14 The Chocolate Clown Corpse (11 page)

The name Harry Vandercool seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place him. Neither could Joe. That might mean nothing in a larger community, but in a town of twenty-five hundred, it’s a little odd.

Joe looked him up online. He didn’t find out much. So we looked at the address in the phone book, and I figured out the name of someone I knew slightly who lived nearby. I called her. She didn’t know Harry Vandercool either, she said, but she knew who he was. Vandercool was one of the army of retirees who had moved to Warner Pier in recent years.

“He had some sort of business in Holland,” my informant said. “Retail, I think. Maybe.”

“Does he go to a church? Or belong to any clubs?”

“Not that I know of. I don’t think we’ve ever met. Not formally. He was at the property owners’ association meeting.”

Joe really likes to know some background about a witness before he interviews him, but he gave up and called Harry Vandercool cold.

Vandercool readily agreed to talk to him. He suggested that Joe come to his house the next morning. Then Joe got a
surprised look on his face. “Lee? I’m sure she would come if she doesn’t have something already scheduled.”

Joe listened. Then he grinned. “Oh! Well, I’m sure she’d be glad to give you an update on the chocolate business in southwest Michigan. Let me ask her.”

Joe took the phone away from the side of his head and looked at me. “Are you available to go calling at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”

“I guess so. But why?”

“It seems Harry Vandercool had Vandercool’s Chocolate in Grand Rapids until he retired.”

“Oh! He’s
that
Vandercool! I’ll be glad to talk to him.”

Joe confirmed the time and hung up. We both laughed. “I’ve never met Mr. Vandercool,” I said. “I didn’t know his first name, but Aunt Nettie has spoken of him.”

“Vandercool says you bought a cooling tunnel he sold when he retired.”

“We’re still using it.”

“He says we should come to his house. ‘That way we can look at the situation on the ground, so to speak.’”

“Sure. You can see how long it took him to walk over to Moe’s and other details like that.”

Harry Vandercool’s house was in a wooded area south of Warner Pier, off Lake Shore Drive. He was, like us, on the inland side. Lakefront property is extremely valuable these days, but ordinary people can manage to live in the area if they don’t insist on a lake view.

Harry was a bit farther away from the lakeshore than we are, maybe half a mile, on a lot with plenty of trees. His property was nice and neat. His house was painted white, with black shutters. His walks and even his driveway were bare of snow. And he had
a real concrete walk and drive; none of this gravel stuff Joe and I use. There was a folksy Welcome sign beside the front door.

Harry Vandercool was clearly a man who would be bothered by a cottage that looked abandoned and neglected—especially right next door. I immediately saw why he had noticed something was wrong at Moe and Emma’s house and why he had called to tell them about it. This was a man who wanted the neighborhood kept up.

Yet his house sat alone, surrounded by trees. And since it wasn’t on a main road, no one except Harry and his callers would ever see it. The Davidson cottage wasn’t even visible from the Vandercool house. Although most of the trees were without leaves in winter, a large plot of evergreens lay between the two properties. The bushy trees completely blocked the view from one to the other.

So I wondered just how Harry Vandercool had known there had been a prowler at the Davidson house. He wouldn’t have just casually noticed. He would have had to go over and look.

Had Moe and Emma asked him to keep an eye on things? Or had he taken the job on himself?

As soon as Joe parked his truck in the Vandercool drive, I saw a man come out the front door and start down the steps, accompanied by a small black dog. This had to be Harry Vandercool.

Vandercool was a small man, the kind of man who makes me feel like a giantess. I guessed his age at around seventy. He had thin white hair and a colorless face and pale blue eyes. I still didn’t remember meeting him before, but I might have. He was so ordinary I could have stumbled over him daily and never noticed. The dog wasn’t even very noticeable. Just a short-haired black dog of no particular breed. He didn’t bark or jump on us, though he frisked about at the sight of strangers. When Joe knelt to greet him, he stood quietly to be petted, arching his neck.

Mr. Vandercool told us the little dog was named Java. “Because he’s the color of black coffee,” he said.

Mr. Vandercool gestured toward the house. “Come in, come in,” he said. “I’ve made some coffee. And I have some TenHuis chocolates!” He smiled proudly.

Oh dear. He was a customer—a local customer—and I didn’t remember him.

But Mr. Vandercool was shaking his forefinger at me. “I usually shop in South Haven,” he said, “so I got these truffles at the supermarket there. I’m sure yours are fresher.”

“Oh, we deliver down there every other week,” I said. “Their chocolates ought to be fine. And I appreciate a chocolate expert seeking TenHuis out.”

Mr. Vandercool’s living room matched the outside of his house. It was neat as a pin, with very few decorative items on the walls and tables. It was masculine, but traditional—no overstuffed sectionals or square cornered leather chairs. I was a little surprised by the floral fabric on the camelback couch, until I saw the picture on the mantelpiece. It was Mr. Vandercool standing beside a lady of a suitable age. The picture screamed “anniversary.” The room screamed “widower.”

Java’s bed was next to Vandercool’s chair. As soon as we were in the house, Vandercool said, “Go to your bed, Java,” and the little dog obediently sat in his special spot.

Mr. Vandercool served coffee—remembering to offer cream and sugar—and put out a plate of truffles and bonbons. I took a blackberry truffle (“dark chocolate filling flavored with genuine Michigan berries, enrobed with dark chocolate, and decorated with a purple swirl”). Joe went for a mocha truffle (“dark chocolate interior and coating, trimmed with white stripes”). Our host then sat down on the flowered couch, took
a deep breath, and began speaking before Joe could formulate a question.

“I’ll always have a deep sense of guilt about the death of Moe Davidson,” he said. “I mean, what did it matter if that poor homeless man tried to get warm? It wasn’t worth dying over.”

“Calling friends about a problem at their home is a neighborly act,” I said. “You had no way of foreseeing . . .”

Mr. Vandercool was shaking his head. “I didn’t do it to be neighborly. I did it to point out Moe Davidson’s dereliction of duty. I wasn’t a good neighbor. I was a know-it-all. And Moe knew that. I think he came up here mad—mad at me—and that anger probably figured in the situation with Royal Hollis. So I am partially responsible for what happened.”

“Mr. Vandercool,” Joe said, “you’re raising some basic questions about human relations. How much are we responsible for our fellow man? That one is way beyond me. All I can do is gather the facts about this case.”

Vandercool nodded. “I understand. The law isn’t interested in why I did something, but in what I did. But I do want you to understand that I feel a lot of sympathy for both Moe and Royal Hollis in this—this stupid situation. It should never have led to anyone’s death.”

“Just what did happen? From your point of view.”

Mr. Vandercool took a deep breath. “Emma did ask me to keep an eye on things when she and Moe left in October. She assured me that they’d be back to close the house properly in a week. But they never came.”

He continued his story. He walked Java twice a day, and one of their favorite strolls led by the Davidson house. “There’s a path between the two houses. It leads through the evergreens. And Moe and Emma didn’t mind us going that way.”

Because of this he saw the house nearly every day, so he was quite sure the Davidsons hadn’t come back to put up shutters, drain the pipes, and do the other things necessary to winterize a house.

“Of course, it’s a year-round house,” he said. “As long as the furnace was working, it probably wasn’t going to damage anything, but it’s just, well, a careless way to manage things.”

Mr. Vandercool would definitely not have approved of doing anything in a careless way.

November and December went by. Freezing weather set in. Snow fell, and on his walks Mr. Vandercool began to notice footprints that were not his own.

Finally, on a day early in January he came upon Royal Hollis in back of the house. The Davidson house had an unattached garage, and Hollis was standing near its door.

“Did he startle you?” Joe asked.

“Not really. He was around this neighborhood quite a bit.”

“So you knew who he was?”

“I didn’t know his name—not his full name. But he would come by and play his harmonica, and sometimes I had a little chore for him.” Mr. Vandercool smiled. “He had a lively personality, you know. You couldn’t get mad at him.” His smile went away. “Or
I
couldn’t. Maybe I encouraged him to stay around in the neighborhood.”

Mr. Vandercool was determined to feel guilty about Moe’s death, I saw.

“But he wasn’t doing any harm,” Vandercool said. “Not that day. He was doing just what I was doing—walking around the house. I didn’t see him again.”

It wasn’t until about a week later that Mr. Vandercool noticed that the latch on the hot tub was broken. When he touched the lid, it lifted easily.

“I blame Moe,” he said. “You’re not supposed to put temptation in people’s paths. You shouldn’t leave money out, or wave an expensive cell phone around on a public conveyance, or just swallow any story that someone tells you. So I thought that Moe was—well, asking for it. The tub should have been properly emptied and locked.”

That’s when he called Moe and Emma at their Indiana house. Moe had sounded angry, but when Vandercool offered to call the sheriff and report a prowler, he said no. He said he’d be up the next Saturday to drain the pipes and put up the shutters. He’d look for any damage himself.

So Vandercool hadn’t been surprised when he heard a car the next weekend. “It drove in around noon,” he said. “Of course, I can’t see over there. Moe planted those evergreens years before I moved here.”

Huh. So it was Moe who hadn’t wanted anyone to look at his house.

“Did you go over to talk to Moe?” Joe asked.

Vandercool sighed. “I started to. But sound carries so out here—well, I heard yelling. I thought it would be better to stay away for a while.”

“Did you think Moe was yelling at Royal Hollis?”

“No! To tell the truth, I assumed he was yelling at Emma. He could be awfully rude to her. But I went out on the porch. I was really surprised when Hollis ran into my yard.”

“Hollis ran into your yard?”

Vandercool nodded vigorously. “He ran toward me down the path that connects my lot with the Davidsons’. He was half-dressed.”

“Half-dressed?”

“Yes. He had on his overalls, and he was carrying his shirt and coat. But he didn’t even have his shoes.”

“He was barefoot?”

Another nod. “It was pretty obvious that Moe caught him actually in the hot tub. Moe must have yelled at him, and they must have fought. I guess that’s when Royal Hollis hit Moe. Killed him.”

“What did Hollis say to you?”

“He said, ‘I left my shoes. I gotta go back and get ’em.’ But I tried to talk him out of that. I thought it would just cause more trouble. I told him he could have a pair of mine. But he kept moving as if he was going back over to Moe’s. I ran into my mudroom and grabbed up a pair of tennis shoes. I shoved them at him; then I went to get two pairs of socks. He sat down on the porch steps and put them on.”

Vandercool turned to me, looking almost as if he were going to cry. “The shoes were too small, but the temperature was way below freezing. He had to have shoes! I didn’t know what else to do.”

I patted his hand. “That was a kind act, Mr. Vandercool.”

He grimaced. “Anyway, Hollis put the shoes on and before I could stop him he took off through the woods.”

“Did he go toward the Davidsons’?” Joe asked.

“No, he ran off toward the Interstate.” Vandercool sighed. “I was afraid to face Moe. I admit it. But I decided I had to try to get Hollis’ shoes back. So I waited, oh, maybe fifteen minutes, and then I went over there. I walked down the path, and when I came out on the Davidsons’ side of the bushes, I saw Chuck kneeling on the driveway. It took me a minute to see that he was kneeling beside Moe. And Moe was dead.”

I felt that Mr. Vandercool seemed to have reached an emotional stopping place. Joe apparently realized that, too, and he spoke.

“How about a little break? Maybe this would be a good time to walk over toward the Davidsons’ so I can get an idea of the layout.”

The older man nodded and turned to his dog. “Java! Walkee.”

Java jumped to his feet and scurried across the room to get his leash. As Mr. Vandercool snapped it onto the little dog’s collar, he smiled apologetically. “Since my wife died, Java and I are partners.”

I looked at the gray on Java’s snout and hoped that Mr. Vandercool wouldn’t be left alone.

We three humans put on our jackets and boots, and we started on our expedition. The path between the Vandercool house and the Davidson place led through the evergreens on the Davidson side. The path wasn’t wide, but Mr. Vandercool had obviously trimmed back some branches to make it easy to get through, and the surface of the snow was trampled down. The only really narrow place was the final gap through the evergreens.

When we came out on the other side we were perhaps a hundred feet from the Davidson house. The house was nondescript. Two cars were parked in the drive. I could see heat vapor coming out of a roof vent.

The house was quite ordinary—just a white frame structure of no particular architectural style. Because we live in a quaint little town filled with historic houses, all Warner Pier people are interested in architecture. I mentally placed the construction of that one in the mid-1950s. Midcentury modern, it’s called. Personally, I would have labeled it “midcentury boring.”

Mr. Vandercool stopped as soon as he came through the evergreens, and Joe and I stood on either side of him.

“I see that the drive is quite close to the evergreens,” Joe said. “Just where was Moe’s body?”

“Right where that blue car is,” Mr. Vandercool said. “I guess it’s Lorraine’s. Chuck’s Chevy was parked farther back.”

“Where was Moe’s car?” Joe asked.

There was a long pause. Mr. Vandercool turned around, frowning. “I can’t remember. It doesn’t seem to me . . . Honestly, I don’t remember it being there at all.”

Why had Joe asked about Moe’s car? According to Chuck’s story, Moe’s car had never been at the house at all. Moe, presumably driven by Emma, had met his son someplace between their Indiana home and this house. Chuck had dropped Moe at the house, then gone out to get gas. When Chuck got back, he witnessed the struggle between his dad and Royal Hollis.

But Elk Elkouri claimed that Emma had been at the house. So did Hollis. Were they dragging Emma in as a distraction? Or had Emma really been there?

My heart began to pound. Emma Davidson might be able to tell the real, true story of what happened.

Then I told myself to calm down. If Emma told the real, true story, it might make things worse for Royal Hollis. I couldn’t allow myself—or Joe—or Royal Hollis—to hope.

I was still standing there in a mental fog when I heard the voice of a woman—a whiny voice.

“And what do we have here?”

Lorraine—bleached hair, brassy makeup, and all—was standing on the small back porch of the Davidson house. She called out, “Hi! Chuck told me I owe you an apology.”

“I don’t want to take Java over there,” Harry Vandercool said quietly. “It tends to cause trouble. I found out yesterday that Lorraine’s not exactly a dog lover.”

He waved at Lorraine in a pseudofriendly way, then turned around and went back down the path toward his own house.

Joe and I walked toward Lorraine, tramping through the snow. Unlike their neighbor, the Davidsons hadn’t cleared a path except quite close to the house. Joe and I walked over to the start of the path, then stopped.

Lorraine’s makeup was as vivid and inexpert as it had been at Clowning Around. She looked at Joe and spoke again. “Chuck says I was obnoxious the other day when you came in the store.”

“My appearance must have been quite unexpected,” Joe said. “If I’d known that you were there, I wouldn’t have come over. So maybe I owe you an apology, too. Shall we call it even?”

“Sure.” Lorraine waved her hand, and I saw that it held a glass. “Do you folks want to come in for a drink?”

“No, thanks,” Joe said. “I’ve got to finish talking to Mr. Vandercool and meet with some other witnesses.”

Lorraine’s eyes weren’t quite focused. “I know it’s not even noon yet,” she said, “but it’s so damn lonely out here. Since my mom died, I haven’t even wanted to see the place. This stupid
house always reeked of anger. At least Chuck and the old man aren’t both here to yammer at each other. And me.”

“Chuck didn’t get along with your dad?” Joe asked.

“They always fought about money. Now Chuck says we have to stay around until the house is officially on the market. And we have to try to get all that clown crap sold this week. We’ll never have a better chance than at the idiotic Clown Week.”

I decided to ignore that crack and jump into the conversation. “How is Emma doing?”

“The doctors are keeping her a couple more days.”

“As long as they’re being careful that clown doesn’t threaten her again.”

“If there really was a clown. They’ve called in a psychiatrist. That’ll mean more drugs.” Lorraine shrugged and waved her glass around. “Forget the drugs! What Emma needs is some of this stuff. That’d loosen her up.”

That seemed to end the conversation. Joe and I said good-bye and Lorraine assured us she’d tell Chuck we’d been by. She didn’t explain why he needed to know.

Then we went back to the Vandercool house. Mr. Vandercool and his little dog were standing on the porch.

“Why did Lorraine think she needed to apologize?” he asked.

“She and I had a little run-in the other day,” Joe said. “But you had some questions for Lee, didn’t you?”

For a moment I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about, but then I remembered that Mr. Vandercool had wanted to know about the chocolate business.

“Oh,” I said. “I haven’t reported on the state of chocolate in west Michigan, Mr. Vandercool. Did you have a specific question?”

We went back inside, and he asked a few questions. Who had closed? Who had added to their line? What stores had added staff? None of it was too complicated.

After we’d covered the subject pretty well Joe began to make motions as if he was ready to go. He thanked Mr. Vandercool effusively for his cooperation. Then, as he was sliding his arms into the sleeves of his jacket, he spoke very casually.

“Have you remembered anything more about Moe’s car, Mr. Vandercool?”

“Moe’s car? You mean on the day he was killed?”

“Yes. When we were over there, you said you weren’t sure Moe’s car had been in the drive. I guess it was the car Emma is currently driving—the one that’s over in the drive now.”

“Yes, that’s the car. A Toyota sedan.”

“Was it over at Moe’s house that day?”

“I don’t think it was.” Mr. Vandercool slowly shook his head. “No, now that I think of it, I’m sure there was only one car in the drive. I assumed that Chuck had driven his dad over, maybe come to help him close up. But, no! That can’t be right.”

“Why not?”

“Because—well, I thought I heard Moe yelling at Emma earlier.”

“Yelling at her? You mean calling her name?”

Mr. Vandercool looked so embarrassed, I thought he was going to blush. “I hate to sound like a nosy neighbor.”

Joe grinned. “Go ahead.”

“Moe had quite a mouth on him. He talked to Emma awfully rough sometimes. I could hear him. My wife wouldn’t have stood for it. Of course, sometimes Moe talked rough to other people, too. I guess he did it to everybody.”

“So did you hear him yelling at Emma
specifically
, or did you just assume it was Emma?”

“I guess I just assumed, now that you mention it.”

“But when you went over, she wasn’t there.”

Mr. Vandercool nodded, and we left. As soon as we were in the truck, I spoke. “And what is the story on the car? Do you think Elk was right? Emma was there that morning and cut out before the sheriff’s deputies got there? Could she have witnessed Moe’s death?”

“It’s possible, but I’m not counting on it. And an eyewitness account from her might do Royal more harm than good. But before we leave, I want to ask Lorraine another question.”

Joe parked his truck in the Davidsons’ drive and went to the door—the back door, since that had been the one Lorraine came out of to speak to us. I waited in the truck. In a moment the brassy blonde came to the door. She poked her head out, and she and Joe spoke for a few minutes. She didn’t yell at him.

Joe was still wearing his deadpan lawyer face when he got back in the truck.

“Did she know if Emma was there that morning?” I asked.

“I didn’t ask her that. I just wanted to know if Emma still wanted to talk to me. Lorraine said she doesn’t know.”

“I doubt it’s come up, with Emma in the hospital.”

“Whether she wants to talk to me or not, I sure want to talk to her.” Joe was silent as we drove back to our house so I could pick up my van.

As he stopped to let me out of the truck, I spoke again. “Will you have to get permission from Emma’s psychiatrist before you can talk to her?”

“It’s a weird situation. She hasn’t been committed, as far as
I know. She was trying to reach me before this suicide attempt happened. It might ease her mind if she finally could tell me whatever she wanted to tell. Or it might push her over the edge again.” Joe sighed. “I don’t know which way to jump. But for the rest of today, I have to jump on something entirely different.”

“What’s that?”

“Finances. My salary. The agency is facing a budget crisis.”

“I thought you faced that last fall.”

“We did. But this Royal Hollis business has complicated things. The Fox Foundation president heard about my appointment in the Hollis case, and he wants to know what I’m up to. Webb called me yesterday.”

Webb Bartlett is a close friend of Joe’s who serves as president of the board for the nonprofit legal association Joe works for. Webb serves as liaison with major donors, such as the Fox Foundation.

“The foundation board is meeting today, so Webb and I have to be available to answer questions.”

“You have to assure them you haven’t gotten the agency involved in a criminal case.”

“Yeah.” Like most people reared in west Michigan, Joe pronounces “yeah” as if it were a Dutch word. He went on. “And they need to know that I haven’t lost my mind. And as you know, I’m not too positive on that point, because I may definitely be crazy to have taken this case. Anyway, Webb and I have to be in Grand Rapids for their meeting.”

“Gosh! You need to hurry.”

“True. Their business meeting starts at two. I’ll probably have to turn my cell off most of the afternoon. I’ll call you when we’re on our way back.”

He gave me a quick kiss, and I got out of the truck and waved him off. Then I went in the house. I called the office to check in, assuring Dolly I
would
come in to work sometime that day. Then I made myself a sandwich and got a Diet Coke out of the refrigerator. I was ready to head back out the kitchen door when the telephone rang.

“Nuts,” I said. “I’m on my way. If I stop to answer the phone it’ll just hold up the parade.”

But the phone rang again, and I picked it up. “Hello?”

“Is Mr. Woodyard there?”

It was a little whispery voice. I could barely hear it.

Oh no! I thought. Here we go again.