The Chocolate Moose Motive: A Chocoholic Mystery Page 3

  “That’s not usually a crime.”

  “Sissy seems to have a talent for making wisecracks at exactly the wrong moment. The day Buzz was killed, for example, when the EMTs arrived, she said, ‘At least you won’t have to hunt around for the wound.’”

  Joe and Aunt Nettie looked puzzled, and I’m sure I did, too.

  Hogan explained. “Buzz had his head shaved. He was shot in the back of the head. He didn’t even have any hair to hide the wound.” His voice trailed off.

  “That wasn’t so bad, Hogan,” I said.

  “Maybe the words weren’t so bad. I guess it was her sarcastic tone.”

  “Maybe she was just nervous. If she’d been sitting with his body…that would have shattered anybody’s nerves. Was she crying?”

  “No.” Hogan’s voice was sharp. “And I don’t hold that against her. I’ve seen people hit by bad news hundreds of times. They all react differently. Some of them cry. Some get hysterical. Some are sort of frozen. But it’s unusual for people to start making funny remarks.”

  “She kept making wisecracks?”

  “When the neighbors showed up, Sissy said to her grandmother, ‘Nosy and Rosy are here.’ And her grandmother shushed her, but Sissy went on. She said, ‘I guess they don’t want to miss anything.’”

  “That may not have been tactful, but it’s understandable. I’ve sure known people who show up during a crisis out of curiosity, not kindness. If these people were neighbors, I guess Sissy knew them. Nosy and Rosy were probably nicknames they used all the time.”

  “What Sissy said about the neighbors was nothing to what she said about the TV reporters when they showed up.”

  “I can’t blame her for that.” I’d had my own run-ins with television reporters.

  Hogan laughed. “It was that jerk Gordon Hitchcock. She called him ‘the ghoul.’ I pretty much agreed with her. Unfortunately, he heard her, and that didn’t encourage the station to give her a break on the air. Then I heard that the next day, when some of the neighbors brought food, she wasn’t tactful about it. ‘We don’t need charity.’ That sort of remark.”

  “That was too bad. But it sounds as if the grandmother is the one considered odd by the neighbors. How did she react?”

  “Oh, I’d say she was pretty normal, at least while I was here. Normal for her. She mainly kept an eye on the baby. She took him into Sissy’s house.” He looked up. “And by the way, the houses out there may look like shacks from the outside, but there’s nothing wrong with them inside. The houses aren’t—well, like what you’d see in a magazine, but they’re comfortable. The plumbing works. The electricity is on. Both houses are pretty rustic, but I think that’s because Wildflower and Sissy like to live that way.”

  “Did the sheriff ask them to leave the property for the investigation?”

  “Just until the next day. The neighbors—Nosy and Rosy—offered to take them in, but Sissy said she’d rather go to a hotel, even if it meant going to South Haven or Holland. She wasn’t very gracious about it. Actually, Sarajane found rooms for them.”

  Sarajane Harding is a close friend of Aunt Nettie’s. She runs a bed-and-breakfast inn.

  “I hope the sheriff paid for it,” I said. “Sarajane’s rates are steep, even in the winter, and I’m sure Sissy and her grandmother don’t have a lot of money.”

  “Burt and Sarajane worked it out, but Sissy and Wildflower kept insisting they could pay their own way.” He went on, frowning. “Paying their own way seems to be a thing with both of them. They don’t like for anybody to act as though they’re poor.”

  “Even though they are poor?”

  “I guess that’s when it’s hardest to take,” Hogan said. “Keeping up appearances. You know.”

  “Like the March girls each clutching one glove at the ball,” I said.

  Hogan looked confused. I didn’t try to explain. I guess boys don’t read Louisa May Alcott, so men don’t remember how hard Little Women’s Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy worked to face respectable New England society in the 1860s. Their efforts to get matching pairs of kid gloves together for a ball made a big impression on a little girl in Texas who didn’t have many good clothes herself. Looking back, even in high school I can remember assuring everyone I thought the new fashions were ugly, whereas the truth was that my babysitting money wouldn’t stretch far enough to buy the latest thing, and I knew my mother couldn’t afford to buy me clothes.

  Suddenly I felt a real kinship with Sissy Smith. I blinked, hard. “And now she’s apparently lost her job,” I said.

  Aunt Nettie smiled. She has a truly sweet smile, and it accurately reflects her disposition. “I guess we could give her one,” she said. “I can always use more hands in the workroom.”

  I looked at Hogan and raised my eyebrows. “What would you think of that?”

  “I wouldn’t know of any reason not to hire her,” he said. “But I’m not sure she’d be good at making chocolate. She’s a bookkeeper, you know.”

  “Even better!” Aunt Nettie’s voice was happy. “I’ve been trying to get you to hire an assistant, Lee.”

  This was true. Several times Aunt Nettie had suggested I needed help with the business side. Now she was pushing the idea again.

  I tried to react cautiously. “I’ll have to see Sissy about this accident. Maybe I can talk to her informally.”

  Joe jumped into the conversation then. “Sissy came to our agency over the custody case,” he said. “I think she tries to put up a tough facade to hide her insecurities. But you could offer her a job for the summer, and if she drives you crazy, you could let her go next fall.”

  Then he turned to Hogan with a question about Warner Pier crime rates. This effectively changed the subject, and it was time, I think. We were all about to get weepy over Sissy Smith.

  I tried to remind myself that I didn’t really know her. I’d heard her father-in-law talking ugly to her, and we’d exchanged information after our fender bender. I had felt sorry for her, and Hogan’s tale had made me feel even more sorry for her.

  Feeling sorry for someone wasn’t a good basis for hiring the individual. I knew I probably ought to forget the whole thing.

  But I didn’t do that. After Aunt Nettie and Hogan left that evening, I got on the computer, searched for west Michigan job-hunting sites, and found Sissy’s résumé posted.

  Hmmm. She’d completed a course in the bookkeeping program TenHuis Chocolade used.

  But we’re a small business. All our employees have to be ready to work at the retail counter. They have to be able to meet the public. A wisecracker might not be real good at that.

  In a small business all the employees have to get along, too. If the hairnet ladies—the geniuses who actually make our delectable bonbons and truffles—thought Sissy Smith was a murderess…Well, it might be unjust, but if they all thought that, hiring Sissy might simply cause her more trouble. Working in an unfriendly environment could make things worse. I went to bed worried.

  But I did call her previous employer—listed in the online résumé—and he gave her a glowing recommendation. She had resigned because the turmoil that followed Buzz’s death had made it too difficult for her to work, he said.

  Two days later, when Sissy called to tell me how much it would cost to repair her car, and it was only a couple of hundred dollars, I told her I’d just write her a check and forget the insurance claim. I added, “I ran across your résumé on line. We’re looking for a bookkeeper. Would you be interested in talking to me about the job?”

  Then I gritted my teeth and hoped she’d say no. I still felt nervous about the whole deal. Did we really want to hire a woman from an odd family who had been the subject of a lot of gossip? Would I have the nerve to tell Sissy Smith that she’d have to restrain that glossy black hair if she wanted to work in a food establishment?

  But after a pause Sissy said she was interested. When she came by that afternoon, her hair was in a bun, and she was wearing a businesslike dark dress. She brought her ré
sumé along in a manila folder.

  Her attitude was admittedly wary. “I guess you know my husband was a murder victim,” she said.

  I tried to make my attitude completely clear. “I guess you know my aunt is married to Chief Hogan Jones,” I said. “And, yes, sometimes we talk about local crime.”

  “So you’ve heard the gossip about me.” She stared at me with those bold green eyes.

  I stared back, still determined to be up-front with her. “If you were around town last winter, I guess you heard I was a suspect in a murder case. But I didn’t do it.”

  Sissy smiled a wry smile. “I didn’t either.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So we agree not to listen to gossip.”

  She nodded. “Deal. Now, what accounting program are you using?”

  The rest of the interview was standard. I had her résumé, so we just skimmed over her past job experience. Sissy said she had liked her previous job.

  “Things were so hectic for me after Buzz was killed that I finally had to quit,” she said, “but we parted on good terms.”

  She asked about our yearly budget, and I told her that I particularly wanted someone to take care of payroll.

  She nodded confidently. “I’ve done that. How many employees do you have?”

  I showed her the crummy little room we’d planned to fix up for her to work in, then gave her a quick tour of the rest of the place. I made sure she understood this was just a summer job. I was afraid to plan farther ahead than that.

  The only touchy moment came when I introduced her to Aunt Nettie’s chief chocolate-making assistant, Dolly Jolly, who is quite striking. She’s tall and broad and has red hair that almost glows.

  As I said, I’m five feet eleven and a bit, but Dolly towers over me. At just over five feet, Sissy looked like a doll next to the two of us. She stepped back and looked up as if we were two skyscrapers. She didn’t say anything, but her stance was hilarious. Dolly and I both broke into laughter.

  “Don’t worry, Sissy!” Dolly shouted. Dolly’s voice always comes out as a shout. “We don’t have a height requirement.”

  “We’ll put your desk on stilts,” I said.

  For the first time, Sissy gave a broad smile. “You two can take a joke,” she said.

  “Yeah, Dolly and I can,” I said, “but not all our customers have well-developed senses of humor.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  Dolly showed her how our molded chocolates are made, and Sissy oohed and ahhed over the clever little molded animals we were featuring that summer. The moose, of course, drew most of her compliments.

  Finally, Aunt Nettie, who does own the business, after all, sat down and talked to Sissy. She finished up by asking Sissy if she had any questions.

  “Just one.” Sissy sighed. “My grandmother does our cooking, and she’s heavily into natural food. Will you still consider me if I tell you we don’t keep refined sugar in the house?”

  Aunt Nettie smiled broadly. “If you have no moral objection to eating it,” she said, “we’ll teach you.”

  So we hired her. Sissy agreed to start the next Monday. We shook hands all around, and Aunt Nettie gave her a small box of chocolates—including two moose—to take with her. “To practice eating refined sugar,” she said.

  As she left, I felt good about the whole thing. We needed a good bookkeeper, and Sissy had the skills. Sissy needed a job, and we’d been able to give her one.

  Then Tracy Henderson, one of our counter girls, came into my office and shut the door behind her.

  “What’s up, Tracy?”

  “Lee! You’re not really going to hire a woman who murdered her husband, are you?”

  Chapter 4

  I looked at Tracy for a moment, then leaned forward to rest my head on my desktop. I banged my forehead against the blotter three times.

  “Lee! Lee! I was only kidding!” Tracy’s voice was anguished. “You’ve nagged me about gossiping so long that I finally got the idea.”

  “Aunt Nettie and I want to help Sissy out, not cause more trouble for her, Tracy. If you and the ladies who work here are going to start talking irresponsibly…”

  Tracy was shaking her head. “No, Lee. I went to high school with Sissy. She was two years ahead of me. I’ve thought all along that all this talk about her was ridiculous. She’s definitely not the kind of person to kill anybody. I’m on Sissy’s side. I promise.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. But, Tracy, the best thing you can do is just shut up.”

  “But I’m ready to tell everyone she’s innocent.”

  I shook my head. “I think it’s better if you simply don’t bring it up. The less talk the better. In this case, actions will probably speak louder than words. If you’re friendly to Sissy, if you tell her it’s good to be working with her and maybe go to lunch with her—then people will see you believe in her. You don’t need to be protecting her all the time.”

  Tracy agreed to follow this policy, but I took her agreement with a grain of salt. Tracy is a talker. It’s incredibly hard for her to stay quiet.

  She’d barely gone back to her place behind the retail counter when Aunt Nettie came in and perched on the edge of my visitor’s chair.

  She looked a bit concerned. “Do you think we’re doing the right thing, Lee?”

  “Yes, I feel confident about that. What I’m not sure of is how well it’s going to work out. Tracy’s already been in. I was a bit surprised to learn she’s on Sissy’s side, and she’s ready to tell the world Sissy wouldn’t kill anybody. It seems she knew her in high school.”

  “I’m glad she feels that way, but it may not help.”

  “I agree. I tried to convince her that less talk was a good thing. But you know Tracy. It’s hard for her to shut up.”

  At this moment, Connie Van Doren, one of the ladies from the workshop—the people who actually make our chocolates—came to the door of the office. Connie, a stout, middle-aged lady with gray hair and delft blue eyes, stood there, frowning.

  Aunt Nettie spoke. “Yes, Connie?”

  “Nettie, you and Lee aren’t really going to hire that awful Sissy Smith, are you?”

  “Do you know some reason we shouldn’t?”

  “Well.” Connie frowned harder. “Everyone knows she killed her husband.”

  Before I could lace into her, Aunt Nettie spoke. “Oh! If that’s true, you’d better tell the sheriff.”

  “Wha-what?”

  “Yes, Sheriff Ramsey has been very upset because that case is on his unsolved list. Or that was what Hogan told me. If you have new evidence, the sheriff will want to hear it.”

  “I don’t have any evidence!”

  “Then what makes you think she killed her husband?”

  Connie frowned. “Well, my cousin Jenny talked to a lady who saw her car go back out to that weird, hippie place where they lived—right at the time when Buzz Smith was killed.”

  “How did Jenny know when he was killed?”

  “Well, everyone knows…” Connie paused. “It wasn’t Jenny who knew. It was this lady she knows. And Jenny didn’t tell me who it was.”

  “So it was the lady Jenny knows who saw the car.”

  “I’m not sure she saw the car. Maybe she knows somebody who saw it.”

  “Why don’t you talk to Jenny and see if you can track down this unknown woman who claims she saw the car. Because I’m sure either the sheriff or the state police would be glad to hear about that. Or, once you get the facts, you could talk to Hogan. He’s not directly concerned with the investigation into the death of Buzz Smith, but he’s discussed the case with the sheriff, and I’m sure he’d help you get the new evidence to the right person.”

  Connie had the sense to look a little embarrassed. “I guess Chief Jones knows you’ve hired Sissy Smith.”

  Aunt Nettie nodded and smiled her sweetest smile. “He knows we were thinking about it. He said she ought to be a good employee.”

  “Oh.” Connie swallowed. “Well, I’ll get
back to work.” She left.

  Aunt Nettie and I looked at each other. Neither of us spoke for a full minute. Then Aunt Nettie stood up. “I guess I’d better get back to work, too. As for Sissy, well…we may be in for an interesting time.”

  “I hope Sissy has a smart-aleck remark to handle this situation.”

  I went back to work, too, but if I’d been nervous about Sissy before, now I was ready to pull my hair, chew my nails, and fidget all over. I still believed Aunt Nettie and I were right to give Sissy a chance, but I dreaded Monday, Sissy’s first day on the job.

  But when Monday came, Sissy took her place at TenHuis Chocolade with no commotion. The hairnet ladies buzzed, of course, but they kept working, and Sissy didn’t even complain about the lousy office we gave her.

  TenHuis was originally set up—thirty-five years ago—as a two-person business. Aunt Nettie and Uncle Phil had spent a year in the Netherlands, doing an apprenticeship to learn the chocolate business. They returned to their hometown, Warner Pier, and opened a small shop. At first, both made chocolate and both waited on any customers who came in. Uncle Phil made a few sales calls on restaurants and specialty shops, but the business grew simply because they made wonderful bonbons and truffles and Warner Pier residents and visitors began to buy them. Then specialty shops and restaurants began to buy them. Out-of-town people began to call, write, and e-mail to order them. Now we sell more chocolate out of town than we do in Warner Pier. We’re well acquainted with the FedEx and UPS drivers.

  After they’d been in business a year or so, Aunt Nettie and Uncle Phil needed to hire more help, and eventually the business operation shook out with Aunt Nettie managing the workshop and overseeing the twenty-five or so ladies who make the chocolates, and Uncle Phil handling the business and shipping ends and supervising the small retail shop.

  After Uncle Phil died, Aunt Nettie hired me to run the business side. But through all this, the shop had remained at the same address. Things changed, of course. The building they were in went on the market, so they bought it. The store next door closed, so they expanded into that space. As the mail-order business grew, they added a shipping room at the back. But the workshop and retail store remained small, and my office was an eight-by-eight glass cubicle overlooking the retail area on one side and the workshop on another.