The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up (18 page)

“Trey offered to give Joe and me a tour of this place,” I said.

“You should see it,” Lindy said. “The Corbetts have lent it out a few times for special events I served, but it’s hard to get inside. It’s fabulous. Like going back in time. All the original furnishings.”

“I think I’ll take a closer peek, as long as we’re here.”

We both got out of the van and walked up close to the gate. I craned my neck to see around the darn trees. “I can see one corner,” I said. “Queen Anne modified. Gee! It matches the side you can see from the river.”

Lindy laughed. “If you can identify the style of the house by seeing one corner, you’ve been hanging around with the artsy-fartsy crowd too much.”

All I could see of the house was the tower that held up the cone-shaped roof. The bottom two floors were clapboard and the sides of the tower’s top floor were shingled. It was all, of course, painted gray.

“I wonder why they put the observation tower on the inland side of the house,” I said.

“It’s on the lake side.”

I turned around and looked behind me. “Lindy, Gray Gables is on the river, not the lake. The lake is nowhere near here.”

“Look at a map, Lee. It’s only about half a mile. When this house was built, or so I’ve been told, you could see the lake from the house.”

“Unbelievable! I told you all these trees would cause problems. It would have been fabulous to be able to see the river on one side and the lake on the other. But no more. Not that this isn’t a lovely spot.”

Lindy took a deep breath. “And one of the loveliest things about it is the smell,” she said. “Just like TenHuis Chocolade.”

For a moment I thought I must smell like maple flavoring. Then I sniffed and caught the same odor Lindy had identified. “It
is
chocolate,” I said. “Where do you suppose it’s coming from?”

“It can’t be from Gray Gables. That’s too far away.”

We looked around. No sign of human habitation. Except . . .

“Lindy! There’s a house over there.”

I pointed. Among the trees to our right I had caught sight of tell-tale evidence. A straight line, running diagonally among the tree branches. Straight lines are never found in nature.

“Oh, my gosh!” Lindy said. “There is a house. And it’s real close—right behind that row of trees. But there’s no drive.”

I pointed to a narrow gap in the bushes. “I guess that’s a path.”

“But how would you get to the house in a car?”

At that moment the bushes burst asunder and a giant stepped out. “The drive comes in from that road on the right!” a voice roared. “It’s wide enough for my VW!”

Lindy and I actually clutched each other. I was nearly as startled as I had been when Hershel popped up outside the window of Joe’s truck. “Yikes!” I said. “Where’d you come from?”

The giant—now I realized it was a giantess—laughed. It was a deep, rolling laugh, a laugh that matched her appearance. I’m very close to six feet tall, and this woman towered over me. She must have been at least six foot three. And she was broad. I would guess her weight at well over two hundred pounds; she had a bosom like the prow of a battleship. And after the first shock of her size, her coloring was equally shocking. Her hair was a bright red, and her face was ruddy and freckled. Her eyes bugged, and they were bright blue. She was wearing blue jeans and an enormous, brilliant blue sweatshirt with the name of an Ann Arbor restaurant across the front.

“Didn’t mean to startle you!” she roared. “I’m staying in the cottage for the summer! Heard a car stop! Stepped out to see what was going on!”

“We were gawking at Gray Gables,” I said. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”

The giantess laughed again. “Ho! Ho! Ho! Not at all!”

Lindy was peeking through the trees behind the woman. “Did you say you’re staying out here? Isn’t it awfully remote?”

“That’s what I like about it!” The woman didn’t seem to be able to speak at a normal sound level. Every sentence was shouted out. “Wanted to get away from people for a couple of months! Cabin’s pretty ramshackle, but it has electricity! Walk to beach! Only low-rent place I could find!”

She looked at me and her expression grew even more jovial. “Hey! You work in that chocolate shop. I can tell by your shirt!”

“Yes.” It was hard not to yell back at her. “I’m the business manager, Lee McKinney. Have you been in?”

“Naturally. Ms. TenHuis gave me a tour!”

“Oh, Aunt Nettie mentioned it. You’re the friend of Mrs. Corbett.”

“Yes! Not a close friend, but she rented the cottage to me. I loved your shop! Chocolate! That’s my kind of flesh-pots!”

“Be sure you come back.” I walked toward the woman, with Lindy trailing along. Our reason for being there belatedly reappeared in my tiny brain. “I suppose the police have already bothered you today.”

“Police! Ho, ho, ho! Do I look like a crook?”

“Not at all. They’re investigating an accident I was involved in last night.” I sketched our reasons for wanting to know if the black panel truck had been seen in the area.

“Doubt he’d come up this road. Dead end!”

“Right. Unless the driver was a stranger. So you didn’t hear anything?”

“Not last night. Two nights ago was the commotion!”

“I doubt that had anything to do with our accident. But what happened?”

The giantess gestured over her shoulder with a thumb. “Back in the woods! Closer to the Interstate! Hobo jungle!”

“Oh!” Lindy gasped. “I’d be terrified if I was out here alone.”

The red-haired woman gave a shrug, and her whole body shook as if she’d been hit by an earthquake. “They don’t bother me. I don’t bother them.”

“Except two nights ago,” I said. “You said you heard a commotion.”

“They didn’t bother me! I just heard them. Thrashing around in the woods. Yelling!”

“Oh.” I decided the woman knew nothing about the black panel truck. But she was sure an interesting character and apparently a TenHuis customer. “Let me give you a card,” I said. “Next time you come in the shop, we’ll have an extra sample for you.”

I got my purse out of the van and wrote “Quarter pound box” on the back of a business card. Then I gave it to the giantess.

She read my name, then offered her hand in shaking position. “I’m Dolly Jolly!”

I remembered that Aunt Nettie had said she had a funny name. My opinion must have showed, because Ms. Jolly spoke again. “Dorothea, of course! But I’ve always been Dolly!”

“Like Dolley Madison. One of my heroines.”

She beamed. “Love chocolate!”

“You must be baking,” I said. “We smelled cookies.”

“Chocolate chip. I’m writing a cookbook!”

“Then you’re a real foodie. So’s Lindy.” I introduced them and included Lindy’s job. “I’m just a bookkeeper. And I’ve got to get back to work.”

We got in the van and started to drive away, but after I’d turned around Dolly Jolly waved us down again. She came up to my open window and spoke.

“Another fellow might have seen your panel truck! Prowls around everywhere! By here nearly every day the first week I moved in! Little guy with dark hair and a big mouth! Raspy voice! Looks like a frog!”

“
H
ershel!” Lindy and I spoke at the same time.

“That this name? Figured everybody in town would know him! He lectured me about the little cabin. Said it was a workman’s cottage from the 1850s. Kind of a character!”

“We won’t be asking Hershel anything,” I said. “He was killed. Night before last.”

I told Dolly about finding Hershel’s body.

“Rotten deal!”

“It was pretty awful,” I said.

“Hershel? That his name? Over here Monday! Close to dark!”

“Monday? That’s the night he disappeared!”

Dolly scratched her head. “Think that was it. He walked out of the woods. I was sitting out, enjoying the twilight!”

“You ought to tell the police chief about this.”

Dolly shrugged. “Don’t know anything! Didn’t tell me he was going to get killed!”

“I know the chief is trying to trace his movements Monday night.”

I wrote the chief’s name and the location of the police department on the back of another TenHuis card and gave it to her. We offered her a lift to town, but Ms. Jolly said she would call the chief for an appointment.

“Got a cell phone!” she shouted. “Won’t bother to get a landline connected! Don’t need the Internet! I’ll take my VW to town!”

We left then. After we reached Haven Road, Lindy began to laugh. “I hope that VW’s a van,” she said. “That’s the largest woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Not too many people of either sex make me feel dainty,” I said. “But she did. And think of her seeing Hershel the night he disappeared.”

I drove a few blocks before I spoke again. “I wonder what Hershel was doing out by Gray Gables?”

“I can’t imagine,” Lindy said. “Trey Corbett might know.”

I decided I’d had enough contact with Trey for one day, but I did plan to give Chief Jones a call instead and tip him off about Dolly Jolly. But when I got back to the office, work intervened. All afternoon I actually had to earn my salary. Customers called wanting rush orders sent out. Our sugar supplier had our bill screwed up, and I had to talk fast, dig out two months’ bank statements, find copies of canceled checks, and fax the copies to them before the crisis was settled. Barbara, a close friend who’s manager of the Warner Pier branch bank, dropped by—apparently making a customer call—and stayed. And stayed. And stayed.

Barbara is an attractive brunette of maybe forty. She has a business degree from Kalamazoo College. She has big dark eyes and a nose so large it dominates her face. Barbara doesn’t care about her nose, and after her customers see her smile, they don’t either. She’s as smart as a tree full of owls, as my Texas grandma would have said, and she’s got a real head for figures. She’s been a valuable friend and colleague to me since I moved to Warner Pier, but that afternoon I thought she’d never leave.

Barbara had finally headed for the door when she dropped a small bombshell. “I guess Frank and Patsy Waterloo may put their divorce on hold,” she said.

“Divorce! The Waterloos? I hadn’t heard that.”

“I heard it from one of the high school teachers. Not at the bank. Loose lips sink banks. So it’s just gossip.”

She left then, but she left me curious. Just what was the story on Frank and Patsy Waterloo? Why would Hershel’s death affect any plans they had for a divorce one way or another?

I knew who probably knew the answer to that, but I sure hated to sink low enough to ask him. I was glad when the phone rang and distracted me. “TenHuis Chocolade.”

“Lee? Hogan Jones here.”

“Oh! I was thinking about calling you, but I never found time. Lindy and I ran into this woman . . .”

“Big redhead.”

“Yes. Dolly Jolly. I guess she came in to make a statement.”

“Right. She says she told the two of you that Hershel was out at Gray Gables the night he disappeared. Have you passed that information on to anybody?”

“No.”

“Don’t. Okay?”

“Whatever you say. But why not?”

I could hear the chief sigh. “She saw more than she realizes. If it gets out—she could be at risk.”

“Oh!”

“I know you wouldn’t want to be responsible if anything happened to her.”

“Of course not! I won’t say a word. Do you want me to call Lindy and tell her to keep quiet?”

“I’ll do that. Don’t talk about it to anybody, okay? Not Lindy. Not Joe. Not even Nettie.”

I hung up feeling cowed. What could Dolly Jolly have seen? It took me twenty minutes to calm my curiosity down. Until the next time the phone rang. It was Joe.

“Did I talk to you about going out to dinner tonight?” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, I can’t get away.”

I laughed. “Gee, Joe, when you start breaking dates we hadn’t even made . . .”

“Pretty much of a jerk, huh. I meant to ask you, but the telephone repairman says he’ll be coming around five. I guess I’d better not plan on any particular schedule.”

“How about me bringing a pizza out there?”

“Hey! That sounds like a pretty good deal.”

We agreed that I’d come at my own convenience. I discussed the dinner break schedule with Stacy and Tracy, and about five-thirty I called the Dock Street Pizza Parlor and ordered. Then I decided to pick up a bag of salad at the Superette on the way. It would be cheaper than the Dock Street’s salad.