The Chocolate Cat Caper Read Online Free PDF

totally immersed in her work as a travel agent, though that has its good side. When Uncle Phil died, she was able to get us a standby flight. If she hadn’t, neither of us would have even been able to come to Warner Pier for the funeral. But we had stayed only two days. Neither of us had been any help to Aunt Nettie.
    Aunt Nettie took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. “I guess that’s why I hate that big house of Clementine Ripley’s so much. It’s like a memorial to the injustice of Phil’s death.”
    “What does the house have to do with Uncle Phil’s death?”
    “The first time Troy was accused of drunk driving, the Sheepshankses paid Clementine Ripley’s fee by giving her that ten acres out on Warner Point. The city had been trying to get hold of the property, but Ms. Ripley ruined that.”
    We left the situation as it stood. Aunt Nettie didn’t want either of us to have anything to do with Clementine Ripley, but I’d promised to help out one of Aunt Nettie’s fellow Warner Pier merchants, and she wouldn’t hear of my backing out.
    I dashed to the bank to deposit the check for Ms. Ripley’s chocolates, making it into the main lobby before three p.m., when the bank closed for the weekend. I could have deposited the check at the drivethrough, which would be open Saturday, but I was trying to establish rapport with Barbara, the branch manager. Then I went out to the house, changed into black slacks and a white shirt, and pulled my hair into a knot at the back of my head. Not glamorous, and not really required by the health department, but I hate waitresses who look as if they’re shedding hair into the onion dip. At four-thirty, I picked up Lindy at her house—Tony had taken the kids to the beach, so I didn’t see them—and I headed the minivan toward Clementine Ripley’s estate for the second time that day. And this time I planned to see the inside of the place.
    We were allowed through the gate and directed around the house by a service drive. We parked in a gravel area beside a four-car garage, next to the Herrera Catering van. The van was brand-new and had a classy logo painted on the side.
    “Looks as if your pa-in-law is doing well,” I said.
    “He’s really thrown himself into the business since Tony’s mother died four years ago,” Lindy said. “He’s become a workaholic. Though recently we’ve caught a few hints that he’s got some new romantic interest.”
    “How does that hit Tony?”
    “Not very well. Of course, we both want Mike to be happy. But he’s so secretive. We don’t know who he’s seeing. It makes us feel . . . worried.”
    I had the sense to nod understandingly and keep quiet.
    Lindy took a deep breath before she spoke again. “It sounds silly, but Tony’s afraid he’s dating an Anglo.”
    “So? Tony married one.”
    “I know. Maybe that’s why he’s trying so hard to hang on to his cultural heritage. Trying to teach the kids Spanish. Stuff like that.” She smiled. “It all started when Papa Mike changed his name from Miguel.”
    The breeze had switched to the north, dropping the temperature and humidity from their earlier highs and promising a pleasant evening for Clementine Ripley’s party. The terrace overlooking the lake faced west, so sun might be a problem on that side of the house, but the terrace on the river side was shaded by some big trees.
    I greeted Mike Herrera. I barely remembered him from my teenage summers in Warner Pier; all I had was a vague recollection of a man with slicked-down hair and a little Latin mustache who was always cheerful. Now I saw that he’d changed his persona over the past twelve years, with a shave and a new hairstyle that turned him into a sort of heavyset Antonio Banderas. It was a surprising transformation. The twenty-eight-year-old me noted that he was an attractive man, something the sixteen-year-old me had missed.
    Mike Herrera had been the first Hispanic to own his own business in Warner Pier—most