The Chocolate Bear Burglary

by Carl, Joanna (Chocolate series 02)

“No! I mean, both of them would be at work.”

  Aunt Nettie spoke gently. “You must call them tonight, Tess. I’m sure they’re worried sick.” She hugged Tess again. “Let them have an opportunity to back you up.”

  Tess still looked miserable, but she seemed calmer. After a little more reassurance, she left the office, telling Aunt Nettie she’d go back to work as soon as she had washed her face.

  “What do you think?” I said. “Does that explain why Tess has been in such a state? Why she ran away from college?”

  “It certainly seems to explain it, Lee. Violence against women is such a hard problem to deal with. A lady named Rose worked here for a while. She used to come in all black-and-blue. She finally got the nerve to leave her husband, but she wound up having to move clear across the country to get away from him. Hiding out sometimes becomes the only defense.” She sighed. “It’s really sad.”

  I had tossed my jacket on a chair when I’d come in. I stood up and started to hang it up on the coat tree in the corner of the office. I heard a clunk, and looked down to see a key on the floor.

  “Rats! I forgot to hand Joe the key to Gail’s shop. I’ll have to take it over to Mercy.” I put the jacket back on and stomped out the front door, unhappy at the interruption.

  As I crossed the street I noticed that Joe’s truck was still sitting in front of his mom’s office. When I went inside Mercy beckoned me into her private office. Joe was in there, too. He was on the telephone. He nodded, but he didn’t speak into the phone. I decided he was on hold.

  “I forgot to give the key back,” I said. “Plus there’s been a new development, though I’m not sure that it means anything.”

  I repeated Tess’s story. Halfway through it Joe turned his back on us and began to speak into the telephone receiver.

  I kept talking. “It’s hard to believe that Tess would be so scared she ran away from college, instead of telling her parents and getting a lawyer.”

  “Tess is just a young, inexperienced girl,” Mercy said. “And some women never get up the nerve to confront these situations. It can become an insurance problem—health coverage, even death benefits and liability. That’s one of the reasons our state organization took it on as a project.”

  I edged toward the door. I didn’t have time to listen to a speech. “I know it took a lot of women speaking out to begin to make a difference.”

  “Oh, yes! Violence against women was definitely a crime that was hidden away—along with insanity, incest, and even cancer. But it covers all segments of society from the poorest to the richest. Why, a few years back the ex-wife of the CEO of a blue-chip company wrote a book describing years of abuse by her husband. She would hide in the closet when she heard him come in from a board meeting, afraid he’d come upstairs and beat her!”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “Even today it’s hard to get legislators involved. That’s why we were so lucky to get the support of Hart VanHorn.” She smiled. “I guess most of us fail to get interested in other people’s problems unless we have some sort of vested interest.”

  I stared at her. “Are you saying Hart has personal experience with wife beating?”

  Mercy gave a little chuckle. “He’s never been married, so I don’t think he’s ever beaten anybody or been beaten. But he speaks very emotionally about the issue, and the episodes he describes from his years as a prosecutor . . .”

  I was still staring at Mercy. Hart had a personal interest in spousal abuse. He had an alcoholic uncle. And according to Greg Glossop—who occasionally was right, darn him!—his father had been a drinking buddy to that uncle. Could Hart’s father have been a wife beater?

  But that was silly. Who would have the courage to abuse a woman with a personality as strong as Olivia VanHorn’s? Plus, Olivia was old money. Why would she put up with a situation like that? She could walk out. Olivia was afraid of nothing.

  Well, she was afraid of one thing. The conversation I’d eavesdropped on had revealed that. She was afraid of damaging Hart’s political career. Had she been just a little too emphatic when she denied that there was any scandal in Hart’s past?

  Before I could complete the thought, Joe spoke. He had hung up the phone. “The librarian’s going to fax something you might want to see.”

  “The librarian?”

  He nodded impatiently. “Yeah, after you wondered if Timothy had ever been accused in any sort of assault—a barroom brawl or anything—I decided Webb might be able to find out.”

  “Jeff’s lawyer?”

  “Sure. Webb’s one of these guys who knows everybody, and Mom said that Timothy lived in Grand Rapids before he moved down here full-time.”

  I was still confused. “Webb knows a librarian?”

  “At the newspaper. He called down there and got me in touch with the person who’s in charge of the archives. She’s faxing me a story about Timothy. It seems he once punched out his brother-in-law at a Grand Rapids banquet.”

  Chapter 19

  I was definitely interested in that, so I hung around until Mercy’s fax began to groan. A client came in, and Mercy had to go back into the front office, but Joe and I stood over the machine, reading as a copy of a newspaper clipping slid out. It wasn’t a long story, but the headline spread over three columns:CONGRESSMAN ATTACKED AT BANQUET; BROTHER-IN-LAW SHOUTS THREATS

  The date was only a few weeks before Vic VanHorn had died. The gist of the story was that U.S. Representative and Mrs. VanHorn had been attending a political dinner, and Timothy Hart had been seated next to his sister. The word “drunk” was never used, but witnesses reported that just before the baked Alaska was served, Timothy got to his feet, went around his sister, and accosted her husband, “calling him names.” At first he demanded that VanHorn accompany him outside. When the congressman refused, he threw a punch. Bystanders pulled Timothy away from the table and removed him from the dining room. Timothy continued to yell, but the newspaper did not quote any of his shouts. The congressman apparently had not been seriously hurt.

  “Wow,” I said. “I bet Olivia was frosted.”

  “There’s another sheet coming,” Joe said.

  He pulled it off the fax machine. This headline was much smaller, probably one column. It had run the day after the first story:CONGRESSMAN

  ASKS LENIENCY

  FOR OLD FRIEND

  That story reported that Representative VanHorn told the prosecutor that he had not been injured and pled the case of his brother-in-law, citing him as a Vietnam veteran. Since the congressman did not want to file charges, the prosecutor had agreed to release Timothy Hart, “one of the heirs to the Hart foodprocessing fortune.”

  And that was all the Grand Rapids Press had in its files on Timothy Hart.

  “They hushed that up in a hurry,” Joe said.

  “I can see why,” I said. “I guess Chief Jones ought to see these clippings. This definitely shows that Timothy has a history of violence.”

  Joe offered to take the faxes down to the police station, and I went back to the chocolate shop. I sat in my office and stared at my computer screen, feeling unhappy about the situation. In spite of his problems, Timothy Hart was a likeable old guy. I wasn’t pleased with the thought of him as a killer. Of course, I liked the thought of Jeff as a killer even less. Yes, the more Timothy could be made to look like a possible killer, the more likely it would be that Chief Jones would release Jeff.

  And the closeness of Timothy’s attack on his brother-in-law to the death of that brother-in-law was interesting. Had Timothy still been angry the night Vic VanHorn wandered out into a heavy rainstorm and stood too close to the bank that overlooked Lake Michigan?

  Chief Jones would say I was letting my imagination run away with me on that one. Olivia VanHorn would do a lot to avoid scandal, but it was hard to believe she’d cover up a fight between her husband and her brother if it made her a widow.

  The whole situation made me feel miserable. I opened my desk drawer and had a Dutch caramel
from the box Joe had given me. It didn’t make me feel better, but it did remind me that I hadn’t had lunch. I admitted to myself I wasn’t getting any work done, stood up and put on my jacket, then told Aunt Nettie I was going down to the Sidewalk Café for a sandwich.

  At least the weather was pleasant that day. The sun was shining, and I tried to cheer up as I walked down the block. But the thought of Jeff in the Warner Pier Police Station was like a heavy weight on my shoulders. I was sure he was innocent. But all Joe and I had been able to do was dig up another suspect. We had no real evidence against Timothy.

  Then there were Gail’s actions right before her death. She’d acted crazy. Why had she been so pleased when the mold turned up missing after the burglary? What had she meant when she e-mailed Celia Carmichael and told her she’d found a piece of valuable glass, “or even plastic”? Didn’t she know which it was?

  Darn it! Joe had gotten so close to finding out whether Timothy still had his old sports car—and checking to see if it had a broken taillight. . . .

  I stopped dead in my tracks, right in front of Downtown Drugs. Old glass or maybe plastic! Could Gail have been referring to the taillight of a car? Could she have been aware that Timothy’s car was still around, and that it had a broken taillight? Could she have tried to blackmail Timothy over the broken taillight?

  Suddenly it became very important to find out whether that classic sports car still existed. I half turned, ready to go down the street to the police station.

  And at that moment Hart VanHorn walked out of Downtown Drugs and almost bumped into me. He smiled.

  “Oh!” My squeal sounded guilty to me, but I guess I sounded thrilled to Hart.

  He beamed at me. “Listen, I’m still eager for us to go out sometime.”

  “That sounds supper, Hart.” Supper? Had I said supper? “Super!” I said. “It sounds great. But right now things are in tumult. I mean turmoil.”

  “The police are still holding your stepson?”

  “Yes. But we did find his parents. They’ll be here tonight.”

  “Good. Then all the responsibility won’t be on you.”

  “All the blame may be.”

  I was aware that I sounded glum. Hart looked sympathetic. “I wish I knew something to do to help.”

  I thought briefly of suggesting that he turn his uncle in for killing Gail. But I quickly faced the fact that even if Timothy was involved in Gail’s death, Hart probably knew nothing about it. Timothy, even with his pickled brain, would be unlikely to confess to his nephew.

  “Webb Bartlett seems to know what he’s doing,” I said. “And Jeff has confidence in him.” It was time to change the subject. “You’re bustling about today.”

  “I’m off again. Some vacation.” Hart gestured, and I turned and saw his mother’s Lincoln parked by the curb. “Mother and Uncle Tim are with me. We stopped to pick up a prescription, and I’ve got to talk to a guy in Grand Rapids.”

  I waved at Timothy Hart and Mrs. VanHorn and said good-bye to Hart. I went on toward the Sidewalk Café but I didn’t go inside. When I got to the restaurant I turned and looked back. Yes, the VanHorn car was turning the corner, headed toward the highway to Grand Rapids.

  I lost interest in eating lunch and formed a new goal.

  Running into Hart might seem coincidental, but in a town of twenty-five hundred, coincidences like that happen all the time. You can’t go to the grocery store, or to the drugstore, without running into someone you know. But this particular meeting seemed to be full of meaning.

  If Hart, Olivia, and Timothy were all going to Grand Rapids—driving time at least an hour up and an hour back—then the Hart-VanHorn compound would be deserted, possibly all afternoon.

  It was the ideal time for a burglary.

  I took two deep breaths and made up my mind. I would break into that barn-garage where the Harts and VanHorns stored their vehicles, and I would check under every canvas cover until I made sure that a 1968 MGB wasn’t there. And I’d check out the snowmobile.

  I made a swift U-turn and went back to the shop. I stuck my head in, told Aunt Nettie I was going to be gone for a while, then got into my van and drove off. I tried to do it all without hesitation. I knew that if I thought the situation through, my law-abiding nature would pop back into control, and my career as a burglar would be over before it started. So as I drove to the Hart-VanHorn compound, a quarter of a mile south of Aunt Nettie’s driveway, I concentrated on how to accomplish the task at hand.

  First, I needed a place to hide my van. That was no problem. I decided to leave it in Aunt Nettie’s driveway and walk to the Hart-VanHorn place.

  I took a flashlight out of the glove compartment and went back to Lake Shore Drive. I stepped along briskly, trying to look as if I were just out for some exercise, and walked down Lake Shore Drive to the big stone arch that marked the Hart-VanHorn entrance.

  The white gate was closed, but it was only designed to keep out cars. A pedestrian could climb right over, and I did.

  The compound’s drive had been carefully plowed, so what snow was there was hard-packed and would not show footprints. I might be determined to become a housebreaker, but I wasn’t particularly eager to pay a penalty for my actions. I’d been careful to wear my gloves—slick leather ones that wouldn’t leave fuzzies behind—and to cover my hair with a stocking cap I kept in the van. My red jacket was a problem, but it was too cold to leave it in the van. Anyway, the neighborhood wasn’t exactly thronged with people that time of the day and that season of the year.

  As I walked I decided that the simplest way to break into the barn was to first break into Timothy’s house and find the key to the barn. That barn was solid metal, with metal doors and no windows. It would be much easier to break into the old farmhouse.

  Timothy’s walk had been neatly shoveled. I followed it to the front porch. I knocked on the door, just in case. Then I tried the handle. No luck. Timothy’s brain wasn’t so addled that he went off and left his door unlocked. I shrugged. But what had he said on the tape? He was responsible for leaving the key in the usual place for the handyman and landscapers.

  Timothy routinely left a key outside his house. Where?

  A quick look showed me that it wasn’t under the mat. And the mailbox was back on the road, so that wouldn’t be a good place to leave it. My grandmother had always wired an extra key to a bush outside her house, but all of Timothy’s bushes were bare of leaves. I would have seen a wired-on key in a minute.

  Well, there are a few advantages to being tall. I pulled off one of my gloves and felt the top of the door frame. Nothing. I wiped any fingerprints away with my balled-up glove.

  Maybe the key was at the back door. I hopped over the edge of the porch into the snow and headed around the house. I did try to swish my feet around, hoping to obliterate my footprints. Timothy had old-fashioned wooden storm windows, the kind with ventilation holes along the bottom. I tugged at a couple, but they were in solidly. I was prepared to smash one out, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  I tracked snow onto the back porch and tried the kitchen door. Locked. Then I reached up and felt the top of that door frame. And my fingers felt something furry.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. And as I did something flew through the air and landed on the porch floor with a kerplunk.

  It was a strip of fur with a key ring attached. And that key ring held a key.

  My heart began to beat faster as I used my glove to erase any fingerprints from the top of the door frame, then slid it back on. I was about to break and enter.

  It was a big disappointment when the key didn’t fit the back door. It was much too small. Now what? There must be dozens of locks on the four houses and assorted outbuildings of the Hart-VanHorn compound. Which one would this key open? Or did it open a door at all? It really was tiny.

  I looked over the edge of the porch and saw an old-fashioned cellar door. The “slide down my cellar door” kind. By all rights it should have been covered
with snow, but Timothy had apparently opened it recently and it was fairly clear. And like most of its kind from around 1900, it was kept closed by latch and a padlock.

  In a split second I was off the porch and trying that little key on the padlock. It opened. I pulled open the cellar door, grabbed my flashlight out of my pocket, and was down the stairs and into the house. My career as a burglar had begun.

  As I’d guessed, Timothy had a Michigan basement. Most older houses in our area, including Aunt Nettie’s, have them. I flashed my light around. All I could see were boxes and heaps of the kind of stuff that accumulates in basements. The stairway was along the right-hand wall.

  I went back and wrestled the cellar door shut. Then I crossed the sandy floor to the stairway, stamped my feet to remove what snow and sand I could on the bottom step, and went up to a closed door. The door opened into the kitchen. I looked around. It was a very ordinary kitchen. Judging by the red-and-white color scheme, just like my Texas grandmother’s, it had probably been updated sometime in the 1950s. As I walked across the floor, I left sandy tracks. Tough. Maybe I’d have time to sweep before I left.

  “I’ll go back to the kitchen and get the keys.” That’s what Timothy had said on Joe’s videotape. I was in the kitchen. So, where would Timothy Hart keep keys? In a drawer?

  It took me maybe three minutes to find the keys. They were in the broom closet on a key rack made of varnished wood with little brass cup hooks screwed in a row. A child’s wood-burning set had obviously been used to cut the word “Keys” into the top of the rack. The rack had such a Boy Scout–project look about it that it summoned up a picture of Hart as a dark-haired twelve-year-old making a Christmas present for his favorite uncle.

  The key rack made me feel like an interloper. But I reminded myself that Jeff had been a cute little twelve-year-old, too, and I looked at the keys.

  Luckily, most of them were labeled, and I found one that said Garage and one that said Barn right away. Since I wasn’t positive what Timothy called the big storage building, I took both of them. Then I went on through the house, unlocked the dead bolt on the front door, and left it unlocked. Again, I might need to get back through that door in a hurry. I left via the front porch.