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

by Joanne Fluke

“You know…when the cattle are lowing. What’s lowing anyway?”

  “That would be mooing.” Hannah thought fast. If her sister suspected that the cows would be awake, she might refuse to go inside the barn. “I don’t think you have to worry about any mooing, or lowing, or whatever. The cows are probably sleeping. They get up early, you know.”

  “You’re right. I saw that commercial where the rooster wakes them.” Andrea stopped and took a deep breath. “Okay, Hannah. I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”

  “Watch out for the trench by the door. That’s for the runoff when they clean the barn.”

  “Run-off?”

  “Never mind. Just step carefully, that’s all. The minute you’re inside, I’ll go stand by the small door.”

  Hannah used every muscle she had to push open the heavy door so her sister could slip inside. Once Andrea was safely past the trench and she’d snapped on her flashlight, Hannah let the door close and tromped around the side of the barn to the smaller door. There she waited. And waited. And waited. She was about to go back and try to force open the big door again when she heard Andrea draw back the latch, and the smaller door opened.

  “What happened to you?” Hannah asked, frowning at the sight of her sister in the moonlight. Andrea had several globs of hay stuck in her hair and even more on her pants and jacket.

  “One of the cows woke up and lowed at me, and I got scared and fell down. I didn’t fall in anything really…um…messy, did I?”

  Hannah turned on her Maglite and surveyed the damage. Messy didn’t begin to cover it. There was something on the back of Andrea’s pants that Hannah didn’t even want to try to identify and more of the same was stuck to the back of her hair.

  “Hannah?” Andrea prompted, looking slightly sick. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

  “It’s not that bad,” Hannah said, lying through her teeth, and breathing through her mouth while she was at it. Whatever Andrea had fallen in was pungent. “Let’s search the bullpen and get out of here so you can get cleaned up.”

  “Bullpen? How do you know Winnie’s hiding place is in the bullpen?”

  “I figured it out from what you told us. You said Alice told the class she had to climb over a rail to get it, and it was in a box on the wall of a big pen. All the farmers around here keep their bulls penned up when they’re in the barn.”

  “How do you know so much about farms, anyway?”

  “I spent a lot of time on Grandma and Grandpa Swensen’s farm. I used to love going out to the barn with Grandpa and hand-feeding silage to the cows.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “Of course not. You were just a baby and you stayed in the house with Grandma.” Hannah stepped inside the barn and shut the door. “Walk down the center aisle, Andrea. That way we’ll avoid the muck.”

  “What’s…never mind,” Andrea said, obviously thinking better of the question she’d been about to ask. “I see two pens way down there at the end. One’s empty and the other has a cow in it.”

  “That’s a bull,” Hannah pointed out as they got closer.

  “How can you…never mind,” Andrea said again, deciding she preferred to be zip for two with her questions. “I’ll check the empty pen and you can check the other one.”

  Hannah smiled. She’d expected no less. “Go ahead. I’ll wait to see if you find anything before I tackle the bullpen.”

  As they walked down the center aisle of the barn, Andrea let her flashlight play over the cows. “They’ve all got signs hanging above their places,” she said. “Look, Hannah. This black-and-white cow is Daisy. And this brown one is Buttercup. And here’s Petunia, and…drat!”

  “There’s a cow named drat?”

  “No. I was reading the names and I forgot to look where I was going. I almost stepped in some dirt.”

  There was no way Andrea could get any dirtier, but Hannah didn’t want to remind her of that. She just grinned and followed in her sister’s wake to the very rear of the barn.

  The empty pen didn’t take long to search. Andrea lifted the lid on the wooden box, checked for contents, and came rushing back out again. “There’s nothing there. You’re up,” she announced.

  “We’re up,” Hannah corrected her. “I’ll go in, but I need you to distract the bull.”

  “How am I supposed to do that?”

  “Talk to him, pet him on the head, give him a cookie, whatever. Just keep him focused on you while I climb in and check the box.”

  “I don’t have any cookies.”

  “Yes, you do,” Hannah reached into her pocket and pulled out a bag of day-old cookies. She’d grabbed them from her cookie truck along with her Maglite before they’d left the condo.

  “What kind are these?”

  “Assorted. Lisa emptied what was left in the serving jars. Just keep trying until you get to one the bull likes. And then feed it to him slowly, to give me time to get in, check the box, and get back out.”

  “Okay, I guess.” Andrea started to move to the front of the pen, but she stopped and turned back to Hannah. “I can’t talk to him if I don’t know his name. And there’s no nameplate on his pen.”

  Hannah thought fast. “Call him Larry.”

  “His name is Larry?”

  “Absolutely,” Hannah said, crossing the fingers on her left hand to negate the lie.

  “Winnie told you that?”

  “You bet,” Hannah said, crossing the fingers on her right hand.

  “And you remembered?”

  “Of course.” Hannah was running out of fingers and she gave Andrea a little shove toward the front of the pen. “Hurry up. We haven’t got all night.”

  “Hi, Larry,” Andrea said, in the same tone of voice Hannah had heard her use with Bethany. “Are you hungry? I bet you are. Just look at what I’ve got for you! Try an Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie. It’s got colored sugar on it and you’re really going to like it.”

  Hannah was beginning to have second thoughts. Andrea didn’t sound very confident. To tell the truth, Hannah wasn’t very confident, either. She knew nothing about Winnie’s bull. Some bulls were gentle and complacent, but others were aggressive and mean. Hannah wouldn’t know what type of bull Winnie had until she got into the pen with him. And by then, it would be too late to do anything about it.

  “Don’t you like sugar cookies, Larry? Okay, they’re not my favorites, either. Let’s try a Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookie. That’s got cornflakes in it and I’ll bet you like cornflakes for breakfast. Or maybe Winnie doesn’t give you cornflakes. How about oatmeal? I think I see one of Hannah’s Oatmeal Raisin Crisps.”

  Hannah tested the gate. It wasn’t locked. She could step in at any time. She did her best not to think about the dire consequences that could follow her action, but her mind continued to drown her in a cascade of scenarios. The bull would attack her, pin her to the rails, and gore her. That was the first scenario. The second scenario had the bull turning on Andrea and attacking her instead of Hannah. But if that happened, Hannah would still be in danger because Bill would attack her the minute he got back from Florida. The third scenario was a little less ugly but equally scary. The bull wouldn’t attack anyone, but he’d start bellowing, and Winnie would come out with her shotgun and shoot both Hannah and Andrea. There was also a fourth scenario and Hannah liked that one the best. The bull would fall in love with Hannah’s cookies, become her mascot at The Cookie Jar, and sit beside Moishe on one of the tables by the front window, sniffing cookies the way Disney’s Ferdinand had sniffed flowers.

  “Hannah!” Andrea’s voice roused her from the last and most ridiculous scenario. “What are you waiting for? Larry likes Peanut Butter Melts and I’ve only got two left!”

  “Okay,” Hannah said and opened the gate to the pen. She slipped inside, went straight to the box on the wall, and opened it. “Jackpot,” she breathed, pulling out a plastic bag. But it was far too light to include a gun, even a prop gun. They’d struck out and put themselves in danger for
nothing!

  “Hurry, Hannah. I’m on the last cookie and Larry doesn’t like anything but peanut butter.”

  “Okay. I’m almost through.” Hannah exited the bullpen without incident and made sure the gate was securely latched behind her. She was just preparing to give Andrea the bad news when all the lights in the barn went on.

  “Freeze, you varmints! I’ve got you covered six ways to Sunday!”

  Hannah glanced toward the door to see Winnie heading toward them, a shotgun cradled in her arms. She was about to raise her arms in surrender and advise Andrea to do the same when she realized that Winnie wasn’t wearing her glasses.

  “Down,” she hissed, pushing her sister down in the hay. “Follow me. We’ll hug the side wall of the barn and crawl out.”

  “But…won’t Winnie see us?”

  “She can’t see a thing without her glasses and she’s not wearing them. Just follow me. It won’t be pretty, but we’ll make it.”

  Truer words were never spoken. By the time they’d crawled through the feed trough that ran along the outside of the stanchions, Hannah and Andrea were covered with liquids and solids that would give a microbiologist a nice workout.

  The smaller door was standing open and Hannah raised her head to check on Winnie’s whereabouts. “Run!” Hannah hissed, grabbing her sister’s hand and pulling her through the open door.

  Both sisters were breathing hard by the time they arrived at the Volvo. Andrea used her remote to open the door, and she was about to slide into the driver’s seat when she looked down at herself. “Yuck!”

  “And another yuck for me,” Hannah said, realizing that she was just as filthy as Andrea. Do you have any blankets in the trunk?”

  “Of course I do! I have two thermal blankets. They’re part of my Minnesota Winter Driver Survival Kit. Bill puts it together and he doesn’t let me take it out of the trunk until June.”

  “Smart man,” Hannah said, recalling that they’d once had a blizzard in May. “You take one blanket and I’ll take the other. We’ll sit on them so we won’t get your upholstery dirty.”

  “What is this stuff, anyway?” Andrea asked, popping the trunk and taking out the blankets.

  “It’s muck. Drive straight to my place and we’ll take showers.”

  “A shower would be good, but I don’t have any clean clothes with me.”

  “Michelle left a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt the last time she stayed over. You can use those.”

  “But…maybe I should just go home.”

  “And let this muck dry on you? Don’t be silly, Andrea. Cow pies are like plaster. Once they set, nothing less than a flamethrower can dislodge them.”

  “Cow pies?” Andrea turned to her sister in shock. “Are they the same as muck?”

  “Pretty much. At least in our case.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?! Hang on and we’ll be at your place in less than ten minutes!”

  Chapter

  Twenty-Four

  “You look like you’ve been through the wars,” Lisa said when Hannah came into the kitchen of The Cookie Jar the next morning.

  “That about covers it.” Hannah headed to the sink to wash her hands.

  “Where’s Moishe?”

  “Home sleeping. He doesn’t have any scenes today.”

  “I bet he’ll miss all the attention he gets when he’s here.”

  “I don’t think so,” Hannah replied, reaching for the soap. “When I told him he didn’t have to come to work with me today, he licked my hand and then he burrowed under the blankets and hid at the bottom of the bed.”

  “He must have needed a day off. And speaking of days off, I think you should have taken one. Were you out late last night investigating?”

  Hannah shook her head as she lathered up. “I don’t investigate.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Absolutely not. Only an investigator can investigate. I’m just a small-town snoop.”

  Lisa laughed. “Still arguing over semantics with Mike?”

  “No.” Hannah rinsed her hands, thought about it for a minute, and then she nodded. “Yes.”

  “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You promised Mike you wouldn’t investigate, but you didn’t promise him that you wouldn’t snoop?”

  “Something like that.”

  “That’s my partner!” Lisa crowed, well pleased with her ability to figure it all out. “So where did you snoop last night?”

  Hannah dried her hands and headed for the work island. Lisa was mixing up a batch of Boggles, and the recipe for Cinnamon Crisps was next in line on the recipe holder. “Andrea and I did a little B and E.”

  “Breaking and entering?” Lisa looked shocked when Hannah nodded. “Where?”

  “Winnie Henderson’s barn.” Hannah headed off to the walk-in cooler to get the butter and the eggs. Once she’d carried them back to her workstation, she gathered the dry ingredients from the pantry and arranged everything in order. She was ready to start mixing the dough when she realized that Lisa was still staring at her. “What?”

  “Why?” Lisa countered.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you and Andrea break into Winnie Henderson’s barn?”

  “Winnie left the dress rehearsal early, so she wasn’t searched. She’s familiar with firearms, and a couple of her husbands had nice gun collections that might have included revolvers that resembled the prop gun. She didn’t want Dean to use the park for the skating scene, and Dean was the kind of guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  “And that’s a motive?”

  “It’s a pretty good one. Winnie could have figured that a real suicide on the set would shut the movie down. Then Ross and his company would leave town.”

  “Makes sense,” Lisa said, getting out another of the large stainless steel mixing bowls they used and grabbing the next recipe on the rack. “You can ask her some probing questions when she comes in at noon.”

  “Winnie’s coming here?”

  “That’s what she said when she called this morning. She apologized for not coming in yesterday, but she had to rush home to meet the vet.”

  Hannah thought about that for a moment. Winnie had cattle, horses, several dogs, some cats, and a flock of chickens. With that many animals, it was certainly possible that one of them had required medical attention. The excuse was reasonable, but that didn’t necessarily mean it was true. “What was wrong?”

  “The bull had some sort of intestinal upset and it made him really ornery. Winnie said he’s usually pretty good-natured, but not yesterday. It took Winnie, the hired man, and four of the neighbors to subdue him so the vet could give him a shot of antibiotics.”

  Hannah felt her stomach drop down to her knees and come slowly back up again. She’d gone into the pen with a sick, ornery bull and he could have gored her six ways to the center. Her sister had handed that same sick, ornery bull homemade cookies and heaven only knew what that had done for his intestinal problem.

  “The good news is the bull’s fine today. Winnie said that when she went out to the barn this morning, he was as quiet as a lamb. That shot the vet gave him must have worked.”

  Forget the shot, Hannah said under her breath. My money’s on the five Peanut Butter Melts that Andrea fed him.

  Winnie slid onto a stool at the work island and accepted the mug of coffee that Hannah poured for her. “I sure can use some wake-me-up,” she said. “I kept hearing noises in the barn last night.”

  “Really?” Hannah asked, placing two mini cherry cheesecakes on a napkin in front of Winnie and hoping she looked more innocent than she felt.

  “That’s right. I could have sworn somebody was in there, but when I checked, everything seemed okay. ’Course I couldn’t see much without my glasses.”

  “What happened to your glasses?”

  “I knocked ’em on the floor when I jumped out of bed and I couldn’t find ’em until this morning.” Winnie took another sip of her coffee.
“I apologize for not getting here yesterday, but I had an emergency. Did Lisa tell you about Larry?”

  “Larry?”

  “My bull. The grandkids named him.”

  Hannah had all she could do not to laugh out loud. The bull’s name was Larry, so she hadn’t been lying after all! It couldn’t be a coincidence. She must have heard Winnie mention it and it had stuck in her mind. “Yes, Lisa told me. I’m glad Larry’s better now.”

  “Guess you’re not going to try to talk me into letting them use the park.”

  “Why not?”

  “Use your head, girl! Now that their big-shot director is dead, they’ll be packing up and leaving town.” Something in Hannah’s expression must have tipped her off, because Winnie cocked her head and stared at Hannah curiously. “Won’t they?”

  “I don’t think so. At least that’s not what I heard last night. Most of the important scenes have already been filmed, and there are only four to go. Lynne Larchmont is going to direct those.”

  “You mean they still want to use the park?”

  “That’s right. I hope you’ll let them use it, Winnie.”

  Winnie gave a deep sigh. “I said they could use it if they didn’t move the statue my brother made of the first mayor, but that highfaluting director wanted it out of the way. He said it would ruin the shot. He wanted to move it clear over by the bandstand. I figured for sure they’d break it and Arnie put a lot of work into making it. It’s the only thing of his I got left.”

  “Maybe they don’t have to move it that far. How would you feel about it if they just hoisted it up out of camera range?”

  “You mean…they could just pick it straight up and leave it dangling in the air while they did whatever they had to do?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  Winnie considered that for a minute and then she shrugged. “I don’t know what to say. Would I still get the money?”

  “I’ll have to check for sure, but I think so.”

  “Well just between you and me, it would sure come in handy right now. Elmer Petersen over in Eagle Bend’s selling off twenty head, and he’s got a couple of Jerseys I wouldn’t mind mixing in with mine. They’re good producers according to Betty Jackson over at the dairy.”