The Chocolate Cat Caper (17 page)

“A
ny body could have put that there.” I spoke quickly, but my voice sounded weak. Just about as weak as my stomach felt.

VanDam nodded. “Right. That alley obviously gets a lot of use.”

“So the syringe doesn’t prove anything,” Aunt Nettie said. “Some drug user might have walked through there and tossed it in the trash.”

“Right,” VanDam said. “It will have to go to the lab for testing.”

I spoke again, and I tried to make my voice a little stronger. “Even if it was used to poison the truffles, the only thing that would prove is that somebody is trying to make sure my aunt and I are the prime suspects. After all, our Dumpster is plainly marked with TenHuis Chocolade.”

VanDam kept his face deadpan, but Underwood looked skeptical. I could understand why. The broken syringe was circumstantial evidence, of course, and it could easily have been planted. But it was right at our back door, so it pointed to us. Though it was hard to visualize either Aunt Nettie or me being dumb enough to put the broken syringe in our own Dumpster, then demand that the state police search our business.

Any of the numerous suspects in the murder of Clementine Ripley could have gotten hold of a syringe. Greg Glossop sold them. Chief Jones probably had an evidence locker full of them. Any of the rest of us—Mike Herrera and his crew; the inmates of the Ripley house, Marion McCoy and Duncan Ainsley; Joe Woodyard; even Aunt Nettie and me—any of us could have stolen one from a diabetic friend or gone behind the counter at the Superette pharmacy or pocketed one from the cabinet in a doctor’s office. This was a small town, after all.

Any one of us was smart enough to go to the library in a large city—like Grand Rapids, less than a hundred miles away—quietly take a book on poisons from the shelf, look up how to make cyanide, get hold of either peach or cherry pits and follow the recipe, fill our stolen syringe, then go to Clementine Ripley’s house prepared to kill her by injecting the poison into some sort of food. The appearance of the chocolates in a box particularly set aside for her would have been—what’s the word?—serendipitous.

Greg Glossop did have the edge in one regard. As a pharmacist he ought to know how to manufacture cyanide from cherry or peach pits without looking it up. He could have injected cyanide directly into Clementine Ripley’s body, then also injected cyanide into the chocolates, which were still around after he got there. Hard to do, but not impossible. In fact, he might have even doctored some prescription he’d filled for her, causing her to fall ill. As an EMT he’d know he would be called in if she collapsed.

Actually, as far as I was concerned, Glossop was the leading suspect. Maybe that was simply because I didn’t like him. I wasn’t even sure he had a motive. But I was willing to bet that he’d had some unusual run-in with Clementine Ripley.

Who would know for sure? The answer, of course, was Marion McCoy. But how could I ask her?

Why not try plain English?

The answer was so simple that it made me shake all over. Did I have the nerve to seek out the intimidating Marion McCoy and ask her a question about Greg Glossop and Clementine Ripley?

But even more terrifying was the thought that Aunt Nettie might be a suspect in Clementine Ripley’s murder. Compared to that, bearding Marion McCoy would be a snap.

I’d do it. But how could I get hold of Marion privately? If I went out to the Ripley estate, she’d probably tell the security guard to send me away. How could I get in?

If Joe Woodyard inherited, he’d actually have the say-so on who came in and out of “his” house. I could call him.

No. Joe and I hadn’t had friendly relations. I didn’t want to ask him for any favors. So how could I do it?

By then the search team was leaving. They were going to take a short break, the team leader told us, then head out to Aunt Nettie’s house to search there. I agreed to meet them in forty-five minutes.

I was so downhearted that I didn’t have much energy, but Aunt Nettie immediately went to the refrigerator and took out ten pounds of butter and two half gallons of heavy whipping cream. She paused and looked at me. “You’ll be here to help me lift the copper kettle, won’t you?”

“For half an hour. What are you going to make?”

“Crème de Menthe bonbons. We’re nearly out. Nancy Burton came in Friday and bought six dozen.”

“Who’s Nancy Burton and why on earth did she need that many Crème de Menthe bonbons?”

“Nancy manages the Deer Forest B-and-B. She puts our bonbons on the pillows when she turns the beds down, so she uses several dozen a week. Usually she warns us when she runs low, but Friday she got caught short. So we got caught short. We got the
bojkie
made yesterday, but I need to get them filled and ready to go into the enrober tomorrow.”

I thought I knew what she was talking about. The
bojkie
, a Dutch word pronounced “bokkie,” is the chocolate shell that holds the filling for a bonbon. The “enrober” is a key piece of equipment in making bonbons. As its name implies, the enrober coats—or “enrobes”—the filled bojkie to produce the finished bonbons.

The enrober is the reason that very good truffles can be made at home, but making good bonbons in a typical kitchen is a lot harder. Truffles are little balls of filling that are rolled by hand in melted chocolate, but bonbons are made by filling little cups molded from chocolate. The whole bonbon is then put through a sort of shower-bath of chocolate in this special machine, the enrober. Aunt Nettie explains the difference by saying truffles are made from the inside out and bonbons from the outside in.

A small chocolate shop like TenHuis Chocolade enrobes once or twice a week; the Brach’s Chocolate Cherry plant probably enrobes twenty-four hours a day. Our enrober is four feet long; theirs probably covers a city block. The theory is the same, but our chocolate doesn’t contain preservatives, and we think it tastes a lot better.

Aunt Nettie usually runs the enrober on Monday, which is usually her slowest day.

“Call me when you need me,” I said. I went into the office and began to balance out the cash register receipts from Saturday night, finishing up the chore I’d left undone when Tracy, Stacy, and I fled the reporters. As I counted nickles, quarters, dollars, and fives, I worried about how to get through to Marion McCoy.

When I glanced through the big window that overlooked the kitchen, I could see Aunt Nettie lighting the gas fire for the big copper kettle. That kettle is a beautiful object, but it’s made for use, not admiration. It has its own freestanding gas burner, about the size of a small charcoal cooker. Copper is used for the kettle because it heats more evenly, and Aunt Nettie always uses this particular kettle to make the “base”—the mix of butter, sugar, and cream that is then flavored and turned into all the different fillings for bonbons and truffles.

Aunt Nettie added sugar and lifted the kettle onto the gas burner—the kettle isn’t hard to lift when it’s not hot—and began to stir.

I had balanced the register and prepared my deposit, and steam was rising from the copper kettle when I suddenly knew how to get into the Ripley estate.

“Lindy,” I said. “Lindy will be there until four o’clock.”

I glanced at my watch. It was already three o’clock, and I couldn’t leave for a few minutes—until I’d helped Aunt Nettie with the kettle.

I shoved the deposit into a drawer, locked my desk, and went out to the workroom. “How quickly will the base be ready?”

“Maybe ten minutes. Why?”

“I thought of an errand I need to get done before I meet the search team. And I need to make a phone call.”

For once my accountant’s methodical mind was useful. When I had used my credit card to call Rich, I had written down the number I was calling from. It was the kitchen phone in the Ripley estate, and Lindy had told me it was a separate line. I found the number deep in my purse and called it. Lindy answered.

“It’s Lee. I need a favor.”

“Sure.”

“I need to talk to Marion McCoy. Can you tell the security guard to let me in?”

“Well . . . I guess so. I could tell him you’re bringing me a pound of coffee or something.”

“Great! What kind of coffee do you want?”

Lindy laughed. “I really could use some. They usually use the special blend from Valhalla Coffee and Tea. Drip grind.”

“I knew it wouldn’t be Folgers. Valhalla’s right down the block, so it’ll be easy to get some. Please don’t leave until I get here.”

I whipped down the block to Valhalla (“Coffee fit for the Gods”), one of Warner Pier’s three specialty coffeehouses, and picked up the coffee, getting back just in time to help Aunt Nettie lift the heavy kettle onto a metal worktable.

“Please call the police station and pass the word along that I may be a little late meeting the state police,” I said.

Aunt Nettie nodded. She was already in the storeroom looking for her Crème de Menthe. “Whatever you say, Lee. Oh, dear, they did move the flavorings around when they searched!”

I headed for the Ripley estate. After I identified myself as a coffee deliverer, the massive gate slid back, and I drove in. I circled the house and parked near the kitchen, in the gravel area where the catering vans had been two days before.

Lindy was looking out the kitchen door. I handed her the coffee.

“Now,” she said, “what’s this all about?”

“I need to talk to Marion McCoy. I hope I don’t get you fired.”

“Oh, this job’s only going to be for two or three days anyhow. And Joe’s the boss, not Marion. He won’t fire me if she gets annoyed. They can’t stand each other.”

“Do you know where Marion is?”

“In the office back by the garage. The cops finally left, and she went right in there and started working on the computer. Mr. Ainsley was in there, too. But he went out for a walk. Listen! Why don’t I make Marion a cup of tea? You can take it in to her.”

Lindy said the kettle was already boiling, so I agreed. Lindy made the tea in a china pot and put it, along with a cup and saucer, sterling silver teaspoon and little sugar bowl, on a tray.

“I hope she doesn’t get so mad at me she throws the teapot,” I said.

“Oh, that wouldn’t be ‘being responsible for the estate,”’ Lindy said.

Actually, I nearly broke the teapot when Champion Yonkers decided to walk under my feet as I started out of the kitchen.

“You come over here, cat,” Lindy said. “Stay out of the way. Come on. I’ll give you a plastic cup to bat around on the floor.”

“I’m just glad he didn’t jump on me,” I said. “Well, here goes.”

I walked quickly down the peristyle, trying not to lose my nerve. I really don’t like unpleasant scenes, but the thought of Aunt Nettie in jail gave me courage. I gulped only once before I rapped on the office door.

Marion’s “Come in!” sounded exasperated. She frowned when she saw who was disturbing her. “What are you doing here?”

“I ran an errand for Lindy. She sent you some tea. But I wanted to ask you a question.”

I placed the tea on the credenza behind her desk, and I went on talking before she could call the security guard.

“Did Ms. Ripley have some problem with the pharmacist at the Superette?”

“That Glossop? She didn’t have the problem. He did. Did he tell you about it?”

“No. In fact, he wouldn’t say much—and that’s what made me feel they’d had trouble. He talks a lot about everything else. But he wouldn’t say anything about her.”

“He’s an officious ass.”

“No argument there. But was there some specific problem between them?”

“He refused to fill a perfectly legitimate prescription.”

“How could he do that?”

“It was marked no refills. Normally, a druggist would be satisfied with calling the prescribing doctor for an okay. But not Glossop! He refused to refill it at all until Clementine had seen her doctor again. And of course, he did all this on a Saturday afternoon, so it was difficult to get hold of the doctor. It caused a lot of inconvenience. Clementine was planning to file a complaint with the State Board of Pharmacy.”

Marion frowned. “Why are you asking about this?”

“My aunt and I both handled the chocolates that held the cyanide. So I feel that I must learn all I can about the whole situation.”

Marion stared at me. Abruptly, without changing her expression, she began to guffaw.

Her laughter was more hysterical than hilarious. It was more frightening than if she’d shouted in anger.

Almost immediately—as if someone had been waiting for an unusual sound—the door behind me opened. The security guard, Hugh, rushed in.

“Marion!” he almost shouted. “Calm down!”

Her laughter diminished. “Oh, Hugh! This stupid girl thinks Greg Glossop killed Clementine!”

Hugh looked from Marion to me and back again. “Well, I guess he could have,” he said.

“Glossop! That milksop! His tongue may be poisonous, but he’s too cowardly to give anybody cyanide.” Marion turned to me. “No, you little fool. You’re completely on the wrong track.”

She stood up and glared at me. Oddly enough, what struck me was that she was as tall as I am. When you’re almost six feet tall, it’s unusual to look another woman in the eye.

Hugh went around the desk and patted her shoulder. “Now, Marion, you’ve got to calm down,” he said. “We’re not through this yet. Just hang on a few more days.”

Marion shoved him away. She kept glaring at me. “You idiot. Glossop didn’t have anything to do with Clementine’s death. Surely any fool can see that Joe Woodyard killed her.”

This conversation wasn’t going anyplace. Which doesn’t mean that silence fell.

Marion kept raving. “I tried to tell Clementine he was no good. He was just after what he could get—connections, money, a reflection of her status. But, no! He had a hold over her no friend or associate could break. She used to look at him just the way she looked at your aunt’s chocolates! It was embarrassing to see her. She’d stand any humiliation from him.”