The Chocolate Bear Burglary

by Carl, Joanna (Chocolate series 02)

  No, my best bet was to try to get back on the drive, where I could run. But for now I had to stay in the underbrush, where branches and logs on the snow-covered ground would keep the snowmobile from following.

  I edged forward, toward a new tree, one that was closer to the drive. But I got too close to the drive, and the snowmobile moved toward me. I leaped back toward a tree, tripped over one of those hidden logs and fell flat on my face.

  For a moment I thought I was dead. I rolled into a ball, pulled my arms over my head and got ready to be run over and chewed up by that snowmobile. Its roar grew louder and louder.

  Then it was past me. The log that had tripped me had also saved me. I had rolled close to it, and the snowmobile had not been able to pull in near enough to run over me.

  I scrambled onto my hands and knees. The house was still a long way off, but I was within a couple of steps of the drive. I got out there and started running.

  It was no good. A glance over my shoulder confirmed what my ears told me. The snowmobile was coming back. A giant cedar tree was looming up on my right. Aunt Nettie hated that tree. It followed the usual habit of cedars, so its branches only had needles on the outer edges. The whole interior of the tree was bare and ugly. But right now I thought it looked beautiful. I lowered my head and dived in among the lower branches.

  That saved me from the next pass of the snowmobile, but it wasn’t a good place to be. I was stuck in there. It was going to be a lot harder to get out than it had been to get in. I tried to spot another tree I could hug, one closer to the house.

  In the meantime, the snowmobile was turning around again. The black helmet had a reflective visor that turned the rider into an anonymous force and made the whole apparatus look more like a man-eater than ever.

  I crawled out of the cedar and ran into the drive, daring the snowmobile to come toward me. It moved slightly, and I jumped behind another maple on the other side of the lane.

  I was still about fifty feet from the house, with at least twenty feet of driveway before the stretch of beach grass Aunt Nettie and I called the lawn. And the snow on that lawn was deep; it would suck at my feet. The lawn might as well be quicksand.

  The snowmobile had stopped, its motor still roaring, between me and the house. I jumped forward, but the engine gunned. The snowmobile seemed to be pawing the ground, like a bull waiting to run at the bullfighter. And I jumped back behind my tree like a toreador who forgot his cape.

  Rats! The snowmobile was moving toward the house. As I watched, it came to the corner where the trees ended and the beach grass began. There it waited, ready for me to try to cross the cleared area.

  Well, I didn’t have to do that. Pretty soon Aunt Nettie, no matter how soundly she was sleeping, was going to notice all that roaring in her yard. She’d look out. She’d see what was going on. She’d call the police.

  All I had to do was stay put, and the cavalry would arrive. I contemplated that possibility, and I almost began to breathe normally.

  But when it came, the cavalry was going to have a hard time catching that snowmobile. Police cars can not go down the footpaths that link the houses in Aunt Nettie’s neighborhood, but the snowmobile could. It could speed off into the woods and never be seen again.

  Chief Jones was going to be asking me what that snowmobile had looked like. I peeked around my tree. The snow was still swirling, and my pursuer was just a dim shape. The snowmobile’s purple looked dull, a sort of eggplant. I could see the skis at the front and the heavy springs that linked them to the body of the snowmobile. Now I made out the slick plastic—fiberglass?—body, the swept-back windshield. And I could see the storm trooper who was riding it. His jacket was some dark color, black or navy, and it had a lot of texture.

  The motor gunned again, and the snowmobile moved forward.

  It was coming in. Maybe it planned to pin me to my friendly maple. I marked another tree a few feet closer to the house and jumped for it.

  I got to that tree, huddled behind it, and put my head around to look at the snowmobile. It went by so close that I could have touched the faceless creature riding it. But he missed me. As he went by I ran closer to the house, to another maple—one tree nearer to safety. I peeked around my tree and decided I had enough time for one more dash.

  And that dash took me to the tree closest to the house. Not that I could see the house very well, but this big elm, maybe sixty feet high and eight feet around, was on the edge of the lawn. The lawn was covered with several feet of snow. If I cut across the lawn, I’d cut a hundred feet or more off my dash to safety. But it wasn’t going to be easy running.

  The snowmobile veered out onto the beach grass and swung around. Screaming wasn’t going to do any good. The snowmobile’s noise was deafening. I muttered under my breath. “Aunt Nettie, wake up and call those cops.”

  What was I going to do? Throw snowballs at the snowmobile?

  I looked at my hands helplessly. And for the first time I realized they weren’t empty. I was still holding a rolled-up copy of the Grand Rapids Press. Fat lot of good that was going to do.

  I decided to feint. I’d jump out and entice the snowmobile into making another pass. Then I’d jump back behind my tree. After the snowmobile had passed me, I’d run for the back porch. I knew the back door was unlocked.

  I took a deep breath and jumped out. But the snowmobile didn’t bite. It stayed on the drive.

  I stepped forward one more step. Then another. Had it given up?

  Suddenly the engine revved, and it came at me.

  I was still out from behind my tree.

  I ran back toward the tree. And that deep, horrible snow pulled at my feet every step. It was like slogging through mud, through five feet of water, through a vat of chocolate.

  The snowmobile was nearly on me. I wasn’t going to make it. I was going to die. Desperately, I threw the rolled-up newspaper. It hit the swept-back windshield.

  And the snowmobile veered, went by me, hit a tree and tipped over. It lay on its side, its front skis sticking out helplessly, its back tread churning in the air.

  I stared. Then I ran for the house.

  I’d been told that snowmobiles tipped over easily. But I’d also heard that they were easy to get back upright. So I didn’t wait around to check on the rider.

  I didn’t look back. I slogged through the snow to the back walk, skidded over the new snow that was rapidly covering the flagstones, and jumped onto the porch. I didn’t stop. I charged right into the kitchen, slammed the door, and locked it. Then I took two deep breaths before I ran into the back hall, which had the closest window that looked over that side of the lawn.

  For a moment the blowing snow almost kept me from seeing anything. Then I saw a purple form. And a woolly jacket and bowling-ball head. The rider was pushing the snowmobile upright. As I watched he got aboard and took off across the lawn and down the drive, leaving nothing behind but a chewed-up patch of snow. In less than a minute there was nothing to see but the snow, nothing to hear but the swish of the falling flakes.

  I stood there, looking out the back window, and the whole episode seemed unbelievable. Had I really run through the snow, dodging a man-eater? I stood there in that odd little back hall—part pantry, part corridor between Aunt Nettie’s bedroom and the bathroom—and for a moment I actually doubted the chase had happened.

  Then the door to Aunt Nettie’s bedroom opened, and she looked out. She wore a blue robe, and her hair was messed up, and I was so glad to see her that tears began to trickle down my face.

  “I called the police,” she said firmly. “I don’t know who’s riding that snowmobile around here, but I’m really tired of it. I guess they think we’re at work this time of the day and won’t know about it. But there is a limit!”

  Then she looked closely at me. “Heavens! Lee, have you been outside? And what happened to your jacket?”

  The jacket looked as if I’d been rolling in the snow. Dirty snow. The cedar had ripped a sleeve. I’d trac
ked snow all over the kitchen floor and into the back hall. I went back to the kitchen door, the assigned spot for taking off outside clothes, and told Aunt Nettie what had happened. I tried to laugh it off. I didn’t want to frighten her.

  But her round face screwed up into an angry apple. “Oh, Lee!”

  “I’m not hurt,” I said. “It was pretty exciting. But the police will be here soon, and I’ll tell them about it. Maybe they can identify the snowmobile by its tracks.”

  “I doubt it.” Aunt Nettie looked out the kitchen window. “It’s snowing harder.”

  She called the police again, telling the dispatcher that the snowmobile rider had not only trespassed, but had actually chased her niece.

  “Please tell whoever is on duty to get right out here,” she said. “Maybe they can still tell something about the snowmobile.”

  “Maybe they could even follow it to its lair,” I said.

  But it was no good. Jerry Cherry showed up within a few minutes, quickly followed by the chief. They tramped through the yard and looked at the piled-up snow along Lake Shore Drive, but when they came inside to report, the chief said the new snow made tracking the snowmobile impossible.

  “I guess my messed-up jacket is the only evidence I can show you to prove the whole thing even happened,” I said.

  “Did you see the rider?” Chief Jones asked.

  “I could tell that somebody was guiding the darn thing,” I said. “But he had on a helmet. It made his head look like a bowling ball, and it had a guard over the face. It could have been anybody.”

  “How big did the guy look?”

  “Enormous! But that may have been the jacket.” I described the jacket, saying it was made of some woolly fabric. “It could have been fake fur,” I said. “Or Polartec. Something with a lot of texture.”

  The chief frowned, and his frown made me furious.

  “You’d better not say you don’t believe this happened,” I said.

  “Well, after the burglary night before last and a killing last night . . .”

  “This was more than trespassing by a snowmobile. Trying to kill me is a major crime.”

  “It sure is,” Chief Jones said. He was drawling, pulling his words out long. “And adding it to what Jeff said . . .” He paused again.

  “What Jeff said? This is one thing you can’t blame on Jeff, Chief.”

  “But if it was the killer of Gail Hess coming back. . . .”

  “That’s silly! Why would the killer hang around here?”

  “I don’t know, Lee. But I do know that, except for the helmet, your description of the snowmobile rider is a lot like the description Jeff gave of the person he claims to have seen minutes before Gail Hess’s body was found.”

  Chapter 13

  That remark seemed to have knocked me out. The next thing I knew I was tucked into my own bed, the clock radio read 2:30 P.M., and someone was tapping at my door.

  “Ms. McKinney? Lee?”

  I rolled over, barely catching my head before it fell off my shoulders. “Tess? Come in.”

  She peered around the door, looking as if she expected to need a whip and a chair. “I’m sorry. I know you haven’t been asleep long enough. But that Joe guy called.”

  I groaned, sat up, and discovered I was wearing my underwear and no pajamas. The jeans and sweatshirt I’d had on when the snowmobile chased me were tossed on the back of a chair. I guess I had simply pulled them off and crawled under the covers.

  I held on to my head. It wouldn’t do to allow it to roll under the bed. “Is Joe still on the phone?”

  “No. He said not to get you up, but if you woke up to tell you that Jeff’s attorney is going to be meeting with him at four p.m. Your aunt went to the chocolate shop.”

  “Thanks, Tess.” I yawned so widely I nearly dislocated my jaw, got out of bed, and headed for the shower.

  By four o’clock I’d poured hot water outside me and coffee inside me and had dragged myself—and Tess, who didn’t want to stay at Aunt Nettie’s alone—to the police department in time to meet Webb Bartlett before he saw Jeff. The day was still gray, but the snow had stopped, and the streets had been plowed.

  Webb might have been Joe’s age, but a bald spot and a paunch made him look older. His eyes were shrewd, and he didn’t bluster. I liked him, and I hoped Jeff would.

  Webb didn’t ask me any questions before he saw Jeff, and he told Tess she’d have to wait until he and Jeff had conferred before she could go in. So Tess and I moped around the police station. The chief was out, but the part-time secretary took me into his office and quietly told me that the chief had run a check, and neither Jeff nor Tess seemed to be in trouble with the law, either in Texas or in any state between there and here. I was almost ashamed of how relieved I was to hear that.

  When Webb came out, Tess went in, armed with the clean clothes, toothbrush, comb, and razor we’d brought for Jeff. The Warner Pier Police Department doesn’t really have a jail, just a holding cell, which is usually empty. But I appreciated the chief’s keeping Jeff there, instead of booking him into the county jail thirty miles away. I pictured Jeff in with hardened criminals and shuddered. He might have a stud in his lip, but he was just a baby.

  Webb and I sat down to talk. He brushed aside my assurances that his fee would be paid. “I’ll take my fee out of Joe’s hide if Jeff’s dad balks,” he said. “Now, the police have to charge Jeff within forty-eight hours or let him go. Maybe he won’t have to go before the judge at all. What do you know about the victim, this Gail Hess?”

  “Not a lot. Her antique shop is across the street from TenHuis Chocolade, but—well, in the summer we were all too swamped to socialize, and during the fall I was trying to get my job figured out and didn’t get around much. I didn’t really get acquainted with her until this Teddy Bear Getaway campaign started.”

  “She was the campaign chair?”

  “Right. Aunt Nettie wasn’t planning to do much with the campaign, but Gail insisted that we should take part.”

  “Your aunt opposed the campaign?”

  “No, she thought it was a good idea, but it’s not really key to our business. Most of the retail merchants in Warner Pier are completely dependent on the trade of tourists and summer residents. Some of them close up after Labor Day, and the ones who stay open, naturally they’d like to increase their winter sales. But TenHuis Chocolade has built up quite a mail-order business. Our retail shop pays for itself in the summer, but it doesn’t make a lot of difference to our overall profit picture. This time of year we’re busy shipping Easter and Mother’s Day orders. We don’t care much about retail sales. The shop’s only open as a sort of courtesy. Of course, that attitude shocked Gail.”

  “Was she a Warner Pier native?”

  “I don’t know, but Aunt Nettie will. We could go over to the shop and ask her.”

  I spoke briefly to Jeff. Then Tess, Webb, and I left the police station and walked toward the shop.

  Webb took a deep breath and gestured at our surroundings. “This is marvelous! Marvelous to be able to walk anywhere in the business district. And in a beautiful little town like this. I see why Warner Pier is such a tourist attraction.”

  “It is really pretty,” Tess said. “In the daylight.” She obviously felt like she had been let out of her motel-room jail. When Jeff had been locked up, she’d been released.

  Webb Bartlett was gesturing again, this time at the upper stories of the buildings along Peach Street. “What’s up there?” he said.

  “Mostly apartments.”

  “Apartments! Maybe there were witnesses to Gail Hess’s killing.”

  I frowned. “I doubt it. Aunt Nettie has an apartment upstairs in her building, but it’s only occupied when the summer workers hit town. I think that’s the case for nearly all the buildings. The downtown is deserted on winter nights.”

  “There’s the skating rink man,” Tess said. “Jeff and I saw him when we went out. That would be an awful job.”

  I e
xplained to Webb that the Warner Pier tennis courts are transformed into skating rinks every winter, and that one city employee had the job of maintaining them in the depths of the night. “There are people who run snowplows, too,” I said. “But I don’t think they would have been out last night. The snow didn’t start until this morning.”

  “Finding a witness would be an extra added attraction,” Webb said. “I guess we’d better not get our hopes up.”

  By then we had reached the store, and I was pleased to see that the glass in the door had been replaced. I took Webb back into the shop to meet Aunt Nettie, who was draining milk chocolate from the thirtygallon vat where it was kept already melted. She took a work bowl full of the ambrosial stuff to a table and began to ladle it into plastic molds shaped like the back halves of teddy bears. Without stopping her work—pour a ladleful of chocolate into the mold, tip the mold this way and that to make sure the inside was properly coated, pour out the excess, weigh the mold to make sure she’d used the right amount of chocolate, then put it aside on a tray—Aunt Nettie greeted Webb. Then she asked Tess if she’d like to make a little money by taking over Jeff’s job packing chocolates. When Tess agreed enthusiastically, Aunt Nettie called to Hazel, the chief hairnet lady. Hazel escorted Tess back to the packing area for her first lesson in the shipping and handling of the fragile molded chocolate.

  Aunt Nettie took her tray of hollow chocolate teddy bear halves to the cooling tunnel and started the batch along the conveyor belt.

  Webb was bug-eyed. “That’s fascinating,” he said. “But why are you making the back half of a teddy bear?”

  Aunt Nettie showed him the matching molds that were the front halves of the teddy bears, plus the miniature chocolate toys—tiny cars, tops, balls, and drums—that would fit inside the two halves. “The fronts of the bears are already decorated,” she said, displaying the bears’ happy white chocolate grins and dark chocolate eyes. “When these backs I’m making are firm, we put the little chocolate items inside, then we glue the halves together with chocolate. They’re a special item for the promotion, but Marshall Fields is taking two hundred and fifty of them.”