The Chocolate Mouse Trap (21 page)

I didn’t quite understand what had reminded her of computer problems, but I didn’t ask. “All of the Seventh Food Group have had problems. I’m afraid one of us passed a virus along to the whole group. But at the moment, we’re all back up and running.”

Rachel Schrader leaned forward, and her black eyes snapped. “Do you have any idea what happened?”

I was surprised at her interest. I know from Martin that Mrs. Schrader was in her late eighties. Lots of older people are into computers, of course, but it’s usually because they need to use the gadgets for business reasons or for a hobby. I couldn’t imagine that this was the case with Mrs. Schrader. I paused before I replied, trying to anticipate just how much information she wanted.

“I’m just a user, not a computer expert,” I said finally. “But Warner Pier does have a computer guru, and he’s working on the problem.”

“He hasn’t indicated exactly what virus is involved?”

She really was interested. I felt faintly surprised. “He hasn’t told me anything, but my computer wasn’t one of the ones with the major problem. I could ask him.”

“Oh, no! It’s just idle curiosity on my part. Schrader Labs has done research along this line, so I was curious. But I have no reason to bother anybody about it. It doesn’t matter at all. Not at all.”

Mrs. Schrader was certainly being emphatic about something that didn’t matter “at all . . . at all.” I tried to think of a tactful way to follow up on the subject. But my thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening. Then a high tenor echoed through the house. “Grandmother! Where are you?”

Rachel Schrader did her pivoting act, turning toward the living room. “Out here, Brad!” Then her head snapped toward me. “I asked Brad to help load the boxes into your van.”

Brad slouched into sight, coming through the living room door. He looked as hangdog as ever, as if somebody had just kicked him. Even the red plaid lumberjack shirt he wore didn’t make him look cheerful. He kissed his grandmother on the cheek, then shook hands with me.

“Nice to see you again, Brad,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “We talked at Julie’s memorial service.”

I blinked, but I don’t think I blew Brad’s secret. He apparently didn’t want his grandmother to know he’d come by my office to ask for advice on getting acquainted in Warner Pier. Just like he didn’t want his uncle to know.

“Where are the boxes?” Brad said.

“Hilda will show them to you.” Mrs. Schrader shook a misshapen finger at Brad. “This is your last chance, Brad. Are you sure you don’t want any of Julie’s dishes? At least you should take that good set of cookware. I know she’d want you to have it.”

A look of complete revulsion flashed over Brad’s face. For a moment I thought he was going to throw up.

Then he regained control. “No, thanks, Grandmother. I’m saving my pennies so I can buy something fancy. Until then I’ll get by with my Kmart set.” He grinned stiffly. “I’ll just find Hilda. She’ll show me the boxes.”

“Now, Brad, don’t run off the way you did last time,” Mrs. Schrader said. “I want to talk to you.”

Brad nodded and left. I got up as well. “I’ll open the van, then help Brad,” I said. “This is a very generous gesture, Mrs. Schrader.”

“When we get to Julie’s furniture, I’ll send it directly to the shelter. And one other thing.” Mrs. Schrader produced a checkbook from a purse that hung from the arm of her wheelchair. She flipped it open, found a white ballpoint pen in the purse. Despite her warped fingers, she wrote rapidly.

After she’d ripped out the check, she folded it in half and held it out to me. “Here. This goes with the items.” Then she smiled. “And take the pen, too. It’s one of the new Schrader Labs promo pieces. They write quite well.”

I wasn’t so crass as to peek at the amount of the check, but I looked the pen over and gushed a bit. It was a nice one—the kind with gel ink—and had a tasteful design of a computer mouse chasing a lab mouse, spiraling around the body and down toward the writing end. Then I shook her hand—remembering to hold it gently—said good-bye, and went out the front door.

Brad was coming around the side of the house, carrying a large carton. Hilda VanTil was with him with another carton. I opened the van. There weren’t a lot of belongings being donated. Hilda and Brad each brought out one more box, and I carried one out. That was it.

I expected Brad to go back inside in obedience to his grandmother’s instructions, but he stood there on the porch, not saying anything. It was left to the sweet-faced Ms. VanTil to give me a warm good-bye in her squeaky voice. She added directions for how to get off the property. The drive was one-way, she said. I was to go forward. In my rearview mirror I saw her entering the front door, and Brad heading around the side of the house.

The outbound section of asphalt drive led through the same sort of woods that the inbound road followed. The whole thing was well-plowed, but I drove slowly, enjoying the snowy woods. Frankly, as a person born on the Texas plains, I find the thick woods of Michigan’s summer a bit scary. I like them a little better when the leaves are off the trees.

I was so intent on the scenery that when a figure in a red plaid jacket bounded out in front of the car, I nearly ran him down.

I threw on the brakes and luckily didn’t hit an ice patch. The van came to a stop safely, and I rolled my window down.

“Brad! You nearly scared me to death!”

“I’m sorry. I was trying to catch you before you got out the front gate.”

“How’d you get here?”

Brad gestured behind himself. “There’s a bunch of paths and roads through the middle. I use them all the time. Looking at birds and such. But I wanted to tell you something about Julie.”

“What about her?”

“The person she was really scared of was that guy with the ponytail. Jason.”

“
W
hy? Why do you think Julie was scared of Jason?”

Brad shuffled his feet and looked more pitiful than usual. “It was all very nebulous.”

“Come on, Brad! She must have said or done something to make you think she was afraid of him or you wouldn’t say that she was.”

“Well, once I was at her place, and the phone rang. She said, ‘That might be Jason. I don’t want to talk to him.’ Then she let the answering machine pick up. And it
was
Jason. She made a face and turned down the volume so that she couldn’t hear his voice. And I said, ‘Who’s Jason? A new boyfriend?’ And she laughed, and she said, ‘Not one of mine. He’s a restaurant guy I know. He’s pretty scary. He makes me feel creepy. I’m trying to avoid him.”’

“Did she say why she found Jason scary?”

Brad shook his head.

“That
is
pretty nebulous,” I said. “Have you told the police this?”

Brad shook his head again. “They weren’t very interested in talking to me.”

“Why are you telling me?”

“You seem to know all those cops. Maybe you could drop a hint.”

“I’d have to tell them it doesn’t jibe with what I observed about Julie and Jason’s relationship, Brad. They always acted like pals.”

“I know it’s screwy.” Brad began to back away. “I’ve got to get back to Grandmother’s house.”

“Wait a minute, Brad. When did this episode happen?”

He was still edging away. “A couple of weeks before Julie . . .” His voice seemed to fail, and he turned. He called back over his shoulder as he ran back into the woods. “That’s all she said!”

I watched him go. He slipped on the snow, but he didn’t fall. He seemed to know just where to put his feet.

“That’s the strangest thing Brad has done yet,” I said aloud. “Running through the woods to tell me Julie said Jason made her feel creepy. That’s impossible to believe.”

I drove on, thinking furiously. Could Julie have been frightened of Jason? Saying he “made her feel creepy” didn’t exactly prove that. Frankly, a lot of people are creeped out by openly gay guys with long gray ponytails, though I wouldn’t have expected Julie to be one of them. Guys like that are very common in the Warner Pier area, since we’re on the artsy side around here. Openly gay guys with long ponytails of any color fail to cause much excitement in our town, and Julie had always claimed that she especially loved Warner Pier.

Of course, Jason had admitted he was really angry with Julie after she “outed” him and Ross to Ross’s elderly dad. Maybe that had happened about the time that Jason made the phone call Brad had overheard. But by the time Jason told me about the incident, he hadn’t sounded as if he was furious with Julie. He sounded exasperated at her naivete, but not as if he’d been ready to sever all ties with her. He hadn’t resigned from the Seventh Food Group over it.

So, should I do anything about Brad’s report? I could tell Hogan Jones. But what would be the point?

I still hadn’t decided whether or not I should repeat Brad’s story to Hogan Jones when I reached Warner Pier. That’s when I noticed something unexpected—a car pulling into the parking lot at the Warner Pier Chamber of Commerce office.

 

But it was Sunday. The office should be closed. Then I remembered. The chamber’s executive committee was driving up to Grand Rapids as a group that afternoon to attend a reception for the congressional delegation. Apparently I’d driven by just as the group began to gather.

On an impulse, I wheeled into the parking lot. If the chamber manager was there, I could hand in Mrs. Schrader’s check immediately. I also might be able to pick up the key to the storage unit where the items collected for the women’s shelter were to be stashed.

The chamber office is near the Interstate in a building that, in one of those small-town coincidences, once held my grandfather’s service station. It had been remodeled until its origins were completely disguised, of course, and now featured shingled sides and cobblestone panels that made it look more like a summer cottage than an office. The canopy that once sheltered the gas pumps was gone.

I parked the van beside a big black sedan, almost large enough to be classified as a limo. On its door was a very tasteful logo, white with a few accents of red, featuring an abstract wing. The words “Eagle Heights Real Estate Development” were painted below in letters so modern and so small they were almost unreadable.

Eagle Heights was owned and operated by the vice president of the chamber, Barry Eagleton. I knew him, of course, since we both served on the chamber board of directors. But I’d never noticed this car before. It must be new, I thought. Very classy. But why did it seem so familiar?

I had climbed out of the van and waded through the slush to reach the entry to the chamber office before I remembered. Then I whirled around for another look at that eagle logo.

The day Martin Schrader and I had lunch at the Sidewalk Café, Martin had been late. And when he arrived, he got out of a big black Lincoln sedan with a black-and-white logo on the front door. I hadn’t seen who was driving, but the logo had included a red wing, over lettering too small to be deciphered from inside the restaurant. Now I decided the car must have belonged to Eagle Heights Development. And Martin Schrader had told me he was in Warner Pier that day “for a business meeting.”

I stared at the black sedan and thought. The easiest conclusion I could jump to was that Martin Schrader had been meeting with Barry Eagleton. In other words, the potential heir to one of the biggest pieces of undeveloped property in the Warner Pier area had been meeting with the biggest developer of property in the area. Was Martin looking into a deal for developing the Schrader property?

I got quite excited. Then I told myself to calm down. There were a dozen other explanations.

Maybe Barry hadn’t been driving the sedan with the logo that day. Maybe it had been his sexy secretary. Of course, I didn’t know that Barry had a sexy secretary, but if he did, Martin might have been riding around with her for reasons having nothing to do with real estate.

Or maybe Barry and Martin were looking into some sort of development deal that had nothing to do with the Schrader summer place. Martin or the Schrader family might well own other land in the Warner Pier area.

Or, maybe they were discussing some business deal that had nothing to do with development at all. Heck, maybe they were considering buying an aluminum storm door business. Or a health food shop. Or a car wash.

Maybe they’d known each other for years and had simply gone out for coffee. Or maybe Martin wanted to buy a house. Barry sold houses, as well as developing subdivisions.

But one thing was for certain. If Martin and Barry had been driving down Peach Street at noon, there was nothing secret about their meeting. Probably everybody else in town already knew about it.

So I could simply go inside the chamber office, talk to my fellow board member Barry Eagleton, and ask him what the heck he and Martin were up to.

I opened the door and went in. Several members of the executive committee were standing around and greeted me. I assured them I hadn’t come to join the trip to Grand Rapids. Then I walked over to Zelda Gruppen, the chamber manager, who was sitting at her desk. Barry was standing near her.

Barry’s a short guy—the top of his head is about even with my shoulder. He has slicked-down black hair, heavy eyebrows, a thick midsection, and a perpetual grin.

“Hey, Zelda. Hey, Barry.” I remembered that Barry is one of the guys who kids me about my Texas accent, so I drawled the words out. Might as well let him have a laugh.

“Look what I’ve got.” I waved Mrs. Schrader’s check. “A donation to the drive to benefit the women’s shelter. Isn’t that as cute as a spotted pup under a red wagon?”

Then I told them where the check came from and gave a short version of how I happened to be the one Mrs. Schrader gave it to. Zelda—who’s a typical west Michigan Dutch blond: sturdy and blue-eyed—took the check, and we all whistled at the amount.