The Chocolate Pirate Plot (16 page)

He stood up. “In the meantime, I'll go out to Oxford Boats to talk to Charles Oxford. I'll try to find out whether there's anything to this Marco Spear rumor.”

I gestured toward Joe. “I gather you two are a bit more concerned about that threatening note than Joe indicated.”

Hogan rolled his eyes. “It sounds like a bunch of kids calling in a bomb threat so they can get out of school for the day. Just silly. If it's not . . .”

“You don't dare ignore it.”

“Right. But I don't want to feed the rumor mill.”

“Before you go,” I said, “I found out a little more about that message.” I opened my file folder and showed the envelope to Joe and Hogan. They didn't seem too impressed with my reasoning, but Hogan put the folder away carefully before he left.

I checked my watch. “The Showboat performance doesn't begin for fifteen minutes,” I said. “Maybe I can catch Jill now.” I picked up Hogan's phone and called the theater box office. It took a while, but someone did call Jill to the phone. I explained what Hogan wanted.

Jill's answer sounded petulant. “Why does he want to talk to me? I've told him everything I can.”

“He didn't explain to me, Jill. He just asked me to phone you because he thought you'd prefer not to be called to the phone by the chief of police or hauled into the police station in a patrol car. I can pick you up.”

“Okay, okay! I'll meet you at the stage door as soon as the performance is over. That should be shortly after five o'clock.”

I hung up. “Okay, Hogan's chore is done. I guess I'd better get back to the office, though I'm not getting much done today.”

“Could you do me a favor first?” Joe said. “Call Maggie for me. Didn't you say she isn't working in this week's Showboat production?”

“No, Maggie's not onstage this afternoon. But why do you want me to call her? You can do it yourself.”

“I can't sound sort of casual and gossipy. I think you'd get better results than I would.”

“Results on what?”

“I need to know more about this Hal who tried to set up an appointment with me.”

“Maggie's not real happy about being regarded as a source of information about the Showboat cast and crew.”

“I know. But you can tell her Hal tried to contact me, and I'm afraid he's in trouble.”

“That's the truth.”

“It sure is. And I need more information about him.”

Luckily, Maggie was home. I decided to be blunt. “Maggie, Joe wanted me to ask you for some information about a potential client.”

I put the phone on speaker, so Maggie's answer reverberated. “Tell Joe I'm not touting for business for him.”

Joe laughed. “Believe me, Maggie, our little poverty-law office has plenty of business. This guy made an appointment with me here in Warner Pier, then didn't show up for it. I'm wondering if he's in hot water. He was formerly connected with the Showboat, so I thought you might know something about him.”

“Who is it?”

“His name is Harold Weldon. He goes by Hal. He was on the technical crew at the Showboat early in the summer.”

“Oh!” I could hear the relief in Maggie's voice. “He left before I joined the company.”

Maggie explained that she'd shepherded several of her students through a speech competition just after school was out. “So I joined late. I remember people mentioning this Hal, but I never saw him.”

I gasped as the implications of her statement hit. “Oh, Maggie! If you never saw him, he might be the guy at the beach!”

Then a second thought popped into my mind. “That won't work. Jill saw him, too.”

“Jill didn't look at his face. Besides . . .” Maggie paused. “You know, I think Jill joined the company the same week I did. She might not have known him either.”

Joe made a sort of growl deep in his throat, got up, and went into the outer office.

I kept talking to Maggie but quickly learned that she'd not only never met Hal; she'd not heard much about him either.

“Sorry I bothered you,” I said. “At least we learned something.” We hung up.

When I followed Joe, he'd already called Hogan. “I hated telling him that one of his ID eliminations was based on faulty information,” he said. “He was sure the guy on the beach wasn't Hal because Maggie had seen him. And now we find out Maggie didn't know Hal.”

“Yeah, but if a person who did know Hal will take a look at the body . . .”

“Right. Even if the dead man isn't Hal, Hogan will be further ahead.”

I went back to the office. Brenda and Tracy had managed fine without me, and we closed up promptly at five. I drove over to the Showboat to pick up Jill. I managed to time my arrival pretty well. A parking place opened up just as I drove by.

This was like a miracle, because the Showboat's parking lot is small. And, no, it's not because the Showboat is surrounded by water. It has water on only one side. The Showboat, despite its name, isn't a boat at all. It began life as a warehouse.

The Showboat Theater is up the Warner River, a half mile or so inland from downtown Warner Pier. Way back in 1890-whatever, the structure that houses the Showboat Theater was built as a warehouse where peaches, apples, grapes, blueberries, and other Michigan fruits were packed and shipped. It was on the waterfront so that the fruit boats could sidle up to the warehouse's dock and the fruits could be loaded on board easily.

After fruit began to be shipped by truck more often than by boat, the building became derelict. In the 1980s an entrepreneur installed a stage and seating to make it into a theater holding around 125. Two years ago, when Max Morgan took over its operation, a deck was added on the side nearest the water. This allowed members of the audience to buy a drink at the lobby bar, take it outside, and look at the river between acts. Some theatergoers also came to performances in boats and tied up along the deck.

But all entrances to the theater were on the land side. The audience went in at the west end, and the cast and crew at the east. So after I parked my car, I took up my station at the east end.

The day had been another Lake Michigan prizewinner—temperature in the seventies, humidity in the twenties, no breeze, sun shining. It was pleasant standing there waiting, nodding to people as they came out. Then someone called my name. “Ms. Woodyard? Nice to see you.”

I turned to face a dark-haired girl nearly as tall as I am. “Remember me?” she said. “Mikki White.”

Jill's roommate, the girl who got her tongue tangled the way I do. I greeted her.

“Jill's nearly ready.” Mikki leaned close. “She said she had to fix her makeup before she could face more questions.”

So Jill had told Mikki that Hogan wanted to talk to her. So much for keeping the session quiet as a favor to Jill.

“Can I ask you something? Is it true you did some beauty pagans?”

What in the world was she talking about? It took me a minute to figure out that she was talking about pageants, not pagans.

“Well, Mikki, the first thing you have to learn about them is to call them ‘scholarship pageants,'” I said. “I took part in five of them. Made it to Miss Texas competition once.”

“Did it help your career?”

“No. Being a loser in the Miss Texas competition is not a big help in the chocolate business. My mother pushed me into pageants because she thought it might make me more poised.”

“Did it?”

“Maybe.”

I continued to talk to Mikki, discussing the pros and cons of pageant participation. It was fifteen or twenty minutes before I realized that Jill had never come out of the theater.

M
ikki, displaying great innocence, agreed to help me look for Jill.

She took me backstage and showed me all around. We saw the dressing rooms, the prop storage, the wardrobe room, and the stage. Mikki called out Jill's name as we toured, but of course Jill didn't answer. And, also of course, Mikki swore she didn't have any idea where Jill might have gone or how she got out of the theater without my seeing her.

I refrained from slapping Mikki into next week.

I didn't even say anything angry, although irate words flitted through my mind. Jill had flown. But taking my annoyance out on Mikki—her accomplice—wouldn't accomplish anything.

I left and went to the police station, where Hogan was waiting, and told him what had happened. He didn't seem too upset, or even too surprised.

“I tried to be a good guy,” he said. “So Jill's got only herself to blame if she now has to deal with me as a bad guy.”

I kept thinking about Maggie and her fear that Jill was willing to cut corners because of her ambitions. But I'd promised Maggie that I wouldn't say anything about that. So my reply had to be oblique.

“What's worrying me is that Jill may be dealing with a
real
bad guy,” I said. “After all, someone's been killed.”

“That's one of the things that worries me, too. I'll go by her room over at the Riverside, but I doubt Jill's there, and I'm not sure where else to look for her since I'm not getting any cooperation from her or her friends.”

“Have you found any of the theater people who can try to identify the dead man?”

“Max Morgan said he'd do it first thing in the morning.”

Hogan and I sat silently; then I spoke. “Did you find out anything at Oxford Boats?”

Hogan's gaze dodged away from mine. “Nothing very helpful.”

I interpreted this to mean that he'd found out something but he didn't want to share it with me. I went home.

Joe was already there, and his greeting gave me a broad hint that Hogan had found something out.

“Let's take the boat out,” he said.

“Do we have time before dark?”

“Grab some crackers and cheese. We can go out to dinner after we get home.”

There's no reason, of course, not to take the Shepherd Sedan out on the river or lake after dark. It has all the proper lights and equipment. But Joe and I like to look at the scenery when we go out on the water, so we usually go before sunset.

This evening Joe was in a hurry. He stood at the back door jingling his keys while I grabbed a box of Wheat Thins. By the time I'd stuck a couple of cans of Diet Coke in a small cooler and put on a sweatshirt, he was already waiting in the truck. He started the motor as I locked the back door to the house, and he pulled out of the drive before I could buckle my seat belt.

“What's up?” I said.

“I just want to get the boat down the river before it's too much closer to sunset.”

Maybe so, but I was suspicious.

Joe's boat shop is on the Warner River, and he's lucky enough to have a small dock. In the summer he leaves the Shepherd Sedan tied up there. He whipped its cover off and had the motor going before I could untie the mooring lines. Once I was in the boat, he took off. He couldn't go too fast on the river, where no-wake rules apply, but he didn't dawdle.

This obviously wasn't a casual cruise, but I decided not to ask any questions. For one thing, it's hard to talk over the gurgle-gurgle of the Shepherd's motor. That gurgling sound is one of the main attractions for fans of antique powerboats, but it means the boat has to be anchored if you're going to carry on much of a conversation. It's still not as loud as most modern boats.

I settled back, listened to the gurgle, and watched the trees on the bank go by. We'd be out on the big lake in time to see the sunset. Whatever Joe was up to, it was a nice way to spend a summer evening.

We proceeded down the Warner River, passing the mansions and summer cottages that line its banks. Then the river widened, and we came to the harbor. The houses and businesses of Warner Pier were now on both sides of the water. We went under the bridge that linked the two parts of the town. This was a busy area, with plenty of boats coming and going, and Joe slowed even more. We saw lots of people we knew. We inched past more than a mile of marinas and saw Maggie and Ken McNutt strolling past the boats and eating ice cream. We chugged past Herrera's deck—filled with diners. My longtime friend Lindy Herrera—now Joe's stepsister-in-law—was on duty, supervising the restaurant for her father-in-law, and waved at us. We passed the park that borders the river. Then came more quaint cottages and dozens of beautiful summer homes.

I was beginning to look for Warner Point, once a showplace estate and now a city conference facility, when Joe suddenly pointed ahead. I could hear his yell of delight over the motor 's gurgling.

“There it is!”