The Chocolate Bear Burglary (24 page)

“Did he threaten you?”

Another nod. She pulled her arm out of the sweatshirt she wore and pulled up the sleeve of her T-shirt. “The marks are almost gone,” she said.

True, the bruises on her upper arm were faint, but they were there. And they definitely had been made by fingers.

Aunt Nettie hugged her, and I patted her shoulder.

And another part of the picture came into focus. “You came up here to get away from this guy, right?”

Tess nodded.

“But you were afraid he’d follow you. Am I right again? Maybe even afraid he’d kill you?”

Another miserable nod.

“Tess, that morning when Joe and I came to the motel—were you afraid Jeff had killed him?”

This time she sobbed. When she could talk again, she said, “I knew it didn’t make sense. But I’ve been scared for so long. It seemed like Jeff was the only person who would help me. If he tried to protect me . . .” Then the tears really ran.

Aunt Nettie hugged her.

“Tess, you know there are laws against this kind of thing,” I said. “You could send that guy to jail.”

“But my dad! His job! Wally says he can get my dad fired.”

“If he does, his dad will be very sorry,” I said. Maybe I spoke more firmly than I should have, but I felt that I had to calm Tess’s fears. “There are laws about that, too, Tess. If this guy’s dad fires your father because you won’t have sex with his son, your dad could sue the pants off him. He could wind up owning his boss’s business.”

Tess’s eyes got big. “But my dad would never sue anybody!”

“You’d be surprised what dads will do when their girls are threatened,” I said. “You haven’t told your parents all this, have you?”

She shook her head.

“That’s the first thing you must do. Can you call them now?”

“No! I mean, both of them would be at work.”

Aunt Nettie spoke gently. “You must call them tonight, Tess. I’m sure they’re worried sick.” She hugged Tess again. “Let them have an opportunity to back you up.”

Tess still looked miserable, but she seemed calmer. After a little more reassurance, she left the office, telling Aunt Nettie she’d go back to work as soon as she had washed her face.

“What do you think?” I said. “Does that explain why Tess has been in such a state? Why she ran away from college?”

“It certainly seems to explain it, Lee. Violence against women is such a hard problem to deal with. A lady named Rose worked here for a while. She used to come in all black-and-blue. She finally got the nerve to leave her husband, but she wound up having to move clear across the country to get away from him. Hiding out sometimes becomes the only defense.” She sighed. “It’s really sad.”

I had tossed my jacket on a chair when I’d come in. I stood up and started to hang it up on the coat tree in the corner of the office. I heard a clunk, and looked down to see a key on the floor.

“Rats! I forgot to hand Joe the key to Gail’s shop. I’ll have to take it over to Mercy.” I put the jacket back on and stomped out the front door, unhappy at the interruption.

As I crossed the street I noticed that Joe’s truck was still sitting in front of his mom’s office. When I went inside Mercy beckoned me into her private office. Joe was in there, too. He was on the telephone. He nodded, but he didn’t speak into the phone. I decided he was on hold.

“I forgot to give the key back,” I said. “Plus there’s been a new development, though I’m not sure that it means anything.”

I repeated Tess’s story. Halfway through it Joe turned his back on us and began to speak into the telephone receiver.

I kept talking. “It’s hard to believe that Tess would be so scared she ran away from college, instead of telling her parents and getting a lawyer.”

“Tess is just a young, inexperienced girl,” Mercy said. “And some women never get up the nerve to confront these situations. It can become an insurance problem—health coverage, even death benefits and liability. That’s one of the reasons our state organization took it on as a project.”

I edged toward the door. I didn’t have time to listen to a speech. “I know it took a lot of women speaking out to begin to make a difference.”

“Oh, yes! Violence against women was definitely a crime that was hidden away—along with insanity, incest, and even cancer. But it covers all segments of society from the poorest to the richest. Why, a few years back the ex-wife of the CEO of a blue-chip company wrote a book describing years of abuse by her husband. She would hide in the closet when she heard him come in from a board meeting, afraid he’d come upstairs and beat her!”

“That’s terrible.”

“Even today it’s hard to get legislators involved. That’s why we were so lucky to get the support of Hart VanHorn.” She smiled. “I guess most of us fail to get interested in other people’s problems unless we have some sort of vested interest.”

I stared at her. “Are you saying Hart has personal experience with wife beating?”

Mercy gave a little chuckle. “He’s never been married, so I don’t think he’s ever beaten anybody or been beaten. But he speaks very emotionally about the issue, and the episodes he describes from his years as a prosecutor . . .”

I was still staring at Mercy. Hart had a personal interest in spousal abuse. He had an alcoholic uncle. And according to Greg Glossop—who occasionally was right, darn him!—his father had been a drinking buddy to that uncle. Could Hart’s father have been a wife beater?

But that was silly. Who would have the courage to abuse a woman with a personality as strong as Olivia VanHorn’s? Plus, Olivia was old money. Why would she put up with a situation like that? She could walk out. Olivia was afraid of nothing.

Well, she was afraid of one thing. The conversation I’d eavesdropped on had revealed that. She was afraid of damaging Hart’s political career. Had she been just a little too emphatic when she denied that there was any scandal in Hart’s past?

Before I could complete the thought, Joe spoke. He had hung up the phone. “The librarian’s going to fax something you might want to see.”

“The librarian?”

He nodded impatiently. “Yeah, after you wondered if Timothy had ever been accused in any sort of assault—a barroom brawl or anything—I decided Webb might be able to find out.”

“Jeff’s lawyer?”

“Sure. Webb’s one of these guys who knows everybody, and Mom said that Timothy lived in Grand Rapids before he moved down here full-time.”

I was still confused. “Webb knows a librarian?”

“At the newspaper. He called down there and got me in touch with the person who’s in charge of the archives. She’s faxing me a story about Timothy. It seems he once punched out his brother-in-law at a Grand Rapids banquet.”

I
was definitely interested in that, so I hung around until Mercy’s fax began to groan. A client came in, and Mercy had to go back into the front office, but Joe and I stood over the machine, reading as a copy of a newspaper clipping slid out. It wasn’t a long story, but the headline spread over three columns:

The date was only a few weeks before Vic VanHorn had died. The gist of the story was that U.S. Representative and Mrs. VanHorn had been attending a political dinner, and Timothy Hart had been seated next to his sister. The word “drunk” was never used, but witnesses reported that just before the baked Alaska was served, Timothy got to his feet, went around his sister, and accosted her husband, “calling him names.” At first he demanded that VanHorn accompany him outside. When the congressman refused, he threw a punch. Bystanders pulled Timothy away from the table and removed him from the dining room. Timothy continued to yell, but the newspaper did not quote any of his shouts. The congressman apparently had not been seriously hurt.

“Wow,” I said. “I bet Olivia was frosted.”

“There’s another sheet coming,” Joe said.

He pulled it off the fax machine. This headline was much smaller, probably one column. It had run the day after the first story:

That story reported that Representative VanHorn told the prosecutor that he had not been injured and pled the case of his brother-in-law, citing him as a Vietnam veteran. Since the congressman did not want to file charges, the prosecutor had agreed to release Timothy Hart, “one of the heirs to the Hart foodprocessing fortune.”

And that was all the
Grand Rapids Press
had in its files on Timothy Hart.

“They hushed that up in a hurry,” Joe said.

“I can see why,” I said. “I guess Chief Jones ought to see these clippings. This definitely shows that Timothy has a history of violence.”

Joe offered to take the faxes down to the police station, and I went back to the chocolate shop. I sat in my office and stared at my computer screen, feeling unhappy about the situation. In spite of his problems, Timothy Hart was a likeable old guy. I wasn’t pleased with the thought of him as a killer. Of course, I liked the thought of Jeff as a killer even less. Yes, the more Timothy could be made to look like a possible killer, the more likely it would be that Chief Jones would release Jeff.

And the closeness of Timothy’s attack on his brother-in-law to the death of that brother-in-law was interesting. Had Timothy still been angry the night Vic VanHorn wandered out into a heavy rainstorm and stood too close to the bank that overlooked Lake Michigan?

Chief Jones would say I was letting my imagination run away with me on that one. Olivia VanHorn would do a lot to avoid scandal, but it was hard to believe she’d cover up a fight between her husband and her brother if it made her a widow.

The whole situation made me feel miserable. I opened my desk drawer and had a Dutch caramel from the box Joe had given me. It didn’t make me feel better, but it did remind me that I hadn’t had lunch. I admitted to myself I wasn’t getting any work done, stood up and put on my jacket, then told Aunt Nettie I was going down to the Sidewalk Café for a sandwich.

At least the weather was pleasant that day. The sun was shining, and I tried to cheer up as I walked down the block. But the thought of Jeff in the Warner Pier Police Station was like a heavy weight on my shoulders. I was sure he was innocent. But all Joe and I had been able to do was dig up another suspect. We had no real evidence against Timothy.

Then there were Gail’s actions right before her death. She’d acted crazy. Why had she been so pleased when the mold turned up missing after the burglary? What had she meant when she e-mailed Celia Carmichael and told her she’d found a piece of valuable glass, “or even plastic”? Didn’t she know which it was?

Darn it! Joe had gotten so close to finding out whether Timothy still had his old sports car—and checking to see if it had a broken taillight. . . .

I stopped dead in my tracks, right in front of Downtown Drugs. Old glass or maybe plastic! Could Gail have been referring to the taillight of a car? Could she have been aware that Timothy’s car was still around, and that it had a broken taillight? Could she have tried to blackmail Timothy over the broken taillight?

Suddenly it became very important to find out whether that classic sports car still existed. I half turned, ready to go down the street to the police station.

And at that moment Hart VanHorn walked out of Downtown Drugs and almost bumped into me. He smiled.

“Oh!” My squeal sounded guilty to me, but I guess I sounded thrilled to Hart.

He beamed at me. “Listen, I’m still eager for us to go out sometime.”

“That sounds supper, Hart.” Supper? Had I said supper? “Super!” I said. “It sounds great. But right now things are in tumult. I mean turmoil.”

“The police are still holding your stepson?”

“Yes. But we did find his parents. They’ll be here tonight.”

“Good. Then all the responsibility won’t be on you.”

“All the blame may be.”

I was aware that I sounded glum. Hart looked sympathetic. “I wish I knew something to do to help.”

I thought briefly of suggesting that he turn his uncle in for killing Gail. But I quickly faced the fact that even if Timothy was involved in Gail’s death, Hart probably knew nothing about it. Timothy, even with his pickled brain, would be unlikely to confess to his nephew.

“Webb Bartlett seems to know what he’s doing,” I said. “And Jeff has confidence in him.” It was time to change the subject. “You’re bustling about today.”

“I’m off again. Some vacation.” Hart gestured, and I turned and saw his mother’s Lincoln parked by the curb. “Mother and Uncle Tim are with me. We stopped to pick up a prescription, and I’ve got to talk to a guy in Grand Rapids.”

I waved at Timothy Hart and Mrs. VanHorn and said good-bye to Hart. I went on toward the Sidewalk Café but I didn’t go inside. When I got to the restaurant I turned and looked back. Yes, the VanHorn car was turning the corner, headed toward the highway to Grand Rapids.

I lost interest in eating lunch and formed a new goal.

Running into Hart might seem coincidental, but in a town of twenty-five hundred, coincidences like that happen all the time. You can’t go to the grocery store, or to the drugstore, without running into someone you know. But this particular meeting seemed to be full of meaning.

If Hart, Olivia, and Timothy were all going to Grand Rapids—driving time at least an hour up and an hour back—then the Hart-VanHorn compound would be deserted, possibly all afternoon.

It was the ideal time for a burglary.

I took two deep breaths and made up my mind. I would break into that barn-garage where the Harts and VanHorns stored their vehicles, and I would check under every canvas cover until I made sure that a 1968 MGB wasn’t there. And I’d check out the snowmobile.

I made a swift U-turn and went back to the shop. I stuck my head in, told Aunt Nettie I was going to be gone for a while, then got into my van and drove off. I tried to do it all without hesitation. I knew that if I thought the situation through, my law-abiding nature would pop back into control, and my career as a burglar would be over before it started. So as I drove to the Hart-VanHorn compound, a quarter of a mile south of Aunt Nettie’s driveway, I concentrated on how to accomplish the task at hand.