Dying for Chocolate

“He was,” I said without hesitation. “He did lots of good things in the community. And I know he adored you. Very much.”

I didn’t know if she knew I was lying, but she started crying anyway. A startled face appeared at the kitchen door: What had I said to cause such an outburst? I waved the person off and left the recliner to sit next to Weezie.

I said, “It’s okay,” and patted her back.

“He didn’t love me,” she sobbed.

“Sure he did, yes he did, he told me so himself.”

“He did?” She sniffed and opened the red eyes wide at me. “When?”

I stalled. I said, “Let’s see, let me think. When did he tell me he loved you. Why, uh, during that party last night, when he helped me with the dessert.”

“I thought I heard you two arguing up there.”

“Oh no, it was just something about the dessert. You know.” As white lies went, it didn’t sound too bad.

Weezie snorted and said, “Did he tell you where he was going after we went to bed? Did he say he was going to meet somebody?”

“Gee, no, I don’t think so. No, definitely not. Probably he had insomnia, Weezie. I have it myself.”

“And do you go swimming to get rid of it?”

“Well, no, that never occurred to me “

She burst out crying again.

“He was jealous,” she said between sobs. Her eyes narrowed in a glare of accusation. “He thought I was seeing Philip Miller,” here she lowered her voice, “that I was sleeping with him. That was a lie, a grotesque rumor.”

“It’s a small town,” I said, again trying to sound consoling. “You know how people talk.”

She was not listening to me. Her head was in her hands. “I just wanted him to love me,” she said fiercely. “That was all I wanted.”

I felt the molecules in my hand draw back, draw away from Weezie as my mind began to spin. I had learned something from “The Purloined Letter.” The narrowed possibilities had been before me all along. I murmured something about needing to go look for Arch and made my exit.

Philip had known Brian’s life had been in danger. He had started to tell me about it. He had wanted my help, and that was why he had called me before the Elk Park Prep brunch. It was this that someone had heard on the phone. This that had prompted the incident in the Aspen Meadow Café.

J want to talk to you about food, Philip had said to me.

But why? Because I was the one who was researching the question, Can you make someone love you?

They had found Spanish fly in Philip’s briefcase after the accident. The accident that was not an accident.

I rushed back to the Farquhars and took the Mace inside with me. There was something I had to find, something I had seen only once. I came through the security gate and crept around the house. The general had fallen asleep on the deck with his mouth open. His loud, drunken snore reverberated through air cooled by the late shower. I put one of the crocheted afghans over him and tiptoed into the study.

Where would it be? I searched through drawers. The clock in the study clicked the minutes away. I hauled out a pile of papers and sifted through them. Nothing. The general’s file cabinet was next. The first drawer held everything from Army to Explosives: Conventional, History of, New, through Intelligence, Domestic, Foreign. The first file in the next drawer was given over to IRA and the last was half an inch of papers on Qaddafi, Muammar. The last drawer started off Radicals and ended with War. Now that was a cheerful thought. I slammed the drawers shut, then had an idea. Intelligence, Domestic. The file nearly fell through my hands. Within a minute I held the piece of mail I had been hunting. I put it on top of the pile from the desk and sat down.

The envelope had been addressed to Julian. That was what had thrown me off.

Inside was his birth certificate.

Why was it in the study, concealed in a file? I put the certificate back in the envelope and tapped it with my finger. Because. Because unknown to the Bureau of Vital Records, and unknown to Julian, someone else had been the first one to do the seeking.

I heard a small noise behind me. I looked up. My hands covered the address on the envelope. The ink seemed to burn through my fingertips.

Adele gave me a polite, inquiring look. She said, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

28.

I bluffed. “Actually, no,” I said with a smile I hoped was both apologetic and casual. I had to get information from her, had to find out about Julian’s past and her own. And how much other people knew, like the general. I had to stall until Bo woke up. I also knew that in a potentially dangerous situation like this, I had to call Schulz.

I said, “Arch is missing. Have you seen him?”

She shook her head and pulled her mouth into an O of surprise. “No . . . where could he be?”

“I’ve looked all over the neighborhood, and Marla is calling his friends. Did you see him go out with Julian? The general doesn’t seem to know anything.”