The Chocolate Mouse Trap (12 page)

We might have left it at that and parted without any more yelling if Aunt Nettie hadn’t joined in. She’d heard us, I guess, and she showed up at the office door. “Now just what are you two arguing about?”

Neither of us answered, so she smiled her sunny smile and spoke again. “Come now, surely you can both discuss your differences without yelling.”

That was not the right thing to say to Hogan Jones right at that moment. He pointed a finger at me, but he spoke to Aunt Nettie. “You talk to her! She’s going to get in trouble, nosing around where she has no business!”

I yelled back. “I’m just worried about my fiends! My friends!”

Aunt Nettie drew herself up with great dignity. “Hogan, if Lee is concerned about her friends, I hardly think that’s a quality worthy of criticism.”

“These are not close friends.”

Aunt Nettie’s voice was icy. “Lindy is.”

“We’re keeping an eye on Lindy. We’re keeping an eye on everybody. But we may not be able to if Lee keeps stirring things up!”

“I don’t believe Lee has ‘stirred things up,’ Hogan. She has merely had concerns for her fellow human beings, and she’s acted on them. She hasn’t interfered with law enforcement in any way. She’s just trying to help her friends.”

“These are not her friends!”

I got back into the fray at that point. “You keep telling me these people are not friends. But that’s stupid, Hogan! We may not be buffet—I mean bosom! We may not be bosom buddies, but so what? I’m still convinced that strange things are happening to all of us. They may be in danger! I’ve got to do what I can to head that danger off.”

“But you don’t really know these people!”

“What does that matter? Even if they’re complete strangers, I can’t let something happen to them without trying to stop it!”

“You don’t get it!”

“No, I don’t! I don’t understand why you don’t want me to try to help them!” I stood up then and leaned across my desk. “Whether I know them well or not, they’re my friends!”

Hogan leaned across the desk, too, and we stood there, practically nose to nose. And when he spoke again, his voice had become quiet. Too quiet.

“These are not friends,” he said. “These are suspects.”

Then he zipped up his jacket and left.

N
either Aunt Nettie nor I spoke until Hogan was out the door.

“Oh, my,” Aunt Nettie said. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Neither had I,” I said.

I was relieved when she went back to the workroom, leaving me to think over Hogan’s parting comment and to feel stupid on my own.

Well, naturally. From the viewpoint of law enforcement, if something was happening to the people in the Seventh Major Food Group and to their computers, the members of the group themselves would be the obvious suspects. After all, if there was something strange going on, who was most closely involved?

But could a member of the Seventh Major Food Group have actually killed Julie? The idea seemed ludicrous. None of us knew her well enough, for one thing. What possible motive could any of us have had for killing her? We all liked her. Or I thought we did. Of course, Carolyn had once called her “Little Miss Knows-All.” But she hadn’t dropped out of the newslist over it.

I tried to put the whole matter aside. And maybe I did, for an hour. But as lunchtime neared, I began to wonder how Lindy was doing. Finally, at eleven forty-five, I called. I told myself that if Lindy was in bed, her mother would be there to answer the phone. But Lindy answered on the first ring.

“Hi, Lindy. I hope I didn’t get you up.”

“No. The doctor said I should take it easy today, and Tony’s enforcing his prescription. I’m going nuts sitting around here. I need someone to talk to.”

“Do you want me to bring you some lunch?”

“Bring me a strawberry truffle, and I’ll make grilled cheese sandwiches.”

“Deal.”

I loaded up a half-pound box of TenHuis’s best—four of Lindy’s favorite strawberry truffles (“White chocolate and strawberry interior coated with dark chocolate”), plus some solid hearts for the kids and four mocha pyramids (“Milky coffee interior shaped into a pyramid and enrobed with dark chocolate”). I knew Tony liked those.

I parked in Lindy’s drive a few minutes after twelve. It was a bright, glary day. The sun glinted off the snow-covered yard and off the roofs of the houses in Lindy’s neighborhood, making me grateful for my sunglasses. Lindy’s sidewalk had been cleared, and she opened the front door as I stepped onto the porch. I didn’t comment on the big bruise on her left temple.

“Sure is good to see a human face,” Lindy said.

“I’m almost surprised that the chief is letting you stay alone. After all, somebody actually hit you in the head last night.”

“It must have been a thief, Lee. Somebody too dumb to realize I wouldn’t have any money on me.”

Joe, Aunt Nettie, and I had demolished that theory the night before, but I didn’t argue. I noticed that Lindy carefully locked the door behind me and that she was wearing her cell phone on the belt of her jeans. She was obviously being cautious, and there was no point in my making her more nervous than she was.

We talked about home decor while Lindy grilled our sandwiches. She and Tony had bought the 100-year-old frame house a few months earlier, and they had a long list of do-it-yourself projects waiting for them. At the moment all the living room furniture was piled in the dining room because Tony had promised to paint that weekend, but there was plenty of room for their family to eat in what Aunt Nettie called the “breakfast nook.” Some previous owner had added the built-in table and benches to the kitchen, maybe sometime in the 1940s.

We’d eaten our sandwiches and carrot sticks, and Lindy had opened the box of candy before either of us mentioned Julie.

“The chief came over and grilled me for half an hour this morning,” she said. “He’s afraid this business last night is connected to Julie’s death.”

“He came by the shop and lectured me. Told me to stop being so nosy.”

“That’s like telling your aunt to stop cooking, isn’t it?”

“I’m afraid you’re right. Nosiness is a basic part of my personality. But I’m trying to follow his recommendation. So you’ll have to tell me what he wanted to know without my asking about it.”

Lindy grinned. “The first part of it wasn’t too surprising. He wanted to know if I remembered anything about last night. I don’t. I remember closing the back door. Then I woke up in the ambulance.”

“I think that’s fairly typical, from what I’ve read about head injuries.”

“I was lucky not to be hurt worse. The chief told me the reason I was lucky was that you decided to drive around to the alley.”

“No biggie. You’d waited at the front door of Herrera’s to make sure I was in the van safely. It seemed as if I should return the favor.”

Lindy gave a slight shudder, and I scrambled through my brain for a new topic to introduce. But Lindy spoke again before I could. “The main thing the chief was interested in, Lee, was the Seventh Major Food Group. He wanted to know all about the people in it. How well I knew them. What I thought of them. Of course, you’re the only one I know very well.”

“How about Jason?”

“We knew each other off and on the whole time he worked for Mike, but he tended bar, and I usually worked in the restaurants, so it wasn’t a regular thing. Mike thinks a lot of him. But I will say that Jason is the only person I ever heard complain about Julie before she died.”

“Did he hate her dumb jokes as much as I did?”

Lindy laughed. “You’re the only one I heard complain about those—though I agreed with you! No, Jason had some other problem with her. He griped about her talking too much. He said her mouth was the size of a CNN satellite and broadcast just as widely.”

“Oh, gee! She must have really blabbed something he didn’t want mentioned.”

“She did tend to do that. She told a couple of things I didn’t really want mentioned. You remember, that day all of us had lunch? Julie, Carolyn, you, and me?”

I nodded.

“She picked me up, and between here and the Sidewalk Café I made some remark about how Tony and his dad didn’t always get along. I shouldn’t have said anything, but they’d been snarling at each other the night before, and I had it on my mind. Anyway, she brought it up for general lunchtime conversation.”

“I remember. You cut her off very well.”

“Lee, you know all about the situation between Mike and Tony. Tony just doesn’t want to work in a restaurant, and Mike doesn’t understand his attitude! But I didn’t really want to go into it with Carolyn. I don’t know yet how I managed to mention it to Julie.”

Lindy was looking tired, so I did the dishes while she took the medicine the doctor had given her for headaches. She promised to lie down as soon as she locked the door after me. I headed back to the shop, but after I’d parked on Peach Street I walked across to Mercy Woodyard’s insurance office, instead of going directly to my desk. I wanted to check on the bronze roses I’d ordered for her birthday.

I expected Joe’s mother to mention the roses as soon as I walked in the door. After all, I’d signed the card “Joe and Lee.”

But she didn’t say a word. She accepted my birthday greetings in a friendly way, but she didn’t mention the roses. And they weren’t in sight in the office. When Mercy got a phone call, I even peeked into the inner office to see if she’d put them there, but there was no sign of any cut flowers.

We discussed the plans for her birthday celebrations—Mike Herrera was taking her out to dinner that evening, and Joe and I were taking both of them out the next week.

“I’ll gain one year and ten pounds,” Mercy said, smiling. “I don’t deserve all this attention.”

I went back to TenHuis Chocolade puzzled. Carolyn had promised to have the roses to Mercy before noon. Carolyn had an excellent professional reputation. If there was a problem with the flowers we’d ordered, I’d have expected her to call and explain. Maybe, I thought, she’d called Joe. I’d better check with him.

I went into the shop and took my usual six deep breaths of chocolate aroma. I waved to Aunt Nettie, took off my coat, and reached for the telephone. Before I could punch in Joe’s number, the door swung open, and Diane Denham rushed in.

She came straight into my office. “What’s this I hear about someone attacking Lindy?”

“It happened last night. I just had lunch with her. She doesn’t seem to be hurt badly.”

“Oh, my goodness! First Julie, then these computer disasters, and now this! I can’t believe it.”

“How’d you hear about Lindy?”

“From Chief Jones! He was out at the inn. He wanted to know all about the Seventh Major Food Group. Are we the object of a vendetta?”

“That doesn’t seem likely, Diane. We don’t have all that much in common.”

“Really we have nothing in common but that snoopy Julie.”

“Snoopy? You found Julie snoopy?”

“Didn’t you? She was always asking personal questions.”

“I guess she was. The main thing I noticed about her questions was that she wouldn’t answer them.”

“She sure
asked
them. She should have been a detective.”

“What do you mean, Diane?”

There was a moment of silence. Diane touched her beautiful white hair before she spoke. “Oh, never mind! I guess all of us have things we’d rather not talk about. Somehow Julie wormed them out of you.”

“Wormed them out?”

“You sound just like her! She just kept asking until you discovered you’d told her things you didn’t mean to.” Diane gave an exasperated snort. “I only came by because I wanted to find out if Lindy had been hurt. Tell her I asked about her, okay? Oh, and I need four dozen crème de menthe bonbons. We’ve got a business conference coming in next weekend.”

I left Diane roaming the office and shop while I went back to get her a box of crème de menthe bonbons. Lots of the Warner Pier B&Bs put these on the guests’ pillows at turn-down time.

Diane paid for her bonbons and left without saying anything more about Julie. I was really puzzled. What had Diane been talking about? What had Julie known that Diane hadn’t wanted known?

I remembered that I’d been planning to call Joe to see if he knew why his mother’s flowers hadn’t been delivered. I shook my head, picked up the phone and called the boat shop.

I’d almost decided Joe wasn’t there when he picked up the phone. “Vintage Boats.”

“Hi. It’s Lee. You haven’t heard from Carolyn Rose, have you?”

“Nope. Should I have?”

I told him that his mother’s flowers apparently hadn’t been delivered. “I was going to call Carolyn and ask about it, but I thought I’d better check with you. I didn’t want to nag if she’d called to tell you there was some problem.”

“I’ll call her. After all, I’m paying the bill.”

I left it to him and went back to work. In a few minutes, however, Joe called back. “I got the answering machine,” he said. “I left a message.”

“I could try her home.”

Joe thought my offer over. “I hate to call business people at home, but—you know her pretty well. If you wouldn’t mind . . .”

But the only answer I got at Carolyn’s home was electronic—another answering machine. My stomach began to knot up. I wasn’t annoyed. After all, Carolyn didn’t have to answer to me. Was I worried? That wasn’t quite the right description, either. I finally settled on concerned. So many strange things had been happening to members of the Seventh Major Food Group, having one of them out of touch made me concerned.

I tried to put Mercy’s roses and Carolyn’s whereabouts out of my mind. I organized my work. I had plenty of that. There was my own regular work, plus, that close to Valentine’s Day I had to wait on the counter, since we wouldn’t have any sales help until Tracy got out of school. Between the constant interruptions from walk-in customers and my concern—yes, that was definitely the right word—about Carolyn, I found it impossible to concentrate on the chocolate business.