The Chocolate Cupid Killings (4 page)

I shrugged. Then I walked through the swinging gate that signaled that callers should halt by the reception desk, and I turned down the short hall leading to the little room where Joe has a desk.

The room was too small to be an office. It was more like a storage closet. It was strictly utilitarian—metal desk, tile floor, computer screen. Joe's desk was littered with papers, which meant he wasn't through working. He always filed things away and made neat stacks before he left.

There was no one in the tiny space, no Joe at the desk.

I tried the door that led to the city clerk's office and the other offices toward the front of the building. It was locked.

I went back into the police department. Where was Joe? If he had to leave, why hadn't he called me? If the police station had shut down for the day, why wasn't the door locked? Should I call Joe's cell phone?

The only closed door was the one to Hogan's office. Could Joe and Hogan be in there? But why? They were friends as well as shirttail relations, and they frequently talked, but I'd never known them to do it behind closed doors. And I wouldn't have expected them to leave the outer door of the police station open when the main office was empty.

I walked over to the door and listened. I heard the rumble of a voice, then an answer from a different voice. I couldn't make out the words, but there were definitely two guys in there.

I felt relieved. They must be having some sort of bull session.

I gave a perfunctory knock. Then I turned the handle and threw the door open. “So y'all are hiding in here! Don't you know it's time to go home?”

I was facing a completely strange man. He was tall and completely bald, with a face that looked as if he had lost a dozen bar fights. I'd never seen him before in my life.

Then I realized that Joe and Hogan were in the office, too. And so were two other strangers—city guys wearing dressy dark overcoats. They were big guys.

Five big men were packed into Hogan's minuscule office as tightly as I'd pack thirty-two Dutch caramel bonbons into a one-pound gift box.

I was gaping, and all five of the men were gaping wider than I was.

Three of us spoke at once. “I'm sorry!” I said.

“Oh, hell!” Joe said.

“Hi, Lee.” That was Hogan.

The strange men kept quiet, but Joe, Hogan, and I again began to talk at the same time.

I said, “I didn't know I was interpreting. I mean, interrupting!”

Joe said, “I forgot we were going to dinner at Mom's!”

Hogan said, “We're still tied up.”

The big ugly man turned his back on the rest of us and studied a hall tree in the corner of Hogan's office. If he was trying to be inconspicuous, it didn't work. There was nothing on that hall tree but a heavy and extremely unattractive navy blue jacket with WPPD in bright yellow letters on the front and back.

The two men in city clothes also ducked their heads as if they were trying to look inconspicuous. All I could see of them were neatly trimmed heads—one dark, one fair—and a set of extremely bushy eyebrows on the darker man.

I barely gave them a glance. The big ugly man's behavior was so odd that I couldn't help staring at him. “I'll wait at your desk, Joe,” I said.

I turned and stepped out of Hogan's office, closing the door. But it reopened immediately. Joe followed me out and closed the door behind him. Firmly. He took my arm.

“I'm sorry I interrupted,” I said. “I heard y'all talking . . .”

Joe was frowning. “Not your fault. I should have remembered you were coming and called to head you off.”

“Head me off?”

“Right. I can't leave. You'll have to give my excuses.”

“Give your excuses? But, Joe, this is
your
mom who called a big meeting of the clans. I'm just an in-law!”

“Sorry. But Hogan wants me to stay.”

I was dumbfounded. Joe's work as city attorney has nothing to do with crime. His main function is to look over city policies and ordinances to make sure they're legal. Hogan enforces the law, not Joe.

“Joe, what is going on?”

“Nothing, Lee. Hogan just wants me to sit in on a meeting.”

“I'll tell your mom you'll be late.”

“No! I don't think I'll be through here for—Well, it could be midnight.”

“Midnight!” If I sounded exasperated, it was only because I
was
exasperated. “You can't bow out on this family meeting. It's too important to your mom.”

Joe's face looked like thunder. “It's not because I'm not interested, Lee. You'll just have to represent us.”

Before I could marshal a new argument, he was moving me toward the outside door.

“Joe!” I protested, but he kept moving me along. “Joe, your mom is not going to like this!”

We were at the door, and Joe swung it open. “Sorry, Lee. I can't come.”

I was outside. The door closed behind me.

Then it abruptly opened again. About three inches. Joe spoke through the crack. “Don't tell anyone about this.” His voice made it an order.

Then the door slammed shut. I heard the lock click. I pressed my nose against the glass.

Joe closed the Venetian blind in my face.

If I'd been amazed when I walked in on the private meeting, that was nothing to the way I felt now. My husband had thrown me out. Into the dark.

I considered picking up a rock and tossing it at the window, but all the rocks were covered with snow.

Who the heck was the bald guy? He might be a criminal of some sort. He had the face for crime—beat-up and mean. He had the build for crime—husky and muscle-bound. He also seemed about as dumb as most criminals are. Staring at Hogan's uniform jacket was about the stupidest move I'd ever seen.

And who were the guys in city clothes? Why had they ducked their heads?

I stared at the cars in the visitor spots. It was easy to match them with the visitors inside Hogan's office. The flashy SUV went with the ugly fellow, and the nondescript Buick with the guys in city coats. Both vehicles, I noted, had Illinois tags.

I considered throwing a rock at one of the cars, too, but instead I stomped all the way back to the shop, getting angrier with each stomp. I was completely oblivious to what was going on around me. If there had been any traffic in downtown Warner Pier at six thirty on a February evening, I might have walked in front of a truck. Luckily, the only vehicle that passed was some supersized SUV. I stepped right in front of it, but the monster paused to give me the right of way.

I could simply have murdered Joe. His mother didn't want
me
at this big family meeting. In-laws were invited as a courtesy. Mercy and Mike wanted to talk to Joe and Tony, their sons.

How could Joe do this to me? How could he do it to his mother?

But Joe understood the whole situation, I reminded myself. If he couldn't leave the meeting in Hogan's office, it must be something important. But what was more important than his mother's plans for her life?

I was still mad when I got into my van. I slammed the door so hard I nearly broke the window out. I turned on the ignition and gunned the motor loudly. I shot out of my parking place.

What was I going to tell Mercy?

When I got to the corner I turned toward Dock Street, the most direct route to Mercy's house. I automatically checked out the spot where the Georgia vehicle had been parked. At least that car had moved.

As I went by the end of our alley, I glanced down it, toward the shop. And there, under the light over our back door, I saw Aunt Nettie's blue Buick.

Oh, yikes! Aunt Nettie was back at the shop. Was something wrong?

I decided I'd better check. I threw on my brakes, backed up ten feet, then turned into the alley. I drove slowly. Aunt Nettie's car was square in my headlights.

And so, I realized, was Aunt Nettie herself. She was at the back door of the shop, fumbling with the door. As I watched she shoved at it frantically. But it didn't open.

I stopped about twenty feet away, opened my door, and stepped out.

“Aunt Nettie? What's up?”

“Lee!”

“Yes, it's me. Did I frighten you?”

“I hardly know.”

Aunt Nettie was squinting in the headlights, and I saw that she was holding something. A bottle. She had it by the neck, and she was holding it upside down, almost as if she was ready to use it as a club.

“I was just checking to see if anything was wrong,” I said.

Aunt Nettie made a sound I can only describe as a hysterical giggle. “Wrong?” She giggled again. “Oh, what could be wrong?”

“Well, you're standing there holding that bottle as if you're ready to attack.”

“It's too late for an attack.” Aunt Nettie used the bottle to point with. “Look!”

I followed the line of the bottle. There, wedged between our Dumpster and the wall, was a lump. A large lump.

And it was a lump outlined with what looked like polyester fur.

I edged toward the mass. It was a person. A man was lying on the icy asphalt of our alley.

My nerves jumped all over. “Oh, no! I'll call an ambulance!”

“I think he's beyond an ambulance,” Aunt Nettie said. “I think he's dead.”

I ran back to the van, grabbed my cell phone, and called 9-1-1. Aunt Nettie stood silently as I told the dispatcher about finding the man in the alley. She said she'd have the Warner Pier patrol car there within minutes.

“Please page Chief Jones,” I said. “He'll want to know. His wife found the man.”

“Do you recognize him?” she asked.

“Recognize him?” I repeated the words. “I haven't looked that closely.”

Aunt Nettie spoke then. “It's that detective,” she said. “That one who came looking for Pamela.”

Then she dropped the bottle. It shattered into big shards of glass.

I almost dropped the cell phone. “Derrick Valentine?”

“I didn't know his name.”

I went over to the figure on the ground. The man was stuffed behind the trash container. I remember thinking that it would have taken a strong person to get him into the tight space. Then I realized the Dumpster was on wheels. It would have been simple to shove him against the wall, then move the Dumpster in front of him. Well, fairly easy. The Dumpster was pretty full, but it wasn't an especially large Dumpster, and most of our trash is cardboard and plastic.

Aunt Nettie stood there shaking, and I stayed on the line with the dispatcher until the patrol car came. Within seconds Hogan showed up, too. Joe was with him.

When Hogan arrived, Aunt Nettie began to sniffle and her story tumbled out. After she got home from work, Hogan had called to tell her he wouldn't be in until quite late. So she decided to go back to the shop and mix some Amaretto filling.

“Lee got us a new bottle of Amaretto this afternoon,” she said, her voice breaking. “I thought I'd make some so the ladies could get started on a new batch of truffles first thing in the morning.”

Aunt Nettie had eaten a quick supper, then driven to the shop and parked in her regular spot, under the big light over our alley door.

The first sign that something wasn't right came as she walked up to the door and almost stepped on an empty bottle. Since Aunt Nettie is naturally neat, even in an alley, she picked it up.

“It was the empty Amaretto bottle we had thrown out this afternoon! I couldn't see how it got out of the trash. So I started to put it back.”

That was when she saw the man behind the Dumpster.

She had first thought he was drunk and passed out, as I had thought, but when she looked more closely she saw blood. Then she saw the odd polyester fur around his hood, and she got a glimpse of his face. She recognized him as the man who had been in the shop that afternoon.

Aunt Nettie doesn't carry a cell phone. She tried to get into the shop to call the police, but she was so upset she hadn't been able to get her key in the lock. She had still been fumbling when I drove up.

Hogan was hugging her. “You didn't know the guy's name?”

“Lee talked to him. She said he was a private detective. He was looking for someone.” She pulled away from Hogan and looked at me. The floodlights the patrolman was setting up reflected in her eyes, making them look like red spotlights, and for a moment she looked like a madwoman.

“But we didn't know anything”
—
she repeated the word—“
anything
about that woman.”

She had given me my instructions. I wasn't to mention Pamela.