The Chocolate Book Bandit

by JoAnna Carl

  There’s a certain level of convenience in being married to the son of your insurance agent. Joe’s mom assured us we could start shopping for a new vehicle; then I headed back to my office. I intended to collect pay for that workday, so I needed to put some time in there.

  Through all of this looking at books, discussing library business, and walking down the street to his mom’s office, Joe had maintained the same deadpan expression and behavior. He hadn’t once said something like, “What the hell were you doing cheek to cheek and eye to eye with a new guy in town?” Or any other question that a husband is entitled to ask.

  Of course, I had a come-back question all prepared. “What the hell were you doing in a lip lock with Meg Corbett right out on the street in front of your office?” And similar questions a wife has the right to ask.

  Somehow we had maneuvered ourselves into a tit-for-tat situation, and apparently neither of us planned to bring the whole thing up. But Joe was still quiet. Not sullen. He never gets sullen. But it made me uneasy and I kept stumbling over my words. Usually when Joe and I are alone, I don’t get my tang toungled. With him, I usually feel at ease.

  In other words, we were both pretending everything was all right, and we both knew it wasn’t. That’s no way to live your life, even for a few hours.

  When we got to my office, Joe didn’t come in. But he told me he’d pick me up at five o’clock. And he squeezed my hand. It was better than nothing.

  That evening we were finally alone—choosing food from the cafeteria in our refrigerator for dinner—but the phone rang several times. People were still checking on me, and we didn’t talk a lot.

  I told Joe I was well enough to load the dishwasher, and after that was done I worked on the leftover gift food for a while, putting things into smaller dishes and freezing things that could be frozen, plus making a list of who had brought what. Former contestants for Miss Texas always send handwritten thank-you notes.

  By staying in the kitchen, I guess I was still trying to avoid the conversation we needed to have. When I left the kitchen Joe was sitting at the dining table, which doubles as a desk at our house. He was surrounded by papers.

  “The Vanderklomp trust doesn’t look complicated,” he said.

  Hmmm. Maybe Joe was trying to avoid that conversation, too.

  He went on. “But I don’t understand the financial statement.”

  “Who prepared it?”

  “The only person who signed off was Miss Ann Vanderklomp.”

  “That doesn’t sound right.” I sat down at the table, and Joe handed me a sheaf of papers. I looked at them for a few minutes. “I’m not an auditor. All I can tell you is that the figures add up.”

  “But what’s that grant to TAC?”

  I read it again. “They gave ten thousand to the Warner Pier Public Library and five thousand to this TAC. Of course, this type of report doesn’t have any information explaining what TAC is. There’s no reason that it should. I mean, supporting data would be in a different document, and they might not give that to the library director.”

  Joe leaned back in his chair. “You know, I was city attorney for two years, and I never knew that this trust existed. It has no direct connection with the city legally.”

  “I guess that means that the city has no control over it.”

  “I suppose they don’t have to. If the Vanderklomp family wants to put some money aside to benefit the library, of course they’re free to do so. Unless they take the legal steps required to give the fund’s principal to the city, the city doesn’t have any responsibility for the money or its administration.”

  “Yes, but wouldn’t the family have some tax benefits if they did it that way?”

  “I’d think so. But I’m no tax attorney.”

  We both stared at the heap of papers. I sighed. “If Butch Cassidy needs an auditor or a tax attorney to explain all this, he’d better call on two other people.”

  “Right.”

  Or, as it turned out, he could simply have read his mail.

  Chapter 20

  The next day was Sunday. Joe and I finally got our pancakes, but our breakfast conversation was stilted.

  Around nine thirty I announced that I needed to go in to work. Joe said he wanted to repair the screen door; one-hundred-year-old houses are picturesque, but they require continuous upkeep. I drove myself to work in his truck and told him I’d come home at noon so he could go to the boat shop after lunch. I promised I’d be careful driving in, and that I’d keep the door to the shop locked while I was working.

  I was determined to catch up on the work I had neglected the two previous days, beginning with the mail. The retail shop isn’t open on Sundays after Labor Day, so I’d be on my own and could really get things done. Besides, sorting the mail seemed more productive than sitting around the house, cutting the tension with a knife.

  When I got to my office, I found plenty of mail to deal with. There was a pile left from the day I’d stayed home, plus the previous day’s mail was sitting there, largely untouched. On that day I’d concentrated on e-mail and the bank deposit during the brief time I’d actually worked.

  So I started making piles. Bills—there are always some of those. Orders—though many of our customers order by e-mail or by fax, there are still lots of mail orders for a business the size of ours. Then there were checks coming in—my favorite category, of course.

  Finally there was a big pile of miscellaneous stuff. Sales letters. Newsletters. Begging letters. I had to open each one, read it or at least glance at it, and put it either into the appropriate stack or into the trash. It’s amazing how much mail can go directly into the trash.

  I was happy to see several envelopes containing checks. And even happier to receive a substantial order for chocolate Christmas items from a Chicago gift shop, and another nearly as large from a shop in Grand Rapids. I worked rapidly, fortifying myself with a cup of instant coffee and a chocolate malt truffle (“milk chocolate center with a milk chocolate coating, dusted with malt”).

  It was around ten thirty before I got through the orders, the bills, and the payments. Then I began to sort the miscellaneous mail.

  I found the Warner Pier Chamber of Commerce newsletter and put it aside to read later. There was an invitation to a wine-and-cheese fund-raiser supporting a Grand Rapids women’s shelter. I put it aside to decline and to send a small check. I support the shelter, but I’m not driving sixty miles for a glass of wine at my busiest time of the year. We don’t have that many Grand Rapids customers I need to schmooze. Hope College had sent a reminder about a concert. I checked to make sure the date was already on my calendar.

  So it went. There were more than a dozen similar items to be disposed of.

  I was near the bottom of the stack before I found the plea from Camp Upright. I might have put it directly into the trash if the pitch from Brian Turley hadn’t been so fresh in my mind. He’d made me curious about his camp, and now I wondered how his begging letters matched with his talk in our living room.

  As I read the letter I almost yawned. Maybe it was because I’d heard the spiel recently, but Brian’s material struck me as pretty dull. He had apparently sent the letter to the entire mailing list of the Warner Pier Chamber of Commerce, so it was impersonal. It explained the economic benefits of having the camp here, and those benefits didn’t look all that big to me. He didn’t have many employees, and all of them but him were seasonal. Almost all of them lived at the camp. The campers were kids without much money who were restricted from going to town. It sounded as if the main economic benefit of the camp was to Carol and Brian, not Warner Pier or Warner County, unless the C of C members felt strongly about developing character in the young through athletics. Personally, I have my doubts about that.

  But I read it through, becoming more and more convinced I wasn’t going to give them any money. Then I came to the informatio
n about where to send contributions.

  At the top of the instructions, it said, “Make checks payable to TAC.”

  It took a moment for the three initials to sink in. Then I yelped. “TAC! Wow! Turley Athletic Camp!”

  I was so excited I stood up and walked out of my office and all around the shop. But I kept staring at the begging letter.

  TAC was the fund-raising arm of Brian Turley’s camp?

  The organization the Vanderklomp Foundation had given five thousand dollars?

  But how could that foundation give money to a camp? The foundation supposedly had been established solely to benefit the Warner Pier Public Library.

  Well, it could happen pretty easily if Miss Ann Vanderklomp wanted it to.

  I reached for the phone. I wanted to tell somebody about this. Joe? He’d be excited. But our home phone rang ten times, and no one answered. So I tried his cell phone. No one answered it either.

  Joe must be working outside, and he must not have put his phone in his pocket.

  I tried to call Hogan, but again there was no answer. I remembered then that he and Aunt Nettie had planned to go to a picnic planned for Warner County law-enforcement officials by the county attorney. They were thirty miles away.

  I decided that it wasn’t vital that Hogan hear that information immediately, so I did not call 9-1-1 and request that the county dispatcher interrupt his social morning.

  I told myself to calm down. Then I opened my computer and started on my e-mail. But I kept looking at the time, eager to call Joe or Hogan.

  The knock on the outside door made me jump.

  The shades on that door and on our show windows were down, so I couldn’t see who was there. I toyed with the idea of not answering it, but I realized that the lights in my office were probably visible through the gaps around the shades. I might be snubbing someone I wanted to talk to.

  But when I got to the door and pulled up the shade, it wasn’t anyone I wanted to see. On the other hand, it wasn’t anyone who was likely to rob the store, either.

  It was Miss Ann Vanderklomp, wearing a dressy navy blue dress with a white lace collar.

  Everybody in Warner Pier knew that Miss Vanderklomp always went to the early service at the Episcopal church. Every day is casual day in Warner Pier, so most of us wear slacks or even jeans to church. I might have known Miss Vanderklomp would wear a dressy dress.

  I hope I didn’t roll my eyes like a teenager at the sight of her, though I sure wanted to. Besides, I’d begun to wonder how she found out I had that key.

  I unlocked the door and opened it a few inches. “Yes, Miss Vanderklomp?”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Woodyard. I saw your light and wondered if you were here. I hope you have changed your mind about giving me that key.”

  “No, I haven’t. By the way, how did you know I had the key?”

  Miss Vanderklomp rolled her eyes. “Oh, I have my methods. I know what’s going on in Warner Pier.”

  I resisted the temptation to slam the door. I might have broken the glass. So I closed it gently, and Miss Vanderklomp walked away.

  I went back to my computer, but my thoughts were completely disrupted. How had Miss Vanderklomp known I had that key? When she asked for it the day before I’d been so busy saying no that I hadn’t wondered how she found that out.

  I considered the question and came up with all sorts of possibilities.

  She had seen me with it. No, that hadn’t happened. I hadn’t seen her between the time I got the key from Timothy Hart and the time she came to my office to confront me over it.

  Maybe Timothy Hart had told her he gave it to me. No, I didn’t believe that for a minute. The only person Tim had mentioned as having a legitimate interest in the key was Hogan. He would have had no reason to say anything to Miss Vanderklomp.

  Maybe she had known where the key had been hidden, and she’d found out that Aunt Nettie and I had cleaned out Abigail Montgomery’s refrigerator. That idea was stupid.

  Nobody had seen the key after Tim gave it to me. He had handed it to me, and I had placed it beside the vase that held the roses he had brought. And Tim and Hart were the last visitors Joe and I had had the day after the van went off the bluff.

  No, that was wrong. There were two more visitors: Carol and Brian Turley.

  And Carol had taken an interest in the roses. While Joe and Brian had been getting coffee, Carol had commented on the roses. In fact, she could have seen me put Abigail’s key in my pocket.

  Aha! Carol Turley must have told Miss Vanderklomp that I had the key.

  What was going on? Admittedly the key was distinctive, but Carol would have had to be familiar with one like it if she was going to recognize it.

  Were Miss Vanderklomp and Carol in cahoots, joining forces to hide books they considered unsuitable for the library shelves?

  That was silly. But the whole hiding-of-the-books thing was silly.

  And what could that activity—reprehensible as it might be—have to do with the deaths of two people? Miss Vanderklomp might be embarrassed if her stash of books was publicly revealed, but that wouldn’t be worth killing anybody over.

  Actually, I told myself, Miss Vanderklomp probably wouldn’t even be embarrassed if the whole thing came out. She undoubtedly saw her actions as perfectly justified and thought she had performed them for the good of the library.

  And, again, how did Carol fit into the whole thing?

  And who had killed Abigail Montgomery and Betty Blake? And why?

  The only way I’d ever figure it out was if somebody captured the whole thing on a security camera. And the Warner Pier Public Library did not have security cameras.

  That thought did remind me that I had taken a couple of pictures that I’d never shared with Hogan. I took one just after I discovered Betty Blake’s body, and another before I started pulling the books off of her. I’d offered the photos to Hogan, but he’d said he’d look at them later. He hadn’t seemed to think they were too important. The Michigan State Police lab techs had taken their own pictures.

  I glanced at the office clock. In five minutes it would be eleven thirty, and I could again call Hogan and try to share the things I’d figured out. First, that Carol’s husband’s business had received money from the Vanderklomp trust. Second, that Carol had seen the key from Abigail’s refrigerator—or I believed that she had—and had apparently told Miss Vanderklomp I had it. Third, the tale of the key and the hidden books; it might have nothing to do with the two deaths at the library, but Hogan should get a smile out of it.

  Five minutes was just about the amount of time it would take for me to e-mail the two pictures from my phone to myself and to Hogan.

  The photos downloaded smoothly, and I looked at the larger version on my computer screen. I shuddered at the sight of the books heaped on the floor, with poor Betty’s worn shoes sticking out. At least the color had come out well—a miracle, considering the harsh shadows that crisscrossed the upstairs of the library. A red book on one of the tables almost glowed.

  A red book? The object looked familiar. I blew up that section of the photo and looked at the rectangular red thing carefully.

  It wasn’t a book. It was a red folder. It was the red leather folder that Carol Turley carried with her to meetings. The one that held her reports and financial notes.

  “Oh. My. Goodness,” I said.

  I quickly looked at the second photo, the one I had taken after I ran downstairs to call for help.

  In that one the red folder was gone.

  I sat at my desk, stunned.

  Carol must have been in the adult section while I was wandering around, looking for Betty. When I ran downstairs to get help, she had grabbed her folder and slipped away down the back stairs.

  Was there any other possible explanation?

  I couldn’t see one. Except . . . w
ell, someone else might have had Carol’s folder. But she never seemed to let it out of her sight. No, that folder was never far from Carol, so it was a logical assumption that she had brought it up to the adult section while the noisy kids’ movie was playing downstairs. She must have gone up the back stairs, as well as escaping down them.

  Carol must have killed Betty Blake.

  And if she’d killed Betty, she had probably killed Abigail, too.

  I shuddered. Then I hit SEND. I wanted somebody else, preferably Hogan, to have copies of those photos.

  Then I reached for the telephone and called Hogan’s cell phone. I didn’t care where he and Aunt Nettie were; I needed to talk to him, to tell him about Carol.

  He didn’t answer, of course. His phone was turned off. I left a “call me” message, but he might not get it for hours.

  How dare Hogan not be at the phone, waiting eagerly for me to call and tell him the case was solved? I called the Warner Pier Police station. There the answering machine offered to link me up with the emergency operator. I hung up.

  Then I called 9-1-1 and asked the operator if she could track Hogan down and give him an important message from his niece. But it was an operator I didn’t know, and her reaction was unenthusiastic. I tried to make my message sound important, but I didn’t want to share too much information. I wanted to talk to Hogan, not the 9-1-1 operator.

  I called Joe again, thinking he might have a helpful idea, but he didn’t answer.

  I left a message on our phone and on Joe’s cell phone.

  Then I waited for Hogan to call me, stalking around the office like a madwoman and making guttural growls. I was still waiting half an hour later, at noon. That’s when I decided to go home.

  But when I got into Joe’s truck, I discovered another frustration. The gas gauge was sitting on empty.

  I growled again. I just wasn’t in the mood to stop for gas.

  But I did it. I drove to the station out on the highway, the one where Joe ordinarily gets gas, and I pumped a whole bunch of gasoline into the truck’s huge fuel tank.