The Chocolate Book Bandit

by JoAnna Carl

  And while I was huddled between the truck and the gas pump, almost out of sight of the world, something interesting happened.

  Miss Ann Vanderklomp pulled into the station in her two-year-old Buick and parked in one of the spots over by the mini mart. When she got out of the car I saw that she had changed out of her dressy navy blue dress. Now she wore denim slacks and—of all things—a gray Warner Pier High School sweatshirt.

  I stared in surprise. Miss Vanderklomp in a sweatshirt and denim slacks? Strange. Then I told myself she probably planned to spend the afternoon raking leaves or doing some other autumn chore. Even Miss Vanderklomp would occasionally have to do some physical labor to get along in life.

  She was in the little shop only a few minutes, and when she came out, she carried a small sack. I was surprised to see her open the trunk to put it inside.

  I was even more surprised to see that the trunk was already loaded.

  Even from thirty feet away I could see what was in the trunk of the Buick. It was loaded with flat pieces of cardboard.

  Boxes. Unassembled boxes. And I knew immediately what she was going to do with them.

  Chapter 21

  To me it was obvious what was going on. Miss Vanderklomp was going to pack up those books in the basement of the library and carry them away.

  I got so excited I nearly knocked the nozzle of the gas pump out of the tank. I didn’t know what to do. I seem to remember running back and forth—as much as possible when I was jammed in between a gas pump and a large pickup—trying to figure out how to handle this.

  Then the gas pump clicked off. I collected my receipt—accountants do this sort of thing even when excited—and got in the truck. Then I followed Miss Vanderklomp.

  She was driving at half the speed limit and swerving a bit now and then. It was easy to catch up with her. I had plenty of time to consider both her actions and what I should do about them.

  First, could she get into the library’s basement to get the books? I was sure Butch had locked the basement door, but somehow I was willing to bet she had a set of keys of her own. Second, did it matter if she took the books? I decided that it did. Those books were library property.

  So I ought to tell Butch Cassidy about it. But before I did that I’d better make sure that was what was going on. I’d feel like an idiot if Miss Vanderklomp went home and used those boxes to pack up old clothes for the Salvation Army.

  I continued to follow her light blue Buick through the quiet streets of Warner Pier. To my surprise, she didn’t drive directly to the library. She drove instead to the Independent Fellowship, a nondenominational church. It took me a few seconds to picture a map of Warner Pier and to realize that the church was on the street behind the library. She was approaching the library from the rear.

  This looked more and more like book theft.

  I drove on by the church, blessing the fact that Joe’s truck had tinted windows. I didn’t think Miss Vanderklomp could see me through them, and she probably wouldn’t recognize the truck, even though it had been sitting in front of TenHuis Chocolade when she stopped in. At least she hadn’t mentioned it. She had said she came to the door because she saw there was a light on.

  A lot of people in Warner Pier know my van because it’s the only one in town with a Dallas Cowboys bumper sticker, but Joe is an M-Go-Blue fan, and there are dozens of pickups around with University of Michigan stickers.

  The Independent Fellowship building sits on a city lot in our old-fashioned downtown area, and two or three lots adjoining it have been cleared for parking. The parking areas—in fact, the whole church property—were empty. Apparently the Independent Fellowship services are over early.

  Miss Vanderklomp drove around behind the church. This gave me a problem, because I couldn’t see what she was doing back there.

  I went on to the end of the block and turned right. I found a parking place next to the alley. Then I got out and walked down the alley toward the church and library. The alley had businesses on either side. All of them were closed. I didn’t see a soul as I approached the library and church.

  When I got close to the spot where Miss Vanderklomp had parked, I came to the parking lot of the Elite Beauty Salon. This lot was edged by a big hedge, and by hiding behind it I was able to see the area behind the church. I sure hoped the gal who ran the Elite wasn’t there. She would have wondered about this odd woman roaming around on her property.

  The area behind the church was just what I’d expected. There were two or three parking spots, probably used by the staff and deliverymen. And two vehicles were parked in them.

  The first, of course, was Miss Vanderklomp’s light blue Buick. The other was a dirty white van.

  Carol Turley was standing beside the van. There was a rectangle of cleaner paint on its front door, and I was willing to bet that a magnetic sign that read CAMP UPRIGHT usually marked that spot.

  Then Miss Vanderklomp came out from behind her car. To my surprise, she staggered and almost fell.

  Carol took her arm. When she spoke I could hear her voice clearly. “Oh, Miss Vanderklomp, I believe you’re ill. Let me help you across to the library.”

  “I’m just tired, terribly tired,” Miss Vanderklomp said. “But I must get those books packed up.”

  “I’ll help you across. Then I’ll come back for the boxes.”

  They started across the alley, with Miss Vanderklomp leaning heavily on Carol’s arm. She had her purse looped over her left shoulder, and she clutched her water bottle in her right hand.

  There was a certain amount of fumbling, but either Carol or Miss Vanderklomp had a key, and they went in the back door of the library.

  I turned and ran back down the alley to the truck. It was time to call in the cavalry.

  As soon as I was in the truck, I grabbed my cell phone and started trying to get hold of people. I called information for a new number for Henry Cassidy. Or for Butch Cassidy. No listing under either name. I used my phone to find Rhonda Ringer-Riley’s number. If Butch was renting a house from her, she ought to have his phone number. Rhonda didn’t answer. I called Joe. He didn’t answer. I growled in frustration.

  I once again tried both of Hogan’s phones. He didn’t answer either.

  Where was everybody?

  Finally, I called my mother-in-law. Since Mercy is married to a restaurant owner, he’s extra busy on weekends and she’s usually home. Sure enough, she answered.

  “Thank God!” I said. “A human voice!”

  “Lee? What’s wrong?”

  “Mercy, will you get on the phone and call Joe? Or else drive out to the house and find him? I can’t raise him.”

  “What?”

  “He’s got to be home. I’m driving his truck.”

  “He’s probably outside. Can’t you just keep calling? What’s the emergency?”

  “Listen, Mercy. I’m in the alley behind the Independent Fellowship Church. Their services are over, and the lot is empty except for the cars of Miss Ann Vanderklomp and Carol Turley. I think the two of them are stealing books from the library.”

  “Stealing books? Miss Vanderklomp? Oh, Lee . . .”

  “But that’s not the scary part. I think Carol Turley killed Abigail Montgomery and Betty Blake.”

  “Carol? But she’s the treasurer of the Warner Pier Lecture Club!”

  “I don’t care if she’s treasurer of the Virtue Society of America. I think she killed both of them. And now she and Miss Vanderklomp are alone at the library, and I think Carol’s ready to kill her, too!”

  Mercy gasped.

  I almost yelled out the next words. “Miss Vanderklomp is staggering! I’m sure she’s been drugged. I’m relying on you, Mercy. We need to find Hogan. And Joe can usually do that. So you find Joe! Now!” I almost hung up. Then I remembered the other important part. “I’m calling 9-1-1, but Joe might find Ho
gan faster! And Hogan can get action!”

  I punched the phone off. Then I got out of the truck. If only I had some sort of weapon. Well, maybe I did. I was driving Joe’s truck, after all, and in the bed of it was a big toolbox.

  I opened the toolbox and poked around to see what Joe had in there. Unfortunately most of his tools looked pretty harmless. I wasn’t about to attack a murderer with a paintbrush.

  I finally found a medium-sized hammer. I stuck the handle down the front of my shirt and hung the head on my bra. This wasn’t either attractive or comfortable, but at least it kept my hands free. Then I reached into the glove box and pulled out a large flashlight.

  I started walking toward the church, and as I walked I took out my phone and punched in 9-1-1.

  I told the emergency operator that I had reason to believe that two unauthorized people had broken into the Warner Pier Public Library.

  “The public library?” She was incredulous.

  “You may recall there have been two suspicious deaths there within the last week,” I said.

  “I thought those were accidents.”

  “Suspicious deaths.” I said the words firmly. “If you don’t get some cops here, there may be another.”

  “Now, Mrs. Woodyard—”

  “I’m not threatening to hurt anybody. I’m trying to stop any more mayhem. Police Chief Hogan Jones and Inspector Larry Underwood of the state police are in charge of the investigation. Please inform them.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m going in the back door of the library, following the suspicious people who are already in there. Please get someone here ASAP. This is an emergency.”

  I hung up.

  Immediately my phone rang. I looked at the number calling. It was the 9-1-1 operator calling back. I answered the phone and said, “Call Hogan. Now!” Then I turned the phone off and put it in my pocket.

  I walked on. I tried to be quiet as I approached the back door of the library. And I was lucky. It was not locked.

  Or I guess I was lucky. I didn’t understand why it wasn’t locked. Carol had been the last person through it, and in her place I would have locked it as soon as I was inside. But she’d had her hands full holding up Miss Vanderklomp.

  I opened the door and crept inside. The flashlight immediately became important. The door led into that tiny back hall, and after the outside door swung closed that hall was pitch-black. I tried to remember the layout of the hall, though I’d only been in it once. A door in front of me, I believed, opened into the workroom at the back of the downstairs stacks. A door to the left led to stairs down to the basement.

  I felt for the handle of the basement door and opened it. To my surprise, it was just as dark in the basement as it was in the back hall. I shone the light from the flashlight down the stairs to make sure it was the basement.

  What was going on? I had been positive that Miss Vanderklomp and Carol had come to pack up the stash of books. So if they hadn’t gone to the basement, where had they gone?

  Maybe Carol couldn’t get Miss Vanderklomp down those steep stairs. Maybe she’d taken her into the library’s workroom.

  I felt for the door in front of me, turned the handle, and eased it open.

  I was looking into another pit of blackness. It was hard to realize that outside was a bright, sunny day. The inside of the library appeared to have absorbed all existing light.

  Did I dare use the flashlight? I decided I had to. I couldn’t walk across that crowded workroom in the dark without falling over something and either breaking my neck or making such a noise that Carol would know I was there. So I turned on the flashlight and made my way across the workroom, being careful not to fall over a chair or kick a table or shove a rolling rack into something that would rattle or bang.

  When I got within arm’s reach of the door into the reading room, I turned off the flashlight. And I turned the door handle gently and peeked out.

  Light. Thank goodness there was light.

  Not a lot of light. But the big room I was looking into did have windows at one end. It was dim in there, but it did have light.

  I was behind some of the stacks, so I still couldn’t see much. I slipped into the room, closed the door behind me, and began to explore.

  One thing you’ve got to give a library: There are lots of places to hide. And you don’t even have to poke your head around the ends of the shelves. No, nearly everywhere I could find spaces over the tops of the books. These made slits that allowed me to see at least into the next aisle.

  I crept along, making sure I didn’t knock into anything or trip over one of the step stools. I was heading for the center of the room, where there was a seating area. It seemed to be the most logical place for Miss Vanderklomp to be, the place where Carol would have led her. The danger was that Carol might have stashed Miss Vanderklomp there, but herself be roaming around the room. I might come face-to-face with her. And she might have a gun or a knife, while all I had was a hammer.

  Then I heard this strange noise. It was a sort of grinding noise, followed by a hiss.

  I kept moving toward the center of the room, creeping along, peeking through the shelves. And listening to that grind-hiss noise, I wondered if it were an animal of some sort. A hog? Was that grinding sound a snort?

  Then I came to the children’s section. All of a sudden I was taller than the shelves were. I dropped to my knees and began to crawl toward the seating area. At the end of the shelf, where a wider aisle separated the ranks of shelving, I reared up on my knees and peeked through the books. I could see directly into the seating area.

  Carol was nowhere in sight. But lying on the couch was Miss Ann Vanderklomp. And I understood the noise I’d been hearing. Miss Vanderklomp was snoring.

  Her snores weren’t the timid, ladylike sort, either. She was belting them out—snorts and hisses and whistles.

  I leaned against the Eric Carle books and laughed. How humiliated Miss Vanderklomp would be if she ever learned she’d been caught snoring! I didn’t dare make a sound, but I was simply dying to roll on the floor over the ridiculous situation.

  Except that it wasn’t really funny. I felt positive that Carol had drugged Miss Vanderklomp. Perhaps she was staging a suicide.

  Where was Carol? I couldn’t see her anywhere, and I couldn’t hear her.

  Of course, if Carol had already staged the suicide scene, she might have left the building. I hadn’t seen her go out the back door, but it was possible she’d crept out while I was crawling around peeking through bookshelves.

  Just as I began to feel hopeful, all hell broke loose.

  I heard a noise behind me and I turned to find myself face-to-face with Carol.

  She came around the end of the bookshelf behind me and stopped as if I’d hit her with a paralysis ray of some sort. She seemed to be frozen, standing at the end of the bookshelf I was kneeling behind.

  Then we both moved. I reached for the hammer I had stuffed down my shirt, and Carol grabbed a large, flat book from the top shelf. She got her weapon first. Holding the book in both hands, she swung it at me the way a street fighter would swing a two-by-four.

  I ducked. A bra does not make a very good holster, and I was having trouble with my quick draw. The hammer was tangled with my undies.

  Carol swung twice, and I kept ducking. I managed to avoid being hit in the head. I was still on my knees, and I launched myself at her, hitting her with a tackle that justified that Dallas Cowboys sticker my van flaunted.

  She went down like a dead tree in a high wind, right over on her backside, landing on her fanny with a shock that shook the floor of the ancient building.

  Then she got one foot free and kicked at me. The two of us grappled on the floor, twisting and wrestling. Carol began shrieking, and I was grunting. We must have been a real spectacle. I remember seeing Miss Vanderklomp in the dis
tance and thinking that she was missing a show.

  Then something hard hit my jaw. Later I decided it must have been Carol’s foot; she had kicked me. I lost my hold on her. For a moment I couldn’t seem to move. A hard rod was pressing against my breastbone, for one thing.

  It was that hammer. My secret weapon.

  The thought energized me, and I climbed to my feet, ignoring the aches and pains left from the van’s trip down the bluff. I finally got the hammer out.

  And I realized that Carol was getting away. She was running down the aisle toward the front desk, and, beyond it, the front door.

  “No!” I screamed.

  And I threw the hammer at her.

  Luckily, it missed. If it had hit her, it might have killed her, and I’d just as soon not live with that. But, no, the hammer went over her head and hit the glass in the front door. The glass must have been safety glass, because it shattered into a million tiny pieces, but stayed inside its frame. Carol gave another shriek, and I roared like an angry mother bear.

  Beside me was a book cart, the type that rolls, with shelves on either side. I yanked it out into the aisle, aimed it more carefully than I had the hammer, and sent it flying.

  It hadn’t even begun to slow down when it hit Carol full in the back. She fell headlong into the front door. The front door flew open, and Carol landed in the arms of Butch Cassidy. And Joe.

  I ran to the door. Joe and Butch Cassidy stood there, each holding one of Carol’s arms.

  There was a lot more yelling and screaming as three state policemen ran up. Then Hogan finally got there. And Jerry Cherry, his main patrolman.

  I was still yelling. “Call the EMTs!”

  “Why?” Joe had the presence of mind to be sardonic. “Are they the only people missing?”

  I pointed to the couch.

  “Oh, my God!” Joe said.

  Miss Vanderklomp had slept through the excitement. She gave a loud grunt and followed it with a wheeze.

  I collapsed into a chair near her.

  “What a day,” I said.