Apple Turnover Murder, Key Lime Pie Murder, Cherry Cheesecake Murder, Lemon Meringue Pie Murder

by Joanne Fluke

You can also bake this in 6 smaller loaf pans, filling them about half full. If you use the smaller pans, they’ll need to bake approximately 45 minutes.

  Cool on a wire rack in the pan, loosen the edges after 20 minutes, and turn the loaf out onto the wire rack.

  Yield: Makes two bread-sized loaves, or 6 small loaves.

  Hannah’s 2nd Note: This bread is also good toasted. Mother loves it toasted with honey butter on top.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By the time Hannah arrived home, all she could think about was climbing into bed and shutting her eyes. Unfortunately, she’d promised Herb and Lisa that she’d find an appropriate outfit for being a magician’s assistant, and she had less than twenty-four hours to do it. She seemed to remember that she’d once bought a midnight blue skirt with the constellations of the winter sky drawn in glitter. She’d planned to wear it to the astronomy club Christmas party because she was dating an astronomy major at the time, but they broke up a week before the party and she’d never worn the skirt. If she’d kept it, and she probably had, it would be with the other clothes that she no longer wore but were too good to throw away and were stored in the guest room closet.

  Now would be the time to find it. Michelle wasn’t there, so she wouldn’t disturb her. She’d noticed that their mother’s car hadn’t been parked in the garage. Since Lonnie was working the case with Mike, Michelle had probably gone to see some of the girls she’d hung around with in high school.

  Hannah unlocked her condo door and prepared to catch Moishe in her arms, but no furry medicine ball of a cat hurtled out to greet her. He was perched on the wide, carpeted ledge that attached to the living room windowsill. Michelle had picked up two at the pet store, one for the living room and one for the guest room, so that Moishe would be more comfortable.

  “Hey, Moishe,” she said, walking over to give him a pat. “I see Norman turned on the television for you. You had fun at his house, didn’t you?”

  “I think he did.”

  Hannah whirled to see Norman coming in from her kitchen, carrying a cup of coffee. “He acted really disappointed when I tried to leave, so I decided to stay until you got home. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.”

  “How about a fresh cup of coffee? I made some.”

  “That sounds good. I’ve got some date bread from the contest.”

  Hannah turned back to her cat to give him a scratch under the chin. Moishe responded with what Hannah interpreted as a kitty smile with slightly open mouth and narrowed eyes, and then he licked her hand once, rather perfunctorily in her opinion, before he swiveled his head to look out the window again.

  “I don’t know what’s so fascinating about Clara and Marguerite’s living room window, but you go right ahead and enjoy. I’m going to have coffee with Norman, and then I have to look for something to wear in the magic cabinet tomorrow.”

  Once Hannah and Norman had finished their coffee and date bread, he got up to leave. But he stopped at the door and turned back to her. “Did I hear you say something about going through your guest room closet?”

  “Yes. I’m looking for something to wear for the amateur magician contest.”

  “You do magic?”

  “The only magic I do is make food disappear. I’m just helping Herb with his show.”

  Norman chuckled. “Seems to me the last time you looked in that closet, somebody was trapped in there because the pole came loose.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you get a new pole?”

  Hannah shook her head. “I just moved some things around so the weight was more evenly distributed.”

  “And now you’re going to move things around again?”

  Hannah gave a little nod. Norman was right. “Yes, I guess I am.”

  “Then you’d better let me help you. I don’t want you to be trapped in that closet until Michelle comes home.”

  “Maybe I should just buy something,” Hannah said, her voice muffled by a coat she hadn’t worn since high school. “It’s just that I know it’s here somewhere, and now I don’t want to give up without finding it.”

  “I understand.” Norman stood just outside the closet, his arms piled high with formal dresses.

  “But it’s a lot of trouble for you.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t mind.”

  “Okay, if you say so. I’ve been promising myself I’d go through all this stuff anyway. I just tossed it in here right after I moved in, and I haven’t looked at it since. The dresses you’re holding are going to go to charity. Who knows? Somebody might actually want them.”

  With that prediction, Hannah emerged from the recesses of the closet. Her face was flushed and her hair was a mass of disorderly red curls made even more unmanageable.

  “Your hair,” Norman said, chuckling.

  Hannah reached up and attempted to pat it down, but she could tell that nothing short of a shampoo followed by gobs of conditioner would do it. “I guess I had too many clothes encounters,” she quipped.

  “Don’t say things like that when my arms are full,” Norman warned her.

  “Hold on a second.” Hannah reached back in the closet and plucked out another dress to add to his pile. It was a satin dress in a shade of pink that someone with her hair color should avoid at all costs. “Another one for the Helping Hands Thrift Shop.”

  “Very fancy,” Norman said, glancing down at the dresses in his arms. There was a purple taffeta, a Kelly green silk, a white dotted Swiss with a full lavender lining to match its dots, a turquoise voile, and a bright yellow chiffon. “You must have gone to a lot of dances.”

  “Weddings,” Hannah told him, not repeating the old adage her mother spouted every time Hannah was included in a bridal party, even though Always a bridesmaid, never a bride seemed to apply to her unmarried state. She’d worn close to a dozen bridesmaid gowns that had been expressly designed to make the bride look lovely in comparison.

  “And you don’t think you’ll wear any of these again?” Norman asked, referring to the colorful pile he was holding.

  “Over my dead body,” Hannah said, giving double meaning to the old cliché. She ducked back into the closet, rummaged around for a few moments, and gave a victory yell. “I found it!”

  “The skirt?” Norman asked, shifting the dresses in his arms so that the orange satin flower wasn’t tickling the side of his neck.

  “No, my red mitten. It’s been missing since the day I moved in. I’m afraid the skirt’s a lost cause. I must have given it to someone. Just toss those dresses on the bed and grab Moishe, will you?”

  Norman did as she asked, capturing the orange-and-white tomcat before he could attempt the jump he was contemplating, from the floor to the upper shelf of the closet.

  “Rowwww!” Moishe complained, eyeing him balefully and purring at the same time.

  Norman held him in one arm and closed the closet with the other. “I know you’re disappointed, but there wasn’t anything on that shelf you’d want. Mackerel don’t swim in closets.”

  “He must have been after the dust mice,” Hannah joked, and she was pleased when Norman laughed. “I wonder when Michelle will be…” Her question was interrupted by a knock at the door, and she hurried to answer it. “That must be Michelle now. I hope she didn’t lose her key.”

  But it wasn’t Michelle. It was Andrea, and she looked very worried.

  “Hi, Andrea,” Hannah said, holding the door open. “Come in. Do you want coffee?”

  “No, I came after you. I figure it’s going to take both of us because she has three brothers.”

  It took more than a couple of minutes to explain things, but once they were on the road, they didn’t waste time. Hannah drove, Norman sat in the passenger seat at Andrea’s insistence, and Andrea got in the back.

  “I’m really glad we’re going to get her,” Andrea said, leaning forward so they could hear her. They’d decided to take Hannah’s cookie truck. It was almost a decade older than Norman’s
sedan or Andrea’s Volvo, and less desirable to car thieves. The parking lot at the Eagle, the dive that most of its patrons called the Illegal, was known for its high incidence of stolen vehicles. The rundown bar, twelve miles from the Winnetka county line, was also famous for bar-room brawls, resulting in the use of plastic beer mugs and glasses and lighting so dim the owner could claim that he’d misread the birth date on a minor’s driver’s license.

  “Have you ever been to the Eagle before?” Norman asked.

  Hannah shook her head. “Not me.”

  “Mother would have locked us in our bedrooms for the rest of our lives if we’d ever even planned to go,” Andrea explained. “The Eagle’s got a really bad reputation. Bill says it’s a real dump and a hangout for convicts and preconvicts.”

  “What did Bill say when you told him that Michelle was at the Eagle?” Norman asked.

  “I didn’t tell him.”

  Hannah gave a little chuckle. “And I bet you didn’t tell him that we were going out to get her, either.”

  “Of course I didn’t. If I had, he would have made me promise not to go. And since I don’t ever want to break a promise to my husband, I didn’t tell him.”

  “There’s a certain logic to that,” Norman mused.

  “I know. I learned it from Hannah.”

  “You did?” Hannah was surprised.

  “Yes, you do it with Mother all the time. I call it Don’t go there. If you don’t mention it to them, they won’t think to ask.”

  “Is Don’t go there a Swensen sister trait?” Norman asked Hannah.

  “Probably. I haven’t noticed Michelle doing it yet, but if she hangs around with us long enough, she’ll probably pick up on it.”

  They were silent for a moment as Hannah navigated the washboard road. The windows in the cookie truck were rolled down to let in the slightly cooler night air, and so far they were outrunning the mosquitoes. Every once in a while one would get lucky and dive-bomb through the window when Hannah slowed for a particularly deep rut, but both Andrea and Hannah were Minnesota born and bred, and they had learned the ability to accurately judge their location by the sound and swat mosquitoes on the fly.

  “What did Bill say about Tasha’s brothers?” Norman asked.

  “He didn’t. I asked Grandma McCann after I put the kids to bed, and she told me how bad they were. Except she didn’t say bad. You know how nice Grandma McCann is. She never says anything negative about anybody.”

  Hannah knew Andrea’s live-in nanny was the sweetest soul on the face of the earth. “If she didn’t say bad, how do you know Tasha’s brothers are bad?”

  “She used the word unfortunate. And misguided. And to make it even worse, she said they got it from their father!”

  “Then they must be awful, all right.” Hannah hugged the side of the road as a motorcycle came roaring toward them. The driver was wearing leathers, and he looked like he might have been a member of a motorcycle gang several decades ago. His passenger, a hard-looking woman well past her prime with overdone makeup and hair many shades removed from her natural color, gave them one less finger than the peace sign and laughed shrilly as they sped by.

  “Delightful,” Hannah said. “If the rest of the clientele look like that, Michelle’s going to stick out like a sore thumb. Are you one hundred percent positive she’s out here?”

  “I’m positive. Lucy Dunwright’s husband comes right past here on his way home, and he said he saw Mother’s car parked right under the light in their parking lot. And then Lucy called me to ask me what Mother was doing in a dive like the Eagle.”

  “And you’re sure she’s talking about the Hicks brothers?”

  “I’m sure. I saw her right after the contest tonight, and she said to tell you that Tasha’s last name was Hicks. And then she said she was going to try to talk to Tasha’s brothers to see where they were on the night Willa was murdered.”

  “You must be right,” Hannah said as she turned into the parking lot and pulled up right next to her mother’s car. She looked up at the neon sign that buzzed and blinked on and off in an irregular pattern, and gave a long sigh.

  “Look at that,” Norman said, getting out of the truck and pointing at the sign. “They spelled Eagle wrong!”

  “You’re right,” Andrea said, looking up at the sign. “They left out the A.”

  Hannah gave a little laugh as she double-checked to make sure her truck was locked up tight. “With the exception of Michelle, I’ll bet there’s not one single person inside who knows that it’s spelled incorrectly.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Norman opened the door, and the noise and music, Hannah wasn’t sure which was which, blared out to assault their eardrums. The racket was accompanied by a smell Hannah wasn’t sure she wanted to analyze but that probably had something to do with spilled beer, the heat of a Minnesota summer, and perfume that didn’t put more than a dent in a five-dollar bill. All it took was one look at the rickety tables and the unswept floor, and Hannah knew it wasn’t the sort of place where someone hurried over to greet you and led you to a table.

  “Come on,” Andrea said, motioning to Hannah and Norman since they couldn’t hear her over the din, and pushing through the crowd to an empty table.

  Once they were seated on wooden chairs that were sticky with multiple coats of varnish, Hannah turned to her sister.

  “Where did you learn how to do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “See an empty table, push through a huge crowd, and get it before someone else does.”

  “Shopping.”

  “Shopping?”

  “That’s right. I always go to the mall for their giant Labor Day Weekend sale. The stores are wall-to-wall people, and if you spot something you want, you have to push everybody else out of the way to get to it first.”

  Hannah made a mental note never to come within five miles of the Tri-County Mall on Labor Day weekend, and turned to Norman. But Norman wasn’t there. “Where’s Norman?”

  “I don’t know. He was right here a second ago. Maybe he went to the little boys’ room.”

  “Do you see Michelle?”

  “Not yet, but it’ll be easier to look for her when they stop dancing.”

  “Dancing?”

  “Over there.” Andrea pointed to a heavily populated area where couples were shuffling around and embracing. The space was no bigger than the area rug that covered the center of the hardwood floor in their mother’s living room.

  “That’s the dance floor?”

  “I hope so. Either that, or…uh-oh!”

  “Uh-oh what?”

  “There’s Michelle.”

  “Where?”

  “On the dance floor. See the guy that looks like Clark Gable on steroids? He’s got the mustache and everything.”

  Hannah squinted through the haze of blue smoke that clouded the place. Someone was grilling hamburgers behind the bar without adequate ventilation, but nobody seemed to mind.

  “I see him. But I don’t see Michelle.”

  “She’s just to the left of him, dancing with the guy that’s trying to look like Elvis. She’s wearing…” Andrea stopped and groaned slightly. “Where did she get that outfit?”

  “What outfit? I don’t see her.”

  “She’s wearing skintight jeans and a sleeveless shirt that’s tied halfway up her chest. And I’m pretty sure she’s not wearing anything under it, if you get what I mean.”

  Hannah took a deep breath and asked the question foremost in her mind. “Is she…decent?”

  “Yes, barely. But I’ve seen worse. And now somebody’s cutting in, and it’s…” Andrea stopped speaking and gasped. And that was the moment that Hannah finally spotted her youngest sister.

  “It’s Norman!” Hannah gulped. “Norman’s cutting in.”

  “I know. And the guy who looks like Elvis isn’t happy.”

  “Uh-oh!”

  “Uh-oh is right. I can’t look.” Andrea gave a little moan and held her
hands over her eyes. “I like Norman, and I don’t want to see him get trashed.”

  “Hold on.” Hannah could barely believe her own eyes. “It’s okay, Andrea. Norman’s not getting trashed.”

  “He’s not?”

  “No. The Elvis not-so-look-alike just gave him a pat on the back, and now he’s making a quick retreat.”

  Andrea took a look, and then she turned to Hannah in absolute amazement. “But…why did Elvis back off?”

  “I don’t know. Whatever Norman said to him worked. And now Norman’s got Michelle’s arm and he’s bringing her over here to us.”

  It took a couple of minutes for Norman and Michelle to get to their table. The crowd was milling around, and there were raucous shouts as the lights flickered.

  “Here she is,” Norman said when they arrived at the table. “Mission accomplished, so let’s get out of here.”

  “Great idea!” Hannah agreed, standing up and grabbing her purse. “Let’s go.”

  Andrea followed in their wake and they made their way to the door. Their progress was slow. There were simply too many people crowded into the place. It reminded Hannah of the time she’d watched two dozen guys from a fraternity try to get into a Volkswagen Bug.

  The lights flickered several times on the way, and despite telling herself that the same thing couldn’t happen twice, Hannah was reminded of the way the lights had flickered last night when she’d found Willa. “I wonder why the lights are flickering,” she said, not really expecting an answer.

  “I don’t know,” Norman responded, glancing at his watch. “It’s not time for last call. They’ve got an hour and fifteen minutes before they have to close.”

  “Before they have to close legally,” Hannah reminded him.

  “Right,” Andrea chimed in. “This is the sort of place that turns off all the lights, calls itself a private club, and stays open for anyone who’s already inside until they stop buying drinks and leave by the back way.”

  “How do you know about things like that?” Michelle asked, looking slightly shocked.