The Chocolate Snowman Murders (13 page)

H
ogan, Aunt Nettie, Joe, and I all leaned over the cell phone, our heads almost touching.

I spoke softly. “Should we answer it?”

“Don't touch it,” Hogan said. “There's not much chance, but we'll have to check for fingerprints. Who's the call from?”

“There's no name,” Joe said.

I got a glimpse of the number on the tiny screen—I thought the number ended with three consecutive fours—before “The Hallelujah Chorus” stopped midmelody.

“Oh, dear,” Aunt Nettie said, “now we can't tell who was calling.”

“It's stored in the phone,” Hogan said.

We all acted calm, but I wasn't feeling that way. I seriously considered falling down on the floor, screaming, kicking madly, and chewing on one of the restaurant's white linen tablecloths. A complete collapse seemed to be a proper reaction. I didn't want to deal with this.

How could that phone be in the pocket of my coat? It simply wasn't possible.

“I did not take Mendenhall's phone,” I said.

Joe, Hogan, and Aunt Nettie ignored me, so I spoke again. “I did not stick it in my pocket by accident. And if I had taken it on purpose, I'm smart enough to turn it off. And I wasn't even wearing that coat yesterday.”

Aunt Nettie patted my hand. “Don't dither, Lee dear.”

“But how the heck did that phone get in my pocket?”

When Aunt Nettie answered, she sounded a bit testy. “Someone put it there, obviously! We just need to figure out who and why.”

Luckily, most of the tables in Herrera's were now empty. I threw myself down in a chair at one of them and stared at the ceiling, considering Aunt Nettie's question. Who had put that phone in my pocket? And why had he or she done it?

And for that matter, when?

That question was easy to answer, of course. I only wore my full-length camel hair coat when I dressed up. A fashion expert might think it a bit casual for evening, but it was a lot less casual than my ski jacket, and the camel hair and the ski jacket were the only two warm winter coats I owned. My wardrobe did not include a smooth flannel coat with a velvet collar, a satin opera cape lined in mink, or a chinchilla jacket.

I'd worn the ski jacket when I went to pick up Mendenhall, and I'd worn that jacket to the office the next morning—was that still today?—then on to Lake Knapp to be questioned by the police. The WinterFest reception was the first occasion I'd had to get out the camel hair coat since Mendenhall landed in Michigan.

I'd put the coat on at home—without checking the pockets for stray cell phones—and I wore it to Warner Point. I went into the WinterFest office for the committee meeting. I tossed my coat onto a table along the side of the room, along with all the other coats of the committee members. And I left it there when I went in to the reception. Joe had retrieved it when we left Warner Point two and a half hours later. Then I put the coat on again—no, I didn't feel in the pockets that time either—and wore it to Herrera's, where Joe hung it in the cloakroom for me.

I seriously doubted that someone had broken into our house and put the phone in the coat pocket. It was more likely that the culprit had put the phone in my pocket while the coat was in the meeting room at Warner Point or in the cloakroom at Herrera's. And the cloakroom at Herrera's wasn't a likely spot, because there were only a few people there. I knew several of them by sight, and Lindy would probably have credit card information on the rest of them, so that could be checked out easily.

No, the most likely place for the phone to have gotten into my pocket was the meeting room at Warner Point.

“Darn!” I said. “We're right back to the WinterFest committee. Somebody in that group of people put the phone in my pocket.”

Hogan asked Lindy to bring a paper sack and some tongs from the kitchen, and he carefully put the phone in the sack. He said he would lock it in the police station vault overnight and call McCullough the next morning.

“I have one question,” he said. “Lee, is there any way to identify this coat as yours?”

“As mine?”

“Yes. Nettie, Joe, and I—and probably Lindy—have all seen you wear this coat. If you asked me to go into a room full of coats and bring yours out, I could probably narrow the choice down to two or three coats. But could a person who doesn't know you well do that?”

As an answer, I flipped the coat open and showed him the lining. The initials “S,” “L,” and “M” were embroidered inside.

“Aunt Nettie gave me this coat the first Christmas after I moved to Warner Pier,” I said. “It's a good coat, and she had it monogrammed. Of course, you'd have to know my full name, my maiden name. Susanna Lee McKinney.”

“But since you've been married just six months, most people remember at least the L and the M,” Aunt Nettie said.

Hogan grimaced. “That doesn't eliminate anybody, does it?”

He said I could wear the coat home, so I put it on, and Joe and I went to the van. After the surprise of finding the cell phone, it seemed anticlimactic simply to go home and get ready for bed.

But what else could we do?

By the time I had washed my face and put on my flannel nightgown, I'd thought of something.

When Joe came out in his pajamas, I was sitting at the dining room table with a yellow legal pad. “I'm making a list of the WinterFest committee,” I said, “along with what they had to say about last night.”

“Last night?”

“The time when Mendenhall would have been using his cell phone to call people. I want to know where they say they were.”

Joe sat down and scratched his head. “Lee, the police will be looking into that. In fact, I'm sure they've already contacted Mendenhall's phone server and have a list of calls both to and from that cell phone.”

“Yes, but I think they're mainly going to be interested in the calls he made to my cell phone.”

“Your cell phone? Would Mendenhall have had your cell phone number?”

“Yes. I called Mendenhall from outside the airport. It would be stored in his ‘recent calls' file. Plus I'm on that list of committee members.”

Joe sighed. “So you still think he called someone on the committee, and they met him, killed him, and took his phone?”

“Who else could have put that phone in my pocket?”

“About half the people in Warner Pier, plus dozens more from all over southwest Michigan. A few from Chicago. Anybody who was at the reception could have done it.”

I stared at Joe. “But my coat was in the room where the committee met, not out in the main check room for the reception.”

“And the door to that room was open. Anybody could have walked in there, Lee. How many people were at the reception? Two hundred? Three hundred?”

I stared at my legal pad and thought about what Joe was saying.

“I know you're right.” I sighed. “Anybody in west Michigan could have killed Mendenhall, and about two hundred fifty of them could have put the phone in my pocket. But figuring out the whereabouts of the WinterFest committee members makes me feel that I'm doing something—something more than just sitting here waiting for the Lake Knapp police to decide I'm the guilty party and arrest me.”

Joe took my hand. “Or waiting for them to decide I'm the guilty party and arrest me. You're right. Let's make a list.”

I picked up my file folder, the one with the WinterFest paperwork in it. “At least I have a list of the full committee. Starting with Ramona.”

I wrote “Ramona VanWinkle-Snow” at the top of the page. “It seems to me that Ramona said she was at George's gallery, dealing with some sort of last-minute problem. And later she was at home.”

“That would mean neither she nor George could have gone to Lake Knapp to kill Mendenhall.”

“It depends on how late he died. She said they were through by seven.”

“They're in the clear for half the evening.”

“Yes, but we don't know anything about Bob.”

“Ramona's husband? Where does he fit in?”

I told Joe about Mozelle's clumsy attempt to link “a local artist” to Mendenhall. “After what Bob said about Mendenhall, I'm convinced he was the one she was talking about. It may be far-fetched, but if Mendenhall called Ramona's house, Bob could have taken the call and decided to take care of Mendenhall permanently. But surely he wouldn't have later volunteered that information about their problems.”

“Killing Mendenhall doesn't sound like something either Ramona or Bob would do.”

“For the moment, we've got to forget that these are people we know, Joe, and just look at their opportunities to commit the crime.”

I looked the list of committee members over. “That takes care of Ramona and George. Yes, either of them could have gone to Grand Rapids later in the evening and offed Mendenhall.

“Now Maggie said she was at dress rehearsal from six o'clock on.”

“So she's not likely.”

“Jason said he went home as soon as the show had been hung, ate dinner, and went straight to bed. But his partner, Casey, and Casey's son were there, so he's not too likely. He would have had to climb out a window and hitchhike to Lake Knapp. But I don't think anybody else said where they were.”

“And the only one who admitted Mendenhall had called was Mary Samson.”

“Mary!” I gasped. “Oh, my gosh! I told her I'd call as soon as I got home.”

“It's a little late now,” Joe said. “After ten thirty.”

“She was worried, but I didn't understand just what her problem was. I'll call her first thing in the morning.”

I flipped over to the second page of the list of committee members. “I'll put her number up by the phone on a sticky, so I won't forget.”

I wrote down the Warner Pier prefix—there's only one, of course—then looked at the list. “One-four-four-four,” I said.

Then my heart did a flip. I grabbed Joe's arm. “Oh, no!” “What's the matter?”

“Joe, when Mendenhall's cell phone rang, did you get a look at the number that the call came from?”

“I may have, but it didn't make a big impression.”

“I hate to sound like a real number person. . . .”

“You are a real number person, Lee. That's the reason you were able to get Nettie's business back in the black. And it's the reason we're arguing over Christmas gifts and the way I handle my business Visa.”

I ignored his comment. “I may be completely wrong. But the number that called the cell phone and unleashed ‘The Hallelujah Chorus' had three fours. And Mary's number ends in one-four-four-four.”

Joe and I stared at each other. Then he got up and brought the portable phone from the kitchen. “Call her,” he said.

“It's really late.”

“Call her.”

I punched in Mary's number. The phone rang four times and was picked up by the answering machine.

I waited for the beep. “Mary, are you there? It's Lee.”

Mary didn't answer the phone.

I frowned at the gadget in my hand. “I don't like that. Mary certainly seemed to be planning to go straight home from the reception.”

“She might be in the shower,” Joe said. “She might be in bed.”

“I'll call again.”

Once again I punched in Mary's number. Once again I got the answering machine. I hollered at it. “Mary! It's Lee! I need to talk to you!”

Once again Mary failed to pick the phone up.

Joe and I looked at each other. Then we spoke in unison. “Let's call Hogan.”

I felt pretty confident that Hogan and Aunt Nettie wouldn't be in bed yet, since we'd all left Herrera's less than an hour earlier. Sure enough, Hogan answered on the second ring. I quickly outlined my suspicion that the call to Mendenhall's cell phone had come from Mary Samson's phone.

Hogan spoke firmly. “It won't hurt if we run a welfare check on her.”

“Joe and I can go over there,” I said. “If the patrol car pulls up in her drive, it might scare poor Mary to death.”

“You don't need to get out again.”

“I'd feel better if we did.”

Joe was already pulling on his jeans. We were on our way to Mary's house within five minutes.

Hogan and Aunt Nettie met us at the bridge over the Warner River. Hogan blinked his lights, and they followed us. I had trouble finding the house. Like us, Mary lived in a semirural part of Warner Pier, though she was near the river, and we were near the lake. We missed her turn the first time, but finally our van and Aunt Nettie's blue Buick pulled up in the drive.