Death is Semisweet (12 page)

Every Santa had their own music and they walked the catwalk to everything from “Jingle Bells” to a Calypso version of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” played on steel drums. Then each Santa had to answer a question, something about if he could have one gift, what would he ask for. It was just like the Miss America contest. Heaven could see this was going to take another hour.

“What do you say we make a snap judgment on beauty alone and go eat?”

Joe and Kathy nodded and they marked their ballots and handed them to the volunteer.

“So, who did you two vote for?” Joe asked as they headed for the door.

“I went with the traditional, the guy with the real beard that was so perfect,” Kathy said.

“And I had to go with the fashion victim, the one with the tie-dyed outfit with the rhinestones and the high tops instead of boots,” Heaven confessed.

“I voted for the one with the Marie Antoinette wig, of course,” Joe said as if it were a foregone conclusion.

They headed into the Classic Cup and Charlene Welling, the owner, took them to the front of the line, ignoring the dirty looks of the other patrons who were waiting. When they were seated by the window, just one table from where Heaven had dined last week with Stephanie, Heaven shivered involuntarily.

“What? Are you afraid one of those holiday shoppers will attack us for getting to a table before them?” Joe asked, glancing back at the line.

“No, I was sitting right there,” Heaven pointed to the table to their right, “last week, when all of a sudden, people started running and we heard shots and then the blimp came down and right after that, the pilot bit the dust.”

“Yeah, that was quite a deal,” Kathy said. “What do you think, someone practicing with their new deer rifle?”

Joe shook his head. “Not in the middle of the Plaza. Then Heaven was at the press conference at the Foster’s plant on Friday when some big shot from Africa was found murdered. Two bad things in the same week. It can’t be an accident. I think someone wants the fiftieth year of Foster’s Chocolate to be the last.”

A basket of muffins had appeared. Heaven grabbed a lemon-poppyseed version and slathered it with whipped butter. “But enough of boring old snipers and stabbings, let’s get to the good stuff. What happened with your gender test?”

Kathy looked away, her good humor gone.

For a moment, Heaven wanted to cut her own tongue out. But since she’d already opened her big mouth, she waited for an answer. She stuck a muffin in Kathy’s hand and smiled expectantly.

“The exam was short and hurt my pride more than anything. The doc was cool. She asked me if I’d changed gender, if I’d been a man earlier in my life. I told her I’d been a mother earlier in my life and she got a kick out of that. She took some blood and then did a pelvic and surprise, surprise, I’m a female. They can create a vagina out of nothing but they can’t create a cervix and stuff.”

Joe paled visibly at such intimate girl talk. These were not parts he was familiar with.

Their food had arrived. Heaven had stuck with breakfast, eggs Benedict, Kathy had gone for lunch, grilled salmon, and Joe was having both, pancakes and a grilled chicken club sandwich.

“So,” Joe asked casually, like he was asking about a recipe, “what did you do to that woman today to get even? She was a mess. Did you put a laxative in her sports drink?”

Kathy looked genuinely shocked. “I didn’t do a thing to her. She may not take body building and the competitions seriously, but I do, and I wouldn’t do to her what she did to me.”

“So, if you weren’t responsible,” Heaven asked, “and I have to tell you I wouldn’t blame you if you were, what was the matter?”

“It happens. I’ve never seen Jane fold like that, but she probably had low blood sugar. No food, the pressure, lots of B vitamins and some other supplements, and all of a sudden, you start to sweat and your stomach turns and you get dizzy. I’ve had the same experience.”

“What do you do so you don’t get sick?” Heaven asked as she stole a bite of pancake from Joe’s side of the table.

“I get up early and eat something. It’s ridiculous to take a lot of strong vitamins on an empty stomach. But some of these girls think the bacon and eggs will show up on the side of their bodies in a big lump.”

Heaven pushed her plate away after that image. It was empty anyway. “I admire you for not wanting to get even. Why was—did you call her Jane?—why was she on your case?”

Kathy shrugged. “Jane Anderson is a nutcase. I think she’s a former fat kid. Or a former anorexic. I can tell
she has issues around food. And she works for a food company. Ironic, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah? Which one?” Heaven said idly. She wanted a nap.

“Foster’s.”

Joe and Heaven both perked up. “Foster’s Chocolate?” Joe asked. “What does she do?”

“I have no idea,” Kathy replied.

“Isn’t life funny,” Heaven said. “I’ve never thought much about Foster’s until about two weeks ago when they called me and asked me to create a dish for this New Year’s Eve celebration. Now every day something happens that involves Foster’s, even at a body building contest. I feel like I’m being stalked by Foster’s.”

“I wish we had some right now—chocolate, that is, not stalkers,” Joe said as he got up and threw a wad of money down. “Anyone want to go Christmas shopping with me?”

Heaven got up and hugged both Kathy and Joe. “I’m going for a nap. Kathy, congratulations. Joe, thanks for brunch. Go around to Stephanie’s if you’re hungry for chocolate. She has these new treats, an espresso chocolate pot de crème in a chocolate cup. They rock.”

“Good idea. How are you getting home, though? We came together.”

“I know that but I’m calling a cab. You stay here and shop.”

Joe gestured to Kathy. “Let’s go have some chocolate, reserve champion.”

Kathy held her trophy over her head, much to the amusement of the rest of the café crowd. “Okay, then I’m taking this baby home,” she said with a big smile.

I
t was Wednesday, December 20th, the day Iris would arrive in Kansas City. Heaven was looking forward to it and dreading it all at the same time. She so wanted her daughter home but didn’t want to share their time together with Stuart Watts. She was also nervous about her ability to refrain from smarting off at Stuart and thus making her daughter angry. Iris had grown to adulthood without them going through the period of alienation that some mothers and daughters experienced. Heaven didn’t want to blow it now. So she filed the imminent arrival in the back of her mind and concentrated on Foster’s instead.

She parked her van in the parking lot of the Foster’s plant. For days she’d been thinking about what had happened on Friday. Who was the dead man really, besides someone the Foster brothers were glad to be rid of, and why had he ended up in the conching machine?

She’d attempted contact with Bonnie but every time she called, the sergeant was out of the office or in a
meeting. Heaven thought things must be breaking fast for Bonnie not to call her back, either that or she was avoiding Heaven’s theories. The only thing left to do was come to the scene of the crime herself on some flimsy excuse and hope to find some answers.

And as an extra added bonus she was going to look up Jane the body builder. She knew she was just being nosy, but at least it would keep her mind occupied so she didn’t have time to fret about Stuart Watts.

Heaven made a beeline for the offices of Claude and Harold. She’d called ahead and found out they were at a meeting and wouldn’t return to the plant until ten o’clock. It was now 9:30. That gave Heaven thirty minutes to talk to the help. She figured she’d get more information from them than from the big shots.

“Oh, hello,” Heaven said to the secretary who seemed to work for both the Foster brothers. Her desk was positioned between their two offices. She was the bulldog that had caught Heaven listening to the brothers at their office door. As they had never been officially introduced, Heaven decided to ignore that encounter. “I’m Heaven Lee, one of the chefs participating in the New Year’s Eve chocolate party. I called Claude, or was it Harold, and told him, whichever him it was, I’d pop down today. I have a few delicious ideas for the event.”

The secretary, a matronly looking woman who actually had her hair back in a bun, looked at her blankly. “When did you call? I don’t remember a call.”

Heaven gave her a big smile, playing a happy airhead. “Monday, or was it Tuesday? I’m sure your phone has been ringing off the hook, what with the unfortunate accident on Friday. I was here for the press conference, you know.”

The secretary bit. “I remember you,” she said tersely.
“But accident? I don’t know how you’d call it an accident when Mr. Bodden had a mile of wire wound around his neck, or at least before the brothers’ niece showed up and pulled it off.”

“Who was Mr. Bodden again?” Heaven asked in an unconcerned voice, like she really didn’t care and was just being polite.

The secretary’s face clouded up. Her look indicated there was something about the deceased she hadn’t liked. “Well, when the brothers—we all call them ‘the brothers’—decided they wanted to process the chocolate, not just make the candy, they went to several cacao growers, I think mainly in West Africa but they also went to Mexico, I recall. They were looking for someone who wanted to be able to take their product from the tree to the box to partner with them. Mr. Bodden was it.”

“Oh, I get it, cut out all the middlemen, eh?”

The secretary looked proud, then the pride disappeared from her eyes. “That was the idea.”

Heaven saw something to pick at. “But I’d guess by the fact that Mr. Bodden turned up dead that it didn’t work out like that.”

Alarm. The secretary took her defensive position, arms spread out from one side of the desk to the other, fingers locked on either corner as if Heaven was going to try to go through her drawers, looking for evidence. “The brothers, Harold and Claude Foster, have been my employers for twenty-two years and I have never seen them solve a problem with violence of any kind,” she said with pursed lips.