The Chocolate Cupid Killings (11 page)

“He wanted to see you.”

I groaned inwardly. Then I started helping Lindy fold heavy cotton napkins. But within two or three minutes I heard footsteps coming toward me and turned to face Marty Ludlum.

“Lee!” Marty tried to grab my hands. They were full of napkins, however, so he grabbed my shoulders, his face screwed into a sympathetic grimace.

“Lee! What a horrible experience you had last night!”

He was laying it on so thick that I was tickled and deliberately misinterpreted his remark. “Joe and I don't find it all that upsetting when people drop in unexpectedly, Marty.”

He relaxed the grimace slightly. “Lee, I just heard about you and your aunt stumbling across a body. You're putting on a brave face, but it must have been a terrible shock.”

“It wasn't a lot of fun, which is why I didn't want to talk about it last night. But it isn't as if it were someone I knew well.”

“Knew well? I didn't realize that you knew the guy at all.”

“He'd called at the shop. We spoke for five minutes.” I added a final napkin to Lindy's stack. “Thanks for the chocolate order.”

“Thanks for bringing it out personally.”

“Everybody else was busy making the stuff. Anyway, I'll head back to the office now.”

“I'll walk you out.”

“I think I know the way.”

Marty smiled and followed me, an action I interpreted as meaning he had something to say.

But we didn't get to the front door before a voice called from the living room.

“Marty! Come in here! The bitch is on CNN.”

Marty's expression changed into something very close to a pout. He rolled his eyes, just slightly. He went into the living room. At the opposite end a giant television set was blaring a news channel. “Runaway business executive Patricia Youngman, still dodging reporters' questions, today was glimpsed shopping in Johannesburg, South Africa. She fled before reporters were able to question her. Youngman is being sought as a witness in the investigation of Prodigal Corporation and its controversial CEO Marson Endicott. Authorities believe Youngman is hiding out in Namibia, which has no extradition treaty with the United States.”

There was a fleeting picture of an ordinary-looking woman wearing giant sunglasses. Her hair was in a pageboy and was that medium blond that career women adopt as they hit their forties. With just a fleeting glimpse of her face, she looked more like Joe's mom than like the notorious creature whose picture had been all over the news magazines when she took a powder.

Actually, on a small-town scale, Joe's mom was much like Patricia Youngman—they were efficient managers who make sure the world runs smoothly. These people are often underestimated, until, like Patricia Youngman, they do something uncharacteristic such as fleeing with company records.

My musings were overridden by the colorful swearing coming from the living room. I retreated toward the front door, but I'd seen enough to know it wasn't Marson Endicott who was swearing. I spotted him sitting motionless on one of the sectionals. His beautiful head of white hair was easy to identify; I'd seen it enough on television.

No, the swearing was coming from some hard-eyed guy with a bald head and a crooked nose. He was cutting loose at the television set at the top of his voice. I had the sense that I'd seen him before. As one of Endicott's hangers-on, he must have been on CNN or in a news magazine, probably looming in the background.

I didn't care who he was. I didn't want to witness this scene. I went outside, closed the door behind myself, and stood on the porch, wondering if I should continue waiting for Marty Ludlum or if I should simply leave.

Before I could decide, the door opened and Marty popped out. “Don't leave yet. I had a question for you.”

I waited while he took several deep breaths. “Lee, are you the reason Joe doesn't want to go back into law?”

I took longer to answer than he had taken to ask. The question had surprised me. I didn't want to stumble over my answer.

“Marty, I assure you that Joe does what he wants about his legal career. I would appreciate it if he let me know before he decided to make a major job change, but he's a big boy. He decides for himself.”

“Then you would have no objection to him going back into the practice of law?”

“I'd be amazed if he did. But I want Joe to be happy. If that would make him happy, fine.”

“Even if you had to move.”

“Warner Pier would survive without us. Aunt Nettie could find another business manager. We'd have no trouble selling our house.”

“Even though your grandfather built it?”

“If Joe were to make the kind of money you were talking about last night, we could keep it as a summer cottage.”

“You'd have to leave your hometown.”

“I've already left my hometown. My hometown is Prairie Creek, Texas.”

I tried to keep a pleasant expression, but I was getting annoyed. “Marty, this conversation is lucrative. I mean, ludicrous! Why are you asking me? Does Joe strike you as the kind of man who would let his wife make his professional decisions? Ask Joe.”

I turned toward my van. “Make
him
an offer. He and I will talk it over, and he'll tell you what
he
decides.”

Marty Ludlum followed me to the van. “I didn't mean to annoy you, Lee. I'm just trying to figure out why Joe seems afraid to help me out.”

“Help you out? By going to work for your firm?”

“No! No, I need help here in Warner Pier.”

“Help here? Doing what?”

Marty smiled. “Local knowledge. Just background. An ear to the ground.”

I almost asked him what he needed to know. I have a lot of local knowledge about Warner Pier myself. And I sure did want to know what was going on.

But I remembered Joe had given a firm “no” the previous evening when Marty asked him about local knowledge. So I restrained myself. I merely got in the van, said good-bye, and drove off. Still curious.

Why on earth was Joe declining to give an old friend “background”? What had Marty Ludlum wanted to know about Warner Pier that Joe didn't want to tell him? It obviously wasn't the population or the tax rate. It wasn't the zoning regulations. It must be something about people who lived or visited there, something that Joe didn't feel free to discuss.

And how did Joe know in advance that Marty wanted information he wouldn't feel free to hand out?

Why was Joe distancing himself from someone he had apparently once regarded as a friend? Why had he asked me not to leave him alone with Marty?

Well, at least I'd seen the fabulous Endicott house. And I'd gotten a peek at the fabulous Marson Endicott himself and at his fabulous entourage. Including the guy with the potty mouth.

The security gate opened magically before me, and I realized someone must be keeping an eye on it through the electronic monitoring system. And as I drove through I realized why Potty Mouth had seemed so familiar to me.

Bald head. Crooked nose. Tough looks.

Potty Mouth was one of the guys who had been closeted with Joe and Hogan in the police station right before Aunt Nettie and I stumbled over Derrick Valentine's body.

I wasn't quite back to town when my cell phone rang. When I managed to dig it out of the bottom of my purse I saw that the caller was Joe's mom. Before Mercy got to the main reason for her call, I had to assure her that neither Aunt Nettie nor I had been traumatized by finding a dead man. But her true concern came out fairly soon.

“Mike and I are rescheduling our dinner for tomorrow night,” she said. “Tony and Lindy have some school function tonight. I talked to Joe, and he says he thinks he can make it then.”

“He'd better!”

“Is tomorrow all right for you?”

“Sure. Same time?”

“Yes.” Mercy paused. “Joe seems absentminded today. What's eating him?”

“I don't know.” She didn't say anything, so I spoke again. “I really don't, Mercy.”

“Something is bothering him.”

“I know. But he's not confiding in me.”

“That old friend of his is in town.”

“Old friend?”

Mercy sounded excited. “Yes, that big defense lawyer. Marvin Ludlum. He's representing Marson Endicott, and they've showed up here for some sort of conference on his case. I saw it on CNN.”

“I know. I've just been out to the Dome Home delivering chocolate for their lunch. And Marty Ludlum dropped in on us last night. But Joe didn't talk as if they were close friends.”

“In the past the old firm has used Ludlum to—well, liaise with Joe. Did he offer him a job again?”

“Not exactly.”

“If it's not that situation, what else could be bothering Joe?”

“Gosh, Mercy! He could be worried about some boat. Whether it should have a red stripe or a blue one. You know Joe.”

“You're right.” Mercy sighed. “If he gives you a hint, please pass it on to me. And don't let him forget tomorrow.”

She hung up before I could say that I'd tried to remind Joe about the important dinner the previous evening, and it hadn't done any good. Could it be that Joe was trying to avoid learning about any plans his mom and her boyfriend had made? Maybe this called for a confrontation. I decided that I'd make an effort to track Joe down and quiz him.

I pulled the van over, got out the cell phone, and rearranged my schedule. I called the office and asked Aunt Nettie if she'd heard from anybody, such as Myrl or Sarajane. She hadn't. I told her I wouldn't be back until around two o'clock. I called Lindy and told her I couldn't meet her until one o'clock.

Then I called Sarajane; I hadn't forgotten the two o'clock deadline I'd given her, and it was then after twelve. She answered the phone so quickly that I felt sure she was still waiting for a call from Myrl. And she sounded so disappointed to hear my voice—I wasn't Myrl—that I felt sorry for her. I guess that was why I gave her another hour. Besides, she promised renewed efforts to call all the underground railroad people she could think of during that hour, checking to see if any of them had heard from Myrl or Pamela.

Then I headed for Vintage Boats, where Joe hangs out most of his working days.

Joe's boat shop is on the inland edge of Warner Pier, on the Warner River, upstream from the main part of the town. He doesn't know how much longer he'll be able to hang on to the ten-acre site. Waterfront property, either lake or river, is valuable in Warner Pier, so his taxes keep going up. Some day a Marson Endicott lookalike is going to show up and offer him too much money to justify keeping the property to use for a forty-year-old metal building he could rebuild on any lot. Then he'll have to move the shop some place inland and give up having a private dock on a river that has access to Lake Michigan. He'll hate losing his dock, but he should make enough money to rebuild for cash and pay off his current mortgage. When he gets the right offer.

I pulled into the driveway and realized I wasn't Joe's only visitor. A Warner Pier police cruiser was parked beside Joe's truck. I recognized the number on the cruiser; Hogan was there.

I didn't know why Joe and Hogan had suddenly become best buddies, but I suspected that I wasn't going to get a word out of either of them while they could link their mental shields together into a wall of none-ofyour-business.

However, this was the perfect time to talk to Hogan privately about Sarajane, Myrl, Pamela, and the dadgum underground railroad. I considered this. But not ten minutes earlier I'd promised Sarajane that I'd wait.

I decided I couldn't talk to Hogan yet. I told myself that I'd get Sarajane to go with me to see Hogan in a couple of hours. I'd given up on hearing from Myrl and Pamela.

But the purpose of this visit was to find out what Joe was up to, and Hogan's presence might keep me from applying the third degree. Was it worth going in? I decided that I could at least back up Mercy's dinner invitation. I parked the van and went into the shop.

I didn't see either Joe or Hogan right away. Then the door to the one-room apartment at the back of the shop opened about a foot, and Joe looked out. He didn't look happy to see me.

“We're back here,” he said. “Eating lunch.”

I stamped the snow off my feet—Joe clears only a small area of his gravel parking lot—and walked back to the inner chamber. Joe lived in that room for four years after he bought the business, sleeping on a twin bed and cooking on a hot plate. He had given his twin bed away, but the room still has an old recliner, a hot plate, a small refrigerator, and a kitchen table and chairs. A dinky bathroom with a shower adjoins.