by Joanne Fluke
“Did you make it?” Michelle asked.
“No,” Hannah answered. “Andrea didn’t know how to sew yet, and I was terrible at it. We ended up dumping all the feathers in a garbage bag and tying it shut. We put that in the pillowcase, and I had to sleep on a pillow that crinkled every time I moved my head.”
Lisa looked a little wistful. “My sisters were all grown up by the time I was born. Two of them were married, and the other one had her own apartment and a job in Minneapolis. It must have been wonderful growing up with sisters.”
Hannah turned to Andrea. “Did you ever notice how people who didn’t grow up with sisters are the ones who think it would have been wonderful?”
“Right. And those who did grow up with sisters don’t say anything at all?”
“Well, nobody has better sisters than I do. Last night proves that.” Michelle turned to Andrea. “Did Bill check out those alibis?”
“First thing this morning. The highway patrol officer who stopped them remembers Elvis. He said he’d never seen a pickup with pictures of naked women painted on the bottom of the truck bed before.”
Michelle made a face. “What a creep! And he wanted to show me his truck! But at least we know they’re not murderers.”
“Right.” Hannah opened her steno notebook, the type she habitually carried in her large leather shoulder bag, and flipped to the suspect list. “Tasha’s brothers. I guess I can fill in the names now, just so I can cross it out.”
“It pays to be thorough,” Michelle said. “Something might happen to make the Hicks brothers suspects again.”
“They were thirty miles away from the scene at the time of Willa’s murder,” Andrea reminded her. “What could possibly make them suspects again?”
“I don’t know, but there could be something.”
They were getting nowhere fast, and Hannah knew it. It was time to take charge of the meeting. “Listen up,” she said, glancing at the three women around the table. “Let’s go over the motives and see if we can think of any more suspects.”
“Good idea,” Lisa said, giving Hannah a glance that said she understood. “Why don’t you read us the motives?”
“Motive number one.” Hannah didn’t waste any time jumping in. “Willa’s murder and the burglary are connected. Either Willa was a witness to the burglary, or she found out who did it. And she was killed before she could notify the authorities.”
“So if we find the burglar, we find Willa’s killer?” Lisa asked.
“If the motive is the correct one, we do.”
Michelle looked thoughtful. “Then we’re running two investigations. Willa’s murder and the burglary.”
“Right. And we haven’t even started working on the burglary yet. Are you ready for motive two?”
Everyone nodded and Hannah went on. “Motive two. There’s no sense reading this one. We’ve already eliminated it.”
“Read it anyway,” Andrea suggested. “It might make us think of something else.”
“Okay. Willa disqualified Tasha Hicks from the beauty pageant. And Tasha comes from a family known for violent retribution. We eliminated her brothers, but…” Hannah turned to Michelle. “Didn’t you say her father entered her in the contest?”
“That’s what she told me.”
“Can you find out more about their father from Grandma McCann?” Hannah asked Andrea.
“I can try, but it’ll be like pulling teeth. She’s the one person in Lake Eden who doesn’t gossip.”
“I can do it,” Lisa spoke up. “Marge knows everyone around here. And if she doesn’t know the Hicks family personally, she’ll know someone who does.”
Hannah turned back to her notebook again. “Okay. Lisa’s going to take care of that one. Let’s go on to motive number three. It’s something I found out from serving on the judging panel with Willa.”
“Go on,” Andrea said, leaning closer.
“Pam Baxter flunked a male home ec student on Willa’s recommendation. Let’s find out who he was and whether he’s the type to take revenge.”
“That one’s mine,” Michelle said. “Some of my friends have younger brothers and sisters that are still in school. I’ll ask around.”
“‘Good.” Hannah made another note in her book. “Motive four. Willa gave Mrs. Adamczak’s cinnamon bread a low grade, and now she can’t win the baking sweepstakes again this year.”
Andrea’s mouth dropped open. “You think Mrs. Adamczak killed Willa?”
“Not really, but it’s a motive. And we won’t be doing our job if we don’t check it out.”
“Okay.” Andrea looked dubious, but she nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out from Mrs. Adamczak. I have to drop off some real estate flyers on her street anyway. What’s next?”
“I don’t really have a motive for the next one, but I do have a suspect. Unfortunately, we don’t know who he is. It’s Willa’s boyfriend.”
“What boyfriend?” Lisa wanted to know.
“The one she got all dressed up for,” Andrea explained. “That dress she was wearing was expensive, and so was her new hairdo.”
Hannah nodded. “Pam asked Willa whether there was a man involved and Willa said, Isn’t there always? And then, when I walked out of the building with her after the judging, she told me she was meeting someone.”
“That means we need to find out more about her personal life,” Andrea said.
“Maybe you should go over and search her apartment,” Lisa suggested. “I can hold down the fort here, if you want to do it now.”
“Good idea,” Andrea said. “I’m sure Mike and Lonnie have already done it, but they could have missed something. I’ll call Pam right now and set it up.”
While they waited for Andrea to complete her call, Lisa refilled coffee mugs. Hannah replenished the cookie platter, and they were all ready to continue when Andrea came back.
“She’ll be home all morning,” Andrea reported. “We can go over there right after we finish our meeting.”
Hannah glanced down at her notes again. “That’s it, at least for now. I couldn’t think of any other motives, except for the common one, of course.”
“What common one?” Michelle wanted to know.
“Willa was killed by some unknown person for some unknown reason.”
“That should be simple to check out,” Lisa said, and they all shared a laugh.
“There’s one more thing…” Hannah frowned slightly. “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with her murder, but I think Willa had a secret.”
At the word secret, all three women leaned closer.
“What secret?” Andrea asked.
“It wouldn’t be a secret if I knew it,” Hannah said. And after she’d gotten the groans she expected, she went on. “When we were judging the baked goods, Willa talked about a couple of things did that didn’t fit with her personality…at least as I knew it. And Pam, who certainly knew Willa better than I did after a whole year of working with her, seemed totally surprised, too.”
“Can you give us an example?” Michelle asked.
“Yes. Willa said something about picking cherries. She seemed to know all about it, and Pam asked her why. Willa said she worked in a cherry orchard for a while in Washington State.”
Andrea shrugged. “Okay. I guess it could have been a summer job or something like that.”
“That’s true. But then she said something about working as a waitress down in Florida and how she’d served key lime pie. And she also said something about California.”
“So she must have traveled,” Lisa came to the obvious conclusion. “Maybe her family moved a lot when she was in high school.”
Michelle shook her head. “I don’t think so. One of the contestants was all upset because her parents were selling their house and moving to a condo when she went off college. Miss Sunquist told her to take lots of pictures and that would keep the memories alive. She said she knew how hard it was to lose the house where you grew up, because she had to
sell her family home a couple of years ago when her parents died, and it was really hard to leave it.”
“So she must have traveled after high school.” Andrea was clearly not ready to give up her theory. “Maybe she took the money she got from selling her parents’ house and used it to see America, or something like that.”
Lisa looked puzzled. “But it sounds like she worked her way across the country. Why would she do that if she had all the money from selling her family home?”
“Maybe there were outstanding bills,” Andrea suggested. “She might have cleared only a few thousand or so, especially if her parents had medical problems and they needed special care.”
“But if they were old enough, they’d be on Medicare,” Lisa pointed out.
“There are things that Medicare doesn’t cover. And maybe her parents weren’t old enough to be on Medicare.”
“Enough speculation.” Hannah held up her hand and everyone turned to her. “Here’s what we have to do. Andrea and I will go through Willa’s apartment to see if we can find out something about her background. There may be photos that could give us a clue, or papers of some kind. We’ll also see if Pam has any background information on her. I’m sure the college forwarded something when Pam agreed to be Willa’s supervising teacher.”
“While you’re gone, I’ll call Marge about Tasha’s father,” Lisa offered.
“Good. We’ll get that ball rolling.”
“If we can find out Willa’s address when she was in high school, I’ll go through the sales records and see how much the house sold for,” Andrea told them. “And I can also check to see if there were any liens against the property.”
“Good. Don’t forget Mrs. Adamczak,” Hannah reminded her.
“I won’t. I’ll go see her right after we get back from searching the apartment. What kind of ribbon did she win again?”
“White. That’s just an honorable mention. It’s bound to be a letdown for her.”
“Would she know it was Willa’s fault that she didn’t win?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t say anything, and I don’t think Pam did either, but Pam hands in our scorecards to other people. It’s possible that Mrs. Adamczak knows Willa was the one who kept her from being in the finals.”
“Okay. I’ll find out how mad she is that she didn’t win.”
“I still have a couple of hours before I have to drive out to the fairgrounds,” Michelle said. “Is there anything else I can do?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“You can deliver the cookies to the Cookie Nook booth when you go out to the fairgrounds. And if you go early, you can help me with something else.”
“I’ll go early.”
“Great. Do you know where you can get a picture of Willa?”
“Sure. There’s one in the front of the program. We all have our pictures in there.”
“Take a program with you, and stop by the 4-H building. There were some kids wearing 4-H shirts standing around when I said goodbye to Willa on Tuesday night. It’s a long shot, but maybe one of them noticed where she went or who she met.”
“Any idea which kids were there?”
“Not really. It was getting dark and I didn’t notice. Just make the rounds with the photo and see what you can come up with.”
“I will.”
“How about me?” Lisa asked. “All I’m doing for you is asking Marge about Tasha’s father. Can’t I do anything else?”
Hannah laughed and held up her fingers as an aid in counting. “Let’s see…you came in early to start the baking this morning, you’re finding out about Mr. Hicks, you’re running The Cookie Jar while Andrea and I go off to search Willa’s apartment, you made some great suggestions at our meeting…isn’t that enough?”
“Not in return for all you’re doing for me!”
Hannah was puzzled. “What am I doing for you?”
“You’re saving me from a giant panic attack by taking my place as Herb’s assistant.”
Hannah groaned. She’d forgotten all about her costume, and time was definitely running short.
“Uh-oh!” Lisa said, looking worried. “You are going to be Herb’s assistant, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. Absolutely. It’s just that I haven’t found a costume yet. I looked for one last night, but I couldn’t find the skirt with the stars on it that I bought in college. And I can’t go like this.” Hannah looked down at her bright blue T-shirt that said EAT DESSERT FIRST in black block letters.
“That’s okay. When I call Marge, I’ll ask her to go through the clothes at Helping Hands Thrift Shop. There’s bound to be something you can use, and Dad just loves to go there. Don’t worry about a thing. They’ll take care of it.”
Hannah was even more worried, but there was no way she’d say so. Lisa adored her mother-in-law and either didn’t realize or totally ignored the fact that Herb’s mother favored a style of clothing that Hannah secretly thought of as “visually-impaired gray-haired Hippie.” Instead of addressing that problem, she said simply, “Not red.”
“I’ll tell her. Just go on with Andrea and leave your costume to us.”
“All right, I will,” Hannah said, already regretting it. But she’d only have to wear the costume for an hour at the most, and then she’d never have to look at it again. How bad could it possibly be?
Chapter Twenty-One
“Find anything yet?” Andrea asked. She was sitting at Willa’s desk, going through the drawers while Hannah tackled the small kitchen that was built into an alcove.
“Yes.”
“You found something?”
“Yes, but not what you think. I found three boxes of macaroni and cheese, and a two-pound can of coffee. Those were the only consumables in her kitchen cupboard. For a home economics teacher, Willa didn’t do much cooking.”
“Pam probably invited her to eat with them every night.”
“That could be. Did you find anything?”
“A couple of things. Come and take a look.”
Hannah ducked out of the alcove and pulled a chair over to join Andrea at the desk. “A diploma?” she asked, taking the paper from Andrea.
“From high school. It’s got the year, and that means I can start researching the sale of her parents’ house.”
“Great. Anything else?”
“Yes. Willa was a romantic.”
Hannah took the hardcover volume that Andrea handed her. “A copy of Gone With The Wind makes her a romantic?”
“I think it does. But look inside and you’ll be really convinced.”
Hannah flipped the book open and discovered a flower pressed in a small cellophane bag. “Is that an orchid?”
“Yes. Read the card.”
There was a florist’s card under the flower and Hannah pulled it out. It read, Yesterday and Today, Tomorrow and Forever. “Do you think it’s from her high school prom?”
“Maybe. Or it could be from some other special occasion. She saved it, so it must have been important to her.”
“Very important, especially since she didn’t save anything else.” Hannah glanced around her. They’d searched every nook and cranny of Willa’s apartment, and the pressed flower and card were the only two personal items they’d found. “Let’s go up and talk to Pam. I want to find out if Willa ever brought any friends here.”
“Not really,” Pam responded to Hannah’s question and filled her coffee cup at the same time. “I didn’t think we were ever going to meet Gordon, but finally she agreed to bring him to dinner.”
“Gordon?” Hannah pulled out her steno pad.
“Gordon Tate. Professor Gordon Tate. He’s head of the archaeology department at Tri-County College.”
“And Willa was dating him?” Andrea asked.
“Yes. He was a bit older than she was, but that didn’t seem to matter. They were both loners, and they got along really well together. George and I were absolutely delighted when she told us he’d asked her to m
arry him.”
“Whoa,” Hannah said, frowning. “You didn’t tell me Willa was engaged.”
“That’s because she wasn’t. She told Gordon she couldn’t marry him, and they broke up two months ago.”
“Was it a bad breakup?” Andrea asked.
“No. If you ask me, there wasn’t enough passion in their relationship for it to be bad. The only thing either of them were passionate about was riding.”
“Riding?”
“Gordon had a place with a stable, and they went riding almost every weekend. Willa was a real cowgirl on her days off.”
“What about after they broke up?” Andrea asked.
“Oh, she still went out to his place to ride. They even dated for a while after she turned down his proposal. It was just that Willa really didn’t want to marry him. She said Gordon was much too set in his ways.”
“How do you mean?” Hannah wanted to know.
“He had a rigid schedule. Willa told me about it once. He had toast and orange juice for breakfast every morning, he read the paper from the front page back and never sneaked a peek at the comics first, and he washed the car every Thursday. That type of thing.”
“Sounds deadly dull,” Hannah commented, sighing a bit and wondering if she could use a little less passion and a little more dullness in her own love life.
“Well, Gordon was a bit of a stuffed shirt. He’s a very nice man. Don’t get me wrong. But Willa had so much more life in her. George and I weren’t too upset when they called it off, and Willa didn’t seem that upset either.”
“But was Gordon upset?”
“Upset enough to have taken revenge?” Andrea followed Hannah’s question with one of her own.
“Oh, no.” Pam waved off that suggestion. “Gordon would never do anything like that! I’m absolutely positive of it. And even if I’ve completely misread his personality, Gordon couldn’t have done it.”
“Why’s that?” Hannah asked her.
“He’s been out of the country for at least a month, and he’s not coming back until fall semester starts at the college. He’s taken six of his best students to a dig in Mexico.”
