Blueberry Muffin Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “What?” Andrea asked, intercepting Hannah’s searching look.

  “I was just wondering why you’re so hungry, that’s all,” Hannah explained, shedding her boots and pulling on the pair of suede slip-ons she carried in her purse.

  “I’m not, you know.”

  “Not what?”

  “Pregnant. I saw that look in your eye. You were wondering if you were going to be an aunt again, weren’t you?”

  Hannah laughed. She was caught dead to rights. Andrea had always been able to read her expressions. “It did cross my mind.”

  “Well, forget it. It’s just the cold weather. My body’s telling me to put on an extra layer of fat for insulation.”

  “An extra layer?” Hannah glanced at her thin and fashionable sister. “You don’t even have layer number one. There’s not an ounce of fat on you.”

  “That’s because I burn it all off. I have a very active metabolism. Remember how you used to make us oatmeal with brown sugar and chocolate chips when I was in high school?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “You really sold me on breakfast, Hannah. It’s my favorite meal.”

  “Then why don’t you ever make it?”

  “The last time I tried to cook oatmeal, it burned on the bottom and I had to throw away the pan. Toast and cold cereal is a lot safer. I can’t mess that up.”

  Hannah tried to think of something kind to say, but absolutely nothing occurred to her. Andrea was a terrible cook.

  “Let’s find Sally and offer to help her. That’ll give us a chance to ask her some questions.”

  “Good idea.” Hannah stood up and followed Andrea past the old-fashioned reservations desk. She glanced at the wall of pigeonholes behind it and noted that there were no keys in the little cubicles. That wasn’t a surprise. When she’d talked to Sally a few days ago, she’d mentioned that The Lake Eden Inn was fully booked with Winter Carnival guests, reporters, and the people in Connie Mac’s entourage.

  Andrea pushed open the door to the large dining room. It was deserted, and she turned to Hannah in surprise. “Where are all the people?”

  “They’re still in their rooms,” Hannah told her. “It’s Saturday and Sally doesn’t open the buffet until nine.”

  “But it’s…” Andrea stopped speaking and glanced at her watch. “It’s only eight. I thought it was much later than that.”

  Hannah reached out to pat her sister’s shoulder. Andrea liked to sleep in on Saturday mornings and she never lifted her head from her pillow until nine. The fact that she’d arrived at The Cookie Jar at six-thirty was tangible proof of her sisterly devotion.

  The two sisters walked past the neatly set tables and headed straight for the inn’s large industrial kitchen. As they pushed through the swinging door, Hannah started to smile. Sally’s kitchen was her favorite place at the inn, combining modern stainless-steel restaurant equipment with homey touches that were Sally’s alone.

  The floor was tile, a must for a restaurant because the health code required that it be kept spotless. But instead of the solid-color ones that most restaurateurs used, Sally had installed designer tile that simulated an old-fashioned multicolored braided rug. The areas that weren’t covered by the oval-shaped rug design were formulated to look like wood, and if you didn’t examine it closely, the floor looked like one you might find in an unusually large farmhouse kitchen.

  The long wall that Sally’s kitchen shared with the dining room had a window that ran from the stainless-steel counter all the way up to the ceiling. This meant that Sally’s kitchen staff was always on display, and they were dressed to take full advantage of that. The women wore frilly caps that satisfied the health department’s requirement for head covering and were patterned to match their bib aprons. The men were also on display in colored chef’s coats and matching toques. The color scheme changed every day, and today’s theme was green.

  “There’s Sally,” Hannah said, directing her sister’s attention to the far wall, where Sally was removing a tray of freshly baked popovers from the oven.

  Andrea nodded and her face lit up in a smile. “Popovers! Sally makes the best popovers in the world!”

  “I heard that.” Sally looked pleased as she walked to a clear space at the long stainless-steel counter and tipped the popovers out in a napkin-lined basket. “Pull up a stool and have one while they’re hot.”

  “Do you have time to join us?” Hannah asked.

  “They can get along without me for a few minutes.” Sally passed the basket of popovers to Andrea and set out a tub of butter and a jar of apricot jam. “What took you so long? I thought you two would be out here an hour ago.”

  “You know?” Hannah was surprised. The sheriff’s department never released the news of a murder until after the family had been notified.

  “Of course I know. I was listening to KCOW radio in the kitchen and it was the lead story at five-thirty.”

  “Five-thirty?” Hannah was astonished. She hadn’t found Connie Mac’s body until ten to six. “But…that’s impossible!”

  “You know that, and I know that, but you’d be surprised how many people actually believe in them.”

  “Time out.” Andrea held up her hands. “It’s obvious that you and Hannah are talking about two different things. You first, Sally.”

  “Okay. At five-thirty this morning, Jake and Kelly announced that Ezekiel Jordan’s ghost was haunting the halls of the Lake Eden Inn, looking for revenge.”

  “Revenge for what?” Hannah asked the obvious question.

  “For losing his prized rosewood desk in one of F. E. Laughlin’s poker games. You see…”

  “Wait a second, Sally,” Andrea interrupted. “Is that the same desk Mother has in her re-creation?”

  Sally nodded. “Ezekiel and Dick’s great-great-grandfather were contemporaries a hundred years ago. When Dick and I found the desk up in the attic, we assumed that F. E. bought it after Ezekiel died, but Francine uncovered the story about the poker game.”

  “Your stepmother’s still here?” Hannah asked. She’d met Francine at Sally and Dick’s Christmas party. Francine had planned to stay for a couple of weeks to help out with the new baby, but little Danny was almost two months old.

  “Everything worked out so well, Dick and I invited Francine to spend the winter with us. When she’s not baby-sitting with Danny, she’s researching Dick’s family for him on the Internet. That’s how she found out about the poker game and Ezekiel’s desk. Do you want the long story or the short story?”

  “The long story.” Hannah jumped in before Andrea could open her mouth. “Tell us about the poker game.”

  “It happened almost exactly a hundred years ago. F. E. and his cronies came out here to do a little ice fishing and hunting. They always played poker on Saturday nights and they invited some of the notables in town to drive out and get in the game. Ezekiel Jordan came out to play, but he wasn’t a very good poker player and he ran out of money early.”

  “So he bet his desk?” Andrea looked shocked.

  “That’s right. Francine found the slip of paper he tossed in the pot with a bunch of F. E.’s other papers.”

  “Go on,” Hannah urged her.

  “F. E. won the pot, and the very next day, Ezekiel loaded up his desk and hauled it out here. On his way home, a winter storm blew up and Ezekiel caught a bad chill. If you know your Lake Eden history, you can guess what happened next.”

  Hannah thought about it for a moment and then she nodded. “Ezekiel died of a lung ailment, didn’t he?”

  “That’s right, three days after his trip out here. He blamed F. E. because he got sick, and he told everyone in town that the poker game was rigged.”

  “Was it?” Andrea wanted to know.

  “I don’t know,” Sally shrugged, “but it’s certainly possible, especially if F. E. wanted that desk bad enough. He could be ruthless.”

  “So what happened next?” Hannah did her best to get them back on track.

&nbs
p; “Ezekiel swore on his deathbed that he’d come back for his desk and take revenge on everyone who played in that poker game.”

  “Okay.” Hannah nodded. “But that all happened a hundred years ago. Why is KCOW saying that Ezekiel’s ghost is here now?”

  Sally started to grin. “Francine mentioned it to one of the reporters that’s staying out here for the Winter Carnival. He must have called the radio station and told them about it.”

  “But why did Francine tell the reporter about it?”

  Sally poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down next to Hannah and Andrea. “Do you want the long story on that? Or the short story?”

  “The short story,” Hannah said, even though she suspected it would be the same length as the long story.

  “Yesterday morning Francine met the reporter in the hall. He said he woke up in the middle of the night, looked out his window, and saw somebody walking around outside. Francine told him he must have seen Ezekiel Jordan’s ghost coming back for his desk. Francine was just kidding around with him, but he must have taken her seriously. And now everybody’s going to think our inn has a ghost. In a way, I’m glad Dick’s gone. He’d be worried about how it would affect our business.”

  “Dick’s away?” Hannah was surprised. Sally hadn’t said anything about it when Hannah had called her last week.

  “He had to leave for Arizona on Sunday. His mother was going to wait until summer to have her hip fixed, but the doctors wanted to do it now. I told Dick that I could handle everything, but I didn’t count on the ghost story. I just hope all our guests don’t check out.”

  “They won’t,” Andrea said and she sounded very confident. “People who don’t believe in ghosts will ignore it. And the believers will stay right here, hoping for a sighting. It’s a win-win situation, Sally. Ghosts sell.”

  “They do?”

  Andrea nodded. “Remember the old Walker place? It was on the market for a solid year with no offers. Then someone started a story about how it was haunted by Beulah Walker’s ghost and it sold for over asking price.”

  Hannah turned to give her sister a searching look. “You didn’t!”

  “No. But I might have, if I’d thought of it.”

  Sally got the coffee pot and poured them all a second cup. “I’ll be right back. I just need to tell them to start setting out the buffet.”

  Hannah watched as Sally walked over to an attractive dark-haired woman in her late forties. They spoke for a moment and then the woman began to direct the rest of Sally’s kitchen staff as they loaded dishes on rolling carts and prepared to wheel out the buffet.

  As the feast on wheels started to move past them, Hannah saw Andrea reach out to snatch a glazed doughnut. “You had three of Sally’s popovers and you’re still hungry?”

  “I’m starving. I just can’t resist Sally’s doughnuts.”

  “And I can’t resist her bacon,” Hannah commented, snagging several pieces as a second cart rolled by.

  For several minutes the sisters chewed in silence, attempting to finish their pilfered bounty before Sally returned. Andrea had just swallowed the last of her doughnut when Sally headed back in their direction.

  “Okay, that’s done,” Sally declared, sitting down on her stool and turning to Hannah. “Now tell me what dragged you out all the way out here when you must have tons of baking to do.”

  Hannah hesitated. Everyone told her that she was too outspoken, but she couldn’t think of any tactful way to tell Sally what had happened to Connie Mac. “I’m glad you’re sitting down, Sally, because your most important guest just got murdered.”

  Chapter Nine

  Sally’s coffee was cold by the time Hannah had finished telling her about finding Connie Mac. She took one sip, made a face, and set the cup back down again. “I’m sorry she’s dead, but there’s one good thing. When the news breaks, it’ll knock our ghost story off the front page.”

  “Maybe not,” Andrea mused. “It all depends on how much mileage that reporter wants to get out of it. He could always say that Ezekiel’s ghost took his revenge by killing Connie Mac.”

  Sally looked puzzled. “But Connie Mac wasn’t in that poker game. It happened a hundred years ago.”

  “I know she wasn’t there personally, but while we were touring Mother’s re-creation, Connie Mac mentioned that her family was one of the first to settle in Minnesota. With that kind of background, she could have been a shirttail relation to someone who was in F. E.’s poker game.”

  “Andrea’s right,” Hannah said. “If you go back far enough, a lot of Minnesotans are related.”

  Sally gave a resigned sigh. “I hate to admit it, but you girls have a point. I guess our ghost story is going to be around for a while, at least until the real killer is caught. You’re working on the case, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but that’s confidential,” Andrea told her. “After Mike locked Hannah out of The Cookie Jar, he made her promise not to interfere.”

  “You’re locked out of The Cookie Jar?” Sally turned to Hannah.

  “It’s a crime scene and they roped it off. I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’ve got all the Winter Carnival cookies to bake and…”

  “Save your breath,” Sally interrupted her. “You can bake here.”

  “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  Sally shook her head. “That’s what friends are for. Besides, it gives me the inside track on your investigation. You’ll be out here and I can hear everything firsthand.”

  “Thanks, Sally.” Hannah felt a giant weight slip off her shoulders. Her immediate problem was solved, but there was an even bigger one to tackle. “Do you have a minute to tell me about the people who worked for Connie Mac? We need to find out if any of them had a reason to kill her.”

  “If you ask me, they all had reasons. Connie Mac was a terror to work for.”

  Andrea’s eyes widened and she stared at Sally. “Are you sure? She seemed so nice.”

  “That was just her public image. She was a lot different when somebody crossed her.”

  Hannah set down her coffee cup and pulled out her notebook. “Then everyone who worked for Connie Mac is a possible suspect?”

  “That’s about the size of it. And don’t forget my staff. Connie Mac was only here for a couple of hours, but she managed to send four of my maids downstairs in tears.”

  “I just can’t believe it!” Andrea still looked shocked. “She was really that bad?”

  “She was worse. To tell the truth, I’m surprised someone didn’t kill her long before this.”

  Hannah glanced at her sister. Andrea was wearing an expression that reminded her of the first fish she’d ever caught. “I think we should try to narrow the field,” Hannah said, turning her attention back to Sally. “Is there anyone who had a particular grudge against Connie Mac?”

  “There’s the man who drove her supply van in the ditch. Earl Flensburg pulled him out and he let the guy use the phone in his tow truck. Connie Mac wouldn’t even let him tell her what happened. She just fired him right over the phone.”

  Hannah jotted a note to check with Earl. “Anyone else?”

  “There’s Alan Carpenter. He’s Connie Mac’s lawyer and she threatened to fire him yesterday afternoon.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was there. I was filling in for my bartender and Alan was sitting at the far end of the bar. When Connie Mac came in, right after your tour, she really lit into him.”

  “What did she say?” Hannah asked, her pen poised to take notes.

  “Let me think.” Sally paused for a moment. “I was heading over to take her order, and I heard her say, ‘Half? But he can’t do that!’ And Alan said, ‘He’s already done it. It’s signed and witnessed.’”

  “Who’s this he?” Hannah asked, silently apologizing to Miss Parry and her sixth-grade grammar class.

  “I don’t know, and I sure didn’t ask. Connie Mac looked so mad, I backtracked to polish some glasses.”

 
“But you could hear what they said?”

  “Of course. I was only a few feet away and I could see them in the mirror behind the bar. Connie Mac glared daggers at Alan, and that’s when she threatened him. She said, ‘Get him to change it, or you’re fired. Don’t forget that you’re my lawyer and I can have you disbarred for not protecting my interests.’”

  Hannah added Alan Carpenter’s name to her list of suspects, then glanced over at Andrea. Her sister still looked like a hooked fish. “Are you all right, Andrea?”

  “I’m okay.” Andrea straightened up and took a deep breath. “I just don’t understand how I could be so gullible. I can usually read people better than that.”

  Sally reached over to pat Andrea’s shoulder. “Connie Mac pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. She had me fooled too, at first.”

  “That’s what TV stars get paid to do,” Hannah commented, and then she turned back to Sally. “Where is Alan Carpenter now?”

  “He left with Connie Mac’s husband right before you got here. I didn’t know it at the time, but they must have been going to officially identify the body.”

  “You’re probably right.” Hannah shifted gears. She didn’t want to think about how a husband must feel having to identify his wife’s dead body. “What’s your impression of Connie Mac’s husband?”

  “I like Paul. He’s everything that Connie Mac just pretended to be.” Sally hesitated, and faint worry lines appeared on her forehead. “Is he a suspect?”

  “Not if he has an alibi,” Hannah told her. “Was he here all night?”

  “I don’t know. Paul didn’t come in while I was bartending, but he could have been up in their suite. One of my maids might know.”

  “I’ll talk to them later,” Hannah said, and jotted another note. “How about Spencer, her chauffeur?”

  “He told me he was on call. Connie Mac was supposed to call him when she finished baking, and he had to go pick her up. He was in the bar until I closed at one.”