The Chocolate Cupid Killings (20 page)

Last night? Last night seemed to have happened several months earlier. What was Rhett talking about?

He seemed to realize I was confused. “When I mistook your voice for someone else's,” he said.

“Oh! Forget it.”

“No, I owe you an apology. I thought you were my obnoxious sister. Your voices are pitched the same.”

“That sort of thing happens to all of us. How's the group at the Dome Home?”

“Oh, nothing bothers them.” He grinned. “As long as they have chocolate, booze, and cigars. And lawyers. I was concerned about you and your aunt.”

I assured him that we were fine, though I wasn't sure that was true.

Then I saw something scary behind him. “Gotta go!” I said. I slammed the door and locked it. I rushed back to Aunt Nettie.

“The TV news team just pulled in.”

“Oh, dear,” she said.

“Gordon Hitchcock is on the story.”

I had bumped heads with Gordon Hitchcock, anchorman for one of the Grand Rapids television stations, earlier that winter. I was not tempted to open the door and speak to him.

Instead I went back to Spider and ignored the banging on the shop's door. I should have been working, but somehow it seemed disrespectful, as if I were thinking, “Oh, gee, another body. Well, I'll call the disposal people and then get back to work.” I'm not quite that blasé.

So I played Spider, which takes no brains at all, and mulled over Rhett's visit.

It was nice of him to come by, I thought. Not that he had owed me any explanation for the previous evening's mix-up. He and his sister must not get along. At least he hadn't sounded happy at hearing from her. But she must have known where he was, since she had called the B&B's number. Maybe Rhett had forwarded his calls to that number.

But that wouldn't explain his final comment of the night before. “I said I'd handle this end of things!” Was that what he had said? I was pretty sure that it was. So what “things” were Rhett and his sister involved in? And what was his sister's name? P.J.? Was that what he had called her? It could stand for a lot of things. Patty Jane. Priscilla Jo. Penelope Josepha. Paula Janetta. Patricia Josephine. Pretty Juicy.

I was getting silly. I was ready to think about something else when one of the hairnet ladies ran in and said, “We're on television!”

“What!”

“That Gordon guy. He's broadcasting from outside the shop.”

Aunt Nettie and I went back to the break room, where there's a small television set, in time to catch the end of Gordon Hitchcock's report.

“So once again this quaint resort town is in the news. Not only have two shocking murders occurred, but—in
apparently
unrelated news—the business leader who's at the center of the latest national scandal has taken refuge at his luxurious waterfront mansion here in Warner Pier.

“Yes, Marson Endicott and his legal team are holding strategy meetings . . .”

I tuned him out mentally, shook my head, and went back to my office. As I passed Aunt Nettie, I spoke in disgust. “
Apparently
unrelated? Gordon Hitchcock is really stretching this time. What possible connection could there be between a sleazy private detective, an abused wife, and an international financial scandal?”

She smiled. “This too shall pass. I hope without too much more bad publicity for TenHuis Chocolade.”

I got to the office to hear the phone ringing again. I saw the number listed on caller ID, and this time I answered. It's not tactful to dodge your mother-in-law's calls.

“Hi, Mercy,” I said.

“Oh, Lee, I just got back to the office, and I saw all the commotion over there.”

“Commotion?”

“Well, the TV truck. Angie—you know, my new assistant—says there's been another murder!”

“We don't know that it's murder, but it looks likely.” I quickly sketched how Aunt Nettie and I had checked out the seldom-used storeroom and discovered a strange car, complete with dead occupant.

“Who was it?”

I paused, wondering how to explain who Myrl was. “A friend of Sarajane Harding's,” I said finally.

“In
your
storeroom?”

“It's a long story, Mercy. I don't suppose you've heard from Joe.”

“No! I called him to remind him about dinner tonight, and he hadn't returned my call. Lee, something is definitely bothering him.”

“You may be right.”

“What is it?”

“He's not telling me, Mercy.”

“But, Lee . . .”

I was relieved to see Hogan coming through the workroom, headed my way. “Mercy, Hogan's here, and he looks as if he has questions. I'll talk to you later.”

I had brushed her off, but I didn't feel guilty. I didn't know what was bugging Joe, and it was best if his mother and I didn't talk about him. Hogan had probably come simply to make sure Aunt Nettie was taking things calmly—the way she usually takes them—but he had given me a good excuse to hang up.

To my surprise Hogan had come to ask Aunt Nettie and me to walk through Dolly's apartment and see if anything looked odd to us. “If the killer had her keys . . .”

We nodded in understanding and followed him out our back door and into the back entrance to Dolly's apartment.

Warner Pier has an old-fashioned downtown business area, with two-story redbrick buildings. The show windows tend to be smaller than more modern ones, and the city fathers strongly encourage that all trim be white. The result is a town that looks as if Norman Rockwell painted it.

But few of our businesses really need their second stories, so most of them have converted the upstairs spaces into apartments. Some of the store owners live over their shops, but usually these are rented to seasonal employees. Housing is at a premium during the summer season, although lots of the apartments are empty during the winter. Some of them are not even heated well enough to occupy during the winter.

For several years before Dolly Jolly appeared in Warner Pier, Aunt Nettie hadn't bothered to rent out the apartment over TenHuis Chocolade. Handling the tenants was simply more trouble than the money was worth, she said, since they tended to be college kids who liked to party, annoyed the neighbors, weren't careful housekeepers, and who were casual about paying their rent.

But Dolly looked like a solid citizen, and she wanted to learn the chocolate business, so Aunt Nettie had had the apartment painted, had put up new window blinds, and had replaced the bathroom fixtures and the kitchen appliances. Dolly had a nice, solid apartment with a living room, eat-in kitchen, two bedrooms, bathroom, and a big closet that held a washer and dryer. There was an entrance from the alley and one from the street. If it had a problem, it was lack of light. The windows overlooking Fifth Street got a reasonable amount of sun, but the ones on the alley got almost none.

Dolly had her own furniture. She had inherited some antiques—nothing valuable, she said—and she had added a couch covered with mauve and burgundy flowers, a collection of old-fashioned cookware, and some nice floral prints. Dolly was a big woman. Somehow it was surprising to see how feminine her decorating taste was.

I hadn't been in Dolly's apartment often, but it looked normal to me. The bed was made, the dishes were done, the magazines—Dolly subscribed to all the
Gourmet
-type publications—were stacked neatly on the coffee table. I knew Dolly had carried the kitchen trash out before she left; I'd seen her do it when I came by to pick her up for the trip to the airport.

“It looks okay to me,” I said. “Did the crime lab guys come up here?”

“Not yet. There may be no reason for them to come.”

“I guess it would be a good place to hide,” Aunt Nettie said. “At least for a few hours.”

I shook my head. “Once we're all at work, you'd have to sit really still. We can hear people walking around up here, hear water running, stuff like that.”

“This is such a small town,” Aunt Nettie said. “It would be really hard to hide out in Warner Pier at all. You couldn't show a light, for example.”

“Oh, Dolly left a lamp on one of those timers,” I said. “She checked it before we left. It was set to come on at five o'clock and go off at midnight. And the lights in the back of the apartment couldn't be seen from the street. A person hiding up here could use the bathroom and kitchen after we'd all gone home.”

I walked back to check the bathroom out. It looked fine. Dolly's towels were hanging straight on the towel racks. The counter held nothing but a large bottle of cologne, a can of hair spray, and cotton balls in a china dish.

I peeked into the big closet, the one that housed the washer and dryer. All Dolly's clothes hung neatly on their hangers. The dirty clothes hamper was closed. The lid of the washer was down. I peeked inside. Empty. For good measure, I checked the dryer. It held three or four towels.

The one in front was badly stained. I pulled it out. It was smeared with something red. The stain was a purplish red, and it wasn't a small stain.

“I wonder what this is?” I said.

Aunt Nettie looked over my shoulder. “It isn't blood,” she said. “It's the wrong color.”

Hogan gave a grunt. “You're an expert on bloodstains?”

“I've seen plenty of them,” Aunt Nettie said. “Phil was on blood thinner the last five years of his life. I rinsed bloodstains out of his sheets and pajamas every week.”

The proverbial lightbulb went off over my head. I turned to Hogan. “I suppose you went through the trash.”

“There wasn't any trash up here.”

“You might check the containers in the area.”

“What for?”

“A box that held hair dye.” I held the towel up. “I think someone dyed her hair up here.”

“And I think that person dyed her hair red,”I said.

“Wait a minute,” Hogan said. “Dolly is a redhead. Couldn't she have used this towel?”

“No. Dolly's hair is natural. She does not color it.”

Aunt Nettie and I nodded like bobbleheads. We were both sure that Dolly's vivid hair was her natural color. After a moment of thought, I came up with the name of the guy who cut Dolly's hair.

“Ask him. He'll know,” Aunt Nettie said. “He also ought to know if these stains are hair dye.”

We left and went back to the shop. I assured Hogan I'd keep trying to reach Dolly. But when I called her cell phone, she still wasn't answering.

I also tried again to reach Joe. No luck there either. Until I ran through the calls on my answering machine, and there he was. He had called while we were upstairs in Dolly's apartment.

I growled at the sound of his voice. I wanted to talk to him. Not that he could do anything about the current crisis. I just needed to talk to him.

I listened to his message. “I heard you and Nettie have more problems. I'm sorry I can't get over there now. I'll try to come by later.”

He didn't tell me where he was or why he wasn't answering his cell phone.

What a day. I had confessed to interfering with a murder investigation, had confronted a Detroit mobster, had discovered a body, and had misplaced my husband. And it wasn't even time for lunch.

Lieutenant Underwood called the hairnet ladies together and asked if any of them had noticed any unusual activity in the alley or near the garage or around the doors to Dolly's apartment. No one said she had. Then Aunt Nettie sent them home. None of us was getting any work done, so there was little point in keeping them there. We all promised to be back bright and early the next day and to concentrate on turning the work out.

I nearly left myself, but I decided that the State Police would probably track me down and ask more questions. Besides, I was waiting for Dolly to call, and I'd left the office number. So, unfortunately, I didn't go home. Or maybe it was fortunately.

For lunch Aunt Nettie and I made ourselves peanut butter sandwiches from the stock of snacks in the break room. The press kept banging on the front door, and the lab crew was stomping around upstairs. The day was not improving.

After we'd eaten, Aunt Nettie decided to run the gauntlet of press and go home. She put her head down, went out the front door, and ran for her car. She jumped in and locked all the doors. Then she looked back at me, standing in the door, and we both began to laugh. The reporters had left, so she'd done her escape act with no audience.

She drove off, and I went back to my desk. When I sat down, I saw the telephone bill lying on top of a pile of papers, and I again wondered about the two phone numbers that had mystified me the night before. I'd told Hogan and Lieutenant Underwood about them, but I was still curious. So I picked up the phone on my desk and told it to block my outgoing calls from caller ID. Then I punched in the Atlanta number.