The Chocolate Pirate Plot (11 page)

Joe, the tall girl, and I met beside the fence surrounding the swimming pool. The girl was, as I'd suspected, Jill's roommate, Mikki White.

“Boy, do I feel dumb,” she said.

I assured her that she'd made a logical mistake. “You were expecting a lawyer named Woodyard, and when someone by that name showed up, you naturally assumed I was the person you were waiting for. But I'm in the chocolate business. It's just a coincidence that I came by looking for Maggie McNutt.”

“But she's not here. And neither is Jill. Hal didn't show up either, and he said he'd be here at four o'clock.”

I had belatedly remembered that Hal was a nickname for Harold. “Is Hal the guy Mrs. Van Ark called Harold Weldon?” I said.

“Sure.”

I turned to Joe. “He was Jeremy's roommate, but he moved out early in the summer.”

“I see.” Joe spoke to Mikki. “Why did Hal want to see me?”

“I don't know. He just called and said he needed a place to talk to you and asked if Jill and I would let him use our room.”

“I have an office. I wonder why he didn't want to see me there.”

Mikki's eyes got as wide as the sky over Lake Michigan. “He didn't want to wait until Tuesday.”

That was logical. Since Joe works only three days a week, he wasn't scheduled to have any office appointments until Tuesday.

Mikki kept talking. “Hal was real anxious to talk to you. I can't figure out why he's not here.”

I had thought of a reason. Hal, according to his landlady, was tall and acrobatic. I was still wondering whether he was the drowned man found at Beach Tree beach.

I spoke before Joe could, blurting out my question. “Does Hal have a tattoo? On his upper arm?”

Mikki looked at me as if I were crazy. “Not that I know of. I mean, he could. I've never seen him without his shirt. We're not on that sort of terms.”

Joe grinned. “What does he look like, Mikki?”

“He's tall. Dark hair. His eyes are really big. He has a heavy beard. I mean, he shaves, but he always has a five o'clock shadow. Why do you need to know?”

“I thought maybe I knew him. I'm trying to figure out why he wanted to talk to me.”

“I can tell you what he said. It sounded kind of funny.”

“What was it?”

“He said he didn't want to do the time unless he did the crime.”

I'm sure I gaped, but Joe nodded as if he understood what Mikki was talking about. Did he? Or was he merely doing his imperturbable-lawyer act?

A crime? If Hal was mixed up in a crime, yes, he probably needed a lawyer, so a call to Joe or some other attorney would be logical. But what sort of a crime could be involved? I'd been standing around becoming more and more sure that Hal was one of the elusive pirates. But that was no crime. Well, maybe if the law wanted to get technical, boarding a boat without permission was a form of burglary. But it was much on a par with trick-or-treaters coming to the door, since no harm was done, and it would be strange for the boat owner to call the cops. I hadn't heard of any boater who had objected to being boarded. They had bragged about it.

No, if Hal was worried about a crime, it probably had nothing to do with our funny summer pirates. But in the last fifteen minutes—ever since Ella Van Ark had told me Hal was an acrobat—I'd become convinced that he must be the drowning victim who had been found at Beech Tree Public Access Area.

While I was analyzing all this, Joe had been quizzing Mikki. No, Hal hadn't said anything that would make his cryptic comment more intelligible. Yes, she had asked him, but he had refused to explain further. He just said he needed a place to meet with Joe.

“I was surprised when he called,” Mikki said. “I mean, we're not that close.”

Joe's voice was noncommittal. “You don't see him regularly?”

“No, no! He quit his job at the theater. We're just buddies. Pals. We have a lot of repertoire.”

It took me a second to realize she meant “rapport.” Darn! Mikki was another Mrs. Malaprop, a dark-haired version of me. It was crazy.

After a few more minutes, Joe and I said good-bye to Mikki, and Joe gave her his cell phone number, so she could pass it on to Hal if he showed up. Then Mikki headed toward her room, and Joe turned toward our vehicles. I grabbed his arm.

“Wait a minute! Joe, I can't help wondering if Hal isn't the dead man the rescue team found this morning.”

Joe frowned, and I went on before he could speak. “Think about it, Joe! He's tall! He knew Jeremy well. He needs a lawyer, so he's in some kind of trouble. And you haven't heard the most important evidence.”

“What's that?”

“He's an acrobat!” I quickly sketched what Ella Van Ark had said about Hal and Jeremy doing their “tricks.”

“Don't you think Hogan should ask Mikki to take a look at the body?”

“I don't think she needs to bother, Lee.”

“Why not? Have they identified the man?”

“Not that I know of. But Mikki knew Hal because he worked at the Showboat Theater.”

“So?”

“Maggie and Jill both worked there, too. And they looked at the body. And they both said they had never seen the man before.”

I went to my van completely deflated.

Plus, I still hadn't found Maggie McNutt. I pulled out my cell phone and called her again. It seemed like a miracle when she answered.

I probably sounded desperate. “Where are you?”

“At the Showboat. I'm sorry I didn't check my messages earlier. I took Jill to get something to eat. By then it was so late, I just dropped her at the theater.”

I knew Maggie didn't have a role in that week's production. “Are you going home?”

“Yes. Is something wrong?”

“I'm not sure. But I sure would like to talk to you. Could you meet me at the office?”

“If you'll give me a Mexican vanilla truffle.”

“I'll have one with you.”

“I'll stop by the Coffee House.”

When I got to the office, Will was standing on the sidewalk outside. “Hi, Lee,” he said. “Just waiting for Brenda.”

I glanced at my watch. “Fifteen minutes before the shift changes.”

“We're going into Holland to a movie.”

“Have fun.” I went in meditating—not for the first time—on how starting the summer with a big fight had made Brenda even more attractive to Will than she had been. He was dancing attendance much more avidly than he had the previous year. Hmm. Not that I'd recommend a tricky move like picking a fight as a ploy that might possibly increase a guy's interest. Honesty remains the best policy. But hmm again.

Ten minutes later Maggie and I were in my glass-walled office, with the door shut against the noise of the tourists in the retail shop. A paper plate was on the desk between us. It held two Mexican vanilla truffles (“light vanilla interior formed into a ball and encased in milk chocolate”), two double-fudge bonbons (“layers of milk and dark chocolate fudge with a dark chocolate coating”), and a half dozen pastilles of dark chocolate with outlines of pirate treasure chests molded into their tops. The plate was flanked by Maggie's contribution, coffees from the Coffee House. Of course, we could have drunk coffee from the TenHuis break room, but the Coffee House has a blend of dark roast that Maggie and I both like plain and black. The bitter flavor was perfect with any kind of chocolate.

Maggie sipped her coffee, then bit a Mexican vanilla truffle and rolled her eyes in ecstasy. “Bliss,” she said. “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“Jeremy Mattox.”

“I told you everything I know about him.”

“Aw, come on, Maggie. You're interested in people, particularly young people. You probably know all his hopes, plans, and dreams.”

“Those are pretty far from facts.”

“I'll settle for surmises.”

Maggie stared at the ceiling while she finished her truffle and took two more sips of coffee. When she finally spoke, she was frowning.

“Surmises are all I can come up with on Jeremy. He was pretty closemouthed about his hopes, plans, and dreams.”

“So surmise.”

“Jeremy never told me anything about himself. Where he was from, how he learned about the stage, why he was interested in the theater—I have no idea about any of that. If I try to describe him, he comes out sounding like a nonentity.”

“A nonentity? Or a mystery man?”

“To me, a nonentity. To Jill, apparently, a mystery man.”

“You spent quite a while with her today. Did she tell you anything about him?”

“Very few facts. She did say he'd worked in Chicago theaters. Which made me wonder if he's working here under a fake ID.”

“Why would he do that?”

“It's fairly common. To work backstage in a city like New York or Chicago, you have to belong to the union. The Warner Pier Showboat can't pay union wages or offer union benefits. So if a guy is desperate for a job, he takes it under a fake name.”

“Would that be a reason for staging a disappearance?”

“I don't see why. If they get caught, they just drift away and deny the whole thing. The union isn't likely to track them down.”

Maggie sipped her coffee and nibbled a treasure chest pastille. “Honestly, Lee, these kids face so many temptations! I worry, worry, worry about them. They think they're all grown up and know everything, and they don't know anything!”

Maggie shuddered. I remembered that at nineteen Maggie had gone to California to try to break into the movies. She has never confided just what happened, but I do know that there are episodes from that time that she deeply regrets.

“There are so many pitfalls,” she said. “Bad guys are just lurking behind every potted plant, luring them into things that they'll be sorry for for the rest of their lives.”

“I know,” I said. “Those guys hang around beauty pageants, too. The only thing that saved me from having nude photos on the Internet was my mom. If I was asked to go on a photo shoot, she insisted on going along. It's funny how fast a lot of photographers lost interest in me as a model.”

Maggie laughed. “Did you ever have any interest in an entertainment career?”

“No! And a good thing, too, since I barely scraped by in the talent competition. I'd sing my medley of John Denver songs, smile, and retire to the back row, where the tall girls stood.”

“But you got to the Miss Texas competition.”

“One year out of the five I tried. I wasn't particularly disappointed. Accounting is a much safer way to make a living.”

“Too bad you can't do an audit for the talent competition.”

We both got the giggles at the thought of a beauty pageant that featured a contestant in a bikini with a ledger under her arm or wearing an evening gown and carrying a computer while demonstrating Quicken. It was a good five minutes before we got back to the subject at hand.

“Well,” I said, “if you don't know anything about Jeremy, what have you figured out about Jill?”

Maggie frowned. “Lee, you usually avoid gossip. So I don't think these questions are idle curiosity. What are you up to?”

I quickly sketched my suspicion that Joe and I were intentionally being drawn into some plot. And I wasn't sure just what the plot was about.

“But why were we the first boat boarded?” I said. “And we were the smallest boat. All of the others have been yachts. After Jeremy disappeared, why did Jill run past five houses to ask us to help her? Why did this Hal—a friend of Jeremy's—want Joe to help him with a legal matter? And what's happened to Hal? After he asked Joe to meet him, why didn't he show up?”

“I see your concern,” Maggie said. “But I have no idea what's going on.”

“I'm sure you don't. But Jeremy and Jill seem to be part of it. Whatever it is. So I thought I'd try to find out more about them.”

“Okay, okay.” Maggie took the final bonbon, then stared at the ceiling before she spoke again. “You hit a nerve, that's all.”

“With you? Why?”

“I guess I have a certain sympathy for Jill.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm afraid she's headed for trouble, Lee.”

Maggie leaned against the desk and looked at me with serious eyes. I could even see tears welling up.

“I worry about Jill, Lee, because she's just like I was at that age.”

M
y impulse was to go around the desk and give Maggie a big Texas hug. Then I remembered we were sitting in my fishbowl office, with all the world and Warner Pier able to look at us, so I restrained myself. I didn't want to call the attention of Warner Pier to the fact that Maggie had teared up.