The Chocolate Jewel Case: A Chocoholic Mystery

by JoAnna Carl

  “A Michigan tag.” Joe stared at the ceiling and slid his arm around me. I snuggled close to him, and we sat silently for at least sixty seconds.

  “You know,” I said, “you might have a good idea with that plan to have our first quarrel so we could make up.”

  “Hmm.”

  “This is the first time we’ve been alone in a week.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And Aunt Nettie did provide her break room with an awfully comfortable couch.”

  I snuggled even closer and gently nibbled Joe’s ear.

  “Scar!” He spoke so suddenly that I jumped. Then he whirled toward me. “Did you say the guy had a scar?”

  “Yes, Joe. It ran down the side of his face. An old scar. It made him look kind of rakish.”

  “Ha!” Joe jumped to his feet. “Let me out the front door, okay?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “I thought of something I’ve got to check out.”

  So much for romance.

  I didn’t argue. Joe had been oblivious to my charms—not the usual state of affairs. He obviously had been struck by an idea. And when Joe gets an idea, I get out of his way.

  So I let him out the front, then let myself out the back, feeling slightly miffed because he’d walked Brenda and Tracy to their car, but forgot to be chivalrous when it was my turn to leave. I didn’t want him to turn into a male chauvinist pig like Pete, but still.

  As I drove out onto Peach Street, I felt hungry, and that reminded me that I was going out to dinner the next day, but my houseguests would have to be fed. Luckily, the Superette had begun summer hours that week, so it would be open until eleven. That was enough time to get stew meat, carrots, and tomato soup for a simple Crock-Pot meal. Surely Gina could manage instant potatoes to go under it and ice cream for dessert. I got those items, plus two cartons of coleslaw from the deli. If ice cream wasn’t enough for dessert, I’d snagged a few more chocolates from the discard tray. They’d gotten too hot and developed bloom, but the double fudge insides (“layers of milk and dark chocolate fudge in a dark chocolate coating”) ought to satisfy anybody’s sweet tooth.

  I had to park at the Baileys’ house and walk through the woods carrying my big brown bag of groceries and a small plastic bag holding Gina’s paperback books, but I had a hand left for my flashlight. I found the living room empty. In fact, the whole house seemed empty. Joe’s truck and Pete’s SUV were there, but there was no sign of either of them. I could see a light in Darrell’s camper, though, and when I checked upstairs Gina was lying on her bed, reading. I handed over her library books. Brenda and Tracy hadn’t come home, she said.

  I went down to the kitchen, poured myself a Diet Coke, and started assembling the stew. What I really wanted was a long, cool shower and a back rub from my bridegroom. A Diet Coke wasn’t a good substitute.

  I had the stew together and was rearranging the refrigerator so that I could cram the Crock-Pot into it when Joe and Pete came in the back door.

  “Where have y’all been?” I said

  “We’ve just been over at Darrell’s,” Joe said. “We’re going to have a beer.”

  Joe got two bottles from the refrigerator, and he and Pete sat at the dining table. They were looking at Pete’s digital camera, but when I came through the room, Pete laid it on the table with the screen down. They didn’t invite me to sit with them. It was definitely a stag conference.

  I was too tired to try to horn my way into the conversation. I said good night to Pete, then took a shower. It was still so hot and so humid that I felt soggy when I got out. It was almost impossible to dry off.

  Then I got into bed. I was so tired that I don’t even remember Joe coming in, which might be considered a disgraceful way for a bride of three months to behave. He swears he kissed me good night, but I suspect he was as tired as I was and was careful not to disturb me. The next thing I knew it was six thirty a.m. It was still dark in the bedroom, even though we were a week past the summer solstice.

  I love Michigan, but it has trees. In the case of Aunt Nettie’s house—our house—there are a lot of trees, ranging from ten feet to a hundred feet tall, on the east side of the lot. The downstairs bedroom is on the west side of the house. This means we get up in the dark year-round, and in the summer even the dining room—on the east side of the house and with lots of windows—doesn’t see any sun until midmorning. This is hard for a gal from the Texas plains to get used to.

  But when the alarm went off, I got up, put on a pot of coffee, and got out the toast and cereal supplies. I left them on the dining table and got dressed in a chocolate brown TenHuis polo shirt and khaki slacks. Then I wrote a note about the dinner for Gina and headed for the office, leaving the do-it-yourself meal behind me. For once, the day at TenHuis Chocolade was routine. The counter help showed up, no unexpected emergency orders came in, and the tourists were no more obnoxious than usual. The air-conditioning limped along. With one unit doing the work of two, it wasn’t exactly cool in the kitchens. Dolly watched the temperature in the storerooms carefully, and she had more boxes moved into the front of the shop. But the AC didn’t break down completely.

  I talked to Mrs. Vandemann, but all she could do was assure me that she was calling all over the state looking for a compressor for our system.

  At five p.m., I left. When I arrived home—miracle of miracles—Gina had plugged in the Crock-Pot at the right time and seemed to grasp the concept of instant mashed potatoes and deli coleslaw. She called me “hon” only twice.

  Darrell and Joe were working outside the bathroom, building forms for the foundation, but when they saw I was home, Joe declared the workday over. Joe got into the shower. Since I’d had the benefit of air-conditioning—my office was the coolest place at TenHuis Chocolade—I just changed into cream slacks and a shirt printed with green leaves on a cream background. I hoped it looked cool. Joe and I were ready to walk over to the Garretts’ house at six thirty.

  As we crossed Lake Shore Drive, I was glad to see that the Garretts had begun to make efforts at clearing out some of the brush that had made the Double Diamond cottage look spooky. It was a lovely old place. Garnet came to meet us as we walked up the steps.

  “What’s happened to the cool Michigan summer?” she said.

  “It’ll be back,” Joe said. “But maybe you won’t want to serve drinks on the porch tonight.”

  “All we have in the way of air-conditioning is a window unit,” she said. “Central air is in our plan of action for after our ship comes in. Do you like gin and tonic? It always cools me off.”

  I gave her the chocolates, and she introduced me to Dick Garrett. A balding fellow with a broad grin, he was much taller than his tiny wife. He and Garnet gave us an abbreviated tour of the inside of the house—the living room and dining room overlooked the lake, of course. The tour ended with a walk down a flagstone path leading to a deck perched on the top of the bluff overlooking the beach. These decks are common along our section of Lake Michigan, where banks from eight to twenty feet tall loom above the shore. Wooden steps led down to Double Diamond’s private stretch of sand and pebbles.

  Back in the house Dick and Joe moved to a bar set up on a table in the corner of the living room and began to talk boats while Dick measured gin and squeezed limes into tall glasses.

  Shade trees and the window unit made the living room temperature bearable. Garnet motioned me to a couch that sat at a right angle to a brick fireplace. The fireplace stood out because of its beauty; the rest of the decor had a shabby feel. The couch was sprung, and the flowers in its upholstery were faded. The hardwood floor was scuffed and scarred. A graceful Craftsman-style library table stood against the back wall, but the rest of the furniture was like ours—used, not antique. The room had dark walls that seemed to soak up the light from the two or three small lamps. The windows overlooked the lake, true, but trees and the broad-roofed porch would keep sunlight out for another hour.

  I guess the dim atmosphere was what kept me fro
m seeing the other guest. I jumped when a voice suddenly spoke out of the gloom.

  “Are you and your husband related to Gina Woodyard?”

  A tiny little man was sitting in a wicker rocker at the end of the couch. I can’t call him gnomelike, because that implies baldness. This man was small and wizened, but he was not bald. Thick, wavy white hair was combed back from his face and crawled down over his collar.

  Before I could answer, Garnet spoke. “This is my uncle Alex. Alex Gold.”

  I put on my gracious-guest face. “Of course. You mentioned that your uncle would be here.” Alex Gold was too far away to shake hands with, so I nodded, and he lifted a glass filled with clear liquid in reply. I saw ice cubes and an olive in the bottom and decided it was a martini on the rocks. No G and T for Uncle Alex.

  “Gina Woodyard is Joe’s aunt,” I said. I didn’t tell Alex that Gina was within a few hundred feet of him, hiding out. “How do you know her?”

  “Everyone in the Midwest antique world knows Gina.”

  “I knew she had an antique shop.”

  He waved his martini. “Her shop isn’t all that important. It’s her expertise.”

  I must have looked as blank as I felt, because he spoke again. “Surely you know she’s one of the nation’s top experts on costume jewelry.”

  “Actually, I didn’t know. But I’ve been in the Woodyard family for only three months.”

  “I see that your husband gave you a beautiful stone for your wedding ring.”

  I held up my ring: a broad gold band with a single not-too-large diamond mounted in a Tiffany setting. “The diamond came from Joe’s grandmother’s engagement ring. His grandparents married in the mid-thirties.”

  Alex Gold slithered out of his seat, kneeling beside me. He took my hand with a clammy paw. I wanted to pull away, but he shoved my hand under the dim light at the end of the couch.

  “The stone is older than the mid-thirties,” he said. “That antique cut was popular before 1920.”

  “Joe!” I wanted to get away from Gold so badly that I almost squawked. “Mr. Gold says your grandmother’s diamond is older than the mid-thirties!”

  Joe stopped talking and looked around absentmindedly. “Actually, Grandma inherited the diamond from her m7other,” he said. “My grandfather didn’t have a lot of money in 1935, so they had this diamond she already owned reset as an engagement ring. My grandmother always wore it when I was a kid. I wanted Lee to have it, so we had it reset again.”

  Mr. Gold scooted back into his wicker rocker. He nodded complacently. “I don’t have a loupe, but it looks like a Tolkowsky cut. You should write down its provenance. These stories are so easily lost.”

  My gin and tonic arrived then, so I was able to quiz Alex Gold about his connection with the antique trade.

  “I own a jewelry shop in Chicago,” he said. “Gold chains and engagement rings pay the rent. But I have an interest in antique jewelry.”

  Garnet spoke. “Uncle Alex is one of the world’s leading experts on Art Deco jewelry.”

  Alex looked modest. “I’m to Art Deco jewelry what your aunt is to costume jewelry. I’ve researched it extensively, and I do appraisals.”

  “Then you’ve kept up your grandmother’s interest in precious stones.”

  “Our grandmother was somewhat interested in their beauty, true, but to her their importance lay mainly in their value.” He smiled. “Her admirers were expected to cough up major stones. I’m more interested in design and workmanship. Your diamond wouldn’t have impressed Grandmother Opal, because it’s not particularly large—half a carat, I’d say—but I like it better than a larger stone that might not have such a lovely cut.”

  Garnet interceded then, like a good hostess, asking me about our wedding and making other attempts at small talk. Her uncle sat with us, ignoring the boat discussion between Joe and Dick Garrett. In a few minutes, however, Garnet called Joe and Dick over and the conversation became general. Alex didn’t grab my hand again, and his open admiration of my diamond—I also thought it was lovely—had made him seem less creepy.

  After an hour of chitchat, Dick braved the heat to go outside and charcoal steaks. Garnet brought baked potatoes and salad from the kitchen, and we moved to the dining table. The sun had gone down by the time we finished off with locally grown strawberries topped with sugar and cream, and Garnet passed the TenHuis chocolates as she served coffee. I had a Dutch Caramel Bonbon (“creamy, European-style soft caramel wrapped in dark chocolate”). By the time we’d all accepted a final cup of coffee it was dark. The evening had turned out to be very pleasant.

  Like many of the summer cottages along Lake Michigan, Double Diamond had no shades or curtains on its windows. The dining room’s wall was made up entirely of windows—double-hung windows, with wainscoting below. A set of French doors was at one end. Beyond the windows was a section of the cottage’s broad porch and, beyond that, trees and the lake. After dark, the porch, trees, and lake disappeared, as if the lights on a stage had been turned off, and the wall of windows became a wall of mirrors. I happened to be seated facing the windows.

  So I was the one who saw the face.

  At first the face was just a blob, sort of like a balloon tied to a chair outside the window. It moved, and I thought I was seeing a reflection of one of the people inside the house.

  I counted heads. There was Dick Garrett at the end of the table. I wasn’t seeing his reflection. He’d be in profile, not facing the window. Besides, Dick was telling some story and was gesturing wildly, and I could see him in the window clearly. No, it wasn’t Dick.

  It wasn’t Joe. Joe was facing me, so his back was to the windows. It wasn’t Garnet. The face outside was topped by what appeared to be dark hair, not strawberry blond.

  That meant it had to be Alex. But no, Alex had white hair. He was sipping his coffee and giving his full attention to his niece’s husband. I located his reflection in the wall of windows. It wasn’t the one I could see.

  The face belonged to a stranger.

  I turned to Garnet and spoke in a low voice, trying not to interrupt Dick’s yarn. “Excuse me, but there seems to be someone on the porch.”

  Garnet turned her head toward the windows.

  Joe didn’t bother to be polite. He spoke up loudly. “What’s wrong?”

  Garnet’s eyebrows raised. “Lee says there’s someone on the porch.”

  Joe was halfway out of his chair when the door to the deck swung open, and the man came into the room. At that moment I couldn’t have told you what he looked like.

  All I could see was the shiny silver pistol in his hand.

  Chapter 7

  “Everybody stay still,” the man said. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  I think we were all too astonished to give him any, especially after a second man with a second pistol came through the front door and ran across the living room to join our little tableau. With frightening calm, the two ordered us to keep our seats. When Joe remained hunched over, half standing and apparently undecided about whether or not he was going to drop his fanny onto his chair, the first man pointed his pistol at me. I’m happy to report that Joe quickly sat down.

  Neither he nor Dick Garrett looked happy, but they didn’t start a fight.

  “Nobody’s going to get hurt,” the first man said. “We’ll have to make sure you don’t follow us, but you’ll get loose without much trouble.”

  The second man produced a roll of duct tape. As I mentally reviewed the numerous cases in which people were bound and gagged, then murdered, he looped it around each of us, securing us to our chair backs, but he didn’t wrap our feet—or even our hands. Just our upper arms. And he didn’t gag us.

  By then my brain was beginning to function, and I tried to notice what the two guys looked like. One was tall and slim and the other short and not so slim. The difference in their heights was striking. And that was all I could tell.

  Their mothers couldn’t have recognized them, except that they
seemed to be sports fanatics. They wore wet suits over their bodies and ski masks over their heads. Both wore latex gloves. Their getups were effective—I couldn’t tell a thing about either of them.

  I even looked at their feet. They wore rubber clogs of a type available in every drugstore, discount store, and department store in the United States. I couldn’t even see whether either of them had a bunion or an ingrown toenail.

  Dick Garrett muttered his opinion of their family heritage as the duct tape went around his shoulders, but Garnet spoke to him sharply. “Keep quiet!” she said. “Please!”

  Dick obeyed, and both armed men seemed to ignore his comments.

  The only one of us who acted brave—or maybe nonchalant—was Alex Gold. “I always expected to be held up at the store,” he said. “Not here, where there’s nothing to steal.” He folded his hands as if praying, holding them over his plate as the tape went around his shoulders.

  After all five of us were well taped, the two invaders simply stood there. I found myself wondering if they didn’t know what to do next. Shouldn’t they be demanding that we empty our pockets and take off our jewelry? I wiggled my hand, twisting my wedding ring around to hide its stone.

  But still the two men did nothing but stand there watching us. Finally the tall one spoke. “Go yell at him,” he said.

  Yell at him?

  The shorter, rounder masked man left the dining room, and seconds later I heard him yell, “Hurry!”

  And a strange voice echoed into the room, apparently from upstairs. “What’s happened?”

  “Blondie spotted us. Everything’s under control. But hurry! Don’t worry about being quiet!”

  The short guy came back into the dining room. He and the taller man stood at either end of the dining table, staring at us—their captives—but again neither said a word. They were obviously waiting for the guy upstairs.

  Then I heard light steps on the stairs. The guy up there was obviously not wearing heavy rubber clogs.