The Chocolate Falcon Fraud

by JoAnna Carl

  Chapter 16

  The red car tore toward us. Its horn was blaring a continuous blast, which grew louder as the car came nearer.

  Joe slowed down and pulled far to the right, nearly off the road. The car flashed past us, the sound of its horn echoing weirdly against the trees. I got only a glimpse of the driver, but I was sure it was Tess. She was concentrating on the road and didn’t look in our direction. At least she was doing something right.

  Behind her by maybe a hundred yards was a huge black Jeep SUV. It looked like a dinosaur chasing a little red bug. Its grille had shiny chrome teeth—teeth so fierce and frightening that I expected it to snap the smaller car up, chew it into strips of tinsel, and spit it out on the roadside.

  By then Joe had stopped the truck completely, throwing up gravel. He began to turn, swinging the truck’s steering wheel in full circles, jamming the transmission into reverse, backing up a few feet, then pulling forward a few inches on the narrow road. I knew he had to be cautious. If he backed into the ditch, we could be there until a wrecker came, and we’d be no help to Tess.

  As he whirled the wheel and stamped on the clutch, Joe yelled, “Call Hogan! Call the state police! Call somebody and tell them what’s happening!”

  I already had my phone in my hand, and I began to punch its keys. At least we were in an area with cell service. And at least we had told Hogan where we were going. I wasn’t sure why that comforted me.

  By the time I had alerted the authorities to the chase, Joe had turned the truck around. He floored the accelerator, and we took off after the scary black SUV.

  The road was perfectly straight; I couldn’t tell if Tess was even still in front of the SUV, since the larger car blocked our view of her, but I didn’t see how she could fail to be.

  “I’m not sure I can catch him,” Joe muttered. “This diesel-burning sucker was built to haul boats, not chase panthers. He has more speed than I do.”

  “If you catch him, at least you have the power to kick his rear end.”

  “If he doesn’t have a bazooka.”

  A chill ran down my body. Looking at the fierce black SUV, I thought it seemed only too likely that the driver of such a threatening vehicle would be armed. But we couldn’t abandon Tess.

  Joe drove on, aiming the big blue truck down the road like an arrow as he tried to catch up with the other two vehicles. And we did draw closer to the SUV. Tess had quit holding her horn down. Maybe she had done that only when our truck was coming toward her. But the three of us—the red Ford, the massive black SUV, and Joe’s even more massive truck—kept pouring it on, roaring down a gravel road that wasn’t safe even at normal speeds.

  It made our terrifying trip from Warner Pier to Holland earlier that day seem like a Sunday afternoon excursion.

  There wasn’t a curve in that road until it reached Warner Pier. Maybe that was lucky. There were a few intersections; all we could do was pray no car came through one at the same time we did.

  Joe’s pickup was roaring toward the SUV. But the big black car didn’t seem to know we were there. The driver must have been completely concentrated on Tess. He seemed to be ignoring the truck behind him.

  And that was why Joe almost got him.

  He pulled up within a few feet of the SUV, gunned his motor to its utmost, and tried to tap the black car’s back bumper.

  But just as he nearly managed it, the SUV suddenly swung out into the left-hand lane. If Joe had been moving at ninety miles an hour, now the SUV reached a hundred. The huge black car shot ahead, pulling up even with Tess’ red Ford.

  The SUV was in the ideal position to shove Tess off the road. And when her small, light car hit the thick underbrush and the giant trees, it would be torn apart. And there was nothing Joe could do to stop the SUV.

  So Tess pulled out a gun and shot it.

  • • •

  Twenty minutes later—after cop cars from three jurisdictions had arrived—Joe was sitting sideways in the driver’s seat of his truck. His elbows were on his knees, and his head was in his hands. I was standing beside him.

  “Damn it, Lee,” he said. “Why didn’t I remember we were trying to rescue a Texas girl? Naturally Tess had a gun.”

  “You can’t generalize about these things. I’m a Texas girl, too, and I never pack.”

  “Yes, but on one occasion . . .”

  “So my dad’s a deer hunter,” I said. “So I know which end of the barrel the bullet comes out of. So forget it. Is there anything we could have done differently if we’d known that Tess had a pistol under her front seat?”

  Joe gave a short, humorless laugh. “Not a thing. But I doubt I’ll forget seeing that gun come out of her window anytime soon.”

  “I’d just like to know where that SUV went,” I said.

  Because Tess had apparently not injured the driver of the SUV. She had hit the big car—all of us were sure we’d seen glass shatter—and the driver had swerved slightly. But the SUV had been traveling faster than Tess’ little car. And Tess had been smart enough to hit the brakes and slow even more.

  Between the gun beside it and a big blue truck behind it, the driver of the SUV apparently realized that he wasn’t going to wreck the little red Ford on that trip. The SUV leaped into hyperspace and took off down the road.

  Joe hadn’t tried to catch it. He had swerved to keep from hitting Tess, moving into the left-hand lane—if it was possible to divide that narrow road into lanes. Tess continued to slow. I lowered my window and began to wave. Both of our vehicles pulled over to the edge of the road. Then we got out, had a big group hug, and Tess and I began to cry.

  “But I didn’t do anything!” she said. “Why did that guy chase me? Why?”

  About then we heard the sirens, way off, but coming toward us. Michigan State Police, Warner Pier cops, and Warner County Sheriff’s deputies all converged on us.

  The first question, naturally, was what was the license number of the black SUV?

  “I couldn’t read it,” I said. “I think it had been smeared with mud or something.”

  “Well,” the state cop said in a snide voice, “it’s not as if there are a lot of black SUVs around here.”

  He was sarcastic, but right. Our resort community was full of SUVs, and for some reason black was probably the most popular color.

  Tess kept repeating her theme song. “I didn’t do anything!”

  Hogan was calm but firm. “Why were you out here anyway, Tess?”

  “I just thought that Jeff must have been here, because of his car being found in the bushes, right up the road. Then Lee and Aunt Nettie found that business, the one that sells film memorabilia, and that obviously had something to do with Jeff. So I thought I’d take a look at the place, ask if they’d seen Jeff.”

  “We already did that,” Hogan said. “The girl there said she hadn’t seen Jeff.”

  “I thought I might talk her into telling the real story. I’m sure she was lying. But when I got there, nobody was around. But I’m sure Jeff must have been here!” Tess was almost tearful. “Anyway, the trip was a water haul, so I left. I had gone less than a mile when here came that big black car! First I thought he just wanted by, and I pulled over and slowed down. But he slowed, too. And I realized he was trying to shove me off the road! So I dug out!”

  “Where did you get the pistol?”

  “Well . . .” Tess dropped her gaze. “Well, my daddy bought it for me after that stalker threatened me my freshman year. To be honest, I almost forgot I had it. But when that big black SUV caught up with me—and I thought he was going to shove me in the ditch and I was going to be killed—after all, someone was shot at Lee and Joe’s house last night! I was scared!”

  Hogan nodded. “Yes, that was the time to use a pistol. But it would help if you’d let me send it to ballistics.”

  “What for?”

  “Li
ke you said, someone was shot and killed last night. At the house where you were staying.”

  Tess almost pouted. “But I had nothing to do with that. And, Chief Jones, you didn’t ask me if I had a gun.”

  “You’re quite right, young lady. I was remiss. I knew Joe and Lee don’t normally keep firearms in their house, so even when a guy was found shot to death on their porch, I didn’t ask them about weapons. But I should have asked you.” Hogan glared at Tess, his arms folded. “Do you have any other weapons?”

  “No, sir.” Tess looked as innocent as a prairie flower. “I’m not going to be in trouble, am I? I mean, over shooting at the black car? All I did was try to protect myself.”

  “No, Tess. I’ve seen your concealed-carry permit. Texas and Michigan have a reciprocal agreement. You had a right to have the gun, and you had a right to use it for self-defense. Joe and Lee were witnesses, and they back up your story.”

  “Then can’t I have my gun back?”

  “Sure. As soon as we check to make sure it wasn’t used to kill Captain Jacobs last night.”

  Tess relaxed visibly. “That’s okay. As long as I get it before I go back to Texas. My daddy took me to classes—you remember, Lee—back when that creepy guy stalked me. He would not be happy if I were to lose that pistol.”

  I didn’t bring up the fact that the stalking episode had happened when Tess was eighteen, too young to get a concealed-carry permit. I’d let Tess and her daddy worry about that. She had one now.

  “I just hope the guy in the SUV wasn’t hurt,” she said. And, I swear, she batted her eyelashes.

  Hogan melted. Right there in front of me. “Now, now,” he said. “I’m sure he’s all right.”

  His comment made me have trouble keeping my lunch down. I’d guess I was jealous. I could never get that reaction. I’d been told I was an attractive woman, and I even had a few pageant trophies to back that up. But I was nearly six feet tall. Tess was almost a full foot shorter than I am. She could get away with batting her eyelashes.

  For a moment I was so jealous I could have shot Tess with my own gun, if I’d owned one. Then the ridiculous side of the whole thing hit me, and I snickered. Hogan glared at me.

  After a few more minutes Hogan told Joe and me to take Tess to our house. “Just wait there,” he said. “I’ll be by to question her.”

  But Tess batted her eyelashes again or otherwise turned loose her little-girl charms on Hogan. “Chief Jones,” she said timidly, “instead of going to Lee and Joe’s, could we go back to the hospital? I need to talk to Jeff.”

  Hogan folded his arms and considered before he answered. “That’s not a bad idea,” he said. “After this maybe we could get a straight story out of you two.”

  He turned to Joe and me. “But don’t let those two kids talk alone.”

  Tess gave a put-upon sigh. But she didn’t say anything else.

  As we left, a wrecker was hauling Tess’ car away. It had paint on the back bumper and on the left side, further proof that someone had tried to shove her off the road.

  Joe drove back to Holland at five miles an hour under the speed limit, I’m glad to say. That awful chase on a narrow gravel road had unnerved both of us.

  As soon as Tess saw Jeff she burst into tears.

  The two of them sat on the edge of the bed. Jeff put his arms around her. She cried, and he kissed her forehead, then said, “There, there,” and similar helpful things.

  If they were “just friends,” Joe and I had a purely platonic relationship.

  After a few minutes, I handed Tess a wet washcloth, easily found in a hospital room. She washed her face and blew her nose and said, “I must look awful.”

  Actually she looked darling. Even Joe—who had so far seemed fairly impervious to Tess’ particular charms—was looking at her with sympathetic eyes.

  “Okay, you two,” he said, “what the heck is going on?”

  “I did tell her not to go out there,” Jeff answered.

  Joe didn’t let up. “So what’s going on?” he said.

  Jeff gave a big sigh. “I guess it’s all my fault.”

  Tess nestled her head into Jeff’s shoulder. “It’s all my daddy’s fault,” she said. “If he hadn’t acted like a horse’s patootie, none of this would have happened.”

  Chapter 17

  Perhaps a word of explanation is needed here. Tess’ use of the word “Daddy” in referring to her father didn’t necessarily indicate that she was childish or immature. In many ways she was. But that wasn’t the meaning of this situation.

  “Daddy” is a universal term for “father” in Texas, especially rural and small-town Texas. My own dad, who was six foot four, who got his deer every winter, and who could turn a tractor into a pile of bolts and then put it back together, always called his own father “Daddy.” There’s even a famous cowboy song called “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine.” “Daddy” is just Texas lingo. Maybe comparable to the British “Mum.”

  If Jeff and I didn’t use “Daddy” to refer to our fathers, it was because we lived in Dallas and moved in a crowd that pretended to be a little more sophisticated, so we said “Dad.” But face-to-face, I called my father “Daddy,” just the way I did when I was little enough to sit on his lap.

  Joe had been to Texas, and I had grown up there, so we ignored the “Daddy” part of Tess’ remarks.

  “If Daddy hadn’t treated me like a child,” Tess said, “none of this would have happened.”

  Jeff hugged Tess. “I’m glad you have a dad who cares about you,” he said. “He was perfectly right when he reamed me out.”

  Jeff and Tess told the story then. It seemed they had been “just friends” for more than three years. But at the beginning of their senior year, the situation changed.

  “I finally woke up and realized that my best friend was also the cutest girl on campus,” Jeff said. “If she wasn’t afraid of the water, she’d be perfect.”

  “I am not afraid of the water!” Tess said. “I just never got around to learning to swim.”

  “But you look great in a bikini on the beach,” Jeff said. “I thought, ‘She’s wonderful. So why aren’t you in love with her, stupid?’”

  Tess smiled sweetly. “And I finally realized I liked Jeff better than I had liked any of the guys I’d dated.”

  By Christmas they’d begun to talk about a future together, but neither set of parents—accustomed to their long-established “just friends” status—had realized it. Then Tess took Jeff down to her parents’ house for a weekend, and her dad caught them necking on the back porch.

  “The first thing he said,” Jeff said, “was ‘How long has this been going on?’”

  Jeff blurted out something like “Not long enough, sir. I hope Tess will marry me.”

  So Tess’ daddy sat the two of them down for a serious talk. Her dad, Tess said, was named Buck and he’d worked in the building industry for a long time. Today he was a foreman, managing the crews who delivered lumber, concrete, paint, and plaster to building sites. The guys on these crews were tough, but apparently Buck was tougher. And his five kids knew how tough he was.

  “I was shaking,” Tess said. “My daddy can be pretty earthy. He went in the navy when he was seventeen, and when he opens his mouth—well, my mom and I just never know what’s going to come out.”

  “He called me a few names,” Jeff said. “Just in a friendly way. Like, ‘I’ll croak if my little girl marries some rich boy who’s never worked a day in his life. But I’ll croak you first.’ Of course, I told him I’d worked since I was fourteen, but he shrugged that off. ‘For your parents.’ And of course, he was right. I worked in my mom’s antiques shop. Then my dad tried to interest me in real estate, and I worked there for a few months. But I like moving furniture and packing china for Mom better than that!”

  “Buck sounds like the kind of a guy,” I sai
d, “who thinks the word ‘work’ means something requiring tools.”

  “Also sweat,” Jeff said. “Moving pretty furniture, like I do for Mom, doesn’t count with Buck. Now, Tess—well, she’s worked since she was sixteen, but she waited tables and such. Buck thinks that’s real work.”

  “Your dad got me a good job in his office last summer,” she said. “I paid off my car.”

  “Yes, but you had to work the Saturday and Sunday shifts.” Jeff hugged her around the shoulders. “Alicia bragged about what good help you were.”

  “I didn’t dare not be! I’d be back to waiting tables.”

  “Anyway, what Buck meant was that I’d never done anything on my own,” Jeff said. “The trouble, according to Buck, was that as long as I was dependent on my dad financially, Dad could run our lives. He could tell us where to live, what kind of cars to drive, everything.”

  Jeff turned to me. “Man! That went straight through me. Because that’s just the way things are now. I always have a good car, but I never buy one. It just appears. I have credit cards, and my dad pays the bills when they come in.”

  He squeezed Tess’ shoulders again. “I knew I couldn’t subject Tess to that kind of life. She has too much spirit. She wouldn’t put up with it. She’d walk out on me, Lee, just the way you walked out on Dad!”

  I shook my head, because that wasn’t exactly what had happened, but Jeff kept talking. “So I went back to Dallas determined to get a real job.”

  Tess piped up at that point. “But Jeff needs to go to grad school. I mean, he wants to go to grad school. I didn’t want him to get a ‘real’ job if it would ruin that for him.”

  “So Tess and I thought about a lot of things. Loans, for example.”

  “But I’ve already got twenty thousand dollars in school loans,” Tess said. “I had a tuition scholarship, and Daddy has a good enough job. He and my mom have helped me a lot, but—well, there are five of us.”

  “So borrowing seemed like the last resort,” Jeff said. “I talked to the financial aid office at UT, but they were already offering me a slot as a graduate assistant, and they muttered a lot about ‘need.’ Which meant they thought my dad should pick up the tab.”