The Chocolate Snowman Murders Read online

  That was when I realized that Mendenhall had moved toward me, sliding across the seat. I was too worried about a semi on my left to look at him, but I spoke firmly. “Dr. Mendenhall, please buckle your seat belt.”

  “Oh, come on, young lady. I can’t be friendly clear over on the other side of this truck.”

  I was downshifting from third to second—with both hands and both feet extremely busy—when he ran his hand along the inside of my knee.

  My reflexes took over. I put all my strength behind a vigorous jab with my right elbow that caught him in the shoulder. “Get back in your seat belt!”

  Mendenhall moved away, though not as far away as I would have liked.

  I sneaked a glance at him. He was rubbing his shoulder and looking wounded. If he wanted sympathy, he was out of luck. I was wishing my elbow had had a spear point attached.

  Traffic slowed almost to a stop again. We were barely moving, and I tried to watch Mendenhall out of the corner of my eye.

  He was still rubbing his shoulder. “That wasn’t very friendly. When I visit a new place, I like to be friendly.”

  “Pawing at a woman who is not eager for your attentions is not friendly. Please buckle your seat belt and stay on your side of the cab, Dr. Mendenhall.”

  He took another nip from his flask, pouting. He did not put his seat belt on. Traffic inched along. I was imprisoned in the truck. I began to make plans for breaking out of that prison.

  We passed a sign saying it would be a mile before the next exit, one long mile before I could get off the interstate.

  I allowed myself to hope that Mendenhall would subside. Pass out. Catch on to the idea I was trying to put across.

  Unfortunately, the idea he got was not the one I had in mind. Traffic began to move a little faster, but we’d barely gone a hundred feet—I was shifting from first to second—when Mendenhall slid across the seat and leaned toward me.

  “Now, Lee, I know you can be friendly. A beautiful woman like you knows she’s attractive to men. You must enjoy the attention.”

  He got up on his knees in the seat, leaned over, and breathed down my neck.

  “Get away!” As soon as I could get my hand off the gearshift, I put my palm in the enter of his chest and pushed him over backward. “Stay away from me!”

  He chuckled. “You know you like it.”

  Just then I saw the promise of deliverance. It was one of those highway signs describing which services are available at exits.

  There was a motel at the next exit, I saw, and that exit was now close. I slid the truck into the exit lane without bothering to make a turn signal.

  Mendenhall was getting up onto his knees, apparently ready for another try at my nape, and my sudden swerve almost threw him into the dashboard. As soon as he regained his balance, he began to crawl across the seat toward me. I again put my palm in the center of his chest. This time I pushed gently.

  “If you’re feeling this amorous,” I said, “you need to get a room.”

  The guy nearly fell over backward, and it wasn’t because of my push. He was flatly astonished. “A room?”

  “Yes. There’s a motel at this exit. They rent rooms. Do you have a credit card?”

  “A credit card?”

  “To pay for the room.”

  “The room?”

  He sounded scared to death. Dr. Fletcher Mendenhall was confirming something I’d long suspected. These creeps who come on so hard with no encouragement don’t really want to succeed. They’re simply trying to embarrass the object of the chase. Something about me—could it be my height?—had intimidated Mendenhall. He had no sexual interest in me at all. He simply felt that he had to humiliate me.

  I wasn’t humiliated. I was furious. And we were about to find out who wound up embarrassed.

  We reached the bottom of the exit ramp, and an arrow on another highway department sign showed me which way to turn. I made a hard right, drove a block, and turned into the driveway of a budget motel chain. It looked sleazy enough for my purpose.

  The truck skidded slightly as I hit the brakes in front of the office. I turned to face Mendenhall and smiled. “Okay. Get a room.”

  A broad smile came over the professor’s face. Once again he offered me his old-fashioned flask. This time I took it from him, though I didn’t drink from it. The idea of touching my lips to something that Mendenhall’s mouth had been on was nauseating. I could barely stand to hold it in my hand.

  “I’ll keep this,” I said. “You go in and get a room.”

  Instead, he leaned toward me, apparently deciding my new attitude deserved a kiss.

  Again, I gently shoved him away with my palm. “Get a room.”

  He almost fell getting out of the truck, and he staggered slightly as he went into the office. As soon as he was inside, I grabbed my phone and tried to call Joe. His phone was out of service. I debated throwing Mendenhall’s suitcase out right there, but by the time I’d left a message for Joe, Mendenhall was coming back out. I put the phone away.

  Mendenhall got into the truck and held up a key card. “Around to the right,” he said, “and I want to assure you that I consider myself a very lucky man.”

  “What’s the room number?”

  “One twenty-two.”

  “Good. You’re on the ground floor.”

  There was a parking spot in front of 122, and I pulled into it. Mendenhall got out and went to the door. By the time he’d fumbled through opening it—he tried at least four times before he got the card in the slot the right way up—I had taken his suitcase out from behind the seat.

  He turned around, smiling, and motioned for me to precede him into the room.

  I crossed the walkway and dropped the suitcase in front of him. I handed him the flask. I presented him with the box of chocolate snowmen I’d forgotten to give him earlier.

  “Good-bye,” I said.

  Then I got back in the truck and locked the doors. Mendenhall was still standing there, looking stupid, as I backed out of my parking place.

  I rolled the window down a few inches and yelled through it. “Someone will pick you up in the morning!” Then I drove off.

  I was halfway back to the office before Mendenhall ran after me, shaking his fist. I could see his lips move, but I was too far away to understand what he was saying.

  Leaving the motel, I turned right so that I wouldn’t have to wait for traffic to clear. This meant I had to turn around in the parking lot of the supermarket across the street to head back to I-196, but I did not want to linger on the motel grounds.

  Once I was on I-196, headed toward Warner Pier, the pace of traffic had picked up, and I was able to drive at top speed for five miles. My phone rang twice, but when I checked the number, I saw it was the one I’d called to reach Mendenhall. I turned the phone off.

  I pulled off at an exit that advertised a McDonald’s. I went inside, ordered a cup of coffee, sat down at a table, and shook. I don’t know if the shaking was caused by nervousness or fury.

  After a couple of sips of caffeine, I turned my phone back on and tried to call Joe again. Still no answer. Mendenhall hadn’t left a message, and he had apparently quit trying to reach me. I scanned the numbers I had saved in my cell phone. I didn’t have George Jenkins’ number, and I needed to tell him I’d dumped his juror. I found Ramona’s number, however, and she needed to be told, too. I called her, but she wasn’t answering. I didn’t leave a message. Somehow I didn’t want a permanent record of anything I might say at that moment.

  By then I’d stopped shaking, and I remembered that Joe kept a Warner County phone book in his truck. I put the lid on my coffee, got back in the vehicle, found the phone book, and called George Jenkins. He didn’t answer either.

  Sarajane Foster needed to know she’d have an empty room at the B and B that night, and I tried to call her. No answer there, either, but the answering machine picked up. I left a message saying Mendenhall wouldn’t be there until the next day, but I didn’t explain why.
I simply said he was staying in Grand Rapids that night.

  Since it was then after five p.m., in December, in Michigan, the sun was down. I drove on home. The drive was not improved when it began to snow enough to slow traffic.

  I don’t like driving in snow, but I wasn’t sorry to have something to worry about besides my run-in with Dr. Fletcher Mendenhall and my frustrated attempts to tell somebody what had happened.

  Mad as I was, I was sensible enough to know that I didn’t want to tell the whole world. I had to assume that Mendenhall would sober up and fulfill his responsibilities as judge of the WinterFest art show. There was no purpose in humiliating George Jenkins and the WinterFest committee by making the out-of-town jerk’s transgressions generally known.

  So, when the phone rang as soon as I got in the house, I let the answering machine catch it. I snatched the receiver up as soon as I heard Joe’s voice.

  “Pal, you are in trouble,” I said. “I’m not doing any more airport pickups for you.”

  “What happened?”

  I gave him the full story, with embellishments. Joe’s only comments were along the line of “You’re kidding” and “I can’t believe this,” with one angry “I’ll kill the guy.”

  However, when I got to the description of Mendenhall running along the motel sidewalk, shaking his fist as I drove off, Joe blew it. He laughed.

  “This is not funny!”

  “I know, Lee. I’m just so darn proud of you.”

  “You’d better be!”

  “I am. That was quick thinking. Mendenhall deserved to be dumped in the snow out on the interstate. He deserved to be run over by a semi and flattened as flat as—as one of his acrylics. You handled it great.”

  I felt somewhat mollified. “What do we do now?”

  “I guess I’d better check on him. I’m still in Grand Rapids, so I’ll stop on my way out of town.”

  I told Joe the exit, the motel, and the room number. “I think you ought to leave him there tonight,” I said. “I left a message telling Sarajane he wouldn’t be at her B and B tonight. I can’t imagine that Mendenhall could have sobered up enough that she’d be willing to have him as a guest. She’s in the place alone this time of the year. George may have to find him another place to stay.”

  Joe promised to call after he’d stopped to check on Mendenhall. I began to think about dinner, although the snow might make him late getting home.

  About twenty minutes later, Joe called again. He started by repeating the exit number, motel name, and room number.

  “Room one twenty-two,” I said. “I’m sure that’s right. Isn’t he there?”

  “I think he may have passed out. I banged on the door, but he didn’t answer. So I called his cell phone, and I can hear it ring—or peal; he’s got the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ on it. But he’s not answering.”

  “Could he have gone out for dinner? There’s a restaurant next door.”

  “He doesn’t sound as if he would be thinking about food, but I’ll check everything within walking distance. I guess I’d better quiz the desk clerk, too. I’ll make sure Mendenhall didn’t call a cab.”

  But when Joe got home an hour and a half later, he said Mendenhall hadn’t been at any nearby restaurant, and the desk clerk claimed that he knew nothing about him. Apparently no cab had come to the motel.

  “Let’s forget him,” he said. “He probably passed out. I’ll go back first thing tomorrow morning.”

  I called Ramona and George all evening, as late as ten o’clock, but neither of them ever answered at their homes, and Ramona’s cell phone was turned off. I didn’t have George’s cell number.

  I was surprised by this lack of interest in where our juror was and why he hadn’t been delivered to Warner Pier. But I didn’t worry about it. Mendenhall was safely stowed away—unless he decided to leave his motel—and my responsibility was over. Joe could take it from here.

  And he did. At eight fifteen the next morning, I heard him asking the motel clerk to connect him with room 122. But he didn’t say anything else.

  When I brought the coffee to the breakfast table, I said, “Is Mendenhall too hungover to answer the phone?”

  “I guess so. I’ve tried his cell phone and the motel phone, but he’s not answering either.”

  “I hope he didn’t take a cab back to the airport and go home, or that he’s not sick. Dead would be okay.”

  Joe laughed. “I’ll go up there as soon as I finish breakfast. You get hold of George. I’m sure he expected Mendenhall to judge the show today.”

  “If he’s as hungover as he deserves to be, I pity the artists.”

  We left it at that. And that morning I was able to catch George Jenkins, who was properly shocked and apologetic about my experience. He was also relieved to hear that Joe had gone back to Grand Rapids to bring Mendenhall down.

  He apologized for not being available by phone the evening before. “I had to run into Holland,” he said.

  I went on to the office. An hour later I was immersed in an order for fifty large Valentine hearts filled with tiny cupids, a special design for a Detroit gift shop, when the phone rang. I saw Joe’s number on the caller ID.

  “Howdy,” I said. “Is Mendenhall on his feet?”

  Joe didn’t answer for a long moment. “Not really.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s still drunk!”

  “No. He’s not drunk. But you’d better clear your calendar for today. You probably should come up here to make a statement.”

  “A statement! That jerk had better not be filing some sort of complaint!”

  “No, Mendenhall doesn’t have any complaint.”

  “Then what’s going on?”

  “He didn’t answer when I banged on his door, so I got the desk clerk to open up. Mendenhall’s lying on the floor. He’s dead.”

  “Oh, no! If he wasn’t drunk yesterday—if he was sick and I abandoned him, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Sick or drunk, it doesn’t really matter. His prior condition doesn’t seem to have anything to do with his death.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Somebody bashed his head in with the desk lamp, Lee. It looks like murder.”

  Chapter 4

  I was clear out onto Peach Street, headed for the interstate, before I thought of George Jenkins. I might not have thought of him then if I hadn’t driven past his business, Peach Street Gallery of Art.

  “Oh, my gosh!” I was so startled I spoke out loud. “George has lost another juror.”

  I wheeled the van into the curb and ran for the door. The gallery wasn’t open yet, but I could see movement, so I pounded on the glass until George came to let me in, looking astonished. “Lee?”

  “Did Joe call you? Just now?”

  “No, Joe hasn’t called today.”

  “Then you haven’t heard about Mendenhall.”

  George rolled his eyes. “What now?”

  I refused to come inside, so George and I stood on the sidewalk, and I told him that Joe had found the art show juror beaten to death. “I thought you needed to know right away,” I said.

  George grabbed his head with both hands. “I know I should be shocked and horrified, but all I can think about is how I’ll find another juror.”

  “That,” I said, “is your problem. Sorry to dump it on you and run, George, but Joe says I need to come up there and make a statement.”

  “Yes, I see that.” George shook his head. “I hope they figure out what happened. He did sound peculiar when he called last night.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “No. He left a message on my cell.”

  I drove to Grand Rapids as quickly as possible, and I used the forty-five minutes it took to get there to worry.

  Mendenhall was dead? Beaten to death with a desk lamp? I found it hard to believe.

  If Joe had told me the death looked like a heart attack, or like an overdose, or like a stroke, I wouldn’t have been surprised. I might have felt a
bit guilty for leaving him alone in a motel in a strange city. But I definitely wasn’t responsible if he’d been beaten to death with a desk lamp.

  But however Mendenhall died, there was no reason I should feel responsible at all, I told myself. After all, Mendenhall was a grown man. If he had become ill, he had been alert enough to call an ambulance, or he had been when I left him. And if he chose to drink himself into a stupor, that wasn’t my fault.

  But he’d been beaten to death? How could it have happened? Who could have done such a thing?

  I was in such a state of nerves that I asked myself that question for twenty minutes before I saw the answer that the police were going to jump on right away.

  The cops were going to think I’d done it. Or else they were going to think Joe had done it.

  Yikes!

  I could well be the person to admit last seeing Mendenhall alive, and my husband had been at the motel looking for him later that evening.

  Joe and I were very likely in big trouble. We were certain to be at the head of the suspect list.

  I had dumped Mendenhall at the motel, then called my husband to complain that the man had offered me unwanted attentions, attentions obnoxious enough that I had refused to drive another forty-five minutes with him. I could easily be suspected of using physical force to repel those attentions.

  Hard on the heels of learning that Mendenhall hadn’t exactly treated me with respect, Joe had gone to Mendenhall’s room looking for him. Someone who didn’t know Joe could easily picture him in the classic role of angry husband.

  There was no hiding either situation. The desk clerk had seen me in the truck as Mendenhall went in to rent a room. Later Joe had gone to the desk clerk to try to find Mendenhall. The clerk was almost certain to remember one or both of us. Joe had also checked out restaurants in the area, looking for Mendenhall. Somebody was going to remember that, too.

  To add to the confusion, the crime had happened in a suburb of Grand Rapids, not in our friendly hometown of Warner Pier, where Joe and I were well-known residents. Heck, in Warner Pier the chief of police was my uncle by marriage. Hogan Jones looked on me almost as a daughter, and he and Joe were good friends. He knew us both well enough to feel sure we wouldn’t beat anybody to death—no matter how obnoxious the guy had been.