The chocolate frog frame-up: a chocoholic mystery

by JoAnna Carl

  “I guess I definitely miss understood.”

  Frank frowned angrily. ”We only came here because of Hershel. We thought handling the trust ourselves would be easier.” He laughed harshly. ”And now this!”

  I heard Patsy’s voice. ”Frank…”

  Frank leaned close to me. ”Don’t tell Patsy I was griping. We had to move to Warner Pier – and it’s fine, most of the time. A nice little town. But now and then I have to blow off steam.”

  I nodded, and the two of us went back to Patsy. But I was confused by what Frank had told me. Joe had been definite about the prospective purchaser for the old Barrel’s plot. He’d said it was someone who worked with Frank.

  There was probably a simple explanation. Someone Frank knew, but whom he didn’t know was in the construction or development business.

  Aunt Nettie and I began to make noises about getting back to the office. But when I looked out toward the river I saw Chief Jones loping across the lawn with his disjointed gait. He carried a paper sack in his hand. He brought it up onto the porch and beckoned to Patsy, who went over to him.

  Aunt Nettie and I kept edging toward the door, but I was curious. It was the same kind of sack Chief Jones had put the red rag in. I figured it was some sort of evidence.

  “No!” Patsy spoke loudly. ”I never saw Hershel with such a thing!”

  We also want to look at her. She looked around wildly, and her eyes settled on me. She took two steps in my direction. ”Lee will know,” she said.

  “What is it, Patsy?” I asked.

  She reached for the sack, but Chief Jones pulled it out of her reach. ”We don’t need to involve Lee,” he said. ”I can ask Joe.”

  But Patsy was still talking. ”It’s a horrible color. Where could Hershel have picked up such a thing?”

  She came over and looked at me, eyeball to eyeball. ”Joe couldn’t do that, could he?” she said. ”Even if he came over to Hershel’s house, he wouldn’t have killed him. Why should he killed my baby brother?”

  I was still keeping when she turned and ran into the house. I turned to the chief. ”Okay,” I said. ”Let me see it.”

  “Don’t touch,” he said. ”We’ll check it for fingerprints.”

  I put my hands behind me, leaned over slightly, and looked into the sack. I saw something bilious, nasty green. I immediately knew what it was.

  “Oh,” I said, making my voice casual, but loud enough for all the teacher hostesses to hear. ”It’s one of those giveaway pens Joe got to hand out at the wooden boat fictional. I mean, festival! I don’t think that a pen like that is conclusive evidence that Joe was at Hershel’s house. Those pens are probably all over town.”

  The chief nodded. ”We’ll find out,” he said.

  Aunt Nettie and I left. Despite my attempt at being casual, I was more upset than ever. Because those pens were not “all over town.”

  Joe had bought five hundred to hand out at the wooden boat festival up at Muskegon, and he had deliberately picked the most eye-catching color the novelties company offered. The pens were a perfectly ghastly shade of chartreuse. I hated the color so much I’d refused to have one on my desk. As far as I knew, Joe still had three hundred of them in a box in his desk and a half-dozen in a coffee mug beside his computer. They wrote fine and had good erasers, but the color was so horrible he couldn’t even give them away.

  Aunt Nettie and I said gracious goodbyes and left. We arrived back at the shop to face two reports. Hazel, Aunt Nettie’s chief assistant, said that Deer Forest Bed and Breakfast needed four dozen creme de menthe bonbons (“The formal after dinner mint”) so they’d have plenty to put on their clients’ pillows every night. Nancy Burton, the owner of the B&B, couldn’t leave to come and get them because she was waiting for a plumber. And Tracy, who’d been on telephone duty, said that Trey Corbett had called me twice and seemed extremely eager to reach me. He said he’d call back in twenty min.

  “Well, I can handle both of those problems,” I said. ”First, is Hazel has that creme de menthe bonbons ready, I’ll drop them by Nancy Burton’s. That shouldn’t take more than 10 min. Then I’ll be here when Trey calls.”

  At last, a couple of things I knew how to cope with.

  Chapter 10

  I dropped the mints off, then turned back toward downtown Warner Pier. As I turned onto West Street, I saw the pretty little cottage at the corner of MacIntosh Avenue. It might look authentically Victorian, but it hadn’t been there when I was a teenager. Aunt Nettie had told me that Trey Corbett had built it to house his architectural and construction business.

  Looking back, I should have kept straight on to the office and waited for Trey to call. But the impulsive side of my nature took over, and I turned into the parking lot. The SUV was there; I deduced that Trey was, too. We could talk face to face.

  As soon as I was inside the office I began to suspect that my deduction was wrong. The outer office was empty, and I could hear Meg’s voice coming from the inner office. I peeked around the corner and saw her talking on the phone. Meg frowned and waved. I mouthed, “I’ll wait,” and popped back into the outer office.

  Darn. I didn’t want to talk to Meg. I wanted to talk to Trey, and he apparently wasn’t there. But I could hardly leave again without telling Meg why I’d come. I moved across the office, making sure I couldn’t hear her conversation.

  The office was beautifully decorated, with furniture and classic styles. No gimcracks, no curlicues, no cute Victorian. Just plain, good design. The front wall was all proper Victorian-style windows, but more of them than the Victorians would have wanted. A giant, abstract oil painting dominated the back wall. One side wall, the one farthest from the office door, was taken up by an object I call a map rack. It’s actually a dozen racks, each designed to hold two large maps or drawings, back to back. The racks swing out from the wall like a book when you want to look at them, then swing back flat for storage. Rich Godfrey, my ex-husband, was a real estate developer, and he always had a couple in his office, ready to display plats for potential property buyers.

  The map on the front of the rack was a detailed plan of Warner Pier. I wandered over and took a look at it. Yes, there was Peach Street, where TenHuis Chocolade was located. There was the corner where my friend Lindy Herrera lived, Ninth and Cider Alley. I took a close look at North Lake Shore Drive, particularly the area around the old Root Beer Barrel neighborhood. The map didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

  I idly swung the rack to look at the map behind it. But there was nothing back to back with the plat, in the position corresponding to page two in a book. And the “page three” rack didn’t hold a map. It held an elevation – and architects drawing. I recognized it as Patsy and Frank Waterloo’s house. It was a beautiful picture. Trey had drawn an idyllic home, surrounded by lush plantings and flowers, and he had tinted the whole thing with dreamy pastels. The elevation was a work of art. In the corner was a neatly lettered title, “Home of Frank and Patsy Waterloo, Warner Pier, Michigan.”

  I turned to the next rack and saw another elevation. This one was Trey’s own office building. The drawing was just as lovely as the one of the Waterloo house. ”Office Building,” the label read. No details. I turned to the next rack. It was a house I had never seen, though I recognized the style – Italianate. The label read, “Home of George and Ellen VanRiin.” I didn’t know the VanRiin’s, but they lived in a beautiful house.

  I turned the rack again and again, looking at a half-dozen more lovely drawings of quaint Victorian buildings. All of them were on the right hand “pages,” as it were, of the rack. I was sorry when I came to the last one, a drawing of a bed and breakfast inn I recognized. I assumed it was the final thing in the rack, but I automatically looked behind it. To my surprise I realized there was one more elevation. This one was in the left-hand rack, back to back with the previous drawing.

  This elevation was of a much larger structure than the others. I didn’t recognize the building, but again the draw
ing was beautiful and the colors delicate. In fact, it might have been the most charming drawing of all. The building stretched out over the whole width of the paper. It had tall trees behind it. One section was like townhouses, delightful cottages with steeply pitched roofs. The other end was a three-story building with broad verandas. It looked like a. Resort, a relic of some Victorian watering place. It made me long for a floorlength skirt, a pompadour, and a parasol.

  I looked at the corner of the drawing to see where it was located. But there was no label, no name, no hint as to what or where it was.

  I was flipping back through the drawings when Meg Corbett suddenly shoved herself between me and the map rack. She spoke angrily. ”What do you want?”

  I took a step backward, determined to be nice, even if Meg wasn’t. ”Meg, Trey’s elevations are lovely! He should have a show of them.”

  “Trey is very talented. But you didn’t come to see his elevations. Why did you come?”

  “I wanted to talk to Trey a minute. Is he here?”

  “No.” Meg began turning the sections of the map rack back, one after the other. ”Why did you want to see Trey?”

  I almost turned and walked out. Meg was certainly not being hospitable. But I reminded myself that I was a Texan, not a damn Yankee, and Texans are polite. ”I guess I was looking for free technical infection – I mean, information! Like collaring a doctor at a party to ask him about your athletes foot.”

  “What did you want to know?”

  “How to knock down the old Root Beer Barrel.”

  “What!” Meg gave me a sharp look, then turned more map racks, banging them back against the wall.

  “Everybody keeps talking about how Hershel claimed it was knocked down on purpose,” I said. ”I just began to wonder how hard it would be to do that. I thought Trey would know.”

  “I’m sure he would.” Meg turned the final map rack. ”Trey’s gone to Holland. I told him you called, and he said he’d return your call on his cell phone.”

  “He did. I missed the call. Then I was out on an errand and I saw that his SUV was here, so I pulled in.”

  “He drove my car.”

  “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  I turned toward the door, but Meg spoke. ”Wait, Lee.” When I looked at her, she had changed her mouth from huffy to happy, but her pupils were still tiny and hard. ”You and I need to talk for a minute,” she said.

  “Sure.” I decided I could match Meg hypocrisy for hypocrisy. I put on my beauty pageant smile and took the chair she waved toward.

  Meg sat in an identical chair. She was wearing another summer visitor outfit – jeans with tennies and a pale blue cotton sweater over a white polo shirt. As she had the day before, she looked almost too well bred. Hard to believe that she had been a child so neglected the neighbors called the welfare department.

  “I’m sorry I snapped,” she said. ”We are all upset about poor Hershel.”

  Her, and confirmed my opinion of her as a real witch with a capital “B.” Meg hadn’t cared a whit about Hershel. I made my smile even toothier. ”What can I do for you?”

  “No, Trey told me he’d called you this morning, and he was afraid you’d misunderstood.”

  “Oh?”

  “He said he made some reference to Joe Woodyard.”

  “I hadn’t been up long when he called. I’m afraid I wasn’t making a lot of sense.” I made my smile wide enough for Ms. America competition, and I decided to spike her guns. ”I didn’t understand – was he trying to tell me that you and Joe dated each other in high school?”

  “Oh? Had Joe told you about that?” Was it my imagination, or did she look rather disappointed?

  “I know about it.” I didn’t learn it from Joe, that I knew. ”I hadn’t put a lot of important on it.”

  Meg’s smile grew as big as mine, and her pupils grew even smaller. ”That’s a good attitude, Lee. Of course, you know all the little tricks to keeping a man interested.”

  “Tricks?”

  “Those things we learned at our mothers knee. Keep ‘em guessing, never let them feel overly confident about you, things like that.”

  So Meg brought romantic relationships were based on little tricks. I wasn’t surprised, but I found her attitude annoying. I kept smiling. ”I even been known to fall back on sincerity,” I said. ”When you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”

  A frown briefly clouded makes perfect eyebrows. She didn’t seem to know what to make of my comment. ”Well, as long as you understand that there’s been nothing between Joe and me since high school.”

  “I don’t really worry about ancient history.”

  Meg simpered. ”Well, it is ancient history. I didn’t want you to think anything else.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “So it’s gratifying to know Joe mentioned me.”

  “Joe’s been around the block a couple of times since high school, Meg. You shouldn’t feel too bad if he seems to have gotten over your teenage romance.”

  Her jaw tightened. ”He was really mad when we broke up. But by the time I was a senior, I could see that Joe wasn’t really my type. I’ve told him repeatedly, over the years, that I have no interest in him. And, of course, events have proven me right.”

  “What events?”

  “Well, you know. His… lack of purpose.”

  Was she referring to Joe’s decision to quit practicing law and open a boat shop?

  Meg spoke again. ”You know, there’s no substitute for family background.”

  That comment confused me further – I didn’t know anything particularly disreputable about Joe’s family. His parents had been divorced, and his mother ran a successful insurance agency. His father – now deceased – had been a carpenter. His family wasn’t rich or famous, but it was respectable. Unlike Meg’s had been, apparently. I contented myself with raising my eyebrows at Meg.

  Meg’s laugh tinkled out again. ”Anyway, I met Trey – and, well, I felt for him in a major way. He had all the qualities I was looking for – you know.”

  I began to think I did know. I was getting the picture of what Meg had been looking for in a husband. I did the eyebrow wriggling bit again. ”Family background?”

  Meg – well, the only word is “preened.” ”Trey is intelligent and trained to a profession, of course. But the Corbett’s give their sons a top-notch education. There’s a family trust dedicated to that purpose.”

  I couldn’t resist a dig. ”I understand perfectly, Meg. Trey probably went to prep school…”

  “Capperfield.”

  “And to a ‘good’ college…”

  “Hyde.”

  He’d been to such a good college I never even heard of it. I had trouble not making my smile a smirk. ”… and he has the family fortu… I mean, connections! The connections to help him become successful.” I leaned forward. ”Which has always made me curious. What is Trey doing in a little place like Warner Pier?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, why isn’t Trey practicing architecture in New York, and Chicago, even in Grand Rapids?”

  Meg’s expression hardened. ”His interest is Victorian architecture – and here he’s able to indulge it.”

  “That is lucky.”

  Meg stood up. ”Trey says Warner Pier is the perfect place for him to learn Victorian building practices and design from the ground up. He’s written papers on the buildings he’s restored here.”

  “Wonderful.”

  ”Trey’s going to knock Michigan on its ear,” she said. ”He has big plans.”

  I excused myself. We both waved and smiled are hypocritical smiles as I backed out of the parking lot. I didn’t understand why Meg had wanted to talk to me. Was she trying to make me jealous, with her comments about how she’d told Joe to shove off “over the years”?

  When I got back to the shop, Trey had called again. This time he had left his cell phone number. I called him, and Trey answered.

  “It’s Lee,” I
said. ”I’m calling to apologize if I was rude this morning.”

  “I’m the one who needs to apologize. I shouldn’t have called so early.”

  Apparently Trey wasn’t going to make any reference to Meg and Joe. I wasn’t going to mention them either. ”I needed to be up and doing. But now I have one question for you – if you have time.”

  “I’m driving down from Holland, Lee. I can’t talk. Just don’t ask me a question so startling that I run off the road.”

  “I don’t think it would startle you. How would you knock down the old Root Beer Barrel?”

  There was a moment of silence. Then I heard a horn player. Yikes! Maybe he had run off the road. ”Trey? Are you all right?”