Strawberry Shortcake Murder (21 page)

Hannah gave a little toot on her horn as she parted company with her sister. Andrea was going to collect Tracey at Kiddie Korner, and they’d meet later, at the bake-off.

As she drove past the park, Hannah flicked on her lights. This was the most dangerous driving time of the day. Night was falling fast, and while she could still see, everything outside the range of her headlights had lost its color and faded to shades of gray.

There weren’t many cars in the school parking lot. The teachers had gone home, and the audience for tonight’s bake-off wouldn’t arrive for another hour and a half. Hannah had brought her outfit with her and was planning to dress in the girls’ locker room. She’d have a miffed feline to contend with when she arrived at her condo after the show, but Moishe could get along on his own for another few hours.

Charlotte Roscoe, Jordan High’s secretary, had been very helpful on the phone. She’d checked Boyd’s schedule but hadn’t found a record of the meeting. She’d told Hannah that Jordan High teachers only kept records of their academic conferences. She’d suggested that the conference could have involved one of Coach Watson’s team members and advised Hannah to check with Gil Surma, Jordan High’s counselor, to see if he’d been involved. Gil was still at the school, meeting with his Cub Scouts. Since it was winter outside and the auditorium was off-limits during the bake-off, Gil was teaching them to pitch a canvas teepee in the hallway outside the principal’s office.

Once she’d parked and climbed out of her truck, Hannah walked around to the back to grab a large bag of yesterday’s cookies. Cub Scouts were always hungry, and they could eat them on their way home. She hurried across the parking lot, darted around the side of the building, and entered through the main door.

Hannah started to grin as she came around the corner and encountered an unusual sight. A khaki-colored tepee was collapsed in a heap near the principal’s door. There were several squirming lumps inside, making it seem as if it had developed a life of its own, and she could hear Gil’s voice as he attempted to take command.

“Come on, boys. Stop wiggling and let me find the opening. You don’t want to stay here all night, do you?”

This was followed by a volley of childish laughter, and Hannah decided to lend a hand. She walked up to the jiggling teepee, lifted the front peak of the canvas, and held it up until a head emerged.

“Thanks, whoever you are.” Gil crawled out of the opening on his hands and knees. Then he looked up and smiled. “You saved us, Hannah. I was just showing my troop how easy it was to set up a teepee.”

Gil got to his feet and took her place, holding up the peak of the teepee. Five young Cub Scouts crawled out, one after the other, and all of them looked delighted to see Hannah. Hannah knew it wasn’t her winning personality or the fact she’d helped to extricate them from the tent; they’d spotted the bag of cookies she’d brought.

“Is you meeting over, Gil?” Hannah asked.

“Yes. It should have been over fifteen minutes ago, but the teepee wasn’t very cooperative.”

Hannah passed out the cookies, four to each boy, and they left crunching happily. When the last one was out of earshot, she said, “I need to talk to you, Gil. It’s about Boyd Watson.”

“A terrible thing.” Gil shook his head. “Mr. Purvis told us that the authorities were investigating the possibility of foul play, but one of the other teachers mentioned that Boyd had seemed depressed lately. Do you think that it was suicide?”

“No way. Nobody commits suicide by cracking his own skull open with a hammer.” Gil looked a little sick, and Hannah wished she hadn’t been quite so descriptive. “Are you all right, Gil?”

“I’m okay. They didn’t describe exactly how Boyd died on the news. And Danielle was the one to find him like that?”

“Yes.”

“Poor Danielle. She must really be hurting. I’d better drop by the house and see if there’s any way I can help.”

“She’s not at home, Gil. Doc Knight put her in the hospital.”

“She’s that sick?”

Hannah decided that stretching the truth wouldn’t hurt. She certainly didn’t want Gil to know that Danielle was a suspect in Boyd’s murder. “She’s had a bad cold for a week or so. The shock made it worse, and Doc decided to keep her at Lake Eden Memorial until she recovers.”

Gil looked very sympathetic. “We’ll send flowers. I’ll set up a donation can in the faculty lounge. And the players on The Gulls can chip in. Danielle should know that she’s not alone at a time like this.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Hannah jumped in before Gil could do any more planning.

“The flowers?”

“No, The Gulls. I just found out that Boyd had a conference with one of his team members on Tuesday after school. Were you there?”

Gil shook his head. “I have chess club on Tuesdays. Of course, I would have canceled if Boyd had asked me to sit in, but he didn’t.”

“But you were here, at the school?”

“No. I took the whole club to my house. It’s only three members, two seniors and a junior. We watched a tape of Bobby Fischer’s last match.”

Hannah sighed. This wasn’t working out the way she’d hoped it would “Then you didn’t see who Boyd met with?”

“I’m afraid not. We left right after the bell rang. Why do you want to know?”

Hannah sighed. She really didn’t want to lie, and perhaps she didn’t have to make up another story to disguise her true motive. Gil was the Jordan High counselor and obligated to obey the same set of shrink confidentiality rules that Dr. Holland did. “If I tell you something in confidence, you can’t repeat it, right?”

“Yes, if this is a counseling session.”

“Okay, it’s a counseling session. Just don’t bill me for your time.”

Gil laughed. “I won’t. Talk to me.”

“You said you didn’t know who Boyd met with, so we’ll have to go after this another way. Do you know if Boyd was having a problem with any of his team members?”

“Yes, he was. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you who it is.”

“You have to tell me!” Hannah felt her frustration level rise. “I know about your professional ethics and all that stuff, but this could have a bearing on Boyd’s murder!”

Gil held up his hands in surrender. “Hold on, Hannah. I didn’t say I wouldn’t tell you. I said I couldn’t tell you. Boyd didn’t give me the student’s name.”

“Oh.” Hannah felt slightly ashamed of her outburst.

“All Boyd did was pose a hypothetical. He asked what I’d do if I were the head coach and I discovered that one of my basketball players was using steroids.”

“Steroids?” Hannah was surprised. As far as she knew, there’d never been a problem of that magnitude in Lake Eden. Last year, three members of the football team had been suspended for a couple of games when they’d thrown a keg party out at the lake, but that was about it. “What did you tell Boyd?”

“I said I’d suspend the player for the rest of the season. The school rules are very clear about performance-enhancing drugs.”

“What did Boyd say to that?”

“He posed another hypothetical. He asked me what I’d do if the boy’s father threatened to withdraw his support from the school athletic program. I told him I couldn’t let that influence my decision and I’d still suspend the boy.”

“Did Boyd take your advice?”

“I think so. We talked about the best way to tell the boy’s father that his son was about to be suspended. Boyd even jotted down a few notes. Then he thanked me for making his job easier. That was on Monday, Hannah. If Boyd scheduled a conference after school on Tuesday, it could have been about that.”

Hannah’s heart began to race as she asked the most important question. “Did Boyd suspend a boy from his team?”

“No, I checked on that. Either Boyd changed his mind, or…” Gil stopped speaking and looked a little sick again.

“Or what?”

“Or he was murdered before he had time to fill out the forms.”

Lisa stood at her side with the bowl of sweetened whipped cream as Hannah sliced the Hawaiian Flan. It had turned out perfectly, and Hannah smiled as she transferred it to the cut-glass dessert bowls. She sprinkled on a bit of crushed pineapple, spooned some of the golden caramel sauce over the top, and passed the bowls to Lisa, who placed generous dollops of whipped cream on top.

Once they placed the dessert bowls and spoons on the serving tray, Hannah and Lisa took off their aprons and waited for the signal from the stage manager. The red light on the camera that was trained in their direction was off, and Hannah turned to Lisa with a question. “Is your dad watching?”

“He’s in the audience with Mr. Drevlow. He wanted to see me live tonight. Dad thinks we have our own cooking show, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this was only temporary.”

Hannah glanced over at Rayne Phillips, who was standing in front of a blank blue screen. He was making sweeping gestures at nonexistent storm fronts and Hannah wondered how he knew where to point. Then she saw the monitor that had been set up just out of camera range, showing the computer-generated highs and lows that swirled around on a map of Minnesota. She’d never realized it before, but being a KCOW weatherman actually took some acting ability.

“Are you ready, Hannah?”

“I’m ready.” Hannah smiled as she picked up the tray. “It’s almost showtime. Let’s knock ‘em dead, Lisa.”

When the stage manager gestured to them, Hannah made her way to the news desk, stepping carefully over the cables. Once Lisa had served each of the newscasters, Chuck Wilson turned to Hannah.

“What do you girls have for us tonight?”

Hannah bristled at his choice of words, but she quickly hid it with a smile. She hadn’t been a “girl” for over a decade. “Pineapple custard with caramel sauce. I call it Hawaiian Flan.”

“Looks great.” Chuck dipped in his spoon and the camera zoomed in on him as he took a bite. He smiled, let the creamy sweetness roll around on his tongue for a moment and then swallowed. “This is a real treat, girls.”

Hannah bristled again and she was about to give him a piece of her mind when Lisa stepped in. “Thank you, Chuck. I’m sure it’ll be very popular with our customers at The Cookie Jar. We’re expanding to desserts, and we plan to feature a different one every day.”

“I’ll be there for this one,” Chuck promised. Then he turned to Dee-Dee Hughes. “What do you think, Dee-Dee?”

“It’s heavy and light at the same time, if you know what I mean.” Hannah didn’t think anyone knew what Dee-Dee meant, but she managed to keep the smile on her face. “But something this yummy has got to be loaded with calories. Am I right?”

Lisa stepped in again, and Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. She’d assured Hannah that she was ready for Dee-Dee’s predictable calorie-count question.

“It’s certainly not diet food, but you can’t eat calorie-free Jell-O every night. If you’re that concerned, you can cut the sugar by half in the custard and take only a small portion of the caramel sauce. And you can substitute artificial sweetener for the sugar in the whipped cream.”

“But it’ll still be fattening, won’t it?” Dee-Dee asked.

Hannah bit her tongue. The urge to respond was almost too strong to resist. But before she could open her mouth, Wingo Joes got into the discussion. “Dessert is a time to carb up. If you’re worried about gaining weight, you should exercise to burn it off. I know I’d be willing to get out there and jog ten miles for a slice of this Hawaiian Flan.”

“Me too.” Rayne Phillips nodded and reached over to snag Dee-Dee’s dish. “Don’t worry, Dee-Dee. I’ll save you from yourself. You can’t get fat if I eat your dessert.”

Chuck Wilson cracked up, and Hannah instantly forgave him for calling her a girl. Perhaps he wasn’t such an idiot, after all. Then he turned to the camera, reminded everyone to stay tuned for the “World News,” followed by the third night of the Hartland Flour Dessert Bake-Off. The music came up, the credits started to roll, and the news team pretended to be busy shuffling papers and smiling at each other.

Dee-Dee maintained her pleasant expression until the red light on the camera went off. Then she glared at Rayne Phillips and uttered several nasty expletives that would have gotten the program bleeped off the airwaves.

Hannah was chuckling as she walked back to the kitchen set with Lisa to pack up. Lisa joined in, and they were in a fine mood as they loaded their supplies into boxes and carried them to the shelves against the back wall.

“If there’s nothing else, I’m going to go and sit with Dad and Mr. Drevlow,” Lisa said.

“Go ahead, Lisa. You were great tonight, and I thought your answer to Dee-Dee’s question was perfect.” Hannah reached into the pocket of her apron and handed Lisa an envelope. “Here. This is for you. I’m paying you for all the extra hours you put in this week.”

Lisa looked surprised. “But you don’t have to do that. I put in those hours because I wanted to. I like helping you, Hannah, and I didn’t expect to get paid extra.”

“Then call it a Christmas bonus. You earned it.”

“Okay.” Lisa put the envelope in her pockets. “But don’t pay me any more. I’ll cover for you until the bake-off’s over and you’re through with… with that other thing you’re working on.”

Hannah nodded. Lisa was the perfect employee, and maybe it was time to think about making her a partner. Between the two of them they could keep The Cookie Jar running smoothly, and they might even be able to take alternate vacations during their slowest month.

But when would that be? Hannah thought about it for a moment, her brow creased in through. There was always a party or a social event to cater, and people ate cookies year round. Unless every resident of Lake Eden went on a low-carb diet at the same time, they’d never have a slowest month.

Hannah had just emerged from the makeup room, where the experts had touched up her lipstick and attempted to tame her flyaway red hair, when Andrea rushed up.

“There you are! Let’s duck in here where we can be private.” Andrea pulled her inside the ladies’ room. “Lucy’s not here. I’ve looked everywhere. I even asked Bill if she was hanging around the sheriff’s station, and he told me he hadn’t seen her all day.”

Hannah felt her stomach drop with a sickening lurch. She’d really expected Lucy to show up at the bake-off. “Maybe she’s just late?”