Blueberry Muffin Murder hsm-3

by Joanne Fluke

  Hannah parked as close to the warm-up tent as she could and got out to open the back of her truck. She stacked up as many boxes as she thought she could carry in one trip, picked them up with both arms, and headed for the entrance to the tent.

  "Steady, Hannah." A familiar voice greeted her and strong arms reached out to take the top three boxes. "You were getting a little wobbly there."

  Hannah smiled the moment the boxes were removed and she could see who her rescuer was. "Hi, Norman. How are you feeling?"

  "Fine. My headache is gone and Doc Knight took off that bulky bandage. He says the stitches are already starting to heal."

  "That's good. Did he say it was all right to judge the contest?"

  Norman shook his head, and Hannah noticed that he winced slightly. No doubt his head was still sore. "I'm not judging. I came out here to take a couple of pictures for the school photography club."

  "Doesn't the photography club take its own pictures?"

  "Yes, but they asked me to come as backup. They want a shot of Mr. Purvis getting pelted for the yearbook."

  "I guess things haven't changed that much." Hannah was grinning as they walked inside the warm-up tent with their sugary burden. "When I went to high school, we were al: ways trying to get embarrassing pictures of our principal. You'd better not get too close to the action or you'll get a face full of snow."

  "I know. That's why I'm using a telephoto lens," Norman explained, handing his boxes to one of Mrs. Baxter's students and following Hannah out to get more cookies.

  After they'd carried in the last of the boxes that Mrs. Baxter had ordered, Hannah asked Norman to walk her back to her truck. When they arrived, she opened the passenger door. "Get in for a minute, Norman. I need to talk to you."

  "Okay." Norman slid into the passenger seat and Hannah walked around to get in on the driver's side. Once she was settled, Norman turned to her. "What is it, Hannah?"

  "I did something this morning that you might not like, but I had your best interests in mind," Hannah told him, and then she gave him the details of the story she'd planted with Larry Kruger.

  "I wish you hadn't done that," Norman said when she was finished. "I rather fancied myself as bait. Is there any way you can retract that story?"

  Hannah shook her head. "No way. I'm sorry if you don't like it, Norman, but I have enough to do without worrying about you."

  "You were worried about me?"

  "Of course I was. I was scared stiff that you'd go out and do something really stupid!"

  The moment the words left Hannah's mouth, she wished that she could call them back. She'd completely forgotten about tact and what Lisa had advised her to say. She expected Norman to climb out of her truck and refuse to speak to her ever again, but all he did was grin.

  "You're not mad?" Hannah asked him.

  "I wish you'd asked me first, but I'm not mad. Actually, I'm quite the opposite." With that comment, Norman pulled her into his arms and hugged her hard. And then he tipped up her head and kissed her. For a moment, Hannah was so startled, she almost resisted. Then nature took over and she found herself enjoying Norman's kiss thoroughly. Her instinct was to throw her arms around his neck and keep him right there in the front seat of her truck for a long, indefinite period, but before she could act on her impulse, Norman pulled back to smile at her.

  "See? I'm not mad," he said, reaching out to tweak her nose. Then he opened the door and climbed out of her truck. "See you later, Hannah. I need to get some shots of Mr. Purvis inspecting those snowballs."

  As Hannah drove off, she was smiling. She felt comforted, and warm, and more at peace than she'd been in days. But then her thoughts turned to Mike and she began to frown. She'd enjoyed Mike's kisses in the past, and she'd also enjoyed Norman's kiss. There was one big difference between the two. Mike's kisses made her feel sexy, on the verge of something slightly dangerous and very exciting. And Norman's kisses made her feel sexy, and natural, and good all over.

  Hannah sighed. It was impossible to compare Mike and Norman. Mike was the man of her dreams, and Norman was the man of her wide-awake hours. And every time she tried to choose one over the other, she ended up wanting both of them.

  Lake Eden Park was a hubbub of activity when Hannah arrived. Several shuttle sleighs were just arriving, and Hannah loaded herself up with boxes and carried them carefully through the crowd.

  "The cookies are here!" one of Mrs. Baxter's girls called out as Hannah entered the warm-up tent. She rushed over to take the boxes and motioned to two other girls. "Come on. Let's go help Miss Swensen unload."

  With four of them working, the unloading didn't take long. On the trips back and forth to her truck, Hannah learned that the girls had opened their concession thirty minutes early, they had already gone through three urns of coffee and one of hot chocolate, and every one of their customers had asked when the cookies would arrive.

  "Here you go, Miss Swensen." One of the girls handed Hannah a hot cup of coffee without asking. "Thanks for the cookies."

  Hannah left the tent intending to go straight back to her truck, but she changed her mind halfway there. It wouldn't hurt to check out the site to see which area they'd be using.

  The family snowman contest would take place in the center of the park. As Hannah walked closer, she saw that the individual squares had been marked with brightly colored rope tied to ski poles. Each area was tagged and Hannah found theirs, number fifteen. It had a good-sized drift of snow in the center, and Hannah figured they'd have more than enough to make a man-sized snowman.

  As she turned to leave, her eyes were drawn to a tall, familiar figure in a maroon sheriff's-issue parka. It was Mike, and he was talking to a woman she didn't know, a gorgeous platinum blond in a bright-red ski outfit. Under normal circumstances, Hannah would have walked over to say hello, but these weren't normal circumstances. She was just turning to go in the opposite direction when Mike spotted her.

  "Hi, Hannah!" A huge grin spread over Mike's face and he waved his arms.

  Hannah grinned back. She didn't want to, but she couldn't help it. There was something about Mike's grin that was contagious.

  "Come over here for a minute," he called out, motioning to her. "I've got someone I want you to meet."

  "Of all the people in all this snow, I have to run into him!" Hannah muttered, borrowing heavily from Casablanca. If Mike meant the blond, and she was sure he did, Hannah didn't want to meet her. On the other hand, they knew she'd seen them, and to ignore them would be rude.

  "'Hannah Swensen, this is Kristi Hampton," Mike said. "Kristi was Mrs. MacIntyre's personal beautician."

  "Glad to meet you," Hannah said without meaning it.

  "Likewise," Kristi responded, but she didn't give Hannah more than a fleeting glance before she turned back to Mike.

  "Is it too late to enter the contest? I don't have family here, but I could recruit you."

  "Sorry, I'm working." Mike looked a bit embarrassed, and Hannah could see why. Kristi had her hand on his sleeve and was stroking it like the owner of a prized stallion.

  "So, Hannah," Mike said, turning to her, "why are you here?"

  Hannah smiled. It didn't hurt to be friendly, and Kristi had worked for Connie Mac. Perhaps she could learn something. "I just delivered cookies to the warm-up tent. I've got extras in my truck if you and Kristi haven't had breakfast."

  "Thanks, but I never eat breakfast," Kristi said with a sultry gaze at Mike, "unless I've been up all night. And I already had my breakfast. Besides, I have to watch my carbs."

  "I don't, and I could use a cookie," Mike said.

  "Well, that's different." Kristi patted Mike's arm. "You men have to keep up your strength."

  Mike smiled and removed her hand from his sleeve. "Excuse me, Kristi. I'm going to walk Hannah to her truck. I have to talk to her about something private."

  Hannah's eyebrows shot up as Mike grabbed her arm and they set off at a fast pace across the snow. She had all she could do to resist the u
rge to turn back and thumb her nose.

  "I've got two pieces of news for you, Hannah." Mike's grip tightened on her arm. "Is Miss Burkholtz still staying with you?"

  "Yes, she is. Is that against the law?"

  "Of course not. It was nice of you to take her in. I just wanted to tell you that Bill and I worked late last night doing interviews with Mrs. MacIntyre's staff. I drew Kristi, and she was very cooperative."

  I'll just bet she was, Hannah thought, but she didn't say it. She just waited for Mike to go on.

  "I wanted you to know that Miss Burkholtz is in the clear."

  Hannah almost forgave him for the sultry look that Kristi had given him. "That's great! Just wait until I tell her."

  "One of the maids that Bill interviewed said she saw Miss Burkholtz leaving the hotel at ten minutes to twelve on the night that Mrs. MacIntyre was murdered. And Kristi told me that she saw her pull into the parking lot at the inn at ten."

  "And since my shop is twenty-five minutes from the inn, Janie has an alibi?"

  "That's right. Kristi was just leaving the parking lot, and Miss Burkholtz took the spot she vacated. I checked it out."

  "How did you do that?" Hannah was curious.

  "I took Kristi out to the bar at the mall last night, and a couple of the guys remembered that she walked in at ten-twenty. I'm not surprised they noticed her. Kristi's a very attractive woman."

  Hannah bit her tongue so she wouldn't ask how long Mike's interview with Kristi had lasted and exactly where they'd gone after they'd left the bar. She told herself she should be grateful to Kristi for providing Janie's alibi, but that did nothing to reduce the sharp stab of jealousy she felt.

  "You said you had two pieces of news for me. What's the second?"

  "I cleared Norman Rhodes."

  "How did you do that?'

  "It was that attack he suffered last night. At first I thought it might be faked, but there's no way he could have bashed himself on the back of the head. I think the murderer hit Norman and only Luanne Hanks's arrival kept him from being killed. What I don't know is why Mrs. MacIntyre's murderer was after Norman."

  "I do," Hannah said, unlocking the passenger door to her truck. "Climb in and have a cookie, and I'll tell you."

  Mike went through four cookies in the time it told her to tell her story, and Hannah figured that it was a good investment. When she was finished, she leaned back in her seat with a sigh. "What do you think? Does it make sense?"

  "It makes perfect sense. Good for you for figuring it out. Just between you and me, Hannah, I'm really glad that Norman's off my suspect list."

  "Why?"

  "Because suspecting Norman made me really uncomfortable. My gut instincts told me that he was innocent, but what if I'd been wrong? I had to warn you, Hannah."

  "I understand."

  "There's another thing, too. I was afraid you'd think I was jealous of your relationship with Norman, and that was the reason I put him on my suspect list."

  "Really? I didn't even think of that!"

  "You didn't?"

  "It never crossed my mind," Hannah told him quite truthfully. It had crossed Andrea's mind, not hers. "You aren't, are you? Jealous, I mean?"

  "No. To tell you the truth, I'm relieved. I'm just not ready to settle down yet, and I'd feel guilty if you just sat around like a lovesick teenager and waited for me to call."

  Hannah bristled. "I don't think you have to worry about that."

  "I know. I figure the time will come when I want that kind of commitment again, but not right now. If I did want to get remarried, though. . ." Mike reached across the seat and pulled Hannah into his arms. He kissed her until both of them were breathless, and then he chuckled. "When I get to that point, you'll be the first to know."

  Hannah sighed, still a little dazed from Mike's kiss. She had the urge to cuddle back up to him, but he'd been the one to break their embrace.

  "I'll tell you one thing. Norman really impressed me."

  "He did?"

  "Absolutely. He left a message on my voice mail and I just retrieved it a couple of minutes ago. Do you know that he offered himself for bait so that we could set a trap for the killer?"

  Hannah winced, wondering if she had messed up some sort of sting operation by planting the ghost story with Larry Kruger. "Are you going to take him up on it?"

  "Of course not. We can't involve a civilian in something that dangerous. I called him right back to tell him that, but he wasn't home. I think we'll arrange a tail for him, though. He could be in real danger."

  "I already took care of that," Hannah said. And then she told Mike what she'd done. "I was worried about him and I thought he might try to do something on his own."

  Mike stopped in the act of taking another cookie and gave her a sharp look. "You were worried about Norman?"

  "Of course I was. Norman's one of my very best friends." Mike stared at her for a moment. "Yeah, he's a nice guy.

  Well. . . I've got to get back to work. Thanks for the cookies, Hannah."

  Hannah waved at him as she pulled out of the parking lot and headed back to her condo to pick up Janie. As she zipped down the highway, she reached up to touch her lips with the tip of her finger. The thrill of Mike's kisses always lingered, and they made her hunger for more. But Norman's kiss had lingered, too. What kind of woman could be in love with two men? Or did it mean that she wasn't really in love with either of them?

  -21- Hannah heard a door close as she climbed up the steps from the garage. The sound seemed to come from Mrs. Canfield's unit, and she bent down quickly to form a snowball and dropped it into the pocket of her parka. A moment later, Greg Canfield came around the corner of the building.

  "Hi, Hannah. You're home from work early. Do you want to get a cup of coffee or something?"

  "I'd love to, but I can't. I have to be back at the park in less than an hour. How's your day-trading going?"

  "Just fine." Greg gave her a big grin. "Did you hear the latest news about Ezekiel's ghost?"

  "I don't know. What's the latest?"

  "KCOW radio says it attacked Dr. Rhodes last night because he tried to take its picture. They said that when Dr. Rhodes developed his film, it was blank, because you can't take a picture of a spirit. I figure that's about as believable as Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, Babe. How do they dream up stories like that?"

  Hannah laughed. "I gave them that story. Thanks for telling me, Greg. I'm glad it's out there already."

  Greg looked shocked. "Don't tell me that you actually believe in ghosts!"

  "Of course I don't."

  "Then why did you tell a whopper like that?"

  Hannah hesitated, but Greg was an old friend. She'd known him for years and she could trust him. "I'll let you in on it, but you need to keep it under your hat."

  "My lips are sealed." Greg pantomimed zipping his lips, a childhood ritual they'd learned in second grade from Miss Gladke.

  "Norman Rhodes is a good friend of mine, and I planted that story to keep him safe. We think Connie Mac's killer attacked him."

  "But why?"

  "Because he thinks that Norman took his picture."

  "Did he?"

  "No. Norman was next door the night that Connie Mac was killed and he was testing his lights. He didn't have film in his camera, and he wasn't even aiming it out the window. We think the killer saw the flashes when he was hanging around my shop, and he thought that Norman got a picture of him."

  "Did Dr. Rhodes see the killer?"

  Hannah shook her head. "Norman didn't see anybody. He didn't even know that Connie Mac was dead until the next morning."

  "So he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

  "You got it," Hannah said with a sigh. "And he almost got killed for nothing."

  "Wait a second." Greg looked confused. "I can see why you wanted to let the killer know that Dr. Rhodes didn't take his picture, but why didn't you just tell KCOW the truth?"

  "The truth isn't news. I had to tie in the
ghost so that KCOW and the papers would carry it."

  "That's brilliant, Hannah." Greg looked impressed. "You always were the smartest one in our class. And that reminds me, Grandma said she heard that you helped to solve two murder cases already. Are you working on this one?"

  Childhood friendships notwithstanding, Hannah decided that she'd gone far enough. She'd already been forced to tell several people that she was working to catch Connie Mac's killer, and it was past time to zip her own lips. "I offered to help, but they made it plain that they don't want me to get involved."

  "That's a relief. I'd sure hate to see you mixed up in anything that dangerous."

  Greg still looked worried, and Hannah reached out to pat him on the arm. "Don't worry about me, Greg. Two Winnetka County detectives have ordered me to stay out of it."

  "But you never used to listen to orders. Remember what happened when our mothers ordered us to stop having those snowball fights?"

  "Of course I do. We just escalated the battle, but I follow orders very well now." Hannah bit back a smug grin as she pulled the snowball from her pocket and let fly. It hit Greg squarely in the face and she hooted. "Except for times like this, of course."

  "Janie?" Hannah called out as she opened her door. "Where are you?"

  "I'm in here." Janie's voice answered her from the rear of the condo. It came from the guest room, but it was strangely muffled. Hannah felt a surge of fear and she called out again. "Are you hurt?"

  "No, but I need help." Janie's answer added fuel to Hannah's feet as she hurried down the hall and barreled into the guest room. What she saw made her come dangerously close to exploding with suppressed laughter.