The Chocolate Castle Clue

by JoAnna Carl

  We all three hung up, and I went into the kitchen, thinking about the state police. The Michigan State Police not only patrol the state’s highways; they’re also the agency charged with helping small towns—like Warner Pier—investigate serious crimes.

  Joe was still standing by the telephone. He looked puzzled.

  “Good morning,” I said. “Do you know any way to find out what’s going on?”

  “Probably Mike knows.” Mike Herrera is Joe’s stepfather and is mayor of Warner Pier. The city police usually tell him what’s happening on the crime front. “For that matter, Jerry would probably tell me.”

  “Let’s let it go until after breakfast,” I said.

  I fixed bacon and eggs, since it was Saturday, but halfway through the meal I realized Joe and I were wolfing our food. I was feeling more and more urgency about the situation with Mrs. Rice’s death. I wanted to get breakfast over and go to Aunt Nettie’s house. I might find out something more there.

  I suspected Joe was also feeling as if he should find out more, and my suspicions were confirmed when he poured his second cup of coffee into a plastic mug that fits the pickup’s cup holder.

  “I guess I’ll try to find out what’s going on with Mrs. Rice’s death,” he said.

  I didn’t argue. And I didn’t take more than twenty minutes to stick the dishes in the dishwasher and get my clothes on. And that included makeup. I wasn’t facing Margo Street without makeup.

  I arrived at Aunt Nettie’s house at nine thirty, remarkably early considering that I hadn’t gotten out of bed until eight o’clock. Lots of cars were there. At the curb were Julie’s limo, with its crushed bumper, and the Cadillac with an Illinois license tag I assumed that Margo and Kathy Street had arrived in. In the drive were two cars with Michigan plates—a small Chevy I’d seen Hazel in dozens of times and a big blue minivan that Ruby must use for delivering bridal gowns and transporting her extensive family.

  And there was one more car. Parked across the end of the driveway, blocking Ruby and Hazel, was an antique Corvette.

  I parked my minivan in front of the house next door, then sat and stared at the Corvette. Hmmm.

  My dad owns a garage in Prairie Creek, Texas, and as a child I hung out there enough to acquire an interest in cars. When I saw that Vette, I had to swallow quickly to keep from drooling.

  I didn’t think it was one of the earliest models. It was old enough to be classified as an antique, but it was no pioneer. What it was, was gorgeous.

  It was white. Not creamy or pearly, but that bright picket-fence white of a Corvette that still has its original paint job. The top was down, and I could see the tan leather interior clearly. Every bit of its chrome—the luggage rack on the flat lid of the trunk, the trim around the dials and gauges on the dashboard, the spindly spokes of the steering wheel, and even the Stingray logo on the side—every shiny bit of chrome caught the sun and sparkled like a diamond necklace ought to sparkle. And this car would probably cost as much as twenty carats of diamonds would.

  What on earth was it doing parked in the drive of a homey frame house in Warner Pier, Michigan?

  If it had been summertime, I wouldn’t have wondered so much. Lots of our “summer people” might park a car like this one in front of their multimillion-dollar “cottages.” I just wondered what it was doing at Aunt Nettie’s house.

  I got out of my plain vanilla minivan—useful for delivering chocolate, but not very exciting—and started down the sidewalk. As I passed the Corvette, pretending not to stare at it, I saw the decal that identified the dealer who had sold the car to its owner. And there, in bright red letters, was a well-known phrase: GOOD-TIME CHARLIE. HOLLAND’S FUNNIEST USED CAR DEALER.

  I laughed. Any reference to Good-Time Charlie is good for a laugh in southwest Michigan. Charlie McCoy is a major advertiser on the evening news, and he does his own ads. So we all see the tubby bald guy nearly every day, begging us to buy used cars. He uses a loud, harsh voice and dumb puns to make his message memorable. Or I guess that’s why he uses them. He’s a buffoon, but at least he’s distinctive.

  But who did Aunt Nettie know who would be driving a Good-Time Charlie car? And not just any car—a fancy antique Corvette. I was still wondering about that as I rang the doorbell.

  I heard a deep, raspy voice call out, “I’ll get it!” Then the door was opened by—ta-da!—Good-Time Charlie himself.

  I stepped backward and nearly fell off the porch.

  I had not expected Aunt Nettie’s door to be answered by a local television celebrity, though I belatedly remembered that she had once told me she had known the super salesman in her younger days.

  “Watch out, little lady!” Charlie’s voice boomed as raucously in person as it did on the ads.

  “Hello.” I didn’t know if I should be amazed or annoyed. Where did Charlie get off answering my aunt’s front door? And how could he call a woman at least five inches taller than he was “little lady”?

  I tried to go for dignity. “I’m Mrs. Jones’ niece. May I come in?”

  I wasn’t aware that I had offered to shake hands, but somehow he had hold of one of mine and was shaking it as if he were a puppy and my hand was his favorite toy. I almost expected him to chew on it.

  “Lee Woodyard, right? I’m really glad to meet you. Nettie’s been telling us all about how you saved her business!”

  “She’s being kind. If her chocolates hadn’t been sublime, there wouldn’t have been any business to save.”

  “That’s not what she says! Come on in!”

  I followed him into the living room, wondering who had appointed him host. Aunt Nettie was seated on the couch, with a coffee carafe on the coffee table in front of her. Shep Stone was sitting beside her. He nodded to me. He looked rather uncomfortable.

  “Hi, Lee,” Aunt Nettie said. “Shep and Charlie came by. They both worked at the Castle Ballroom in the old days. We all were waitresses there, and we hung around a lot in the days when we were singing.”

  Shep and Charlie had done more than come by. They apparently had joined the party.

  Why? Their arrival mystified me.

  “I’ll get more coffee!” Charlie snatched the carafe from in front of Aunt Nettie and headed toward the kitchen.

  Shep Stone watched him go, shaking his head. “I guess that even forty-five years ago we should have figured out that Charlie would make his mark as a used-car salesman.”

  “That’s not all bad,” I said. “My dad sells a few used cars, and he’s a pretty nice guy. He found the van I’m driving for me—it’s an oldie but goodie.” I turned to Aunt Nettie. “Have you heard anything more about Mrs. Rice?”

  “Not yet.” Aunt Nettie smiled graciously. “Shep and Charlie brought doughnuts. Would you like one?”

  “Maybe later. Joe and I had a big breakfast. Then he went out to try to find out more about your earlier question.”

  Aunt Nettie seemed to be stuck for a reply to that, and I realized I was extremely curious about just why Charlie and Shep were there. Of course, I’d learned the day before that Shep Stone had worked at the Castle Ballroom at the time the Pier-O-Ettes sang there. But where did Charlie McCoy fit in? Apparently he had worked there, too. But even if they’d known the Pier-O-Ettes in the remote past, why would the two of them horn in on the reunion? Had they gone to Warner Pier High School?

  I got ready to ask as soon as I got an opportunity. Reverting to my past life, I called up the social skills I learned back when I was the wife of a successful Dallas real estate developer. I smiled at Shep Stone. “What do you do, Mr. Stone?”

  “I’m retired now. But I spent most of my career as a photographer.” He held up a camera he had stashed in his lap. “I’ve been trying to get a few pictures today.”

  “Oh? You’re an artist? Or did you do commercial work?”

  “Commercial, mainly. I’ve worked for newspapers and done some magazine work.”

  Aunt Nettie leaned forward. “Shep, I always suspected that
Dan Rice hired you at the old Castle because he wanted someone to talk photography with.”

  Charlie rushed back in then, but Shep kept talking. “Dan was a pretty good amateur,” he said. “I was always surprised at the stuff he could get just standing on the deck at the Castle. And he had a good Leica.”

  It’s weird how men react. Charlie’s head whipped toward Shep. The two men exchanged a stare. Then Charlie dropped his gaze. He seemed to try to become the center of attention. He had a dish towel draped over his arm, in a parody of a waiter, and he held the coffee carafe in one hand and a mug in the other.

  “It’s a new brew,” he said. “But remember—drinking too much coffee can cause a latte problems.”

  I rolled my eyes, and Shep groaned. “Charlie, you’re worse than ever.”

  “I’ve made a career of puns,” Charlie said. “They’ve paid off for me big-time. But I know puns are the lowest form of wit, and I can prove it.”

  “How?” I said.

  “I never eat buns,” he said. “Because buns are the lowest form of wheat.”

  All three of us groaned. In fact, Aunt Nettie looked so pained that I decided I’d better turn my social skills on Charlie, just to keep him from talking to her.

  “Mr. McCoy—”

  “Charlie! Everybody calls me Charlie!”

  “Charlie. And you worked at the Castle Ballroom?”

  “Oh, yes! Bouncer for two summers.” Charlie began to talk to me while Aunt Nettie concentrated on Shep.

  “So, you handle Nettie’s finances,” he said.

  “Among other things. In a small business everybody does everything. Yesterday Aunt Nettie’s chief assistant and I cleaned out the garage.”

  “Custodial duties, too?” Charlie laughed, and I explained that we had to give up use of the storage area across the alley from our back door. “I found a whole drawer of Aunt Nettie’s high school souvenirs,” I said.

  Then I tried to turn the conversation to Charlie. “How did you come to work at the Castle Ballroom?”

  He had worked at the ballroom while he was in college, Charlie said. He’d been quite a bit older than the Pier-O-Ettes, in his mid-twenties, since he’d already done a tour in Vietnam. “Of course, mentally I’m just a kid.”

  Charlie was originally from Detroit, but he said he had been rather at loose ends at that time in his life.

  “I was a wild one then,” he said proudly. “Shep—now, he had a deceptively mild exterior. But I liked to party.”

  “That’s not too unusual for guys that age.”

  “True. But I’m afraid all the girls’ mothers told them to stay away from me.”

  “A warning from a mother tends to make guys even more attractive.”

  “Not in my case!” He turned away. “Hey, Nettie! Do you remember the night I bought the sparkling grape juice and told you girls it was champagne?”

  “Oh, yes, I remember.” Aunt Nettie’s voice didn’t sound amused.

  Charlie laughed. “If Shep hadn’t been such a gentleman, I might have gotten all six of you drunk.”

  “Hush, Charlie,” Aunt Nettie said. “Lee isn’t interested in all those old pranks.”

  Actually, I was quite interested in them. Taking a look at my rather prim Aunt Nettie as a high schooler—a girl so innocent she couldn’t tell sparkling grape juice from champagne—was quite interesting.

  But Aunt Nettie didn’t look amused. “Lee,” she said, “would you do me a favor? Run back to my bedroom and bring me my white sweater. It’s in the closet.”

  “Sure.” Was I being headed off? I couldn’t imagine that Aunt Nettie had actually taken part in anything improper, even when she was seventeen.

  But at that moment she certainly had a better idea than I did about what was going on with the Pier-O-Ettes and their gentlemen callers, Shep and Charlie. If she wanted to change the subject, I would follow her lead.

  So I obediently went down the hall to the master bedroom. I wasn’t too surprised to find the door closed, since Aunt Nettie probably wouldn’t have yet had time to neaten it up.

  I expected the room to be empty, but as a precaution I knocked. No one responded, so I opened the door and went in. I went to the closet and pushed back the louvered door.

  And I found myself face-to-face with Kathy Street.

  Chapter 8

  I gave a huge gasp.

  All I could think was that I must not startle Kathy. I certainly didn’t want her to shriek the way she had the day before. So I’m sure that my face showed all the surprise I felt, but I managed not to yelp out loud, and I hoped Kathy would keep quiet, too.

  When I did speak, I tried to keep my voice calm. “You caught me by surprise, Ms. Street. Are you avoiding Charlie and Shep?”

  She nodded timidly.

  “They seem pretty harmless. But there’s no reason you can’t wait in here until they’re gone.”

  Kathy Street spoke in a whisper. “Charlie?”

  “Good-Time Charlie, the car salesman? Yes, he’s here. Is he the one you don’t want to see?”

  “I don’t want to see either of them.”

  “That’s up to you.” I gave what I hoped was a bright and cheerful smile. “Aunt Nettie sent me to get her white sweater. It’s someplace in that closet. If you could sit on the bed for a minute, I’ll find it.”

  “Close the door. Please.” Her voice was barely audible.

  “Sure.” I closed the bedroom door, and Kathy Street came out of the closet and obediently sat on the edge of the bed. She hadn’t dressed yet. She wore a cotton housecoat printed with little pink flowers. House slippers were on her feet.

  I began to search through the closet. I hummed as I did this, probably because I was nervous, but I don’t know what made me pick an old folk song to hum.

  I had just found the white sweater when Kathy Street began to sing along with my humming.

  “Black is the color of my true love’s hair,” she sang.

  She sang so quietly it would have been hard for anyone outside the room to hear her. And she sang without any—well, commotion. She just opened her mouth and this beautiful sound poured out. There was nothing fancy about it; no vibrato, no embellishments. The sound was pure and simple and lovely. It was as if I’d been walking through a meadow, and a passing shepherdess suddenly began to sing to her sheep.

  Clutching the sweater, I sank onto a padded stool in front of Aunt Nettie’s dressing table, and I listened until Kathy Street came to the end of the song.

  When she finished, I leaned forward. “That was wonderful ! Thank you for showing me how lovely that song can be.”

  She smiled shyly. “I’ve always liked it.”

  “I can tell that you do.”

  “Nettie said you used to sing.”

  “Not like you do! You have a wonderful voice.” I stood up, ready to return to the living room.

  But before I could say good-bye, the bedroom door swung open. Kathy Street gave a little “Oh!” that sounded afraid, and her sister came into the room.

  “There you are, Kathy! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Nettie’s niece says it’s all right for me to be in here.”

  Margo Street sent me a flash of anger, but only a flash. She didn’t have any time for me. Her concentration was on Kathy.

  “Shep Stone and Charlie McCoy have dropped by. You’ll have to come out and speak to them.”

  “No. Please.”

  “Yes, Kathy. It will look odd if you don’t.”

  “No, Margo. No.” Kathy’s lower lip pouted. She ducked her head and looked up at her sister like a three-year-old.

  Margo sighed. “I really think that you should make an effort, Kathy. You don’t have to carry on a conversation. Just say hello.”

  “Please don’t make me.”

  I wanted to leave, but Margo Street was standing in the bedroom doorway, and I couldn’t get to it without asking her to move. And she was ignoring me.

  But Kathy wasn’t ignorin
g me. She pointed at me. “She said I didn’t have to talk to them.”

  Margo turned her full attention on me, shining a spotlight of anger in my direction.

  “Oh, really? Lee—isn’t that your name? When did you become my sister’s adviser?”

  “I think you’re misunderstanding the situation, Ms. Street.”

  “Oh? Just what am I misunderstanding?”

  I took a deep breath. “When I found your sister here in Aunt Nettie’s bedroom, I assured her that Aunt Nettie wouldn’t mind her being here. And I’m sure that is blue. I mean, true!”

  Darn! She’d made me nervous, and I’d gotten my tongue tangled. I tried to pretend it hadn’t happened, and I plunged on.

  “Kathy said she didn’t want to see Shep and Charlie. Of course, since she’s a grown woman, that’s her pergola. Her prerogative! That’s all I told her.”

  Margo Street’s voice was like ice. “But not seeing them would be most unwise.”

  “You may be right. But as a general rule, if grown-up people don’t want to associate with some particular person, we don’t have to.”

  “But avoiding them may make her look foolish.”

  “I don’t know about that.” I clutched the white sweater.

  “And now I should take Aunt Nettie her sweater.”

  For a moment I thought I was going to have to shove Margo Street out of the way, but when I walked toward her, she moved aside and let me out the door.

  I went out feeling relieved to escape—I didn’t want to be caught up in a quarrel between the two sisters—but I also felt mystified. I didn’t understand the Street sisters’ relationship at all.

  Was Kathy mentally deficient in some way? Or just nervous ? Or—maybe—spoiled?

  The day before, she had shrieked at the sight of the trophy won by the Pier-O-Ettes forty-odd years ago. Why?

  Yesterday Aunt Nettie had refused to allow Shep Stone to enter her house, using Kathy as her reason. Why?

  Now Kathy was hiding—actually hiding in a closet—to avoid Shep and Charlie. Why?

  And her sister Margo was insisting that she come out and see Charlie and Shep. Why?