Fudge Cupcake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “It must have been awful.”

  “It was. It took a whole year of counseling before I learned to cope. But I did learn to cope. Jim never did. That’s one of the reasons I spoke with Howie Levine on the Saturday before Jim died. I went in to ask his advice about a divorce.”

  Andrea’s mouth dropped open and Hannah had to work to keep hers closed. She hadn’t heard a word about the Grants breaking up.

  “No one knows except you two. My meeting with Howie was confidential, but someone will find out about it, sooner or later. And since I don’t have an alibi, that’ll make me the number one suspect in my husband’s murder.”

  Hannah’s ears perked up. “You don’t have an alibi?”

  “No. I was working alone in the sewing room, finishing an appliqué wall hanging for a client.”

  “Where’s your sewing room?” Hannah asked, intending to check out the location of windows. It was always possible that one of Nettie’s neighbors had spotted her working on the night the sheriff had been killed.

  Andrea and Hannah followed Nettie up the stairs and down the hallway. She stopped at the second door to open it and ushered them in. “This is my sewing room. It’s where I was working the night Jim was killed.”

  Hannah looked around the small, crowded sewing room in surprise. She’d thought that Nettie’s workroom would be much more spacious. For years, she had been quite well-known, locally, for making appliqué wall hangings to order. Her work had been featured in several craft magazines and she always won a blue ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair. Just last year, a big name decorator had ordered several of Nettie’s wall hangings to use in a celebrity’s home. There had been a tour of the home on national television with an interview with the celebrity in front of a large wall hanging Nettie had designed. Since then, Nettie had been deluged with orders from people who were willing to pay large amounts of money to have an original Nettie Grant hanging on their wall.

  “I love it, Nettie!” Andrea crowed, having somehow made her way between the sewing machine and the cutting table strewn with bolts of cloth to stand in front of the wall hanging Nettie had just completed. “The cows look so real, I almost expect them to moo. Who gets it?”

  “The Minnesota Dairy Council commissioned it for their headquarters.”

  Hannah turned to look at the wall hanging, but she didn’t try to get any closer. The room was so small she couldn’t have managed it without knocking Andrea off her feet. “I like it a lot, Nettie. The cows look like they’re all enjoying some huge joke at our expense.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted, but I doubt that anyone else will catch it.” Nettie turned to smile at Hannah. “Their big concern was that I have every breed of cow in Minnesota represented.”

  Hannah sidled past the ironing board, steadying the iron as she went, and made her way to the single window. The drapes were heavy and no one passing outside could have seen any shadows from within. “Did you have the drapes open that night?”

  “Yes. I see what you’re driving at, Hannah, but it won’t do any good. The Maschlers live on that side and they were gone.”

  “You asked them?”

  “Mike did. He called right after I brought him up here to show him what I was doing when Jim was killed. Jerry dropped Kate off at the school and then he went bowling with a couple of friends. And Richie was out with his friends.”

  “So you didn’t see or hear anything from next door?”

  “I heard the television. They must have left it on as a burglar deterrent and I wish they’d switched it to another channel. It was some kind of kung fu movie and the yelling and grunting almost drove me crazy.”

  Andrea looked surprised. “It was really inconsiderate of Kate to leave the television on so loud.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t that loud. I wouldn’t have heard it at all if I’d had the window closed. But I had to open it because I was cutting material. If I don’t, the fibers and dust make me sneeze. This is a really small room and it’s impossible to keep it dust free.”

  “It certainly is tiny,” Hannah commented, glancing around her again.

  “It’s the smallest bedroom. When Jamie died, I thought I’d move my things to his room. It’s a lot larger. But Jim didn’t want me to touch anything in there. He was so insistent about it, I didn’t.”

  “You mean…everything is still just the way it was when Jamie was alive?”

  “That’s right. I tried to talk him into giving some of Jamie’s things to charity, but he just couldn’t bear to get rid of anything, not even the clothes in the closet.”

  Hannah looked over at her sister. Andrea looked a little sick and that was understandable. Leaving a dead boy’s room intact for three years was a peculiarity that had crossed over the line into obsession.

  “He wouldn’t even let me clean in there,” Nettie went on. “He said he’d take care of it. And he kept it locked so that I couldn’t go in there when he wasn’t home.”

  “Did he go in there sometimes?” Andrea pulled herself together enough to ask.

  “Almost every night. He used it as a sort of home office. He said it made him feel close to Jamie to be surrounded by his things.”

  Hannah was thoughtful as she followed Nettie and Andrea back down the stairs. When you saw a person almost every day and you lived in the same small town, you thought you knew them. But it turned out that Hannah hadn’t really known much about Sheriff Grant at all.

  A few minutes later, the three women were back in the living room, eating slices of Rose MacDermott’s famous coconut cake. Hannah had cut the slices double the size that Rose served at the café, working under the theory that larger was better.

  “Did Rose give you the recipe for the Lake Eden cookbook?” Nettie asked, finishing her last forkful.

  “Not yet,” Hannah answered with a grin. “She keeps promising, but I don’t think she’s quite ready to give it up.”

  Andrea looked thoughtful. “Maybe she’s afraid that if people know how to make it, it’ll hurt her sales at the café.”

  “That wouldn’t happen.” Nettie seemed convinced. “Most people don’t have time to bake. I never did. Now I almost wish I had. What Jim really wanted was a movie wife.”

  “A what?” Andrea asked.

  “A movie wife. You know the type. She’s a great mother, she cooks like a dream, she wears makeup and dresses up even when she’s cleaning out the cupboards, and she always puts her husband first. I tried to be the wife Jim wanted, and I think I succeeded when Jamie was alive. But after our son died, it started to feel more and more like a farce.” Several tears rolled down Nettie’s cheeks and she brushed them away with the side of her hand. “So when are you going to start grilling me?”

  Andrea gulped. “Grilling you?”

  “You and Hannah are investigating my husband’s murder, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “You girls will have to put me down as a suspect. You won’t be doing a good job if you don’t. I’m strong enough to have hit Jim over the head and dragged him to that dumpster. And Kate Maschler, bless her nosy little soul, saw me arguing with Jim on the day he was killed.”

  “What about?” the question was out of Hannah’s mouth before she could rephrase it politely.

  “I really don’t want to go into that, Hannah. It’s personal and it can’t possibly have any bearing on Jim’s murder.”

  “Okay,” Hannah said. She recognized a stubborn look when she saw it and she knew Nettie wouldn’t say another word about the argument she’d had with her husband.

  “Unless you girls can come up with a more likely candidate, I’m the prime suspect.”

  Andrea shot Hannah a look of pure desperation, and Hannah knew that the response would be up to her. She’d heard Delores say that Nettie could be candid, but she hadn’t expected her to be quite that outspoken. “You’re a suspect, but we don’t think you did it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why follow your husband to the school and
take the chance that someone might see you kill him? A wife can find a more secluded place.”

  Nettie thought about that for a moment. “I can see your reasoning on that. But if I didn’t kill him, who did?”

  “That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Andrea chimed in. “Did Sheriff Grant have any enemies?”

  Nettie just stared at her for a moment and then she started to laugh, an incongruous reaction from a woman whose cheeks were wet with tears. She laughed until tears of mirth mingled with her tears of grief and then she stopped with a quivering sigh. “Yes,” she said. “And we’ll be here all night if I name all of them.”

  Chapter

  Nine

  H

  annah was in the middle of serving coffee and cookies to the St. Jude Society the following day, when Andrea came rushing into the basement of St. Peter’s Catholic Church, almost mowing down Father Coultas in the process. She arrived at Hannah’s side breathless, but there was a huge smile on her face. After a few gasps of air and a gulp of the water that Hannah handed her, Andrea was calm enough to speak. “Gus York found some notes he took on that timesharing call. He scribbled them on the back of his gas bill. The name of the company is ‘Fun in the Sun’ and they’re based out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.”

  “And you checked with them to see if they called your house?” Hannah asked, pouring a cup of coffee and handing it to Bridget Murphy.

  “Yes,” Andrea answered, moving behind the catering table to pour tea for Immelda Giese, the housekeeper who had been with Father Coultas since the day he’d arrived in Lake Eden. “These cookies look great. What are they?”

  “Hannah’s Bananas,” Immelda told her. “Hannah made them just for me. Have one, dear. Bananas have potassium and they’re good for you, especially when you’re p.g.”

  Andrea looked confused and Hannah nudged her. “Pregnant.”

  “Oh. Right.” Andrea reached out and took a cookie. “And Hannah made these just for you?”

  “That’s right, dear. Father just loves my banana bread. I usually bake it for him every week, but we’re waiting for a new oven in the parish house. When Hannah said she’d make banana cookies, we were thrilled.”

  Andrea bit into the cookie and started to smile. “These are wonderful, Hannah.”

  “They’re almost as good as Immelda’s banana bread,” Hannah said diplomatically, and she noticed that the housekeeper looked pleased as she left the line to find a seat.

  The next few minutes were taken up with serving coffee and cookies, but soon the members of the St. Jude Society were content and Hannah and Andrea could talk.

  “So what did the people at Fun in the Sun tell you about calling Bill?” Hannah asked.

  “They’re going to get back to me. The supervisor had to request the records and that might take overnight, but she should have them by tomorrow afternoon at the latest. She promised to call me on my cell phone the minute they came in.”

  “Good work,” Hannah said, smiling at her sister. If anyone else had told Hannah that a telephone solicitor would call with information, she wouldn’t have believed it. But Andrea had a way of making people do whatever she wanted them to do. It wasn’t simple manipulation, because everyone felt good about helping Andrea in the process.

  “These cookies are really good, Hannah.” Andrea helped herself to a second cookie from the tray that Hannah had placed on the long table. “Are you baking them for Halloween?”

  “No, I want to come up with something a little more festive.”

  “You did chocolate cookies with orange icing last year, didn’t you?”

  Hannah nodded. “I’ll do them again this year if I can’t come up with anything else.”

  “Speaking of Halloween,” Andrea paused to grab another cookie, “Tracey wants to know if you’re going to the Haunted Basement and the Halloween party at the community center.”

  “Of course I’m going. I go every year.”

  “Good. Tracey’s all excited about her costume and she wanted to make sure you’ll see it.”

  “What is she going to be this year?” Hannah asked, knowing that her five-year-old niece would be cute in whatever costume she chose to wear.

  “She’s still wavering between a fairy princess and a pirate.”

  Hannah laughed. “What a difference! I’ll bet she chooses the fairy princess.”

  “Maybe, but she loves the parrot that goes with the pirate’s costume. It sits on your shoulder and there’s a little switch you can press to make it talk. All the fairy princess has is a wand and it doesn’t even light up or anything.”

  “The talking parrot is definitely a selling point,” Hannah said gravely, filling the coffee carafe she used to make the rounds of the tables.

  “You go first with the coffee. I’ll follow you with the hot water and tea bags. Then we can split up and pass the cookies.”

  “Thanks, Andrea.” Hannah was grateful. Catering was always easier with two people. “What does the parrot say?”

  “You know… Shiver my timbers! and, Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum! Piratey things like that. I think there’s one about dead men on a chest or something like that.”

  “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest.”

  “That’s right. And then it’s, A drink for the devil and none for the rest!”

  “What was that about giving the devil a drink?” Father Coultas asked, coming up to the catering table just in time to hear Andrea’s last comment.

  Andrea blushed slightly. “Sorry, Father Coultas. I was just telling Hannah about the talking parrot that comes with Tracey’s pirate costume.”

  “I’ve met that parrot,” Father Coultas said. “Immelda’s grandson rented that costume last year and the bird got stuck on ho. It just said ho, ho, ho over and over like some kind of deranged Santa Claus. It was driving poor Immelda crazy until I took the batteries out.”

  When Hannah stepped into her kitchen with the cookies left over from her catering job, Lisa came barreling through the swinging door. “Thank goodness you’re back, Hannah!”

  “What’s wrong?” Hannah asked, noticing the high spots of color in Lisa’s cheeks.

  “Nothing’s wrong. I just overheard something you should know, that’s all. Hold on a second. Herb’s here and I’ll ask him to mind the counter.”

  Hannah poured herself a cup of coffee from the kitchen pot and sat down at the workstation. A moment later, Lisa rushed back in and sat down on an adjoining stool.

  “You said you overheard something?” Hannah prompted.

  “That’s right. I kept my ears open, just the way you asked me to do, and I found out that Sheriff Grant and his wife had a big argument when he came home for lunch on Monday.”

  Hannah’s eyes widened. This could be the fight that Nettie had refused to discuss. “Andrea and I saw Nettie last night. She told us she’d fought with Sheriff Grant, but she wouldn’t say what the fight was about. Who told you, Lisa?”

  “Kate Maschler, but she didn’t exactly tell me. She told Becky Summers.”

  “You were doing the invisible waitress trick?”

  “That’s right. I was at the table next to theirs refilling coffee cups and they didn’t even notice me. Kate told Becky that Nettie Grant followed the sheriff out to his car and she looked madder than Kate had ever seen her before. Kate opened her window in time to hear Nettie say that she was going to rent to them and she had a perfect right to do it since she’d inherited the duplex before they were married.”

  “Sounds serious,” Hannah commented. “What did Sheriff Grant say to that?”

  “He said he was sick of hearing about it and Nettie should drop it, that there was no way he’d have them under his roof.”

  “Who’s them?”

  “I don’t know. That’s when Kate and Becky pushed back their chairs and left. Do you think it’s important, Hannah?”

  “It could be,” Hannah said, thinking about it. If Nettie had promised to rent half of the duplex to someone and S
heriff Grant went to tell the people they couldn’t move in, it might have resulted in a fight that escalated to murder.

  “I think you should run next door, Hannah. When they were leaving, I heard Becky say she had to find the right dress to wear to her nephew’s wedding. They probably went straight to Claire’s shop.”

  Hannah headed for the door. Visiting Mother and Carrie’s shop was one thing, but she didn’t need any urging to visit her neighbor on the other side. Claire Rodgers was a good friend and she wanted an update on Claire’s romance with Reverend Knudson, the Lutheran minister.

  A chill wind was blowing as Hannah dashed across her parking lot and knocked at the rear door of Beau Monde Fashions. She heard the far-off sound of geese honking as they migrated south for the winter and she glanced up at the battleship-gray sky. A ragged vee was just disappearing over the tops of the pines that lined both sides of Third Street. The songbirds had already left and now the geese were bailing for the winter. Soon only the winter birds would be left, bright blue Jays, vivid red Cardinals, and glowing green and yellow Nuthatches sitting high in the pines like jewels amidst the branches.

  “Hannah?” Claire looked both pleased and surprised as she opened her back door. “Come in. It’s cold out there.”

  “I know. Do you have customers?”

  “Not a soul. It’s been a slow afternoon.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Hannah commiserated. The financial life of a small business owner was often touch and go.

  “Oh, it’s all right. The morning was very good and Becky Summers was just in. She bought three dresses.”

  “How’s Reverend Knudson?”

  “He’s just fine, Hannah.” Claire’s smile was positively beatific. “He’s also very persuasive. He’s going to announce our engagement the Sunday before Christmas.”

  “You said yes!” Hannah grinned at her friend. With one failed romance behind her, Claire had finally found a man she could love and trust.

  “You’ll be there for the announcement, won’t you, Hannah?”