He got in his car and drove away, leaving me and my Texas accent flat.
“Lee,” I told myself, “you’re definitely losing your touch.” I’d have to ask somebody else. Maybe Aunt Nettie.
But Aunt Nettie wasn’t likely to know. She concentrated on TenHuis Chocolade almost to the exclusion of everything else, and she was too kindhearted to enjoy idle gossip.
So who did I know who would know? Well, all the city officials, the mayor . . .
“Ye gods!” I said. “How lucky! I forgot to go by and give Mike Herrera my Social Security number.”
Chapter 7
Mike Herrera’s office, Aunt Nettie told me, was down the block from TenHuis Chocolate, above Mike’s Sidewalk Café. And, yes, Mr. Herrera did own the café.
“He’s bought several Warner Pier restaurants,” Aunt Nettie said. “I think he leases most of them, but Mike’s and the main restaurant, Herrera’s—down on the water—he operates himself.”
I went down the street—past T-Shirt Alley, with silly sayings in the window; Leathers, which displayed expensive handbags and luggage; and the Old Time Antique Shop, whose window was packed with stuff Aunt Nettie and I used at home every day. I crossed the street and climbed the stairs to the office of Herrera enterprises. A middle-aged woman who identified herself as the bookkeeper gave me the proper forms to fill out so I could get paid for the few hours of work I’d done. There was no sign of Mayor Mike Herrera.
“I need to talk to Mr. Herrera,” I said. “Is he here?”
“I think he’s over at city hall,” the bookkeeper said. “But he’ll be back soon. He always checks on things before the evening dinner crowd shows up at Mike’s.”
Mike’s was new since my high school days, and I had noticed it seemed to be packed at every meal. It wasn’t quite your standard sidewalk café. Yes, it had tables on the sidewalk, inside a little railing, but it really got its name from its decor. The floors of both the outside dining area and the inside room were covered with graffiti—they looked like children had been writing on a sidewalk. I’d figured out that this was actually paint, since the waitresses ran back and forth all the time and the chalk never wore off.
The aisles between the tables were delineated by hopscotch games, and the walls were decorated with jump ropes, jacks, and other children’s toys and games. There was a big black slate wall, too, where customers were invited to write their own graffiti.
Kids loved the place, obviously, but after five p.m. children were only served in one section and by ten p.m., or so, I’d noticed, Mike’s turned into a date bar. It seemed as if Mr. Herrera had covered all the bases at Mike’s—Aunt Nettie had even remarked that the food was pretty good, high praise from her.
When I came down the steps and looked into Mike’s, it was nearly six p.m. and the place was filling up. Mike Herrera was at the back of the restaurant, headed into the kitchen. I went inside and called out. “Mr. Herrera! Can I talk to you a minute?”
He stole a glance at his watch before he motioned me to a stool at the end of the bar and stood beside me. His beaming smile contrasted with his earlier look at his watch. “Miss Lee. A pleasure.”
I decided a frontal attack was going to be the best plan for a busy man. “I’m here with a nosy question,” I said quietly, “but I have an excuse. I heard that cyanide was found in Clementine Ripley’s chocolates, and I’m determined to stay on top of this situation because of my aunt.”
Mike Herrera looked concerned. “The situation is truly shocking, but I’m sure the lovely Mrs. Nettie has nothing to do with the events.”
“I’m sure of that, too, but her chocolates were apparently used as a murder weapon. So she—and I—are involved whether we like it or not.”
“So what was your question?”
“I’m trying to understand why the state police have been called in when I hear that Chief Jones is himself an experienced detective. Can you explain?”
“Eet is a motter of routine,” Herrera said.
Hmmm. His Spanish accent had abruptly reappeared. Did that mean my question had made him nervous?
“The choice was up to Chief Jones heemself,” he said. “The officials of Warner Pier weesh to cooperate fully in the death of thees prominent woman, to make sure that all channels of investigation are fully explored. Chief Jones—indeed, all the city employees—weel work with the state detectives en any way we can.”
I felt that I’d just given him a chance to practice for a press conference. But I hadn’t gotten any kind of an answer.
“I’m sorry to be a pain in the neck,” I said. “It’s just that so much gossip goes around a small town. I’m much rather get the story from an authoritative source—such as the mayor himself—rather than relying on Glossop. I mean, relying on gossip!”
I couldn’t believe I’d done that. I’d actually threatened to ask Greg Glossop, the bigmouthed pharmacist, and I had pretended the threat was a slip of the tongue. I waited for Mike Herrera’s reply.
He stared at the floor for a moment, then leaned close and gave me a smile that told me I was about to receive a confidence. “I’m sure you’ve been told that Chief Jones and Ms. Ripley had a history.”
A history? I raised my eyebrows, but I kept my mouth shut.
“In his previous job in Cincinnati, our chief was a witness in a case Ms. Ripley defended. I do not think this is a pleasant memory for the chief. I hope that as the press descends to cover Ms. Ripley’s death—well, we all hope that they will not make this factor of too much importance.” He shook my hand solemnly. “Now I mush check on the kitchen. Jason! Please give Ms. McKinney a drink on the house.”
He turned and almost ran into the kitchen. I looked around to see my ponytailed cohort from the Ripley party grinning at me from behind the bar. “Hi, Lee,” Jason said. “What can I get you?”
“Nothing, thanks. I’ve got to get back to work. I hope I didn’t upset Mr. Herrera.”
“Oh, the first reporters have arrived. That’s what upset him.”
“I didn’t help. But I really feel I need some background, or I might put my foot wrong. Do you know what the situation was between Chief Jones and Clementine Ripley?”
“I know Mike doesn’t want the reporters to figure it out, but . . .”
I waited without saying anything while Jason polished a glass. His hair and his big dark eyes made him look like an eighteenth-century pirate.
Finally he grimaced and spoke again. “There’s no way to keep it a secret. But so far none of the reporters have tumbled to the fact that Chief Jones used to be Detective J. H. Jones—the guy who lost the Montgomery case for the Cincinnati Police Department.”
“Oh? I have only a vague memory of the details . . .”
“He was the chief investigating officer. The only way the Ripper could keep Thomas Montgomery out of jail was to make the police look incompetent. So she did it. It ruined Hogan Jones’s career.” He leaned across the bar. “You didn’t hear it from me.”
I nodded, thanked Jason, and headed back to the chocolate shop, mulling over what he had told me. So Clementine Ripley had ruined Chief Jones’s career. The guy must have felt haunted by her. First she ran him out of Cincinnati, so he retired and moved to Warner Pier. He became police chief here. Then she showed up and built a showplace weekend home.
Yikes! That alone was motive for murder. It’s as if she had deliberately had it in for him.
Yes, Chief Jones definitely needed to step aside and let someone else investigate her murder. He might not want her murderer caught at all.
He would even be a suspect. After all, he’d been out at the Ripley estate before the party—he’d been going in as I left after delivering the chocolates.
And the state police’s top detective had been assigned to the case. I shoved the door to the shop open. I felt sure I’d get to meet this Alec VanDam from the Michigan State Police—and his team—quite soon.
When I got inside, Aunt Nettie was in the workroom.
&nbs
p; “What are you doing here?” I said.
“Some detective called the house and asked me to come in. He wants to talk to both of us.”
She didn’t look at all afraid. And suddenly I loved her so dearly that I could have cried. When I was an obnoxious teenager upset about my parents’ divorce, she’d taken me in—given me someone who would listen, who taught me to work hard and be proud of what I did, who was always there for me. Now, twelve years later, my own marriage had fallen apart, and she had taken me in again. She was simply good through and through, and she saw only goodness in others.
The only exception to this had been Clementine Ripley. Aunt Nettie had adored Uncle Phil, and she had blamed Clementine Ripley for his death, as lots of people had known. And now a chocolate Aunt Nettie had handled and packaged might be linked to Clementine Ripley’s death. Aunt Nettie might be accused of killing her.
Did she even see her own danger? She might not. She was such an innocent that she might walk right into some sort of trap, incriminate herself.
But she wasn’t alone. She had me. And I was going to make sure her innocence wasn’t used against her.
I gulped and got ready to face down that detective.
At least he hadn’t come to take either of us away. We didn’t seem to be threatened with arrest. I toyed with the idea of recommending that Aunt Nettie call her lawyer. But wouldn’t that make it seem as if she was guilty? Besides, Aunt Nettie’s lawyer would be some local guy who drew up wills and checked land titles. Would he be any real help in a murder investigation?
And the state police’s request to see us obviously centered on the chocolate shop. If not, they would have come out to the house, or asked the two of us to meet them on their own turf. This was perfectly logical; the investigators would have to understand how the suspect chocolates had been handled—where they’d been made, stored, packaged.
Anyway, I didn’t mention calling a lawyer.
Warner Pier’s traffic was typical for a Saturday night, of course—awful. Half the tourists in western Michigan were circling through the business district looking for parking places, and two tour buses were in town, so the sidewalks were packed as well. It was twenty more minutes before two men in suits came in the front door and showed their badges.
Detective Lieutenant Alec VanDam looked as Dutch as his name. He had the face of a Van Gogh peasant, a plodding gait suitable for wooden clogs, and a shock of hair of such a bright gold it would have looked natural on one of those Dutch boy dolls they sell up in Holland, Michigan. He introduced his companion—his subordinate, obviously—as Detective Sergeant Larry Underwood. Underwood was younger than VanDam, maybe around thirty, with a blocky build and blunt features. He wore a buzz cut that left only an inch or so of black hair standing on top of his head. Neither of the detectives was quite as tall as I am.
“Please wait a few minutes, Ms. McKinney,” VanDam said. “Then we’ll go over the events of yesterday afternoon with you. Right now we’re simply trying to understand what happened and the order it happened in, and we’d like to talk to Mrs. TenHuis first.”
Aunt Nettie took them back to the break room, and I worked with Tracy and Stacy. They’d had to cut their dinner breaks short, but they were so excited that neither of them complained. I stood behind the counter with them while I waited for the detectives.
I was nervous about the interview, of course. I reminded myself to stand quietly and pretend to be poised—a lesson I was taught during my semisuccessful career on the beauty pageant circuit. Don’t twitch your hands, I’d been told. Don’t fool with your hair or jewelry. Don’t bounce your foot or pick at your nails.
Don’t twist your tongue—that wasn’t on the list, but it was the one I had the most trouble with. As I loaded boxes with chocolates and made change I tried to prepare answers for every question the detectives might ask, all the time knowing that was probably the worst thing I could do. But I was willing to look dumb—I had to be ready to fight for Aunt Nettie, even with my malapropish tongue.
I stayed in the shop, but I saw Aunt Nettie lead the detectives out of the break room. She showed them the workroom and the storage area, where racks on wheels held stacks of twenty-five trays of chocolates at a time. No doubt she described the routine of the middle-aged ladies who made the candy, the ones who had gone home at four p.m. She wheeled out a rack that held storage trays, then pulled out the tray on which the Amaretto truffles were stored. She pointed out the white chocolate that covered them and the accent stripes of milk chocolate that identified the Amaretto truffles. Then she took an Amaretto truffle from the tray, gave the detectives a rather defiant look, and ate it in two bites.
Of course, I was way ahead of the detectives in one way. They were still checking how the chocolate had been handled here at TenHuis Chocolade. I was sure those truffles had been pure, unadulterated yummy when Aunt Nettie gave them to me. If one of them had been used to poison Clementine Ripley, it had been given the cyanide treatment after I left it at the big, cold house on the point.
When my turn came, I went over the same material. I described how I had watched Aunt Nettie arrange the chocolates and dipped fruits on the silver trays that Clementine Ripley had sent us and how I had tasted an Amaretto truffle. How they’d gone into the van. How I’d left the van locked while I walked around to the house to pick up a check. How Clementine Ripley had taken a chocolate cat, gulped it down in two bites, then instructed Marion McCoy to take the box up to her room.
I was careful to include the exchange we’d overheard between Joe Woodyard and his ex—“I want my money.” Frankly, VanDam and Underwood didn’t seem too interested. I guess they’d already heard about that, maybe from Joe.
Then I explained why I happened to go back that night as a waitress.
“You can ask Lindy Herrera,” I said. “She suggested it.”
“We’ll talk to her,” VanDam said. “Did you see the little box of chocolates after you went back?”
“No.”
“And you stayed in the kitchen, the dining room, and the reception room?”
“Except when I went down to the office.”
“You went down to the office? That room back by the garage?”
“I didn’t see a garage, but there was a utility room across the hall. It’s at the east end of the house.”
“And why did you go back there?”
“The cat, Junker. I mean, Yonkers! Champion Yonkers. Ms. McCoy was trying to find him. She said they planned to lock him in the office. After she’d gone, he showed up out in the main party room—jumped onto the bartender from the balcony, then tried to eat a bowl of olives. I grabbed him and took him back to the office.”
“How did you know where it was?”
“I figured it was the same one she’d taken me to that afternoon, so I kept going east until I found a familiar landlord. I mean, landmark! When I saw the utility room, I turned left.”
“You didn’t see the chocolates in the office?”
“Not then. They should have been upstairs with Clementine Ripley by then.”
He didn’t ask me what I did see in the office, and I wasn’t about to volunteer any information. We went over the rest of the events—my walk back down the peristyle and past the kitchen and dining room, and my arrival in the main reception room just in time to see Clementine Ripley tumble over the balcony and land on the polished wooden floor.
At that point VanDam and Underwood seemed to be about to close their notebooks and leave. So I felt called upon to make a statement.
“Lieutenant VanDam,” I said, “I’m sure of one thing.”
“Yes, Ms. McKinney?”
“Those truffles—well, they weren’t poisoned here!”
A slight smile flashed over VanDam’s serious Dutch face.
I went on. “I wouldn’t even have any idea of how to get hold of cyanide, and I’m sure my aunt doesn’t either.”
“Actually,” VanDam said, “getting hold of cyanide is not a big problem in thi
s part of Michigan. Not in the summertime.”
“What do you mean?”
“Peach pits contain it.”
“Peach pits!”
He nodded. “Also cherry pits. I understand the process of brewing a little isn’t too hard.”
“That may be true. But after meeting my aunt Nettie, you can see that she’d never—well, it’s not possible for her to have any connection with any action that would harm anyone. She’s—she’s just good clear through.”
VanDam smiled at that. “Right now we’re just trying to understand how the chocolates were handled,” he said. He flipped his notebook closed and stood up. Detective Underwood imitated his actions almost exactly.
“We need to find out who had an opportunity to tamper with them,” VanDam said. He grinned. “Like you, Ms. McKinney.”
“Me!”
“You were alone with them for quite a while,” he said. Then he headed for the front of the shop, and my stomach went into a knot no Boy Scout could have tied.
I followed the detectives. I didn’t know what to say or do. VanDam’s comment wasn’t exactly news, of course. Both Aunt Nettie and I had had access to the chocolates. In theory I could have spiked them with cyanide.
So should I maintain my innocence? Point out that I had no reason for killing Clementine Ripley? Deny that I had ready access to cyanide? Yell? Scream? Beat my breast?
I decided that a dignified silence would be best. I pretended I was Miss America taking her final trip down the runway as I escorted the two state detectives to the front door. I even offered them a sample chocolate from the front counter. They declined.
I opened the door for them. “Good-bye, Lieutenant VanDam,” I said. “Good-bye, Sergeant Underling.”
I had closed the door before I heard VanDam laugh and realized what I’d said. I went back to the break room ready to cut my tongue out. It seemed determined to betray me.
Aunt Nettie had taken her interrogation calmly. The detectives had been polite, she said. They’d wanted to know how things were handled in the workroom at TenHuis Chocolade and specifically how the chocolates she’d sent to Clementine Ripley were selected.
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