The Chocolate Raccoon Rigmarole

by JoAnna Carl

  I stopped in the middle of salting my eggs. “Then why are they bothering to break in at all?”

  “That’s what bothers me, Lee.” Hogan took a bite of his bacon. “Maybe I’m just a suspicious old coot, but what are they really up to?”

  “They injured Watt,” I said, “and the only logical reason was to keep him from seeing them.”

  “That’s certainly a strong possibility. But we don’t know enough about Watt Wicker to have a theory. It could be, for example, that Watt is an international crook and a rival gang is trying to kill him.”

  Joe and I stared at him. Then we both laughed.

  “Watt?” I said. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Of course it is,” Hogan said. “But what I’m saying is that Watt could have been the target of an attack for a lot of reasons. We don’t know. But if people are willing to link the Cookie Monsters to this attack—well, let them. I’ll investigate Watt without publicity.”

  “So all this stuff about people calling in is just so much eyewash?”

  “No, we do need to know what’s going on around here. If anybody has seen anything that might be linked to the break-ins, I want to know about it. I already asked Joe to mention the break-ins to the coffee club—those guys see and hear a lot.”

  Joe laughed. “As witnessed by the amount of gossip we spread.”

  Hogan grinned. “Exactly. But my first step will be investigating Watt Wicker. Where did he come from? Why is he here? I’m sorry this terrible thing happened. But what’s really going on with him?”

  Hogan stopped talking and took another bite. As soon as he swallowed, he motioned toward me with his fork. “So can you do a favor for me, Lee?”

  “What is it?”

  “Find out a little more about Watt Wicker.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “How’d you find him? I mean, as a raccoon catcher.”

  “Wildflower Hill recommended him. I guess I could ask her if she knows anything about his background.”

  Hogan raised his eyebrows. “Go for it,” he said.

  1930s Chocolate

  (The Chocolate Bridal Bash)

  My grandmother was a fabulous cook and saw her family through the Great Depression by managing a bakery in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Here’s one of her chocolate cake recipes.

  Gran’s Fudge Cake with Mocha Frosting

  2½ cups sugar

  2 sticks butter

  5 eggs, separated

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  ¼ cup cocoa

  3 cups cake flour

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  ½ teaspoon salt

  1 cup buttermilk

  Cream sugar and butter, then beat in egg yolks. Add vanilla. Add cocoa. Sift flour with baking soda and salt. Add to first mixture alternately with buttermilk. Beat egg whites until stiff, and fold in.

  This recipe makes 4 layers or 1 large sheet cake. Bake layers 20–25 minutes at 375 degrees or sheet cake 35–45 minutes at 350 degrees.

  MOCHA FROSTING

  1 stick butter

  1 egg yolk

  4 tablespoons coffee

  1 pound sifted powdered sugar

  2 tablespoons cocoa

  Soften butter, then mix all ingredients. Beat until smooth.

  Chapter 9

  I called Wildflower as soon as I was back at my desk.

  “Hey, Wildflower, I need to know more about our champion raccoon catcher. Where’d you find him?”

  “Watt? Oh, he came around with a big fish he wanted mounted. Then I helped him find a place to free the raccoons he’d caught. He did some trapping for a couple of the neighbors out here, and he did a good job. So I felt that I could recommend him. But what’s happened to him? The gossip is that he was attacked.”

  “I really don’t know the specifics,” I said. “Hogan’s trying to find out.” I gave Wildflower a quick rundown on the action the night before and on Watt’s current condition, ending with, “The doctors think Watt’s going to be all right. But apparently he’s not remembering much so far.”

  “Watt seems like a nice enough guy—at least, he’s kind to wildlife and to old ladies. And he shows up when he says he will. I honestly don’t know too much about him.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Someplace up north, maybe on the U.P.”

  I knew, of course, that the Upper Peninsula—the chunk of Michigan between Lake Michigan and Lake Superior—is a significant divide in Michigan.

  Wildflower went on. “He’s spent some time as a fishing guide, as well as in restaurant jobs. And I believe he was in the army a couple of years.”

  “Does Watt have relatives around here?”

  “He’s never mentioned any. Why all the questions?”

  “The police are trying to figure out why somebody would hit him in the head with a brick.”

  Wildflower took a shaky breath. “I sure don’t know. And I might not tell the police even if I did know! Just on principle.”

  I thought she was going to hang up, but I stopped her with a quick remark. “Wildflower! We’re trying to help the guy!”

  She gave a deep sigh. “I guess my hippie youth is to blame for my hesitation to tell the ‘authorities’ too much. But the person you should ask about Watt is Mike Herrera.”

  “Because Mike hired him to clean kitchens?”

  “Yes. Watt was working for Mike by the time I met him. Mike would have checked out his references, especially before Watt started working with Mike’s own seventeen-year-old grandson alone in the middle of the night.”

  “Good point. If Mike hired Watt to work in his restaurants in the middle of the night, with no direct supervision, I guess that’s a pretty good reference right there.”

  But I was talking to the air. Wildflower had already hung up. I sighed. I made a note to take her some chocolates to thank her for her reluctant help.

  When I first met Wildflower, she refused to eat refined sugar. But after a few gifts from TenHuis Chocolade, she’d become a fan of raspberry truffles (“dark chocolate center enrobed with raspberry-flavored white chocolate and embellished with a pink dot”).

  I already knew I’d have trouble following Wildflower’s advice about speaking to Mike Herrera. He was out of town. He and Mercy, Joe’s mom and Mike’s wife, were at a convention in Seattle, representing Mercy’s insurance agency. While I was sure both of them were packing cell phones, they still would be tied up with old friends and other convention activities.

  My mind moved next to Lindy, Mike’s right hand when it came to all three of the Herrera restaurants. She’d be in charge while he was out of town. She might well know a lot more about the hiring of Watt Wicker than Mike did himself.

  Of course, just an hour ago, she had apparently been asleep, recovering from a night in a hospital waiting room. I hesitated, then decided I’d better call her anyway. To my surprise, she answered the phone.

  “Lindy,” I said, “if you’re still in bed, I’m going to deny it’s me.”

  “Heck, Lee, you can’t hide that Texas accent. Besides, I’m up and at the hospital. Were you calling to check on Watt’s condition?”

  “Yes, among other things. How is he?”

  “Much better. He spoke to me, and he knew who I was. But he’s still groggy. The doctors want to keep him a couple of more days. Hogan called to check on him, too.”

  “Oh? Hogan gave me a few questions he wanted answered. I’m surprised he didn’t ask them himself.”

  “We didn’t talk long. He got another call and had to hang up. He just wanted to be sure that Watt wasn’t going to be tossed out of the hospital immediately. But what does Hogan want to know about Watt?”

  I explained to Lindy that we’d been so quick to assume that the Warner Pier burglars were g
uilty of the attack on Watt that Joe and I—and to some extent Hogan—had ignored the possibility that the attack on Watt had nothing to do with the earlier prowlers. Now we were trying to make up for our neglect.

  My explanation seemed to leave Lindy more confused than ever. There was a long silence before she spoke.

  “Huh?”

  I started to speak again, but Lindy cut me off. “Lee, just cut the explanation and ask your questions.” Then we both laughed.

  First, I wanted to know how Watt got his job as night kitchen cleaner for Herrera’s restaurants. Lindy told me that he had worked for her father-in-law ten years earlier. He came back to Warner Pier looking for a job.

  “Actually,” Lindy said, “he was looking for a job as a head cook. But Mike didn’t have an opening. He told Watt that all he had right then was this cleaning job, and Watt took it.”

  “You mean, Watt had been a head cook, but he took a job as a cleaner? Working in the middle of the night?”

  “Right.”

  “But why would he do that? And at the beginning of the tourist season on the Great Lakes? That’s when people are fighting to hire experienced help. Seems as if there should be plenty of jobs around. With somebody else, if not with Mike.”

  “I don’t know why, Lee.”

  “Hmm. Where had he been working?”

  “I honestly don’t know. The boss told me to hire him, and I obeyed. I kinda think—I seem to remember that he mentioned working as a fishing guide. Maybe on the Upper Peninsula?”

  “And he wanted a job as a cook?”

  “He’d worked here as a cook several years earlier. I guess he’d decided he’d had enough fresh air for a while.”

  I chuckled. “So he turned back to grease?”

  “Now, Lee—”

  “Don’t kid me, Lindy. I was a waitress nearly five years. I understand grease.”

  We both laughed. Then I spoke again. “Where does Watt live? And with whom?”

  “I can’t look his address up until I get back to the office. And he has never mentioned living with anybody. Listen, Lee, Mike usually calls me to check on the restaurants every evening. I’ll get him to call you.”

  “Ask him to call Hogan.”

  We hung up. This didn’t seem to be a promising line of questioning to me. Restaurant help has been known to drift from job to job. For all we knew, Watt’s life might have been a series of temporary jobs and short-term relationships.

  While I considered this, I started craving a piece of chocolate. I headed back to the workroom, picturing a milk chocolate raccoon, complete with sharply pointed white chocolate teeth and a dark chocolate mask. “Like a vampire,” Mike had said. Maybe Aunt Nettie should have added a cape to her design.

  Every TenHuis Chocolade employee was allowed two pieces of chocolate every working day. I never skipped either of mine.

  With my raccoon in hand, I took a chair by Aunt Nettie’s desk. “Sorry I’ve been behind on work,” I said. “As soon as I get back from the bank, I’ll start on the e-mail orders.”

  Aunt Nettie smiled. “Hogan said he asked you to make some phone calls for him. I know that slows you down, but he does need the help.”

  “So far I haven’t learned anything very exciting.”

  “What is he looking for?”

  “Some background information on Watt Wicker. I talked to Lindy and to Wildflower, but neither of them knows much about him. And Hogan and Lindy both say Watt is still pretty much out of it from his concussion.”

  I briefly described the few calls I’d made to find out more about Watt. “I’m sure Hogan has checked law enforcement records for a file on him.”

  Aunt Nettie nodded. “Maybe private employers can be casual about it, but the rules around background checks for city workers are pretty strict.”

  City workers? Was Aunt Nettie implying that we check out someone else?

  My eyebrows knitted together. “Are you talking about anybody in particular?”

  “Maybe Mike Westerly. We all liked him immediately. Everybody has taken him in.”

  “Oh.” I thought about it. “Is that odd for Warner Pier?”

  “Not so much these days. When I was a kid—well, you practically needed to provide your whole genealogy to get any kind of a job here. Even a job in the tourist trade. But us locals can still be pretty suspicious.”

  “People seemed to take me in without too many questions. Of course, I had family connections. And my aunt is the most popular person in town.”

  “And you began dating the most popular bachelor in west Michigan.”

  I smiled. “I still can’t say ‘yah’ correctly, but marrying Joe makes up for a lot. I’d better get back to work.”

  When I stood up, my assistant, Bunny, waved from her office door.

  “The deposit’s ready,” she said.

  I waved back. “I’m on my way.”

  Aunt Nettie smiled her sweetest smile. “Take as long as you want. You’ll be the one staying late.”

  My aunt is patient with me, but only to a point.

  I grabbed the cash bag from Bunny, hid it in my tote, and headed for the bank, a block away. The short walk gave me a breath of air and a quick look at Warner Pier. I waved at my fellow merchants and stopped to chat with a few of them as I walked along.

  Our downtown is small, only four blocks long and three blocks wide, but it’s picturesque. A city ordinance requires that all new construction in the business district be red brick with white trim, to match the other commercial buildings. Everything a tourist could need is there—a drugstore with an old-fashioned soda fountain, a bookstore, two coffee shops, a half-dozen restaurants, a swimsuit shop, two art galleries, and even a shoe store, offering many different styles of sneakers, sandals, and flip-flops, with nary a pair of high heels visible in its front window.

  That shoe store, Van’s, has been owned and operated by the Vanderwerp family for many years. Bill Vanderwerp, the grandson of the store’s founder, had just recently taken over operation of the business. Like his father, Bill had also become a drop-in member of the coffee club.

  When I got to the bank, I was only semisurprised to find Bill Vanderwerp falling in line behind me.

  “Hi, Lee,” he said. “I guess you heard about that deputy, Paige.”

  “Heard what? She was at the hospital after Watt was hurt. I hadn’t heard anything today.”

  “I hear that she didn’t show up for work this morning.”

  “Strange. Does the sheriff have any idea what’s up?”

  Bill shrugged. “I heard that he didn’t seem too surprised.”

  “Odder and odder.”

  After I deposited the money, I quickly left the bank, my head swirling with the news.

  When I got back to the office, I tried to call Hogan to see if he knew anything more. He wasn’t at the station; the secretary took a message.

  Before I could even consider getting back to work, Bill Vanderwerp appeared in the shop. I waved at him. He bought half a pound of miniature animals, and before he headed back to the shoe store, he came into my office and plunked himself into my visitor’s chair.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  “There was one other thing I intended to ask you at the bank. But you made a quick getaway.”

  “Oh, what is it?”

  “I can’t help wondering if you and Joe have heard anything about these break-ins. Nothing like this ever happened when I was growing up here!” Bill said.

  “I don’t remember anything like it either,” I said. “Of course, I’m a newcomer. I’ve only been here five years!”

  “What do you think of Mike Westerly?”

  “He seems very conscientious.” I smiled. “And my pal Dolly seems to like him a lot.”

  “I guess I’m just jumpy. Now that I’m a ‘loca
l’ again, I find I’m quite protective of the old hometown. I don’t trust strangers.”

  “No matter how long they’ve been here?”

  “Or how recently they arrived.”

  We both laughed. I’d heard that Bill had worked in New York City for twenty years, so he’d been away from Warner Pier longer than he’d lived in the place.

  He smiled, told me how beautiful Aunt Nettie’s chocolate animals were, and left.

  But the questions about Mike Westerly started to worry me. Who was he? Was he good enough for Dolly? Was his background clean? He seemed like such a nice guy; had the people of Warner Pier—Joe, me, all the others who liked him and trusted him—been taken in and fooled by a stranger?

  And what about Watt? Was he an outdoorsman? Or a cook? Or both?

  Chapter 10

  Was I being disloyal? Or sensible? I didn’t know. And I certainly wasn’t going to discuss Mike with Dolly. I vowed that I’d try to put the entire thing out of my mind.

  Instead, I grabbed a half-pound box of chocolates and stowed it away as a gift for Watt. Aunt Nettie and I could drive into Holland the next day and deliver the box. Chocolate can cure anything!

  Then I tried to catch up on work, but I quickly stopped when Hogan finally returned my call. Paige, he told me, had been missed when she failed to show up for work that morning.

  “I can’t tell if Vinton is more worried about her or about her patrol car,” he said. “That may sound harsh, but he doesn’t really seem worried about her. He admitted to me that she has called in with flimsy excuses in the past, but this is the first time she simply didn’t show up. I guess it’s not my business. If her boss doesn’t seem to think anything bad has happened to her—I don’t know what’s going on.”

  I thought a moment, then spoke. “Well, a couple of funny things happened, Hogan. First, the other day—after our big apology session with Paige—I accidentally overheard something odd.”

  I described the phone call I had heard Paige making while I was in the ladies’ room.