Death by Chocolate

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

"No, no, no!" Standing in my living room, Fred held at arm's length the plastic baggie containing the bloody diaper. "Bio-hazard type evidence needs air and must be stored in paper bags or cardboard boxes."

I took the baggie, retrieved a grocery sack from the kitchen and repackaged it. "Where do you come up with all this off-the-wall information?" I handed him the paper bag.

He shrugged. "Everybody knows that. We need to decide on our next move." He walked over to perch on the edge of my sofa.

I sank down beside him. "Our last plan, getting Paula hidden out in a motel, was not what one would call a huge success. Now she's off to jail and Zach's in the hands of a man with snake eyes. That's about as glaring a failure as I can imagine."

He nodded. "Things did not go as planned."

I picked up a bowl of chocolate chips and a jar of peanut butter from the coffee table, scooped out a spoonful of peanut butter, then rolled it in the chips until it was covered. I couldn't deal with all this stress without my best friend, chocolate. However, since I hadn't baked in two days, I was driven to this old standby.

"Want some?" I offered.

Fred shuddered. "No, thank you."

King Henry strolled by, rubbed against my leg then leaped gracefully onto my recliner and stretched out.

"Hard to believe that's the same vicious animal who attacked Bennett only a little while ago," I observed.

"Multiple Personality Disorder," Fred diagnosed. "You have a Jekyll and Hyde cat."

Henry yawned, unconcerned with any psychoses he might or might not have.

"I think Bennett will bite. He'll be here tonight." I prepared another spoonful of the chocolate and peanut butter glop. "You should have seen the look he gave me when I mentioned that I had research and DNA testing to do. He thinks I think he thinks-" I paused with my spoon in mid-air and tried to decide if I had the proper sequence of thought processes. "Anyway, he'll be here because I convinced him that I'm willing to cut a deal, that I'm dumb enough to think he'll trade Zach for the evidence."

"Of course, you're really smart enough to know he won't, that he'll just take the opportunity to try to kill you."

"Yep, I know that. Guess that makes me pretty smart, huh?"

"That depends. Any idea how you're going to get him to confess what he's done, then capture him and manage to stay alive?"

"I don't have all the details worked out yet. I had to improvise when I was talking to him. But just as soon as I get over the abject terror of what I've done, I'm sure my brain cells will start working again and I'll figure out something."

Fred shook his head and grimaced. "I hope your being murdered in this house doesn't lower property values in the neighborhood."

"Fred! Stop that and help me think." Somehow the image of a real estate appraiser studying my lifeless body and trying to decide how much it would lower property values got my thought processes moving. "Okay, first, you need to wire me for sound, like they do in the movies."

"And just exactly where do you think I'm going to find this wire?"

"The same place you found that bug detector and whatever that thing was that you used to pick Paula's lock."

He had no response. I didn't think he would.

"Then you need to keep Henry at your place," I continued. "It's going to be hard to make this creep confess if Henry's trying to pierce his jugular."