Free Dying for Chocolate by Diane Mott Davidson Page A

possible. Let the mood fit the food, André, my cooking instructor, had said when he trained me. Act hurried and your clients will feel hassled. Have a great time and your clients will have a great time. How I was supposed to act at an aphrodisiac dinner I did not know.
    I reached for one of Adele’s plush floral towels. Sudden tears bit the back of my eyes as the water sucked loudly down the drain. Have a great time.
    Once dressed, I made my way quickly to the Farquhars’ library-cum-study in the back of the house. Outside there was the regular slap-slap of Julian’s arms hitting water. Through the window I could see him plowing through his morning laps. He had vacuumed up the dirt clods—remnants of the garden explosion—from the pool floor. But there was still dirt everywhere else, and the water looked somewhat murky. General Bo was sweating over another row of pansies. I turned to the books.
    Volume A of the encyclopedia cracked open in my lap to “Aphrodisiacs.”
    I remembered Weezie tossing her lioness mane of blond and silver hair at our interview.
    “Spanish fly,” she’d said, “is really dried cantharides, a kind of beetle. Deadly as hell, despite its reputation.”
    The encyclopedia article talked about bark from the yohimbé tree in Africa. No help there; I was pretty sure yohimbé didn’t grow in Aspen Meadow. And then there was the warning that ingesting Spanish fly was a highly toxic way of causing inflammation in the lower abdominal and genital regions. Burning pain accompanied the inflammation. If enough was taken, the inflammation was followed by death. Better avoid that one, too; didn’t sound as if it would fit the ticket.
    What Weezie had told me was that the effect from food was very subtle. She’d said, “You have to tell them what’s supposed to happen.” Tell them what? This will work if you think it does?
    The encyclopedia concurred. The idea of inciting lust rested largely on the powers of suggestion and sympathetic magic. The rhinoceros had been particularly abused, I learned, owing to the unfortunate resemblance its horn bore to the erect male member.
    Clearly, I would have to think about the suggestion angle. I closed the book and headed for the kitchen, where I could hear glasses tinkling and jars being moved in the refrigerator.
    “Hello, there,” I said to Julian’s towel-wrapped backside.
    He started, surprised, then turned to face me.
    His thickly lashed eyes narrowed in appraisal. I didn’t know much about Julian except that Adele had volunteered to take him in when the boarding department had closed at the end of this school year at Elk Park. He’d won a science scholarship to the prep school his tenth-grade year. This summer he was taking Advanced Placement Biology. As soon as the schedule was set, he was going to drive Arch to and from his class in American literature. His parents lived in the Four Corners area, where Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona all came together. But that was all I knew, except that he made excellent candy.
    And that he had been a patient of Philip Miller’s.
    Julian put his hand on his hip. At eighteen, he already had a swimmer’s body, short and tough and muscled. I tried not to eye his bleached hair, which had been shaved in one of those Mohawk cuts with a center ridge. The blond half-inch stood up like a strip of unmowed lawn.
    “What are you doing out here?” he demanded. He made no effort to hide his hostility.
    “Fixing coffee, okay?” I put espresso makings together and tried to soften the anger I felt rising. What was he so mad at me about? Philip’s accident?
    “Julian,” I said once a fragrant rope of dark liquid was twining out of the Farquhars’ Gaggia. “I guess you’ve heard the bad news—”
    “I know. I heard.” He sat down at the kitchen desk chair and ran his fingers through what hair he had. “Bo said you were there,” he said in a voice I tried not to think of as accusing. He raised thick, dark