The Chocolate Castle Clue

by JoAnna Carl

  Joe didn’t get an immediate answer. Shep and Charlie just looked at each other. Then they both laughed.

  Charlie finally spoke. “Are you trying to get us to speak ill of the dead, Joe?”

  “Not unless there’s ill to be spoken.”

  Shep’s voice was a growl. “There’s not a lot of good. Mrs. Rice was always disagreeable. She was, oh, maybe around forty in those days, and still pretty good-looking. It must have been just recently that she began to look like a witch and act like a bitch. But she and Dan were a pair.”

  “They fought?”

  “Oh, sure. She was determined that the Castle would continue to be ‘family oriented.’ Dan wanted it to make money.”

  “I can understand that if he was about to lose the place.” Charlie leaned forward. “It was the sex, drugs, and rock’n’ roll era, you know. Warner Pier was—Well, somebody was selling drugs on nearly every corner.”

  Shep glared at Charlie. “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Maybe not, but there was a lot of dealing. Of course, I’m not suggesting Dan could have saved the Castle by opening a drug emporium—not unless he wanted to go to jail. But the Castle was missing out on everything because Verna Rice didn’t even want Dan to hire rock groups.” He folded his arms. “Some people made a lot of money in Warner Pier back then. But not Verna and Dan. All they did was fight about it.”

  “It was kinkier than just a disagreement,” Shep said. “They liked fighting.”

  “So they were one of these quarrelsome couples?” Joe said. “The ones who always have it in for each other?”

  Shep answered. “They were sweetie-sweet to each other when anyone was around. Never a cross word. It was when the crowd left—when she went in the office and closed the door behind herself. That’s when it broke loose.”

  “I guess you could hear them fighting.”

  “We couldn’t miss it! They must have known that everything said in the inner office could be heard in the outer one.” Shep looked at Charlie, and Charlie slowly nodded.

  Shep spoke again. “Dan would put the two of us to work in the outer office, see. Counting the gate. Then he and Verna would go into the inner office and go at it. She had a mouth on her!”

  “So did he,” Charlie said.

  “Did it ever come to blows?”

  Shep and Charlie both shook their heads. “I used to think she might hit him,” Charlie said. “But nobody ever hit anybody while I was there.”

  “What I can’t get over,” Shep said, “is that I hear she spent the past forty years ‘devoted to his memory.’ That’s what Nettie called it anyway.”

  Joe nodded. “That pretty much sums it up. She’s fought the courts and the insurance company trying to prove he didn’t shoot himself on purpose. She insisted his death must be an accident.”

  “Of course,” Charlie said, “thinking he didn’t kill himself and liking him are two different things.”

  “Yeah,” Joe said. “But she apparently refused an insurance settlement because it didn’t state clearly that Dan didn’t commit suicide.”

  “I assumed that his insurance had a suicide clause,” I said. “Wasn’t she just trying to get more money?”

  “It may have begun that way, but eventually the legal battle became counterproductive. The lawyers were going to get everything. And she was never able to find a buyer for the Castle property. The banks foreclosed. I doubt she got a penny.”

  “Joe,” I said, “was there any evidence that Dan Rice’s death was an accident?”

  “I looked up the police report. Dan Rice was shot with his own gun. Accidently or on purpose? Who knows? I suppose it’s even possible that somebody else got hold of his gun and shot him. But they did test his right hand for gunpowder residue, and Rice had fired a firearm recently.”

  “Mrs. Rice’s attitude was strange,” Shep said. “But if she didn’t get the insurance, and she quit her teaching job, then what did she live on all these years?”

  “That’s a good question,” Joe said. “The state police are looking into that right now.”

  Shep drained the last of his beer. “I’m wondering if she wasn’t the one who wrote and asked me to come here.”

  Chapter 11

  Why would Verna Rice have wanted Shep to come back to Warner Pier for the Pier-O-Ettes’ reunion? Why would she have wanted that badly enough to write him a letter and sign Aunt Nettie’s name to it?

  “That’s hard to believe,” I said. “Did the letter sound like something Aunt Nettie would have written?”

  Shep shrugged. “I have no way of knowing. It had been more than forty years since I’d seen Nettie. I wouldn’t recognize her handwriting or her writing style. It was a very plain little note.”

  “Why would Mrs. Rice have written it?” Joe said.

  “Because she was nuts!”

  “No, I mean why would she want you to come back?” Shep repeated his previous opinion. “Because she was nuts!” Then he stood up. “Joe, I have no idea why she would have wanted me to come back.”

  Shep motioned to the waitress for the check. “Come on, Charlie. I’d appreciate a ride back to the motel. And tomorrow I’m heading back to Kentucky.”

  Joe, Shep, and Charlie argued over who was going to pay for lunch, and Charlie won. Then Charlie and Shep left. But before they could get out the door, Joe followed them. He talked to Shep a moment. Shep left shaking his head.

  I waved at the waitress and asked her to refill our coffee cups. I didn’t want to trail out of the restaurant hard on the heels of Charlie and Shep. Besides, now I finally had a chance to talk to Joe.

  I moved my chair sideways so I was facing him. “Okay, big guy,” I said. “I need to talk to you about Aunt Nettie. But I’ll start with an unrelated topic.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “First, how did you get a look at the file on Dan Rice’s death? Frankly, I’m surprised such a thing still exists after forty-five years.”

  “I’ve got an in with the chief of police. Married his niece.” Joe grinned. “A couple of years ago Hogan dug a copy out of some basement somewhere—he says—just because the case fascinates everybody in Warner Pier, and he wanted to know about it. I called him this morning, and he told me where I could find his copy.”

  “Why all the questions for Charlie and Shep? Why are you interested in Mrs. Rice?”

  “She’s the victim, Lee. And I find the idea that she might have invited Shep here—pretending to be Aunt Nettie—very interesting.”

  “I wonder if Shep still has the letter.”

  “Apparently not. That’s what I followed him to ask about. He said he had it until he talked to Nettie. Then, when she denied she’d written it, he was disgusted and threw it away.”

  “Then there’s probably no way to prove Mrs. Rice wrote to him?”

  “I’m afraid not. Of course, she may not have written him. The letter may have come from a completely different person.”

  “Why would anybody write him? I mean, Shep seems like a nice enough guy, but why trick him into coming to a reunion?”

  “That might turn out to be a very important question. I sure don’t know the answer.”

  “What did you find out this morning? Cough up.”

  “I don’t really know a lot more. For some reason Mrs. Rice wanted to talk to me. She started out for our house in her big red Buick, but she ran into a tree on the way. She got knocked in the head and died.”

  “Got knocked in the head? Or was knocked in the head? Apparently Jackson thinks somebody did it.”

  “I don’t know exactly what the medical examiner found, of course. Last night it looked to me as if she’d been hit in the back of the head, when I would have expected the injury to be in the front. I suppose there could be some logical explanation. But since Jackson is taking statements, he must think someone hit her. He’s not acting as if it was a traffic death.”

  I leaned closer to Joe. “Why did Mrs. Rice want to talk to you last night? An
d why did she want to talk to you immediately ?”

  “That’s a real mystery, since she said she had new evidence, but she wouldn’t tell me what it was. I’ve been trying to figure it out. Now, what were you going to tell me about Aunt Nettie?”

  I outlined her request that I try to find out about where each of the Pier-O-Ettes had been during the football game.

  Joe looked as amazed as I had felt when I got the original request. Then he laughed. “Why does she care where they were?”

  “She claims that if Jackson discovers any of them were lying, he’ll suspect them.”

  Joe laughed. “Nobody could possibly suspect any of those nice ladies of killing anybody.”

  “Ha-ha! You are so naive, Joe. I assure you that little old ladies can be just as nasty as anybody else.”

  “True. Think of Mrs. Rice.”

  “Aunt Nettie and her cohorts aren’t that nasty. But a defense attorney I live with told me once that anybody can kill if they’re pushed hard enough.”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You sure did.”

  “Well, it’s almost true. Anybody but Aunt Nettie could kill.”

  “Aunt Nettie would kill to protect me. And I’d kill to protect her. Or you.”

  Joe frowned as he took my hand. “I guess you’re right. Because I’d kill anybody who tried to hurt you. Though I’d try to come up with an alternate plan first.”

  “But I agree that it’s hard to picture any of the Pier-O-Ettes luring Mrs. Rice to a spot near our house to kill her.”

  “She may not have been lured there for that reason. She may have been lured for a different reason and the lurer then decided she needed killing.”

  “Such as, she tells someone, ‘I’ve told that handsome, athletic lawyer Joe Woodyard I’m on my way to his house, and I’m going to Tell All.’ ”

  “Right. And that someone replies, ‘I’ll meet you at the big oak tree and explain things.’ ”

  “Did Jackson find anything that could have been used to hit her?”

  “If something was used to hit her, Lee, it was the proverbial blunt instrument. It’s hard to identify which blunt instrument in an area that contains lots of logs and rocks and tire irons and . . .” He broke off and shrugged.

  “How did the killer lure Mrs. Rice out there? Mechanically, I mean. Did he phone? Wire? Send smoke signals?”

  “Probably a phone call. But Jackson doesn’t have her phone records yet either. He should have them this afternoon.”

  “That may make the whole thing plain as day.”

  “True. In case the killer—if there was a killer—used his or her own phone. But most people are smart enough not to do that these days.”

  I sighed. “Guess I’d better stop this speculation and go ask Maggie if she saw any of the Pier-O-Ettes leaving the football stadium last night.”

  Joe laughed. “I think that’s a waste of time.”

  “If Aunt Nettie wants my time wasted, who am I to complain ?”

  I started with Aunt Nettie’s suggestion and called Maggie McNutt. Luckily, I found her home. “I’m cleaning house,” she said. “I’d love an excuse to stop. Come on over.”

  Maggie is one of my best friends. She and her husband both teach at Warner Pier High School. Ken teaches math, and Maggie heads the speech and drama department—a department that in a school as small as WPHS consists of herself and one other teacher. Maggie is one of the most popular teachers at WPHS, and it’s easy to understand why. She’s intelligent, talented, and cute—petite, with dark curly hair. And, or so her students whisper, Mrs. McNutt actually worked in Hollywood. This has a magic ring to her drama students, but Maggie doesn’t say much about it. In fact, she’s in therapy over some of the things that happened to her in Hollywood. I don’t ask questions.

  Ken and Maggie live in an older home in one of Warner Pier’s Victorian neighborhoods. They’ve modernized inside but have kept the wooden porch with its gingerbread trim. As I pulled into the drive, Ken waved at me from the garage. He’s a Volkswagen hobbyist, and he seemed to have a motor torn apart. I went to the front door and was greeted by Maggie with iced tea.

  I took the glass and gulped a mouthful. “Ah! You’re one of the few people here up north who can make real iced tea.”

  “You taught me how, Lee. Thanks for coming by. I was ready for a break. Now, what are you up to?”

  We sat down, and I produced my file folder full of pictures, then explained why I was there.

  “So Aunt Nettie wants me to find out if any of her friends left the stadium during the second half,” I said.

  “Gosh, Lee! We were clearing up by then, so we were kind of busy. Nettie’s correct when she says we were right there by the entrance, but I certainly wasn’t noticing who came and went.”

  “Take a look at the pictures and see if anybody looks familiar, okay?”

  Maggie obediently opened the file folder. Aunt Nettie’s picture was on top. “I do remember when Aunt Nettie and her group came in,” she said. “The ticket office was already closed, and several of the ladies twittered around by the gate. Apparently they felt guilty about coming in without paying. But Nettie assured them it was all right.”

  I nodded encouragingly.

  Maggie flipped to the next picture. She tapped it with her forefinger. “Yes, Ruby Westfield was in the group. I know her because she helped us with the costumes for Cinderella. I remember calling out to her. She waved at me. Then the whole group walked on by and went down the corridor that leads to the field.”

  She frowned. “I remember that tallish woman who used to work at your shop. I don’t know her name.”

  “Hazel TerHoot.”

  Maggie shrugged. “I didn’t know any of the others.”

  “Look at their pictures. Maybe you’ll remember.”

  Maggie obediently shuffled through the photos I’d prepared.

  “Now this one”—it was Julie—“I think she came back and bought popcorn. I remember telling her it wasn’t too fresh, since we’d made it sometime during the first half. She said she didn’t mind.”

  “How about these two?” I held the pictures of Margo and Kathy Street side by side. “They’re sisters, and they look a lot alike.”

  “These pictures don’t look alike.”

  “They’re the same type—blond and unusually small. Not just short, but small-boned and delicate-looking. Though their hairdos and styles of dress are completely different.”

  Maggie stared at the pictures. “I have a vague memory of them being part of the group.” Then she laughed. “We need Tracy!”

  I laughed, too. Tracy Roderick had worked for TenHuis Chocolade from the time she turned sixteen until she left for college, then again the past summer. She’d also been active in the drama club Maggie sponsored. Tracy was a good enough employee, but she had one not-so-good quality. She gossiped. Maggie and I, as her supervisors at work and at school, had continually nagged her about what we considered a bad habit.

  But like all good gossips, Tracy was an enthusiastic people watcher. If Tracy had been working at the concessions stand the night before, she would have been able to name every person who bought a candy bar and every person who went through the entrance gate the whole evening. But Tracy was away at college. She was no help to us.

  “Yes,” I said, “we could use Tracy. She’s the second most gossipy person in Warner Pier. Right after Greg Glossop.”

  “Oh my gosh!” Maggie said. “Greg Glossop was at the football game.”

  “Ye gods!” I said. “He’ll have a minute-by-minute list of who came and went.”

  Greg Gossip—I mean, Glossop—runs the pharmacy at Warner Pier’s only supermarket. He really is the biggest gossip in the town, and the physical layout of his shop gives him a big advantage in collecting information. His pharmacy sits up high, so he can see the whole store. He knows who comes in and which aisles they go down. I will admit that I’d never known Greg to gossip about anyone’s prescriptions, but he kn
ows whose kids are coming to visit, who is hitting the liquor department three times a week, and who blew off her diet. You can tell a lot about people by noticing their grocery purchases, and Greg Glossop notices almost everything. And he asks nosy questions about the rest.

  But I was astonished to hear that Greg had been at the football game. While Greg Glossop is definitely part of the Warner Pier scene, he doesn’t usually turn up at community events. He is not usually seen at concerts, plays, recitals, or other events.

  “What was Greg doing at the football game?” I said. “I don’t picture him as the fond father of a football player.”

  Maggie frowned. “He may have been wearing his EMT jacket.”

  “Of course.” Yes, the one community activity that drew Greg Glossop was the volunteer ambulance service. It operates pretty much like a volunteer fire department. If a Warner Pier resident or visitor breaks a leg or suffers a heart attack, Greg is likely to show up to provide first aid and get the victim to the hospital in Holland. And the EMTs always had a crew, complete with ambulance, at the football game, just in case a player got hit too hard or a spectator fainted. Besides, by performing that service, the crew got into the game free.

  I finished my tea and left Maggie to her housecleaning. I headed for the Superette, hoping I could catch Greg Glossop.

  As I’d hoped, Greg was in his high-up shop at the store. I spoke to him over the counter. “Hi, Greg. When you have a moment, I need to pick your brain.”

  “I’m pretty much caught up.” He went to the end of the counter and opened the door for me. I climbed the three steps that raised his pharmacy above the rest of the store and went in.

  I will say that Greg doesn’t hold grudges. Aunt Nettie and I trade at the town’s other pharmacy, Peach Street Drugstore, but he never seems to hold it against us. He nodded enthusiastically as I explained I was trying to trace the activities of a group of Aunt Nettie’s friends at the football game. He didn’t even ask the question I had no answer for: Why the heck was I interested?

  No, as a person who’s always curious about everybody else’s business, Greg Glossop seemed to accept my curiosity as perfectly normal. He studied my sheaf of pictures as seriously as if I’d been an FBI agent trying to uncover an international spy ring.