The Chocolate Book Bandit Read Free Page B

think it’s Abigail! Abigail Montgomery! She’s in a heap at the bottom of the basement stairs. She’s not breathing!”
    She cried out again. “She’s dead! She’s dead! Call someone!”

Chapter 3

    There was a mad rush to the tiny back hall and then to the basement door. Since I’d been the first one out of the room, I was the first one down the stairs, and Butch was right behind me. The others hovered at the top of the steps.
    The light was poor, but when Butch and I knelt over Abigail Montgomery, I felt sure she was dead. She was lying on her stomach, with her head turned slightly to the side. Blood from a wound on the back of her head had made a puddle on the floor. I couldn’t find a pulse, and when Butch held a scrap of paper in front of her nose, it didn’t give a quiver. She wasn’t breathing.
    “She’s gone,” Butch said.
    He called out to the group at the top of the stairs. “Please go back to the boardroom. I’ll call 9-1-1 on my cell phone. Then I’ll wait for the EMTs at the front door.”
    Everybody moved back except Miss Vanderklomp. She came down two steps and growled a comment. “It doesn’t seem right to leave her alone.”
    Butch went up the stairs and edged past her. “I think it will be okay.”
    “I feel that someone should stay with her.”
    The darn woman was bossing just for the sake of bossing. I felt really annoyed.
    “It’s all right, Miss Vanderklomp,” I said. I spoke as firmly as I could, considering that my insides were sloshing around like Lake Michigan on a windy day. “I’ll stay here.”
    I followed Butch partway up the stairs and sat down, firmly planting my fanny on a step, then spreading my arms and legs out so that Miss Vanderklomp would have to jump over me if she tried to come farther.
    “I could stay,” she said.
    “Oh, I have completed first-aid training,” I said.
    Which was true, but had nothing to do with anything. First aid was not going to help Abigail Montgomery.
    The comment did make Miss Vanderklomp pause, although she was still lingering on the step, frowning.
    “Plus,” I said, “I’m sure you know the chief of police is married to my aunt.”
    That shut her up, even though that circumstance also had nothing to do with anything. She sniffed irately and went back upstairs. At least she left the door open. I didn’t want to be down there alone with what had been Abigail.
    Not that I was deeply grieved. In fact, although Abigail Montgomery had been pointed out to me, I didn’t think I had ever spoken with her. My impression was that she led a rather reclusive life. I racked my brain, trying to remember what I knew or had heard about her.
    Abigail was a member of a fairly prominent family in Warner Pier. They had also been prominent in both Michigan state affairs and in Chicago. They had “cottaged” in Warner Pier since forever, and Abigail was one of those summer people who had come to live in Warner Pier after she retired, moving to a home she and her husband had built years earlier at the family compound.
    Abigail’s maiden name had been Hart, and the Hart family had a few skeletons in their closets that I already knew about. Her brother, Timothy Hart, is one of the sweetest men I know—he helped save my life once upon a time—but he’s a chronic alcoholic. Her sister . . . Well, the less said about her sister, the better. Her brother-in-law had a strange life, as well as a strange death. However, her nephew, Hart VanHorn, is a former Michigan state legislator who is now a leading lawyer in Grand Rapids, and as far as I know is a perfectly nice guy.
    I knew nothing about Mr. Montgomery, whomever he had been, but Abigail had lived in California for many years. I had a vague impression, drawn from Warner Pier gossip, that she had moved back to the family compound for financial reasons. She’d been a year-round resident for three or four years, and since my father-in-law is the mayor, I happened to hear that Hart called him and