The Chocolate Castle Clue

by JoAnna Carl

  As we got into Joe’s truck, he spoke. “Nettie’s going to have to understand that Hogan’s patrolmen have to tell their boss his wife was in a car wreck. It would be a firing offense not to.”

  “Surely she’ll see that,” I said.

  We drove the three blocks to TenHuis Chocolade and parked in front of the building. I could see the big white limo sitting catty-corner in the intersection. But it was the only car there.

  “Did they just run into a streetlamp or something?” I said. “It doesn’t look as if another car was involved. It’s hard to believe a professional driver like Julie Hensley would do that.”

  “Maybe they’d had a few glasses of Michigan wine,” Joe said. “Though that’s hard to believe, too, if they had dinner at Nettie’s house. She doesn’t usually serve drinks before and wine with.”

  We walked up to the corner. The Pier-O-Ettes were standing in a clump. Aunt Nettie, looking anxious, was near Julie. Julie held a handful of papers. She apparently knew what the investigating officer would ask to see and was ready for him. Ruby Westfield was chattering away, speaking to Hazel, who was clutching her jacket around her, looking annoyed and ignoring Ruby. Kathy Street, naturally, was crying—softly, this time—and Margo Street had her arm around her sister.

  Joe and I went straight to Aunt Nettie, and she greeted us effusively. She and Julie Hensley listened as Joe quietly explained that the patrolman who investigated the accident would be forced to tell Hogan about it.

  “If you don’t want Hogan to come home,” he said, “your best bet is to call him yourself, explain just what happened, and assure him you have the situation under control.”

  “I’ll do that, of course,” Aunt Nettie said. “He’s presenting the opening session of the workshop tomorrow, and he’s involved all week. He’s worked hard on it, and I don’t want him to drop it.”

  “If no one’s hurt, I don’t think he’ll feel that he has to,” Joe said. “You’ve already called the cops?”

  Julie Hensley nodded. “We called. The dispatcher said there was only one patrol car on duty, and he was tied up for fifteen or twenty minutes. So we’re waiting.”

  Joe grinned. “Welcome to small-town America.”

  Mrs. Hensley gave a derisive snort. “Small-town America indeed! I can’t believe this happened in my old hometown. It was a hit-and-run!”

  “Hit-and-run?” Joe sounded incredulous.

  “Yes! We were driving slowly past Nettie’s shop—all taking a good look at it—and this car came up behind us. I’ll swear it deliberately rammed us! It wasn’t going too fast, or someone would have had whiplash. Then the car backed up, swung out to the left, and passed us. After it got around us, it speeded up, turned left at the corner, and disappeared.”

  “Did you get its license number?”

  Mrs. Hensley shook her head. “No, but the car was unmistakable. It was a bright red Buick, a real antique. I’d guess it was at least forty years old!”

  Joe looked at Aunt Nettie, and she nodded miserably. “Yes, Joe,” she said. “It was Verna Rice in her old red Buick.”

  Chapter 6

  I was still taking that in when the sound of a siren cut loose. The patrolman had apparently waited until he was within a block of the accident to turn it on, because it immediately was so loud that it drowned out all conversation.

  Joe and I stepped aside, and I thought about all this.

  Verna Rice had deliberately collided with Julie Hensley’s fancy limo? Why on earth would she do that?

  It had a sort of twisted logic. If Mrs. Rice was angry with the Pier-O-Ettes, then saw them driving by in a limo, maybe the impulse to hit them simply hit her. Whammo.

  It would have been a stupid thing to do, but Verna Rice didn’t seem to operate on the rules of common sense.

  But how would she have known the six old friends were in the limo? I looked it over carefully. The windows of the passenger section were heavily tinted. Mrs. Rice couldn’t have seen inside it. But she could have seen the driver. I quickly asked Aunt Nettie if Julie had been alone in the driver’s seat.

  Aunt Nettie shook her head. “I was sitting up front with her,” she said.

  So Mrs. Rice might have seen Aunt Nettie.

  Jerry Cherry, the Warner Pier patrolman, took down the information from Julie Hensley and assured her he would talk to Mrs. Rice immediately.

  “I don’t want her arrested or anything,” Mrs. Hensley said. “I knew her—more than forty years ago. I guess she has some sort of grudge against us—the six of us. But I swear I never deliberately did anything to harm her.”

  The others chimed in, all denying any ill feeling toward Mrs. Rice. They sounded a little defensive.

  Mrs. Hensley went on. “But she can’t just hit somebody with her car. This is going to cost something for repairs. And someone could have been hurt.”

  “Frankly,” Jerry said, “for a long time the chief’s been wanting to find a reason to take her license away. We’ll see what he says. And I’ll go by her house tonight and take her car—as evidence.”

  The limo was still drivable, so we all parted. The Pier-O-Ettes went back to Aunt Nettie’s, and Joe and I went home. I finally got that shower I’d been wanting since four o’clock. At about nine p.m. Jerry Cherry called to say Verna Rice hadn’t gone home yet, and he was going to put off looking for her car until morning. By that time I was ready for bed, and Joe was already in it—wearing his pajamas and propped up so he could read some papers he’d brought home from the office.

  I didn’t care about big, old, red Buicks. I crawled over to Joe’s side of the king-sized bed and snuggled against him. He let go of his papers and hugged me.

  “In bed at nine o’clock,” I said. “Are we turning into an old married couple?”

  “I think we are,” Joe said. “Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  Before I could agree, the phone rang again. It’s on my side of the bed. I stayed on Joe’s side, with his arms around me, until it rang for the third time. Then he released his hug. “Guess we’d better see if the Pier-O-Ettes have had another wreck.”

  I crawled across the bed and answered the phone.

  “Hello.” My voice was not very friendly.

  “Mrs. Woodyard?” The voice sounded like wood cracking. “I would appreciate it if you could allow me to speak to Mr. Woodyard.”

  Hmmm. A formal request. I decided I could be formal, too. “May I tell him who is calling?”

  “Mrs. Dan Rice.”

  I nearly fell out of the bed, of course. Then I answered. “Just one moment.”

  I put my hand over the talking part of the receiver.

  “Are you ‘in’ for Mrs. Dan Rice?”

  “You’re kidding, I hope.”

  “Nope.” I shoved the receiver toward him, with my hand still covering the lower part of it.

  Joe groaned. Then he took the phone. He held it the same way I had.

  “If she’s started bugging people at bedtime, the judge may have to take another look at her sanity,” he said.

  He put the receiver to his ear. “What is it, Mrs. Rice?”

  He listened, then spoke. “Mrs. Rice, I have an office. You can call me there.”

  He listened again. “Have you been arrested?”

  I could hear the angry squawk—“Certainly not!”—Joe’s question brought. Words that were not so loud followed.

  “A client who’s in jail is usually the only reason I come out this late, Mrs. Rice.”

  Another pause to listen. “Just what is the emergency?”

  Pause.

  “Yes, my agency represents indigent clients, but we have certain rules and policies. . . .”

  Pause.

  “Just what sort of new evidence?”

  Pause.

  “Forty-five years? Mrs. Rice, if this evidence has waited that long, surely you can wait until morning.”

  Pause.

  “No, I don’t come to clients’ houses this late.”

  Pause. />
  “Then where are you?”

  Joe listened only a few more seconds before he spoke. “No! No! You can’t come here! Mrs. Rice!”

  He sat there with the receiver in his hand, looking annoyed. “She’s coming over.”

  “Call her back.”

  He tried, but the phone went unanswered. Joe sighed deeply, punched the telephone’s OFF button, then swung the covers back. “I’ll get some clothes on. You don’t have to get up.”

  “Joe, I don’t care what the judge said—that woman is crazy. It’s dangerous to let her in the house.”

  “Surely I can handle an eighty-five-year-old woman.”

  “Not if she has a gun.”

  “I doubt she’s armed. But I’ll be cautious.” He gave me a kiss and picked up the jeans he’d draped over the bedroom chair.

  I got out of bed. “I’m wide-awake. I’ll put something on. I can’t cope with Mrs. Rice in a flannel nightgown.” Joe protested, but I got dressed.

  If I needed clothes, it was because Michigan’s fall nights are crisp, but Michigan natives such as Joe don’t think they should turn the furnace on until mid-October. I found some sweatpants and a sweatshirt, then added socks and tennis shoes.

  When I went into the living room, Joe had turned on the outdoor lights. He was sitting in his easy chair wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a University of Michigan sweatshirt. “This is ridiculous,” he said.

  “Does she even know where we live?”

  “She asked if we didn’t live in the ‘old TenHuis’ house.”

  “Darn! I was hoping she’d get lost on the way over and give up on the whole project.”

  “No such luck. She should be here any minute.”

  We sat and waited. And waited. And waited.

  After twenty minutes, Joe spoke. “I hope she changed her mind.”

  “What was this ‘new evidence’ she said she had?”

  “She wouldn’t tell me. If she’s talking about Dan Rice’s death—well, the idea of evidence turning up after forty-five years is pretty flaky.”

  Then he frowned. “You know, Lee, I got the feeling she had somebody there with her.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “None. Maybe we should go back to bed.”

  “That would guarantee that she shows up.”

  Thirty seconds later we heard a siren for the second time that night. It came closer and closer, until it almost sounded as if it was in our yard. Then it died away, sounding as if someone had strangled it.

  We both walked swiftly into the bedroom, where the windows face Lake Shore Drive, and looked out. The heavy foliage of summer was thinning out as the season changed to fall. We could see glimpses of flashing lights through the trees. Not close. Maybe a quarter of a mile up the road.

  “It just can’t be her,” I said.

  “There’s not a lot of traffic in this area this time of night,” Joe said. “Who else would be coming this way?”

  I immediately named a neighbor. “Duncan Delany. His wife told me he’s working until nine o’clock every night now.”

  “I’d better go see what’s happened.”

  “I’m going, too.”

  We each grabbed a flashlight and a jacket. We walked down our lane to Lake Shore Drive, then turned toward the lights. Our neighbors were also beginning to stir. In the fall, after the summer cottages are closed and the summer people go home, our area is pretty lonely. Only a few families, such as Duncan and Jane Delany, live along the lake in the winter. The school bus picked up the Delany kids, but I think their house was the only stop it made for a mile.

  The siren had attracted a few people, and the lights of a few houses were visible through the trees. I did notice a vehicle was nosed into the driveway of Garnet and Dick Garrett’s house, which was directly across the road from us. This surprised me, since I knew they weren’t likely to be down on a weekend during football season. They’re big Michigan State fans.

  I took another look at the vehicle in their driveway, aiming my flashlight at its rear end. It was a small truck in some dark color. I decided it must be someone who had stopped to see the accident. Some jerk always shows up to get in the way. The figures on the license plate—7214—caught my attention because I’m a number person, but I didn’t notice the letters. I made a mental note to check it out later, since I was sure the Garretts weren’t there.

  As we got closer to the sirens, Duncan Delany popped up beside us. “Someone hit the big oak tree,” he said. “I was the first person on the scene.”

  His SUV was parked on the shoulder, headed south. “You weren’t hurt?” I said.

  “Oh, no! I wasn’t involved at all. I just stopped and called 9-1-1.”

  Joe spoke. “Anybody in the car?”

  “An old woman. She seemed—well, I told the operator to send an ambulance, but I think it’s too late.”

  I clutched Joe’s arm. “Wait here,” he said. He walked around the police car.

  I moved closer to the scene but stayed behind the patrol car. Now there was enough light to see the wrecked car.

  It was red.

  It was a big old Buick.

  “Darn!” I said.

  “What’s the matter?” Duncan said.

  “I think I know who it is,” I said. When Duncan asked me more questions, all I said was, “Maybe I’m wrong.”

  There were more sirens as the state police and an ambulance showed up. To prove the remoteness of our neighborhood, only one or two cars had been halted by the police cars blocking the road.

  It was between five and ten minutes before Joe came back. “It’s her,” he said. “Or, as Mrs. Rice would have said, it is she. I told the officer she had been headed for our house.”

  The red car looked as if it had plowed into the big tree head-on. The radiator grill was deeply caved in, but the body of the car didn’t look as if it had been damaged.

  “I guess she was thrown into the windshield,” I said.

  Joe leaned close to my ear. “The whole thing looks kind of funny to me.”

  We stood around until the officers said they didn’t need us, then walked home. As soon as we were in the house, I quizzed Joe about why he thought the accident looked funny.

  “It seemed to me that the blood was in the wrong place,” he said. “I expected to see that Mrs. Rice had been thrown into the windshield, the way you did.”

  “Which would mean blood on her face.”

  “Right. But all the blood I saw seemed to be on her shoulder and the back of her head.” He made an impatient gesture. “But I’m no expert on car accidents. And I didn’t get a good look. I’ll leave it to the state police.”

  We decided not to call Aunt Nettie with the news of Mrs. Rice’s death. We went to bed, but now neither of us was feeling very romantic. I fell asleep, and Joe read his papers for a long time. Or at least he propped himself up on several pillows and held the papers in his lap. Every time I roused enough to look at him, he was still awake, but sometimes he didn’t seem to be reading.

  I think I was able to sleep because sleeping meant I didn’t have to think about telling Aunt Nettie and the Pier-O-Ettes about Mrs. Rice’s accident.

  If it was an accident.

  I rolled over and punched my pillow. Golly! Where did that thought come from?

  I did finally fall soundly asleep, and I was barely out of bed at eight a.m., when the phone rang. I caught it on the bedside phone and heard Joe pick up in the kitchen at almost the same moment. He spoke before I did.

  “Joe?” The voice belonged to Aunt Nettie. “I’m afraid I’m going to need a good lawyer.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “It’s Verna Rice. Apparently she was ranting all over town last night, mad at the Pier-O-Ettes. And now Jerry Cherry came by to say she was found dead in her car at about ten o’clock.”

  “Yeah, it happened just down from our house. We walked over to see the wreck. But what does this have to do with you?”

  “Oh, Joe! She
was at the Superette, at the Dock Street, maybe a couple of other places, and she threatened all of us, all the Pier-O-Ettes. And now Jerry says they’ve called in the state police! He says we’ll all have to make statements.”

  Chapter 7

  Aunt Nettie rarely loses her cool, and she didn’t then. She was excited, but she talked calmly as she told us that Jerry Cherry, who’s worked for the Warner Pier PD longer than any of Hogan’s other officers, had come to her house at seven thirty to tell her about Mrs. Rice. He’d asked the Pier-O-Ettes to stick around so they’d be handy if the investigating officer had questions.

  “We were all together—sort of—from the time of the accident until Jerry came by this morning,” she said. She gave a laugh. “So we all have alibis. Sort of.”

  “I doubt you’ll need them, any more than you’ll need a lawyer,” Joe said. “But I’m afraid it wasn’t natural causes.”

  He paused, and I wondered if he was considering telling Aunt Nettie that Mrs. Rice’s death had looked suspicious to him. But he went on without describing what we’d seen the night before.

  “Since she was found in a car, and the car had run into a tree, Nettie, the state police would have to be called in.”

  “Then it’s a traffic death?”

  “The medical examiner will have to rule on the cause of death.”

  “Of course. I just hope Hogan doesn’t have to come home.”

  Joe sounded puzzled. “Why are you so determined that Hogan not be involved in this? After all, he is the police chief. He can’t ignore Warner Pier events even if he’s out of town.”

  Now Aunt Nettie began to sound less calm, even a bit dithery. “Oh, he’s worked so hard on his presentation for this workshop. I just . . . I just don’t want it to be ruined.”