The Chocolate Jewel Case: A Chocoholic Mystery (7 page)

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a neighbor,” I said. “I spend most of my time here at the shop.”

“Yes, and you’re working right now.” Garnet Garrett stood up. “I didn’t come in to interrupt you. I simply wanted to say how happy I am that you and your husband are joining
us for dinner tomorrow.”

Joe and I were having dinner with the Garretts?

I tried to cover my astonishment by ducking my head and looking through the papers on my desk until I found a notepad. And with every second it took me to find it, I pictured Joe roasting over the Garretts’ backyard grill. Here we had a regular throng of houseguests to feed and entertain, and he made a social engagement
without consulting me? It was definitely an action that merited torture.

By the time I found the notepad, I was—I hoped—in command of my feelings. I smiled at Garnet Garrett. “Let me make a note of the trial. I mean, the time! I’d better write down the time!”

Garnet Garrett smiled sweetly. “Joe hadn’t told you, had he?”

I tried to smile back. “I haven’t seen him since this morning. He went
to lunch with a client from his boat shop.”

“That was Dick! My husband. He found my grandfather’s old speedboat in a shed, and he couldn’t rest until he arranged to have it restored.”

“Joe will do a great job, and I’m looking forward to dinner.” My smile was making my jaw ache.

The dinner would be strictly informal, Mrs. Garrett told me. Just five people—the Garretts, Joe and me, and her uncle
Alex. We should come at six thirty for drinks on the porch. No, I couldn’t bring anything.

I was relieved to hear that. I was scheduled to work from nine to five the next day, and I’d have to feed Gina, Pete, Darrell, Tracy, and Brenda before I could go to the neighbors’ house for a relaxing dinner. And Joe was fixing frozen lasagna and bagged salad for the gang at our house today, so I’d have
to think of something more creative for the next day. Or at least less Italian. Pizza wouldn’t be a good idea.

I said good-bye to Garnet, then pulled out my list of things to talk to Joe about and added to it:
Dinner with Garretts.
I asked Brenda to put a half-pound box of chocolates on my account, so I could take it as a hostess gift. Then I pretended to work.

I hope that I fooled the hairnet
ladies, Brenda and Tracy at the counter, and the customers—even the tourists who took a gander at our prices and walked out again. But I couldn’t fool myself. Too much had happened that day. My mind was whirling, and I didn’t accomplish a thing.

I simply had to talk to Joe, and that wasn’t going to be easy.

Our house has a certain rustic charm, but it also has a major problem, and I’m not talking
about the excavation for the new bathroom and kitchen foundation. The place is an echo chamber. As a teenager I’d discovered that I could hear anything that went on anyplace in the darn house. Which meant that anybody else in the house could also hear me. The episode when I overheard Pete giving Joe a candid assessment of my mental capacity was typical of how things went in that house.

So even
though Joe and I had managed to reserve the use of the one downstairs bedroom just for the two of us, we had to be cautious about talking in there. Between Brenda, Tracy, and Gina overhead and Pete out on the porch—well, we’d spent the past two weeks learning to make love without uttering loud cries of ecstasy. When it came to a serious talk about sensitive subjects, playing the radio and whispering
wasn’t going to do the job. I might feel compelled to yell out a few basic truths.

No, that talk we needed to have wasn’t going to just happen. It would have to be a date.

I picked up the phone and called the boat shop. I got Joe’s answering machine. I left a message. “Please call me, Joe.” I called the house. I got our answering machine. I left a message. “Please call me immediately, Joe.”
I called Joe’s cell phone. I got his voice mail. I left a message. “Call me the second you hear this, Joe, on pain of death.”

But it was eight thirty, the workroom had been closed for hours, and Brenda and Tracy were cleaning the shop before Joe called back.

“What’s up?”

How could he sound so casual? If I’d been mad at midafternoon, I was now steaming. Only the fact that Tracy and Brenda were
standing fifteen feet away kept me from lacing into him with both sides of my tongue.

“Several things have come up today that need discussion,” I said. “Can you come down here?”

“The shower’s free at the moment, and I was thinking of getting into it. Can’t we talk at home?”

“No.”

Joe didn’t respond for a moment. I was trying to keep my cool because of Brenda and Tracy, and he probably had
Pete and Gina standing around behind him with their ears hanging out.

“I’ll be there at nine,” Joe said.

Joe got to the shop at eight fifty-five p.m., entering by the front door. He helped finish up, sweeping the front of the shop while Tracy and Brenda cleaned and restocked the glass cases. I balanced the cash register. All the time Joe kept up a steady stream of Michigan State jokes—in Texas
we call them Aggie jokes—while Tracy countered with some University of Michigan jokes, the same ones called Teasipper jokes in the Southwest. The girls enjoyed his performance.

I was still too mad to be amused, and Joe kept shooting significant glances in my direction all the time, so I gathered that he was nervous about what I was going to say. Somehow this made me madder than ever. Did he regard
me as a witch with a capital B, a nagging wife who had to be placated? I determined to keep our discussion calm and rational.

After Joe walked Tracy and Brenda out to Brenda’s car, which was parked in the alley, I met him in the break room, carrying the legal pad I’d used for my list of discussion topics.

“Uh-oh. This is serious stuff.” Joe tapped the legal pad. “You had to make notes.” Then
Joe put his arms around me and nuzzled my neck. “Are we about to have our first fight? I’m already looking forward to making up.”

I didn’t push him away, but I wasn’t very responsive either.
Rational,
I reminded myself.
Pretend this is a business conference.

“One crazy thing after another happened today,” I said. “Yes, I finally had to make a list.”

Joe sat down on the comfortable couch Aunt
Nettie had installed in the break room. I think he expected me to sit beside him, but instead I pulled a straight chair over and faced him.

“Shoot,” he said.

“Well, since you mention shooting—were you aware that your pal Pete Falconer packs a pistol?”

Joe’s face remained expressionless, so I went on. “I walked up on the porch when Pete wasn’t expecting me, and he was stowing a large pistol
in his duffel bag. What gives?”

Joe grinned. “I’m sure he has a permit,” he said.

“A permit? Joe, Pete may have a dozen permits from the State of Michigan or the federal government or whoever else licenses firemen—I mean, firearms!”

I’d blown it. Joe knew I made those malapropisms when I was nervous. So much for my calm-and-rational act. I went on quickly. “But Pete does not have a permit to
carry a pistol in my house! Our house.”

“I didn’t know you objected to firearms, Lee. I can even remember one occasion when you grabbed a deer rifle and threatened three people with it. You saved the day. You’re a regular pistol-packin’ mama when you’re riled up.”

I tried to keep my voice level. “Yes, I was raised with guns in the house, and I’m not afraid of them—if they’re in the hands of
people who practice handling them regularly and safely. But why does Pete need a pistol to watch birds?”

“Hey! Pete is well qualified in the handling of firearms. Just don’t worry about it.” Joe grinned again, but the grin didn’t look natural.

“Do you know what Pete’s up to?”

“I have some idea. And it is okay. Trust me on this one.” Joe grinned even wider. “What’s next on your list?”

I looked
at it. “Gina.”

“What about her?”

“Why is she here?”

“She’s dodging her latest ex.”

“Is he dangerous? Because if he is, Gina needs to be in a shelter, not in a house with two teenage girls.”

“I don’t think he’s dangerous in the sense that he’ll come looking for her. He may be dangerous in the sense that she’s afraid he’ll talk her into calling off the divorce.”

“Who is he?”

“His name is
Art Atkins.”

“Atkins? Like your grandmother’s maiden name?”

Joe laughed. “Yeah. Gina met him at a family reunion.”

“Joe! Will you be serious?”

He patted my hand. “I’ll try. Gina got acquainted with him through her antique business, though I think he actually is some sort of distant cousin.”

“She’s driving me crazy.”

“I know Gina is annoying. Do you want me to throw her out?”

“Not if she
really needs a place to stay. But will you try to convince her she should call your grandmother?” I described the episode when I’d been forced to lie to Joe’s grandmother, to tell her—or at least imply—that I didn’t know where Gina was, even though her missing daughter was running up my stairs.

Joe rolled his eyes. “I’ll talk to Gina. What’s next?”

He still didn’t seem to be taking my concerns
seriously, but I was down to one I thought would get his attention.

“Tracy overhead something at the grocery store that I found upsetting.” I repeated the gossip linking Joe’s mom to the burglaries along the lakeshore. “I made the girls promise they wouldn’t repeat that story to anyone,” I said.

I was surprised when Joe’s first reaction was a shrug. “It’s not like you to pay attention to gossip,”
he said.

“Joe! This isn’t just gossip! This is slander! And it’s completely unfair. Mercy should snow. I mean, sue! She should take that woman to court.”

“Yeah, that would do a lot of good. That way the
Gazette
would write it up, and everybody in town would be talking about it. Like having a movie banned so you can sell more tickets.”

“But what can we do about it?”

“We can’t do anything about
it. Except laugh it off. Yuk, yuk.”

“That’s all you’ve done with everything I’ve mentioned.”

“Look, Lee, I know it’s a mess having all these people at the house.”

“And a big hole outside the back door.”

“And a big hole outside the back door. I promise that Darrell and I will get some work done on that tomorrow. We’ll try to have the whole project done in two weeks. All this is temporary. Pete
will find his birds and leave. Gina will go home. Tracy’s parents will get back, and she will go home. Summer will end, and Brenda will go back to Texas.

“See? Problems solved.” He stood up. “I thought you hauled me down here to let me have it over the last item on your list.”

He leaned over and tapped my legal pad, right on top of
Dinner with Garretts.

“Actually, Joe, having you accept dinner
engagements without consulting me is the least of my concerns. I haven’t even mentioned the main problem yet.”

“What’s that?”

“Your dad came by the house this morning.”

Joe’s face went rigid. I’d finally gotten to something he didn’t laugh off.

J
oe’s expression became a glare. “That’s not funny,” he said.

“It didn’t amuse me either, Joe. In fact, I almost slammed the door in the guy’s face.”

I described my encounter with the tall stranger with gray
hair and a scarred cheek. “I thought you might know who he was,” I said, “or what his visit was all about.”

Joe was beginning to look more puzzled than angry. “I have no idea who he was or why he came.”

“A high school coach? A law professor? There’s never been anybody you thought of as a father? Anybody who thought of you as a son?”

“Not that I can think of. All the fathering I had—and I was
lucky there—came from my mom’s dad, Grandpa Matt.”

“The boatbuilder?”

“Right. I used to hang out at his shop every afternoon. He taught me everything I know.”

“About boats?”

“About life. I said I was lucky. This guy who came to the door—did you say he had a scar?”

“Yes. It wasn’t disfiguring. In fact, he was quite an attractive man. The spooky thing was . . .” I stopped.

“He was wearing
a sheet.” Joe had lightened up a little.

“He wasn’t
that
spooky! No, the thing that made my blood run cold was that his smile was reminiscent of yours.”

“Mine?”

“Yes. I can’t say he looked like you, except that he was tall and slim. And his hair had probably been dark when he was younger. But when he smiled . . . well, his face did take on a certain similarity to yours. Then, when I talked
to Gina—”

“You told Gina about this?”

“I haven’t told anybody. But I asked Gina about your dad—you know, what happened to him. I admit my stomach turned over when she said his ship went down in Lake Superior. I thought his grave might be empty, just a memorial. But she said that he was identified.”