by JoAnna Carl
“Did you read it after he died?”
“Didn’t you hear? We’ve never found it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it had been erased from his computer, and all of his backups disappeared.”
“Disappeared? Stolen?”
“We don’t really know. He kept a box of thumb drives in his desk drawer. I had seen him copying things to those, but they were all blank.”
“That could be a major clue!”
“The sheriff didn’t think so. And I can’t say he’s wrong. If Buzz got disgusted with what he had written, he might well have erased it.”
“And he never told you what the novel was about?”
“All he said was that it was therapeutic. I think he saw writing as a way to deal with the things that happened to him overseas. But he refused to tell me much about all that.”
“Why? The counselor I saw—back during my divorce—told me that talking about bad stuff helps most of us deal with it.”
“I think Buzz saw that as weakness.” She shrugged. “Another part of the indoctrination he got from Ace. Besides, well, once Buzz did say that if I knew some of the things that went on over there, I might not love him anymore.”
“How awful!”
Sissy and I each reached for another tissue. After we’d both dabbed our eyes and blown our noses, Sissy leaned forward. “Listen. If you really want to know about Buzz, Chip is the one to talk to. He knew him better than anybody did. They’d been friends since boarding school.”
“And they’re cousins?”
“Their dads were first cousins. But I don’t think Chip and Buzz knew each other very well until they went away to military school. For college, they both tried for the service academies, but neither of them got in. So Ace saw that they went to a college with a strong military tradition.”
“I see. But neither of them went into the military?”
“Right. That was also some idea Ace had.” Sissy’s voice took on a sarcastic tone. “He thought a man could do more for his country with Dobermann-Smith Corporation. He got them to go straight to being mercenaries.”
“And after a couple of years of that, Buzz wanted to be a novelist?”
“As I said, I think it was his way of dealing with whatever happened overseas. He was very closemouthed about what was in the book. Though he may have opened up with Chip.”
“But I thought Chip was still overseas then.”
“He was, but they wrote each other all the time.” Sissy gave a deep sigh. “I guess Chip knew Buzz better than I did. He’d certainly known him longer. And they’d had a lot of the same strange experiences.”
I let Sissy get to work then, but when I got back to my own office, I stared at my computer screen blankly. Sissy’s suggestion that I talk to Chip was a good one. But how could I do that?
I could use the same technique I used on Sissy—just ask him questions.
After all, Chip was staying with Ace, and Ace’s number was in the telephone book.
I picked up the skinny little Warner County phone book. I noted that Colonel Rupert Smith had an address on Lake Shore Drive, not too far from where Joe and I lived. But while our house was on the inland side, the street number of the Smith cottage indicated it had a lake view. I thought it was in an area of larger homes built in the early 1900s. Of course, some of the houses in that area were simple cottages, but some were real mansions. Some sat on tiny lots, others on ten- or twenty-acre properties.
I wondered which category Ace’s house fell into. I was willing to bet it was one of the larger places. After all, Helen Ferguson had rented a house on the property, and Ace was prepared to live there year-round. That indicated the house was winterized and wasn’t on a small lot. Lakeside property of any size, and with two year-round houses, would be worth quite a bit in Warner Pier. Even if Chip didn’t tell me anything, it would be interesting to see the house.
I picked up the phone and called.
Ace answered, his voice gruff. I asked for Chip in my most businesslike voice, hoping I sounded like a dentist’s office or some other business, and Ace didn’t ask me for a name.
After a moment, a different voice came on the line. “This is Chip Smith.”
“Hi, Chip. This is Lee Woodyard.”
Chip gasped. “Oh! Hi.”
“I wanted to ask you a few questions—”
“Listen. I never have looked up those figures. Let me get them, and I’ll call you right back.”
“What?”
“It’ll only be a few minutes.”
Click. He hung up.
I stared at the phone in disbelief. Chip had hung up on me? And what figures had he thought I wanted? His response had been nonsensical.
I had realized he might not want to talk to me, but I had expected him to give me a chance to explain why I called.
Crazy. What was going on?
I considered calling back, but it seemed pointless. Instead, I tried to concentrate on my own work. I’d been neglecting it lately. Luckily, I had a lenient boss.
Maybe Chip really would call back.
And sure enough, five minutes later the phone rang, and my “TenHuis Chocolade” greeting was answered with a voice that was almost a whisper.
“Lee Woodyard?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Chip Smith. Sorry I couldn’t talk when you called a few minutes ago. Things were a bit crowded.”
“Crowded?”
“Yes. Ace was standing right beside me.”
“Oh? I just had a few questions for you. Could I talk you into meeting me for lunch?”
“Lunch?” Chip sounded as if he’d never heard of the meal.
“Yes. I thought we could go to the Sidewalk Café.”
“Oh.” That required more thought. “I’ll be happy to meet you. But maybe not in Warner Pier.”
“Oh?” Now it was my turn to sound surprised—largely because I was.
“How about the General Store?” Chip said.
“You mean the one at Willard?”
“Yes. I could pick you up.”
“No, I can get myself there. What time?”
“One o’clock? It’s never crowded.”
“I guess not.” There was a reason the General Store in Willard was never crowded. The place had a reputation for really lousy food.
“It ought to be a quiet place to talk,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Fine. One o’clock.” Chip hung up.
I hung up, too. What the heck had I done? I’d just agreed to meet a guy who knew two murder victims, and to meet him in a secluded place and at a time when that place would be almost deserted. And I had agreed to meet him alone.
I must be crazy.
I picked up the phone, ready to call and cancel.
Then I reminded myself that Chip hadn’t even been mentioned in the investigation of Buzz’s death.
I punched the numbers that rang Sissy’s phone. “Hey, it’s Lee. Sissy, was Chip around when Buzz died?”
“No. He called me from someplace. Bosnia? Or Afghanistan? Honestly, I don’t remember. But it was someplace far away.”
“Thanks.”
So Chip had been out of the country when Buzz died. He hadn’t been a suspect. But how about Helen Ferguson? Could he be a suspect in her death?
Maybe, maybe not. But working on Rosy Reagan’s suspicion that the prowler of last February was the same prowler who had left tracks at Nosy and Rosy’s house—well, Chip couldn’t have been the first prowler, so he must not have been the second.
It was still stupid for me to meet him at the Willard General Store—alone, at least.
I picked up the phone again. Time to call in my personal knight in shining armor. Thank goodness this was a day when Joe worked at the boat shop, not thirty miles away as a lawyer.
Joe answered on the first ring.
“How about lunch?” I said.
“Sure.”
“Great! And how’s your w
hite steed doing?”
“He’s fine. Do you want me to ride him?”
“Please.”
Joe laughed. “Okay, Lee. What kind of mess have you gotten into this time?”
Chapter 17
When Joe and I got to the Willard General Store, I spotted a rental car parked in front. It was small and a flashy yellow; it had probably been the least desirable car in the leasing company’s lot. I recognized it as a rental by the sticker on the back bumper.
I pointed to the car. “I guess Chip is already here.”
“I’m surprised he agreed to talk to you about Buzz,” Joe said.
I stopped walking. “You know, he didn’t even ask what I wanted to talk about.”
Joe frowned. “You mean he wanted to meet you way out here to talk, and he didn’t even wonder why?”
“That’s right. I just realized it.”
“That’s nuts.”
“I agree.”
“No wonder your subconscious was telling you something was crazy. That something may be Chip, and you may well be better off not coming alone. Maybe I should have brought my brass knuckles.”
Joe took my hand, and we headed inside.
For at least a minute I couldn’t find Chip. The Willard General Store wasn’t exactly brightly lighted.
I couldn’t remember ever being there before, though of course I knew it existed. The store is one of those hangovers from earlier rural life, a convenience store serving a small specific community. Willard is a clump of maybe two dozen houses, rather than a town or village. I’m sure it’s not incorporated. The Willard school was probably absorbed by Warner Pier as soon as the school bus was invented. There’s one small church, but no restaurant, post office, or other meeting place.
The Willard General Store is the only place there to buy gasoline or a loaf of bread or—well, anything. Five miles west of the community are an up-to-date service station and convenience store that cater to the interstate traffic, but Willard itself remains isolated.
Inside, the store was probably forty feet long and thirty feet wide, and it was crowded with shelves. As we walked through, I spotted rifle shells—lots of deer hunters around here—motor oil, bubble gum, Hershey Bars, fishing lures, miniature sewing kits, garden rakes, white socks, canned goods, pantyhose, and a large supply of beer—and a thousand other items.
At the back of the store was an old-fashioned meat counter, not too large, holding deli meats and cheeses. On the worn wooden floor in front of it were three Formica-topped kitchen tables that looked as if they’d been picked up at garage sales. Behind the tables were two glass-fronted refrigerators loaded with milk and soft drinks.
The whole place was so dimly lighted I barely recognized Chip, who was sitting at the table farthest from the meat cooler. When he stood up, I saw the table tip over about an inch. I couldn’t tell if the table had a short leg or if the floor was uneven.
“Hi!” I said. I walked close to him and spoke quietly. “How’d you find this place?”
“Originally? Buzz guided me here.” Chip smiled nervously and lowered his own voice. “They used to be real lax about checking IDs. All the high school guys we knew came out here to buy beer.”
“Fascinating variety of stock.”
“You should have seen it last February. Believe it or not, they moved everything around so they could paint. It was the biggest mishmash in the history of the world.”
Joe and I turned back to the counter, where a plain girl with a lot of large teeth stood ready to take orders for food. I decided on a cheese sandwich; the General Store’s deli meats didn’t look particularly fresh. Chip already had a sandwich and a Bud. Before he sat down again, he went to a rack displaying individual sacks of chips and pulled down some Fritos. You waited on yourself at the Willard General Store.
At least the service was quick. In about two minutes Joe and I had our sandwiches, had taken chips from the hanging rack, and had pulled Cokes from the cooler. Chip grinned as we sat down at the uneven table. “If I keep my elbows on the table,” he said, “your drinks won’t tip over. And Ace isn’t here to scold me about my table manners.”
We all bit into our sandwiches. The cheese I’d ordered was strongly flavored, better than I’d expected.
I saw that Chip was eyeing me, apparently waiting for me to speak. So I did. “Why did you want to come all the way out here to talk, Chip?”
“I thought it would be a good place for a private conversation.” He flashed that boyish grin again. “And I thought Ace wouldn’t find out that we’d gotten together.”
“Is that important?”
“He has a lot of clout with my boss. And I have to head back to duty in two weeks.”
“Why wouldn’t Ace want you to talk to me?”
“Because you’re friends with Sissy and her grandmother.”
“So are you, Chip. Or you act as if you’d like to be friends with them.”
“I do like Sissy. And Wildflower. But—well, Ace will never forgive Wildflower for being antiwar. You know, peace marches and so on forty or fifty years ago. And he considers Sissy part of the same culture.”
I took another bite, then chewed and swallowed his comment along with my bread and cheese. “Actually,” I said, “I didn’t want to talk about Sissy. I had something else on my mind.”
“I know, I know! It was a crazy situation, and I handled it all wrong.”
Huh? If my mouth hadn’t been full, I would have let it gape open. What was Chip talking about?
He didn’t go on, so I did. “I don’t know what situation you’re talking about. I only wanted to find out something about Buzz.”
“Buzz? Oh.” He sounded amazed.
“Yes. What did you think I wanted to talk about?”
Chip occupied himself with opening his Fritos before he answered. “I didn’t really know. But I’ll be glad to talk about Buzz. He was a great guy. I’ll never get over his…what happened to him. What did you want to know?”
“How long had you known Buzz?”
“Our dads were cousins, but we hadn’t met until he started military school. We weren’t roommates every year, but we always lived in the same dorm. Then in college we roomed together for three years.”
“What kind of a guy was Buzz?”
“Deep.” Chip said the word without hesitation. He stopped and thought before he went on. “Yeah. Deep is the right word. Buzz couldn’t just slough things off. He buried them inside. Where they bother you the most.”
“Sissy said he was the nicest guy she ever knew.”
“He was when he was around her.”
“But not around you?”
“Oh, Buzz was always a great guy. He had a lot of heart, I guess. When we were in—when we were overseas, he tamed a stray dog. You know, fed it. Named the dog Nero. But he didn’t always think ahead. Like the deal with the dog. When we left, he couldn’t take the dog along. There was no one over there to take it in. So he’d gotten the dog used to being taken care of, then he was going to have to abandon it.”
“How awful! The poor dog could have starved.”
“No. He made sure that didn’t happen.”
“How could he manage that?”
“Oh, he handled the situation.”
“How?”
Joe spoke for the first time. “Did he have to dispose of the dog?”
“Oh no. He paid someone to take him in.” Chip ducked his head and stared at his sandwich. “Left some money for feeding him. Asked me to check on the situation.”
“Did the people take care of Nero?”
“As near as I could tell.” Now Chip was staring at the nearest shelf. It held a selection of garden tools. He didn’t seem real confident that Buzz’s solution for Nero had worked. Joe shook his head at me, and I decided it was best not to pursue it further.
“How’d Buzz get along with the guys y’all worked with?”
“Okay.”
“I’d have thought they would be a rough bunch.
Hard for a ‘deep’ guy to handle.”
Chip shrugged. “There was a certain amount of hazing in the unit. But Buzz had learned to deal with that at military school. In fact, once he made a crack—something about ‘just like eighth grade.’ It didn’t go over very well. But his dad was an executive of the company, after all. Nobody messed with him much.”
I tried a different tack. “Were you surprised when Buzz and Sissy got married?”
“No. They’d been nuts about each other for a couple of years. Buzz just had to make the break with his dad before it could happen. After he finished his tour overseas, he said he was going to quit his job. He said his dad was asking too much of him. He just hated it all.”
“All?”
“It’s rough over there. You have to compartmentalize your life. You do what the job requires, and you don’t let it affect you.” Chip shrugged. “That’s the way to get along. Of course, Buzz wasn’t made that way. Ace should have realized it.”
“How did Buzz react to his dad’s testimony before Congress?”
“He hated it. Ace still thinks everything he did was right, you know. He isn’t a bad guy. He’s the most patriotic guy in the world. Buzz was split right down the middle—embarrassed for his dad, but he understood where Ace’s critics were coming from, too. And that bunch of liberals made him look like a traitor.”
Hmmm. I hadn’t known I was one of “a bunch of liberals.” Giving private political ideas priority over the instructions of the U.S. Congress didn’t strike me as particularly patriotic, and that was apparently what Ace Smith had done. However, I didn’t want to get sidetracked into a discussion on political ethics. I bit into my sandwich, glad of the excuse to shut up for a moment.
Chip had described Buzz as a person who was bothered by the things that went on while he was working for Dobermann-Smith Corporation. His dad’s testimony must have bothered him even more. I chewed, swallowed, and felt sorry for Buzz. Then I spoke again.
“What about Buzz’s novel?”
“Novel?” Chip’s voice was completely innocent. “What novel?”
“The novel he was writing.”
“Huh?”
