The Chocolate Castle Clue (9 page)

“True. But I'm afraid all the girls' mothers told them to stay away from me.”

“A warning from a mother tends to make guys even more attractive.”

“Not in my case!” He turned away. “Hey, Nettie! Do you remember the night I bought the sparkling grape juice and told you girls it was champagne?”

“Oh, yes, I remember.” Aunt Nettie's voice didn't sound amused.

Charlie laughed. “If Shep hadn't been such a gentleman, I might have gotten all six of you drunk.”

“Hush, Charlie,” Aunt Nettie said. “Lee isn't interested in all those old pranks.”

Actually, I was quite interested in them. Taking a look at my rather prim Aunt Nettie as a high schooler—a girl so innocent she couldn't tell sparkling grape juice from champagne—was quite interesting.

But Aunt Nettie didn't look amused. “Lee,” she said, “would you do me a favor? Run back to my bedroom and bring me my white sweater. It's in the closet.”

“Sure.” Was I being headed off? I couldn't imagine that Aunt Nettie had actually taken part in anything improper, even when she was seventeen.

But at that moment she certainly had a better idea than I did about what was going on with the Pier-O-Ettes and their gentlemen callers, Shep and Charlie. If she wanted to change the subject, I would follow her lead.

So I obediently went down the hall to the master bedroom. I wasn't too surprised to find the door closed, since Aunt Nettie probably wouldn't have yet had time to neaten it up.

I expected the room to be empty, but as a precaution I knocked. No one responded, so I opened the door and went in. I went to the closet and pushed back the louvered door.

And I found myself face-to-face with Kathy Street.

I gave a huge gasp.

All I could think was that I must not startle Kathy. I certainly didn't want her to shriek the way she had the day before. So I'm sure that my face showed all the surprise I felt, but I managed not to yelp out loud, and I hoped Kathy would keep quiet, too.

When I did speak, I tried to keep my voice calm. “You caught me by surprise, Ms. Street. Are you avoiding Charlie and Shep?”

She nodded timidly.

“They seem pretty harmless. But there's no reason you can't wait in here until they're gone.”

Kathy Street spoke in a whisper. “Charlie?”

“Good-Time Charlie, the car salesman? Yes, he's here. Is he the one you don't want to see?”

“I don't want to see either of them.”

“That's up to you.” I gave what I hoped was a bright and cheerful smile. “Aunt Nettie sent me to get her white sweater. It's someplace in that closet. If you could sit on the bed for a minute, I'll find it.”

“Close the door. Please.” Her voice was barely audible.

“Sure.” I closed the bedroom door, and Kathy Street came out of the closet and obediently sat on the edge of the bed. She hadn't dressed yet. She wore a cotton housecoat printed with little pink flowers. House slippers were on her feet.

I began to search through the closet. I hummed as I did this, probably because I was nervous, but I don't know what made me pick an old folk song to hum.

I had just found the white sweater when Kathy Street began to sing along with my humming.

“Black is the color of my true love's hair,” she sang.

She sang so quietly it would have been hard for anyone outside the room to hear her. And she sang without any—well, commotion. She just opened her mouth and this beautiful sound poured out. There was nothing fancy about it; no vibrato, no embellishments. The sound was pure and simple and lovely. It was as if I'd been walking through a meadow, and a passing shepherdess suddenly began to sing to her sheep.

Clutching the sweater, I sank onto a padded stool in front of Aunt Nettie's dressing table, and I listened until Kathy Street came to the end of the song.

When she finished, I leaned forward. “That was wonderful ! Thank you for showing me how lovely that song can be.”

She smiled shyly. “I've always liked it.”

“I can tell that you do.”

“Nettie said you used to sing.”

“Not like you do! You have a wonderful voice.” I stood up, ready to return to the living room.

But before I could say good-bye, the bedroom door swung open. Kathy Street gave a little “Oh!” that sounded afraid, and her sister came into the room.

“There you are, Kathy! I've been looking all over for you.”

“Nettie's niece says it's all right for me to be in here.”

Margo Street sent me a flash of anger, but only a flash. She didn't have any time for me. Her concentration was on Kathy.

“Shep Stone and Charlie McCoy have dropped by. You'll have to come out and speak to them.”

“No. Please.”

“Yes, Kathy. It will look odd if you don't.”

“No, Margo. No.” Kathy's lower lip pouted. She ducked her head and looked up at her sister like a three-year-old.

Margo sighed. “I really think that you should make an effort, Kathy. You don't have to carry on a conversation. Just say hello.”

“Please don't make me.”

I wanted to leave, but Margo Street was standing in the bedroom doorway, and I couldn't get to it without asking her to move. And she was ignoring me.

But Kathy wasn't ignoring me. She pointed at me. “She said I didn't have to talk to them.”

Margo turned her full attention on me, shining a spotlight of anger in my direction.

“Oh, really? Lee—isn't that your name? When did you become my sister's adviser?”

“I think you're misunderstanding the situation, Ms. Street.”

“Oh? Just what am I misunderstanding?”

I took a deep breath. “When I found your sister here in Aunt Nettie's bedroom, I assured her that Aunt Nettie wouldn't mind her being here. And I'm sure that is blue. I mean, true!”

Darn! She'd made me nervous, and I'd gotten my tongue tangled. I tried to pretend it hadn't happened, and I plunged on.

“Kathy said she didn't want to see Shep and Charlie. Of course, since she's a grown woman, that's her pergola. Her prerogative! That's all I told her.”

Margo Street's voice was like ice. “But not seeing them would be most unwise.”

“You may be right. But as a general rule, if grown-up people don't want to associate with some particular person, we don't have to.”

“But avoiding them may make her look foolish.”

“I don't know about that.” I clutched the white sweater.

“And now I should take Aunt Nettie her sweater.”

For a moment I thought I was going to have to shove Margo Street out of the way, but when I walked toward her, she moved aside and let me out the door.

I went out feeling relieved to escape—I didn't want to be caught up in a quarrel between the two sisters—but I also felt mystified. I didn't understand the Street sisters' relationship at all.

Was Kathy mentally deficient in some way? Or just nervous ? Or—maybe—spoiled?

The day before, she had shrieked at the sight of the trophy won by the Pier-O-Ettes forty-odd years ago. Why?

Yesterday Aunt Nettie had refused to allow Shep Stone to enter her house, using Kathy as her reason. Why?

Now Kathy was hiding—actually hiding in a closet—to avoid Shep and Charlie. Why?

And her sister Margo was insisting that she come out and see Charlie and Shep. Why?

I stopped in the hall and took several deep breaths. Margo Street had closed the bedroom door behind me, but it hadn't caught just right, and I could hear her voice.

“Come, Kathy, you'd better get some clothes on.”

“I don't want to, Margo!”

“You'll feel better if you do, Kathy. You don't want to call attention to yourself by being the only Pier-O-Ette who doesn't talk to Shep and Charlie.”

“Are you sure that I should?”

“Yes, sweetie. Come on, and we'll find your clothes. You can wear your pretty blue outfit.”

I dashed on down the hall before they caught me eavesdropping. But the situation was mystifying.

I went back into the living room and handed Aunt Nettie her sweater, resolving to find an excuse to get her alone and try to get some answers to my questions.

The chair I'd been sitting in earlier was now occupied by Ruby Westfield, and Ruby was giving Shep her full concentration. The pheromones, or whatever her attraction was, were broadcasting like mad, and they were aimed at him.

I found that interesting. Some people in Warner Pier believed Ruby was a gold digger, but if she had been interested in money, I would have expected her to go for Charlie rather than Shep. After all, Charlie was a successful used-car dealer, and Shep was a retired photographer. Shep, of course, was much more attractive than Charlie. And I knew very little about the financial side of photography. Shep might well be loaded.

As Ruby talked, Shep raised his camera and snapped several pictures of her. I found another chair, sat quietly, and listened while Ruby gave Shep the treatment. It was easy for me to do this; when Ruby was around, no other woman got any masculine attention.

However, it was soon obvious that, while Ruby might be concentrating on Shep, Charlie was determined not to be ignored. The two men were vying for her attention.

Charlie was trotting out his ghastly puns. “You heard about the guy from Indiana who applied for a job in a grocery store,” he said. “But he didn't get it. The manager said, ‘Bag-gers can't be Hoosiers.' ”

I rolled my eyes, but Ruby smiled. “You always had a lot of jokes, Charlie. Shep was always more serious. Quiet. We all thought he was mysterious.”

“I just didn't have anything to say,” Shep said. “As the old saying goes, it's better to shut up and let people think you're stupid than to speak up and remove all doubt.”

“We were all stupid back then,” Ruby said. “Remember how we teased poor Mr. Rice? We probably nearly ruined his marriage.”

“His marriage wasn't much anyway,” Shep said. “Mrs. Rice was a real pain, and he knew it.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Dan would have loosened the Castle up, made it more attractive to the younger crowd. At least he could have hired rock musicians. It was Verna Rice who kept harping on ‘family-oriented' entertainment. I always thought she was the reason the place went under.”

“She was the most unpopular teacher at WPHS,” Ruby said. “I had her for typing and for bookkeeping.”

Charlie's eyes narrowed. “Were you girls responsible for the hang-up phone calls that Verna Rice complained about?”

Ruby and Aunt Nettie looked at each other. Both smiled, and Aunt Nettie spoke. “What phone calls?” Her voice was unbelievably innocent.

“We were pretty rotten kids,” Ruby said. “I wonder if the calls started after graduation.”

Shep grinned. “I gather that Verna Rice has been known as the biggest oddball in Warner Pier for years. But there was nothing new about that. She was already peculiar forty-five years ago. And believe me, Dan Rice knew it. They were definitely not the happiest couple I ever knew.”

I found that interesting. According to Joe, Mrs. Rice had spent more than forty years devoted to her husband's memory and working to prove he didn't kill himself. Yet Aunt Nettie, Ruby, and Shep all felt that her marriage hadn't been happy. Had Mrs. Rice been acting out of love for her husband ? Or out of guilt?

Ruby again became the center of the conversation, and I seized the moment to speak to Aunt Nettie. “I think there's a problem in the kitchen. May I take you away for a moment?”

She nodded—she may have looked slightly relieved—and the two of us left the room.

She spoke as soon as we were out of the room. “What's wrong in the kitchen?”

“Nothing that I know of. I lied. I just wanted to talk to you. Where can we go?”

“The kitchen ought to be empty.” She led the way in that direction.

But the kitchen wasn't empty. Hazel was there. She was cleaning the stove top, industriously scrubbing it down with spray cleaner.

“Hazel!” Aunt Nettie sounded annoyed. “What are you doing?”

Hazel jumped guiltily. “Just neatening up a little.”

“I tried to plan meals that didn't need any work.”

I saw a tray on the kitchen counter. It held a half dozen cinnamon rolls but had obviously held more of them earlier. Beside it were two pitchers, one filled with orange juice and the other with tomato. A thirty-cup coffeepot—I recognized it from the TenHuis Chocolade break room—was plugged in and giving off a nice aroma. Paper plates, coffee mugs, and juice glasses completed the picture of a serve-yourself continental breakfast.