Double Fudge Brownie Murder (Hannah Swensen series Book 18)

by Fluke, Joanne

  “Absolutely not. I only met her once and I don’t plan on seeing her again.”

  Laney laughed. “I can appreciate that! Sheila is a piece of work. I’m surprised the judge lasted with her as long as he did. That was really awful what happened to him, wasn’t it!”

  “It was awful,” Hannah agreed.

  “I heard he was married again and that it was going fine. He deserved a little happiness after Sheila. Do you know that she kept right on cashing those alimony checks of his even after she inherited all that money from her family? She didn’t need his money. And she knew he was married again and didn’t have a big retirement. What a witch!”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Hannah had taken only one sip of her wine cooler when Michelle came rushing back to the table. “Let’s go!”

  “Go where?”

  “Through the kitchen to the band trailer. Seth’s got ten minutes before he has to go on and he can see us right now.”

  A moment or two later, Hannah was following her sister through the kitchen, a crowded little room with more unwashed dishes and cockroach traps than food. They emerged through the back door and crossed the asphalt parking lot to a dented camping trailer.

  “Seth?” Michelle knocked on the door. “It’s Michelle and Hannah.”

  There was a muffled sound from the interior which Michelle must have taken for permission to enter because she climbed up the step and opened the door.

  “Come on, Hannah,” she said, stepping through the doorway and into the interior.

  Hannah followed her, stepping into a brightly lighted room with a couch, a mirror that ran the length of one wall with a counter beneath it, and three chairs positioned in front of the reflective surface.

  “This is my sister, Hannah,” Michelle introduced her. “And Hannah? This is Seth Dortweiler. I told Seth that you were investigating his father’s murder.”

  “Hello, Hannah.” Seth rose from his chair in front of the mirror and reached out for her hand. “Good to meet you.”

  “Thanks. You, too,” Hannah said, trying not to stare at Seth’s skintight, red satin jumpsuit that left very little to the imagination.

  “I go to William Mitchell and there was an article about you in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Michelle told me you’re investigating my dad’s murder and I want to help you any way I can, but I have only a few minutes before I go on. We can also meet during our break if you have more questions for me.”

  Hannah noticed that Seth’s voice was shaking slightly and that could be due to one of three reasons. Either he suffered from a bit of stage fright, he was still terribly upset about his father’s death, or he was nervous about being questioned because he was guilty.

  “When is the last time you saw your father?” Hannah began in an attempt to narrow it down.

  “Last week. We met for lunch at The Corner Café. That’s only five minutes from the courthouse and Dad was hearing a trial there.”

  “Did you talk about the trial?”

  “No, we talked about law school. He was . . .” Seth stopped speaking and swallowed hard. “He was really happy that I was almost through. It was . . . our secret.”

  “Did he know about the band?”

  Seth smiled for the first time since they’d entered the trailer. “Yeah. He got a real kick out of it. He said he bartended at a real dive when he was going to law school.”

  “He went to William Mitchell, didn’t he?” Michelle asked.

  Seth nodded. “He helped me get in. Alumni pull and all that. My grades weren’t really good enough, but they took me anyway because of his recommendation.”

  “And you’re due to graduate this year?”

  Seth nodded again. “He was really pleased that I was going to law school.”

  Hannah picked up on the obvious omission. “Isn’t your mother pleased?”

  “Sheila?” Seth gave a little laugh. “Nothing pleases Sheila.”

  “I noticed you called her Sheila and not Mother.”

  “That’s her choice. Other kids had mothers. I had Sheila.” Seth took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “It’s not fair, you know!” He stopped and swallowed again. “I . . . I wish Dad had lived to see me graduate. He was so proud of me for getting this far. And he would have loved to come to my graduation. I’m going to invite Sheila, too, but I’m almost sure she won’t come.”

  “Why not?” Michelle asked.

  “Because the one thing she doesn’t want is for me to follow in Dad’s footsteps. She hated him. When I first heard that Dad had been murdered, I wondered if she’d done it, but she didn’t.”

  “You’re convinced of that?” Michelle asked him.

  “Yeah . . . now, I am. I checked up on her.”

  “How did you do that?” Hannah asked, trying to keep the shock out of her voice. It was a terrible state of affairs when a son had to check to make sure that his mother hadn’t murdered his father.

  “This cop called me at ten forty-five that morning to tell me. They called the law school because they found the number in Dad’s private phone book. I asked when it had happened and this cop named Mike something-or-other told me that Dad’s clerk had seen him at nine, so it was after that.”

  “That’s right,” Hannah said, not mentioning the fact that she’d gone into Judge Colfax’s chambers to find his body.

  “I knew that Sheila had a standing appointment at the spa at ten every Monday morning. And I know that it takes forty-five minutes to drive from our house to the courthouse. Since the spa is an hour from our house in the opposite direction, it would have taken Sheila an hour and forty-five to get from the courthouse after she killed Dad to the spa. That means if Sheila kept her ten o’clock appointment at the spa, she couldn’t have killed Dad.”

  “And you found that she’d kept the appointment?” Hannah asked.

  “Yes. The woman at the receptionist’s desk checked the sign-in sheet and she said that Sheila had arrived fifteen minutes early.”

  “Did you tell that to the authorities when they questioned you?”

  Seth shook his head. “They haven’t come around to question me yet. They asked me a couple of things on the phone, but so far that’s it.”

  “You’d better go,” Hannah said after glancing at her watch. “You’re supposed to be on at nine and it’s already five after.”

  “That’s okay. The band’s warming them up for me. Can’t you hear them?”

  Hannah listened. She’d been dimly aware of something loud and unmelodious happening in the distance, but she hadn’t guessed that it was Seth’s band.

  “Pretty awful, huh?” Seth asked, reading the expression on her face.

  “Well . . . let’s just say that it’s not my thing,” Hannah replied.

  “It’s not mine either, but it pays well.” He turned to give a final glance in the mirror, and then he opened a small box on the counter. “Uh-oh. I’m going to have one heck of a headache when I get back here after the show!”

  “Were you looking for aspirin?” Hannah asked him. “I’ve got some in my purse.”

  “Actually, no. I was looking for earplugs. I usually wear them when I perform.”

  “I have those, too,” Hannah said, taking out a package of earplugs and handing them to him.

  “These are great earplugs,” Seth commented. “They block out a lot.”

  “But you’re the singer!” Michelle said, and Hannah noticed that she looked confused. “How can you sing in the right key if you can’t hear the band?”

  “Oh, I can still hear them, just not as loudly. And it doesn’t really matter if I’m on or off key. They come to see us, not to hear us. And since none of us are real musicians, that’s a really good thing!”

  The message light was blinking on Hannah’s phone when they got back from the Eight Ball Bar. Hannah grabbed the phone to retrieve the message while Michelle went off to her room to change to her pajamas and robe.

  Hi, Hannah. It’s Lisa. If you get home before eleve
n, please call me back. I’ve got good news for you, the disembodied voice said.

  Hannah glanced at her watch. It was ten-thirty. She punched in Lisa’s number and sat down on the living room couch. Three seconds later, she had a purring cat on her lap and Lisa answered the phone.

  “Where were you?” Lisa asked after Hannah had identified herself.

  “At the Eight Ball Bar in Grey Eagle.”

  “You went to the Eight Ball Bar for fun?” Lisa sounded shocked.

  Hannah laughed. “No, to conduct an interview with Judge Colfax’s son.”

  “A judge’s son hangs out in that place?”

  “No, he was singing with a band that was playing there.”

  “But . . .” Lisa stopped speaking and sighed. “Never mind. I don’t think I should ask any more questions.”

  “That’s good because it just gets curiouser and curiouser,” Hannah told her, borrowing heavily from Lewis Carroll. “What’s the good news, Lisa?”

  “You and Michelle don’t have to come in at all tomorrow. Dad and Marge are coming in to help out, and so is Aunt Nancy. I’m going to have all the help I need. Aunt Nancy’s coming early to bake with me. She’s got a couple of new recipes she wants to try. Relax, Hannah. You and Michelle take the day off to get ready for your dinner party. We can handle it at The Cookie Jar,” Lisa gave a little laugh, “unless, of course, you find another dead body. I could use a new story to tell.”

  “I’m not planning on finding any more . . .” Hannah stopped speaking as she thought of something Lisa could use for a story. “Could you use a story about a cat burglar?”

  “Sure. That sounds exciting. Our customers love new stories.”

  “That’s because you tell them so well,” Hannah complimented her.

  “Thank you. Tell me about this cat burglar you mentioned, and I’ll use it for tomorrow’s story.”

  By the time Hannah had finished telling Lisa about Moishe and the objects that came from unidentified owners, Michelle had changed to her nightclothes and was in the kitchen, frying something that smelled delicious.

  “What are you doing?” Hannah asked her, arriving in the kitchen doorway.

  “Browning the pork chops for tomorrow. I’m going to make the whole meal in the slow cooker, but the pork chops taste better if they’re browned.”

  “I’ll help you,” Hannah offered.

  “It’s a one-person job, but you can pull out a chair and talk to me while I’m working. And if you’re not too tired, would you please pour us both something cold to drink before you sit down?”

  “Sure thing.” Hannah headed to the refrigerator and was about to open the door when she saw an object on the floor. “Uh-oh,” she said, bending down to pick it up.

  “What is it?” Michelle asked, turning around to see what was in Hannah’s hand.

  “A hat. It’s one of those knitted ski caps. And this one has white snowflakes just like the mitten we found earlier.”

  “The cat burglar strikes again?”

  “It certainly seems like it. Moishe must have gotten the mitten and the ski cap from the same place.”

  “When I’m done here, let’s check the tape,” Michelle suggested.

  “Good idea. He didn’t have it hidden in the kitchen. I would have found it when we baked the Tangerine Dream Cake. Maybe we’ll get lucky and see him carrying it in from wherever he goes to sneak out.”

  While Michelle watched her pork chops brown, Hannah filled two tall glasses with ice. She added an ounce of white jug wine and a generous splash of lemon soda. She filled the rest of the glasses with club soda, and added two frozen strawberries.

  “What are you making?” Michelle asked, watching Hannah with interest.

  “I don’t know. I’m just experimenting to see what I can make with this awful white wine. That wine cooler we had at the Eight Ball Bar gave me the idea.”

  “Hand it over. I’ll be your guinea pig this time.”

  “I didn’t put much wine in it,” Hannah warned her, handing one of the glasses to Michelle.

  “That’s all to the good. It means that if I like it, I can have another.”

  Hannah waited while Michelle tasted her concoction. “Well? What do you think?”

  “I think I’ll have another when I’m through with this one. It’s refreshing and it’s absolutely perfect for someone who’s standing over a hot stove.” Michelle flipped the pork chops so that she could brown the other side, and went to the refrigerator to get the bell peppers and onions she’d bought at the Red Owl. “If you want to, you can help me clean the peppers and cut them in strips. I need to peel and chop the onions, too. Just as soon as I brown the other side of these pork chops, I’ll take them out and use the same pan to brown the pepper strips and the onions.”

  The two sisters worked in tandem, peeling, chopping, and putting the vegetables they’d prepared in a bowl. When the last pepper was julienned and the last onion was peeled and chopped, Michelle checked the pork chops, took them out of the frying pan to rest on a platter, and began to sauté the raw vegetables.

  “I love colored bell peppers,” she said, smiling at the colorful array of green, red, orange, and yellow. “I could have used all green, but this is much more fun.”

  “The color is a function of maturity,” Hannah told her. “Green bell peppers have been on the vine for the shortest amount of time before they’re harvested. Red bell peppers reach full maturity before they’re harvested.”

  “And yellow and orange are somewhere between the shortest and the longest vine ripening?” Michelle asked.

  “Yes, generally speaking. Of course, there are differences in the plants. Some have been cultivated to produce a certain color. For instance, orange bell peppers could be a slightly different strain, but all bell peppers come from the same seeds.”

  “I think they taste different, but maybe that’s in my imagination.”

  “No, it’s not. They’re actually nutritionally different. The green ones have more chlorophyll and they’re not as sweet. Yellow peppers have more lutein and zeaxanthin carotenoids, orange have more alpha, beta, and gamma carotene, and red bell peppers have more lycopene and astaxanthin.”

  “I think I could have lived my whole life without knowing that,” Michelle said.

  “You’re probably right. I have no idea why I remembered it. The important thing is that color in bell peppers depends on how long they’re allowed to ripen and the red ones are the sweetest and the ripest.”

  “The whole color thing is interesting. What do they turn into after they turn red?”

  “Mush.”

  “What?”

  “They turn into mush. And then they fall off the vine and onto the ground.”

  Michelle cracked up and so did Hannah. It seemed to take forever for them to stop laughing. Perhaps their hilarity was due to the fact they’d worked all day and conducted two interviews. And now that they were back at the condo, they could relax and have a good time. Hannah wasn’t sure exactly why her comment was so funny and she didn’t try to analyze it. It simply felt good to laugh.

  “Do we have room for three crockpots in the bottom of the refrigerator?” Michelle asked when they’d finally stopped laughing. “Just the crocks with their covers.”

  “I think so. It’s a really big refrigerator. I didn’t measure when I bought it and it barely fit into the space when it was delivered. They had to cut a hole in the ceiling to vent it.”

  “I can’t believe you didn’t measure.”

  “I know. It was stupid of me, but I’d never bought a refrigerator before, and I just assumed that anything I bought would fit into the space.”

  Hannah opened the refrigerator and did a little housekeeping, throwing out a severely wrinkled apple, three senior potatoes that had surpassed their life span, a bag of carrots that had reached and exceeded its golden years, and a package of blue cheese that wasn’t bleu cheese. When she was through, she turned to Michelle. “Yes, there’s room for three croc
ks now.”

  Michelle got out three of Hannah’s crockpots and sprayed the crocks with Pam. “Will you help me peel the potatoes?”

  “Sure.” Hannah chose a paring knife and handed one to Michelle. With both of them working, the potatoes were peeled in record time. “Do you put them in whole?” she asked.

  “No. They have to be cut in half lengthwise. That way they cook a little faster and they’ll get done when everything else is done.”

  “That makes sense. What else do you have to do before we can fill the crocks?”

  “Open the soup cans. That’s it. I need two cans of condensed cream of mushroom, one can of condensed tomato, and one can of condensed celery for each crock. We have to mix them together, along with the package of pork gravy. I could have just used three cans of condensed golden mushroom soup and one can of condensed celery soup, but Florence didn’t have the golden mushroom soup in stock.”

  Once the soup cans were open and mixed together, Hannah watched Michelle assemble the first crock. “I think I’ve got it. You do the second crock and I’ll do the third.”

  “Okay. That’ll save time,” Michelle agreed. “Just ask if you have any questions. Lisa says this is a very forgiving recipe. Even if you don’t assemble it exactly right, it still turns out to be delicious.”

  “I wonder if you could do it with chicken breasts,” Hannah said as she assembled the ingredients in her crock.

  “I don’t know why not. If you have any doubts, ask Aunt Nancy. It was her recipe in the first place.”

  “I’ll ask and then I’m going to try it. I think I’ll add some Hungarian paprika. That should be really tasty. And maybe I’ll use a can of condensed cream of chicken soup for one of the cans of condensed mushroom soup.”

  “That’s the nice thing about this recipe,” Michelle said, putting the lid on one of the crocks and carrying it to the refrigerator. “You know it works and you can start playing around by switching ingredients. I do that with muffins all the time.”