The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up (12 page)

Aunt Nettie took her hand. “He looked as if he was sleeping, Patsy.”

Patsy nodded, and tears ran down her face. They ran down Aunt Nettie’s, too. After all, my Uncle Phil—the man she’d been married to for forty years—had been a homicide victim, too. He’d been killed by a drunk driver. I wouldn’t have described Hershel as looking “as if he was sleeping.” But if Aunt Nettie thought it would help Patsy to be told that he looked that way, it was fine with me.

I realized I was tearing up, too, mainly because I also missed Uncle Phil. But crying with Hershel’s sister made me feel like a hypocrite. I sympathized with Patsy, but I had regarded Hershel as a pain. Pitiable, yes, but a pain. Acting as if he had been a personal loss made me feel dishonest. Finding his body had been a shock, true. But what I was really interested in was the evidence that made Joe look guilty when I was convinced he had nothing to do with Hershel’s death.

I eyed Frank, still standing at the rail. Joe had said that the Grand Rapids man who wanted to buy the old Root Beer Barrel was someone Frank knew. Maybe Frank could tell me a little more about the circumstances. Under Chief Jones’s rule of “Cui bono?” or “Who benefits?” that guy was a suspect. He wouldn’t have wanted to buy the property if the old Barrel hadn’t fallen down.

I patted my eyes with a tissue, then got up and took my coffee cup over to the rail, standing beside Frank.

I nodded toward the rustic cabin under the trees, closer to the lake than the Waterloos’ house. “Is that where Hershel lived?” Yellow tape surrounded the cabin, and I could see a couple of guys bent over outside, apparently searching the ground.

“Yes. I guess we can redo it as a rental. Something.”

“You’ve done a beautiful job on this house. How old is it?”

“Patsy’s great-grandparents built it in 1919.”

“It’s lovely. Did you do the remodeling work yourself?”

“Oh, no. Trey Corbett was entirely in charge of our restoration project—designed the plan, found the subs, got the work done. Patsy made the final choice on the wallpaper, and I wrote the checks.”

“Writing the checks is a major contribution, Frank. Projects like that get out of hand financially real fast.”

“I will say that Trey paid some attention to the budget we had. I was nervous about the cost of the project, since he comes from a wealthy family and lots of those people have no idea of the value of money. We still had to scramble . . .” His voice trailed off.

I saw a way to introduce Frank’s links to construction, and I jumped in. “Your construction experience must have been a big advantage.”

“My what?”

“Your experience with construction.”

Frank chuckled. “I have no experience with construction. I can’t tell a paintbrush from a band saw. What gave you the idea I know anything about building?”

“Something Joe said. I guess I misunderstood his meddling. His meaning!”

“I think so.” Frank held out his hands. “See these? Ten thumbs. I can’t drive a nail. What would have given Joe the idea that I had something to do with construction?”

“Oh, he said you know the developer who’s interested in buying the old Root Beer Barrel property. That you were business associates. I suppose I deduced that you knew him through construction. But you must have known him through some other connection.”

“Known who?”

“I don’t know his name. The man who’s interested in buying the Root Beer Barrel.”

“I’m supposed to know this guy?”

“That was the impression I had. When the Barrel blew down, the man heard about it, realized it would make the property easier to redevelop, and came forward with an offer. He told Joe he’d heard about the property through you.”

Frank laughed. “That’s small town gossip for you.”

“It’s not true?”

“No. I was in California visiting my mother when that big storm hit. There may have been some discussion about it around here at the time, but I didn’t find out that the old Barrel had blown down for weeks. I definitely didn’t tell anybody about it.”

“Nobody in Grand Rapids?”

Frank shook his head. “I don’t know anybody in Grand Rapids who’s in construction or development. I don’t know anybody there at all. We only moved here five years ago—when Patsy’s mother died. All I’ve been able to find is a crummy job as night manager in a printing plant. I never get to put my nose out the door!”

“I guess I definitely misunderstood.”

Frank frowned angrily. “We only came here because of Hershel. We thought handling the trust ourselves would be easier.” He laughed harshly. “And now this!”

I heard Patsy’s voice. “Frank . . .”

Frank leaned close to me. “Don’t tell Patsy I was griping. We had to move to Warner Pier—and it’s fine, most of the time. A nice little town. But now and then I have to blow off steam.”

I nodded, and the two of us went back to Patsy. But I was confused by what Frank had told me. Joe had been definite about the prospective purchaser for the old Barrel’s plot. He’d said it was someone who worked with Frank.

There was probably a simple explanation. Someone Frank knew, but whom he didn’t know was in the construction or development business.

Aunt Nettie and I began to make noises about getting back to the office. But when I looked out toward the river I saw Chief Jones loping across the lawn with his disjointed gait. He carried a paper sack in his hand. He brought it up onto the porch and beckoned to Patsy, who went over to him.

Aunt Nettie and I kept edging toward the door, but I was curious. It was the same kind of sack Chief Jones had put the red rag in. I figured it was some sort of evidence.

“No!” Patsy spoke loudly. “I never saw Hershel with such a thing!”

We all swung to look at her. She looked around wildly, and her eyes settled on me. She took two steps in my direction. “Lee will know,” she said.

“What is it, Patsy?” I asked.

She reached for the sack, but Chief Jones pulled it out of her reach. “We don’t need to involve Lee,” he said. “I can ask Joe.”

But Patsy was still talking. “It’s a horrible color. Where could Hershel have picked up such a thing?”

She came over and looked at me, eyeball to eyeball. “Joe couldn’t do that, could he?” she said. “Even if he came over to Hershel’s house, he wouldn’t have killed him. Why should he kill my baby brother?”

I was still gaping when she turned and ran into the house. I turned to the chief. “Okay,” I said. “Let me see it.”

“Don’t touch,” he said. “We’ll check it for fingerprints.”

I put my hands behind me, leaned over slightly, and looked into the sack. I saw something a bilious, nasty green. I immediately knew what it was.

“Oh,” I said, making my voice casual, but loud enough for all the teacher-hostesses to hear. “It’s one of those giveaway pens Joe got to hand out at the wooden boat fictional. I mean, festival! I don’t think that a pen like that is conclusive evidence that Joe was at Hershel’s house. Those pens are probably all over town.”

The chief nodded. “We’ll find out,” he said.

Aunt Nettie and I left. Despite my attempt at being casual, I was more upset than ever. Because those pens were
not
“all over town.”

Joe had bought five hundred to hand out at the wooden boat festival up at Muskegon, and he had deliberately picked the most eye-catching color the novelties company offered. The pens were a perfectly ghastly shade of chartreuse. I hated the color so much I’d refused to have one on my desk. As far as I knew, Joe still had three hundred of them in a box in his desk and a half-dozen in a coffee mug beside his computer. They wrote fine and had good erasers, but the color was so horrible he couldn’t even give them away.

Aunt Nettie and I said gracious good-byes and left. We arrived back at the shop to face two reports. Hazel, Aunt Nettie’s chief assistant, said that Deer Forest Bed and Breakfast needed four dozen crème de menthe bonbons (“The formal after-dinner mint”) so they’d have plenty to put on their clients’ pillows every night. Nancy Burton, the owner of the B&B, couldn’t leave to come and get them because she was waiting for a plumber. And Tracy, who’d been on telephone duty, said that Trey Corbett had called me twice and seemed extremely eager to reach me. He said he’d call back in twenty minutes.

“Well, I can handle both those problems,” I said. “First, if Hazel has the crème de menthe bonbons ready, I’ll drop them by Nancy Burton’s. That shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. Then I’ll be here when Trey calls.”

At last, a couple of things I knew how to cope with.

I
dropped the mints off, then turned back toward downtown Warner Pier. As I turned onto West Street, I saw the pretty little cottage at the corner of MacIntosh Avenue. It might look authentically Victorian, but it hadn’t been there when I was a teenager. Aunt Nettie had told me that Trey Corbett had built it to house his architectural and construction business.

Looking back, I should have kept straight on to the office and waited for Trey to call. But the impulsive side of my nature took over, and I turned into the parking lot. The SUV was there; I deduced that Trey was, too. We could talk face-to-face.

As soon as I was inside the office I began to suspect that my deduction was wrong. The outer office was empty, and I could hear Meg’s voice coming from the inner office. I peeked around the corner and saw her talking on the phone. Meg frowned and waved. I mouthed, “I’ll wait,” and popped back into the outer office.

Darn. I didn’t want to talk to Meg. I wanted to talk to Trey, and he apparently wasn’t there. But I could hardly leave again without telling Meg why I’d come. I moved across the office, making sure I couldn’t hear her conversation.

The office was beautifully decorated, with furniture in classic styles. No gimcracks, no curlicues, no cute Victorian. Just plain, good design. The front wall was all proper Victorian-style windows, but more of them than the Victorians would have wanted. A giant, abstract oil painting dominated the back wall. One side wall, the one farthest from the office door, was taken up by an object I call a map rack. It’s actually a dozen racks, each designed to hold two large maps or drawings, back to back. The racks swing out from the wall like a book when you want to look at them, then swing back flat for storage. Rich Godfrey, my exhusband, was a real estate developer, and he always had a couple in his office, ready to display plats for potential property buyers.

The map on the front of the rack was a detailed plat of Warner Pier. I wandered over and took a look at it. Yes, there was Peach Street, where TenHuis Chocolade was located. There was the corner where my friend Lindy Herrera lived, Ninth and Cider Alley. I took a close look at North Lake Shore Drive, particularly the area around the old Root Beer Barrel neighborhood. The map didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

I idly swung the rack to look at the map behind it. But there was nothing back to back with the plat, in the position corresponding to page two in a book. And the “page three” rack didn’t hold a map. It held an elevation—an architect’s drawing. I recognized it as Patsy and Frank Waterloo’s house. It was a beautiful picture. Trey had drawn an idyllic home, surrounded by lush plantings and flowers, and he had tinted the whole thing with dreamy pastels. The elevation was a work of art. In the corner was a neatly lettered title, “Home of Frank and Patsy Waterloo, Warner Pier, Michigan.”

I turned to the next rack and saw another elevation. This one was Trey’s own office building. The drawing was just as lovely as the one of the Waterloo house. “Office Building,” the label read. No details. I turned to the next rack. It was a house I had never seen, though I recognized the style—Italianate. The label read, “Home of George and Ellen VanRiin.” I didn’t know the VanRiins, but they lived in a beautiful house.

I turned the rack again and again, looking at a half-dozen more lovely drawings of quaint Victorian buildings. All of them were on right-hand “pages,” as it were, of the rack. I was sorry when I came to the last one, a drawing of a bed-and-breakfast inn I recognized. I assumed it was the final thing in the rack, but I automatically looked behind it. To my surprise I realized there was one more elevation. This one was in the left-hand rack, back to back with the previous drawing.

This elevation was of a much larger structure than the others. I didn’t recognize the building, but again the drawing was beautiful and the colors delicate. In fact, it might have been the most charming drawing of all. The building stretched out over the whole width of the paper. It had tall trees behind it. One section was like townhouses, delightful cottages with steeply pitched roofs. The other end was a three-story building with broad verandas. It looked like a period resort, a relic of some Victorian watering place. It made me long for a floor-length skirt, a pompadour, and a parasol.

I looked at the corner of the drawing to see where it was located. But there was no label, no name, no hint as to what or where it was.

I was flipping back though the drawings when Meg Corbett suddenly shoved herself between me and the map rack. She spoke angrily. “What do
you
want?”

I took a step backward, determined to be nice, even if Meg wasn’t. “Meg, Trey’s elevations are lovely! He should have a show of them.”

“Trey is very talented. But you didn’t come to see his elevations. Why did you come?”

“I wanted to talk to Trey a minute. Is he here?”

“No.” Meg began turning the sections of the map rack back, one after the other. “Why did you want to see Trey?”

I almost turned and walked out. Meg was certainly not being hospitable. But I reminded myself that I was a Texan, not a damyankee, and Texans are polite. “I guess I was looking for free technical infection—I mean, information! Like collaring a doctor at a party to ask him about your athlete’s foot.”

“What did you want to know?”