Strawberry Shortcake Murder hsm-2

by Joanne Fluke

  “Good night then.”

  Andrea went out the door, and Hannah hit the play button. Her stomach was complaining and the fact that the footage was of Sally’s happy hour buffet didn’t help. The platter of stuffed mushrooms was almost her undoing. Hannah knew that Sally used a sausage and cheese mixture that was incredibly delicious. Her stomach growled, and she took another sip of coffee, but it was a poor substitute for food.

  Something on a man’s shirtsleeve glittered as he helped himself to Sally’s smoked salmon appetizer. Hannah’s heart raced and she hit the pause. She backed up the tape very slowly and sighed as she realized it was only a button on his cuff that had caught the light. She sighed and started the tape again. If she nodded off and missed any of the footage, she’d have to watch it all over again, and once was more than enough.

  Hannah stopped the tape four more times during the happy hour buffet sequence. The first time it turned out to be a copper bracelet that was supposed to ward off arthritis, the second time it was a gold button on the sleeve of a blue blazer, and the third and fourth times were only wristwatches. She was seeing cuff links behind every bush.

  There was nothing else of interest for several minutes, which seemed as long as hours. Hannah wondered how time could go so slowly. Then there was another drive to the auditorium as the contestants left the Lake Eden Inn for the contest. Hannah fast-forwarded through that section, telling herself that cars following cars wouldn’t yield any antique cuff links. She watched the contestants get out of their cars when they arrived at the school and filed into the auditorium, but nothing caught her eye.

  Once the contestants had gone inside, Rudy had trained the camera on the parking lot again, for footage of the audience, which was just arriving. This was more interesting. Delores and Carrie drove up and Hannah grinned as Carrie chose a spot and parked. The space was perfectly adequate, but it still took Carrie several attempts to straighten out her wheels and pull in.

  Bill’s car was next, and Hannah stopped the tape to write down the time code. Andrea looked gorgeous, as always, and Tracey was smiling in Rudy’s direction. She gave a little hop and a skip as Bill and Andrea took her by the hands and they walked to the entrance. At least Hannah had managed to accomplish one thing tonight. Andrea would love having a copy of this footage.

  Once she’d bracketed the footage of Tracey by time codes on her notepad, Hannah started the tape again and concentrated on the other members of the audience. She recognized Jackson’s little Honda as it pulled into a spot, and she watched as Betty emerged from her car. Actually, Betty was quite adept at sliding out, an amazing feat for someone so large. Hannah spotted Phil and Sue Plotnik, her downstairs neighbors, without baby Kevin. Either they’d dropped him off at Sue’s mother’s place, or they’d called in a baby-sitter. Several of Bertie Straub’s older ladies walked up to the entrance, their hair carefully protected by scarves. Hannah suspected they’d just come from appointments at the Cut ‘n Curl. Sheriff Grant was next, looking official in full dress uniform, and then Mayor Bascomb and his wife.

  Hannah watched as various Lake Eden residents filed in. They were all smiling and looked as if they were anticipating the night’s entertainment. There were a few faces she didn’t know, people who’d driven in from other Minnesota towns. She paid close attention to them, but she didn’t spot any cuff links on the men.

  Rudy moved into the auditorium lobby with his camera, right after the last person had filed in. Hannah spotted Claire, who was exchanging a few words with Marge Beeseman and doing her best to ignore the fact that the mayor and his wife were standing only a few feet away Hannah watched for a moment and then she sighed. If she’d seen this tape a week ago, she wouldn’t have batted an eyelash, but it was amazing how a little hindsight could change things. Now that she knew about Claire and Mayor Bascomb, she could see the guilt on their faces in they way they studiously avoided each other’s eyes.

  Two figures arrived at the back of the line. It was Boyd Watson and his sister, Maryann. He turned to speak to Father Coultas, who’d also come in late, and Maryann spotted several friends and waved at them. Hannah stared at Boyd intently, but he didn’t seem any different than usual. He was smiling and relaxed as he turned back to Maryann, and it was clear that he had no premonition he’d be dead in a few short hours.

  Then next shots were taken backstage, and Hannah winced as Rudy’s camera caught her from behind as she walked onto the kitchen set. Her hair flamed orange under the lights and her rear looked a lot larger than she’d thought it was. She thanked her lucky stars that this was an outtake and some kind soul had cut it from the montage. And then she reminded herself that she had to work harder to lose those extra ten pounds.

  There was a shot of the newscasters arriving and taking their places behind the news desk. Dee-Dee Hughes was arguing with Rayne Phillips about something, Hannah could see that by their expressions, but there was no sound on that portion of the tape. Rudy had caught another shot of her, placing a slice of her cake on a dessert plate. She didn’t look fat, and Hannah gave a grateful sigh. Perhaps it had merely been the angle on Rudy’s first shot and she didn’t have to lose weight, after all.

  There was a shot of several people in makeup chairs and Hannah watched for Tracey. When she spotted her niece, looking adorable in a makeup cape that covered her all the way down to the tips of her shoes, she bracketed the segment by time codes for Andrea. As she wrote down the numbers, she sighed with relief. Only an hour to go.

  “Hannah?”

  Hannah turned toward the door at the sound of her name and saw P.K. standing there. “Yes?”

  “If you’re okay here, I thought I’d run out to the Quick Stop and pick up some snacks.”

  “I’m fine,” Hannah assured him. “I found some shots of my niece.”

  “Just give me the time codes before you go and I’ll dupe a tape for your sister. How about you? Do you want anything?”

  “Just the tape for Andrea.”

  “Not that. I mean from the Quick Stop.”

  “Oh. Sure.” Hannah started to smile, but then she remember her diet. She rummaged in her purse, pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to him. “I’d like a large Diet Coke and as many chocolate candy bars as you can get for this.”

  “Chocolate candy bars and Diet Coke?” P.K. asked, sounding amused.

  “I need the endorphins from the chocolate,” Hannah explained, with what she thought made perfect sense, “but there’s no sense in adding empty calories.”

  P.K. quirked his eyebrows, but he didn’t comment on that reasoning. He just waved and ducked out the door.

  After he’d left, the huge truck seemed much less friendly. Hannah settled back down to watch the tape, but she felt uneasy. An icy wind had kicked up, and the metal walls of the truck creaked and groaned with each gust. She wasn’t the type to be frightened at nothing, but Hannah couldn’t help thinking about what would happen if the killer had found out that she was searching Rudy’s outtakes for the sight of his cuff links. Perhaps he’d murdered Coach Watson in the heat of anger, but Lucy’s execution had been cold-blooded and calculated. If the killer thought that Hannah was closing in on him, he could be waiting for an opportunity to get her alone and then…

  It took some real effort on Hannah’s part to calm her nerves. She told herself that the killer couldn’t possibly know what she was attempting to do. Only six people knew she was viewing the outtakes. There was Mason Kimball, who thought she was watching them to spot anyone Boyd had talked to in the audience. He knew nothing about her real reason, and since he didn’t know, he couldn’t tell anyone. Then there was Rudy, who thought she was just curious about how much footage had gone into making up the montage, and P.K., who’d assumed that they were looking for shots of Tracey. Andrea and Bill knew, but they’d gone home, and neither one of them would mention it anyway. Then there was Mike, and Hannah knew she was safe on that score. No one could pry any information from Mike.

  Hannah sat back
and picked up the remote control. She was safe. There was no reason to worry. If she was a little jumpy, she could attribute that to the caffeine in P.K.’s extra-strong coffee and her overactive imagination. She pressed the play button and sighed as she noticed the time code on the screen. An hour to go, and it couldn’t be over soon enough to suit her.

  She suffered through a close-up of her at the judging table and groaned. She could almost see her hair frizz under the lights. There were close-ups of the other judges, too, and that made her feel a bit better. None of them were movie star material. Then Boyd came into the frame, and Hannah leaned forward to scrutinize his face. He looked excited at being chosen as a judge, but he certainly wasn’t nervous, and there wasn’t any sign of fear on his face. Boyd conferred with her for a moment, Rudy had caught their off-camera dialogue on his roving cam, and Hannah could hear her own voice faintly in the background as she told Boyd how to rate the four desserts and enter his scores on the score sheets.

  Boyd looked vital and healthy, a man in the prime of his life. Even though she fought against it, Hannah felt a slight pang of sadness. Boyd had been a brute to Danielle, and nothing would change that, but he’d died horribly, and the person who’d taken his life deserved to be caught and punished.

  Rudy’s camera shifted to shots of the contestants, who were putting the final touches on their desserts. Hannah grinned as she noticed how the contestant who’d baked the winning lemon tart looked back and forth from the judging table to the samples of dessert she’d prepared. She straightened a slice on the plate, wiped the edge with a clean dish towel, then stood back and drew a deep breath. Hannah could see how nervous she was. There was no way, at this point, that she could know she’d end up winning and advancing to the finals.

  The next shot made Hannah laugh out loud. It was a rear shot of Mr. Hart, as he bent over to pick up a note card he’d dropped. It wasn’t at all flattering, and she heard Rudy’s voice saying, “Don’t use this shot. We’ll all get fired.” Then the stage manager motioned the contestants forward, and Rudy taped them delivering their entries to the judging table.

  A montage had run during the judging. Hannah half expected Rudy to have trained his camera on the giant screen that the audience had watched. It would have been a bit like Pyramus and Thisbe, Shakespeare’s play-within-a-play in Midsummer Night’s Dream, but Rudy had avoided that particular self-indulgence and panned the audience instead. Hannah could hear the music from the montage faintly in the background as a shot of Mr. Avery appeared. He looked extremely nervous, on the edge of panic, and Hannah knew why. He’d tried to bribe Jeremy Rutlege the day he’d arrived, and Lucy had caught him in the act.

  There was a shot of Maryann sitting next to Boyd’s empty seat. She was smiling at Boyd instead of watching the montage, and she looked very proud that her baby brother had been chosen to be one of the judges. The audience was quiet, most everyone was gazing up at the giant screen.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a loud crash. Hannah leaned forward to stare at the monitor, but Rudy’s tape was still running, and nothing seemed to be wrong. Then there was a second crash and Hannah hit the pause button. The noise hadn’t come from the sound track. There was someone outside in the parking lot.

  Heart pounding fast, Hannah jumped up from her chair. Someone was trying to get into the production truck, and she had to find some kind of weapon. She grabbed the first thing she saw, a folded light stand that was heavy enough to serve as a club, and raced down the hallway toward the door.

  The door was locked, but it didn’t look very secure. Hannah was about to copy a technique from a movie she’d seen and grab a desk chair to shove up under the knob. Then she realized that the door opened out. A chair would do no good.

  Hannah swallowed hard, attempting to push down the tide of panic. Her ears were on full alert, listening for the sound of footsteps on the metal stairs. The only sound was the wind and the creaking of the truck as the icy gusts hit the sides.

  There was no way that Hannah could move. Her legs were shaking too hard. The killer could be standing on the other side of the door, preparing to break it down. When nothing happened for several minutes, she crept quietly to a position near the door, where she could watch the knob. If the killer broke in, she wasn’t going down without a fight. She stood there trembling, her adrenaline racing and her makeshift club at the ready, praying that it was only the wind, rattling the lids on the Dumpsters, and knowing in her heart that it wasn’t.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Hannah knew she couldn’t stand there forever, waiting for something to happen. Why had she told P.K. that she’d be all right alone? She should have said she’d ride with him. They could have locked up the production truck for a couple of minutes and right now she’d be standing at the counter of the Quick Stop, paying for her own Diet Coke and chocolate candy bars. Instead, she was all alone, about to face the killer who’d bludgeoned Boyd Watson to death and shot Lucy in the back of the head.

  Hannah’s mind whirled, going into overdrive. She had to call for help. But the phone was on the desk right in front of the window and the slats on the Venetian blinds were open slightly. If she used that phone, the killer could see her she’d be a perfect target for one quick shot through the window.

  The moment she thought of it, Hannah ht the light switch next to the door and doused the lights. Being in the dark would be to her advantage. Then she crept to the desk and lifted the receiver, preparing to punch out 9-1-1. But there was no dial tone. The gusts of wind must have snapped the temporary telephone lines they’d run to the production truck.

  Then another, even more frightening thought occurred to Hannah and her fingers shook as she replaced the receiver in the cradle. The phone lines ran on the outside of the truck. The killer could have cut them.

  Heart beating in panic mode. Hannah moved to the window and peeked out through the slats of the blinds. Nothing was moving except gusts of snow that kicked up with each blast of wind. They rattled up against the metal walls of the truck like snare drums. They reminded Hannah of the muted snare drums in the The Private Life of Henry VIII, right before the blade had severed Anne Boleyn’s head.

  That kind of thinking made Hannah shudder, and she pushed the visual image from her mind. It was snow, only icy snow that rattled against the walls, and the gusty winds gave her another advantage. It was windchill. The actual temperature was in the low teens, but wind robbed heat from a person’s body. If you added in the windchill factor, the loss of heat would be comparable to a reading of twenty below. The killer would be wearing fur-lined gloves to keep his fingers from freezing, and that meant he’d have to pull off his gloves before he fires his first shot. Perhaps it would only give her an extra second or two, but it was something.

  Hannah gazed out at the parking lot, her eyes alert for any movement. The longer the killer stayed out there, the colder he’d get. She didn’t hear any car engines running in the silence between the gusts of wind. At least he wasn’t sitting inside his car with the heater going full-blast to thaw out his trigger finger.

  There was a light in the parking lot, an overhead fixture that gave everything a strange pinkinsh orange glow. The banks of snow looked as if they were made from the mango slush machine at the Quick Stop. She could still see an indentation on the surface of the snow-covered asphalt where P.K.’s car had been parked only minutes ago, but the winds were filling it in fast. Her Suburban sat right next to it, looking more orange than candy-apple red.

  Hannah thought of the crowbar in the back, right next to the spare tire. It would be a better weapon than the aluminum light stand, but she wasn’t about to venture out to get it. She was safer here by a long shot.

  She winced at the phrase, “a long shot”. Would the killer just start shooting up the production truck, trying to kill her from a distance? Should she duck for cover under one of the metal desks, hoping the thin panels would protect her? But the killer wouldn’t dare fire too many shots. There were neighbors
across from the school. One of them would hear and call the sheriff’s station to report the gunfire. He would have to make his first shot count and that meant he’d have to come inside.

  As Hannah stared out between the slats her eyes aching from the strain of not blinking, she had a sudden thought. Where was the killer’s ca? It had to be parked on the other side of the truck. If she could see it, she could write down his license plate number. She could leave it for Mike and Bill just in case…

  Hannah stopped herself in mid-thought. She wasn’t going to consider the worst-case scenario; it would only slow her down. She felt her way to the other side of the truck, gripping her light stand, for what it was worth. Then she wiggled behind the cabinet that held the fax machine and the copier, and crept up to the window.

  There was nothing there. Absolutely nothing. The parking lot was completely deserted. But the killer had to have driven here, unless…

  Hannah’s eyes moved to the street on the other side of the school, the block where Danielle lived. Several cars were parked there, but it was too far away to see their license plates. They were just snow-covered lumps under the streetlight. The killer could have parked there. There were no lights in any of the houses. All of Danielle’s neighbors had turned in for the night. With the gusty winds outside, none of them would have heard a car pulling up and parking.

  He could also be parked in front of the auditorium, in the lot that was reserved for the audience. There was no night watchman at the school. The students at Jordan High were a pretty good bunch and loved their school. It had never been vandalized, and there was no need for nighttime security.

  Hannah jumped as she heard another crash, coming from the side of the truck she’d just left. She ran back to that window and looked out in time to see a large shape disappearing around the far side of her Suburban. A dog? No, the shape had been too big for a dog. A man in a bulky coat, crouched and running, afraid that someone might spot him? That was much more likely.