Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 04 - Chocolate Mousse Attack (7 page)

“
Sounds great.” I scrawled my address on the back of an order form and handed it to him. “Six o’clock on Saturday. See you then.”

“I look forward
to it.” He gave me a big smile then turned his attention to Paula and gave her a really big smile, his blue gray eyes warm. It was pretty obvious he had a thing for her.

She returned his smile. Not quite as warmly, but it was better than a frown.

She walked to the door with him and locked up.

I felt certain Paula was secretly pleased that I’d invited
Matthew to join us for the cookout, but she managed to keep her pleasure secret. In fact, she pretended to be a little miffed. “I can’t believe you did that, especially not after our talk last night.”

“Hey, worst case scenario, you decide you don’t like him but we get to eat fresh watermelon. The ones they have at the grocery store are disgusting.”

We cleaned while I told her the details of Matthew’s life that Fred had uncovered. She slammed the dishwasher door, pressed her lips together tightly then looked at me in an obvious attempt to appear unimpressed with my due diligence.

I had a good feeling about
Matthew Graham, and my feelings are rarely wrong.

Well, okay, there was the whole Rick thing. But I’ve honed my people skills since then.

Chapter Seven

I rushed home to prepare for a busy evening.

First I had to be a moldy expert with Fred, and then Trent would be over since it was Friday.
Of course, my first priority was Henry’s nutritional needs. With that taken care of, I showered and changed into a white blouse, black slacks and matching jacket then went over to Fred’s.

He
waited in his driveway beside his classic white Mercedes, holding the passenger door open. I always felt I should dust off my clothes and wipe my feet before I got in that car.

I slid
in and fastened my seat belt though I saw no reason to do so. In fact, I never understood why he’d gone to the trouble to add seat belts to a classic car in the first place. He insists on driving the speed limit. With his hacking skills, he could probably erase any speeding tickets he got. Completely inexplicable.

“Is that the same black suit you always wear or do you have an endless supply of them?”
He guided the car slowly around a corner.

“Just the one. I only wear it to funerals and
to visit mob bosses, private eyes and hookers with you. Nobody’s died lately and this is the first fact-finding mission we’ve gone on in several months, so it’s not getting a lot of use. Tell me about the guy we’re going to talk to. What do I need to know about him? Mob boss? Crooked cop? Drug dealer?”

Fred managed to give me a strange look
even though he would never take his eyes off the road. “This man’s name is Daniel Jamison, and he’s a doctor.”

Great. I was going to have to lie to somebody who spent his days healing people. What kind of bad Karma was that going to bring down on my head?

“What kind of doctor? Philosophy? Physics?” Lying to that kind of a doctor wouldn’t be so bad.

“The medical kind. He’s a surgeon.”

Terrific. “Spends his days cutting out malignant growths and saving lives?”

“Not exactly. He spends his days making people beautiful. He’s a cosmetic surgeon.”

I wondered if he’d been the one who did my mother’s little nips and tucks. If so, he deserved to be lied to. It’s just wrong when a mother looks younger than her daughter.

*~*~*

Doctor Daniel Jamison’s office was on the Kansas side in an elite area. We entered the four story building and took the hushed elevator to the fourth floor which also felt hushed. Money buys a lot of silence.

“I’m amazed you were able to get us in to see any doctor on such short notice.” We stepped from the elevator onto the burgundy carpet of the hallway. “They make me wait a month or two.”

“I didn’t call and ask for an appointment.”

Of course he didn’t. How silly of me to think Fred would
do anything that mundane.

I didn’t ask any more questions, but the next time I had a sinus infection, I’d definitely be asking for his help.

We entered Dr. Jamison’s plush waiting room and the receptionist immediately showed us into his plush office.

A man in a pristine white coat rose from behind a large desk when we entered. He was a tall, dark haired, good-looking guy of about forty. Maybe fifty, depending on how much work he’d traded with colleagues.

“Dr. Sommers.” He shook Fred’s hand.

Oboy. Now Fred was impersonating a doctor.

“Dr. Jamison,” Fred acknowledged then turned to me. “And this is Lindsay Powell.”

Jamison offered his hand to me. His fingers were big and gentle. I had expected long, thin fingers, but perhaps I was getting surgeons
confused with piano players. “So you believe you’ve found stachybotrys chartarum in the house I used to own in Pleasant Grove?”

“Uh…” I said.

Stachybotrys chartarum?

Fred sat in one of the chairs in front of the doctor’s desk and pulled me down to the other one. “In the basement,” he said. “No real problem. Ms. Powell is sure she can get rid of it. But I’m preparing to sell the house and I want to be certain I give full disclosure about everything. You know how obsessive people are about that sort of thing these days.”

Jamison nodded and sat in his large leather chair. “I do understand. There’s so much liability attached to anything we do anymore.” He folded his hands on his desk. The only other objects on the desk were pictures of a beautiful blond woman and two beautiful kids at various ages, babies to young adults. He was a family man. That was nice. “I can assure you there was no mold when I owned the house.”

Fred nodded. “
You’re certain? This mold appears to have been around for a while.”

“Old mold,” I contributed.

Both men looked at me. Perhaps I should have refrained from giving my expert opinion, but I was the mold expert. I cleared my throat. “Determining the age of mold is my specialty. Molds can be very clever about hiding their age. Sometimes it’s like they get a face lift.”

Jamison smiled tentatively as if uncertain whether I was joking.

Fred turned his attention back to the doctor. “Was there any flooding in the basement when you lived there? The big flood of 1993 caused a lot of problems in basements around this area.”

Jamison’s tanned face seemed to pale but maybe it was just an illusion of the soft, indirect lighting in the room.
However, he definitely clenched his hands a little tighter.

A flood phobia? Worried the mold was going to be another liability for him? I wondered if he had many of those, if he had pictures on one of those Plastic Surgery Gone Wrong websites.

“I never had a problem with that basement.” Jamison unclenched his hands and pulled a picture closer. The picture featured a younger version of him with the blond woman and two small children. “It was always dry. No flooding.”

“How long did you and your family live there?” I
t was a loaded question since we knew he hadn’t lived there at all. He already seemed nervous. Maybe I could push another button.

A sheen of sweat appeared on his unlined forehead. “We never lived there. I bought the house as an investment.” He kept his focus on the picture.
My mother would have smacked his wrists for such bad manners.

“An investment? I see. It would be a really big help if we could talk to the people who rented from you,” I said.

Fred gave me a barely perceptible nod of approval. I was getting good at the deceit business.

Jamison shook his head. “I didn’t rent it to anyone.” He still didn’t look at me.

“Nobody in the five years you owned it?”

Again he shook his head. “Nobody.”

“It sat empty all that time? That doesn’t sound like a very good investment.”

He finally lifted his gaze and gave a small, phony smile. “
You’re right. It wasn’t a very good investment. Lee’s Summit became the hot area, not Pleasant Grove.”

“
Even so, I’m surprised you couldn’t find anybody to rent it in five years.”

Fred frowned and I wondered if I was pushing Jamison too hard. I’d left the topic of mold far behind and was verging on nosiness.

Jamison licked his lips and refused to meet my gaze. “I was in med school at the time. My wife and I were having some problems. I planned to move into the house myself but…” He shrugged, lifted his eyes and tried the phony smile again. “We worked things out.” He checked his watch and stood. “If you need me to sign some sort of document specifying there was no mold in the house when I owned it, I’ll be happy to do so but right now I have another appointment.”

Fred rose
. “I don’t think that will be necessary, but thank you for the offer. I’ll let you know if it comes to that.”

We started out of the office which
had gone from hushed to almost vibrating with Jamison’s tension.

Fred turned back at the door. “One of the neighbors, Sophie Fleming, three story Victorian house across the street and up one, has found some mold
problems too. Did you know them? The Flemings?”

He swallowed
and his throat convulsed as if he was choking. “No.” The word came out as a loud whisper. “I never met them.”

I looked at Fred
. “Was that the family with the little girl? Carolyn? Wasn’t that her name?”

“No, that was somebody else.”

Indirect lighting or not, Jamison’s face went several shades paler.

Fred smiled. “Thank you for your time.”

He also thanked the receptionist on our way out.

I enjoyed it when Fred
did that. Slice them, dice them, make them sweat, but always with perfect manners.

I restrained myself until we were out of the cool, hushed building and back in the hot, noisy parking lot.

“He knows something!” I said as Fred emerged from the revolving door behind me.

He lifted an eyebrow. “He knows lots of things or he wouldn’t be licensed to perform surgery.”

I punched his arm. “Stop that! You know what I mean!”

He smiled and opened the car door for me.

To my amazement, Fred’s perfect vehicle had the audacity to be hot and steamy.

“He knows about the Flemings and he knows about Carolyn,” I said as soon as Fred got in. “He could be the one who killed her.”

He started the engine and turned on the air. “We definitely made him nervous, and it had nothing to do with mold. I’ll dig deeper and see what I can find.”

“And I’ll have lunch with my mom.”

Fred backed out of his parking space and looked at me. “Okay. Did I miss the change of subject?”

“My mom and her friends are well acquainted with cosmetic surgeons. I’ll see if she knows anything about this guy
—where he lives, how he treats his wife and kids. Maybe she’s even used him.” That was a creepy thought. Maybe my mother had kissed my cheek with lips sculpted by a murderer.

Fred put the car into gear and pulled slowly out of the lot, merging into traffic. “Quite a sacrifice for you to make. What if she doesn’t know anything?”

I shrugged. “I’ll have an expensive lunch she’ll pay for and for a few days she’ll quit nagging me to come to see her. It’s pretty much a win-win situation.”

*~*~*

I got home in time to call my mother and set up a lunch for Sunday, shower again, change into cutoffs, and make a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies before Trent arrived with a pizza. I’m not all that fast, but he was late. I’m not complaining since I’m usually the one who runs late, so it works out well if we both are.

Henry greeted Trent by winding around one of his legs then disappearing out the open door behind him. He had things to do and mice to meet.

I gave Trent a kiss and took the pizza box. “I made cookies.”

“I can smell them.”

We went into the kitchen and I got two cold Cokes while Trent took down the paper plates.

Usually Trent
doesn’t talk much about his work.
I can’t discuss an ongoing case
,
blah, blah, blah
. While that is definitely not a bonding experience, it does mean I get to do most of the talking and I really enjoy talking.

We sat down at the table and I helped myself to a slice of double pepperoni pizza. “How was your day?” I was just being polite. I really wanted to tell him about my day, about Paula and
Matthew and Dr. Jamison. 

He swallowed and wiped his hands on a paper towel, my version of napkins. His gaze was intense, not a lot of green sparks in his dark eyes. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what he had to say. “You got my curiosity up about your new neighbor, so in my spare time, I did a little checking and came up with some interesting details.”

I set my pizza down and beamed at him. “You did that for me? That is so romantic!” I leaned over and gave him a greasy peck on the cheek. “Tell me.”

He wiped the grease off his cheek and lifted his hands in a gesture of protest. “Don’t get excited. It’s all circumstantial, nothing that would seem significant if you hadn’t told me about Sophie seeing her friend killed.”

He didn’t refer to Carolyn as Sophie’s imaginary friend. That was a good start. “Go on.”

“Did Sophie give you any idea why her family moved to Nebraska when she was five?”

“No. I thought you were going to give me information, not ask me questions.” I took another bite of pizza, unimpressed so far with Trent’s revelations.

“Be patient. I’m getting there.”

If I had a quarter for every time I’ve been told to
be patient
, I’d have enough quarters to get my Cokes from vending machines for the rest of my life. “I’m the lady who gets speeding tickets while pulling out of my own driveway. What makes you think I have the ability to
be patient
?”

“Point taken. Okay, Robert Fleming was a business analyst with a local company here in Kansas City.
One promotion, good prospects for another. Jan was a stay-at-home mom, active in her local church. Story book family. Then one day Robert gave notice at work and they moved to Omaha. Less than a week later the parents died from a gas leak. Sophie was spending the night with her aunt or she’d have died too.”