The Chocolate Bridal Bash (18 page)

“Break-in Reported

At Closed Cottage”

The crime itself wasn’t too unusual, of course. Summer cottages, to this day, are apparently considered fair game by local juvenile delinquents and other lawbreakers. It’s easy to spot an unoccupied summer cottage because the windows are normally covered with shutters. And those shutters are designed to protect the cottages from the winter elements, not from burglars. They aren’t usually the type of shutters that are attached to the window frame with hinges. They’re separate slabs, usually of several boards nailed together on crosspieces, something like the side of a packing crate.

Shutters are taken down when the cottage is opened for the summer. Yet this cottage was described as “closed,” which on the east coast of Lake Michigan means the shutters were still up. In fact, the person making the report said entry had been made by “removing a shutter.” Which would be like trying to handle Huck Finn’s raft if it was standing on one end and had been nailed to a wall.

That was slightly surprising, but the two main shockers in the brief story were yet to come.

First, the cottage had belonged to Benson McKay III, of Chicago. And second, the person making the report was Ed Dykstra, caretaker.

Bill Dykstra’s father had been caretaker for the McKay family cottage.

What a coincidence.

I drove back to the office and tried to work, but that coincidence kept popping into my mind.

Sheriff Van Hoosier, according to his nurse, had mentioned my mother’s name in connection to a kidnapping.”

Quinn McKay had been kidnapped the summer my mom ran away from her hometown, refusing ever to return.

My mom’s fiancé had been the son of the caretaker for the McKay summer cottage.

So? So what?

Quinn had been kidnapped in Chicago. And he escaped or was released by the kidnappers in southern Illinois. The crime had occurred hundreds of miles from Warner Pier.

It was all a coincidence. It had to be.

Unless Bill Dykstra had been involved in the kidnapping somehow.

I slammed a desk drawer. That was a truly stupid idea. Everyone described Bill as absolutely on the upand-up. Everybody but Rollie. How could I think Bill could be involved in a kidnapping?

I resolved to put the whole matter out of my mind until I could talk to my mom. But the whole matter didn’t want to stay out of my mind. I didn’t accomplish much that afternoon.

The evening was a little better. I spent it clearing out Aunt Nettie’s extra bedroom, stacking all my wedding paraphernalia in boxes and piles in my own room, taking extra clothes from that room’s closet and hanging them in my own closet.

One of the things I moved was my wedding dress. I’d bought it at a high-toned shop in Grand Rapids, and it hadn’t been cheap. After I moved it, I yielded to temptation and tried it on again.

The dress wasn’t a poufy white thing. In line with our plan to have a small, simple wedding, I’d picked out a dress made in a pale amber, a color with too much orange in it to be called beige. It was basically a shirtdress with a lace bodice. It had no collar, a slightly dropped waistline, long sleeves, and a row of tiny covered buttons down the front. The knee-length skirt was a floaty chiffon. I hadn’t ordered my shoes yet, but I wanted them dyed to match, with small heels. Joe is several inches taller than I am, but fourinch heels would be pushing it.

Joe hadn’t seen the dress, but I thought he’d like it. The color was going to make my hazel eyes look brownish or greenish and would look great with the bouquet of yellow roses he had asked that I carry. All Texas girls get yellow roses sometime in their lives.

I hated to take the dress off, but I did. I hung it carefully on its padded hanger and draped a plastic cover over it, ready to show it to my mom. I’d sent her a picture earlier.

Aunt Nettie brought up clean sheets, and we made the bed.

“Mom will be surprised by the room,” I said. “You’ve fixed it up really nicely.”

“You don’t think Sally will be disappointed because it’s not like her childhood room?”

“To be honest, Aunt Nettie, I think she’ll be pleased.”

Yes, my mom had apparently wanted to forget her childhood and youth. She wouldn’t want her room to be the same.

I went into the office for a couple of hours Saturday morning. Between the wedding and my researches into what happened thirty-three years earlier, I was way behind on my work. One of our high school helpers, Tracy, was working the counter. Dolly Jolly was in charge of a Saturday chocolate-making crew, and they were busy. I had eaten the lunch I’d brought along and was ready to go when I saw Joe’s pickup outside, pulling a boat trailer.

This particular boat, he reminded me, was one we had picked up from its owner the previous summer. It belonged to an executive of a Grand Rapids office furniture company. A bad guy had followed us as we drove it back to Warner Pier and had tried to run us into a bridge abutment. Only Joe’s skillful driving and experience at hauling boats had averted disaster.

“I wish you hadn’t reminded me of that episode,” I said. “Have you been working on the boat since clear last summer?”

“Off and on. You know, you put on a coat of lacquer, then let it cure for a couple of months.” Joe grinned. “What’s the use of being your own boss, if you don’t push your customers around? Anyway, the boat can’t go in the water until May or June.”

“I guess the owner wants to put the boat in the garage and gloat over it.”

“It did turn out nice.” Joe sounded complacent. I laughed and told him so.

“Why shouldn’t I sound complacent? I’m finally making some money by fooling around with boats. I’ve figured out a way to justify keeping my law license without being tied down to an office and to clients I think are jerks.” He reached over and caressed my knee. “And I’m about to marry the smartest girl in Michigan. And she’s not bad-looking, either.”

“As long as you’ve got your priorities straight.”

We had a pleasant drive for two-thirds of the way; then traffic came to a dead halt. A truck was jackknifed on the interstate, and it had apparently hit another car. We could see flashing lights ahead. All sorts of emergency vehicles and personnel were working like mad. We sat in the truck, completely stalled, for an hour.

It was getting later and later.

Getting off the interstate wasn’t an option, because we were nowhere near an exit. We simply had to sit there. I began to check my watch. Then Joe began to check his. We sat. I turned the radio on. After ten minutes I turned it off. Joe turned the motor off. The truck’s cab got cold. He started the motor again and warmed the cab up. He turned the motor off.

Finally I began to laugh. “It’s going to be ridiculous if I ride up to Grand Rapids with you and miss my mom and simply have to hitch a ride back in the truck.”

“As long as you see the ridiculous side of it. Does your mom have a cell phone?”

“I’m sure she does, but she just uses it for work. She’s never given me the number.”

My mom’s plane was due in thirty minutes when we began to move again, and it was arrival time for the flight before we got to Gerald Ford Airport. Joe offered to park and come in with me. “We need to make sure you haven’t missed her,” he said.

I shook my head. “You’ve got your cell, don’t you?”

Joe nodded.

“Just let me out. If I need a ride back to Warner Pier, I’ll call you.”

I dashed into the terminal and skidded to a stop in front of one of those overhead monitors that give clues about when and where planes are to arrive. Mom’s flight was already on the ground, and it had arrived at B concourse.

The Grand Rapids airport is the size I like for an airport, big enough to be served by six or eight airlines, but small enough that you can get around it easily. There are only two concourses, and both feed into a large central waiting area, surrounded with the traditional restaurants, gift shops, playrooms for kids, and workrooms for business travelers. But there are two ways out of that central waiting area. I decided it might be smarter to wait for my mom at the rental car desk. She could be going down one passage while I was going up the other one.

Of course, I didn’t know which car rental agency she was going to, but there were only four, and the desks were all close together. So I lurked between Avis and Thrifty, trying to convince myself that Mom was going to be glad to see me.

People were going by in a steady stream, though the Grand Rapids airport is nothing like DFW or O’Hare. I wasn’t far from the luggage carousels. But I kept a sharp eye on the closest passage, a wide ramp leading down from that central waiting area.

When I saw my mom come down the passage, I was surprised to see that she was smiling broadly and talking to a man in a heavy overcoat. He was wearing a warm hat, the dress-up kind. It might even have been made from some sort of fur, and he had pulled it down over his forehead. All I could see of his face was a big nose. He was pulling a small bag—definitely the carry-on type. Mom was carrying her coat over her arm, and clutching the big tote bag she used as a purse when traveling.

I wondered who the guy was. Mom hadn’t mentioned knowing anybody in Grand Rapids, and I didn’t think she would have taken up with a seatmate. But you never can tell. I stepped back a bit, waiting to see which rental desk she approached.

Mom stopped and swung her coat around, and her companion set the wheeled suitcase on its end. He took her coat and helped her into it gallantly. Mom buttoned up, took a scarf from her pocket, and wrapped it around her neck.

Then the man in the dark coat and furry hat grabbed the suitcase’s handle again and gestured toward the door. Mom didn’t even glance toward the car rental desks. She nodded and preceded the man out the door of the terminal.

M
y mom was leaving the airport with some strange man.

I was so surprised that it took me a moment to start running after her. I had to weave through a large family party and almost knocked two business-types flat before I got to the automatic doors that opened to the outside. I stopped on the sidewalk and looked both ways. I didn’t want her to get away from me. For one thing, I needed a ride.

There she was. Mom and her well-dressed escort were nearly across the pedestrian walkway that led to the parking lot.

“Mom!” I yelled, but she didn’t turn around. I went after her, trying to place my feet carefully and still cover the ground quickly. The walkway had been cleared of snow, but vehicles ran over it all day long, dropping bits of ice, snow, and slush to form an obstacle course.

Ahead I saw the back of my mom’s well-kept blond head, and the dressy black coat that disguised her erect, pouter-pigeon figure—slightly swaybacked and with a big bosom. I could see the well-dressed man better now, too. He was looking down at her, and I caught his profile. He had an enormous nose, and somehow he seemed familiar. Was he someone from Warner Pier? I couldn’t think who.

“Mom!” I yelled again, but my mom’s head didn’t turn. I guess she wasn’t expecting to be hailed as “Mom” in the Grand Rapids airport.

“Sally! Sally McKinney!” I yelled the words as loudly as I could, and I finally got a reaction.

Mom whirled around. “Lee!” She smiled and moved toward me. Her escort caught at her arm, and Mom pulled away. For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to let go. “It’s my daughter,” Mom said. She yanked her arm from his grasp.

By then I had caught up with her, and we were hugging each other.

After a few “It’s so good to see yous” and “You look greats,” Mom grinned at me. “I didn’t expect to be met in person, not after the elegant welcome you arranged.”

“Welcome?”

“The limo ride.”

“Huh?” I could feel my jaw drop, and my mom gestured behind her. “The upgrade to a larger car. The escort at the gate and limo to the rental lot. That’s what I call elegant.”

“Sorry. If you got special treatment, I’m afraid it wasn’t because of anything I did.”

“But the escort said . . .” Mom sounded puzzled, and she looked around, apparently ready to question the well-dressed gent.

But he wasn’t there. While my mom and I had been greeting each other, he had disappeared. All that was left was Mom’s small pull-along suitcase, abandoned in the middle of the parking lot.

I gawked all around, for once blessing my height, and I saw a furry hat moving rapidly away from us. The well-dressed man was already two rows away and heading to the left at the rate of a speed skater.

“I don’t understand,” Mom said. “He met me with a sign and was real friendly.”

“A sign?”

“Yes. ‘Sally McKinney.’ He held up a card with my name.”

Someone had met my mother at the gate with a sign? He had told her he was to escort her to an upgraded rental vehicle? Then he ran away when I showed up? Why? Why would all this happen?

The answer kicked me in the pit of the stomach. Someone had tried to kidnap my mother.

“Mom! Go back to the terminal! Find the security guard. I’ll try to get his license number!”

“License number?” Mom sounded completely confused.

“Go back to the terminal!”

The airport parking lot funnels all exiting traffic to one end of the lot. I cut though the parked cars, bearing toward that end. Maybe I could get a look at the car the big-nosed, well-dressed man had been driving. Maybe I could get a look at him. Maybe I’d even recognize him. Maybe I could even stop him, though that might not be a bright idea.

The parking lot, thank heavens, wasn’t crowded, and it had been plowed. I lost sight of the fur-hatted gent, but I heard a car door slam in the direction he’d been running. Then a motor roared, and I saw a big black car move out of its parking place on the next row over.

I dashed between a van and a pickup, trying to get into the lane of traffic that Fur Hat would be leaving by. If I could just get a good look at him and get his license number . . .