The chocolate frog frame-up: a chocoholic mystery

by JoAnna Carl

  I started to join them, but I took one more look at the Nutmeg and saw that the boat was coming toward me. Meg Corbett called out, “Lee!”

  She evidently knew me, even if I didn’t remember meeting her. I stood still until she guided the boat alongside, then took the line she tossed me and wrapped it around one of the docks piers. I expected her to get out, but instead she stood still and extended her hand toward me, apparently expecting me to shake it. Or maybe kiss it. I picked shaking.

  “Hi, Lee. We haven’t really met, but I’m Meg Corbett. I think you know my husband.”

  “Sure. Trey and I are both on the chamber’s Economic Deployment – I mean, Development! – The Economic Development Committee. What can I do for you?”

  Meg’s face wore a strange expression. I decided she was pretending to look sympathetic. The mouth is the right shape, but her tiny little pupils gave the whole thing away.

  “Actually,” she said, “I was going to offer you a ride home.”

  “A ride home?”

  “Or to your car. Or wherever you want to go.”

  “I wasn’t planning to go anywhere.”

  “Well, this is it going to be very pleasant.”

  I looked around the scene. I didn’t stare at Joe particularly, but I thought about him. I didn’t want to leave until I found out what was going on.

  “I’m too curious to leave,” I said. ”Joe will see that I get home.”

  “If he’s able to.” Meg’s voice had developed a smirk.

  “What do you mean?”

  “The police may want to question him.”

  “Why?”

  “Hershel’s canoe was found right outside his boat shop. They’re going to wonder why he didn’t report it.”

  “The answer to that is obvious. He must not have seen it.”

  Meg Corbett shook her head slowly. ”It would have been impossible to miss.”

  I stared at her for a moment. ”If he had seen Hershel’s canoe, so why wouldn’t Joe told the police?”

  “He might have reasons. Joe has always had a secretive side.” Meg’s ladylike veneer was slipping rapidly. ”I know that he and Hershel had a fist fight in the post office yesterday. I know that Hershel seems to have left home last night determined to see Joe again. I know that Hershel’s canoe was found near Joe’s dock, right where Joe takes his boats in and out.”

  Meg gestured vigorously, apparently forgetting she was standing Meg’s in a small boat, and the Nutmeg bounced from side to side. She sat down suddenly and not to gracefully in one of the upholstered seats. Then she tried to look smug. ”If I were a policeman, I’d have a lot of questions for Joe Woodyard.”

  I resisted the temptation to reach down, grabbed the side of her own, and turn it over. ”But you’re not a policeman,” I said. ”And Chief Jones knows Joe. Besides, Hershel wasn’t exactly an expert canoeist. We all expected him to have an accident some day.”

  Meg’s voice was ominous. ”If this was an accident.”

  I decided I’d talked to Mrs. Corbett long enough. I didn’t say goodbye. I walked away. If Meg wanted either to get out of her boat or to shove it back into the river, she’d have to do it without me.

  I walked over to Joe and Jerry. Now I could see the gold lettering on the prow of the smashed aluminum canoe. The ToadFrog.

  But Jerry was pointing at something quite away back from the prow. ”It’s this big dent in the middle of the canoe, Joe,” he said. ”I hate to say this, but it looks for all the world like somebody in a powerboat ran old Hershel down.”

  Chapter 4

  No wonder everyone was assuming Hershel had drowned. If something hit the canoe that hard, anybody in it would have been thrown into the water with terrific force.

  At least I now understood where Meg Corbett was coming from. She obviously had seen the canoe. And she’d apparently already made her mind up about what happened to it.

  Then she’d jumped to a completely mistaken conclusion.

  I slid my arm inside Joe’s.

  “Well, Jerry, that damage shows you Joe didn’t have anything to do with this,” I said.

  Jerry looked at me, frowning slightly, and I went on.

  “If Joe ran into a camel – I mean, a canoe! If Joe ran into a canoe, he’d be in one of his boats, right?”

  “Guess so.”

  “So that proves he didn’t do it,” I said.

  “I don’t follow you there, Lee.”

  “Joe’s too good at herding a boat to run into one by accident,” I said. ”And there’s nothing Hershel – or anyone else – could do that would make Joe risk putting a scratch on one of those boats on purpose. Those boats are his babies.”

  Jerry chuckled.

  “Aw, come on, Lee,” Joe said. ”You’re nearly as important to me as the ‘49 Runabout.”

  Joe, Jerry, and I stood there staring at the beat up canoe. I didn’t feel as cheerful as I tried to act.

  I knew Joe could never hurt Hershel on purpose. Even the day before, when Hershel had actually attacked him in front of witnesses, Joe had merely grabbed Hershel and pinned him against the wall of the mailboxes.

  As for Joe injuring Hershel and self-defense, Hershel was too ineffectual to be any real threat to Joe. Joe was bigger, smarter, stronger, and more athletic than Hershel. Unless Hershel had brought along a weapon. And if Joe had hit Hershel or otherwise done something to him because Hershel had a gun or a knife, Joe would have immediately called the police.

  I completely shrugged off the possibility that Joe had run down Hershel’s canoe by accident. Joe really was too good at handling a boat to do that; certainly to do that without noticing that he’d hit something. Again, if he had had an accident Joe would have called the police immediately.

  Thinking Joe might be involved was silly, and I resolved not to be a party to any such speculation.

  Having made up my mind, I noticed noises from behind me. Joe, Jerry, and I all turned around.

  Meg hadn’t shoved her boat off, she’d gotten out of it and had walked up the bank in our direction. The patrol boat was just touching its nose to the dock, and as I watched Chief Jones jumped out. He nearly overshot and went into the drink on the other side. I was so annoyed that I didn’t even feel sympathetic. And straight Corbett had appeared from someplace, maybe the patrol boat. Chief Jones recovered his balance, and he, Trey, and the ultra-gracious Meg walked toward us.

  “Better not touch the canoe, Joe,” the chief said.

  “I’m keeping my hands to myself,” Joe said. ”I found it?”

  “Trey did,” Meg said. She sounded proud. ”He searched both sides of the river from Warner Marina Gray Gables. You know, his family’s summer place.”

  Actually, I hadn’t known Gray Gables was Trey’s family’s summer place. Gray Gables was a real showplace. I knew a rich and prominent Corbett family owned and, but I hadn’t associated Trey with that particular branch. Trey never acted rich or prominent; he acted like a struggling architect specializing in restoring Victorian houses. I have the relationship away for future contemplation and attended to the conversation.

  Joe turned to Trey. ”Exactly where was the canoe?”

  “Up against the sedge,” Trey said. Purple sedge has a pretty flower later in the summer, but don’t admire it in front of the Michigan native. It’s an invasive plant – not originally part of the Michigan ecosystem – and it’s pushing a lot of the native plants out of the state’s wetlands and streams. It grows thickly along the Warner River. I listened as Trey carefully described the spot where he’d found the canoe.

  “I couldn’t have missed seeing it,” Joe said. ”It definitely wasn’t there when I left.”

  Joe and Trey would have dropped the subject, I think, but Meg joined the argument. She had regained her ladylike demeanor, and she spoke firmly up with dignity. ”If Trey says that’s where he found it, Joe, that’s where it was.”

  “Maybe so, Maggie Mae, but it wasn’t there before five o’clock.”

/>   Meg looked down her nose at Joe, which was a hard trick since she was five five and he was six one.

  Joe looked at her coldly. I guess they would have stood there glaring all evening, but Chief Jones spoke. ”It could have drifted down there after Joe left,” he said. ”That’s not the question.”

  Joe shifted his stare to the chief. ”I guess you haven’t found anybody who saw how the canoe was damaged.”

  “Nobody’s come forward. Of course, we want to find Hershel – find out exactly what happened to him – before we jump to any conclusions.”

  “And I gather nobody’s found any sign of him yet.”

  The chief sighed. ”We found a life jacket. It was floating farther down the bank. A hundred yards upstream from Green Marine.”

  Trey spoke then. ”Hershel never wore his life jacket.”

  “Right,” Chief Jones said. ”The river patrolmen had spoken to him about it, but it didn’t do any good.”

  “We need to keep looking for Hershel,” Trey said.

  “Oh, we’ll keep at it,” the chief said. ”And were calling and the state crime lab to look at his canoe.”

  Though whole bunch of us swung to look at the Toadfrog.

  “It does appear as if a much bigger boat hit it,” Joe said.

  “That’s one question for the crime lab,” the chief said. ”This is the other one.”

  He pointed toward the canoe.

  At the spot where the canoe was smashed in most severely, traces of red were visible.

  Behind me, Meg gasped. ”Blood?” She said.

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. ”If the canoe was in the water any length of time, blood would have washed off. That red has to be paint.”

  Like a chorus line, we all swung the other direction. And there, suspended in the boat lift beside Joe’s dock, was that Chris – Craft Runabout, the boat Joe had been running up and down the river the day before, the boat he had been trying to sell, the one he had taken up the lake to Saugatuck to meet a potential buyer. It hung there, beside the dock, a foot out of the water. We could all see it clearly.

  The deck and upper part of the hull were burnished mahogany. But below the waterline the boat had been painted a bright red.

  We all stared at the boat for a long moment. Then I spoke angrily.

  “I suggest you take a paint sample from the Runabout. That should settle the mattress.”

  That wooden everybody’s attention. The chief, Meg, Trey, Jerry Cherry, even Joe – all of them quit staring at the boat and turned their attention to me. Every jaw dropped.

  “Matter!” I said. ”That should settle the matter.”

  Chief Jones chuckled, and Meg smirked, but Joe was the only one who laughed out loud. Which was unusual. He ordinarily ignores my verbal tumbles.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. ”I need to take care of something in the shop,” he said. ”Lee, come and help me. And, Chief, if you want a sample of the paint on the Runabout – help yourself. Try not to chip it too badly.”

  With what dignity I could recover, I followed Joe into the shop, picking my way among the overturned hulls, the wooden hoist that can lift a boat half the size of a yacht, and assorted tools, ladders, saws, cans of paint, and brooms. ”What do you need me to do?” I asked.

  “Stand guard.”

  “Stand guard? Why? What are you going to do?”

  “Make a phone call. One I want to be sure isn’t overheard.”

  Joe went into his office and picked up the phone. He put it to his ear and clicked a few buttons, then glared at the instrument.

  “The darn thing isn’t working,” he said. ”No wonder I didn’t get any calls all day today.”

  “Patsy Waterloo said she called you several times and didn’t get an answer, but I figured you’d be out. Can you use your cell phone?”

  “Sure. Just stand by the door and warn me if anybody comes.”

  I stood in the office door, staring toward the other end of the shop. The door week, and was open, and I could glimpse the action outside. I could hear Joe as he made his call.

  “Mike,” he said. ”You know that agenda item you had in mind for the breakfast meeting tomorrow? We’d better forget it for now.”

  Mike? Was Joe talking to Mike Herrera, the mayor of Warner Pier? Mike, who dated Joe’s mom?

  I continued to wonder while Chandler sketched the situation at the shop, describing where Hershel schedule new had been found in telling about the damage to it.

  “No, there’s no sign of Hershel,” Joe said. ”But you can understand the situation out here. I’m suspect number one. We’d better put that possibility on hold for a few days.”

  He listened again. ”Sure, Mike, you’re right. Hershel could still turn up. But looking at that boat – well, I’ll be surprised if he turns up in one piece. Anyway, the canoe was found near my dock. So if you could hold off until they figure out what happened…”

  His voice trailed off. He listened again, then laughed harshly. ”Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’ll be in touch.”

  He pushed the off button on his phone.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “Oh, you little discussion item Mike had for the city Council workshop,” Joe said. ”Where’s the directory? I need to call the phone company.”

  “First you’d better make sure it’s not your own telephone that’s sick.”

  “I guess you’re right. I’ll borrow a phone from Mom and check it.”

  “But what’s the deal with Mike?”

  “Nothing much. What I’m wondering is, did someone call the Waterloo’s?” Joe walked around me, then out into the shop and toward the door that led to the dock and the search for Hershel. Leaving me with my mouth open and no words coming out.

  “Did someone call the Waterloo’s?” He’d said. I thought we could trust Chief Jones to take care of that. In any case, the Waterloo’s had nothing to do with why Joe had been talking to the mayor of Warner Pier.

  Joe had flatly dodged my question about why he had called Mike Herrera.

  I could have popped him. I was so curious that I almost ran after him and demanded to know more. Then I decided against it. After all, Joe and I still had secrets from each other. I told myself that I had no right to demand that he tell me all his business. But I sure wanted to know.

  I bit my tongue and went back outdoors, where I found Joe repeating his question about the Waterloo’s to Chief Jones.

  “I got a hold of Frank, and he was going to find Patsy and bring her over,” the chief said.

  The Waterloo’s showed up five minutes later in a beat up and a rusty old Dodge sedan. Frank was at the wheel, and he skidded to a stop in Joe’s gravel parking lot. Patsy – still in her flowing draperies – jumped out and ran toward Chief Jones, tripping over the gravel in her sandals.

  “Oh, Hogan! Have you found him?”

  “Not yet, Patsy. We’ll keep looking until it gets dark.”

  Patsy hugged herself and shivered all over. ”I just can’t believe Hershel actually capsized. I worried and worried about him and that canoe. But somehow he always seemed to get home safely. Even when we found out he hadn’t come home last night… I still felt he turn out all right.”

  Frank had joined her. ”Is there any way to expand the search, Hogan? Hire divers? Charter more boats?”

  “I don’t think there’s anything else to do, Frank,” Chief Jones said. ”It’s going to be getting too dark to continue the search pretty soon. But the water patrol volunteers are on top of things.”

  “You know that Hershel had – has – plenty of money, and this would be a legitimate expense for the trust,” Frank said.

  “I think this is one problem that can’t be helped by throwing money at it,” Chief Jones said. He patted Patsy on the shoulder. ”Do you have a jacket? It’s getting cool.”

  “I’m not cold,” Patsy said. ”I just keep shaking.”

  “It’s a nervous reaction,” Chief Jones said. He looked aroun
d, and he seemed to remember that I was there. ”We, maybe you could take Patsy inside.”

  “No! No!” Patsy said. ”I want to watch.”

  “We could sit in your car,” I said. I hope my unwillingness to talk to Patsy didn’t show in my voice. ”You could watch from there.

  Patsy agreed to this, and the two of us went over to the rusty old vehicle. As I climbed into the driver’s side I cursed the male belief that women are better than men at dealing with emotional crises. Not that it isn’t true. But I hardly knew Patsy Waterloo. I didn’t think she’d want to cry on my shoulder.