The Chocolate Mouse Trap (25 page)

“That reminds me.” Aunt Nettie searched through one of the piles on the break room table. “I found this. It’s that prayer for the working woman that Julie Singletree sent right before she died.” She pulled out a stack of papers printed with Julie’s distinctive rose background. “I read the poem, but I quit without reading the rest of the message.”

“Julie’s messages always had lots of junk at the bottom. Nobody ever read all of them. You can toss it out.”

“Before you go, did you straighten out the Nordstrom order?”

We chatted about business matters for a minute. I reassured her about the Nordstrom order, and she explained a problem with an Easter bunny mold to me. Then I went around and gave her a hug before I left. “I shouldn’t be too late,” I said.

But I still felt uneasy, so when I got back to my office I ignored Lindy’s pacing and insisted on one more check. I called the land line for the Schrader house.

“Hellooo!” It was Hilda VanTil again.

“It’s Lee McKinney,” I said. “We got held up, but we’re on our way.”

“I hope so. Mrs. Schrader is getting impatient.”

Lindy was, too. I couldn’t put her off any longer. We got into her rental car and headed out Lake Shore Drive. It was almost dark.

L
indy was excited as we drove along through the gathering gloom. She seemed to be anticipating an adventure. But I was glum. I still felt nervous about being asked to meet Rachel Schrader.

I guess it was nerves that made me turn around to see if there was a car behind us. There was, but it was turning left. It didn’t look threatening.

I guess I’d reminded Lindy of our brush with death, because she spoke. “I don’t think anybody is following us.”

“It’ll be a long time before I stop checking to see who’s behind me.”

“Me, too.” Then she turned her compact rental car toward West Street, rather than toward the Orchard Street Bridge. “Let’s go the long way around,” she said. “I’m not all that excited about driving past that drop-off on Lake Shore Drive.”

“Fine with me.” I faced forward again, and in the process I somehow dumped my big leather satchel onto the floor. All my belongings landed under my feet.

“Dad gum! I just had everything out of that bag earlier this afternoon,” I said. “Don’t make any sudden stops while I gather it all up.”

“I’ll have to slow down when I get on the Interstate.”

I began to pick my stuff up and stow it back in the tote bag. It’s not easy for a six-foot person to pick things up off the floor of a Neon, but I pushed the seat all the way back and tried. Sunglasses, billfold, keys—that was just the start. I carried far too much junk around with me. There was even a big sheaf of papers.

“I thought I got rid of all these papers back at the office,” I said.

I picked the papers up and realized I was holding the printout of the long message from Julie, the one Aunt Nettie had had on her desk. It was the message that had caused me to request that Julie leave me off the list for inspirational items.

“I thought I tossed this into Aunt Nettie’s trash,” I said. The big print size Julie had used to send e-mail made the thing easy to read, even in a dim light. I thumbed though the pages as we drove. “Julie never killed anything,” I said. “Here’s that recipe for cookies Diane Denham sent out way before Christmas.”

“How about the punch recipe that Carolyn sent? I meant to print that one out.”

I looked further. “Looks as if it’s not here,” I said. The car swerved, and I looked up. Lindy was turning into the Schrader property.

“I guess that’s Brad’s house,” Lindy said.

“Yes, just follow the road on around to the right. It makes a circle, and the main house is at the opposite end of the loop, on the lake shore.” I looked back at the papers in my lap. “I’m pretty sure the punch recipe isn’t here, Lindy. I’m down to the last page and it’s . . .” My voice trailed off as I read what was on the last page. As I took it in, I began to feel almost dizzy with surprise.

Then Lindy threw on the brakes, and I almost hit the windshield.

“Lee!” She screamed my name. “Look!”

The car was completely stopped. Ahead of us, parked beside the road and plainly visible in our headlights, was an old, ragtop Jeep.

“Lindy!” I was screaming, too. “Drive on! It’s too narrow to turn around and go back! Brad put that Jeep there as a trap! He wants us to get out and investigate! He’s the murderer! Drive like hell!”

Lindy may have paused a second, but she didn’t argue. She floored the Neon’s accelerator, and the little car leaped forward. I craned my neck around, and I saw a figure run out of the woods, toward the Jeep.

Lindy yelled. “Are you sure that was a trap? What about Mrs. Schrader?”

“She’s not here! That e-mail was a trap, too! And Brad must have imitated Ms. VanTil’s voice when I called.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s in this e-mail. Brad told Julie what he was up to. He’s planning to kill Martin! Julie thought he was kidding.”

Ahead, the bulk of the flying saucer mansion became visible. As we reached the turnaround area in front of it, I yelled. “Stop!”

“What now?” Lindy hit the brakes and the Neon skidded to a halt.

“Listen,” I said, “there’s a road that cuts through the middle of the big circle drive. If we go on, Brad can cut us off. He’s got us trapped if we go forward.”

“What should we do?”

I took a deep breath. “Cut your lights.”

Lindy complied. “Okay,” I said, “I’m going to get out. You turn the car around facing the way we came in. Can you do it without lights?”

“Sure. What are you going to do?”

“Break a window.”

I didn’t stop to explain. I jumped out of the car and headed for the flowerbed. I knelt and dug through the snow until I got hold of one of the ostrich-egg-sized beach stones that filled it. Then I staggered up the broad stairs, and hurled the rock at the window on the right side of the door. Nothing happened, except that the stone bounced back and nearly hit my foot. I picked it up and threw it again, tossing it as hard as I could.

This time the security system activated an alarm, and a deafening clanging noise began. I ran back down the steps, circled the car, and jumped in. Lindy’s mouth was hanging open, but when I pointed forward she took off. There was just enough light to see the road without headlights.

I was terrified. Would my trick work? Had Brad taken the shortcut across the circle drive? Would he hear the alarm and think we’d tried to get into the house? Would he go there, looking for us? Or was he waiting for us right where we’d seen the Jeep, ready to ram into us?

Lindy was speaking, but I still couldn’t hear a word. She didn’t hurry; it was simply too dark. But she drove on steadily. Soon I saw the roof of Brad’s cabin, a straight line against the twisted tree limbs.

The siren was far enough away now that I could yell and be heard. “Get out onto Lake Shore Drive. If Brad’s waiting for us at the entrance, it’s too late anyway! Then head for Aunt Nettie’s.”

Lindy flipped on her lights. “Okay, Lee,” she said. “But you’d better be right about all this, or we’re in a lot of trouble for breaking Mrs. Schrader’s window.”

I pulled the e-mail printout from behind me—I’d wound up sitting on it after I jumped back in the car—and tapped it. “It’s all in here! As good as a confession. I’ve got to get this to Chief Jones.”

Lindy wheeled onto Lake Shore Drive and floored the Neon. A blue truck loomed up, coming toward us. Its horn blasted, but we didn’t stop.

Maybe we were in the clear. But no, behind us I saw lights bouncing off the trees, and a car turned into the road. Again the pickup’s horn blasted, but the lights careened around the truck and came speeding toward us.

Lindy saw the lights. “Oh, god! It’s the same lights I saw the other night!”

“He’s not two blocks behind us.” That meant we couldn’t take the evasive action we had before, such as turning into a drive and hiding behind a hedge. If there had been a hedge anywhere.

Neither of us spoke. The Neon wasn’t a fast car. But the Jeep was old. Could we outrun Brad? Could we get to Aunt Nettie’s before he caught up with us? Was he armed? If we got to Aunt Nettie’s would he shoot the place up?

I tried to think logically. Brad hadn’t used a gun on Carolyn, and he hadn’t used one when he chased Lindy and me. He’d killed Julie with his bare hands. He was into ecology, not hunting. The chance of his having a gun didn’t seem large.

“We’re going to have to pass that drop-off.” Lindy muttered the words, but I knew what she said. I’d been thinking about the drop-off, too.

“We’re going the other direction. He can’t shove us toward the drop-off unless he gets on the right-hand side of the road.”

Lindy’s chin was grim. Her lips barely moved, but I heard her. “Damn it! He’s not going to push us off this time!”

But as we got near the place where the bank had been eaten away, I realized that the Jeep was going to try just that. He pulled up close behind us, then swung right, as if he was going to pull around on our right-hand side.

“No, you don’t!” Lindy yelled. She edged the Neon closer to the edge of the road, resisting the natural impulse to pull to the left and move away from the Jeep. The Jeep bumped our rear end, but Lindy squeezed a few more miles per hour out of the Neon, and we stayed on the road. The Jeep fell back, but I knew he would try again.

It was a nightmare—not only because we knew we were close to death, but because of the lighting. Our headlights were hitting the road ahead, and the Jeep’s headlights were stabbing into the Neon’s rear window with a harsh, brilliant light. It gave the whole chase a nightmare quality, as if it weren’t really happening.

And then I realized that there was another set of headlights involved. They were high and bright, and they were behind the Jeep. A third vehicle was in the race.

I saw the Jeep shudder and veer across the road. But it hadn’t hit us. What had happened?

It shuddered again.

“It’s that truck!” I yelled it out. “It’s behind the Jeep! It’s bumping the Jeep the way the Jeep bumped us.”

“That’s
his
problem!” Lindy’s voice was grim. She looked straight ahead, her hands gripping the steering wheel as if it were a life preserver and she had been tossed off a boat in the middle of Lake Michigan.

I watched out the back window. The Jeep shuddered again. It jumped ahead and nearly hit us. But the Jeep’s driver—I was sure it was Brad—was worried about the truck behind him. Brad was weaving back and forth across the narrow blacktop.

Then it happened. The Jeep driver must have thrown his brakes on. The old car veered across the road.

Then the Jeep hit a patch of ice. It spun around like an out-of-control merry-go-round.

The Jeep went through the orange tape alongside the washed-out area, clipped the edge of one of the concrete barriers, and plunged over the edge and down to Lake Michigan without ever slowing down.

I
yelled, “He’s gone over!”

Lindy slammed on the brakes and pulled the Neon to the edge of the road, almost ramming its nose into a bank of piled-up snow. The truck stopped behind us. Its driver jumped out. Lindy jumped out. I crawled out, since I had to go out the driver’s side because my door was jammed shut by snow. But it was only seconds before the three of us were in a group hug.

The driver of the truck, of course, was Joe. I think I was crying. I hope I told him how glad I was to see him.

The three of us ran back down the road to the spot where Brad had gone over. We could see the lights of the Jeep at the foot of the bank.

“I’ll go down,” Joe said. His voice was grim. “I already called the cops on my cell phone, and I’ve got a good flashlight in the truck.”

“I can come, too,” I said.

“I’ll yell if I need help, Lee. Wait and wave the cops down when they get here.”

Lindy moved the Neon so that its headlights gave a little illumination to the area, and I used my cell phone to call the dispatcher, telling her we needed an ambulance, as well as law enforcement. Joe didn’t come back up until the police were there. “It was Brad Schrader,” he said. “Just the way you thought. He was thrown out halfway down. I don’t think the EMTs will be able to help him.”

Joe put an arm around both Lindy and me, and we stood at the top of the bank, looking down. “Maybe it’s all for the best,” I said. “Poor Mrs. Schrader.”

“But why?” Lindy said. “Why would Brad try to kill us?”

“Because he killed Julie, Lindy,” I said. “And he must have killed Carolyn, too.”

“But why were we next on the list? We didn’t know that.”

“I think you did, Lindy. While we were standing around here, I remembered something. You went by Julie’s the night she was killed.”