The Chocolate Cupid Killings

by JoAnna Carl

  The door to the WPPD has a heavy glass panel in its upper half, and inside the panel is a Venetian blind. After hours that blind is closed. But that evening the blind was still open. In fact, there were lots of lights inside. Was something going on?

  I pulled on the door, and it swung open. No one had locked up. That was odd, but it didn’t necessarily mean anything, I told myself. Hogan could have simply lost track of the time.

  I walked into the small entrance area. I could see the entire police station from there. Hogan’s office door was closed, and the rest of the place was deserted. Even the door to the one little holding cell stood open, and I could see the empty bunk inside.

  I shrugged. Then I walked through the swinging gate that signaled that callers should halt by the reception desk, and I turned down the short hall leading to the little room where Joe has a desk.

  The room was too small to be an office. It was more like a storage closet. It was strictly utilitarian—metal desk, tile floor, computer screen. Joe’s desk was littered with papers, which meant he wasn’t through working. He always filed things away and made neat stacks before he left.

  There was no one in the tiny space, no Joe at the desk.

  I tried the door that led to the city clerk’s office and the other offices toward the front of the building. It was locked.

  I went back into the police department. Where was Joe? If he had to leave, why hadn’t he called me? If the police station had shut down for the day, why wasn’t the door locked? Should I call Joe’s cell phone?

  The only closed door was the one to Hogan’s office. Could Joe and Hogan be in there? But why? They were friends as well as shirttail relations, and they frequently talked, but I’d never known them to do it behind closed doors. And I wouldn’t have expected them to leave the outer door of the police station open when the main office was empty.

  I walked over to the door and listened. I heard the rumble of a voice, then an answer from a different voice. I couldn’t make out the words, but there were definitely two guys in there.

  I felt relieved. They must be having some sort of bull session.

  I gave a perfunctory knock. Then I turned the handle and threw the door open. “So y’all are hiding in here! Don’t you know it’s time to go home?”

  I was facing a completely strange man. He was tall and completely bald, with a face that looked as if he had lost a dozen bar fights. I’d never seen him before in my life.

  Then I realized that Joe and Hogan were in the office, too. And so were two other strangers—city guys wearing dressy dark overcoats. They were big guys.

  Five big men were packed into Hogan’s minuscule office as tightly as I’d pack thirty-two Dutch caramel bonbons into a one-pound gift box.

  I was gaping, and all five of the men were gaping wider than I was.

  Three of us spoke at once. “I’m sorry!” I said.

  “Oh, hell!” Joe said.

  “Hi, Lee.” That was Hogan.

  The strange men kept quiet, but Joe, Hogan, and I again began to talk at the same time.

  I said, “I didn’t know I was interpreting. I mean, interrupting!”

  Joe said, “I forgot we were going to dinner at Mom’s!”

  Hogan said, “We’re still tied up.”

  The big ugly man turned his back on the rest of us and studied a hall tree in the corner of Hogan’s office. If he was trying to be inconspicuous, it didn’t work. There was nothing on that hall tree but a heavy and extremely unattractive navy blue jacket with WPPD in bright yellow letters on the front and back.

  The two men in city clothes also ducked their heads as if they were trying to look inconspicuous. All I could see of them were neatly trimmed heads—one dark, one fair—and a set of extremely bushy eyebrows on the darker man.

  I barely gave them a glance. The big ugly man’s behavior was so odd that I couldn’t help staring at him. “I’ll wait at your desk, Joe,” I said.

  I turned and stepped out of Hogan’s office, closing the door. But it reopened immediately. Joe followed me out and closed the door behind him. Firmly. He took my arm.

  “I’m sorry I interrupted,” I said. “I heard y’all talking . . .”

  Joe was frowning. “Not your fault. I should have remembered you were coming and called to head you off.”

  “Head me off?”

  “Right. I can’t leave. You’ll have to give my excuses.”

  “Give your excuses? But, Joe, this is your mom who called a big meeting of the clans. I’m just an in-law!”

  “Sorry. But Hogan wants me to stay.”

  I was dumbfounded. Joe’s work as city attorney has nothing to do with crime. His main function is to look over city policies and ordinances to make sure they’re legal. Hogan enforces the law, not Joe.

  “Joe, what is going on?”

  “Nothing, Lee. Hogan just wants me to sit in on a meeting.”

  “I’ll tell your mom you’ll be late.”

  “No! I don’t think I’ll be through here for—Well, it could be midnight.”

  “Midnight!” If I sounded exasperated, it was only because I was exasperated. “You can’t bow out on this family meeting. It’s too important to your mom.”

  Joe’s face looked like thunder. “It’s not because I’m not interested, Lee. You’ll just have to represent us.”

  Before I could marshal a new argument, he was moving me toward the outside door.

  “Joe!” I protested, but he kept moving me along. “Joe, your mom is not going to like this!”

  We were at the door, and Joe swung it open. “Sorry, Lee. I can’t come.”

  I was outside. The door closed behind me.

  Then it abruptly opened again. About three inches. Joe spoke through the crack. “Don’t tell anyone about this.” His voice made it an order.

  Then the door slammed shut. I heard the lock click. I pressed my nose against the glass.

  Joe closed the Venetian blind in my face.

  If I’d been amazed when I walked in on the private meeting, that was nothing to the way I felt now. My husband had thrown me out. Into the dark.

  I considered picking up a rock and tossing it at the window, but all the rocks were covered with snow.

  Who the heck was the bald guy? He might be a criminal of some sort. He had the face for crime—beat-up and mean. He had the build for crime—husky and muscle-bound. He also seemed about as dumb as most criminals are. Staring at Hogan’s uniform jacket was about the stupidest move I’d ever seen.

  And who were the guys in city clothes? Why had they ducked their heads?

  I stared at the cars in the visitor spots. It was easy to match them with the visitors inside Hogan’s office. The flashy SUV went with the ugly fellow, and the nondescript Buick with the guys in city coats. Both vehicles, I noted, had Illinois tags.

  I considered throwing a rock at one of the cars, too, but instead I stomped all the way back to the shop, getting angrier with each stomp. I was completely oblivious to what was going on around me. If there had been any traffic in downtown Warner Pier at six thirty on a February evening, I might have walked in front of a truck. Luckily, the only vehicle that passed was some supersized SUV. I stepped right in front of it, but the monster paused to give me the right of way.

  I could simply have murdered Joe. His mother didn’t want me at this big family meeting. In-laws were invited as a courtesy. Mercy and Mike wanted to talk to Joe and Tony, their sons.

  How could Joe do this to me? How could he do it to his mother?

  But Joe understood the whole situation, I reminded myself. If he couldn’t leave the meeting in Hogan’s office, it must be something important. But what was more important than his mother’s plans for her life?

  I was still mad when I got into my van. I slammed the door so hard I nearly broke the window out. I turned on the ignition and gunned the motor loudly. I shot out of my parking place.

  What was I going to tell Mercy?

  When I got to the co
rner I turned toward Dock Street, the most direct route to Mercy’s house. I automatically checked out the spot where the Georgia vehicle had been parked. At least that car had moved.

  As I went by the end of our alley, I glanced down it, toward the shop. And there, under the light over our back door, I saw Aunt Nettie’s blue Buick.

  Oh, yikes! Aunt Nettie was back at the shop. Was something wrong?

  I decided I’d better check. I threw on my brakes, backed up ten feet, then turned into the alley. I drove slowly. Aunt Nettie’s car was square in my headlights.

  And so, I realized, was Aunt Nettie herself. She was at the back door of the shop, fumbling with the door. As I watched she shoved at it frantically. But it didn’t open.

  I stopped about twenty feet away, opened my door, and stepped out.

  “Aunt Nettie? What’s up?”

  “Lee!”

  “Yes, it’s me. Did I frighten you?”

  “I hardly know.”

  Aunt Nettie was squinting in the headlights, and I saw that she was holding something. A bottle. She had it by the neck, and she was holding it upside down, almost as if she was ready to use it as a club.

  “I was just checking to see if anything was wrong,” I said.

  Aunt Nettie made a sound I can only describe as a hysterical giggle. “Wrong?” She giggled again. “Oh, what could be wrong?”

  “Well, you’re standing there holding that bottle as if you’re ready to attack.”

  “It’s too late for an attack.” Aunt Nettie used the bottle to point with. “Look!”

  I followed the line of the bottle. There, wedged between our Dumpster and the wall, was a lump. A large lump.

  And it was a lump outlined with what looked like polyester fur.

  I edged toward the mass. It was a person. A man was lying on the icy asphalt of our alley.

  My nerves jumped all over. “Oh, no! I’ll call an ambulance!”

  “I think he’s beyond an ambulance,” Aunt Nettie said. “I think he’s dead.”

  I ran back to the van, grabbed my cell phone, and called 9-1-1. Aunt Nettie stood silently as I told the dispatcher about finding the man in the alley. She said she’d have the Warner Pier patrol car there within minutes.

  “Please page Chief Jones,” I said. “He’ll want to know. His wife found the man.”

  “Do you recognize him?” she asked.

  “Recognize him?” I repeated the words. “I haven’t looked that closely.”

  Aunt Nettie spoke then. “It’s that detective,” she said. “That one who came looking for Pamela.”

  Then she dropped the bottle. It shattered into big shards of glass.

  Chapter 3

  I almost dropped the cell phone. “Derrick Valentine?”

  “I didn’t know his name.”

  I went over to the figure on the ground. The man was stuffed behind the trash container. I remember thinking that it would have taken a strong person to get him into the tight space. Then I realized the Dumpster was on wheels. It would have been simple to shove him against the wall, then move the Dumpster in front of him. Well, fairly easy. The Dumpster was pretty full, but it wasn’t an especially large Dumpster, and most of our trash is cardboard and plastic.

  Aunt Nettie stood there shaking, and I stayed on the line with the dispatcher until the patrol car came. Within seconds Hogan showed up, too. Joe was with him.

  When Hogan arrived, Aunt Nettie began to sniffle and her story tumbled out. After she got home from work, Hogan had called to tell her he wouldn’t be in until quite late. So she decided to go back to the shop and mix some Amaretto filling.

  “Lee got us a new bottle of Amaretto this afternoon,” she said, her voice breaking. “I thought I’d make some so the ladies could get started on a new batch of truffles first thing in the morning.”

  Aunt Nettie had eaten a quick supper, then driven to the shop and parked in her regular spot, under the big light over our alley door.

  The first sign that something wasn’t right came as she walked up to the door and almost stepped on an empty bottle. Since Aunt Nettie is naturally neat, even in an alley, she picked it up.

  “It was the empty Amaretto bottle we had thrown out this afternoon! I couldn’t see how it got out of the trash. So I started to put it back.”

  That was when she saw the man behind the Dumpster.

  She had first thought he was drunk and passed out, as I had thought, but when she looked more closely she saw blood. Then she saw the odd polyester fur around his hood, and she got a glimpse of his face. She recognized him as the man who had been in the shop that afternoon.

  Aunt Nettie doesn’t carry a cell phone. She tried to get into the shop to call the police, but she was so upset she hadn’t been able to get her key in the lock. She had still been fumbling when I drove up.

  Hogan was hugging her. “You didn’t know the guy’s name?”

  “Lee talked to him. She said he was a private detective. He was looking for someone.” She pulled away from Hogan and looked at me. The floodlights the patrolman was setting up reflected in her eyes, making them look like red spotlights, and for a moment she looked like a madwoman.

  “But we didn’t know anything”—she repeated the word—“anything about that woman.”

  She had given me my instructions. I wasn’t to mention Pamela.

  So I didn’t. I opened the back door that had given Aunt Nettie trouble, led Hogan, Aunt Nettie, and Joe through to the office, and found Derrick Valentine’s business card. I had to think for a few minutes, but I came up with the name of the woman he’d been looking for. I hadn’t written it down.

  “Christina Meachum,” I told Hogan. “We have no one working here by that name. And I haven’t had an application from anyone named Meachum.”

  I was relieved that Hogan didn’t ask any more, such as, “Did he show you a picture?” Or, “Had you seen the woman in the picture?” I hate quibblers, people who lie by omission or by answering only part of the question. But what else could I do? Aunt Nettie obviously didn’t think we should blow Pamela’s cover. So I was relieved when Hogan kept things superficial. I knew he wouldn’t always. The next day’s questions would be more searching, and he was sure to catch on if either of us tried evading them.

  By then Hogan had called the Michigan State Police, the agency that helps small municipalities with criminal investigations, and asked for the crime scene crew. His off-duty patrolmen—both of them—arrived, and he sent one of them out to the local motel, the only one open that winter, to find out if Derrick Valentine had been registered. The routine business of crime investigation was under way.

  Neither Hogan nor Joe made any reference to the conference in Hogan’s office, but Hogan seemed to consider Valentine’s death as a personal inconvenience rather than a major crime. Or that was what I concluded when I heard him mutter to Joe. “At least the FBI’s not involved in this,” he said.

  Joe kept an eye on Aunt Nettie and me in the office. I made him call his mother to tell her we wouldn’t be there for dinner. As an excuse for missing a dinner engagement, finding a dead body is way better than saying you have to work late, and Joe shamelessly used Derrick Valentine’s demise. I got mad at him all over again, but this wasn’t the time to yell.

  The most embarrassing part was that Joe’s mom was so darn understanding. She said she and Mike would have us all for dinner the next day instead. She asked to talk to me. “I’m so sorry you and Nettie had this terrible experience,” she said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Anything at all. And if dinner tomorrow won’t work, we’ll do it the first time you and Joe can get free.”

  I felt like a worm, and I hoped Joe did, too.

  Joe, Aunt Nettie, and I stayed in the office about an hour, until Hogan told us we could go. Hogan said he’d get Nettie’s car home after the crime scene people had looked things over. So I drove her home in my van, with Joe following in his truck.

  It was the first time Aunt Nettie and I
had been alone to talk, and we talked hard.

  “We’ve got to tell Hogan that Derrick Valentine was looking for Pamela,” I said.

  “I know, Lee. But we don’t have to tell him about it tonight.”

  “It could be important. Vital.”

  “I know.” Aunt Nettie’s voice was miserable. “I’ll call Sarajane as soon as we get to my house.”

  “Even if Sarajane thinks we shouldn’t tell, we have to do it anyway.”

  “I know, I know! But I just feel that we have to give Pamela a chance. She’s in so much danger, Lee. You don’t know all she’s been through. We can wait until tomorrow. Please.”

  I can’t say no to Aunt Nettie. She’s closer to me than my mother. And she’s a smart lady. I trust her judgment. Also, for the first time I realized that Sarajane had told her things about Pamela’s situation that neither of them had told me. I knew I couldn’t point Pamela out until Aunt Nettie said it was okay.

  When we got to Aunt Nettie’s house, she hung her coat up, then excused herself and went into the bathroom. Joe didn’t seem to notice that she took the cordless telephone with her.

  Alone with Joe, I decided to go on the attack. Not only was I mad at Joe over the way he’d deliberately misled his mom, I wanted to cover any sounds from Aunt Nettie’s conversation with Sarajane.

  I folded my arms and faced Joe. “So. Who were those guys you and Hogan were talking to? And why was that conversation going to take you until midnight?”

  “You haven’t told anybody about seeing them?”

  “No. You said not to. Besides, Aunt Nettie is the only person I’ve seen since you tossed me out of the police department and closed the Venetian blind in my face. And when I saw her we were standing over a dead body. That seemed to be a more important topic of conversation than some hulking strangers in Hogan’s office.”

  Joe put his arms around me. I kept my arms folded. We were nose to nose. He didn’t have the nerve to kiss me.