The Chocolate Mouse Trap (24 page)

There was a long silence before the dispatcher spoke again. “I don’t know anything about a ballpoint pen. Jerry Cherry helped with the crime scene investigation. Do you want me to ask him to call you?”

“I guess so. It’s obviously not an emergency.”

It was nearly noon when Jerry called. I described the pen Carolyn had had and told him where I’d seen it.

“It wouldn’t be on any kind of a list we’d keep,” Jerry said, “an ordinary object like that. Unless it was found under the body or it was used as a weapon or something.”

“Oh.”

“But I’ve got the key. I could go out there and look for it. You say it was in a jug on Carolyn’s desk, along with a bunch of those multicolored pens she handed out?”

“Right. But I think she put it in her center desk drawer.”

I hadn’t told him about my vague recollection that Carolyn had picked up a pen near the window the burglar had used. It simply seemed too silly. And I wasn’t sure she’d done that.

Forty-five minutes later, Jerry called back. “No sign of the pen,” he said. “It’s not in that jug or in the center desk drawer. And I looked in the other desk drawers and by the cash register and other places where you might expect to find a pen. I didn’t find it.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, does it? Some customer could have carried it away. Or Carolyn could have thrown it out.”

“We did check the trash. It wasn’t there. Listen, Lee, I’ll tell the chief about this when he gets back. And Lindy called in this morning about the Jeep. I’ll tell him about that, too.”

Jerry and I chatted about Lindy’s Jeep idea for a few minutes, and I was careful to tell him that I couldn’t identify the make of car.

“But Lindy feels certain that’s what it was,” I said.

Jerry Cherry wasn’t the only person who heard about Lindy’s identification of the Jeep as the car that had chased us. The Warner Pier grapevine had been busy. I had been getting phone calls from the minute I walked into my office. Barbara, my banker friend; some angry Episcopalian I had to assure that Father Snyder was above suspicion, even if he doesn’t drive on snow very well; Diane Denham, who quizzed me about the Jeep, then mentioned that Jack Ingersoll had done a terrific job getting their computer back up. And on and on. I must have had a dozen calls about that darn Jeep that might not even exist.

It was around two when Brad Schrader wandered in. He looked unusually down in the mouth, and with Brad that meant he stumbled over his lower lip as he came in the door.

“You’re probably busy,” he said. “I can wait until you have time to talk to me.”

I fought down the impulse to say I’d never have time to talk to him and motioned him toward a chair. “Come on in, Brad. What’s up?”

He sat down. “What did you say to Uncle Martin last night? He put me through a big inquisition this morning.”

Probably Martin’s hangover talking, I thought. But it wouldn’t be tactful to bring that up, so I made a noncommittal answer. “Your uncle quizzed
me
last night, actually,” I said. “Whatever I said to him was in reply to a direct question.”

“What was the deal about an old Jeep?”

“Probably nothing. Lindy thought the car that pushed us off Lake Shore Drive the other night might have been an older Jeep.”

Brad looked at his shoes. “I guess that’s why he wanted to know if I’d been fooling around with the one in the storage shed.”

I’m sure my jaw dropped. “There’s a Jeep out at your grandmother’s place?”

“It doesn’t run. It’s been on blocks since I was a kid.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I think it was my grandfather’s. He liked cars. He only used it to get around the property down here. Maybe he took it on camping trips with his buddies sometimes.”

“So your uncle doesn’t use it?”

Brad laughed scornfully. “Does Uncle Martin strike you as the type to go camping? He has nothing but contempt for nature!”

“Strictly a city boy, huh?”

“He can’t tell a downy woodpecker from a hairy! Or a chickadee from a nuthatch! He thought phlox was a wildflower! The only stone he can spot is a Petoskey! The beach could wash out into Lake Michigan or be littered with medical waste, and he wouldn’t even notice!”

Brad stopped talking and looked at me with an anguished face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper. But Uncle Martin doesn’t even care.”

Wow. That had been quite an indictment. Somehow it made me like Brad better. When he had come out with that little tirade, he hadn’t been selfconscious and only worried about himself. He really cared about the environment.

But his outburst explained one thing I hadn’t understood. “I can tell you love living there in the woods,” I said. “Even though it means you have to drive so far to work.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you work in Grand Rapids? I guess I’m a Texas chicken about the weather. I wouldn’t want to drive ninety miles every day in the winter, though I know half the people in Warner Pier do. Of course, you have an ecologically friendly car.”

“How did you know that?”

“A Prius was parked beside your house when I came out to see your grandmother. I assumed it was yours.”

Brad nodded and stood up. “I’ve got to make that drive to Grand Rapids this afternoon,” he said. “I’d better get on my way. I just wanted to warn you that Uncle Martin is on the warpath.”

“I don’t think he’ll bother me, Brad. Don’t leave without a sample chocolate.”

Brad shook his head.

“Come on,” I said. “Didn’t you like the Jamaican rum truffle?”

Brad kept walking. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.” Then he was out the door.

I stared after him, mystified. “That whole family is nuts,” I said aloud.

Why had Brad come in? To complain about Martin? I had nothing to do with Martin. Brad couldn’t expect me to intercede between him and his uncle, could he? Intercede in what? I didn’t understand why they didn’t like each other, unless it was their differing ideas on the environment. If they had a quarrel, it was nothing to do with me.

But Brad’s feelings about nature and the environment were rather touching. I made a mental note to check Aunt Nettie’s bird book. I’d hate for Brad to find out I couldn’t tell a downy woodpecker from a hairy, if that was his standard for judging environmental responsibility. And it wouldn’t hurt to double-check which little black-headed bird was a chickadee and which a nuthatch. I knew both came to Aunt Nettie’s feeder. I thought the chickadee was smaller and rounder.

Several customers came in during the next halfhour, so I spent quite a lot of time behind the counter. In fact, when the phone rang, I answered it out there.

“TenHuis Chocolade.”

“Lee! Lee!” It was Lindy, and she was excited. “Have you looked at your e-mail?”

“No. I hope it’s not gone again.”

“Mine isn’t, but, Lee, I can’t believe it!”

“What? Calm down and make sense.”

Her voice dropped to a dramatic whisper.

“Lee, I got an e-mail from Julie Singletree.”

I nearly dropped the receiver. The shop whirled for a minute. Then I regained control of my voice. “If I ever got a message from the Great Beyond,” I said, “I wouldn’t expect it to come by e-mail.”

“Well, you’ve got one. At least my message says it went to both of us.”

“But it can’t be from Julie.”

“Oh, it’s not! That’s just the address it came from. It’s from her grandmother. Go look at it! Quick!”

I called to Dolly Jolly, asking her to watch the counter. Then I picked up Lindy’s call on my desk phone and commanded my computer to download the latest e-mail on TenHuis’s second phone line. Sure enough, there was a message with the “partygirl” address that Julie had used.

“It does give me a funny feeling to see that,” I told Lindy. “I wonder how Rachel Schrader got into Julie’s e-mail.”

“Read it!”

I opened the message. “Dear Ms. McKinney and Mrs. Herrera,” it said. “I know you’ll be startled to receive this message from me through Julie’s e-mail. The truth is, something very surprising has come up, and I feel that the two of you can help me. I’m e-mailing because I don’t want to take the chance of being overheard talking on the phone.

“I found Julie’s Macintosh computer hidden here in my house. Only Martin would have had the opportunity to put it there. I simply do not understand what is going on, but perhaps the two of you could help me.

“Could you come out to the Warner Pier house for a short conference? I should arrive there by four thirty this afternoon.

“Needless to say, I would prefer that neither of you mentioned this matter to anyone else. I am determined to accomplish two things. First, to see justice done in Julie’s death. There will be no cover-up. Second, I want to spare my family any unnecessary pain and notoriety. I’m sure you can understand my feelings.

“Martin has been called to a meeting in Detroit, and Brad will be working until late tonight. Only my faithful Hilda will be present. After we discuss the matter, perhaps the two of you will go to the police with me. It won’t be easy for me to turn my son in to the police.”

It was signed like an old-fashioned business letter. “Most sincerely, Rachel Schrader.”

I read the letter twice. “That’s crazy,” I said.

“Lee, we can’t refuse to go. Not when it’s Rachel Schrader.”

“Lindy, we don’t know that this is from Rachel Schrader. It could be from the murderer. The police are assuming that he stole Julie’s Macintosh.”

“But if it
is
from her, Lee, it would be really rotten not to go and talk to her.”

“I’m not going without checking it out.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“I’ll phone her.”

“Where?”

“She gave me the numbers for both the Warner Pier house and her cell phone that time I had to go out and pick up Julie’s stuff.”

I spent ten minutes looking for the phone numbers. This involved dumping out the gigantic tote bag I use as a purse and going through every scrap of paper and business card—and that was a lot of paper and cardboard. I finally found the numbers not in my purse, but scrawled on my calendar. I called the Warner Pier house, but there was no answer. Which was not surprising. Mrs. Schrader and Hilda VanTil were probably on their way down from Grand Rapids. So I tried the cell phone number.

“Hello!” Hilda VanTil answered with that distinctive high-pitched, nasal voice.

“Ms. VanTil? This is Lee McKinney.”

“Oh, yes, Ms. McKinney. Mrs. Schrader said she had contacted you.” Her voice faded as the cell phone displayed that common problem of cell phones along the lake shore. Then Ms. VanTil’s voice came in strongly again. “You got her e-mail, eh?”

“Yes. I wondered . . .” I couldn’t tell her I had wondered if the e-mail was really from Rachel Schrader. I improvised. “I was curlicue—I mean I was curious! Have you all left Grand Rapids?”

“Oh, yes! We just arrived at the Warner Pier house,” she squeaked. “Mrs. Schrader is—well, indisposed. Can I have her call you back?”

“No. She wanted us to come out there. If she’s arrived, Mrs. Herrera and I will be there shortly.”

“Hokay! I’ll tell her.” Ms. VanTil’s funny voice piped a good-bye.

This was beginning to sound as if it might be the real deal, though I still didn’t understand just why Rachel Schrader would want to talk to Lindy and me before she went to the police. I called Lindy and told her as much.

“I don’t see how we can refuse to go, Lee,” she said. “It would mean denying a request from a grieving grandmother. And when that grieving grandmother is one of the wealthiest women in Michigan—well, just from a business standpoint, I feel we should go.”

“Maybe so. But I’m getting legal advice first. I’m going to call Joe.”

“But she said not to tell anybody.”

“That’s one of the things I think is the screwiest. Why doesn’t she want us to tell anybody where we’re going?”

Lindy said she’d come by to pick me up in her rental car. While I was waiting I called Joe. I got his answering machine at the boat shop, and his voice mail on his cell phone. I left messages describing the e-mail request from Rachel Schrader both places. Then I tried city hall. He wasn’t usually there on a Monday, but he might have dropped by. He hadn’t.

I gnawed my knuckles a minute, then called the police dispatcher. No, she couldn’t get hold of Chief Jones, and Jerry Cherry was tied up with a three-car wreck down the street from the Superette. “Nobody’s hurt,” she said, “but he’ll be over there for a while.”

By then Lindy was in the shop, champing at the bit, ready to head out to the Schrader property. “I don’t understand why you’re dragging your heels,” she said.

“After you’ve survived two attempts on your life, Lindy, I don’t understand why you’re so eager to go off to a lonely house in the woods.” I sighed. “Let me tell Aunt Nettie that I’m leaving.”

For once Aunt Nettie wasn’t standing over a hot vat of chocolate. I found her in the break room. She has a desk there, though I’ve never known her to sit down at it and do any work. She uses it merely to stack papers and letters on. Anything private or important I file in my office, because once a paper hits Aunt Nettie’s desk, it’s lost until the odd moment when she loses something she really needs and decides to sort things out.

This happens maybe once a year, and this seemed to be the day. She had moved her pile of papers to one of the break room tables, and she was walking back and forth arranging things into stacks. I was pleased to see that she was also filling a black plastic trash bag.

I told her about Rachel Schrader’s e-mail. “I’ve called her cell phone, and I talked to her assistant,” I said. “I guess it’s on the level.”

Aunt Nettie frowned. “If you don’t feel right about it, Lee, you shouldn’t go.”

“It’s like Lindy says. How can we refuse a request from Rachel Schrader?”