The Chocolate Moose Motive: A Chocoholic Mystery

by JoAnna Carl

  Ace nodded, and Hogan turned toward his office. But Ace tapped his arm and led him away from the door. This meant they were standing close to me. Ace spoke in a low voice. “Chief Jones, I know you’re aware of the way people can dodge questions.”

  “I’d better be.”

  Ace shuffled his feet and looked around the office. Why was he looking so ill at ease? I opened my purse and began to dig around in it, giving what I hoped was an imitation of a woman totally concentrating on her own affairs. In a moment Ace spoke again, this time barely above a whisper, but I could hear him.

  “Chief Jones, some law-enforcement officers have underestimated how slick Sissy is.”

  Hogan didn’t say anything.

  Ace went on. “She’s…well, insidious. Tricky. She has this innocent act that can be very misleading.”

  “I’ll be very careful as I question her, Colonel Smith.”

  “I’m sure you will.” Ace leaned even closer to Hogan, and his whisper took on an anguished tone. “I found out about her the hard way. She took my son away from me. And then she killed him.”

  He turned away, blinking. He sat down across from me, put his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor. Only a monster wouldn’t have felt sorry for him.

  For the first time I believed that Ace Smith actually thought Sissy had killed Buzz. In his eyes she was the person who pulled the trigger. Her alibi, proving she was thirty miles away, meant nothing to him. I understood why he was trying to gain custody of Johnny. No wonder he had lit into Sissy in the grocery store.

  Until that moment I hadn’t analyzed why Ace was so down on Sissy. I guess I had thought it was something simple, such as he didn’t approve of her hippie grandmother or he thought Buzz could have married someone from a more socially prominent family. No, the real reason was much more serious.

  I was concentrating so hard as I took all this in that I jumped when someone said my name.

  “Lee?” It was Hogan. “Did you need something?”

  “No. No, I just had a question for Sissy. I’m leaving now. I’ll be off about my own burglary. I mean, business! My own business.”

  Oh ye gods! My twisted tongue had told the world what I was up to. I might as well have announced I was looking into the burglary at Moose Lodge. I hoped I didn’t seem as confused as I felt as I jumped up and ran for the door.

  Outside, I stopped. Where was I going? I’d told Aunt Nettie I was taking the afternoon off, so I didn’t need to go to the office. Did I want to return to Moose Lodge and hunt burglars some more? Or was there something else I should be doing?

  At any rate, I needed to move my van out of the handicapped slot, the one such spot in a row of eight parking spaces outside city hall. Being the niece by marriage of the police chief wasn’t going to save me from a major fine if Hogan’s patrolman came by and caught me.

  I moved toward the row of cars, but a voice stopped me. “Lee? Did you have to make a statement, too?”

  I turned and found myself facing Chip.

  “So far they haven’t asked for one. I’d be one of the minor witnesses, since I never went down to the beach. I guess you had to make one.”

  “I will have to, as you said. But I don’t know anything.”

  “Colonel Smith is in there now.”

  “I don’t think he knows anything either. He went into Holland for dinner with some people last night. He didn’t get back until after Helen’s body had been found.”

  “An alibi. Lucky guy.”

  I glanced at my watch even though I didn’t have to be anywhere. “I guess I’d better be on my way.”

  Chip nodded. He turned toward the police station, and I moved toward my van. But before Chip could reach the door, Ace Smith came out it. To my surprise, he brushed by Chip and came toward me.

  “Young woman, are you Lee Woodyard?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re the person who gave Sissy a job.”

  “My aunt and I hired her at TenHuis Chocolade.”

  He gave me a big friendly smile, but his next remark was not so friendly. “I feel I should warn you that Sissy’s not honest.”

  Hmmm. I didn’t know what to say to that one. Ask him to prove it? Or would that just start a big discussion I didn’t want to get into?

  But I had to reply. “Don’t worry, Colonel Smith. We have plenty of accounting safeguards in place.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean she’d steal. Not money.”

  I gave him my own big friendly smile. “We also have limits on how much chocolate employees are permitted to eat.”

  His reply was a look of deep sadness. “I see you’re not taking me seriously, Mrs. Woodyard.”

  He was apparently determined to go into the matter of Sissy’s employment and her character right there on the street. I could feel my temper rising, and I had a strong desire to tell him to butt out. I looked around. Luckily not too many tourists hang out around the police station, but we weren’t completely alone. Several groups of people were walking along the sidewalk. But even if we had been alone, the last thing I wanted was a slanging match with a man I’d never even spoken to before in my life.

  So I kept smiling. “I don’t think we need to discuss this,” I said. I turned toward the van.

  Ace barked out a laugh. “I see you’re a fitting pal for Sissy. A rule breaker. Another conniver.”

  He was obviously trying to goad me into making an unwise remark. He was speaking loudly and drawing attention from the others on the street. I wondered if he had selected a public street for this conversation to add to the gossip about Sissy—and to add me to it.

  So I didn’t say anything.

  But Ace kept talking. “You’re proving that my opinion is right. See, you’ve taken a handicapped parking space. One you have no right to!”

  At that, I did turn around and speak. I guess he expected me to act embarrassed. But I had a different question. I kept my voice quiet as I asked it.

  “How did you know which vehicle is mine?”

  I’d struck home. I was surprised at the shocked look that came over Ace’s face.

  I followed up. “I usually park in back of the shop this time of the year. Have you been trolling our alley? Or did you see the van at my house? Were you out there last night when Helen Ferguson fell down the steps at the beach?”

  Colonel Ace Smith turned bright red and walked away, headed back into the police station. I realized Chip was standing twenty feet down the curb. He grinned at me, but he didn’t speak. And he didn’t follow Ace inside the station.

  I was finally able to get into the van, but, as the motor turned over, I saw Hogan in front of the police station. He was waving at me.

  I rolled the window down and called to him. “I’m moving it!”

  Hogan grinned. He walked up to the van, holding a brown paper sack. When he spoke, he used his usual booming bass voice. “I know you don’t usually nab a handicapped slot, Lee. And it’s not Ace Smith’s responsibility to enforce our parking laws around here.”

  “You heard all that?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “I’m serious about wanting to know how he recognized my van.”

  “I’ll ask him. But you do still have that Dallas Cowboys sticker in the back window.”

  “But how would he know I’m from Texas?”

  “You’re notorious.” Hogan shoved his paper sack toward me.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s casting material. I thought you might want to cast a few footprints.”

  My jaw nearly hit the steering wheel. Was Hogan telling me he knew I was investigating the burglary? And was he telling me it was all right with him?

  He leaned in the window, and his face grew serious. “Be careful,” he said. “Somebody’s playing rough.”

  Chapter 13

  At least Hogan had made my mind up for me.

  I ran by TenHuis Chocolade and scooped an old beat-up metal mixing bowl out of the storage room, several plastic spoons out
of the break room, and a couple of bottles of water from the refrigerator. Then I headed east out of Warner Pier. Nosy and Rosy said they had found footprints, and Hogan apparently thought it would be a good thing to have a cast of them.

  Not that the cast, made by an amateur detective, would be very good evidence. But even if it wasn’t an official clue, it might give some real investigator a hint.

  Luckily, Joe and I had taken a course for citizens who were interested in becoming police department volunteers, so I had an elementary idea of how to use the dental compound today’s law officers use for casting. Now I just hoped Nosy and Rosy were home. I didn’t want to go onto their property without permission. That would probably bring another report of prowlers.

  The next mailbox east of Moose Lodge was marked with the name Reagan. It was shaped like a great big fish; the postman poked the mail in through a wide-open mouth. At the end of the drive I saw a small black pickup truck. Good. Maybe Nosy and Rosy were there.

  The Reagans’ property wasn’t as neatly kept as Wildflower’s. The woods were thick over almost all of it, with only a small patch cleared for a scraggly bit of grass and one flower bed. In the little clearing was a light gray double-wide with a colonial-style front porch. The double-wide would have made me feel as if I were back in Texas if it hadn’t been for the tall trees and thick undergrowth.

  Actually, the undergrowth was much too thick to suit me. The whole property felt damp and claustrophobic. I gave a shiver as I stopped the van, and I couldn’t have guessed if that shiver was caused by the clammy atmosphere or by the threatening vibes I was picking up from all those trees.

  It was the kind of area I call “mosquito heaven,” and I was glad to see that hanging on the porch was a big bug light, the kind that attracts bugs, then electrocutes them.

  As I got out of the van, Rosy came out the front door. His white hair was fluffed up in back, and I wondered if he’d been taking a nap when he heard my van.

  He looked a little puzzled; then his face cleared. “Mrs. Woodyard, right? What can we do for you?”

  “Wildflower wasn’t happy with the cursory way the sheriff was investigating the possible burglary at her house. She asked me to look around and see if I could find any more evidence that someone had been prowling around. And you folks said that y’all found some tracks.”

  “Darn right! And that sheriff wouldn’t even look at them. I guess we’re not important enough in the Warner County picture for him to pay us any mind.”

  “Would you mind if I took a look?”

  “Not at all! I’ll show you where they are.”

  “Did the prowler get into your house?”

  “I didn’t find any sign of that. We lock up pretty good. We lived in the big city too long to have this small-town habit of leaving things open the way Wildflower does.”

  Rosy led around the house, and I followed, bringing the casting materials. “Then you haven’t lived here too long?” I said.

  “Just about five years. We were looking for a cheap place to retire.”

  “Do you find it lonely?”

  “After thirty years in an apartment complex, we like lonely. And Wildflower is a good neighbor.”

  Rosy led the way down an extension of the gravel drive. We walked around another group of trees and reached a metal outbuilding. A double garage door was centered in front of the drive, and an ordinary outside door was around the corner, on the side of the building. True to what Rosy had said, both doors were firmly closed and had locks.

  An old-fashioned galvanized steel washtub had been turned upside down at the corner of the building. Rosy lifted the tub and made a dramatic gesture. “There!”

  The tub had been protecting the suspicious tracks. Someone had definitely been walking in the damp earth around the Reagans’ garage.

  At first I could see only the outline of a shoe sole in one place. Then I saw others that were not so clear. When I peered closely at them, the tracks looked as if someone had been stomping on waffles. The clearest print showed a pattern of diamonds running down the center of the sole and some wavy lines toward the toe.

  And the prints looked big. I belatedly realized I hadn’t brought a measuring tape.

  I got out my notebook, knelt down, and made a sketch of the clearest print on a fresh page. I drew the pattern in, and I gauged the size by comparing it with my hand.

  Rosy watched me. “Do you want to measure it?”

  “Do you have a ruler I could use?”

  “Sure. There’s a measuring tape right here in the workshop.”

  Rosy went to a side door of the metal building, took a key from somewhere behind a bush, and unlocked the door. So much for keeping everything locked up. I hid a grin, but I didn’t criticize his security procedures aloud.

  In a minute Rosy came back with a tape measure, a stout metal one with a button to retract the measuring tape.

  The print in the mud had been made by a shoe or boot thirteen inches long. It was five inches wide at the widest point, across the ball of the foot. I marked that down. Then I produced my pan, spoons, and water and began to mix the dental compound. It should be the consistency of pancake batter, Hogan had told our class. Investigators use it because it sets much faster than plaster of Paris.

  Rosy sighed. “I wish I’d known how to do that last February, when I found the tracks before Buzz was killed.”

  “Did they look like these?”

  “Not much. It was winter, after all. Whoever came in had on some sort of snow boots. But if I’d thought to measure them, at least, it might have helped. Of course, we didn’t know somebody was going to get killed.” He moved restlessly. “Now—well, I can’t help wondering if the person who prowled around last winter is the same one who’s been here in the past couple of days.”

  Rosy watched for another moment, then glanced at his wrist. “Do you mind if I leave you with this project?”

  “Not at all. Would it be okay if I looked around a few more places?”

  “Sure! That’s fine. I’ve just got a chore I need to do.”

  At that moment I heard Nosy’s voice, calling from the house, over behind the trees. “Rosy! It’s time for Jeopardy!”

  So much for Rosy’s claim he was going to do chores; I was interrupting an afternoon-television ritual. Rosy told me he’d leave the workshop door open and that I could put the measuring tape on the workbench. Then he left me alone. This was good, because I’m a total amateur at casting a footprint, and I’d just as soon not have a witness to my inept way of doing it.

  Hogan might have laughed at the way I cast the print, but I got it done, by golly. Then I cast a couple of the other, more smudged tracks. The material set quickly, so pretty soon I was able to stack the casts on the gravel drive. Then I looked around to see if the prowler had left any other signs.

  And farther from the metal building I found another print of a different shoe. This one was of a smooth-soled shoe.

  It took me a minute to see that the print must have been made by Rosy. At least, there were two of them, side by side, right where he’d been standing as he watched me prepare to make the mold of the waffle-soled boot.

  Rosy’s tracks looked to be the same size as the ones with the waffle soles.

  I studied them, comparing them. Coincidence, I told myself. In fact, I doubted it was true.

  I knelt and measured Rosy’s print. It was thirteen inches long and five inches wide across the ball of the foot. The two prints were the same length.

  Did this mean the intruder’s foot was the same size as Rosy’s? Were they the same height? Or were the feet inside the shoes smaller? Did Rosy own a pair of hiking boots? Had he made the suspect tracks himself? If so, why would he tell Wildflower and the sheriff and everybody else that they were made by some stranger?

  It would take a real expert to confirm that both tracks might have been made by the same person wearing different shoes.

  I reminded myself that Rosy had told me I could look around thei
r property. Was I going to get that done or just stand around gawking at the ground?

  I carefully stacked the casts and my materials—bowl, spoons, casting compound—on the gravel drive. I put the measuring tape inside the workshop. Then I walked around the metal building.

  A couple of paths led away from Rosy’s workshop, going into the woods. I followed one of them. It went about forty feet and ended in a trash heap, a pile of stuff that in a rural area has to be hauled to the dump by the property owner. A rusty metal bookshelf too big for regular trash pickup leaned against a broken metal chair. I retraced my steps and followed another path. It led to a pit Nosy and Rosy apparently used as a compost heap. I backed away from it gingerly; I was sure raccoons and skunks and other critters hung out there, even though dirt had been tossed on top of the garbage.

  A third path led in a northerly direction and I went on farther, ignoring my usual fears. Eventually I came to the fence that bordered the nature preserve. I realized I’d crossed over onto Wildflower’s property.

  All was peaceful there. The day Joe and I had hiked the nature preserve, somebody had been riding an all-terrain vehicle along the trails, even though use of such things was illegal. But now it was quiet.

  I examined the fence and saw no sign that anyone had climbed it. I scanned the woods on the nature preserve side. They were just as thick and brushy as the ones on Nosy and Rosy’s and on Wildflower’s property. A faint path led into them.

  I had no desire to go in there. I looked at the underbrush, gave another little shudder, and turned back, retracing my steps along the path until I saw the metal building. Having no idea what I was looking for, I was unlikely to find it. I’d done enough, I decided. I’d gather up my materials and go home.

  As I came around the corner of the building, I saw that my stuff had been disturbed. The plastic sack I’d used to carry the dental compound, the metal bowl, and the water bottles had been turned over, its contents scattered over the gravel.

  My first thought was that an animal had been there.