by Joanne Fluke
Caught like a rat in a trap, like a fly on a sticky spiral of flypaper, like a deer in the headlights, like a moth fluttering helpless against…
“Hannah?”
Delores interrupted her mental chain of similes and Hannah focused on the here and now. Delores had wanted something and now she knew what it was. “Okay, Mother,” she said, bowing to the inevitable. “I’ll go find Uncle Gus for you.”
Nothing was ever easy. Hannah gazed around the small lake cabin. The only living creature inside was a small green frog who hopped determinedly toward the kitchen alcove. Unless Uncle Gus had met a witch who’d turned him into the Frog Prince, he wasn’t here. And since his Jaguar was still parked in the driveway, he’d gone somewhere on foot. But where? Eden lake was far from being the largest body of water in Minnesota, but it would still take several hours to walk around the perimeter searching for him.
The frog gave a croak and Hannah watched as he hopped up on the counter and into the sink. That was when she noticed that there were no dirty breakfast dishes. A quick peek in the refrigerator told her why. The only contents were a bottle of vodka and two cans of beer. If Uncle Gus had wanted something other than a boilermaker for breakfast, he’d probably walked over to the Eden Lake Store to buy food.
Hannah ran a little water in the sink for the frog and headed across the road to the store. It had been one of her favorite places as a child. The old-fashioned bell on the door tinkled as she pushed it open and stepped in. Some things never changed; and Hannah found that comforting. The interior of the store still smelled the way it always had, a curious mixture of ring bologna, dill pickles in a large jar on the counter, and bananas that had gotten too ripe for anything except banana bread.
“Hello, Hannah.” Ava Schultz came out from the back, pushing aside the curtain that concealed her living quarters from her customers’ view. She had been only a year or two behind Delores at Jordan High, and that meant Ava had passed middle age and was fast approaching what advertisers called “the golden years.” A small woman prone to quick movements and rapid speech, she reminded Hannah of a small brown wren, flitting from one part of the store to another and seldom lighting in one place for long. Ava had fashionably cut, perfectly coifed dark brown hair without a touch of gray. Delores and her friends were certain that she wore a wig since Bertie Straub, the owner of the Cut ’n Curl, insisted that Ava had never come in, not even once, to have her hair cut, styled, or colored.
“Hi, Ava.” Hannah walked over to the main attraction, a shiny metal case filled with every available Popsicle flavor. “Anything new since I grew up?”
Ava gave a little laugh and joined her at the case. “See the three boxes in the middle?” she asked, pointing to them. “Those are Rainbows, Scribblers, and Great White.”
“Never heard of them.”
“Of course not. We didn’t have them when you were a child. All we carried then were the double pops in a variety of flavors.”
“Rhubarb,” Hannah said with a grin. “That was my favorite.”
Ava’s mouth dropped open. “They never made rhubarb!” she exclaimed. “You’re pulling my leg, Hannah.”
“You’re right. I should have known I couldn’t put one over on Winnetka County’s leading Popsicle authority.”
“I do like to keep up with it,” Ava admitted. “The kids enjoy hearing about the new products and they’ve got so many.” She pointed to another box. “Look at those Lifesaver Super Pops. From the bottom up, they’re pineapple, orange, cherry, and raspberry. And over here are the Incredible Hulks. They’re part of the Firecracker Super Heroes series. The Hulk is strawberry-kiwi, grape, and green apple. They’ve even got Bigfoot.” Ava reacted to Hannah’s raised eyebrows and explained, “It’s cherry and cotton candy swirled together and shaped like a foot with a gumball. Get it?”
Hannah nodded. “Bigfoot. Cute. Popsicles have come a long way since 1905 when Frank Epperson left his lemonade and stir stick out on the porch and it froze solid overnight.”
“You remembered!” Ava gave her the same smile a teacher might bestow on a favorite student.
“Of course I did.” Hannah smiled back. Ava had told her the story enough times. But she wasn’t here to discuss Popsicles history. She had to find out if Ava had seen Uncle Gus. “Did Gus Kaun come in this morning?” she asked. “They’re lining up for the family-reunion picture and they sent me to find him.”
“I haven’t seen him since he walked back here last night after the dance. And before you can ask, it’s not what you think. He just wanted me to open up the store so he could get some milk to go with that carrot cake you gave him.”
Hannah nodded, even though she hadn’t been thinking what Ava thought she’d been thinking. “So you opened the store for him?”
“Of course I did. A customer’s a customer, even after midnight. He bought eggs and bacon for breakfast, too. Then we had a drink and waited for the cars to clear out of the parking lot. He said he hid your cake behind the bar and he was going back to eat it as soon as no one else was around. I think that was so he wouldn’t have to share. We went to school together, you know. Gus was never any good at sharing, not even in kindergarten.”
Hannah thought about that for a moment. One the one hand, she was pleased that Gus liked her Special Carrot Cake so much that he hadn’t wanted to give any away. On the other hand, she’d given him a half-dozen pieces, one of which he could have shared with Ava.
“Anyway,” Ava went on, “the last time I saw Gus, he was heading back to the pavilion with his sack of groceries. He was supposed to come back to pay me for them this morning, but he never showed.”
Ominous music began to play in the recesses of Hannah’s mind. It sounded like a cross between Bach’s “Toccatta and Fugue” and the soundtrack of a bad horror movie, but she didn’t have time to think about that now. “What time was it when Gus left here last night?”
“A little after one-thirty. I got ready for bed, that takes about ten minutes, and I looked at the clock before I turned off the lights. It was a quarter to two.”
Hannah reached reflexively for he steno pad, the kind she used for murder cases, but she quickly thought better of it. This was nothing more than a missing person, someone who hadn’t shown up for the family-reunion picture. Uncle Gus hadn’t left for good, for his car was still here; but he could have found a warmer, more hospitable place to sleep than the single bunk in his unheated lake cabin. There had been at least five dozen women at the dance last night. One of them might have thought a middle-aged braggart like Uncle Gus was irresistible. He could have waited until no one was around and walked to her cabin bearing gifts of carrot cake and breakfast. Perhaps he’d decided to skip the group photo and was sitting at her kitchen table right now, eating bacon and eggs with her carrot cake for dessert…
…or not, Hannah muttered under her breath, and then she turned to Ava. “I’d better get going. They’ll be ready to take that photo soon.”
“I hope you find Gus. If you do, will you do me a favor?”
“What?” Hannah asked, knowing better than to promise blindly.
“Right after they snap that picture, grab Gus by the ear and march hum back here to pay his bill. You can tell him I said that groceries don’t grow on trees.”
There was only one more logical place to look, and Hannah headed straight for it. The Lake Pavilion was clearly deserted. The sandy parking lot was empty of cars and contained only a crumpled cigarette pack, the remnants of what had once been a blue-and-white bandanna, and a neatly clipped coupon for a two-fer dinner at Perkins’ Pancake House.
As she approached the entrance to the white clapboard structure, Hannah felt an odd prickling at the back of her neck. She’d experienced that sensation before and it had preceded something unpleasant, something bad, something like discovering a dead body. She told herself that Uncle Gus was fine and she’d find nothing but the debris of a party inside, but her feet dragged a bit as she approached the front entrance.
Last night the pavilion had looked majestic, a gleaming white edifice in the moonlight, its open shutters spilling out warm yellow light into the humid blanket of summer darkness. Music had set up joyful vibrations in the walls, the wooden chairs, the old chrome barstools, and the revelers themselves, causing laughter and loud voices to peal out in a cacophony of raucous gaiety. Today it was…Hannah paused, both in mind and step, attempting to think of the word. Sad. The word was sad. The white paint was peeling, the shutters were warped from exposure to the elements, and there was a gaggle of brown beer bottles leaning up against the front of the building. The party was over. Everyone had left. All that remained was the abandoned pavilion with its curling shards of paint.
Hannah tried the front door, but it was locked just as she’d thought it would be. She knocked, calling out for Uncle Gus, but there was no answer. A nonlocal person might have gone back to ask Ava how to get the key, but Hannah had been born and raised in Lake Eden and she knew all about the Lake Pavilion. In a town where the lover’s lane was regularly patrolled, and the parking lot at the rear of Jordan High was peppered with arc lights, the Lake Pavilion was the sole haven for teenage couples seeking privacy.
The loose shutter was at the back of the pavilion, the third from the corner. Hannah found the proper one, tugged on the padlock that had been rigged to open, and removed it. Gaining access to the pavilion was every bit as easy as her date for the high-school prom had told her it would be. She hadn’t believed him at the time, and she wouldn’t have gone out to the pavilion with him in any case—especially since she knew that her father had bribed him with the promise of a summer job if he’d invite Hannah to be his date for the dance.
Hannah lifted the shutter and propped it open with the stick that was attached to the side of the window frame. The opening was at waist height, and she swung her leg up and over the sill. A moment later she was sitting on the sill with both legs hanging down inside the building, preparing to push off with her hands and jump down.
She landed hard, which wasn’t surprising. She’d never been the athletic type. Since the shutter was at the back of the pavilion, not visible from the road, she left it open for illumination.
All was quiet within. The interior had an air of abandonment, and the only sign of life Hannah heard was the buzzing of several flies that had been trapped inside. As a child she’d believed that if she recorded the high-pitched buzzing of house flies and played it back ever so slowly, she’d hear tiny little voices saying things like, “Dig in. Hannah spilled strawberry jam on the kitchen table!” and “Watch out! Her mother’s got a flyswatter!”
A phalanx of giant trash barrels sat against he wall. Several were close to overflowing with plastic plates and coffee-laden Styrofoam cups from the dessert buffet. Another barrel was marked with a familiar symbol, and it contained bottles and cans for recycling.
Hannah wrinkled up her nose. There was an odd combination of scents in the air: a spicy sweetness from the dessert buffet, the acrid scent of coffee that had perked too long in the pot, the lingering fragrance of perfumes and colognes, and the stale odor of spilled beer and liquor. Those smells were ordinary, what you might expect in a place where a large party had been held. But there was another scent under it all, cloying and sharp, and slightly metallic. It reminded Hannah of something unpleasant, something bad, something…but she didn’t want to think about that now.
She fought the urge to dig in, to start picking up paper napkins, cups, glasses, and bottles and stuffing them into the appropriate trash barrels. She reminded herself that Lisa and Herb had organized a crew of relatives to clean the pavilion this afternoon, and nobody expected her to do it. Her number-one priority was to find Uncle Gus so that they could take the family picture.
A shaft of sunlight streamed through the open window, setting dust motes twirling. As Hannah watched, several more flies buzzed by the beam of sunlight on their way to the mahogany bar against the far wall. The top of the bar was empty except for a brown grocery sack, the type that Ava used at the Eden Lake Store. Uncle Gus had been here, and he must have forgotten to take his groceries when he left.
Another group of flies with the same destination flew in. If this kept up, Lisa and Herb would never get the insects out in time for the program they’d planned tonight. Hannah hurried to the kitchen, soaked a rag with water, and grabbed a bottle of degreaser. Last night they’d set out the dessert buffet on the bar, and it was apparent that whoever had wiped it down hadn’t done a good job. She’d clean it thoroughly right now so that no more flies would come in.
Hannah had almost reached her goal when she noticed something. She stopped abruptly and peered down at the floor. The flies weren’t the only insect group attracted to this particular locale. There was a line of black carpenter ants streaming toward the bar and disappearing behind it. They must be looping around because there was a returning line of ants and they were carrying morsels of something. Carpenter ants seldom foraged for food during the daylight hours, but their scouts must have discovered something tasty enough to call out the troops.
Hannah moved closer and gave a groan when she saw what had attracted the ants. They were retrieving sweet crumbs from a piece of her carrot cake that had been dropped, cream cheese icing side down, and mashed to a pulp.
For a brief moment, Hannah was livid. Uncle Gus had dropped a piece of her Special Carrot Cake and stepped on it! What a waste! But then she spotted something sticking out from behind the bar, something that looked like…a foot. And the ominous organ music that had been playing in her mind increased in volume until the crashing chords were almost deafening.
“Oh, murder!” Hannah breathed, hoping that her words weren’t prophetic. But she recognized the shoe, the rich buttery leather that shouted designer footwear with an exorbitant price tag. And the trousers. They were made of imported Italian silk and they matched a well-tailored jacket that had been paired with a cream silk shirt and a tie that had probably cost more than she made all week at The Cookie Jar. She’d seen the ensemble last night at the dance and she knew who had been wearing it.
Hannah took a bracing breath and made her feet move forward so that she could see behind the bar. Uncle Gus had come back to the pavilion to eat his carrot cake, but he’d only enjoyed a bite or two. And now, as she stood there staring, he was lying face down on the floor with the other pieces of cake scattered around him.
She shut her eyes and then opened them. Nothing had changed. There was no doubt that Uncle Gus was dead. Blunt-force trauma had taken an extremely visible toll, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. She wanted to find something to cover him, so the flies couldn’t gather, but she knew she shouldn’t touch anything. Uncle Gus hadn’t cracked his own skull with the blood-splattered Louisville Slugger leaning up against a bar stool. This was a murder scene, and she had to call…
“Hannah?”
The voice startled her and she turned to look. Herb was standing at the open window.
“You can stop looking. We took the picture without Uncle Gus. If he shows up later, we’ll take another one.”
“He won’t show up.” Her voice sounded strained to her own ears, and Hannah cleared her throat.
“What do you mean, He won’t show up?”
Hannah cleared her throat again. “He’s…he…call Mike and Bill on your cell phone, will you? It’s important.”
“Okay, but why?”
“They need to come out here. Uncle Gus is…gone.” She forced out the words, knowing full well that the woman who hated euphemisms had just used one.
“You mean he left the family reunion without even saying goodbye?”
“Not exactly.” Hannah winced as she avoided a direct answer once again. “Just tell them to hurry. And don’t let anyone in until they get here.”
A HANNAH SWENSEN MYSTERY WITH RECIPES
CHERRY
CHEESECAKE
MURDER
JOANNE FLUKE
Savor the Praise for Joanne Fluke�
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Wickedly Tasty Hannah Swensen Mysteries!
“Mm, mm, Fluke’s fans can’t wait for the next confection in the series to be served up.”
—Winston-Salem Journal
“For an enjoyable cozy mystery and lots of new recipes, readers need look no further.”
—Mystery News
“Fluke has the recipe for appetizing mysteries.”
—Long Beach Press-Telegram
“The realistic and delightful characters make this a lively read.”
—Mystery Scene
“With all the cooking and investigating, what more could you want?”
—I Love a Mystery
“This series may remind some of another well-known series that includes recipes, but it is better!”
—Cozies, Capers and Crimes
“Wacky and delightful characters, plus tempting recipes make this lighthearted offering sure to please the palate of any cozy fan.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Joanne Fluke imparts a feeling of fun in her books that makes reading them a delight. The addition of mouthwatering recipes throughout the story clinches the popularity of this series.”
—Times Record News
“An always tasty series.”
—Library Journal
“Her expertise in creating yummy recipes and believable characters will have dessert lovers and mystery fans feeling like part of the crew that helps Hannah solve her latest case.”
—Romantic Times
Books by Joanne Fluke
