The Chocolate Cupid Killings Read online

  Sarajane hadn’t told me Pamela’s story, but she had made it clear that her danger was real. That was why Aunt Nettie and I had come up with the “sugar order” alert. If I called out to Aunt Nettie that I needed to talk to her about the “sugar order,” Pamela was immediately to hide in the back room or the storage closet.

  “At least our system worked,” Aunt Nettie said. “Pamela’s still in the back. Should I call her out?”

  “No! That private eye is standing across the street.”

  Aunt Nettie didn’t turn to look at him. “Do you think he’s watching the shop?”

  “I don’t know. He may have only stopped for a smoke. But we’d better take precautions.”

  “I’ll call Sarajane to come and get Pamela.”

  “That might not be a good idea. After all, Sarajane’s car says PEACH STREET BED-AND-BREAKFAST on the side. Besides, I wouldn’t want this guy to get a look at Pamela’s face as she left. She doesn’t look much like her original picture anymore, but I wouldn’t want him to see what she does look like.”

  “Then I can take Pamela out to the B&B. I’m parked in the alley.”

  “Maybe we should check and make sure there’s no one watching the alley.”

  Aunt Nettie looked dismayed. “I just wanted to help Pamela out with a job for a little while. I didn’t mean to get mixed up in some cloak-and-dagger project.”

  “I’m probably being overly cautious, but let’s keep Pamela out of sight for an hour or so. Don’t let her come back into the workroom.”

  “I can have her tie bows.”

  I nodded. Pamela was one of twenty-five women working at TenHuis Chocolade. None of the others knew who she was or why she had suddenly joined the staff, and we couldn’t let them find out. Twenty-five people cannot keep a secret. So that afternoon Pamela had to have a job that kept her out of sight of the street and of our retail shop, but kept her busy doing something that wouldn’t make the other employees wonder what was up. Tying bows was a sufficiently dull job that no one would think Pamela was getting special treatment.

  I sighed. “Okay. Pamela ties bows. You watch the front, and I’ll run to the Superette for Amaretto.”

  “How did you know we need Amaretto?”

  “I didn’t. I just suggested it because it’s something we buy locally.”

  “I tried to make a new batch of Amaretto truffles this morning, and there wasn’t enough in the bottle to do it.”

  “Good. I’ll go get some, and as I go I can scout the downtown to make sure nobody’s watching the alley. Then you can call Sarajane and ask her to get Pamela out of here. She’ll probably want to move her along someplace else.”

  I cast a longing glance at my computer—I didn’t really have time to leave my regular work for a scouting trip—put on my ski jacket and left by the front door. In the winter there’s plenty of parking on Warner Pier streets, and I hadn’t bothered to drive around to the alley where Aunt Nettie and I have reserved spaces. At the corner I turned onto Peach Street, paying no attention to Derrick Valentine. I drove along slowly, looking around as I passed the entrance to our alley. I didn’t see anybody suspicious. At first. I was halfway down the block before I saw the man in the plain vanilla sedan.

  The sedan was parked across from the end of the alley. The man was sitting there, talking on a cell phone. He had what looked like a map spread out on his steering wheel. He would have a clear view down our alley in his rearview mirror. Was he some innocent salesman, talking to his boss about calling on a Warner Pier business? Or was he tag-teaming Derrick Valentine, making sure no one who looked like Pamela came out our back door?

  One thing about a town of twenty-five hundred: a stranger stands out. In the summer, you could hide a battalion of private eyes in the crowds of tourists who throng the quaint streets of Warner Pier. But in wintertime we locals know everyone we see. And I’d never seen this guy around. Plus, his car had a Georgia license plate. As in Atlanta, headquarters of PDQ Investigations.

  Aha!

  When I returned from the Superette, I parked in front of TenHuis Chocolade once more, got out clutching my bottle of Amaretto and walked though the shop and the workroom and into the back room. I tried to look as un-secretive as I could.

  Aunt Nettie has made the break room as pleasant as possible for our employees. It looks like a dining room in a home. The tables and chairs might be from a secondhand store, but they were good-quality traditional pieces to begin with. The chairs have upholstered seats, and prints or paintings by local artists are hung here and there. The kitchen nook has more than a microwave and a refrigerator; a real range with oven and burners is available. There is—oh, glory!—a dishwasher. And that dishwasher isn’t for chocolate-making equipment. Those utensils are cleaned in a separate area in the workshop itself.

  Pamela was sitting at the largest table. She was surrounded by rolls of ribbon in Easter pastels and a bowl of the little gold bunnies. A can of Pepsi stood off to one side, safe from expansive gestures. Beside it was a small tube of M&M Minis. I bit my tongue at the sight. Pamela consistently refused to eat TenHuis chocolates—some of the best truffles and bonbons in the world—but seemed to be addicted to those M&M Minis, massmarket candies available at every drugstore, supermarket, and convenience store. She always had one or two tubes in her purse or pocket. I knew I was being petty, but it irked me.

  Pamela seemed to be irked at me in turn. “I hope this hasn’t been a false alarm,” she said. “I hate making bows.”

  I mentally compared Pamela to the picture Derrick Valentine had identified as “Christina Meachum.” In the photo, Christina had looked younger. She had been plain, true, but she’d looked normal. Her face was symmetrical.

  Pamela’s face had a different look, not abnormal exactly, but not like the photo. Her face was skewed, crooked. She talked out of one side of her mouth, and one of her eyebrows was higher than the other.

  Christina had dark hair. Pamela’s was a brassy, homedyed blond, part of her attempt to change her appearance. She had lost an eyetooth since the earlier photo had been taken. But she and the woman in the photo had the same narrow chin, if you ignored the lump on the right side of the jaw, and the bright lipstick Pamela wore was smeared over a pouty mouth just like Christina’s. The dark eyes were the same shape, and Pamela wore eye makeup like Christina’s.

  Yes, I felt sure the picture showed Pamela as she had looked before an angry husband had beaten her face out of shape and broken her jaw.

  “The detective was looking for someone named Christina Meachum and showed me an old photo,” I said. “But—I didn’t question that it was you when I saw it. Besides, it would be a pretty big coincidence if some detective was looking for a woman who looked that much like you right in the same area where you were hiding out.”

  Pamela smirked.

  That was the last reaction I had expected. I’m sure I looked astonished, because Pamela immediately dropped her head into her hands.

  “I forget what I look like these days,” she said. “You’re being tactful, trying not to say the picture looked the way I was before I was beaten to a pulp.”

  Pamela kept her face down, and she used her hands to push her hair back, displaying a broad forehead. She nervously pulled off her hairnet, then put it on again. She pulled it down to help her hair hide her large ears. It was just as well that her disguise required that she cover them up.

  I got a Diet Coke out of the refrigerator and sat down opposite her.

  “We’re eager to see you get started again in life, Pamela. This guy may have had nothing to do with you. But there’s a strange car at the end of the alley, too. It would be foolhardy—”

  “I know! I know!”

  She looked up, letting her hair fall back into a curtain that covered her jaws and forehead. Her eyes looked fierce. “I realize you’ve jimmied your accounting around for me. I do appreciate it. I just don’t see how they could have found me here in Warner Pier.”

  “The detective s
aid they had information that you’d been in this area. Had you ever been here before?”

  Pamela shook her head.

  I went on. “Do you have relatives around here? Had you vacationed here? Did you know anybody around here?”

  She kept shaking her head. When I’d used up my supply of questions, I stood up. “Aunt Nettie can call Sarajane, and we’ll figure a safe way to get you out of here. I’ll pay you through today out of petty cash, in case she’s able to move you to a safer location.”

  Pamela’s eyes popped open. “A safer location! You mean in another place?”

  “That would make sense to me.”

  “No!” The word shrilled out. “No! I’m not leaving Warner Pier.”

  Chapter 2

  I’m sure I looked amazed. I certainly felt amazed.

  Sarajane had gone through the whole rigmarole of sneaking Pamela into Warner Pier, keeping her under cover, helping to change her appearance with a bad bleach job, finding her an off-the-books job, and keeping her true identity secret—even from Aunt Nettie and me—and Pamela was willing to risk staying here when her whereabouts might have been discovered? She could be throwing all Sarajane’s work away. And her own life.

  Even Aunt Nettie and I had gone to a certain amount of trouble to keep Pamela safe and her identity a secret. And now, when her hideout might be compromised and the violent husband she had fled might be close to finding her, she didn’t want to leave Warner Pier.

  Yes, I was amazed. Warner Pier was a nice town, but not worth dying over.

  Finally Pamela spoke. “I’m just so tired of running.” She dropped her head to her hands again.

  Maybe I could understand that. “Aunt Nettie is going to call Sarajane,” I said. “We’ll see what she says.” I left without making any other comment.

  Pamela pouted, but she kept on tying bows until five o’clock, our closing time in the winter.

  As the women of the work crew went out, I took a look through the front window. Derrick Valentine was still across the street, although he’d gotten cold enough to move into the antiques shop. The lights were on inside, and I could see him peeking through the back of a Windsor chair. When I found an excuse to take a look down the alley, the car with the Georgia license plate was still across the street.

  By that time Sarajane had arranged for a quiet exit for Pamela. She had contacted George Jenkins, owner of a Warner Pier art gallery. George is also involved in the underground railroad, though he and Sarajane don’t usually work together.

  After everyone had left but Pamela, Aunt Nettie, and me, I called George. He wrapped up a large painting from his gallery, put on his hooded jacket, got into the van with PEACH STREET ART GALLERY on the side, and drove the two blocks to TenHuis Chocolade. He carried the painting in through the front door with no attempt at secrecy and took it back to our break room, which is not visible from the street. He took off his jacket and hung the painting on our north wall. Then he wrapped up the smaller painting it replaced. Both he and Pamela were wearing dark slacks. Pamela put on his jacket, pulled the hood up, walked out the front door holding the second painting in front of her face, loaded it in the van, and drove to the gallery.

  Sarajane met her there. We figured Pamela’s pursuer must not know where she was living, or he would have gone directly to the B&B.

  As soon as the pantomime had gotten Pamela on her way, George Jenkins put on a different jacket and hat, one he had used as padding for the painting he was lending us. Aunt Nettie stuffed Pamela’s own jacket and hat into a large plastic bag. George and Aunt Nettie went out the back door. She was to drive him down various Warner Pier streets and alleys, making sure no one was following them, then deliver him and Pamela’s jacket to the back door of his shop.

  I left the question of Pamela staying in Warner Pier up to Sarajane. I was only a bystander, after all. But I breathed a sigh of relief as she left. Pamela was away from TenHuis Chocolade, and I hoped she wasn’t coming back.

  I wasn’t due to meet Joe for dinner until six thirty, so I went into my office and worked on my e-mail. At six fifteen I turned on the lights we leave burning at night and got my coat. This was the one afternoon a week Joe actually occupies his city attorney’s desk—he does other work evenings and during other odd moments—and I was supposed to meet him at City Hall. We had a big evening planned. We were going to his mother’s house for dinner, and the evening had the earmarks of being an important occasion.

  Joe’s mom, Mercy Woodyard, had invited Joe and me and our good friends Lindy and Tony Herrera, but not their kids. Mercy’s boyfriend, Mike Herrera, mayor of Warner Pier—who happens to be Tony’s dad—was also to be there.

  As I said, Warner Pier is a small town, so we had overlapping relationships with all these people. As mayor, Mike Herrera was Joe’s boss. He dated Joe’s mom. Lindy Herrera and I had been close friends since we were sixteen, the year we both worked as summer counter girls for TenHuis Chocolade. Lindy had married Mike Herrera’s son. Tony Herrera had been a friend of Joe’s since high school. Joe’s mom was the proprietor of our town’s only insurance agency, and Mike Herrera owned three restaurants in Warner Pier, so both were members of our small business community. Lindy was catering manager for her father-in-law. If you drew a diagram of how we were all related by friendship, blood, work, and marriage, it would look like something a fouryear-old scribbled with crayons.

  We all saw a lot of one another, but neither Lindy, Tony, Joe, nor I could remember being invited to an adults-only dinner at Joe’s mom’s house. After all, Mike Herrera owned three restaurants. If we all got together it was usually in one of them. And if this was an informal family gathering, why weren’t Tony and Lindy’s three children included?

  Something was definitely up.

  Mike and Mercy had each been widowed for a long time, and they’d been seeing each other at least three years. They maintained separate domiciles, but they’d taken the occasional trip together and they frequently were in each other’s homes quite late. Like all night. As their adult children, we were careful not to ask too many questions.

  Anyway, tonight’s dinner had all the atmosphere of a formal announcement.

  We were all happy about it, at least outwardly. In fact, I think Tony, Lindy, and I were all thrilled and pleased. But Joe’s reaction to the invitation had been—well, not exactly unenthusiastic. Cautious might be a better term.

  “It’s going to mean big changes for me,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll have to quit my city job,” he said. “Nepotism. Mike can’t hire his stepson.”

  “Mike didn’t hire you. The city council did.”

  “Yeah, but Mike proposed my employment. There’s already been a lot of talk about it around town.”

  “But you’ve worked like a dog for the city! You can’t quit because of gossip.”

  “It’s not because of gossip, Lee. I think Mike is a good mayor. I’d like to see him serve at least one more term, to get his economic development program under way before he leaves office. I’m afraid that he’s going to say he won’t run again, rather than let me resign.”

  I thought that over. “Well, it’s only a part-time job, Joe. The boat shop is doing better financially, and my salary at TenHuis Chocolade has improved. We can get along without that job.”

  Joe laughed. “I’m not unemployable. Several law firms—and even the FBI—tried to recruit me out of law school, you know!”

  “I can’t see you as an FBI agent. You’re too antiestablishment.”

  “A city attorney is part of the establishment. I guess I’ve been converted. Anyway, I can find another job of some kind.”

  “Part-time?”

  “Maybe it’s time to think about something full-time.”

  If Joe took a full-time job, he’d have to sell the boat shop, and he loved the boat shop.

  I had asked more questions, but Joe didn’t want to answer them. He had said his ideas were too vague to talk about. I had dropped
the matter. For then.

  Now I remembered the discussion as I locked the shop’s door behind myself. Joe is a man of many virtues, but he has one fault. He keeps things to himself. This can be quite annoying to a wife, but I had resolved not to nag. I’d learned that when Joe has a problem, he wants to turn it over in his mind. After he works it out, he explains. I was hoping he’d explain soon.

  TenHuis Chocolade is three blocks from the Warner Pier City Hall. The sun had gone down long before, of course, but Warner Pier is perfectly safe any time of the day or night. I decided to walk over to meet Joe.

  I had moved from Dallas to my mother’s hometown only three years earlier, and so far I found the Michigan winters stimulating. It was nice to walk past the Victorian buildings of Warner Pier. The temperature was dropping toward the teens, but I had a ski jacket, a knitted hat, wool pants, boots, and gloves. And, unlike Texas, Michigan has little wind. I took deep breaths of the cold air and felt myself relax.

  Warner Pier City Hall occupies a charming Victorian house with a wide porch. I didn’t climb onto the porch; I knew the main public entrance would be closed, though there were a couple of cars—a nondescript sedan and a flashy SUV—in the slots set aside for visitor parking.

  I followed a sidewalk around to the side, to a door marked POLICE DEPARTMENT. That door is also locked after five o’clock, when 9-1-1 service is taken over by the sheriff’s dispatcher, thirty miles away in the county seat, and the lone patrolman on duty is out in his car. But the door was close to Joe’s desk; he would hear me knock.

  The Warner Pier PD isn’t protected with bulletproof glass or a fancy electronic security system. After all, there are only four members of the department, five if you count the secretary who doubles as the daytime dispatcher. Hogan Jones, Aunt Nettie’s husband, is chief over three patrolmen. This might seem to be a comedown for a man who retired as one of the top detectives in the Cincinnati, Ohio, Police Department. But Hogan seems to enjoy the slow pace of Warner Pier law enforcement.