Dying for Chocolate

The Harringtons lived next door. In New Jersey, living next door meant if you wanted to get from here to there you walked down your sidewalk, down the sidewalk by the street, and then up your neighbors’ sidewalk. But this was Colorado, and next door meant a steep driveway down from the Farquhars’ fenced property, a slanted stretch of street, and another driveway up to the Harringtons. These were daunting without a vehicle, so I decided to trek the back way, where the security fence had a back gate set to the same code as the front. Hoisting up two heavy-duty boxes, I trudged through the back door of the garage, past the extra-thick walls of the general’s magazine, where he kept his explosives. Then I carefully circled the garden-site crater and beat a path through the long field grass between the two houses.

I wished I knew more about birds, I thought, as gaggles of feathered creatures flitted between bushes and trees. Philip had been devoted to the local Audubon Society and had asked if I’d consider catering one of their nature-hike picnics. Would they eat chicken? I wondered.

I sat down to rest on a rock by the gate. In a nearby cluster of aspens, warm afternoon air stirred pale green leaves the size of mussel shells. An iridescent blue-green hummingbird zoomed by overhead. Then a shriek split the calm.

“I don’t understand—” cried a high female voice.

I peered through a stand of evergreens. I could just see the Harringtons’ enormous deck. It was actually an elaborate cantilevered patio surrounded by a balustrade and filled with delicate white wrought-iron furniture that was all romantic curls and scrolls. The two women on the deck were not sitting down. In fact, from their voices and stances they appeared to be having an argument. I leaned closer to try to make out the words and faces.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” came one voice, high, shrill, angry. I moved off the rock and sidled up to a blue spruce. It wasn’t that I was eavesdropping or nosy, I told myself. I just didn’t want to embarrass the combatants by suddenly arriving with a box of aphrodisiacal dumplings.

“I can’t believe you could be so crass

. . . to ask if he left anything to you—”

“Oh, calm down, for Christ’s sake!”

I peered through the sweet-smelling branches of the prickly spruce. Elizabeth Miller had her arms folded across her narrow chest, and had turned away from Weezie Harrington.

I had not seen Elizabeth since the accident. Why was she with Weezie? And what in the world could they be arguing about?

“Please,” shouted Weezie. “Listen, will you? We were working on something together. He told me he would leave—”

“You listen!” screamed Elizabeth. “He left his body to science, if that’s what you want to know.”

There was a silence. I felt intrusive, even though I was sure they had not seen me. One of the women was crying; it was hard to tell which one. Returning to the rock, I picked up the boxes, backtracked over the damp ground through the pines and grass and back through the Farquhars’ house. By the time I made it to the front door of the Harringtons’ place I thought I would start counting the hours until I had my van back Monday morning. The voices became indistinguishable.

The Harringtons’ house was a glass and stucco affair with a tile roof, the hybrid of Spanish colonial and French provincial that had been the rage in Aspen Meadow about fifteen years before. That is, insofar as any phenomenon in a town of thirty-five thousand people can be said to have been the rage.

A brass coyote-head door knocker echoed klok klok klok through the quiet interior. For a moment the screeching female voices rose again. My chest felt as if it were in a hammerlock.

Sometimes clients start drinking early on the day of a party. To relieve tension. Start the festivities early. Whatever. The problem was that this occasionally resulted in their canceling everything. Then all you got was your deposit, a whole lot of food, and anticipation of going to small-claims court, which I’d had to do from time to time. I fervently hoped that Weezie and Elizabeth had not added booze to their altercation. Just as suddenly as it had begun, the screeching stopped. I knocked again.

No one answered. I leaned against the stucco and peered through one of the double-pane windows, a standard insulating feature in mountain homes. The glass was cloudy, as often happens when the window was getting old. It had been a while since Brian had been king of the hill in Aspen Meadow Country Club, and the people he’d sold land to hadn’t yet had the chance to build. The massive rough-hewn door, another hallmark of older club homes, swung open to reveal Brian Harrington.

“Sorry, Mr. Harrington,” I said, flustered and apologetic in my clumsy attempt to pull back from the window. “I’m the cate—”