The Chocolate Bear Burglary (26 page)

I nodded. “Yes. I’ve simply got to get Jeff out of jail. And that meant I had to find that car. The taillight is broken. It’s going to implicate your brother.”

Mrs. VanHorn’s eyes widened. She made a noise that could only be described as a ladylike grunt. Her mouth twitched. Then she led the way into the garage and went to the back of the sports car. “I had suspected Timothy had taken the car out,” she said. “I guess I lacked the courage to check the rear end, even after I heard the police were hunting a sports car with a broken taillight.”

She leaned over and looked at the taillight closely. Then she sighed. “We might as well call the police.”

“I can drive back to the station and talk to Chief Jones.”

Mrs. VanHorn shook her head. “No, I have to face it. You’re quite right about your stepson. We can’t let that innocent young man remain under suspicion any longer. Come into the house with me, and I’ll call Chief Jones.”

I was amazed at how calmly she was taking the whole thing. I followed as Mrs. VanHorn went to a door in the center of the back wall, then led me up a stairway that ended in a beautifully decorated kitchen. “Take your coat off,” she said. “There’s a coat rack behind the door. Just let me put my boots away, and then I’ll telephone the police.”

She walked on through a foyer and down a carpeted hall. I was a little surprised that she didn’t take her own boots off before she stepped onto the carpet. Then I realized that Olivia hadn’t been running through the snow the way I had. Her boots were dry.

I found a small rug near the back door, and I stood on it, stamping the snow off my feet, trying to keep from spotting the tile. I unzipped my jacket, but I didn’t take it off, though I saw a navy blue Polartec parka hanging on the rack Olivia had mentioned. I wondered if Timothy had worn it when he chased me with the snowmobile.

I was still standing there, feeling ill at ease, when Olivia VanHorn came back down the hall. I was surprised to see that she hadn’t taken off her boots, or her coat either.

I was even more surprised when she pulled a pistol from behind her back.

I gave a yelp. “What’s going on?”

Olivia sighed. “You’re a burglar, Lee, and I’m going to shoot you.”

“Shoot me!”

“Yes. Young woman, you are simply too nosy. I must protect my family.”

“But Timothy—he’ll get off with diminished responsibility. I can’t believe you would kill to protect him!”

“Timothy? Don’t be silly. Timothy wouldn’t kill anyone. He passes out by nine o’clock every evening. He couldn’t possibly get out in the night, meet people, do the things I had to do to protect my son.”

“Your son!”

“Certainly. You can understand that—after all the trouble you’ve taken to protect a boy who’s merely your stepson.”

“Hart? You’re trying to protect Hart?”

“It’s imperative, I’m afraid. I really have no choice. If this story comes out, it will ruin his political career. Please step a little further into the kitchen.”

I ignored her request. “Did Hart kill Gail Hess?”

“That wretched blackmailer? Of course not!”

“Then how will killing me protect Hart?”

“We won’t go into that. Please, step a little further into the kitchen.”

I didn’t budge. “Why?”

“So it will be clear that you were an intruder, that I surprised a burglar who was actually in the house. Then it will be legal to shoot you.”

I backed up a step.

“No, no!” Mrs. VanHorn spoke as if I were a backward child. “Don’t move away. Come forward.”

I stared at her. This situation was unbelievable. This ladylike, gracious woman was going to kill me. And she had invited me into her home so that it would look legal. It was like the advice of a cynic—if you shoot a burglar on the porch, drag him inside the house to make it look legal.

The whole thing was so absurd I was tempted to laugh. But the pistol in Olivia VanHorn’s hand and the calm resolve on her face kept the situation from being funny.

I put my hand behind me and touched the doorknob. To get out I’d have to open the door and run all the way down the narrow stairway. Mrs. VanHorn would have plenty of time to shoot me as I ran.

Or I could rush forward and try to slam into her. She’d have plenty of time to shoot me that way, too.

But either fate would be better than standing there and letting her kill me, then pass my death off as the shooting of a burglar.

Now Mrs. VanHorn’s eyes narrowed. “I’m tired of waiting,” she said. “Move forward!”

My fingers gripped the doorknob. Getting shot in the back would be the best way, I decided. That way she wouldn’t have such an easy time passing my death off as the murder of an intruder.

I shrank back against the door.

“Very well,” she said. “I’m not waiting any longer.”

She raised the pistol. I turned the door handle.

And the doorbell rang.

Mrs. VanHorn and I both froze, and in the awful silence I heard Timothy Hart’s voice coming from outside. “Olivia? Olivia! Someone’s broken into my house! There are tracks all over the kitchen floor and the front door’s unlocked! I called the police!”

Olivia’s head whipped toward his voice.

I whirled, yanked the door open, and plunged down the steps to the garage.

Thumpety thumpety! My boots hit every other step. Then a louder thump drowned them out. A shot! I didn’t think it had hit me. I fell down the last three steps, but I caught myself with the door handle. The door into the garage swung open, and I stumbled out and ran headlong into Hart VanHorn.

I screamed like a Texas banshee.

Hart grabbed me. He screamed, too. But the sounds he made produced words. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

At first I could only point at the door and shriek. Then I managed, “A gun! She’s got a gun. She’s going to kill me!”

Olivia came rushing out. She was still brandishing her pistol, and she aimed it at me.

Hart’s grip on my arms tightened, and for a second I thought he was going to hold me still so his mother could shoot me. Then he slung me around.

He shoved me behind him. He put his body between me and his mother. He yelled, “No! Stop!”

Olivia looked like a madwoman. Her calm façade had completely collapsed. “Get out of the way!” she screamed.

“No!”

“She’s a burglar! I’m going to shoot her!”

“No!” Hart let go of me, and I staggered against his mother’s car. A shot echoed thunderously, bouncing off the garage walls.

Hart jumped toward his mother. They were both yelling. He grabbed at the pistol, and it went off again.

Blood spurted. I shrieked. Hart growled.

Olivia screamed. “I’ve shot you!”

The “you” was Hart. He clutched his arm and leaned against the fender of his mother’s Lincoln. I realized he was still trying to stay between me and the gun.

Olivia dropped the pistol to her side and stared at him. Fear, horror, shock, and anger washed over her face.

In the sudden silence, Hart spoke quietly. “Mother, no matter how many people you kill, I’m not going to run for Congress.”

Now the emotion on Olivia’s face was agony, and her voice was a whisper. “Hart, Hart. I love you. I wanted to protect you.”

“I know, Mother. But I can’t hide behind you any longer.”

“Does it all have to come out?”

“Yes. This can’t go on.”

Olivia sobbed. After all the screaming, the yelling, and the shots, that simple sound may have been the most soul chilling of all.

Then she turned and ran back into the house.

Behind me I heard Timothy Hart’s voice. “What on earth is wrong with Olivia?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But call an ambulance. Hart’s been shot.”

I heard a piercing, shrill sound. A siren. The cavalry—personified by the Warner Pier Police Department—had arrived.

I saw a box of what looked like clean rags on a shelf near the door to the kitchen stairs. I grabbed a handful. I went to Hart, helped him out of his jacket and applied pressure to his arm. Timothy was disappearing up the driveway, I assumed to direct the police car to Olivia’s garage. In a few seconds I heard him speak. “Thank God you got here so fast. Olivia’s gone berserk. And we need an ambulance.”

Right at that moment I heard a far-off, muffled thump from inside the house. Hart closed his eyes and groaned, way down deep in his chest.

I was using both hands to hold the rags on his arm. “I’m so sorry, Hart,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

It didn’t seem adequate, but what else was there to say?

Faced with an armed suspect, Jerry Cherry followed procedure and called for a backup. Chief Jones and a Michigan State Police car were there within minutes. The chief and the state cop entered the VanHorn house through the garage while I sat in the patrol car, shaking. Olivia did not challenge them or answer the questions they called out to her.

They found her in the bathtub, dead, still wearing her fur coat. There was a note on the bathroom counter, which the chief let me see later. “I killed Gail Hess,” it read. “She was a filthy blackmailer, and she had found out I broke into the TenHuis shop and took the mold. Fifteen years ago, I killed my husband. Hart had nothing to do with it.”

As usual, word of what had happened at the Hart-VanHorn compound spread through Warner Pier rapidly. By the time I got to the police station to make a statement, Joe was on the spot. He met me with a big hug, a hug I deeply appreciated, and he didn’t reproach me for breaking and entering.

We were sitting on a bench in the main room, holding hands, when Hart VanHorn and Timothy Hart came in. Hart’s arm was in a sling.

Timothy gestured at Hart. “He should have stayed in the hospital.”

Hart shook his head. “My arm’s not that serious,” he said. “I need to talk to Chief Jones, and I want to do it now.”

“It’s all my fault!” I didn’t know the words were coming out until I’d spoken them. “I suspected Timothy of being our burglar, because I learned he’d still owned his MGB as recently as a year ago. So I—I admit it—I broke into the storage barn at the compound looking for that car. When it wasn’t there, I looked in your mother’s garage.”

“And you found the MGB,” Hart said.

“Yes. And the taillight was broken. I was desperate to get Jeff out of jail.”

“I could have told you the car was there, but I didn’t know about the taillight.”

I decided to ignore that. “I thought your mother and Timothy had gone to Grand Rapids with you.”

“No, they went only as far as Holland. I had to pick up my SUV at the dealer’s there, so they dropped me off and came back. None of us went to Grand Rapids.”

“You said you had to see a man in Grand Rapids.”

Hart smiled gently. “I didn’t deliberately mislead you, Lee, but what I said was that I needed ‘to talk to a man in Grand Rapids.’ I never intended to go there to talk to him. I—well, I knew Mother was up to something, though I wasn’t sure just what. I wanted to talk to my psychologist about it. I called him from Holland because my cell phone works better up there.”

I clutched Joe’s hand, but I spoke to Hart. “Your mother caught me in the garage. First she acted quite friendly. She laughed! She invited me into the house. Then she said I was a burglar, and she was going to shoot me.”

Hart dropped his head.

“I know it’s hard to believe,” I said. “I couldn’t believe it while I was running for my life.”

“Oh, I can believe it,” Hart said. “Mother was very coolheaded, and she had an extremely creative way of handling the truth. She wouldn’t have wanted anybody to know about that car. Any more than she wanted anybody to know I’d been seeing a psychologist.”

“She didn’t want people to know you’d seen a psychologist?” I was mystified. “So what? So who hasn’t? That’s nothing to get excited about.”

“It might have meant nothing to you, maybe, but to Mom it was the kiss of death to my political career.”

“Surely people are not that ignorant. . . .”

But Hart was shaking his head. “It wasn’t the mere fact that I was seeing a psychologist, Lee. It was what she was afraid I might tell him.”

“Oh.” Suddenly I didn’t want to know any more.

But it seemed I was going to, because Hart went on talking. “You see, I killed my father.”

I was silent, and Joe squeezed my hand.

Timothy spoke. “But this is stupid, my boy. Nobody killed your father. He fell! It was an accident. Nobody ever suggested it was anything else. And now both you and Olivia claim to have killed Vic.”

Hart smiled at his uncle. “Mother didn’t kill him, Uncle Tim. She was still trying to protect me. Me and my wonderful political career. But I can’t stand to lie about it anymore. I killed my father. Oh, it wasn’t murder—only manslaughter, I guess. Maybe even justifiable homicide.

“Fifteen years ago—when I was twenty—my father was drunk. He threatened my mother. I punched him, trying to protect her. He fell against the china cabinet, the one that held my grandmother’s collection of chocolate molds. The cabinet fell over. It landed on him, and the back of his head was smashed in.

“I was willing to call the police. At least an ambulance. But my mother wouldn’t hear of it. She got a wheelbarrow from the storage barn, and the two of us threw my father’s body over the bank into the lake. His death was accepted as an accident.

“The china cabinet was smashed, and it had blood on it, and one of the molds—some kind of a bear—had a lot of blood on it. I broke the cabinet up with an ax, and we burned it in the fireplace. But we couldn’t burn the doors, because of the metal and the glass. Mother washed the bear mold and tossed it and the other molds into a box in the basement of the bungalow. She put some other old kitchen utensils on top, made it look like a box of junk. The collection was too well known to simply get rid of, and I’m sure she figured it would end up going to a museum or something eventually.”