The Chocolate Cupid Killings (8 page)

I put on my flannel nightgown—that doesn't sound sexy, but Joe says it's soft and cuddly when it's on, and he knows how to take it off. Then I kissed Joe on the forehead—he was already asleep—and crawled into bed. The sight of the bloody polyester fur on Derrick Valentine's jacket swam briefly into my memory. I heard Pamela's step upstairs. Then I sank into sleep. It was going to take more than a slamming door to wake me up.

It took the telephone. Or maybe it was Joe's convulsive kick after it rang. Anyway, it sounded off, and we were both fighting to wake up by the second ring.

“What time is it?” Joe didn't sound happy.

“It's three thirty. It's got to be a wrong number.”

The phone is on my side of the bed. When I answered I'm sure my “Hello” sounded as if it was echoing out of a cavern.

The voice in the phone was just above a whisper. “Lee Woodyard?”

I didn't recognize the caller. “Yes?”

“This is Myrl.”

“Um?”

“I'm Sarajane's friend.”

I think there was a long silence before her words sank in. “Sarajane?” Suddenly I woke up. This must be Sarajane's contact with the underground railroad.

I was careful to speak cautiously. “Yes?”

“Is your husband in the room with you?”

“Yes.”

“Sarajane said she brought Pamela to you a few hours ago.”

“Yes.”

“I've come to pick her up.”

I sat up. “Yes?”

“I'm at the Warner River bridge. How long will it take to get to your house?”

“Five minutes.”

“Please get Pamela up. Do you think we can get her out without waking your husband up?”

“I can try. Do you know how to find the house?”

“I have a GPS.” The line went dead.

I got out of bed.

Joe raised his head. “What is it?”

“It's Pamela. One of her friends has come to pick her up.”

“I still think she should go to the shelter.”

“I'll suggest that. Go back to sleep.”

Joe obeyed. I put on my slippers and robe and headed upstairs.

When I knocked on Pamela's door she spoke so quickly that I figured she'd been awakened by the phone. There was an extension upstairs, but it was across the hall from her room.

Her voice was soft. “Lee?”

I opened the door a crack and told her about Myrl's call. “So you've got five minutes,” I said.

Pamela gave such a deep sigh that I pushed the door open a bit more. She'd turned the bedside light on. “Are you okay?”

She yanked the covers over her head. All I could see of her were her eyes. They looked like a stranger's eyes. Lighter and a different shape. I realized I hadn't seen her without eye makeup before.

“Yes, I'm okay,” she said. “I'm just not sure I'm up to another challenge.”

“Do you know Myrl?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Are you willing to go with her?”

“I guess I have to.” She sounded regretful.

“Ready or not . . .”

“I'm afraid so.”

I expected Pamela to toss the covers back, but she lay there without moving. I closed the door and started for the stairs, a bit surprised at her slow reaction. Maybe she was sleeping in the nude and didn't want to jump out of bed in front of me.

As I went into the kitchen and turned on the back porch and driveway lights, I heard movement upstairs, so I decided that Pamela was up.

The mysterious Myrl didn't get to the house in five minutes, but she made it inside of ten. She followed the clues of the lights, following the drive around the house and parking beside Joe's truck. By the time she came up the walk to the back door, Pamela was coming down the stairs. I opened the door.

Myrl was a raw-boned woman, nearly as tall as I am, with dark hair chopped short. She wore a heavy jacket and furry earmuffs. Her step was firm. She didn't look like the kind of woman who would take any guff, from an abusive husband or anybody else. If Pamela had had previous contact with Myrl, I could see why Pamela was ready to obey her summons.

“Hi, Myrl,” I said. “Can I make some coffee for y'all to take with you?”

“Thanks, but I've got a thermos in the car.” She stood awkwardly just inside the back door. “I hope Pamela doesn't have a bunch of stuff.”

Pamela's voice answered. “I just have one duffel bag and a tote.” She came into the kitchen. I was surprised to see that in spite of the short notice she had had, Pamela had found time to put on her eye makeup.

She walked up to Myrl. “I'm ready.” Her voice was almost challenging.

Myrl gave a gasp so loud that I jumped. Pamela didn't jump, though. She stared at Myrl with eyes like obsidian.

I didn't understand that gasp. “Myrl? What's wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing.” Now Myrl sounded amused. “Well, Pamela, are you ready to go? May I carry your bag for you?” She was almost laughing.

I didn't understand Myrl's reaction—first surprise, and then amusement—but I knew there was one thing I needed to make sure of. “So Sarajane knows how to get hold of you?”

“Oh, sure. But since nobody is staying at her place, she'll have no reason to call me.”

“Unless the police need to question Pamela.”

Myrl stopped halfway through the back door. “The police? Why would the police need to question Pamela?”

“Because that private detective who was looking for her was found dead.”

“What!”

“Didn't Sarajane tell you?”

“No, she did not. All she said was that he'd come looking for Pamela, and that later Pamela had received a threatening phone call.”

She glared at Pamela.

“Listen,” Pamela said. “I don't know anything about the guy. Nothing about why he came looking for me. Nothing about how he wound up dead.”

Myrl seemed to be turning the situation over in her mind. She stood staring at Pamela for at least thirty seconds. Then she abruptly turned toward her car. “There's no point in keeping Lee standing out here in the cold.” Again her voice took a slightly sarcastic tone. “Come on, Pamela.”

The two of them headed down the walk. And out of my life. Or so I hoped.

But they took their time getting into the car. I heard the car's trunk pop, and I saw its light go on. Then the two of them stood there, yammering at each other. I couldn't make out the words, but I could hear their voices. And they were both angry.

Oh, golly, I thought, is Pamela going to get mad and march back in?

As I stood there staring through the storm door, the argument seemed to last five or ten minutes. Actually, it was probably only two or three minutes before I saw the light from the trunk go out and heard its lid slam. Then the two of them got into the car. The car started, the motor ran the thirty seconds it takes to fasten seat belts, and then the car backed out.

Eager to be sure that they'd actually left, I went into the living room to watch them go down our lane. The car drove slowly past our front porch and out onto Lake Shore Drive. When Myrl put on her brakes and stopped to look both ways, I could even see the license plate. It was a Michigan plate, but I didn't notice the letters, because I'm a number person. The numbers were 812.

The car turned left onto Lake Shore Drive. Pamela and her problems were gone from my life.

I relocked the back door, turned out the outside lights, and crawled back into bed. Joe didn't stir. And neither did I until the phone rang again.

This time the clock read seven thirty. I growled before I answered, “Hello.”

“Lee!”

This was someone I recognized. “Sarajane? What's wrong?”

“How did you know something's wrong?”

“Your voice. I recognize that worried sound.”

“I hope nothing's wrong. Did Pamela and Myrl get off?”

“Yes. I watched them until they turned onto Lake Shore Drive.”

“When was that?”

“Sometime around four a.m., I guess. Why?”

“They were supposed to drive over to Kalamazoo.” Kalamazoo was about an hour away from us.

“Supposed to?” I sat up. “What happened?”

“We don't know! They never got there!”

“We've got to call the police,”I said. “No! No!”

“Listen, Sarajane, if they've disappeared . . .”

“Lee, I can't believe anything has happened to them. Myrl is so—so competent.”

“She seemed that way in the five minutes I talked to her. But someone needs to be looking for them.”

“Believe me, Lee, someone is. Please don't do anything until I call back.”

The line clicked dead. I got out of bed and headed for the shower. The phone call had roused me quicker than any alarm clock could.

After my shower I had time to go upstairs and strip Pamela's bed before I went to work. She hadn't been there long enough to get the room dirty, of course, and she'd seemed to have cleared everything out. The only item she had left behind was an odd one, however. As I yanked the sheets off the bed, a ring clunked onto the wooden floor. It was a class ring, a man's gold ring with a blue stone, and it was hanging on a chain. It looked for all the world like a high school going-steady ring.

I looked at it closely. The graduation date was twenty years earlier—which meshed with my idea of Pamela's age. The school initials were “FSC.” A stylized cat's head was superimposed on the stone. The cat was snarling.

Maybe it was a college ring. Something State College? Pamela was supposedly from Ann Arbor. It certainly wasn't a University of Michigan ring.

I took the ring downstairs and put it in the pottery vase on the mantel—the place we reserve for useless junk. I didn't really expect to hear from Pamela again, but if I did, I could mail her the ring.

When I got to work our alley was blocked off with crime scene tape, so Aunt Nettie and I both parked in front of the shop. We got there at almost the same time. Hogan, she said, had come home just before she left and was now trying to get some sleep. And, yes, Sarajane had called her to say Myrl and Pamela were missing.

“I told her we need to report this to the police,” I said, “but she says no.”

“I think you're right. Now that I don't have to worry about bothering Hogan, I'll phone Sarajane and try to talk her into calling either Hogan or the State Police.”

Aunt Nettie went into my office, closing the door for privacy. She was still on the phone with Sarajane when she motioned me in. “Sarajane says we could report Myrl and Pamela missing as a possible traffic accident, but she doesn't want us to say anything about Pamela being in danger. She thinks you might be the best person to make the report, Lee. Since they were last seen at your house.”

“I'll be glad to. Does she know what kind of car they were in? I didn't get a good look.”

Aunt Nettie consulted the telephone. “A gray Camry. But Sarajane doesn't know the license number.”

“812.”

“You know it?”

“I don't know the letters, but the numbers were 812.”

I called the State Police office nearest Warner Pier, described the car and the route it would probably have taken to reach Kalamazoo. “They should have arrived hours ago,” I said.

“No accidents have been reported,” the officer answered. “And since the driver and passenger were competent adults, they're not considered missing.”

“I know. I just keep picturing all those woods, and how easy it would be to skid off the road and not be visible to passing cars.”

The State Police officer promised to alert patrol officers, asking them to watch for the Camry and for signs of an accident. I hung up, as worried as ever.

But my concern was nothing to Aunt Nettie's. She was literally wringing her hands. I decided I had to act calm, even if I didn't feel that way. Maybe it would help her cope.

“Okay!” I said. “We've done all we can for the moment.”

“I know, I know. But it's such a dangerous situation. You don't know.”

“No, I don't know, Aunt Nettie. Why don't you try telling me?”

I could see Aunt Nettie turn that over in her mind.

“I'm getting a little tired of operating in the dark,” I said.

“I guess so.” She leaned close and whispered. “Pamela's ex-husband is Harold Belcher.”

I felt blank. “Who is he?”

“Maybe the Belcher case happened before you moved to Michigan.” Aunt Nettie shook her head sadly. “I'd better get the ladies started.”