Plum Pudding Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  The man glanced at his watch as he sped forward. It was clear he didn’t notice Delores and Hannah standing there, and he struck Hannah’s arm as he ran past, knocking her notebook from her hand and sending it flying across the hallway. He stopped and turned back, and then he retrieved her notebook and handed it back to her with an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m late for class, but that’s no excuse. I should have been more careful. Are you all right?”

  Hannah stared up at him and her breath caught in her throat. She must be imagining things. It couldn’t be. She opened her mouth to assure him that she was fine, but no words came out.

  “Don’t worry. She’s fine,” Delores said, stepping into the breach. And then she turned to Hannah. “Aren’t you, dear?”

  It was like pulling teeth, but Hannah managed to croak out one word. “Fine,” she said in a voice that didn’t sound at all like hers.

  “As long as you’re okay, I’d better go,” the man said. “My students are probably waiting for me.”

  “What do you teach?” Delores asked, picking up the conversational ball since Hannah was perfectly silent.

  “Poetry, but I’m part of a team that’s here from Macalester. We’re putting together an intercollegiate event called the Christmas Follies.”

  “That sounds wonderful!” Delores exclaimed. “Will the show be open to the public?”

  “Yes, and it’s also being televised. It should be quite a production with talent from five different colleges.” The man turned to Hannah. “Excuse me, but you look so familiar. Have we met before?”

  As she looked up into the dark blue eyes she’d once described as marvelous and soul-searching, Hannah wanted to die. She prayed that the floor beneath her feet would disappear, dropping her all the way down to the basement so that she could hide in the darkest corner. It was achingly clear that he didn’t remember. And he should!

  “Hannah?” Delores prompted, and even without looking, Hannah knew her mother was regarding her curiously.

  “Yes, we’ve met,” Hannah said in a voice that was amazingly steady considering the circumstances. Then she took her mother’s arm and pulled her down the hall, not looking back to see if he had continued on his way.

  “Hannah!” Delores chided her in a whisper that seemed far too loud to Hannah. “You were rude to that nice young professor.”

  “Yes,” Hannah admitted. There was no arguing with her mother’s assessment.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I know you don’t, Mother.”

  Mother and daughter walked on until Delores stopped at a classroom door. “This is it,” she said, glancing at her watch. “We have one minute before we’re late. Who was that man, Hannah?”

  “Someone I once thought I knew. Let’s go in, Mother.”

  “Not quite yet.” Delores grabbed Hannah’s arm. “Why did you act as if you could hardly wait to get away from him?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “But I do! Was he the man you told me about, the reason you left college?”

  Hannah drew a deep breath. A small part of her wanted to confide in her mother, but no good would be served by recounting the story of her failed and foolish romance. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said firmly, opening the door and ushering her mother into the classroom.

  Time had never passed so slowly. Some said that at the instant of a man’s death, his whole life passed before his eyes. This was just the opposite. Hannah had never seen the minute hand move so slowly. After watching the clock for what seemed like three hours and was actually four minutes, Hannah took notes just for something to do as Miss Kimberly Whiting, CPA, droned on and on about profit and loss statements, the proper way to invoice, and the essentials of sales tax record-keeping. The information was dispensed fast and heavy with no break for questions until the dot of seven twenty-five when Miss Whiting stopped speaking and picked up the folder she’d placed on the podium.

  “It’s time for bad business practices,” she said, and even those class members who’d been dozing sat up straight in their chairs. “Tonight’s example concerns a large screen television dealership.”

  Hannah listened as their teacher went on to describe the four-man partnership. Three invested equal amounts of money and the fourth invested his time and expertise by actually running the business. There were handouts showing profit and loss statements, tax returns, copies of bank statements, and payroll rosters. Their assignment was to figure out how the dealership had managed to stay in business for more than five months despite selling television sets for less than cost.

  As they filed out of class, Hannah found herself dreading the ride home. Delores was bound to ask more questions about Bradford Ramsey and she’d been perfectly honest when she’d said that she didn’t want to talk about it.

  They’d descended the staircase and were walking past the classrooms on the first floor when Hannah spotted someone she thought she knew. “Is that Dr. Love?” she asked her mother.

  “Yes, but she’s Dr. Schmidt out here,” Delores said, poking her head in the open door and waving.

  “Hello, Delores!” Dr. Love sounded very glad to see them. “And Hannah. I haven’t seen you since your mother’s book launch party. How have you been?”

  “Just fine, Dr. Schmidt.”

  “Call me Nancy.” Dr. Love gave her a warm smile and then she turned to Delores. “I’ve been meaning to call you. I’m redecorating my office here on campus and I was wondering if you could find me an old-fashioned glass-door bookcase.”

  “This is your lucky day!” Delores said with a laugh. “My assistant, Luanne, just came back from an estate sale at the home of a prominent lawyer in St. Paul. She bought a pair of gorgeous bookcases in walnut with leaded glass doors on each shelf.”

  “The type of doors that pull up and then slide in?”

  “That’s right. Would you like to drop by to see them?”

  “I would. They sound perfect. How about tomorrow around noon? I have to run out to the station at ten to do some voiceovers, but I should be through in a couple of hours.”

  “I’ll have the coffee pot on for you,” Delores said, turning to go. “Black with two sugars?”

  “Perfect.” Dr. Love turned to Hannah. “It was good to see you again, Hannah.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” Hannah said, and then she followed her mother down the hall to the exit.

  Once they stepped out of the building, the cold hit them so hard it took their breath away. While they were in class, an icy wind had begun to blow from the north. Both Hannah and her mother held their gloved hands over their mouths and noses as they walked directly into the wind and made their way to the parking lot. Most of the students had left immediately after class and Delores’s car was the only one still plugged to the wall. Hannah was about to unplug it when she heard a voice call her name.

  “Norman!” Hannah recognized him immediately, despite the bulky parka and fur hat he wore. She smiled at him and hoped her teeth wouldn’t freeze in the bitterly cold wind. “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought I’d save your mother a trip. This way she can go straight home and she won’t have to swing by your place.”

  “That’s sweet of you Norman, but I don’t mind,” Delores jumped into the conversation and Hannah knew she was thinking about her lost opportunity to find out more about Bradford Ramsey.

  “Oh, but I have an ulterior motive,” Norman said, unplugging Delores’s car, wrapping the cord around her bumper, and opening the driver’s door for her. “If I drive Hannah home, we’ll get a little more time to talk.”

  Delores hesitated for a moment and then she slid in under the wheel. In the war between her curiosity about her daughter’s old romance, and her concern about her best friend, Carrie had won.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, dear,” Delores said as she started her car and flicked on the lights. “I’ll stop by for coffee before I open the shop.”

  A minute later,
Hannah was in Norman’s warm and toasty car. She unzipped her parka, took off her hat and her gloves, and reveled in the fact that she no longer had to fear frostbite.

  “Did you eat?” Norman asked, pulling out onto the highway.

  “Not yet. I had time to feed Moishe and that was about it.”

  “So Moishe comes first?” Norman’s voice was warm and Hannah could see his smile in the lights of the dashboard. Norman loved her cat and the feeling was mutual.

  “Moishe comes first,” she confirmed it. “How about you? Did you eat?”

  “No. I thought we’d stop for a bite if you wanted to go out.”

  Hannah thought about their favorite places, Bertanelli’s Pizza, the Lake Eden Inn, and The Corner Tavern. It would be nice to go out to dinner, but what she really wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Norman and Moishe, and watch mindless television.

  “Bertanelli’s? The Corner Tavern? Sally’s at the Inn?” Norman named the places Hannah had already thought of and dismissed.

  “I’d rather go home and make something there,” Hannah said, “if that’s all right with you, that is.”

  “That’s fine with me, but I don’t want you to work. You’ve had a full day.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve got some meatloaf I can heat up and I’ll pop in a batch of Easy Cheesy Biscuits.”

  “Easy Cheesy Biscuits? I don’t think I’ve tasted those.”

  “I know you haven’t. I just got the recipe last weekend from an old classmate of mine at Jordan High. Prudence left Lake Eden right after school and moved to Niagara Falls.”

  “Do you have everything you need to make them? Or shall we run by The Quick Stop?”

  “I have everything I need. I planned on baking them tonight anyway. Lisa loves cheese so I thought I’d take her a couple for breakfast.”

  The roads were clear and Norman zipped along in his well-maintained car. Hannah felt as if she were living in the lap of luxury as she listened to mellow jazz on the stereo and watched the night stream past her window. All too soon, they turned in at Hannah’s condo complex and Hannah handed him her gate card to raise the wooden lever that let the residents in and out. This time the wooden barrier was intact and Hannah wondered if they’d solved the gate card problem at last. Even though residents were warned of the consequences, they still stuck the magnetic gate cards in their wallets next to other cards with information strips. When the gate cards ceased to work, some irate condo owners crashed right through the wooden arm. Perhaps she was exaggerating slightly, but Hannah believed that the one-by-four designed to keep nonresidents out was broken more often than it was not.

  “You can park in my extra spot,” Hannah said, and Norman took the ramp to the underground garage. Her condo came with two parking spots, and Norman pulled in next to her cookie truck.

  The first thing Hannah noticed when she got out of the car was the cold. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d just left a warm car, but it seemed even colder than it had at the college. “Better plug in your car,” she said.

  “Good idea.”

  Hannah watched as Norman unwound the power cord that was part of winterizing a car in Minnesota, right along with antifreeze, and the survival pack careful drivers kept in the trunk. The box containing blankets, extra parkas, gloves, an empty coffee can, a candle, and matches wasn’t quite as necessary as it had been in the years before cell phones, but it was still possible to get stuck in a snowstorm with a nonworking cell phone, and freeze to death in subzero temperatures.

  When Norman was through, they walked across the floor of the garage and climbed the steps to ground level. When they left the shelter of the stairwell, a cold blast of wind hit Hannah’s face and her eyes began to water. Norman grabbed her arm and rushed her up the covered staircase to her second-floor condo, taking the keys from her hand and opening the door.

  A projectile with orange and white fur hurtled at them the moment the door opened, and Norman caught Moishe in his arms. Hannah’s cat began to purr as Norman carried him inside and set him on his favorite perch on the back of the couch.

  “Are you glad to see us, Big Guy?” Norman asked, and Moishe answered him with an even louder purr. “What do you say I throw your catnip mouse for you?”

  This time Moishe gave a happy yowl and hopped off the couch to stare up at Norman while he located the mouse. With her cat occupied, Hannah shrugged out of her parka and went off to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner.

  The Easy Cheesy Biscuits were first. Hannah preheated the oven, took out one of her medium-sized mixing bowls, and gathered the ingredients. She’d just completed the first step in her food processor, and she was about to dump the mixture into her bowl, when Norman came into the kitchen.

  “Do you want some help?” he asked.

  “Sure,” Hannah answered, never one to turn down a genuine offer of assistance. “You can grate the cheese. I need a half cup of cheddar, a half cup of Asiago, and a half cup of Parmesan. You can use the food processor with the grating blade.”

  Norman eyed the food processor which still had a bit of flour clinging to the sides of the bowl. “I’d better wash it out.”

  “There’s no need. I just used it to mix up the dry ingredients and butter for the biscuits. Since the cheese is going in the biscuit dough, it won’t make a speck of difference.”

  Norman made short work of grating the cheeses and Hannah added the grated cheddar and Asiago to her bowl. She saved the grated parmesan for the biscuit tops and was just about to break the eggs into a glass to beat them when Norman spoke up.

  “I can do that for you,” he said.

  “Okay. Just crack two into my glass and beat them up with a fork. I’ll measure out the sour cream and the milk.”

  They worked in silence for several moments and then Norman handed the glass to her. “Are these okay?”

  “They’re fine,” Hannah said, glancing down at the homogenous mixture of yolk and white. “Do you want to stir while I add everything else to the bowl?”

  “Sure.” Norman picked up the spoon.

  Hannah added the eggs and he stirred them in. Then she scooped in the sour cream. When that was incorporated, she added the milk, dribbling it in slowly so that Norman could stir it in without splashing.

  “Looks just like lumpy wallpaper paste,” Norman said, but Hannah saw the grin he tried to hide and knew he was kidding her.

  “I prefer to compare it to cottage cheese,” she countered. “At least that’s edible.”

  “I’m not so sure about that. Mother made green Jell-O with cottage cheese and chives the last time I went to her house for dinner. And speaking of Mother, there’s something I want to talk to you about. I was going to wait until after we’d eaten, but it’s really bothering me.”

  “What is it?” Hannah asked, distracted enough to spray her baking sheet with Pam even though the recipe said it wasn’t needed.

  “I usually meet her on Thursday nights for dinner. One week she cooks and the next week I take her out. We’ve been doing it ever since I moved to Lake Eden.”

  “You’re still doing it, aren’t you?” Hannah asked, dipping a soup spoon into the batter and forming her first biscuit.

  “I am, but I’m not so sure about Mother.”

  “What do you mean?” Hannah wet her fingers under the faucet and made one of the biscuits she’d dropped on the sheet a little rounder.

  “I always thought Mother had a good time when we got together, but she’s canceled on the last three Thursdays.”

  Hannah looked over and saw the concern on his face. “Didn’t she give you a reason for cancelling?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think it was the real reason. The first time she said she was getting a bad cold, but when I talked to her the next day, she sounded just fine. The next week she said she was going to work late at Granny’s Attic with Delores, but I drove by on my way home from the clinic and the lights were off in their shop.”

  Hannah wasn’t sure what to say, but it cer
tainly sounded as if Carrie had lied to Norman. Instead of commenting on that, she asked a question. “How about the third time?”

  “That was last Thursday. When I called to confirm with her, she said that something came up and she couldn’t make it. And when I asked about it, she wouldn’t tell me anything. What do you think, Hannah? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?”

  “Not necessarily,” Hannah said, sprinkling the last of the grated Parmesan cheese on her biscuits. She popped them into the oven, set the timer for fourteen minutes, and turned back to Norman. “Carrie did the same thing to Mother. That’s the reason I went to class with her tonight. Our mothers signed up for the course together, but Carrie hasn’t made it to a single class. Mother says she always backs out at the last minute.”

  “Is Delores concerned, too?”

  “Yes. She told me that Carrie’s always been very open with her, but things have changed lately. Mother’s feelings are hurt because she thinks Carrie doesn’t trust her enough to confide in her.”

  Norman was silent for a moment and then he shook his head. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better, or worse.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “On one hand, I feel better that it’s not just me my mother is avoiding. On the other hand, I feel worse because if both Delores and I think there’s a problem, then there probably is. I wonder if it would work to come right out and ask Mother what’s wrong.”

  Hannah shrugged. “You can try it if you want to, but I doubt she’ll tell you anything. Mother tried that and Carrie just said she’d tell her when the time was right.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know.” Hannah took the meatloaf out of the refrigerator and sliced it. She put the slices in the frying pan with a bit of butter, turned the burner on medium, and clamped on a cover. “I’ve got a bowl of Sally’s Summer Salad. Do you want some?”

  “Sure. I’ll dish it up for both of us.” Norman took the container Hannah handed to him and spooned the broccoli and cauliflower salad into two bowls. “I was just wondering…I know it’s a lot to ask, but…” Norman stopped and swallowed hard. “It’s just that I really need to know what’s going on. It’s not like Mother to cut me off from her life this way.”