The Chocolate Bear Burglary (9 page)

I was still trying to get through college when I was twenty-two, and I met the guy I thought was my dream man—Jeff’s father. He was old enough and successful enough not to be impressed by having a wife who had once been a loser in Miss Texas competitions. He was settled in life, I told myself. I could trust his love.

Wrong again. Rich didn’t love me. He loved his idea of me—a blonde who could look good when we went out with his business associates and who was barely smart enough to punch in the phone numbers for the right caterer and the right decorator.

I was still trying to finish my accounting degree when we got married, and he encouraged me to enroll in a full class load the next semester. I overlooked the patronizing way he wrote my tuition check, but I caught on when I brought my grades home. I made the President’s List, and Rich sulked for three days. Then I asked a few accountant-type questions about his business, and Rich was furious for three weeks. Because I get my tang tongueled all the time, he’d thought I was stupid. And that’s what Rich had wanted me to be. When he found out there were a few brains under my natural blond hair, it ruined our marriage.

I’d wasted five years on Rich. Then I wasted nine months on Joe Woodyard. Now Hart VanHorn was standing there, smiling at me and offering to buy me a pizza at the Dock Street. A lot of emotional baggage might have flashed through my mind, but I answered him within fifteen seconds.

“That sounds wonderful,” I said.

“Great! About seven?”

“Fine. But are you sure you want to make it the Dock Street?”

“Nearly everything in Warner Pier is closed this time of the year. Doesn’t the Dock Street have the best food of any place that’s open?”

“Oh, yes. But the Dock Street is gossip central for Warner Pier.”

Hart laughed. “I don’t mind. But I don’t live here. If you’d rather go into Holland . . . ?”

“No, the Dock Street is fine.”

“Good. Now you tell me just where to pick you up.”

I described the landmarks that identified Aunt Nettie’s drive. “This time of the year you can see the house easily,” I said. “I’ll leave the lights on in front and in back, and you may want to come around to the kitchen. That sidewalk’s easier to get to, since the drive curves around to the side of the house.”

“I know the house you mean,” Hart said. “It’s not far from our place. I’ll be there.”

I rang up his chocolates. While he was signing the MasterCard slip I stood there beaming because one of the most eligible bachelors in Michigan had asked me out to a highly public place. Then our boarded-up front door opened and admitted an attack of guilt.

Joe Woodyard’s mother came in.

I almost ducked down behind the counter. I’m sure I did turn red and look guilty. For a mad moment I was sure she was going to accuse me of being untrue to her son.

“Hi, Lee,” she said. “Sorry I wasn’t in the office when you called. Of course your insurance covers your break-in—after your deductible.”

“Oh!” I’d forgotten that I’d called her. “Handy Hun called the grass destroyers.”

Joe’s mom and Hart VanHorn both stared at me incredulously. I’d reached a new standard in scrambled language.

I spoke again, slowly and carefully. “I mean, Handy Hans called the glass installers. They’ll be here tomorrow.” I gestured toward Hart. “Mercy, have you met Hart VanHorn? Aunt Nettie and I were terribly relieved that the burglar didn’t take Mrs. VanHorn’s mold collection.”

Mercy Woodyard’s whole demeanor perked up. She beamed at Hart. “No, we haven’t met, but I heard the speech you gave at the insurance convention last summer. On the state violence-against-women bill. It was excellent.”

They shook hands. I left them chatting about women’s shelters and insurance coverage for battered wives and went to tell Aunt Nettie that Mercy was there. By the time I got back, Hart was going out the door. He waved at me. “See you later,” he said.

I hoped Mercy Woodyard hadn’t seen the way he lifted his eyebrows. I interpreted the lift as indicating he intended to see me at a specific time. I was flooded with confusion again, and I was afraid I was blushing.

Mercy Woodyard, however, was smiling. “Now that’s one politician I might be able to support,” she said.

I tried to sound noncommittal. “Oh?”

Mercy laughed ruefully. “And to think Joe could have been a member of his law firm.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, yes. When he quit the Detroit job and moved over here he was contacted by one of the partners. They offered him a nice deal.” She shook her head. “Joe can’t do anything by halves. He stuck with the boats. But Barton and VanHorn—of course, there’s a whole string of partners. It would have been a good opportunity.”

Then she looked at me sharply. “Maybe you could convince Joe he should go back into law, Lee.”

I almost gasped. I had assumed Joe had told his mother nothing about me. Did she know about our telephone courtship? I decided to change the subject.

“You know, Mercy, there’s one thing I’ve been wondering, and I’m sure you know. What happened to Hart VanHorn’s father?”

“Vic VanHorn? I’m afraid he wasn’t much of a loss.”

“He was a U.S. congressman, right?”

“Yes. At least he would have been until the next election. He had become more and more irresponsible in the way he talked. I believe the technical term is ‘shooting his mouth off.’ Even Olivia couldn’t restrain him. The voters were getting fed up.”

“People around here talk about his death as if the circumstances were common knowledge. But I’m a newcomer. Did he die there at the Hart-VanHorn compound?”

“Yes. It was a freak accident. He had come down with Olivia and Hart. And I believe Timothy Hart was there, too, but he was staying in his own house. It was in the summer, and one of those wild thunderstorms rolled in off the lake. Sometime in the night Vic VanHorn apparently walked down to the lakeshore to take a look at the lake or watch the lightning. Or something. Of course, no one will ever really know why he went down there. But he got too near the bank, and it gave way.”

“How awful!”

“Nobody knew he had gone out. I guess Olivia woke up early and discovered he had never come to bed. She found his body, down on the beach.”

“Then he was drowned?”

Mercy frowned. “Actually, I think the fall killed him. I seem to remember that he fell about twenty feet and hit his head on something when he landed. His body had been in the water though. Luckily, it got caught on a log and didn’t drift off.”

“So Olivia VanHorn didn’t come back to Warner Pier for fifteen years because of the sad association?”

“Apparently so.” Mercy leaned over the counter and lowered her voice. “I heard—from a really reliable source—that the governor offered to appoint her to finish out Vic’s term. But she refused.”

“That’s surprising. She seems so interested in politics.”

“I guess she’d rather work behind the scenes.”

Aunt Nettie came up to the counter then, and I went back to my office. But I couldn’t help looking out into the shop, to see if Mercy was acting unusual in any way.

Joe’s mom is a perfectly nice woman, as far as I can see. She’s trim and attractive, in her fifties. She’s fairly tall, but not a giant like me. She’s blond, though I suspect she originally had dark hair. We blondes who don’t need “touching up” tend to feel a little smug about blondes who do.

If Mercy Woodyard has a distinction, it’s that she’s the best-dressed woman in Warner Pier. Or perhaps I should say she’s the most professionally dressed woman in Warner Pier.

Warner Pier is, after all, a resort community. Our customers are likely to appear in bathing suits and shorts, so the clerks in the shops and the tellers at the bank and the receptionists in the offices would be illadvised to dress as if they were working on Fifth Avenue. The clerks TenHuis Chocolade hires in the summertime wear khaki shorts or slacks and chocolatebrown polo shirts. The high school principal wears a blazer and khakis. The receptionist at City Hall wears jeans, and the mayor presides at council meetings in khakis and a sweater. I used to dress up when I worked in a Dallas office, but now I consider L. L. Bean my prime fashion consultant. That day I was wearing flannel-lined jeans and a turtleneck.

So Mercy Woodyard’s power suits stand out. She could walk into any Dallas bank or Chicago brokerage firm and look as if she belonged there. And while the rest of us wear ski jackets and woolly parkas in winter, she appears in well-tailored dressy coats. Her wardrobe, I suspected, was designed to set her apart as proprietor of a “professional” business.

I had no idea what Joe thought of her. Which is significant, I guess. During the past nine months, he and I had spent hours talking on the phone, discussing every subject under the sun except his mother. He’d mentioned her a few times—saying he had things stored at her house, for example, or describing a visit the two of them made to his one remaining grandparent at Thanksgiving—but he’d never mentioned anything his mother had done, repeated anything she had said, or expressed any opinion of her.

And he’d never indicated that she knew he and I had become anything more than casual acquaintances. I didn’t know what to make of her earlier comment that I might influence Joe, urge him to go back into the practice of law.

I was getting out the checkbook to write up the payment on our loan when I heard Mercy Woodyard raise her voice. “I’m going to land in the middle of Gail, anyway.”

“She was only trying to help the Teddy Bear Getaway promotion,” Aunt Nettie said.

“She was only trying to help Hess Antiques,” Mercy said. “She’s wild to handle the sale of the VanHorn furnishings. That would be quite a coup for her.”

“Gail runs a nice auction.”

“Of course. But I’d expect the VanHorns to deal with someone a little more upscale. Allen Galleries, maybe. Or someone from Chicago or Grand Rapids. Gail shouldn’t have brought those molds over here.”

“I should have realized how valuable they are. A lot of chocolate people collect them, but Phil and I simply never had time for such things. I never thought about anything happening to them.”

“Gail did know they were valuable, and she should have put a rider on them if she was going to display them somewhere outside her shop. I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” Mercy nodded firmly and left.

Aunt Nettie was frowning as she went back toward the shop. She stopped in the door of my office. “Mercy would make a powerful mother-in-law,” she said.

I laughed. “Well, it looks like that’s not going to be my problem.”

“Oh, dear! Did you and Joe quarrel?”

“I guess so. And then—Hart VanHorn asked me to go out for a pizza. I said yes.”

“Oh, my, Lee! And Jeff turns up, too. Your life is complicated.”

“I’d forgotten Jeff! I’ll break the date with Hart.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to leave you stuck with Jeff.”

“Oh, I can manage Jeff for a few hours.” Aunt Nettie raised her eyebrows. “I assume a few hours is all you had in mind?”

“It certainly is. And as far as I know it’s all Hart has in mind. He may be Michigan’s most eligible bachelor, but he can’t be that fast a worker.”

“Times have changed so much that I can hardly keep up.”

“Maybe so, but right at the present moment, your niece is living a celebrate—I mean celibate—life. And that situation doesn’t seem likely to change. Certainly not over one date, even if it’s with Hart VanHorn.”

I stood up and reached for my red jacket. “And now, it’s time for me to beard George the Jerk and extend our loan.”

Aunt Nettie patted my hand. “I really appreciate having you to handle that, Lee. Take him a bonbon or two. He likes Mocha Pyramids.”

I put two Mocha Pyramids (“Milky coffee interior in dark chocolate”) and two Amaretto truffles (“Milk chocolate interior flavored with classic almond liqueur and coated with white chocolate”) in a box and headed down the block to the bank. As I walked, I psyched myself up. You’re the customer, I told myself. The bank needs you more than you need them. George Palmer is your servant, your flunky. Treat him like dirt.

Of course, that wasn’t my actual intention. I really intended to kill him with kindness—à la chocolates— and snow him with figures. I’d already discovered that one reason George acted so snotty was that he didn’t really understand numbers. His main qualification for being branch manager had apparently been marrying the daughter of one of the bank’s more important board members. Despise him, I told myself. But I still felt intimidated.

When I got to the bank, however, I looked through the glass wall that kept George separated from the rest of the bank, and I discovered he had his own problems. He was having a meeting with Olivia VanHorn.

Olivia was seated in an armchair, her casual mink thrown onto George’s small sofa. She looked to be completely at ease; not a hair of her thick white hair—Hart’s was going to be just like it—was out of place.

George, on the other hand, looked nervous. He was smoothly handsome and sleek, with dark hair and eyes. Like Mercy Woodyard, he wore city suits—garb I felt sure was designed to make us yokels feel our yokelhood. But even his suit wasn’t helping George right then; Olivia VanHorn was obviously making him feel like nobody.

In winter the Warner Pier branch bank has a very small staff that doesn’t include a receptionist, so I nodded to the only other employee present, a young guy at the one open teller station, and sat down in a chair outside George’s office.

I eyed George and Olivia’s conversation—she talked and he listened—and I got curious about what they were talking about. So I did a wicked thing. I decided to use the ladies’ room.

That may not seem wicked, but it was. Because I knew a secret about that ladies’ room and why its exhaust fan was kept running all the time. The previous branch manager, my friend Barbara, had revealed it to me over lunch one day. Because of a quirk in the heating system, she whispered, every word spoken in the manager’s office was broadcast through the ductwork and was plainly audible in the ladies’ room. Naturally, whatever happens in the ladies’ room is also audible in the manager’s office.