The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle

by Joanna (Chocolate series 04) Carl

  “Fine! Fine! We got the Whole Foods order off! Have the police given you any hint of what could have happened to Lee?”

  “Not really, Dolly. They say there was no blood in her car. That’s a good sign.”

  I heard a loud creak, and I recognized it as the noise an old wicker rocking chair makes when someone heavy sits in it. I gathered Dolly had sat down. When she spoke again her voice barely boomed. She sounded extremely depressed.

  “Nettie, I’m so afraid I could be partly responsible for—for whatever has happened to Lee.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “If I could just be sure!”

  “Sure of what? Dolly, if you know anything about this attack on Lee, you’ve got to tell Chief Jones or the state policeman.”

  “I don’t know anything, really! I just suspect!” Listening to Dolly’s voice, I could picture the misery on her broad, freckled face. “It seems like the act of a madman. And there’s a person around here I feel sure is crazy!”

  Aunt Nettie gave an impatient snort. “I could name more than one, Dolly. But whoever lured Lee out to Gray Gables was smart, you know. It wasn’t just a random act of violence. He went to a lot of trouble to get her out there—faking a phone call. Putting nails in the road so she’d have a flat. It doesn’t seem crazy.”

  “Crazy like a fox!”

  “Maybe so. If you have any specific suspicions we’ll call that patrolman who’s outside in the driveway. He’ll get Chief Jones on the radio and call him back here so you can tell him.”

  “It’s too humiliating!”

  “Humiliating!” I could hear the anger in Aunt Nettie’s voice. She rarely gets angry, but when she does, look out. She might be half Dolly’s size and her voice might be a third the decibel level, but when she’s stirred up I’ll put my money on Aunt Nettie against a horde of cannibals brandishing spears.

  And at that moment Aunt Nettie was definitely stirred up. “Dolly, if you’re keeping some knowledge away from the police because you’re afraid it will embarrass you—well, you’re not the woman I thought you were! I won’t stand by and let you get away with that! You won’t have to wait on the police to get the third degree! I’ll give it to you myself!”

  “Oh, Nettie, I don’t know a thing about Lee!

  “Then what do you know?”

  “All I know is what became of Dennis Grundy!”

  Dennis Grundy? I couldn’t believe I’d heard right. What on earth could Dennis Grundy have to do with some guy shooting at me with a rifle?

  I guess Aunt Nettie felt the same way, because she yelled out words that echoed what I was thinking.

  “Dennis Grundy! Dennis Grundy? Who cares about Dennis Grundy?”

  “Dennis Grundy was murdered!”

  “I don’t care! He has nothing to do with Lee.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid the police will say!”

  Aunt Nettie was silent a moment. She wasn’t yelling when she went on. “Dolly, just what do you know about Dennis Grundy? And why do you think it matters?”

  There was more sniffling from Dolly. Then she spoke loudly.

  “The Snows killed him!”

  “What? I thought he ran off with the daughter—Julia.”

  “No! That’s what they let everybody think. But they really killed him.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, it was like a shotgun wedding that didn’t come off, I guess. Julia was pregnant. He wasn’t ready to marry her. Somehow he wound up dead.”

  “What became of Julia?”

  “She went to a home for unwed mothers. She was angry with her family! She hated her father! She never went home!”

  Finally Aunt Nettie got around to the question I’d been dying to ask. “How do you know all this?”

  “Julia Snow was my grandmother!”

  Dolly Jolly must have been completely deaf if she didn’t hear the gasp I gave. It must have reverberated right through the floor of my bedroom and on through the ceiling of the living room. Dolly was the granddaughter of the heroine of Maia’s cornball novel? Dolly was a relative of Silas Snow and of Maia Michaelson? It was hard to believe.

  “That’s the real reason I came to Warner Pier. I wanted to know more about the Snow family.” Dolly gave a gasp louder than mine. “Oh, Nettie! You won’t tell Maia!”

  “I won’t tell anybody, Dolly. But why do you think it has any connection to our current problems?”

  “Because there must be a streak of insanity in the Snow family! Maia must be the one who killed Silas. Her own uncle! And now she’s attacked Lee. She must be crazy! Maybe I’m crazy, too!”

  Aunt Nettie immediately began to concentrate on calming Dolly, assuring the red-haired giantess that she seemed to be perfectly sane.

  Dolly gave a brief outline of what had become of Julia Snow. Julia had gone to a home for unwed mothers and had given Dennis Grundy’s baby up for adoption. She had moved to Detroit, where she found a job in a bakery. She married a fellow baker and they had a successful business. She had only one other child, Dolly’s mother.

  Julia had kept quiet about her youthful indiscretions until her last illness five years earlier, during which Dolly had helped nurse her. Then she had rambled on to her granddaughter, giving Dolly a confused account of her early life.

  “Gramma was really confused at the end, but she always claimed her family killed Dennis Grundy,” Dolly said. “She wasn’t always clear about which one had done it. Her father seemed most likely. I always thought she didn’t really know. But after she died—well, I thought I’d come over here and find out what kind of people the Snows were. And I think they’re all crazy!”

  Aunt Nettie continued to assure Dolly that the Snows might be crazy, but Dolly didn’t seem to have taken after them. She left after about fifteen minutes, promising that she’d contact Chief Jones.

  That fifteen minutes gave me time to think over Dolly’s story, and after that brief reflection I didn’t think much of it. It was startling to learn that Dolly was a descendant of Julia Snow, who had been a central character in a Warner Pier legend. And even more startling to learn that Julia had claimed that her family killed her lover, Dennis Grundy.

  But what could that possibly have to do with the things that had happened that week? Silas Snow had been beaten to death with a shovel behind his own fruit stand. Aubrey Andrews Armstrong had been the target of a rifleman, then had disappeared leaving all his belongings including his cherished pet behind, and becoming himself a suspect in the death of Silas Snow. And then the rifleman had apparently tried to kill me.

  I couldn’t see any connection between those events and the seduction of a country girl by a small-time gangster seventy-five years earlier.

  Dolly’s theory seemed to be that Maia was some kind of homicidal maniac. I didn’t believe it.

  Of course, I couldn’t believe Maggie or Ken McNutt or anybody else I knew—including Aubrey Andrews Armstrong—could be guilty, either. The whole situation was unbelievable.

  I heard Dolly’s Volkswagen bus drive down the lane, and I slowly came downstairs. I found Aunt Nettie in the kitchen, frowning.

  “What did you make of all that stuff Dolly was handing out?” I asked.

  “You heard?”

  “Yes, but I don’t really understand.”

  “I didn’t either. I just hope that Dolly goes straight to Chief Jones and doesn’t go around town dropping hints. She could put herself in danger.”

  “True. But I heard her promise to go to the chief. What about Maia—do you think she’s a mad killer?”

  Aunt Nettie poured a plastic dish of green beans into a saucepan and put it on the stove. “It seems like a silly idea. Of course, I keep thinking of the old Maia, before she was an author.” She gestured at the saucepan. “Hazel and Dolly sent green beans, mashed potatoes, and a small pork loin. Everything is in the oven but the green beans. There’s certainly plenty for both of us.”

  “I’ll set the table. And after dinner I’ll get star
ted on the old Gazettes.”

  The bound Gazettes turned out to be something of a physical challenge. They were hard to read. A bound newspaper, even a tabloid-sized one like the Gazette, comes in a big, awkward book filled with smudged type. The best light in Aunt Nettie’s house is in the dining room, and I needed to read upstairs, so that I wouldn’t have to hastily hide the big books and myself if someone came to the door. But we were trying to keep the upstairs dark, so it would look as if no one was up there. We couldn’t set up a bright light there. We finally improvised some window coverings with old army blankets and put up a card table with a good reading lamp in the room across the hall from mine.

  Aunt Nettie gave the blankets a final twitch. “There! Good luck.”

  “I still feel as if I’ve been given a make-work project to keep me out of trouble.”

  “I hope it works. You’ve already been in enough trouble to last a lifetime.”

  I’d barely opened the first book, however, when Joe showed up. He brought along a long tube. “A gift from the chief,” he said.

  “And what is it?”

  He popped the end off the tube and pulled out a cylinder of paper. “It’s a map.”

  “More research?”

  “To help with the newspapers. He’s interested in all the neighbors around here. Anybody who could have fired that shot at Armstrong, then escaped on foot.”

  “But Joe, even if the rifleman escaped on foot, he could have had a car stashed in any driveway along Lake Shore Drive. There’s so much traffic along there no one would have noticed.”

  “True. But the neighbors have to be investigated.”

  Joe and I spread the map out on the card table and looked at it. “The chief has marked Dennis Grundy’s cottage with an X,” Joe said.

  “I see it. Where is that in relation to Aunt Nettie’s house?”

  Joe pointed to it. “Yikes!” I said. “I thought the Grundy cottage was at least a mile south of Aunt Nettie’s. But it’s lots closer than that.”

  “More like a half mile,” Joe said. “If you go by the back road.”

  “That means we’re a lot closer to Maia and Vernon, too. And to Silas Snow’s fruit stand. Since the Grundy cottage is on the Snow place.”

  “Of course that’s a big farm.”

  “Yes, but it’s near the Haven Road exit, and Aunt Nettie’s way north of that. I thought since it was a mile on the Interstate, it must be a mile on Lake Shore Drive.”

  “Actually, the Interstate curves, so it’s all in a sort of horseshoe. The two properties are lots closer by way of Lake Shore Drive. And even closer than that if you cut down this road.” He peered closely at the map. “It’s named Mary Street. I didn’t know it existed.”

  “I didn’t, either,” I said. “It’s those trees. They get me all confused. I can’t tell directions.”

  Then I remembered how I’d told directions the night before. By ear. Traffic behind me, surf in front. I shuddered. Joe put his arms around me. We stood there awhile, and I had a good cry on Joe’s shoulder. He didn’t say anything.

  Then Aunt Nettie called up the stairs. “I walked the dog, and put him in his crate. Now I’m going to bed! Good night, you two.”

  I lifted my head. “Good night, Aunt Nettie!”

  Joe called out, too. “Good night!” Then he kissed my forehead. “I guess I’d better go.”

  I put my arms around him. “I don’t want you to,” I said.

  He gave a rueful laugh, but he kept holding me. “With a cop outside in the drive and Aunt Nettie downstairs?”

  “I don’t care. I want you to stay.”

  I talked him into it. At least he stayed a long time. When I woke up at four a.m. he was there, but at six he’d gone. He left a note. All it said was, “I love you.” That’s all it needed to say.

  Aunt Nettie and I both got up at our usual times, but we had a leisurely breakfast. She’d just made a second pot of coffee at nine o’clock when our cop companion beeped his horn and Chief Jones’s car pulled into the drive. He stopped and talked to the patrol officer who had wasted his time in our driveway. I figured the officer was telling him Joe had stayed nearly all night. I still didn’t care.

  The chief looked solemn as he came in. “Morning, Nettie. Lee.”

  Aunt Nettie smiled. “Good morning, Hogan. Do you want a cup of coffee?”

  “Maybe. I’ve just got a minute. But I have to tell you two one bit of news.”

  The chief was so serious that his comment made my stomach go into a spasm of fear.

  Aunt Nettie looked stricken. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, maybe. But we found Aubrey Andrews Armstrong’s SUV this morning.”

  Chapter 16

  “Oh, Hogan! Is he dead?”

  “He’s still missing, Nettie. He wasn’t in the SUV.”

  I jumped into the conversation. “Where was the SUV?”

  “In a creek bed off the road to the winery.”

  “Then it wasn’t in our neighborhood.”

  The chief screwed his face up. “Depends on how you look at it. Where’s that map I sent out?”

  Aunt Nettie and I led the chief up to the spare bedroom, where the map was laid out on the bed. We all gathered around it, and the chief pointed with a ballpoint pen. “Here’s the Grundy cottage. Here’s Silas Snow’s fruit stand.” The pen swooped. “Here’s the Interstate.” The pen moved east of the Interstate, then tapped. “And here’s where the SUV was found.”

  “Gee,” I said. “When you look at from a bird’s angle, the winery road is real close. But if we want to buy a bottle of Lake Michigan Red, we have to go way around because we can’t cross the Interstate.”

  “That’s true if you drive. But Jerry Cherry tells me that when he was a kid he used to cross the Interstate through culverts and under bridges.”

  “Then you think someone who lives here on Lake Shore Drive could have ditched the SUV, then walked home?”

  “Sure. Or they could have ditched it and someone picked them up.”

  I left it to Aunt Nettie to make the next comment.

  “You mean Aubrey, don’t you? Aubrey could have ditched his own SUV and had some confederate pick him up.”

  “Anything’s possible, Nettie.” The chief gestured at me. “Lee’s escape through the woods night before last proves that people can roam around this area at will without being seen. If you look at this map, you can see how many houses there are. You’d think Lee wouldn’t have been able to walk even a quarter of a mile without falling into somebody’s backyard.” He tapped the map again. “But here’s Gray Gables, and here’s the Hart compound. It’s more than a mile, and Lee walked it without stumbling into an occupied house.”

  “I wanted to find one, too,” I said.

  “You made that expedition through a heavily wooded area, Lee. We retraced your steps with dogs, and you went over some pretty rough terrain. But my point is that people can move around out here without being seen. So finding Armstrong’s SUV in a certain spot doesn’t incriminate—or clear—anybody. Including Armstrong himself.”

  Aunt Nettie pressed coffee on the chief, and he took a cup with him as he left. His last instructions were to me. “Good luck with those old Gazettes,” he said. “Joe said you thought it was make-work. But it needs to be done, and we don’t have anybody available to do it. You might find out something that is key to this whole deal.” He walked on toward his car, then turned back. “Don’t forget to check the land transfers.”

  So I got dressed and started in on the Gazettes, working backward from the most recent issues and referring to the list of names the chief had brought. By lunchtime I knew a lot about our neighbors.

  I knew that the Baileys, who lived closest to Aunt Nettie, had gone to the Bahamas last winter and that their son had been promoted to first sergeant in the U.S. Army. I knew about the Bahamas, of course, since I’d picked up their mail. But neither of them had mentioned the son’s promotion, and I hadn’t read about it earlier.
I found out that Silas Snow had sold thirty acres of orchard land to a developer from Grand Rapids. By cross-checking with the map, I figured out that this plot was farther down Lake Shore Drive, nowhere near the Grundy cottage or the fruit stand. I discovered that Chuck O’Riley had come to Warner Pier because he had relatives in the area; he was the nephew of a Mrs. Vanlandingham who owned an antique shop in Warner Pier.

  These discoveries showed the difference between the Warner Pier Gazette and a city paper. None of these items would have appeared in the Dallas Morning News, or even in the Grand Rapids Press or the Holland Sentinel. But the Gazette would print nearly any news release sent to it, and it loved any type of personal news: college students who made the dean’s list, church suppers, club fund-raisers, land transfers. The only two newspapers I ever saw report land sales were the Gazette and the Prairie Creek Press, back in my Texas hometown, which is about the size of Warner Pier.

  I kept on skimming through the Gazettes. Ken McNutt, I learned, had taken first prize at an antique car competition, being recognized for the excellent mechanical condition of his red 1959 Volkswagen. The son of the Wilsons, another set of Aunt Nettie’s neighbors, had won a scholarship to Perdue. Sally Holton, who lived in a spectacular house right on the lake, had been a hostess for the garden tour of the Warner County League of Garden Clubs. Vernon Ensminger had written an angry letter to the editor, complaining about our state representative’s stands on wildlife conservation. “An intelligent policy does not pit hunters against ‘tree-huggers,’ ” he wrote. “No one loves the outdoors and the beauties of nature like hunters. We’re the ones who get out to enjoy them and who encourage our families to learn about birds and animals.” I knew my dad, also a deer hunter, would endorse his position.

  The Gazette is just a weekly, of course, and I was able to read at a pretty good rate, once I’d figured out how to recognize a piece contributed by the State Department of Agriculture or by General Motors. Those weren’t going to have any local names. And a lot of the articles were already familiar, since I do read the rag, known informally as the “Warner Pier Gaggette,” every week.

  I got back to early summer when I hit a really interesting article—Chuck’s interview with Maia Michaelson, published when her book came out. In it she described her early writing as “a secret vice.” She had deliberately kept her ambition to be an author a secret, she had told Chuck. “No one knew of my hidden life but my dear husband, Vernon,” she said. “He has been a wonderful help and encouragement to me.”