Carrot Cake Murder (33 page)

“It could be,” Hannah told her. “If it’s worth that much money and the killer knew it, it’s certainly a compelling reason.”

“Then that means the killer has the Honus Wagner card!” Carrie looked very excited. “If we can find the Honus Wagner card, we’ll find the killer!”

Hannah knew she could punch several elephant-sized holes in Carrie’s logic, but she chose to refrain. What Carrie had said would work to her advantage.

“The killer doesn’t know we found out about the card,” Hannah told them. “And that means we can’t breathe a word about it.”

“Because anybody here could be the killer?” Delores guessed.

“Exactly. And even if you tell someone you know couldn’t possibly be the killer, news like this is bound to get out. Just one wrong word could do it. Or even a suspicious reaction to something someone says. And if you actually mention it, someone could overhear you, or the person you tell could inadvertently let something slip. We have to keep our guard up and pretend we don’t know a thing about it.”

“Very true,” Delores said with a nod. “Your father used to say that three men can keep a secret, but only if two of them are dead.”

That lightened things up a little, but Hannah wasn’t through. She had a plan, and she wasn’t about to let loose tongues ruin it.

“Just think about how wonderful it’ll be if we can recover that baseball card,” she said. “I’m sure Mother and Carrie would be happy to help you sell it.”

“Of course we would!” Delores said quickly.

“Naturally,” Carried echoed. “And since we’re friends, our fee would be just a tiny bit of what some antique dealer who didn’t know you would charge.”

“Of course all that goes up in smoke if the killer gets a whiff of what we know,” Hannah reminded them. “It would be a real pity if he tossed a two-million-dollar Honus Wagner card in the lake to keep from being incriminated!”

There were collective sighs around the table. Patsy and Marge exchanged glances, and Hannah knew they’d keep mum. Carrie and Delores would, too, especially since she’d reminded them of the stakes. If the killer thought that they were hot on his trail and ditched the Honus Wagner card, they could be the antique dealers who’d lost the sale.

“Let’s meet right here after the talent show,” Hannah said. “Michelle, Andrea, and I won’t be there. We’re going to come up with a plan to smoke out the killer, and that’s when I’ll tell you about it.”

The mosquito lotion had been slathered on, her coffee cup had been filled, her cell phone was in her hand, and Hannah sat on the end of the dock at their family cottage. To call, or not to call…that was the question. She’d made that infernal promise to Norman, not once, but twice. If what they were planning to do was dangerous, she was honor bound to tell Mike. But was it dangerous? Hannah wanted to believe it wasn’t, but they were about to search the cottages. The thief who had the two-million-dollar Honus Wagner card had already killed once to get it. There was no reason to doubt that he’d kill again to keep it!

She had to tell Mike. Hannah punched in his number and waited for her call to connect. She half-hoped he wouldn’t answer, but of course he did.

“Hi, Hannah,” Mike said, before she could even open her mouth.

“How did you know it was me?”

“I could tell by your ring tone.”

Prudence warred with curiosity, and curiosity won out. “What’s my ring tone?” she asked.

“Oh. Well…actually it’s…an old Beatles song that I like.”

Mike sounded embarrassed, and Hannah couldn’t resist following up. “What’s the name of the old Beatles song?”

“‘Here Comes The Sun.’”

“Why did you choose that one for me?” Hannah asked, although she was secretly relieved that it hadn’t been “Eleanor Rigby.”

“It’s kind of crazy, but whenever I’m around you, I feel like the sun is shining. Whether it is or not, I mean.”

Hannah came close to tearing up, it was so sweet. She really didn’t know how to respond, but she was saved by an electronic beeping that came over the line.

“Can you hold on a second?” Mike asked. “That’s Lonnie, and he’s out in the field.”

Hannah told him she would, and she sat there contemplating the dusk. The sun had gone down, but the moon appeared brilliant tonight, looming over the opposite shore like a huge silver globe in the sky. It was a full moon, or very close to it, and Hannah thought that if she had a book or a magazine, she could probably read it in this light.

“Sorry about that.” Mike came back on the line. “Lonnie’s at Bertanelli’s Pizza to check on Bert’s alibi, but Bert and Ellie took the night off.”

“They’re out here at the lake for the children’s talent show,” Hannah told him.

“Thanks. I’ll call Lonnie back and send him out.”

“Don’t bother. Andrea and I checked it out when we were in there for lunch today, and Bert had an ironclad alibi.”

“But Bert wasn’t there. I asked. That’s the only reason I took Ronni out to lunch.”

I’ll bet! Hannah thought, but of course she didn’t say it. She was still too flattered at learning the ring tone Mike had chosen for her.

“How did you substantiate his alibi?” Mike continued, and Hannah knew he’d opened his notebook and was sitting there, pen poised to write down what she said.

“We talked to the head waitress. When they checked the tape from the register after they closed at midnight, it didn’t match the total from the order slips. The head waitress, Bert, and Ellie were there until a quarter to three in the morning, looking for the error.”

“Bert was there the whole time?”

“Yes. You can cross him off your list.” Hannah decided it was time for a gentle nudge. “If you’d mentioned that you suspected him, I would have told you to cross him off right away.”

Mike sighed. “My mistake. What else did you find out?”

“Some things you probably know already.”

“Like what?”

“Like Gus didn’t own any upscale nightclubs. Mood Indigo is a strip joint, and he lives in a little apartment with one of his dancers.”

“How did you…?”

“Never mind,” Hannah cut off the question. If he didn’t ask it, she didn’t have to answer it.

“Okay. What else do you know?”

“He changed his name to Grant Kennedy.”

“We knew that. It was on his driver’s license.”

Hannah wanted to ask why he hadn’t told her, but she figured she’d just get the runaround again. “Gus borrowed money from some well-connected thugs who have some scary ways of collecting.”

“That figures. Go on.”

“The night he left Atlantic City, Gus and his girlfriend were watching the Antiques Show, the one where they do the appraisals. She said that before it was over, he got up and started packing a suitcase. And he said that he left something valuable in Lake Eden, something that could get him out of money trouble, and he had to go back and get it.”

“Of course!” Mike sounded amazed that he hadn’t thought of that himself. “He came back to Lake Eden to get the Honus Wagner trading card. Our appraiser said it was worth over two million.”

Hannah gulped audibly. “You know about the Honus Wagner baseball card?”

“Sure. We’ve got it in the evidence room. It was with a bunch of other baseball cards in his suitcase.”

“And you didn’t tell me about it?” Hannah began to do a slow burn.

“It’s evidence, Hannah. I can’t give you a list of the evidence unless you’re a sworn peace officer.”

Hannah counted to three. And then, because she was still seeing red, she counted on to ten. She should have known that Mike wouldn’t bend any rules for her. “Do you think Gus was killed for the Honus Wagner card?” she asked.

“I doubt it. If the killer knew about it, he would have searched the cottage, looked in the open suitcase, and grabbed the card. It may be the reason the victim came back to Lake Eden, but it wasn’t the reason he was killed.”

“Do you have any idea why he was killed then?”

“Not really, now that you cleared Bert Kuehn. But we’re working on it. Somebody picked up that ice pick and stabbed him.”

“You know for sure it was an ice pick?”

“Not conclusively, no. But Doc Knight found some tiny flecks of red and green paint. That matches what you told me about the ice picks that your grandfather gave for Christmas gifts. I had Rick check with the tool companies, but he couldn’t find any that manufactured an awl with red and green paint on the handle, so I figure it’s got to be one of your grandfather’s ice picks.”

“Grandfather wouldn’t be happy about that,” Hannah said with a sigh. “Did you find the ice pick?”

“Not yet. We got a bad break on that. If the killer was smart, he ditched it in the lake. That’s almost impossible to drag.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s too big, and the murder weapon is too small. It would take months, and if it’s under a submerged branch or buried point down in the mud, we’d never find it anyway.”

“So where did you look?” Hannah asked him.

“We went through the dumpsters at the pavilion in case the killer dropped it there, but we didn’t find it. And then we used a metal detector in the bushes surrounding the building.” Mike chuckled slightly. “We found nine beer can openers, too many bottle caps to count, a rusted license plate from nineteen-fifty, and eleven dollars and forty-eight cents in change.”

“How about the cottages? Did you search them?”

“Only the one Gus was staying in. I knew getting search warrants would be tricky since we didn’t have probable cause, and I decided it would be wasting my team’s time to search any of the other cottages. The killer would have to be crazy to hang onto the murder weapon.”

“You’re probably right,” Hannah said, but she wasn’t so sure. While it might be true that a cold-blooded killer would get rid of the murder weapon immediately, it might not be true for someone who struck out in the heat of the moment and then panicked when he saw what he’d done.

There was another series of electronic beeps, and Mike sighed. “I’ve got to take that. It’s Rick Murphy from the crime lab. He’s observing.”

Hannah said goodbye and snapped her phone shut to end the call. There was no longer a reason to search for the baseball card, but they could search for the ice pick. Mike wasn’t going to do it, and they didn’t need search warrants, not if they did it while everyone was at the children’s talent show.

The dark shadows from the pines loomed overhead as dusk turned into night. Hannah watched the reflection of the moon on the water and mulled over everything she’d learned until she felt the vibration of footsteps on the dock.

“We’re back,” Michelle announced, dropping down into a sitting position next to Hannah. “Everyone from the cottages you want us to search is in line to get into the pavilion.”

“Let’s review to make sure,” Hannah said. “Marge and Jack?”

“They’re with Herb and Lisa,” Andrea reported.

“How about Patsy and Mac?”

Michelle nodded. “They’re a little farther back in line, ahead of Edna and her sister.”

“Mother and Carrie?”

“They were…we’re not going to search Mother’s cabin, are we?” Michelle sounded thoroughly shocked.

“No. I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention.”

In the next minute or two, Hannah cited six more names. When she’d been assured that her sisters had spotted all of them in line at the pavilion, she turned Andrea. “Did you bring the flashlight from your car?”

Andrea patted the Red Owl Grocery bag she’d placed next to her on the dock. “Got it. And we got the two mag lights from your cookie truck. So the search is on, right?”

“It’s on, but the objective has changed.” Hannah felt a bit like a general, giving instructions to his troops. “We’re not going after the Honus Wagner baseball card anymore. I talked to Mike, and he told me it was in Gus’s suitcase, and it’s locked up in the police evidence room. What we’re going for now is an ice pick with a red-and-green painted handle.”

“Like the antique ones Grandpa Swensen gave out in his hardware store?” Andrea asked.

“Exactly like that. Doc Knight found flecks of red and green paint and we’re pretty sure that one of Grandpa’s ice picks is the murder weapon.”

“Searching is boring work when you don’t find anything,” Michelle grumbled as they came out of the pink cottage.

“I know,” Hannah said. They’d found two ice picks, but one had a metal handle, and the other one had an orange plastic handle.

“We’ve searched five places already, and the only even vaguely interesting thing I found is that one of Lisa’s brothers and his wife use different brands of toothpaste,” Michelle complained.

Andrea shrugged. “It’s not that bad. Don’t forget that we could be suffering through the children’s talent show.”

“You’ve got a point,” Hannah said, glancing over at the pavilion, which had been released as a crime scene this morning and reopened for Lisa and Herb to use. “Only two cottages to go.”

“Let’s get it done,” Andrea said, opening the door to the cottage where Patsy and Mac were staying and stepping inside.

Hannah headed straight for the kitchen. “Remember to keep your flashlights pointed down below window level. We don’t want anyone to see a light and decide to check it out while we’re here.”

She didn’t turn around to look, but she knew that Michelle was going to the bedroom and bathroom, while Andrea searched the living room. They’d developed a routine, and it was working well for them. Hannah pulled open the drawers, one by one, and examined the contents. Most of the rental cottages had similar items in their kitchens. One drawer held mismatched silverware that had been moved to the summer cottage when the owner had purchased a new set for the house in town. Another drawer contained cooking utensils that had been relegated to the cottage when better ones had replaced them. The pots and pans were from yard sales or closeouts at CostMart.

Hannah moved on to the drawer next to the refrigerator. That was where most summer cottage owners kept the minimal set of tools used to tighten doorknobs, hang pictures, or pry things open. She made her way through a light hammer, two screwdrivers, one of each type, and a pair of pliers. And under those tools was something that made her gasp and step back in surprise.