Dying for Chocolate

The general lifted one eyebrow above his pale blue gaze. “Yes. He was only told he needed a ride home, he didn’t know about any of this . . .” He tilted his head, and I felt myself drawn into the deep furrows of his forehead. “Goldy. Don’t worry about anything. I have some work to do here, but I’ll pick up those keys and check on the car when I go over to the school later. Adele’s volunteered me to work at the pool site.” His look turned paternal. “Go upstairs and rest now. One of us will bring your son home.”

And then he rose, as if to dismiss us. I drained my brandy, even though I didn’t want it. I wanted to sleep.

When no one moved, General Bo said regretfully, “Putting in the garden today,” as if he had to leave momentarily for a meeting with the Joint Chiefs. He rocked forward on the balls of his new high-top sneakers and opened his eyes wide at me.

Oh, God! I jumped up. Putting in the garden!

“You have to go, you have to go,” I insisted to Schulz.

Schulz did not move. Perched on the absurdly fragile pale green chair, he eyed me and then the general. “Nothing so busy as retirement,” he said solicitously.

I grabbed Schulz’s hand and tugged. “You don’t understand, this is really big, he’s doing some—”

“Actually,” the general said with great seriousness and a glance at his watch, “what I’m working on is killing two birds with one stone.”

“Investigator Schulz,” I said in my most pleading voice, “it is imperative that we both leave immediately. Like now”

Schulz looked at me as if I were crazy. He said nothing and did not move.

“You see,” the general was saying blandly, “my field is terrorist technique.”

Schulz mmhmmed as the general glanced at his watch.

“How much time, how much time?” I demanded.

The general frowned. He said, “T minus two, I’m afraid.” Then abruptly, to Schulz, he said, “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

This was not the time for something about the general to attract Schulz’s attention. I knew the homicide investigator well enough to see a slight straightening of the spine, a narrowing of the eyes. Some other time, I begged mentally to Schulz, some other time! My eyes darted around the pink and green living room. White pillows dotted the floral landscape like marshmallows that suddenly swam as I struggled to concentrate. T minus two . . . where should we go?

“Get up,” I said sharply to Schulz as I pulled now on both of his big hands. “Get up, you have to go, we have to get out of here.”

Finally, Schulz heaved himself out of his chair. I glanced at the general. He was looking anxiously out the window, his forehead again wrinkled, this time in alarm.

An explosion shook the house.

“Damn!” yelled the general as he dashed out.

I lost my balance and fell to my knees. Schulz grabbed his chair. Dust and smoke rose before the living-room windows. A Waterford vase on the mantel teetered and fell. The boom reverberated in my ears.

“What the hell was that?” Schulz shouted.

I straightened up and gazed at him.

I said, “I tried to warn you. You wouldn’t listen. That was Putting in the Garden. Terrorist technique.”

6.

“Well,” Schulz said. He looked around the living room, surveyed the dust rising in front of the windows. Then he eyed me and shook his head. He held out his hand to help me up from the floor.

“Interesting folks you’re living with,” he said when I was on my feet again. “Almost as good as a problematic ex-husband. Want to tell me about that?”

I rubbed my bruised elbows and muttered a negative. Schulz shrugged and turned. I followed his saunter to the front door. Schulz’s presence, his great reservoir of calm, were things I was not yet ready to let go.

As if to reassure myself, I said, “I’ll be okay here.”

He shook his head again, took a deep breath. “Is there anyone inside this house right now? Or is everyone tending the aftermath of this garden bomb?”

Before I could answer, the phone bleated in the kitchen. I asked Schulz to wait and went to see which neighbor was going to be the first to complain.

But it was not a neighbor. In her role as vivacious volunteer, Adele was helping to coordinate a church music conference that would convene in Aspen Meadow in July. This call was from an Episcopal church organist and choirmaster in Salt Lake City. In a nasal tone, he demanded to know when Adele would return.

To my surprise I was able to put him on hold and press the intercom button to search out the general. He was not in the house. I got back on the line with the choirmaster.

“I don’t know when she’ll be back,” I said, then imprudently added, “I didn’t know there were any Episcopal churches in Utah.”

The choirmaster yelled, “Listen! I need to know if she got fifty copies of Songs of Praise!”

I said, “This is not something I know about.” Nor did I know why I expected someone who worked for the church to be civil, if not Christian.

“And who are you?” he asked.

“The cook.”