Coconut Layer Cake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “Yeah, I work out a couple of times a week.” Lonnie gave a little sigh. “Of course, I haven’t done that lately. The sheriff’s station is off-limits for me now.”

  “I figured it might be. Check out our gym. You’re welcome to use it if you’d like. And while you’re there, maybe you two can figure out what that new machine does and how to use it. Norman and I looked at it and we didn’t have a clue.”

  “I noticed that machine!” Michelle picked up on Hannah’s idea and Hannah knew that her sister realized that she should keep Lonnie out of the condo until Mike had heard Lonnie’s recorded interview.

  “I can take a look at it,” Lonnie told Hannah. “I know a lot about exercise machines. Between us, Michelle and I can probably figure out how to use it.”

  “There’s a booklet on the machine,” Norman told them. “I looked at it, but it was all Greek to me.”

  Lonnie smiled. Hannah wasn’t sure if he knew that they were trying to keep him occupied for a reason, but if he did, he wasn’t objecting. “Come on, Shelly,” he said, grabbing Michelle’s parka and handing it to her. “Let’s go take a look.”

  Hannah, Norman, Andrea, and Mike sat at the table until Lonnie and Michelle had gone out the door. Then Andrea reached for the tote bag she’d brought with her.

  Hannah watched as Andrea reached inside the tote and drew out a folder with papers inside. “Here,” she said, handing it to Hannah.

  “Doc’s autopsy report?” Hannah guessed before she even opened the folder.

  “Yes, it was in Bill’s briefcase, but I had to wait until he went up to read Tracey and Bethie a bedtime story before I could copy it. There’s another report in there, too. It has the results of Lonnie’s blood test and all the other tests they did when he went to the hospital with the paramedics.”

  “Lonnie was drugged?” Norman guessed.

  Andrea nodded. “The report says he was still under the effects of it when he got to the hospital. Doc told Mother he guessed it was some kind of sleeping pill that reacted with the alcohol.” She turned to Hannah. “Do you think that’ll help to clear Lonnie?”

  Hannah exchanged glances with Mike, but he waited for her to answer. She wondered for a split second if this constituted a test of some sort, but quickly put that idea out of her head.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it could go either way,” she said. “If Lonnie was drugged, for whatever reason, he might have acted out some resentment he had against Darcy and killed her without even realizing what he was doing. On the other hand, if Lonnie was drugged by a third person who wanted Lonnie to be at the scene when the killer murdered Darcy, the fact that Lonnie was drugged could exonerate him.”

  “Exactly right,” Mike said. “Our first priority should be finding out how Lonnie got that drug in his system.”

  “Either Lonnie took that drug on purpose, or someone else gave it to him without his knowledge,” Norman concluded.

  “Do you think Lonnie took it on purpose?” Andrea asked, looking shocked at the thought.

  Mike shook his head. “Of course not! But a good investigator has to consider all the possibilities.”

  “How can you prove that Lonnie didn’t take the drug on purpose?” Norman asked Mike.

  “We can’t prove it unless we find the person who gave him the drug without Lonnie’s knowledge to set him up for Darcy’s murder, and that means our first order of business should be . . .”

  “Making a list of everything Lonnie ingested that night,” Hannah said quickly. “And once we know that, we can interview everyone who had the opportunity to add the drug to his food or his drinks.”

  Mike gave her a nod and a smile. “Exactly right.” He turned to Norman. “Will you make a list for us?”

  “Of course,” Norman agreed, pulling a small notebook from his pocket. “Lonnie said he had coffee with his dinner at Hal and Rose’s.”

  “Right.” Hannah rushed to the drawer to take out one of the stenographer pads she used to keep notes when she was working on a murder case. She quickly jotted down the information, and then she gave Mike a curious look. “You usually take notes yourself, don’t you, Mike?”

  “Yes, but I’m not officially working on this murder case. I don’t want to have anything in my handwriting that could taint the investigation by giving the prosecution any reason to throw out our conclusions.”

  “That makes sense,” Hannah told him.

  “Is everyone ready for my second piece of information?” Andrea asked. When all three of them nodded, she went on. “I’m going to show you Doc’s autopsy report. It’s a real shocker.”

  “You actually read it?” Hannah asked, knowing how squeamish Andrea was when it came to graphic descriptions of violence.

  “Yes, and it made me sick to my stomach, but I wanted to know what it said. I didn’t look at the crime scene photos, though.”

  “You put them face down on the glass and copied them, didn’t you?” Hannah wanted to know.

  “Of course I did. They’re right here in this envelope.” Andrea pulled a white envelope from her tote bag and handed it to Mike. “Some of them might be in here upside down, though. I didn’t check when I stuffed them inside the envelope.”

  Hannah fully appreciated her sister’s aversion to looking at crime scene photos. They didn’t make her physically ill, but she certainly didn’t enjoy seeing the violence that a killer could inflict on a human being. She studied them carefully because she knew that something in the photos might provide a clue to the murder. And after Hannah had closed a murder case, she tried very hard to erase the images completely from her mind.

  “You were at the scene, weren’t you?” Hannah asked Mike.

  “Yes, and I went into her bedroom, but I left after Doc confirmed that she was dead. I stayed with Lonnie until the paramedics took him to the hospital and that’s when Bill told me to go home, that he was taking me off the case. He said he was taking Rick off, too, and he’d have to handle it himself with the new guy.”

  “And that’s still the way it is?” Norman asked.

  “Yeah.” Mike paged through the photos, gave a little nod, and handed them to Norman. Then he turned to Andrea. “These aren’t so bad. It just looks like she’s sleeping.”

  “Maybe, but I know she’s not and that makes them bad.” Andrea swallowed hard and then she turned to Hannah. “I don’t have to look at them, do I?”

  “Not if you don’t want to.” Hannah waited until Norman had finished paging through the photos, and then she took them from Norman. She studied every photo and gave a little shrug. “Nothing here is really helpful. Isn’t that right, Mike?”

  “Nothing that I can see. Give me the autopsy report, Andrea.”

  They all watched as Mike scanned Doc’s report. When he finished reading, he gave a little sigh.

  “What?” Norman asked him.

  “There’s one thing here that gives us a motive, and a whole new avenue of investigation.”

  “What?” Hannah asked, leaning forward.

  “Read it for yourself.” Mike handed over the report. “And pass the pages to Norman after you read them.”

  It’s a test, Hannah’s mind warned her. He wants to see if you pick up on what he noticed. She turned to look at Norman and realized that Norman had figured it out. They were on trial here so that Mike could see if they were good amateur detectives.

  As Hannah reached the middle of the first page, she saw what had alerted Mike. She finished the page, handed it to Norman, and watched him as he read it. It took a minute or so, but then a startled expression crossed Norman’s face.

  “Oh, boy!” he said under his breath.

  Hannah smiled. What had been obvious to Mike had also alerted them. It was another avenue of investigation, and it could very well be the reason that Darcy had been murdered. Darcy had been two months pregnant when someone had killed her.

  Hannah read the second and final page, handed it to Norman, and looked over at Andrea. Andrea gave a
little nod of acknowledgment, and Hannah knew that Andrea had also spotted the fact that Darcy had been pregnant. No wonder she’d said that Doc’s autopsy report was a shocker when she’d given it to them!

  “Well?” Mike asked them. “What pitfalls do you see because of what you’ve discovered?”

  Mike obviously regarded himself as their instructor in the art of investigating and for one brief moment, Hannah resented his attitude. Then she forced herself to think positively. Perhaps they didn’t need Mike’s guidance, but it couldn’t hurt to let him play Professor Sherlock. Mike was understandably upset over the fact that the circumstantial evidence was stacked against Lonnie because Lonnie had been there when the murder was committed.

  It was clear that Norman was waiting for her to respond to Mike’s query, so Hannah hid the last shred of her resentment and jumped right in to answer Mike.

  “Darcy’s dead. So, it’s obvious she won’t be telling us who the baby’s father is. That might be a pitfall!”

  Andrea chimed in. “Maybe Darcy didn’t tell anyone she was pregnant, including the baby’s father.”

  Norman looked thoughtful “Then it wouldn’t be a motive for murder, would it?”

  “You’re right,” Mike said. “But what if Darcy confided in someone?”

  “Then we’ll have to talk to Darcy’s friends and co-workers to find out if any of them knew,” Hannah said.

  “True,” Mike said. “But you’ll have to be careful that you don’t alert Darcy’s killer.”

  “And her killer could still be the baby’s father,” Andrea said.

  “You’re right,” Noman said. “Nothing rules that out.”

  Hannah shook her head. “Well, Darcy was engaged to Denny Jameson, but he might not be the father.”

  “But why would Darcy get engaged to him if he wasn’t . . .” Andrea stopped speaking and made a face. “I get it. If Darcy couldn’t marry the father of her baby, she might have gotten engaged to Denny and pretended that the baby was his. That happens in movies all the time.”

  “Conjecture,” Mike labeled it. “Let’s get back on track here. What’s the first thing you have to investigate?”

  “The identity of the father,” Andrea answered quickly.

  “Norman?” Mike asked, turning to him.

  “That’ll be tricky. A baby doesn’t come with a wristband with the name of the father printed on it.”

  Hannah couldn’t help it. She started to laugh. The thought was so totally ridiculous. Andrea gave a little giggle even though she’d been the one to bring up that idea, Norman laughed, and Mike chuckled. They all felt better because of the levity.

  Once the moment was over, Mike turned back to Norman. “So what can you do to attempt to find the father?”

  Andrea thought about that for a moment. “We could start by finding out if she went to a doctor.”

  “How?” Mike asked.

  “We could start with Doc,” Andrea suggested. “And if he wasn’t Darcy’s doctor, he could ask around to find out who was.”

  “That’s a possibility,” Hannah said.

  Mike shook his head. “That’s the least helpful avenue to take. Doctors have issues with confidentiality. They’re not going to tell you anything about their patients.”

  “But that doesn’t matter, does it?” Andrea asked. “Darcy’s dead.”

  “Believe me, it matters!” Norman disagreed. “The same rules apply to dentists. A medical professional can lose his or her license if he or she gives out information without the patient’s consent.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense if the patient is dead and can’t object,” Andrea pointed out.

  “Maybe not, but it’s still the rule,” Mike told her. “Forget the doctors. You’ll never get information from them directly.”

  “So, we start by interviewing Darcy’s friends and coworkers,” Hannah said.

  “Right,” Mike agreed. “You may luck out and find someone who can tell you something pertinent.”

  Andrea started to smile. “I can help you with that, can’t I, Hannah?”

  “Of course you can,” Hannah answered quickly. When Andrea was first dating Bill, he bragged that she could get anyone to talk and it was true. Andrea was a great listener.

  “And we’ll ask Lisa, Marge, and Aunt Nancy to keep their ears open for any gossip they hear in the coffee shop,” Hannah said.

  “I can help you with that, too,” Andrea offered. “I can do the invisible waitress trick and go around filling coffee cups.”

  “Perfect,” Hannah told her. Andrea was excellent at identifying tables where customers were talking in hushed voices, and listening as she refilled their coffee cups.

  “Okay. You’ve got a good game plan,” Mike complimented them. “I just wish that . . .” He stopped speaking and gave a long sigh. “I feel so helpless. There’s really nothing I can do to help.”

  “But there is!” Hannah said quickly. “You’re already helping, Mike. I think . . .” She paused and wondered if she was going to regret what she was about to suggest, but it was too late to back out now.

  “You think what?” Mike asked her.

  “I think we all ought to meet at least a couple times a week to compare notes and talk about what to do next,” Hannah told him. “We can meet at The Cookie Jar. That’s convenient for everyone. We can talk in the kitchen when everyone else is working in the coffee shop. Let’s meet there tomorrow morning.”

  “What time?” Andrea asked her.

  “Seven. The baking’s done by then, and that’ll give us plenty of time to talk about what we need to do.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Norman said. “Do you want me to bring something for breakfast? I could stop for doughnuts, or sweet rolls, or . . .” He stopped talking and gave Hannah an apologetic look. “Sorry, Hannah. That’s a lot like bringing pinecones to the North Woods.”

  “That’s true,” Hannah said with a smile. “There’ll be plenty of coffee and sweet things to go with it, Norman. You don’t have to worry about that. And, as an added bonus, I’ll be able to try out our new recipes on all of you!”

  Chapter Eleven

  “We’re here, Hannah,” Norman said as he pulled up in his driveway.

  Hannah laughed. “I’m awake,” she told him.

  “You were so quiet, I just assumed you were sleeping.”

  “No, I think I drank too much coffee to go to sleep. I’m wide awake and my mind is spinning around at high speed.”

  “Well, I can take care of that once we get inside,” Norman said.

  “How?”

  “You’ll see.” Norman got out and walked around the car to open the passenger door. “Hop out, Hannah. I’ll bring your suitcases.”

  Hannah got out of the car and took a deep gulp of the icy night air. The snow stretched out like a smooth sheet on the large circle of grass inside Norman’s circular driveway, and the moonlight striking the surface of the snow made it glow with a pale, iridescent blue. As she walked toward the front door, Hannah gave a little gasp as she spotted a bulky figure standing by one of the windows. “Norman!” she whispered, grabbing his arm. “There’s something . . .” She stopped in mid-sentence as she realized that the figure, a black bear, was as still as stone.

  Of course it’s as still as stone, her mind chided her. That’s because it’s made of stone, or concrete, or something like that. It’s a statue, just like the moose on the other side of Norman’s house.

  Hannah began to laugh as she turned to Norman. “For a minute there, I thought it was real.”

  “Sorry about that,” Norman said, slipping his arm around her shoulders. “I should have warned you, but I’m so used to it, I forgot you hadn’t seen it yet. Meet Shag, the bear. I got him last month. It took three men to move him here, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I really wanted him on the other side of the house.”

  “Shag is very realistic. He’s probably a good deterrent for anyone who’s thinking about breaking into your house at
night.”

  “That’s exactly what Mike said the first time he saw Shag! And he startled Michelle and Lonnie, too.”

  Hannah gave a little sigh. It seemed as if everyone had visited Norman at home except her. “Was Shag very expensive?”

  “Yes, but the statuary place was going out of business and they were having a half-price sale if you bought two statues.”

  “Two? Where’s the other statue?”

  “In the butterfly garden. I’m not sure how long it’ll be effective, but right now it scares the heck out of the winter birds that land there.”

  “I didn’t know you had a butterfly garden! Where is it?”

  “Right there.” Norman pointed to the parklike area in the middle of his circular driveway.

  “I see it,” Hannah said, feeling foolish for not noticing the benches that Norman had placed at strategic spots.

  “I should have noticed it at Christmas, but I didn’t,” Hannah apologized. “It’s okay. They hadn’t delivered it yet, plus you had a lot on your mind.”

  Hannah swallowed hard. Christmas had been difficult, to say the least. “What did you plant to attract the butterflies?”

  Norman looked pleased that she’d asked. “I started with phlox, but I didn’t know it was spreadable.”

  “Do you mean like ground cover?”

  “In a way. I had to limit my phlox to one area, or it would have taken over my other plants.”

  “Tell me about some of the others.”

  “I have pots of marigolds, another area with coneflowers and lantana, an area of heliotrope, and a large patch of black-eyed Susans. It’s relaxing in the summer, Hannah. Sometimes I just go out there when I get home from work and sit on one of the benches. And it’s probably silly, but I watch the butterflies and think about all the places they must have seen in their travels. The Monarchs migrate, you know. I drove down to the University of Minnesota Monarch lab to learn more about them.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “They migrate to Mexico in the winter and they do it individually. They’re beautiful, Hannah. This past August was great for me. That’s Monarch season here and I had dozens feeding on nectar from my garden every day.”