The Chocolate Mouse Trap by JoAnna Carl

probably open a drawer, and it’ll pop out and scare him to death.”
    Hogan and I chuckled over the fate of the Holland detectives who had to search Julie’s apartment, knowing that a mouse might scurry out at any moment. Even a small, tame, white mouse could be pretty surprising if you looked under the couch and found it looking back at you.
    We were still chuckling when Aunt Nettie came out. Hogan complimented her appearance—she did look rosy and pretty—and they left. I put a card table up in the living room and set it for dinner in front of the fireplace. I was sure Joe would want to have a fire, and we might as well enjoy it.
    I couldn’t help thinking about Julie. Poor little Julie, so small and easy to kill. A tear welled up, and I had to get a tissue. I moved to the sink, scrubbed the baking potatoes seriously, then stabbed them vigorously with a paring knife. Pretending I was giving Julie’s killer a few whacks made me feel a little better. The tears had stopped by the time I had the potatoes and meatloaf in the 400-degree oven.
    Meatloaf and baked potatoes—not exciting, but one of Joe’s favorite meals. He tells me anybody can tell he and I were both raised in moderate circumstances. We both like meatloaf, hot dogs and sauerkraut, porcupine meatballs, and even tuna casserole. As a Texan, I’ve introduced him to taco salad and chicken-fried steak with cream gravy, and he seems to like those, too. He’d better.
    The house smelled pretty good by the time Joe slammed the door of his pickup and came up the back walk, stamping his feet the way Hogan had. He was clutching what was obviously a bottle in a paper sack in his left hand. We greeted each other affectionately, though Joe used only one arm.
    “You didn’t have a great day, I guess,” Joe said after I’d been kissed thoroughly.
    “Not until now. But it doesn’t sound as if you did either. How come you had to spend time at city hall? You usually limit your city attorney business to Tuesdays.”
    “Actually, I usually work on it some every day, but I work at home. A little reading and some e-mail. But today a minor flap blew up, and I had to do some telephoning. It involved a conference call, and that’s easier to do with the city hall phones.”
    “What happened?”
    Joe plucked a bottle of Michigan red out of his paper sack. “How about a glass of wine before I tell you?”
    “Sure. I set the table up in the living room, in case you want to have a fire.”
    “You open the wine; I’ll light the fire.”
    Joe’s work life might be described as bipolar. He finished Warner Pier High as “most likely to succeed”—class president, plus state honors in debate and wrestling. He kept up his scholastic and leadership record at the University of Michigan, and sailed into law school. His mother—who owns a Warner Pier insurance agency—thought he was headed for a career in corporate law. But after he graduated, Joe amazed and annoyed her by going to work for a legal aid nonprofit. Then he married a woman who was one of the nation’s most famous—or maybe infamous—defense attorneys, a confidante to the rich and famous. Joe doesn’t talk about her unless I ask, but she must have nearly wrecked his life. At least she wrecked his love for the practice of law. After two years of marriage he quit law, got a divorce, and opened a boat shop, specializing in the restoration of antique wooden speedboats.
    “Honest craftsmanship,” he had told me. “The best way to keep your self-respect.”
    But a few months earlier he’d edged back into law when he took a part-time job as city attorney for Warner Pier. He supposedly gave them the equivalent of one day of work a week. He had taken the job because of me, and I wasn’t sure I liked that. He had been making so little money in the boat business that he hadn’t felt he could ask me to marry him. The part-time job paid for an apartment in downtown Warner Pier, an apartment we’d be sharing in three