JoAnna Carl

by The Chocolate Bear Burglary (lit)

  Jeff glowered and stared at the floor.

  I was going to have to tell them that I had followed Jeff. "I heard Jeff leaving," I said, "and my curlicue got the best of me. I mean my curiosity! I admit >it, Jeff. I wanted to know where you were going, so I followed you."

  Glower and mutter. He shot a glare at me.

  I felt embarrassed and angry. "If it's any consola­tion, you lost me, and I found you again just a few blocks before you pulled up in front of the shop." I thought Jeff looked relieved, but he didn't speak. I went on. "I feel responsible for you, Jeff. You won't tell us why you showed up here. I can't get hold of your parents. I need to know what you're up to!"

  "Good question." The comment came from the door to the office, and I looked up to see Chief Jones come in. He unwrapped a mile of wool scarf from around his neck, pulled off his stocking cap, and took a chair.

  "Okay. Jeff, you did good work, scaring the burglar off like that. But what the heck were you doing down here anyway?"

  Jeffs lips pursed, and his brows knitted. He looked as if he were trying to decide whether he should yell or burst into tears.

  But before he could do either, Aunt Nettie took over. "Chief, does Warner Pier have a curfew?"

  "No, Nettie. You know it doesn't."

  "Then is there any legal reason that Jeff shouldn't have been driving around in Warner Pier, even if he did it after midnight?"

  "No, there isn't, Nettie. He wasn't breaking any law by merely driving around the business district. It's just a little unusual."

  She turned to me. "Lee, Jeff isn't a little boy any­more, and you're not married to his father anymore. So, if he wants to drive around all night every night, he's welcome to do so."

  Then she addressed the chief. "It's getting to be time for breakfast. Let's form a caravan out to the house—you and Jerry are invited. I've got a couple of pounds of sausage in the freezer, and I've got a dozen eggs. Let's go eat."

  She zipped her heavy blue jacket and pulled on her own woolly cap and gloves. She shook a bulky finger at us. "And not one of you is going to ask Jeff a single question. He saved the Hart molds, and I'll be eternally grateful to him."

  She sailed out the door—solid as a tugboat, but regal as an ocean liner.

  When I looked at Jeff, he had tears in his eyes.

  Chapter 5

  Of course, Aunt Nettie was right. Or I had convinced myself that she was by the time I had driven out to the house. My Texas grand­mother would have said Jeff was simply "bowing his neck," acting like a mule fighting the harness. He wasn't going to be badgered into telling us anything. The only way we were likely to find out why he'd come to Michigan was by killing him with kindness. It was the same technique Aunt Nettie had used twelve years earlier, when she was saddled with an angry sixteen-year-old niece for the summer.

  We had to let Jeff learn that he could trust us. Which made me a little ashamed that I had followed him. But not too ashamed. When I finally got hold of his mom or his dad, they were likely to have a fit because he had left college in the middle of the semes­ter and driven to Michigan. I didn't want to quarrel with them, and they wouldn't like it if I had let him wander around western Michigan in the snow and hadn't even tried to figure out what he was up to.

  And I did wonder about those tears in Jeff's eyes.

  Jeff offset the tears, however, by pouting and sulk­ing all through breakfast. By the time Aunt Nettie had fed Chief Jones, Jeff, me, and herself—Jerry Cherry hadn't joined us—it was close to six a.m. The chief insisted on helping Aunt Nettie with the dishes, and Jeff delighted us all by going to bed. I was exhausted, but too keyed up to sleep. So I put on my jacket and boots, took my flashlight and walked down the drive to get the Grand Rapids paper out of the delivery box across the road.

  Getting out and walking around in the snow is an­other part of my campaign not to act like a Texan who'd never seen cold weather before. Actually, it can get darn cold in Texas, but it doesn't last months and months, the way it does in Michigan.

  I'd just taken the newspaper out and turned to go back across the road when headlights came around the curve. I stopped to let them go by. But the head­lights didn't go by. A pickup screeched to a halt, and Joe Woodyard got out.

  "Are you okay?" He sounded all excited.

  "Yes. Are you?"

  "No, I'm pretty upset." He came around the front of the pickup.

  "What are you upset about?"

  "You," he said. And then he threw his arms around me.

  I tipped my head back and looked at him, astonished.

  So he kissed me. Thoroughly.

  I enjoyed it thoroughly, too. In fact, it felt so good I had to fight an impulse to throw him in the back of the pickup and tear his clothes off, beginning with his puffy nylon jacket and working down to the long underwear I could see peeking out at his cuff. But a little voice kept nagging in the back of my head. What brought this on? it asked. And, Is this a good idea?

  It was about five minutes before I could ask my questions out loud. "Wow!" I said. "I'll have to upset you more often. What's the occasion?"

  "Chasing burglars! What would have happened if . you caught 'em? Don't you know I couldn't make it if anything happened to you?" Then he kissed me again. For just four and a half minutes this time.

  When he worked around to nibbling my neck, I was able to talk. "Nothing did happen to me," I said. "I'm enjoying this, but I don't quite understand it."

  Joe moved his head back, but he didn't let me go. We were standing sternum-to-sternum and talking nose-to-nose. "You and that kid! What were you two doing waltzing around with burglars?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea, when you get down to it. How'd you find out about our adventure?"

  "I had coffee with Tony out at the truck stop." Tony Herrera was married to one of my friends, Lindy. Tony, who happened to be the son of Warner Pier's mayor, drove into Holland every day for his job as a machinist. He and Joe had been friends since elementary school.

  Joe went on. "We ran into Jerry Cherry."

  "I see that the Warner Pier grapevine is in good shape. How come Jerry realized you'd want to know about our excitement?"

  "He didn't. There was a whole table of us. I tried not to seem too interested."

  He had tried not to seem too interested? Suddenly I was hopping mad. I pushed myself away from Joe.

  How could he act as if I mattered to him when we were alone or when we were talking on the telephone, but pretend he hardly knew me in public?

  "Oh, I think you could justify some interest in a local burglary," I said. "After all, you're a Warner Pier property owner. All the Warner Pier citizens are shocked and appalled by local crime, right?"

  "Sure. Everybody was interested. But—" He cocked his head. "Are you mad?"

  "No. I'm furious."

  "About the burglary?"

  "Not exactly." I stopped talking then. It was awfully hard to tell a guy that your relationship stunk when you didn't have a relationship. I decided I'd better not try. "I suppose I'm just tired."

  "Well, yeah. You've been up all night."

  "That's not what I meant, but I guess it?s close enough."

  "Hop in, and I'll drive you up to the house."

  "Better not! Chief Jones is up there. He might see you."

  I guess my sarcasm finally sank in. Joe's lips tight­ened, but he didn't say anything.

  "I'll talk to you later," I said. Then I pushed on past him, but he caught my arm.

  "If you think I like this situation, you're wrong."

  "If you think I like it, you're wrong, too."

  We stood there, glaring at each other. Then I pulled my arm away. "I'm completely out of patience with adolescent piccalillis—I mean peccadilloes."

  "Thanks! I'm really thrilled at being lumped in with that kid."

  "Actually, you and Jeff are acting quite differently. He won't talk at all, and you won't do anything else."

  "What do you want me to do?"

  "I d
on't know! But it's not real complimentary if you don't even want people to know—" I broke off. "Oh, forget it! It's a dead end anyway."

  I stalked across the road. Joe followed me. "I didn't come to quarrel," he said.

  "Then why did you come?"

  "To see you. To make sure you were all right."

  "You've seen me. I'm all right."

  "And I wanted to find out just what that kid—"

  "That kid's name is Jeff."

  "Okay! To find out just what kind of a story Jeff told about the burglary."

  "Jeff had nothing to do with the burglary. I was following him. I saw him pull up in front of the shop. I saw him get out of the SUV. He did not break the window."

  "Maybe not, but Jerry said he doesn't think the chief is satisfied with his story."

  "I'm not satisfied with his story either. I want to know why he went into town in the first place. But I don't think he broke the window. I do think he scared the burglar off."

  "Maybe so, but . . . Jerry said that the burglar ap­parently went off in a car with a broken taillight."

  "We think so."

  "Well, Brad Michaels said—"

  "Who is Brad Michaels?"

  "He has the gas station south of town, down at Haven Road. Right on the interstate. And he says a kid driving a gold Lexus SUV with a Texas plate stopped there around seven a.m. yesterday. He didn't buy gas, just candy bars and chips."

  "Sounds like Jeff. So?"

  "So Brad says there were two Texas vehicles. The other driver didn't get out, but Brad thinks they were together."

  Maybe I would have reacted differently if I hadn't already been mad. But I was mad. Plus tired and plain old out of sorts. I didn't want any more bad news. So I tried to kill the messenger.

  "I suppose that your pal Brad says the other Texas car had a taillight out," I said.

  "No, he—"

  "I suppose you asked him that."

  "Yes, I—"

  "And I suppose you made sure he told Jerry about it."

  "No! He didn't mention it until Jerry had gone."

  "But I suppose you urged him to tell Jerry. Or Chief Jones."

  "They're gonna find out. Warner Pier is a small town."

  "Well, let them! But I'm not getting involved in any more efforts to quiz Jeff. He knows I want to find out just what he's up to. He'll tell me something when he's ready. Or he'll tell Aunt Nettie. Or the chief will question him. But right now I'm cold and I'm tired and I'm going back to the house."

  I walked away without looking back. This time Joe didn't follow me.

  When I got back to the house I took off all my outdoor paraphernalia, then sat in the living room pre­tending to read the paper. I felt pretty miserable. Joe was suspicious of Jeff even without knowing the most damning part of the situation. Nobody, including Chief Jones, knew that Jeff had been aware that the molds were valuable, but I did. Should I tell Chief Jones? Like Joe said, the chief was bound to find out. I just didn't want to be the person who caused Jeff more problems, even though he was causing me a lot.

  Darn Joe Woodyard anyway! Why had he reminded me of Jeff's odd behavior? And why did I care what Joe thought? I shook the newspaper angrily. How had I wound up in this dead-end relationship?

  For six months I'd been patient about Joe's hang­ups over his ex-wife and about his fear of the tabloids, but right at that moment I was sick of the situation.

  Oh, maybe I'd brought part of it on myself, making it clear I wouldn't sneak around to go out with him. He had to take me out in public, or I wasn't going to go at all. And I certainly wasn't going to get too cozy with a guy I wasn't officially dating. So there'd been no weekends when we both just happened to be in Chicago and staying in the same hotel, no surreptitious meetings at the boat shop, no nights in a B&B a hun­dred miles up the lakeshore.

  Joe wasn't the only one who had survived a bad marriage; I wasn't interested in having my self-respect further flogged by a clandestine affair, an affair that would have made me feel cheap and used.

  Maybe I wasn't sure what I wanted out of a new man in my life anyway. So I had only myself to blame over the crazy relationship Joe and I had fallen into, I told myself. I half resolved to end it. Or maybe I already had. After the things I'd said, maybe I'd never get another of those eleven o'clock calls from Joe. Maybe we'd never hold each other again, never kiss like that again. Maybe I'd felt that melting sensation behind my navel for the last time.

  I didn't like that idea either.

  When Chief Jones left, I still hadn't decided what to tell him about Jeff. I put any decision off and simply called out a good-bye.

  Aunt Nettie said she was going to bed. "We'd all better sleep as long as we can," she said. "I'll call the shop and leave a message. Telling them we'll be late."

  I thought I couldn't possibly sleep, but I forced my­self to undress and lie down, and the next thing I knew, it was eleven a.m. I could hear Aunt Nettie in the shower downstairs, and Jeff was snoring gently across the hall. I groaned and got up. Aunt Nettie had left the house by the time I got out of the shower.

  I managed to get to work by one p.m., to find Aunt Nettie going crazy. "Thank goodness you're here," she said. "I can't get any work done for answering the phone and gossiping with the neighbors."

  "I guess the news about our burglar got around."

  "Naturally. The Warner Pier grapevine is up and running; we don't need radio or television or newspa­pers in this town. But everybody wants a personal account."

  "I'll try to keep them away from you."

  "I've simply got to make the bakjes for the creme de menthe bonbons today. Hazel's working on them, but she needs to get busy on the Neiman Marcus bun­nies." Aunt Nettie froze and looked out the front win­dow. "Oh, no! It's Mike Herrera. I can't be rude to him."

  "Go on back to the shop and get up to your elbows in chocolate. I'll deal with him."

  I shooed her toward her bakjes. Bakjes, pronounced "bah-keys," are the shells of bonbons, the part that holds the filling. First you cast the bakjes, then cool them, then fill them, then run the whole thing through an enrober, a special machine that gives the bonbons a shower-bath of chocolate. After that the tops are decorated, and you've finally got a goodie ready for the customers to drool over.

  Aunt Nettie had washed her hands and moved to a stainless-steel worktable by the time the door opened. I greeted the newcomer. "Mayor Mike! Did you come to check our damage?"

  Mike Herrera looked puzzled. "It's just so strange," he said. He closed the smashed front door behind him, then examined the plywood that blocked it temporar­ily. "We just don't have burglaries in Warner Pier this time of year."

  Mike Herrera is an attractive middle-aged man who owns several successful restaurants and a catering ser­vice. He was the first Hispanic to own a business in Warner Pier and the first to be elected to public office. He's the father of Joe's friend Tony and the father-in-law of my friend Lindy Herrera; in a town of twenty-five hundred, people tend to be related.

  But I'm careful not to bring him up around Tony because Lindy told me her husband isn't real happy with his father since he changed his name from Miguel to Mike. Tony's reaction to the name change was to grow a thin Latin mustache and start teaching their children Spanish. The Herreras are typical of the American experience, I guess. One generation tries to assimilate; the next clings to its roots.

  Mike kept looking at the damage.

  "Handy Hans called the glass installers," I said, "but they can't get here until tomorrow."

  We heard a crack like a pistol shot, and Mike craned his head to look into the shop. "What was that?"

  "Aunt Nettie's making bakjes. She whams them on the worktable to get the edges right."

  "Can I talk to her?"

  "As long as we don't stop her work."

  It was hard to refuse Mike. He knew that Aunt Nettie could make chocolates with her eyes closed. Mike followed me into the shop and greeted Aunt Nettie, commiserating with her over the break-in
. Aunt Nettie kept pouring melted dark chocolate into a mold about the size of an ice-cube tray—an ice-cube tray with forty little compartments.

  "I just wondered if anybody suspicious came in yes­terday," Mike said.

  Aunt Nettie had apparently filed Jeff in a nonsuspicious category. "I can't think of anybody," she said. "The antique molds were the only thing valuable in the shop." She turned her filled mold upside down over her work pan, and went tappity tappity tap on its edge with the flat side of her spatula while the excess chocolate drained out. She scraped the top of the mold, wielding her spatula like a conductor wields his baton. Then she flipped the mold over and slammed it onto the sheet of parchment paper that covered the worktable. Wham!

  Mike jumped about a foot. Apparently he hadn't realized that making bonbons is that noisy. The bakje molds are polycarbonate, a tough resin, and they're hard. Whacking them onto a stainless-steel table makes a sharp crack.

  "Who knew that the molds were here?" Mike said.

  "Everybody who works here knew." Aunt Nettie flipped the mold upright again, then placed it behind her, on the conveyor belt that led to the cooling tun­nel. "All the Hart and VanHorn family knew. How about the retail customers, Lee?"

  "We had only a few retail customers yesterday af­ternoon," I said, "and none of them acted very inter­ested in the molds. Except Timothy Hart."

  Aunt Nettie had filled another mold with more dark chocolate. She flipped it and began the same routine.

  "Maybe it was just a coincidence," Mike said. "Maybe the burglar was looking for money. Not for the molds."

  Aunt Nettie frowned, sliding her spatula over the top of the mold. Then she flipped it, and before Mike could get set, she whammed it onto the table.

  Mike jumped again. "Why are you doing that, Net­tie?" He's a foodie, after all. Curious about cooking.

  "I'm sorry to be so noisy, Mike, but whacking it that way keeps the bonbon shell thin and gives it an even edge. Plus, it gets rid of air bubbles." She moved the mold over to the cooling tunnel. A dozen other bakje molds were already making their five-minute trip through the tunnel's sixty-five-degree air.

  Aunt Nettie took several bakje molds from the op­posite end of the cooling tunnel. She moved to a sec­ond table, flipped the molds over and popped the little square chocolate shells out onto more parchment paper. She was already refilling one of those molds with dark chocolate, and while she worked—tappity tappity tap; swish-swish with spatula; flip mold—she talked. "You know, Mike, I don't care what the bur­glar was after, but I want those molds out of here. Lee is going to call Gail and ask her to come and get them. And I'm not going to ask Olivia VanHorn's permission to take them down."