“I just told them the truth,” she said. “I knew her favorites, because she always buys Amaretto truffles—I mean she always bought them. Sometimes she’d buy a whole pound of nothing but Amaretto truffles. I knew she had quite a sweet tooth, and I didn’t want her to mess up the display trays before they were served. But those specific truffles were taken right from our regular stock. And I do not believe that one of my ladies had poisoned some Amaretto truffles at random, and that Clementine Ripley just happened to get them.”
“I agree,” I said. “That would be too hard to swallow.”
She looked at me narrowly, then laughed. “Oh, Lee, you’re so funny!”
Then we had a big discussion on whether she should go home. I was still nervous about the burglar.
“Handy Hans called to say the window is fixed,” Aunt Nettie said firmly. “The house is as safe as it’s been for the past hundred years, and I’ve been living there for forty of those years. I’m not leaving my home.”
“That house may be inside the city limits, but it’s still awfully remote.”
“I have wonderful neighbors.”
“I know! But you also have an acre of ground. The neighbors aren’t close enough to hear you holler, and they can’t see the house for all those trees.”
Aunt Nettie sighed. “I guess you have a point. And if you’re nervous about staying out there . . .”
“You’re not staying alone!”
We never made any progress beyond that. She wasn’t leaving her home, and I wasn’t leaving her. I did call the nonemergency number for the Warner Pier Police Department and request a few extra patrols of our area. The dispatcher—or whomever I talked to—assured me that Chief Jones had already laid that on.
“So if you see a police car in your drive,” the dispatcher said, “don’t worry.”
We left it at that. We were spending the night in our own beds.
Aunt Nettie left the shop around eight-thirty p.m. At eight-forty, p.m. I started cleaning the big front window. At eight-forty-five, p.m. a car stopped in front of the shop and a man wearing a funny mesh vest with lots of pockets got out. He leaned back inside his car and pulled out a camera.
I yanked the shade down on the window and turned to Tracy and Stacy.
“Let’s close up early,” I said.
I pulled the shade on the other big display window, then locked the front door. I stood by it while Tracy and Stacy finished up with the last two customers. The man with the camera came to the door and rapped, but I ignored him.
I opened the door just a slit for the customers. They had barely squeezed through when a second man draped with photographic equipment came running down the sidewalk.
“Hey!” he said. “Did the fatal chocolates come from here?”
CHOCOLATE CHAT:
ORIGINS
• The first chocoholics believed that the cocoa bean was the gift of a god. The god was Quetzalcoatl, a benign deity of the sometimes blood-thirsty Aztecs. According to legend, Quetzalcoatl stole the cocoa plant from the “sons of the Sun” and gave it to the Aztecs. They made the beans of the tree into a drink seasoned with pimento, pepper and other spices. They called it tchocolatl.
• Quetzalcoatl may have done the Aztecs a favor in giving them chocolate, but their belief in him helped end their empire. When the conquistador Cortez arrived in Mexico in 1519, he came in wooden sailing ships unlike any the Aztecs had ever seen. The Aztecs thought Quetzalcoatl had returned and greeted Cortez with open arms—and gifts of chocolate. Cortez—obviously not a man who went for spicy, bitter drinks—traded the chocolate for gold, and the Aztec empire began to fade away. The Spanish took chocolate to Europe.
• The myth of chocolate is echoed in its scientific name—Theobroma Cacao—which translates as “food of the gods.”
Chapter 8
Stacy and Tracy were staring at me.
“Let’s clean up fast and skedaddle,” I said. “And you girls may get tomorrow off. I’ll call you if it looks as if we’ll be open.”
They were still staring, so I went on. “And you’ll get tomorrow off with pay if you don’t talk to those reporters outside.”
That seemed to suit them, and the three of us did the final cleanup—sweeping out, scrubbing down the counter, and restocking the showcase—in record time. We ignored repeated knocks on the front door; the crowd seemed to be growing. I scooped the cash from the register and left it unbalanced, although that almost crushed my accountant’s soul. I stuck the money in a bank sack and put the bank sack in my purse. Tracy and Stacy waited at the door to the alley while I turned out all the lights but the security light behind the counter. Then I made my way to the back of the shop.
Tracy’s eyes were big, and her hair looked stringier than ever. “Do you think they’ll be waiting in the alley?”
“I hope not,” I said. “I’ll go out first, and I’ll take you girls home.”
They both assured me this wasn’t necessary, but I insisted. I didn’t want them waylaid; they were just high school kids, no match for the tabloid press. I was afraid the reporters were lurking in the alley, lying in wait like lionesses at a waterhole.
Which turned out to be almost the case.
The business district of Warner Pier is quaint enough to make the back entrances hard for strangers to figure out, but the first reporters found the alley just as we reached the van. I guess it was lucky Tracy and Stacy were teenagers; the hairnet ladies would never have been agile enough to jump into the van fast enough for us to make our escape.
As it was I had to drive through a half dozen reporters and photographers. Strobe lights were flashing, and people were yelling, but I kept edging the van down the alley toward Peach Street.
“Hey! Let us tell your side!” That was one of the yells.
“Is it true your aunt’s been arrested?” That was another.
“Is it true you’re having an affair with Clementine Ripley’s husband? Is it true you were Miss Texas?”
I tried not to even look at them, just kept moving slowly forward. When I got to the street, I whipped the van left and pressed down on the accelerator. “Look back,” I said. “See if they follow us.”
“There are a couple of cars,” Stacy said. “But it’s hard to tell just who’s who.”
I cut through the alley on the next block.
“One car followed us,” Stacy said. “Why don’t you head down Lake Shore Drive?”
“I don’t want to lead them to Aunt Nettie’s. Her house is hard to find, so maybe they won’t find it tonight. If I go somewhere else—”
“I mean the north shore end,” Stacy said, “and I can tell you how to lose them!” Tracy (stringy hair) was being real quiet, but Stacy (plump) was enjoying the whole thing. “Head for the old Root Beer Barrel,” she said. “Circle around it, and there’s a drive at the back, kinda hidden by bushes. The guys do it all the time.”
“The Root Beer Barrel? It’s still there?”
“Yes, we can get away that way.”
“You’re sure?”
“I guarantee it!”
I started north on the Lake Shore Drive. In that part of Warner Pier, the road runs right along the lake, and the lake side has been eaten away. The road is only about one and a half lanes wide, and there’s no shoulder at all, only a guardrail. On the other side of the guardrail there’s a steep drop, almost a cliff, about forty feet down to a narrow beach. When I see an article about Great Lakes erosion, I think of that spot. Years ago, it used to be a stretch of road with businesses facing the lake, between Lake Shore Drive and the beach. Now the buildings have collapsed into the lake, half the road is gone, and the section is supposed to carry only local traffic.
The old Root Beer Barrel had been a landmark. The drive-in has been closed for years, since the state highway was moved, but now I saw that the giant barrel was still there. And, I noticed, there was a streetlight at the entrance to what was once the drive-in’s parking lot. The lot was now a mess of brok
en asphalt and sand.
The car that was following us wasn’t staying too close; the guy must have been hoping to follow me home and find Aunt Nettie. I drove as fast as I dared when I got near the barrel, then whipped into the drive. I cut my lights as soon as I was off the street, but I’d seen the tracks in the sand. “You’re right, Stacy,” I said. “Lots of cars have been using this lot.”
“Yeah, the guys do doughnuts in here. Go around on the left side of the barrel, then make a sharp right.”
I followed directions, coasting to slow down without hitting the brakes, since I didn’t want our pursuer to see the lights. Once I was behind the barrel, I faced a solid wall of green, and the streetlight was a long way off.
“Go straight through,” Stacy said. “See the tracks?”
Now I saw them. A faint, two-rut driveway led into the bushes, and I followed it. Branches and leaves hit the windshield and the sides of the van.
Magically, I came out into the clear almost immediately. And I was in the back of the parking lot of Warner Pier’s one supermarket.
“I can’t believe this!” I said. “I had no idea that the Superette was that close to the Lake Shore Drive.”
“You can drop us here,” Tracy said. “I’m supposed to call my mom for a ride anyway.”
“I’ll park over there where the other cars are and wait until your mom comes,” I said.
Tracy and Stacy agreed to that. They went to the pay phone, then came back to the van. It was a warm night, so I rolled the windows down.
“I’m sorry y’all had such a scary ride,” I said. “But I appreciate your help in getting away from that bunch.”
The two of them looked at each other. Then Stacy took a deep breath and spoke. “Is it true?”
I decided I’d better be careful about what question I was answering. “Is what true, Stacy?”
“Were you really Miss Texas?”
I laughed out loud. “That one’s easy. No.” “Oh.” Stacy’s face fell.
“Sorry if you’re disappointed. I was in the Miss Texas Pageant once, along with about a million other girls, but I did not place in the top ten.”
“What about Joe Woodyard?”
“I don’t think he place in the top ten either.” I tried to keep the sharpness out of my voice. “When I was your age, Joe was a lifeguard at Warner Pier Beach. I knew who he was. I don’t recall ever having a conversation with him. I hadn’t even heard anything about him again until yesterday when I ran into him out at the Ripley house.”
“You didn’t date him?”
“Not when we were in high school. Not recently. Not anytime in between.” And Rich’s private detectives would back me up on that, I thought. Rich had had them investigate every aspect of my life.
“Oh.” This time both girls looked really disappointed.
I laughed again. “Sorry if I’ve let y’all down. I lead a very dull life.”
Tracy spoke then. “My mom says she hates to see such a smart guy throw his chances away, and my dad says Joe’s turned into a gigolo.”
She pronounced “gigolo” Gig-alow. Tracy was my kind of girl, stringy hair and all. I hid a laugh, but I decided I’d be better off not joining in Warner Pier’s gossip sessions during my first week back in town, even if I wasn’t impressed with Mr. Woodyard.
“I guess I’ll let Joe handle his own life,” I said.
“He doesn’t seem to know how to handle it, according to my mom,” Tracy said. She dropped her voice and spoke confidingly. “He quit being a lawyer and—”
I tried to cut her off by interrupting. “What kind of car does your mom drive?”
“Ford Fiesta. Joe got all kind of scholarships, see, and he did real well at Ann Arbor. Then he went to law school.”
“Good for Joe,” I said desperately. “What color is your mom’s car?”
“It’s red. Then he got mixed up with that Clementine Ripley, and he blew it all. That’s what my dad says. He says Joe’s really got a chip on his shoulder.”
She paused for a breath, and I decided I was going to have to be blunt.
“Listen, Tracy, Joe has plenty of friends in Warner Pier, and I’m sure they’ve all been interested in what’s happening in his life. But Clementine Ripley has been murdered, and you saw all those reporters that have shown up, nosing around. Now is the time that Joe’s going to need all the friends he’s got. And the first thing he needs from those friends is silence.”
Tracy looked big-eyed. “But—”
“I mean it, Tracy. I already asked you not to talk to the reporters about my aunt and the chocolate company. Now I’m asking you not to talk about Joe Woodyard. That kind of speculation is exactly what he doesn’t need right now.”
“But if you’re not friends with him—”
“Joe and I are not enemies,” I said. “We just don’t know each other.”
“Then why . . . ?” Tracy sounded completely bewildered. “Then why is he here?”
“Here?”
I heard a sardonic laugh behind me, and I whirled around so fast that I nearly got a crick in my neck.
Joe Woodyard was standing right outside my window.
I could have killed the jerk. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw that the reporters had laid siege to the chocolate shop, and I toyed with the idea of creating a diversion. But you didn’t need me.”
“There was only one car after us. Tracy told me how to escape.”
“Actually, there were two cars. I was the second one.” Joe leaned down and looked in the van window. “That swing around the old Root Beer Barrel was slick, Tracy. I drove over here the long way round. I thought you might stop in the parking lot, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”
He was still treating me as if I were incompetent. “Thanks, but you don’t have to help out,” I said.
He gave me a dirty look, then turned his attention to Stacy and Tracy. I could see both of them perk up. Even with anger bubbling just beneath the surface, Joe still had the pizzazz that had made the girls at the beach stand around the lifeguard’s perch drooling. Luckily, my drooling days were over.
“I appreciate you girls helping Ms. McKinney escape,” he said. “Now could one of you help me out?”
“Sure.” They answered in unison. He could have asked them to blast the tabloid reporters with a bazooka, and they’d have simply asked where the ON switch was.
“I need a bottle of Tylenol, but the Superette drug department is the last place I want to go tonight.”
Stacy laughed, and Tracy spoke. “Mr. Gossip.”
“I didn’t say anything,” Joe said. “But if I gave you girls a ten, would you run in and buy me a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol Gelcaps?”
“Sure!” They were delighted. They climbed out quickly. “We’ll be right back!”
“I won’t be here,” Joe said. “It’s not smart for me to hang around with Ms. McKinney. I’ll go back to my truck. The blue one over on the next row.”
They scampered off across the parking lot, toward the door of the Superette. Joe turned away and looked after them.
He still sounded gruff when he spoke again. “Thanks for the kind words.”
“Kind words?”
“The antigossip advice. When I walked up here.”
“That was more to do with Aunt Nettie and me than with you.” I gripped the steering wheel. “Tracy and Stacy are nice girls. They’re just young. They don’t know yet how much harm talk can do.”
“Sounds like you’ve learned.”
“I’ve had a few opportunities to find out.” Like when your ex-husband’s first wife calls and says she heard at the beauty shop that you’re dating a Dallas Cowboy and she wants to know which one, and you’ve never even met a Dallas Cowboy in your life, much less gone out with one, and all you can think is that your ex-husband started the rumor himself.
&
nbsp; “Anyway,” Joe said, “thanks.” He turned away.
Suddenly he looked incredibly lonely. Just the way he had out at the Ripley house, when he’d moved the chair to sit beside his ex-wife’s body. Maybe he wasn’t such a jerk as I’d thought.
“Joe,” I said, “did you see the state detective? VanDam?”
“Oh, yeah. After today we’re well acquainted.”
“What did you think of him?”
“He’s polite.”
“That’s one of the things I found scariest about him.”
“You’ve got a point. But I called a law school buddy who’s now in the Detroit prosecutor’s office. He says VanDam is about the best Michigan has.”
“I’m worried about Aunt Nettie. She simply lives for TenHuis Chocolade. She’s afraid that the company will be damaged.”
“That could happen.”
“I’m terrified that she’ll even be a suspect.” I thought back to the warning I’d had from Inspector VanDam. “I guess we will all be suspects.”
Joe gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah. The ex is always the prime suspect. VanDam didn’t seem impressed when I told him I didn’t gain a thing from Clemmie’s death. In fact, we had a business deal, and now . . . Anyway, her death leaves me in deep water with the bottom of the boat stove in. And I’ve got nothing to bail with.”
Joe and I looked at each other for a long moment. Then he turned and walked away.
A small red Ford cruised slowly through the parking lot, and in a minute Tracy and Stacy came out of the Superette and flagged it down. The car waited while they took a small sack over to Joe’s blue pickup. Then they waved in my direction and left.
One responsibility out of the way, I started the van and headed home, using back streets only a little less obscure than the escape hatch behind the Root Beer Barrel. I had to cross the bridge over the Warner River, but apparently the out-of-town reporters hadn’t figured out that that would be the best place to watch for a gray van with Texas tags.
I wished I could do something about those Texas tags, but I was stuck with them until Monday at least. Besides, I didn’t have the money to buy Michigan car tags. For the moment I was financially dependent on Aunt Nettie.
The Chocolate Cat Caper Page 9