The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up (19 page)

Or that’s what I told myself. The truth, of course, was that I was still curious about the Waterloos, and the person most likely to have wormed out the real story on them was to be found at the Superette—Greg Glossop, who ran the pharmacy there. If “Mr. Gossip” didn’t know the real story—well, he’d make up something interesting.

As I’d anticipated, all I had to do was walk into the drug and beauty supply end of the Superette and look at a display of mascara. Greg Glossop bounced his little round belly right out of his glassed-in pharmacy. He trotted down the nearest aisle and greeted me. “Lee!”

“Oh, hello, Greg,” I said.

“Well, young woman. You’ve had a nasty experience.”

“Finding Hershel, you mean? It wasn’t a lot of fun. Of course, we weren’t really friends. It’s Patsy and Frank I feel sorry for.”

“Tch, tch,” Greg said. “Of course, we’ve all felt sorry for them all along.”

“Taking care of Hershel must have been an awful strain.” I leaned a little closer and lowered my voice. “I even heard that they were considering divorce.”

Greg Glossop nodded wisely. “I guess the whole situation was really getting Frank down. Between the responsibility for Hershel, Frank’s problems finding a good job, and their money situation—it would get anybody down.”

“Patsy seemed sincerely sorrowful about Hershel’s death, but I could understand if it was something of a relief. Maybe that will solve one of the problems.”

“It’ll solve two. It’s no secret that Patsy and Hershel’s mom left her whole estate in trust to take care of Hershel.”

“Oh, really? That’s odd. But I guess she figured that Patsy and Frank could take care of themselves.”

“Exactly. And Hershel couldn’t. But that meant Patsy and Frank had to move back to Warner Pier, which meant that Frank had to quit his job and take one that apparently pays a lot less.”

“Of course the house they inherited is worth a lot.”

Greg Glossop shook his head. “They didn’t inherit it. The property belongs to the trust set up to care for Hershel.”

“You mean they were dependent on Hershel?”

“No, no. Just for use of the house. But the trust requires that all of Patsy’s mother’s money must support Hershel. Now that Hershel’s gone, Patsy gets the trust.”

“Did the trust pay when they renovated the house?”

“No. I hear they used the money from the sale of their California house for that—and apparently they didn’t have a lot of equity. Anyway, I’m under the impression that rebuilding the house here nearly wiped them out.”

He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “It’s understandable if Frank got so frustrated he—well . . .”—Glossop cleared his throat—“went a little crazy. Didn’t come home nights. Began to hit the bottle.”

That was news. I lowered my voice. “Oh?”

“I’m merely guessing by his purchases in the liquor department. And from some of Patsy’s remarks.”

All of a sudden I felt as if I’d fallen in a mud hole. And I was so ashamed of myself that I probably blushed. I could barely pay Greg Glossop off with a tidbit about one of the ladies who worked at TenHuis being pregnant. She was telling everybody, so I wasn’t letting any cats out of any bags. Then I sidled toward the produce aisle, and Greg Glossop had to leave me and go back to his eyrie above the drug and beauty department.

I picked up my bag of salad and stood in line at the checkout stand, feeling ashamed of gossiping. But I was also looking at another possible motive for getting rid of Hershel. A motive for Patsy and Frank. Not only was Hershel an annoying and frustrating relative to have on their hands, he’d also forced them into a bad financial position and threatened their marriage. And if Frank was fooling around or drinking—I didn’t consider Greg Glossop’s evidence conclusive; Frank might have been taking booze home to Patsy—Hershel’s spying might have inconvenienced him, as well.

Yes, Frank and Patsy were going to be a lot better off without their troublesome relative—financially and personally.

I picked up the pizza and headed for Joe’s. When I got there, the telephone company’s truck was parked beside the shop and the shop’s doors were all open, but there was nobody around. I called out, but nobody answered.

I decided that Joe and the repairman were probably tracking down the phone problem. I took the salad and pizza and went into Joe’s little cubbyhole of a bedroom-living room-dining room. He’d already set the card table with plates, forks, knives and a can of parmesan cheese, but he hadn’t anticipated salad. I found a couple of bowls in the cupboard and filled them with salad.

Still no Joe. I decided that the microwave oven was the only small, enclosed space in the room—the only place where the pizza might stay warm. I had just clicked the microwave’s door open when I heard a noise in the shop, and Joe came to the door.

“Hi,” I said. “Dinner’s just about ready.”

“Will it wait? I want you to see something.”

I put the pizza in the microwave, then followed Joe outside. He led me down the drive and out onto the road—actually the tag end of Dock Street, but that far from the center of town, it had turned into a gravel road.

“What are we going to see?” I asked.

“The phone man found it. I’ve called the police.”

I stopped dead. “Not another body!”

“No! I wouldn’t drag you out to see something gruesome.”

I continued to follow Joe, but with some dread. A line of utility poles, of course, followed the road. Wires were over our heads, mixed in among the trees. In about a hundred feet I saw a man in the uniform of the phone company.

“I want you to show that wire to Ms. McKinney,” Joe said.

Wordlessly, the phone man pointed down. A cable trailed down from above him, and the end lay near his feet.

The end. It wasn’t attached to anything. The other end led up into the trees. But this end was just lying on the ground.

The phone man looked almost pleased. “It sure wasn’t equipment failure,” he said. “This wire was deliberately cut.”

C
hief Jones arrived shortly. Joe and I left him taking pictures and went back to the shop to eat our salad and pizza. When I drove away a half-hour later the telephone man was up on the pole, and the chief was walking toward the shop. We waved at each other.

An hour after that the chief showed up at TenHuis Chocolade.

I was in my office, working away, when I saw him come in the street door. He paused and peered around the shop, looking more Lincolnesque than usual. Tracy and Stacy were busy with a half-dozen tourists, so I waved, and the chief came on back. He slouched down in a chair. Somehow ordinary furniture never seemed tall enough to fit Chief Jones.

“What happened to the phone line?” I asked.

“Somebody cut it.”

“Somebody climbed the pole and cut it?”

“I didn’t say that. I don’t know exactly how the guy did it. He could have brought a ladder or climbed on top of a truck or swung from a tree like Tarzan. Me, if I wanted to cut a phone line, I’d use a pruning hook. The kind on an extended pole.”

I sighed. “Not too hard to find in orchard country.”

“Nope. Matter of fact, Joe’s nearest neighbor has one, and he keeps it in an unlocked garage. But now I want to ask you a couple of questions.”

“Sure. But I don’t know a thing about that phone line except that Joe’s phone wasn’t working on Tuesday. And finding it was cut would seem to be yet one more factor proving that Joe is innocent. He’s definitely the victim of a frame-up.”

“I didn’t come to talk about Joe. I want you to go over what Hershel said to you when he came up to the truck that night.”

I collected my thoughts a minute, then retold the episode. Hershel, after scaring me half to death, had demanded to meet Aunt Nettie at the old chapel. He had refused my offer to get medical help. He had refused my assurances that people missed him and were looking for him. He had refused to trust anybody but Aunt Nettie.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Chief,” I said, “but he particularly scoffed at you, Trey, Jerry Cherry, Meg, Patsy, and Frank. He said, ‘I saw that bunch on the dock.’ ”

“Don’t forget, Joe was there with us.”

“I admit that. And we all know Hershel was already mad at Joe. But he was quite firm about not trusting any of you. Talked as if he suspected some sort of conspiracy.”

“He didn’t go into details?”

“No. I was surprised when he included Trey. Apparently they’d become buddies during the remodeling of Patsy and Frank’s house.”

“I think Trey had been real patient with Hershel while he was working on the Waterloos’ house, but Meg didn’t share his patience. Hershel started hanging out at Trey’s office and at their house. Meg finally called me to complain about Hershel. Trey backed her up, of course. Hershel couldn’t understand that he had to.”

“He had to back up his wife, you mean?” The chief nodded, and I went on. “Patsy said Meg complained that Hershel was stalking her. But Patsy said he wasn’t really interested in Meg. She thinks it was just Hershel’s fascination with Trey.”

“I think that was a lot of it, but we have to remember that Meg can be pretty fascinating by herself.”

Was I imagining it, or was the chief giving me a sidelong look? “If you meant that for me personally,” I said, “I’m aware that Joe and Meg dated each other in high school. I talked to Joe about it, and he doesn’t seem to be harboring a guilty passion for her. Does all this seem to fit into Hershel’s conspiracy theory?”

“I don’t see how. But you’re forgetting me. Apparently Hershel suspected me of conspiring against him.”

“He also seemed to suspect Jerry Cherry.”

The chief grimaced. “I can’t find that Jerry ever had any particular contact with Hershel. Hershel may have mistrusted his uniform.”

I grinned. “I trust you both, Chief.”

“Thanks. But I admit I got crossways with Hershel over the way he roamed around town. A couple of times we had window-peeping complaints about him. I had to be the bad guy.”

“It sounds as if Hershel wasn’t as harmless as Patsy thinks.”

“Oh, he just looked. And a warning would stop Hershel. If I told him, ‘Don’t go around the Corbetts’ house again,’ he might grumble, but I could feel sure he wasn’t going to go over there. Patsy says I scared him after Meg complained, but Hershel didn’t act scared when I talked to him.”

“That’s funny. Patsy said he hid. That she found him trembling all over. If you didn’t scare him, what did?”

“Maybe I’d better try to find out. But now I want to ask you a different question. Who’d you tell that you were going to Grand Rapids last night?”

“Aunt Nettie.”

“Who else?”

“Nobody, Chief. I was a little embarrassed about leaving early, so I didn’t tell the girls on the counter I was going on a date. Aunt Nettie may have told somebody.”

But when we asked Aunt Nettie, she denied mentioning it to anybody. “It just didn’t arise,” she said firmly. “Besides, it’s nobody’s business but Lee and Joe’s.”

Bless her heart, she’d been avoiding gossip.

The chief asked her several ways. Had she talked on the phone about it? Had Joe’s mom popped in and brought it up? Had anybody come in asking for Lee and she’d said, ‘Oh, she’s gone to Grand Rapids’?”

Aunt Nettie denied every situation. “I didn’t mention it to anybody,” she said. “In fact, I went home right after Lee left. I left Hazel and the counter girls in charge. But I don’t think any of them knew where Lee and Joe had gone.”

“We didn’t mean for our trip to be a secret,” I said. “Joe may have told someone.”

The chief shook his head. “He says he didn’t. We know nobody called him—his landline was out of commission, and apparently you and his mom are the only two people who ever call on the cell phone. And he says his mother didn’t call yesterday afternoon.” He turned to me. “You see why it matters?”

I nodded. “If someone called you and said we were headed for the Grand Rapids airport . . . And if that panel truck lay in wait for us at the Willard station . . .”

“Right. Our boy had to know you were coming.”

On that happy note the chief went out the door, leaving my innards all atremble. I’d already faced the possibility that somebody had deliberately tried to shove us into a bridge railing—three times. The whole situation was scary. Could that be connected with Hershel’s death? I didn’t see how.

But to me Hershel’s murder had almost become a side issue. Whoever had killed Hershel also seemed determined to implicate Joe. That’s what worried me.

Somebody had to know Joe and I were going to Grand Rapids. And nobody had known.

I suddenly realized I was partially wrong. No one had known we were going to Grand Rapids, but one person had definitely known we were there.

Tom Johnson.

Tom Johnson, who looked like Santa Claus and leered like a satyr. Tom Johnson, whom Joe had described as “a beard,” a person who’s acting for someone else. He had talked to us at his office and would undoubtedly have realized we were likely to eat dinner before we headed back. Tom Johnson, who had signed an option to buy the old Root Beer Barrel property.

We were right back to that lot. I didn’t understand why. But I did know I wanted to talk to Joe. I was reaching for the phone when it rang.

“TenHuis Chocolade.”

“Lee? It’s Joe.”

“I was just going to call you.”

“What about?”

“The chief was in asking who I’d told we were going to Grand Rapids. I hadn’t told anybody. But someone knew we were there.”

“Yeah. Tom Johnson.”

“Did you tell the chief that?”

“No. I admit I didn’t think of him at all until a few minutes ago. When Tom called me.”

“He called! What did he want?”

“He wants to finalize the deal on the Root Beer Barrel property next week.”

“Whoops! I guess your suspicions were wrong, Joe. I guess ol’ Tom really does want to buy the property.”