The Chocolate Castle Clue (15 page)
Read The Chocolate Castle Clue Online
Authors: JoAnna Carl
Then I called my patient husband, who didn't sound as patient as usual when he answered the telephone (“I've been wondering where you are”), and I promised to be home within a few minutes. He agreed to take the ham jambalaya out of the freezer, and I told him I'd bring a box of his favorite bonbonsâdouble fudge (“layers of milk and dark chocolate fudge with dark chocolate coating”).
I gave him a sweetie-sweet good-bye. “I'm so eager to see you, darling!”
Joe laughed as he hung up the phone. We get along pretty well. Usually.
I picked up eight bonbons for Joe, put on my jacket, and made sure the front door was locked.
By then it was five forty-five and only a faint light showed in the western sky. I had parked in the alley behind the store, where I have a reserved space I don't use too often once the heavy tourist season for Warner Pier is past. So I now had to go out the back door and into the dark alley to get to my carâin lonely downtown Warner Pier, where every other business for several blocks around was closed and where nobody but Dolly Jolly lived. And Dolly had gone to see her cousin in Grand Rapids for the weekend. I hesitated before I opened the back door.
Then I laughed at myself. There is very little crime in Warner Pier. I wasn't afraid to walk down any street in the town or, yes, any alley in the town. Certainly not my own.
I set the burglar alarm, turned on the outside security light, and went out. I slammed the door behind myself and tested the handle to make sure it was caught. Then I walked around my van to reach the driver's side.
I always drive a minivan. They may not be cool, but they sure are handy for delivering chocolate. My dad finds me a good deal in a used van nearly every year. The current one was a light green Chevy, five years old.
As I walked around it, I did exactly what my dad had trained me to do. From the time I could drive, he lectured me: Don't ever get into a carâdaytime or nighttimeâwithout looking into the back to be absolutely certain that no bad guy is lurking there. I had done this since I had a driver's license. And never had anything or anyone unexpected been in my car.
But it was a good habit. So I glanced into the cargo area. Then I looked into the backseat.
And there was somebody crouched on the floor.
Chocolate Chat
Chocolate Places: Pennsylvania
Mort Rosenblum, author of
Chocolate: A Bitter-sweet Saga of Dark and Light
, calls Hershey, Pennsylvania, “as American as Old Glory.”
Chocolate: A Bitter-sweet Saga of Dark and Light
, calls Hershey, Pennsylvania, “as American as Old Glory.”
Hershey was founded in 1903 by Milton Hershey, creator of the immortal Hershey Bar, Hershey's Kisses, and many other all-American treats. He planned the city as a company town, a place where workers in his factory could live wholesome lives while milk and butter for his chocolates were produced in the surrounding countryside. A giant chocolate factory opened in 1905, and the city's slogan became “The Sweetest Place on Earth.”
Today Hershey is a city, but also a giant fun park. There's Hersheypark, with sixty-five rides and attractions, including eleven roller coasters. There are shows at theaters and outdoor arenas. There's the Hershey Bears hockey team, plus the Hershey Gardens, Dutch Wonderland for children, a special area on falconry, and ZooAmerica. Then there are two museums: Hershey's Chocolate World, which explores how chocolate is made, and the Hershey Story, which tells of Milton Hershey's life. “All-American” is an understatement. But the once-famous tours of the Hershey chocolate factory are no longer offered.
Chapter 13
It must have been disbelief that kept me from screaming.
It just wasn't possible that there was actually somebody in my car. For a split second I thought it was a joke. Then my nerves caught up with me, and I jumped all over and dropped my car keys.
That turned out to be a good thing. The keys rattled and clunked as they hit the pavement. “Darn!” I said.
I leaned over, used the tiny flashlight on my “no-harm charm” chain, and began to look for them. I found them almost immediately, picked them up, and pocketed them. But I didn't stand up. I kept creeping along beside the van, my head down, pretending to look for those keys.
When I got to the back of the van I split for the back door of the shop. In a hurry.
I admit that I had to punch in the numbers on the keypad twice. It's hard to look at numbers when you're keeping your back turned toward the keypad so you can see the van and make sure no one is getting out of it to come after you.
When the door clicked open, that click was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I jumped inside like a kangaroo. The sound of the door slamming and locking behind me was even more beautiful than the sound of it opening.
I was in our break room, standing with my back to the locked door and panting with the adrenaline rush.
I had pulled out my cell phone as I moved toward the door, and now I wanted to call 9-1-1. Actually, I wanted to stand inside that door, keeping it open a crack, and watch the van while I called the police. But that wasn't going to work. In ten seconds the fancy alarm system we had installed a few months earlier was going to sound off and blast the whole neighborhood. And if it did, the guy in the van was going to jump out and take off down the alley.
And I realized that I didn't want him to do that. I wanted him to stay where he was until the police got there.
Besides, leaving the door ajar while I called the cops seemed pretty stupid. Something like yelling, “Come on in, sex maniac.”
So I made double sure the heavy steel door had locked behind me, flipped on the break room lights, and ran into the storage room to punch in the magic numbers that kept the alarm from blasting.
With that done, I was finally able to call 9-1-1. Because it was after five o'clock, when our local police department shuts down its office, I got an operator thirty miles away in the county seat. First she made sure I was in a safe place. Then she told me she'd have the Warner Pier patrolman there as quickly as possible.
“He's clear down by the south city limits,” she said. “Some car slid into the ditch.”
I knew that was a ten-minute drive, even if the patrolman left the other people sitting in the ditch.
“Stay on the line,” the operator said.
She didn't say that I couldn't look out the back door while I waited for the patrolman.
Luckily, that door opened in, I guess to keep people from swinging it out and hitting passing trucks. So I'd have to open it only a crack to see what was going on.
I still tried to be careful. First I shoved one of the two family dining roomâsized tables up against it, leaving a small amount of leeway. If the guy in my backseat ran at the door when I unlatched it, he'd have to move not only the door but also the heavy table before he could get in. Then I jammed a strong rubber doorstop in position to hold the door if anyone tried to open it more than a tiny bit. Next I turned out the kitchen light.
Finally, I opened the door about half an inch and peeked out.
The section of the alley I could see was deserted. The outdoor light was still on.
So were the van's interior lights.
I think that scared me more than anything else had. Maybe I'd been trying to convince myself that I'd just seen an old blanket or some other innocuous item in the floor of my backseat. I'd still harbored a hope that I had imagined the whole thing, that there had been nobody there.
Those interior lights told me differently. They meant that at least one of the van's doors was open, and I'd left all of them closed and locked.
And I could see which one was open. It was the back door on the driver's side, on the opposite side of the van from where I was now standing. It opened like a regular car door, instead of sliding back and forth as some van doors do, and it was completely agape.
And as I realized that, I heard footsteps. Thud-thud-thud-thud. Fast and heavy.
Someone was running down the alley, headed toward Pear Street.
I reported all this to the 9-1-1 operator, and at the same time I began to remove my barricade.
“He's getting away!” I said. I shoved the table, and it made a scraping sound.
“What's that noise?” she said.
“I'm moving the table I put in front of the door.”
“Why?”
“So I can get out.”
“Why?”
“Maybe I can get a look at him.”
“No! No! Mrs. Woodyard, stay where you are!”
“I'm not going to run after him! I just want to get a look at him.”
By then I had the door open far enough that I could slip through. I ran around the van and stared down the alley, still clutching the cell phone.
“Darn! He just turned onto Pear Street! Toward the lake.”
“Get back inside!”
“I'll get in the van.”
“No!” She didn't like my ideas, but I pretended not to hear. My purse was hanging on my shoulder, and my car keys were attached to its side pocket. I yanked them out. I slammed the backseat doorâyes, first I looked to make sure there was no one in there or in the cargo areaâand I got into the driver's seat. I started the motor, and I headed down the alley. The 9-1-1 operator was still objecting to everything I did, but I gave her a running account anyway.
“I just turned onto Pear Street.”
“Go back! Wait for the patrolman!”
“Nobody's moving on the street. I'll cruise on down to Dock Street.”
“No! He may be armed!”
“I can't just let him get away!”
“I have two cars on the way. The state police and the Warner Pier officer. He won't get away.”
I tossed the phone into the passenger seat then, though I didn't break the connection. I drove slowly toward Dock Street, looking into every doorway.
Then I saw something move. A human figure. I picked up the phone.
“He's turned into the alley between Fourth and Fifth streets.”
The operator's voice got really firm. “Don't follow him! Mrs. Woodyard! Go back to the shop!”
I turned into the entrance to the alley.
“I just want to see which way he goes.”
“He may be armed. Mrs. Woodyard, go back! He may have a gun.”
A gun. She could be right.
She didn't yell, because 9-1-1 operators are trained always to sound calm. But she spoke like she meant what she said. “Don't follow him!”
“Okay! Okay!” I backed out of the alley and turned toward Dock Street. I gunned the motor and sped to the end of the block. Then I drove a block down Dock Street, going as fast as I dared. I swung around that corner in a wide left turn. I pulled into the darkest parking place on the block, turned off my headlights, and sat there, wishing my van wasn't a light color. I waited to see if anyone came out of the other end of that alley.
There wasn't a single car parked on that block. Downtown Warner Pier was deserted. I waited. And waited.
After three long minutes, I knew my plan hadn't worked. The person I'd been chasing had beaten me to the street and had gotten away. Or else he was hiding in the alley. And I wasn't going in after him.
I waited another minuteâstill no cops, and still no crook. Just me, alone in Warner Pier's quaint business district.
I had the phone to my ear, and the operator was telling me to go back to the shop.
“The cars are coming,” she said. “Jerry Cherry was out by the interstate working that wreck, and the state police car was nearly to South Haven. But they'll be there any minute. I told them you were safe inside the building.”
“I'll go back,” I said.
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