Death by Chocolate

the mansion and garage,
passing an herb garden and a fountain bird-bath.
    “Okay,” she whispered, “I
see him. He’s with Gilly-Looks like they’re... building something.”
    As Savannah neared the spot
under a tree where they were, she could see that Sydney was on his knees,
painting a small house bright pink. Gilly stood nearby and looked as if she
were giving him directions as he brushed on the paint. Mona Lisa scampered at
her feet.
    Savannah’s heartstrings
gave a painful twang.
    He was building the girl a
doghouse for her new pup—a house that matched the mansion, right down to the
steep-pitched roof and white gingerbread trim.
    Not for the first time,
Savannah marveled at the complexity of the human spirit—how a person could be
such a bewildering mixture of good and evil.
    As she approached, they
both saw her and called out greetings. The puppy came romping across the grass
to attack her shoe. She reached down and scooped her up. The dog rewarded her
with a wet lick on her cheek.
    “Look! Look!” Gilly
shouted, pointing to the doghouse. “Sydney’s made Mona a cool place to sleep.
It looks like my grandma’s house and mine too. See?”
    “I sure do,” Savannah said.
She turned to Sydney, who was still kneeling on the grass, paintbrush in hand.
“That’s the most beautiful doghouse I’ve ever seen in my life. You did a good
job, Syd.”
    He gave her a pleased smile
and a nod. But then he took a second look. Something in her face must have
clued him that all wasn’t well. He placed the brush in the paint can, stood,
and wiped his hands on a rag that hung from his belt.
    “What’s up, Savannah?” he
said, trying to sound casual, but she could hear the tension in his voice.
    Gilly heard it, too. She
looked from Savannah, to him, and back to Savannah. “Yeah, what’s up?” she
asked.
    Savannah handed her the
puppy. “Is your mom at home, sweet stuff?”
    “Yeah, but she doesn’t want
me to bother her. She’s been all nervous since she got back from wherever she
was, and she took a bunch of her nervous pills. She told me to get lost and not
be a nuisance.”
    “Oh, okay. How about
Marie?” Savannah asked. “She’s home. I saw her a while ago.”
    “Then would you do
something for me? Would you go knock on her door and tell her I’m here talking
to Sydney. Ask her if she would please watch you for a little while. Okay?”
    The girl’s bottom lip
trembled, and she looked down at the pink and white confection of a doghouse.
“Why can’t I stay here with you guys? I want to watch Sydney paint Mona’s
house.”
    “Sydney and I have to talk
about some grown-up stuff,” Savannah told her. “I’m sorry, but you really need
to go stay with Marie for a while.”
    Gilly huffed and puffed a
couple of times, but she finally walked away, holding the puppy close to the
front of her T-shirt. “All right, Mona,” she muttered as she left, “we know
when we’re not wanted. They’ve got ‘grownup stuff to do.”
    After the child had gone,
Savannah and Sydney were silent, a thick tension in the air between them.
Finally, he said, “So.... what is it? What do you want with me?” Savannah
locked eyes with him and took a step closer. “I know you did it, Sydney. And
I’m pretty sure I know why. I think if you turn yourself in, you might be able
to cut some kind of deal.”
    “What are you talking about?”
He kept wiping his hands on the cloth and staring at them as though they
belonged to someone else.
    “Don’t, Sydney. We don’t
have time to play games. I know you killed Eleanor. You’re the one who put the
phenylprophedrine in the cocoa, knowing that she was going to use it in her
cake that night. I know you put the empty bottles and capsules back into the
plastic bag from the pharmacy and threw it into the Dumpster by the Lucky
Shamrock, where you have your beer every night.”
    He shook his head. “No. It
wasn’t me. It was the person who sent those threatening letters. It was Louise.
You know that. That’s why the cops arrested her.”
    “And they also released
her, as you know.”
    “Yeah. I was wondering why
they let her go.”
    “Because they found out
that she wasn’t even in town when that kid from the pharmacy dropped off the
phenylprophedrine. That means somebody else sent him the love letter, asking
him to get the stuff for her, and they signed the note with her name—a pretty
good copy of her signature.”
    “But the threatening
letters....?”
    “Same