Joanne Fluke Christmas Bundle: Sugar Cookie Murder, Candy Cane Murder, Plum Pudding Murder, & Gingerbread Cookie Murder (77 page)

H
annah approached the table with reluctance. She really wasn’t looking forward to dealing with Winthrop again, but perhaps she could spirit her mother away for a private talk. “Mother?”

“Why, hello!” Delores called out, greeting Hannah and then reaching out to take Winthrop’s hand. “This is quite an experience for Winthrop. He’s never been stuck in a blizzard before.”

“Right, dear girl.” Winthrop patted her hand and then pulled his away. Either he’d read the disapproval in Hannah’s eyes, or he was of the opinion that holding hands in public was tacky.

Hannah resisted the urge to tell him that the only way to experience a blizzard was to get out there alone and walk a couple of blocks, and she turned to her mother instead. “Could I see you for a moment, Mother?”

“Of course. Sit down, dear.”

“No. I mean…I need to see you privately.”

Delores frowned slightly. “Whatever it is, you can talk about it in front of Winthrop. We have no secrets from each other.”

“Maybe you don’t have any secrets from Winthrop, but
I
do.”

“That’s only as it should be,” Winthrop said, and then he turned to Delores. “Go have a little
coze
with your daughter, dear girl. I’ll be perfectly fine here.”

“Coze?” Hannah repeated, as her mother got up and followed her to an unpopulated spot near the Christmas tree that Andrea had decorated.

“Comfy coze. I know they used the term in Regency England, and I assume it’s still in use today. It means an intimate chat. Oh, dear!”

Hannah glanced in the direction her mother was gazing and had all she could do to keep from grinning. The moment Delores had left the table with Hannah, three women had converged on Winthrop. Carrie Rhodes was now seated on one side of him, Bertie Straub was on the other, and Florence Evans had taken the chair directly across from the British lord.

“Sharks in a feeding frenzy,” Delores muttered. And then she turned to frown at Hannah as her eldest daughter gave a startled laugh. “Well, they are.”

“You could be right.” Hannah saw Carrie give Winthrop her sweetest smile, and she pulled her mother around to the other side of the Christmas tree where she wouldn’t be distracted.

“What’s so important?” Delores asked a bit sharply.

“Murder, Mother.”

“Murder?” Delores whirled to face Hannah instead of attempting to see Winthrop and the three women through the branches. “Here?”

“Yes.”

Delores rolled her eyes toward the angel at the top of the tree. “Don’t tell me you found the body!”

“Shhh!” Hannah cautioned, putting her finger to her lips. “Mike doesn’t want anybody to know about it yet.”

“You have
got
to stop finding dead people, Hannah! Winthrop’s going to get the wrong impression of you.”

“Right,” Hannah said, biting back several additional com
ments that would have assured her mother’s immediate defection.

“Well, who was it this time?”

“Martin Dubinski’s new wife. She was stabbed in the parking lot.” Hannah knew that discretion was the better part of valor and she decided not to mention that her mother’s antique cake knife was the murder weapon.

“Good heavens! Do they know who did it?”

“Not yet. That’s the other reason nobody can leave.”

Delores was nothing if not perceptive. Her eyes narrowed and she bent forward to stare at her daughter. “You mean…the killer could still be here?”

“That’s what Mike thinks. Anyway, I need your help with the mayor. Bertie overheard them fighting. She told Michelle that Mrs. Bascomb was accusing her husband of knowing Brandi in Vegas.”

“Knowing? As in the Biblical sense?”

“I think so. And that could be the reason Mrs. Bascomb was so upset.”

“Poor Stephanie,” Delores said with a sigh. “With his track record, she’s probably right. And you want me to ask him if it’s true?”

“Yes. I know you two go way back, and I think he’s still a little afraid of you.”

“He should be. Fear was the only thing that kept him in line the summer I worked for his mother. I’ll do this one on one. It’ll work better that way. You wait here and keep an eye on Winthrop. If he looks desperate, go rescue him.”

Fat chance,
Hannah thought, taking a peek through the branches. Winthrop looked as happy as a clam to have three women doting on him. “Okay, Mother. Good luck.”

“Luck has nothing to do with it. Intimidation is an art form, and don’t you dare forget it!”

Hannah was just thinking about going over to spill some coffee on Carrie, who was definitely poaching in her mother’s absence, when Delores came up smiling broadly.

“You found out?” Hannah guessed.

“Of course I did! I had him completely on the defensive from the very start. Ricky-Ticky was all set to spend a few intimate hours with Brandi when he went to Vegas last October, but he had a few too many and passed out in his hotel room before he could meet her in the bar for their date.”

“Date?
That’s a polite way of putting it.”

“That’s exactly what I said. And then I asked him if he had to pay her anyway.”

“Mother!”

“I was curious.”

“So am I. Well? Did he pay her?”

“Only half. That was the up-front part. He was supposed to pay the other half later.”

“Do you think he was telling the truth?”

Delores nodded. “I’m almost positive he was. It would have been less embarrassing if he’d lied and said he’d been with her.”

“You’re right. Good work, Mother. It’s too bad Mrs. Bascomb doesn’t know she has nothing to worry about on the Brandi front.”

“I’d tell her, but Ricky-Ticky deserves a rough time for his past flirtations.”

“Nicely put, Mother.”

“Yes, wasn’t it? And speaking of flirtations, I think I’d better get back to Winthrop before my partner and the woman I hope might be your future mother-in-law does something I can’t forgive.”

Hannah ducked into the kitchen to see if she could find an empty spot to gather her thoughts. Earl Flensburg had obviously finished eating and left, because the circular booth the builder had put in to accommodate the kitchen workers was empty. Hannah carried Earl’s plate to the sink, rinsed it off, and slipped it into the hot soapy water that Edna had left for dishes that came in after the load in the industrial dishwasher had been started. Then she grabbed a mug of coffee from the kitchen pot, slid into the booth, and pulled her stash of crumpled napkins out of her sweater pockets.

Once she’d straightened out all the napkins and placed them in order, Hannah surveyed the results of the investigation so far. They’d eliminated two suspects, Martin and Shirley, and although Babs didn’t have an alibi, her motive was weak. Babs had been prepared to get along with Brandi for her son’s sake. She might have hoped that Brandi would leave Martin, but it was unlikely that Babs would have killed her new daughter-in-law just to get her out of the way.

Mayor Bascomb’s name was under Babs Dubinski’s. Hannah had written it down when Michelle had told her that Lake Eden’s first couple was fighting about Brandi. But Delores had found out that nothing happened between the mayor and the stripper-turned-bride. Hannah picked up her pen and drew a line through Mayor Bascomb’s name. If nothing had happened between them, the mayor had no reason to kill Brandi.

Way down at the bottom of the napkin was a name that appeared on every suspect list that Hannah had ever written.
Someone Unknown
was the name, and
Reasons Unknown
was the motive. And in order to figure out who
Someone Unknown
was, Hannah needed to know more about Brandi’s life.

Hannah was sure there were people in Las Vegas that she could interview, but they were there and she was here at the
Lake Eden Christmas party in the middle of a blizzard. Perhaps she couldn’t learn anything about Brandi’s recent past, but she could certainly find out more about Brandi’s school days at Browerville High.

The moment Hannah thought of it, she was on the move, stuffing the napkins back into her sweater pockets and heading out to talk to Marge Beeseman. The
Lake Eden Journal
had reported that the community library, run by Marge, had been designated as the tri-county repository for school documents.

Marge was sitting at a table with Lisa and her dad. Hannah greeted them all and then she turned to Lisa. “Where’s Herb?”

“He’s helping Mike with something or other.” Lisa leaned closer and spoke in a barely audible voice, “They don’t know.”

Hannah turned to Marge. “Congratulations about the tri-county repository designation.”

“Thank you. It’s a lot of work going through all the documents, but we get a very generous stipend for storing the material.”

“That’s great. I was just wondering if that school material included high school yearbooks.”

“Yes, it does. I just finished shelving them yesterday.”

Hannah smiled. Her hunch had paid off. “I know this is an imposition, but do you think you could open the library for me so I could take a look at some of them?”

“Of course I can. I was about to go up there anyway to show Lisa and Jack the new magazine racks that the Jordan High shop class built for me.”

Once Hannah, Lisa, Marge, and Jack had climbed the stairs and gone down the hall to the library, Marge unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. “The yearbooks are against the back wall in the center sections. There’s a stepstool there
if you can’t reach the top ones. What are you looking for, Hannah?”

“Um…it’s nothing, really. I just wanted to see if someone I know has changed a lot since high school.”

Hannah crooked her finger at Lisa, and her partner followed along. They found the proper section and Lisa asked, “What are we really looking for?”

“A picture of Mary Kay Hinklemeyer in one of the Browerville High yearbooks. It would have been about ten years ago, because she left home at sixteen.”

“And Mary Kay Hinklemeyer is…Brandi’s real name?”

“You got it.”

“And she’s from Browerville?”

“You got that, too.”

Lisa took down one of the Browerville yearbooks and flipped to the back. “This is going to be easy. Each book has an index listing names and photos.”

With both of them sitting at a library table, looking through the yearbooks, it didn’t take long to locate a photo of Mary Kay Hinklemeyer. There was one picture of her as a junior varsity cheerleader jumping up, legs spread, arms akimbo, with the other cheerleaders at a basketball game. Lisa stared at the photo for a long moment without speaking, and then she passed it to Hannah for a similar silent perusal.

“Do you think that’s Brandi?” Lisa asked.

“I think so.”

“Okay, but you couldn’t prove it by me. She really changed a lot since she was in school.”

“That she did,” Hannah commented, biting back a quip about the wonders of nose jobs, hair coloring, and other surgical enhancements. “Let’s go through the whole yearbook together and see if we recognize anyone else.”

They turned the pages in silence for a few moments until they came to a photo of a pep rally in the school gym. Brandi
and the other cheerleaders were in front of the crowd and the band was seated behind them.

“Is that who I think it is?” Lisa asked, pointing to a boy with dark-rimmed glasses who was holding a trumpet.

“Kirby Welles?” Hannah guessed, flipping back to the index. “Here’s his name. I didn’t know he went to Browerville High.”

“Neither did I.”

Lisa started paging through the yearbook again, looking for anyone else she might recognize. Hannah was silent, barely looking at the pages. She was too busy going over the conversation she’d had with Kirby. He’d claimed he had just met Brandi tonight and that was clearly a lie. He’d known Brandi since she was Mary Kay Hinklemeyer, junior varsity cheerleader. And that explained why Kirby had been so upset to hear that she was dead.

“Thanks for your help, Lisa,” Hannah said, pushing back her chair.

“You’re welcome. You’re going to see Kirby Welles?”

“Oh, yes,” Hannah said, heading out of the library at a fast clip. By virtue of his lie, Jordan High’s bandleader had just become her prime suspect.

W
hile Hannah was upstairs, the banquet room had undergone a transformation, thanks to the Jordan High athletic department, whose members had volunteered to move tables and chairs for the party. Except for two long rectangular tables near the kitchen, the dining tables had been folded and returned to the storage area under the stairs. In their place, dozens of round, four-person tables had been arranged near the giant Christmas tree, leaving a good-sized circular area, with the tree in the center, for a dance floor.

The lights had been dimmed, the coffee had been replenished, and Hannah noticed that quite a few adults were availing themselves of the punchbowl full of English Eggnog that Rod Metcalf was manning. A second punchbowl, almost identical but lacking the rum that flavored the first, was available for those who didn’t want to consume, or weren’t old enough to legally consume, the alcoholic version.

Kirby Welles and the jazz ensemble had gone through their Christmas music, and now they were playing a medley of jazz standards. A half-dozen couples were dancing to “Strangers in the Night,” and Hannah watched them without any real interest until she caught sight of Laura Jorgensen dancing cheek-to-cheek with a tall, dark-haired man. The couple turned and Hannah recognized Drew Vavra, a mem
ber of her graduating class at Jordan High and a graduate of the University of Minnesota. Just this September, Drew had been hired to replace Boyd Watson, and he was the new history teacher and head coach of the Lake Eden Gulls.

Hannah glanced down at Laura’s feet again. Drew was a nice guy, steady and reliable, and not bad to look at, either. Hannah hoped that Laura was wearing the special shoes for him. Since she would have been hard-pressed to slip a sheet advertising the cookie specials of the day at The Cookie Jar between them, it was a safe bet that Laura and Drew were a lot more than casual acquaintances.

The medley ended and Hannah headed straight for Drew and Laura. She caught them before they could even leave the dance floor. She greeted them both and was trying to think of a way to spirit Laura off to ask her where she’d been at the time of Brandi’s murder, when Laura solved the problem for her.

“Would you get me a cup of that wonderful eggnog, Drew?” Laura waited until Drew had left for the table with the punchbowl and then she turned back to Hannah. “I want you to be the first to know, since you were Drew’s classmate and he told me that you were the only reason he got through algebra. We just got engaged!”

“Congratulations!” Hannah exclaimed, giving Laura a little hug. “And I think I just blew it. I’m supposed to say that to Drew, not you. But I really am happy for both of you. And if Drew ever needs to solve a quadratic equation, you know where I live.”

Laura laughed and she looked happier than Hannah had ever seen her. “We’ve only been dating for three weeks, but we’ve spent almost every minute together. I just couldn’t believe it when we started to dance, and he slipped the ring on my finger and asked me to marry him.”

“That’s so romantic,” Hannah said, and she meant it. “And your ring is beautiful.”

“I know. And to think I’ve been pining over Martin for two years! I was so wrong, but it took meeting Drew to make me realize it.”

“Well…I’m really glad you did!” Hannah said, glancing up at the stage. The jazz ensemble was breaking up, some students heading toward the kitchen and whatever food was left, and others rushing for the coolers of soft drinks that sat on a table next to the punchbowls. “Please tell Drew I’m delighted for both of you. I’d love to stay and tell him myself, but I’ve got to talk to Kirby before he takes his break.”

Hannah headed off toward the makeshift stage, mentally crossing Laura off her list. There was no way Laura was jealous enough to kill Brandi, not when she was head over heels with Drew.

“Kirby?” Hannah called out, catching the bandleader in the act of stepping off the riser. “We need to talk.”

“Couldn’t it wait….”

“Now,” Hannah interrupted him, climbing up to grab his arm. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Brandi when you were in high school and she was Mary Kay Hinklemeyer?”

“I…she didn’t want me to say anything. And I only knew her when we were kids, before she ran away from home.”

“What was she like?”

“Um…kind of wild, but she was a fantastic dancer and we used to enter dance contests as a couple. We always won when we danced together and we…uh…we dated occasionally.”

“Does
dated
mean what I think it means?”

Kirby turned a dull shade of red. “Yeah.”

“So did you tell Martin that you already knew Brandi when Martin introduced her to you?”

“No. I was about to say something about going to high school with her, but Mary Kay gave me a warning look. I’m pretty sure that Martin didn’t know she was from right around here.”

Hannah got down to business. “Did you get a chance to talk to Brandi privately before she was killed?”

“Um…well…actually…” Kirby turned a little pale. “I did. She stopped by the stage and asked me to meet her in the cloakroom.”

“And you did?”

“It was nothing out of the way, or anything like that. We just talked about old times and what happened to the other kids we’d gone to school with.”

Something about this conversation was bothering her, and it took Hannah a moment to figure out what it was. There was something Kirby wasn’t telling her. It was in the way he failed to meet her eyes, and his stance, which was as defensive as that of a cornered ’possum. It was time to probe for the truth.

“So what did you think about Brandi’s marriage to Martin?” Hannah asked, watching closely for Kirby’s reaction.

“I thought it was a big mistake. And actually, so did Mary Kay. She said Martin was no fun at all and…and she was going to dump him. And then…” Kirby faltered and raised stricken eyes to Hannah’s face. “Do you really need to know this?”

“I do. You need to tell me everything if we’re going to catch Brandi’s killer.”

“Okay. But please call her Mary Kay. That’s the way I want to remember her. She…she asked me to leave Lake Eden with her.”

Hannah blinked hard. “You mean, Bran…I mean,
Mary Kay
was going to dump Martin for you?”

“No! It wasn’t like that, Hannah, really. Mary Kay was dumping him anyway. And she wasn’t interested in marrying me, or anything permanent like that. She just didn’t like being alone, and she wanted me to come along with her for company.”

“I see,” Hannah said, even though she didn’t. “Did…um…Mary Kay tell you when she was planning to go?”

“Tonight. She was going to wait until Martin was busy talking to somebody, and then she was going to take off with his car and leave it at the airport in Minneapolis.”

“She was flying back to Las Vegas?”

“Not Vegas. She was going to the Bahamas, and she offered to buy my ticket if I’d come along. She said she could get at least fifty thousand for her coat and the ring Martin gave her, and if that wasn’t enough, she had an antique knife that was worth a bundle. She told me that we could live high on the hog in the Bahamas.”

“So what did you say?”

“I told her I couldn’t go, that I liked my job in Lake Eden. At first, she thought I was kidding, but when she realized I was serious, she called me a…” Kirby stopped, clearly embarrassed. “You don’t really have to know, do you?”

“No, I don’t. How about the antique knife she mentioned? Did she show it to you?”

“No. I had no idea she was talking about stealing your mother’s antique cake knife until you told me that it was the murder weapon.”

Hannah thought about what Kirby had said for a moment. She was almost sure that he was telling her the truth. “Why didn’t you tell me all this the first time we talked?”

“I couldn’t! I figured if you knew about the history Mary Kay and I had between us, you might think
I
killed her!”

“Did you?”

Kirby stared at Hannah in absolute shock. “Of course I didn’t kill her. I loved Mary Kay. She was my first real girlfriend. I kept thinking about that when the group was playing and remembering how much fun we used to have. You know how you caught me that first time just as I was about to leave on
break? And I didn’t want to talk to you because I had something important to do?”

“I remember. What was so important?”

“I was going to find Mary Kay and tell her I’d go with her after all!”

Hannah found Andrea at a table with Claire, Reverend Knudson, and his grandmother Priscilla. She chatted for a few moments and then she turned to Andrea. “Will you meet me in the lobby upstairs in five minutes?”

“Sure,” Andrea said, and there was a question in her eyes.

“I’m going to find Michelle and ask her to meet us, too.” Hannah ignored the question Andrea was dying to ask and excused herself to Claire and the Knudsons.

Hannah’s youngest sister was sitting with Luanne Hanks and Danielle Watson. “Hi,” Hannah said, plunking herself down in a chair. “How’s the dance business, Danielle?”

“It’s great. I was just asking Luanne if she knew anyone who might like to handle one of my senior ballroom dancing classes. I’ve got three going now and my waiting list is large enough to start another.”

“That’s just wonderful.” Hannah admired the transformation her friend had undergone. Danielle had been a timid and abused wife when she’d first come to Lake Eden, but now she was a successful businesswoman with plenty of self-confidence. “You’re not trying to recruit Luanne, are you?”

Danielle shook her head. “Are you kidding? Your mother and Carrie would kill me if I tried to hire Luanne out from under their noses.”

“You’ve got that right,” Luanne said with a laugh. “And starting next week I’m going to be even more valuable to them.”

“What happens next week?” Hannah asked.

“Mom, Suzie, and I move into the other half of Nettie’s
duplex. That means I can work later in the winter because I won’t have to match my hours to the county snowplow schedule.”

“Good for you!” Hannah said with a smile. She was glad that Luanne was leaving the isolation of her family home at the end of Old Bailey Road and moving to town. And she was doubly glad that Nettie Grant would be able to spend time with Suzie. After the losses the former sheriff’s wife had suffered in the past three years, it was bound to lift her spirits to be around a sunny little girl like Suzie.

“Michelle?” Hannah turned to her youngest sister. “Will you meet me in the upstairs lobby in five minutes?”

Michelle nodded, and as Hannah watched, she assumed the identical expression that her next-older sibling had worn. It was obvious that Andrea wasn’t the only Swensen sister who was dying of curiosity.

“’Bye, ladies. See you later, Michelle.” Hannah headed up the stairs to wait for her sisters. She waved at Lonnie, who was manning the outside door, and walked over to the grouping of chairs around the miniature Christmas village.

There was a large gilt-framed mirror on the wall behind the village and Hannah frowned as she caught sight of her hair. Her unruly red curls had been tousled by the wind and snow in the parking lot, and they looked as if they hadn’t seen the tender ministrations of a hairbrush in months. Hannah smoothed them down as best she could, and paused to admire the new sweater Norman had given her. It fell gracefully from her shoulders and came to just the right length in back to minimize that I-wish-it-were-smaller part of her anatomy.

“Gorgeous,” Hannah said, turning a bit so that her skirt swirled against her legs. But what was that bulge at her hips? She looked like an anatomically incorrect chipmunk with his cheeks lower than his waist.

Hannah reached in her pocket and drew out dozens of
paper napkins, far too many for the lines of the sweater. Even though she’d folded them neatly and divided them between the two pockets, the piles had grown, and now her sweater pockets were ballooning with a plethora of paper Santas, reindeer, snowflakes, Christmas trees, angels, and snowmen. It was definitely time to scare up a steno pad, and she knew just the place to find one.

A few moments later, Hannah was standing at Janice’s desk in Kiddie Corner, begging office supplies. The younger kids were crowded around the Christmas tree in the corner, listening to one of the high school girls read a story, and the older children, like Tracey, had gone off to the library to watch a Disney movie with several high school seniors as chaperones.

“How about this?” Janice asked, pulling a neon-pink steno pad from her center desk drawer. “I know you like the green ones, but it’s all I have at the moment. Here’s the pen that goes with it. The Velcro attaches to the cover, see?”

“It’s just perfect,” Hannah said gratefully, even though she would have preferred something less conspicuous. It was exactly as Delores had taught her; beggars couldn’t be choosers.

“I’m glad you’re here, Hannah. I’ve got something I want to show you.” Janice opened a drawer and took out a stack of letters. “I had the older kids write letters to Santa, and the high school girls helped them with the spelling. Linda Nelson came up to tell me that Tracey had asked her to spell some very strange words for a letter to Santa.”

“Like what?”

“Like
blizzard.
Linda didn’t think that was so odd, because we’re in the middle of one, but the next word Tracey wanted was
detective.
And then she asked Beth if
body
had two
d
’s or one.”