by Joanne Fluke
“I’ve got it. I baked almond cake tonight. How about a slice with a glass of milk?”
“Sounds great!”
“Make yourself comfortable and I’ll get it.” Hannah made a quick trip to the kitchen. When she came back, Mike was sitting on the couch with Moishe in his lap.
“Here you go,” she said, setting the cake and the milk on the coffee table. “Try the cake and see how you like it.”
Mike took a bite and nodded. “I like it a lot, unless you’ve been watching Arsenic And Old Lace.”
“I haven’t seen it for years, and my almonds aren’t bitter,” Hannah said, referring to the fact that arsenic tasted like bitter almonds. “How did they discover that, anyway?”
“You mean about the bitter almonds?”
“Yes. You can’t ask dead people how the poison that killed them tasted.”
Mike threw back his head and laughed. “You’re right. Somebody must have tasted it without swallowing. Or reported the taste before they died.”
“Gruesome. And that reminds me, did Doc Knight run a tox screen on Gus Klein?”
“Yes. It’s standard operating procedure.”
“Did he happen to find any traces of amphetamine?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
Hannah sighed. Mike wasn’t being very cooperative. “I saw Gus take a green-and-white capsule at the dance. When I asked him if he should mix alcohol and medicine, he said it was an over-the-counter antacid.”
“And you didn’t believe him?”
“I believed him at the time. But then I started thinking about it, so I described it to Jon Walker and asked him what it could have been.”
“And he told you it could have been an amphetamine?”
“Yes.”
“Jon’s right. It was an amphetamine. It showed up on the tox screen.”
Hannah felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. “When did the tox screen come in?”
“With the autopsy. Doc put a rush on it, and I had it first thing Tuesday morning.”
“But I saw you late Tuesday morning at The Cookie Jar! Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
“Because it’s an official document. It’s against regulations for me to share official reports and documents with you.”
“So there are things you’re not telling me?” Hannah asked him, feeling betrayed.
“A few, yes, but only if they’re something confidential that only authorized personnel can know. Besides…the amphetamines didn’t kill him. He was stabbed with an ice pick or similar object.”
The lightbulb of suspicion that had been flickering in Hannah’s mind ever since she’d talked to her sisters about sharing information with Mike turned into a steadily glowing globe. She knew the truth now. Mike was holding out on her. Perhaps he didn’t mean to. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt. He might truly believe that he was honoring the pact they’d made.
“What about the suitcase on the bed?” she asked. “Were there any more pills in it?”
“Come on, Hannah.” Mike gave a weary sigh. “The suitcase is in the evidence room.”
“And only authorized personnel can know what’s in it?”
“That’s right. Some of the contents could be important during the trial.”
“What trial? You haven’t arrested anyone yet.”
“No, but we will. And there’s no way I want the killer to walk on a technicality because I’ve been careless with the evidence.”
“I understand,” Hannah said, and she did. Mike had never said much about it, but Hannah knew that the gang member who’d shot and killed Mike’s wife when she was pregnant with their first child had gotten off on a technicality. Bill had told her all about it. It was one of the reasons Mike was so determined to follow police procedure to the letter. No criminal he caught was going to walk free on a technicality if he could help it.
“I’ll tell you what I can, Hannah. You know I will.”
“I know.” Hannah knew that Mike was sharing some information with her. But the information she would get from him wouldn’t be critical to the case. He was treating her like an outsider, not a member of his team. And while he might honestly want things to be different, they wouldn’t be.
“What’s the matter?” Mike asked, frowning slightly.
Nothing that you’d understand, Hannah almost said, but she bit the words back. It was silly of her to be disappointed. She should have known all along that Mike’s two-way street was really one-way. He might want to break the rules for her, but he wouldn’t.
“Hannah? What’s wrong?” Mike asked again.
“I’m just tired,” Hannah said, uttering the first thing that popped into her head.
“I’d better go, then. Lock the door behind me, and I’ll run down and get that present for Moishe I told you about. I’ll knock when I come back up.”
Hannah waited, her eye to the peephole. She was expecting to see a distorted image of Mike as he came up the stairs, but instead she saw something huge, bright pink, and fuzzy.
“Okay, Hannah. It’s me.”
The huge, pink, fuzzy object had Mike’s voice, so Hannah opened the door. And then she started to laugh as she saw what he was carrying.
“It’s a flamingo,” Mike explained unnecessarily. “Didn’t you tell me that Moishe liked flamingos?”
“I probably did. He loves to watch them on the Animal Channel. How big is that thing, anyway?”
“It’s taller than I am, so it’s six and a half feet, at least. And its name is Fred. Where do you want it?”
“Right there,” Hannah said, pointing at the corner by the couch. “Will Fred fit there?”
“Sure, if we fold his wing in a little.” Mike did just that as Hannah watched. “Too bad Fred doesn’t have a tray in its beak, or something. You could use him as a couch table.”
Just what I need. A six-and-a-half-foot table shaped like a flamingo, Hannah thought, but of course she didn’t say it. Even though Fred wasn’t to her taste and he looked dreadful in her living room, she was touched that Mike had thought to get the toy for Moishe.
“Thanks, Mike,” she said for lack of anything better to say. And then, because it sounded so sparse, she added, “Wherever did you find it?”
“Oh. Well…actually Fred’s recycled. I hope Moishe won’t mind.”
“I don’t think he does,” Hannah said, watching her cat approach the big bird and rub up against it. “Is it something the police confiscated?”
“No, it’s something I had at my place. Ronni brought Fred back from Florida. She bought him on that trip she took with Bill. And then she moved and she didn’t have room, so I kept him at my place. I offered to give him back when she moved in across the hall, but she said she didn’t want Fred anymore because he didn’t match the colors in her living room.”
“I see,” Hannah said, wishing she hadn’t asked.
“Well, I’d better go. I’m really glad Moishe likes Fred. I got a new 50-inch television and he was in the way.”
Hannah walked Mike to the door, thanked him again, kissed him briefly, and sent him on his way. Then she closed and locked the door, and turned to stare at the fuchsia Phoenicopterus.
“I know you like Fred, now,” Hannah said, watching her cat rub his head up against the flamingo’s legs, “but do you know what he eats?”
Moishe turned to look at her, and Hannah thought he seemed concerned about the diet of Ronni’s second-hand shorebird.
“Fred eats shrimp, Moishe, lots and lots of shrimp. Maybe you’d better shred him up now. Then the next time I thaw a bag of shrimp for you, you won’t have any competition.”
“Rowww!” Moshe responded enigmatically, staring at her with his big yellow eyes.
“You’re right.” Hannah gave him a smile. “Maybe I’d better take a lesson from you when it comes to Fred’s first owner, and shred her, too.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“’Bye, Moishe.” Hannah tossed him a few salmon-flavored kitt
y treats as she headed toward her condo door. “Try to be a good boy again today. I’ll be home early this afternoon to feed you.”
Her hand had just connected with the doorknob when the telephone rang. Hannah muttered a phrase she wouldn’t have used around her nieces in any circumstances and headed back to the kitchen to answer it. The hair on Moishe’s back wasn’t bristling, so it probably wasn’t Delores.
“Hello?” she said, wondering who’d be calling her this early.
“Hi, Hannah.”
“Norman!” Hannah began to smile as she recognized his voice. “Where are you?”
“At the airport in Atlantic City. We landed about twenty minutes ago. I’m just waiting to rent a car with GPS, and then I’ll be off to find Mood Indigo.”
Hannah glanced at the clock. It was five forty-five in the morning. That meant it was six forty-five in Atlantic City. “It won’t be open this early,” she reminded him.
“I know. I’ll just drive over and take a look at it. Then I’ll have some breakfast.”
“When are you coming home?” Hannah couldn’t help but ask. It was silly since Norman had been gone for less than a day, but she already missed him.
“If things go the way I hope they will, I should be back early tomorrow morning, maybe sooner if everything works out.”
“Well, come by here first thing,” Hannah told him. “I don’t care how early it is. I want to hear all about it. Or if it’s past six in the morning, stop by The Cookie Jar. I should be at work by then.”
Hannah had just taken the last two trays of Cherry Winks from the oven and slid them onto the baker’s rack when the back door opened and Lisa came into the kitchen.
“Lisa! What are you doing here? I thought you were frying pancakes for the big Game Day breakfast this morning.”
“That was the plan, but it changed. I got your mother and Carrie to fill in for me.”
“Uh-oh!” Hannah winced visibly. “I’m not sure about Carrie, but I know for a fact that Mother’s never fried a pancake in her life. Dad always fixed breakfast for all of us.”
“Don’t worry. Your mother and Carrie are just setting the tables and mixing up the orange juice. That frees up Patsy to help Marge with the pancakes.”
Hannah gave a big sigh of relief. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re here. I finished the baking, so I really don’t need any help.”
“Yes, you do. I’m going to help Luanne open so that you can go out to the lake. Dad remembered something this morning, and he won’t tell anybody except you.”
“Is it about Gus’s murder?”
“I don’t know. Herb’s with him at the cottage, and they’re waiting for you to drive out. You don’t think Dad might have…I mean…I just can’t believe that…”
“Neither can I,” Hannah interrupted her, “and I’m positive that he didn’t. But maybe he remembered something from the past that’ll help catch the killer.”
Less than twenty minutes later, Hannah was knocking at the door of the cottage. She’d pushed her cookie truck to the limit on the highway and paid no heed to the health of her shocks as she’d flown over the gravel road that ran around the perimeter of Eden Lake.
“Hannah!” Herb greeted her, looking surprised. “How did you get here so fast?”
“Lisa said it was important.”
Herb began to frown, and Hannah knew he was mentally calculating the distance and figuring out her average speed. As the only traffic enforcement officer hired by the city of Lake Eden, he’d given out enough speeding tickets to know when someone had broken the law.
“I hope you didn’t speed through town,” he said.
“I didn’t. I did take the gravel road around the lake a little too fast, though.”
“How fast?”
“I didn’t look at the speedometer, but it was fast enough to bump my head on the top of the truck three times.”
“That should teach you to slow down,” Herb said, looking very stern. “I really ought to give you a ticket, but it’s not my jurisdiction.”
“But Lisa said it was important,” Hannah repeated.
“That’s what Jack told us. Come on in, Hannah. Jack’s at the kitchen table. He wants to talk to you alone, so after I take you in to him, I’ll go down and see if I can help with the breakfast.”
Hannah stepped in, and Herb led her to the table where Jack was sitting with a cup of coffee and the box of cookies she’d given him for his birthday. “Here’s Hannah to see you, Jack.”
“Hi, there,” Jack said, smiling at Hannah. And then he turned to Herb. “Thanks for keeping me company, son. Hannah will walk me down to the breakfast when we’re through here…” he turned to Hannah, “…won’t you, Hannah?”
“Of course I will.”
Jack waited until Herb had left, and then he gestured toward the counter. “Would you like a cup of coffee? Marge made a full pot.”
“I’d love a cup, thanks. I’ll get it,” Hannah filled the clean cup that was sitting by the coffeepot and carried the carafe over to refill Jack’s cup. Then she sat down in the chair across from him and waited.
“Your cookies did it, girl!” Jack grinned at her. “I remembered the last time Emmy made them, and that made me remember the reason I got into that fight with Gus. I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to promise me you won’t tell anyone else, not even Lisa.”
“I promise,” Hannah said firmly. What Jack was about to tell her might give her a lead to follow, but it was unlikely that his memories from over thirty years ago would have a direct bearing on the events that had transpired after the dance on Sunday night.
“Gus asked me to lend him some money on the night he left town for good,” Jack told her. “We were friends, and I would have given it to him if I’d had any extra, but Emmy and I were barely making it on my salary. Iris was almost two years old, and Emmy was due to have Tim any day. Emmy couldn’t work, and it was hard to make both ends meet.”
Hannah nodded. She could understand how a young married couple with a toddler and a baby on the way would have trouble paying the bills on only one salary.
“I told Gus I was sorry, but I couldn’t help him. And then he said I had to help him because he owed money from a card game, and they’d come after him if he didn’t pay it back. I felt awful, but I didn’t have anything to give him. All Emmy and I had was the little bit of money we’d put away for Doc Knight to deliver Tim.”
“I understand.”
“Well, Gus didn’t. He wanted me to give him our savings for the new baby. I told him I couldn’t. And then I suggested that he ask Patsy. She was working, and she had a pretty good job.”
“Did he?” Hannah remembered Patsy saying something about a loan she’d made to Gus that Mac had wanted to collect.
“He said he couldn’t, because he hadn’t paid Patsy back for the last loan. He owed Marge money, too. And his parents wouldn’t help him out again. The last time he borrowed money from them, they’d told him it was time he grew up and accepted responsibility for his own debts.”
Hannah was beginning to understand exactly what the fight had been about. “And you got into a fight because Gus wouldn’t take no for an answer?”
“In a way, but that’s putting it mildly. Now, you need a little background here, or you’re not going to understand this next part.”
“Okay.” Hannah took another sip of her coffee. “Go ahead.”
“Well…” Jack swallowed hard. “You’re sure you won’t tell anybody?”
“I swear I won’t,” Hannah promised.
“Okay, then. I was kind of shy around the girls in high school, but Gus wasn’t. We were friends, so I asked his advice about asking Emmy to go out on a date with me. But before I could get up the nerve, Gus asked her out.”
“That rat!” Hannah breathed.
“That’s right, but it was okay because Emmy only dated him a couple of times and then she said she wouldn’t go out with him anymore. When I asked Gus why he’d asked her out
in the first place, especially when he knew I wanted to, he told me he was just testing the waters and they were pretty cold.”
“That scum!” Hannah stated, a little louder this time.
“Another good word to describe him.” Jack gave her a smile. “Of course I didn’t believe Gus, but it didn’t really matter because the next day Emmy asked me out.”
Hannah clapped her hands. “Wonderful! And you fell in love and got married.”
“That’s right. Not quite that quick, of course, but we got married right after we graduated from high school. Emmy was always a good cook. I think that’s where all my girls get it. And her specialty was…what did you call these things again?”
“Red Velvet Cookies.”
“That’s right. Red Velvet Cookies. People used to beg her to make them, and then they started offering her money to bake. Marge’s mother hired Emmy to bake for her sewing circle. What do they do at those sewing circles, anyway?”
Hannah blinked. She’d been so wrapped up in Jack’s story of the past, his question was a jolt. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to a sewing circle, but maybe it’s the same thing they do at the Lake Eden Quilting Club.”
“And what’s that?”
“They quilt a little, and then they eat cookies and drink coffee. And after that, they gossip about whoever’s not there.”
Jack threw back his head and laughed. His laughter made Hannah feel good. Except for brief moments with Marge and his children, he’d been solemn and dour for the entire duration of the reunion.
“Go on, Jack,” she said, nudging him gently. “Tell me the rest of the story.”
“Sure thing. Well…” Jack stopped, and all traces of his smile disappeared. “I’m sorry, my dear. I forget.”
For a brief moment, the term of endearment puzzled Hannah. Then she remembered that Lisa had taught her father to use my dear when he couldn’t remember a woman’s name.
“That’s okay,” Hannah said, giving him an encouraging smile. She felt like groaning in disappointment, but of course she didn’t. It would have hurt Jack’s feelings and served no positive purpose. Instead, she tried to set the scene for him and take him back to the time he’d been describing. “You were just telling me how Emmy used to bake for people,” she prompted. “And you said Marge’s mother asked Emmy to bake cookies for her sewing circle?”
