Blackberry Pie Murder (36 page)

The park would be crowded again by two in the afternoon, but for now Hannah was the only kid around.

The swings hung straight and listless on their heavy chains. Hannah sat down on the highest one. Some were lower for smaller children and one was a baby swing with a little seat, two leg holes, and a strap to hold a small child secure. Since Hannah was tall for her age, her feet dragged a bit when she tried to swing on the smaller swings and the big swing, the one she had now, was almost always taken by someone else. At last she had it all to herself, but the thrill she’d thought would be hers when she swung high on the big swing wasn’t nearly as thrilling as she’d imagined.

It was no fun swinging alone, not even on the big swing, and Hannah let the chains slow their back and forth motion and eventually come to a stop. She hadn’t expected kids in the park, but she’d thought that there might be people sitting on the benches reading newspapers or flipping pages in a magazine. No one was here, not a single soul, not even anyone cutting through the middle of the park on their way to somewhere else. There weren’t even any cars on the street.

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Joanne Fluke

She was all alone and she suddenly missed her classmates.

Playing hooky was no fun if you had to do it alone.

She had glanced at the watch her grandparents had given her for her birthday. Only five minutes had passed since she’d left Doc Bennett’s office and it seemed much longer than that.

Maybe she should go back to school. At least she wouldn’t be lonely there and it was a little strange here, all by herself. It was so quiet, it was almost scary.

Hannah came out of her trip down memory lane with a snap when she turned into her condo complex. She used her key card, waved at Norma, the guard in the kiosk who kept solicitors out and made sure that nonresidents had permission to visit, and drove down the ramp that led to the underground garage.

The garage was mostly deserted. The only other car in her section belonged to Phil Plotnik, her downstairs neighbor, who worked the night shift at Delray Manufacturing. Phil would be getting up in a couple of hours to go to work, but since it was summer, he’d actually get to wake up and see the sun. This didn’t happen in the winter because Minnesota was a northern state and the days were shorter in the winter.

Then Phil would have to drive home from work in the dark, get up in the dark to go back to work, and only see the sun on the weekends.

As she climbed the outside staircase to her second-floor unit, Hannah heard a noise emanating from the bedroom.

This time she knew what it was and she smiled in amuse-ment. Moishe was on the treadmill again. If this kept up, she wouldn’t have to put him on a diet. He’d lose the weight on the grand prize she’d won in the Jordan High raffle.

She unlocked her front door, but Moishe didn’t come out to jump into her arms as he usually did. He must not have heard her over the humming noise of the treadmill. She walked down the hall and her smile grew wider as she watched her cat exercise.

He obviously loved it and that was fine with her.

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“Hey, Moishe!” she said, her voice carrying over the sound of the machine.

Moishe turned to look at her and hopped off the belt, hurrying over to rub against her ankles.

“I know. I’m early and you didn’t expect me. But you can exercise anytime you want. I have to get dressed in something presentable because I’m going out to dinner with Doc and Mother.”

The ridge of hair began to rise on Moishe’s back, a sure sign that he’d recognized the
M
word. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “Mother’s not coming back here. Let’s shut off the machine and I’ll feed you dinner early tonight.”

Moishe followed her down the hallway and into the kitchen and observed her as she filled his food bowl. “Salmon tonight?” she asked him.

“Rrrrowww!”

That was definitely a yes. Hannah got a small can of salmon out of the cupboard, opened it, and spread it on top of his kitty crunchies. “Here you go,” she said, setting his bowl on the floor. “I’m going to take a quick shower and I’ll be right back.”

As she passed the desk in the living room, she noticed that the middle drawer was slightly ajar. Moishe was a genius at opening drawers and cabinets, so she pulled it open to check the contents. Everything appeared to be there, but she opened the jeweler’s box where she had stored the ring that Keith Branson had been wearing, just to make sure it was still there.

Ring. Man’s ring.
Her mind replayed the conversation she’d had with Winnie on the phone today. Connor couldn’t wear his copper bracelet or his ring because his hand was in a cast. But what if the cast wasn’t the only reason that Connor couldn’t wear his ring? What if the reason was that he’d lost it and hadn’t found it yet? And what about Connor’s 304

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hand? He’d blamed his horse, but was that the real reason?

Had Connor broken his hand in a fight with Keith Branson?

Connor was usually a truthful man. Hannah knew that.

He said he hadn’t known Keith Branson when she’d shown him the photo, but perhaps that was true. You didn’t have to know someone to get into a fight with him. And the evidence certainly pointed to the fact that Keith had stolen Winnie’s pie. Was that enough to make Connor hit Keith so hard that he caused an intracranial hemorrhage?

Something had made Connor absolutely furious and Hannah didn’t think that the theft of Winnie’s pie would do it. He would be angry, but not
that
angry. She stood there in her sunny living room, trying to think of what would make Connor fighting mad. When she couldn’t think of anything, she decided to go after her scenario from another angle. What was a pimp like Keith Branson from Minneapolis doing in Lake Eden? Was he coming after Honey, the girl who’d run away from his stable?

It all began to fall in place when Hannah realized that there was only one new girl in town and that girl was Loretta’s long-lost daughter, Jennifer. What if Keith had come here for Jennifer and Jennifer’s street name was Honey? Winnie’s ranch bordered Loretta’s farm, and Keith had worked a brief time for Winnie. Jennifer had lived right next door and Keith could have met her that summer. Winnie had mentioned that Keith had slipped away to spend time with the local kids at the swimming hole. It was one of the reasons she’d fired him.

What if Keith had met Jennifer there and convinced her to run away with him?

Hannah’s mind spun with the possibilities. If she was right and Jennifer had run away with Keith, he knew where she lived. What if Keith had come back to Lake Eden, found Jennifer, and was dragging her back to his car when Connor rode up on Diablo? Carly had said something about Jennifer falling down in the woods and hurting herself, but what if BLACKBERRY PIE MURDER

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those scratches and bruises were from her efforts to resist Keith?

Connor would have fought for Jennifer. Hannah was sure of that. Connor was a good man and he would have done his best to rescue Jennifer from Keith.

“This ring goes with me,” Hannah said out loud. Perhaps she was indulging in a wild flight of fancy, pulling assump-tions and connections out of thin air. But perhaps she wasn’t.

This could be Connor’s grandfather’s ring from a high school that no longer existed. That would explain why they hadn’t been able to find the seal on the Internet.

There was only one way to find out if she was right and Hannah put the ring in her purse. It was a good thing she’d made a batch of Easy Pralines this morning before she’d left for The Cookie Jar. She’d planned them as a surprise for Michelle, a thank you for baking the Blue Apple Muffins, but she’d stop at Winnie’s ranch on her way to Loretta’s farm and give a box of them to Winnie. It would be a good excuse for dropping by, and Connor would probably be there, painting the inside of the ranch house. She’d say she’d found the ring, and watch him carefully to see if he gave any sign he recognized it.

Hannah realized that her hands were shaking on the wheel as she turned onto the gravel road that ran past the wooded area where she’d hit and killed Keith Branson. She shivered slightly as dark clouds gathered in the sky. There just couldn’t be another summer storm. Not now. Not when she was about to pass the very spot where it had happened.

The sky darkened momentarily as the cloud passed across the sun, but within the space of several heartbeats, it was sunny again. Hannah breathed a sigh of relief and rolled down her window for a breath of summer air. It was hot, but there was a slight breeze as she drove by the swimming hole 306

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the local kids used and she could smell damp earth, fresh water, and the sweet scent of red clover on the currents of air.

Hannah saw three beautiful mares standing by the white fence that separated Winnie’s ranch from the neighboring farms. Seeing the mares made Hannah smile. It looked as if they were watching for cars to pass by and speculating on where the drivers and passengers were going. The one in the center neighed as she drove past, almost as if she were saying hello.

An open field was next, bare of trees and planted with low ground cover. Hannah began to shiver slightly as she passed it. This was the field where the lightning had struck so vio-lently and so frequently on that fateful morning. There was room for her to have pulled over here. The shoulder was certainly wide enough to have parked there to wait for the storm to cease. But if she had, she would have been exposing both Lisa and herself to the raging elements and what had seemed to Hannah to be probable electrocution.

Hannah slowed as she came around the bend and into the tree-lined area. The huge branch was gone, but there were round chunks of wood piled by the side of the road. A county road crew must have come out with chain saws to remove the branch from the roadway.

Winnie’s ranch was just ahead, and Hannah turned onto the winding road that led to the ranch house. It was a beautiful area and Winnie kept the white fences painted and the ground free of debris. The rolling green hills reminded Hannah of the pictures she’d seen of the English countryside.

She’d like to go to England someday, but for now, the Lake Eden countryside was certainly beautiful enough for her.

Hannah pulled up at the ranch house, got out of the car, and walked up to Winnie’s front door. She still wasn’t sure how she would handle this. She just hoped that the right words would come to her when she needed them.

“Hi, Winnie,” Hannah said when Winnie opened the door.

“I brought you something on my way to Loretta’s place.”

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“That’s nice of you, Hannah.” Winnie took the box that Hannah handed her. “What’s in it?”

“Pralines. One of my college friends gave me the recipe and I made them this morning. She was from New Orleans and she claimed they were authentic.”

“Did I hear you say
pralines
?” Connor appeared in the doorway.

“Nothin’ wrong with the man’s ears,” Winnie said, smiling at him and then turning back to Hannah. “Coffee? I just made a fresh pot.”

Hannah counted the days. Winnie always washed the giant, blue-enameled pot and made fresh coffee on Sunday mornings. On the other days of the week, she just kept the pot on the stove until the level of coffee was low and then she added more coffee and water, and brought it up to a boil again. By Saturday, Winnie’s coffee could double as nail polish remover.

Hannah and Mike had suffered through a Saturday night cup once and neither one of them had done it again. Winnie claimed that her mother had made coffee that way and she didn’t see any reason to change it.

This was Thursday and that was over halfway through the week. She was living dangerously if she accepted Winnie’s offer, but it wouldn’t be politic to refuse. “Sure,” she said.

“I’d love a cup of coffee, Winnie.”

Winnie poured cups for all three of them and they sat at the kitchen table. They talked for a minute or two and then Hannah pulled out the ring.

“I found this on the way in,” she said, handing the ring to Winnie. “It looks like a man’s ring to me. Did somebody around here lose it?”

“Looks like yours.” Winnie handed it to Connor.

As Hannah watched, Connor’s face turned pale. “It’s mine,”

he admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell me you’d lost it?” Winnie asked. “I would’ve put the boys on lookout for it.”

“ ’Cause I wasn’t sure . . .” Connor stopped and took a 308

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deep breath. “I didn’t know where I’d lost it.” He turned to Hannah. “Where did you find it?”

“In the woods right next to the place where I hit Keith Branson with my truck.”

Connor’s face turned even paler. “Yup,” he said. “I was afraid of that.”

“What were you doing there?” Winnie asked.

Connor sighed again. It was the sigh of a man who knew he’d been caught red-handed, doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. “I was fighting with him,” he told her.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Winnie’s eyes flashed angrily.

“Because you said you could never love a fighting man.

And I want you to love me, Winnie.”

Hannah could see the angry expression on Winnie’s face fade. “Why did you fight with him, Connor?”

“He was dragging a woman through the woods. I came across them at the fence line so I jumped the fence and punched him. And then I punched him again so hard that it knocked him out.”

“He was hurting a woman?” Winnie waited until Connor nodded and then she got up, went around the table, and hugged him. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know. I never saw her before, but she was scared.

I know that. And the minute I pulled him away from her, she ran away.”

“You dummy!” Winnie said, and there was love in her voice. “When I said I could never love a fighting man, I meant a man who was a bully and picked fights. I never meant you shouldn’t fight to defend a woman. That’s what a man ought’a do.”

“I’ve got to go,” Hannah said, standing up. “I’ll let myself out. I’ve got somebody else I have to see. Enjoy those pralines, both of you.”