The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle (25 page)

It was the most romantic thing anybody ever said to me. Joe didn’t want to get married. He wanted to marry me.

We might have sat in the dirt, snuggling, for a long time, but Monte decided he needed attention. He wiggled in between us, put his front paws on Joe’s shoulders, and began to lick his face. We both laughed, and we were getting to our feet when I heard footsteps, coming fast. It was, of course, Aunt Nettie. She hugged my neck. The tears in her eyes told me how relieved she was to see me alive and unhurt.

“I’ll go to the Grundy cottage and wait for the chief,” Joe said. “You two go back to the house.”

“The rifle’s under the bathroom,” I said.

“How did it get
there
?”

“I wanted to hide it after I locked everybody in the cellar.”

Joe closed his eyes and shook his head. “Let’s not go into it. You’ll have to make a statement later.” Then he kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll just have to remember that Texas gals can be pretty fierce. They can face down three villains armed with rifles and come out on top.”

He trotted off down the road toward the Grundy cottage. Aunt Nettie and I went back to her house, and I took a shower and washed my hair. It took two washes and three rinses before I felt spider-free.

Aunt Nettie kept stalling about dinner. It was eight o’clock, and I was getting pretty hungry when Joe and Chief Jones showed up, and I realized why she’d been waiting.

The chief came in the dining room, put his hands on his hips, stared at me, and shook his head slowly. “Lee, what are you? Some kind of vigilante? Vernon says you grabbed that rifle away from Maia and threw the two of them down in that cellar without even letting go of the pup.”

“Actually, the puppy accomplished it all. He distracted Maia. That let Vernon jump her. Then Monte wound both of them up in his leash. I didn’t try to grab the rifle until he had them subdued.”

“That’s not the way Vernon tells it.”

“Maybe Monte and I worked as a team. But is what Maia said true? Did she kill her uncle?”

“She’s saying she did,” Hogan said.

Aunt Nettie interrupted to insist that Joe and Hogan join us for dinner. It wasn’t too hard for her to persuade them; especially when she said she’d hoped they’d come by, so she’d cooked enough for four. “And don’t explain anything until I come,” she said. “Just make small talk.”

Ten minutes later she had a platter of bratwurst and sauerkraut on the table, along with carrot and raisin salad and two kinds of bread from the good bakery. “You’ll have to talk and eat at the same time,” Aunt Nettie said. “Lee and I have a lot of questions.”

I asked the first one. “Hogan, is Maia explaining why she killed Silas Snow?”

“Not very clearly. Something about her grandmother. Since her grandmother’s been dead since the 1930s, that’s hard to understand.”

“Was her grandmother the mother of Julia Snow? Or the wicked stepmother, the one in the book?”

Aunt Nettie answered. “I’ve been asking the ladies in the shop,” she said. “She was the stepmother. Julia’s father—I think his name was William Snow—had been left a widower with the one daughter, Julia. I guess he sort of let her grow up on her own. Finally, when Julia was fourteen, he married again. The second wife, Ellen, was only eighteen. Naturally, she and Julia didn’t get along. She had a new baby the first year she and William were married. That was Maia’s mother. Ellen had another baby the year after Julia ran off. Silas. But her health wasn’t good. She went over to Jackson and stayed with relatives while she was pregnant. And she died, or so they said, when Silas was born. Silas and Maia’s mother were raised by William’s sister.”

The chief stopped with his fork in the air. “Did you say, ‘Or so they said?’ Didn’t the ladies in the shop think this second Mrs. Snow really died?”

Aunt Nettie sighed. “Hazel asked her mother, who’s way over ninety but sharp as a tack. And she said that the stepmother was sort of nutty. She hadn’t mentioned being pregnant again to anybody in the neighborhood. And she left the first baby behind; William’s sister came to take care of her. At the time, there was some gossip about the new baby, Silas. Some people thought he looked a lot more like Julia than like the stepmother.”

I gasped. “That fits right in with what Dolly told us. Julia told Dolly that ‘her family’ killed her lover. She blamed her father, I’m sure. But if it had really been her stepmother . . . Well, there’s a situation.”

Joe shook his head. “If the two women—both of them just teenagers—had been rivals not only in the household, but also for the affections of this gangstertype, they certainly had the makings of a hot situation.”

“Darn,” I said. “Maybe it
would
make a good movie.”

We all thought that over, then Aunt Nettie went on. “Dolly’s grandmother, Julia Snow, told Dolly her baby by Dennis Grundy had been adopted. But her father could have arranged to take the baby himself.”

Hogan shook his head. “That would make Silas the son of Julia Snow and Dennis Grundy. Hard to believe.”

“And who knows what happened to the stepmother, Ellen,” I said. “Even if William wasn’t willing to turn her in for murder, he may have thrown her out. If he didn’t kill Dennis Grundy himself.”

“We’ll never figure all that out,” Hogan said. “It’s been too long. But I can see that, if Silas told Maia a story so different from what she’d written—well, she was none too stable to begin with. She might have thought it would ruin the chances that her book would be the basis of a movie. It could well have pushed her over the edge. And she picked up the shovel.”

I shuddered. “But how did Vernon get involved?”

“His story is that he found Maia standing over her uncle’s body. He got her home, then made her take a long shower. He told her to say that they’d been together at the house from four o’clock until Aubrey and Nettie came to pick them up at seven.”

“But Maggie had come by their house.”

“Right. Actually, they could have claimed they didn’t hear the doorbell for the shower. Or some other reason. We wouldn’t have been able to disprove it. But Maia’s too nutty to cover up anymore, and Vernon’s—well, resigned is the best word, I guess. He did all he could to protect her.”

Joe spoke then. “Actually, Vernon claims he was simply trying to keep her from killing anybody else until he could get her committed.”

The chief made a growling noise. “Not that that would have kept us from charging her. But he thought it would.”

I remembered how Vernon had sobbed after I told him Aubrey was probably a con man. To realize that Maia had killed her uncle because she had a false idea her book was going to be made into a movie would have been hard to take. That raised another question, and I asked it. “Why did Maia try to kill Aubrey?”

“Because Vernon told her it looked like he was a crook. Then he mentioned he’d told Armstrong he could go over to the Grundy cottage. Next thing he knew, or so he claims, Maia had slipped out of the house and her deer rifle was gone. When he heard that somebody had taken a shot at Aubrey, he didn’t know just what to do.”

“He tried to drug her,” I said. Joe and Hogan both stared at me, openmouthed, but Aunt Nettie nodded.

We told them about going out to Ensminger house on a condolence call and finding that Maia was out and Vernon wanted to know why she hadn’t taken her medicine. Then, when I went back a day later, Maia was none too coherent. “I guess when Vernon couldn’t keep Maia at home, he kidnapped Aubrey to keep him out of her way,” I said.

“That’s his story, anyway.” Hogan shrugged. “I’ll leave the charges up to the prosecutors.”

Hogan took a big bite of bratwurst, and Aunt Nettie spoke. “But why did Maia try to kill Lee?”

Hogan nodded toward Joe, and Joe took up the tale. “That first time we went to the Grundy cottage, Lee and I walked back into the orchard. We noticed a fruit ladder by a big maple tree. But right about then, you and Aubrey called out that you were ready to go, so we turned around and went back. What Lee and I didn’t notice was that Maia was up in that tree.”

“What!” I gasped. “And we didn’t see her?”

“No, the leaves were thick. But as near as the lab guys can tell from the angle of the shot that hit Aubrey’s van, the rifle was fired from up in that tree.” Joe gestured with his fork. “Lee, when you went out to the Ensminger place and saw Maia, did you mention that tree?”

“Not that I can remember. I asked Vernon some questions about orchards. Maybe I mentioned ladders. Or something.”

“Whatever you said, Maia interpreted it as a threat. She decided to lure you out to the lonely end of Inland Road and take care of the situation.”

Aunt Nettie suddenly dabbed at her eyes with her napkin, then left the table. I started to go after her, but Hogan waved me back into my chair.

“Let me,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of experience with tearful ladies.”

Joe and I stared at our plates. Then he reached over and squeezed my hand.

“Don’t say anything,” I said. “You don’t want two weeping women on your hands.”

He grinned. “Maybe you’d like to know what Ken was doing hanging around Snow’s place.”

“What?”

“Looking for property. He thought Silas might sell him an acre or so, maybe even the Grundy cottage. He and Maggie had talked about building a house.”

“I thought they were interested in buying Lindy and Tony’s house and remodeling.”

“They were. They are still, I guess.”

“But Maggie called Lindy and told her they might be leaving Warner Pier.”

“That was when Maggie thought Aubrey was going to tell whatever it is she doesn’t want told. She thought she was going to lose her job over it. But she and Ken weren’t communicating very well. He got the idea she wanted to build a house from scratch, maybe in a more rural area. So he tried to approach Silas about buying a lot.”

“What a mix-up.”

Aunt Nettie and Hogan came back to the table then. Apparently Hogan had had the right formula for cheering her up; Aunt Nettie looked pink and smiley.

“Okay,” I said. “When is Aubrey going to come and get his dog?”

Joe and Hogan cleared their throats and looked all around the room. Even Aunt Nettie changed her expression from happy to slightly guilty. “Oh, dear,” she said. “Hogan, you simply have to tell Lee what’s going on.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “We’re stuck with Monte.”

Hogan laughed. “You are for a few days at least. I’m holding Aubrey for Wisconsin authorities.”

“What! What did he do?”

“They allege he ran a con in a small town, claiming he was going to make a movie there and looking for local investors. I got a notice about it a couple of weeks ago on a little e-mail news list I follow.”

“So you knew he as a crook the minute he showed up! And you let Aunt Nettie get involved with him!”

Aunt Nettie giggled. “Actually, I was encouraged to get involved with him.”

“Hogan!” I was scandalized.

“Lee, I couldn’t hold him without a warrant. And if he left Warner Pier the Wisconsin police would have to wait until he showed up someplace else. I thought if we made it look as if there was a strong possibility that a well-to-do businesswoman such as your aunt was interested in his project, he’d hang around. I didn’t think it would take more than forty-eight hours to settle the whole thing.”

He reached over and squeezed Aunt Nettie’s hand. “I will admit I didn’t anticipate his actually taking her out. But he didn’t have any history of violence, and Nettie had the sense never to be alone with him for more than a few minutes.”

Aunt Nettie laughed. “Just call me Undercover Auntie!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said.

“Well,” Hogan said, “you were so scandalized at the thought of your aunt going out on a date . . .”

“Not on a date! On a date with a strange man I found very suspicious!”

Hogan nodded. “And you were right to be suspicious, Lee. You rumbled Aubrey Andrews Armstrong right away. And so did Joe. He barely met the guy, and he came running to me about him.”

Joe nodded. “Hogan recognized the description, including the dog, right away, and we decided to keep quiet until he could find out where Armstrong was wanted.”

“But what about the other people in Warner Pier he cheated? Like Sarajane, at the B&B?”

“I think there’s enough money in the Victim’s Compensation Fund to satisfy Armstrong’s local debts.”

“Good. But that leaves my first question unanswered. What about Monte? Do Aunt Nettie and I have to build a fence and enroll in obedience classes?”

“That I can’t answer,” Hogan said. “Monte still belongs to Armstrong. He’ll have to decide what to do about him. Since a purebred dog is worth quite a bit of money, Monte may be for sale.”

I found out a few more things over the next few days.

The antique money, Hogan learned, had been planted by Maia, as Aubrey and Joe had suspected. She apparently thought this would make her novel seem more authentic and attractive to a moviemaker.

Aubrey Andrews Armstrong’s business card—the one I’d been looking for when I discovered the body of Silas Snow—had turned up in the trash can at the fruit stand. I’d never thought to ask Hogan if it had been found.

The director of the Michigan Film Office e-mailed on the next Monday, telling me and Chuck O’Riley that a fake movie producer had been making the rounds of the upper Midwest and that we should contact law enforcement officials.

Maggie never offered to tell any of us what threat Aubrey had used to blackmail her. I think, however, that she did tell Ken. He’s just as protective of her as ever. And they did buy Lindy and Tony’s house.

Little Tony Herrera, ten-year-old son of my pal Lindy, listened to his parents talking about the case and got the idea that Monte was going to have to go to jail with his master. He cried all night. When his grandfather, Warner Pier mayor Mike Herrera, heard about this, he drove to the Warner County Jail and made Aubrey Andrews Armstrong a cash offer for the dog. Aubrey, who definitely needed money at that moment, agreed to sell. He did make Mike promise that Tony and Monte would enroll in obedience training. So Monte now lives with Tony, Lindy, Little Tony, Marcia, Alicia, and Pinto in the Vandermeer house—with a bedroom for each kid and a big backyard. Pinto still rules that backyard.