The chocolate frog frame-up: a chocoholic mystery

by JoAnna Carl

  The chief shook his head. ”I don’t understand it, Lee. And I’m not hauling Joe down to the station yet. But when Hershel’s canoe is sunk and then Hershel himself is found dead – and both these things happen near Joe’s boat shop – and Joe doesn’t have an alibi for either event, I can’t just say, ‘Ol’ Joe wouldn’t do a dastardly deed like that,’ I’ve got to look at one of the primary rules of detection – ‘Cui bono?’ Who benefits?”

  That pretty much ended our conversation. I made my statement, then agreed to come back at noon – when the chief’s secretary would have it ready to sign. But I left in a huff. I was furious at the chief’s suspicions of Joe.

  I was also scared spitless. The chief was right. Joe had argued with Hershel. And he really was eager to sell the Root Beer Barrel property. And he did not have an alibi for either time Hershel had been attacked. The first time he’d been out in the lake on a boat. The second time he’d followed Aunt Nettie and me up to the old chapel – except as he himself had pointed out, he could have been there first.

  I had to do something. But what? The whole situation was scary. Joe would never have knocked the old Root Beer Barrel down. I wasn’t even sure he’d know how.

  At least, I was sure I didn’t know how. Who would know? Who worked with old structures and could tell me how to demolish one?

  The answer, of course, was Trey Corbett. And he’d hung up on me at seven that morning after he’d implied my boyfriend might be seeing someone else and I counter with a similar implication about his wife.

  Then Aunt Nettie had handed me the news that his wife and my boyfriend had once dated each other. What did that mean? They went out a few times? Went steady? Were Queen and King of the prom?

  I knew Meg didn’t have Joe’s letter jacket, because he’d dug it out of his mother’s attic and given it to me, more or less as a joke. I’d hate to think Meg had had it earlier – but high school was a long time ago. Maybe I needed to call Trey and apologize. I mean, Trey and I were both doing business in Warner Pier. We needed to get along, right? We even served on a Chamber of Commerce committee together.

  When I opened the shop door and saw the two teenagers behind the counter and it doesn’t hairnet ladies calmly molding chocolates in the work room, I felt relieved and comforted. Aunt Nettie was bustling about with her usual happy expression, and the wonderful aroma of warm chocolate filled the air. I concluded that my amateurish work at refilling the chocolate vats the night before hadn’t done any harm. Business seemed to be progressing as usual. Tracy was getting a Bailey’s Irish Cream bonbon (“Classic cream liqueur interior) for a broad beamed woman wearing red shorts not quite big enough for that brought beam.

  It was tempting to forget poor Hershel, lying dead with rock shaped wounds in the back of his head. And I might have tried to forget him, if I hadn’t been so worried about Joe.

  I helped myself to a Dutch caramel bonbon (“Creamy European-style caramel in dark chocolate” ) and reminded aunt Nettie that sometime that day she needed to make a formal statement about finding Hershel. Then I went to the telephone. I got out the Warner Pier Chamber of Commerce directory – all ten pages of it – and found Trey’s number. I made a few notes about what I needed to ask him, then I called.

  The phone was picked up immediately. Trey’s voice said, “Hello.”

  “Hi, Trey,” I said. ”I wanted to apologize for…”

  But Trey’s voice was still speaking. ”You’ve reached the office of C. T. Corbett Architectural Services,” he said. ”Please leave a message after the tone.”

  I had to gulped hard before I could leave a message. I had been so psyched up about speaking to Trey that it didn’t seem possible he wasn’t in his office. I managed to stammer out my name and the TenHuis phone number, then hung up. His secretary must be out. If he had a secretary. Trey’s operation didn’t seem to be very large.

  I remained uneasy. Maybe I should talk to Joe. I stared at the telephone, tapping my finger on the key that would speed dial the boat shop. Then I remembered that Joe’s phone was out of order, or it had been the day before. Besides, the chief had probably kept him up all night; he was likely to be asleep.

  I punched in the numbers for Joe’s cell phone. If he was asleep, surely he would have turned that phone off.

  He answered immediately. ”Vintage Boats.”

  Suddenly I had nothing to say. I had no real excuse for calling Joe. I just wanted to hear his voice.

  “Vintage Boats.” Joe repeated his greeting. One more second and he decide I was a crank call and hang up.

  “Joe,” I said. ”It’s Lee.”

  “Are you okay? Haven’t stumbled over any more bodies?”

  “Not this morning.” Better keep this light. ”Did the chief keep you up all night?”

  “Just until a little after two a.m. Then he and Jerry were at the shop poking around before seven. I hadn’t slept much anyway. Has he already had you in for a statement?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know about the stone they found.”

  “Yes, he made me identify the initials. Some lucky stone.”

  “This whole deal with the Root Beer Barrel has been unlucky.”

  I remembered that I told the chief I had never asked about the details of Joe’s business dealings. That was deliberate. Money problems – too much, not too little – had been a major factor when my first marriage broke up. I guess I’d shied away from discussing money with Joe because I was afraid we’d argue about it.

  But at the moment I needed to be nosy. ”Exactly how did you get hold of the Root Beer Barrel, anyway?”

  “A guy named Foster McGee boat Clementine money. He’s a Chicago insurance executive. She cut him off on a fraud charge.”

  Joe paused, and I prompted him. ”So?”

  “McGee had paid Clementine only half her feet, so he owed her money, and as you know, she owed me money. McGee owns a condo up here, and he’d been suckered into buying the Root Beer Barrel – didn’t realize it wouldn’t be easy to redevelop the property. The city began giving him some trouble over letting the property become dilapidated. When the interest he boat Clementine’s estate got too high, he offered the estate the property as payment.”

  “Why did you agree to take it?”

  “Because McGee is almost bankrupt and is none too honest. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to do anything with the property, but if he went belly up the estate might never get anything at all. I started preparing a petition, getting ready to ask permission to demolish the Barrel. Then a miracle happened – or so I thought. The thing blew down. I thanked my lucky stars and thought there might actually be light at the end of that particular tunnel. Especially when a real life potential buyer showed up.”

  “Who is this buyer?”

  “I guy from Grand Rapids – somebody Frank Waterloo works with. He owns a development company up there, and he wants to expand in our direction.”

  “What does he want to build down here?”

  “I don’t know. And I don’t care. He’ll have to comply with the Historic District Regulations, and I don’t think the city would go for a McDonald’s.”

  I laughed. Warner Pier’s economy depends on it Victorian atmosphere, so the city is extremely picky about what new structures look like. Plus, pressure from local merchants keeps the Planning Commission and City Council notoriously wary of fast food chains. ”Yeah, McDonald’s couldn’t get in, even if they put gingerbread up and down the arches.”

  “True. As I said, the thing’s been a headache all along.”

  “And now this. But Joe, after three months – they’ll never be able to prove whether or not the Barrel was deliberately torn down.”

  “I know. And I don’t think they can prove I killed Hershel either. But if they don’t figure out who did do it – well, I’m sunk anyway.”

  “None of your friends will believe this. It’s silly!”

  “But it ruins my reputation.”

  “Your reputation? I n
ever knew you to worry about what other people thought of you!”

  Joe was silent for a moment before he spoke. ”Sometimes other peoples’ opinions can be pretty important.”

  Then he hung up.

  Our conversation hadn’t been reassuring. I was more confused than ever, especially by Joe’s reaction. Instead of relying on his friends to believe in him, he seemed more concerned about the opinions of people who didn’t know him.

  “Lee.” I looked up to see Aunt Nettie standing in the doorway. ”Do you want to go over to the Waterloos’ house with me?” She said. ”I stopped by the Superette and bought a ham.”

  Chapter 9

  Food equals sympathy. These universal belief of small town America.

  “I could get some coffee and tea,” I said.

  Aunt Nettie beamed. ”That’s a good idea.”

  I noticed that she had changed from her white pants and tunic into light blue slacks and a matching cotton sweater. I was glad I’d happened to dress up a little, though my plaid skirt might be a little short. But Aunt Nettie seemed to think three inches above the knee was okay for a condolence call.

  It was a beautiful summer day in west Michigan, which stars at producing beautiful summer days. We stopped at the grocery store – where I bought three pounds of gourmet blend coffee and a big jar of instant tea, drove across the Orchard Street bridge, then turned up Inland Avenue. Nice of the Warner Pier city planners to label the street which led away from Lake Michigan so clearly. If we’d turned to the other direction, we’d have been on Lake Shore Drive, the street that eventually led to Aunt Nettie’s house.

  The Waterloos’ drive was full of cars, of course, and since Hershel had lived next door, I wasn’t surprised to see a Warner Pier PD patrol car and the Michigan State Police mobile crime lab along the curb. The chief would be searching Hershel’s house.

  The parks down the street and walked back past several beautiful cottages – two Gothic revivals, one folk Victorian, and a queen and which was heavy on the turrets and shingles. The Waterloo house was Craftsman, the style that led up to Frank Lloyd Wright. All us Warner Pier folks know this stuff; we can tell Greek revival from colonial revival with only a brief glimpse of a roofline.

  When we walked up onto the broad porch, Betty VanNoord, a math teacher at Warner Pier High, open the front door. Behind her were two other women I recognized from the Warner Pier High School honor assembly I’d gotten roped into attending the day Stacy got a scholarship. Patsy’s fellow teachers had apparently taken over hostess duty.

  “Thanks for coming,” Betty said. ”I’ll put the food in the kitchen. Patsy’s out on the deck.”

  “We don’t want to intrude,” Aunt Nettie said.

  “Patsy will want to see you,” Betty said. ”You two found Hershel.”

  I hadn’t considered that aspect. I hoped Patsy didn’t want a play-by-play description.

  Another teacher led us through the house to the dock. I’d seen the deck from the river, of course. It was a beautiful addition of a twenty first century amenity to an early twentieth century house. It was like an extended porch and overlooked a lawn which led down to the river. There was a small dock, but no boat.

  Frank was leaning on the deck’s rail, big and bald as ever. Nearby Patsy, dressed in a new set of artistic draperies, was sitting in a wicker chair. Both got up and greeted us with the obligatory air kisses, while we murmured useless races. But they seemed glad we’d come.

  One of the teachers brought coffee, and Patsy asked us to describe what had happened the night before. I gave a general report, slurring over Hershel’s disdain for “that bunch on the dock,” a group that had included both Patsy and Frank.

  “I was afraid to bring anybody except Aunt Nettie to meet Hershel,” I said. ”He was adequate – I mean, adamant! He was really firm. He wanted to see her and nobody else. Then he ran off into the woods, and I didn’t see how anybody could find him unless he wanted to be found.”

  “Hershel prowled around so much. I guess he knew every foot of the riverbank, and the lakeshore, too.” Patsy dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ”When you found him… Did he look… Was he…?”

  Aunt Nettie took her hand. ”He looked as if he was sleeping, Patsy.”

  Patsy nodded, and tears ran down her face. They ran down Aunt Nettie’s, too. After all, my Uncle Phil – the man she’d been married to for forty years – had been a homicide victim, too. He’d been killed by a drunk driver. I wouldn’t have described Hershel as looking “as if he was sleeping.” But if Aunt Nettie thought it would help Patsy to be told that he looked that way, it was fine with me.

  I realized I was tearing up, too, mainly because I also missed Uncle Phil. But crying with Hershel’s sister made me feel like a hypocrite. I sympathized with Patsy, that I had regarded Hershel as a pain. Pitiable, yes, but a pain. Acting as if he had been a person of loss made me feel this honest. Finding his body had been the shock, true. But what I was really interested in was the evidence that made Joe look guilty when I was convinced he had nothing to do with Hershel’s death.

  I eyed Frank, still standing at the rail. Joe had said that the Grand Rapids man who wanted to buy the old Root Beer Barrel was someone Frank knew. Maybe Frank could tell me a little more about the circumstances. Under Chief Jones’s rule of “Cui bono?” or “Who benefits?” that guy was a suspect. He wouldn’t have wanted to buy the property if the old Barrel haven’t fallen down.

  I patted my eyes with a tissue, then got up and took my coffee cup over to the rail, standing beside Frank.

  I nodded toward the rustic cabin under the trees, closer to the lake then the Waterloos’ house. ”Is that where Hershel lived?” Yellow tape surrounded the cabin, and I could see a couple of guys bent over outside, apparently searching the ground.

  “Yes. I guess we can we do it as a rental. Something.”

  “You’ve done a beautiful job on this house. How old is it?”

  “Patsy’s great-grandparents built it in 1919.”

  “It’s lovely. Did you do the remodeling work yourself?”

  “Oh, no. Trey Corbett was entirely in charge of our restoration project – designed the plan, found the subs, got the work done. Patsy made the final choice on the wallpaper, and I wrote the checks.”

  “Writing the checks is a major contribution, Frank. Projects like that get out of hand financially real fast.”

  “I will say that Trey paid some attention to the budget we had. I was nervous about the cost of the project, since he comes from a wealthy family and lots of those people have no idea of the value of money. We still had to scramble…” His voice trailed off.

  I saw a way to introduce Frank’s links to construction, and I jumped in. ”Your construction experience must have been a big advantage.”

  “My what?”

  “Your experience with the construction.”

  Frank chuckled. ”I have no experience with construction. I can’t tell a paintbrush from a band saw. What gave you the idea I know anything about building?”

  “Something Joe said. I guess I miss understood his meddling. His meaning!”

  “I think so.” Frank held out his hands. ”See these? Ten thumbs. I can’t drive a nail. What would have given Joe the idea that I had something to do with construction?”

  “Oh, he said you know the developer who’s interested in buying the old Root Beer Barrel property. That you were business associates. I suppose I deduced that you knew him through construction. But you must have known him through some other connection.”

  “Known who?”

  “I don’t know his name. The man who’s interested in buying the Root Beer Barrel.”

  “I’m supposed to know this guy?”

  “That was the impression I had. When the Barrel blew down, the man heard about it, realized it would make the property easier to redevelop, and came forward with an offer. He told Joe he’d heard about the property through you.”

  Frank laughed. ”That’s small to
wn gossip for you.”

  “It’s not true?”

  “No. I was in California visiting my mother when that big storm hit. There may have been some discussion about it around here at the time, but I didn’t find out that the old Barrel had blown down for weeks. I definitely didn’t tell anybody about it.”

  “Nobody in Grand Rapids?”

  Frank shook his head. ”I don’t know anybody in Grand Rapids who’s in construction or development. I don’t know anybody there at all. We only moved here five years ago – when Patsy’s mother died. All I’ve been able to find is a crummy job as night manager at a printing plant. I never get to put my nose out the door!”