Death by Chocolate Read online

“Oh, Asa, how can you be so selfish? Really. This is not a game.”

  “I’ve done nothing but sacrifice my whole life. I had a career, but that was taken from me. I did the right thing, but got hammered for it. Now I want what I want. I’m tired of being left empty-handed.”

  “If you force Kelly to forsake his family, he will eventually resent you. After the thrill of being with you wears off, he will feel guilty and go home. You will be heartbroken and alone. This is not right for either of you. No happiness will come from this.”

  “What about your affair with Jake? He was married,” retorted Asa.

  “That was not the same thing at all. Jake didn’t know he was still married. He thought he was divorced and, Miss Know-It-All, his wife had been cheating on him. He wanted a divorce.”

  I was getting angry because hearing Jake’s name makes me sad. “Don’t bring up Jake. You don’t know what you’re talking about, but look at what happened. As soon as his wife got sick, he ran home. Both Jake and Kelly are honorable men, and they will do the honorable thing in the long run.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” spat out Asa.

  She could be such a little cuss. “You’re so stubborn.”

  “But you still love me?”

  “Just because I love you doesn’t mean I have to approve of your behavior. I’m very sorry to say this, but you’re acting just like your father,” I accused.

  I could see that made Asa blanch.

  “That’s not fair, Mother.”

  “It’s accurate. You go watch Kelly with his family. See if I’m not right. He loves his wife. Yes. Yes. Yes. I know that you are the love of his life, but he still loves his wife and his children. They are his life now, Asa.”

  “Ahhh, crap. Why does everything have to be so complicated?”

  “My advice to you is to clean up this relationship with Kelly. Give it an ending. Tell him that you’ll always love him, but that nothing can come of it.”

  “I’ll think on it.”

  “You do that.”

  “By the way, he’s coming over for dinner.”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, Asa.”

  “He doesn’t know that I told you about our . . . relationship. As far as you know, he’s just a friend coming over to see us both.”

  “Asa, you really take the cake.”

  My daughter gave me a willful grin. “You can pump him for information about Dwight Wheelwright.”

  “Okay, but no hanky-panky. I have to look his wife in the face.”

  “I promise.”

  “You’ll study on what I said?” I begged.

  “I’ll bend my mind around it.”

  “Ain’t fittin’. Ain’t fittin’.”

  I knew that my beautiful daughter was playing with matches and she was going to set herself on fire.

  3

  I served poached Cumberland River rainbow trout on a bed of polenta, with side dishes of wilted spinach flavored with bacon grease, and honey-glazed carrots. Dessert was a homemade cheesecake prepared with Kentucky-made soft goat cheese with a drizzling of pureed raspberries.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of your home-cooked meals, Josiah,” commented Officer Kelly.

  “Thank you. Asa helped me, as I can’t stand for long periods of time.”

  “Well, you both did a tremendous job. I’m really enjoying eating this. We usually don’t have time to cook a really good meal . . . with the kids and all. It’s just ‘get something hot on the table that the boys will eat.’ You know how it is when you’re busy.”

  “Too bad your family is not here to join us,” I said.

  Asa shot me a dirty look.

  “The wife took the boys to her parents for the holidays, since I had to work.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied, thinking Kelly had just told me a big whopper. “So that means you’ll be alone for Thanksgiving?”

  “I’m sorry to say I will be,” Kelly gave me a big grin, “unless you give me sanctuary.”

  “I will always have food and a roof for my good friend and the savior of that mangy mutt who has buried his snout in your lap.”

  Kelly gave a loud hoot while rubbing Baby’s ears.

  Baby responded by swallowing a large amount of saliva as he looked up adoring at Kelly.

  Asa advised, “You can push him away. He just wants something to fall from your plate.”

  “That’s not it. Baby knows that Kelly saved him and is giving him much deserved doggy love.”

  “I don’t mind, Asa,” assured Kelly. “I love the attention. We’re old buddies, aren’t we, Baby?”

  Baby swallowed again, and flicked his nose with his long raspy wet tongue before licking Kelly’s hands.

  “Ooooh, Mother, see what Baby’s done. He’s got drool all over Kelly.”

  “Asa, it’s okay,” repeated Kelly, grinning. “Really.”

  I kind of got the idea that Kelly loved the ruckus centering on him as I rose to get a wet dishtowel.

  Breaking his concentration on Kelly, Baby followed me into the kitchen and then back again to the table . . . a two-hundred-pound shadow thudding behind me.

  “Here you go, Kelly,” I said, handing him the wet cloth. “Baby, leave Kelly alone. He’s trying to eat.”

  Asa opened the patio door and pushed Baby out. We were finally able to enjoy our food in peace.

  “Kelly, the rainbow trout was caught by Dwight Wheelwright. He always gives me about six to a dozen trout when he goes on his fishing trips. He takes several a year. I guess I should say ‘gave’ instead of ‘gives’. Any break in the case?”

  Kelly took a bite of his cheesecake before committing himself. “It’s the darndest case I’ve ever worked on. We can’t come to any conclusion. Right now, it’s a cold case, as we have nothing to decide whether his disappearance was foul play, an accident or that Dwight just walked away.”

  “You don’t think he left town without saying a word to anyone. That doesn’t seem like Dwight to leave his family high and dry.”

  Asa spoke up. “People do walk away from their lives all the time.”

  “Was something going on in Dwight’s life that would make him just up and leave?”

  Kelly shook his head. “We talked to dozens of people – friends, relatives and no one had a bad word to say about Dwight. Hard working. Loyal family man. Good to his mother.

  “We couldn’t find any evidence of gambling, bad debts, women, drinking . . . nothing. Dwight was as clean as they come. I think the most trouble he got into was several speeding tickets. He liked to put the pedal to the metal.”

  “Ginny told me that Dwight always goes to the Falls for a fishing trip right before his birthday. This year it was going to be special as the moonbow at Cumberland Falls was going to be visible while he was staying at Dupont Lodge,” I related.

  “Ever since Dwight was in high school, he always went trout fishing around his birthday. He used to go with his dad, but since his dad’s passing, Dwight went by himself,” related Kelly.

  “The funny thing is that I ran into Dwight at a filling station several weeks before he disappeared. He told me that everything was great. His business was doing fine,” Kelly continued.

  “Did he mention the fishing trip?” asked Asa.

  “Yep. Said he was going around the first and would be back before the third. Said fishing trips were his time to reflect. You know, get his head straight.”

  “Did you notice anything odd about Dwight?” I inquired.

  “No. Dwight was Dwight. Happy. Bright. I never saw that guy down. The whole thing’s a mess,” remarked Kelly. “Asa, remember how much fun Dwight was in school?”

  “Yes, he was a very pleasant boy.”

  “So he wasn’t in debt. He had no vices that you know of?” I questioned.

  Kelly took another bite of his cheesecake before confiding, “His wife, Selena, said he left early on the morning of the first to go fishing. He was to be back on the night of the third. She was
planning a birthday party for him.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Yes, I was invited. We waited hours, but Dwight never showed. Finally Ginny called the police to file a missing person’s report.”

  “She called the Kentucky State Police and they called the local authorities. They found Dwight’s truck at the Grove Marina on Laurel River Lake. No signs of foul play. The car was locked and his wallet was in the car’s glove compartment with his ID, credit cards and two hundred dollars,” related Kelly.

  “And he had already checked out of the Dupont Lodge?” asked Asa while cutting another piece of cheesecake for Kelly.

  “Yeah. To me it looked like he checked out but wanted to get in a few more hours of fishing before heading home.”

  “I always thought he fished on the Cumberland River. I’m confused,” I stated.

  “The Cumberland River and Laurel River Lake are really a stone’s throw from each other, but I can see where Dwight might fish on the Cumberland one day and then try his luck on the lake the next,” answered Kelly, tracing a map on the table with his knife.

  “Were fingerprints taken?” asked Asa while folding her napkin.

  “The truck was processed but only fingerprints of Dwight and Selena were found.”

  Asa interrupted, “I take it the lake was dragged.”

  “Don’t know. The lake’s awfully deep. I know they had scuba divers.”

  I thought for a moment. “Was the Falls’ pool checked? I was thinking that perhaps he changed his mind and fished on the Cumberland River . . . fell and then was swept away by the current going over the Falls.”

  “An entire stretch of the Cumberland River down to the Cumberland Falls was searched including the Falls’ pool in case he had changed his location, but we are talking about two separate water systems. They found no sign of him at all in either the Cumberland River, the Laurel River or the Laurel Lake,” related Kelly.

  “But his cap was found six weeks ago in the lake,” I interjected.”

  “But that is the weird part, Josiah. The cap was his to be sure, but it didn’t look like it had been in the water for months. There was no discoloration. No mold. It looked almost new, just wet. Some fisherman found it in the water where the lake had been searched weeks earlier.”

  “Do you think it was a plant?”

  “Could be.”

  “So you privately think it was foul play?”

  “I knew Dwight. You knew Dwight. Did he seem like the kind of person to leave his widowed mother, his wife and baby girl? Not this guy.”

  “Yes, I’ve known Dwight since he was very little. I don’t think he left of his own accord,” I agreed. “I’ll tell you another thing that bothers me is Selena’s behavior. It’s like she’s not even grieving.”

  “What do you mean, Mom?” Asa asked.

  “It wasn’t but a few weeks after they found Dwight’s hat that she wants to have a memorial for him. It would seem to me that a distraught wife would hold out for a few more months before declaring her beloved husband dead.”

  Asa countered, “Maybe he wasn’t so beloved.”

  “I was thinking the same,” I replied. “Have the police looked into Selena?”

  “I’m not supposed to tell you this,” divulged Kelly, “but Dwight had a half million dollar life insurance policy.”

  “The wife did it,” declared Asa. She reared back in her chair with a smug smile on her face.

  Kelly shook his head. “That’s where this gets creepy. The beneficiaries are Dwight’s mother and his daughter. His wife was not included at all.”

  “That’s odd,” I responded, watching Asa pour some Port into glasses. “What does his will say?”

  “There is no will. I guess Dwight thought he had plenty of time to draw up one.”

  “If he was far-thinking enough to buy life insurance, why didn’t he have a will? It doesn’t make sense.” Now that I had Kelly in a talkative mood, I was going to squeeze every ounce of information out of him that I could. Yeah, I know I was taking advantage of his kind nature, but I had promised Ginny so I had to make good.

  “Not having his wife’s name on the life insurance policy tells me that their marriage might have had problems. That’s just not normal for Dwight not to include her,” professed Asa.

  “That’s what we thought,” revealed Kelly, “but she’s clean as a whistle. No one has a bad thing to say against her, except for Ginny Wheelwright.”

  “That doesn’t mean there weren’t issues. It just means Dwight and Selena kept their business at home,” I stated.

  I was suddenly tired. The thought of Dwight missing overwhelmed me. I was tired of death. I was tired of seeing good people get the shaft. It made me afraid. It made me angry.

  Kelly and Asa began clearing the table as I lumbered off to bed, but not before I let Baby in. He was miffed that he had been put outside earlier.

  “Baby, don’t be mad,” I whispered. “I’ve got treats in the bedroom for you.”

  Baby’s ears perked up at the mention of the word “treats.”

  Suddenly a thought flashed in my mind and then fizzled out like a burned match. It was something important about Dwight. Realizing that I knew an important fact about Dwight, I tried but couldn’t pull it up from the depths of my subconscious.

  It must have been something that I had seen or heard, but what was it?

  I could only hope that it would emerge on its own. Perhaps it would be enough to set things right.

  I could hope, couldn’t I?

  4

  I moseyed over to Ginny’s house and found her putting up missing person posters of Dwight several streets away.

  I opened the car window and leaned over. “Ginny. It’s cold out here. Let me take you home.”

  Determined to put up the rest of her posters, Ginny shook her head.

  “Come on, Ginny. I came to talk to you about Dwight. Come on now. My leg’s hurtin’ awful.” I always use that excuse to get people to do what I want.

  People are usually more compassionate than I give them credit for. They dislike being the cause of someone else’s physical pain. At least the sane people. I guess we can rule out sadists. When I run across one, I usually leave them alone. They’re joy killers.

  You know how I feel about suffering. I think suffering is crap and I have no use for those who like to suffer and those who like to cause suffering.

  Ginny reluctantly got into the car. “Someone keeps pulling down these posters. I can’t figure out who it can be.”

  “Probably some smart-ass teenagers,” I replied. “Listen, I want to ask you some questions.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did Dwight have a life insurance policy?”

  “Yes, I found out about it when the insurance company contacted me. They sent out an insurance man to talk to me personally. I had no idea before that.”

  “What did the insurance man say?”

  “Dwight had taken out a five hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy making me and his daughter the beneficiaries.”

  “Doesn’t it strike you odd that Selena was not named?”

  “Very.”

  “Does Selena have money of her own?”

  “No, she comes from a middle-class family. You know Dwight met her at church camp when he was sixteen. They have been thick . . . were thick as thieves ever since then.”

  “Ginny, you don’t have to change your verb tense for me. Speak like Dwight’s coming home tomorrow.”

  Ginny shot me a grateful look. “Selena has been getting on me for using the present tense. She says something happened to Dwight and that he’s not coming home. She says me talking like that gets on her nerves.”

  “Don’t you think that’s odd, Ginny? You’d think she’d be turning the state upside down looking for Dwight.”

  “Jo, I’ll tell ya. I never warmed up to Selena, but we were cordial with one another. I thought she was stuck-up . . . ashamed of her beginnings.

  “She was constantly harpin
g on Dwight to do better. Selena wanted a bigger house, a better car, fancy clothes. Nothing ever satisfied that girl.”

  “But they lived in a very expensive house and took exotic vacations. I thought Dwight’s business was doing well.”

  “It was. It is. He and Farley had so many accounts, they had to take on more employees. But it was very stressful, you know. That’s why Dwight would go fishing. Just to wind down from the office. But Selena was saying that she wanted a horse farm. Those farms cost millions of dollars. Even with the good money Dwight made, they couldn’t afford a horse farm. It was ludicrous.”

  “So Selena doesn’t have other income?” I asked. I wanted to make sure I got this information right. It never hurts to ask the same question twice to make sure you get the same answer.

  “As far as I know, she doesn’t. Her parents are still alive and in good health, so she won’t be inheriting from them for some time, and then it will be modest.”

  I coasted to a stop, looked around and went through the intersection. Glancing in my rearview mirror, I noticed a dark blue sedan with tinted windows behind me. I turned left onto Ginny’s street.

  The blue sedan kept going straight.

  “What was your reaction when you found out that Selena was not a beneficiary?”

  “I was taken back.” Ginny rubbed her good eye. “I thought it odd. Dwight was awful tired that year, especially the last month. He told me he wished Selena would get a hobby and leave him alone.”

  “So they were having trouble?”

  “I don’t know if I would call their marriage troubled, but Dwight was starting to seem perturbed about something. It could have been Selena harping all the time about money, or it could have been problems at work. Dwight was so closed-mouth. He wouldn’t open up to me.”

  I turned into Ginny’s driveway and stopped the car. “I just have a few more questions.”

  “Aren’t you coming in, Josiah?”

  “Naw. Take a rain check though. I just want to get this straight. You had no idea that Dwight had taken out a life insurance policy, let alone made you a beneficiary?”

  Ginny nodded yes.

  “Dwight seemed upset about something, or at least concerned, besides being tired?”