The Chocolate Book Bandit (15 page)

But I went. The temperature had dropped into the high forties by then. I started the van and switched on the heater. I kept hoping Joe would pull into the drive and offer to go with me. He didn’t. I drove the two hundred feet down the sandy lane that leads from our house to Lake Shore Drive without meeting an incoming car. I turned onto Lake Shore Drive and saw no headlights coming toward me. I was alone.

Going north from our house, Lake Shore Drive follows the edge of Lake Michigan, of course. After a mile the road takes a sharp curve back to the east, and its name changes. It becomes Inland Road and leaves the lake. It follows the Warner River until the road turns left and crosses the river to link our area of Warner Pier to the rest of the town.

It’s a perfectly fine road, wide and smoothly paved, with just a few tricky places. Two of these are where Lake Michigan’s winter storms have washed out the bank and eaten into the shoulder of the road. The third is the sharp curve where Lake Shore Drive changes its name to Inland Road. The fourth is on the right-hand side of the road, between the two washouts, where a culvert needs repair. All four spots have guardrails, of course.

I was just about even with the first washout when lights flashed in my rearview mirror and a car pulled out onto the road behind me. I thought nothing of it. But as I drove on, the lights got brighter and brighter. The car was coming up fast.

I don’t have to own the road. I dropped my speed to thirty to let the speed demon come around.

But the car didn’t come around. It pulled out into the left lane, but it didn’t pass me. It just came up even and drove along parallel to me.

What was going on? Was this someone I knew? I tried to see the driver, but I couldn’t identify him or her. And I didn’t recognize the car. It was a big SUV of some sort, a vehicle larger than my van.

I slowed down again. And I spoke aloud. “Go around, you idiot! I’m giving you the highway.” But the SUV slowed, too, keeping right beside me.

The bad place on the right-hand side of Lake Shore Drive was coming up soon. I slowed again. Now I was traveling only twenty-five miles per hour. And I could see the guardrail in my headlights.

“Idiot!” I said it again just before the SUV edged over into my lane and rammed into my left-front fender.

The consumption of chocolate may be linked to winning Nobel Prizes.

A cardiologist (apparently with too much time on his hands) studied the correlations of average national consumption of chocolate and the number of people from that nation who have been awarded Nobel Prizes.

The study was done by Franz Messerli, who is originally from Switzerland and more recently worked at St. Luke’s–Roosevelt Hospital in New York. He wrote an article about it for the
New England Journal of Medicine
.

As a Swiss, Messerli noticed that his home country led in two important categories. First, the Swiss have a higher number of Nobel Prize winners than any other nation on a per-capita basis. Second, the Swiss have the world’s highest average consumption of chocolate.

The comparison is obvious, Messerli said—and it’s hard to say anything at all with your tongue firmly in your cheek. Eating chocolate plainly leads to winning Nobel Prizes.

Good news for young scientists. And old ones.

I couldn’t allow the SUV to push me into the ditch without a fight.

When I realized the thing was coming over I took evasive action, or at least I tried. I hit the brakes and I steered left into the oncoming SUV. That may have been stupid, but the steep drop on my right seemed more dangerous than a collision.

I bounced off the other vehicle, and my air bag inflated and deflated. But I managed to stay on the road. I didn’t go through the guardrail, and I didn’t go down into the gully. In fact, I got past the gully, which I had thought was the most dangerous spot on that stretch of road.

But that was a temporary respite. The SUV came over again, and this time I did bounce off the guardrail on my right. The SUV shot by, and the van and I did a pirouette, turning halfway around. Suddenly I was sideways across the road. And I was still moving, but this time I was going backward in slow motion.

I tried to turn the van onto the road, but it didn’t work. I skidded off the road on the lake side and went down a thirty- or forty-foot bluff. A steep bluff. The nose of the van went up; the back went down. The van teetered, and for a brief, terrifying moment I thought it was going to do a backward somersault. Then the van paused in midair, fell forward, and landed on all four tires with a huge jolt. I felt as if I’d been riding a giant pancake, and I’d been slammed onto a griddle.

My ride wasn’t over. Slowly, the van began to slip backward, toward the lake. I could hear bushes squeaking against the car and the cracks of what must have been small trees breaking as the van snapped them off. Then I whammed into some barrier that ended my descent.

The van and I had stopped, and I was still conscious.

The van was still conscious, too; the motor was running. I automatically slid the gearshift into park and turned off the ignition.

And that’s when I got mad. I shook my fist and yelled, “I’ll get you for this!”

Then I pounded the steering wheel angrily. And I growled like a bear. An angry mama bear. “The female is the most vicious of the species! I’m gonna get you for this!”

But after all that roaring—and I didn’t know whom I was roaring at—I was still stuck in that van, halfway down an incline that was almost a cliff.

Could I get out of the van? Was the van going to catch fire? And, most important, was the SUV that had caused all this still up there on the road? Was its driver waiting to attack again if I got out of the van? In spite of my defiant roars, I wasn’t in a very strong position to protect myself at that moment.

And in less than one minute my headlights were going to turn off, so I’d better do something about my position fast.

I popped open the glove box and felt for my flashlight. I had just picked it up when I heard a motor rev loudly, and on the road above me a vehicle dug out, going north on Lake Shore Drive.

Was it the SUV? Had my attacker fled? Why? I certainly wasn’t doing anything to threaten him. Roaring might make me feel brave, but it didn’t harm my attacker.

Then I heard another vehicle coming, this time from the north. The SUV must have seen that car coming and fled as a result, I decided. Maybe this new car would see me and stop to help.

And at that moment my headlights went off.

Well, that ripped it. The oncoming vehicle might be carrying a carload of rescue workers, but they weren’t going to be able to see me. I was down the bluff, out of sight of the road.

I fumbled around for my headlights, cursing modern auto design. I could remember cars of my childhood. My dad would push a knob in and out, and it turned the lights off and on. Real simple. But in this van I had to twist a little gadget on the turn signal. In the dark it was impossible to see the tiny icons that told me that I was turning the knob the right way. I was still too rattled to get the flashlight on.

I gave the knob an angry twist, and miraculously the headlights went on. I was even able to flash them. I didn’t make an SOS signal but I did flash them in some way. Up on the road, however, the car went on past without stopping.

I sighed. I was going to have to get myself out of this mess. I was going to have to open my door and step out onto a steep hillside without being able to see exactly where I was stepping. I didn’t know how securely the van was jammed in place; at any moment it could tip over onto its side. Then it might complete its trip into the lake, taking me with it.

Not that the lake itself was much danger—right along the shore the water was likely to be shallow and have a rocky bottom. But if I slid down into it in the van, well, I could land upside down and backward and not be able to get out.

It would be risky to try to get out of the van while it was stuck halfway down the bluff. But staying where I was could be even riskier. I had to try it.

I opened the door about a foot, but that made the van rock from side to side. If it went over . . . I didn’t want to think about what could happen. I turned the ignition on again—I’d left the keys in it—and I lowered the window. But that was no help.

Just as I gave another growl of frustration, a light flashed into my eyes. And I heard a voice.

“Hey! Is anybody in there?”

So help me, it was Joe.

Why not? He lived in the neighborhood.

That’s when I started crying. But I swear they were tears of fury.

The next half hour is a rather confusing memory. First there was a lot of yelling, none of it very sensible.

“Joe!”

“Lee?”

“Yes! I can’t get out!”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, but I’m afraid the van will roll over if I move around!”

“I’ll go back up on the road and call 9-1-1! We’ll get a wrecker! Don’t move!”

Cell phone reception is iffy along the lakeshore. I hoped Joe wouldn’t have to find a landline to call for emergency help.

Apparently he didn’t, because it was only a few minutes until Joe—still in his lawyer suit—came skidding down the bluff, waving his own flashlight around. I could see him in my headlights as he came, clinging to trees and digging his feet into the sandy soil until he reached the van. He came up beside my open window. When he spoke to me, his voice actually sounded calm.

“I think you could get out, but there’s no footing except this sand. You might slip on down into the lake, and that could be bad. You’d better stay where you are until some equipment gets here.”

What he wasn’t saying out loud was that I could turn the van over and crush both of us. I agreed to stay where I was. “You need to back away, Joe.”

“No.” He took my hand.

I admit that clutching his hand was wonderful. “Do you need to go up to the road to wave the wrecker down?” I asked.

“I think I can stay here. Just don’t jump around.”

“Somebody pushed me off the road, and when I find out who it was, I’m going to beat them to death with a tire iron. Do you have a tissue?”

Luckily, he did. I blew my nose, and we stayed there, holding hands, until people came. Lots of people. Hogan. Jerry Cherry. The Michigan State Police. A wrecker driver. It seemed to take all of them to get me out of the van.

But they got me out. The wrecker stabilized the van with some sort of magic equipment, and I was able to climb out without turning the vehicle over. Joe and some other guys held me and kept me from sliding down into the lake; then they hauled me to the top of the bluff. Standing on the road with a firm surface under my feet felt wonderful. But I was still mad.

An ambulance came, and Joe and Hogan insisted that I ride in it to the hospital in Holland. I finally agreed, but I instructed Hogan to call Betty Blake’s house and tell Betty’s daughter that I couldn’t come to talk to her. He frowned, but he agreed to do it.

Aunt Nettie met us at the hospital. The ER doctor declared me not only all in one piece, but darn lucky. I had no broken bones. He sent me home, warning me that I was going to be sore in every muscle, and giving me pain pills.

“I don’t want pills,” I said. “I’m too hyped up.”

“When you come off the adrenaline high,” he said, “you’re going to hurt all over.”

When we got home—Aunt Nettie drove us—Joe made me swallow one of those pills, then take a really hot shower. By the time I staggered to bed I was feeling no pain in either the physical or mental sense. I was barely coherent. I seem to remember talking, but I have no idea what I said. I just remember Joe lying down beside me and putting his arms around me. I tried to tell him something about Meg, but it all became jumbled in my mind with Butch Cassidy and my anger at the person in the SUV. Heaven knows what I said.

I woke up about noon, and as predicted, I hurt all over. Joe offered me another pill, but I declined.

“I’ve got to know what’s going on,” I said. “Because I’ve got to go kill that person who was driving the SUV. Did anybody call Betty Blake’s daughter to tell her I couldn’t come over?”

“Alice Ann Blake didn’t want to see you, Lee.”

“Then why did that woman—Madelyn? Why did she call and ask me to come?”

“Think about it.”

I thought. “Oh! She wanted me to drive down Lake Shore Drive so she could shove me off.”

“You got it. The phantom accident causer strikes.”

“Somebody tried to kill me?”

“Right.” Joe kissed me on the top of the head. “Which is why you’re going to be really cautious until Hogan gets all this figured out.”

“I don’t want a babysitter, Joe.”

“Tough. You’re going to have one, at least for a while.”

I sat up, and the effort caused groans. “If somebody did this to me on purpose, I’m definitely going to hurt them.”

Joe didn’t argue. He changed the subject. “What do you want to eat?”

“I guess I am hungry. But you’ll have to go to the store. I haven’t shopped in a week.”

Joe laughed. “The ladies from the shop sent over enough food for an army. Do you want ham or roast beef? Slaw or three-bean salad? Chocolate cake or apple pie? Or practically anything else you can think of.”

“Good heavens! You’d think I died.”

“Yeah.” I could see Joe gulp and blink. He looked away.

I was alive. I was glad I was alive, and Joe seemed to be glad I was alive. He gave me an enormous but gentle hug, and I hugged him back.

“Now listen, Lee,” he said, “there’s an important thing I have to tell you.”

As if on cue, there was a knock at the back door. Then I could hear the door open, and Joe’s mother, Mercy Woodyard Herrera, called out. “Hi, you two! I know you’re here.”

Joe laughed.

I looked at him. “And that important thing is?”

“It’s that we have too many relatives.” Then he called out. “Come on back to the bedroom, Mom. Lee just woke up.”

Mercy had brought food, too—roast beef sandwiches, like the ones Betty and I had eaten the day before. I staggered into the dining room, with an old robe over my pajamas, and the three of us ate them. Then the phone began to ring. And Lindy Herrera came by, bringing more food. Just as she left Maggie McNutt arrived. All afternoon I didn’t have time to think about Betty Blake or Abigail Montgomery or what had happened to them or about whoever had shoved me, van and all, off the road. I stayed mad, but I was so busy with friends and family, I gave up thoughts of immediate revenge.

All this attention seemed pretty silly in a way, but I knew it was really my friends and relations telling me they loved me. So I appreciated it and reminded myself that the day would come when some crisis hit their lives, and then I’d take food and love to each of them.

About five o’clock a large sedan pulled into our lane, and Timothy Hart got out. He wasn’t carrying a covered dish. No, Tim had an enormous florist’s box. And his nephew, Hart VanHorn, got out of the car as well.

“Joe,” I said. “Hold the fort while I put on some clothes. I’m not greeting Tim and Hart in this tacky old robe.”

“You’ve greeted everybody else all afternoon in that tacky old robe.”

“Those were people I love. I don’t love Hart and Tim.”

He laughed. “That’s nice to hear.”

“I like them. But I don’t love them.”

I dashed for the bedroom—or at least I walked as fast as my sore muscles would allow. I managed to pull on some brown slacks and a cream-colored sweater without moaning. Then I painted my eyelashes and mouth for confidence. When your natural coloring is as pale as mine, it’s hard to greet anybody but your best friends and your closest relatives without makeup. I might as well leave my eyes and mouth in the bedroom.

Uncle Tim and Hart came in the front door, which proved that they weren’t among our closest friends. Both were dressed in slacks and blazers, and I could see a suit bag hanging in the backseat of Hart’s car. They must be on their way to Grand Rapids, where Abigail’s ashes were to be buried.

Tim gave me the florist’s box, which contained two dozen snazzy red roses with a personal card. I kissed Tim on the cheek and found a vase.

Luckily, Lindy had brought a commercial-sized thermos of coffee, so I was able to offer some, accompanied by TenHuis chocolates. I managed to limp into the kitchen and get out a plate of cranberry orange cinnamon truffles (“a white chocolate filling flavored with cranberry and orange, enrobed in dark chocolate and dusted with cinnamon”) and French vanilla truffles (“a classic vanilla-flavored milk chocolate center covered in milk chocolate and embellished with crumbled white chocolate”). Joe served the coffee.