The Chocolate Book Bandit (16 page)

Our conversation was solemn, as befit the situation, but I did appreciate their coming by. And not bringing more food.

Joe and Hart knew each other in law school, so they caught up on attorney gossip, and Tim and I chatted about the neighborhood. After twenty minutes Hart checked his wristwatch, and I thought their visit was nearly over.

Then Tim reached into his pocket. “Here, Lee. I want you to keep this for the moment.”

“What is it, Tim?”

“It’s that key.” He held out the little brass key.

“Is this the one from Abigail’s lettuce? Why do you want me to have it?”

Tim smoothed his white mustache. “I can’t help but feel that the key has some meaning, something to do with Abigail’s death.”

“Why?”

“She had other extra keys. House keys, car keys, safety-deposit box keys. They were in her desk. That was the only key she had hidden away.”

“But why do you want me to have it?”

“Hart wants me to go to Grand Rapids with him for a couple of weeks. I just think someone here on the spot should keep it.”

“Should you give it to Hogan?”

Tim shook his head. “It may not have anything to do with Abigail’s death. But if it does, you should be close enough to the situation to figure it out and give it to Hogan if he needs it.”

I took the key and put it on the mantelpiece, beside the roses, and Joe and I said good-bye to Tim and Hart.

We were beginning to think about warming up some more of that food when another car, a gray compact, came up the lane. Neither of us recognized it. Again, it parked in front of the house, so we knew it wasn’t a close friend or relative.

But I was still astonished when Carol Turley and her husband, Brian, got out.

I muttered. “Now what?”

It belatedly occurred to me that I’d discussed Abigail Montgomery with every member of the library board except one.

Carol Turley. Why had I ignored her?

While Carol and Brian were walking up to our front door I analyzed that question further. And the answer was embarrassing.

I hadn’t given Carol and her relations with Abigail any attention because Carol seemed so unimportant. She was a member of several community organizations, true, and she guarded the finances of each of them. But she didn’t really seem to matter to me or to Warner Pier.

In fact, her whiny attitude and dud personality made her easy to ignore. It wasn’t fun to think about her, so I didn’t. No one seemed to.

This was not nice, I told myself. Carol was a hardworking person. She deserved more credit and attention. If she got some appreciation, maybe she wouldn’t be so whiny. I set out to be a welcoming and appreciative hostess, even if I hurt in every muscle and wished Carol and Brian hadn’t come.

True to small-town life, Carol had brought something. But it wasn’t food. She held her red leather folder, of course, but she also had a book, which she presented to me. I read the title.
Playing the Game of Life
by Brian Turley
.
I checked the title page. Self-published. Hmmm.

“Of course, I’m prejudiced, but I think Brian did a really good job,” she said. “I thought if you were in bed for a few days . . .”

“I hope to go back to work tomorrow,” I said. “But thanks for the book. I’ll look at it soon.” I’ll look at it on the way to the trash, I thought. It seemed to be the kind of pop philosophy that I find more annoying than inspiring. But I reminded myself that it was nice of Carol to think of me at all.

I put the book on the mantelpiece, next to the flowers Tim had brought. As I did so, I saw the key from the hiding place in Abigail’s lettuce. I scooped it up and put it in the pocket of my slacks.

I heard Carol give a little gasp. I looked at her in surprise. “Is something wrong?”

“No, not at all! It’s just that those are such lovely flowers! Did Joe send them to you?”

“Oh no. They’re from a neighbor. Joe knows I’d scalp him if he spent the family budget on flowers.”

Carol gave a sad little smile. “It’s hard to get them to understand budgeting, isn’t it?”

“I see you handle the family finances, too.”

“If you’re a bookkeeper, you sort of get stuck with it.”

“What about your business finances?”

Carol’s eyes became slits. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you and your husband operate a camp?”

“Oh! Yes. Camp Upright. Of course, Brian runs it. But, yes, I do the bookkeeping.”

I realized Joe was bringing in more coffee, and Brian was behind him, carrying napkins. He was a handsome, athletic-looking guy, maybe around thirty-five, with dark, wavy hair and a grin that showed lots of teeth. He was nearly as good-looking as the picture on the back of his book.

As they came into the living room Brian was talking. “Up to a hundred campers,” he said.

I realized that Joe was doing his I-can-talk-to-anybody act. He wasn’t all that interested in camps, but he was feeding questions to Brian. “What age group are the kids?”

“We have different sessions for the different age groups,” Brian said. “But most of them are middle-schoolers.”

Luckily, there were truffles left on the coffee table from Tim and Hart’s visit. I handed them around, Joe served coffee, and we settled in for another formal call, one I hoped wouldn’t last too long.

I realized pretty quickly, however, that any time at all with Brian was going to be too long for me. He was one of these people who are hipped on their own subject, so we heard all about Camp Upright and nothing else. He told us how lucky they were that Carol had inherited the property where it was located. Then he described its physical plant—first as it was at the present, and next what he wished it were, with various updates. Then he went on to the camp program, which stressed athletics as a pathway to mental health and morality.

Carol didn’t say much. Her role seemed to be looking at Brian adoringly. She reminded me of the wife of a political candidate, looking enthralled while her husband gave a stump speech she’d already heard at least a hundred times.

Brian wasn’t boring. I wasn’t in the mood for his spiel, but he was handsome and lively. He’d be a great speaker for a civic club, and I could see that he might be able to inspire young athletes. Male athletes, that is. I asked about programs for girls and got a brief lecture on “physical limitations.”

When he went into a really heartfelt story about a track star who dedicated his life to sportsmanship—under Brian’s tutelage, of course—I turned to Carol and spoke quietly, starting a second conversation.

“What was your take on Abigail?”

Carol jumped. Then she pulled her attention from Brian to me and said, “My take?”

“Yes. What did you think of her?”

“She was a very nice person.”

How was that for a bland answer? I decided to push a little harder. “What did you feel was her major interest on the library board?”

“Major interest?”

“You know. Did she want to expand the collections? Or expand the usage? Or offer more programs?” I shrugged. “Or something else?”

“All of those things, I guess. She didn’t argue with Mrs. Smith much. None of us did.”

“Her brother told me she worked for an accounting firm during her working career. Did she give you trouble over the books?”

“No! Why should she?”

“No reason, Carol. It’s just that people who have worked in accounting have their favorite ways of doing things. Sometimes we like to inflict them on our fellow bookkeepers.”

Carol sniffed. “I’ve always tried to use standard accounting practices for the few items I handle. The library staff and the city treasurer do nearly everything, of course. Abigail never made any comment.”

That seemed to cover that subject. I sipped my coffee and prepared to listen to Brian’s monologue.

But Carol blurted out a question. “They’re saying someone deliberately tried to push you off the road, Lee.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“But who would do such a thing?”

“I have no idea. I didn’t recognize the vehicle the person was driving. And I didn’t see who was driving it. But I sure want to find out.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t badly hurt.” The words were spoken woodenly.

Neither of us seemed to have any more conversation, so we both turned back to Brian. He was telling Joe about how the camp was supported financially.

“We have to get scholarships for a lot of the kids,” he said. “I go to the civic clubs and fraternal organizations, but they’re not as strong as they used to be. Of course, some people make in-kind gifts.”

“You mean like food? Or equipment?”

“Right. The food supplier gives us a good rate on milk, for example. And we have a little give-a-boat program. A couple of years ago, when there were so many economic setbacks, people couldn’t afford to keep up their boats, and they couldn’t sell them, so several people just gave them to us. It’s allowed us to have a good boating program. Plus—”

That was the moment when I did a lousy job of hiding a yawn. Carol apparently noticed, and she immediately jumped up. “Brian! We’d better go. Lee needs to rest.”

“But, Carol, I was just telling Joe—”

“You can tell him another time.” She started toward the door.

Brian almost pouted. “Okay, Carol.” He sounded quite annoyed as he spoke to Joe. “That program has been very effective in gaining donations from—”

“Brian!” I was surprised at how sharp Carol’s voice became. Brian rolled his eyes like a twelve-year-old and followed her.

Joe and I walked them to the door, but we didn’t part with that standard remark about hoping we saw them again soon. We just said, “Thanks for coming.”

But after they drove off, Joe said something that struck me as significant. “Why on earth did they come anyway?”

“I guess Carol is one of those people who visit the sick,” I said. “Whether they want to be visited or not.”

“We need to talk, but let’s eat dinner before somebody else shows up,” Joe said. “A couple of TenHuis bonbons go only so far in fighting hunger.”

“Truffles, Joe. Those were truffles.”

We headed for the kitchen, made our selections from the refrigerator, warmed stuff up in the microwave, and loaded our plates. I was really tired again, and I was hoping that calling hours were over, but before we could sit down Aunt Nettie and Hogan came by.

Joe threw open the back door. “You’ll have to wait on yourselves, but come in and eat dinner.”

They did. We had reached the chocolate-cake stage when Hogan admitted why he had come. “I need a statement from you, Lee. After all, someone tried to kill you.”

I laid down my fork. “And I’m going to make whoever did that sorry.”

“I understand how you feel. But let’s start with a statement.” Aunt Nettie and Joe cleared the table, and Hogan began to question me.

Hogan didn’t ask much about the commotion when the SUV hit me and I hit the railing and went down the bluff backward. No, he wanted to know about the woman who had called me. What did she sound like? Was her voice familiar? Did she use any unusual expressions or words?

My answer to most of these questions was, “No.” I hadn’t recognized her voice. It hadn’t reminded me of anyone.

“Unless it was Tony Herrera,” I said.

“Tony?” Hogan was incredulous.

“A couple of weeks ago Tony was imitating Miss Ann Vanderklomp. As a joke. He held his nose when he talked—you know, so he would sound really nasal, the way Miss Vanderklomp does. This person who called—the one who gave her name as Madelyn Jones—her voice had that nasal tone.”

I leaned over to emphasize what I was saying. “Hogan, I’m not saying that the woman on the phone could have been Miss Vanderklomp. I’m just saying she had a nasal tone like Miss Vanderklomp does. And I’m afraid that means she was imitating her. So I think we can conclude that the gal on the phone—the mysterious Madelyn—definitely doesn’t sound like Miss Vanderklomp.”

“Since the voice was disguised . . . could it have been a man on the phone?”

I closed my eyes and tried to remember. “Maybe.”

He sipped his coffee, and we both thought about that possibility. “Well, using a nasal voice may tell us something important,” Hogan said.

“What’s that?”

“The caller knows Miss Vanderklomp.”

“Not necessarily. Miss Vanderklomp isn’t the only person with a nasal voice. Besides, that wouldn’t narrow it down much. Don’t most people in Warner Pier know Miss Vanderklomp?”

“People of a certain age do. But the person who called you also knows Betty Blake’s family. Alice Ann really is the name of Betty’s daughter, for example. Your caller knew that.”

“In a town this size, a lot of people know Betty’s family.”

“Did you know Betty’s family? Did you know Miss Vanderklomp?”

“Well, I just met Miss Vanderklomp last week. But of course I’d heard of her before.”

Hogan kept looking at me expectantly.

“I didn’t know the names of Betty’s children,” I said. “I didn’t even know Betty’s name until the night of the library board meeting. I’d seen her at the library, but our conversation was, ‘I’d like to check out this book,’ from me, and, ‘It’s due in two weeks,’ from her. She had a nameplate, but I’d barely glanced at it.”

“But it’s strongly likely that the person who called knew both Betty Blake and Miss Vanderklomp. So the caller is probably someone local.”

I wasn’t convinced that this was valuable information, though Hogan seemed to feel that he was accomplishing something. But when I bluntly asked him if he felt he was getting close to figuring out who killed Abigail Montgomery, he evaded the question.

Then he looked at me closely. “Lee, I hope you’re not serious about killing the person who drove the SUV.”

“Not unless he or she tries to kill me again. I definitely would fight for my life.”

“Good girl! You’d be perfectly justified. But I don’t want you seeking that person out.”

“I know. If I did, you might have to arrest me.” I leaned closer to Hogan. “You and your pal Larry Underwood thought I was in a good position to learn things about the library board members.”

“That hasn’t worked out very well. I think you ought to stay away from the library board crowd.”

I didn’t reply, so Hogan spoke again. “Lee? Can we shake on that?”

“No.”

“Listen, Lee. Your aunt and I love you, you know. We don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“I appreciate that, Hogan, and believe me, I don’t want anything to happen to me either. I can’t promise that I will ignore anything that falls in front of me, but I won’t take any silly risks either. But I can’t just say I’ll avoid the library crowd.”

I admit that avoiding Butch Cassidy didn’t appeal to me.

He and Aunt Nettie left, and I took another hot shower. The hot water sluicing over my sore muscles did seem to help them feel less sore.

It also encouraged thought. I analyzed my situation.

First, I had been among the first people on the scenes of two murders.

Second, someone had tried to kill me.

Third, the killer must believe I was a threat to him or her. I didn’t see how I could be—I had no evidence I hadn’t given the investigators—but the bad guy or gal evidently thought I knew more than I really did.