Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (26 page)

Phil opened the door, spotted Hannah, and gave her a grin. “Hi, Hannah.”

“Hello, Phil.”

“Hannah put Kevin to sleep for me.” Sue gestured toward the crib. “She just walked like an elephant and it worked.”

Phil gave his wife a glance that suggested she might be losing her marbles, but then he shrugged. “Whatever works. Is there more of that coffee?”

“Half a pot in the kitchen,” Sue told him. “Get a cup and come join us, honey. Hannah came down to ask us about DelRay.”

Phil poured a cup of coffee and came back to sit in the chair across from the couch. He tried a cookie, pronounced it the best he’d ever tasted, and then he asked, “What do you want to know about DelRay?”

“I just hoped there wouldn’t be any big changes, now that Benton’s come back,” Hannah went into the opening of the speech she’d planned on her way down the stairs.

“I don’t think Benton will last for long.” Phil took another cookie and shrugged. “From what I hear, he was living it up on the East Coast and he just came home to make sure that the money wouldn’t run out.”

“Will it?” Hannah asked the obvious question.

“I don’t think there’s any danger of that. Sue’s sister works in the accounting office and she told me that Del just landed a fat new contract on Thursday.”

Hannah nodded, but it didn’t really matter. Thursday was the day
after
Max had been killed. “How about before that? Was DelRay in trouble?”

“There was a problem about four years ago. It was right before Sue and I got married and I was already starting to look for a new job.”

“Things were that bad at DelRay?”

Phil raised his eyebrows. “Bad? It was gruesome. We lost five big contracts, and the front office cut the workforce in half. They did it on seniority and I’d only been there for a year. I was just lucky I survived the cut. The guy who was hired right after me got pink-slipped. But then Del got some new financing and ever since then we’ve been doing better.”

“New financing?” Hannah’s ears perked up. “You mean like a bank loan?”

Phil shook his head. “I don’t know where the money came from, but it wasn’t a bank loan. Sue’s sister told me that the bank turned Del down. Something about being overextended.”

“But there hasn’t been a problem since that loan or whatever it was?” Hannah took another sip of her coffee and waited for Phil’s answer.

“It wasn’t so fine on Wednesday morning,” Sue spoke up. “Tell her about
that,
Phil.”

“Sue’s right. I was a little worried when I came home from work on Wednesday morning.”

“A
little
worried?” Sue laughed. “You were ready to start sending out resumes again.”

“That’s true. When I was leaving the plant, I saw the old man and he looked pretty grim.”

“What time was that?” Hannah held her breath. The pieces were starting to fall in place.

“About six-fifteen, give or take a couple of minutes. I just got off shift and I was heading out to the parking lot when I saw him talking to the night shift supervisors.”

Hannah was confused. “I thought
you
were a night shift supervisor.”

“I am, but these guys are one level up from me. That’s why I thought there might be trouble. The old man never comes in before nine, unless there’s a real crisis.”

Hannah spent another couple of minutes making conversation and then she said she had to go. As she climbed up the steps to her own unit, she tried to fit the new pieces of the puzzle into place. Del Woodley couldn’t have killed Max, not if Phil had seen him at the plant. But it was certainly possible that Del had secured a loan from Max Turner four years ago. She had to check on that, and there was only one person who might know.

When she unlocked her door, no furry orange ball barreled across the room to meet her. Hannah glanced around anxiously. Where was Moishe? Then she saw him sitting on the back of the couch. The novelty of having her dash in and out had obviously worn off for him.

“Hi, Moishe.” Hannah walked over to pet him anyway. “Go back to sleep. I just came home to make another phone call.”

Moishe yawned and settled back down, and Hannah reached for the phone. Betty Jackson might know if Del Woodley had borrowed money from Max four years ago.

Betty’s extension was busy and Hannah had to press the redial button a dozen times before she finally got through. When she said hello, Betty immediately started to tell her what was going on.

“It’s been a madhouse out here!” Betty sounded even more harried than usual. “I can’t get into Max’s office. There’s yellow tape blocking the doorway, and Bill warned me not to go in there. And everybody in town has been calling me to find out what’s going to happen to the dairy.”

“Do you know yet?”

“Yes. I just got off the phone with Max’s nephew and he’s planning to move here and take over the operation. He asked me to call an employee meeting and tell everyone on the payroll that he’s not planning to make any changes. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“It certainly is.” Hannah did her best to sound enthusiastic. She was glad that the dairy was staying open, but she had a lot of other things on her mind. “I’m sorry to bother you, Betty, but I need to ask you a very important question. Do you know if Max ever had any business dealings with Del Woodley?”

“Just a minute and I’ll get that invoice for you. Could you hold, please?”

There was a thunk as Betty set the receiver down on her desk, and Hannah heard her tell several people to leave her office because she had an important supplier on the line. A few seconds later, there was the sound of a door closing and then Hannah heard heavy footsteps as Betty returned to her desk.

“Sorry, Hannah. I didn’t want to say anything while there were people in the office, but Max did have dealings with Del Woodley. I’m not supposed to know anything about it, but I just happened to pick up the extension while Max was talking to Del.”

Hannah grinned. It sounded as if Betty spent most of her working hours listening in on conversations that she wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Del called a few months ago,” Betty continued. “It was about a personal loan. He was complaining about the high interest rates, and Max wasn’t very nice to him.”

“Really?” Hannah feigned surprise.

“As a matter of fact, he was very nasty. Max told Del that if he didn’t like the interest rates, he could just come up with the money and pay off the loan.”

“Did Del pay off the loan?”

“I don’t know, Hannah. Del didn’t call again and that’s the last I ever heard about it.”

“Thanks, Betty.” Hannah hung up the phone and dropped her face in her hands. This was all very confusing. Perhaps she should take a run out to the dairy and look at the crime scene again. It was possible that Bill might have missed something that pertained to the loan that Del had taken out with Max.

“I’m leaving again, Moishe,” Hannah announced as she stood up and felt around in her pocket to make sure she had her keys. But Moishe didn’t rush to the food bowl as he usually did. He just opened his good eye and gave her what amounted to an extremely bored kitty shrug.

H
annah zipped down Old Lake Road at seventy miles an hour, just about as fast as her Suburban would go. She had almost reached the intersection at Dairy Avenue when she began to reconsider her destination. It would be a waste of time to go over the crime scene. The killer had planned everything carefully, making a private appointment with Max and tricking him into opening the old safe in the original dairy. There was no way such an organized killer would have left any incriminating evidence behind.

So what should she do? Hannah took her foot off the gas pedal and let her Suburban slow to the legal limit. Perhaps she should run out to the sheriff’s station to find Bill. She had more facts for him, information that she hadn’t yet learned when she’d left her voice mail message. She could pull Bill aside and tell him everything. Between the two of them, they could figure out what to do next.

Hannah glanced in her rearview mirror and saw that the road was clear behind her. She slowed her truck to a crawl and did something she’d never done before in her life. She hung a U-turn right across the double yellow line and headed for the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Station.

As she pushed the speedometer up to seventy again, Hannah thought about Del Woodley. He couldn’t have killed Max. The laws of physics were absolute and he couldn’t have been in two places at the same time. Even if Phil had been wrong by five minutes and Danielle’s watch had been off by the same amount, it still wasn’t possible to drive from DelRay Manufacturing, out on the interstate, to the Cozy Cow Dairy in that length of time.

But Benton could have killed Max. Hannah’s hands tightened on the wheel as that thought occurred to her. Phil had said he’d come home because he was worried that the family money would run out. If Max had called in his loan and Del had told Benton about it, Benton could have decided to protect his inheritance by shooting Max and stealing the paperwork.

Hannah thought about Benton as she raced down the highway. He’d always enjoyed having money. From first grade on, Andrea had come home from school talking about Benton’s new leather backpack, or the complete set of Disney movies that Benton’s parents had bought for him, or the souvenirs that he’d brought back from his summer vacations. Benton had been the most popular boy in the class because he’d treated his classmates to the luxuries their parents couldn’t afford. “Give them things and make them friends” had been his motto.

Benton’s family wealth had been even more apparent in high school. Then Benton had dazzled the girls, Andrea included, by picking them up in his shiny new convertible and showering them with expensive gifts. The huge bottle of perfume that he’d given Andrea for Christmas had been just one example. Delores had priced it and she’d told Hannah that it had cost over two hundred dollars.

Hannah doubted that Benton’s habits had changed in the years since he’d been gone. She was sure that he was still buying friendship with his money. What if all the cash that he used to impress people suddenly started to dry up? Would that be a strong enough motive to kill the person who’d threatened Benton’s whole way of life?

There was a slow truck ahead and Hannah pulled out to whiz past him. Yes, Benton could be the killer. He was smart enough to have arranged the whole thing, and people had murdered for a lot less. And Benton didn’t really have an alibi for the times of the murders. Unless he could come up with a plane ticket that proved he hadn’t landed at the airport until
after
Max and Ron had been murdered, Benton Woodley was the number one suspect on Hannah’s list.

Actually, Benton was her only suspect. Hannah sighed deeply and tromped even harder on the accelerator. She had to find Bill at the open house and tell him her new theory. Bill didn’t know that Del Woodley had put up his ring for sale and he’d never guess that Del had borrowed money from Max. She couldn’t expect him to solve the case unless he had all the facts.

Hannah’s foot lifted from the gas pedal again as another thought occurred to her. Exactly how would she manage to get Bill alone? Mike Kingston would be there and he was Bill’s new supervisor. And Bill had warned her not to let on that she was helping with the investigation. It was true that Mike didn’t start until Monday, but he’d be there at the open house. She couldn’t just barge in and announce to Bill
and
Mike that she’d solved the case.

The truck had turned off and now there was no one behind her. Hannah hit the brakes and peeled another U-turn. Going out to the sheriff’s station had been a bad idea. She’d have to wait until Bill got home tonight before she could tell him that she knew who the killer was. But what should she do now? It was only three-thirty and the rest of the afternoon stretched out ahead of her.

The moment she thought of it, Hannah began to smile. She’d go out to DelRay Manufacturing to talk to Benton. She’d make polite conversation and ask him about his flight. She could always say that a friend of hers, a fictional friend who lived on the East Coast, was planning to come out for a visit. That would be a perfect excuse to ask him which airline he’d used, how long his flight had taken, and whether he’d had to wait long at the airport for the shuttle. Thanks to Andrea, she had the advantage of knowing that Benton always flicked his fingernail with his thumb when he was lying. She’d watch Benton carefully to weed out the truth from the lies….

No, she couldn’t talk to Benton. It wouldn’t look good if she interrogated a murder suspect without Bill. Hannah eased up on the accelerator again, preparing for another U-turn. Her last instinct had been right. She’d drive straight out to the sheriff’s station and give some excuse for needing to see Bill alone. It could be a family emergency, something to do with Delores. Then Mike would leave them alone and she could…

She was running in circles and she had to stop it. Hannah pulled over to the shoulder of the road and shut off her engine. Three consecutive U-turns was quite enough and she’d been about to make the fourth. What was wrong with her today? Why couldn’t she think logically? It felt as if she’d been trying to assemble a complicated jigsaw puzzle with a blindfold on, and someone kept slipping in a piece from a totally different puzzle to confuse her.

“Think,” Hannah muttered to herself. “Just sit here and think. You’re smart. You can figure out what to do.”

She’d already eliminated a ton of suspects until all she had left was Benton. Hannah was sure that he was the killer, but how could she help Bill to prove it? She had to take a giant step back and think about what had led her to suspect Benton in the first place. And that took her back to the Compacts Unlimited folder in Del Woodley’s den. She had to prove that Benton had rented the black compact car that Mr. Harris had seen speeding out of the driveway at the dairy. Hannah supposed she could wait for the list of customers that the manager had promised to send to Bill, but it meant that a whole day, perhaps two, would be wasted. There was another way for her to find out, a way that should have occurred to her immediately if she’d just taken the time to think about it.

Hannah smiled as she started her engine and pulled back out on the road. She was going to drop in for a nice neighborly visit at the Woodley Mansion. She’d bring Judith Woodley some cookies as a thank-you for the lovely party, and then she’d ask her a few polite questions about Benton. She’d mention that her mother had left her handkerchief in the den when they’d used it as a setting for the photos, and Judith would give her permission to search for it. If Hannah could just get a second look at that folder from Compacts Unlimited, she’d be able to confirm that Benton had rented the car.

“Good afternoon, Hannah.” Hannah could tell that Judith was surprised to see her, but good breeding didn’t allow her to turn a gift-bearing visitor away. “Del and Benton are still at work, but you’re welcome to come in and take tea with me.”

“Thank you. I’d love to have tea with you,” Hannah said quickly and she gave a triumphant smile as Judith led the way down the hall. Judith had sounded very reluctant. A truly polite guest would have made some excuse to decline. But Hannah was only masquerading as a guest and she figured that a halfhearted invitation to stay for tea was better than no invitation at all.

As they passed the den, Hannah glanced in at the table by the couch. The rental car folder was gone. She frowned and decided to skip the bit about her mother’s lost handkerchief. It wouldn’t serve any purpose now.

“This is my little sitting room,” Judith announced as she paused at an open door. “Please go in and make yourself at home. I have a phone call to return, but my housekeeper will bring in the tea tray, and I’ll be with you in just a few moments.”

Hannah nodded and kept the smile on her face until Judith had left. There was nothing “little” about Judith’s little sitting room. Hannah’s whole condo could have been plunked down in the center, with plenty of room to spare.

As she gazed around her, Hannah conceded that it was a lovely room. It was tastefully decorated in silks and satin and it had an incredible view of the garden. While most gardens looked brown and dead this time of year, Judith’s was lush and green. Her gardener had planted rows of small ornamental spruces in an intricate design that zigzagged around the beautiful statuary and nestled up against pretty little wrought-iron benches.

“Excuse me, ma’am.” A housekeeper in a black silk dress with a white lace collar came into the room. She was carrying a tray containing an antique tea set that Delores would have killed for. Hannah had learned a bit about fine china and porcelain on her forays to estate sales and auctions with her mother and she recognized the pattern. It was a rare and beautifully rendered set that Wedgwood had offered for a limited time in the eighteen hundreds.

The housekeeper walked over to the antique piecrust table at the far end of the room and arranged the tea set carefully on its polished surface. She also set out a platter of dainty finger sandwiches. “Mrs. Woodley asks that you begin without her, ma’am. Shall I pour?”

“Yes, please.” Hannah took a seat in one of the two chairs that flanked the table. Both chairs had a lovely view of the garden, but Hannah was much more interested in watching how the housekeeper poured the tea. It was done efficiently and very carefully, golden tea streaming from the spout to fill the lovely china cup without a splash. As the housekeeper blotted the lip of the teapot with an impeccably clean white linen napkin, Hannah couldn’t help wondering whether knowledge of correct tea-pouring etiquette was one of the prerequisites for employment at the Woodley estate.

“Lemon or sugar, ma’am?”

“Neither, thank you,” Hannah responded with a smile. “I’m really glad you poured that. I would have been petrified that I’d drop the pot.”

The housekeeper gave a startled smile, but she immediately regained her composure. “Yes, ma’am. Will there be anything else?”

“I don’t think so.” Hannah had the urge to do something totally inappropriate. All this formality was getting to her. “Actually I hate tea, but don’t tell Queen Judith that I said that.”

“No, ma’am. I shan’t.”

The housekeeper beat a hasty retreat, but Hannah heard the sound of stifled laughter as the door closed behind her. That made her feel good. She doubted that Judith’s domestic staff got many laughs from her guests.

Once the sound of housekeeper’s footsteps had faded off down the hallway, Hannah lifted the other teacup and took a peek at the mark on the bottom. She was right. It was Wedgwood. She could hardly wait to tell Delores that she’d actually sipped tea from such a rare and expensive cup.

There was nothing to do but wait for Judith, and Hannah took stock of her surroundings. There was a secretariat of French extraction in a corner. It was probably from the time of Louis XIV, but she wasn’t entirely sure. Somehow she doubted that Judith would ever buy copies, regardless of how cleverly they’d been crafted.

The wing chairs were antiques from the mid-eighteen hundreds, undoubtedly English and most certainly expensive. Mentally Hannah added up the items of furniture that surrounded her and came up with a staggering amount. No wonder Del Woodley had needed to borrow money. His wife had spent close to a hundred thousand dollars decorating her sitting room!

All that adding made her hungry and Hannah eyed the platter of sandwiches, little rectangles of bread with the crusts removed. Why did people who wanted to be sophisticated cut the crusts off slices of bread? As far as Hannah was concerned, the crusts were the best part. The filling in the sandwiches was green and since she didn’t think that there was any moldy bologna in the Woodleys’ refrigerator, Hannah assumed that it must be watercress or cucumber. A vegetable sandwich on white bread with the crusts missing wasn’t exactly Hannah’s idea of haute cuisine. She was just wondering if they might taste better than they looked when she heard footsteps approaching. Judith was coming and Hannah pasted a perfectly polite expression on her face. It was showtime.