Death by Chocolate

money.”
    “Or maybe Martin’s doing
everything on his own.”
    “Or maybe Louise is. Or
maybe it’s somebody else.”
    “Did you get anything out
of Burt Maxwell this afternoon?” she asked, sipping her coffee.
    “Absolutely nada. I
followed him to his house in Hollywood, where he told me in no uncertain terms
that I was out of line trying to question him on the day that they buried his
ex-wife. Slammed the door in my face.”
    “Well, he sorta had a point
there. Not exactly great timing, but what can you do?”
    “I’ll go after him again
tomorrow; that’s what. And if he gives me any lip, I’ll haul his butt to the
station and stick him in the sweat box. See how he likes that.”
    The “sweat box” was the
drab, gray interrogation room where the thermostat was always set at a
comfortable 85, no matter what the weather was outside. About eight by ten feet
with no windows, one door, one table, and two chairs, it was claustrophobic to
say the least. Dirk swore by the sweat box—claimed he could get anybody to
confess anything just to get out of there.
    Savannah thought it was
best used as a last resort, not a first line of offense. But then, she and Dirk
had disagreed on a lot of things in the rocky course of their relationship.
    “Maybe he’d talk to me,”
she suggested. “I mean... you’ve got a lot to do tomorrow, running down Streck.
After all, he’s our hottest lead at the moment. It’ll probably take you most of
the day doing a background on him, huh?”
    Dirk gave her a dubious
look—the one he used when he had a feeling he was being worked. “Yeah, I
guess.” ‘You don’t mind if I take a shot at him, then?”
    “No harm in trying,” he
replied. “But weren’t you going to talk to Louise, too?”
    “Yeah, I’ll drop by there
tomorrow morning. Mention to her that there’s nothing left of the family
fortune. That she’s getting zippo as an inheritance. I should be able to tell
by the look on her face whether that’s news to her or not.”
    “But if you can’t tell.... and if Burt won’t talk to you either... where does that leave us?”
    Good old Dirk, she thought.
Always walking on the sunny side of the street. She considered mentioning that
if the sky fell in and the world came to an end during the night, they’d pretty
much be out of luck, too. So why bother to live?
    But she had spent too much
of her life trying to teach Dirk the value of optimism. He was a lost cause.
Instead, she thought for several long moments, then sighed and said, “If you
don’t find anything on Martin, and I don’t get anything out of either Burt
Maxwell or Louise, I’d say it pretty much leaves us where we are right now—up
the proverbial, waste-polluted creek, paddle-free. Things can only get better.”
     
     
    An hour later, with Dirk
gone and Cordele in bed, Savannah found the time to soak away some of the day’s
stress in her own jasmine-scented bubble bath. Having placed two votive candles
on the edge of the tub by her feet and another two on top of the hamper nearby,
she was savoring the simple pleasure of watching iridescent bubbles sparkle in
the candlelight. They tickled deliciously as she scooped up mounds of the
glistening, fragrant froth and let it glide down her arms and legs.
    Savannah had always
thoroughly enjoyed being female... but never so much as when she was taking a
bath. Guys could have their showers; they didn’t know what they were missing.
    It was almost worth having
to shave your legs.
    Just as she was drifting
into a delicious trancelike state, she heard—as though from far away—an
unwelcome buzzing. It was coming from the cordless phone that she had left on
the hamper next to the candles.
    “I knew I shouldn’t bring
you in here,” she told the phone as she dried her hands on a nearby towel and
picked it up. “You seem to always know just when I— Hello.”
    A woman’s voice with a
sweet Southern drawl replied, “Hello yourself, Savannah girl.”
    “Gran.” She smiled and
settled back into the bath, the phone cradled against her shoulder. “You are
the only one in the world I want to talk to right now.”
    “You must be taking one of
your famous bubble baths.”
    “How did you know?”
    “You sound relaxed and
drowsy.”
    “Maybe I was in bed
asleep.”
    A chuckle on the other end.
“No, if I’d woke you up, you’d have been crabby and drowsy.”
    “That’s true. I reckon you
know me. How are you and everybody and everything back