by JoAnna Carl
At least I didn’t have to do that chore. I was already feeling pretty bad because I hadn’t liked Paige, and now she had apparently committed suicide.
I told Joe as much. “I guess I feel guilty,” I said.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “If everybody I don’t like committed suicide, the streets would be piled with corpses. And I like a lot more people than I dislike! You’re not responsible for other people’s problems.”
I looked at him closely. “Then you think Paige committed suicide?”
Joe didn’t answer.
As soon as we settled the younger generation—Barbara, Dale, Katy, and Darcy—Joe told me it was time for me to leave, too. I didn’t argue. We went home. And never had the old white farmhouse looked so good. We didn’t talk about the whole thing anymore that night.
But the next morning I was up and dressed early—which was a good thing, as it turned out, because Hogan showed up at seven thirty.
Joe didn’t seem surprised to see Hogan. He went to the back door and waved as the chief’s car pulled into the drive. Then Joe turned to me.
“Hogan told me last night that he was going to drop by. Could you stand to talk to him?”
“As long as I don’t have to make sense. What does he want?”
“Just something about those raccoons.”
“Raccoons! Now what? I’d like to forget all about raccoons for today.”
Joe brought me a cup of coffee, accompanied by three chocolate animals: a dark chocolate raccoon, a white chocolate rabbit, and a milk chocolate squirrel. Yes, chocolate is wonderful for breakfast.
After Hogan sat down with us and his own coffee, Joe spoke. “Hogan and I would like to have your opinion on a couple of things he and I talked about over dinner yesterday evening.”
I sipped my coffee. “Oh? What did you need to know, Hogan?”
“Well, I did wonder if you had time to talk to Wildflower Hill.”
“About Watt? Actually I did. I’m afraid I didn’t learn much.”
“Nothing?”
“She thinks Watt came from ‘up north, maybe on the U.P.’ She doesn’t know anything else about him, really. Except that she likes him. Oh, and maybe he’d been in the army. Were you able to find out anything?”
“Not a lot. I got in touch with Mike Herrera, who says Watt was pleasant, reliable, and a good cook. He worked for his restaurants just that one summer, so Mike remembered only a few personal things about Watt. I checked state records—nothing there.”
I realized that Hogan was saying Watt had no criminal record in Michigan, something I’d already guessed.
Hogan shrugged. “I’ll do a little more checking. But what happened last night? From your viewpoint, I mean.”
My voice cracked when I tried to answer. I struggled not to break down. Joe patted my back and assured me that I was an intelligent and capable woman and that he had every confidence in me. He held my hand while I again told the tale of what happened the night before. Ending with the discovery of Paige’s body in the garage.
Hogan listened with a frown, and he kept frowning after I finished.
“So I guess she committed suicide,” I said. “But it’s hard to believe.”
“Why do you say that, Lee? You barely knew Paige.”
I considered for a time. “First, it was the ‘big, lumpy’ figures Darcy and Katy saw.”
Hogan frowned. “If they saw anything at all.”
“Something scared the girls, Hogan. They ran. Plus, I guess it was one of the things Paige said when I was eavesdropping. Something about being on the edge of—some big deal? That’s not right—it was ‘historic’! She said something about ‘on the edge of a historic deal.’ That was it.”
Hogan sat up and stared at me. He looked surprised. But he didn’t speak.
So I did. “I just can’t believe someone ‘on the edge of a historic deal’ would commit suicide.”
Hogan frowned. “I don’t understand that either,” he said. “But there’s another thing. Both you and Dolly mentioned a noise I don’t understand. A clanging noise. What was that?”
“I have no idea, Hogan. We didn’t stop to figure it out.”
“Did it sound familiar in any way?”
“It was metallic. It was loud. It reverberated. Clanged.”
Hogan was still frowning, so I asked his opinion. “I’m sure you and your gang looked the alley over in detail. Did you see anything likely to clang?”
“Garbage can lids,” he said. “There are several big Dumpsters. But the only things I found unusual in any of them were some moving pads. I’ll take another look.”
“Do you think something is—well, wrong about the whole deal? Something that doesn’t sound like suicide?”
“It’s hard to tell, Lee. I’d like to understand that noise, and I’d like to understand those big, bulky guys coming out of the garage. At the very least, they could be witnesses. But did they really come out of the garage where Paige was? Could the girls have been mistaken? Could they have come from somewhere else?”
“I didn’t see where they came from. They were already running toward Dock Street when I saw them. Ask Dolly. She had a better view.”
“I’ve talked to the state police. They’re recommending leaving the status of Paige’s death open.”
“Open?”
“Not declaring a cause of death. Meanwhile, Joe had a revelation.”
A revelation? What else could have been going on? I turned to Joe. “So?”
“This was a different idea of just what happened,” Joe said. “I’d like to ask if you agree with me.”
“Ask away.”
Joe sat forward. “To begin, nearly a week ago, Wildflower recommended Watt Wicker as a raccoon catcher. Agreed?”
“Yes. I called him that night, and we talked about the job.”
Joe nodded. “Early the next morning, Mike Westerly was with the coffee club in the Rest-Stop, and that’s when Mike told me he would be glad to try catching raccoons for you.”
I frowned. “You told me that. But I didn’t need a raccoon catcher by then. I’d hired Watt to handle the job.”
“Right. But I didn’t know that at the time. I told Mike—and not only Mike, but also the entire coffee club—that it was likely you would accept his offer to trap raccoons at TenHuis Chocolade.”
“But I didn’t hire Mike, because I’d already hired Watt.”
“True. I was mistaken.”
This confession seemed trivial. I smiled as I replied. “Joe, I think you’re overreacting to having two raccoon hunters on the job at the same time. Mike was just being nice to me. He didn’t care about the raccoons.”
Joe nodded. “True. But no one at the Rest-Stop knew Watt was going to be the raccoon hunter. They were expecting Mike to show up. And unless you told somebody, nobody knew the situation had changed.”
“So what?”
“So did Watt nearly get killed because he was where Mike was expected to be?”
I stared at Joe. My mouth fell open.
I jumped up off the couch so fast that I nearly landed on my knees. “Oh my gosh, Joe! Are you saying somebody attacked Watt thinking he was Mike?”
“Maybe not—”
“Joe, they might try again! We can’t let Mike wander around with someone out there trying to murder him, and we can’t let these crooks get away with hurting Watt!”
Joe tried to soothe me. “Lee! Lee!” he said, speaking as if I were a child.
“Joe!” I was ready to pop a gasket. “Joe, we’ve got to do something!”
Now I had Hogan as well as Joe soothing me. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’ve got it temporarily handled.”
“What? What did you do?”
“I fired Mike.” Hogan grinned. “I told him he should take some time away f
rom Warner Pier.”
“Really?” I felt completely incredulous. “That’s not a good solution either!”
“Calm down, Lee. Mike will get his job back. This is just a stopgap measure. We’re simply trying to keep Mike out of the firing line.”
“I hope he’ll go.”
“I’m bribing him. I told him to take Dolly with him.”
“But that will put Dolly in danger!”
Hogan was frowning. “I’m afraid she may already be in danger, Lee. She was the one who got closest to the ‘big, lumpy’ guys when they came out of the garage. I think it’s probably a good thing for her to keep a low profile for a while.”
I dropped my head into my hands and shook that head gently. “I don’t want to see Dolly in danger.”
“She probably isn’t. But I want to take every precaution.”
“I only hope both of them will go,” I said. “And that the Cookie Monsters don’t discover where.”
“I’m not saying where they are,” Hogan said. “But it’s someplace safe. And just in case, Watt is in a safe place, too.”
“Thank goodness! Are you telling where he is?”
“Nope.”
I nodded in approval.
Eventually, the three of us settled down, and I got a full report on Joe and Hogan’s evening.
It started with dinner. Since I was working late and Aunt Nettie had gone to the bridal shower for a friend’s granddaughter, Joe and Hogan decided to go into Holland for dinner together. There, they fell into a conversation about the urban raccoons around Warner Pier.
Joe had mentioned Mike’s offer to trap raccoons behind TenHuis Chocolade and explained how Watt ended up taking the job instead.
And the light dawned. He wondered aloud if anyone but Mike had known that I rejected his offer to trap the varmints. Joe and Hogan quickly realized the possibility that Mike had been the intended victim of the attack in the dark alley—not Watt.
They got to work without hesitation. Joe called all the coffee club members and asked if any of them had told anyone about Mike and Watt both being considered as raccoon trappers. They all denied that they had.
“But, Joe,” I said, “there were other people who knew.”
“Who?”
“Me, for one. Alex Gold. Aunt Nettie.”
“She said she didn’t tell anyone,” Joe said. “We’ll have to ask Alex if he did.”
“I know one other person who might have,” I said. “T. J.”
Hogan nodded. “I’ve been trying to reach T. J. He’s supposed to call when he wakes up. He’s planning to work tonight.”
I was surprised. “This soon after his coworker was attacked?”
“His mom says he told her he didn’t mind, as long as he had someone to work with him. She found a tough guy to stand in for Watt—T. J.’s dad.”
Joe laughed. “Tony used to get all the worst jobs in his father’s restaurants, but I doubt he remembers a lot about cleaning grease traps.”
Ten minutes later, T. J. called. Hogan put his phone on speaker so all three of us could hear, then began to ask questions.
“T. J., I need to talk to you about Watt. Did you know he was going to be catching raccoons for Lee and Nettie? Before he did it, I mean?”
“I sure didn’t, Chief. Not until he mentioned it the first night he was on the job.”
“No discussion about it at all?”
“No, sir.”
“Frankly, T. J., it would help our case if you had known and then told someone.”
“Then I wish I could tell you that I had. But I didn’t.”
T. J. said good-bye then, and Hogan, Joe, and I sat silently.
“There’s always a possibility that someone made some casual comment,” I said. “This is Warner Pier, remember. News seems to seep out by osmosis. In fact, there’s no reason that Watt couldn’t have told somebody himself.”
Both Joe and Hogan shook their heads.
“Didn’t you hear?” Hogan said. “Watt regained full consciousness yesterday afternoon. And he told me he hadn’t mentioned this particular raccoon-catching job to anybody.”
My head was spinning. When Hogan’s phone rang again, it seemed to echo between my ears.
But I was surprised when Hogan jumped to his feet. “Mike! Is everything okay?”
He listened silently for a moment before he spoke again. “Where did she go?” It had to be Dolly. My eyes widened.
Another moment of silence. “Did she leave a note?”
Next. “That’s no help. Do you have any idea where she is?”
Then. “No! No, Mike, let me think a minute.”
Hogan stalked around the living room, his cell phone to his ear. “No, don’t come back. We’d better stick to our original plan—at least for today. I’ll call you as soon as I find anything out.” He shot a glance toward Joe and me as he listened, nodding. “Good. So go to the place we agreed on. And stay there.”
He sighed. “And, Mike, remember. Strictly incommunicado.”
Hogan looked like a thundercloud as he hung up. Neither Joe nor I spoke.
“It’s Dolly,” Hogan said. “After we made our big plan, she’s changed it. She’s disappeared from her apartment. When Mike went to pick her up, she was gone.”
I jumped to my feet. “Gone! Gone? Mike doesn’t know where she went?”
“She left a note, but all it says is ‘Don’t worry. I’m okay.’ ”
Chapter 12
I wanted to shake her—if I’d only been able to get my hands on her.
“Dolly’s the one who needs to worry! First she agrees to hide out with Mike, then she backs out and tells us not to worry? What does she think we’re all going to do?”
I was furious. Where would Dolly have gone? Had she left on her own? Or was she forced to go away with someone? Could she have been kidnapped? But if she left a note—well, did that mean she went willingly? Or that someone had forced her to write the note?
Joe asked the logical question. “Exactly what did the note say?”
“It says she isn’t unhappy about leaving,” Hogan said. “She simply felt she couldn’t hide out with Mike. So she’s gone, but she promised to get in touch.”
Naturally, my first idea was to call Dolly’s cell phone. All I got were instructions to leave a message. A try at sending her an e-mail was equally unsuccessful; she didn’t answer. This did not reassure me. I worried all day.
I worried and agonized and pulled my hair and chewed my nails and worried some more. That was all I could do; Hogan wouldn’t allow either Joe or me to do anything else, such as get out and look for her.
No. He said it firmly. Dolly had left a note. There was no reason to think she was in danger. But the whole plan had been for Mike and Dolly to leave town together. If her friends rushed around, making noise about her disappearing, it might raise suspicions about Mike’s whereabouts. No, we must keep this a secret.
Joe and I had worked with Hogan on a number of cases—his force was tiny, and he called on volunteers when he needed help. But we understood that he was in charge. Our situation was nothing like one of those mystery stories with an idiot professional detective who had to be led along by the amateurs. No, Hogan was the boss.
So I understood what he was saying, but I hated doing nothing. I was ready to spend the whole day on the phone, calling all of Dolly’s friends and relatives to find out if she had turned up on anyone’s doorstep. I wanted to plaster the television and radio news shows with alerts about a missing woman, patrol the streets in police cars with loud sirens, and send up flares.
I dragged myself into work a couple of hours late. Aunt Nettie met me there, as tired and worried about Dolly as I was. At least she brought doughnuts; Aunt Nettie never forgets the comfort food.
When she and I discovered a big box of homemad
e cookies in the break room, with a note from Dolly taped on top, we both cried.
“Please eat these,” the note said. “I don’t want them to get stale.”
After we got the tears over, we washed our faces, refreshed our makeup, and put on smiles so that all the ladies who made our wonderful chocolate would not guess there was anything wrong. We practiced saying that Dolly had taken a day off for personal business.
But the first phone call of the day was a supplier asking for Dolly, and it nearly knocked me flat. How could I answer in a pleasant voice, “She’s not here today. May I help you?” But I managed to do it.
The morning crawled along, and when twelve o’clock finally rolled around, Hogan took Aunt Nettie and me to lunch. He reassured us that Dolly had gone—wherever—of her own volition.
As we came back from picking at our lunch, I saw a gorgeous silver Corvette parked a few slots down from us in our alley.
My mood lifted, and I crowed. “Alex! He’s back!”
“You go check on him,” Aunt Nettie said. “I’ll finish packing the March’s order and go down to say hi to Alex later.”
I ran next door and pounded on the back door of Alex Gold’s jewelry shop. In a few seconds, our neighbor—both at home and in downtown Warner Pier—opened his door and invited me in.
“I’m so glad to see you,” I said. “And you look just fine. As if nothing had happened.”
“I feel fine, too,” Alex said. “Once I got Garnet to stop hovering over me, it was as if nothing had happened. I still don’t understand why on earth these crooks don’t take anything! It’s not good for my reputation as a jeweler if I’m not wearing anything a burglar thinks is worth stealing! But come on in. I want to show you my new security system.”
The security system was impressive—much like the one Aunt Nettie and I were to have installed later that day.
“Have you tested it?” I asked.
“Here, I’ll set the back-door alarm, and you can test it.”
I laughed. “We’ll have the cops here in a minute!”
“I’ll call the company and tell them we’re testing it.”