The Chocolate Cupid Killings (5 page)

So I didn't. I opened the back door that had given Aunt Nettie trouble, led Hogan, Aunt Nettie, and Joe through to the office, and found Derrick Valentine's business card. I had to think for a few minutes, but I came up with the name of the woman he'd been looking for. I hadn't written it down.

“Christina Meachum,” I told Hogan. “We have no one working here by that name. And I haven't had an application from anyone named Meachum.”

I was relieved that Hogan didn't ask any more, such as, “Did he show you a picture?” Or, “Had you seen the woman in the picture?” I hate quibblers, people who lie by omission or by answering only part of the question. But what else could I do? Aunt Nettie obviously didn't think we should blow Pamela's cover. So I was relieved when Hogan kept things superficial. I knew he wouldn't always. The next day's questions would be more searching, and he was sure to catch on if either of us tried evading them.

By then Hogan had called the Michigan State Police, the agency that helps small municipalities with criminal investigations, and asked for the crime scene crew. His off-duty patrolmen—both of them—arrived, and he sent one of them out to the local motel, the only one open that winter, to find out if Derrick Valentine had been registered. The routine business of crime investigation was under way.

Neither Hogan nor Joe made any reference to the conference in Hogan's office, but Hogan seemed to consider Valentine's death as a personal inconvenience rather than a major crime. Or that was what I concluded when I heard him mutter to Joe. “At least the FBI's not involved in this,” he said.

Joe kept an eye on Aunt Nettie and me in the office. I made him call his mother to tell her we wouldn't be there for dinner. As an excuse for missing a dinner engagement, finding a dead body is way better than saying you have to work late, and Joe shamelessly used Derrick Valentine's demise. I got mad at him all over again, but this wasn't the time to yell.

The most embarrassing part was that Joe's mom was so darn understanding. She said she and Mike would have us all for dinner the next day instead. She asked to talk to me. “I'm so sorry you and Nettie had this terrible experience,” she said. “Let me know if there's anything I can do. Anything at all. And if dinner tomorrow won't work, we'll do it the first time you and Joe can get free.”

I felt like a worm, and I hoped Joe did, too.

Joe, Aunt Nettie, and I stayed in the office about an hour, until Hogan told us we could go. Hogan said he'd get Nettie's car home after the crime scene people had looked things over. So I drove her home in my van, with Joe following in his truck.

It was the first time Aunt Nettie and I had been alone to talk, and we talked hard.

“We've got to tell Hogan that Derrick Valentine was looking for Pamela,” I said.

“I know, Lee. But we don't have to tell him about it tonight.”

“It could be important. Vital.”

“I know.” Aunt Nettie's voice was miserable. “I'll call Sarajane as soon as we get to my house.”

“Even if Sarajane thinks we shouldn't tell, we have to do it anyway.”

“I know, I know! But I just feel that we have to give Pamela a chance. She's in so much danger, Lee. You don't know all she's been through. We can wait until tomorrow. Please.”

I can't say no to Aunt Nettie. She's closer to me than my mother. And she's a smart lady. I trust her judgment. Also, for the first time I realized that Sarajane had told her things about Pamela's situation that neither of them had told me. I knew I couldn't point Pamela out until Aunt Nettie said it was okay.

When we got to Aunt Nettie's house, she hung her coat up, then excused herself and went into the bathroom. Joe didn't seem to notice that she took the cordless telephone with her.

Alone with Joe, I decided to go on the attack. Not only was I mad at Joe over the way he'd deliberately misled his mom, I wanted to cover any sounds from Aunt Nettie's conversation with Sarajane.

I folded my arms and faced Joe. “So. Who were those guys you and Hogan were talking to? And why was that conversation going to take you until midnight?”

“You haven't told anybody about seeing them?”

“No. You said not to. Besides, Aunt Nettie is the only person I've seen since you tossed me out of the police department and closed the Venetian blind in my face. And when I saw her we were standing over a dead body. That seemed to be a more important topic of conversation than some hulking strangers in Hogan's office.”

Joe put his arms around me. I kept my arms folded. We were nose to nose. He didn't have the nerve to kiss me.

“Lee, I can understand why you want an explanation.”

“Oh?”

“And I could come up with one.”

“And?”

“And it would be a lie.”

“A lie!”

“Yes. You and I have very few secrets from each other. But the matter under discussion tonight . . .”

“Now you sound like a lawyer.”

“I'm supposed to. The matter under discussion tonight was confidential to the nth degree. I cannot tell you what was going on.”

“It was obviously important.”

“No comment.”

I unfolded my arms and slid them around him. I moved my body against his, batting my eyes in a parody of seductiveness. “There's no way I can convince you that you should tell me?”

“If you keep that up, you might. But then—as the cliché goes—I'd have to kill you. So I'd rather you didn't unleash your powers on me. I like having you around.”

“Okay. I guess I can accept that. But I'm not sure I like your leading your mom astray.”

“When did I do that?”

“When you told her the reason you couldn't come over tonight was because Aunt Nettie and I found that dead guy.”

“That was the reason.”

“
A
reason. Not
the
reason.”

“The body was a reason. The City Hall emergency was also a reason, true, but if I can't explain it to you, I can't explain it to my mom either. So it's smarter not to bring it up.”

He kissed me. I kissed him back.

He whispered in my ear‚ “Please don't rat me out, okay?”

“Will you explain as soon as you can?”

“Oh, yeah. Gladly.” He kissed me again.

At that moment, the phone calls began.

The first one was from Lindy. She called my cell phone. I heard it, far off in my purse in the other room, and barely got the phone out before it told her to leave a message.

“Lee!” She sounded excited. “Are you okay?”

“Sure. Joe and I brought Aunt Nettie home. She was pretty shocked at finding a body at the back door of the shop.”

“Hogan said it was some guy from out of town.”

“That's right, but when did you talk to Hogan?”

“Mike called him.”

“Oh.” I hadn't thought about it, but I guess the mayor needs the police chief's cell phone number.

“Hogan made him sound like some garden-variety druggie, but it's not fun for something like that to happen at your back door.”

Garden-variety druggie? Hogan had said that? Hmmm. That wasn't my impression. But before I could decide how to reply, Lindy went on. “Anyway, it'll get Warner Pier's mind off the return of the Prodigal guy.”

“The prodigal guy? Who are you talking about?”

“You know. That guy who's CEO of Prodigal Corporation. The one who's been all over the news, thanks to the big SEC probe.”

“Marson Endicott?”

“That's the one. He's apparently coming back.”

“Back? Is he from Warner Pier?”

“No. He's a summer person. He owns that big house that looks like Monticello with three domes. The one everybody calls ‘the Dome Home.' ”

“I didn't know that was his.”

“Endicott built the house about five years ago, but he's only been here one summer. It's mostly been leased.”

Lindy would have gone on, but Aunt Nettie's regular phone rang.

I seized the excuse to hang up. “Lindy, there's another call. I'll talk to you later.”

I took the second call on the living room phone. It was the man who owns the wine shop next door to TenHuis Chocolade. “I was coming home by way of Peach Street, and something was going on in our alley. I wondered if Hogan could tell me what happened.”

I knew it was the first of a dozen such calls. Luckily, Hogan and Aunt Nettie had caller ID, so I decided not to answer any more unless they came from Hogan.

But the telephone had rung, so I deduced that Aunt Nettie had finished talking to Sarajane. Sure enough, she came out from the bedroom and smiled sweetly. “You two can go home now. Sarajane is coming over to stay with me for a while.”

Joe made a few objections, but Aunt Nettie was determined. I understood that she and Sarajane wanted a heart-to-heart chat.

As we left I was able to whisper to her‚ “Lay down the law to Sarajane. A murder investigation takes precedence over her underground railroad.”

Aunt Nettie smiled sweetly again. She didn't argue, but she didn't agree either.

There was a plot to subvert the law—right in the home of the police chief. And the plotter was a law-abiding person like my aunt Nettie. What next?

Joe was waiting beside my van. “Do you want to get a pizza?”

Suddenly I was starving. We went to the Dock Street Pizza Place, hid out at a back booth, drank beer, and ate a large pepperoni. Only a few people spoke to us.

One, oddly enough, was Frank Waterloo. I found Frank's contact unexpected, because we're not close friends. Joe and I had met him a couple of years earlier when his brother-in-law had a public run-in with Joe, then was found murdered. The killer is today in prison, but it was an unpleasant episode in our lives and in the lives of Frank Waterloo and his wife. When we see one another these days, we all four tend to nod distantly and go our own ways. Now I looked up to see Frank standing beside our booth. He looked slightly balder and slightly wider in girth than the last time I'd seen him.

“Hi, Joe,” he said. “I just wondered if Mike is planning to run for mayor again.”

“I hope so,” Joe said. “I like his ten-year plan, and I'd like to see him oversee at least its beginning.”

Frank smiled more widely. “I guess it would be to your advantage if he hangs in there.”

Joe's answer was noncommittal. “We work together well.”

Frank gave a chuckle. It wasn't a pleasant sound. Then he walked toward the door.

“What was all that about?” I said.

“Possibly about me becoming the mayor's stepson,” Joe said. “It also probably means Frank's pal Wallace Egan is planning to run against Mike.”

“For the second time?”

“Third,” Joe said. “Forget it. Let's get a to-go box for the leftovers and head home.”

Joe and I live across the bridge over the Warner River. Our road, Lake Shore Drive, parallels the shore of Lake Michigan. Every town, village, and city on Lake Michigan has either a Lake Shore Drive or a Lakeshore Drive.

We live in the old TenHuis house, a Midwestern farmhouse-style home originally built by my great-grandfather as a summer cottage. Our neighborhood is about two-thirds summer cottages and one-third yearround homes.

Lake Shore Drive has houses on both sides. Most of the lots are larger than regular city lots, and the area is heavily wooded, so it has a rural feel. When the neighborhood's population takes its winter drop, we might as well live way out in the country. So I noticed when a car pulled out of our driveway onto Lake Shore Drive.

That driveway serves only our house. There is a cut-through to one neighboring house, true, but we don't pay our snowplow man to keep the cut-through open. So if someone was pulling out of our drive in February, that someone had been to our house.

I wasn't in the mood for company, and I was glad we'd missed whoever it was. I passed the car—it was too dark to get a good look at it—and turned into the drive. Joe's truck, with his VINTAGE BOATS logo on its door, was right behind me.

We went around the house and parked side by side in the drive. But we hadn't reached the back door—we always go in the back door—before lights flashed on the trees. I realized that a car was coming up the drive.

Joe stopped. “Were you expecting someone?”

“Not me. It's probably someone who wants to know all about the body in the alley.”

“Go on inside,” Joe said. “I'll head 'em off.”

I unlocked the door and went in. I'd barely hung my coat on the rack near the back door when I heard voices approaching.

Drat. Joe was bringing someone in.

The storm door opened. “Lee, we have a visitor,” Joe said.

I didn't say anything, but I tried to put a welcoming look on my face.

A tall, distinguished-looking man came in. He wore a beautiful flannel overcoat, not unlike the ones the guys in Hogan's office had been wearing. He had a furry hat, and a scarf I was willing to bet was cashmere was tucked inside his collar.

He pulled off his leather gloves and held out a large, broad hand.

I guess I held my hand out, too, because he took it.

“Sorry to come by so late,” he said. “I'm a voice from Joe's past.”