what if I can't? Do you know how long it took for me to get the nerve up to do this?!”

“Well, find a way!”

“I love you, Hayley.”

“If you ever follow me or try to kiss me again, I swear I'm going to call your wife, Kerry, and let her know you won't leave me alone. And you know her family has lots of powerful legal connections and can make sure she gets everything in the divorce settlement—and I mean
everything,
including that ninety-two-foot twin-masted schooner her Dad gave you, which you're so proud of! No, forget
settlement.
She'll get
everything,
and all you'll be left with are those tacky deer pajamas you're wearing!”

This stopped Cody.

He nodded, eyes downcast, like a scolded boy; he then turned on his heels and scampered away through the woods.

Hayley prayed that would be the end of that.

But she knew she was just fooling herself.

Hayley spent the entire day writing her own column as well as Bruce's while dodging phone calls and e-mails about her embarrassing performance on YouTube. To appease Sal, she chose to focus on the police department's progress on the recent pharmacy theft. Her only break was picking up Blueberry on her lunch hour and taking him home. That left little time for her to consider the clues she found at Bessie Winthrop's house.

By the following morning, she had a slight break in her workload. She was finally able to spend a few minutes going over her plan of attack. The lawsuit Bessie was embroiled in with her neighbors Mark and Mary Garber was first and foremost in her mind.

Hayley knew the Garbers socially. She was often invited to their deck chat, a nightly cocktail hour on the open-air deck built on the side of their house, where friends would gather to discuss and dissect the latest and juiciest gossip in town. She hadn't attended in a while; and even though they didn't let the nippy winter weather stop them, she had heard through the grapevine they had recently put a hold on their late-afternoon soirees after one of their guests came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized. Even though there was no way for them to be legally responsible, they were probably a little skittish, since they were already knee-deep in one lawsuit and probably paying a healthy chunk of their life savings to a lawyer.

Hayley had to find another way besides deck chat to finagle an invitation to the Garbers' house in order to poke around.

She pulled up her list of contacts on her computer and scrolled down for the Garbers' home number. Sal was out of the office for a shareholders' meeting, so it was safe to make a personal call. She punched in the number and waited. After six rings she was about to hang up, since there didn't appear to be any voice mail setup. However, there was a
click
eventually and she heard a raspy voice slur, “I told you, I am on the National Do Not Call Registry, so I couldn't care less about your stupid product. If you call here again, I will have you arrested for violating my rights. Do you hear me?”

“Mary? It's Hayley Powell.”

“Who?”

“Hayley Powell.”

“Oh, Hayley, I'm sorry! I just keep getting calls from these annoying telemarketers and it's pissing me off. I told Mark to make them stop, and he said he put our number on the Do Not Call Registry, so they shouldn't be bugging us anymore. Oh, wait, maybe I meant to tell him and forgot. Sometimes after a couple of bottles of wine, I imagine conversations. Is this really you, Hayley?”

“Yes. You're not imagining it.”

“Good. Because I've already had two bottles of wine.” Mary snickered.

It wasn't even noon.

“I haven't spoken to you in a while and I thought I'd check in and see how you're doing?”

“Well, as you know, we've canceled deck chat until Memorial Day because of what happened to Becky Simpson. What a wimp. I mean, I'm sorry she got sick and everything, but did she have to blame us for making her sit outside in January? We were kind enough to invite her, but she really didn't have to come if she was afraid of being out in the cold. Jeez. Well, you know her. Always making trouble. And what is it with her and grape-flavored vodka? Who drinks that stuff? We always had to stock up on it whenever she was coming over. Talk about pricey! We're not the Rockefellers! I'm sorry. Who am I talking to again?”

“Hayley Powell.”

“Right. Sorry. I heard you found that pain-in-the-ass Bessie Winthrop's dead body. Another troublemaker. Good riddance.”

“Yes. The scuttlebutt around town is that you and Mark were involved in some kind of a lawsuit with Bessie.”

“Yeah, she was all over us because we wanted to add one lousy addition to our house and it was going to block her view. We've been working our butts off renovating this money trap! And just when we saved enough money to add on a third floor, Bessie files a lawsuit and puts the brakes on everything.”

“That must have infuriated you.”

“I wanted to kill that nasty bitch.”

There was a long dramatic pause as Hayley let Mary's last words sink in for a moment.

“You hated her that much?”

Mary seemed to catch herself, even in her drunken state. “Well, I mean, I barely knew her.” Then she was off and running again. “But she was making our lives miserable. Not only was she suing us, but her place was basically a junkyard and stunk to high heaven with all those cats roaming around. Everyone's property values on the street were plummeting because of her.”

“Well, now that she's dead and gone, I guess you can proceed with your addition,” Hayley said.

“Hallelujah!” Mary sang, taking a beat to apparently pour herself another glass of wine.

Hayley racked her brain trying to come up with a way to get herself invited to Mary's house so she could search the place and see if she could possibly come up with any evidence besides the lawsuit that might connect them to Bessie's death.

“Well, I hope to see you and Mark soon.”

“How about Saturday?”

“You mean tomorrow?”

“Mark and I are having a few people over for dinner before the Hayseed Ball. You should come and bring that handsome caretaker guy you've been shacking up with.”

“Lex moved to Vermont. We're not seeing each other anymore. And we never lived together.”

“Right. I forgot. So bring that new guy, the one from Bucksport, Liddy's cousin.”

“I'm definitely
not
seeing him.”

“What are you talking about? I ran into Liddy at the hairdresser's last week and she told me you two were practically engaged.”

“Yes, but, unfortunately, that was before I met him.”

“Well, come stag then. I don't care. You can borrow Mark if you want. I'd love to be single for one night and see what kind of hot manly stud I can rustle up at the ball.”

The annual Hayseed Ball in Bar Harbor was one of the most attended social events of the season. Guests got all dolled up in period costumes—like plug-hatted farmers in peg-top trousers, while their female partners twirled in crinoline and gingham. Everyone engaged in old-fashioned dances, including quadrilles, two-steps, and contras.

“Thanks, Mary, I would love to come, as long as you don't mind having an uneven number for dinner.”

“Like I could give a crap? I always make too much food, but bring a bottle of wine. I never seem to have enough. I really don't know why.”

“Will do,” Hayley said, hanging up. She was not looking forward to sticking out as the only single person at the Garbers' dinner party. And she had absolutely no intention of attending the ball afterward, where it would be glaringly obvious she was a wallflower.

But for right now, it was the only avenue she had to get inside the Garbers' house and investigate. She had to accept their invitation because the Garbers had such a clear motive for wanting to see Bessie pushing up daisies.

Mary wasn't hiding her hatred of Bessie. But that was because the police and the coroner had closed the case and so emphatically ruled out homicide as a cause of death.

Maybe Mary Garber was convinced she was in the clear and had just beaten a murder rap.

It was up to Hayley to prove Mary wrong.