The Chocolate Cat Caper by JoAnna Carl

quality of her chocolates.”
    The tenor—he wore an EMT jacket—sniffed. “Well! She may be proud of her candies, but we all know she had a good reason not to like Clementine Ripley.”
    I turned on him. “I’ve only been back in Warner Pier a week, and I’ve already heard all kinds of bad things about Clementine Ripley. She was supposedly crooked. She beat the city out of this land and hurt the community economically. Plus, every news magazine in the country has had some story about how she kept some guilty clinic—I mean, client!—out of prison. Who did like her?”
    “I used to.”
    The words came from behind me, near the French doors. I whirled toward the speaker.
    It was Joe Woodyard. He was standing in one of the doorways that led out to the terrace.
    I could have died on the spot. Not only had I been speaking ill of the dead, I’d been doing it at the top of my voice in front of the dead’s ex-husband. I expected Joe to tear into me about the way I’d been talking about Clementine Ripley.
    But he didn’t pay any attention to me.
    “Hi, Joe,” the police chief said. “This is bad business. How’d you find out about it?”
    “Hugh called me.”
    “Ah.” The chief nodded.
    Hugh? Wasn’t that the security guard? I didn’t ask the question. In fact, I stood as still as a rabbit with a coyote nosing around outside its hole. I didn’t move. I didn’t speak, I didn’t do anything that might call anyone’s attention to me.
    Joe Woodyard walked around the three of us, zigzagged past the uniformed cops, and knelt beside Clementine Ripley’s body. I couldn’t see his face. He reached out and touched her hair gently. Then he stood up and turned toward the police chief. He looked pretty serious.
    “I assume you’ll do an autopsy.”
    Chief Jones nodded. “We’d have to, Joe. Unattended death. You have any objection?”
    “It wouldn’t matter if I did. I’ve been out of the picture for two years, remember?”
    “How come you’re here?”
    “Clementine and I might not have been able to live together, but I didn’t wish her any harm.” Joe nodded toward me. “Like the lady says, Clementine was pretty short on friends. And she didn’t have any family. Except maybe Marion. And Hugh said Marion took off for Holland right before somebody called the EMTs.”
    “We’re looking for Ms. McCoy now,” the chief said. “Joe, I’d appreciate it if you’d hang around awhile.”
    Joe nodded. He pulled a spindly Windsor chair away from the wall, moved it toward Clementine Ripley’s body, and put it down several feet from her head. “I’ll be here,” he said. “I’ll stay until they take her away.”
    He sat down in the chair, and though he didn’t snap out a salute, bark out orders, or even sit up straight—actually, he leaned over with his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and stared at the floor—it was clear that he was standing guard over his ex-wife.
    The EMTs brought in a sheet and laid it over Ms. Ripley. Gregory Glossop helped them, but he didn’t say another word. The chief conferred quietly with his two uniformed officers. I made a quick retreat to the kitchen and slunk into my spot beside Lindy.
    She leaned close and spoke in my ear. “What happened?”
    I shook my head. I didn’t want to describe either my stupidity or Joe Woodyard’s behavior.
    Why had Joe married Clementine Ripley? She was a lot older than he was. She was also a lot richer, and he’d been asking her for money earlier that day. The conventional opinion around Warner Pier would probably be that he married her for money—just as most of Rich’s friends had thought I married him for his money—or to advance his career as an attorney. But somehow I thought Joe’s relationship with Clementine had been more than that.
    Whatever Clementine Ripley had been, she was definitely not a fool. She must have known that “everyone,” whoever that is, would have thought she bought Joe as a boy toy, a plaything. I