JoAnna Carl Read online

  Timothy's walk had been neatly shoveled. I fol­lowed it to the front porch. I knocked on the door, just in case. Then I tried the handle. No luck. Timo­thy's brain wasn't so addled that he went off and left his door unlocked. I shrugged. But what had he said on the tape? He was responsible for leaving the key in the usual place for the handyman and landscapers.

  Timothy routinely left a key outside his house. Where?

  A quick look showed me that it wasn't under the mat. And the mailbox was back on the road, so that wouldn't be a good place to leave it. My grandmother had always wired an extra key to a bush outside her house, but all of Timothy's bushes were bare of leaves. I would have seen a wired-on key in a minute.

  Well, there are a few advantages to being tall. I pulled off one of my gloves and felt the top of the door frame. Nothing. I wiped any fingerprints away with my balled-up glove.

  Maybe the key was at the back door. I hopped over the edge of the porch into the snow and headed around the house. I did try to swish my feet around, hoping to obliterate my footprints. Timothy had old-fashioned wooden storm windows, the kind with venti­lation holes along the bottom. I tugged at a couple, but they were in solidly. I was prepared to smash one out, but I hoped it wouldn't come to that.

  I tracked snow onto the back porch and tried the kitchen door. Locked. Then I reached up and felt the top of that door frame. And my fingers felt some­thing furry.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. And as I did some­thing flew through the air and landed on the porch floor with a kerplunk.

  It was a strip of fur with a key ring attached. And that key ring held a key.

  My heart began to beat faster as I used my glove to erase any fingerprints from the top of the door frame, then slid it back on. I was about to break and enter.

  It was a big disappointment when the key didn't fit the back door. It was much too small. Now what? There must be dozens of locks on the four houses and assorted outbuildings of the Hart-VanHorn com­pound. Which one would this key open? Or did it open a door at all? It really was tiny.

  I looked over the edge of the porch and saw an old-fashioned cellar door. The "slide down my cellar door" kind. By all rights it should have been covered with snow, but Timothy had apparently opened it re­cently and it was fairly clear. And like most of its kind from around 1900, it was kept closed by latch and a padlock.

  In a split second I was off the porch and trying that little key on the padlock. It opened. I pulled open the cellar door, grabbed my flashlight out of my pocket, and was down the stairs and into the house. My career as a burglar had begun.

  As I'd guessed, Timothy had a Michigan basement. Most older houses in our area, including Aunt Net­tie's, have them. I flashed my light around. All I could see were boxes and heaps of the kind of stuff that accumulates in basements. The stairway was along the right-hand wall.

  I went back and wrestled the cellar door shut. Then I crossed the sandy floor to the stairway, stamped my feet to remove what snow and sand I could on the bottom step, and went up to a closed door. The door opened into the kitchen. I looked around. It was a very ordinary kitchen. Judging by the red-and-white color scheme, just like my Texas grandmother's, it had probably been updated sometime in the 1950s. As I walked across the floor, I left sandy tracks. Tough. Maybe I'd have time to sweep before I left.

  "I'll go back to the kitchen and get the keys." That's what Timothy had said on Joe's videotape. I was in the kitchen. So, where would Timothy Hart keep keys? In a drawer?

  It took me maybe three minutes to find the keys. They were in the broom closet on a key rack made of varnished wood with little brass cup hooks screwed in a row. A child's wood-burning set had obviously been used to cut the word "Keys" into the top of the rack. The rack had such a Boy Scout-project look about it that it summoned up a picture of Hart as a dark-haired twelve-year-old making a Christmas pres­ent for his favorite uncle.

  The key rack made me feel like an interloper. But I reminded myself that Jeff had been a cute little twelve-year-old, too, and I looked at the keys.

  Luckily, most of them were labeled, and I found one that said Garage and one that said Barn right away. Since I wasn't positive what Timothy called the big storage building, I took both of them. Then I went on through the house, unlocked the dead bolt on the front door, and left it unlocked. Again, I might need to get back through that door in a hurry. I left via the front porch.

  I followed the path Timothy and Joe had taken that morning—it was pretty well trampled down by their traipsing back and forth—and went over to the big storage building. The Barn key fit the side door, the one Joe and Timothy had entered by. I closed the door behind me and used my flashlight to find the light switch. There before me were all those shrouded mounds I'd seen on the video.

  I didn't fool around looking at wooden boats. I began nearest the door and moved from mound to mound, yanking up the canvas covers.

  The first thing I found was that purple snowmobile. I pulled its cover all the way back and looked it over as well as I could. Of course, snowmobiles all look pretty much alike to me. Unless I found newsprint from the Grand Rapids Press on the windscreen, I wouldn't be able to tell if this was the one that chased me. But it sure did look like it.

  I found the model and serial numbers and commit­ted them to memory, one advantage of being a num­ber person. I shuddered and pulled the canvas back over it.

  Then I looked under the other covers. I found the newer boat, the one Joe had sneered at as fiberglass; the old wooden Chris-Craft; a big riding mower; a garden tractor; and a small camping trailer. And at the end of the row, exactly opposite a closed overhead door, was an empty space.

  It was obviously the place where a car could have sat.

  But there was no car there.

  I stared at that empty space. I'd convinced myself that Timothy still owned his MGB. Greg Glossop had seen it just a year earlier.

  But it wasn't there. Tears welled up in my eyes, and I stood there blinking.

  Then I spoke sternly to myself. "Cry later, Lee," I said aloud. "Right now you're trespassing. Get out of here. Then you can bawl all you want."

  I walked clear back to the end of the bam, making sure there were no more rooms to it. But it was just a big, empty shell. There was a loft over half of it, true, but I didn't think Timothy Hart was strong enough to toss a sports car up there. Just to be sure, or maybe just out of curiosity, I ran up the little stair­way and shone the beam of my flashlight around.

  Old furniture and boxes. I could see why Gail had been so eager to handle any estate sale the Hart-VanHorn clan planned. There was enough old stuff out there to stock a dozen shops the size of Gail's.

  But there was no MGB. I had broken and entered for nothing.

  Now to get out. I hurried back to the door and peeked out, almost afraid I'd be facing some law offi­cer summoned by a neighbor. But there was no one in sight. I stepped outside and pulled the key out of my pocket.

  And a second key dropped into the snow.

  I scrabbled around until I found it. It was the key marked Garage. I locked the barn door, then stared at the second key.

  "Garage." Hmmm. On the videotape Timothy had said that his sister had a garage in her house. As a matter of fact, the other house, the brick one, proba­bly had a garage, too. Of course, it was unlikely that Timothy's car would be parked in either of his sis­ter's garages.

  But as long as I had the key, I thought I'd better look.

  I trotted down the drive, toward the stone house with the little bridge leading to the porch. The drive, of course, was well cleared down that way, too, and it led around the end of the house and curved down a slope. As soon as I went around the curve, I saw a three-car garage.

  The garage was under the house, in the basement, and it had two overhead doors, a double and a single. The Garage key didn't fit either of them. Perhaps the key fit a garage in the brick house instead.

  I stood in the driveway and stared at the key stu­pidly.
Then I noticed a sidewalk that led to the back of the house. It was covered with snow, but its outline was clear. I followed it, doing the foot-twisting trick I hoped would keep my boot tracks from being identi­fied. And there, under a deck overlooking the lake, was another door, an ordinary door, not an overhead door. And the Garage key from Timothy's kitchen fit.

  I went inside and groped for a switch. There was none near the door, and I had to use my flashlight to find a way to turn the overhead light on. And when it came on, I saw another of those canvas-shrouded mounds the VanHorns were so fond of.

  This one was long, but not too tall. I was afraid to lift the canvas. It seemed to be my last chance to clear Jeff.

  I forced myself to grab the canvas sheet and throw it back.

  And there, dirty and mud spattered, was a black sports car.

  My heart nearly stopped.

  I yanked the cover completely off. I walked down the side of the car, leaned over, and examined the left taillight.

  It was broken.

  "Yee-haw!"

  I'm not a Texan for nothing. I jumped up and down. I crowed with delight. I howled like a coyote.

  Jeff was going to get out of jail. Before Rich arrived!

  "Yee-haw!"

  I was still yelling and jumping when a motor clicked on and the double garage door began to go up.

  CHOCOLATE CHAT

  JUST A LITTLE BITE

  Many short stories have used chocolate as a prop.

  • The ultimate story focusing on chocolate may be "Of Course You Know that Chocolate Is a Vegeta­ble," by Barbara D'Amato. Published in 1998 in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, the story won the Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity Awards for Best Short Story in 1999. It was anthologized in Creme de la Crime in 2000. And what is the exotic murder weapon used in the story? I'll never tell!

  • Agatha Christie wrote a story called "The Chocolate Box," published in the United States in Hercule Poirot's Early Cases in 1974. It's typical Christie, ex­pertly using sleight of hand to confuse the reader. In it Hercule Poirot describes a case of political and religious intrigue that he investigated as a young detective in Belgium. And the key clue turns out to be not the chocolates, but the box they are in.

  • Lee McKinney also made her debut in a short story. A look at Lee when she was sixteen and first worked at TenHuis Chocolade was the background for "The Chocolate Kidnapping Clue," published in 2001 in the anthology And the Dying Is Easy.

  Chapter 20

  I nearly wet my pants. The dirty cheats! Less than an hour earlier, Hart had told me they were headed to Grand Rapids. They couldn't possibly have driven all the way up there and back again already.

  I left the dust sheet off the sports car and the garage light on, and I ran out the door I'd come in. I made a sharp right turn and ran along under the deck. There was a little snow there, but I didn't worry about mak­ing tracks. I was making time.

  My troubles began when I got to the end of the deck and came out at the other end of the house into hip-deep snow. Not only had the snow been piling up there since November, but the ground also rose steeply. I slipped and slid as if I were climbing the Matterhorn without a safety rope.

  But I kept going, slogging through the snow, trying to get around the side of the house, out of sight.

  Then I heard a voice. "Lee! Lee! What are you doing? It's only me. Olivia!"

  Just as she yelled my feet went out from under me. I landed on my fanny and slid halfway down the slope. I could hear Olivia laughing, though she didn't sound terribly amused.

  "Lee," she said. "Come here. I'm not going to hurt you."

  I'd been caught. But I hadn't been caught by Timo­thy. Timothy, who'd already killed. It was very likely that Olivia didn't know that her brother had sneaked his car out to make clandestine trips into town to com­mit crimes. I'd realized that I'd have to confront her sometime. I'd planned to have Chief Jones there, but it now seemed I was going to do it alone.

  I got to my feet and came back, feeling really stupid. Olivia VanHorn was her usual poised self, stunning in winter-white slacks, polished boots, and her casual mink.

  "I owe you an apology," I said. "I'm trespassing."

  "Now you're not. Now you have my permission to be here. Were you looking for the MGB?"

  I nodded. "Yes. I've simply got to get Jeff out of jail. And that meant I had to find that car. The taillight is broken. It's going to implicate your brother."

  Mrs. VanHorn's eyes widened. She made a noise that could only be described as a ladylike grunt. Her mouth twitched. Then she led the way into the garage and went to the back of the sports car. "I had sus­pected Timothy had taken the car out," she said. "I guess I lacked the courage to check the rear end, even after I heard the police were hunting a sports car with a broken taillight."

  She leaned over and looked at the taillight closely. Then she sighed. "We might as well call the police."

  "I can drive back to the station and talk to Chief Jones."

  Mrs. VanHorn shook her head. "No, I have to face it. You're quite right about your stepson. We can't let that innocent young man remain under suspicion any longer. Come into the house with me, and I'll call Chief Jones."

  I was amazed at how calmly she was taking the whole thing. I followed as Mrs. VanHorn went to a door in the center of the back wall, then led me up a stairway that ended in a beautifully decorated kitchen. "Take your coat off," she said. "There's a coat rack behind the door. Just let me put my boots away, and then I'll telephone the police."

  She walked on through a foyer and down a carpeted hall. I was a little surprised that she didn't take her own boots off before she stepped onto the carpet. Then I realized that Olivia hadn't been running through the snow the way I had. Her boots were dry.

  I found a small rug near the back door, and I stood on it, stamping the snow off my feet, trying to keep from spotting the tile. I unzipped my jacket, but I didn't take it off, though I saw a navy blue Polartec parka hanging on the rack Olivia had mentioned. I wondered if Timothy had worn it when he chased me with the snowmobile.

  I was still standing there, feeling ill at ease, when Olivia VanHorn came back down the hall. I was sur­prised to see that she hadn't taken off her boots, or her coat either.

  I was even more surprised when she pulled a pistol from behind her back.

  I gave a yelp. "What's going on?"

  Olivia sighed. "You're a burglar, Lee, and I'm going to shoot you."

  "Shoot me!"

  "Yes. Young woman, you are simply too nosy. I must protect my family."

  "But Timothy—he'll get off with diminished respon­sibility. I can't believe you would kill to protect him!"

  "Timothy? Don't be silly. Timothy wouldn't kill anyone. He passes out by nine o'clock every evening. He couldn't possibly get out in the night, meet people, do the things I had to do to protect my son."

  "Your son!"

  "Certainly. You can understand that—after all the trouble you've taken to protect a boy who's merely your stepson."

  "Hart? You're trying to protect Hart?"

  "It's imperative, I'm afraid. I really have no choice. If this story comes out, it will ruin his political career. Please step a little further into the kitchen."

  I ignored her request. "Did Hart kill Gail Hess?"

  "That wretched blackmailer? Of course not!"

  "Then how will killing me protect Hart?"

  "We won't go into that. Please, step a little further into the kitchen."

  I didn't budge. "Why?"

  "So it will be clear that you were an intruder, that I surprised a burglar who was actually in the house. Then it will be legal to shoot you."

  I backed up a step.

  "No, no!" Mrs. VanHorn spoke as if I were a back­ward child. "Don't move away. Come forward."

  I stared at her. This situation was unbelievable. This ladylike, gracious woman was going to kill me. And she had invited me into her home so that it would look legal. It was like the advice of a cynic�
�if you shoot a burglar on the porch, drag him inside the house to make it look legal.

  The whole thing was so absurd I was tempted to laugh. But the pistol in Olivia VanHorn's hand and the calm resolve on her face kept the situation from being funny.

  I put my hand behind me and touched the door­knob. To get out I'd have to open the door and run all the way down the narrow stairway. Mrs. VanHorn would have plenty of time to shoot me as I ran.

  Or I could rush forward and try to slam into her. She'd have plenty of time to shoot me that way, too.

  But either fate would be better than standing there and letting her kill me, then pass my death off as the shooting of a burglar.

  Now Mrs. VanHorn's eyes narrowed. "I'm tired of waiting," she said. "Move forward!"

  My fingers gripped the doorknob. Getting shot in the back would be the best way, I decided. That way she wouldn't have such an easy time passing my death off as the murder of an intruder.

  I shrank back against the door.

  "Very well," she said. "I'm not waiting any longer."

  She raised the pistol. I turned the door handle.

  And the doorbell rang.

  Mrs. VanHorn and I both froze, and in the awful silence I heard Timothy Hart's voice coming from out­side. "Olivia? Olivia! Someone's broken into my house! There are tracks all over the kitchen floor and the front door's unlocked! I called the police!"

  Olivia's head whipped toward his voice.

  I whirled, yanked the door open, and plunged down the steps to the garage.

  Thumpety thumpety! My boots hit every other step. Then a louder thump drowned them out. A shot! I didn't think it had hit me. I fell down the last three steps, but I caught myself with the door handle. The door into the garage swung open, and I stumbled out and ran headlong into Hart VanHorn.

  I screamed like a Texas banshee.

  Hart grabbed me. He screamed, too. But the sounds he made produced words. "What's wrong? What's happened?"