The Chocolate Bear Burglary (20 page)

“No!” She snapped the word out, got in her car and slammed the door. But as soon as she started the motor her window came gliding down.

“Anything I’ve heard about Gail and Indiana is gossip,” she said. “Ask the Indiana Association of Antique Dealers for the real story. If the executive director doesn’t know, she’ll be able to find someone who does.” Then Celia Carmichael drove off.

Chief Jones and I walked back across the street together.

“Are you sure I can’t take Jeff home with me?” I said.

“Not tonight, Lee. But I’ve got a few more hours before I have to charge him. Maybe I won’t have to.” He patted my shoulder. “And I’ll run down that Indiana Antique bunch first thing tomorrow.”

His promise was cold comfort. I thought about it as I got into my van. Whatever had happened to Gail in Indiana, it seemed unlikely that it would have any connection with whatever had happened to her in Michigan. The chief drove away, and I left, too. I needed to get home and start calling the merchants along Peach Street, as I’d told Joe I would.

Then, when I was nearly to the end of the block, I saw the light, both literally and figuratively.

The light in this case was in a third-floor window over Mike’s Sidewalk Café, at the corner of Peach Street and Fifth Avenue. And behind the lighted window I saw our mayor, Mike Herrera, in his apartment above one of the restaurants he owned. He was pulling down the window shades.

When Joe and I had divided up the block into river side and Orchard Street side, we’d ignored the cross street, less than half a block from TenHuis Chocolade. Some of those buildings also had apartments upstairs. In fact, two months earlier Mike Herrera had astonished his son and daughter-in-law by selling his house and moving himself into the apartment on the third floor of his building. Now one of his restaurants, the Sidewalk Café, was on the first floor, his office was on the second, and he lived on the third.

And at that moment Mike was in his apartment, just waiting for me to quiz him. I parked, jumped out of the van, ran across the sidewalk and began ringing the bell beside the inconspicuous door marked OFFICE –HERRERA ENTERPRISES. I knew that door led to the apartment as well as the office, because I’d seen Mike and Tony carrying a mattress up those stairs.

It took a few minutes, but I heard footsteps coming down the stairs. Mike opened the door. “Lee! My Texas friend. What are you up to tonight?”

“I’m trying to help my stepson, Mike. Can I ask you a question?”

“Of course, of course!” Mike escorted me up one flight, opened the door to his office and turned on the lights. The office was a utilitarian affair of metal desks and filing cabinets. He waved me toward a chair that had apparently been rescued from one of the more downscale of his four restaurants.

Mike pulled up another chair, a straight chair with a metal frame and ripped upholstery. “What can I tell you?”

I swiftly explained that Jeff’s lawyer had suggested that we question all the people who lived in Warner Pier’s downtown apartments.

Mike shook his head. “I saw nothing of the murder, Lee. My bedroom is at the back, you see. I knew nothing about it until I was awakened by the commotion after one thirty. Then I saw the reflections of the lights, and I got out of bed and looked out the front windows.”

I sighed. “I was afraid that would be the case. I guess that one thirty on a winter morning in Warner Pier is a good time to do something you don’t want witnesses for. I hoped—well, we hope someone saw a car or something.”

Mike’s eyes widened slightly. “I didn’t see a car. Not after one a.m.”

For some reason he had emphasized the time. I decided to press him a little. “Actually, Mike, Jeff says he first saw something suspicious about half an hour earlier, a little before one a.m. He had this silly girl, Tess, with him. He took her back to the motel where she was hiding out, then returned to check on the shop. That’s when he found Gail’s body. But Jeff says there was a prowler of some sort earlier.”

“At one?” Mike shook his head. “No. I saw nothing at that time.”

Mike’s voice had become singsong, molding his Texas-Michigan accent into something with a Spanish sound. I’d noticed this about Mike before; when he got excited or upset, he reverted to the Spanish of his youth.

But what would Mike have to be upset about?

I decided not to say anything, but just to look at him expectantly, silently.

And in the silence, I heard a noise outside the office.

It was just a little creak, a shuffling sound. The back of my neck prickled for a second. I wondered if the sound had been my imagination.

Mike began to stammer. “I, I, I . . .”

If he hadn’t reacted so guiltily, I might have convinced myself that the little noise I’d heard had merely been the old building creaking. But his confusion convinced me that someone was outside the office.

Suddenly I was crazy to see who was there.

I stood up. “Well, Mike, if you didn’t see anything, I might as well get out of your hair.” I whirled around and in three long strides I was at the office door.

“Lee!” Mike’s voice was anguished.

I didn’t say a word. The door was already ajar, and I simply snatched it wide open. The light from the office fell out onto the landing and splashed up the stairs.

And, there, partway up to the third floor, stood Mercy Woodyard. Mike’s mom had changed from her business suit to a beautiful golden velvet robe and embroidered slippers.

She and I stared at each other. Then Mercy smiled and shrugged. “Hello, Lee,” she said.

“Hello, Mercy,” I said. I was embarrassed. After all, we’d all known that Mercy Woodyard and Mike Herrera had the occasional dinner date. If their relationship had progressed to a more intimate level, it was none of my business.

I wondered if Joe knew.

“I’d come down,” Mercy said, “but there are no shades on the office windows, and Mike and I still make some effort to be discreet. Maybe you and Mike better come upstairs.”

Now I began to stammer. “No, no! I didn’t mean to interrupt—”

“You’re not interrupting anything more exciting than a drink before dinner,” Mercy said. “Anyway, Mike is going to have to go to Hogan Jones with what he saw. No later than tomorrow.”

I looked at Mike. He shrugged and motioned toward the stairway. We both followed Mercy up a floor.

Mike’s apartment was not fancy—it featured massmarket furniture in styles and colors from around twenty years earlier—but it wasn’t bad, particularly considering it belonged to a man who was largely immersed in his business affairs.

Mike waved me to a chair, gave a deep sigh and spoke. “It was around twelve forty-five,” he said. “And it wasn’t out on Peach Street or on Fifth Avenue. It was in the alley between Peach and Pear.”

You can’t see the alley between Peach and Pear from Mike’s office or apartment. I started to point that out, but I thought about it again and snapped my jaw shut. The alley between Peach and Pear Streets runs behind Mercy Woodyard’s office.

“It was a car,” Mike said. “A small car. It was driving out the other end of the alley, onto Third Avenue.”

“What kind of car? Could you see the license plate?”

“No, no, no!” Mike sounded exasperated. “I didn’t get a good look at it. But . . .” He sighed. “But the left taillight was out.”

That was about all I got out of Mike. He refused to guess at the make of the car. “Small. Yes, it could have been some kind of a sports car.” And there had not been enough light for the color to be seen.

“It was dark,” he said. “Maybe there was something wrong with it. The motor sounded funny.”

Mike couldn’t explain just what “funny” meant. The engine hadn’t been missing or running roughly. He didn’t think there had been anything wrong with the muffler.

“It just sounded different,” he said.

But at least Mike had seen enough to link the mysterious car Jeff and I had seen the night of the burglary to the second crime. I’d already assumed that might be the case, but I was relieved to have some evidence.

Anyway, Mike promised to call Chief Jones the next morning. He walked me down the stairs and over to my van. As I opened the door, he spoke.

“Mercy didn’t see the car,” he said. “I’d like to keep her out of this.”

“I won’t mention seeing her,” I said. “To anybody.” I let him read the name Joe into that comment.

Mike nodded. “I love Warner Pier,” he said. “But it sure can be . . . small.” Mike was already back inside by the time I reached the corner.

I drove home. Aunt Nettie had made hot German potato salad and bratwurst—a sausage they really do right in Michigan—but none of us had much appetite. I left the dishes to her and Tess, perched at the end of the counter, and rehearsed how to tell Joe what Mike had told me without telling him his mother had been in Mike’s apartment looking cozy. I had a feeling my tongue was about to twist into a knot. When I dialed Joe’s number, I was almost relieved to get a busy signal.

I started phoning people who owned property in our block. If I couldn’t remember who owned a particular building, Aunt Nettie could. Periodically I tried Joe again, but it was ten o’clock and both Aunt Nettie and Tess had moved into the living room before I caught Joe.

Joe said he had found that only one of the apartments on the Orchard side of the street was occupied, and the guy who lived in it hadn’t been home. I described my conversation with Mike Herrera—omitting any mention of Mercy—with only one bobble. I stumbled over where Mike had seen the car, describing it as “the alley between Parch and Peer.” Joe didn’t laugh, but maybe that distracted him. Anyway, he didn’t ask what the heck Mike Herrera had been doing in that particular alley shortly before one a.m.

The unusual sound of the motor interested him. “I wish I knew more about sports cars,” he said.

“I could call my dad,” I said, “but he mostly works on pickup trucks. He rarely gets a sports car in his garage.”

“You don’t see the real old-time sports cars much anymore,” Joe said. “Not since the SUV became the macho car of choice. Actually . . .” He paused for a long moment. “Actually, that reminded me of something odd.”

“What’s that?”

“The most striking sports car I ever saw around Warner Pier . . . but that was fifteen years ago. I’m sure that car is long gone by now. But its motor sure did have a distinctive sound.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“It was a 1968 MGB. A real classic. It used to park outside The Dockster in the summertime. Back when I was in high school.”

I decided to cut off his reminiscences. “Well, like you say, that was a while back. If you haven’t seen the car recently, we need to think about current cars.”

“Yeah, that’s probably right. It’s funny though. That car belonged to Timothy Hart.”

J
oe and I were both silent for a moment.

“That’s an odd coincidence,” I said. “But Timothy told me he hadn’t driven in years.”

“I know he lost his license. But I wonder if he sold the car around here.”

“Even if he did—Joe, that’s too far-fetched.”

“Yeah. You’re right. Though Timothy Hart—well, he’s an odd duck. Tomorrow I’ll ask Mom if she’s insured any kind of a fancy sports car for anybody. Though she probably hasn’t. A car like that would probably belong to some summer person, and it would be insured somewhere else.”

Joe and I hung up, but I walked into the living room still wondering about Timothy Hart. Aunt Nettie was sewing a button on one of her white cook outfits, and I sat down beside her.

“Tell me about Timothy Hart,” I said.

Her eyes grew even rounder than usual. “Every family has some sort of problem,” she said.

“He described himself to me as an ‘embarrassing limb’ on the Hart family tree.”

“That about sums him up, I guess. He’s never been in any trouble that I know of. Not around here.”

“Does he have a profession?”

“I really don’t know, Lee. I’ve never taken any particular interest in the Harts.”

I laughed. “And one of them was a congressman. Warner Pier amazes me. There are so many rich and well-known people around here that they’re almost invisible. The CEO of this company, the president of that university, the candidate for vice president—they all hang out here, and nobody even notices them! Nobody’s even mentioned to me exactly where this Hart-VanHorn property is located.”

“Oh, it’s on our end of the shore road. That place with the big stone gates.”

“With the line of Japanese lantern-type lamps? The white frame house close to the road and the Craftsman-type house back toward the bluff?”

“There are a couple of newer houses, too,” Aunt Nettie said.

“Wow! I thought that was some sort of subdivision. Is it all one piece of property?”

“I believe so, but I’m not really sure. If you really want to know, you can pick me up a bottle of vitamins tomorrow.”

“Vitamins?”

“The generic senior vitamins in the drug department at the Superette.” Aunt Nettie nodded. “That’s the cheapest place to get them.”

“The Superette drug department?” I looked at Aunt Nettie narrowly. Was she scolding me? The druggist at the Superette pharmacy was notorious as the biggest gossip in Warner Pier. Aunt Nettie did not approve of him, and she generally avoided his department. A reference to pharmacist Greg Glossop—known around Warner Pier as Greg Gossip—might be her way of letting me know I’d moved from friendly interest in my neighbors over the line into nosiness.

But Aunt Nettie was smiling. “If you really need to know more about the VanHorns, you might as well take advantage of our natural resources,” she said. “Go straight to information central. Greg Glossop knows everything.”

So when I walked into the Superette pharmacy department the next morning, I did so with Aunt Nettie’s approval.