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prospect scared him spitless.”
    â€œIt scared him?”
    â€œYes. You know, these types who come on so hard don’t really want to succeed.” I couldn’t resist taking a look at Detective Robertson. “He simply wanted to embarrass me.”
    â€œAnd did he?”
    â€œOf course. Ask your wife. An episode like that is extremely embarrassing to any woman. But it also made me mad.”
    â€œMad enough to hit him?”
    â€œMad enough to shove him back onto his own side of the seat when he started breathing down my neck. But my main object was simply to get rid of him. I didn’t want to drive forty-five more minutes—in heavy traffic on winter roads—trying to fend him off. For one thing, I probably would have had a wreck.”
    â€œYou came up with an ingenious way to get rid of him, Mrs. Woodyard.” He chuckled and turned to Robertson. “Ask Mr. Woodyard to step in.”
    He hummed softly while we waited for Joe, and he greeted him with a broad smile. I was beginning to relax. Maybe we’d be able to leave right away.
    Joe dropped a hand on my shoulder as he came in. He stood behind me, and we both looked at McCullough.
    The detective smiled his beneficent smile again. “Now,” he said, “if I could just decide which one of you I ought to charge.”
    Really Ancient Chocolate
    Â 
    Among the big anthropological news of the early 2000s was a report that scientists had proved use of chocolate by humankind began five hundred years earlier than previously thought.
    An analysis of ancient pottery from Honduras found traces of chocolate at least three thousand years old. This is five hundred years earlier than any earlier evidence of the use of the heavenly substance.
    A professor of anthropology at Cornell University, John Henderson, and his colleagues made chemical analyses of residue on bits of broken pottery dating from 1100 B.C., pottery found in the Ulua Valley of northern Honduras. The scientists discovered theobroma, an alkaloid present only in cacao.
    Scientists speculate that the vessels had been used to drink a fermented “beer” made from the pulp that surrounds the cacao beans used to produce chocolate.
    The pottery was of a type used for important ceremonies, the researchers said.

Chapter 5

    J oe pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ve got Webb Bartlett on my cell,” he said. “Should I call?”
    â€œAw, I don’t think you need a lawyer yet,” McCullough said. “It’s just that there are so many ways to interpret your stories.”
    â€œSo what’s to interpret?” Joe said. “I told you the truth, and I’m sure Lee did, too.”
    â€œYour stories match—that’s for sure.” The detective smiled his kindly smile. “Of course, you had all night to match ’em up. But Mrs. Woodyard might have gone into that motel room to put Mendenhall’s bag down, and he could have tried to assault her. She would have been perfectly justified in crowning him with the desk lamp.”
    â€œBut if I was perfectly justified, wouldn’t the smart thing have been to call the cops as soon as he hit the floor?” I said. “Get my story in first?”
    McCullough nodded. “Yep. And you’re obviously a smart lady. But even smart people can panic. Or you might not have realized how bad he was hurt.”
    â€œSince he was hopping up and down like Rumpelstiltskin when I drove off, that scenery—I mean, scenario! That scenario doesn’t apply.”
    Joe spoke. “On the other hand, when Lee told me Mendenhall had gotten fresh with her, I might have been so mad I came by here and had some sort of confrontation with him, ending with using the desk lamp as a bludgeon.”
    â€œNo, Joe,” I said. “That won’t work either. You were a wrestler.”
    McCullough looked confused. “A wrestler?”
    â€œRight,” I said. “Joe