Truffled to Death (A Chocolate Covered Mystery)

When the going gets toffee . . .

A state police car crested the hill in front of me. I stopped, resisting the urge to run into the stand of trees on my right, knowing that trouble was about to ruin my day.

I waited on the side of the road, hands on my hips. Sweat pooled on my lower back, not all of it a result of my exercise.

Sure enough, Detective Roger Lockett slowed to a stop beside me, his arm on the open window. He looked at me through reflective sunglasses, smiling a little. Probably because I was a sweaty mess.

The last time I’d seen him was when he’d grudgingly told me the inside scoop on the deal to put two murderers behind bars for a long time. Two murderers that Erica and I had helped uncover. And then he’d demanded that I stay far away from police work in the future.

I’d readily agreed, convinced I’d never need to.

“Bad news?” I asked.

“That’s the only kind I deliver,” he said.

My chest constricted at his confirmation. “Leo?”

“No,” he said emphatically. “Your brother’s fine. At least as far as I know. It’s about Dr. Moody.”

I relaxed just a little. “Did he take off to Bora Bora with his ill-gotten gains?”

“Nope,” he said, his eyes on me. “He’s dead.”

Berkley Prime Crime titles by Kathy Aarons

DEATH IS LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES

TRUFFLED TO DEATH

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

TRUFFLED TO DEATH

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2015 by Penguin Random House LLC.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

For more information, visit penguin.com.

eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-62103-5

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / June 2015

Cover illustration by Mary Ann Lasher.

Cover design by George Long.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

This book is dedicated to Shaina and Devyn Krevat—you make me proud every single day!

I’d like to thank Jessica Faust, my amazing agent, and Robin Barletta, my wonderful editor, for making my publishing dreams come true.

I cannot gush enough about the marvelous cover art of this book. Thank you to Mary Ann Lasher for perfectly capturing the theme!

Once again, this book (and my sanity) wouldn’t exist without the help, and patience, of my critique group, the Denny’s Chicks: Barrie Summy and Kelly Hayes.

A mountain of gratitude to Dr. Joe Ball, Professor-Emeritus, San Diego State University, and my expert on all things Maya. He graciously answered my endless questions and contributed plot suggestions that have made their way into this book. I could not have written this book without him!

It truly takes a village to launch a new book series, and I appreciate all of the family and friends who bought books across the country, attended my book signings, and spread the word, especially: Jim and Lee Hegarty, Pat Sultzbach, Manny and Sandra Krevat, Donna and Brian Lowenthal, Patty DiSandro, Jim Hegarty Jr., Michael Hegarty and Noelle DeMarco, Matthew and Madhavi Krevat, Jeremy and Joclyn Krevat, Lori and Murray Maloney, Lynne Bath, Amy Bellefeuille, Sue Britt, Cathie Wier, Joanna Westreich, Susan and Terry O’Neill and the rest of the YaYa’s, my Moms’ Night Out group, and my long-suffering and incredibly supportive book club. Thanks so much to publicist extraordinaire Danielle Dill.

A special shout-out to Terrie Moran, author of
Well Read, Then Dead
, for her friendship, encouragement and book promotion advice.

Special thanks to the following experts for unselfishly sharing their knowledge:

Isabella Knack, owner of Dallmann Fine Chocolates, the best chocolates in the world.

Elaine Payne for her expertise as a chocolatier and pâtissier.

Dr. Josh Feder for his expertise in treating PTSD and depression, and Caron Feder for her event planning knowledge, and both of them for being untiring cheerleaders for my writing.

Jill Limber for her cat knowledge that led to Coco’s multiple identities.

Dr. Susan Levy for her medical knowledge.

Lori Morse for her special event planning expertise, theater knowledge and years of friendship.

Judy Twigg for her expertise in the world of academia and being a typo-finding guru.

Julie Gill for her enthusiastic help exploring Frederick, Maryland.

Kristen Koster for her Maryland knowledge.

Any mistakes are my own.

And most important, thank you to Lee Krevat, for twenty-four years of unending support, laughter and love.

“I
t’s so beautiful,” I practically cooed at the plain clay bowl sitting just inches from my face behind the glass. My fingers were itching to hold it.

“My niece could do better.” My assistant manager Kona laughed at me as she scooted by with a silver, multitiered tray of appetizers to place on a small table.

My eyes moved to the detailed figurine of a Maya ball player wearing an ornate headdress and what looked like a sumo wrestling belt around his waist. Sports equipment sure had come a long way in the past few centuries. A large plate beside it showed a colorfully dressed member of royalty reading a book. Like from a thousand years ago. With the rest of the Central American antiquities artistically placed on dark red velvet, the display seemed to be made just for our store.

We were about to open our doors for Chocolates and Chapters’ reception celebrating the recent donation of Maya art by the River family to the Baltimore Museum of Man. Since founding West Riverdale, Maryland, in 1860, the Rivers had been pillars of local society, and no one was surprised by their generous gift.

Our store looked fabulous. It was well over a year ago that Erica Russell and I had removed the wall between our businesses to create the best combination ever—my gourmet chocolate shop and her family bookstore.

Tonight, we’d rearranged a few bookshelves and pushed our comfy, mismatched couches and tables against the walls to open up our dining area for the guests who were soon to arrive. Colorful flower arrangements of varying sizes and strategically placed tea lights had transformed our normally homey shop into an elegant party area. We’d pulled up the blinds and our place glowed from every window. Erica had taken a lot of photos for the website, hoping that tonight’s party would lead to more customers paying to hold their events here.

We’d closed early for a Saturday night, giving plenty of notice to our regulars, especially May Jensen, owner of next door’s Enchanted Forest Flower Shop, and the supplier of tonight’s arrangements. May and her best friend, Nara Prashad, stay-at-home mom turned bed-and-breakfast manager, had decided that my chocolate was their good luck charm in meeting men.

They looked as different as could be—May liked to say she was fifty pounds away from being a plus-sized model, and Nara was originally from India and as tiny as May was big. They’d become best friends while attending a perimenopausal support group and went out manhunting every Saturday night.

I suspected that they enjoyed the looking more than the having because they were in our store getting giggly over Champagne Milks and Spicy Passion Darks week after week.

I’d assumed this evening would be just another opportunity to spread the word about my fabulous chocolates and Erica’s amazing books, but then I’d learned that the small brown bowl had trace elements of theo-something-or-other, which translated chemically into
chocolate
. This bowl held chocolate over eight hundred years ago.

Mine
, my soul said. The security guard hired for the event eyed me a little suspiciously while he adjusted his belt and then crossed his arms over his potbelly. Drooling on the glass would be unacceptable.

I sighed and went back to arranging my chocolates. Besides my always-popular Mayan Warriors with their spicy cayenne pepper kick, I’d designed several new flavor combos that were sure to delight our guests: tangy Aztec Pineapple Milks, Rain Forest Bananas Foster with a hint of rum, and my favorite, the pyramid-shaped End of the World Caramels. Erica had told me how historically inaccurate my names were, but the great majority of our guests would care about that as much as I did. Which wasn’t much at all.

She’d already given me the lecture about how the correct term was
Maya
;
Mayan
referred only to their language. It hadn’t helped me to point out how
Mayan
was used all over the place and that changing my packaging to correct it to “Maya” would take time.

Erica was prepping her table display of
Secrets Revealed in Maya Art
, a beautiful coffee-table book of pottery much more colorful than “my” bowl. The book was causing some kind of uproar in the world of anthropology, but I’d tuned
out as soon as Erica started talking about pre-Columbian, Mesoamerican something or other.

Erica’s sister, Colleen, came running in from the back, tugging her black dress into place and smoothing her hair. “Sorry!” she said. “Mark was late picking up the kids.”

She was in the middle of a divorce that was remarkably amicable given that Mark had cheated on her. I’d have strung him up. Or at least taken him for everything I could.

She hurried over to the bookstore cashier counter to handle sales of the Maya and other books. “This place looks amazing!”

“Thanks.” I did a quick review of the whole store. “Do you need anything over here?”

“Nope,” she said cheerfully. “Unless you can sneak over some of that yummy food I’m smelling from the kitchen.”

I scowled. While I was glad the Rivers had hired a catering company to handle the appetizers, and
really
grateful I was being paid for the truffles we’d made for the event, it drove me crazy to have someone else using my kitchen.

Ever since I’d scraped together the money to open my chocolate shop, the only people who’d cooked there were me and my assistants. The thought of other people in there made my skin crawl.

Especially Juan Aviles, owner of El Diablo Restaurant. Not only had he sniffed at the size of my kitchen and said, “I guess this is sufficient for cooking your little chocolates,” he was constantly berating his staff. I guess he’d decided to follow in the footsteps of Gordon Ramsay. Or he was just a jerk.

Vivian River had promised me they’d bring their own pots and utensils, but my assistant Kayla had caught them digging through a drawer for a melon baller and given them the evil eye.

“I’ll work on the food,” I told Colleen. “How are the kids?”

“Good.” She shrugged. “They’re hanging out with ‘Dad’s friend’ tonight.”

“Oh,” I said. And then I realized who the “friend” was. “Oooh. Sorry.”

She shook her head. “It’s good that they like her. It’s just . . .”

“I know,” I said. “It’s hard.” I didn’t really know. Who could?

Luckily, Erica saved me by calling from the dining area. “Ready, Michelle?” Her smile was totally stressed out.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked her.

“I’m fine,” she said, her smile stretching so tight I thought her lips would crack.

“Because ever since you told me about this whole thing, you’ve been weird.” After two years of working together and being housemates, I knew Erica better than almost anyone, and I’d never seen her this edgy.

Like every other time I’d asked her, she shrugged it off. “I’m fine.”

At least the reception would be over soon and Erica would go back to her normal, happy self.

This was our first big event since Colleen had handed over management of the bookstore side of our space to Erica and gone back to school full-time. Maybe Erica’s tension was due to the added responsibility of keeping the family business going all by herself.

Just as I was asking Kona to make sure some of the appetizers made it over to Colleen, Dr. Smug came in the back door, wearing a tux. Okay, his name was Dr. Addison Moody, which also said a lot about his personality and the reality of self-fulfilling prophecy. He was the hero of the evening, a
university professor turned museum curator who had put together the arrangement between the River family and the museum. It was win-win-win for them all: The Rivers got to be the gracious, richer-than-anyone-else-in-town family who had so much money they could donate a bunch of centuries-old art without blinking. The museum got not only the art but also a chunk of money to create a permanent display for them. And Dr. Moody probably got a big bonus for bringing in such a huge deal. He was also planning to research all of the pieces and publish papers about his findings.

Something about this guy made me feel anxious and I wasn’t sure why. He looked the part, like every professor on TV—tall, with thick, curly brown hair a little too long and graying at the temples in a dignified way. He had big brown eyes, and an enthusiasm for everything, which was contagious to everyone except me. It just made me nervous, like he was sucking his energy from everyone around him. One of those people who swept you along in his enthusiasm because it appeared so genuine. Childlike, which might seem somewhat gross for someone in his forties, but was more like Willy Wonka than Hugh Hefner.

At the moment, Dr. Moody looked very elegant in his tux as he gazed around the store, beaming.

Erica smiled even brighter, if possible, and asked him, “What do you think?”

“It looks wonderful,” he said and walked over to the display case. “Look at my beauties.” He stood staring as if he couldn’t believe it.

I felt drawn to the art as well and joined him in silent admiration.

He leaned over to peer closely at a tall vase in the center of the display, a tiny spotlight emphasizing the rich colors of the detailed artwork depicting a seated man wearing a blue headdress. Erica had told me the man was a Maya lord gazing in a mirror being held by a servant. A few small pointed tubes were strategically placed around the base.

“Just think what wonders they’ve seen,” he said reverently. “Used by the royal families for their religious ceremonies, and even their humble meals.”

He pointed to a battered diary that looked like it had traveled in Indiana Jones’s pocket. “It seems rather embarrassed, don’t you think? Surrounded by so much glory.”

The late Bertrand River had recorded his travels in that diary. He’d been the black sheep of the industrious River family, taking off for years at a time to explore ruins in Central America. There’d recently been whispers about the legality of bringing these pieces back. Maybe silencing the rumors was one of the reasons for the donation.

Our reverie was interrupted by Dr. Moody’s assistant, who walked in from the back hallway with her perpetual frown.

There was no nice way to say it. Lavender Rawlings looked like a frog. And her oversized glasses and blunt pageboy haircut only enhanced the impression. She was the opposite of the professor’s vitality. A true buzzkill. It probably had something to do with her peevish expression and her sniff of disapproval at everything.

Maybe her lack of energy somehow balanced the professor’s exuberance. Like she grounded him or something.

Tonight she wore what would be a stylish cocktail dress
on anyone else. It had beautiful needlework and sequins on the bodice, showing off what wasn’t a bad body if she would stand up straight and not walk like a mole in her black flats.

Erica would tell me I was mixing my animal metaphors.

Not that I’m a fashion plate. I was usually happy to find something to wear that didn’t have chocolate stains, but tonight I could almost pass for chic. Erica had insisted on taking me shopping in Frederick and bullied me into trying on a dress that gathered in a high waist and then draped into a frothy blue and green skirt. It made me feel utterly feminine.

For some reason, Erica had chosen to go totally professional, with her most boxy black pantsuit. But even with her blond hair pulled back into a tight bun and her eyes hiding behind her librarian glasses, she managed to look sophisticated and sexy.

Lavender didn’t bother with a greeting. “There’s a cat out back trying to get in.”

I groaned internally. Coco was a brown tabby who’d arrived in town a few months before and been quasi-adopted by almost every shop on Main Street. At first, she’d refused to go inside any of our stores, but lately it was hard to keep her out.

It didn’t take long to figure out why: she was pregnant. We’d all stupidly trusted Reese Everhard, owner and editor of the town’s newspaper, who had assured everyone that Coco was a neutered male.

I resisted the urge to check on the cat as Erica said, “It’s time,” and made a gesture for me to take off my apron.

I hurriedly threw it to Kayla, who stuffed it behind the counter. Kona opened the door with a flourish just as the River family’s stretch limo pulled up.

Maryland’s early September weather had cooperated
nicely with our party, the summer’s brutal heat and humidity having grudgingly left the week before. A cool breeze brought in the smell of star lilies from the flower shop next door. May had decided to have her assistant work in order to show off her wares to the visiting Maryland royalty.

A camera flashed from across the street as Reese took photos, dodging a black SUV to get shots of the River family. I couldn’t resist watching them arrive. The town gossips followed the Rivers as much as the latest Miley Cyrus debacles, and we all knew far too much about the whole family.

Vivian River, grandniece of explorer Bertrand River, was the first one out.

Vivian terrified me. She was one of those graciously wealthy, always totally put-together women who sported the latest designer clothing for the rich and not
too
fashionable. She was very unlike me: tall and thin with her hair ruthlessly under control.