Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 01 - Death by Chocolate (30 page)

The front door burst open and Rick charged inside. “I knew it!” he shouted, and hurled himself on Bennett.

“Have you gone crazy?” I screamed, grabbing a handful of his hundred dollar haircut and trying to yank him off.

Bennett didn’t need any help, though. Once he got over the surprise, he flipped Rick onto the floor and pinned both arms behind him so fast it was almost a blur.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Bennett demanded. That sad, caring mask had completely disappeared, and he was furious, his eyes blazing with a cold fury.

When Rick didn’t answer immediately, Bennett gave his arm an upward twist and made him groan. I flinched. Much as I wanted to hurt Rick myself, I wasn’t too thrilled about somebody else doing it.

“This woman’s my wife!” Rick snarled.

“You have my sympathies, but what does that have to do with your charging in here like a lunatic and attacking me?”

“You don’t have any right to do whatever you two were doing or planning to do in here! Don’t you have any respect for the sanctity of marriage?”

“You dumb son-of-a-bitch!” I shouted. “We weren’t doing anything but talking!”

“Only because I arrived in the nick of time! I saw you leaning toward him. You were about to kiss him. I’ve been watching your house all evening, expecting that cop to arrive. Is this one somebody new or has it been him all along?”

“You’ve been spying on me?” I kicked his knee
, and he flinched but didn’t groan. Bennett knew how to hurt better than I did. “I don’t even like this man! He’s Paula’s husband and he’s an abusive asshole and I’m doing my best to get Zach away from him and you interrupted negotiations!”

“Yeah, right!”

I threw my hands into the air. “I don’t believe this. If I may remind you, you’re the one who was having an affair while we were still living together. You’re the one who suggested I might want to pack my bags and move into this house so that Muffy creature could move in with you.”

“She’s gone. I want you back.”

“But I don’t want you back! Damn it all to hell, Rick!” I squatted down so I could get close to his face where Bennett still held him on the floor. “You listen to me and you listen good or this man is going to give your arm another yank and maybe break it because that’s what he does. He loves to hurt people.”

“You’re as crazy as he is!” Bennett protested. “I don’t want
to hear your marital squabbles.”

I ignored him. I had to get Rick out of there. “Pretty soon we’re going to be divorced, Rick,” I said quietly. “Completely divorced. We had a lot of good times in the past, and I’d like to think we could still be friends, but that’s only going to happen if
you stop doing stuff like this. Now, here are the rules. You stay away from my house unless you’re invited over. You give up the notion that you and I will ever be anything more than friends, and I’m not even feeling real friendly right now. Have you got all that?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Twist his arm, Bennett!”

“Yes!” Rick shouted. “I got it!”

“Let him up.”

Bennett glared at me but didn’t move.

“Let him up and throw him out the door unless you’ve got some other plans for him.”

Bennett got up, releasing Rick who scrambled to his feet, ran his hand through his hair and straightened his clothes.

“I’m leaving now,” he said. “But I’ll see you tomorrow night at your parents for dinner.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Can I call you?” Suddenly he looked kind of pitiful.

“I’ll call you.”

“When?”

“Next week.”

“You promise?”

“I promise but only if you leave in the next ten seconds!”

“Fine. I’m going.” He left with a final glare over his shoulder at Bennett.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Bennett turned to me. “I’m going, too. I’ve told you the truth, and if you don’t believe it, that’s your problem.”

I folded my arms. “I’ll tell you what I believe. I believe tests will reveal that the blood on that diaper is the same blood in Lester Mackey’s apartment and car.”

“What would that prove if it is?”

“That you set Paula up. That maybe she’s telling the truth and you’re not. That you’re one sick puppy.”

His jaw started twitching again and white lines appeared around his mouth.

“You try to make people believe Paula’s sick but really it’s you,” I taunted, taking advantage of this sign of weakness. “No wonder your father abused you. He was probably trying to beat some of the crazy out of you. I’ll bet he wondered if he was even your father.”

That one hit home. Bennett’s face lost all semblance of sanity. He grabbed my shoulders. “Listen, bitch, you took that blood from me without my permission. Since your father’s such a hotshot lawyer, you should know that won’t stand up in any court.”

I twisted away from his grip. “Since my father’s a lawyer, what I know is that rule doesn’t apply to a civilian. You bled on my porch, my premises. I did a good deed and cleaned your wounds. Furthermore, the lab that’s set up to analyze this blood has nothing to do with the cops. It’ll stand up in court, all right. When I get through with you, your career with the police department will be over forever. They’ll lock you away in a mental institution and keep you on drugs the rest of your life.”

In one slick move, he had my arm pinned behind my back and I knew exactly how much Rick had hurt when Bennett twisted upward. A lot.

Fear crept back in to blend with the anger and make a huge mess of my insides. Actually, the fear didn’t creep. It
poured
back in. I was succeeding. I was making him lose control and any minute now he’d spill his guts. I should have been pleased, but all I could think of was, if Bennett decided to kill me, would Fred be quick enough?

“You’re going to get that diaper,” he growled, “and give it to me. Move or I’ll break your arm!”

I moved. “It’s in that shoe box sitting on top of the television,” I said as he marched me across the room. “Any thoughts on how you’re going to keep me from telling the world exactly what transpired here tonight? Adam Trent and I are close, you know. Real close. He’ll believe me, and the whole force will turn out to take you down. I’ll blab to the world. Your career’s over. Your freedom is over. I have a really big mouth.”

He opened the shoe box with one hand while holding me with the other. “You sure do, but I’m not really worried. I don’t think you’re going to be doing a lot of talking after I leave here.”

I swallowed hard. “Why?” I squeaked. “How do you plan to stop me from talking?”

He didn’t answer me. He just removed from the box the diaper that I’d drizzled with hamburger blood.

“You think I’m scared of some lunatic?” I taunted. You’re not enough of a man to stop me from blabbing to the whole town!” I thought I was doing pretty darn good with the taunting business.

He yanked my arm so tight I couldn’t hold back an audible gasp, almost a scream. “I can stop you,” he said. “There’s going to be a tragic fire at your house tonight and you’re going to die in it.”

“Ha! Big man! Couldn’t even control his wife! She shot you and left you for dead! You think you scare me?” Actually, he did. But I was doing a pretty good job of acting, I thought. As long as I didn’t wet my pants, I could carry it off.

He yanked so hard I thought my arm might be broken, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of more than a grunt. “I told you that bitch is crazy! Any sane woman wouldn’t have made me hit her! She kept egging me on, just like you’re doing! I loved hurting her, and I’m going to love hurting you! The fire will hide a lot of cuts and bruises and broken bones!”

“You’ll get caught! You pushed it too far. If you’d just turned her in, you might have made it work, but you had to torment her and do that stupid Lester Mackey trick. You’re an impotent idiot!”

“I had to teach her a lesson. She deserved to suffer after what she did to me!”

“What did she do to you?”

“She made a fool out of me! She left me, and everybody was talking about how I couldn’t control my own wife! Then she shot me and left me for dead and all those people were saying
David Bennett was married to a crazy woman!”

I was pretty sure my arm was broken and it would be a long time before I could hold a pan of chocolate chip cookies, and anytime would be a good time for Fred to show up and rescue me. Surely we had enough, but Fred’s so anal! I supposed he wanted all loose ends tied up. I could only hope my dead, one-armed body wouldn’t be one of those loose ends.

“You tried to kill me!” I said, plunging on to the only thing I could think of that we hadn’t covered. “You put poison in my Chocolate Pudding Cake! You’re a criminal and a sicko and a pervert and you’re going to pay!”

He gave my arm another yank and I was positive now that it was broken beyond repair. I’d never be able to hold a Coke with one hand and eat chocolate cake with the other. “You can blame Paula for that. If she hadn’t confessed everything to you, I wouldn’t have to kill you. I told you that woman’s crazy! If she’d just behaved, I wouldn’t have had to hit her! I wouldn’t have to kill you! Oof!”

Suddenly my arm was released and I whirled around to see Fred flipping Bennett over his back and my front door flying open again.

“Police! You’re under arrest!” Trent and Creighton came through that door, guns drawn. Rick was right behind, and two more officers emerged from the direction of the kitchen.

The cavalry had arrived, all the different divisions!

Trent yanked Bennett off the floor and handcuffed him.

“Adam,” Bennett protested, “what’s going on? I’m one of you! I’m a cop. That man attacked me for no reason! I was standing here talking to Ms. Powell about doing some babysitting for me and he came up behind me and kicked me on the side of my the head. Nearly broke my neck. Get me out of these cuffs.”

“Save it for your trial,”
Trent said. “I’ve had a microphone on that window since Kramer came inside and got out of our way long enough for us to do it.”

“Lindsay, are you okay?” Rick took my arm…the sore one. I yanked it back and tried to rub circulation into it.

Fred was easing toward the stairs. He was barefoot.

Kicked Bennett on the side of his head
? Fred?

“You have the right to remain silent,” Creighton began.

“I know my fucking rights!”

“You have the right to an attorney.”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“Give ‘em hell, Bennett!” I shouted as they dragged him out the door. “Show ‘em what a tough guy you are!” I hoped his head hurt as much as my arm, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me.

The cops had lots of questions, but finally only Trent, Rick and I remained downstairs.

“Rick, go home,” I said.

“I thought we were friends,” he protested.

“After the divorce, we’ll talk about being friends. Tonight, the only friend I want to see is my cat.”

He left, though he shot Trent a final glare. I could tell it didn’t bother Trent.

I breathed a sigh of relief when the door closed behind Rick. “I can’t believe it’s finally over,” I said.

“The deal with Bennett or your marriage?” Trent asked.

“Both, I guess.”

“How’s your arm?”

“Hurts.”

He took it in a surprisingly gentle grasp and probed a bit. “I don’t think it’s broken.”

“I didn’t hear anything snap, but if it did, it’ll be on Fred’s recording. We have our own, you know. Probably better than yours.”

Trent looked toward the stairs. “Who is that guy?”

“Day trader in the stock market.”

“Yeah, right. A day trader who knows karate and has more sophisticated listening devices than the police department does?”

“Don’t you know who that masked man was? Why, he’s the Lone Ranger!”

Trent’s features warred between irritation and a grin. The grin won. It looked good on him.

He was still holding my arm. He had nice hands.

“So you were watching my house after all, huh? I thought you didn’t believe me.”

“I didn’t, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to put a tail on Bennett, just in case.”

I looked Trent directly in the eye.

“Okay,” he admitted, “I thought you might be right. Bennett struck me the first time he opened his mouth as a smooth-talking dickhead. The
n you mouthed off to him and made all kinds of insinuations and taunts. I didn’t want to take a chance on your getting hurt.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that admission.

“Well,” Trent said brusquely, dropping my arm as if he’d only just noticed he was still holding it, “I guess that winds it all up. I don’t think you’ll be having any more uninvited night time visitors.”

“Are you going to let Paula out of jail?”

“I’ll get the warrant quashed. She’ll be out in the morning.”

“What about Zach?”

“I stationed officers to watch the house where Bennett left him. By now he’s been picked up and will spend the night with social services, but we’ll get him back to Paula tomorrow.”