The Chocolate Mouse Trap (23 page)

I was thinking that it was nice to have a purely social evening for a change, but that changed when Lindy came in.

She rushed in the front door and dashed across the foyer. She paused and scanned the room, obviously so excited that the beautiful surroundings were making little impression on her. When she saw me, she practically ran in my direction.

“Lee! Lee! I’ve remembered something!”

“What?”

She answered in a whisper that carried through the room more loudly than a shout would have. “That car that nearly pushed us off the road! It was an old Jeep!”

I took her by the arm and led her into a corner. Then I tried to speak in a whisper that
was
a whisper. “How did you decide that?”

“Tony and I came in my rental car, the one the insurance company came up with, and I drove. A car came up behind us, and—Oh, Lee, those headlights looked exactly the same as the ones the other night. It had those up-and-down bars between them. Like long, horrible teeth. I nearly panicked.”

“How did you find out it was an old Jeep?”

“It followed us into the parking lot here. It was Father Snyder.”

“Father Snyder?” Father Snyder was the local Episcopal priest. “I can’t imagine that he tried to push us off the road.”

“Oh, I know that! I’m sure it wasn’t him. But I do think it was somebody in an old Jeep like his. Come on! Father Snyder’s waiting outside so you can take a look!”

Lindy dragged me outside without even letting me stop for my coat. Tony and Father Snyder were standing beside the priest’s beat-up old Jeep. Both of them looked thoroughly ill at ease.

“Turn on the lights,” Lindy said. “Let Lee see it.”

Father Snyder, who’s a round, cheerful young guy, spoke apologetically. “I like to drive this old rattletrap in the snow. I let my wife have the good car—unless I need it for a funeral.” He obediently climbed into his car and turned the headlights on.

“See!” Lindy was attracting a lot of attention from other people who were arriving. “See, Lee!”

I considered the front of the old Jeep. “Lindy. I didn’t get as good a look as you did. I can’t say one way or the other.”

“Oh, Lee!”

“You were looking at the front of that car in your rearview mirror, Lindy. I looked back, but all I could see was bright lights and glare.”

Lindy deflated like an inner tube at the end of a day at the beach. I patted her on the shoulder. “Listen, you need to tell Chief Jones about this. It might give him a valuable lead.”

We settled for that. I led the way inside—I was freezing—and Lindy agreed to call the chief the next morning. Then I tried to remember how to have fun at a party.

It wasn’t easy. Margaret and Jim didn’t know many people, of course, so Lindy and I talked to them a lot, and we tried to introduce them around. Then Joe got cornered by one of the city councilmen, and I finally abandoned him and went looking for another glass of champagne. Jason was serving the sparkly, so he took the opportunity to introduce me to Ross, his partner. Ross seemed to be a nice guy, but as soon as Jason moved away, he began to quiz me about the current murder mystery. What had I thought of Julie? Why on earth would anyone have killed Carolyn? It’s hard to be sociable when you’re being cross-examined.

Finally, I simply muttered a lie—“I think my fiancé needs rescuing”—and went back to Joe. He did look happy to see me, and when I told him he needed to talk to his mother he seized the excuse and told the councilman he’d “research the question.” We both fled toward Mercy.

Mercy was talking to someone who had his back to us. All I could see was a well-fitted, dark gray suit and a well-disciplined head of gray hair. Then he turned around, and I saw that it was Martin Schrader. Here I’d wanted to talk about something besides Julie’s murder, and I had accidentally sought out the victim’s uncle.

Mercy didn’t seem sorry for us to interrupt her tête-à-tête with Martin. I was not surprised when she introduced him as a client of her insurance agency.

“Mercy saved our bacon two years ago, when the roof blew off the cabin,” Martin said cheerfully. “She’d talked me into upping the coverage on contents, thank God. That stuff I thought was old furniture turned out to be antiques, and we got a nice settlement for water damage. We were able to refurnish the place.”

“The cabin?” I said. “Is that the little house where Brad lives? Just as you enter the property?”

Martin looked at me sharply. “Yes, Brad lives in the cabin. He hasn’t been bothering you, has he?”

“Oh, no.” I belatedly remembered that I wasn’t supposed to tattle on Brad and let his uncle know he had come by my office. “I like Brad. He helped me load up the things your mother gave to the chamber’s campaign for the women’s shelter.”

Martin drained his glass, and I decided it hadn’t been his first drink. Or his second or third. He turned his full attention on me. “Now what’s the deal on this accident you and Mike Herrera’s daughter-in-law had?”

I decided I didn’t want to give Martin Schrader a full-scale description of the excitement. “Some guy tried to pass us there where the bank has fallen away on Lake Shore Drive,” I said. “He got too close and shoved us over the side, but luckily we didn’t go down where it’s the stickiest. I mean, steepest! We missed the steepest part. Neither of us was hurt, but the driver left the scene.”

“Where does Father Snyder’s Jeep fit in?”

“I don’t think it does.” Martin frowned—maybe glared—and I felt that I had to go on. “Lindy saw Father Snyder’s headlights in her rearview mirror tonight. She thinks the driver we tangoed with—I mean, tangled with! She thinks the driver who almost hit us may have driven an older Jeep like Father Snyder’s.”

“What do you think?”

“I didn’t get that good a look at the car. Of course, Lindy’s insurance company would like to find him. Her car was totaled.”

I decided it was time to change the subject, even if it went back to Julie. “We—I’m speaking as a member of the Warner Pier chamber’s board—appreciated the donation of Julie’s household goods to our drive for the women’s shelter.”

“That was Mother’s idea. She knew Julie loved Warner Pier.”

“Were Julie and your mother close?”

“Mother was as close to Julie as anyone was, I guess. Julie had kept her distance from most people since . . .” He stopped talking, and I mentally finished his sentence with
since her husband turned out to be such a louse.
I cast around desperately for another subject for conversation.

“Your mother seems very—well, strong. At least mentally. I know she has trouble getting around.”

“You’re right; she’s strong mentally. She’s had several bad shocks in the past few years, and she rolled with ’em better than I have.”

“At least she still has you and Brad.”

Martin’s face grew bleak. “Yes, she has Brad.”

“He certainly seems to be fond of her. And at least he lives fairly near to her, though Warner Pier isn’t that close to Grand Rapids. He drives there to work, right?”

“Yes.” Martin gave me a sharp look, but he didn’t say anything more. Obviously he didn’t like to talk about Brad any more than Brad liked to talk about him. I paused and tried to think of a different topic to introduce. But Mercy jumped in before my tiny brain could improvise.

“Brad came to me for car insurance,” she said. “I mentioned that so many people check out insurance online now. I was surprised when he said he never touches computers.”

Martin looked at her sharply. “Why did that surprise you?”

Mercy smiled. “Because of his age, I guess. It seems as if everybody under thirty-five is a computer whiz these days.”

“Oh, yes. Brad avoids computers. He’s a regular computaphobe.” Martin gave a barking laugh, then looked at his empty glass. “Guess I’d better get another drink,” he said. He walked away, reeling only slightly.

I moved close to Mercy. “I hope Martin Schrader isn’t driving,” I said softly. “As his insurance agent . . .”

“I don’t handle the Schrader cars,” she said. “Just the Warner Pier property. It’s a sort of a sop they throw to local business. But I’ll put a bug in Barry’s ear. Martin’s definitely had enough.”

She moved away, and Joe put his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s go talk to somebody we really like to talk to,” he said.

“How about Father Snyder? He’s an awfully nice guy, and I don’t want him to get the idea Lindy and I think he’s the one who pushed us into the lake.”

“Fine.” Joe moved closer and spoke directly into my ear. “You sure are a knockout tonight. I could feel romantic, if I got a little encouragement.”

I moved slightly closer to him. “Consider yourself encouraged.”

He held my hand as we headed across the room, toward Father Snyder.

With the prospect of a romantic session with Joe to come, the rest of the evening went well. Joe and I helped each other dodge people—such as city council members—that one or the other of us didn’t want to talk to. And if my spirits needed bucking up, I only had to catch Joe’s eye. He’d always smile at me. He’s a wonderful guy, I told myself. He loves me. A little thrill would travel up and down my innards. For the first time since Julie had been killed, I guess, I remembered how lucky I was.

The feeling didn’t go away. It lasted through our good-byes to Jason, through a sort of preliminary courting session in Joe’s truck, up the stairs to his apartment, and—well, clear through bacon, scrambled eggs, and coffee in his kitchen at four a.m. Joe didn’t even bring up our wedding plans, bless his heart.

Crime only intruded again after I told Joe I had to go home.

He kissed me. “You’re sure?”

“I’ve got to get some other clothes and my own car so I can go to work. Tomorrow’s Monday.”

“If you’d leave a few things over here . . .”

“It won’t be long until I’ll take over the closets and drawers, and you’ll have to keep your stuff in a cardboard box.”

He laughed. “I’ll get some clothes on.”

I began to gather up my belongings. My white silk shirt was draped over the back of the couch, but I had to look for a few minutes before I found the jewel-toned scarf. It was on top of my purse, heaped up in a chair—a regular nest of rich reds, blues, greens, and purples, shot with gold.

And in the middle of it was a white stick.

I stared at it a few seconds before I figured out what the white stick was. It was the white pen that Rachel Schrader had given me. It had fallen out of my purse and was lying among the folds of the colorful scarf.

It seemed familiar, somehow. But why?

I stared at it a long moment before I remembered.

The last time I’d seen Carolyn Rose, she’d had a bunch of colorful ballpoint pens fanned out in a brass jug on her desk. And in the middle of them had been one bright white pen.

Carolyn had picked it up and looked at it closely. Then a smile had spread over her face. A tricky smile, sort of sly-looking. She’d tucked the pen in her desk drawer.

The next day, Carolyn Rose had been dead.

I
was still thinking about that white pen Carolyn had pulled out of the jar of colored ones when I climbed into my own bed to catch a couple of hours of sleep before I had to get up and go to work.

I stared at the dark ceiling. Had the white pen been one of the Schrader ones? But Rachel Schrader had told me it was a new promotional item. She’d said I was getting one of the first ones given away. How would one have landed in Carolyn’s pen jar?

Right after I’d left, Carolyn had apparently called Martin Schrader and left a message, asking him to drop by and talk to her. Could that have had anything to do with the pen? Could she have thought that Martin had left the pen? So what if he had? Although it didn’t sound as if Martin had been around to see Carolyn for several years.

Unless . . . My half-waking mind went tripping back to the moment when Jack Ingersoll had urged Carolyn to look around for signs of a break-in. I had followed her back to the workroom, and she’d spotted the dirt in the sink. Had she picked up a pen from the counter then? I closed my eyes and concentrated. Yes, she had picked up a pen from the counter, then used it to point at the window catch.

Had that pen been white? I thought it had.

Could that have been the pen she later pulled from the jar on her desk? Could she have thought that pen had been dropped by the burglar? Could she have thought that burglar might have been Martin Schrader? Carolyn wouldn’t have suspected Martin of killing his own niece, any more than I did. She might have called him to ask about the pen.

I turned over and whacked my pillow. It was too far-fetched. Impossible. The link between Martin Schrader and the white pen was simply too flimsy. Dozens of other companies distributed white pens as promotional items. Or you could buy a white pen that said something like “Bic” or “Rollerball” or “White Pen,” for Pete’s sake.

I guess I slept then, because the next thing I knew Aunt Nettie was moving around in the kitchen and it was seven a.m. But I was still thinking about that white pen after she’d left the house and I was eating my own breakfast. Finally, before I went to work, I called the Warner Pier police and got the department’s secretary.

“Is Chief Jones still out of town?” I said.

“Until late tonight. Can I help you?”

“I suppose the chief did a complete listing of everything found out at House of Roses after Carolyn was killed.”

“Complete? I’m sure he itemized everything connected with the crime.”

“But not everything in the shop?”

“In a florist and gift shop? Like every rose, every vase, every piece of gift wrap, every little doodad House of Roses had for sale? We don’t have that much paper in our budget, Lee. What did you have in mind?”

“It was a ballpoint pen.” I could hear the indecision in my own voice. “I wondered, you know, if it might be a queue. I mean, a clue! It might be a clue.”