Death is Semisweet (5 page)

“He said we had signed a contract for him to provide some experienced production managers, to help train our people. They would report back to him and make sure we weren’t trying to sneak in any nibs from other countries.”

“Oh, I get it,” Claude said angrily. “He brings a bunch of spies in here to watch us, and when we go broke because of this exclusivity thing, he and his partners take over and they can use a sensible blend of nibs and make a killing. That’ll happen over their dead bodies!”

Junior smiled wanly. “I think the phrase is, over
my
dead body.”

Claude wasn’t in the mood to be corrected. “They plan to make money off our failure. But you’re right, it will have to be over someone else’s dead body, because
no one is going to run us out of business so easily. Did you check the contracts? Do we have to do what he says?”

Junior shrugged. “It states that decisions about second-tier production, when there’s a dispute, will be the authority of the West African Cacao Company, as they are the experts at refining, etc., etc. I’ve got the legal department going over it with a fine-toothed comb now.”

Claude pushed at his thinning hair and almost shrieked at his brother. “Now! Oh, great. Now’s the time to have legal on overtime, after the horse is out of the barn.”

“I doubt anyone in legal would have thought before this that a company would invest millions and then sabotage the product they’d invested in,” Junior pointed out. “Besides, it sounded good on paper, to have the folks who’ve already been doing that kind of work be here to guide us. Normally, you would take their advice.”

“So now, for the five million they threw in for this second-stage facility, they might be able to pick up a third-stage operation worth half a billion, that is, if they put us out of business. What a bargain,” Claude hissed. “Well, we’re just not going to let that happen. We’re going to make the best damn chocolate, no matter what it takes. We’ve been ruthless before. These guys don’t know who they’re dealing with.”

Junior looked back out the window at the back of the plant. “Yeah, we’re two wheeler-dealers in Kansas City who gypped the rest of our family out of millions of dollars. Watch out, world,” he said quietly.

“I know you’ve ordered beans from Brazil and Mexico and I don’t want you to cancel those orders. They won’t get away with this.” Claude grabbed the gift block of
chocolate off his brother’s desk and walked out.

Junior stared into space a few minutes longer, then walked over to the phone and dialed. “Janie, its Junior.”

“Hi, Uncle. What can I do for you?” The voice on the other end was businesslike.

“I just wanted to tell you, Claude showed me the package for the ten-pound blocks and you did a great job. It looks very nice.”

“Boy, Uncle, you really know how to throw around a compliment.‘It looks very nice,’ well, whoopee.” The voice had warmed up slightly, had a little tease in it.

Junior smiled. “That was a Midwestern compliment, Janie. I don’t want to spoil you. It looks terrific. You’re a good graphic designer.”

“Thanks, boss.”

“Janie, I would like you to come to this press conference we’re having down here at the plant on Friday,” Junior said, and hesitated, looking for the right words. “It would mean a lot to me to have you there, you know…”

“You mean as the only member of the rest of the Foster family that will speak to you?” The voice was laughing now.

“Will you come?” Junior tried not to ever talk about the family breach.

“Hey, I’m as curious as the next guy. Even though I’ve been working on the designs, I don’t really know what’s going down. So, Uncle, I’ll be there with bells on. Oh, by the way, sorry about the blimp, another thing I didn’t know about.”

“You know the marketing guys, always coming up with something. This time it didn’t work out very well. I’ll see you Friday then,” Junior said, hanging up the phone
absently. His mind was already on to the next thing: how to save his company.

M
arie Whitmer hadn’t really meant to listen in. Usually when the brothers were meeting together they didn’t even bother to close the door. It wasn’t completely closed this time. But Marie couldn’t help but notice when Junior came in that he was preoccupied, seemed worried today. Then when he’d told her about the fellow coming from Africa and others following him and to get them all hotel rooms, she could tell something wasn’t right. She’d worked for the brothers for twenty years. She knew them like the back of her hand. Yes, something was wrong. Proof of that was how Claude had just stormed out of Junior’s office, slamming the door of his own office shut. He never did that. He liked to be able to call to Marie instead of using the intercom.

Marie, feeling uneasy about what she was about to do, did it anyway. She picked up the phone and dialed, swiveling her chair to turn her body away from the brothers’ offices.

S
itting at the bar at the Fairmont Hotel, looking out at the Plaza, Oliver Bodden had to concede Kansas City was lovely. The lights on all the buildings were a nice touch. He looked down at the newspaper beside his martini glass, and smiled again at the photograph of the ruined blimp. Foster’s was already in trouble. The brothers might try to make light of this tragedy, but it wasn’t good.

“Quite a story, eh?” The woman sitting two barstools down gave him a smile and indicated the newspaper.

“Well, yes, it looks as if I’ve arrived in town one day too late for the excitement,” Oliver said in that lovely, clipped British accent of his. “Are you staying here at the hotel and did you happen to see anything?” he asked politely.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’m not a guest. I live here in town. I like to stop here on my way home from work for a drink, especially at Christmastime. It’s the best view of the Plaza.”

“And did it happen right over there, then?” Oliver indicated the shopping center out the window.

In twenty minutes the woman was sitting next to Oliver sipping a fresh glass of white wine, the Kistler Chardonnay. She had given him an amusing rendition of the demise of the blimp; it seemed she’d been doing some Christmas shopping on the Plaza at the time.

He looked sideways at her now. She was attractive enough and he did have the evening to kill.

“Can I tell you something without embarrassing you?” she asked suddenly and quite provocatively.

“Oh, dear, I hope so,” Oliver said with a smile.

“I love your skin. It’s so black its almost blue.”

Oliver assessed the woman again. “Well, I was born and still live in West Africa. My ancestors had the advantage over your American blacks of not having to have sex with the master, now didn’t they? Or if they did, slavery being a rather ugly part of Africa’s past as well, the master was as black as they, so we haven’t had much in the way of dilution. Thank you for the compliment, though. Would you like to have dinner with me? My business associates won’t be here for another day so I find myself without a dining companion.”

·  ·  ·

H
eaven went out into the dining room of Café Heaven and proclaimed to anyone who would listen, “I’m whipped. You all beat me up tonight.” She’d worked the saute station and now she headed for the bar. “Tony, dear, get me a glass of the Mount Veeder Cab, will you please, and Sara is going to give you the bits and pieces of what was left of the short ribs on some mashed potatoes for me. I’m starved.”

Chris Snyder and Joe Long, the two waiters who were also the producers of the Monday night open mike program came up and sat down by Heaven, one on each side. “What a great night. The place was packed,” Chris said as he worked on his check-out sheet.

“How’d you like the blimp piece?” Joe asked proudly. Joe and Chris, well known for their performance art pieces, had found some bright pink plastic plus wire from the hardware store and somehow made an outfit out of it that resembled a blimp only loosely. They walked out into the dining room in it with just their legs showing. The contraption was hooked up to a bicycle tire pump and the big pink thing then exploded, spraying a shower of Foster’s candy that the boys tossed throughout the crowd.

Heaven smiled and waited until her mouth was empty to answer. “In terrible taste but pretty damn funny, I must admit. I peeked at you guys from the pass-through.”

“I think the real blimp should have been filled with candy like ours was. It would have been a much better advertisement,” Chris said.

“Maybe the city wouldn’t let them drop objects from the blimp. Someone could get their eye put out with a peanut cluster,” Heaven said.

Joe turned around. “Oh, look, here comes ‘the city’ now.”

It was Sergeant Bonnie Weber coming in the door of the café. She walked up to the bar and Joe got out of his seat and bowed low to her. “Please, Detective, sit here. I’m on my way home. Heaven, don’t forget you promised to go with me to the women’s body building contest Wednesday night.”

Heaven looked up from her plate. “How could I forget? I’ve been looking forward to it for weeks. ’Night, guys.” The two young men went toward the office to check out.

Bonnie looked at her quizzically. “You have? Been looking forward to a body building contest, I mean?”

“Well, I’ve never been to one so it should be fun. A friend of Joe’s is competing and he wants to support her. What’s up with you, out so late? Are you off duty yet? Can you have a beverage of your choice?”

Bonnie shook her head. “Too many questions. Yes, I’m done. I had to go give a speech at the Westport Library, how to save life and limb in this busy mugging season. And I would love a Boulevard beer, please, Tony.”

Heaven hadn’t really given her friend enough shit about passing her sergeants exam, which she’d done earlier in the year. “Now that you’re in the big time, Sergeant, you get the big-time cases, like the blimp sniper. You get to go give speeches. You’re a BFD.”

Bonnie smiled. “Everything but the big-effing-deal salary.” She looked around. “It’s nice to come here without having a dead body to deal with.”

“Oh, now, you come for social reasons sometimes. You and the family were in here just last month,” Heaven
reminded her. “Why don’t I get the feeling this is just a social occasion?”

“Because you’re a cynical, with-it, new century gal, a gal who isn’t easily fooled, but a gal who will always do a favor for a friend.”

“Oh, brother. What is it?”

“Well, I seem to recall from our conversation on Sunday you’re going down to the Chocolate Queen tomorrow.”

“And?”

“By the way, I love the way Stephanie took your Barbecue Queen name and used it for the chocolate shop.”

“Yes, that way those that know her as a Barbecue Queen will already want to come to buy her chocolates,” Heaven said impatiently. “But I doubt you want me to talk marketing strategy with Stephanie. What
do
you want me to talk about?”

“Oh, you know, just try to get a little more information about this Foster family rift. I asked her again after you left on Sunday but she seemed spooked, not that what happened wasn’t enough to spook a person. I just thought that maybe someone on her side of the family had threatened to get even with those who had control of the hen who lays those golden eggs, or chocolate eggs in this case. They must sell millions of them at Easter.”

Heaven shook her head and pushed back her plate. “Tony, I think there’s one piece of flourless chocolate torte left back in the kitchen. Will you find it for me, please? And two forks.”

Bonnie’s eyebrows raised.

Heaven shrugged. “Beer and chocolate is a perfectly legit combination. So Bonnie, you want me to get my friend to confide some horrible family secret so I can rat it out to you?”

“Don’t be so dramatic. I need help here. I did a background check on the pilot and he led an extremely normal life. No big debt. No angry ex-wives. No known enemies. So I have to concentrate on the company angle and I just thought that if you were going to learn about chocolate, whatever that means, you could be the lovable but nosy person you usually are.”

“Well, I am curious, of course,” Heaven said, rather innocently. “I’d already planned to try to find out more about how the chocolate business works. I guess that could include a few questions about Foster’s. But if she confesses to something horrible, not that I think she will, I’m not sure what my moral obligation will be.”

Bonnie huffed and made a
puhttttttt
sound. “Stephanie was sitting with you when the sniper fired. I doubt that she could have taken down that blimp and killed the pilot by remote control. In other words, I’m not expecting some tearful confession of guilt that you’ll then have to feel guilty about telling me. Although she acted strange on Sunday. Do you think your friend Stephanie could have hired a hit man to avenge her mother’s honor?”

“I am absolutely certain she wouldn’t do that. On the other hand, I’ve been wrong before, as we both know. A week doesn’t go by that someone who hasn’t recovered from a divorce kills another someone, although it’s usually men who react that way. Jesus, Bonnie, don’t make me discover my good buddy Stephanie has gone over to the dark side.”

Bonnie wasn’t going to go there. “Stop being so dramatic. Just ask the kind of snoopy questions you’d ask anyway, okay? You’ll be aware if there’s anything I should know.”

Heaven turned and threw her arm around her friend’s shoulder. “Are you saying you trust my judgment?”

Bonnie signaled the bartender for another beer. “I wouldn’t go that far,” she said with a little grin.