The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  About the Author

  Teaser chapter

  Also by JoAnna Carl

  Praise for the Chocoholic Mysteries

  The Chocolate Bear Burglary

  “Do not read The Chocolate Bear Burglary on an empty stomach because the luscious . . . descriptions of exotic chocolate will have you running out to buy gourmet sweets . . . a delectable treat.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “[Carl] teases with descriptions of mouthwatering bonbons and truffles while she drops clues.... [Lee is] vulnerable and real, endearingly defective.... Fast-paced and sprinkled with humor. Strongly recommended.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “Kept me entertained to the very last word! . . . A great new sleuth . . . interesting facts about chocolate . . . a delicious new series.”

  —Romantic Times

  The Chocolate Cat Caper

  “A mouthwatering debut and a delicious new series! Feisty young heroine Lee McKinney is a delight in this chocolate treat. A real page-turner, and I got chocolate on every one! I can’t wait for the next.”

  —Tamar Myers

  “As delectable as a rich chocolate truffle, and the mystery filling satisfies to the last prized morsel. Lee McKinney sells chocolates and solves crimes with panache and good humor. More, please. And I’ll take one of those dark chocolate oval bonbons. . . .”

  —Carolyn Hart

  “One will gain weight just from reading [this] . . . delicious.... The beginning of what looks like a terrific new cozy series.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Enjoyable . . . entertaining . . . a fast-paced whodunit with lots of suspects and plenty of surprises . . . satisfies a passion for anything chocolate. In the fine tradition of Diane Mott Davidson.”

  —The Commercial Record

  Also by JoAnna Carl

  The Chocolate Cat Caper

  The Chocolate Bear Burglary

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand,

  London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road,

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  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

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  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, Cnr Rosedale and Airborne Roads,

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, December

  Copyright © Eve K. Sandstrom, 2003

  ISBN : 978-1-101-56378-6

  All rights reserved

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  For Dave, a good guy to have around

  Acknowledgments

  As usual, I borrowed expertise from many of my friends to write this book. Of particular help were the experts at Morgen Chocolate, Dallas, including Betsy Peters, Rex Morgan, and Andrea Pedraza; Tom Bolhuis, expert on wooden boat restoration; Dick Trull and Judy and Phil Hallisy, experienced sailors; Anne and Chuck Wingard and their 1928 Chris-Craft Cadet; lawman Jim Avance; and great friends and neighbors Doyle Bell, Susan McDermott, and Tracy Paquin. Information on historic preservation and related legal issues came from Janet Schmidt, chair of the Historic District Commission of Saugatuck, Michigan; Ellen Clark, Saugatuck City Clerk; and from Building the New and Rehabilitating the Old: A Builder’s and Owner’s Guide, published by the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society. Historical information on chocolate was cribbed from The True History of Chocolate by Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe.

  Chapter 1

  If you’re going to have a fistfight in a small town—and avoid a lot of talk about it—the post office is not a good place for the battle.

  And shortly before five o’clock in the afternoon—when it seems every merchant in town is dropping off the mail and lots of the tourists are buying stamps—is not a good time for it.

  The fight between Joe Woodyard and Hershel Perkins erupted in the Warner Pier Post Office at 4:32 on a Monday afternoon in late June. Later I decided that it had been planned that way. And I didn’t think Joe was in on the plan.

  I was one of the local merchants who witnessed the fight, since I walked into the post office with a handful of outgoing statements for TenHuis Chocolade just in time to hear Joe speak.

  He sounded calm. “What are you talking about, Hershel?”

  Hershel Perkins did not sound calm. He was almost shouting. “It’s about the old Root Beer Barrel. Don’t try to act innocent!”

  “The old drive-in? I’m trying to sell it.”

  “Yes, you money-grubbing piece of . . .”

  Those were fighting words to Joe, I knew, because Joe—who happens to be my boyfriend—was in a financial hole right at the moment. It’s a long story, but he needed money, even if he had to grub for it, and the sale of the dilapidated and abandoned drive-in restaurant might be the raft that kept his business afloat.

  Joe raised his voice just a little when he answered. “What is your interest in this, Hershel?”

  “I hear you might tear it down!”

  “Tear it down? It’s already fallen down.”

  “It’s a piece of history!”

  “History?” Joe sounded puzzled, as well as annoyed. “It’s a bunch of boards lying in a parking lot. It’s junk.”

  I was all the way inside the post office now, and I could see Hershel. He seemed to be puffing himself up. Not that Hershel was all t
hat small. He was at least five nine, just a few inches shorter than I am. He was around forty, with a broad face and a wide, narrow-lipped mouth that made him look like a frog. It was a resemblance he seemed to relish—he combed his thin hair flat and always wore green shirts, flannel in winter and cotton in summer. Even his voice was a froglike croak, and he went places in a green canoe named the Toadfrog.

  He gave an angry grunt. “Junk! You call it junk? It’s vernacular architecture!”

  Joe laughed.

  Hershel went nuts. He rasped out incoherent phrases. Words like “typical commercial,” “innovation,” “rehabilitation,” “social geography,” and “culturally significant.” None of it made sense to me—and I was willing to bet it didn’t make sense to Hershel, either. Hershel is not one of the brightest bulbs shining on Warner Pier, Michigan.

  Joe tried to talk over the ranting, which meant he had to raise his voice. “Hershel, I already talked to the Planning Department. The Historic District Commission has no interest in that property since the building was destroyed by an act of God.”

  Hershel kept up the angry bullfrog act, although hollering out “architectural ethnicity!” is not an effective way to argue.

  Finally Joe did absolutely the worst thing he could have done—even worse than laughing. He turned his back on Hershel and reached for his post office box.

  Hershel gave a loud roar and began to pummel Joe’s shoulders with both fists.

  Joe whirled around, throwing up his elbows to protect his face. Then he caught hold of Hershel’s arms—first the left and then the right—and he whirled again. He pinned Hershel against the wall of post office boxes, almost the way he had pinned his opponents to the mat in the days when he was a high school wrestling champ.

  Hershel finally shut up.

  “Hershel,” Joe said very quietly, “you can’t go around hitting people. Get in your canoe and paddle home.”

  A couple of Warner Pier locals—one of them Hershel’s brother-in-law, Frank Waterloo—appeared beside Joe. From the back of the room I heard another deep voice, this one smooth and slightly accented with Spanish. It was our mayor, Mike Herrera. “Yes, Hershel,” he said, “pleeze go home. We have a forum for discussion of theese design matters. You can bring it up at the Preservation Commission. There ees no need to battle it out here. Not weeth all our summer visitors as weetnesses.”

  The altercation had upset Mike. I could tell by his long “E’s.” Mike was born in Texas, and his accent usually tends more toward a Southwestern drawl than Spanglish.

  Frank Waterloo, who’s a bald, hulking guy, made his voice soft and gentle as he spoke to his brother-in-law. “Let’s go, Hershel,” he said.

  Joe let go of Hershel. Hershel eyed the ring of guys around him. I swear he flicked his tongue in and out like a frog after flies. Then he walked slowly toward the street door, ignoring Frank. After Hershel pulled the door open, he paused and looked back. “That’s what you say!” he said hoarsely.

  He went outside, followed by Frank, then poked his head back in for a final croak. “I’ll file charges!”

  And he was gone. Nervous laughter swept the post office, and a couple of guys went over to Joe and assured him they’d back him up if Hershel filed any kind of complaint.

  “The guy’s crazy,” Trey Corbett said. “The Historic District Commission has no interest in seeing the Root Beer Barrel rebuilt.” Trey is a member of the commission.

  “You haven’t voted yet,” Joe said.

  Trey ran a hand over his thin, wispy hair and adjusted his thick glasses. To me Trey looks like a middle-aged boy. He’s only in his mid-thirties, but his worried expression and nerdy appearance make him look as if he ought to be older. He doesn’t sport a pocket protector, but he looks as if he should.

  Trey shook his head. “Besides, Hershel hit you first. You only punched him in self-defense.”

  “Joe didn’t punch him at all,” I said. “He just griped—I mean ‘grabbed’! He grabbed him.” No harm in getting that idea foremost in the public mind right away.

  Mike Herrera said, “Joe, you handled it as well as you could. But we sure doan want any gossip right at this point, do we?”

  I wondered what that meant, but I decided this wasn’t a good time to ask. So I spoke to Joe. “Are you hurt?”

  Joe shook his head. “I’m fine, Lee.” He turned to Mike and Trey. “Let’s forget it. Hershel’s just a harmless crank.”

  “He’s a crank,” Trey said. “But that doesn’t mean he’s harmless. Some cranks wind up walking up and down the streets with an Uzi.”

  “I’m no mental health expert,” Joe said. “See you later.” He turned to me. “You going back to the shop?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m there till closing.”

  “I’ll walk down with you.”

  I dumped my invoices into the proper slot while Joe closed his post office box and stuck his mail in his shirt pocket. We walked down Pear Avenue toward TenHuis Chocolade. TenHuis—it rhymes with “ice”—is where my aunt, Nettie TenHuis, makes the finest European-style luxury bonbons, truffles, and molded chocolate in the world and where I’d be on duty until after nine o’clock.

  The Fourth of July, when the biggest invasion of tourists hits the beaches of Lake Michigan, was still more than a week away, but the sidewalks of Warner Pier were crowded, and cars, vans, and SUVs were parked bumper to bumper. The three classes of Warner Pier society were out in force.

  The first class is the tourists—people who visit Warner Pier for a day or a week and who rent rooms in the local motels or bed-and-breakfast inns. They were dressed in shorts or jeans with T-shirts—lots of them touting either colleges (“M Go Blue”) or vacation spots (“Mackinac Island Bridge”). The tourists wander idly, admiring the Victorian ambiance of Dock Street, giggling at the sayings on the bumper stickers in the window of the novelty shop, licking ice-cream cones and nibbling at fudge, pointing at the antiques (“Gramma had one just like that, and you threw it away!”), and discussing the prices at the Warner Winery’s shop. They buy postcards or sunscreen or T-shirts, and sometimes antiques or artwork or expensive kitchen gadgets.

  The second class is the “summer people,” the ones who own second homes in Warner Pier or along the shore of Lake Michigan and who stay in those cottages or condos for much of the summer. Summer people tend to wear khakis and polo shirts, or other forms of “resort wear.” They walk along more briskly, headed for the furniture store, the hardware store, or the insurance office. Lots of the summer people are from families who have been coming to Warner Pier for generations. Lots of them are wealthy; some are famous. They’re important to the Warner Pier economy, too, since they pay high property taxes for the privilege of living there part-time.

  Joe and I represented the “locals,” people who live in Warner Pier year-round. There are only twenty-five hundred of us. The other twenty thousand (I’m overestimating, but not by much) thronging the streets were tourists and summer people.

  Locals wear every darn thing. Joe had on navy blue work pants and a matching shirt, an outfit suitable for working in the shop where he repairs and restores antique boats. I was wearing khaki shorts and a chocolate brown polo shirt with “TenHuis Chocolade” embroidered above the left boob. A few Warner Pier locals actually wear suits and ties. A very few. Most dress more like the summer people, except for the artsy crowd. That group goes in for flowing draperies and ripped jeans.

  The throng on the street kept Joe and me from exchanging more than a few words as we walked along. When we got within a few doors of TenHuis Chocolade, Joe spoke. “Can I come in and talk to you for a minute?”

  “Sure,” I said. I opened the door and savored the aroma that met me. Warm, sweet, comforting—pure chocolate. Also chocolate laced with cherry, with rum, with coconut, with strawberries, with raspberries, with other delicious flavors. I never get tired of it.

  The two teenagers—Tracy and Stacy—working behind the retail sales counter seemed to be handling the half-d
ozen tourists who were salivating over the display cases, so I just waved to them and led Joe into my office. The office is a small, glass-enclosed room which overlooks both the retail shop and the workroom where the chocolates are made. The skilled women who produce the chocolates were cleaning up for the day—checking the temperatures on the electric kettles of dark, milk, and white chocolate, washing up the stainless steel bowls and spoons, putting racks of half-made bonbons in the storage room, running final trays of chocolate frogs and turtles through the cooling tunnel.

  Lifelike frogs, turtles, and fish molded from chocolate were Aunt Nettie’s special item for that season. The small ones—about two inches—were plain molded chocolate, but the larger ones—six or eight inches—were more elaborate. Most of the larger ones were of milk chocolate, with fins and other detailing in either dark or white chocolate. The milk chocolate turtles, with their shells decorated with white chocolate, were especially nice, and the frogs—white chocolate decorated with dark chocolate eyes, mouths, and spots—looked as if they might actually hop.

  In the office Joe and I both sat down. “Any chance you could get off early tomorrow?” he asked.

  “I could talk to Aunt Nettie. She’s planning her big pre–tourist season cleanup project—taking the chocolate vats apart—so she may be here late. I guess Stacy could balance out the cash register.”

  Joe opened his mouth, but before he could say anything the bell on the street door rang, and I caught a flash of bright green from the corner of my eye. Hershel Perkins was walking in.

  Joe had his back to the door, so he couldn’t see him. I leaned over and spoke quietly. “Hershel just came in to scrounge his daily chocolate. Let’s go back to the break room.”

  Joe and I both avoided looking into the shop again. We walked through the workroom and into the very pleasant break room. It’s filled with homey furniture—an antique dining table and some easy chairs—and on the walls are several framed watercolors by local artists.