The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up (5 page)

There are a lot of trees and bushes, but no landscaping. No grass to mow, no flower beds to weed. And there are about a dozen antique boats lined up on one side—each covered with canvas or plastic tarps. These represent a big part of Joe’s money woes—he agreed to buy them before his ex-wife died and landed him in the middle of her legal and financial problems. If he can ever get back to his business full-time, the collection of antique boats has the potential to make him a lot of money. But until then, they’re just so much junk he has to make a bank payment on every month.

Joe’s dock is equipped with a boat lift, a sort of big cradle that can lift a boat out of the water. The lift is covered with a canvas roof. This allows Joe to keep one boat ready to go in the water all the time. Right at that moment, the boat lift held the 1949 Chris-Craft Deluxe Runabout, the boat Joe was trying to sell. He usually kept the sedan tied up on the other side of the dock. Any other boats he wanted to take for a ride had to be hauled to the river on trailers and put in the water just the way my daddy puts his bass boat in Lake Amon G. Carter, down in North Texas.

Most small boat shops, I’ve found out, are not on the water. In Warner Pier, they’re certainly not. The waterfront property—either on the river or on the lake—is too expensive to waste on workshops; it’s all occupied by apartments, marinas, B&Bs, restaurants, resorts, and high-dollar homes. Joe had been able to hang on to his property, known locally as the “old Olson shop,” because it was on the outskirts of town and had not yet attracted the eye of a developer. But the time was coming when he might find it wiser to do without a private dock than to keep paying taxes on a piece of property worth more than enough to pay off the mortgage. I knew he’d sell if he got a good offer.

As the sedan neared the dock we saw that the area had become the center of the search for Hershel. A couple of skin divers were in the water, and several boats were standing by. One of Chief Jones’s patrolmen, Jerry Cherry, was on Joe’s dock rigging up lights, though it was still at least an hour before sundown.

Joe idled the sedan’s motor and glided up to his dock. Jerry came over and took our bow line and wove it around the mooring cleat on the dock. Joe stepped out onto the dock, leaving me behind. He was polite to Jerry, but I knew he was still mad.

“I’ll open the place up, Jerry,” Joe said. “You can use my electricity.” He walked toward the shop.

Jerry held out a hand to me and gave me a yank as I stepped onto the dock. “Have they found anything?” I asked.

“Just the canoe.”

“Where was it?”

Jerry pointed toward the channel. “Out there. Caught in some sedge. About where Maggie Mae—I mean, Meg—is.”

“Maggie Mae?”

“Trey Corbett’s wife. We called her Maggie Mae in high school. She’s in the boat.”

“Which boat are you talking about?”

“Trey’s boat. The
Nutmeg
.”

Jerry wandered off, and I stared toward the boat he’d indicated. It was not big, as Warner Pier boats go—maybe a twelve-footer. I’d become conscious of the length and types of boats since I began to date Joe. But Joe wouldn’t have been interested in this boat because it was fiberglass. He had a sign on the door of his office that proclaims the wooden boat fan’s manifesto: “If God wanted us to have fiberglass boats, He would have made fiberglass trees.” No, Joe wouldn’t have given Trey Corbett’s boat a second glance.

However, any guy might well have given a second glance to the woman in the boat. She wasn’t dressed sexy. In fact, maybe “well bred” would have been the best description. Her regal air turned the khaki shorts and navy sweatshirt she wore into basic black and pearls. She had a little-girl prettiness. Her hair was artfully streaked with blond and had been cut short by a master stylist.

The lights flashed for a moment, and I realized that Joe and Jerry Cherry had the Warner Pier Police Department’s floodlights ready to be used. I looked back toward the boat shop and saw Joe and Jerry walking toward something bright green. Something that was balanced on a couple of saw horses. It had to be Hershel’s canoe.

I started to join them, but I took one more look at the
Nutmeg
and saw that the boat was coming toward me. Meg Corbett called out, “Lee!”

She evidently knew me, even if I didn’t remember meeting her. I stood still until she guided the boat alongside, then took the line she tossed me and wrapped it around one of the dock’s piers. I expected her to get out, but instead she stood still and extended her hand toward me, apparently expecting me to shake it. Or maybe kiss it. I picked shaking.

“Hi, Lee. We haven’t really met, but I’m Meg Corbett. I think you know my husband.”

“Sure. Trey and I are both on the chamber’s Economic Deployment—I mean, Development!—the Economic Development Committee. What can I do for you?”

Meg’s face wore a strange expression. I decided she was pretending to look sympathetic. The mouth was the right shape, but her tiny little pupils gave the whole thing away.

“Actually,” she said, “I was going to offer you a ride home.”

“A ride home?”

“Or to your car. Or wherever you want to go.”

“I wasn’t planning to go anywhere.”

“Well, this isn’t going to be very pleasant.”

I looked around the scene. I didn’t stare at Joe particularly, but I thought about him. I didn’t want to leave until I found out what was going on.

“I’m too curious to leave,” I said. “Joe will see that I get home.”

“If he’s able to.” Meg’s voice had developed a smirk.

“What do you mean?”

“The police may want to question him.”

“Why?”

“Hershel’s canoe was found right outside his boat shop. They’re going to wonder why he didn’t report it.”

“The answer to that is obvious. He must not have seen it.”

Meg Corbett shook her head slowly. “It would have been impossible to miss.”

I stared at her for a moment. “If he had seen Hershel’s canoe, why wouldn’t Joe tell the police?”

“He might have reasons. Joe has always had a secretive side.” Meg’s ladylike veneer was slipping rapidly. “I know that he and Hershel had a fistfight in the post office yesterday. I know that Hershel seems to have left home last night determined to see Joe again. I know that Hershel’s canoe was found near Joe’s dock, right where Joe takes his boats in and out.”

Meg gestured vigorously, apparently forgetting she was standing up in a small boat, and the
Nutmeg
bounced from side to side. She sat down suddenly and not too gracefully in one of the upholstered seats. Then she tried to look smug. “If I were a policeman, I’d have a lot of questions for Joe Woodyard.”

I resisted the temptation to reach down, grab the side of her boat, and turn it over. “But you’re not a policeman,” I said. “And Chief Jones knows Joe. Besides, Hershel wasn’t exactly an expert canoeist. We all expected him to have an accident someday.”

Meg’s voice was ominous. “If this was an accident.”

I decided I’d talked to Mrs. Corbett long enough. I didn’t say good-bye. I walked away. If Meg wanted either to get out of her boat or to shove it back into the river, she’d have to do it without me.

I walked over to Joe and Jerry. Now I could see the gold lettering on the prow of the smashed aluminum canoe. The
Toadfrog
.

But Jerry was pointing at something quite a way back from the prow. “It’s this big dent in the middle of the canoe, Joe,” he said. “I hate to say this, but it looks for all the world like somebody in a power boat ran old Hershel down.”

N
o wonder everyone was assuming Hershel had drowned. If something hit the canoe that hard, anybody in it would have been thrown into the water with terrific force.

At least I now understood where Meg Corbett was coming from. She obviously had seen the canoe. And she’d apparently already made her mind up about what happened to it.

Then she’d jumped to a completely mistaken conclusion.

I slid my arm inside Joe’s.

“Well, Jerry, the damage shows you Joe didn’t have anything to do with this,” I said.

Jerry looked at me, frowning slightly, and I went on.

“If Joe ran into a camel—I mean, a canoe! If Joe ran into a canoe, he’d be in one of his boats, right?”

“Guess so.”

“So that proves he didn’t do it,” I said.

“I don’t follow you there, Lee.”

“Joe’s too good at herding a boat to run into one by accident,” I said. “And there’s nothing Hershel—or anyone else—could do that would make Joe risk putting a scratch on one of those boats on purpose. Those boats are his babies.”

Jerry chuckled.

“Aw, com’on, Lee,” Joe said. “You’re nearly as important to me as the ’49 Runabout.”

Joe, Jerry, and I stood there staring at the beat-up canoe. I didn’t feel as cheerful as I’d tried to act.

I knew Joe could never hurt Hershel on purpose. Even the day before, when Hershel had actually attacked him in front of witnesses, Joe had merely grabbed Hershel and pinned him against the wall of mailboxes.

As for Joe injuring Hershel in self-defense, Hershel was too ineffectual to be any real threat to Joe. Joe was bigger, smarter, stronger, and more athletic than Hershel. Unless Hershel had brought along a weapon. And if Joe had hit Hershel or otherwise done something to him because Hershel had a gun or a knife, Joe would have immediately called the police.

I completely shrugged off the possibility that Joe had run down Hershel’s canoe by accident. Joe really was too good at handling a boat to do that; certainly to do that without noticing that he’d hit something. Again, if he had had an accident Joe would have called the police immediately.

Thinking Joe might be involved was silly, and I resolved not to be a party to any such speculation.

Having made up my mind, I noticed noises from behind me. Joe, Jerry, and I all turned around.

Meg hadn’t shoved her boat off, she’d gotten out of it and had walked up the bank in our direction. The patrol boat was just touching its nose to the dock, and as I watched Chief Jones jumped out. He nearly overshot and went into the drink on the other side. I was so annoyed that I didn’t even feel sympathetic. And Trey Corbett had appeared from someplace, maybe the patrol boat. Chief Jones recovered his balance, and he, Trey, and the ultra-gracious Meg walked toward us.

“Better not touch the canoe, Joe,” the chief said.

“I’m keeping my hands to myself,” Joe said. “Who found it?”

“Trey did,” Meg said. She sounded proud. “He searched both sides of the river from Warner Marina to Gray Gables. You know, his family’s summer place.”

Actually, I hadn’t known Gray Gables was Trey’s family’s summer place. Gray Gables was a real showplace. I knew a rich and prominent Corbett family owned it, but I hadn’t associated Trey with that particular branch. Trey never acted rich or prominent; he acted like a struggling architect specializing in restoring Victorian houses. Very interesting. I filed the relationship away for future contemplation and attended to the conversation.

Joe turned to Trey. “Exactly where was the canoe?”

“Up against the sedge,” Trey said. Purple sedge has a pretty flower later in the summer, but don’t admire it in front of a Michigan native. It’s an invasive plant—not originally part of the Michigan ecosystem—and it’s pushing a lot of the native plants out of the state’s wetlands and streams. It grows thickly along the Warner River. I listened as Trey carefully described the spot where he’d found the canoe.

“I couldn’t have missed seeing it,” Joe said. “It definitely wasn’t there when I left.”

Joe and Trey would have dropped the subject, I think, but Meg joined the argument. She had regained her ladylike demeanor, and she spoke firmly but with dignity. “If Trey says that’s where he found it, Joe, that’s where it was.”

“Maybe so, Maggie Mae, but it wasn’t there before five o’clock.”

Meg looked down her nose at Joe, which was a hard trick since she was five five and he was six one.

Joe looked at her coldly. I guess they would have stood there glaring all evening, but Chief Jones spoke. “It could have drifted down there after Joe left,” he said. “That’s not the question.”

Joe shifted his stare to the chief. “I guess you haven’t found anybody who saw how the canoe was damaged.”

“Nobody’s come forward. Of course, we want to find Hershel—find out exactly what happened to him—before we jump to any conclusions.”

“And I gather nobody’s found any sign of him yet.”