Read Online The Chocolate Bear Burglary by JoAnna Carl - Free Book Online

relationship Joe and I had fallen into, I told myself. I half resolved to end it. Or maybe I already had. After the things I’d said, maybe I’d never get another of those eleven o’clock calls from Joe. Maybe we’d never hold each other again, never kiss like that again. Maybe I’d felt that melting sensation behind my navel for the last time.
    I didn’t like that idea either.
    When Chief Jones left, I still hadn’t decided what to tell him about Jeff. I put any decision off and simply called out a good-bye.
    Aunt Nettie said she was going to bed. “We’d all better sleep as long as we can,” she said. “I’ll call the shop and leave a message. Telling them we’ll be late.”
    I thought I couldn’t possibly sleep, but I forced myself to undress and lie down, and the next thing I knew, it was eleven a.m. I could hear Aunt Nettie in the shower downstairs, and Jeff was snoring gently across the hall. I groaned and got up. Aunt Nettie had left the house by the time I got out of the shower.
    I managed to get to work by one p.m., to find Aunt Nettie going crazy. “Thank goodness you’re here,” she said. “I can’t get any work done for answering the phone and gossiping with the neighbors.”
    “I guess the news about our burglar got around.”
    “Naturally. The Warner Pier grapevine is up and running; we don’t need radio or television or newspapers in this town. But everybody wants a personal account.”
    “I’ll try to keep them away from you.”
    “I’ve simply got to make the bakjes for the crème de menthe bonbons today. Hazel’s working on them, but she needs to get busy on the Neiman Marcus bunnies.” Aunt Nettie froze and looked out the front window. “Oh, no! It’s Mike Herrera. I can’t be rude to him.”
    “Go on back to the shop and get up to your elbows in chocolate. I’ll deal with him.”
    I shooed her toward her bakjes. Bakjes, pronounced “bah-keys,” are the shells of bonbons, the part that holds the filling. First you cast the bakjes, then cool them, then fill them, then run the whole thing through an enrober, a special machine that gives the bonbons a shower-bath of chocolate. After that the tops are decorated, and you’ve finally got a goodie ready for the customers to drool over.
    Aunt Nettie had washed her hands and moved to a stainless-steel worktable by the time the door opened. I greeted the newcomer. “Mayor Mike! Did you come to check our damage?”
    Mike Herrera looked puzzled. “It’s just so strange,” he said. He closed the smashed front door behind him, then examined the plywood that blocked it temporarily. “We just don’t have burglaries in Warner Pier this time of year.”
    Mike Herrera is an attractive middle-aged man who owns several successful restaurants and a catering service. He was the first Hispanic to own a business in Warner Pier and the first to be elected to public office. He’s the father of Joe’s friend Tony and the father-in-law of my friend Lindy Herrera; in a town of twenty-five hundred, people tend to be related.
    But I’m careful not to bring him up around Tony because Lindy told me her husband isn’t real happy with his father since he changed his name from Miguel to Mike. Tony’s reaction to the name change was to grow a thin Latin mustache and start teaching their children Spanish. The Herreras are typical of the American experience, I guess. One generation tries to assimilate; the next clings to its roots.
    Mike kept looking at the damage.
    “Handy Hans called the glass installers,” I said, “but they can’t get here until tomorrow.”
    We heard a crack like a pistol shot, and Mike craned his head to look into the shop. “What was that?”
    “Aunt Nettie’s making bakjes. She whams them on the worktable to get the edges right.”
    “Can I talk to her?”
    “As long as we don’t stop her work.”
    It was hard to refuse Mike. He knew that Aunt Nettie could make chocolates with her eyes closed. Mike followed me into