Sally Berneathy - Death by Chocolate 01 - Death by Chocolate by Sally Berneathy Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t have a clue what “they” said about cats and visitors, but I was pretty sure he’d know. He had a wise, all-knowing air about him.
    I opened the door , and he went out, moving gracefully and casually across the porch.
    And suddenly I didn’t want him to leave.
    That was silly. Maybe I should get a dog, I thought, something little and fuzzy that would greet me at the door and be so thrilled to see me, he’d pee all over the rug then run in circles tracking it all through the house…and then maybe that house wouldn’t feel so empty.
    King Henry sauntered out into the yard, then dropped into a sudden crouch, his tail swishing slowly as he peered intently at something in the clover.
    I turned away and went upstairs to the bedroom designated as my home office. Unlike Fred’s sophisticated equipment, however, my computer was so ancient, my word-processing program wrote everything with a quill. But it did everything I needed, everything I was capable of doing. I’ve never been very computer literate. I’ve always suspected a little green man lives in that computer and makes it run or not run, depending on his mood, and I’m good at pissing him off. For one thing, he really hates Coke in his keyboard.
    Instead of a high tech modular work station, I had a huge wooden desk built in the early ’50s that weighed somewhere around five tons. At least, that’s what the movers said when they had to wrestle it up the stairs. Rick’s office threw it away when they converted to high tech modular work stations about five years ago. I saved it, much to his dismay. It was a toss-up whether he was happier to see me or that desk leave his house.
    I located Paula’s records on my computer, called Fred on my equally antiquated cell phone that did nothing but make phone calls and gave him the information.
    Then I went back downstairs and out on the porch, hoping to catch a last glimpse of King Henry, see what direction he was going. Maybe I could visit him occasionally. We could talk about our chance meeting and maybe even wax philosophical, chat of mice and men and the best way to torture them.
    He was still lying in that same spot, staring intently at something in the clover. I went out in the yard and checked it out, but didn’t see anything. In fact, as I looked around me, I didn’t see anyone or any activity anywhere. Ever notice how extra quiet it is on Sundays, like the whole world’s a church?
    I felt very much at loose ends. I could go back in and read or watch TV or wash my hair or arrange my toiletries in alphabetical order. Somehow none of that appealed to me.
    I could go visit Paula, but I hated to do that while I was having Fred check her out. It just didn’t seem right.
    I strolled across the street, half aimlessly and half drawn to the hedge with the hole in it.
    Henry came with me.
    “We’re trespassing, you know,” I advised him as I shoved through the gate. Henry darted in as if to say that cats couldn’t trespass because the entire world belonged to them.
    I checked out the hole again, just to see if it was really as distinct as I remembered.
    It was. Definitely man made. Definitely a hole. Definitely strange.
    But this time I was looking through it from a different angle…and had a perfect view of my house!
    Had Rick hired a private investigator to get the goods on me?
    Yeah, right. And what goods might those be, Lindsay the Boring? Anyway, that made no sense. He was already getting everything he wanted in the divorce.
    So maybe Ms. Huffy Muffy had hired a private investigator to see if Rick was cheating on her. I smiled at that thought and suddenly felt much better about letting Rick spend the night. Perhaps it had served a good purpose after all.
    I looked up at the big old three-story house. Needed a lot of work, but it had potential, at least from the outside. A turret, big windows, fish scale siding, lots of gingerbread. It reminded me of an elegant, aging lady whose feather boa was molting.
    I