The Chocolate Falcon Fraud (5 page)

“Is Jeff okay?”

“The car is empty, Lee. Jeff's not in it.”

Chocolate Chat

In the first Chocoholic mystery,
The Chocolate Cat Caper
, Lee and Aunt Nettie hold a press conference, where Aunt Nettie begins her statement to the reporters by saying, “We don't make fudge.”

That gets a laugh from the assembled members of the press. People who have been to Michigan's resorts will understand why. Fudge is everywhere.

Of course, the fudge-making center—of Michigan and maybe of the world—is Mackinac Island, in northern Michigan. This island, not quite four square miles, is in Lake Huron at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac, and it's drawn tourists since the late 1800s. And one of the reasons they come is fudge.

On this small island, some fifteen shops make fudge. For more than a hundred years visitors have watched as creamy chocolate is mixed, tossed, and kneaded back and forth on big marble slabs as part of informal shows. Who can resist eating some? And how can the fudge shops resist expanding into branches all across Michigan and even as far away as New England?

Fudge is great stuff, but as Aunt Nettie says, it's not her business. TenHuis Chocolade offers “luxury chocolates in the Dutch tradition.” Both are yummy. But they are very different styles of chocolate.

“Hogan has called for help searching the area,” Joe said. “But there's no sign of Jeff so far.”

“We'll come and join the search.”

Joe sighed. “I don't think that would help, Lee. The sheriff has sent deputies, and they're bringing dogs. It's pitch-black out here. We might lose you, too.”

“I guess I'd better call Alicia.”

“Let us look a while longer before you do that.”

Aunt Nettie arrived soon after Joe's call, and she, Tess, and I worried and wept for several hours. Maybe I've had a worse time in my life, but I don't remember one. This made my divorce—and even my parents' divorce—seem like a picnic.

Not that we gave up hope. It was, of course, a good-news, bad-news situation. If Jeff wasn't in his wrecked car, then he might be okay. But the smashed-up car was—well, it was an indication the situation could be worse than my terrible imaginings had been.

Joe and Hogan called to report when they could, usually about every half hour. The oddities of west Michigan cell phone
tower placement were such that they had cell phone service, even though we didn't. They had to call on our landline.

Gradually we learned more.

When Joe had taken the tracking device to Hogan, the two of them examined it and decided that it seemed to be working. The device, they believed, was transmitting, and it was doing it from the end of Big Pine Road.

So, riding in Hogan's police chief car and using its powerful searchlight, they drove toward the end of Big Pine Road and slowly played the light over the edges of the road, looking for tire tracks or broken bushes and limbs. Near the end of the road they discovered a place where a car had run off the gravel road. Joe told me I could assure Tess that the place would have been invisible to an inexperienced person. For that matter, Joe and I had driven out there, too, and we hadn't seen it.

As soon as they knew where to look, they had easily found the white Lexus.

“Hogan said he didn't know if he should be glad or sad when he saw it was empty,” Aunt Nettie said.

Tess blamed herself for the whole situation. She didn't cry hysterically; she just cried.

“Lee, I should have told you about this earlier,” she said. “When we first ran into each other at the motel. But I just couldn't believe anything had happened to Jeff. I felt sure he had discovered the bug and thrown it in the bushes.”

“I would have thought the same thing you did,” I said. “Or I'd have believed that the device fell off. Or somehow got on another car. Or something.”

We both mopped our eyes again.

“What I still don't understand,” I said, “is why on earth Jeff
would have gone to the end of Big Pine Road. That's the big mystery.”

Aunt Nettie kept a more positive outlook. “Tess,” she said, “when they find Jeff, you'll be responsible for saving his life. No one would have thought to look out there—maybe not for months—if it weren't for the bug you planted.”

Tess sobbed. Even two friendly people patting her were no help. About midnight she fell asleep, sitting upright in the corner of the couch, with a sodden Kleenex in her hand. Neither Aunt Nettie nor I made a noise that might wake her. The girl was exhausted.

By twelve thirty Aunt Nettie had also fallen asleep, and I must have been dozing as well, because when the phone rang, we all jumped. In fact, the portable phone from the kitchen was in my lap, and I twitched so hard I dropped it and had to scrabble around, pulling it toward me with my crutch, before I could answer.

It was Hogan giving another report of no results. But he ended with a request.

“Can you ask Tess if Jeff usually kept his cell phone on his person?”

I had the phone on speaker, and Tess had heard him. “Yes,” she said. “He usually kept it in his pants pocket.”

“I'm going to try calling Jeff's phone,” Hogan said. “Tess, what kind of ringtone did he have?”

She said it was the one called “blues,” because “he likes everything retro.”

“Good thing it isn't like frogs chirping,” Hogan said. “There're already enough of those out here. We'd never ID the sound.”

He hung up, and I dropped the portable phone in my lap.
Then I jumped again, because I immediately heard the faint sound of the blues ringtone.

My first thought was that I was still connected with Hogan, and that I was hearing the blues ring through the line. But when I checked my phone, it was definitely turned off. Disconnected.

But the sound of the blues ringtone continued. I was quite familiar with the sound, of course. Working with thirty women, I heard every available ringtone frequently.

Now I was hearing the blues ringtone clearly. Either the source was moving toward us or the volume was increasing with each ring, as happens with many phones.

“It sounds as if that's in our house,” I said.

Tess and Aunt Nettie both jumped to their feet.

“It's here!” Tess yelled. “Jeff's phone is here in this house!”

“I hear it, too!” Aunt Nettie's voice was shrill. “But where is it?”

Tess ran for the stairs. “Upstairs! It's upstairs!”

Aunt Nettie was right on her heels. The two of them thundered up the old-fashioned enclosed staircase.

“Wait for me!” I was yelling, too.

I stuck the kitchen phone in my pocket, climbed aboard my crutch, and thumped after them. Up the stairs, clump, clump, clump.

Climbing a set of narrow wooden stairs with a crutch isn't the easiest thing in the world. I gave up trying to walk and hopped. I held on to the sturdy railing Joe had installed, trailed my crutch behind me, and hopped from step to step, pulling myself up with my free arm. A lot of steps, including three narrow ones at the turn. A few times I had to use my injured foot. It hurt, but not unbearably.

I was sure glad to reach the upstairs hall. That had been carpeted, so it at least was quieter. I kept swinging along.

Our house wasn't large, and the upstairs was just half the size of the downstairs. But my ancestors had somehow managed to cram two bedrooms and a storage room into that space. Tess' room, the main guest room, was the first on the right, and I could see the light had been turned on and that Aunt Nettie and Tess were moving around in there.

When I followed them inside, the two of them were standing at the foot of the bed, staring at the ceiling. The ringing had stopped.

“Where was it coming from?” Aunt Nettie asked.

“Was it Chief Jones calling?” Tess sounded completely mystified. “Or were we hearing some other noise?”

“We'll ask him,” I said.

Aunt Nettie went to the bedside extension and called Hogan's cell number.

“Hogan, dear,” she said. “Call Jeff's number again, please.”

She listened, then spoke again. “Just humor me, Hogan. Please. Something odd happened.”

Tess, Aunt Nettie, and I stood, holding our breath. I couldn't believe we would hear the ringtone again.

But we did hear it. And when we did, all three of us whipped our heads up.

The sound was close to us. It was slightly muffled, true, but it was obviously not far away. And it was above us.

“It's coming from the attic,” Aunt Nettie said.

“Where is the attic?” Tess asked, clearly mystified. “I mean, I know it's above us. But where is the opening?”

“You get into it through the closet ceiling,” Aunt Nettie said. “We'll need a ladder. Or at least a stool.”

“There's one in the pantry off the back hall,” I said.

Tess ran for the stairs, and I joined Aunt Nettie's call on the portable extension I still had in my pocket. She and I told Hogan what had happened.

“If Jeff has been here all the time . . . ,” I said.

“Don't get your hopes up,” Hogan said. “It's probably only a coincidence of some kind.”

“I'd better clear the closet,” I said. I hobbled to the closet and began clearing the shelf. I immediately noticed something.

“This shelf has been rearranged,” I said. “I know these boxes weren't stacked like this.”

“What's up there?” Aunt Nettie asked.

“Wedding gifts,” I said. “Plus other stuff we'll never use but don't dare get rid of. It wasn't stacked up in the middle, though. It was a long, flat pile. I put the boxes there myself.”

“Are there more things in the attic?”

“Sure. Mainly Christmas decorations.”

As soon as Tess got back with the stool—actually a four-step ladder—Aunt Nettie sent her back downstairs for a flashlight. Then she opened a drawer in the bedside table and took out a flashlight that was already there.

“Lee, I don't think Tess should be the one to look up there. And I'm not tall enough. Do you think you can get up on that ladder?”

I nodded. “After dragging myself up those stairs, I can climb anything,” I said. Somehow I managed to hop up two steps of the ladder. I shoved the final boxes aside and pushed up the square wooden lid that blocked the attic entrance. Then I pulled myself up two more steps, clinging to the closet shelf and the doorframe, and raised my head and shoulders inside the attic. I slowly played the flashlight around.

I saw nothing helpful. Joe had nailed sheets of sturdy unfinished plywood to some of the rafters, creating a floor about six feet square. Cardboard boxes and plastic bins of Christmas decorations stood within arm's length of the opening. A plastic jack-o'-lantern leered at me as well.

Nothing moved. The attic had no lighting, so my flashlight was sending its beam into blackness, bouncing it off the inside of the roof.

And I heard nothing. The cell phone, if that was what we'd been hearing, had gone to voice mail, then cut off. The squirrel, or whatever our animal visitor was, was not moving. There was no sound except the echoes of truck tires and air horns more than a mile away on the interstate.

I heard feet on the stairs, and Tess said, “Here's the flashlight. Oh.”

“We found a flashlight in the bedside table,” Aunt Nettie said. “Lee's looking up there.”

“Lee, do you see anything?” Tess' voice was fearful.

“Just some old plastic bins and cardboard boxes,” I said. “Ask Hogan to call Jeff's cell again.”

Hogan obeyed, and again we heard the blues ringtone, this time much more loudly. It was definitely in the attic, and close to me. But again nobody answered. And again it cut off after four rings.

The sound had come from my right. I reached over and moved the box on top to the right. Then I moved the one on the bottom, sliding it to my left.

And I saw Jeff's face.