The Chocolate Cat Caper

Table of Contents

 

I walked past Clementine Ripley’s kitchen and into the huge, cold reception room. And there I stopped, because six people were looking in my direction in horror.

For a moment I wondered widly what I had just done. Then I realized that they weren’t looking at me. They were looking over me. All six of them were staring at something over my head. And whatever it was, it was making a horrible choking sound.

I quickly took six steps forward and whirled to see what they were looking at, what the ghastly noise was.

I looked up just in time to see Clementine Ripley tumble over the balcony rail. She hit the floor in front of the bar, landing all splayed out, like a beanbag doll. She didn’t move. But something round and white rolled toward me and stopped at my feet.

It was an Amaretto truffle from TenHuis Chocolade. . . .

SIGNET
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First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

First Printing, March 2002

Copyright © Eve K. Sandstrom, 2002

All rights reserved

 

 

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

ISBN : 978-1-101-56380-9

Dedicated to the wonderful folks at Morgen Chocolate, Dallas, with thanks for explaining how to make fine bonbons, truffles, and molded chocolates and for allowing TenHuis Chocolade to copy their product line. And with special appreciation to Rex Morgan, Andrea Pedraza, Mark Van Giles, and Besty Peters.

This book could never have been written without the help of many friends and neighbors from the shores of Lake Michigan, including: Judy and Phil Hallisy; Tancy Paquin and Susan McDermatt; Ellie Bellone; boatbuilder Tom Bolhuis; Ellen Clark, Saugatuck City Clerk, and Michigan lawman Bob Swarta. In addition, Lucy Zahray, poison expert and friend to the mystery writer, and Inspector Jim Avance, of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, helped with advice and information, as did David Frost and David Havell, breeders of Birman cats.

“E
very town has a crooked lawyer,” I said. “But even crooks have the right to buy chocolate.”

“Clementine Ripley isn’t our town’s crooked lawyer,” Aunt Nettie said scornfully. “Clementine Ripley is just a crooked summer visitor. And I’d be a lot happier if she kept her crookedness elsewhere.”

“We can’t refuse her business.”

“We can refuse if we’re not going to get paid.”

“Oh, I’ll make sure we’ll get our money before she gets her chocolate.”

Aunt Nettie knotted her solid fists on her solid hips and stood solidly on her solid legs. Solid is definitely the word for Jeanette TenHuis. Even her thick hair, blond streaked with gray, with its natural curl firmly controlled by a food-service hairnet, looked substantial and dependable—hair that wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. She is five-footfour and may weigh 175, but she doesn’t look fat. She looks like a granite statue hewn by a sculptor who got tired of chiseling all the excess stone off a big block, so he just whacked a little around the edges, then polished the whole thing smooth and shiny.

But if I compared Aunt Nettie to one of the delectable chocolates she makes, I’d say she was a Frangelico truffle (described in her sales material as, “Hazelnut interior with milk chocolate coating, sprinkled with nougat.”). In other words, she’s firm outside, but soft at the heart and has a slightly nutty flavor. When I left the guy I sometimes refer to as Rich Gottrocks and gave up my career as a trophy wife, all my other relatives told me how stupid I was. Aunt Nettie offered me room, board, and a job running the business side of her chocolate shop and factory while I studied for the CPA exam.

Of course, after a couple of days of working on her books, I saw she wasn’t being merely philanthropic. My uncle’s death eighteen months earlier had thrown her into a financial hole I hoped was temporary, and she needed a cheap manager. But I needed a place where nobody knew my ex-husband, a place to lie low and gather energy for a new attack on life. So we made a good pair.

Soft center or no, Aunt Nettie was quite capable of refusing to sell chocolates to Clementine Ripley, even if it cost her money. It was my job to keep her from doing that, so I spoke firmly. “Listen, Aunt Nettie, when you brought me back to Warner Pier, you said the business side of TenHuis Chocolade was my responsibility. And the business side can’t stand for you to snub a two-thousand-dollar order. That would buy a bunch of all-natural ingredients. So load those chocolates up.”

She rolled her round blue eyes, and I knew I’d won. “All right, Lee,” she said. “But you’ll have to deliver them. I won’t speak civilly to Clementine Ripley.”

“Sure.”

“And you’ll have to use your minivan. Because of the air-conditioning.”

“I’ll be glad to,” I said. “Maybe I’ll get a look inside that house.”

“And make sure we get our money!”

“Cross my heart.”

I watched while Aunt Nettie loaded six giant silver trays with handmade truffles and bonbons and with fruits dipped in chocolate coating for Clementine Ripley. Candies in dark chocolate, milk chocolate, white chocolate; strawberries and dried apricots half covered with dark chocolate; fresh raspberries mounted on disks of white chocolate and drizzled with milk chocolate—she arranged them into swirling designs of yummy. Each type of truffle or bonbon was decorated in a different way or came in a different shape. A dark chocolate pyramid was coffeeflavored. The white-chocolate-covered truffle with milk chocolate stripes was almond-flavored, its milk chocolate interior flavored with Amaretto. The oval bonbon, made of dark chocolate and decorated with a flower, had a cherry-flavored filling. This went on through sixteen different kinds of truffles and bonbons.

When I’d worked behind the counter as a teenager, I’d known them all. Now I could identify only a few, but that didn’t matter. All were genuine luxury chocolates—no jellies or chewy caramels or hard centers—and every flavor could lift me into a state of ecstasy. Aunt Nettie’s chocolates were guaranteed to wow the guests at the fund-raiser Clementine Ripley was sponsoring for the Great Lakes Animal Rescue League. It was a big event, or so the Warner Pier weekly had claimed. Guests were coming from Chicago and Detroit—all carrying big checks for the Rescue League.

I snagged an Amaretto truffle Aunt Nettie hadn’t placed on a tray yet and bit into it, savoring every sweet, almond-flavored morsel. Every TenHuis Chocolade employee is allowed two free chocolates each working day—a perk I found more pleasant than a company car would have been.

When the first tray was completely filled, Aunt Nettie covered it with plastic wrap, and I picked it up and carried it toward the alley, where I had parked.

“Start the air-conditioning!” Aunt Nettie said.

“I will, I will! I’m not taking a chance on having a couple of thousand dollars’ worth of chocolate melt all over my van.”

Warner Pier’s summer weather is usually balmy. People come here to get away from the heat elsewhere in the Midwest. Most Warner Pier folks don’t bother to have air-conditioned cars, and many—including Aunt Nettie—don’t even have air-conditioned houses, though she keeps the chocolate shop and workroom chilly. But the lakeshore does have a few really hot muggy days each summer, and this happened to be one of them.