The Chocolate Snowman Murders (27 page)

I was so excited I jumped up from the computer, sending my chair flying and startling Joe out of a stupor. Then I yelled at him, “Joe! He saw her on television!”

J
oe looked completely confused. He had no idea what I was talking about. So I explained.

“Yesterday Aunt Nettie and I retraced the actions we thought Mendenhall took after I dumped him at Motel Sleaze, and we did it at close to the same time of day he'd been dumped. To begin with, the desk clerk said Mendenhall had asked where he could get another bottle, and the clerk told him he'd have to cross the street and go to the supermarket.

“So that's what Aunt Nettie and I did. We waded through the slush over to that shopping center. And the first store we reached on the other side of the street is an appliance store. And it has ranks of television sets in the window.”

Joe nodded. “Yeah, I know the place you mean.”

“We went on to the supermarket, we looked at the liquor, and then we came back the same way. And as we passed that appliance store, that jerk Gordon Hitchcock was on all the television sets in the window, giving the news!”

Joe still looked blank, so I went on. “When Gordon Hitchcock came to the shop last week, he told me he'd run a long interview he did with Mozelle, and he said he'd rerun parts of it on Tuesday. And that's the night Mendenhall was killed.”

Joe got it then. “We can check that on the tape Hitchcock gave us. And if he ran the interview then, Mendenhall could have seen Mozelle on television. But, Lee, would Mendenhall have recognized her? Even if he'd known her when she was in college, that was thirty years earlier.”

“Mozelle's face is young looking, Joe. She just dresses conservatively. Her hair is the same color it's always been. If she and Mendenhall actually lived together . . . Well, I think he would have recognized her. He could have gone inside the store and found out her name. It probably ran across the bottom of the screen. Or he could have called the station. She's the only French in Warner Pier. It would be easy to get her phone number from Information.”

“But he didn't use his cell phone to call her.”

“No! Joe, he didn't have his cell phone with him. At the same time Mendenhall would have been walking over to the shopping center looking for booze, you would have been knocking on the door of his motel room. When he didn't answer, you phoned him.”

“Right. I could hear the cell phone inside the room, but he didn't answer it.”

“Mendenhall had gone out for booze, and he'd left his phone behind. Then he saw Mozelle on the television set. He listened long enough to get her name. He must have called her from a pay phone.” I stopped, triumphant. “Has Hogan checked to see if Mozelle got any phone calls that evening?”

“Probably not, since he's been assuming that Mendenhall didn't have her number. And I'm sure nobody—not Hogan, not Alex VanDam, not McCullough—has checked calls made from pay phones in that shopping center.”

Joe yanked his cell phone out. “I'll call Hogan.”

“Not on that phone.”

Joe scowled. “Oh, yeah. Warner Point is in the dead zone.” He turned toward the regular phone. “I don't want to interrupt your computer. We need to get those news releases sent. I can run over to the restaurant; Jason will let me use his phone.” He took a step toward the door, then paused. “But I don't want to leave you here alone.”

“Go on! I'll be OK. I want Hogan to know about this.”

“I'll lock the door behind myself. And I'll hurry.”

After he left, I concentrated on calming my racing pulse. I sat down at the computer, trying to put my new brainstorm out of my mind long enough to work on sending the news releases. I had managed to send one more set—I was sending them to ten addresses at a time—when I heard a key in the door's lock.

“That was quick,” I said, turning around to greet Joe.

But it wasn't Joe coming in the door.

It was Mozelle.

For a moment I was paralyzed. Mozelle. The person I was convinced had murdered two people. She was here. So was I. And I was the person who was trying to prove she was guilty.

It was just the two of us. At night. In a lonely part of a huge building.

Then I got hold of my nerves. Mozelle didn't know I'd “proved” how Mendenhall could have contacted her. She was probably simply dropping by because she needed something from the WinterFest files. It was only a casual encounter. Stay cool, I told myself.

Besides, Joe would be right back.

But I looked around the WinterFest office for some sort of weapon or shield. Something I could grab if Mozelle went berserk. I didn't see anything. What was I going to do, throw a file folder at her? Grab up my laptop and use it as a shield? Stab her with a freshly sharpened pencil? I eyed the desk lamp, remembered that Mendenhall had been beaten to death with a similar object, and shuddered.

Obviously guile was going to be more effective than violence. I smiled what I hoped was a harmless, innocent smile. “Hi, Mozelle. You're here late. Still working on WinterFest?”

“No, Lee, I came to talk to you.”

“Oh, how did you know I'd be here?”

“Amos Hart heard from George, who had seen Joe, who had told him you'd be working on those releases out here tonight. Oh, you know, Lee, Warner Pier is a small town.”

“That's true. Too true. So, Mozelle, what can I do for you?”

Mozelle's reaction to my question was stunning. She began to cry.

“Oh, Lee,” she said, “have pity on me!”

The self-possessed Mozelle was in tears? And asking me to have pity? I couldn't believe it.

“Mozelle! What's the matter?”

“You've found out my secret.” She was wringing her hands. “Please! Please don't humiliate me in front of my home community.”

Humiliate her? I was thinking of sending her to prison, and she was afraid I might embarrass her? Mozelle was obviously thinking about something other than two murders.

I pointed to the chair Joe had been using. “Mozelle, sit down and tell me what on earth you're talking about.”

Mozelle sat down weakly. “I've just come from a long session with Chief Jones. And, Lee, he wanted to know all about that episode when I was in college.” She opened her purse and pulled out a nice white handkerchief—no shredded tissues for Mozelle. Then she went on.

“Chief Jones didn't tell me you were the one who figured out that I knew Professor Mendenhall, but I know you were.”

“I didn't figure it out, Mozelle. I just saw that you'd gone to a college where Mendenhall had taught, and I wondered if you knew him there.”

“I ran into Johnny Owens, and he said you were asking questions about those days. So I knew you suspected.” She looked at me with eyes brimming with tears. “Lee, please don't tell anyone. That was the worst experience of my life.”

Worse than murdering someone? I was confused, and it must have showed in my face.

Mozelle went on. “I was terribly in love with Fletcher Mendenhall. I'd never cared for anybody like that before. And I never have again. I was—besotted. When he asked me to—well, I was even willing to share him with another girl. I absolutely adored him.”

She gave a sob. “Then my mother found out I wasn't living in the dorm. She came to Gerhard to find me. She had a fit. I understand now. I had broken every taboo she believed in.

“But I was willing to break them. I wanted to stay with Fletcher. I would have faced down the college, my mother, society itself—everything and everyone to be with him.”

As I began to understand, I found myself feeling sorry for Mozelle. “How old were you, Mozelle? Twenty?”

“Nineteen! And Fletcher was my whole life.”

She gave a racking sob before she spoke again. “And he turned his back on me!”

“Oh, no!”

“I was willing to bear anything for him, and he told me to get out. He threw me out—he threw both me and the other girl out—trying to save his stupid job!”

“What a jerk!”

“Everybody on campus knew. He just tossed both of us aside. People laughed when I walked by. I was publicly humiliated. I had to come home with my mother and listen to her lectures.”

“Oh, Mozelle! That was a terrible experience for a young girl!” I wasn't being phony. It was an awful thing to happen to a nineteen-year-old girl. I patted Mozelle's hand. “I'm sorry that I asked Johnny about it. I'm sorry you had to tell Hogan about it.”

“I should have gone to him and told him about it right away. I see now that he wouldn't have spread it around town. But I was so ashamed.”

“I won't spread it around either, Mozelle. We're all allowed some youthful mistakes.”

“Oh, Lee! I'd be so grateful! I nearly died of fright at that WinterFest meeting when George said Fletcher was coming to Warner Pier. I hated to leave the WinterFest committee in the lurch, but I had to get away, had to avoid meeting him.”

She retired to her handkerchief again, and I tried to think about what she'd told me. If Mozelle had killed Mendenhall, it would certainly be understandable. But she wouldn't have had any reason to kill Mary Samson.

Maybe she hadn't killed either of them.

I spoke softly. “Mozelle, did Mendenhall call you?”

“No! Thank God! I would have died if I had heard his voice! I was so glad my name wasn't on that committee list, that George hadn't sent him my number.”

She gasped out another sob. “I decided it was safe to leave my watercolor in the show, even though he was to judge it. I was working in oils in the days when I knew him, doing nonrepresentational work. I felt sure he wouldn't recognize my new style. And he knew me as Marguerite, not Mozelle. Plus, Fletcher had no way to learn my married name.”

“So he didn't call you.”

“No! Even if he had called, I wasn't home. And I turned off the answering machine.”

“Then you really did go to Chicago?”

Mozelle looked embarrassed. “Actually, no. But I left town. I called my Chicago friends, but they were going away. I couldn't stay with them. And I couldn't afford the Ritz-Carlton this month. So I just went over to Kalamazoo and stayed at the Holiday Inn.”

I swallowed a laugh, picturing Mozelle hiding out at the Holiday Inn, but telling all her friends she was at the Ritz-Carlton.

But wherever she had been, she'd destroyed my theory of who had killed Mendenhall.

If she'd had a long session with Hogan, and he'd asked her about her past, I was sure he'd checked out her whereabouts as well. He would know she'd been in Kalamazoo—if that was where she'd been. And he wasn't holding her. So he must think she was telling the truth.

I sighed. “I was sure Mendenhall had found out who you are now and had tried to call your house.”

“If he did, he didn't get me, because I wasn't there. The only person who might have been at the house was Amos Hart. He promised to go by to feed my cat.”

“What time would he have been there?”

“Probably before he went to chorus rehearsal. Between six and seven?”

Yikes! That was the time when I had guessed that Mendenhall might have called Mozelle's house. I frowned. Then I remembered that Mary Samson had been killed, too. Mozelle and Amos had given each other alibis for that.

“You and Amos were at his house after the art show opening, weren't you?”

Mozelle looked embarrassed. “Yes, that was the night—well, I hate to admit it, but I fell asleep. I had a glass of wine at the art show, and that always makes me sleepy. Then Amos simply insisted that I come by, have another glass of wine, and hear some new classical CD he had bought. At the time I thought my friendship with Amos might amount to something, so I was trying hard to take an interest. But—I'm just a musical nincompoop. Classical musical puts me right to sleep. I didn't wake up until nearly midnight. And Amos made a big thing out of it. You know, insinuating remarks. And he didn't want to give my house key back. He claimed he'd misplaced it. After that evening I decided our relationship must end.”

I was staring at Mozelle in astonishment. My theory of her guilt was smashed, but she'd given me a new theory.

Amos. Amos Hart. Amos who believed that everything happened for the best. Amos, who could have been at Mozelle's house if Mendenhall called. Amos, who might have put a little something in Mozelle's wine so that she would sleep while he ran over to Mary Samson's house and beat her head in with a skillet.

Amos, who at that moment opened the door to the office and walked in. Holding a pistol.