The Chocolate Book Bandit

by JoAnna Carl

Then I went home. My conscience was bothering me because I was lying, but I decided it would be bothering me even more if I hadn’t connived with Butch to return the letter. My feelings for Butch already had my conscience riled up, but I had no intention of acting on them. Or so I told myself.

  I decided I needed to occupy my mind. I didn’t want to think about that letter in its plastic sleeve. If I got busy, it would help me forget it. I decided I’d actually cook a decent dinner for Joe.

  No, this had nothing to do with his meeting with Meg. I wasn’t going to do the happy-homemaker act, trying to convince Joe that domesticity was more attractive than the titillation of illicit meetings with former girlfriends. I’d tried the domestic act with a different husband, and I wasn’t any good at it. I’m an accountant, not a domestic goddess.

  The dinner plan really had very little to do with Joe. On that particular day I was the one who wanted the illusion of a happy home. And to me that meant chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Luckily, I had all the ingredients on hand, including minute steaks, cooking oil, and a bit of bacon fat for flavor, plus my Michigan grandmother’s big iron skillet. I floured and fried the steak, measured the flour and milk for the cream gravy, simmered the green beans, and peeled the potatoes.

  I put the potatoes on to boil when I saw Joe pull into the drive. He came in the back door, pulling off his lawyer tie. “Hi,” he said. “I’m feeling a bit guilty.”

  I felt a bit relieved. Ha, I thought. He’s going to tell me about seeing Meg and reassure me that it meant nothing. But I played innocent. “What do you feel guilty about?”

  “You called me a couple of times, and I never got a chance to call back.”

  Oh. He wasn’t talking about Meg.

  Joe spoke again. “I hope you didn’t need anything important.”

  “I’d have kept calling if I had. I called because I had to make an unexpected trip to Holland late in the morning, so I wondered if you were available for lunch.” I stared at the potatoes.

  “Oh. Sorry I missed the calls. But I was stuck with a client anyway.”

  A client? Meg was to be an anonymous client?

  Joe went on. “It sure smells good in here. Have I got time to change clothes before dinner?”

  I assured Joe the dinner would be another half hour, and he wandered on into the bedroom. I knew he’d come out shortly in jeans and an old M-Go-Blue sweatshirt.

  Once I had the potatoes on and Joe had changed clothes and pulled a beer from the refrigerator, we sat on the screened porch. Evenings would soon be too cool for relaxing outside.

  The conversation started routinely. Joe asked if I’d had a rough day.

  “I got distracted by the investigation into Abigail Montgomery’s death,” I said, “and I wound up coming home early. How was your day?”

  “Nothing too crazy.”

  “How was Meg?”

  The question slipped right out without my being aware that it was going to. But as soon as I heard it I realized that I had planned to say something about her all the time. I just had to. I’m not sneaky by nature, and I certainly am not going to start being sneaky with Joe. If we can’t be honest—all the time—the jig is already up on our marriage.

  Joe’s face got really blank. I guess lawyers have to take Deadpan 1001 in their final year in law school. He is able to completely lose all expression. He can also hide behind a smile or a frown, but he does that more rarely.

  He didn’t answer my question about Meg right away, but I didn’t repeat it. He put on a grin, sort of like slipping into a jacket, before he finally replied. “I guess you came by the office and saw her.”

  I nodded.

  “Why didn’t you stop and join us?”

  “I thought about it, but it looked as if the two of you were headed for lunch, and I guess lunch with Meg didn’t appeal to me. So? How is she?”

  “She’s broke, and she’s finally getting a divorce.”

  I nodded. “I figured. Did she make money when she sold the house down here?”

  “Nope. It had a big mortgage, so it didn’t bring in much, and she let that go to Trey for his legal fees.”

  “I’m surprised.”

  “I was surprised, too. She does have a job—hostess at a nice restaurant—but her income definitely qualifies her for our client list.”

  “That must be a blow to Meg.”

  “Yep. I think she’s looking for a better job.” Joe took a drink of his beer. “When she came to the agency, she requested that I work with her.”

  Joe didn’t appear to see that his two sentences might be connected. I decided not to comment on them. “Do you think that’s wise? After all, her ex tried to kill you.”

  “I still don’t think Meg knew about that.”

  I had my doubts about that, and Joe was aware of them. I decided no comment was needed.

  “We’ll see how it works,” Joe said. “Frankly, you don’t seem very pleased.”

  I pondered my answer, and my hesitation probably confirmed my displeasure at Joe’s contact with Meg. As I said, I didn’t want to be sneaky. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to be completely honest. No, I couldn’t bring myself to say, “I’m jealous of Meg. I don’t want her in your life, even professionally, because I’m afraid you are still attracted to her. I wish she was in Timbuktu.”

  So I measured my words carefully and finally spoke. “Joe, I’ve never made any pretense of liking Meg. Naturally, I wish she hadn’t turned up again. But I don’t wish her ill. If you can help her get her life back on track, I guess you need to do it.”

  “I just hope my mom can maintain that calm an attitude if she finds out.”

  “You have to handle your mom,” I said. “I’m not tangling with her.”

  “I just can’t understand why good women want to keep a person like Meg down.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m talking about Mom, I guess. She always disliked Meg, always tried to warn me against her. She said it was because Meg didn’t have any family background. As if my mom came from some elite family. My grandfather had a boat shop, and my mom never went to college! Mom judged Meg strictly by her mother. And I admit Meg’s mother was a mess.”

  “You’re talking about when you and Meg were in high school.”

  “Right!”

  “Joe, if you had a smart and handsome teenaged son, and you saw him falling for a girl who was born out of wedlock, whose mother seems to have been on welfare, whose family—”

  “See? Everybody judges Meg by her family!”

  I opened my mouth, ready to reply. There was certainly a lot more to be said on this topic. But would that be smart?

  I snapped my jaw shut. “I’ll check on the potatoes,” I said. “They might be ready to mash.”

  Chocolate Chat

  Manufacturers come up with the darnedest things, and apparently they think consumers will go for anything if they add chocolate to it.

  Chocolate mixed with cream cheese is now on the market. In Europe this product is sold as a breakfast item; in America, it’s marketed as a snack, to be used with pretzels or fruit.

  Or how about chocolate pasta? One chef added cocoa powder to pasta and found he had a hit. It’s not sweet. The cocoa powder reportedly gives the noodles or macaroni a slightly bitter flavor. It can be ordered online.

  Then there are fake chocolate items. For example, mirrors, cell phone cases, or cosmetics cases made to look like chocolate bars. Evening bags have been made in the shape of candy boxes and may have photos of truffles and bonbons printed on the outside. My favorite: a calculator with keys that look like bits of chocolate. Yes, the “chocolate” keys have numbers and other symbols printed on them. Perfect for counting calories, right?

  There are also objects to add to home décor. Coasters shaped like squares of chocolate, throw rugs
that look like candy bars, and, yes, bonbon wallpaper.

  Chapter 9

  When I got to the kitchen, my brain felt as if it were the same consistency as the potatoes I was mashing.

  Joe was on the defensive about Meg. There were two obvious reasons. One, he was sexually attracted to her. Two, he felt protective about her because of their youthful relationship.

  And maybe both were a factor. But in any case, this could be a crisis for our marriage.

  Although Joe had been railing at his mother’s attitude toward Meg, I was aware that his anger was also directed toward me. Joe thought I had much the same attitude toward Meg that his mother did. He was trying to avoid an open quarrel with me, but he saw how unhappy I was about Meg’s reappearance, and he resented it.

  Joe usually handles his life very sensibly, but he’d blown it over the matter of Meg.

  Why hadn’t he just told me Meg had showed up as a client and he took her to lunch? Why did he get mad when I talked to him about her? I’d tried to be rational and nonaccusatory, but he’d gone into this tirade about his mom being prejudiced against Meg—eighteen years ago.

  Was it because he and Meg had begun an affair? The suspicion stabbed me right in the gizzard, but I forced myself to face it.

  And I decided it was unlikely. Joe admitted that, as a college jock, he had not been in the habit of going home alone. But he seemed to have lost his taste for casual sex in his mid-twenties, before he married for the first time.

  No, what worried me about Meg wasn’t that she and Joe might visit the local motel for a quickie. It was that Meg touched Joe on a much deeper level. I was afraid he might fall in love with her.

  For that matter, did I have the right to suspect Joe of unfaithfulness when I’d spent much of the previous evening and the current day feeling lustful toward another man?

  Well, I hadn’t considered doing anything about it. Anything specific. Except tell the law enforcement authorities an out-and-out lie.

  Would I have done that if I hadn’t been strongly attracted to Butch Cassidy?

  Heck, no!

  I growled. The whole thing was too big a mess for me to figure out on an empty stomach. I mashed the potatoes hard, then added milk and butter and whipped the dickens out of them. Food. I needed food. Specifically, down-home Texas comfort food.

  “Dinner,” I said loudly, “is served.”

  Chicken-fried steak, cream gravy, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Yum. Yum. This might not be as comforting a meal to Joe as it is to me, since he was brought up in Michigan, and that state’s semiofficial favorite dish is brats and sauerkraut. But no person with operational taste buds can say chicken-fried steak isn’t good. Joe got to the table as soon as I did, and we both chowed down.

  This is not a meal I cook often. Too many calories. It’s a once-in-a-while treat, unless the diners are spending their days digging ditches. With shovels. But when you need comfort, it’s the best.

  Worried as I was, I hadn’t lost my appetite, and Joe hadn’t lost his either. We had both cleaned our plates when headlights flashed on the living room windows.

  “Were you expecting anybody?” Joe looked out the window. “Like Hogan?”

  My heart sank. I assumed that Hogan had come by to talk to me. He must not be buying my story about finding the missing letter in the bottom of my purse.

  I heard a car door slam. Just one door. At least Hogan had come alone. He hadn’t dragged Lieutenant Larry Underwood along. I’d have to lie to only one person.

  However, that person was a man I loved and respected like a second father.

  But I had to do it. I was committed. To Butch.

  I took a deep breath and opened the back door. “Hi,” I said. “Have you had dinner?”

  “Nettie fed me.”

  “We’re ready for dessert, and I was thinking about putting on the coffeepot. Want to join us?”

  Hogan sighed as he came in the door. “Coffee sounds pretty good, Lee. If I have a cup, maybe I’ll figure out a way to convince Larry Underwood that you don’t know anything about our new homicide.”

  “Well, that ought to be simple, since I really don’t know anything about it.”

  Hogan was in the house before I got a look at Joe’s face. He’d completely lost his deadpan expression.

  That’s when I realized that Joe still thought that Abigail Montgomery died from a fall down the stairs. We hadn’t talked about it the previous evening, in front of Tim, and apparently he hadn’t heard anything about it that day.

  But when Joe spoke, his voice was calm. Maybe even cold. “I can’t believe Lee thought you might suspect she was mixed up in a homicide, Hogan. We’ve been talking for an hour, and she’s never mentioned it.”

  I’d been chided.

  Hogan looked from one of us to the other.

  I turned away and got the coffeepot. “Joe, if you’d clear the table, it would be a big help,” I said.

  The three of us talked about the weather or some similar subject until the coffee was made, the dishes from the table were in the sink, and I’d put a dozen TenHuis chocolates on a plate. I sublimated all thoughts of murder and thought about foil-wrapped autumn leaves and Asian spice truffles (“milk chocolate centers flavored with ground ginger and enrobed with milk chocolate”). Of course, the truffles I offered were not decorated the way they should have been, and the designs on the autumn leaves had smudged. Everybody makes a mistake now and then, and chocolate-company employees get to bring home the unsellable stuff for free. I’m definitely too cheap to pay even employee-discount rates just to get out of making dessert.

  After we were settled in the living room with our coffee and goodies, I quickly jumped in before Hogan could and asked the first question. “You’re now calling Abigail Montgomery’s death a homicide. The last time I saw you, it was still a probable homicide. So I gather you have new evidence.”

  “We got a preliminary report from the medical examiner. The fatal wound definitely did not come from falling down the stairs.”

  I shuddered. “Is the wooden stick from the newspaper rack the weapon?”

  “The tests aren’t complete, but that seems likely.”

  “Did I ruin the fingerprints?”

  “Yours were the only ones on it. I think it had been thoroughly wiped before you picked it up.”

  Joe was looking more and more amazed. “How did I miss all this?”

  I tried not to sound sarcastic. “You haven’t been around.”

  Yes, the night before, Joe had gone to bed without speaking to me, and that morning he’d left while I was still in bed. Our predinner conversation had been on another important matter. Communication had been lacking.

  “Besides,” I said, “Hogan said he didn’t want it to be public knowledge.” I quickly asked Hogan another question. “Has any particular suspect emerged?”

  “It’s got to be one of the people who were at the library yesterday evening.”

  “Nobody could have snuck in the back way?”

  “It doesn’t seem likely. And the general public wasn’t present. The custodian at that church across the alley was working outside, and he didn’t see anybody.”

  “People were lined up to check out books as I came in.”

  “Yes, and because they checked out books, we knew who they were. Apparently all of them had gone out the front door before Mrs. Montgomery went down to the basement.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Mrs. Blake checked out books, and Cassidy locked and unlocked the door to let people out. Their remembrances match. Mrs. Blake remembers Mrs. Montgomery being there after the other library patrons left.” Hogan took a drink of coffee. I started to ask another question, but he waved me into silence.

  “Now it’s my turn. First, I’m still trying not to make a general announcement on the cause of death until it’s f
irm. I talked to Hart VanHorn, and the family is going along with that. So I’d appreciate it if neither of you would mention this.”

  We both nodded, and Hogan spoke again. “Tell me about finding that letter. In your purse.”

  “Hogan, I have no idea how it got there.” First lie.

  “How did you find it?”

  “Well, I left the office early—”

  “Why?”

  “I just couldn’t concentrate. I didn’t really have a reason.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Down to the beach.” I continued with the story I’d decided on ahead of time. I went to the beach and parked in the public area. I tossed my purse into the floor of the front seat, locked the van, and walked down to the water. When I came back to the van, the purse had fallen over, and I saw the plastic sleeve with the letter in it sticking out of the purse.

  I even threw in a little uncertainty—“I don’t know how long I was walking up and down the beach, but it wasn’t more than half an hour.” That was to show that I hadn’t made the story up ahead of time. And I refrained from looking at Hogan as if I wasn’t sure he would believe me.

  Hogan didn’t call me a liar. I guess that’s the best I could say. I finished up with an apology.

  “Hogan, of course I knew you were looking for that letter, and I feel like an idiot for having it all the time. I guess I just stuffed it in my purse when we were looking for the keys—absentmindedly. I certainly did not know it was in there.”

  Hogan asked a few more questions. Had I left the purse unattended anytime today? Could someone else have put the letter in it? I said I didn’t think so. I didn’t remember any such opportunity.

  Finally, Hogan rubbed his eyes. “Larry Underwood isn’t going to be happy with this.”

  “Tough,” I said. “It’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.” Part of me hoped I could do that, and part of me was sure I couldn’t. But I had to try.

  “Larry doesn’t like oddball remembrances. I’d like to tell you that you’re off the list of suspects, but he’s not going to go for that.”