14 The Chocolate Clown Corpse (15 page)

“This has been one heck of an afternoon,” I said.

“And it’s not over yet,” he said. “A Warner Pier police car is right behind me.”

“Oh no! Joe, I’ve got to talk to you before I talk to Clancy Pike!”

“We haven’t got time,” Joe said.

“But I don’t know what to tell Clancy.”

“When in doubt, keep your mouth shut.”

Joe opened the door and, sure enough, Clancy Pike stood on the sidewalk outside.

His warm winter cap with the earflaps fastened on top hid his bald head, but he pulled the hat off very politely. I thought he was going to bow. Somehow his courteous behavior made him even more threatening. There was just so much of him. It was like having an extremely docile lion in the house. I kept waiting for him to pounce.

“Hello there, Joe. Lee. May I talk to you for a moment?”

“Come on in,” Joe said. “I was getting worried about that car following me. Finally I realized it was you guys.”

“Sorry. We didn’t mean to make you nervous. We just didn’t see any reason to pull you over before you got wherever you were headed.”

Pike came in, and with him was Jerry Cherry, one of the
Warner Pier patrolmen. Belle Montgomery had followed us into the shop, and Joe introduced them.

“You’re Royal Hollis’ daughter?” Clancy looked at her narrowly.

She held her chin up. “That’s right.”

I jumped into the conversation. “Have you found Emma?”

Clancy shook his head. “We hoped you had heard from her. How’d you know she was missing?”

“Chuck came by. He’s in a real snit.”

“He’s concerned, of course. That’s why we were hoping she’d contacted you or Joe.”

I was terribly tempted to make some neutral comment, such as “I can’t help you,” that avoided a literal untruth. But if you’re going to lie, do it. I firmed my resolve and spoke.

“Sorry. I don’t know a thing about Emma.”

“You were at the hospital.”

“Smile!” I said. “You’re on
Candid Camera
!”

Clancy nodded, but he didn’t find my wisecrack funny. “Yep. The cameras caught you going in about two o’clock and leaving after three. Why were you there?”

I repeated my story about Emma calling Joe and his asking me to find out what she wanted. “But I couldn’t pry the room number out of the hospital volunteer. So I had a cup of coffee in the snack bar. Then I walked around the hospital awhile, but I didn’t get any inspiration about how to find Mrs. Davidson, so I left and did some errands.” I could only hope they wouldn’t check the cameras at Target and catch me buying scrubs.

I rushed on. “But I’m a little confused. I mean, Emma hasn’t been declared incompetent or anything, has she?”

Clancy shook his head.

“Then if she wants to leave the hospital, she can, right?”

“That’s correct. But you claimed earlier that someone tried to kill her.”

“The hobo clown! I still think he was trying to smother her.”

“If we felt sure she
had
left the hospital on her own, then that would settle everything. But as long as there’s a possibility that she’s in danger or that someone forced her to leave against her will, we have to keep looking for her, just to be sure she’s safe.”

Clancy looked at me significantly, and so did Jerry Cherry. They clearly expected some reaction from me.

The temptation to say “I’ll get Emma to call you” was really strong. I looked at Joe. He was standing behind Clancy. And he crossed his eyes. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I decided I’d better keep quiet.

“She called earlier,” I evaded. “But not after I got back to Warner Pier.”

“When did you get to Warner Pier?’

“Oh, maybe five, five thirty.”

“Did you go home?”

My imagination failed me. I hadn’t gone home. I had gone to Sarajane’s. But I couldn’t reveal that. There was a pause.

Then Belle Montgomery spoke. “Lee is trying not to embarrass me, Chief Pike. I needed someone to hold my hand. I’ve been staying at the Peach Street B and B, and I had earlier left a whiny message asking Joe to call me. Lee came out there to reassure me. Then she even invited me to come here for some pizza.”

She turned to me. “I checked on the pizza in the oven, by the way. I turned it back to one seventy-five.”

She’d saved my neck, and I would gladly have hugged hers in gratitude. I restrained myself and simply nodded. Clancy
nodded, too. Still completely deadpan, he wrote in his notebook.

Then he spoke again. “Could I ask a favor, Mrs. Woodyard? May I use your men’s room?”

The question was obviously designed by Clancy to allow him to get a look around the place. I didn’t care if he looked under the cooling tunnel and into the milk chocolate vat and on every shelf of the storage closet. There wasn’t anything there he couldn’t see.

“Our facilities are unisex,” I said. “But you’re welcome to use them. Joe, could you show Clancy the way? And I’ll get everybody some chocolate.”

I grabbed three four-piece boxes off the shelf. I could tell what was in each by the wrappings. First I gave Belle a box of champagne truffles (“dark chocolate interior enrobed with white chocolate and embellished with dark chocolate stripes”). I gave Jerry four chocolate malt truffles (“milk chocolate filling flavored with malt in a milk chocolate shell dusted with more malt”). For Clancy I picked out Kahlúa truffles (“milk chocolate filling, flavored with coffee liqueur, enrobed with milk chocolate, and trimmed with dark chocolate stripes”).

None of them turned them down. I doubted I could bribe Warner Pier’s cops with chocolate, but I felt that Clancy and Jerry’s acceptances were good signs. At least Clancy thanked me very politely when he came back from the restroom.

As soon as the street door shut behind Clancy and Jerry, I turned to Belle and started to tell her how much I appreciated her helping me cover up. But Joe put a finger to his lips.

“Now, where’s that pizza?” he asked loudly.

The three of us went to the back of the building. As soon as
we were in the break room I began to applaud. “Yay, Belle! You saved my skin.”

“I want to hear the whole story,” Joe said, “but could we get the pizza out of the oven first?”

So Joe and Belle heard about my initiation as a kidnapper through mouthfuls of pizza and salad. I think I was overly excited; I hadn’t been hungry earlier, but now I was starving.

Joe ate, too, but he managed to do it with his deadpan lawyer face on.

Belle’s eyes got bigger and bigger. When I reached the part when Emma said “Qué?” Joe burst out laughing.

I stopped to catch my breath, and Belle spoke. “So, what is Mrs. Davidson doing out at Sarajane’s? I mean, why did you take her there?”

I dropped my eyes and poked my salad with my fork. Joe was silent as well. Then we peeked at each other, and Joe laughed.

“This is when I get as tactful as Clancy and visit the men’s room,” he said.

He left while I explained that Sarajane was highly experienced in helping women who were in danger. “I hope you’ll help us keep her secret,” I said.

“Of course!” Belle nodded enthusiastically. “In fact, a friend in Saginaw was a volunteer at a women’s shelter, and she told me women who were in extreme danger were always a problem for that organization.”

Belle took a bite of salad, then spoke again. “I’m surprised that Emma hadn’t taken advantage of Sarajane’s facilities earlier. It’s easy to visualize her husband beating her. He was probably one of the biggest jerks I ever met in my life.”

I started to agree. Then the full impact of what Belle had said came through. She had met Moe?

But when? How? When Belle had come into the shop two days earlier, she had acted as if this was her first visit to Warner Pier. So how had she known Moe?

I hope I didn’t gape, since my mouth was full of salad greens, but I certainly stared. If Belle had known Moe, why hadn’t she told me? Why hadn’t she told Joe?

Joe picked that moment to reappear. He slid into his chair and spoke casually. “How’d you meet Moe?” Then he stabbed his own salad and took a bite. But he kept looking at Belle.

A long silence fell.

“Oh,” Belle said. “I blew it.”

Joe nodded. “You blew it if you wanted us to continue to think that this was your first visit to Warner Pier.”

“I could have met Moe someplace else.”

“True. Did you?”

“No.” Belle stared at her plate. “Over the Columbus Day weekend my dad got picked up for panhandling in Saginaw. He wasn’t ever charged with anything, didn’t have to stand trial, but the police released him to a homeless shelter there. I knew the director, and he’d given me advice about how to look for my father. Unfortunately, my dad left before the director could tell me that he’d turned up. But my dad had said something about heading for the Warner Pier area. So I came over here looking for him.”

“How did Moe figure into the story?”

“I went to the police station to ask where a homeless man might hang out. The chief—I guess it was your uncle, Lee—told me there was an area where hitchhikers camped. He told me that the fellow at the clown shop lived near there. I went to the shop to ask if Moe had seen any homeless men in the area.”

“I doubt you got any help.”

“That Moe was awful! He swore at me. Told me those guys were a—well, a blot on his neighborhood. Called them bums! He said he’d be glad to kill one of them if he got the chance.” Tears were welling in her eyes. “It wasn’t fair! My dad is like he is because of wounds he received serving his country!

“Then this Moe guy told me I must be a complete slut if that’s the kind of family I came from. Finally, well, I gave him as good as I got. We had quite a slanging match. He ordered me out of his store.”

I patted Belle’s hand. “I’m sorry, Belle. But I’m glad to hear you told Moe off.”

Joe’s eyes narrowed. “Did you say this happened on Columbus Day?”

“Yes.”

Joe nodded and took another slice of pizza.

“I know, I know! Just a couple of months before Moe was killed.” Belle spoke angrily. “Maybe our fight added to Moe’s anger. Was he still mad? Was that one reason he attacked my dad, one reason Moe was killed? I’ve asked myself that a hundred times.”

“Why didn’t you want us to know you’d been in Warner Pier before?” I asked.

“It was a humiliating experience.”

That was true. But was it a good reason for not telling Joe and me she’d been looking for her dad in Warner Pier previously? Frankly, it sounded sort of thin. But Joe didn’t seem inclined to cross-examine her, so I also decided to let it drop. For the moment.

I chewed and swallowed, then spoke. “So. What do we do next?”

“Well, as you pointed out to Clancy,” Joe said, “since Emma
hasn’t been declared incompetent or otherwise required to stay in the hospital, you didn’t do anything illegal by breaking her out. In fact, I think you were pretty clever about it.”

“But, Joe, I understand why Clancy—and Chuck and Lorraine—are looking for her. And I don’t think they’re going to quit. I certainly don’t want them to trace her to Sarajane’s. And they might do that.” I sighed. “And Emma is still determined to talk to you.”

“Yes, I need to have a one-on-one meeting with her,” he said. “But maybe it should wait for morning.”

“Joe, people are looking for her.”

“Yeah, I’m afraid we need to do something about that. She needs to call someone and tell them she’s all right.”

“But we don’t want them to trace the call. A throwaway phone?”

“Maybe. But a pay phone would be easier.”

“Are there any left in Warner Pier?”

“Surely there’s one at the train station in Holland.”

“That’s thirty miles! How about the Shell station?”

Joe grinned. “They do have a pay phone, left over from the days when truckers used them. That would be a logical place for one of us to stop, in case the local cops are keeping an eye on anybody.”

“I need gas, too,” Belle said. “I could go along.”

That’s what we settled on. I gathered up my payroll materials—those ladies still had to be paid. Joe moved my van around to the alley, and Belle and I got in it. Then he took his truck and both of our vehicles pulled out at the same time—one headed northwest and the other southeast.

Joe went to his boat shop and went inside for ten minutes. I took Belle to Sarajane’s. We wrapped Emma in a winter jacket
with a hood, then loaded her into my van. I drove to the Shell station, followed by Belle in her own car, and we both pulled up to gas pumps. Our timing was perfect. Joe pulled into the station and parked in a way that blocked the view of our actions with his pickup.

Then he politely pumped gas for both Belle and me. Meanwhile, with visibility limited, Emma went into the station—it isn’t one of those giant truck stops—and went to the pay phone. It’s located in the area where coffee and snacks are available, with two booths where drivers can eat.

Joe had written out a script for Emma to read, just to be sure that she didn’t let anything slip. I went with her to be sure she followed it.

Emma called her own house. Luckily, nobody answered, and she was able to leave a recorded message. “Chuck, Lorraine, it’s Emma. I didn’t want you to worry, but I decided to leave the hospital. I’ve gone to stay with a friend. I’ll call soon. I’m perfectly safe.”

She hung up and turned to me. “Now, all I have to do is tell Joe what happened. Since he’s Royal Hollis’ lawyer, I’m sure he can tell me how to handle things.”