The Chocolate Cupid Killings (15 page)

“I'm just not tactful enough to handle that one,” Joe said. “I doubt anyone is.”

The restaurant's door opened, and I looked up. “Maybe that guy is,” I said. “He's tact personified.”

Rhett the Butler had just walked in.

I waved, and he came over to the booth, his engaging grin flashing like a neon sign. I introduced him to Joe.

“I see we're all hitting the hot spot of Warner Pier tonight,” Rhett said.

I laughed. “Even in the summer Warner Pier is pretty short on hot spots. Are you giving the crew at the Dome Home pizza tonight?”

“I have the evening off. I set them up for dinner in a private room at Warner Pier's other hot spot.”

“The Sidewalk Café only serves lunch this time of the year, so you must mean Herrera's.”

“Yes. I understand there's also a good restaurant at the Warner Point Center, but it's closed up.”

“Yep. They shut down in February and March. Those are our two slowest months.” I gestured at the other side of the booth. “Please join us, Rhett.”

“Thanks, but I'm indulging in a luxury I don't often get. I called in an order to take back and eat in lonely splendor. I'd better check on it.”

Rhett went to the counter, spoke to the waitress, and pulled out a credit card. I raised my eyebrows at Joe. “Sorry. I know you don't want to know anything about Endicott and his bunch, but . . .”

“You can't be rude to a customer. And I can see this is an interesting guy.”

“He seems to know how to hit just the right balance between servility and sass.”

Rhett was back. He sat down opposite us. “He says it will be five minutes. Mr. Woodyard, Mrs. Herrera tells me you're Warner Pier city attorney.”

“One day a week. Mainly I restore antique powerboats. How'd you get into the butler business?”

“I was assistant manager of a hotel, and I have experience with food service. I heard about the job through the grapevine and applied.”

“I guess you knew the mysterious Patricia Youngman.”

“She hired me.” Rhett shrugged. “So, is Warner Pier so law-abiding that they only need a lawyer one day a week?”

“The city attorney doesn't have anything to do with law enforcement. My job is to make sure the city council doesn't do anything unconstitutional. Besides, the local belief is that the tourists and summer people bring all the crime with them.”

“Like that guy who was killed last night?”

“He actually
was
an out-of-towner. But, as I say, I have nothing to do with crime—commission or investigation.”

“Then you can't give me the inside information on his murder?”

“I don't even know if the State Police think it
was
murder. It could have been manslaughter. Or selfdefense.”

Rhett focused his attention on me. “I was surprised to hear you tell Mr. Ludlum you knew the victim.”

“We met for five minutes. Finding him wasn't fun.”

He raised his eyebrows and leaned over the table. “You're the one I should be asking for the inside scoop.”

“I haven't got it.”

“You didn't see any sinister strangers running down the alley? Any suspicious sports cars speeding away?”

“I didn't see a thing except my aunt standing over him too scared to fit her key into the back door lock. Let's talk about something happier.” I pasted on a smile. “How many boxes of chocolates do you want to order for tomorrow?”

Rhett raised his hands as if he were surrendering, spreading his fingers far apart. He'd taken his pinkie ring off. He looked at Joe. “She's always counting, isn't she?”

Joe had a mouth full of pizza, so he merely nodded. I answered. “I'm a number person. Sales figures, phone numbers, birthdays, license plates—I remember them. Some people have perfect pitch. I do numbers.”

Rhett laughed. “I'll tell Mrs. Herrera how many chocolates we need,” Rhett said. “And we will want more. The TenHuis Chocolades—am I saying it right?—went over really big.”

At that moment, something else big arrived. The waitress brought over a stack of boxes. There were two cardboard boxes I knew held eight-inch pizzas, plus two plastic boxes containing salads. Balanced one on top of another, they made a small tower.

Rhett jumped up. “Whoops! Better get on my way. Nice seeing you.” He was out the door like a whirlwind.

I waved good-bye. Then I turned to Joe. “Nice to know that Rhett has made a friend after only one day in Warner Pier.”

“A friend? He said he was having dinner in ‘lonely splendor.' ”

“Yes, but he ordered two eight-inch pizzas and two salads.”

“Maybe he's just hungry.”

We laughed and left it at that. I was a bit annoyed with Rhett. I had praised his tact to Joe, but the questions he had asked me—about the death of Derrick Valentine—had not been tactful. They'd been the kind of questions I'd expect from Greg Glossop. They'd left a bad taste in my mouth that my pizza wasn't covering up.

Joe and I were putting our coats on when the restaurant's door opened again, and a hulking figure came in. Of course, in February in Michigan everybody is wearing such heavy coats, hats, and scarves that most people appear hulking. But this guy was unusually tall, and he was wearing a gray down jacket with eye-catching yellow stripes.

Maybe I was unusually sensitive to hulking figures because of the big, ugly guy I'd seen talking to Joe and Hogan, then had run across again out at the Dome Home. The guy who hated Patricia Youngman so much that he cursed at the television set.

Potty Mouth had a big nose, as well as a shaved head. So I looked at the newcomer closely. The big guy coming in the door also had a big schnoz. My nerves jumped when I saw it. Then he pulled his hat off, and I realized it wasn't the same man. This one had hair. Not a lot of hair, but more than Potty Mouth could have sprouted since noon that day. I breathed a sigh of relief.

I put on my own hat and zipped up my jacket, and Joe and I left. We said a warm good-bye in the parking lot, and I promised not to be at the office too long.

Then—I admit it—I pulled a Greg Gossip. I drove by the Lake Michigan Inn before I went back to the office. I just wanted to see if Rhett's car was in the parking lot. And it was. A white Cadillac Escalade with an Illinois tag, the same one I'd seen parked at the Dome Home. Had Rhett managed to make a new friend in Warner Pier? Or had he imported a friend from Chicago?

I laughed, but then I noticed another car in the lot, a dark Buick sedan, also with an Illinois tag. It made me remember the two guys in city coats who had been in Hogan's office the night Derrick Valentine was killed.

Was that their car? Or did it belong to someone else? Were they staying at the Lake Michigan Inn? Somehow I hadn't had the feeling they'd be around that long. Who were they, anyway? Joe knew. Had he gone to the Lake Michigan Inn to see them? Why wouldn't he tell me?

My curiosity bump was itching furiously.

I drove to the shop, and I tried to put the whole thing out of my mind. Then, for the first time all day, I got to work. For about an hour I churned it out, concentrating on paying bills for TenHuis Chocolade.

I was still concentrating when someone knocked at the door.

After I'd gulped three times to get my heart out of my throat and back down into my chest, I decided to ignore the knock. After all, we weren't open for business.

Of course, it would be quite obvious to passersby that someone was there. Although shades covered our big show windows, I'd turned on the lights in the shop and in my office. Somehow I hadn't wanted any shadows. And those lights would be leaking around the edges of the window shades.

But my plan to refuse to open up went by the way when the person outside began to rattle the door handle.

What if the person at the door broke in?

My heart was back up in my mouth. The shop isn't exactly as secure as Fort Knox. Two years earlier, we'd been hit by a burglar who had simply kicked in the long glass panel in the front door and walked through. Since then we'd acquired an alarm system, but there was nothing to stop someone from getting in before the cops could respond.

Should I call the police? What would I tell them? A customer came to the door after hours, and I was too scared to even see who it was?

It might be someone I knew.

I took my cell phone from my purse and punched in 9-1-1. With my finger over the button that would send the call on its way, I went to the front door.

I turned on the outside lights. Then I yanked at the roller shade and sent it flying up to the top of the window. It made a clatter that made me jump. But I peered through the window, faking calm annoyance and holding my cell phone, with my finger ready to hit the call button, in plain view.

I yelled, “We're not open!”

Between the light from the shop and the streetlight two doors down, I could see the man standing there fairly clearly.

It was the hulking guy who had gone into the Dock Street Pizza Place as Joe and I were leaving.

He yelled back at me, “I need to talk to you!”

“Come back tomorrow!”

I pulled the blind back down. Then I waited, phone in hand, to see if he shattered the glass in the door.

He didn't. Instead, after a moment I heard footsteps crunching as he walked away. Car lights bounced off our windows, and I heard a car drive off.

I felt weak all over as I went back to my desk. Before I left for home, I vowed, I would call the police dispatcher and ask that the lone night shift patrolman be sent to stand by as I opened that door to dash for my van.

I considered the man at the door. What had he wanted? Why was he so eager to talk to someone at TenHuis Chocolade that he had come at nine o'clock at night, rather than waiting until we were open the next day?

Who was he?

A memory tickled my brain. I reached into the file folder I had assembled on Christina Meachum. I pulled out the picture of her husband, Harold Belcher. Belcher the Butcher.

It was only nine o'clock. I called Hogan.

After the usual sorry-to-bother-you remarks, I told him about the strange man who had come to the door.

“I feel stupid about this, Hogan, but I told you that I had looked Christina Meachum up on the Internet and found out she was the ex-wife of Harold Belcher.”

“Belcher the Butcher.”

“Right. I printed out a picture of Harold. It's several years old, of course, but looking at that picture—well, the guy at the door could have been him.”

Hogan didn't say anything.

I went on. “It definitely was not the guy you and Joe were talking to last night.”

“Why did you think of him?”

“Because if you described the two men, you'd use the same words. Big nose. Ugly. Bald. But the man who came to the door was not the same person. To begin with, he had hair around the edges of his scalp. He didn't shave his head all over, the way your guy does.”

Hogan gave a grunt. “Don't call him ‘my guy.' He's nothing to me but a pain in the neck. Are you going to be at the shop for a few more minutes?”

“I'm almost ready to leave. I admit I was thinking of calling Joe and asking him to drive down and escort me to my van.”

“Wait there. I need to talk to you. Then I'll follow you home.”

Hogan was at the door in less than ten minutes. He knocked and called out my name, and I let him in.

“I'm probably being silly,” I said. “Probably the guy was looking for directions, and mine was the only light he saw.”

“No. I'm glad you called. If there's a chance Harold Belcher is in town, I want to know about it. I already passed the word on to the State Police. Not that we can do anything.”

“Why not?”

“If what I read in the paper is right, Belcher is out on bond. As far as I know, he can go anywhere he wants to, at least in the state of Michigan, as long as he behaves himself. But if he's in my area, I'd prefer to keep an eye on him. I wanted to talk to you about something different.”

“Sure. Come in the office and sit down.” I led the way to my glassed-in room.

Hogan took off his jacket and hat and sat in the one visitor's chair. “It's Nettie. She's having some sort of nervous crisis, and she won't tell me what's wrong. So I'm asking you. What's going on with her?”

I think I kept from giving a guilty start, but I cleared my throat before I spoke. “She found a dead man in the alley last night. That might be preying on her mind.”

“No. She talks about that readily. It gives her the willies, but she's coping. This is something different, something she doesn't want to tell me.” Hogan gave me a long, level stare. “I thought you might know what it was.”