The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle 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

  Teaser chapter

  About the Author

  Also by JoAnna Carl

  Praise for the Chocoholic Mysteries

  The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up

  “A JoAnna Carl mystery will be a winner. The trivia and vivid descriptions of the luscious confections are enough to make you hunger for more”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  “Delicious.”

  —Cluesunlimited

  “A fast-paced, light read, full of chocolate facts and delectable treats. Lee is an endearing heroine.... Readers will enjoy the time they spend with Lee and Joe in Warner Pier and will look forward to returning for more murder dipped in chocolate.”

  —The Mystery Reader

  “The descriptions of the chocolates are enough to make your mouth water, so be prepared.... Once again, I enjoyed each page of the book and am already looking forward to my next visit to Warner Pier, Michigan.”

  —Review Index

  continued . . .

  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

  The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  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 2004

  ISBN : 978-1-101-56377-9

  Copyright © Eve K. Sandstrom, 2004

  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.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Norma Hightower,

  a special cousin and friend

  Acknowledgments

  As ever, I exploited numerous friends and relatives as I wrote this book. Of particular help were the wonderful; folks at Morgen Chocolate Incorporated in Dallas, including Rex Morgan, Betsy Peters, and Andrea Pedraza. Michigan friends helped; Susan Mc-Dermott, who goes far beyond mere neighborliness in answering questions; Tracy Paquin, who grew up on a fruit farm and was willing to tell me about it; and their golden retriever, Mitchell. Thanks also go to Janet Lockwood, of the Michigan Film Office, a true public servant; to Jack Slaybaugh, a kind coin and money collector; to expert dog trainer Helen Smith; and to my brother, Kim Kimbrell.

  Chapter 1

  I suppose it wasn’t the puppy’s fault, but after he handed me the money, everything in Warner Pier seemed to go to pot. Fraud, kidnapping, homicide, theft, trespassing—a real crime wave developed. My romantic life got—well, unromantic. Even the chocolate business became complicated.

  The day had started out very well. I was happy as I walked toward the Fall Rinkydink. My favorite guy, Joe Woodyard, was with me. The weather was as perfect as only an October day on the shores of Lake Michigan can be. I may have hummed a hum or skipped a little skip.

  Then a chocolate Labrador pup galumped across the Dock Street Park, cut through the buffet line in the picnic shelter, and planted two gigantic feet on the knees of my brand-new tan wool slacks. I nearly dropped a big tray of TenHuis Chocolade’s finest truffles and bonbons. The sweets all shifted to one side, and only the extra-strength industrial plastic wrap kept them from hitting the grass.

  The dog handed me a large leather wallet with a dirty ten-dollar bill sticking out one side.

  That first disaster occurred at the first-ever Rinkydink.

  I’m business manager for my aun
t’s chocolate shop, TenHuis Chocolade, in the picturesque resort of Warner Pier, on the east shore of Lake Michigan. In the summer, Warner Pier’s streets—laid out in 1855 for buggies and horse-drawn farm wagons—are thronged with cars, vans, and buses carrying tourists and summer people. The traffic is horrendous.

  In the fall, all the tourists and summer visitors go home. The parking problem is over until the next Memorial Day, and traffic is close to nil for six months. Consequently, Warner Pier locals for years have linked the end of the tourist season and the beginning of autumn to the day when our one traffic light becomes a blinker.

  All summer the light at Fourth Avenue and Dock Street changes from green to yellow to red—just like a big city traffic light. On the Tuesday after Columbus Day, the Warner Pier Street Department turns out in force (all three of them) and changes the light to a flashing red on Fourth Avenue and a flashing yellow on Dock Street. For years the merchants in the neighborhood gathered to cheer them on, just as a joke.

  It was Maggie McNutt, a close friend of mine and Warner Pier High School speech and drama teacher, who had the idea of making the changing of the traffic light into a fund-raiser for the high school drama club. All the food-related merchants, including TenHuis (it rhymes with “ice”), were asked to donate food for a picnic luncheon, which would be held in the Dock Street Park picnic shelter. Nonfood merchants—the gift shops, antique stores, and art galleries, the hardware store, and the drug store—were asked to kick in items for a silent auction and for door prizes. Everybody in the world was asked to buy tickets.

  “It’ll be fun!” said Maggie. She had bounced in her chair as she presented the idea to the chamber board. “The chamber ought to have more social events. This one will be a farewell party for those merchants who close up and go south for the winter. It’ll be a celebrate-fall party for those of us staying here. And it will help the drama club take students to state competition.”

  Maggie had become the speech and drama teacher three years earlier, when she and her husband, Ken, who taught math, were both hired at Warner Pier High School. She had short dark hair and was petite, peppy, and cute—the kind of woman who makes an all-but-six-foot blonde like me feel like a giraffe. But I liked Maggie. Everyone in Warner Pier seemed to like her—with one exception—and Maggie was full of ideas to promote Warner Pier High School drama. Maggie told me she had worked in Hollywood, appearing as an extra in small roles in several films. But when she’d turned thirty, she’d decided she was never going to make it big in show biz, so she came back to her home state, got her master’s in education, and married Ken McNutt, who’d been a high school classmate. They’d rented a little house in Warner Pier and settled into the community. The previous year her students had taken first place in the state one-act competition. She wanted to make sure they got to go again.

  The name of the event, the “Rinkydink,” had started as a joke, after somebody remarked that a town with only one traffic light was “pretty rinkydink.” Since the small-town atmosphere was what most of us liked about living in Warner Pier, we adopted the term with perverse pride, and the lightchanging ceremony was officially christened.

  The weather was cooperating for the first Rinkydink, and Maggie hadn’t had to move the picnic to the high school gym, as she’d feared she might. The day was sunny, with temperatures just under seventy. The sunlight was creating that autumn effect when oblique light turns the sky mellow and the air so soft and beautiful you want to gulp big lungfuls of it. The trees were lush with all the reds, yellows, golds, oranges, greens, and browns of a Michigan autumn. The sun glinted off the Warner River. The Victorian houses looked more like wedding cakes than usual. The chrysanthemums were blooming like crazy—bronze, maroon, yellow, rust, and gold. The breeze playfully tossed fallen leaves about.

  It was a good day to be alive and living in Warner Pier, Michigan. I had been happy as a clam as Joe and I each carried a big tray of TenHuis’s fanciest chocolates toward the dessert table.

  Joe saw the dog coming. “There’s a pup loose,” he said. “Some guy is after him.”

  I turned to see who was chasing the dog. The animal ran right up to me and, as I said, planted his huge puppy feet on the knees of my tan wool slacks. He looked at me with soft hazel eyes. He was holding this big leather wallet in his mouth.

  “Hey, fellow! Welcome to the party.” I stepped backward, trying to get the dirty feet off my slacks. Of course, the puppy thought this was a game and jumped up on me again. I balanced the tray on my hip, accidentally tipping it. I could feel the chocolates slide as I tried to fend the pup off with the hand I’d freed up. The dog was at that awkward stage of puppyhood, maybe four or five months old. He looked healthy and full of puppy pep, with a lustrous, dark brown coat as smooth and shiny as melted chocolate. He had a tiny spot of white on his chest.

  Then the pup nudged my wrist with the wallet. It was a beat-up and moldy-looking brown leather folder, more than twice the size of a standard bifold billfold and more like a passport case than a regular wallet. It didn’t look like something a puppy should be chewing on, so I took it away from him. It was covered with dog slobber, of course.

  By then Joe had put down the tray of chocolates that he was carrying, and he grabbed the dog.

  “Look at the money,” I said, showing him the wallet. Five or six odd-sized bills were sticking out. “Somebody’s been playing king-sized Monopoly.”

  “I’ve seen those big bills in one of the antique shops,” Joe said. “I think they used to be legal tender.”

  “Somebody’s going to want this back.”

  Joe scooped the puppy up with both arms, and the dog joyously licked his face. Joe laughed. What else can you do when a strange puppy decides you’re adorable? Or maybe delicious. Of course, I think Joe’s delicious, too. He not only has dark hair, brilliant blue eyes, and broad shoulders, he also has a very sharp mind and a nice personality. Someday I might even set a wedding date.

  I took my tray of chocolates to the dessert table and handed them to Tracy Roderick, who was a TenHuis employee in the summer and president of Maggie McNutt’s drama club during the school year. Tracy’s a nice girl; she could even be a pretty girl if she got a decent hairstyle.

  “Hi, Lee,” Tracy said. “I’m in charge of the dessert table. As usual, the TenHuis chocolates will be the center of attraction.”

  “I messed these up,” I said. “They nearly landed in the grass.”

  Tracy brandished a pair of food-service gloves. “I’ll straighten them. Your aunt will never know what a narrow escape they had.”

  The two of us admired the craftsmanship displayed in the chocolates. Swirling patterns of bonbons and truffles filled the two trays, ready to entice Rinkydink picnickers with dark, white, and milk chocolate, each goody filled with an exotic flavor. In the center of each tray was a heap of molded chocolates—squares, small animals, miniature bars. Joe and I had just delivered two big trays of yummy. To me the chocolates made the cherry pies and coffee cakes a waste of calories.

  “Lee, we’d better get this dog back to his owner,” Joe said.

  Leaving Tracy in charge of her desserts, I fished a large paper napkin out of a pile at the end of the serving table and wiped off my hand and the wallet. Then Joe and I walked toward the man who had been running. He’d slowed down after he saw Joe scoop up the puppy.

  I waved the wallet. “This yours?”

  “Thanks for rescuing it!” The man continued toward us. “And thanks for grabbing Monte!”

  As the man approached, I had plenty of time to look him over. He was an older gent, but he was marching along as if he were full of youthful energy. He was wearing an outfit that was just a little too slickly coordinated—neatly pressed jeans, desert boots, and a plaid wool shirt worn over a turtleneck. Gray hair oozed out from beneath a wide-brimmed felt hat that looked—well, Australian. It didn’t have one side pinned up, but it should have.

  As he reached us, he took the puppy and received a greeting as e
nthusiastic as the one Joe had gotten. “Monte,” he said, “you’re a naughty fellow.” He looped the puppy’s leash over his wrist firmly and put the dog down on the grass. “Sit,” he said. Monte sat. Then his owner turned to us, giving a broad, toothy grin. “Thanks for catching him.”

  “Actually, he caught us,” I said. “He’s a friendly little guy. Did you call him Monte?”

  The man smiled. “Yes. It’s short for Montezuma. He’s a chocolate Labrador.”

  “Ah,” I said. “The Aztec emperor and fabled consumer of chocolate.” I turned to Joe. “According to legend, Montezuma drank chocolate before visiting his harem.”

  “You’re absolutely correct.” The gray-haired man swept off his hat, giving me a look at a gorgeous head of hair. I also got a look at the even spacing around the hairline that showed that he’d had an expensive implant job.

  “Maia Michaelson invited me to this—is it called the Rinkydink?” he said. “Have you seen her?”

  “No.” Joe and I both scanned the crowd. I bit my tongue before I could say She’s probably waiting to make an entrance.

  “I’m sure she’ll be here in a minute,” Joe said. “Is the wallet yours as well?”

  I realized that I was still holding the oversized wallet with the big bills. I extended it to the gray-haired man just as a shrill voice called out. “Aubrey!”

  “Here’s Mae,” I said. “I mean Maia.” The two names were pronounced almost the same way, but they definitely referred to two different people.

  Maia approached dramatically. Back when she was Mae Ensminger, this woman used to simply walk up. But the previous spring Mae had published a romantic novel under the nom de plume Maia Michaelson. According to the dictionary, I’d been told, the two names were pronounced the same way, but Mae called her new moniker “MAY-ah.” In her new persona, Maia couldn’t just walk up. She approached dramatically.