Obsession, Deceit and Really Dark Chocolate Read online

  Melanie ran her hand over the loose skin that draped from her neck. “I did know him, but something had changed. Eugene didn’t like secrets. He always said that a husband and wife should tell each other everything.

  “Let me give you an example,” Melanie said, apparently noting my incredulity. “Last year Eugene was trying to organize a boycott against The Da Vinci Code in keeping with the request of the Vatican. But I really wanted to see what all the fuss was about so I went ahead and bought the book, and once I started reading it I couldn’t put it down! I was just finishing up the last chapter when Eugene walked in on me. It was awful. At first I thought it was because he thought that reading it against the Vatican’s advice was a sin and that was clearly a problem for him, but what hurt him the most was knowing that I had tried to hide it from him. He saw that as a betrayal.”

  “Not telling him that you were reading a book that everyone and their brother had already read was a betrayal?”

  “I know it sounds extreme, but that’s just the way Eugene was.” I could have been mistaken, but I thought I heard a note of respect in her voice. “Lately I could tell that something was bothering him and yet he wouldn’t talk about it. It was so unlike him, and even though I couldn’t imagine him cheating on me I didn’t know what else it could be. We all make mistakes, and I thought that maybe he wasn’t as immune to temptation as I thought he was. I wouldn’t have left him, Sophie, I just wanted to know what I was dealing with. But now…now, he’s gone….”

  Fresh tears trickled down the pale skin of her cheeks and I felt the unwelcome pang of guilt. I shifted in my seat, unsure if I should offer an apology, condolences or just get up and leave.

  Melanie was right. I did think less of her. The dynamics of our relationship had changed so much over the past twelve years. She had started as my writing professor and then quickly become my mentor. When my father died I completely fell apart and Melanie had helped me pull myself together. After I graduated from University of San Francisco we had stayed in contact, meeting for coffee every few months. During our visits I began to see Melanie for who she really was: an intelligent, kind and altruistic woman with a lot of insecurities. Eventually she took a teaching position at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga and our visits became semiannual occurrences. That was my fault. It just seemed like every time she suggested we get together I had something else I had to do. When she got married to Eugene and moved to Walnut Creek our visits became even less frequent, although she never forgot my birthday or failed to congratulate me when one of my books hit the stands. I often thought of her but rarely picked up the phone to tell her so. I assumed that she was happily occupied with pursuits that didn’t involve me; perhaps mentoring another young writer. But looking at her now it was hard to admire her. For once it felt like I was the stronger one, the one with the most common sense, which was really scary since common sense isn’t always my strong suit.

  “I didn’t want him to die, Sophie.”

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to reassess the situation. Who the hell was I to give her grief? She didn’t give me a hard time when I told her I was getting a divorce after only two years of marriage, nor did she take issue with the content of the novels I wrote even though I knew they flew in the face of many of her religious beliefs. I leaned forward so I could take her hand. “Of course you didn’t want that, Melanie. I know that.”

  “It never occurred to me that we would end this way.”

  “It was just one of those awful random twists of fate,” I said. “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one could have foreseen this.”

  “Yes, a random drive-by shooting.” Melanie said the words slowly, as if trying to convince herself of them. “Or at least that’s what the Antioch police are saying.”

  I pulled back in surprise. “You think they’re wrong?”

  “They don’t know everything.”

  “What else is there?”

  “It’s just a feeling I have.” Melanie tucked a gray-streaked lock behind her ear. “As I said, Eugene was keeping something from me and he was so agitated and distant during the past few weeks. Definitely not himself.”

  “Okay, but to assume that his recent attitude change had something to do with his death?”

  “Thing is, he wasn’t just upset, he was nervous. All of a sudden he started looking over his shoulder when we’d be out in public. He’d double-, then triple-check the locks. For a while I thought that maybe he’d had an extramarital affair with a stalker, like Michael Douglas in that awful movie with the rabbit. In retrospect I feel terrible for thinking that, but still, something was wrong and I’m afraid that maybe, just maybe, that something got to him….” Her voice faded away once more.

  “Melanie, you need to talk to the police about this.”

  “I can’t! What if he was involved in something he shouldn’t have been? Reputation was everything to Eugene. If I did something to besmirch his name now, his memory would be tarnished—I just couldn’t!”

  But testing him to see if he’d make a drunken pass at a woman half his age was okay? I bit back the remark and tried to smile reassuringly. “Eugene wasn’t involved in anything that he felt was immoral or unethical. I’d bet on it.”

  “Sophie, forgive me for saying this, but you spent one evening with the man. You’re not in the position to make that statement.”

  “Okay, fine. Let’s say you’re right. What are you going to do? Are you going to keep this information to yourself even if it means that the person who killed your husband might get away with it?”

  “Sophie, I need one more favor.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I understand you’re dating a private detective. The newspaper mentioned it right after your brother-in-law’s killer was captured.”

  My heart fell to the bottom of my stomach. I wasn’t supposed to be upset by references to Anatoly anymore. He was an idiot. A commitment-phobic, womanizing, egocentric idiot…with an incredible body and a sexy half smile that sent tingles down my spine and straight into my nether regions.

  “Is he discreet?”

  “Hmm?” I said absently as I briefly entertained a multi-orgasmic memory.

  “Is he discreet?” she asked again. “Can I trust him to keep any information he digs up out of the hands of the media?”

  “Are you saying you want to hire him?”

  “I want to find out what happened to my husband, but I don’t want people to know that I’ve enlisted a detective outside the police department. This whole thing is getting enough publicity without making things worse.”

  “Ah, right. The thing is, Anatoly’s really expensive. For a case like this he’d charge you at least ten thousand dollars.” I wasn’t exactly lying. Anatoly had quoted that price to me before. Of course that was only because he was trying to piss me off.

  Melanie’s eyes fluttered at the figure. “He must be very good at what he does.” She nodded resolutely. “I’ll pay it.”

  “Really?” Note to self, those who possess American Express Platinum Cards cannot be scared away by high prices. “But…um…I don’t think Anatoly’s available.”

  “I see.” Her disappointment was palpable. I should have probably just put her in touch with Anatoly. No doubt he’d take the case and I could stay out of the whole thing. But for some reason I didn’t really believe that. I was the one who found Eugene. He’d want to talk to me about that. In fact he’d probably spend a lot of time questioning me, coaxing me to go over every detail and nuance. One thing would lead to another and before you knew it I’d be cuddled up in bed with my commitment-phobic Russian love god, sipping espresso. I just couldn’t go there again.

  “Maybe you don’t need a detective,” I suggested. “Maybe you just need someone trustworthy who’s sneaky, good at networking and knows how to craft well-worded, probing questions.”

  “Someone sneaky?” I could hear the hope creeping back into her voice. “You?”

  “And good at ne
tworking,” I said a bit defensively. “I could talk to a few people…just try to get a sense of whether or not your fears are founded. If they are, then we could call a P.I. to do some more digging. But if Eugene’s problems can be explained by the typical stresses of working on a campaign then you’ll leave it to the police to find the person responsible for what happened.”

  “So this would be a preliminary investigation…a fact-finding expedition, as it were?”

  “Exactly.”

  Melanie nodded slowly. “I suppose we could do that. Are you up for it?”

  I hesitated and thought about what exactly I was up for. A couple of years ago the very idea of using the amateur sleuth tactics I wrote about in my novels in a real-life situation would have been laughable. But within the past few years I had been stalked by a serial killer and my sister’s husband had been killed. I had been instrumental in solving both crimes and I got some satisfaction out of knowing I helped. Furthermore, solving crimes was often a rather enjoyable activity. Kind of like playing Clue with live psychotic actors. Well okay, it wasn’t a lot of fun when people were trying to kill you, but the rest of it wasn’t so bad. Plus, for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on, I felt compelled to help Melanie with this. Logic told me that Eugene’s death was probably a random act of violence. If that was the case I could talk to a few of his co-workers, tell Melanie she was imagining things and leave it at that. Melanie could rest easy and I would never have to talk to Anatoly again. That was a good thing. I nodded eagerly. “I’m up for it.”

  Melanie offered me a shaky smile. “Very well. Should we start the questioning now?”

  “You mean of you?”

  “Yes. I assume there’s information that you’ll need from me.”

  “Um, yeah…okay.” I quickly tried to formulate a few passably intelligent questions. “Who was Eugene closest to on the campaign?”

  “I’m not sure I know the answer to that. He was very close to Flynn Fitzgerald, perhaps more so than most of the other strategists and consultants. Fitzgerald’s media consultant, Maggie Gallagher, was a friend. We had her and her husband over for dinner a few times. Eugene was also an old family friend of Fitzgerald’s top political strategist, Rick Wilkes.”

  “Had he complained about any problems at work?”

  “No. Well, he was frustrated that Anne Brooke is always neck and neck with Fitzgerald in the polls. Considering her character, she should be trailing far behind by now.”

  I took a deep breath. A lot of very unpleasant information had come out about Anne Brooke since she announced her bid for Congress. And if the Republicans had run someone who was a moderate, Brooke’s career would have been political toast. But the Republicans had given their endorsement to Flynn Fitzgerald, a man who was just to the right of Pat Robertson. Although Contra Costa County citizens were definitely more conservative than their Bay Area neighbors, they were understandably reluctant to vote for a man who had blamed single mothers and “queers” for the downfall of our society. Unless Brooke was caught making out with Fidel Castro, she could probably prevent Fitzgerald from getting a double-digit lead on her.

  “Anything else?” I asked. “Was he having problems with any of his coworkers? Or anyone at all, for that matter?”

  Melanie shook her head. “Eugene was opinionated, and that sometimes rubbed people the wrong way, but in the end most found that he had a good heart. He had a subtle charm that tended to transcend political differences.”

  I smiled slightly. I had been exposed to some of that charm. It had been nice to meet a man who had really believed in something, even if his beliefs differed from mine.

  “Tell you what,” I said as I pushed myself to my feet. “I’ll find a way to talk to some of the people he saw or worked with regularly and see if I can find out anything.”

  Melanie swallowed hard and looked up at me from her seat. “Do you want me to introduce you to anyone? Because—”

  “You don’t want people to know that you’re looking into Eugene’s death…or rather his life,” I finished for her. “No, I don’t need introductions, but if anyone in his circle invites you to a social event and you can find a way of bringing me along without it looking suspicious, give me a ring.”

  Melanie f lashed me a relieved smile. “I can do that.” She got up and walked me to the door but hesitated before opening it. “There’s one more thing I was hoping you could help me with.”

  “You’re pushing your luck.”

  “I just wanted to know what—” Her voice caught and she looked down at the floor. “What were Eugene’s last words?”

  There were two ways to go with this. I could tell her the truth, that her husband’s last words had been “Goddamn furry shit,” (which was either evidence of the fact that he was completely delirious or that he truly had a problem with sponges that wore pants) or I could lie.

  “Tell Melanie I love her,” I said confidently. “His last words were tell Melanie I love her.”

  “Really? But wait…” Melanie’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Are you sure he said Melanie?”

  “You really need to get over this jealousy thing. He wasn’t cheating.”

  “I know, I know,” she said quickly. “It’s just that he so rarely called me Melanie. He always referred to me by my pet name.”

  I swallowed and looked away. “Well, it was kind of a stressful moment, I could have misheard him. What’s his pet name for you?”

  “Curly. He loved my curls.” She held up a lock of wavy hair that would have been f lat as a board without the help of her stylist.

  “I’m sure that’s what he said. There was a lot to take in at that moment.”

  For instance, I could have heard “furry” when in fact what he said was “curly.” My mentor and former professor could be a Goddamn curly shit.

  I popped in the latest Gorillaz CD and turned over in my mind all the things I had just learned, which wasn’t a lot. With traffic it took me over an hour to get back to San Francisco. Even if I had misheard Eugene, it didn’t mean anything other than that he was in pain, delirious and pissed off at his wife. (Melanie wasn’t capable of violence.) Besides, I was ninety percent sure that I did hear him correctly. Eugene had been cursing someone named Furry. Which, of course, raised another question: was Eugene the adulterous type after all? Wasn’t it possible that someone who was dorky enough to call his naturally straight-haired wife “Curly” might also be dorky enough to call his mistress “Furry”?

  But what kind of woman would sleep with a man who called her Furry? No, Eugene had to have been delirious. It didn’t really matter; this entire mess was much ado about nothing. I decided to shelve the whole thing until tomorrow and spend this time on more productive activities like cursing at the traffic.

  My cell phone rang just as I was contemplating the best way to stir up a little road rage.

  “C’est Sophie.”

  “Hello, Sophie, it’s Melanie. I just thought of a social event that you could attend where you would meet almost all of Eugene’s friends and coworkers.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “His funeral.”

  I felt the beginnings of another headache coming on. “Melanie, I can’t interrogate people at a funeral.”

  “Of course not. I just thought you might be able to meet a few people and make connections. If someone happens to volunteer something useful you can pursue it at a later date.”

  Gee, that sounded like great fun. Melanie would be busy receiving all of Eugene’s friends while I walked around by myself trying to initiate conversations with grieving strangers.

  “If I come I want to bring a friend…actually, I want to bring Leah.” My sister was one of maybe ten Republicans who actually lived in San Francisco. If nothing else she’d be able to help me come up with topics of conversation that would play well with the politicians Eugene used to hang with.

  “Then bring Leah,” Melanie said. “But…do you think she’ll be comfortable sta
nding quietly by your side while you ask people about Eugene?”

  I tried to imagine Leah doing anything quietly. “I’ll bring my friend Mary Ann, too. That way Leah will have someone to complain—I mean talk to, no matter what.”

  “I think I met Mary Ann once. Is she the pretty girl with the long curly hair?”

  “That’s her.”

  “Very well, bring them both. And Sophie?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  I smiled and beeped at the idiot who had just cut me off. How many times had I said those words to Melanie? I owed her a lot, but I was fairly sure that when this was over we would finally be settled up.

  3

  I would rather burn in the fires of hell than spend eternity in heaven listening to a bunch of religious zealots say I told you so.

  —C’est La Mort

  It was like a black-and-gray sea of St. John and Brooks Brothers suits. I looked down at my own dark brown Old Navy dress as Mary Ann, Leah and I found seats in one of the rows toward the front, and then eyed their designer black dresses with undisguised resentment. “I thought you said earth tones were the new black when it came to mourning.”

  “They are,” Mary Ann said slowly, “but being in mourning and attending a funeral are different things.”

  “Oh?” I regarded her skeptically. “Don’t people come to funerals to mourn?”

  “Really, Sophie.” Leah let out an exasperated sigh. “People mourn on their own time. They come to funerals to get credit for mourning. There’s a huge difference.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “I see your point.”

  “I didn’t expect them to have an open casket,” Mary Ann whispered. “Gosh, it’s so sad,” she added, tugging at the ends of her hair. “And look, they put way too much blush on him.”

  “Is anyone sitting here?” I looked up to see two men, both wearing the prerequisite gray suit. The one who had spoken was probably in his late thirties and was smiling down at Mary Ann. Or at least his mouth was smiling. His eyes were far too red to twinkle. He seemed fairly calm at the moment, so I wasn’t sure if the redness was due to a morning of crying or a night full of drinking. Still, he was cute in a teddy bear kind of way. His hairline was receding but he had a healthy tan that hinted at a love for the outdoors and a pug nose that automatically gave him a youthful air, despite his conservative attire. The other man was younger, taller and maybe in his mid-twenties. His dishwater-blond hair was cut a little too short for his round face and he was fidgeting with the knot in his tie in a way that made me think he wasn’t accustomed to wearing one.