Chocolate Dipped Death (22 page)

So much for the polite small talk portion of our visit. Since I wasn’t sure if she was a killer or a mourner, I decided to ease into what I really wanted to know. “I guess you probably know that we postponed the finish of the contest at Divinity. I’ve been thinking that it might be nice to have a short memorial for Savannah before we get started again.”

“A memorial? In a candy store?” Delta laughed softly and fiddled with the worn collar of her robe. “Well, I guess that’s more appropriate than a church.” From inside the house, an electronic buzzer sounded, and Delta seemed to realize for the first time that I was still outside. She stepped aside and motioned me through the door. “My coffee cake is ready to come out of the oven. Would you like some?”

I couldn’t tell whether she wanted me to say yes or no. I wasn’t sure I could eat even a crumb and still sit down in the skirt I was wearing. And I wasn’t all that eager to eat something baked by someone who might have spare poison hanging around the house. But I’d just gotten started, and refusing would look suspicious, so I nodded and moved into the overheated, overcrowded house. Large pieces of heavy furniture lined every inch of wall space and jutted into the center of the living room. Gold brocade drapes, out of style for at least the past thirty years, blocked out most of the daylight, and the scent of cinnamon warred with the musty smell of a house that hadn’t experienced fresh air in far too long.

When I realized that Delta was watching me, I worked up a smile and said, “You have a lovely home.”

She gave a little shrug and headed toward the kitchen. “You’re not a very good liar, Abby. The house is a mess, and you know it. There’s too much furniture and not enough light, but it’s what I’m used to.” She waved me toward a round table in the center of the attached dining alcove and snatched up a couple of pot holders from the counter. “So you want to have a memorial for Savannah? Do you mind telling me why?”

“She was a contestant,” I said again. “It doesn’t seem right to just go on as if nothing has happened.”

Delta pulled the cake from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool. “Well, fine. What does any of this have to do with me?”

I made a solemn vow not to eat a single bite unless she ate some first. “You’re her sister. I thought you might like to know, in case you wanted to be there. And, of course, if you want to say a few words—”

Delta’s head shot up and a tight laugh escaped her lips. “It’s a lovely sentiment, I suppose, but I guarantee you don’t want me saying anything.”

“But she’s your sister.”

“Was.” Delta pulled a couple of plates from an overhead cupboard. “The fact is, Savannah hadn’t been a sister to me in years. She left right after high school and couldn’t be bothered with any of us she left behind.”

That kind of comment always made me uncomfortable. Hit too close to home, I guess. “You didn’t stay in contact?”

Delta gathered forks from a drawer. “Oh, sure. I’d say, ‘Hey, I need help with mother,’ and she’d say, ‘Leave me the hell alone.’ It was an ideal relationship . . . on her side.”

Her bitterness didn’t surprise me, but I wasn’t comfortable with it. “Okay,” I agreed cautiously, “I won’t ask you to speak, but you’re welcome to come if you’d like. I’m sure there are a lot of people who’d like to offer their condolences, and I’ll bet there are people willing to help in whatever way they can.”

Delta’s sharp laugh sliced through the stuffy air. “One of your friends helped me already, didn’t they?” She slapped two pieces of cake onto the plates and carried everything to the table. “Whoever it was should have left well enough alone.”

“You think someone connected with the contest killed Savannah?”

Delta slid a piece of cake in front of me and plunked herself down in a chair. “It was either somebody who waited twenty years to get their revenge, or somebody who had something to lose right now. Which do you think?”

I wasn’t about to point out that she had a strong motive herself. Not while I was sitting across the table from her and she had sharp objects at her disposal.

She didn’t seem to notice my silence. “If you want my opinion, I think Evie Rice did it.” Not for the first time, she sounded disconnected, as if we were discussing the death of a stranger. It bothered me as much this time as it had the last.

“I don’t know,” I said cautiously. “This seems too cold-blooded for Evie.”

Delta forked up a mouthful of cinnamon cake and stared at it for a long moment. “You could be right, I guess. There’s no shortage of people who hated my sister. I guess it could have been just about anybody.”

“I know she wasn’t the most popular person in the world,” I said, “but I don’t think Paradise is overrun with people who wanted to kill her.”

“Maybe not
now
.” Delta’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “But half those people probably wanted to kill her at one time or another. I’m afraid you won’t find many people around here who’ll appreciate what you’re trying to do with this memorial service of yours.” She finally put the cake into her mouth, and I felt myself relax.

“Maybe not, but I still think it’s something I should do. Do you have any suggestions about who I might ask to speak?”

She eyed me skeptically. “How would I know?”

“You knew Savannah better than anyone when she lived here,” I pointed out. “There must be someone who was a friend back then and who’s still around here.”
Someone who isn’t on the suspect list.
“Marshall Ames was in our class at school,” I said, watching her reaction from the corner of my eye. “Maybe I could ask him.”

“Marshall Ames? Is that supposed to be a joke?”

I choked down a mouthful of dry coffee cake. “No. Is there some reason it should be?”

“I take it you don’t know about Savannah and Marshall?”

Faith had mentioned something hadn’t she? But I really didn’t know anything. Since I couldn’t speak, I shook my head. If there was poison in the cake, it sure wasn’t in liquid form.

“Well, suffice it to say that Marshall has hated Savannah for years.”

Sorry. Not sufficient. I needed to know
way
more than that. “I talked to Marshall the other day. I didn’t get that impression at all.”

“That’s because Marshall is very good at hiding what he feels.”

I forced down another bite of cake and asked, “Do you know why he hated her?”

“Oh, it was typical Savannah, really. Marshall had quite a thing for her from the time they were about fourteen.”

“Marshall did? I would never have guessed.”

“Then you must not have seen the two of them together. This was all back when Mother was still young and vital. She knew Marshall’s mother somehow. I forget exactly how, but we spent quite a bit of time together in those days. Anybody in the same room could have seen how Marshall felt about Savannah, but she wouldn’t give him the time of day.”

That did sound like vintage Savannah, and it matched what Faith had told me. But Marshall had seemed so . . . so what? Innocent?

“It didn’t matter so much when they were young,” Delta went on, “but when they got into high school and Savannah started dating—” She broke off with a scowl and corrected herself, “By the time Mother
knew
she was dating, it became pretty clear to everyone that she wasn’t . . . How should I say this? She wasn’t exactly discriminating.”

That was a very nice way of putting it. “So what happened?”

“Well, even then, even when she was going with almost any boy who’d look at her twice, she acted as if she didn’t even know Marshall was alive.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“She and I lived in the same house, didn’t we? I saw it all. Marshall asked her out I don’t know how many times. She always said no, and always in the meanest way possible. Marshall wasn’t stupid, either. You’d have thought that eventually he’d get it, but he was like that Energizer Bunny. He just kept going and going and going . . .”

“So she was mean to him, but he didn’t seem to notice. That’s hardly a motive for murder twenty years later.”

Delta held up a hand to stop me. “Things might have kept going like that forever, but during her senior year, Savannah finally said yes.”

That surprised me. “I don’t remember the two of them going out.”

“That’s because they didn’t. Savannah told that poor boy she’d go to the Senior Ball with him, but she accepted a date with another boy for the same night. Poor Marshall showed up here dressed in a rented tux, carrying a corsage of roses, and driving his daddy’s Cadillac, only to find out that Savannah was already gone with someone else.”

“That’s sad,” I agreed, “but people get stood up every day.” It had even happened to me a couple of times. I ate the last of my cake and pushed the plate to one side so Delta wouldn’t get any bright ideas about offering me seconds. “That’s not a reason to hate someone for twenty years.”

“Oh, it was more than just that. Savannah wasn’t content with just standing him up. She taunted him with it afterward. For months after the ball, she’d laugh about it, treat it as if it was the biggest joke—not the fact that she’d stood him up, but that he’d been stupid enough to take her seriously in the first place.” Delta carried both plates to the sink. “I know it doesn’t sound like much, but you didn’t know Savannah that well, did you? You don’t know how cruel she could be.”

“No,” I said. “Maybe I didn’t. I was talking to someone the other day who said she overheard Marshall and Savannah talking about a letter. Do you know what that could be about?”

Delta shook her head. “Probably some love missive Marshall wrote to her.”

“Then or now?”

“Then. Definitely. I think he eventually got over her, or maybe he just wised up.”

She sounded so harsh, I winced inwardly. “Savannah seemed different to me when I talked to her the night before she died. She even sounded like she might be thinking about staying here.”

Delta turned back toward me, wearing a touch of pity in her expression. “Savannah here? For good? That would never have happened. Savannah loves—” She cut herself off, and an expression I couldn’t read darted through her eyes. “She loved things. She loved money. She loved the kind of life she couldn’t get here in Paradise.”

“That might have been true twenty years ago,” I said, “but it’s not so true today. Paradise has changed a lot.”

Delta glanced out the window toward the hillside where a coven of new condos scrambled toward the summit. “Yes, it has,” she agreed softly, “but Savannah would never have chosen to stay here when that husband of hers was offering Manhattan. Never.” Another shadow passed across her expression, and she turned back to me quickly. “I wish you luck putting together your memorial service, Abby. But don’t expect me to take part in it. That chapter of my life was over a long time ago. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment in town in an hour, and I’m not ready.”

I nodded mutely and headed for the door. A dozen unanswered questions were racing around each other inside my head. Had Marshall harbored a hatred for Savannah all these years? Or was Delta merely trying to throw me off her trail? “Thanks for the cake,” I said and tried to sound as if I meant it. “And if you change your mind about the service, you’ll be more than welcome. I’ll let you know the details when they’re decided.”

Delta’s lips curved, but the smile didn’t make it to her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, Abby. It’s written all over your face. But what you don’t understand is that I don’t need to attend some memorial service for Savannah. I don’t know the woman who died here in Paradise the other day. The truth is, I mourned my sister a long time ago.”

I was still mulling over my conversation with
Delta as I drove out of her neighborhood a few minutes later. I couldn’t decide how I felt about her reaction to Savannah’s death. Did I believe her or not? It seemed immeasurably sad that the one person who should have loved Savannah hadn’t.

I gave myself a mental shake. Maybe her sister had been cold and distant, but it wasn’t as if no one had loved her. One person had loved her deeply, but for some reason I’d been avoiding him since I found Savannah’s body along the roadside. I wasn’t even sure why, except that it’s hard to know what to say to a grieving person, especially one you don’t know well.

I couldn’t help wondering how he was holding up, though, and I felt responsible for the poor man in some odd way. Since I was going to the Summit Lodge anyway, maybe I’d stop in to see him while I was there.

During my meeting with Mrs. Cohen, I managed not to embarrass myself too badly and even managed to impress her with a couple of my creations. I left with a contract in hand to cater a soiree on Saturday night for a hundred guests. I don’t mind admitting that I was stoked.

I took the samples back to the car, then hurried back into the lodge to check on Miles. This time when I asked the desk clerk to put me through to his room, Miles answered. He seemed pleased to hear from me, and five minutes later, I was knocking on the door to room 845.