14 The Chocolate Clown Corpse (10 page)

The Toltecs followed the Maya, and later the Aztecs came south to formerly Mayan territory from their original home in Mexico. Both peoples used cacao in their religious ceremonies.

Many are familiar with the Aztec legend of Quetzalcoatl, the great leader who sailed away on a raft but promised to return one day. Surprisingly, this was originally a Toltec legend, but became part of the Aztec culture.

This legend had, of course, dramatic effects on world history. When the Spanish arrived in vessels strange to the Aztecs of the early sixteenth century, the Aztecs believed their ordained leader had arrived to reestablish his kingdom. By the time they realized they were instead facing an invasion, they had pretty much lost the war. The result—which might have occurred in any case—was European domination of South and Central America.

The cacao tree, however, conquered the Spanish, in a sense. The conquerors took the seeds back to Europe, and for a hundred years in European history only the Spanish had chocolate.

All I could see was a pair of bushy black eyebrows.

I circled the block and drove by again, slowly. The second time the men had gone inside.

No sign identifying it as a business marked the house. I couldn’t think of a single sensible reason to go to the door, so I once more headed for the city limits.

As soon as I was back at my office, I called the Warner Pier Chamber of Commerce office to see if the secretary could help me identify the hobo clown.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised to learn that she couldn’t.

“I don’t think any of our chamber clowns are wearing hobo costumes,” she said. “Of course, that’s a traditional clown outfit, but our logo for the promotion is a clown in a colorful, baggy suit, and we encouraged everyone to dress like that.”

She had been the photographer for the event, and she checked all her photos. The hobo clown wasn’t in any of them.

“I remember seeing him,” she said, “but I never talked to him. The costume covered the person so completely I have no idea who was in it.”

I hung up and decided it was time to indulge in my daily
chocolates. Every TenHuis employee is allotted two truffles or bonbons each working day, and I always eat my allotment.

We were pushing some leftover Christmas flavors, so I first ate a gingerbread truffle (“milk chocolate inside and out, flavored with ginger and dusted with natural cane sugar”). I next soothed myself with one of my very favorite truffles, cinnamon (“milk chocolate filling flavored with cinnamon, enrobed with dark chocolate and finished with a dusting of cinnamon”). Yum. I ate each of them slowly and savored every bit.

I’d barely swallowed the last nibble when the phone rang. My caller ID told me it was Joe.

Considering the way the day had gone so far, I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to him. But I answered. “Hi.”

“Can’t I let you out for a minute without your getting in trouble?”

Whew. He obviously had heard about my adventures at the hospital, but he sounded more amused than annoyed.

“Who blabbed?” I asked.

“Our stand-in police chief. Somebody from Holland called Clancy.”

“I suppose he scolded you as if it were your problem.”

“I’m sure his version was garbled. You can’t possibly have chased a clown through a hospital. Not one you believed might be a murderer.”

I considered his question. “I hadn’t thought of it in that light, but I suppose that’s one interpretation. However, it’s not the interpretation the Holland police put on it.”

“What happened?”

I described the events at the hospital. “As you see, according to the hospital and law enforcement authorities, the whole thing was just a publicity stunt. The clown didn’t even exist, even
though two of the nurses also saw him. So he couldn’t have been dangerous at all.”

“I’m glad you’re all right. I’m on my way back from Dorinda. I’ll be there in half an hour.” Joe hung up.

Until then, I guess, I had felt that the hospital chase was over. Now I saw that the repercussions were still echoing. I also saw that I’d better get my side of the story out to the public before the hospital and Clancy Pike got their side out. When that happened, my already flaky reputation was going to crumble like a fresh French pastry.

So I called Tilda VanAust.

Tilda was my contact with the Davidson family. I could ask her if I should talk to them directly.

Luckily, Tilda was in her office, and she hadn’t heard anything about the hospital chase yet. I poured out the story, leaving out the part about Emma saying that Moe had come back from the grave to attack her.

“So, Tilda, should I try to talk to Chuck or Lorraine? They’ve probably heard from the hospital by now. Heaven knows what they’ve been told.”

“Oh my! I’ll have to call them, Lee. But I know you or Joe would never do anything so—well, weird—as a publicity stunt. But Chuck and Lorraine don’t know you guys as well as I do.”

“I don’t care what they think about Joe and me. My concern is that someone tried to smother Emma Davidson. I’m convinced that’s what I saw. I want to make sure that she’s safe.”

Tilda assured me that she understood and that she would talk to the Davidsons immediately. I hung up. Then I went back to our workshop and told Dolly I needed to talk to her. I took her into the break room and repeated the whole story of my
adventure to her. And I just happened to do it within earshot of one of the chocolate ladies, Nadine Vanderhill. Nadine isn’t exactly a gossip, but she always wants to know what’s going on. If anyone asked, she’d tell my side of the story.

After twenty minutes I went back to my desk, confident that I’d done as much damage control as I could.

By the time Joe got to my office, I was tired of the whole thing. I told him that I’d answer any questions he had, but I’d rather hear about his meeting with Royal Hollis.

Joe grinned at me. “My only question is, How do you get into these messes?”

“I sure didn’t do it on purpose. But when you innocently peek in the door of a hospital room and find the person you’ve come to visit struggling for her life . . .” Tears stung my eyes. “Oh gosh, Joe. I’m afraid I’m going to cry.”

“Hey! There’s no need for that. Though I will mention that I believe your whole story, and I told that big guy over at the police station that I did.”

I gave him a hug, and I got one back. Right there in my glass-sided office.

“Let’s go home,” he said. “I can’t tell you about Royal Hollis in a place this public.”

We went home. Joe built a fire. We opened a bottle of wine. I dug out some crackers and cheese. We sat on the couch and snuggled up.

“Gee,” I said, “I wish we had time for a session like this one every night.”

“It’s too bad it takes a crisis to get us to pay some attention to each other.”

“Aw, come on. Things aren’t that bad. I got some pretty effective attention a couple of nights ago.”

Joe laughed, and I raised my glass. “Cheers! And, now: Is Royal Hollis crazy?”

“I’m afraid not. But I’m no psychologist.”

“You know, Joe, if he was the guy who raked leaves for us once, he didn’t strike me as crazy. Not an ordinary person, certainly, but not crazy.”

“I think you’re right. He’s coming out of deep left field. But he ought to be able to aid in his defense. The way the law requires.”

“Does that mean he has no defense?”

“I worried about that one all the way home.” Joe sipped his wine and seemed to go into a trance. I let him be for three or four minutes. Then he spoke. “He just can’t tell a story in a normal way.”

“I remember how he talked when he was here.”

“Then you probably understand. He’s simply not looking at the world the way most of us do. But when I got the story out of him, it was a completely different tale from the one the sheriff got.”

“Oh? What does he say happened?”

“He admits he’d been prowling around the Davidson house. He kept saying, ‘I never went inside.’ As if that was a defense. But he did go into the garage, and once or twice he apparently lit a fire in the charcoal grill. Inside the garage.”

“Yikes! He’s lucky he didn’t burn the place down. Or asphyxiate himself.”

“He said, ‘I opened the window a crack.’ So he’s aware that was a danger. You know, Lee, I think everything he did at the house was just to keep warm.”

“Living outdoors like he did, with no shelter except an old shack, and considering that Moe hadn’t put his shutters on, I think that in his place I would have broken into the house.”

“Well, Royal did have alternatives. If he could get to Holland, he could have gone to a shelter.”

“But getting there is not easy. Thirty miles to hitchhike. Or walk.”

“But he did break into one thing—the hot tub.” Joe laughed. “And I think he’s sort of proud of that. ‘A man’s got to keep clean.’ Or so he told me. But that’s not the part of the story that surprised me.”

“Oh? What did he have to say?”

“All along everybody involved in this case has told basically the same story. Moe came to the cottage and discovered Royal in the hot tub. Moe confronted Royal. They mixed it up.”

“Of course, Moe was the householder. He had the right to order Royal off his property.”

“Correct. But all the stories feature a confrontation between the two men. It includes Royal shoving Moe down.”

“And Moe doesn’t get up.”

“Yes, that’s the story that’s been told by everyone. By Chuck, who witnessed the quarrel. By the neighbor, who came on the scene a few minutes later. By Sheriff Burt Ramsey and by Clancy Pike, in his former role as sheriff’s deputy. They weren’t witnesses, but they got a story out of Royal. And that’s the story they say Royal told. But Royal told me a different story today.”

“What? What kind of story?”

“Royal said he knew he was in the wrong, and that when Moe showed up, he didn’t argue with him. ‘It was his house.’ That’s what Royal told me. He claimed that he tried to run away. Of course, Royal can’t run much. Moe caught up with him immediately. And Moe shoved Royal down. Not the other way around.”

“Joe, I don’t know about the law, but Moe had the right to
use force to get Royal off his property. Or am I misunderstanding the law?”

“No. Michigan is a ‘stand-your-ground’ state. Moe had the right to protect his property. And Royal says Moe did that. He shoved Royal down. But the rest of Royal’s story is different. Royal says that he got up immediately, and Emma—Emma!—ran up and began to lambaste Moe for shoving Royal.”

“Emma? Lambasting Moe? But she’s so meek and mild. And she wasn’t even supposed to be there!”

“Yes, that’s the mysterious part. First, no one else says Emma was there. Second, if she was there, it’s hard to picture her having the nerve to stand up for Royal. And apparently Moe didn’t take it well. He turned on Emma. They began to quarrel.”

“What did Royal do?”

“Royal got up and took to the woods. He ran into the woods, and incidentally he says he left his shoes behind. He continued to hear Emma and Moe yelling at each other. He swears he didn’t come back. But he had shoes when he was arrested.”

Joe sat quietly a minute or two, then spoke again. “Of course, Vandercool—the neighbor—says he gave him a pair of shoes. Could Royal be trying not to tell that? He might have been afraid it would get Vandercool in trouble for helping him.”

Joe got up and rearranged one of the fireplace logs. Then he stood before the fire, toasting the backs of his legs, and he gave me a long look.

“Lee, I wish I could believe that Royal didn’t kill Moe at all.”

That possibility was so remote we didn’t really discuss it.

But Emma’s role remained open to question. Royal claimed that Emma was there. But Chuck and Emma had both said she wasn’t. Moe’s neighbor, Harry Vandercool, hadn’t reported seeing Emma at the Davidson house the day Moe died. Clancy, the
sheriff’s deputy who had investigated the case, had not indicated that Emma had been there.

But did Royal know Emma? Could he have mistaken someone else, such as Lorraine, for her?

“And speaking of Emma,” Joe said, “I never did get to talk to her.”

I thought about Emma. She called our house and left a message, but when Joe tried to call her back, Lorraine and Chuck said she was unavailable. Then Tilda and I found her unconscious—apparently after a suicide attempt. And now I was convinced someone had tried to kill her.

Finally I spoke. “Emma’s whole story about her overdose doesn’t work, you know. If you want to talk to someone before you commit suicide, you don’t quit trying to reach them. Emma would have kept calling you.”

Joe nodded. “Right. And as for the attack on Emma you witnessed this afternoon, that doesn’t make sense either. If someone is trying to commit suicide, and you want them to die, then you don’t interfere and try to smother them the next day. Most killers would just wait and see if the suicidal impulse returns.”

“That seems like a more practical solution.”

I got a simple supper together, and we tried to talk about something else while we ate it on our laps in front of the fire. But I was still thinking about Moe Davidson’s death and the new questions about how it had happened, and I’m sure Joe was, too.

We had worked our way to ice cream by the time Joe went back to the subject.

“I guess the next thing to do is talk to Moe’s neighbor,” he said. “Harry Vandercool. I’ll call and see if I can meet him tomorrow.”