The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up (23 page)

There were no handy-dandy stairs leading down to the beach opposite the Root Beer Barrel property. But I located a path—fairly well-used—and slipped and slid thirty or forty feet down the sandy hill to the beach without getting my long black and white skirt too dirty or getting sand in my sandwich. I even found a big log that had drifted ashore and made a lovely spot to sit and eat my dinner. The wind had changed, and now the waves were coming from the northwest—just the opposite of the direction they’d been coming the night before. That was good; it meant that if the slacks washed up the beach, they might then have washed back down and stayed more or less even with the location where I’d lost them. Unless they’d sunk permanently in thirty feet of water.

I finished my sandwich, stuffed the trash in the sack the food had come in, tucked it into my big garbage bag, then walked down the beach. A walk on the beach is always a wonderful experience. The sun wasn’t yet low enough to blind me if I looked out at the lake, and I strolled along, stepping over the stones and through the beach grass, shaking the sand out of my sandals now and then, keeping an eye on the time, and looking for those slacks.

I admit I was surprised when I found them.

By rights they should have been at the bottom of the lake, but there they were—caught on a piece of driftwood and wafting back and forth in the waves. When I tried to pick them up, however, I nearly decided to leave them there. They were heavy with water, and I wasn’t dressed to wring them out. But I wrestled them into the garbage bag and started lugging the sack back up the beach.

I dreaded the climb back up the sand dunes. That’s when it was going to be hard to keep my skirt clean. I guess that’s why I eyed the stairways which led up to the cottages along the lake.

Not all lakeshore cottages have stairways down to the beach. For people who can afford them, they’re a very nice amenity. But they’re privately owned. The beaches are public, but property owners have a right to get snotty if strangers walk up their stairs the way Joe and I had the night before. The strangers wind up, as we had, in somebody’s back yard. That’s trespassing. So I kept looking at the stairs, but I didn’t go up any of them.

Then I recognized the stairs Joe and I had used the night before. They had a deck about halfway up that was quite distinctive. A white-haired woman dressed in white shorts and a blue T-shirt was just coming down the stairs.

I stopped and called out to her. “Hello! Are you the lady of the house?”

She nodded, narrowing her eyes slightly.

“I owe you an apology,” I said. “We got a boat aground last night, out on the sand bar, and we had to swim ashore. We used your stairs to get up to the road, and I’m afraid we trampled through your flowers.”

“Oh!” The woman came a few steps down. “Thanks for telling me. We thought we’d had window peepers.”

“No, we didn’t peep. We were mighty cold, so we did knock at the door on your deck, but nobody answered.”

“What time was this?”

“Sometime after ten.”

“We went to Holland to the late movie. I’m sorry we weren’t here to answer the door. You must have been frozen.”

“I’m sorry about the flowers.” By now the woman was nearly to the bottom of the stairs, so we introduced ourselves. Her name was Carla Maples, and she said she and her husband had moved to the cottage “full-time” after he retired.

She smiled broadly when I told her I was business manager for TenHuis Chocolade. “I love that place! Especially those almond-flavored truffles. Amaretto.”

“ ‘Milk chocolate interior coated in white chocolate.’ I like those, too. And now I need to get back to work.”

“Do you want to use the stairs again?”

“That would be a big help. I’m parked down by the old Root Beer Barrel property, and there aren’t any stairs down there.”

“It’s a couple of blocks away, but we can see that area from our front yard,” Mrs. Maples said. She led me up the stairs. I admired her flowers and her house and didn’t say too much about why Joe and I had been swimming ashore, instead of waiting for someone to get us off the sandbar.

We skirted the house on stepping stones Joe and I had missed in the moonlight, then came out on Lake Shore Drive. Mrs. Maples gestured in the direction of the Root Beer Barrel in a genteel manner. “We used to be able to see the old Barrel through the trees in the winter. I was really surprised when it blew down.”

A faint hope stirred. “You didn’t see it happen, did you?”

“No. We were in Florida for the month of March, and it was gone when we got back. I’ve heard a rumor that the property may be redeveloped.”

I decided I didn’t have time to go into all the details. “I’ve heard that, too. I’m sure that all the neighbors around here would like to see something built there. The site is an eyesore as it is.”

Mrs. Maples sighed. “It’s not just that particular lot. It’s that whole stretch. The old motel—that’s almost overgrown now. And the DeBoer House. That’s a beautiful structure, but you can’t even see it now. It’s too bad that something can’t be done with it.”

We shook hands and I made a mental note to write Mrs. Maples a thank-you note and to give her some chocolates. Then I walked on up the Lake Shore Drive toward my car. The episode didn’t amount to much, but it was significant because it caused me to approach the Root Beer Barrel site from a different direction. I’d never come toward it from the south before.

I decided Stacy and Tracy could manage without me for another five minutes. I wanted to get a look at this DeBoer house everybody kept raving about.

It took me the whole five minutes to figure out how to approach it. There was a heavy bank of trees and shrubs between it and Joe’s property, but I finally found a pathway from the main road, beat my way through—I should have been wearing jungle gear, not an ankle-length skirt and flip-flops—and came out of the bushes around thirty feet from a beautiful, broad veranda.

I stood there looking at that veranda, the graceful steps leading up to it, the picturesque turrets at the corners of the building. Then I swung back and peeked through the bushes in the direction of the Old English Motel. I couldn’t see it because of the heavy undergrowth. But I knew it was there.

And I also knew who had killed Hershel, and I knew why.

“Oh, my stars!” I said. I turned and made what speed I could getting down that overgrown path back to the road. Then I tried to run for the van—not the easiest thing to do wearing flip-flops. I stumbled and slid, but I finally made it, dug my keys from my pocket, jumped in the van, and sped toward town.

My mind was racing madly. I had to tell Chief Jones. I had to tell Joe. I had to tell somebody.

I parked in the alley behind TenHuis Chocolade, unlocked the back door, and dashed in. Tracy and Stacy stared at me openmouthed as I rushed by them without speaking and snatched up the telephone. I hit the speed dial for Joe’s number, then hung up. His phone was tapped, and he’d told me the chief wanted to leave it that way. I punched in his cell phone number. It rang and rang, then I got some electronic message box in some office someplace far away. I hung up on the electronic voice.

Chief Jones. That was the person I really needed. City Hall was closed, of course. I thumbed through the telephone book until I found his home number. But when I dialed it, he didn’t answer either.

I did, however, leave a message on his answering machine. And it wasn’t just “call me.” I left the name of Hershel’s murderer.

I wasn’t through. I called the city hall number, using the trick Joe had used the night when we found Hershel’s body. The answering machine picked up, and I yelled for the dispatcher. But nobody came to the phone.

Finally, I called 9-1-1 and identified myself. “It’s imperative that I reach Chief Hogan Jones,” I said.

“The Warner Pier police chief?”

“Yes.”

“This is the Warner County Sheriff’s office. The Warner Pier Police Station is not available. I can handle any emergency.”

“No. I need Chief Jones.”

“Chief Jones is not on duty.”

“But this is about the murder of Hershel Perkins, and I must talk to him immediately.”

“I don’t believe he’s available.”

“I know you can page him. This is an emergency! Please.”

“I’ll try to reach him, but what sort of emergency do you have?”

I didn’t answer. It was going to be terribly hard to explain.

She kept talking. “Fire? Accident? Crime? I need to know who to send.”

I thought another minute, then spoke. “It’s not that kind of an emergency. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

I hung up. After all, what was my hurry? It wasn’t as if the killer was likely to flee to Canada that night. I’d keep trying to reach Chief Jones, but the killer would still be in Warner Pier the next morning. After all, Hershel had been killed partly to protect the killer’s place in the community—or so I thought. The killer wasn’t going to throw it up now, not unless the killer learned that I’d tumbled to what happened.

At least, I’d believe that was the truth if I could find Joe. Where was he? Joe didn’t know who the murderer was, and I believed he was meant to be a second victim. If nothing else, the killer’s attempts to chase us down with a panel truck and with a stolen boat proved that.

Joe could be in deadly danger, and I didn’t know how to warn him.

I halfheartedly tried to call Jerry Cherry, but I wasn’t even surprised that he didn’t answer his phone. Then I looked out at the shop. At least a dozen customers were standing in line. Tracy and Stacy needed a couple of extra hands. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went out to help them.

As I served out Frangelico truffles (“Hazelnut interior with milk chocolate coating, sprinkled with nougat”) and cute little chocolate lizards, I tried to remember what Joe had said when he had talked to Stacy. And he’d said nothing. Just that he was going to be tied up that evening. But why had he turned off his cell phone? Where was he?

As the rush began to clear, I looked across the street at Joe’s mom’s office. There was a light. So, as soon as the front counter was down to two groups of customers, I went into the office and called her. Maybe Joe had told her where he was going.

But she said he hadn’t. “I haven’t talked to him since this morning, Lee. He called and told me not to use his landline. Do you know what all that was about?”

“It’s a long story.” I hesitated. “Mercy, I think I’ve figured out who killed Hershel Perkins. And I think Joe is next on the list. I’ve tried every way I know to reach Chief Jones, and I can’t find him either. I’ve simply got to find Joe and warn him. Do you have any ideas?”

I’d been counting on Mercy not to panic, and she didn’t. “Actually, he could be out at the shop. If he turned the cell phone off . . . Or he might have left a note on his calendar. Something simple like that.”

Or he could be lying out there in a pool of blood. Mercy’s idea made sense. “I’ll go see if he’s there,” I said.

“We’ll both go. I’ll pick you up.” Mercy hung up.

I once again ran off and left Tracy and Stacy with the shop. By now it was nearly nine, close to closing time. I didn’t give them any explanation, and they both looked amazed, but I grabbed my purse and ran out the front door, still wearing my flip-flops, long skirt, and jacket.

Mercy and I didn’t talk as we drove out to Joe’s shop. About halfway there I suddenly fantasized that he might have another woman out there. That would certainly be an explanation of why he was “tied up all evening.” And it might explain why he’d turned off the cell phone.

I could be headed toward an end to our relationship. But I was so worried about his safety that I didn’t care.

It was not yet dark. In June in southwest Michigan the sun doesn’t set until after nine-thirty, another situation that amazes the Texan in me. Somehow it doesn’t seem decent for the sun to stay up that late.

I felt a wave of relief when we pulled into Joe’s parking area, and I saw his pickup in its usual spot. But all the doors to the shop were closed, and the place looked deserted. The sedan was not tied up at the dock. Mercy and I got out and pounded on the door. Nobody answered our summons.

We spoke to each other almost in unison. “Do you have a key?”

Then we both sighed and did our unison act again. “No.”

“I’ll get the one from behind the downspout,” I said.

The key container was very low down and flat against the steel building. I waved the box at Mercy, then came back to the door. The key worked immediately.

It might not have been dark outside, but inside the shop was like the old Smothers Brothers song which describes falling into a vat of chocolate. Dark chocolate. The only windows are in the office and in Joe’s one-room apartment, and the doors to both places were closed.

I felt for the switch beside the door. As the banks of fluorescent lights flashed on, I called out, “Joe!”

My voice reverberated around the big steel building. I went first to the office, then to Joe’s apartment, opening the doors and calling out. No answer. Both rooms were empty.

When I came out of the apartment, Mercy was in the office. She pointed to the desk. “What’s this about?”

On the desk was a tape recorder. It was sitting next to the telephone. A long cord went from it to a round rubber deal that was attached to the side of the phone.

I’d seen a similar setup. “It’s a microphone,” I said. “At one of the office jobs I had I used one of those to record reports the salesmen called in.”

“A bug?”

“You could use it that way. But it’s usually used to record your own calls.”

Mercy reached for the tape recorder and flipped the lid open. A tape was inside. “Maybe this will tell us something,” she said.

She rewound the tape, then hit the “play” button.

“Hello.” Joe’s voice began.

“Listen, Joe, we need to talk. You’ve figured out that I’m involved in this Root Beer Barrel deal, haven’t you?”