Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 01 - Death by Chocolate (25 page)

“On the other hand,” Paula said, “as Fred pointed out, if you’d been able to eat just one piece of chocolate and stop there, you probably wouldn’t have become sick and might have died. So you could say chocolate
saved
your life by being irresistible.”

I smiled. “I’ll give that some thought, but I may never be able to eat chocolate again.”

Fred rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ll believe that when you actually pass up a brownie. Well, now that it looks like you’re going to live, I’m heading home to feed your cat and install bars across your doors like the ones I installed for Paula.”

His words brought home to me that I was no longer safe in my own house. Lester could return toni
ght or tomorrow night or the night after that.

“Thank you,” I said gratefully. “And don’t worry about getting every screw in straight and the bars perfectly level and all the smudges wiped off. I know you have more important things to do.” I gave him a meaningful look, trying to convey that such
more important things
were finding something we could use against Lester, some way out of this before Paula went to jail and I went to that big chocolate pie in the sky.

Fred and Paula started to leave, but I called them back. With the shop closed, Paula was free all day. I didn’t quite trust her not to leave town. In fact, I wouldn’t blame her for leaving town.

“Would you do me a huge favor, Paula? Would you open the shop for lunch? There’s some chocolate chip cookie dough in the freezer for emergencies. You can bake that and just tell the regular customers I’ll be back tomorrow.”

She looked uncertain. Since I’d hired her, neither of us had run the place alone. We’d both made it a point to always be there, come rain, snow, sleet or flu, and we really needed a third person as it was, so the idea of her handling things by herself was bound to be intimidating if not impossible.

“Fred can help you,” I added.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise and distress. I’d just reminded him that he had important things to do, and now I’d found him another task to keep him away from those things. But I didn’t want Paula at the shop alone for two reasons…I didn’t want her to have the chance to leave town and I didn’t want Lester to have the chance to poison
her
. She’s a much daintier eater than I am. She’d never pig out the way I’d done. She might not survive.

I tried to look weak and helpless. Pretty easy since that’s how I felt. “Please? You’ll be finished before
two o’clock, even if you have a large crowd.”

They both grudgingly agreed and left.

I turned to the doctor who was making notes on a clipboard. “You want to take this thing out of my hand?” I asked.

“Why don’t we leave it a little while longer, just until this bag of fluid is empty.”

“Why don’t we not?” I started pulling the pieces of tape loose, along with several hairs and chunks of skin. “Ouch! You must have put this on with super glue!” The tape was bad enough. I wasn’t at all sure I’d have the guts to yank the needle out myself and was sure hoping I wouldn’t have to.

Claxton glared at me, but he took the damned thing out.

I rubbed my hand. “Doctor Claxton, I’ve really enjoyed meeting you and you have a terrific place here, but I’m leaving shortly. Two o’clock at the latest, preferably closer to one or one-thirty.”

“We’ll see,” he said, hung the clipboard on the end of the bed, and left.

Trent sat down on the edge of the bed and grinned. “He tried to keep you from your Coke and now he’s going to try to keep you here. The man doesn’t know you very well, does he?”

“Modern relationships are like that, I guess. Wouldn’t you think after all the quality time we spent together, he’d be more sensitive to my needs? After all, I let him put his tube down my throat and dress me in this designer gown. That’s getting pretty intimate.”

“Actually I think it was a nurse who put that ventilated flour sack on you and the tube down your nose. A big, brawny male nurse. I heard you bit him for his efforts.”

“Yeah, right. I couldn’t even bite a Hostess Cupcake right now, much less last night!” I held out one arm and plucked the sleeve. “What do you think of this gown? If I bit the nurse, it was probably over this gown instead of the tube. I really don’t think it’s my color.”

“I’d ask for another one if I were you. See if they have one in that blue green color like you had on last night. You sure looked a lot better then.”

Okay, it wasn’t what you might call a gushy compliment, but he had noticed what color
T-shirt I had on last night.

“It was teal,” I said. “And of course I looked a lot better last night. I felt a lot better. But thank
you for noticing. You’re not completely bad after all. I think we’re going to have a lot of fun when I become your partner. Can I drive the squad car? Don’t you cops have sort of an honor thing where you don’t give speeding tickets to each other? This is going to work out really good. Which reminds me, you never did say if you got any prints off my door knob.”

He heaved a huge sigh. “No, it’s none of your business and not a one. No fingerprints in Mackey’s apartment, either. Before you ask, yes, that in itself is suspicious, but it doesn’t prove anything. We do plan to check whatever we find under Henry’s nails against the blood we found in the apartment and the car.”

“Does this mean you finally believe me, that Lester’s trying to set Paula up?”

He expelled a long breath and ran a hand through his hair making it even more tousled than before. He had on his official sport coat over a blue shirt and faded jeans, and everything looked pretty rum
pled, but on him, it looked good.

I, however, was wearing an ugly gown with little blue spots all over it. I could only imagine what my hair and face looked like. Actually, I didn’t want to imagine.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said. “All that matters is what the evidence shows.”

“The evidence shows Paula’s being set up! Somebody broke into her house and planted two bugs and some sleeping pills. Somebody broke into my house and planted poison in the chocolate!”

“But there’s no evidence that those two events are related.”

“There certainly is!”

“What?”

I sighed. “I can’t tell you.”

Trent threw up his hands. “That really helps!”

I tried to think of a way to tell him the gist without admitting anything that would get Paula in trouble. “Well, you see, Paula and I had this conversation for Lester’s benefit after we found the bugs, and during this conversation, she threatened to sic my father’s law firm on him.” I applauded myself for a truthful, albeit abridged, version of the story. “Of course, my father’s firm only does civil law, but Lester doesn’t know that. So now he’s trying to kill me.”

“But. I. Don’t. Have. Any. Proof. Of. That.” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I don’t even have any proof these bugs exist.”

“I saw them!” Well, Fred saw them, which was close enough. “Why would I lie to you?” Okay, maybe a couple of white lies, just to protect the guilty.

“Lindsay, damn it, I’m not saying I don’t believe you! I’m just saying that, as a cop, I have to stick with the evidence. Right now, there’s nothing to link your break-in with Paula’s problems, and it still looks like Paula knows something about Lester Mackey’s disappearance.”

“Damn it, he hasn’t disappeared! He came to visit me last night.”

“Show me the evidence that was him in your house.”

I glared defiantly at
Trent and he glared defiantly back. His square jaw with a day’s growth of dark beard was set stubbornly, and I noticed for the first time that he had dark circles under his bloodshot eyes. “You don’t look any better than I feel. You sure that chocolate didn’t make you sick, too?”

“No, I just didn’t get much sleep last night. Your friends called me as soon as they got you admitted to the emergency room.” He ran a hand across the stubble on his jaw. “I haven’t been home to shave.”

“Good grief! Don’t tell me you’ve been here since the middle of the night!”

“I spent the first couple of hours searching your house, but, yeah, then I came over here. Paula and Fred were pretty worried about you. She had the kid with her until seven when she took him to the child care place. They took turns napping in the waiting room and keeping an eye on you until you started moaning and groaning about fifteen minutes before you woke up. I had to stay in here the whole time in case you said something that would prove critical to the case.”

“Ah, you were worried about me, too, weren’t you?”

“Maybe a little bit. I hate it when people I know die on me, especially material witnesses. It looks real bad in my personnel file.”

“Ah, Detective Trent, you do have a silver tongue, don’t you?”

He stood and slapped me on my sheet-covered leg with his notebook. “I’ll be here at
two o’clock to help you make your great escape. Since you didn’t drive your own car, you’re going to need a ride home.”

“
One thirty.”

“
One thirty,” he agreed.

“Any idea where they put my clothes?” Not that I’d had on many clothes the last I remembered, just the
T-shirt. But it would be better than this stupid gown with no back.

“We took your
T-shirt in for evidence. It had remnants of pudding cake on it. I’ll go by your house and bring you something to wear.”

“Thanks.”

“Welcome.”

I smiled.

He smiled. He really did have a nice smile.

As soon as he left, I got up and went to the bathroom. They must have given me several of those IVs.

As I washed my hands, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and groaned. It was as bad as I’d feared. My skin was even paler than usual. My freckles stood out like black dots by comparison, though not as black as the bags under my eyes or the charcoal residue around my mouth. Trent was either a very kind person or had very poor eyesight to have been able to smile at me.

I washed my face and rinsed out my mouth, scrubbing my teeth with one finger. It helped a little.

I got back into bed and lay there pondering the mysteries of life and how close I’d come to checking out. It kind of put things in a different light, important things like the value of friends and the trivial things like my anger at Rick. I didn’t ponder long, though, before falling asleep.

A nurse woke me a couple of hours later to give me lunch…and I use the term facetiously.

“Chicken broth, Jello and milk? I wouldn’t eat this if I was well! I certainly need more than that if I’m going to recover!”

“It’s what the doctor ordered,” she said primly. She had a scrunched up little mouth and beady eyes, and I wouldn’t have liked her even if I’d been well and she’d been offering me a pizza.

“Look,” I said, trying to sound reasonable despite the fact that I was suddenly ravenously hungry and this woman was standing between me and food, “I’m not a picky eater, but I have to get my strength back. How about a bologna sandwich and a bag of chips?”

“You can discuss it with your doctor.” She turned and walked away.

“Can I at least have chocolate milk?” I called after her, but she just kept walking. “Some Oreo cookies to dunk?” So much for my fear I’d never want chocolate again.

I gave up and valiantly consumed the pitiful, tasteless broth and the watery Jello, then chug-a-lugged most of the plain milk. I was still starving, of course. Fred had mentioned vending machines. If I could get a Coke and some chips, I might stand a chance of surviving until I got home to leftover pizza.

I got out of bed and felt the cool air on my bare bottom. Stupid hospital gowns! I pulled the top sheet off the bed and draped it around me like a toga. Thus clad, I started out of the room, but then realized I didn’t have any change for the vending machines. I plopped back onto the bed with a sigh. Next time I got poisoned, I’d have to remember to grab my wallet before I passed out.

“Hey, you’re sitting up!” Rick walked in carrying a huge floral arrangement.

It didn’t seem fair that I should be poisoned, pumped, charcoaled, starved and visited by my ex-husband all in less than twelve hours.

Chapter
Fifteen

I reminded myself of my recent epiphanies about life, love and anger and forced a smile. Besides, Rick undoubtedly had some loose change on him and could probably be conned into getting me something to eat.

He set the flowers on the night stand. “How you feeling, babe?” he asked, and leaned over to kiss me on the forehead.

“Hungry. How are you feeling?”

He smiled and stroked the back of his hand down my cheek. “Can’t keep my girl down!”

“How did you find out I was here? Did it make the local news?” I was kidding, of course. At least, I hoped I was kidding. If my parents found out about this, I’d never hear the end of it. Somehow it would be my fault that I’d been poisoned and embarrassed them in the media.

“I called the shop
, and Paula told me. I told her I was very unhappy with her for not calling me when they first found you. I’d have been right here with you the whole time. You know that, don’t you?”