Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates

Book 1: A Chocolate Covered Mystery

by Kathy Aarons

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Whether it’s to satisfy a craving for chocolate or pick up the hottest new bestseller, the locals in charming West Riverdale, Maryland, are heading to Chocolates and Chapters, where everything sold is to die for…
 
Best friends Michelle Serrano and Erica Russell are celebrating the sweet rewards of their combined bookstore and chocolate shop by hosting the Great Fudge Cook-off during the town’s Memorial Day weekend Arts Festival. But success turns bittersweet when Main Street’s portrait photographer is found dead in their store, poisoned by Michelle’s signature truffles.
 
As suspicion mounts against Michelle, her sales begin to crumble and her career seems whipped. With Erica by her side, Michelle must pick through an assortment of suspects before the future of their dream store melts away…

FIRST IN A NEW SERIES

Includes Scrumptious Chocolate-Making Recipes!

Release date: September 2, 2014

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 304

Sample

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“I don’t do cupcakes,” I told Erica, who obviously hadn’t been listening to me in the two years we’d been best friends.

“I know, I know.” She waved her hand around as if dissipating my nonsense and reached over the counter to grab a Fleur de Sel Caramel from one of the trays I was about to parade around in front of the store. While I’d enjoyed a huge rush in the week leading up to Mother’s Day, maybe I could entice a few more customers into buying chocolate for their moms before the special day was over.

“Have you ever seen me bake even one cupcake?” I asked her. Erica and I shared a store on Main Street in the town of West Riverdale, Maryland. She and her sister, Colleen, managed the family-owned bookstore in one half of our space while I ran my chocolate shop in the other half. I should have known she wanted something when she crossed over to my side during such a busy Sunday afternoon.

“I get it,” Erica said, nibbling the caramel. “You’re a chocolate snob, I mean chocolatier, and you don’t bake. Oh wait. What did that DC reporter call you? ‘Michelle Serrano, Chocolate Artisan.’”

“Glad we got that straight,” I said. “I suggest Summer Berry Milks. Grown-ups love them, yet they have that element of whimsy that even rug rats appreciate.” I dumped newly ground coffee into the machine and turned it on. The fragrance of the coffee mixing with the ever-present chocolate scent made my mouth water even though I’d been experiencing it all day. Owning Chocolates and Chapters never got old.

Erica rolled her eyes. “Someday your distaste for anyone under the age of eighteen is going to bite you on the butt.” She pushed her librarian glasses up on her nose and gave me The Look. The one that somehow combined puppylike begging with steely-eyed command, and inevitably made everyone do her bidding. Maybe that’s why she’d won the Future Leader award so long ago at our high school graduation. “Cupcakes decorated with softball icing are even more whimsical than chocolates.”

I crossed my arms.

“It’s for the good of the Boys and Girls Club!” she said.

“I’m not baking cupcakes,” I said.

Erica seemed astounded at my stubbornness. “Really? Remember that beautiful field where you showed Sammy Duncan that girls are better hitters than boys?” She threw her hand out as if pointing to it. “You know, the field that needs to be reseeded every single year?”

She was pulling out the big guns. Before she could remind me that playing sports at the Boys and Girls Club was the main reason for my annual success in the West Riverdale Softball Tournament, I gave in. “Fine. But I’m not making them. I’ll ask Kona.”

“Awesome!” Erica was enough of a master manipulator not to show anything except gratitude, but I was sure she’d gloat later.

“‘Awesome’? Is that an official Fulbright scholar expression?” I said to pay her back.

Erica had come home two years before, just as I was opening my shop. My whole life, I’d heard of Erica Russell, girl genius, who went to Stanford on a full scholarship, got a master’s in writing, and then became a Fulbright scholar. I still wasn’t clear what that was.

I totally expected her to stick her nose up at me, the community college dropout, but we’d become best friends, and now business partners and housemates.

She made a note on her spreadsheet. “My next victim, I mean prospective donor, is Denise.”

“Do not harass the committee,” I said. “We’re lucky they haven’t run for the hills with the way this thing has exploded.”

Back in February, when Erica had suggested a Great Fudge Cook-off to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our renovation, I’d jumped at it. Our normally mild Maryland winter had been brutal, and after what seemed like the thirtieth nasty ice storm of the season, anything that made me think of spring was welcome.

I’d imagined a group of fifty or so neighbors gathered in our store, tasting all the entries, and buying real chocolate from me to wipe the taste of fudge from their palates. Erica would send out photos and a press release to the local papers, and the resulting articles would remind everyone that they needed more candy and books in their lives.

But taking the suggestion from the mayor to schedule our contest during West Riverdale’s Memorial Day weekend celebrations had been a big mistake. Somehow our little fudge contest had mushroomed into the opening event of the first ever West Riverdale Arts Festival in the park. And our book signing the Sunday night before Memorial Day now included a silent auction fundraiser for the Boys and Girls Club. We counted our blessings that the actual parade on Monday hadn’t been added to our plate. The parade committee was an exclusive group of old-timers who wouldn’t think of letting anyone under the age of sixty interfere.

I delivered steaming cups of coffee and a small plate of assorted chocolates to the table of grandmothers showing off photos of grandchildren on their phones, and discreetly left the bill on the table.

Erica continued when I returned to the counter. “I’m donating the I So Don’t Do Mysteries series and some Michael Connelly first editions for the silent auction.” Erica also ran a thriving used and rare book business out of the storage room in the back. “And you’ll be really happy about the big surprise I have for today’s meeting.”

“What is it?”

“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a surprise.” She gave me a mysterious smile and headed back to her side.

I picked up my tray and opened the front door as Erica’s sister, Colleen, struggled through with one blond-haired two-year-old boy on her hip and the other twin rebelliously dragging behind her.

“Erica,” Colleen called after her sister with a rush of relief. “Can I leave the twins in the play section while I take Prudence to her dance recital?”

The two sisters worked well together, but lately Colleen had been busier than usual with kid duty, and Erica had taken up the slack. I sometimes wondered if Colleen would even be working in the bookstore if she hadn’t become pregnant with her first child during her freshman year of college. She didn’t have Erica’s love of books, though she enjoyed the business side of the store. But back when she was eighteen and pregnant, working in her parents’ bookstore was a good option while her husband, Mark, finished up his business degree.

While Colleen made an effort to appear somewhat professional when she worked in the store, today she had on a stretched-out orange cardigan that had seen better days, and her hair was falling out of her wilted scrunchie.

“Sure, but where’s Mark?” Erica seemed confused as the twins ran toward the wall of brightly colored bricks that separated the small play area—what I called the first circle of hell—from the rest of the store.

Colleen scowled. “He says he has the flu. He just got back from yet another trip and he’s too sick to do anything. And the nanny is out of town.” She sounded mad at both of them.

If I had twins like Gabe and Graham, I’d have the flu pretty often too, I thought, as they expertly opened the childproof gate and double-teamed a boy twice their size, wrenching a firefighter’s hat away from him.

“I guess,” Erica said. She ran to comfort the howling victim as Colleen gave a helpless flutter of her hands and escaped. Through the front window, I could see her daughter, Prudence, wearing a lime-colored leotard and fancy headpiece and waiting in their ancient Volvo station wagon. That girl had the patience of a saint, or even better, the patience of an older sibling of twin boys.

I took a step to help Erica, but instantly the wailing stopped and the twins were soon sitting in Erica’s lap waving around the latest cardboard books. I watched for a moment and, sure enough, one of them whacked Erica in the jaw with a book before settling down.

The Pampered Pet Store across the street was holding their monthly adoption event and when I went outside with the sample-sized caramels, the local animal lovers emptied my tray in a few minutes. Kona called these petite caramels my “gateway drug.” Once people ate this perfect bite of caramel wrapped in creamy chocolate, with the tiniest sprinkle of sea salt on top, they always came back for more.

After serving the burst of customers who’d followed me back into the store, I did a spot-check of our dining area, which was perfect. It had been Erica’s idea to remove the wall between the two stores to increase our usable space. We’d all survived the renovation, but Colleen and I had grumbled a lot more than Erica, maybe because she could visualize what it would look like today.

A homey, welcoming room with books lining the walls, tempting customers to pick one up and read in an overstuffed chair, and the smell of chocolate enticing them to choose from my selection of sinful sweets. Chocolates and Chapters had become an unofficial community center for our little town. Our smattering of mismatched couches and coffee tables now hosted various committee meetings, knitting circles, book clubs and, my least favorite, birthday parties.

I straightened a painting from a local artist who was new to our rotation wall. Erica had told me ahead of time that he interpreted famous paintings using the opposite on the color wheel, so the paintings appeared familiar and strange at the same time.

My assistant and right hand, Kona, walked in from the back kitchen with a tray of assorted tortes, her specialty. I was lucky to have her. Although I still didn’t understand why, sometimes customers wanted pastries instead of chocolates. And while I could whip up a thousand truffles in a few hours, I couldn’t bake to save my life.

“I just volunteered you for a couple dozen softball-decorated cupcakes for the book launch,” I told her.

“No problem,” she said, her almond eyes laughing at me. She knew how I felt about cupcakes. “By the way, I opened the latest shipment from the supply company.” She paused. “Did you order a lot of the new jeweled cocoa butter? They charged us extra to rush it.”

“Oh, yeah.” I tried to appear nonchalant. “That’s okay.”

“What are you going to use it for?” she asked.

I avoided answering her. “Just thinking about a few new ideas.”

“Want me to cover the front so you can try it out?” Kona knew how much I loved to play with anything new, but I had plans for that gold cocoa butter that no one could know about. “I put it in the kitchen.”

“Um,” I said. “I’m going to try it out at home, but I want to look at it for a minute.”

She started placing the tortes in the one measly glass display case I allowed for pastries. “No problem. I’ll handle the counter.”

“Thanks.” I headed to the back kitchen to see if my new gold cocoa butter would do the trick. We had a small kitchen out front where customers watched us dip fruit in chocolate or put finishing touches on the truffles, but we did most of our work in the larger back kitchen.

I didn’t want our customers to see the messy part of my magic, like when we mixed ganache by hand to achieve the ideal consistency; or smelled the caramel to ensure the ultimate balance of smoky, almost-burnt sugar; or scraped off the untidy “feet” of my truffles so they were perfect.

I picked up the bottle of gold cocoa butter. It looked a little like gold paint now, but once I melted it down and airbrushed it across my chocolates, it would look amazing.

• • • • • • • • • 

We scheduled the weekly cook-off meeting for right after our regular early Sunday closing. I was setting up when Erica lugged her ever-increasing Great Fudge Cook-off file box to the largest table in the store. Located in the back corner, it was where high school students crammed for tests, or pretended to, retirees met to plan their day trips, and an endless supply of PTA moms coordinated school events.

Even the always-put-together Erica looked a little drained from balancing the twin terrors and customers.

Without comment, I handed her a Balsamic Dream, her favorite truffle—dark chocolate ganache with a rush of balsamic vinegar. “How did the recital go?”

“Colleen said it was delightful,” Erica said, enjoying her treat.

“Did Mark make it?”

“Yes,” she said. “He had a miraculous recovery just in time to see it.”

Denise Coburn walked through the open back door of the shop, tiny magenta shorts emphasizing her incredibly long legs that always made me feel like a hippo. A pygmy hippo. And she was the giraffe undulating across the African plains.

Undulating? I was hanging out with brainy Erica too much. “Hi, Denise,” I said as she slouched into a chair across from Erica.

“Hi,” she said as part of a long-winded sigh. She’d pulled her thick auburn hair into a huge bun that magically stayed in place on the top of her head with only one clip, and once again I cursed my own wispy strawberry blond hair that behaved only as long as it took me to leave the salon.

Denise’s photography studio, next door to our shop, catered to families and smaller businesses in our town. She’d recently landed the contract for the local high school’s senior portraits, but everyone knew she dreamed of selling her artsy work to galleries in Washington, where people had more money to spend on that stuff. Personally, I thought her creative photos were out of focus and just a bit odd. Who wanted a blurry photo of a shiny penny in a gutter hanging on their wall?

“Tough day in the photography trenches?” Erica pulled out more files and a color-coded spreadsheet.

“I guess,” she said, picking up a truffle. “Another delay by that gallery owner I told you about.” She bit off one tiny corner and put the rest down. How do people do that? Of course, she couldn’t resist my Amaretto Palle Darks, the only candy I’d ever seen her eat in one bite, but I’d sold out of those earlier in the day.

“The gallery in DC?” I popped a whole Mayan Warrior in my mouth and let the chocolate melt on my tongue, the spicy cayenne tickling the back of my throat just like it was supposed to. “What happened?” I asked as I sat down.

Denise shrugged. “He left a message telling me he had a family emergency and had to reschedule our meeting tomorrow. And I’d cancelled all my sessions for the trip up there.”

“I’m sorry,” Erica said. “Why not email them? Once he sees your photographs, he’s going to just adore your work.”

The eternal optimist.

Denise sighed dramatically again. “He said he has to meet me first. He believes my montage of work is an inward expression of my outward view of the world.”

What a load of BS. I was about to warn her that this dude might just have a casting couch when the final two members of our committee walked in.

Steve and Jolene Roxbury arrived in their usual geek chic: Steve, the high school science teacher, wore an ancient T-shirt of the periodic table, and Jolene, the math and drama teacher, wore a shirt that read, “Half playwright. Half ninja.”

“Love the shirt,” I told her.

“Thanks!” Jolene said. She gave a little “Hi-yah!” along with a karate chop. “Gift from Steve-o when I got my black belt in tae kwon do.” She and her husband both put a few Bacon-and-Smoked-Salt Truffles on their plates and sat down while I retrieved the coffee.

Jolene tasted her chocolate and moaned. “Oh, Michelle. I love this new concoction.”

“The only perk of being on this committee,” Steve agreed. He pulled out his smartphone. “Look!” he said, showing us photos of Jolene in her karate gi, the white fabric vibrant against her dark skin. Her proud grin as she held her black belt made us all smile.

Ever-efficient Erica started to hand out notes just as some teens loitering upstairs noticed the Roxburys. “Yo, Mr. and Mrs. R!” they yelled, hanging dangerously over the wooden balcony. Erica obviously hadn’t kicked out her comic-book-section regulars.

When Erica had found out that teens drove all the way to Frederick to buy their comic books, she’d started stocking them. And since she loved comic books as much as any of them, she’d started a book club named the Super Hero Geek Team.

“Yo,” Steve yelled back. “Stay away from my issue of Justice League International.”

One of the inmates of West Riverdale High waved a comic book back and forth and taunted in a singsong voice, “Got it right he-re.”

“You bent it!” Steve barked. “I don’t want that one.”

One of them noticed the time on the huge clock at the front of the store and yelled, “Dinner!” as if an emergency was happening, and then they all ran out the front door.

I let out a little “Whew,” and Erica smirked at me.

“Just go over your notes.” I got up to lock the front door. “And give us our marching orders.”

“Yay!” she said. “I love obedient minions.” She passed out copies of the action items list. “We have a lot to do in less than two weeks, but everything seems to be coming together.”

She opened up a tri-fold display board and pointed to a color-coded, minutely detailed project plan that looked like it could win the high school science fair. “First the book launch and Boys and Girls Club fundraiser. Michelle has graciously volunteered cupcakes for that evening,” Erica said without a hint of sarcasm. “I made a list of some of the Boys and Girls Club volunteers for other food items.”

“I can make my world-famous guacamole,” Jolene offered.

Erica said, “That’d be great, but we need to focus our resources on our top priorities. The most pressing issues right now are more donations of silent auction items and getting the word out to ensure high attendance at both of our events.”

I whispered to Jolene, “You’re a ‘resource.’”

Erica ignored me, moving on to talking about chair rentals and hosting duties that night. She looked right at me. “Let’s talk about the fudge contest,” she said, smiling with excitement. “I have an announcement.” She paused for dramatic effect. “Hillary Punkin is judging!”

“What?” I gasped.

“Hillary Punkin, star chef of the TV show Life by Chocolate, has agreed to be a celebrity judge for the West Riverdale Great Fudge Cook-off!”

Oh. My. God.

Hillary Punkin at the West Riverdale Great Fudge Cook-off?

Hillary was the Grand Chef Network’s premiere pastry chef who traveled the country “discovering” local chocolatiers. Panic welled up in my chest. Hillary either loved or hated the chocolate and her opinion never made sense. In one show, she adored lavender essence in her truffle. In the next, it made her gag on-screen. She seemed to have no clue of her own irrationality. But she had a huge audience and could make or break a business.

“Is she doing a show here?” My lips felt numb.

“No,” Erica said, oblivious to my dismay. She barely watched TV, let alone cooking shows, and had no idea what she might have set in motion. Just like the beginning of any horror movie.

“She heard about your chocolates winning that blind taste test,” Erica said, sounding proud. “She’ll be in DC for a show, so she has time only for the contest. But ever since she hinted at it on Twitter, our website hits have gone through the roof!”

“Cool!” Steve said. “That should help attendance for the whole weekend.”

I pasted a weak smile on my face, and Erica’s eyebrows drew together as she figured out I was less than ecstatic. She continued with her action items, which included everything from confirming the balloon arch orders for the festival to getting more volunteers to help set up chairs for the book signing.

Yes, my chocolates had won the prestigious Washington Food Scene magazine’s third annual blind chocolate taste test, and now Erica insisted on putting “award-winning” in front of any mention of my products. But Hillary might just be contrary enough to want to prove them wrong.

Even if Hillary wasn’t doing a show here, she always had a “Yay or Nay” segment at the end, and it was particularly brutal—just a shop’s name and location with a happy yellow “Yay” or nasty red “Nay” after it and no explanation as to why.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to call off Hillary, I thought as panic fluttered in my chest. I’d built a nice business making chocolates for a ritzy hotel in Georgetown, bed-and-breakfasts in Virginia, and gift basket companies that sent my chocolates to clients all over the East Coast. Much of my sales were due to word of mouth, and if Hillary Punkin slammed my chocolates, I would be in trouble.

On the other hand, if she loved my chocolates and gave them a “Yay,” who knows how much my business would grow? It was a dilemma.

A knock sounded on the front door and I tensed when Gwen Ficks waved at us through the window. I stood up to let her in, the usually cheerful bells on the front door now sounding like a warning. Gwen had been West Riverdale’s mayor for five years, winning her second term easily even though the town’s economy had taken a hit along with the rest of the country’s. She’d lost a ton of money when the bad economy had completely stopped sales of the new housing development she’d invested in, and she was working hard to try to turn the town’s fortunes around.

She was the one who’d convinced us to hold our Great Fudge Cook-off during Memorial Day weekend. And somehow the whole thing had snowballed into the beginning of her “Save Main Street” effort, the result of four struggling shops closing up in the last year.

West Riverdale was probably the one town in the country not named after an actual river. Founded by the River family centuries ago, we were close enough to Antietam National Battlefield to pick up a few lost tourists rambling their way back east. The only building of any historical value we had was the Rivers Mill, which had been used to store artillery during the Civil War and was now an artists’ cooperative. The River family had settled what was then known as Riverdale back in colonial times, but other than some Main Street buildings that were considered “historical” just because they were old, people in search of history had a heck of a lot of other towns to visit instead of ours.

West Riverdale’s Memorial Day parade used to be a big event for our town, as people came from all over to experience historic small-town life. Like a vacation in the 1950s before they returned to their high-tech lives. But parade attendance had declined in recent years and Gwen was determined to do something about it.

As a Main Street shop owner, I supported anything to increase business, but every time the mayor stopped by our meeting, she added to our workload. Her single-minded attention to the town’s revenues during this weekend made me think that maybe our town was worse off than she maintained in her speeches. Especially since she’d railroaded a sales tax through town council that went into effect for Memorial Day weekend only. It was an accounting nightmare for any business in town.

“I wanted to stop by and personally give you the good news,” Gwen said as she buzzed over to stand beside Erica’s chair, her light citrusy perfume drifting by in her wake. She wore her trademark suit jacket and Ralph Lauren scarf over jeans, straddling those “I’m-so-professional” and “I’m-just-like-you-folk” impressions that politicians have to do.

“The Best Western by the highway is at full capacity for the entire Memorial Day weekend!” Gwen said.

“Whoo boy!” Steve pumped his fist in the air.

Gwen went on. “I knew that new slogan would do the trick. We may have to change our name to Mayberry.”

Gwen “Fixit” Ficks believed any problem could be solved by throwing a slogan at it. Erica had used West Riverdale: The Mayberry of Maryland, in her latest press release, touting our extremely low crime rate in a time when the rest of the country seemed to be going crazy.

“This is due to all the hard work of you gals—and guy.” Gwen winked at Steve. “I’m so excited I can barely contain myself! This weekend is going to be a huge success.”

While Gwen was saying all the right things, she seemed a little subdued. For her, anyway.

“That’s great news,” Erica said, with a little wrinkle in her forehead that indicated her mind was already thinking of all the ways the news affected our plans.

“And I thought of one more little push we could do,” Gwen said.

Inside I groaned. That was why she wasn’t as cheerleader-bouncy as usual. She knew piling more work onto our committee wasn’t cool.

“I’m sure you’ve heard about the new solar project at West Riverdale High,” she said. “Principal Palladine has been so forward thinking! It will save the school district a ton of money. How do you feel about: ‘West Riverdale: The Greenest Town in Maryland’?” She smiled as if delighted with herself. “See? It’s a play on words. Our lovely rolling green hills and the fact that we’re helping the planet by using our sunshine for clean energy. It’ll appeal to a totally new demographic. The company we’re working with is called Get Me Some Solar. Isn’t that cute?”

Gwen turned her smile wattage up.

Here it comes, I thought. Even gung-ho Erica seemed worried about what Gwen would ask us to do next.

“And it would be great if you could give them an excellent spot at the Arts Festival. You know what they say. ‘Location, location, location!’”

West Riverdale’s first Arts Festival was fast turning into the West Riverdale Flea Market. We’d started off with the best intentions, limiting the booths to only quality artists, but when we’d run out of those, anyone with a check and something to sell could buy a spot. Now one side of the park would have artists selling their work, plus a few booths I’d have to categorize as “crafts,” but on the other side, customers could buy tools from Duncan Hardware, organic cheese from Farmer Henry, and hubcaps of questionable lineage from Frank’s Finds.

I would be one of the food vendors, along with Zelini’s Italian Kitchen, Bubba’s Southern BBQ, and Sweeney’s Weenies.

Of course, the highlight of the day would be the Great Fudge Cook-off right after the grand opening. Kona and I had narrowed down forty entries to the top ten in a blind taste test. These entries would be judged by Mayor Gwen and the chefs of two highly respected restaurants in Frederick, the closest “big” city to West Riverdale. And now Hillary.

“I’ll let you busy bees get back to work. I’m heading up to DC tonight for some meetings tomorrow. Working hard to get funding for more solar projects.” Gwen headed for the door. Just as she opened it, she turned around and the whole group inhaled. “I told Get Me Some Solar that we’d include their flyers in the bags we’re handing out. Thank you all so much. This is going to be amazing!”

After she was sure Gwen was truly gone, Jolene said, “If that woman didn’t work so hard for this town, I could hate her.” She sighed. “It could’ve been worse. At least the math team and drama club volunteered to help stuff the bags.”

“Well, we volunteered them,” Steve corrected. “And they’ll be around all weekend for anything we need.”

“Michelle,” Erica said. “Can you conta