The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up Read Online Free PDF Page A

Perkins immediately flashed through my mind—I guess because Trey had been a witness to the altercation at the post office the day before. So the sight of Trey didn’t make me happy.
    I stopped beside the sedan, which was parallel to the dock and a few feet below it. Joe looked up and grinned, but Trey didn’t seem to realize I was there.
    “You know the river so well,” Trey said.
    “Not as well as a lot of other people,” Joe said.
    “We need your help, Joe.”
    Joe just shook his head. He extended his hand toward me, then led me down the dock for two steps, until I was opposite the step pad, that rubberized gadget that gives you enough traction to step into the boat gracefully, instead of falling in awkwardly.
    Trey finally noticed that I was coming aboard. He leaped to his feet. “Oh! Hi, Lee.”
    “Hi, Trey.”
    Joe ignored Trey while I stepped into the stern of the boat. He guided me under the roof and up to one of the two front seats.
    Trey stood up, looking worried. “I hope we find Hershel soon,” he said. “I really need to be working on the fireplace at the Miller house this evening. I’m giving it a faux marble look, and there’s nobody around to do it the way I want. I worked on it all yesterday evening.”
    “Maybe he’ll turn up all right,” I said.
    “Listen, Trey,” Joe said. “Considering the altercation Hershel and I had yesterday, I really don’t think I ought to get involved in any search for him. Besides, I promised Lee a nice dinner and a boat ride tonight.”
    “But, Joe . . .”
    Joe shook his head. “No, Trey. I’m not joining any search party. But Lee and I are going up the river, since we’ve got reservations for dinner at the lodge. If I see a bright green canoe floating by, I’ll make sure Hershel’s not under it.”

Chapter 3
    T rey left, but he didn’t look happy about it.
    Joe cast off the lines that held the sedan to the dock, assuring me I didn’t need to help, then sat down behind the wheel of the sedan.
    “What makes Trey think Hershel’s capsized?” I said.
    “He and his canoe are both missing.”
    “Patsy Waterloo didn’t mention the canoe. She just said Hershel was gone.”
    Joe reached over and squeezed my hand. “Forget Hershel. I am really glad to see you. If you’d backed out of this little trip—well, I think I might have done something desperate.”
    “Cut your suspenders and gone straight up, as my Texas grandma would have said? But why would I back out?”
    “It just seems as if everything else that’s happened for the past twenty-four hours has failed to turn out the way I wanted it to.”
    Joe started the motor and the boat began burbling. The motors of old boats are cooled by pumping water around the engine, and the design gives them a distinctive sound—a bubbling, murmuring, lush sound that lots of people find the most attractive thing about them.
    We pulled away from the dock and moved gently out into the river. All of the dock area, of course, is a no-wake zone, so Joe kept the speed slow and steady. This meant the engine was not terribly noisy, and we could talk, if we yelled. I leaned over Joe’s shoulder. “What went wrong?”
    “Oh, last night was a fiasco. A wild goose chase.”
    “You were going to show somebody the runabout?”
    “Yeah. Some guy called, said he had seen the runabout at the South Haven show. Said he wanted to look at it, give his wife a ride. Said he was really determined to buy it. So I chased clear up to Saugatuck in high waves and went to the house he described—and nobody was there.”
    “Nobody was there?”
    “Not only that, the house he directed me to—one of those right on the water, with its own dock—it’s empty. The neighbors said nobody’s been there for two summers. And the owner’s name is not the same as the man who claimed he wanted to buy the boat. It was some kind of hoax.”
    “That’s awful! Why would anybody do a thing like that?”
    “I have no idea. I was afraid I’d