Death by Chocolate

to me. He says,
“I’m going here, I’m doing that.” And I know he isn‘t. I call him a liar and he
says I’m crazy, I’m imagining things. I don’t know which is the worst, the
cruelest. Being unfaithful to me or trying to make me think I’m crazy. I hate
him. I may kill him. And when I find out who she is, I might kill her, too.
Especially if she’s a so-called friend.
     
    “Are you okay, Savannah?”
    Savannah jumped, startled
out of her reverie, and looked up to see John Gibson standing in front of her
chair, watching her with soft, compassionate eyes.
    “What? Oh....” She looked
down at the open diary on her lap. ‘Yes, I’m all right. Just depressing
reading, this journal. Eleanor’s life wasn’t pretty.”
    With the consummate grace
that was John Gibson, he sat on the end of the sofa close to her, reached for
her hand and folded it between his own. “I have to tell you, love,” he said, “I
wish I had never given you this referral. It has obviously cost you much more
in sorrow than it would ever have paid.”
    “That isn’t your fault, and
you have nothing to feel bad about. Anytime I take a job, I know that it could
end up badly. It’s the nature of the work.”
    He patted her hand. “But
not this badly.”
    “True. My clients usually
survive my services.”
    “And Mrs. Maxwell would
have, too, but for her health problems. I’m sure you’ll feel much better when
you get those laboratory results and know, once and for all, that she died of
natural causes.”
    Savannah glanced at her
mantel clock. “It’s after seven. Dr. Liu would have gone home by now. We won’t
hear from her until tomorrow morning at the earliest.” As though taking some
perverse cue, the phone on the end table next to Savannah’s chair rang.
    She gave John a quick,
nervous look. “Or maybe not,” she said, picking it up. “Hello?”
    A voice with a thicker
Southern accent than her own answered, “Hey, Savannah, it’s Cordele.”
    Cordele, one of her many
sisters in Georgia, was the one least likely of her eight siblings to ever
call. Savannah’s mouth went dry as she considered all the tragic possibilities,
starting with her octogenarian grandmother. “Cordele, what is it? Is Gran—”
    “Everybody’s fine. Gran
sends her love.”
    “Oh, good.” She placed her
hand over her chest and could feel her heart pounding. John was looking at her
with concern. “Everybody’s fine,” she repeated, nodding to John. “So, what’s
up?”
    “Me.... in a few hours. I’m
flying out there to see you.”
    Mixed emotions flooded
Savannah’s system. She loved all of her siblings dearly, but they weren’t the
easiest people on earth to entertain. And without much notice, and in the
middle of a case...
    “I don’t know if this is
the best time, darlin’,” she said as gently as she could. “We’re pretty crazy
around here right now and—” My nerves are shot to hell and back, she added
silently. “I don’t know if it’s a good time for a visit.”
    “I knew you’d say that,”
Cordele replied, “that’s why I went ahead and paid for the flight.
Nonrefundable, non transferable.... all that.”
    Savannah felt her nostrils
flaring slightly. They always did that when she felt she was being grossly
manipulated by a member of her own family.
    “You really should have
called first,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “I would have—”
    “You would have told me not
to come,” Cordele supplied. “And that’s why I didn’t call you first. It’s very
important that you and I talk. We have some issues we need to work through.”
    Those last few words caused
a trickle of ice to shiver down Savannah’s back. A psychology major in college,
Cordele could be a pain in the ass with her “issue solving.” She seemed to have
a never-ending supply of issues.
    “Really, Cordele,” Savannah
said, trying not to let her voice shake, trying not to start screaming, “this
isn’t a good time for—”
    “There’s never a good dme
to work through family problems, Savannah, but it absolutely must be done.”
Savannah’s hackles rose. Her sister’s authoritative, self-righteous tone made
Savannah want to box her ears soundly with a frying pan.
    “Cordele, if you want to
come out here and go to Disneyland or hang out on the beaches, fine, but I’m
not in the mood for—”
    Beep.
    Her “call waiting” had cut
in. She glanced at the caller I.D. and saw it was from the coroner’s