The Chocolate Bridal Bash

by JoAnna Carl

  “What was happening?”

  “Let’s call it raised voices.”

  “Bill and Ed were arguing?”

  “Bill and Ed and someone else. There was another voice. They were all talking at once. This strange voice yelled. ‘Just go outside!’ The voice sounded kind of familiar, but I never have been able to figure out who it was. Once Ed yelled, ‘Shut up, Ratso!’ I remember that—because of that movie with Dustin Hoffman. Then I heard Bill yell. He said, ‘You’ll go to jail, and they’ll throw away the key!’ I remember that. And Ed—I guess it was Ed—yelled back. ‘I guess you want to turn Lake Michigan into a sewer!’ ”

  “That was an odd thing to say, in the circumstances.”

  “Not if you knew Ed. He was absolutely fanatic on stopping pollution. Definitely a Greenpeace type. Militant. He turned every argument into something about the environment—no matter what the topic started out as.”

  “What finally happened?”

  “I sat there, scared and crying, and I decided that I had to get out of there, one way or another. And I didn’t want to go out through the living room, where the argument was going on. So I began to explore around the bedroom. Looked at all the windows and such.”

  “Since the shutters were up, that wouldn’t have been a very easy way to get out.”

  “Actually, there was an outside door. Of course, I’d known it was there, because Bill and I had hung around the house a lot that summer. I should have thought of it immediately. It led to a deck outside the master bedroom. And the deck was an extension of the porch that went all around the house.”

  “The door wasn’t shuttered?”

  “No. It was a heavy, solid door with a deadbolt, and it wasn’t shuttered like the windows were. Of course, right at that moment all I wanted to do was disappear. That door looked like the door to heaven.”

  “It didn’t have a key lock?”

  “Yes, it did. I was still exploring around with the flashlight, and I found the key to the house where Bill had left it on the bedside table. And it worked the deadbolt lock. In fact, I think the lock had just been lubricated, and it opened very easily—didn’t make a sound. So I opened it and ran outside—and that’s when I had the worst shock of the whole ghastly evening.”

  “What else could happen, Mom! A dinosaur or something?”

  “Worse. I slipped out, flashing my light around, and that light hit the face of a strange man!”

  I gasped, but I must have rolled my eyes at the same time. This whole tale was worthy of the plot of some sort of romance novel. Absolutely crazy. I would have thought Mom made the whole thing up, except that she’d never displayed that sort of imagination before.

  “A strange man?” I’m afraid my voice showed my skepticism.

  “Actually, after a moment I realized that I knew who it was. But it was still an awful shock.”

  “Who was it?”

  “It was Quinn McKay.”

  “What was he doing there?”

  “I didn’t stop to ask. I screamed the house down.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Bill began to yell. ‘If you guys have done anything to hurt Sally, I’ll kill you!’ And other stuff like that. He was coming around the back of the house, and I ran that way. We whammed together on the side porch, and I screamed again. Bill grabbed my hand, and we ran for the shed and Bill’s car. We jumped in. Ed had followed us. He came up to Bill’s window and was beating on it. His hair was flying, and he had a lot of hair. He looked like a madman. Bill started the motor, and we dug out of there.”

  Mom gave a sort of sob. “Bill told me to make sure no one was following us—we were going through some sort of a back road that really needed a Jeep, and we didn’t have one. But nobody came after us. So Bill drove me home.”

  “When did he send you to Chicago?”

  “As soon as we got to my house. We sat in the drive a minute, and he asked if I could get my clothes out of the house without waking my mom up. I said that was easy—she’d been taking sleeping pills. But I didn’t understand why he wanted me to. That’s when Bill said he had to go back to the McKay cottage and ‘take care of things.’ ”

  “What things?”

  “I couldn’t get him to explain. But he was absolutely insistent that I leave. Right that minute. I was to go to Chicago, but I wasn’t to go to the apartment we’d rented. I was to go to the hotel where we’d stayed on our senior trip and wait until he contacted me. He gave me all the money he had on him. It was three hundred dollars.”

  “Not much to run away from home on.”

  “It was nearly thirty-five years ago, Lee. Money went farther. And Bill assured me he’d be in contact with me within twenty-four hours. Then he took me to South Haven and left me at the all-night gas station out on the interstate. He told me to take a cab to the bookstore—that’s where the bus stop was—at six a.m. The bus would come through before seven.”

  “So you did what Bill said.”

  “Right. I got to Chicago by noon, and I went to that hotel and checked in. Then I waited for Bill to call.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No. I sat there all day, afraid to even go out and buy food or a magazine. I kept remembering he’d promised to call me within twenty-four hours. But twenty-four hours went by without a call. Forty-eight hours went by.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Finally I decided I simply had to call him. So I got a lot of coins, and I went to a pay phone, and I called the Dykstras’ house. Mrs. Dykstra answered. I could tell something was wrong as soon as I heard her voice.”

  “Did she tell you Bill had committed suicide?”

  “She didn’t use that word. I’ve always remembered that. She told me he was found dead on a back road—it was nowhere near the McKay house—and that the sheriff was investigating. I was shocked, but I told her Bill had sent me away and that I was sure he hadn’t committed suicide.”

  “What did she say to that?”

  “She said for me not to come back. She asked if I had enough money to stay a few days. When I said yes, she said for me not to tell her where I was, but to call her at the end of the week. If things hadn’t been settled, she said, she’d send me more money.”

  “That is so strange! You should have been asked about what happened between Bill and his brother.”

  “I know. Even then, young and dumb as I was, I knew I needed to tell the law enforcement officials what had happened.”

  Mom took a deep breath. “So, the next day I called the sheriff.”

  “What! You called Van Hoosier?”

  “Yes. I just felt that I had to.”

  “Did you tell him the whole story?”

  “I left out the part about being naked. But I told him all the important stuff. About Ed being there. About seeing Quinn McKay.”

  “You were an important witness. Why didn’t Van Hoosier come to pick you up?”

  “I have no idea, Lee. I’ve never had any idea.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He told me that Bill had given me exactly the right advice. He said I should stay away. He told me to move to a different hotel and not tell anyone where I was.”

  “That’s crazy!

  Mom wiped her eyes, crying openly now. “Lee, he told me never to come back to Warner Pier under any circumstances, or I could wind up either dead or in jail!”

  Chapter 18

  I was so outraged I couldn’t speak. I took ten deep breaths before I could get a word out. And when I did speak I was completely incoherent.

  “If somebody hadn’t killed that creep before I met him,” I said, “I might have done it myself. To run an innocuous—I mean an innocent!—an innocent girl out of town like that. It was, it was . . .” My vocabulary failed me, but I finally went on. “It was immortal! I mean, immoral!”

  Mom began to laugh. She was still crying, of course, but my goofs had broken the tension, I guess. Anyway, she laughed for about a mile, taking a Kleenex from
her purse and wiping her eyes.

  I sighed. “I guess I’m glad you can laugh about it now, Mom. But you must had been absolutely terrified at the time. A young girl. Alone in a big city. You must have been running out of money by then.”

  “I admit I was getting close to the end of my resources. I’d bought a return bus ticket, however, and I told Sheriff Van Hoosier that. I said I couldn’t stay away much longer. I told him I’d have to use that return bus ticket and come home because I was nearly out of money.”

  “Did that change his mind?”

  “It seemed to make him think. He asked me where I was in Chicago. Then he said, ‘No, don’t tell me. Can you find the main Chicago post office?’ I told him I’d manage that. And he said he’d send me a letter in care of general delivery. He promised to get it off that day and to send it special delivery, so I should have it the next day. Then he said something really odd. He said, ‘Sister, is there someplace far away you’ve always wanted to go?’ I didn’t answer, and he went on. ‘Don’t tell me where it is. But you decide, and after you pick up that letter, you be ready to go there.’ And then he said, ‘And listen, girlie. When you get my letter, take it back to your room before you open it, hear!’ ”

  “Ye gods, mom! He wasn’t kidding. Did the letter come?”

  “Oh, yes. The next day. It was a plain manila envelope, stiffened with cardboard. Mailed from Holland and with no return address. That envelope nearly burned a hole in my hand all the way from the post office to my hotel room.”

  “What was in it?”

  “Two thousand dollars.”

  I gasped, and my mom went on.

  “Two thousand dollars in cash. Which was probably like five or six thousand today.”

  “Good night! Was there any explanation?”

  “Just a note. It said, ‘Don’t blow it. There isn’t any more.’ ” My mom gave a deep sigh. “I think that little note scared me more than anything else.”

  “It sure sounded final. What did you do?”

  “I paid my hotel bill and packed my bags. I hid the money here and there in my suitcase, in my purse, and in my bra. The next morning I walked to the bus station. I looked the destinations over and bought a ticket to Dallas.”

  I laughed. “You mean you became a Texan on a whim?”

  “Oh, I was far from becoming a Texan at that point. Dallas had a romantic sound to me. Cowboys and all that colorful stuff. I didn’t necessarily intend to stay forever. That just happened. Or your father just happened. He was from a real Texas ranching community. I was bowled over because he could ride a horse.”

  “Daddy may be able to ride a horse, but he hates to!”

  “I found that out later. When I met him I thought he was John Wayne.”

  I thought about my dad—tall, slim, ruggedly handsome. But no romantic cowboy. In fact, he doesn’t like either horses or cows very well. Daddy’s just interested in motors—trucks, cars, and boats. Suddenly I saw what a disappointment Prairie Creek must have been to my mom. She must have moved there expecting the Old West. Instead she found Blah City—a dull and colorless narrow-minded town on the prairie. No trees but mesquites, nothing more cultural than a small public library, and three thousand people who talked through their noses.

  “You must have thought Prairie Creek was the end of the earth,” I said.

  We spoke in unison, quoting an old Texas joke. “It’s not quite the end of the earth, but you can see it from there.” Then we both laughed.

  Again, a small laugh had broken the tension, and we rode along silently for a few miles. Mom was the next one to speak. “I’ve always wondered where that money Van Hoosier sent came from.”

  “It could have come from his own bank account.”

  “I wouldn’t have expected a small-town law enforcement official to come up with that much.”

  “Oh, Van Hoosier could have.” I quickly sketched the signs of the ex-sheriff’s financial well-being.

  Mom’s voice was surprised. “But where did he get all that money in the first place?”

  I thought a minute before I answered. And the answer to her question became clear—at least in my mind.

  “I believe,” I said, “I believe that he must have gotten the money from the McKay family. I have a feeling he got a lot of the money he had from the McKay family.”

  “If he did,” Mom said, “I’m sure the McKays were smart enough to cover their financial tracks. We’ll never be sure.”

  “Maybe not. But I think I know someone who might give us a lead.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The man who was county attorney at the time you left Warner Pier. Joe knows him very well, and he’s a sweetie. His name is Mac McKay.”

  “McKay!” I should have realized that Mom would be aghast. I spent the rest of the trip to Warner Pier—which wasn’t very long—explaining to her that this McKay was one of the good guys, but that he knew a lot about the people he called his “rich relatives.” Of course, I assured her that I would talk to Joe and to Hogan before I called Mac McKay, but she didn’t know Joe and Hogan as well as I did, so that wasn’t reassuring.

  At least the discussion made the time pass quickly. We pulled into Aunt Nettie’s drive before it was over. Joe parked behind us.

  The next hour was spent greeting Aunt Nettie, and getting Mom settled into the bedroom that had once been hers and which was now the guest room. I had to try on my dress for Mom, of course. She approved and even shed a few tears. Then we went downstairs, and Aunt Nettie asked her if she thought it would be a good idea to paint the fireplace wall of the living room an “accent” color.

  “Maybe crimson,” she said.

  “No!” Mom and I yelled in unison.

  Then Hogan showed up for dinner. Mom had never met Hogan, of course, and she’d met Joe only briefly when we’d gone to Dallas at Christmas. Joe suggested, quietly, that we let Mom get acquainted with Hogan before we described the episode at the airport.

  I wasn’t sure about this at first, but after I saw how Hogan was charming my mom, I decided Joe was right. So it was over coffee and apple pie that we told the story of the nefarious events at the airport.

  After the unbelieving reaction of the Grand Rapids police and the airport security, I was relieved to see that Hogan was taking the situation seriously. He didn’t jump to the phone and call the FBI, but he didn’t say I’d been a scaredy-cat either. He guided the questions toward Mom.

  And she repeated the whole tale about why she’d run away thirty-five years earlier. Well, she did leave out the part about being stark naked when she and Bill got caught in the McKay master bedroom, but she told the rest of it.

  “Oh, Sally!” Aunt Nettie said. “If only you’d called us. If only you’d called Phil.” A few tears ran down her cheeks.

  “I was simply too afraid,” Mom said. “I didn’t want to tell the whole story to my mother, and I was afraid of the sheriff.” She turned to face Hogan. “I’m not sure I could analyze just how I felt that long ago, but I think that—even then—I was pretty sure that Bill hadn’t committed suicide. Today, I’m sure he was murdered.”

  Nobody had anything to reply to that. It seemed pretty obvious to all of us, but no one had verbalized it before.

  After letting that sink in, Mom spoke again. “I think that’s the real reason I ran. I was afraid I’d be killed, too.”

  Hogan leaned toward the table and looked steadily at my mom. “I understand, Sally,” he said. “You were just an inexperienced young girl. It’s easy to see why you ran away. It may well have been the smartest thing to do. My question is: Why have you come back now?”

  Mom looked as if she’d been slapped. She ducked her head, sighed deeply, and toyed with her coffee spoon before she finally answered. Even then she seemed to be speaking to her dessert plate.

  “I guess I figured it was time to straighten everything out,” she said. “Thirty-three years is long enough to be on the run.”

  Aunt Nettie patted her han
d. “We all want to help you, Sally,” she said.

  That pretty well summed up the evening. Hogan took Mom into the living room to go over her story again while Joe, Aunt Nettie, and I did dishes. Then Hogan arranged for his night patrol officer to come by the house periodically, and he asked me to leave a light on in the upstairs hall. If anything at all happened, we were to call him immediately and to turn out that upstairs light as a signal that all was not well.

  “I like this old house as well as you and Nettie do,” he said, “but it’s not real secure. I keep telling Nettie she needs either a security system or a yappy dog.”

  Joe and I, with Hogan’s approval, agreed that we’d try to see Mac McKay the next day, if he could fit us into his Sunday schedule. Maybe he could tell us more about the McKay clan and how they might mesh into my mom’s story. I still felt sure that Van Hoosier’s money had come from them.

  Joe offered to stay overnight, saying he could sleep on the couch, so he could hear if anybody prowled around outside.

  I laughed. “Like that yappy watchdog Hogan recommends? How loud can you yap?”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m really more of a lap dog,” he said.

  Aunt Nettie spoke then, and her voice was firm. “Lee and Sally and I need a night to have some girl talk,” she said. “You men just run along.”

  Actually, Aunt Nettie went to bed pretty soon after Joe and Hogan left, but Mom and I did wind up with some girl talk. Which, considering how poorly the two of us communicate, was probably the most unusual part of the entire evening.

  Mom even initiated it, knocking softly at my door after I thought she’d be sound asleep. I heard her whisper. “Lee, are you still awake?”

  “Come on in,” I said. “I’m too keyed up to sleep.”

  She sat on the edge of my bed, as if ready for a mother-daughter chat. Then she didn’t seem to know how to start.

  “If you’ve come for a talk about the birds and the bees,” I said, “I have to tell you that you’re a little late.”

  Mom smiled. “Oh, I know you’re a grown woman, Lee. But sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get to be one.”