The Chocolate Bear Burglary (11 page)

The Warner Pier downtown isn’t all quite as authentically Victorian as Aunt Nettie’s “Folk Victorian farmhouse.” Some new construction did creep in during the 1950s. But today’s merchants know what’s good for business; genuine and faux Victorian features abound—including several blocks of fake Victorian condos that challenge the architectural imagination.

The shops along Dock Street face the river, with a strip of park separating the business district from the marinas. Dock Street is the busiest part of town in the summer, when the river is lined with yachts, nearyachts, sailboats, and fancy power boats. Now, at the end of February and with all the boats in storage or moved to southern climes, it still looked pretty.

There was even a little weak sunlight that day, and the sidewalks had been cleared. The temperature had climbed to nearly forty. I enjoyed the fresh air on my walk to City Hall, even if I wasn’t happy about my errand.

City Hall is one of the authentic Victorian buildings, originally a private home. I went up the redbrick steps, across the white front porch—decorated with the approved Victorian lanterns and a few teddy bears—and in through a front door with a beveled-glass panel.

When I came in, Patricia VanTil, the tall and rawboned city clerk, jumped to her feet and almost ran to the counter. “Oh, good, you’re here,” she said. “I was debating with myself about calling you.”

“Why?”

“Well, I wanted to be sure you knew about your stepson being down here.”

I tried to act calm. “I’m sure it’s just ravine. I mean routine. Jeff did stop the burglary last night. But I’ll go on back to the police department and see what’s going on.”

I gave what I hoped was a gracious smile—it probably made me look like one of the chocolate skulls TenHuis makes for Halloween—and went past the counter and down the corridor that leads to the two or three rooms of the police department.

Jerry Cherry was out in the main room. “Hi,” I said, determined to be friendly and casual. “Don’t they ever let you go home?”

“Oh, I got a few hours’ sleep.” Jerry looked at me suspiciously. “What can I do for you?”

“I hear the chief has Jeff in for more questioning. I decided I needed to keep informed on the situation.”

“He’s not under arrest or anything, Lee.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” In fact, about half my stomach muscles relaxed at the news. “But just what is going on?”

Jerry sighed. “I’ll tell the chief you’re here.”

He knocked on the door of the chief’s office, looked inside, and spoke. I heard the rumbling voice of Hogan Jones. “Come on in here, Lee!”

I went into the office. Jeff was sitting in a chair across the desk from the chief. Only the two of them were present. I thought Jeff looked a little relieved when he saw me, but he didn’t say anything. I tried not to stare at his earlobes.

“What’s up?” I said.

“I needed to ask Jeff a couple of questions. Nothing serious.”

“You mean I don’t need to call him a lawyer?”

Chief Jones laughed. “Oh, we’re a long way from that kind of thing. Jeff’s a hero, right? Stopped the only burglary the Warner Pier business district has had since Labor Day.”

“He certainly did.”

“As a matter of fact, I didn’t want to ask him about the burglary at all.”

Jeff burst into speech then. “It’s some car, Lee. They think I might know something about it.”

“What car?”

“We found it in the parking lot at the Superette. Out of gas. The manager called and asked us to tow it.”

“Why would Jeff know anything about it?”

“It has a Texas tag.” Jeff sneered. “Like I know every car in Texas.”

The chief chuckled. “Yeah, that’s pretty silly, isn’t it? But the guy who runs the station down at Haven Road—that’s five miles south of Warner Pier, Jeff, on the interstate—he said a young man in a gold Lexus RX300 with a Texas tag pulled in there early yesterday and bought some chips and stuff.”

“Okay,” Jeff said. “That was me.”

“The guy says you weren’t alone, Jeff.”

“He’s wrong!”

“He says another car with a Texas tag pulled in at the same time. A small Ford.”

“Maybe so. But I was alone.”

The chief shrugged, but he didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think of anything to add, so I didn’t say anything either.

The silence grew until Jeff finally spoke. “No shit. I was alone. I pulled in there and bought some chips and a Coke. I sat in the parking lot and counted my money. I didn’t have enough for gas, so I decided that I’d have to call Lee, see if she could help me.” He turned to me. “I knew where you were because of all the newspaper stories last summer.”

The chief spoke again. “You didn’t see the other Texas car?”

“It was still dark!”

“Had you driven all night?”

“I pulled over and slept some.”

“Mighty cold for sleeping in a car.”

“I left the motor running. Guess that’s how I used up all my gas.” His eyes had grown wide and innocentlooking, then cut at the chief, the way they did when he was lying.

The chief’s voice took on a fatherly tone. “And just why did you come to Michigan, Jeff?”

Jeff’s lips tightened, but his eyes stayed wide. “I’m old enough for a road trip, if I feel like one.”

“Right in the middle of the semester?”

“I wasn’t so excited about my classes anyway.”

“And without telling your parents?”

Jeff didn’t answer.

“Jeff,” I said, “I’ve been trying to call both your parents. I know they’re worried.”

“No, they’re not. They’re not interested in me right now.”

I ignored his comment. “I haven’t been able to reach either of them. Do you know where they are?”

Jeff glared at me.

“How about your mom? She always acted pretty interested in you, Jeff.”

“Mom?” He gave a snorting laugh. “She’s got other interests.”

“And how about your dad? I couldn’t get along with him, true, but he’s not a bad person. Does he know where you are?”

Jeff looked up, and he looked, well, curious. “Look, Lee—what the hell did you say to Dad last summer?”

I hadn’t been expecting that question. “We only spoke one time since our divorce, Jeff. It wasn’t a very friendly conversation.”

“Did you tell him something about he was so dumb he didn’t know one Great Lake from another?”

I tried to laugh it off. “It was just a wisecrack, Jeff. He called up here when I was in the middle of that mess after Clementine Ripley was killed, and he offered to help me. I guess I should have been grateful.”

“Where did the Great Lakes come in?”

“He offered to fly up. I’m sure he meant well, but right at the moment I took his offer as meaning he thought I was too dumb to help myself. So when he said he’d fly into Detroit, I made some remark pointing out that Warner Pier is a lot closer to Chicago than Detroit. I told him that if I needed help I’d get it from somebody who knew Lake Michigan from Lake Erie.”

Jeff laughed. “Yeah. He would have flunked fourthgrade geography.”

“I wasn’t being fair, Jeff, and neither are you. He simply thought of the biggest city in Michigan. Besides, Detroit isn’t exactly on Lake Erie. It’s just closer to Lake Erie than it is to Lake Michigan, and telling him he didn’t know the difference between Lake Michigan and Lake St. Claire wouldn’t have been funny. Anyway, your dad’s a Texan! Admit it, all us Texans tend to think the other states in the union are tiny little places where all the cities are just a few miles apart.”

Chief Jones had been enjoying this exchange thoroughly. “How about Alaska?”

“Alaska? Never heard of it,” I said. “Real Texans ignore the existence of Alaska. Jeff, what does my smart-aleck exchange with your dad have to do with the current situation? Where is he? Where is your mom? I find it hard to believe that both of them left home at the same time, and neither of them told you where they were going.”

Jeff sighed. “Well, they’re in Mexico.”

“Both of them?”

He looked up at me angrily. “Don’t you get it? After you and Dad had that fight, it was like he finally admitted he could be wrong about something. I mean, if he didn’t know Lake Erie from Lake Michigan?”

“Okay. But what does that have to do with his going to Mexico?”

“Everything! See, he went to see a counselor. Kind of caught on to what a jerk he’d been to you. And to Mom.”

I was beginning to see the picture.

Jeff looked at me angrily. “Get it? Mom and Dad are thinking about getting married again. They’re off on a trip to Mexico together!”

I
didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. Was this the crisis that had made Jeff walk out on college and take to the road? But wasn’t seeing his parents back together the dream of every child from a broken marriage? It had been mine.

On the other hand, Jeff was a real expert at playing his parents against each other. If they started speaking to each other pleasantly, it was going to mean big changes for him.

Their renewed friendship was probably related to his lack of money. If Rich was belatedly enlisting in the forces of responsible fatherhood, tightening the purse strings would be his weapon of choice. This would be quite a switch from his previous policy of using his son as a display case for conspicuous consumption.

Meanwhile, I caught Chief Jones giving me a speculative glance. He was obviously wondering where I fit into all this. The thought embarrassed me. Because I didn’t fit in the situation at all. I wanted the chief to know that, though I wasn’t sure just why.

“That is a surprise, Jeff,” I said. “They’d been divided—I mean divorced—nearly ten years, hadn’t they? I know your dad had been single for a couple of years when I met him, and we were married five years.”

Jeff scowled, making his eyebrow ring wiggle. “They split up when I was nine.”

“I hope it all works out for them.”

“Fat chance.” Jeff’s voice was bitter, but he didn’t expand on the theme.

I looked at the chief. “Does that explain why Jeff decided that he needed to make a change in his life, even if it meant spending February in Michigan?”

“Maybe. But it still doesn’t explain the second Texas car.”

The chief let the silence grow, but Jeff didn’t say anything more. After a couple of minutes that seemed like an hour, Chief Jones told Jeff he could go. Jeff and I walked back to the shop. Jeff said only nine words in the two blocks: “I found the gas money. I’ll pay you back.”

When we came in the front door of the shop I was surprised to see that Gail Hess was back. She not only was back, she was up on the step stool Aunt Nettie had been using the day before.

Aunt Nettie was behind the central counter, bent over and looking down. A pair of work boots was sticking out from behind the counter at an angle that showed their wearer was lying down on the floor.

“Not here,” a muffled voice said. I recognized it as belonging to Joe Woodyard.

“Not here either,” Gail said. Every strand of her frankly fake red hair was standing on end.

“If that doesn’t beat all, I don’t know what would,” Aunt Nettie said.

“What in the world is going on?” I asked.

“One of the molds is missing,” Aunt Nettie said.

“Missing? But I thought none of them was taken.”

“Apparently one was,” Gail said. “When I got them back to the shop I did an inventory. And one was missing. It’s a Reiche mold, made in Germany sometime between 1912 and 1928.”

“How valuable was it?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s worth something. But it’s not one of the rarest in the collection.”

“What did it look like?”

Aunt Nettie answered. “It was that one that you thought looked so dirty, Lee. The one that was rusty.”

“The mean-looking bear? The one with the muzzle?”

“Yes,” Gail said. “Though I think he represented a dancing bear wearing a harness.”

Joe crawled out from under the counter and stood up. “It didn’t get knocked under there,” he said. “Nettie, do you remember where it was displayed?”

“It was up there where Gail’s looking. I thought maybe it was still there. It could have slid down. If it was lying flat, it could have been covered up some way.”

“Well, it’s gone.” Gail got down and dusted her hands together. Maybe it was just the gesture, but she seemed quite self-satisfied. “I just wanted to be sure we hadn’t simply overlooked it.”

“That’s crazy,” I said. “Why would the burglar take just one mold?”

Gail answered. “Because you and Jeff disturbed him?”

“But why take that one? It was one of the hardest to reach?”

Gail frowned. “Was the step stool out?”

“No! I’m sure it hadn’t been touched,” I said.

Gail gave what looked like a delighted smile. “I guess that proves our burglar was tall,” she said. “I couldn’t have reached it without a stool or a chair.”

I couldn’t get over how calm she was about one of the molds being gone. Only her hair looked excited.

“Shall I call Chief Jones?” I said.

Her eyes narrowed. “Do you think we need to report it?”

“The insurance company will want a complete police report made, if nothing else.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Gail spoke cheerfully and smiled again. “I’ve got to get back to the shop now.” And she waltzed out the front door.

We all stared after her. Aunt Nettie shook her head. “Sometimes I think that messy hair of Gail’s grows right out of her brain and proves that there’s as big a tangle inside as there is outside,” she said. “I don’t understand her at all.”

Nettie looked at Jeff. “I hope you’ve showed up to work, even though it’s nearly quitting time. We need you.” She hustled him into the back.

And Joe and I were alone.

I felt bad about our quarrel, although I didn’t feel as if I needed to apologize for my feelings and opinions. Maybe I needed to apologize for the rudeness with which I had expressed them that morning. But I didn’t know that Joe’s unexpected appearance at TenHuis Chocolade had anything to do with our fight. I decided not to make an immediate reference to the quarrel.