The Chocolate Moose Motive: A Chocoholic Mystery

by JoAnna Carl

  I went back to Rosy’s workshop to make sure I’d replaced his tools properly. As I was putting the rake in the corner, I felt something in my pocket. It was my notebook.

  Aha! At least I had a sketch of the mysterious footprints. It showed the pattern on the sole of the prowler’s shoe, and it was marked with the dimensions of the tracks.

  “At least it’s something,” I said aloud.

  I drove back to Warner Pier and went straight to the police department. At this point it was nearly five o’clock, but obviously Hogan, with a suspicious death to investigate, wouldn’t be taking off early—or maybe at all. I planned to wait until he could see me so I could tell him about the big chase in the nature preserve.

  But Hogan, his one-woman office staff said, was out and hadn’t indicated when he’d be back.

  “I hope he’s eating dinner,” she said. “He never stopped for lunch. Of course, you’re welcome to wait. But I don’t see any point in it. I’ll page him and tell him you came by.”

  Finding Hogan and telling him about the chase was obviously a dim hope. I went to my office and wrote an account of the chase and the damage to the footprints and the casts I’d made, as well as the damage to my rib cage and the twigs in my hair. I printed it out and gave it to Aunt Nettie. I told her to pin it to Hogan’s pillow or put it in his breakfast cereal so he could look at it at his convenience.

  Then I went home, made a gin and tonic for me, and opened a beer for Joe—just one each. He didn’t know it yet, but he was taking me out for dinner even if it was just pizza at the Dock Street.

  He didn’t object to my plan, and he listened while I described my afternoon. He didn’t even tell me I’d been stupid to chase the guy into the forest preserve. I’d figured that out for myself. He did make a couple of remarks about Hogan’s encouraging me to go out there.

  “That was police business,” he said. “If Hogan thought it should be done, he should have gone out there himself.”

  “He couldn’t, Joe. He and the sheriff are already at odds, and the Reagans’ house is way outside Hogan’s jurisdiction.”

  Joe gave a derisive laugh. “Hogan knows enough people in the state police to get things done. He shouldn’t have put you in danger.”

  “Maybe the whole thing was my imagination.”

  “Breaking up the casts and destroying the original footprints? And knocking you into a bush? It’s hard to say that was your imagination.”

  “I have a feeling Sheriff Ramsey could say it was. Or he’d say I lied.” I finished my drink and stood up. “Let’s go eat.”

  We were just opening the door when the phone rang. It was Hogan.

  “Okay,” he said. “Who did you tell before you went out there to cast those footprints?”

  I stood there feeling like an idiot.

  Of course. Someone had to know I was interested in the footprints, or that person wouldn’t have gone out to the Reagans’ place to destroy them. I should have realized that.

  “Duh! I can’t believe I didn’t think about that.”

  “Think about it now. Did you tell Nettie? Sissy? Joe?”

  “No. I didn’t tell any of them. I didn’t tell a soul.”

  “Nettie already said you didn’t tell her, but you must have told someone.”

  “No. After you gave me the casting material, I ran by the office and got an old mixing bowl, a plastic spoon, and some bottled water. I didn’t tell anybody why I needed it. I just told Aunt Nettie I was going to take the rest of the afternoon off. I made sure Sissy had work to do, but I didn’t tell her where I was going. I just went.”

  “Did you call anyone?”

  “No.”

  “Text anyone?”

  “No. I just drove out there.” I gasped. “Wait a minute! How about the Reagans? They knew what I was doing.”

  “We’ll have to ask them if they told anyone.”

  “They mainly seemed to be concerned with watching Jeopardy! If either of them went anywhere, they didn’t take the pickup that was sitting there. Wait another minute! Ace Smith! He had just walked off when you came out to talk to me. Could he have overheard us?”

  “Colonel Ace Smith did not go out there.” Hogan chuckled. “He was tied up at my office all afternoon, and he has the high blood pressure to prove it.”

  I couldn’t help laughing. “I guess people around here are just not as respectful of the colonel as he might wish.”

  “We’re as respectful as he deserves. I’m a little tired of being ordered around as if I’m a PFC.”

  Hogan asked me a few more questions designed to figure out who might have known I was going to the Reagans’ to look at footprints. Had I stopped for gasoline? Had I asked directions? Had I seen anyone I knew as I drove out there? The answer to each of the questions was no.

  But his comments, particularly about Colonel Smith, had aroused my curiosity. After Joe and I got back from dinner, I went to the computer in the corner of the bedroom, went online, and prepared to search for Colonel Ace Smith. And while I was at it, I decided I might as well take a look at the history of Nosy and Rosy Reagan. In fact, I decided to start with them. After all, it wasn’t going to be hard to track down a man named Roosevelt Reagan who had lived in Detroit.

  Sure enough, the Web page of a Detroit suburban weekly popped up immediately, with a story saluting Rosy’s retirement.

  Rosy, I learned, had worked for General Motors in various Michigan manufacturing plants for forty years. He had held a minor volunteer position in his UAW local. Hmmm. He had been outdoor chairman of a Scout troop. Double hmmm. Could Rosy have followed me through the woods?

  Rosy’s wife, the article concluded, had worked for forty-five years as a 9-1-1 operator in suburban Detroit. Triple hmmm.

  Rosy had retired five years earlier, and he had told the newspaper reporter he planned to move. He was quoted: “My wife and I want to get away from the city and live closer to nature.” They’d certainly accomplished that. I read a few more articles about Nosy and Rosy, but that first one had the most information. Apparently their local rag hadn’t done an article on Nosy when she retired.

  The union activities and the police department connection were the only interesting things about Nosy and Rosy. I turned to Colonel Ace Smith.

  At first I couldn’t remember Ace’s real first name. I finally took the simple expedient of looking in the Warner Pier phone book, and there was Rupert C. Smith III. It was that “III” that jogged my memory of Buzz being Somebody Smith IV.

  I guess the Smith family might have skipped a generation of Ruperts. But apparently they hadn’t. When I Googled him, Colonel Rupert C. Smith III showed up with a couple of thousand entries.

  I looked at the pages of listings and marveled. Two thousand and eighteen listings? Wow! Maybe the guy didn’t just think he was important. Maybe he really was.

  Then I looked at the entry at the top of the list, thankful that Google ranks items in the order of popularity, and I gasped.

  “Oh my gosh!” I yelled out. “Joe! Ace Smith was the Dobermann-Smith executive who was grilled by Congress two years ago!”

  Joe called from the living room. “I knew that. I thought you did, too.”

  “No. I remember that the guy on the hot seat in the big scandal was a retired Colonel Smith, but I hadn’t connected it with the Warner Pier Colonel Smith.”

  “Common last name.”

  Obviously Joe wasn’t interested. But I was. I read on, reviewing what I knew about Colonel Smith and his problems with Congress.

  Ace had been involved in one of those messy situations that may never be resolved. They hinge on differing views of governmental responsibilities and just what’s a suitable—or legal—activity, in this case for a defense contractor.

  Colonel Ace Smith had made it pretty clear where he stood on the question. He didn’t give a darn what Congress said. He was going to do what was best for the country—not what he thought was best for the country. He was doing what was best for the cou
ntry. Because what Colonel Ace Smith thought was right.

  “He should have been court-martialed,” I told myself.

  “If he had still been in the army, he would have been,” Joe said. I jumped. I hadn’t heard him come into the room.

  “Since he was retired from the army by then and was a partner in a company under contract to the army, it was harder to charge him,” he said.

  “Seems as if they could have gotten him for something.”

  “Not without taking down a couple of congressmen at the same time. I guess the congressmen had enough clout to keep that from happening.”

  “It was still a crime.”

  “It’s a constitutional question,” Joe said. “I agree with you. But I wouldn’t want to be the one who had to argue it before the Supremes.”

  I read on, going over the testimony. It sounded as if Dobermann-Smith had set up a government of its own in a foreign country where the United States had a strong political and military presence. They’d been accused of doing everything from torture to theft to killing innocent people. The country itself was so disorganized that its citizens couldn’t bring the Dobermann-Smith employees to justice. And because of the protection of a few powerful congressmen, the U.S. government hadn’t been able to bring them to heel either.

  This whole thing was tickling my memory—something about Buzz.

  I quickly went to the Warner Pier Gazette Web page and looked up the stories about Buzz’s death. There was a sidebar, a formal obituary. It hit the highlights of Buzz’s life. It wasn’t too long, of course. Buzz had been only twenty-four; he hadn’t done much.

  But what he had done was rather interesting. He had graduated from Midwest Military College. Then he had worked for the Dobermann-Smith Corporation for two years in a troubled eastern European country—the same one his dad had been quizzed about.

  Very interesting.

  After he had resigned from Dobermann-Smith Corporation, Buzz had come to Warner Pier and married Forsythia Hill. The next year she gave birth to John Smith. If Buzz had held another job, it wasn’t mentioned.

  Suddenly I wanted to know more about Buzz Smith. I wondered if Sissy would be willing to talk about him.

  Chapter 16

  Yes, Sissy would be the best source for information about Buzz.

  But was I brassy enough to quiz a widow about the character and activities of her murdered husband?

  I considered that question. Actually, I probably was brassy enough for the job, I decided. But would it be wise?

  I considered that question, too. No, it wouldn’t, I also decided. Sissy might want to talk about Buzz of her own free will, but we weren’t close enough that she would select me as a confidante.

  I could talk to Wildflower. She had lived in the same household with Buzz. But somehow that smacked of going behind Sissy’s back. I didn’t like that idea either.

  I chewed the idea over most of the night and clear through breakfast. Finally, shortly after nine the next morning, I walked into Sissy’s office, closed the door behind me, sat down, and put four extra chocolate animals—two moose and two squirrels—on her desk.

  “What’s that?” Sissy said.

  “A bribe, I guess. I’d like to talk to you.”

  “What have I done wrong?”

  “Nothing at all. You’re doing great. Considering the upsets of the past couple of days, I think it’s a miracle you’re still coming in for work.”

  “Then what did you want to talk about?”

  “Put me down as a nosy bitch. And anytime you don’t like the conversation, tell me to get out.”

  She reached over and took a moose. “This is much prettier than the moose we have at home. But you’re making me nervous.”

  “I don’t want to. I’m just trying to figure out a few things that are none of my business. Such as, when Buzz was killed, the investigators gave the public the impression that he had probably interrupted a burglar and the burglar reacted violently.”

  Sissy nodded. “That was what they seemed to think at first. But it was silly. Gran and I had nothing worth stealing, and Buzz didn’t either. Maybe that was where the rumors about me being guilty came from.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “People look for a logical reason for things, I guess. Since theft didn’t seem logical—nothing valuable was stolen from the house—they had to come up with another reason. And the husband or wife is always the first suspect. Plus, Ace hated me already, so he was willing to believe anything. He muttered to Helen, and she repeated his mutters.” Sissy made an expressive gesture. “Next thing you knew, I was always first in the checkout line.”

  “First in the checkout line?”

  “Yep. As soon as I was ready to check out, everyone else remembered some forgotten item and ran back to get it. So I got to go first. Unless they closed the line. That happened once or twice.”

  “Oh.” I thought a minute, but I had nothing helpful to say about that. “Tell me about Buzz. I mean, what was he like? If you don’t mind talking about him.”

  “I don’t mind. I loved Buzz, and I love to talk about him. He was the nicest guy I ever knew. A real sweetheart. Not a mean bone in his body. His only problem, at least in my view, was that he liked to please people.”

  “How was that a problem?”

  “It made him easy to push around. That’s the real reason his dad hates me. Buzz always was a ‘good boy.’ Until I came along, Buzz always minded his dad. Even when Ace packed him off to military school the week after his mother died.”

  “I didn’t realize he did it that quickly. That seems pretty harsh.”

  “Not according to Ace. It was supposed to make a man of him. No mention was made of boarding school keeping him from being a bother to his dad.”

  “How old was Buzz?”

  “Thirteen.”

  “Golly! Just a kid.”

  “Yes, I thought that was an awful thing to do. Of course, my influence on Buzz wasn’t the only objection Ace had to the Hill family. We’re a bit unconventional for him.”

  “You seem like nice folks to me.”

  “Oh, but my grandmother was a peace marcher! To Ace this was treason.”

  “I see.”

  “Ace was in Vietnam. I can understand how he felt—intellectually I understand it. I never expected him to be chums with my grandmother. But I resented his refusal even to think she held her opinions honestly. She was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but as far as he was concerned, she was unpatriotic, and that was that.”

  That was a quarrel that would never be settled. It was time to change the subject.

  “How did you meet Buzz?”

  “Oddly enough, Chip made the first overture. I had driven my old blue VW to the beach, and Chip and Buzz drove up in one almost exactly like it, except better kept. Chip leaned out the window and said, ‘Hey! If we got our cars to breed, you could have pick of the litter.’”

  “Oh gosh! What a line! How old were you all? I’d guess seventeen.”

  “Chip was probably nineteen. Seventeen mentally. Anyway, I glared and told him to get lost. After my friends and I had laid out our towels and had pranced around in our bikinis awhile, Buzz came over and made apologetic noises.”

  “Maybe it was a plan they had.”

  “I wouldn’t put that past either of them. But I think Buzz was really afraid we’d tell Ace. About the car.”

  “Tell him what about the car?”

  “Oh, Ace’s blue Volkswagen was a collectible. It was his pride and joy. Chip and Buzz weren’t supposed to drive it. Might get a scratch on it. Buzz didn’t want us to say anything about their being in it. So we kept our mouths shut. But eventually Ace got rid of the VW, I think. I’ve never heard anything more about it.”

  “Did you begin dating Buzz then?”

  “Not until the next summer. By then I was working as a waitress at the Sidewalk Café, and he used to come in. Of course, we ran into each other at the beach now and t
hen. We were just pals for a couple of years, but we were dating before he went abroad.

  “I really fell for him after he came back. That was when I began to understand how he’d been beaten down all his life. He was trying to deal with all that, to see that it was his dad who was at fault, to stop worshipping the jerk who had ruined his life. How could I not fall for him?”

  Sissy clenched her jaw and made a fist. She rapped it on the desk a few times. Finally she gulped. “I keep trying to believe I’ve accepted Buzz’s death, but when I think about it, I get furious all over again.”

  I leaned toward her. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have been nosy. I won’t pry again.”

  “No! No! Gran says I need to talk about it. But it’s hard to think about the things Buzz went through growing up. And then later, there was all the stuff that went on overseas. Things he didn’t want to talk about. Things that gave him nightmares. Finally, when he was able to break free from Ace and was beginning to get his life together—he was killed! For no reason anyone can see!”

  She grabbed a box of tissues from her desk drawer, took one, and applied it to her nose.

  “It’s awful, Sissy.” I reached over and took a tissue of my own.

  We sat there and blubbered for a few minutes. I felt sure I had puffy eyes and mascara all over my face, but Sissy still looked beautiful.

  “I only wish Buzz had finished his novel,” she said.

  “Buzz was writing a novel?”

  “Yes. People around here think he just sat on his hands while Gran and I supported him, but he worked on it every day. We thought it was important, and that getting it done would help Buzz more than anything. We had enough money to get by on.”

  “What was it about?”

  “I don’t know any specifics. He didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t want me to read it.”

  “That seems odd. There’s not much point in a novel unless it’s read by other people.”

  “Buzz said he didn’t want anyone to see it until it was ‘fully formed.’ And he didn’t want to talk about it for the same reason.”