Free 1 Chocolate Worth Dying For by Pat Amsden

be to the community. Articles on the planning and green features, an article on Ron Vandemeers' visionary way of doing business. Rick Dodd was hardly mentioned. She frowned slightly. That seemed odd when everything she'd heard would indicate they were equal partners.
    She typed in Rick Dodd's name. Real estate salesman of the year, Chamber of commerce president, real estate scam. Real estate scam? She clicked on the link. It came to an article talking about the falling price of real estate in the local market and real estate scams to watch for. Buried in the bottom of the piece was once sentence: Even reputable real estate sales professionals such as Rick Dodd have been accused of real estate scams. She clicked on real estate scams.
    The Law Society warned of scam artists inflating the cost of real estate during flips. But this was a project just starting out. Others had been talked into buying land and properties that didn't exist. From what she could see West Shore Developments clearly did.
    What was she missing? She scrolled down a list of tax scams, sales scams and assorted flim flam acts. But so far she wasn't seeing anything to raise red flags or any other colour. Some sleuth she was.
    She looked at pictures of Ron Vandemeer and Rick Dodd shaking hands with local politicians and members of the chamber of commerce. They were all around good guys as far as she could see.
    She stopped as she was about to click through another picture. There. In the background. The same woman she'd seen at Ron's funeral. She enlarged the picture. The woman wasn't identified but the picture was of Ron at West Shore's city hall. He seemed to be getting presented with an award of some kind. Did she work there?
    She clicked over to the West Shore City Hall and started going through the staff photos. Kathy Sullivan – Admin Assistant to the Mayor and also city planning. Now all she needed was a reason to talk to her. She couldn't really think of one off the top of her head. Unless she came clean and asked outright why she'd been at the funeral and why she was so upset. Something told her it might be a good idea to come up with something a little more subtle.
    Good thing she did happen to have a fairly large supply of truffles along with promo shots of her shop. Now would be the perfect time to introduce herself to the Mayor's office. With an assortment of her chocolates to give them a sample of what they could expect if they hired Au Chocolat for their next affair.
    And while they were passing around chocolates and promoting their product she could talk to Kathy Sullivan. Now all she had to do was convince Heath to drop what he was doing now and help her with her latest scheme.
    Heath refused. "This is something for the police to deal with," he said stubbornly. "We need you out here going through everything so that it's ready for Bernice when she comes home."
    Fortunately Ellie stopped by the shop at about that time.
    "She's upstairs," Jane said and Ellie made her way up the stairs as Maxine finished arranging a platter of truffles.
    "Catering an event!" Ellie said brightly.
    "Not quite," Maxine said brightly. "But I've decided if there's no business coming through the doors I'm going to have to make an effort to get my chocolate in the hands of people who might need a caterer."
    Ellie looked a little worried. "I know none of this is your fault but it still might be best just to wait it out for at least a few days."
    Maxine looked at her suspiciously. "What did you do with grandmother and where can I find her?"
    Ellie laughed. "I had that coming. But honey – people might not be that receptive to you right now. I can lend you some money to tide you over."
    "I'm not taking money from you," she said firmly. "And the real reason I'm going out there is because I found the weeping woman from Ron's funeral."
    Ellie's ears perked up. "And?"
    "And she works in the West Shore City Hall as an Administrative Assistant to the mayor and also the city