Lemon Meringue Pie Murder Part 26

Hannah sighed. "That figures. Freddy's always been very loyal and trusting. It'll take a lot to convince him that Jed isn't a good guy. He's honest, though. If he finds out that Jed's been spending stolen money, that might be enough to change his opinion."

"That's a good place to start" Andrea motioned to Hannah. "Hand me my purse, Hannah. My cell phone has free long distance. I'll call Stillwater and see if the two bank robbers are there."

"Now?" Hannah stopped in the act of reaching for Andrea's purse. "But the prison offices will be closed."

"I know and that's just perfect. Whoever answers the phone might not know the rules and they'll give me the information I need."

"But won't they just tell you to call back when the office opens up in the morning?"

Andrea shook her head. "They might tell somebody else that, but not me. I've got a perfect reason for calling right now and they're going to fall over backwards getting me what I need. Now will you please hand me my purse?"

Hannah gave Andrea her purse, watched as her sister took out her cell phone, listened as she got the right number from directory a.s.sistance, and came very close to crossing her fingers as Andrea began to speak to someone at the prison. If Andrea could verify that the bank robbers were in Stillwater Prison, they'd be one step closer to proving that Jed was trafficking in stolen money.

"I'm really sorry to call so late, but I'm trying to balance my mother's checkbook and I noticed she sent a check to a man by the name of Loren Urlanski." Andrea paused and winked at them. "That's right. Urlanski. He's supposedly an inmate at Stillwater and my mother made a contribution to his appeal fund. Since it's a fairly large check, I wanted to make sure that Mr. Urlanski is really an inmate." Andrea LEMON MERINGUE PIE MURDER 231.

paused again and then she smiled. "Of course. I'll be happy to hold while you check."

"You did it!" Mich.e.l.le whispered, gazing at Andrea in awe.

Andrea shook her head. "Not quite yet. But he said he'd check the computer."

Hannah just shook her head. Andrea could lie like a trooper when the occasion warranted.

"Yes, I'm here," Andrea said, speaking into the phone again. "He's not? Are you sure?" She paused to make a note in her book and then she continued. "How about David Aspen? My mother also contributed to his appeal fund. Could you check that name for me?"

Hannah grabbed Andrea's pen as she waited and scribbled a note to her sister. It said, Transferred? Dead? Paroled? Andrea glanced at it and turned back to the phone. "He's not, either? That's exactly what I was afraid of. How about if they were transferred? Or if they died? Or if they're out on parole? Is there any way your computer can tell that?"

Hannah held her breath as she waited for the answer. If neither bank robber had been an inmate at Stillwater, their theory was a washout.

"I see. Well, thank you so much for checking. I really appreciate it. I'll turn these canceled checks over to the proper authorities in the morning. Obviously somebody is running one of those scams that targets the elderly."

Hannah waited until Andrea hung up and then she started to laugh. "The elderly? If Mother had heard that, you wouldn't have a chance to get elderly."

"You're right. She'd kill me." Andrea grinned from ear to ear. "But she's never going to find out about it... right?"

"Right," Mich.e.l.le said.

"Absolutely," Hannah agreed. "Thanks for checking on it, Andrea. You were incredible."

"Anytime. What do you want me to do next?"

"I don't know." Hannah sighed deeply. "My theory about Jed is blown. If the two bank robbers were never at Still- 232 water, Jed couldn't have met them there. It's a shame. I really wanted him to be the one who was pa.s.sing that stolen money."

"Me, too," Mich.e.l.le said. "He's a jerk."

"I know, but I guess not every jerk is a criminal." Hannah picked up her notebook and paged through it "We're spinning our wheels with this bank robbery thing, especially when we can't prove it has anything to do with Jed or with Rhonda's murder. Maybe we'd better tell Bill and Mike what we know and drop it."

When her alarm went off the next morning, Hannah had to squelch the urge to throw it across the room. The only thing that stopped her was that she didn't have the energy to lift her hand. It had been almost one in the morning by the time Bill had come to collect Andrea and close to one-thirty by the time she'd gotten Mich.e.l.le settled in the guest room. It would be a two-pots-of-coffee morning before she was alert enough to drive to work.

"That new pillow had better come in soon," Hannah grumbled, rubbing her neck as she crawled out of bed. She'd ended up with the foam pillow again because she'd been too tired to dislodge Moishe from hers.

After a quick shower that eased some of the pain in her neck, Hannah dressed in cotton pants and a short-sleeved top. She slipped her feet into a pair of moccasins and padded to the kitchen with Moishe, who was following on the trail of his breakfast. Once she'd filled his food bowl and given him fresh water, Hannah poured her first cup of coffee, grabbed her master file of recipes, and sat down at the table to page through it while she woke up. Today was the day before the Fourth, and she still hadn't decided what type of dessert to bring to the potluck picnic and barbecue.

Long minutes pa.s.sed while Hannah paged and sipped. When the hands of her apple-shaped kitchen clock approached five o'clock, the tune she'd decided to leave for work, she was no closer to deciding which dessert to bring than she'd 233.

been before she'd started. She might have actually welcomed the diversion of a morning call from her mother, but it was too early, even for Delores. Hannah finished the first cup of coffee from the second pot and poured the rest in her insulated car coffee caddy. She wrote a quick note for Mich.e.l.le, telling her to come down to the shop when she woke up, and propped it up against the saltshaker where she'd be sure to see it. Then she refilled Moishe's food bowl for the final time, slung her purse over her shoulder, and stepped out into the muggy early morning air.

The air outside was like a sauna and Hannah imagined that she could hear steam hissing up as the water hit the rocks. It would be another scorcher today. If this heat wave didn't let up before tomorrow, the students in Jordan High's marching band would be dropping like flies in their uniforms at the parade.

Hannah drove through the still morning with her windows down, attempting to catch every breath of wind. Crickets chirped in the fields, somewhere a cow was lowing, and several frogs hopped dangerously close to her wheels as they crossed the road to a pond on the opposite side of the road.

The sun was just beginning to peep over the horizon when Hannah parked in back of The Cookie Jar. The first thing she did after she unlocked the door was to beat a path straight to the air conditioner and turn it on full blast. Then she got down to the business of baking the cookie dough that she'd mixed up with Lisa before they'd left the shop the previous night.

In less than an hour, Hannah was very grateful for the cool air that circulated in her kitchen. With the ovens baking and cookies cooling on the racks, it was warm, but not hot. It made her wonder how she'd ever managed without her window unit.

When Lisa came in, at seventy-thirty, she was smiling. Hannah took one glance at her partner's happy face and was instantly curious. "What's up? Did Herb propose?"

"No, it's Dad. He's Uncle Sam!"

234 "What?"

"The Seniors Center rented him a costume and Dad's leading his whole group in the parade. He's going to be the best Uncle Sam they ever had!" Lisa stopped and frowned slightly. "That's strange, Hannah."

"What's strange?"

"I just remembered something. Dad got all excited when I got to be the Easter Bunny in my second-grade play. He told all his friends that I was going to be the best Easter Bunny they ever had. And now I'm doing the same thing for him, just like I'm his proud parent. I guess it's true that roles get reversed when you get older."

"I guess so." Hannah tried to think of something to say to cheer Lisa up. She'd been smiling, but now she looked sad. "You should take some pictures of your dad and his group in the parade. They might like to put them up on the bulletin board at the center."

Lisa started to smile again. "That's a great idea. I already bought a disposable camera to take pictures of our float."

"How's it coming?" Hannah asked. She wasn't about to miss a golden opportunity to see if she could find out more about The Cookie Jar float.

"It's almost finished. Tracey's cla.s.s is putting on the final touches today. It's absolutely precious, but that's all I'm allowed to say."

"But can't you just tell me..."

"No," Lisa interrupted, grinning widely. "You'll see it tomorrow at the parade."

Hannah recognized the stubborn set of Lisa's chin. She could beg and plead, but she wouldn't get any more information. "Delores and Carrie are coming to watch the parade with us, and they can help us take pictures of your dad and the seniors. Andrea can help, too. Take some money out of the till and run down to the drugstore as soon as they open to get more disposable cameras."

"Thanks, Hannah. We should get lots of good pictures that way."

235.

"Even if we don't, we've always got Norman as a backup. He'll be here with his own camera."

Lisa smiled happily. "I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. I love the parade and the whole celebration out at Eden Lake. Have you decided what dessert we're going to bring?"

"Not yet. I tried to think of something special this morning, but I'm fresh out of ideas."

"I'll take care of it," Lisa offered. "You've got enough on your mind with Rhonda's murder. What did you find out about that ten-dollar bill I gave you yesterday? Did Mr. Greer-son think it was counterfeit?"

"Sit down for a second and I'll tell you." Hannah gestured toward a stool at the workstation. And then she told Lisa all about the robbery and the stolen money that had surfaced in Lake Eden.

Lisa's eyes were round with surprise by the time Hannah finished. "I guess a lot happened after I went home last night!"

"There's more," Hannah said, and told her about Freddy Sawyer's drunk and disorderly charge.

"This just gets stranger and stranger." Lisa shook her head. "We've had a mooning, a murder, and money turning up from an old bank robbery, all in one week."

"People who think small-town life is boring ought to move to Lake Eden!"

"I guess," Lisa said, and then she began to frown. "Do you think all those tilings could be related somehow?"

"I can't find a connection. And believe me, I tried. I'm giving up on the stolen money and concentrating on Rhonda's murder. I really don't have a clue, so far."

"Maybe you should tell me everything you know," Lisa suggested. "It'll put your thoughts in order and I might be able to catch something you missed."

"You think so?"

"It's possible. It could be a little like walking into a room where someone's doing a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes you spot the piece they're looking for right off the bat."

236 "Fresh eyes?"

"That's it. Except this time it's fresh ears." "It's certainly worth a try." Hannah gave Lisa a smile. "Go put on the coffee and when you come back, we'll finish the baking. And while we work, we'll talk b.l.o.o.d.y murder."

Chapter TWenty-TWo.

By the time Hannah was through telling Lisa everything except the ident.i.ty of Rhonda's boyfriend, the cookies were baked and the display jars behind the counter were filled. The big urn of coffee had perked, and Hannah and Lisa sat down at their favorite table in the back of the coffee shop to take a break.

"Well?" Hannah turned to her partner. "Do you think I missed anything?"

"No, but I can't help thinking about Ron LaSalle. Remember what you said when he was murdered?"

"I said a lot of things." Hannah sighed. Thinking about her favorite Cozy Cow deliveryman still made her sad.

"But you pointed out that Ron's only mistake was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or is it the wrong place at the right time? Or the right place at the wrong time? Or..."

"It doesn't matter," Hannah interrupted her. "I know what you mean. Do you think that's what happened to Rhonda?"

"Maybe. What if the killer was in the bas.e.m.e.nt and Rhonda went down there and caught him doing something he didn't want anyone else to know he was doing? If that happened, he might have ..."

238 "Killed Rhonda to keep her from talking," Hannah finished Lisa's sentence for her. "But what was the killer doing in Mrs. Voelker's bas.e.m.e.nt in the first place?"

"I don't know, unless he was looking for antiques to steal, or something like that. You were in the bas.e.m.e.nt. What was down there, anyway?"

"The only things I saw were cobwebs, dust, moldy junk, and shelves of old preserves."

Lisa shrugged. "That sounds like a perfectly ordinary bas.e.m.e.nt to me. How about the furnace room?"

"Not counting the grave and Rhonda's body, there wasn't much there. There was the furnace, of course, and one wall had some homemade shelves for jams and jellies. A couple jars of jam were broken and there was gla.s.s on the floor."

"Are you sure that's all there was?"

"Pretty sure. But once I spotted Rhonda's body, I didn't look around at much else." Hannah thought about it for a moment. "You've got a point, Lisa. I should take a second look."

"How are you going to do that? Isn't the whole house taped off as a crime scene?"

"Yes, but that shouldn't be a problem since I don't have to go inside. There's a window in the furnace room and I can take a peek through the gla.s.s."

"Why don't you take pictures?" Lisa suggested. "Then both of us could look at the crime scene."

"Good idea. I'll run home and get my camera."

"I've got the disposable I bought last night. It's still in a bag in my car. You can use that."

It didn't take Lisa long to return with the camera. Hannah examined it and began to frown. It had a built-in flash that went off with every picture. That could present a problem, especially since she'd be taking pictures through the gla.s.s.

"What's wrong?" Lisa asked, noticing Hannah's frown.

"I have to figure out some way to block the flash so it won't glare off the windowpane."

LEMON MERINGUE PIE MURDER.

239.

Lisa jumped up again. "You can mask it with electrical tape. We've got some in the kitchen drawer."

Once the camera was modified, Hannah set off for the Voelker place. She'd heard that a deputy had been stationed there to keep out the ghoul-seekers who wanted a peek at the crime scene, and she'd armed herself with a half-dozen cookies and a cup of takeout coffee. She planned to present the deputy with an early morning snack and then give him her excuse for driving out. Since the Voelker place was a good ten minutes away, she'd have plenty of time to dream up something convincing before she got there.

Hannah gave a relieved sigh as she parked at the side of the driveway and spotted Lonnie's older brother, Rick Murphy, sitting in a wicker chair on the front porch. Rick loved her Short Stack Cookies. He'd be so pleased to get some, he'd be sure to buy her story. She slipped off her watch, pushed it out of sight under the pa.s.senger seat, and got out of her truck. "Hi, Rick. I brought you a little something for breakfast."

"Hey, Hannah. That's really nice of you." Rick smiled as he accepted the cookies and coffee. "What are you doing way out here?"

"I'm looking for my watch. I think I dropped it inside the day we found Rhonda's body. Mother and I were packing up things for her store and it must have fallen off my wrist."

"I wish I could let you look, but I can't let anyone inside."

"That's okay, Rick. I figured that. But you can go inside and look for it, can't you?"

"I'm not allowed inside, either. The only authorized personnel are the detectives working the case. Sorry, Hannah."