by Joanne Fluke
“Do you think that one night, when Pinkie was drinking a lot, she might have plotted to kill P.K.?”
“I think it’s possible,” Hannah said, “but there’s no way of knowing for sure. Pinkie could be just another red herring.”
“Pink herring,” Michelle corrected her.
“Or, if what Georgina and Bobby told us about Pinkie’s drinking is true, Pinkie could have been a pickled herring.”
Michelle laughed. “That’s awful, Hannah!”
“I know, but I thought we needed a little levity.”
There was a long moment of silence before Michelle spoke again. “We’ve got to find her, Hannah. Pinkie could be the killer.”
“I know.” Hannah pulled into her parking spot in back of The Cookie Jar. It was cold outside, and she gave a fleeting thought to plugging her car into the strip of electrical outlets that ran along a wooden strip in front of the parking spaces, but she decided that it wasn’t quite cold enough to bother.
“Aren’t you going to plug in your truck?” Michelle asked.
“No, not yet. We’re planning to leave again soon.”
“Where are we going?”
“The library’s not open this afternoon, but Marge always carries the keys with her. I’m going to ask her if she still has a shelf with all the yearbooks from the high schools in our area. If she does, I’ll get the keys to the library from her and we’ll go down to look at the Clarissa High yearbook to see if we can identify Pinkie.”
“That’s a good idea,” Michelle said, “but neither of us has ever seen Pinkie and we don’t know her real name. How are we going to identify her?”
“I’m not sure, but Pinkie went to school with P.K. And a school yearbook usually contains some student photos.”
Michelle looked excited. “You’re right. I didn’t even think of that. There may be a photo of P.K. and Pinkie together!”
“And maybe, if it’s a student photo, she might be called Pinkie in the caption under the photo.”
“And then all we have to do is go through the official class pictures, find her there, and we’ll know her real name!” Michelle gave Hannah a huge smile. “You’re brilliant, Hannah! Let’s go see Marge.”
The two sisters gathered their things and got out of Hannah’s cookie truck. They walked together to the back of the building, and Hannah opened the back kitchen door. As they stepped in, they wiped their feet on the mat just inside the door and hung their parkas on the hooks on the wall. But before they could make their way to the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the coffee shop, Aunt Nancy pushed it open and rushed into the kitchen.
“Oh, good!” she said. “I thought I heard you come in. Do you have a minute, Hannah? I really have to talk to you!”
“I’ll go find Marge,” Michelle told Hannah, making herself scarce by hurrying through the swinging door that Aunt Nancy had just entered.
“Coffee?” Hannah asked, noticing that Aunt Nancy looked worried about something.
“Yes, thanks, but I’ll get it,” Aunt Nancy offered. “You sit down. I’ll be right with you.”
Hannah took her usual stool at the work station and watched Aunt Nancy rush to the kitchen coffeepot. As she poured two cups, Hannah noticed that her hands were shaking. Something was wrong with Aunt Nancy and Hannah hoped that it wasn’t anything serious.
Once Aunt Nancy had added cream and sugar to her coffee, she carried both cups back to the work station. “Here you go,” she said, setting one cup down on the stainless steel surface in front of Hannah. Then she went to the opposite side, put down her coffee cup, and sat down.
“What’s the matter?” Hannah asked her, not waiting for Aunt Nancy to broach the subject that was bothering her. “You look upset.”
“I am! I’ve never had a situation like this before in my life, and I don’t know what it means.”
Hannah smiled to set her at ease, and took a sip of her own coffee. “Tell me about it,” she invited.
“It’s Heiti. He dropped by to see me a few minutes ago. He said that Bill had offered him a job at the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Station. Bill said that they really need him and they want Heiti to start right away.”
“But that’s good, isn’t it?” Hannah asked.
“I don’t know! Heiti told me all about it, how he’d be working to update some of their equipment and maintain it, and then he asked me if I wanted him to take the job and stay in Lake Eden.” Aunt Nancy gave a quivering sigh. “Why did he ask me that, Hannah?”
Before she answered, Hannah had something she wanted to know. “Do you want Heiti to stay here?”
“Of course I do!” The answer came without hesitation and emphatically. “I like Heiti very much, and I’d miss him dreadfully if he left town. But why did he ask me, Hannah?”
“I suspect it was because he wanted to hear you say exactly what you told me. Heiti needed reassurance that you wanted him in your life.”
Aunt Nancy thought about that for a moment and then a smile spread across her face. “Really?” she asked in a soft voice.
“Really. I can’t think of any other reason why he would ask you.”
“Then . . .” Aunt Nancy stopped and took a deep breath. “Then do you think that Heiti really likes me?”
“Without a doubt. A man doesn’t ask a woman if she wants him to stay unless he’s hoping she’ll say she does.”
“That’s . . . well . . . it’s wonderful!”
Hannah noticed that Aunt Nancy looked as if she’d pulled the handle on the giant slot machine in the lobby of the Twin Pines Casino and won the million-dollar prize.
“Thank you, Hannah!” Aunt Nancy said, jumping up from her stool. “I’d better get back to work.”
Hannah smiled as Aunt Nancy ran to the swinging door and pushed through without even looking through the diamond-shaped window to see if anyone was coming from the other side. She’d obviously heard precisely what she’d hoped to hear and even though Hannah could no longer see her, she knew that Aunt Nancy was smiling from ear to ear.
Her coffee was fresh and hot, and Hannah decided to finish it. She would need a little energy to get through the rest of the day.
“I’m back!” Michelle announced, coming through the door and hurrying over to the work station. “Marge gave me the keys. She said the lights are on the wall, on our right as we come in and we should be sure to lock the door when we leave.” Michelle sat down on the stool that Aunt Nancy had just vacated and when she noticed the almost full cup of coffee, a puzzled expression crossed her face.
“What happened with Aunt Nancy?” she asked. “She came back in the coffee shop with a huge smile on her face.”
“I told her what she wanted to hear,” Hannah said.
“What was that?” Michelle looked curious.
“I don’t have time to go into it now, but I’ll tell you all about it on the way to the library.”
* * *
“Here it is,” Michelle said, handing Hannah the slim volume with the words Clarissa High on the front in gold lettering. This is the year that P.K. was a junior, and he told me that he started dating Pinkie after they were in the junior play together.”
“Did he have a part in the play?”
“No, he was the head of the technical crew and he ran the light board. He told me it was ancient and it always needed repair.”
“And Pinkie was in the crew, too?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t say.” Michelle sat down next to Hannah at the long library table so that they could look at the yearbook together.
The front pages of the yearbook were filled with class photos. There was the freshman class, the sophomores, and the juniors. The names were listed, but since they didn’t know what Pinkie looked like, they couldn’t identify her.
“Here’s the official photo of the play,” Hannah said, and Michelle leaned closer.
“It gives the names, but that doesn’t do us any good.” Michelle sounded very disappointed. “It just says
it’s the cast and crew of Adam’s Rib. That must be the play they did.”
Hannah drew in her breath sharply. “Adam’s Rib! So that’s where Pinkie got it!”
“Got what?”
“Her nickname. She must have had the female lead, the one Katharine Hepburn had in the movie. It was about two married lawyers and they both had red hair. Spencer Tracey’s character and Katharine Hepburn’s character were both called Pinkie, except they were spelled differently. The play is based on a true story about a couple who was getting a divorce. And after the divorce was final, the real couple ended up remarrying. She married her lawyer and he married his lawyer.”
“That’s interesting, but we still don’t know Pinkie’s real name,” Michelle pointed out.
“Let’s try the following year, when both of them were seniors,” Hannah suggested. “Senior pictures are usually head shots and the names are listed. Maybe Pinkie will be wearing pink.”
Michelle nodded. “Okay. If we’re lucky, Pinkie’s high school published the senior photos in color. We did that at Jordan High, but I was on the yearbook staff and I know it cost a lot more. We won’t be able to tell if Pinkie is wearing pink unless Clarissa High went for the color photo option.”
“You’re right.” Hannah felt a bit foolish for not realizing that. When she’d graduated from Jordan High, her senior photo had been published in black and white. “Even if Pinkie’s high school didn’t go for the color option, they may have listed the nicknames under the senior photos.”
“That’s true,” Michelle agreed. “I’ll get the yearbook for the next year and put this one back.”
“Leave it here, Michelle,” Hannah said when her sister reached for the yearbook. “We’ll compare the photo of the cast and crew of Adam’s Rib to the senior photos in the next yearbook. At least we’ll be able to identify the senior photos of the girls who were in the cast and crew of the play.”
“But we still won’t know which one of them is Pinkie,” Michelle pointed out.
“That’s true, but it’s a way of narrowing it down a little. We can eliminate the girls who weren’t in the photo.”
“You’re right. I’ll get the next yearbook.”
Michelle walked to the yearbook section of the library and examined the books that were there. The yearbook for the following year was out of place, and it took her a minute or two to locate it. When she did, she pulled it down, walked back to Hannah to hand it to her, and sat down in her chair again.
“Thanks,” Hannah said, flipping straight to the individual senior photos near the end. “We’re in luck. They’re in color.”
As Hannah paged through the senior photos, Michelle groaned. “There are at least ten girls wearing shades of pink. It must have been a really popular color that year.”
“It must have been,” Hannah agreed, and then she began to smile. “I think I found a match, Michelle!”
Michelle leaned over and studied the photo that Hannah had chosen. “I think you’re right. She has different glasses, but her hairstyle is the same. And she’s wearing a light shade of pink. That’s the girl at the far end of the top row, isn’t it?”
“I think so. Her name is Misty Franklin.”
The two sisters agreed on four more matches, and Hannah wrote them down in her murder book. She’d just finished when Michelle let out a whoop of excitement.
“There’s Pinkie, Hannah!” she exclaimed.
Hannah studied the photo for a moment, and then she turned to the cast and crew photo. “It’s the girl in the center of the front row, and the two photos match. But there are other matches, too. Why do you think that this particular girl is Pinkie?”
“Because she’s short and P.K. mentioned that he could hold out his arm and Pinkie could walk right under it.”
“But how do you know that the girl in the senior photo is short?”
“I can’t tell from her senior photo, but she’s in the front row in the cast and crew photo and almost everyone there is taller than she is. And when they take group photos, the photographer always puts the shortest people in the front row.”
“Good point.” Hannah turned back to the senior photo. “Her name is Mary Jo Hart. Does that sound familiar to you?”
“No, but P.K. never mentioned her by name.”
Hannah turned back to the senior photos. “I think you could be right about Mary Jo Hart, Michelle.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Under her credits, it lists both the junior and senior class plays. None of the other girls wearing pink were in both plays.”
“Okay. Let’s assume that Pinkie is Mary Jo Hart. How do we find out for sure?”
Hannah looked down at her wrist and realized that she’d forgotten her watch at The Cookie Jar. “What time is it, Michelle?”
Michelle looked at the display on her cell phone. “Almost a quarter after four.”
“On a Thursday,” Hannah began to smile. “We’ve got a chance of finding out more if you call Clarissa High and there’s someone who’s still in the office.”
“Got it.” Michelle found the number of the office on the high school’s website. She punched in the number and switched to speaker phone mode so that Hannah could hear it ringing.
The phone rang five times and Hannah began to frown. “I think the office is closed.”
“Maybe not. Let’s give it ten rings before we give up.”
The phone rang three more times, and then a woman answered. “Clarissa High. This is Lila speaking.”
“Hi, Lila. I have Miss Swensen on the phone for the principal. Is he still in?”
“No. I’m sorry, but he had to leave early today. Is there anything I can do to help you?”
Michelle handed the phone to Hannah. “Hello, Lila. This is Hannah Swensen from Swensen Enterprises. I’m calling to see if the school has a current phone number and address for one of our job applicants, Mary Jo Hart. The address and phone number on her resume are no longer current and we’d like to speak to her about an opening in our corporation.”
“Oh, dear!” Lila sounded very distressed. “I’m afraid that . . . well . . . Miss Hart is no longer . . . uh . . . available.”
An expression of surprise crossed Hannah’s face, and it was mirrored on Michelle’s. “Oh, I see. If you don’t mind me asking, has Miss Hart found another position?”
There was a long pause, and then Lila spoke again. “No, not exactly. Miss Hart is no longer . . . with us.”
Hannah felt her hopes sink. If Lila meant what Hannah feared she meant, Mary Jo Hart was dead.
“We are speaking about the same person, aren’t we?” Hannah continued. “The Mary Jo Hart who applied with us gave her nickname as Pinkie.”
“Yes, that was Pinkie,” Lila responded. “She had the lead in the junior play and after that, everyone began to call her Pinkie. And now both of them are gone. They were two of our most promising students, and it’s so terribly sad. I read about what happened to Porter in the papers.”
“Oh my,” Hannah said. “Was Pinkie murdered, too?”
Lisa hesitated and then she sighed heavily. “Pinkie committed suicide. I’m not exactly sure how, but someone told me it was pills.”
“That must have been devastating for her family!” Hannah said, hoping to get even more information. “How long ago was that?”
“A little over a month. Such a waste. She was a lovely girl. I think poor Pinkie went into a terrible depression when Porter broke off their engagement. Porter was the love of her life and a real stabilizing influence on her in high school.”
“Stabilizing?” Hannah asked, trolling for more clarification.
“Yes. I knew Pinkie quite well, and it had a profound effect on her life when her parents died. A terrible accident on the freeway coming from the airport in the Cities. Her brother did all he could to help her, but he had to work to support them. He had a very good job in the Cities and he came home every weekend to be with her.”
“So Pinkie
lived alone in her parents’ house?”
“Her parents’ farm,” Lila corrected her. “But it’s hard to be all alone in a farmhouse way out in the country. Pinkie’s brother ended up selling the farm, and renting a two-bedroom apartment in town for them.”
“Was Pinkie glad to move to town?” Hannah asked her.
“Yes. It saved her a long bus ride to school. I never personally met her brother, but she talked about him all the time.”
“Do you remember his name?” Hannah asked.
There was a long silence and then Lila sighed. “I just don’t recall. It was something simple, like Bob or Tom, but I can’t remember it. He sounded like a really nice man. I know he tried very hard to take care of Pinkie, but he was gone all week and I think Pinkie was lonely. She had Porter, but he worked part-time after school and he couldn’t spend all of his time with her.”
“Didn’t Pinkie have any friends?”
“The rest of the girls liked her, but she didn’t have a best friend or anything like that. Except for Porter, Pinkie was a bit of a loner. You know the type. Friendly enough, but subdued. I think that was why she liked to hang around the office and help me after school. To tell the truth, I think that’s why she got a good job when she graduated. She had front office experience.” There was a pause, and then Lila spoke again. “Here I go, running off my mouth again. I think that’s because the whole thing is so sad. I can’t believe that Pinkie and Porter are both gone.”
“Thank you for telling me all this,” Hannah said. “And I want you to know that I’m sorry, too. I really wanted to hire Pinkie as a high-level secretary.”
“Oh, that would have been much better than the job she had!” Lila said. “She worked for Dr. Benson and I don’t think he utilized her skills well enough. She took bookkeeping, typing, filing, and computer science here at Clarissa High. She passed all those business classes with A’s, and all Dr. Benson wanted her to do for him was answer the phone and keep his appointment book. Believe me, Pinkie was capable of a more demanding job than that!”
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