Death by Chocolate

And
less tired. He took one of the leftover chicken salad sandwiches, pulled it
into three parts, and gave one to each terrier. They attacked the tidbits like
famished wolfhounds. And once they had licked even the smallest crumb from the
floor, they left the room, tails wagging.
    “Gilly’s the nicest part
about being here,” he said. “She’s a sweet kid. Louise needs to take better
care of her.”
    Savannah bit her tongue and
simply nodded her agreement.
    As he wiped down the marble
counters with a wad of paper towels, he gave her a list of his assorted duties.
“I’m supposed to be Eleanor’s driver—I live in the chauffeur’s apartment over
the garage and have for years— but I don’t take her out much, because she’s
agora.... agro.... something that makes you afraid to leave home.”
    “Agoraphobic?”
    “Yeah, that’s it. She
hardly ever leaves the property. Has everybody and everything brought to her.
So, I keep the cars in good shape, plant her precious lilies, prune her roses,
string gobs of lights all over the house at Christmas until it looks like a Las
Vegas casino. But I don’t know why we bother. She doesn’t throw parties
anymore. She doesn’t like having anybody in the house but us—you know, people
she knows really well.”
    Savannah locked eyes with
him. “And does she know all of you... really well?”
    He returned her pointed
look, then threw back his head and gave a hearty laugh that filled the house.
It echoed eerily, as though the sound were foreign within those walls. “No, I
don’t suppose she does,” he said. “If she knew half of what any of us say or
think about her, she’d send us all packing.”
    Savannah laughed with him.
Then she decided to let him have it, verbally, in the diaphragm, just to see
what he would do.
    “Who’s sending Eleanor
those hate letters, Sydney? Do you know?”
    He stopped laughing
abruptly and stared at her, slightly openmouthed for a moment. Then he walked
over to the garbage compactor and tossed his handful of paper towels into it.
“Could be anybody, right?” he finally said, “Like a crazy fan or....”
    “She thinks it’s somebody
she knows. Somebody here.”
    He sighed and leaned
against the butcher-block island. “Could be one of us.”
    “Us?”
    “Somebody who works for
her: Marie, Kaitlin, Martin, a member of the film crew, one of the gardeners.”
    “How about family?”
    “She doesn’t have that much
family. She and Burt are split up and now she’s just got Louise and Gilly...
and her sister, Elizabeth.”
    “Sister?”
    He nodded. ‘Yeah, Liz and
Eleanor are twins. But Elizabeth’s a lot nicer and better looking than Eleanor.
Beauty is as beauty does and all that.”
    Ah, Savannah thought,
there’s something to my evil-twin theory after all.
    “Are they close?”
    “They’re identical twins,
but Liz doesn’t come around here much. They’ve had a falling out. Eleanor’s
pretty much on the outs with everybody.”
    “So I gathered.” She
paused, thinking of the woman locked inside this magnificent prison, with
herself as the warden. “She must be terribly lonely.”
    But Sydney didn’t seem to
share her momentary pang of compassion. He shrugged and wiped his hands on a
dish towel. “If Eleanor’s alone and lonely, she deserves to be. She’s worked
really hard at it” Grabbing his tux jacket off the pantry doorknob, he said,
“Sorry, but I have to change the oil in the Jag and then separate some lily
bulbs. Catch you later.”
    “Sure. Later.”
    Savannah stood in the
kitchen, thinking for a minute or two, evaluating their conversation. She liked
Sydney, but she didn’t completely trust him. When she had asked him if he knew
who was sending the letters, he hadn’t answered her directly. And she had
learned long ago not to trust people who answered your questions with a
question of their own.
    Sydney knew more than he
was telling her; she was sure of it. And why wouldn’t he? When you did things
as intimate for someone as emptying their garbage and doing their dishes, you
learned all sorts of things.
    Of course, if you wanted to
remain employed, you also learned to keep such things to yourself.
    She took the list she had
made for Eleanor out of her pocket and scanned it:
     
    √ Reset security code on
house alarm system and activate it every night.
    √ Same with entry gates.
    √ Make sure all doors and
windows are secure before retiring.
    √ Get the shotgun out of the
broom closet and