The Chocolate Cat Caper (12 page)

“The Root Beer Barrel? It’s still there?”

“Yes, we can get away that way.”

“You’re sure?”

“I guarantee it!”

I started north on the Lake Shore Drive. In that part of Warner Pier, the road runs right along the lake, and the lake side has been eaten away. The road is only about one and a half lanes wide, and there’s no shoulder at all, only a guardrail. On the other side of the guardrail there’s a steep drop, almost a cliff, about forty feet down to a narrow beach. When I see an article about Great Lakes erosion, I think of that spot. Years ago, it used to be a stretch of road with businesses facing the lake, between Lake Shore Drive and the beach. Now the buildings have collapsed into the lake, half the road is gone, and the section is supposed to carry only local traffic.

The old Root Beer Barrel had been a landmark. The drive-in has been closed for years, since the state highway was moved, but now I saw that the giant barrel was still there. And, I noticed, there was a streetlight at the entrance to what was once the drive-in’s parking lot. The lot was now a mess of broken asphalt and sand.

The car that was following us wasn’t staying too close; the guy must have been hoping to follow me home and find Aunt Nettie. I drove as fast as I dared when I got near the barrel, then whipped into the drive. I cut my lights as soon as I was off the street, but I’d seen the tracks in the sand. “You’re right, Stacy,” I said. “Lots of cars have been using this lot.”

“Yeah, the guys do doughnuts in here. Go around on the left side of the barrel, then make a sharp right.”

I followed directions, coasting to slow down without hitting the brakes, since I didn’t want our pursuer to see the lights. Once I was behind the barrel, I faced a solid wall of green, and the streetlight was a long way off.

“Go straight through,” Stacy said. “See the tracks?”

Now I saw them. A faint, two-rut driveway led into the bushes, and I followed it. Branches and leaves hit the windshield and the sides of the van.

Magically, I came out into the clear almost immediately. And I was in the back of the parking lot of Warner Pier’s one supermarket.

“I can’t believe this!” I said. “I had no idea that the Superette was that close to the Lake Shore Drive.”

“You can drop us here,” Tracy said. “I’m supposed to call my mom for a ride anyway.”

“I’ll park over there where the other cars are and wait until your mom comes,” I said.

Tracy and Stacy agreed to that. They went to the pay phone, then came back to the van. It was a warm night, so I rolled the windows down.

“I’m sorry y’all had such a scary ride,” I said. “But I appreciate your help in getting away from that bunch.”

The two of them looked at each other. Then Stacy took a deep breath and spoke. “Is it true?”

I decided I’d better be careful about what question I was answering. “Is what true, Stacy?”

“Were you really Miss Texas?”

I laughed out loud. “That one’s easy. No.” “Oh.” Stacy’s face fell.

“Sorry if you’re disappointed. I was in the Miss Texas Pageant once, along with about a million other girls, but I did not place in the top ten.”

“What about Joe Woodyard?”

“I don’t think he place in the top ten either.” I tried to keep the sharpness out of my voice. “When I was your age, Joe was a lifeguard at Warner Pier Beach. I knew who he was. I don’t recall ever having a conversation with him. I hadn’t even heard anything about him again until yesterday when I ran into him out at the Ripley house.”

“You didn’t date him?”

“Not when we were in high school. Not recently. Not anytime in between.” And Rich’s private detectives would back me up on that, I thought. Rich had had them investigate every aspect of my life.

“Oh.” This time both girls looked really disappointed.

I laughed again. “Sorry if I’ve let y’all down. I lead a very dull life.”

Tracy spoke then. “My mom says she hates to see such a smart guy throw his chances away, and my dad says Joe’s turned into a gigolo.”

She pronounced “gigolo” Gig-alow. Tracy was my kind of girl, stringy hair and all. I hid a laugh, but I decided I’d be better off not joining in Warner Pier’s gossip sessions during my first week back in town, even if I wasn’t impressed with Mr. Woodyard.

“I guess I’ll let Joe handle his own life,” I said.

“He doesn’t seem to know how to handle it, according to my mom,” Tracy said. She dropped her voice and spoke confidingly. “He quit being a lawyer and—”

I tried to cut her off by interrupting. “What kind of car does your mom drive?”

“Ford Fiesta. Joe got all kind of scholarships, see, and he did real well at Ann Arbor. Then he went to law school.”

“Good for Joe,” I said desperately. “What color is your mom’s car?”

“It’s red. Then he got mixed up with that Clementine Ripley, and he blew it all. That’s what my dad says. He says Joe’s really got a chip on his shoulder.”

She paused for a breath, and I decided I was going to have to be blunt.

“Listen, Tracy, Joe has plenty of friends in Warner Pier, and I’m sure they’ve all been interested in what’s happening in his life. But Clementine Ripley has been murdered, and you saw all those reporters that have shown up, nosing around. Now is the time that Joe’s going to need all the friends he’s got. And the first thing he needs from those friends is silence.”

Tracy looked big-eyed. “But—”

“I mean it, Tracy. I already asked you not to talk to the reporters about my aunt and the chocolate company. Now I’m asking you not to talk about Joe Woodyard. That kind of speculation is exactly what he doesn’t need right now.”

“But if you’re not friends with him—”

“Joe and I are not enemies,” I said. “We just don’t know each other.”

“Then why . . . ?” Tracy sounded completely bewildered. “Then why is he here?”

“Here?”

I heard a sardonic laugh behind me, and I whirled around so fast that I nearly got a crick in my neck.

Joe Woodyard was standing right outside my window.

I could have killed the jerk. “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

“What are you doing here?”

“I saw that the reporters had laid siege to the chocolate shop, and I toyed with the idea of creating a diversion. But you didn’t need me.”

“There was only one car after us. Tracy told me how to escape.”

“Actually, there were two cars. I was the second one.” Joe leaned down and looked in the van window. “That swing around the old Root Beer Barrel was slick, Tracy. I drove over here the long way round. I thought you might stop in the parking lot, and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

He was still treating me as if I were incompetent. “Thanks, but you don’t have to help out,” I said.

He gave me a dirty look, then turned his attention to Stacy and Tracy. I could see both of them perk up. Even with anger bubbling just beneath the surface, Joe still had the pizzazz that had made the girls at the beach stand around the lifeguard’s perch drooling. Luckily, my drooling days were over.

“I appreciate you girls helping Ms. McKinney escape,” he said. “Now could one of you help me out?”

“Sure.” They answered in unison. He could have asked them to blast the tabloid reporters with a bazooka, and they’d have simply asked where the ON switch was.

“I need a bottle of Tylenol, but the Superette drug department is the last place I want to go tonight.”

Stacy laughed, and Tracy spoke. “Mr. Gossip.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Joe said. “But if I gave you girls a ten, would you run in and buy me a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol Gelcaps?”

“Sure!” They were delighted. They climbed out quickly. “We’ll be right back!”

“I won’t be here,” Joe said. “It’s not smart for me to hang around with Ms. McKinney. I’ll go back to my truck. The blue one over on the next row.”

They scampered off across the parking lot, toward the door of the Superette. Joe turned away and looked after them.

He still sounded gruff when he spoke again. “Thanks for the kind words.”

“Kind words?”

“The antigossip advice. When I walked up here.”

“That was more to do with Aunt Nettie and me than with you.” I gripped the steering wheel. “Tracy and Stacy are nice girls. They’re just young. They don’t know yet how much harm talk can do.”

“Sounds like you’ve learned.”

“I’ve had a few opportunities to find out.” Like when your ex-husband’s first wife calls and says she heard at the beauty shop that you’re dating a Dallas Cowboy and she wants to know which one, and you’ve never even met a Dallas Cowboy in your life, much less gone out with one, and all you can think is that your ex-husband started the rumor himself.

“Anyway,” Joe said, “thanks.” He turned away.

Suddenly he looked incredibly lonely. Just the way he had out at the Ripley house, when he’d moved the chair to sit beside his ex-wife’s body. Maybe he wasn’t such a jerk as I’d thought.

“Joe,” I said, “did you see the state detective? VanDam?”

“Oh, yeah. After today we’re well acquainted.”

“What did you think of him?”

“He’s polite.”

“That’s one of the things I found scariest about him.”

“You’ve got a point. But I called a law school buddy who’s now in the Detroit prosecutor’s office. He says VanDam is about the best Michigan has.”

“I’m worried about Aunt Nettie. She simply lives for TenHuis Chocolade. She’s afraid that the company will be damaged.”

“That could happen.”

“I’m terrified that she’ll even be a suspect.” I thought back to the warning I’d had from Inspector VanDam. “I guess we will all be suspects.”

Joe gave a humorless laugh. “Yeah. The ex is always the prime suspect. VanDam didn’t seem impressed when I told him I didn’t gain a thing from Clemmie’s death. In fact, we had a business deal, and now . . . Anyway, her death leaves me in deep water with the bottom of the boat stove in. And I’ve got nothing to bail with.”

Joe and I looked at each other for a long moment. Then he turned and walked away.

A small red Ford cruised slowly through the parking lot, and in a minute Tracy and Stacy came out of the Superette and flagged it down. The car waited while they took a small sack over to Joe’s blue pickup. Then they waved in my direction and left.

One responsibility out of the way, I started the van and headed home, using back streets only a little less obscure than the escape hatch behind the Root Beer Barrel. I had to cross the bridge over the Warner River, but apparently the out-of-town reporters hadn’t figured out that that would be the best place to watch for a gray van with Texas tags.

I wished I could do something about those Texas tags, but I was stuck with them until Monday at least. Besides, I didn’t have the money to buy Michigan car tags. For the moment I was financially dependent on Aunt Nettie.

Aunt Nettie’s house was in a semirural area; in fact, it had been outside the city limits of Warner Pier until two or three years before. As I mentioned, there were a lot of bushes and trees between the house and the road. And the drive was just one lane of sand; it didn’t really look like a driveway. It would be hard for the reporters to find in the dark. But I stopped on the Lake Sshore Drive, where the mailbox was located, and tossed a rag over the nameplate on top of the mailbox. As a final touch, I parked the notorious minivan with Texas tags behind the garage of the next house down the road. The Baileys lived there, and Aunt Nettie had mentioned that they were out of town.

I walked along the path that led through the woods from the Baileys’ house to Aunt Nettie’s. Her big Buick—she insisted a big car was best for the Michigan winters—wasn’t in the drive. That surprised me for a minute, but then I saw her moving in the kitchen, and I realized that she’d been cautious enough to take the unusual step of putting her car in the garage, a remote little building that during the summer was usually reserved for garbage cans and snow shovels. She had locked the back door, too, and I had to knock. She even called out, “Lee?” before she let me in.

Aunt Nettie had finished straightening up the mess the burglar left. So much had happened since the burglary—interviews with detectives, the invasion of the tabloids—that it was hard to remember we ought to be nervous about staying in a house where there had been a break-in. So we weren’t.

The phone rang, but we unplugged it and rehashed the events of the day. Aunt Nettie found my wild chase around the old Root Beer Barrel quite entertaining. And she agreed, sadly, that we’d probably better plan on closing TenHuis Chocolade Sunday.

“Sundays aren’t as busy as Saturdays,” she said, “but I sure hate to miss a single day during the season.”

We went to bed around eleven. I read until I dropped off, and I was deeply asleep at three o’clock when Aunt Nettie shook me awake.

“Lee! Wake up!” she said. “Somebody’s trying to break in!”

I
sat up and listened. I didn’t hear a thing. Maybe I didn’t want to hear a thing. I listened some more. For at least thirty seconds I sat there with my ears perked up like a German shepherd, trying to convince myself that Aunt Nettie was just nervous. Heaven knows she had every reason to be.

Aunt Nettie didn’t move, but she finally whispered, “He’s around behind the house.”

Then I heard the sound, a sort of thump. Aunt Nettie clutched my hand, but she didn’t speak.

“Sounds like the back porch,” I said. “Maybe it’s a raccoon.”

I threw back the covers, got out of bed, and stuck my feet into my slippers. The night was cool, and Aunt Nettie turns her heating system off between Memorial Day and Labor Day, so I was wearing flannel pajama pants and a T-shirt. I didn’t fumble around for a robe. I tiptoed out of my room, across the hall, and into the back bedroom, the one with the window overlooking the back porch. Unfortunately the window was closed, and I was afraid opening it would make noise. I pressed my head against the glass, but the porch roof blocked most of my view.