by JoAnna Carl
“That’s like Mike,” Joe said. “I’ve always found him to be a genuinely nice guy.”
“Right,” Hogan said. “On the other hand, Mike was cautious about R. L. From what you guys say, the two of them occasionally came to the coffee club, for example, but it was unusual for them to show up the same day.”
“Yah,” Joe said. “I’ve noticed that if one of them came in late, the other one was likely to leave almost immediately. But why did that matter with the album?”
“R. L. made a casual call on Mike and discovered that he had the souvenir album prominently displayed at his house. R. L. didn’t want another casual visitor to look at it and discover that he and Mike had a history.”
Joe frowned. “Why would that matter?”
“I don’t think it would have, unless R. L. had another plan. One that boded no good for Mike.”
We all sat silently, taking that in. Finally I saw all the implications. “Oh, golly!” I said. “R. L. must have planned to kill Mike!”
Hogan didn’t speak, but the rest of us did. We buzzed like killer bees.
In a minute, Hogan went on. “I’ll never be able to prove that. And it would never matter unless Mike and Watt were linked. But somehow R. L. was inspired to go out to Watt’s cabin to find out if another copy of the album existed. And he discovered—it did. Watt had one. When R. L. left, he stole it. Took it with him. And Watt knew he was the only person who could have taken it, and wondered why.
“Watt’s an unusual guy, as we all know. Mike says he is ‘smarter than he seems,’ and that’s a pretty good description. Watt never understood why R. L. was interested in the album, but was afraid he was up to no good. So he borrowed Mike’s album, and then he hid it at Wildflower’s house.”
“Well, I feel like an idiot,” I said, “because I didn’t recognize Bill when Dolly and I actually saw him drive off with Mike in the back of the shoe store van. And I feel even dumber for not thinking about Mike’s truck disappearing.”
“Where was the truck?” Alex asked.
“It was parked in front of TenHuis Chocolade,” I said. “I saw it there.”
Hogan nodded. “But as Mike left you and Dolly, he stopped to talk to Bill and R. L. I guess he was going to warn them they’d better forget their plot. Anyway, they attacked him, dragging him into the white van. One of them then went around to the front of TenHuis—taking Mike’s car keys—and drove off in his truck. Then Bob took Mike’s truck out to Joe’s boat shop.”
“Gosh!” I said. “Dolly and I wasted all that time looking for a white van when we should have been looking for a red truck!”
Joe shook his head. “They wouldn’t have switched Mike from the van to the truck until the truck was hidden at the shop,” he said.
Alex took a piece of stuffed celery from the relish plate. “I just couldn’t picture Bill and Bob as burglars. They look and act so innocent!” He bit the celery with a decisive snap.
I guess we were all a little giddy. I know I felt great relief knowing that the Vanderwerp cousins were behind all of this, and soon, they would be detained. I felt as if the entire adventure was over. Solved. Just an unhappy memory.
Until Hogan’s cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’d better get this.” Then he pulled the phone out of his shirt pocket.
“Jones,” he said. We all sat silently while he listened, frowning. “What’s that?” More listening, more frowning.
I was beginning to feel nervous. “I’ll get everybody away,” he said. Then he clicked the phone off. “Okay,” he said. “Everybody get ready for a new emergency.”
“Oh, surely not!” Aunt Nettie said. “Can’t we have a calm dinner?”
“Not yet, Nettie. That was the state police. By the time they got warrants for R. L. and Bill, both of them had disappeared.”
A chorus of “Oh no!” broke out. Hogan held up his hands for silence. “We need to get all you witnesses to a safe place.”
Chapter 27
That got our attention.
A chorus of “What’s happened?” went up.
Hogan sighed. “The state cops were keeping an eye on the shoe store, and they were positive that the two of them were in there. But when they went in, the building was empty.”
Joe stood up, frowning. “Do the state cops think you’re all in danger? Because the Vanderwerp boys are probably mad as hops.”
“It seems silly, Joe, but he seems to think Alex is, and quite possibly Lee.” He turned to Aunt Nettie. “And he doesn’t like the idea of them taking an interest in my wife either. Just on general principles.”
When Hogan’s words sank in, I nearly went into a fit of fear on Aunt Nettie’s behalf. I could feel shivers begin to run up and down my backbone. Surely no one could want to hurt Aunt Nettie.
Or Joe. Or even me.
“What does he want us to do?” Joe said.
“He’s sending a patrol car, and the officer will escort you to a safe place.”
“It may be overreacting,” Joe said. “But I guess we’d better cooperate.”
The calm and reassuring way that Joe spoke made me feel certain that he thought there actually was danger. I didn’t like that.
Joe and I collected a few of our belongings—money, prescriptions, jackets. Since it was already evening, it was possible that we’d be gone overnight, but we didn’t take pajamas. Joe and I assured Aunt Nettie and Alex that we’d stop for their essential belongings on the way to the police station. Since Alex lived just down our drive and across the road, he had to be convinced that he could not simply walk down there and pick up his toothbrush. But he didn’t argue very hard.
Joe was completely calm until I poured the leftover soup into a saucepan and stacked the dinner debris in the sink. Then he almost yelled at me. “Lee! We can’t take time to do the dishes!”
I began to laugh, maybe just a little nervously. “Don’t be silly, Joe. I’m just putting up the soup so we can reheat it later. If I have time before Hogan’s patrolman gets here, I might put the dishes in the sink to soak.”
He put his arms around me and whispered. “I don’t mean to snap. You already gave me one scare today, gal, when I found out you went off after Mike. I can’t take two.” I gave him a big hug in return.
Alex called his niece and her husband to tell them he was leaving their house, and to urge them to stay away, too. The girls in charge of the chocolate shop called Aunt Nettie to say they were closing our shop early at the request of the police, and that they’d been offered escorts home.
“They’re clearing the whole block!” Dale said. I couldn’t tell if she was scared or thrilled.
We were all ready by the time two patrol cars pulled into our drive. A state policeman with mabry on his name tag loaded Aunt Nettie and me into his car, while Joe and Alex climbed into a WPPD car driven by Patrolman Jerry Cherry. The two patrol cars stood by at Alex’s place—actually his niece’s house—while Alex hurried in to pick up his necessary belongings. And our little cavalcade went on. All of us stayed calm.
That’s when Aunt Nettie asked if she could stop by TenHuis Chocolade, instead of her house, where Hogan had directed our escorts to take us next.
A radio discussion ensued, but Aunt Nettie quickly shut it down. “You tell Hogan,” she said firmly, “that the final two employees left the shop only fifteen minutes ago. I find it hard to believe that two crooks could have broken into our shop to ambush us since they left. My blood pressure medication is in my desk drawer, and I promise to be into the shop and out of it in two minutes. Lee can come with me.”
Hogan gave her his approval, telling the state cop that our block had been cleared and that he believed it was safe. Then I grabbed my purse, since I’d need my keys to get in. Aunt Nettie and I got out of the patrol car, and the two of us went in the front door of the shop and back to the workroom, where she has her own special alcove. Our
state police escort accompanied us but stopped to wait by the front door.
Aunt Nettie found the prescription in her center desk drawer with no problem. She was just tucking it into her purse when, at the back of the building, the door that leads to the upstairs opened.
I wasn’t frightened, but I was surprised. The only thing that door leads to is Dolly’s apartment and, another story higher, the roof.
I called out. “Dolly?”
I had assumed that Dolly had accompanied Mike to the hospital in Holland. Now I wondered if she had stopped at home for some reason. Had the police missed her when trying to empty the block?
“Dolly? Are you here?” I turned around to see if she had come out of the door from the upstairs.
And I found myself staring at Bill Vanderwerp and his cousin R. L. Lake—also known as Bob. Now I realized that he must be the “Bob” Mike Westerly once threatened.
I nearly had a heart attack.
Bill and Bob were walking toward us, coming through the break room and into the workshop. Both were grinning, smiling ear to ear with their innocent Dutch faces.
If I had had a pistol, I would have shot both of them. What right did they have to enter our space—the workroom of TenHuis Chocolade—and frighten my aunt and me?
Looking back, I see that it was extremely lucky that I did not have a weapon. Because Bill and Bob had two.
Both were holding pistols—square-shaped, shiny, silver pistols. And those pistols were pointed at us. If I had had a pistol, I might well have pulled the trigger right then. But for an inexperienced shooter like me to hit anything—well, that’s unlikely. A gunfight, which might have grown to include the police outside, was more probable.
So all I did was step in front of Aunt Nettie, and the two of us faced Bob and Bill defiantly.
“Ladies,” Bill said placidly. “What’s the best way out of this place?”
“The front door,” I said. “But you’d better put the pistols down first. There are police officers out there.”
Bob gave a harsh laugh. “I don’t like that idea. How about a basement exit?”
Aunt Nettie gave a sniff. “The only exit from the basement is the door you just came out of. The landing you crossed has access to both the upstairs and the downstairs. Plus, it crosses the door to the alley. And that door is where all the rear exits are.”
“Then it looks like it’s going to be a tough way out,” Bill said. “I hope you can duck fast.”
He raised the pistol, and for a moment I thought he was really going to shoot us.
But Aunt Nettie spoke quickly. “Wait! Lee, I asked you to check the roof. Is there any way out up there?”
“You can get to the roof,” I said. “Getting off it might be a bit harder.”
Bill flashed a look at Bob. “Well, we made it from our place to here by way of that roof,” he said. “Plus, there’s that ladder down at the end.”
“Maybe we can get to the other end of the block, break into the apartment down there,” Bob said.
Bill nodded.
The most chilling part was that they were so calm. They acted as if they were planning a picnic, not escaping from the police who were after them for the murder of Paige.
But they had stopped the quick glances at each other and were looking at us. Calmly and directly, they stared at Aunt Nettie and me.
“Well,” Bill said. “You ladies get your jackets.”
“You don’t need to take us along,” I said.
“I’m afraid we do,” Bill said. “There are cops in the area. We need someone to go along with us.”
“As shields?” I tried to make my voice sound unbelieving. “We’d only slow you down.”
“Shut up!” Bob barked out the words, and Aunt Nettie jumped.
Bill grumbled impatiently. “I told you, we’ve got to get going. Get your jacket.”
“Mine is in the locker room, at the back,” I said. I’d nearly told them the truth—I didn’t have a jacket. But then I realized that a jacket might be a good thing to have along. I couldn’t scoop a pistol, a machete, or a rock out of nowhere to give myself a weapon. But if things got desperate, I might be able to hit Bill or Bob with a jacket to distract or blind one of them, or—by golly!—scratch one of them with a zipper.
“That’s right on our way,” Bill said. “Come, come, ladies.”
“My cane’s here,” Aunt Nettie said.
I stared at her, but I managed to keep my mouth shut. Her cane? Aunt Nettie never used a cane.
But as she came from behind her desk and began to walk toward the corner of the room, I saw that she was limping. She picked up a cane—a slender one with a hooked handle—from the corner hat tree. It was the one I’d found on the roof, the umbrella she had wrapped with rubber bands so that the shredded cover wouldn’t flap.
I wondered why she wanted to bring along a broken umbrella. Maybe to use as a potential weapon? I didn’t know how that would stand up against two loaded pistols, but I kept my mouth shut.
Besides, I had to worry about my own lie. The light jacket that I had picked up at home was in the patrol car on the street in front of the shop. All I could do was hope that somebody, anybody, had left a jacket in the closet off the break room.
And then the second miracle of the day happened: There was a jacket hanging in the locker room closet. It was a blue denim jeans jacket that belonged to Bunny. The jacket came nowhere near fitting me, but I hung it over my arm, trying to look confident.
We started for the door where Bill and Bob had come in. They motioned for us to go first, and the four of us started up the stairs.
Of course, I was familiar with that landing, the one in front of Dolly’s door. A second set of stairs went down the front way, to the street. Behind us was the solidly built door that led to the stairway up to the roof. I produced the keys from my purse and started to unlock that. Then I realized that door was already unlocked. Bill and Bob had apparently come into the shop through it.
I hesitated there, and Aunt Nettie followed my lead. But a few nudges from Bill’s and Bob’s pistols started us climbing, feeling our way up the dark stairs.
Now was the time that any weapons, such as jackets or keys or canes, would come in handy. If one or both of the Vanderwerps weren’t looking at us, we could hit them with the cane, gouge an eye with a key, or simply throw a jacket over someone’s head and shove them. Preferably down a steep set of steps.
But again, no such opportunity arose. Bill grabbed Aunt Nettie’s upper arm and held her firmly with his left hand while he stuck his pistol in her back with his right hand.
He looked at me. “Act right, or your aunt gets it,” he said. I acted right.
Once we came to the door at the top of the stairs, Bob used his cell phone as a flashlight, and I opened the door that let us onto the roof. The door swung back, and we stepped outside.
There was plenty of light there, thanks to the streetlights that bordered our block, and Bob turned his cell phone flash off.
Bob crawled over toward the parapet around the edge of the roof. We heard a shout from the state policeman who had accompanied us into the shop. “Hey! Where’d they go?”
We were almost directly over his head, but neither of us said anything. Bob got to his feet, and he and Bill began to hustle us to the corner, the one nearly a block away. All of us knew there was a fire escape–type ladder down the side of the wall at that corner.
Bless Aunt Nettie’s heart; she was a wonderful actress. She stumbled along, keeping the limp absolutely realistic. I tried to do my part to make it convincing by saying “She can’t run!” in a thick whisper.
When we came to the next building, Bill even put his hands under her arms and gave her a jump, the kind you’d give a child, to move her across the little parapet and onto the next building.
They kept us movin
g briskly. Once Aunt Nettie stumbled, but one of them caught her before she fell down.
Finally, we were at the end of the block.
And the distraction that we needed had not yet occurred. Aunt Nettie and I had not been able to make a break for it.
Bill and Bob located the spot where the ladder went over the back of the building.
“I’ll go,” Bob said. “Tell me if it’s clear. Then I’ll pull the ladder down, and I’ll get the ladies over the edge.”
Bill knelt near the parapet. He listened. He turned his head back and forth, checking. Apparently he couldn’t see anybody. He nodded to Bob, then turned himself around and sat on the edge of the parapet.
That’s when the third miracle happened.
As he sat there, the branch of a tree hung over Bill’s head, a branch of an ornamental tree growing beneath us in a hole on the sidewalk. Bill reached up and grabbed the branch. It bounced.
And as it did, a raccoon jumped out of that tree and scurried across the roof.
That darling animal scared the whatever out of all four of us.
Bob let go of Aunt Nettie’s arm.
She swung that umbrella like a baseball bat and hit him in the ribs with all the power that a sixty-eight-year-old woman can muster. He fell over backward, and she hit him in the head with the crooked handle, stunning him.
Bob lost hold of his pistol. I kicked it across the roof.
Then I threw that jacket I’d been carrying through all this, dropping it over Bill’s head.
He was so startled he let go of the parapet, slipped down the ladder, and fell two stories, feet first.
Aunt Nettie and I both began to yell at the top of our lungs.
Chapter 28
It was twenty-four hours before I could talk rationally about that episode of my life, and to this day, if I try to discuss it, most of what comes out is gibberish.
After Aunt Nettie and I managed to beat the Vanderwerp cousins into nerveless pulps, everything went mad.
The men downstairs—including both our husbands—couldn’t figure out where we were. They could hear us screaming, but our trek across the roofs had led us a half block away, and they couldn’t find us. And when they did find us, they couldn’t believe what had happened.