Dying for Chocolate

At the grocery store I bought ingredients for Shrimp Dumpling Soup, Chile Relleno Torta, as well as avocados, mushrooms, and baby lettuces for salad. Back at the Farquhars I spread everything out and began to get out pans to grease. My cooking concentration began to rev up, like the adrenaline some athletes claim after the first mile. Then the security gate buzzed.

It buzzed and buzzed. It was apparent that I had gone from live-in cook to phone answerer to butler and general factotum.

“Yes,” I said into the speaker. The closed-circuit camera showed two men in a dark sedan.

“Goldy Bear?” asked one of them. “We would like to talk to you.” Police officers.

I said, “I am unbelievably busy.”

“Just a few questions.”

“May I cook while you ask things?”

“We’d rather you’d take some time out.”

“Then you’ll have to come tomorrow.”

A pause. They looked at each other.

“You can cook,” said one.

I buzzed them through. A moment later, I opened the front door and drew my mouth into what I hoped was a threatening pucker. “My business isn’t in jeopardy, is it?”

“If we can just talk to you, Ms. Bear, we should be able to get some things straightened out.”

“Right,” I said as I turned to walk down the hall to the kitchen. “I can’t wait.”

8.

The cops introduced themselves and then sat down at Adele’s oak kitchen table. I readied my recipe for Chile Relleno Torta. If I made an individual serving, everyone would want a bite, and Julian would have no main dish. Anyway, when serving men a nonmeat entrée, it is essential to serve enormous amounts so as not to offend machismo. Otherwise, after you’ve cleared the ramekin or quiche or soufflé away, one of the fellows will innocently pipe up, “That was great! Now what’s the main course?”

“Ms. Bear?” said the first one, who was named Boyd. He was a barrel-shaped man with a short black crew cut that was not meant to be fashionable. One of his stubby carrotlike fingers held a ballpoint pen poised over a smudged notebook. “Were you the last one to talk to Dr. Miller before he got into his car?”

I removed brown eggs from the Farquhars’ side-by-side refrigerator and thought back.

“I think so,” I said. Then, “Yes, I was. He helped me load platters into Mrs. Farquhar’s Thunderbird.”

“This was at Elk Park,” said the other fellow, a stocky fellow named Armstrong who had thin strands of light-brown hair pulled over a shiny bald spot. He had the pasty complexion people get when they’ve spent too much time inside. I nodded.

CHILE RELLENO TORTA

½ pound cheddar cheese, grated

½ pound Monterey Jack cheese, grated

5 eggs

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 2/3 cups half-and-half

1 4-ounce can diced green chiles, drained

¼ cup picante sauce

Preheat oven to 375°. Mix grated cheeses and spread evenly in buttered 10-inch pie plate. Beat eggs, add flour slowly, and then beat in half-and-half. If mixture is lumpy, strain it. Pour egg mixture over cheeses in pie plate. Carefully spoon chiles over the surface, then spoon picante sauce over all. Bake about 45 minutes or until center is set.

Makes 8 to 10 servings

“Did he seem to be in any pain to you?” asked Boyd.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Pain? Like physical pain? Or psychic pain?”

Boyd said, “Philip Miller was late for the breakfast because he had just been to his doctor, according to his sister. Now we still need to talk to the doctor, but we’re just asking, how did he seem?”

I thought back to Philip. On such a dark and cold June morning, he had been as smartly dressed as ever in his black and white outfit and Ray Bans. There had been the usual smattering of resentful female glances and whispers as he’d made his way over to me, as if I did not deserve so lovely a man.

Wait a minute. Ray Bans?

“What kind of doctor did he go to?” I asked.

“We’re not at liberty—”

“Oh, shut up,” I said impatiently. “Was it an eye doctor?”

The two cops exchanged a look.

“Routine checkup,” said Boyd. “How’d you know?”

“Sunglasses,” I said. But I felt gloom descend again. So? He’d been able to see me across the room, he’d walked over, talked, walked back out to his car . . .

“What did he have to eat at the breakfast?” asked Armstrong.

I ran through that again and added, “His sister gave him some sausage cake. Just a bite, and I saw her do it. Nothing sinister.”

“You made the sausage cake?”

I nodded slowly.

“Miller and his sister seem to get along to you?”

“Of course. He helped her out with that health-food store—”

“He helped her out,” Boyd repeated.

“So what?” I said.

No response. I said, “Look, I can probably help you more if you tell me more. We’re not exactly talking state secrets here. I knew Philip was helping Elizabeth financially, I just don’t know how much.”

Boyd wrote in his notebook, stopped, then bit the inside of his cheek. He said, “The other two hippie-food stores in this town went out of business over five years ago. Hers was the only one left, because her rich brother had bailed her out with a six-figure business loan.”