Devil's Food Cake (11 page)

“I can’t believe that,” Gayle interrupted, shaking her head.

Sadie and Shawn exchanged a look. It was time to change the subject, but Sadie was sure Shawn was filing away the discussion for later. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing for Gayle to go to Amber’s, Sadie mused. She and Shawn could share ideas a bit more openly once they were alone.

Sadie finished slicing the cake, placed a fork on each plate and slid them next to the mugs on the table. Shawn ate his cake in three bites. Gayle poked at the creamy chocolate filling, but put the fork down. She really had been traumatized if she was passing on chocolate.

“So anyway,” Sadie said, after taking a couple bites of the delicious cake. Maybe she’d have another piece after Gayle left. “After I picked up the book, a police officer came and I gave it to him. Then we saw this photographer on stage who said he was crime scene, except he wasn’t, and later he came barreling through the parking lot when I was taking cakes out to the car and said something about there being two murders and that everything had come full circle and then he drove off with Trixie-Bambi.”

“Who?” Shawn and Gayle asked at the same time.

Sadie blushed at the internal nickname she’d given the girl and couldn’t seem to shake. And she was critical of people calling Jonathan, Crab?

“Sorry, I mean Michele. She sat at our table,” she explained, looking at Gayle. “With the hair and the dress.” She pretended to pull up the bodice of a strapless gown.

“Frank’s niece?” Gayle said, looking stunned. “She picked up the photographer?”

Sadie nodded. “Remember how she excused herself to go to the ladies’ room? She never came back, but of course I didn’t think about it until I saw her in the car with the photographer. She didn’t only leave the ballroom, she left the hotel. The photographer said he couldn’t get his car because the lot was blocked off, which means Michele left before the police even arrived.”

“It’s like some kind of conspiracy,” Gayle said, her eyes wide.

“Yeah, I know,” Sadie said. “But to kill a man so . . . dramatically? And in Garrison of all places?”

“It was meant for Thom,” Gayle said again. “I just know it.”

“Two murders?” Shawn cut in. He leaned forward even more. “The photographer said that?”

Sadie nodded, feeling her excitement building again. “The police searched the building but didn’t find any other bodies.” She took a long sip of her chocolate while replaying the short exchange she’d had with the man.

He’d also said that it was about time things came full circle. And what did that mean?

The comment hinted at a wait of some kind, or why else say it was “about time”? Plus the words “full circle” denoted revenge or vengeance, which brought her back to the question of who the intended victim really was: Thom or Mr. Ogreski. Since she didn’t know anything about Mr. Ogreski, she couldn’t help but think of what she
did
know about Thom. He was a former accountant and a single father of an only son who had had a history of extreme behavior before he killed himself and his girlfriend. One of the reasons given for Damon’s problems was that his mother, Thom’s ex-wife, had a history of mental illness that had ended with an overdose when Damon was little. Sadie was once again saddened by the thought of Thom falling victim to alcoholism after so many trials. She so wanted him to have a happier life.

But who would want Thom dead now? Who had reason to exact some kind of revenge on a novelist who didn’t even live here anymore? It brought her back to the discussion she’d had, or rather tried to have, with Pete. “The girl,” she heard herself say out loud. She looked up from where she’d been staring into her chocolate and saw Shawn watching her. He’d always been very expressive and she could see he’d been watching her closely, both curious and eager to hear her thoughts. Gayle was still hovering over the cup in her hands, which she raised to her mouth every twenty seconds or so to take a small sip of the rich beverage. She wasn’t paying attention to either one of them.

“What girl?” Shawn asked.

“The girl Damon shot,” she said. She wondered if Pete had contacted the girl’s family yet. Would he tell her what he learned, if anything?

“Damon?”

“Thom’s son. About ten years ago he killed his girlfriend and himself after prom. You don’t remember?”

Shawn shrugged, but looked thoughtful. “A little bit,” he said. “I was in sixth grade. I remember the police coming and giving an assembly on gun safety. I was all freaked out when Uncle Jack asked me to go hunting with him the next fall.”

Sadie nodded. “I remember that. You were worried just touching a gun could make it go off.”

Shawn’s dark skin darkened even more. “Pretty dumb, huh?”

“Being overly cautious is never dumb,” Sadie said in her schoolteacher voice, smiling at the memory of the little boy who depended on her to assure him that hunting with his uncle was okay, but throwing water balloons at girls because they were, well,
girls
was unacceptable.

“Damon was a junior that year, like Amber,” Gayle cut in. Her zoned-out state had given Sadie the impression she wasn’t listening. But of course she was. She was two feet away from them.

“She saw them at the dance that night,” Gayle continued. “It was really hard for her when, well, you know. When he did what he did.”

The three of them were silent as they contemplated the tragedy all over again. “So, Damon was two years older than Bre?” Shawn said, using his sister as a gauge to give both himself and Sadie a point of reference.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Sadie said. Breanna had still been in junior high school, giving Sadie’s family a bit more of a buffer between themselves and the tragedy. Shawn nodded thoughtfully before standing up and leaving the room. Sadie watched him go with a questioning look, but her attention was quickly redirected when Gayle spoke.

“Is there any chance you have some Tylenol PM?” Gayle took another sip of her hot cocoa. She returned the mug to the table and raised one hand to rub her forehead with her thumb and fingertips. “I’ve got a horrible headache, and I’m worried I won’t be able to sleep.”

Sadie headed for the cupboard next to the fridge where she kept all her over-the-counter medications and picked out the bottle of Tylenol PM. “I’m sure we could call Dr. Bernard and he could get you something stronger. At least for a couple nights,” she said as she filled up a glass with water.

“I’ll try the Tylenol,” Gayle said. “I feel like I could sleep for two days straight even without it, my brain is so exhausted.” She put her elbows on the table and dropped her head down so she could massage her temples.

“I can only imagine,” Sadie said with sympathy. Poor Gayle. Sadie put the water and the pills on the table as Shawn came back into the kitchen, a large hardbound book in his hands. He dropped it on the table with a thud, making the mugs and plates shake. Some French chocolate splashed out of Sadie’s mug, and she scowled at her son before grabbing a paper towel to clean it up.

“Oh, sorry,” he said, making an apologetic face and lowering himself into one of the kitchen chairs. About five years ago, Shawn had leaned back in one of Sadie’s old Victorian chairs and the thin legs covered in ornate designs had practically disintegrated beneath him. The chair hadn’t stood a chance against the starting linebacker for the Garrison Gator’s football team. And he wasn’t getting any smaller. The week after the disaster, Sadie had gone on the hunt for a more sturdy dining room set and eventually found one made of solid walnut. Since then she hadn’t worried about him breaking furniture. Well, at least not as much.

“A yearbook?” Gayle asked after scanning the covers, her forehead scrunched up in confusion.

Sadie was confused too—for about .02 seconds.

Melinda’s Frenc
h
C
h
ocolate

1 jar (16 oz.) hot fudge sauce (Mrs. Richardson’s is the best)

1 pint whipping cream

1⁄4 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract *

3 quarts milk, heated (amounts vary)

Heat hot fudge in the microwave until warm and thin enough to pour, but not too hot. In a mixing bowl, whip the whipping cream and add powdered sugar and vanilla when cream begins to thicken. When cream is at the soft-peak stage, slowly add the hot fudge sauce, continuing to whip the cream and chocolate together. Serve by spooning desired amount of French chocolate mixture into a mug and adding heated milk. Stir until combined.

Serves 8.

* Can use mint, orange, or almond extracts in place of vanilla. (Shawn prefers mint—no surprise!)

Chapter 12

Shawn flipped the yearbook open. “If Damon is two years older than Bre, he ought to be in her seventh-grade yearbook, right?” He looked up at his mother.

“Right,” Sadie said, leaning toward him as he flipped pages. There was only one junior high and one high school in Garrison, so while the kids in town attended any one of four elementary schools, once they hit seventh grade, they were interacting with every other kid their age for the rest of their public school career.

“I just wanted to get a visual,” Shawn said, still turning pages.

“The girl was from Sterling,” Gayle said, sitting up in her chair, but making no attempt to look at the book. Sterling was a town not much bigger than Garrison, about forty miles to the east.

After the murder-suicide, there had been candlelight vigils and counselors to help the kids in both Garrison and Sterling cope with the tragedy. Thom had Damon buried in California, where he’d buried his wife several years earlier. Everyone had been surprised when Thom returned to Garrison, but after a few months, he moved away for good. The town had been mostly sympathetic for his situation. Few people blamed him once the level of Damon’s mental instability came out into the open, but sympathy was a weak balm for such a trial, and there would always be those who held Thom accountable for not having done more. It wasn’t surprising that he wanted a new start.

“Here he is,” Shawn said a moment later. “He even looks like a psychopath, doesn’t he?”

Sadie looked at the photo above Shawn’s finger. The boy in the picture looked surly and arrogant, with long hair and what appeared to be the barest trace of peach fuzz on his upper lip. He wasn’t smiling.

“He’s, what, fourteen in this picture?” Sadie said, surprised by her own defensiveness. “I bet there are two dozen other boys with the same expression.”

“Yeah, but only one of them took out his girlfriend and himself.”

Two murders,
echoed in Sadie’s brain again.
Full circle. It’s about time.
And yet Pete insisted Damon’s death was a suicide. Maybe the two murders referred to the girl and Mr. Ogreski—could it be that simple? But what would the connection be between them?

Only one connection came to mind—Thom.

The doorbell made her jump. Then she remembered that Amber was coming to pick up Gayle.

“I’m going to use the bathroom and then get my things,” Gayle said, pushing away from the table. “Can I get these back to you next week?” She pulled at the flannel lounge pants she was wearing.

“Of course,” Sadie said. She lifted one eyebrow and looked sideways at her friend. “I know where you live if you try to keep ’em.”

Gayle managed a smile on her way out of the kitchen. Sadie cringed at the Got Blood? written on the back of the T-shirt and she hoped Gayle hadn’t noticed it. Once Gayle disappeared into the hallway, Sadie headed for the front door.

“Hi, Amber,” Sadie said as she moved to the side so the younger woman could come in. The snow was coming down harder than before. Thank goodness she didn’t have to go out again tonight; the roads would be messy.

Gayle’s daughter was dressed in pink velvet sweats at least one size too small with rhinestones lining both edges of the zippered jacket. Her blonde-streaked hair was pulled into pigtails. Except for the beginning of crow’s feet around her eyes and the voluptuous figure that took after her mother, she could have been a thirteen-year-old on her way to a slumber party.

“Hey, Amber,” Shawn said from the table, looking up to smile at her before going back to the yearbook in front of him. Amber was five years older than Shawn, but they were acquainted with one another through their mothers.

“Hi, Shawn,” Amber said before turning to Sadie. “How is she?” she asked in a whisper after Sadie shut the door.