The Chocolate Snowman Murders (19 page)

I folded my arms and closed my mouth. I tried to give Gordon Hitchcock and his cameraman my stoniest stare. Unfortunately, my eyes began to fill up, which pretty much ruined the effect. I turned away and walked toward the workshop. For the first time I realized Aunt Nettie was standing in the doorway.

I was afraid she would give me a hug or do something else to try to comfort me. And that would look as if we were putting on a show, exploiting Mary Samson's death just the way I had accused Gordon Hitchcock of doing.

But Aunt Nettie didn't even look at me as I passed her. She walked toward the television reporters. “This is a place of business,” she said calmly. “My niece and I are extremely upset about the death of our friend, but we have to carry on our business. Please leave.”

I don't know if Gordon Hitchcock had any shame or not, but his cameraman apparently did. He lowered his weapon—I mean, his camera. “Come on, Gordie,” he said. Then he went out the front door. I guess Gordon followed him. I didn't look back.

I kept walking until I was in our break room. I grabbed up a Kleenex from the box Aunt Nettie kept next to the microwave and wiped my eyes.

Then I thought about Joe. I had to warn him. Joe had a dread of the press, a reaction to the way the tabloids had covered his first marriage and the way they'd covered his divorce. He definitely would not like Gordon Hitchcock and his cameraman, or any other reporter, to drop in at his boat shop.

I snatched up the telephone, called Joe, and warned him about my run-in with the Grand Rapids television newsman.

“It's that blankety-blank McCullough,” I said. “He threatened to ‘throw me to the wolves.' And that's just what he's done.”

“You're probably right,” Joe said. “I guess we'd both better hide out today.”

“Should we ask Webb what he recommends?”

He thought a moment. “Let me think up a press release. I'll call you right back. And I'll let Webb know what's going on, but we might not want to tell the general public we've consulted a lawyer.”

I hung up and began moving my theater of operations from my glass-walled office near the front door to our more secluded break room. Luckily my laptop was at the office, so I was able to move it to the back of the building and still access my e-mail, accounting files, and other computer business from a spot where people entering the shop could not see me.

I was almost set up when Joe called back. He dictated a simple press release, in which the two of us denied any additional knowledge about the killings of Mendenhall and Mary Samson and pledged all possible cooperation to the “proper authorities.” I typed it out and printed up twenty-five copies. We put a stack in the shop, and the counter girls were instructed to hand them out to anybody who came in with a notebook or camera. They were told that I was unavailable to anybody who wasn't local. Dolly Jolly and Aunt Nettie were assigned to answer the telephone.

Then, marooned in the back room, I tried to get my work done without interfering with the coffee breaks and lunch hours of our staff. On a Saturday later in the winter, of course, we would have had only a few people there. Because it was the Christmas rush and the week of WinterFest, we had about twenty. I was definitely in their way.

Joe snuck in the back door at noon with two salami sandwiches and some potato chips. While we ate I worked on my chart of the WinterFest committee members and their whereabouts at the time Fletcher Mendenhall was killed. It wasn't very conclusive. Only Ramona, Amos Hart, and George Jenkins appeared to have alibis, and they could prove their whereabouts only during the early part of the evening.

“And Ramona and George claim they were together when Mary was killed,” I said. “That doesn't exactly clear them.”

“Why not?”

“If McCullough can think you and I colluded to kill two people, why should they be exempt from the same suspicion?”

“They're not married to each other.”

“True. But it seems ridiculous to suspect anybody on this committee of doing anything violent. So we might as well suspect Ramona and George. Neither of them has a real alibi. They're no sillier than anyone else in the roles of suspects.”

Joe laughed. “You're right. The whole situation is ridiculous. Mendenhall was killed because he was a drunk? Mary because she was too shy to open her mouth? It's stupid.”

“Actually, I question Amos Hart's alibi, as well.”

“Why?”

“He says he was rehearsing the choir. But Reverend Chuck Pinkney says they had rehearsal in the afternoon. He didn't mention the evening. Amos claims the soloists rehearsed in the afternoon and the whole choir in the evening. He says they had sectional rehearsals.”

“What are sectional rehearsals?”

“That's when the sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses practice their parts without the other sections present.”

“Oh. That would be easy to check. Call Lindy.” Well, yeah. My best friend was a member of the WinterFest Chorus. She answered her cell phone on the first ring. Yes, she said, the WinterFest chorus had practiced in the evening. And, yes, Amos Hart had been there.

“Matilda VanDrusen led the sopranos,” she said. “But Amos was around. I know I saw him just after I got there.”

I hung up and repeated what she'd said to Joe. “By the time Amos led the rehearsal and fed Mozelle's cat, his evening is pretty much taken up. It would be after ten o'clock before he could get up to Lake Knapp. What time did Mendenhall die?”

“I don't think the medical examiner has made a firm report yet, but ten o'clock seems pretty late. How about Mozelle? You didn't say anything about her.”

“She wasn't on the list of WinterFest committee members, so Mendenhall didn't have her phone number. Apparently there's no call to her number on his cell phone. Plus, she says she was in Chicago. I guess Hogan or VanDam has checked up on that. Not that I wouldn't love to destroy her alibi.”

Joe laughed. “I guess we all like to see pride taking a fall.”

“Yep. But if Mozelle wasn't in Chicago, it will be up to Hogan to find it out. I guess all of this is for Hogan and Alex VanDam to find out. I'd better trust them to handle it.”

We left it like that. I felt quite helpless about the whole situation. Here I was, hiding in the back room of TenHuis Chocolade, afraid to answer the phone, dreading going home—where Joe and I could easily be surrounded by the press.

I kept trying to get through that ghastly day. It was hard to do routine chores when I would rather have had a nervous breakdown. But I kept on keeping on, and eventually the sun went down, and the day ended. The chocolate ladies took off their hairnets and went home at four thirty. The counter girls locked the front door at five thirty. They pulled the shades, so I was able to leave my exile in the break room to help them clean the shop and prepare it for Sunday, when we would open at eleven a.m. We restocked the counter, swept the floor, and washed the fingerprints off the showcases. A few people knocked at the door, but we ignored them.

Then the girls got their coats, I unlocked the front door and opened it a crack so one of them could take a look outside to make sure the coast was clear before they sprinted for their cars. As the door opened, a folded piece of paper fell inside.

I picked it up warily, expecting to find a nasty note from Gordon Hitchcock or one of his fellow newshounds. But the note was from Jason Foster.

“Yikes!” I said. “If Jason came by, we should have let him in.”

The note was hand-printed on paper torn from a lined yellow tablet.

I was tired, and I wanted to go home—even if that home turned out to be haunted by reporters and photographers. But there was no way I could turn down Jason's request. First, he was a friend, and you don't let your friends down. Second, for a merchant in Warner Pier, the West Michigan Tourism Council was a big deal. I could get a lot of business from the members—if they were impressed with our product. I resolved not only to find ten snowmen, but to send along several dozen two-piece boxes of TenHuis bonbons and truffles as little gifts for the council members.

So I shooed the counter girls out, then began packing up chocolate. Luckily there were plenty of snowmen and we had lots of two-piece boxes ready, some in seasonal colors and others in the standard TenHuis box, white with blue ribbon. But ten snowmen, each weighing a pound and a half, made two sizable boxes, mainly because each snowman required so much packing material to keep it safe. I used our sturdiest boxes and tied each box up with string so that it had a handle. The two-piece boxes weighed only an ounce each, but since three dozen of them meant thirty-six tiny boxes—each box roughly three inches long, an inch and a half wide, and an inch and a quarter tall—they filled several smaller boxes. I put those in a plastic sack and tied the top so that it had a handle, too.

I loaded all the chocolate into my van, then went home. I was relieved to find that no reporters were lying in wait. I carried the chocolate inside so it wouldn't freeze, and put it in the back hall so it wouldn't get too hot. Joe had fixed his usual dinner of frozen lasagna and bagged salad, and that night it looked good. After we ate I stood in the shower for half an hour. Then I got in bed and put my arms around the best-looking guy in west Michigan. He responded in a suitable manner.

At six fifteen the next morning, I hit my alarm at the first tinkle, trying not to wake Joe up. It was Sunday morning, after all, and as I had told Chuck Pinkney, we weren't regular churchgoers.

I didn't make coffee. I figured it would take only thirty minutes to deliver those chocolates to Warner Point. Maybe I'd stop at the doughnut shop on the way back and save myself the trouble of putting the cereal box on the table.

It was, of course, still pitch-dark as I turned onto the Warner Point driveway at six forty-five. The gated entry that the property had had when it was owned by Clementine Ripley was no longer there, and I could see the lights of the main building. The silly-looking snowman still stood near the wide front door. It had snowed lightly overnight, and a dusting of white covered the broad stone steps.

I parked the van on the semicircular drive, put my car keys in my jeans pocket, and got out. I wondered idly why Jason wanted me to bring the chocolates in the front door. Ordinarily deliveries would be made directly to the kitchen. But I didn't wonder about it too much. I simply popped the rear door of the van, pulled out the two heavy boxes of snowmen, and picked up the lighter but equally bulky sack of two-piece boxes. The handles I had tied meant I was able to carry all of them, though I had to leave my purse in the van. Then I walked up the steps, past the giant snowman, and knocked on the door.

There was no reaction. I didn't hear anybody moving inside. Maybe I should go around to the back. But Jason had specifically said come to the front.

I knocked again. Still no answer.

The keypad that opened the restaurant's front door was staring me in the face. I'm not a number person for nothing. Of course, Jason had probably changed the code since the days when Joe and I used to come by and check on the property. . . . .

It was worth a try. I reached for the keypad and punched in the four magic numbers.

But before I could try the handle, something moved in the corner of my eye. I turned to see what it was.

The big, silly snowman was moving toward me. And he was swinging his snow shovel above his head.

I
hit the snowman with twenty pounds of chocolate.

That wouldn't have done him much harm if the chocolate hadn't been in two solid cardboard boxes with sharp corners, and if the snowman hadn't been standing on the snow-covered flagstone steps of Warner Point. But luckily the chocolate boxes actually were heavy and solid and had sharp corners. And the snowman was really standing on those steps, and the flagstones were covered with a light layer of snow. The combination meant my attack had more impact than might have been expected.

The snowman dodged to avoid my blow and dodging made his foot slip. His snow shovel descended through the air like some sort of enormous fan, but it missed me. I swung my boxes wildly one more time. I hit him in the head, and his feet went out from under him. He fell over backward, landing hard on his rump.