JoAnna Carl

by The Chocolate Bear Burglary (lit)

  At first I could only point at the door and shriek. Then I managed, "A gun! She's got a gun. She's going to kill me!"

  Olivia came rushing out. She was still brandishing her pistol, and she aimed it at me.

  Hart's grip on my arms tightened, and for a second I thought he was going to hold me still so his mother could shoot me. Then he slung me around.

  He shoved me behind him. He put his body between me and his mother. He yelled, "No! Stop!"

  Olivia looked like a madwoman. Her calm facade had completely collapsed. "Get out of the way!" she screamed.

  "No!"

  "She's a burglar! I'm going to shoot her!"

  "No!" Hart let go of me, and I staggered against his mother's car. A shot echoed thunderously, bounc­ing off the garage walls.

  Hart jumped toward his mother. They were both yelling. He grabbed at the pistol, and it went off again.

  Blood spurted. I shrieked. Hart growled.

  Olivia screamed. "I've shot you!"

  The "you" was Hart. He clutched his arm and leaned against the fender of his mother's Lincoln. I realized he was still trying to stay between me and the gun.

  Olivia dropped the pistol to her side and stared at him. Fear, horror, shock, and anger washed over her face.

  In the sudden silence, Hart spoke quietly. "Mother, no matter how many people you kill, I'm not going to run for Congress."

  Now the emotion on Olivia's face was agony, and her voice was a whisper. "Hart, Hart. I love you. I wanted to protect you."

  "I know, Mother. But I can't hide behind you any longer."

  "Does it all have to come out?"

  "Yes. This can't go on."

  Olivia sobbed. After all the screaming, the yelling, and the shots, that simple sound may have been the most soul chilling of all.

  Then she turned and ran back into the house.

  Behind me I heard Timothy Hart's voice. "What on earth is wrong with Olivia?"

  "I'm not sure," I said. "But call an ambulance. Hart's been shot."

  I heard a piercing, shrill sound. A siren. The cavalry—personified by the Warner Pier Police De­partment—had arrived.

  I saw a box of what looked like clean rags on a shelf near the door to the kitchen stairs. I grabbed a handful. I went to Hart, helped him out of his jacket and applied pressure to his arm. Timothy was disap­pearing up the driveway, I assumed to direct the police car to Olivia's garage. In a few seconds I heard him speak. "Thank God you got here so fast. Olivia's gone berserk. And we need an ambulance."

  Right at that moment I heard a far-off, muffled thump from inside the house. Hart closed his eyes and groaned, way down deep in his chest.

  I was using both hands to hold the rags on his arm. "I'm so sorry, Hart," I said. "I'm so sorry."

  It didn't seem adequate, but what else was there to say?

  Faced with an armed suspect, Jerry Cherry followed procedure and called for a backup. Chief Jones and a Michigan State Police car were there within minutes. The chief and the state cop entered the VanHorn house through the garage while I sat in the patrol car, shaking. Olivia did not challenge them or answer the questions they called out to her.

  They found her in the bathtub, dead, still wearing her fur coat. There was a note on the bathroom counter, which the chief let me see later. "I killed Gail Hess," it read. "She was a filthy blackmailer, and she had found out I broke into the TenHuis shop and took the mold. Fifteen years ago, I killed my husband. Hart had nothing to do with it."

  As usual, word of what had happened at the Hart-VanHorn compound spread through Warner Pier rap­idly. By the time I got to the police station to make a statement, Joe was on the spot. He met me with a big hug, a hug I deeply appreciated, and he didn't reproach me for breaking and entering.

  We were sitting on a bench in the main room, hold­ing hands, when Hart VanHorn and Timothy Hart came in. Hart's arm was in a sling.

  Timothy gestured at Hart. "He should have stayed in the hospital."

  Hart shook his head. "My arm's not that serious," he said. "I need to talk to Chief Jones, and I want to do it now."

  "It's all my fault!" I didn't know the words were coming out until I'd spoken them. "I suspected Timo­thy of being our burglar, because I learned he'd still owned his MGB as recently as a year ago. So I—I admit it—I broke into the storage barn at the com­pound looking for that car. When it wasn't there, I looked in your mother's garage."

  "And you"found the MGB," Hart said.

  "Yes. And the taillight was broken. I was desperate to get Jeff out of jail."

  "I could have told you the car was there, but I didn't know about the taillight."

  I decided to ignore that. "I thought your mother and Timothy had gone to Grand Rapids with you."

  "No, they went only as far as Holland. I had to pick up my SUV at the dealer's there, so they dropped me off and came back. None of us went to Grand Rapids."

  "You said you had to see a man in Grand Rapids."

  Hart smiled gently. "I didn't deliberately mislead you, Lee, but what I said was that I needed 'to talk to a man in Grand Rapids.' I never intended to go there to talk to him. I—well, I knew Mother was up to something, though I wasn't sure just what. I wanted to talk to my psychologist about it. I called him from Holland because my cell phone works better up there."

  I clutched Joe's hand, but I spoke to Hart. "Your mother caught me in the garage. First she acted quite friendly. She laughed! She invited me into the house. Then she said I was a burglar, and she was going to shoot me."

  Hart dropped his head.

  "I know it's hard to believe," I said. "I couldn't believe it while I was running for my life."

  "Oh, I can believe it," Hart said. "Mother was very coolheaded, and she had an extremely creative way of handling the truth. She wouldn't have wanted anybody to know about that car. Any more than she wanted anybody to know I'd been seeing a psychologist."

  "She didn't want people to know you'd seen a psy­chologist?" I was mystified. "So what? So who hasn't? That's nothing to get excited about."

  "It might have meant nothing to you, maybe, but to Mom it was the kiss of death to my political career."

  "Surely people are not that ignorant. ..."

  But Hart was shaking his head. "It wasn't the mere fact that I was seeing a psychologist, Lee. It was what she was afraid I might tell him."

  "Oh." Suddenly I didn't want to know any more.

  But it seemed I was going to, because Hart went on talking. "You see, I killed my father."

  I was silent, and Joe squeezed my hand.

  Timothy spoke. "But this is stupid, my boy. Nobody killed your father. He fell! It was an accident. Nobody ever suggested it was anything else. And now both you and Olivia claim to have killed Vic."

  Hart smiled at his uncle. "Mother didn't kill him, Uncle Tim. She was still trying to protect me. Me and my wonderful political career. But I can't stand to lie about it anymore. I killed my father. Oh, it wasn't murder—only manslaughter, I guess. Maybe even jus­tifiable homicide.

  "Fifteen years ago—when I was twenty—my father was drunk. He threatened my mother. I punched him, trying to protect her. He fell against the china cabinet, the one that held my grandmother's collection of choc­olate molds. The cabinet fell over. It landed on him, and the back of his head was smashed in.

  "I was willing to call the police. At least an ambu­lance. But my mother wouldn't hear of it. She got a wheelbarrow from the storage barn, and the two of us threw my father's body over the bank into the lake. His death was accepted as an accident.

  "The china cabinet was smashed, and it had blood on it, and one of the molds—some kind of a bear— had a lot of blood on it. I broke the cabinet up with an ax, and we burned it in the fireplace. But we couldn't burn the doors, because of the metal and the glass. Mother washed the bear mold and tossed it and the other molds into a box in the basement of the bungalow. She put some other old kitchen utensils on top, made it look like a box of junk. The collec
tion was too well known to simply get rid of, and I'm sure she figured it would end up going to a museum or something eventually."

  He patted his uncle on the shoulder. "Uncle Tim didn't know anything about it. He found the kitchen utensils and molds in the basement and gave them to Gail to sell. The molds wound up being displayed at the TenHuis shop. At first Mother thought that was okay, but then she found out some expert on choco­late molds was going to come to look at them. Appar­ently Mother tried to break into TenHuis Chocolade and get hold of that bear mold before the expert could want to know why it had been treated badly. Gail must have figured out that the burglar used Uncle Tim's MGB, because of the broken taillight."

  Tears were running down Timothy's cheeks. "Gail had seen the MGB," he said. "I showed it to her when she picked up the molds. She knew it had a broken taillight. She may have thought that I was the burglar."

  I was having trouble taking all this in. "Did your mother use the snowmobile to chase me?"

  "She did have the snowmobile out yesterday," Hart said.

  "Why would she chase me?"

  Hart rubbed a hand over his forehead. "I know that something you said upset her, when we talked outside the police station that morning. She must have decided you knew something. Maybe that Gail had told you about the MGB and its broken taillight."

  The chief came in then. The first thing he said was that Hart should get a lawyer. Then the chief in­structed Jerry Cherry to let Jeff out of the holding cell, and he told me we could leave. He and Hart were still arguing about whether Hart should call a lawyer as Joe, Jeff, and I headed out into the winter dusk.

  But as we stepped outside that dusk was shattered by strobe lights. I almost ran back inside. Two guys had been waiting, and I recognized them as part of the tabloid crew that had invaded Warner Pier the previous summer.

  "Cool it!" Joe told them. "The story's inside the police station! Not out here."

  The photographer laughed and flashed his strobe again. "That's not what George said."

  "Shut up!" That came from his companion, a man with a notebook.

  "You'd better get inside to talk to the chief," Joe said. "I think you're the first team on the scene, and this is going to be a big story."

  "Wait a minute," I said. "Did somebody from War­ner Pier call you? George? George who?"

  "Never mind!" The reporter grabbed the photogra­pher and the two of them hotfooted it into City Hall.

  Jeff, Joe, and I stood looking after them. "George?" I said. "Surely he didn't mean George Palmer?"

  "Surely he did," Joe said. "George is on the park commission. I thought one of the commission mem­bers had to be the tabloid source. They were the only people who knew I'd approached Mike Herrera about selling the Warner Point property to the city."

  "Why didn't you say something earlier?"

  "I couldn't rule out someone from the lawyer's of­fice blabbing. I tried to give George the benefit of the doubt."

  "He's so obnoxious!"

  Joe shrugged. "Well, I'll tell Mike Herrera what we've deduced, and Mike will call George's father-in-law, and maybe old George will have a new job pretty quick."

  "Wouldn't that be great! Maybe Barbara can come back."

  Jeffs jacket was still being held as evidence, so the three of us ran the two blocks to TenHuis Chocolade for a joyful reunion with Aunt Nettie and Tess. We were all in the workroom, jumping up and down and turning cartwheels, when someone came in the front door. One of the hairnet ladies went up to the counter.

  I heard a deep voice with a Texas accent. "Ah'm lookin' for Lee McKinney," it said.

  Jeffs eyes suddenly were the size of dinner plates. "It's Dad," he said in a whisper.

  I sighed. I had to face Rich sometime. "Bring him back to the shop," I said.

  Rich came in. Dina was with him. Dina's eyes locked on only one thing. "Jeff!" she said. "You're here!"

  Suddenly they were in a three-way hug. "I'm all right!" Jeff kept saying. "I'm all right."

  They finally loosened their grips and turned around toward the rest of us, all three of them with tear-streaked faces. And sometime in there Jeff's lip stud had disappeared.

  Jeff started talking. "Lee kept working 'til she fig­ured out who really killed that woman. She got me out of jail."

  That led to more commotion, of course. Dina had to hug me—and after a minute, Rich did, too. They had to meet Tess. They had to confirm the news Jeff had told us earlier—they had gone to Mexico in an attempt at reconciliation.

  Apparently it had worked. Dina held out her left hand and proudly showed off her new wedding ring. I was surprised at its appearance. It was a simple piece of Mexican silver. No clusters of diamonds. No ruby the size of an idol's eye. It was definitely a sincere wedding ring, not one to show off to your business associates. Maybe Rich actually had changed his ways.

  I hugged her. Dina had always been pretty nice to me. "I want you two to be really happy," I said. I shook Rich's hand.

  Then they had to hear the whole story of our bur­glary and the murder of Gail Hess. Through all of this, Joe leaned against a worktable, saying nothing. It was nearly an hour later when Rich looked at his watch and said, "Are we going to be able to find a place to stay?"

  I called the Inn on the Pier and was assured they had rooms available. "Good!" Rich said. "Now, I al­ready noticed a restaurant open down the street. I'd like to take everyone to dinner."

  I looked at Aunt Nettie. She looked at Tess. Aunt Nettie used her mental telepathy powers and told both of us to say no.

  "I think I'd better go home, take a hot shower and get into my flannel pj's," Aunt Nettie said.

  "And I think I'd better go with you," Tess said. "I have to call my parents." Aunt Nettie patted her hand and smiled.

  "Lee?" Rich looked at me.

  Behind me Joe stirred. "Sorry," he said. "I'm taking Lee to the Dock Street Pizza tonight."

  I went over to Joe. "You're sure?"

  "I'm not taking another chance on losing you, Lee."

  Then he put his arms around me, right in front of God and everybody. Which included Aunt Nettie, Rich, Dina, Jeff, Tess, and three of the hairnet ladies who hadn't left yet.

  But Aunt Nettie had one more comment. "Before the party breaks up," she said, "would anybody like a sample chocolate?"

  Rich had an Italian cherry bonbon and immediately began talking to Aunt Nettie about boxes to give as business gifts.

  Dina told him to hush and picked out a raspberry cream bonbon ("Red raspberry puree in white choco­late cream interior"). "It smells heavenly in here," she said.

  Tess went for a double fudge bonbon and Jeff asked for a Jamaican rum truffle.

  "Could Lee and I take ours in a little box?" Joe asked. He took a coffee truffle ("All milk chocolate, flavored with Caribbean coffee") and I chose a Frangelico one. Aunt Nettie settled for solid chocolate with bits of hazelnut.

  Ten minutes later—rafter we'd seen the others off and I'd locked up—Joe and I went out the front door. Joe took my hand again.

  "Our friendship is about to meet a new challenge," Joe said. "The big question is, do you like anchovies on your pizza?"

  "No!"

  "Good! Come on."

  We got in Joe's truck and headed for Dock Street Pizza. Right in front of God and everybody.