Free The Chocolate Cat Caper by JoAnna Carl Page B

shirt with a TenHuis logo. At ten I fixed myself a bowl of local blueberries, lightly sugared, and followed them with bacon, eggs, and toast, a brunch that would last until my six p.m. dinner break. At eleven-thirty, I left. I stopped at the corner where the dry cleaner used to be, only to discover it was now a real estate office. So I left the dry cleaning in the van and went on to TenHuis Chocolade, ready to start my first shift as a supervisor. Which on a Saturday during the busy season was going to include helping out behind the counter—the reason I’d worn the company outfit.
    Aunt Nettie, who believes that tourists want to watch chocolates being handmade even on Saturdays, was working with a limited crew—just three hairnet ladies—when I arrived. She kept rolling creamy white chocolate truffles in coconut (“Midori Coconut truffles—very creamy all white chocolate truffles, flavored with melon and rolled in coconut.”) as she reported on the morning. It had been routine, she said, except for lots of phone calls from her friends as Greg Glossop spread his opinion around town. We were both delighted that neither Chief Jones nor the tabloid press had shown up with questions.
    “The longer we wait to hear from Chief Jones,” I said, “the more I think Clementine Ripley had a stroke. Or maybe some kind of aneurysm.” Aunt Nettie agreed.
    Aunt Nettie took a lunch break at one, but worked until four-fifteen, so I was able to ask her some questions before I took over. One of the questions was the name of the counter girl with the stringy ponytail. Her name was Tracy. Her partner that afternoon was a plump girl of similar age, but with better hair, and her name was Stacy. So if I them mixed up, who could tell?
    Aunt Nettie obviously wasn’t confident about leaving me in charge, but Stacy and Tracy assured her they’d show me the ropes, and we shooed her and the ladies in hairnets out the door.
    At four-thirty the phone rang. I didn’t exactly jump to answer it, since I expected it to be another of Aunt Nettie’s pals wanting to gossip. When I picked it up after the third ring, I was surprised to hear Aunt Nettie herself.
    “Lee?” Her voice was all quavery.
    “Aunt Nettie? What’s wrong?”
    “The house is all torn up. We’ve had a burglar!”
    I didn’t have to stop and think about that one. “Get out of the house!” I said. “He might still be there. I’ll call the cops and be right there.”
    I called nine-one-one, left Tracy and Stacy on their own, and ran out the back door. I got to the house half a block behind the Warner Pier patrol car.
    Aunt Nettie was standing in the drive beside her big Buick. I hugged her, and the two of us waited outside while the deputy checked the four rooms downstairs and the three upstairs. Nobody was there.
    When we looked in the door, the house was a wreck. I started inside, ready to begin cleaning up, but I was stopped by the patrolman, a burly young guy whose uniform had been tailored to fit like a second skin. His name tag read CHERRY.
    “Let me call in and see what the chief wants to do about this,” he said. “He’ll probably want photos at least. Maybe fingerprints.”
    I was surprised. I’d lived in Dallas too long. My mom’s apartment there was burglarized, and the cops didn’t bother to take fingerprints. She had to wait hours for an investigator to show up at all. I was glad to learn things were still different in a small town.
    Aunt Nettie and I were sitting on the porch when another car pulled in, and Chief Jones unfolded his long legs and got out.
    I hadn’t expected to see him. “What are you doing here?” I said. “Do you do all the investigations?”
    “Most of them. Warner Pier has a force of five, and that doesn’t include a detective, so I have to do double duty.” He looked over the top of his half glasses and grinned his folksy grin. “Besides, when a newcomer to town is involved in two emergency calls in two days, I’d better