The Chocolate Castle Clue (23 page)

“Everywhere. Grand Rapids, Detroit, Chicago—you could buy stuff anywhere.”

“Joe says the Warner Pier City Council of that day tried to crack down.”

“He's right. They did. But there was always a guy wearing a psychedelic shirt sitting over there by the drugstore with a ready supply.”

“Right on Peach Street?”

“Yes, sirree. And there was another guy who worked at Warner Pier Beach.”

“Were drugs a problem at the Castle?”

Charlie sounded suspicious. “What do you mean?”

“A problem for the bouncers. You and Shep said the Rices tried to keep the hippie element out, and the two of you were supposed to be keeping order.”

“Oh. The Castle didn't appeal to the drug crowd. That's why it was losing money, I guess. That and Mrs. Rice.”

“Was she involved in managing the Castle?”

“No.” Charlie laughed. “She was too good to work in a dance hall. Or that was what she handed out. If she had been involved, she and Dan probably would have made money. At least they would have kept it. She was the type who never lets go of a penny. But she stayed away from the operations of the place, except to make sure Dan wasn't chasing the help.”

“Then how could she have had anything to do with the Castle's downward financial slide?”

“She insisted that Dan hire musicians who were old-fashioned. She encouraged him to go with the ‘family-fun' theme. But families had stopped going to places like the Castle. She needed to cater to young people.”

“Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll? The way you described the era at lunch yesterday?”

Charlie laughed. “If she and Dan had turned the Castle into a disco—well, it sounds old-fashioned now, but at the time . . .”

“It might have saved the day?”

“Some people made big money then.” Charlie moved toward his car. “I didn't mean to chew your ear off talking about the bad old days. I was just going to say I'm sorry you had that scary experience.”

“How did you know I'd be here?”

“Your home phone is in the directory. No one was there, so I tried Joe's shop. He said you were working down here this afternoon.”

I assured Charlie I appreciated his dropping by, then watched as he climbed into his beautiful Corvette, gunned the engine loudly, and drove off with a roar.

I spoke aloud. “And what,” I said, “was that all about?” Yes, I wondered, why had Charlie McCoy come by? He said he came to express sympathy for my scary experience, but there was no reason that he needed to do that. I barely knew him. If Aunt Nettie or Joe's mom or my best friend, Lindy, called to check or came by with a shoulder for me to cry on, it would be because they loved me and really cared. But Charlie McCoy was practically a stranger to me. I certainly wasn't about to confide in him, and he obviously hadn't expected me to pour out my heart.

In fact, he hadn't even asked any questions. And that was odd, too. If something like a man hiding in the backseat of your car happens, and strangers talk about it, it usually means they want more details than they're entitled to know.

And speaking of details, I suddenly had a question for Aunt Nettie. As soon as I was in my office, I picked up the phone and punched in her number. It was answered on the first ring, but the person on the line wasn't Aunt Nettie. It was Margo Street.

Aunt Nettie, she said, wasn't available.

“Oh.” I said. “I'll call back.”

Margo sounded exasperated. “I suppose Nettie told you we all have to meet with that Lieutenant Jackson again tomorrow morning.”

My question answered. “I forgot to ask her. But I was wondering if you all had worked that out.”

Again I wondered whom Margo had called from the stadium, and why she'd left during the game. But I didn't have the courage to ask her.

She was speaking once more. “I suppose we have to talk to him, but I still don't see how our harmless little omissions could impede a murder investigation.”

“Joe thinks—”

“Oh, I know what Joe thinks, but I assure you there were plenty of reasons that someone might have wanted to kill Mrs. Rice—and for her own sins, behavior that had nothing to do with her husband's death.”

“I know she was irritating.”

“Irritating! People can stand irritating. She was crooked!”

“Crooked? I hadn't heard that.”

“I'm not making it up. The old bat tried to blackmail me!”

Blackmail? Mrs. Rice had tried to blackmail Margo?

I admit that the first thing that went through my mind was that Mrs. Rice had had more nerve than I had. I wouldn't have blackmailed Margo if I'd found her standing over a murder victim with a smoking gun and she'd been begging me to take the hush money.

Luckily, I didn't blurt that out. But I did blurt out the second thing that popped into my mind.

“You didn't pay her!”

“Certainly not! As somebody or other said, I told her to publish and be damned!”

“Good for you!”

I blurted that out, too, but apparently it was the right thing to say. Anyway, Margo replied smugly. “It's the only way to deal with people like that.”

“If you have the nerve.”

“And if you don't have too much to lose. Aren't you going to ask me what she tried to blackmail me about?”

“I suppose you'll tell me if you want me to know.”

“You already know. Nettie said she told you the whole story.”

“About how the Pier-O-Ettes got even with Dan Rice?”

“Yes.”

“How did Mrs. Rice find out what had happened?”

“I have no idea. Maybe that creep Phin told her before he left town.”

“Dan Rice deserved what you gals gave him. My only qualm is—can you be sure it didn't have anything to do with his death?”

“Not unless Mrs. Rice found out that night and got so mad over the whole thing that she shot him. And if she did, I'm not going to feel guilty. If she was going to shoot him, she would have found a different excuse another time.”

I approached the next question cautiously, using my least confrontational voice.

“If Mrs. Rice killed her husband, then who killed her?”

“I don't know! And I don't really care.”

“Joe thinks the same person must be . . . involved.”

“I know, I know. But forty-five years separated the two crimes—if Dan Rice's death was a crime. I think they are two unconnected events.”

I didn't reply, but I had to admit her opinion sounded logical. Of course, Joe's sounded logical, too.

While Margo was in a confiding mood, I decided to try one more question.

“Ms. Street,” I said, “why did the mere sight of the Pier-O-Ettes' trophy upset your sister?”

“I can't answer that,” she said. And she hung up.

She hadn't said she didn't know. She had said she couldn't tell me. The question I'd just asked Margo—why did the trophy upset Kathy?—was the one I'd started with two days earlier. And I still had no answer.

There were a lot of questions I couldn't answer.

Who invited Shep to the reunion? And why?

Who was the guy on the motor scooter?

Was he the killer of Mrs. Rice?

Where did he go?

Had I really—as Joe thought—uncovered something about him, something that made me a threat? Something that would make him want to kill me?

But I didn't know anything! It seemed to me I'd asked a million questions, and I knew nothing.

I decided to go home. I wasn't accomplishing anything at the office, so I might as well stop occupying space. I got out my purse and car keys in a mood I admit was pretty close to a huff.

But Margo's comments had turned my thoughts in a different direction. Before I headed for the door, I considered Mrs. Rice.

Where did she come from? How did she meet Dan Rice? Why had she spent forty-plus years devoted to his memory, although people who had known them as a couple said they had been quarrelsome and contemptuous of each other?

Why had Mrs. Rice become a teacher, when her former students had universally said she was unhappy and miserable in the role? And if she had resigned as a teacher after Dan's death, what had she lived on during the many years since his demise? No one had mentioned her holding a job.

Hmmm. It was easy to check a few of these things. Joe's mom had known her when Joe was growing up, known her well enough that she made Joe mow her lawn. Mercy must know something about her. Still sitting with my purse in my lap and my car keys in one hand, I picked up my phone and punched the speed-dial button for Mercy's office. Luckily she was still there.

“Just a quick question,” I said. “All these years that Mrs. Rice spent fighting for her insurance settlement—how did she live? I mean, if she didn't get the insurance money, how did she support herself?”

“I don't know for sure, Lee, but apparently she inherited quite of bit of money from her parents.”

“Who were her parents?”

“I don't know that either. She was from over around Alma.”

“So she wasn't a Warner Pier native?”

“No, I'm sure she came here when she married Dan Rice. And if there was any possibility of an inheritance from him, she squandered it on legal battles. Of course, she made money renting out her house.”

“She used her house as a summer rental?”

“Oh, yes. That's why she wanted Joe to mow her lawn. In fact, it was a sort of odd situation.”

“How odd?”

“Extremely odd. For several years back then, every spring she would come over and tell me she needed Joe to mow her lawn. She said she was going away to stay with relatives and renting the house out for the summer. And the house was really a problem to the neighborhood. Lots of wild parties.”

“In
your
neighborhood?”

“Her renters seemed to be single guys. And they didn't come for the beach or the boating. It was party time several nights a week. One year there was even nude sunbathing in the backyard.”

“Was a Warner Pier Realtor handling the house?”

“None of them ever admitted it. And one year it got so bad I tried to find out.”

“Did you complain to Mrs. Rice?”

“Yes, but the situation didn't change. She just said that the renter had a lease, and she couldn't control his behavior.”

“Seems as if the lease would have some provision that would have given her some control.”

“It should have. The whole situation was really odd. Mrs. Rice was so very prim and proper, yet she rented her house to these—well, unprim and improper people.”