Strawberry Shortcake Murder (26 page)

“I’m positive. The killer assumes he found it and destroyed it. He pulled all of Lucy’s film out of their canisters. You’ll see that when you get up to her apartment.”

“Wait a second.” Bill looked confused again. “Wouldn’t the killer take Lucy’s film and develop it to make sure he had the right pictures?”

“Not unless he’s got his own darkroom. Think about it, Bill. There’s no way he’d take an incriminating piece of evidence down to Lake Eden Neighborhood Pharmacy and send it off for processing.”

“You’ve got a good point,” Mike said.

“Of course I do. And I have another piece of the puzzle if you want to see it.”

“You said see.” Mike picked up on her word immediately. “Is it another picture?”

Hannah handed him her final print. “It’s a blowup Norman did from the last shot on Lucy’s roll, the one where the killer is raising his arm. It’s the killer’s cuff link, and it’s clearer than the rest of the picture because it was glittering in the moonlight.”

Mike stared at the last print for a moment and then he handed it to Bill. “It’s a horse head, and it looks like an antique.”

“It’s also rare,” Andrea informed them. “I dashed over to Mother’s this afternoon and looked it up in one of her auction catalogues the last pair that went on the block sold for seven thousand dollars.”

Hannah turned to Andrea in surprise. She hadn’t known that her sister had done that particular piece of legwork. “When did you find time to do that?”

“Right after John and Wendy bought the farm.”

“Don’t say bought the farm.” Hannah started to laugh. “Especially not with a killer on the loose.”

Mike cracked up, and so did Bill and Andrea. It felt good to laugh, and it relieved the tension. For a few moments, all of them managed to push the brutality of the two murders out of their minds, but then they saw headlights at the mouth of the alley as Doc Knight’s Explorer pulled in. It was a tangible reminder that violent death lay only a few feet away, and their laughter ended abruptly.

“There’s one other thing you should know,” Hannah said quickly, before Mike could get out of the cruiser.

“You can tell me in a minute.” Mike opened his door and motioned for Bill to do the same. “Just stay right here. We’ll fill Doc in, and I’ll be right back.”

“What are you going to tell him?” Andrea asked, the moment they were alone.

“Something new,” Hannah said. She didn’t want to go into the story of Rudy’s outtakes for Wednesday’s montage and that it would take four hours to watch them. “I’ll tell you both when Mike gets back.”

That seemed to satisfy Andrea because she smiled. “You were really something, Hannah. You told Bill and Mike just what they had to know, and you didn’t even have to lie about the rest. You just… well… what’s the right word?”

“Evaded. I evaded telling them the whole truth.”

“That’s it. You evaded, and it worked out just fine. You know, Hannah? Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I think you’d make a great real-estate agent.”

“Aren’t you happy, Hannah?” Andrea asked as they drove down the snowy streets to the school.

“Happy?”

“Yes. Mike finally agreed to let us do some real detective work. He gave us his permission to watch the outtakes.”

“Right.” Hannah pulled into the lot. There was no need to burst Andrea’s bubble by telling her that Mike and Bill might have had an ulterior motive. If she and Andrea watched the outtakes, they’d be saving the real detectives four hours of work, and they’d be safely in the KCOW production truck with the night engineer. Hannah suspected that it was Mike’s way of keeping them out of trouble, but perhaps she was being uncharitable. “Are you sure you don’t mind watching the tapes with me?”

“I don’t mind. There could be some pictures of Tracey. Wasn’t it nice of Mason Kimball to offer to make me a copy if we found some?”

“Yes, it was.” Hannah thought about Mason’s antique cuff links and made a mental note to ask him if he’d talked to Ellen about any with horse heads on them. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but it couldn’t hurt to follow up. Even if they’d been sold, the jeweler in the mall might have kept records of something that valuable. It was a long shot, but not impossible.

“Bill said he’d be at least another two hours,” Andrea said. “He’ll pick me up here when he’s through. I hope he’s late. I’d really like to see the whole tape.”

“Maybe he will be.” Hannah pulled around the building and parked next to the production truck. “Okay, Andrea. Let’s go. Reach in the back and snag some cookies. I still haven’t eaten, and my stomach is growling.”

“Oh-oh.” Andrea held up the empty bag of Cocoa Snaps. “I just ate the last one. Do you want to make a trip out to the Quick Stop and get some snacks?”

Hannah considered it for a brief moment, but driving out to the Quick Stop would take at least fifteen minutes, and it was already close to eleven. “Never mind. It won’t kill me to go without food for another couple of hours. I’ll catch something later, when I get home.”

“Moishe.”

“What?”

“You’ll catch Moishe when you get home. I thought it was really cute when you unlocked your door and he jumped right up in your arms. He must really miss you when you’re gone all day.”

“All Moishe misses is a full food bowl,” Hannah said, even though she didn’t really believe it. Moishe did seem to miss her, and that made her feel good.

They climbed up the metal steps to the production truck, and Hannah knocked. She heard footsteps approaching, and then the door opened to reveal a bearded man with a ponytail and a diamond stud in his left ear.

“Hannah Swensen?” the engineer asked.

“That’s right. Mason Kimball gave me permission to watch Rudy’s outtakes for Wednesday. I brought my sister, Andrea, to help me.”

“No problem.” The engineer took one look at Andrea and started to smile. “Come in, and I’ll set you up. I’m P.K.”

Hannah wondered what P.K. stood for, but it didn’t really matter. They followed him down a hallway to a door near the end of the truck. P.K. opened it and gestured for them to go inside.

“This is Mason’s screening room. He said you could use it. Sit down, and I’ll get you the tapes.”

Hannah was impressed. The small room was like a den with two swivel chairs and a table between them. A television set was pulled out from the opposite wall and a rolling cart with a large VCR was set up right next to it.

“Not bad,” Andrea said, taking a seat in one of the swivel chairs. “It would look a lot better with wallpaper instead of that dark paneling, but it’s cozy.”

“Cozy?” Hannah stared around at the perfectly bare walls. “I thought cozy meant chintz and teddy bears.”

In a few moments, P.K. came back with four tapes in black boxes. They were bigger than the tapes Hannah had for her home VCR, and she figured that they were the three-quarter-inch kind that Rudy had mentioned. He opened one of the boxes and slid the tape into the VCR. “I’ll start it for you and teach you how to use the remote. Have you ever used a VCR?”

“Yes,” Hannah answered, “but the one I have isn’t three-quarter-inch.”

“The controls are pretty much the same. The tape’s a different size, that’s all.”

“I have a VCR at home, too.” Andrea smiled at him as he perched on the edge of her chair, and Hannah suspected that her sister had made another conquest. She looked good in her tight black slacks and fuzzy pink sweater, and men had never been able to resist Andrea.

“Then you’ll be able to handle this one just fine.” P.K. held out the remote so that Andrea could see it. “There’s play, stop, fast-forward, rewind, freeze-frame, pause, and the search buttons.”

Hannah almost hooted. Andrea always let Bill set the VCR, and she’d probably never held a remote in her life. But she nodded knowledgeably, and P.K. seemed satisfied.

“Just don’t touch that circle in the middle,” P.K. warned. “That’s for something you don’t need. Do you know about time codes?”

Andrea shook her head and turned to Hannah. “Do you?”

“Mason mentioned them. He said we should write them down if we wanted him to dupe a tape of something.”

“Okay.” P.K. tore his eyes away from Andrea and turned to Hannah. “Time codes are a bunch of numbers that advance at the bottom of the screen. The cam puts them on automatically. It’s distracting at first, but you’ll learn to ignore it.”

P.K. turned on the tape, and they saw a picture of the school. There were numbers at the bottom of the screen, just as P.K. had told them, and the fraction of seconds clicked by so fast, Hannah barely had time to read them.

“When you find something you want, press the freeze-frame.” P.K. held up the remote and demonstrated. “Then all you have to do is back up the tape with the reverse search and freeze-frame it again to read the number.”

“Okay. I can handle that,” Hannah said. “We write down the number at the beginning?”

“And at the end. Bracket the section of the tape for me with time codes. That’ll tell me what footage you want and how long it lasts.” P.K. demonstrated again and handed Andrea the remote. “I’ll get you a couple of notepads and pens from Mason’s office.”

“Thanks,” Andreas smiled up at him. “I’m sorry we’re so much trouble.”

Hannah waited until P.K. had left and then she turned to her sister. “You’re sorry we’re so much trouble?”

“I had to say something.” Andrea shrugged. “He’s being very nice.”

“He might be getting a little too nice. And you’re flirting with him.”

“I always flirt. Bill doesn’t mind. He knows that I’d never actually do anything. And he understands that flirting makes it easier for me to get what I want.”

Hannah had never heard it put quite that way before, but at least Andrea was being honest with herself. “Okay. What do you want from P.K.?”

“Coffee. If I smile a couple more times and happen to mention how cold I am, he’s bound to offer to bring us some.”

Viewing the outtakes was exciting at first, especially when they saw their friends appear on Rudy’s tape. Hannah and Andrea kept their eyes glued to the monitor, pens poised to write down the time codes. Then the novelty began to wear off. Since the footage Rudy had shot was especially for the montage, and that had been designed to be set to music, there was background noise but no clear comments. Occasionally, they heard Rudy’s voice giving information on the location and the people in the scene he was taping, but no one spoke directly to the camera.

During a long sequence that Rudy had shot on Wednesday morning as he followed the contestants’ cars from the lot at the Lake Eden Inn to the Jordan High auditorium, Andrea gave an impatient sigh. “It’s just cars, Hannah. And the camera’s not close enough to pick up the drivers.”

“Mason warned me that this would be boring,” Hannah reminded her.

“You told me. I just didn’t think it would be this boring. How long do we have to go?”

Hannah glanced at the time code flashing on the bottom of the screen. “Three and a half hours.”

“Can you fast-forward through this part?”

“I’d better not. We might miss something.”

Andrea took another sip of the coffee that P.K. had brought them. “I guess you’re right,” she conceded. “Which car is Mr. Avery driving?”

“The dark blue Ford, but we’ve already eliminated him as a suspect.”

“We have?”

“Yes. Both Sally and Dick said he was at the wrap party with his wife at the time Boyd was killed. Just to make sure, I confirmed it with Jeremy and Belle Rutlege.”

“Okay, he didn’t kill Boyd. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t have killed Lucy. After all, she blackmailed him. Lucy’s killer could have been trying to get even with her or recover the evidence she used against them. They didn’t now that we had all of her pictures and negatives.”

Hannah shook her head. Andrea just wasn’t thinking clearly. “How about the film her killer destroyed? Why would one of her other blackmail victims do that?”

“I don’t know.” Andrea thought about it for a moment. “Maybe her killer was trying to keep her from blackmailing anyone else.”

“Lucy was already dead by that time. Her killer knew that it was impossible for her to blackmail anyone else.”

“That’s right.” Andrea rubbed her eyes again. “Are you sure the same man killed Boyd and Lucy?”

“Sure enough.”

“And you’re sure you shouldn’t turn over Lucy’s other blackmail pictures?”

“Yes, I am.” Hannah was very definite. “Lucy’s victims have been hurt enough, and we know that none of them killed her.”

Andrea didn’t look convinced. “Tell me your reasons again.”

“We know it wasn’t Claire because it’s a man in the pictures with Boyd Watson. It’s not Mayor Bascomb, he’s much taller than the man in Lucy’s photo, and we’ve already eliminated Mr. Avery because he has an alibi. It can’t be any one of them.”

“You’re wrong Hannah. We forgot about Norman. I don’t think for a second that he killed Boyd or Lucy, but we haven’t eliminated him yet.”

“Yes, we have. I have his evidence back. There was no reason for him to kill Lucy and search her apartment, especially since he knew we’d already done it. And it was Norman’s idea to enlarge the killer’s cuff link. He wouldn’t have suggested it, if the cuff links were his.”

“You’re right.” Andrea sighed deeply. “I guess I’m just tired and not thinking straight.”

“Have some more coffee.” Hannah reached out and filled her sister’s cup from the carafe that P.K. had brought them.

“This coffee’s like tar.” Andrea made a face. “Even my instant is better than this.”

“I know, but it’ll keep you awake until you can go to sleep. Try to concentrate. They just pulled up in front of the school.”

Both sisters watched as the contestants went into the auditorium and their families drove away. There was a series of shots as Herb checked their name badges, asked them for their signatures on the sign-in sheet, and unlocked the doors so that they could enter the kitchen sets.

“This isn’t going to do any good, Hannah.” Andrea sighed. “They’re all women, and we know Boyd’s killer was a man.”

“Right. Let me fast-forward through this part. When you see a man, holler out”

“All right. Whatever you say.”

Hannah could hear the dejection in Andrea’s voice and she fought against the same feeling. She knew the chance of sporting the killer’s cuff links on tape was slim, but there was no way she’d give up without watching Wednesday’s footage all the way through to the end. “Keep alert, Andrea. When we get to the part where the audience arrives, there should be some shots of Tracey. You’re probably there, too.”