George was speaking. “Bob says you’re the best politician in Michigan.” I realized the Bob he and Olivia had been talking about was his father-in-law, a well-known political and business figure in Michigan.
Olivia laughed a ladylike laugh. “Oh, I’m not sure that’s right. Michigan has a lot of expert politicians. But I have had experience in back-scratching, as you call it.”
“Why have you never run for office yourself?”
There was a pause before Olivia answered. “Perhaps I might have, George, if I were thirty years younger. But back when I convinced Vic he should seek office, it was still somewhat rare for women to enter the political arena. I would have had to get involved in the Equal Rights Amendment, in support or opposition of pro-choice legislation. I would have been smeared as a woman who neglected her son, her husband.”
Huh, I thought. Other women ran for office then. They made their positions known on those issues. You just wanted to be a kingmaker, the power behind the throne.
“No, I’ve always thought I made the right decision,” Olivia said. “I’ve been able to pursue my goals through my work with Vic, with the party. And now through Hart.”
“If Hart runs.”
“Oh, he’s going to run. Hart has a complete, perfect background for national office, beginning with Boy’s State and his success in high school debate. Then there was Harvard, study abroad, a law degree and a graduate degree stressing government theory. He handled the right kind of law cases, backed the right kind of legislation, supported the right social causes.”
George didn’t sound convinced. “Hart has the reputation—well, I’ve heard he’s been seeing . . .” His voice faded away, as if he couldn’t bear to finish the thought.
Olivia laughed. “You’re worried because Hart has never married. Well, he’s a perfectly normal man, and he sees lots of women. But Hart has had no serious entanglements. No scandals are going to surface. And he’s only thirty-five. I feel certain that soon Hart will find the right woman.”
Olivia sounded as if she already had the right woman picked out. And somehow I didn’t think that Hart’s wife would be a blond divorcée with a tangled tongue. Maybe I represented rebellion to Hart.
George stammered out a few unintelligible words, but Olivia kept talking. Her voice became more triumphant. “There are no skeletons in Hart’s closet. Absolutely none. Hart has the VanHorn looks and charisma and the Hart family’s drive, ambition, and brains. Hart is going to go far, George, and if you’re smart, you’ll go along with him.”
I was mesmerized. Then the furnace fan started again. It broke the spell I was under. With its noise as cover, I plugged in the exhaust van again. Then I dashed out of the restroom before George noticed the difference in the sound of the fan and I got caught. I sank into the chair where I’d left my jacket, whipped out my loan folder, and pretended to study the papers inside.
Wow! That Olivia VanHorn was something. Her ambition for Hart took my breath away; she obviously thought the U.S. House was just a step on the ladder. But she made me sad, too. Why had she turned that ambition loose on her husband and her son? She had even refused to serve in Congress when she had the chance, if what Mercy had said was right.
Aunt Nettie had thought Mercy Woodyard might be a difficult mother-in-law. Mercy would be a piece of cake compared to Olivia VanHorn. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go out with Hart after all. Maybe I’d be seen as a threat to his political career, and if I were, Olivia would trample me flat.
Though Hart did seem to have the gumption to stand up to her. At least he was hesitating to commit to a run for Congress, a run she’d plainly decided he was going to make, like it or not. It was going to be interesting to see who won.
But I think at that moment I knew—though it gave me a twinge of regret—that I was never going to be seriously interested in Hart VanHorn. I had my own problems.
In a few minutes I saw George helping Olivia into her mink jacket. She nodded to me regally as she left the bank, and George motioned me into his office.
I thought he might make some comment about Olivia, but he didn’t. He seemed troubled, and he barely spoke. I had no need to snow him with my figures; he didn’t try to talk me into refinancing at all. He merely accepted my check, and we both signed the papers for the loan extension—at the same interest rate. Then I gave him his chocolates and left.
I was back in my own office, still thinking about what I’d overheard, when the next commotion started.
The outside door to TenHuis Chocolade was opened so suddenly and with such force that it nearly flew back into one of the show windows. A figure hooded in emerald green dashed inside and slammed the door.
I stared. When the newcomer pushed her hood back, I saw that it was Gail Hess. She was panting slightly.
“Lee!” she said. “I just heard about the burglary! Is it true you and Jeff saw the burglar’s car? Tell me all about it!”
CHOCOLATE CHAT
THE CULINARY KILLERS
Mysteries, emphasizing the physical world as they do, have always paid attention to food. Even Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson checked out the clue of the curry in “Silver Blaze.” But more recently a whole field of culinary mysteries has bloomed.
And plenty of these emphasize chocolate. Just a few . . .• Diane Mott Davidson wrote Dying for Chocolate, starring caterer Goldie Bear.
• Joanne Fluke’s detective, baker Hannah Swenson, solved the Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder.
• Heaven Lee, the caterer-detective created by Lou Jane Temple, appears in Death Is Semisweet.
• Magdalena Yoder, the operator of a bed-and-breakfast in Pennsylvania Dutch country, was created by Tamar Myers for a series of comic mysteries. Although Magdalena has not so far starred in a book that features chocolate in the title, in Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth, Magdalena’s sister, Susannah, almost loses her miniature dog when the pet, who habitually rides about in Susannah’s bra, falls into a pan of Chocolate Oatmeal Drops. The little dog is not injured.
Chapter 7
I stared at Gail. “Are you just hearing about our excitement?”
“I went over to Lansing last night, so I could go to a sale this morning. I just got back. Mercy Woodyard told me about it. What happened?”
“We had a break-in. The molds are safe.”
“Thank God! What did they take?”
“Nothing. My former stepson—” Suddenly I realized Gail didn’t know anything about Jeff. I sighed. “It’s a long story. Let me start at the beginning.”
I sketched out Jeff’s arrival—leaving out his trying to break into our house—and ended with his interrupting the burglar.
“So the burglar might have been after the molds, Gail. That’s why Aunt Nettie and I want them out of here.”
Gail seemed to think deeply. “It could have been coincidence. I mean, why? Is it true you and your stepson got a look at the burglar’s car?”
“It was turning onto Blueberry before I saw it.”
Gail leaned over the counter, and—I swear—her eyes sparkled. “Mercy said that one of the taillights was out.”
Her reaction mystified me. “Jeff said one of them was. I didn’t get a good look.”
“So you don’t know what kind of car it was?”
“Jeff might. Guys that age are up on cars. He thought it was some kind of sports car.”
Gail looked at me with those bright, excited eyes. “It’s funny that the burglar came in through the front door. I’d have tried the alley, myself.”
“The door back there is steel and has a dead bolt. It would be almost impossible to get through. And the window has steel mesh. The front door may be more public, but it was a lot easier to break in.”
“It’s just lucky your stepson saw the burglar.”
“Yes. We owe Jeff a lot.”
“I guess he didn’t even know there was anything valuable in the shop.”
I cleared my throat. “Well, uh, Jeff’s mom owns an antique shop
in Dallas. He did recognize the molds as collector’s items. The chief . . . well, he’ll have to know about that. But Jeff had no reason to break in.”
Gail smiled gleefully. “Of course he didn’t! It will probably be one of those unsolved crimes.” The thought seemed to delight her.
Gail took the box of molds and went back to her shop, still excited. But she’d left me down in the dumps again.
Gail’s questions had reminded me about Jeff. It was now after four o’clock, and we hadn’t heard a word from him.
I called the house. The phone rang eight times, and I was about to hang up when Jeff answered with a sullen, “Yeah.”
“Jeff? Were you still asleep?”
“No.” There was a long pause before Jeff went on. “Sorry I didn’t get down to work.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah, I’m okay. I’d have come down, but that policeman showed up.”
“Policeman! What policeman?”
When Jeff answered, he didn’t sound quite as sullen. “Cherry? Officer Cherry? He wants me to go down to the police station, Lee.”
Was I imagining the slightly plaintive quality in Jeff’s voice? “Oh! I can meet you there.”
Then the tough Jeff was back on the phone. “Butt out!” he said. “It’s no big deal. I can handle it.”
He hung up.
He hung up on me? I made my mind up to quit feeling worried about Jeff and let him take care of himself. I angrily slammed a few things around on my desk. Then I tried to call both of Jeff’s parents one more time. Both were still unreachable. I even asked Rich’s British receptionist for Alicia Richardson, who had kept books for his company since it was founded. Alicia knew where all the bodies were buried. But she wasn’t there either. I still didn’t want to tell Miss Brit about Jeff’s problems.
My stomach lurched. How would Rich react if he learned his son had run away, come to Michigan, and gotten arrested for burglary? It was like a pit opening under my feet.
It was no good. I checked the time. It had been a half hour since I talked to Jeff. I was still worried about him. I decided to walk down to the Warner Pier City Hall and find out what was going on—even if Jeff didn’t want me to. I wanted to know what Police Chief Hogan Jones was up to.
Chief Jones is not your typical small-town lawman. He’d spent most of his career on a big-city force and had been headed up the final steps of the promotions ladder until Clementine Ripley, prominent defense attorney and Joe Woodyard’s ex-wife, turned him inside out on the witness stand. I don’t know all the details, but after that Hogan Jones retired and moved to Warner Pier, where he and his wife had long spent their vacations. A year later his wife died, and Jones, maybe feeling the need for a new interest in life, had taken the job as chief of Warner Pier’s police—in charge of all three patrolmen and a part-time secretary. He seemed to get along fine in Warner Pier, maybe because his retirement income wasn’t dependent on city politics. He was quite willing to tell the Warner Pier merchants and city officials where to get off. Consequently, they didn’t fool with him a lot.
I put on my ski jacket and hollered at Aunt Nettie to tell her where I was going, then I went out the front door.
Warner Pier’s business district is incredibly picturesque. One of the town’s attractions to tourists—besides great beaches, miles of marinas, and an art colony—is its Victorian ambiance. The town was founded in the 1830s, and by the 1860s and ’70s was a prosperous center for growing and shipping peaches. The captains of the lake steamers and the wealthy fruit growers built classic Victorian houses along the Warner River and on the bluffs along the lake. When the artsy crowd moved in during the 1890s, they added Craftsman-style homes and cottages. Luckily, the same families owned many of these for years, and sentiment prevailed; only a few of them had been “modernized”—another word for “ruined” in the view of the historic-preservation crowd.
The Warner Pier downtown isn’t all quite as authentically Victorian as Aunt Nettie’s “Folk Victorian farmhouse.” Some new construction did creep in during the 1950s. But today’s merchants know what’s good for business; genuine and faux Victorian features abound—including several blocks of fake Victorian condos that challenge the architectural imagination.
The shops along Dock Street face the river, with a strip of park separating the business district from the marinas. Dock Street is the busiest part of town in the summer, when the river is lined with yachts, nearyachts, sailboats, and fancy power boats. Now, at the end of February and with all the boats in storage or moved to southern climes, it still looked pretty.
There was even a little weak sunlight that day, and the sidewalks had been cleared. The temperature had climbed to nearly forty. I enjoyed the fresh air on my walk to City Hall, even if I wasn’t happy about my errand.
City Hall is one of the authentic Victorian buildings, originally a private home. I went up the redbrick steps, across the white front porch—decorated with the approved Victorian lanterns and a few teddy bears—and in through a front door with a beveled-glass panel.
When I came in, Patricia VanTil, the tall and rawboned city clerk, jumped to her feet and almost ran to the counter. “Oh, good, you’re here,” she said. “I was debating with myself about calling you.”
“Why?”
“Well, I wanted to be sure you knew about your stepson being down here.”
I tried to act calm. “I’m sure it’s just ravine. I mean routine. Jeff did stop the burglary last night. But I’ll go on back to the police department and see what’s going on.”
I gave what I hoped was a gracious smile—it probably made me look like one of the chocolate skulls TenHuis makes for Halloween—and went past the counter and down the corridor that leads to the two or three rooms of the police department.
Jerry Cherry was out in the main room. “Hi,” I said, determined to be friendly and casual. “Don’t they ever let you go home?”
“Oh, I got a few hours’ sleep.” Jerry looked at me suspiciously. “What can I do for you?”
“I hear the chief has Jeff in for more questioning. I decided I needed to keep informed on the situation.”
“He’s not under arrest or anything, Lee.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” In fact, about half my stomach muscles relaxed at the news. “But just what is going on?”
Jerry sighed. “I’ll tell the chief you’re here.”
He knocked on the door of the chief’s office, looked inside, and spoke. I heard the rumbling voice of Hogan Jones. “Come on in here, Lee!”
I went into the office. Jeff was sitting in a chair across the desk from the chief. Only the two of them were present. I thought Jeff looked a little relieved when he saw me, but he didn’t say anything. I tried not to stare at his earlobes.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I needed to ask Jeff a couple of questions. Nothing serious.”
“You mean I don’t need to call him a lawyer?”
Chief Jones laughed. “Oh, we’re a long way from that kind of thing. Jeff’s a hero, right? Stopped the only burglary the Warner Pier business district has had since Labor Day.”
“He certainly did.”
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to ask him about the burglary at all.”
Jeff burst into speech then. “It’s some car, Lee. They think I might know something about it.”
“What car?”
“We found it in the parking lot at the Superette. Out of gas. The manager called and asked us to tow it.”
“Why would Jeff know anything about it?”
“It has a Texas tag.” Jeff sneered. “Like I know every car in Texas.”
The chief chuckled. “Yeah, that’s pretty silly, isn’t it? But the guy who runs the station down at Haven Road—that’s five miles south of Warner Pier, Jeff, on the interstate—he said a young man in a gold Lexus RX300 with a Texas tag pulled in there early yesterday and bought some chips and stuff.”
“Okay,” Jeff said. “That was me.”
“The guy says you weren’t alone, Jeff.”
“He’s wrong!”
“He says another car with a Texas tag pulled in at the same time. A small Ford.”
“Maybe so. But I was alone.”
The chief shrugged, but he didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to add, so I didn’t say anything either.
The silence grew until Jeff finally spoke. “No shit. I was alone. I pulled in there and bought some chips and a Coke. I sat in the parking lot and counted my money. I didn’t have enough for gas, so I decided that I’d have to call Lee, see if she could help me.” He turned to me. “I knew where you were because of all the newspaper stories last summer.”
The chief spoke again. “You didn’t see the other Texas car?”
“It was still dark!”
“Had you driven all night?”
“I pulled over and slept some.”
“Mighty cold for sleeping in a car.”
“I left the motor running. Guess that’s how I used up all my gas.” His eyes had grown wide and innocentlooking, then cut at the chief, the way they did when he was lying.
The chief’s voice took on a fatherly tone. “And just why did you come to Michigan, Jeff?”
Jeff’s lips tightened, but his eyes stayed wide. “I’m old enough for a road trip, if I feel like one.”
“Right in the middle of the semester?”
“I wasn’t so excited about my classes anyway.”
“And without telling your parents?”
Jeff didn’t answer.
“Jeff,” I said, “I’ve been trying to call both your parents. I know they’re worried.”
“No, they’re not. They’re not interested in me right now.”
I ignored his comment. “I haven’t been able to reach either of them. Do you know where they are?”
Jeff glared at me.
“How about your mom? She always acted pretty interested in you, Jeff.”
“Mom?” He gave a snorting laugh. “She’s got other interests.”
The Chocolate Bear Burglary Page 8