The Chocolate Bear Burglary (4 page)

Two long-distance calls wasted. I was still standing beside the telephone trying to figure out what to do when the thing rang.

Could it be Rich? Or Dina? I snatched the phone up, hoping I could shift the responsibility for Jeff onto one of his parents.

But the phone call was from Aunt Nettie. “Are you all right?” she asked. “You ran out like something was after you.”

“Just a dirty secret from my past,” I said. “You may have forgotten I used to be a wicked stepmother.”

“Oh, my! Rich’s son called?”

I could always count on Aunt Nettie. She knew all my secrets and loved me anyway. I poured out the whole story—Jeff’s unexpected arrival, his attempt to break in, the lip stud, the eyebrow ring, the earlobe eyelets, the sullen attitude, and all the danger flags he was running up in my mind.

“So I don’t know what to do about him,” I said. “If he’s broke, I don’t really want to turn him away. I tried to call both his parents, but neither of them is available. He’s apparently walked out on college. But I certainly can’t see giving him money, even if I had any to give.”

Aunt Nettie didn’t hesitate. “What he needs is a job,” she said. “He can stay there at the house, and we’ll put him to work packing chocolates for TenHuis Chocolade.”

T
enHuis Chocolade couldn’t afford another employee. Aunt Nettie knew this as well as I did. She and I had even cut our own salaries to help make ends meet. This was one reason I wasn’t enrolled in the review course for the CPA exam.

But we could use some packing help. And I didn’t see any other way to keep Jeff corralled, to try to have a little control over him. So I offered him a job.

Jeff was not enthusiastic about becoming a chocolate packer. But I made it clear that neither Aunt Nettie nor I—and certainly not Joe—was likely to come up with a loan, so he grudgingly said he’d try it. Somehow I didn’t expect him to be a long-term employee.

Jeff was also unenthusiastic about staying at the Lake Shore Drive house, but he accepted Aunt Nettie’s invitation. When I quizzed him, he said he was down to less than five bucks. So he didn’t have much choice.

Joe left, headed for Benton Harbor, and Jeff and I unloaded the Lexus and put his things in the bedroom across the upstairs hall from mine. He had apparently left his dorm room in a hurry, because he had nothing but a change of clothes and a laptop computer. Then I drove the two of us into town; Aunt Nettie’s house is inside the city limits, but in an area that’s not fully developed, so we always talk about “going to town” when we mean to the Warner Pier business district. There are plenty of parking spaces in the winter. I parked on Peach Street.

“How come all the streets in this town are named for fruits?” Jeff said.

“Because it’s a big fruit-growing region,” I said. “But there are a couple of non-fruity streets. Dock Street. West Street. Lake Shore Drive.”

“Yeah. And Orchard and Arbor.”

I made a mental note of that comment. Evidently Jeff had driven around Warner Pier before he went out to the house. At least he’d read the names of the streets in the downtown business district and identified Warner Pier’s main drags. In fact, he had seemed to know which street led to TenHuis Chocolade. But if he’d driven by there earlier, why hadn’t he come in? His story was full of holes.

Jeff’s entrance into TenHuis Chocolade was interesting. He walked straight across the shop, went behind the counter, and looked at the dirty bear mold that had distressed me earlier.

“Your aunt collects antique chocolate molds,” he said. “That’s a dandy.”

“It’s borrowed,” I said.

Jeff had moved on to the mold of the acrobat teddy bear wearing a fez. “That’s a really old one.”

“I was told it’s a Reiche, if that means anything to you.”

“I don’t know a lot about them, but Reiche was one of the big guys.”

“Does your mother’s shop handle chocolate molds?”

“Not many. But she’s got a customer—a guy who runs a Dallas chocolate company—and she keeps her eye out for anything he might like.”

Aunt Nettie came in, and I introduced Jeff. She greeted him with her usual beaming smile. “Jeff, we’re glad to get a little help down here. Have you ever done packing or shipping?”

“Furniture. I’ve packed furniture. Sometimes dishes. But not chocolates, Miz TinHouse.”

Jeff’s Texas pronunciation of the family name made Aunt Nettie smile, though a kid born and raised in Dallas sounds much less like a hick than a person like me. I lived in a small town out on the prairie until I was sixteen, and even two years with a speech coach hasn’t removed all the twang from my voice.

“It rhymes with ‘ice,’ Jeff,” I said. “Ten-hice.”

Aunt Nettie still looked amused. “Lee said it just the same way, the first summer she worked here. But don’t worry about it. You can call me Nettie, or Aunt Nettie. And the first thing you need is a sample chocolate. Every TenHuis employee gets two each day.”

Jeff didn’t look sullen about that. He picked an Italian cherry bonbon (“Amareena cherry in syrup and white chocolate cream”), and while he didn’t gush about how good it was, he looked pleased enough to suit Aunt Nettie.

“Now, come on back and I’ll show you where to put your coat,” she said. “We need you, because this is still our busy season. Do you know how to use a tape gun?”

Aunt Nettie took him away, and I got back to work. She wasn’t kidding about this being our busy season. The summer tourist rush is busy enough. It keeps the front shop going hard, as our summer student helpers sell bonbons, truffles, and molded chocolate to the thousands of tourists and summer residents who pour into Warner Pier every year. That rush ends at Labor Day, or whenever the Chicago schools go into session.

Then things really pick up. Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Mother’s Day are big holidays for our mail-order side, with Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, New Year’s, and Father’s Day also bringing in business. In addition to the sixteen types of truffles and bonbons we always keep in stock, TenHuis makes fancy molded pieces and specially packaged boxes of chocolates—like the teddy bears on display in the showcase. We ship them all over the United States. Aunt Nettie has twenty women making chocolate all winter.

Our winter hours are different, however. In the summer Aunt Nettie comes in about seven thirty and leaves at midafternoon, and I come at one and stay until the shop is closed and cleaned up, around nine thirty. Between Labor Day and Memorial Day we all work nine to five, unless we’re behind on orders and need to put in overtime.

And in our current financial position, I was trying to keep Aunt Nettie from supporting overtime.

I went into my office, which has big windows overlooking both the workroom and the retail shop, and called our supplier in Grand Rapids for an extra order of heavy cream. Then I checked the figures I needed when I faced our loan officer that week. I was fighting the despair that exercise always caused when the bell on the front door chimed and a customer came into the retail shop.

I jumped up and went out to the counter. “Can I help you?”

The customer looked familiar, but I didn’t think I knew him. He was a distinguished-looking older gent with a beautiful head of white hair, a perky gray mustache, and a red face. Who did he remind me of?

“I’ve come in to apologize,” he said. “I’ve been told that I’ve pulled a major boner.” He leaned forward in a sort of bow, and he gave a smile that must have wowed the sorority girls forty years earlier. “I’ve come to sheek your forgiveness.”

The “sheek” gave me a clue about his condition. Then his head bounced around like a toy clown’s. Whoever he was, he’d drunk his lunch.

“I’m sure, whatever it is, it will be all right,” I said. “Your apology is accepted.”

“M’sister scolded me severely,” he said. “According to her, I’m selling the family treasures for filthy lucre, and I embarrashed her in front of your aunt and the antique woman.”

I was beginning to figure out who this must be. “Are you Mrs. VanHorn’s brother?”

“Timothy Hart, m’dear. An embarrassing limb of the Hart family tree.”

“I’m Lee McKinney, Nettie TenHuis’s niece.” We shook hands.

He looked at the display of chocolate molds behind me. “Mama’s collection looks very nice.”

“My aunt arranged it. It’s a lovely collection. I understand why Mrs. VanHorn wants to keep it in the family.”

“I don’t understand it! Olivia’s spent years trying to live down that particular side of the family. They’re my favorite anchestors, but she finds them a bit too earthy. She always wants to remember that Greatgrampa Amos invented the Hart centrif—centrifi—centrifugal molding machine and forget that he worked as a candy butcher. He walked up and down the cars of the Illinois Central, selling candy, apples, and bananas from a basket.”

I warmed to Timothy. “But that’s inspiring! A real American success story. I can see y’all have a wonderful family connection with the chocolate business.”

“But if Olivia values the collection so highly, why did she toss it in a box in the basement?”

“Sometimes things get put away in the wrong place.”

“True. I mustn’t be too hard on her. She hasn’t been around for the past fifteen years. Couldn’t face the Warner Pier house after Vic died there.”

“Vic? Was that Mr. VanHorn?”

“Congressman VanHorn. She’s spent fifteen years grooming her son to take his place. Though that ambition may elude her.”

“A political career could be very rewarding, but it’s always uncertain.”

“That’s so.” Timothy Hart shook his finger at me. “That sweet Southern accent has me pouring my heart out, Miss McKinney. I’d better leave.”

“Not without a sample of TenHuis chocolate.”

Mr. Hart selected a Jamaican rum truffle (“The ultimate dark chocolate truffle”). “A small additional taste of the good stuff won’t hurt,” he said. “I’m not driving. Lost m’license years ago.” Then he shook his finger at me again. “Now, don’t tell m’sister I came in here. She told me an apology would make things worse.”

“You haven’t made things worse at all, and I’ve enjoyed meeting you, Mr. Hart.” I waved as he went out the door. Yes, Timothy Hart was quite pleasant—for a drunk. But if he pulled this stunt very often, I could see that his relatives would get tired of it.

I sighed, looked at the clock and went back to the office. Closing time was almost here, and I hadn’t gotten started on the accounts payable or reached Jeff’s parents. I called Rich’s office and Dina’s shop again. Both still unavailable. I left new messages. I wanted them to know about Jeff as quickly as possible.

I heard the UPS man come in the back, and Jeff appeared. I saw that Aunt Nettie had found him a baseball-style cap; at least he wouldn’t have to wear a hairnet.

“They sent me for the UPS paperwork,” he said.

I handed him the forms. “How’s it going?”

“There’s a lot more to it than I thought there would be.” He took the papers and rushed back.

I smiled as I went back to my computer. Maybe a few days as a peon would do Jeff some good. Every overprivileged kid needs a lesson or two before he develops respect for the skills ordinary working people have—such as packing fragile chocolate rabbits so carefully that they can be shipped clear across the country without arriving in pieces and ruining Easter bunny sales for Neiman Marcus.

I had the bank figures done by quitting time. It was going to be close, but we weren’t going to have to increase our loan. Not that my report would suit our new loan officer. He wanted us to have to refinance; then he could increase our interest.

I could hear Aunt Nettie’s hairnet ladies calling out as they left through the back door. Soon Jeff came up, saying Aunt Nettie had asked him to drive home with me. She would stop at the store and get something for dinner. I told Jeff to pick out his second chocolate for the day, and he picked a Bailey’s Irish Cream (“Classic cream liqueur interior”), but he said he’d take it along to eat afterward, so I gave him a small box to put it in. I sorted my paperwork into piles, and Jeff and I drove back to the house on Lake Shore Drive. It was dark when we got there, but we could still see that the yard was covered by snowmobile tracks. The crazy people who drive those things are always riding around on the lawn and cutting through all the little paths that link us with our neighbors. It annoys Aunt Nettie.

Aunt Nettie came in a half hour later with chicken breasts and tomato sauce. Jeff was subdued—or maybe just sullen—during dinner, but he asked Aunt Nettie lots of questions about making and shipping chocolates. I was glad that he gave some impression of being interested in his job. I still couldn’t take my eyes off the quarter-inch holes in his earlobes. They were more eye-catching than the lip stud.

I expected Jeff would want to check his e-mail after dinner, and I steeled myself for an argument when he was told he’d have to pay for any long-distance calls, including those made to his e-mail server. But Jeff didn’t suggest that. He put stuff away in his room, then I showed him how to operate the washing machine, and he washed some underwear and a sweatshirt. As I said, he hadn’t brought much, though he did have a few warm clothes, including the ski jacket he’d had on that afternoon.

While his clothes were in the dryer, I sat him down at the dining room table and tried again to quiz him about why he’d left college. He muttered something about his grades.

“I can’t believe you can’t do college work, Jeff,” I said. “You were always a good student.”

“There’s a lot more to life than college.”

“True. Like packing chocolate.”

He scowled. “Look, my dad wants me to learn to handle money, stuff like that, but he wants to make all the decisions—my major, where I live, the kind of car I drive, how I dress. I just need to try it on my own.”

I might have believed him if he hadn’t cut his eyes at me. I knew he was checking out how I was taking his story. Jeff had cut his eyes the same way when he was thirteen and was trying to convince me his mother rented X-rated movies for him to watch.