The Chocolate Pirate Plot (19 page)

Hogan spoke mildly. “Graveyard antics, Max?”

Still being dramatic, Max stepped forward. “Forgive me, Hogan. I'm nervous, and it makes me clown. I'm here to take a look at your dead man. Not my favorite way to spend a morning.”

I remembered then that Max had agreed to look at the body found on Beech Tree beach. But he'd agreed to do that when we hadn't known who the dark-haired man was. Now Joe and I had identified him from his photo.

Was further identification necessary? I opened my mouth to ask, then shut it without saying anything. If Hogan thought Max didn't need to look at the body, he wouldn't have him do it.

Joe and I said our good-byes without further comment. Joe headed for his mom's office, and I went back to mine. An hour and a half later I was working away on our fall sales brochure when Hogan called.

“It's official,” he said. “Max ID'd the dead guy as Hal Weldon.”

I looked toward our retail shop and gave a gasp.

“Am I supposed to act surprised about the identification?” I said. “If I am, tell me quick. Max is coming in our front door right now.”

“There's no secret about the ID. Let me know what Max has to say. But don't forget that the cause of death is just between you, me, and Joe. I'm not announcing that before I have to.” Hogan hung up.

Max waved the counter girls away and walked straight into my office. “Lee! Lee! What an experience.”

“You need chocolate, Max. A few flavonols will settle your nerves. And I'll get you some coffee from the break room.”

Max was persuaded to accept a raspberry cream bonbon (“red raspberry puree in a white chocolate cream interior, with an exterior of dark chocolate”) while I got coffee for both of us. He sat down in the chair I keep for visitors.

“That was not a happy experience,” he said.

“Hogan says you were able to identify the man.”

“Oh, yes. His name was Hal Weldon. He worked as a stagehand for a week or two. That was early in the summer. He quit suddenly, leaving me with quite a hole to fill.”

“Why did he quit?”

“He said he got another job, one that offered room and board.”

“He didn't tell you where this job was?”

“No. I hadn't seen him around Warner Pier, so I assumed he'd left town.”

I asked a few more questions, such as whether Max had any information on Hal Weldon's family, but he didn't seem to know any more. I began to wonder why Max had come to see me, unless he simply wanted a free chocolate.

Finally Max leaned forward with an air of getting down to business.

“Lee, I'm worried about Jill.”

“Jill? I don't think I can help you there, Max. She and I bumped heads, you know.”

“No, I didn't know.”

“Yes, I asked a few pointed questions about just why she and Jeremy went swimming at Beech Tree Public Access Area so early in the morning, and she didn't seem to like my attitude.”

“Why shouldn't they go there early in the morning?”

“The beach doesn't get any sun until after eleven.”

Max blinked. “Oh.”

“She was supposed to meet me after the matinee yesterday, and she didn't show up. Why are you worried about her?”

“I still think Jeremy disappeared deliberately. I'm sure he didn't drown.”

“And?”

“I'm afraid Jill helped him.”

I considered that. “I doubt it, Max. She was quite distraught over his—disappearance.”

“I know she was, but I'm still worried. I think she's hiding something.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Whispering. Strange phone calls. Evasive answers. A general atmosphere of secrecy.”

“That's not necessarily because of Jeremy. Girls have lots of secrets.”

“True.” Max shook his head sorrowfully. “I'm not in loco parentis, not responsible for these students who work at the theater. But—”

He broke off, and I chuckled humorlessly. “Believe me, I understand. I supervise our counter girls, and one of them is my stepsister.”

“It's just—” Max broke off again, looked around as if he were making sure the counter girls hadn't crept up behind him, then lowered his voice slightly. “I'm afraid I saw Jill with that strange guy I suspected was a loan shark.”

“The guy in the suit?”

“Yes. But now I wonder if I understood the situation properly. His dealings with Jeremy may not have involved high-interest loans.”

“Then what?”

A frown crossed Max's face. “Drugs? Who knows? I just didn't like him. An unsavory type.”

I considered this. It didn't jibe with the impression that Jill had made on me. She hadn't seemed to be the type of person who might get involved with drugs. And while Maggie had expressed concern about Jill, along with other young and ambitious actors, she hadn't mentioned drugs. Surely ambitious young actors knew that drugs could ruin their careers before they were started. Acting takes discipline, and drugs destroy discipline. That's not hard to grasp.

Before I could tell Max that whatever was bothering Jill, I didn't think it was drugs, he stood up. “I guess I'd better get over to the theater,” he said. “My cast and crew are there now striking the set, and I ought to be acting interested.”

“You don't have a production this week, do you?”

“We're dark until Friday, when we open
Pirates
. Which means we rehearse all week.”

As soon as Max was out the door, I called Hogan, as he had requested, and reported on our conversation. Did I feel like a spy? Yes. But I couldn't refuse Hogan. He'd simply done too much for me.

Then I called Joe's mom's office, hoping that Joe was still there. His mom's assistant told me he'd left an hour earlier, as soon as his faxed material arrived. So I tried the boat shop. Joe was there and seemed pleased at the idea of my bringing him lunch.

I ordered sandwiches from the Sidewalk Café, so it was nearly one p.m. when I pulled into the boat shop's parking lot.

I admit that revisiting the scene of the excitement we'd had the previous evening was scary. I looked behind every bush as I drove down the drive and into the lot. If there had been wind, if the bushes and trees had been moving around, I doubt I would have had the nerve to get out of the van. But this was Michigan, not Texas. It wasn't windy. It was a mild and sunny summer day. Still, I parked and looked the area over carefully. I saw nothing but Joe's truck. I got out of my van, and I forced myself to walk slowly into the shop.

No boogeymen jumped out at me. No guns fired.

After what Joe had said about client confidentiality, I was determined not to ask him about the case in which Hal Weldon had been involved. I didn't want him to tell me that he couldn't say anything about it. So I didn't say anything more inquisitive than “Here's your roast beef with horseradish sauce on a hoagie roll.”

I might have burst with curiosity if Joe hadn't handed me the faxed sheets as soon as we sat down to eat.

I read the first page, then began to laugh. “Joe! This is that case about the college guys who crashed the St. Patrick's Day parade!”

He smiled. “The funniest case I ever handled. Nice to know one of the guys involved thought I did a good enough job that he wanted to hire me again. I hope that isn't the reason he wound up dead.”

“I doubt that his decision to contact you had anything to do with his death.”

“Hard to tell.”

I kept reading the faxed sheets. As Joe said, the case had been amusing, and the dry legalese of the papers Minnie had sent didn't hide that.

The case had involved a half dozen college students, all athletes at South Chicago U. The mascot of South Chicago just happens to be the Viking, and that probably had some relationship to what happened.

The six guys, apparently at an all-night beer party on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, had decided that the Irish were overemphasizing leprechauns, shamrocks, and the Blarney Stone and were not giving enough credit to the Viking side of their heritage. After all, the beer drinkers figured, the Norsemen had raided the Irish coast regularly. One of the students even claimed that Vikings founded the city of Dublin.

About four in the morning and after a couple of cases of beer, it became clear to the group that it was their responsibility to change the emphasis of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day parade in downtown Chicago to help the event reveal this to the public.

One of them borrowed a flatbed truck from his father's business—without permission—and two others turned some scrap lumber into a makeshift ship's prow, complete with cardboard dragon head. A sail made from a bedsheet was hoisted. Some girlfriends came up with fake fur garments. At a school with a Viking mascot, horned helmets were readily available in the band room and were pressed into unauthorized use.

The resulting mishmash, put together in about six hours, must have looked as if it had been raided by Vikings.

The group then joined the parade—without paying an entry fee or getting permission. They simply cut into line somehow and participated for eight or ten blocks before the parade authorities and some of Chicago's finest yanked them out.

Joe got involved because, after they sobered up, none of them could afford a lawyer. He represented them in police court on the day after St. Pat's.

“I will say I never saw a more repentant group of criminals, or at least a group with such a mass hangover,” he said when he got to that part of the story. “Especially when they had to face the irate Irish parade organizers.”

“The Irish were upset, were they?”

“A bit. Of course, you have to remember that their heads probably ached as much as the Vikings' heads did. They were all but yelling, ‘String 'em up!'”

“How'd you get the college guys off?”

“I didn't entirely. But it was a matter of convincing the parade people that they were going to give the Vikings even more publicity if the case came to trial.”

“And they were going to look even more stupid.”

“I let their own lawyer explain that to them. Or maybe their parade chair did it. Anyway, the six Vikings pleaded guilty to disturbing the peace and got off with fines and a strong scolding from a judge whose name happened to be O'Brien. I remember he warned them to stay away from the Sons of Italy. Those guys get even more incensed about Vikings.”

“Because of Leif Erickson?”

“Oh, yes. They don't like to be told that he came over before Columbus.”

I swallowed a bite of my ham sandwich. “So Hal Weldon was one of the Viking Six. Was he one of the leaders of the prank?”

“I'd guess that he was more of a follower. Anyway, I think all six of them lost their athletic scholarships.”

“Too bad!”

“Yeah, I hate to see that sort of initiative punished.”

“I guess there's no way to find out why Hal made an appointment with you.”

“There's the tattoo clue.”

“The skull and crossbones on his arm?”

“Right. That's a pretty good indication that he was one of the Warner Pier pirates.”

I bit off another mouthful and chewed it while I considered that. “But why would the Warner Pier pirates need a lawyer? As far as we know, they haven't committed any crime.”

“That's what worries me.”

“You mean they haven't committed a crime—yet?”

Joe nodded. “Neither Hogan nor I can figure out what they're up to. Which makes us suspect that it hasn't happened yet.”

I couldn't figure it out either, of course, and I needed to get back to the office. I was clearing away our luncheon debris when I heard a voice outside.

“Ahoy! Ahoy, the shop!”

Joe looked as mystified as I felt as he opened the shop's door.

The figure outside was so ordinary and nerdy looking I could barely remember his name. Luckily, Joe did.

“Hi, Byron,” he said. “I see you're back on your bike.”

“Yes, and I come bearing an apology.”

“Apology for what?”

“An apology for nearly swamping your boat when the new yacht was on her test run last night.”

“Apology accepted. We shouldn't have gotten so close. And you weren't at the helm.”

“True. I've also got an invitation.”

“An invitation?”

“An invitation to be on board her when Mr. Oxford takes her out for another test run tonight.”