JoAnna Carl Read online

  "He was a U.S. congressman, right?"

  "Yes. At least he would have been until the next election. He had become more and more irresponsible in the way he talked. I believe the technical term is 'shooting his mouth off.' Even Olivia couldn't restrain him. The voters were getting fed up."

  "People around here talk about his death as if the circumstances were common knowledge. But I'm a newcomer. Did he die there at the Hart-VanHorn compound?"

  "Yes. It was a freak accident. He had come down with Olivia and Hart. And I believe Timothy Hart was there, too, but he was staying in his own house. It was in the summer, and one of those wild thunderstorms rolled in off the lake. Sometime in the night Vic VanHorn apparently walked down to the lakeshore to take a look at the lake or watch the lightning. Or something. Of course, no one will ever really know why he went down there. But he got too near the bank, and it gave way."

  "How awful!"

  "Nobody knew he had gone out. I guess Olivia woke up early and discovered he had never come to bed. She found his body, down on the beach."

  "Then he was drowned?"

  Mercy frowned. "Actually, I think the fall killed him. I seem to remember that he fell about twenty feet and hit his head on something when he landed. His body had been in the water though. Luckily, it got caught on a log and didn't drift off."

  "So Olivia VanHorn didn't come back to Warner Pier for fifteen years because of the sad association?"

  "Apparently so." Mercy leaned over the counter and lowered her voice. "I heard—from a really reli­able source—that the governor offered to appoint her to finish out Vic's term. But she refused."

  "That's surprising. She seems so interested in politics."

  "I guess she'd rather work behind the scenes."

  Aunt Nettie came up to the counter then, and I went back to my office. But I couldn't help looking out into the shop, to see if Mercy was acting unusual in any way.

  Joe's mom is a perfectly nice woman, as far as I can see. She's trim and attractive, in her fifties. She's fairly tall, but not a giant like me. She's blond, though I suspect she originally had dark hair. We blondes who don't need "touching up" tend to feel a little smug about blondes who do.

  If Mercy Woodyard has a distinction, it's that she's the best-dressed woman in Warner Pier. Or perhaps I should say she's the most professionally dressed woman in Warner Pier.

  Warner Pier is, after all, a resort community. Our customers are likely to appear in bathing suits and shorts, so the clerks in the shops and the tellers at the bank and the receptionists in the offices would be ill-advised to dress as if they were working on Fifth Ave­nue. The clerks TenHuis Chocolade hires in the sum­mertime wear khaki shorts or slacks and chocolate-brown polo shirts. The high school principal wears a blazer and khakis. The receptionist at City Hall wears jeans, and the mayor presides at council meetings in khakis and a sweater. I used to dress up when I worked in a Dallas office, but now I consider L. L. Bean my prime fashion consultant. That day I was wearing flannel-lined jeans and a turtleneck.

  So Mercy Woodyard's power suits stand out. She could walk into any Dallas bank or Chicago brokerage firm and look as if she belonged there. And while the rest of us wear ski jackets and woolly parkas in winter, she appears in well-tailored dressy coats. Her ward­robe, I suspected, was designed to set her apart as proprietor of a "professional" business.

  I had no idea what Joe thought of her. Which is significant, I guess. During the past nine months, he and I had spent hours talking on the phone, discussing every subject under the sun except his mother. He'd mentioned her a few times—saying he had things stored at her house, for example, or describing a visit the two of them made to his one remaining grandpar­ent at Thanksgiving—but he'd never mentioned any­thing his mother had done, repeated anything she had said, or expressed any opinion of her.

  And he'd never indicated that she knew he and I had become anything more than casual acquaintances. I didn't know what to make of her earlier comment that I might influence Joe, urge him to go back into the practice of law.

  I was getting out the checkbook to write up the payment on our loan when I heard Mercy Woodyard raise her voice. "I'm going to land in the middle of Gail, anyway."

  "She was only trying to help the Teddy Bear Get­away promotion," Aunt Nettie said.

  "She was only trying to help Hess Antiques," Mercy said. "She's wild to handle the sale of the VanHorn furnishings. That would be quite a coup for her."

  "Gail runs a nice auction."

  "Of course. But I'd expect the VanHorns to deal with someone a little more upscale. Allen Galleries, maybe. Or someone from Chicago or Grand Rapids. Gail shouldn't have brought those molds over here."

  "I should have realized how valuable they are. A lot of chocolate people collect them, but Phil and I simply never had time for such things. I never thought about anything happening to them."

  "Gail did know they were valuable, and she should have put a rider on them if she was going to display them somewhere outside her shop. I'm going to make sure this doesn't happen again." Mercy nodded firmly and left.

  Aunt Nettie was frowning as she went back toward the shop. She stopped in the door of my office. "Mercy would make a powerful mother-in-law," she said.

  I laughed. "Well, it looks like that's not going to be my problem."

  "Oh, dear! Did you and Joe quarrel?"

  "I guess so. And then—Hart VanHorn asked me to go out for a pizza. I said yes."

  "Oh, my, Lee! And Jeff turns up, too. Your life is complicated."

  "I'd forgotten Jeff! I'll break the date with Hart."

  "Why?"

  "I don't want to leave you stuck with Jeff."

  "Oh, I can manage Jeff for a few hours." Aunt Net­tie raised her eyebrows. "I assume a few hours is all you had in mind?"

  "It certainly is. And as far as I know it's all Hart has in mind. He may be Michigan's most eligible bach­elor, but he can't be that fast a worker."

  "Times have changed so much that lean hardly keep up."

  "Maybe so, but right at the present moment, your niece is living a celebrate—I mean celibate—life. And that situation doesn't seem likely to change. Certainly not over one date, even if it's with Hart VanHorn."

  I stood up and reached for my red jacket. "And now, it's time for me to ,beard George the Jerk and extend our loan."

  Aunt Nettie patted my hand. "I really appreciate having you to handle that, Lee. Take him a bonbon or two. He likes Mocha Pyramids."

  I put two Mocha Pyramids ("Milky coffee interior in dark chocolate") and two Amaretto truffles ("Milk chocolate interior flavored with classic almond liqueur and coated with white chocolate") in a box and headed down the block to the bank. As I walked, I psyched myself up. You're the customer, I told myself. The bank needs you more than you need them. George Palmer is your servant, your flunky. Treat him like dirt.

  Of course, that wasn't my actual intention. I really intended to kill him with kindness—a la chocolates—and snow him with figures. I'd already discovered that one reason George acted so snotty was that he didn't really understand numbers. His main qualification for being branch manager had apparently been marrying the daughter of one of the bank's more important board members. Despise him, I told myself. But I still felt intimidated.

  When I got to the bank, however, I looked through the glass wall that kept George separated from the rest of the bank, and I discovered he had his own problems. He was having a meeting with Olivia VanHorn.

  Olivia was seated in an armchair, her casual mink thrown onto George's small sofa. She looked to be completely at ease; not a hair of her thick white hair— Hart's was going to be just like it—was out of place.

  George, on the other hand, looked nervous. He was smoothly handsome and sleek, with dark hair and eyes. Like Mercy Woodyard, he wore city suits—garb I felt sure was designed to make us yokels feel our yokelhood. But even his suit wasn't helping George right then; Olivia VanHorn was obviously making him feel like
nobody.

  In winter the Warner Pier branch bank has a very small staff that doesn't include a receptionist, so I nod­ded to the only other employee present, a young guy at the one open teller station, and sat down in a chair outside George's office.

  I eyed George and Olivia's conversation—she talked and he listened—and I got curious about what they were talking about. So I did a wicked thing. I decided to use the ladies' room.

  That may not seem wicked, but it was. Because I knew a secret about that ladies' room and why its exhaust fan was kept running all the time. The previ­ous branch manager, my friend Barbara, had revealed it to me over lunch one day. Because of a quirk in the heating system, she whispered, every word spoken in the manager's office was broadcast through the ductwork and was plainly audible in the ladies' room.

  Naturally, whatever happens in the ladies' room is also audible in the manager's office.

  For this reason, Barbara never used her office for confidential conversations. And she also installed a fan in the ladies' room that ran all the time, effectively covering the noise of flushing and hand washing, so these sounds wouldn't be heard in her office.

  When Barbara was given a new assignment, appar­ently no one had told her replacement about this little quirk. George used the manager's office all the time, closing his door and assuming his conversations were private, whether the exhaust fan was on or not.

  When I quizzed one of the women tellers about it, she giggled. "We tried to tell him," she said.

  Anyway, the more I looked at George and Olivia talking, the more I was dying to know what they were saying. I left my jacket and the file folder that held my bank records in my chair and went to the ladies' room. When I entered the tiny room, the furnace was on, and its fan added to the background noise. I took the opportunity to reach up high and unplug Barbara's specially installed exhaust fan. In a minute the furnace fan went off, and the next sound I heard was the voice of Olivia Hart VanHorn.

  "You can assure Bob that Hart is definitely going to run," she said.

  She sounded as if she were right in the room with me. My heart pounded for a minute. It seemed impos­sible that she wouldn't know I was listening.

  George spoke. "To be honest, Mrs. VanHorn, that's not what Hart said to me yesterday."

  Olivia spoke again. "I admit that my son has a seri­ous handicap for a political candidate. Modesty. He sometimes doubts his own abilities. But I've helped him turn this into an advantage."

  "In what way?"

  "Hart is never unwilling to share credit. And since the legislative process requires cooperation and ..."

  "Back-scratching?"

  "Dickering. Trading favors."

  I stared at the vent. Maybe I should be feeling guilty, but I wasn't. I felt curious. After all, I had accepted a date with Hart for the next night. If he and I were going to be friends, I had a right to know what others thought of him.

  Sure, I did. I threw any qualms in the trash with all the used paper towels and extended my ear toward the heating vent.

  George was speaking. "Bob says you're the best politician in Michigan." I realized the Bob he and Olivia had been talking about was his father-in-law, a well-known political and business figure in Michigan.

  Olivia laughed a ladylike laugh. "Oh, I'm not sure that's right. Michigan has a lot of expert politicians. But I have had experience in back-scratching, as you call it."

  "Why have you never run for office yourself?"

  There was a pause before Olivia answered. "Per­haps I might have, George, if I were thirty years younger. But back when I convinced Vic he should seek office, it was still somewhat rare for women to enter the political arena. I would have had to get in­volved in the Equal Rights Amendment, in support or opposition of pro-choice legislation. I would have been smeared as a woman who neglected her son, her husband."

  Huh, I thought. Other women ran for office then. They made their positions known on those issues. You just wanted to be a kingmaker, the power behind the throne.

  "No, I've always thought I made the right decision," Olivia said. "I've been able to pursue my goals through my work with Vic, with the party. And now through Hart."

  "If Hart runs."

  "Oh, he's going to run. Hart has a complete, perfect background for national office, beginning with Boy's State and his success in high school debate. Then there was Harvard, study abroad, a law degree and a gradu­ate degree stressing government theory. He handled the right kind of law cases, backed the right kind of legislation, supported the right social causes."

  George didn't sound convinced. "Hart has the repu­tation—well, I've heard he's been seeing . .-.." His voice faded away, as if he couldn't bear to finish the thought.

  Olivia laughed. "You're worried because Hart has never married. Well, he's a perfectly normal man, and he sees lots of women. But Hart has had no serious entanglements. No scandals are going to surface. And he's only thirty-five. I feel certain that soon Hart will find the right woman."

  Olivia sounded as if she already had the right woman picked out. And somehow I didn't think that Hart's wife would be a blond divorcee with a tangled tongue. Maybe I represented rebellion to Hart.

  George stammered out a few unintelligible words, but Olivia kept talking. Her voice became more trium­phant. "There are no skeletons in Hart's closet. Abso­lutely none. Hart has the VanHorn looks and charisma and the Hart family's drive, ambition, and brains. Hart is going to go far, George, and if you're smart, you'll go along with him."

  I was mesmerized. Then the furnace fan started again. It broke the spell I was under. With its noise as cover, I plugged in the exhaust van again. Then I dashed out of the restroom before George noticed the difference in the sound of the fan and I got caught. I sank into the chair where I'd left my jacket, whipped out my loan folder, and pretended to study the pa­pers inside.

  Wow! That Olivia VanHorn was something. Her ambition for Hart took my breath away; she obviously thought the U.S. House was just a step on the ladder. But she made me sad, too. Why had she turned that ambition loose on her husband and her son? She had even refused to serve in Congress when she had the chance, if what Mercy had said was right.

  Aunt Nettie had thought Mercy Woodyard might be a difficult mother-in-law. Mercy would be a piece of cake compared to Olivia VanHorn. Suddenly I wasn't so sure I wanted to go out with Hart after all. Maybe I'd be seen as a threat to his political career, and if I were, Olivia would trample me flat.

  Though Hart did seem to have the gumption to stand up to her. At least he was hesitating to commit to a run for Congress, a run she'd plainly decided he was going to make, like it or not. It was going to be interesting to see who won.

  But I think at that moment I knew—though it gave me a twinge of regret—that I was never going to be seriously interested in Hart VanHorn. I had my own problems.

  In a few minutes I saw George helping Olivia into her mink jacket. She nodded to me regally as she left the bank, and George motioned me into his office.

  I thought he might make some comment about Olivia, but he didn't. He seemed troubled, and he barely spoke. I had no need to snow him with my figures; he didn't try to talk me into refinancing at all. He merely accepted my check, and we both signed the papers for the loan extension—at the same interest rate. Then I gave him his chocolates and left.

  I was back in my own office, still thinking about what I'd overheard, when the next commotion started.

  The outside door to TenHuis Chocolade was opened so suddenly and with such force that it nearly flew back into one of the show windows. A figure hooded in emerald green dashed inside and slammed the door.

  I stared. When the newcomer pushed her hood back, I saw that it was Gail Hess. She was panting slightly.

  "Lee!" she said. "I just heard about the burglary! Is it true you and Jeff saw the burglar's car? Tell me all about it!"

  CHOCOLATE CHAT

  THE CULINARY KILLERS

  Mysteries, emphasizing the physi
cal world as they do, have always paid attention to food. Even Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson checked out the clue of the curry in "Silver Blaze." But more recently a whole field of culinary mysteries has bloomed.

  And plenty of these emphasize chocolate. Just a few ...

  • Diane Mott Davidson wrote Dying for Chocolate, starring caterer Goldie Bear.

  • Joanne Fluke's detective, baker Hannah Swenson, solved the Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder.

  • Heaven Lee, the caterer-detective created by Lou Jane Temple, appears in Death Is Semisweet.

  • Magdalena Yoder, the operator of a bed-and-breakfast in Pennsylvania Dutch country, was cre­ated by Tamar Myers for a series of comic myster­ies. Although Magdalena has not so far starred in a book that features chocolate in the title, in Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth, Magdalena's sister, Susannah, almost loses her miniature dog when the pet, who habitually rides about in Susannah's bra, falls into a pan of Chocolate Oatmeal Drops. The little dog is not injured.

  Chapter 7

  I stared at Gail. "Are you just hearing about our excitement?"

  "I went over to Lansing last night, so I could go to a sale this morning. I just got back. Mercy Woodyard told me about it. What happened?"

  "We had a break-in. The molds are safe."

  "Thank God! What did they take?"

  "Nothing. My former stepson—" Suddenly I real­ized Gail didn't know anything about Jeff. I sighed. "It's a long story. Let me start at the beginning."

  I sketched out Jeff's arrival—leaving out his trying to break into our house—and ended with his inter­rupting the burglar.

  "So the burglar might have been after the molds, Gail. That's why Aunt Nettie and I want them out of here."

  Gail seemed to think deeply. "It could have been coincidence. I mean, why? Is it true you and your stepson got a look at the burglar's car?"

  "It was turning onto Blueberry before I saw it."

  Gail leaned over the counter, and—I swear—her eyes sparkled. "Mercy said that one of the taillights was out."

  Her reaction mystified me. "Jeff said one of them was. I didn't get a good look."