Wedding Cake Murder (41 page)

Hannah just stared at him. “Our . . . Food Channel honeymoon?”

“That’s right, Hannah. Not only are we going to film your wedding and reception for our viewers, we’re also going to send you on a ten-day honeymoon cruise to the Mexican Riviera, all expenses paid. What do you have to say about that?”

“I . . . I don’t know what to say. Except . . . thank you!”

The camera moved away to show the judges, who were all smiling at her.

When the show was over, Hannah joined Michelle, who looked just as amazed as she was. “You didn’t know about the honeymoon?” Hannah asked her.

“No! If I’d known, I would have told you. You did beautifully, Hannah. Everyone could see how surprised and happy you were.”

Hannah smiled, but she knew she still wore the startled expression of a rookie pitcher who’d just managed to throw a no-hitter.

“How do you feel?” Michelle asked her.

“Grateful, happy, and . . . exhausted. Let’s go home, Michelle. I think I’m on overload, and all I really want to do is go to bed and cuddle with Moishe until I go to sleep.”

Of course that didn’t happen, at least not right away. There was a television interview, a champagne celebration in Sally’s dining room, and congratulations from the other contestants. Michelle and Ross sat on either side of her, fending off the questions that she couldn’t handle, and gradually, very gradually, Hannah began to relax and actually enjoy all the fuss. There was only one little fly in the ointment, one pesky problem left unsolved. She still didn’t know who had killed Chef Duquesne, and she desperately wanted to solve the case so that she could put it off her to-do list and truly enjoy her special Food Channel honeymoon with Ross.

Chapter Thirty

I
t hit her with the force of a grand piano dropping from the top of a tall building. Ross liked red wine. Were they serving it on the tables at the wedding reception? Since she hadn’t been part of the planning, she didn’t know. She had to call her mother right away.

Delores answered the phone on the second ring. “I have a question, Mother,” Hannah said. “Will there be red wine on the tables at the wedding reception?”

“Of course, dear. We’ll have a bottle of red and a bottle of white for each table.”

“Good!” Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. “I just remembered that Ross likes red wine. Do you know which wines you’ll be serving?”

“No, dear. I left that up to Sally. She’s an expert when it comes to wines.”

“Okay. Thanks, Mother. I just thought I’d check.”

“Just a minute, Hannah. Would you like me to get a special bottle of red wine for the bridal table? I could call Sally and ask her what she recommends.”

“That’s okay. I’ll do it. I need to talk to her anyway. Thank you, Mother. I’ll see you at the church.”

“All right, dear. The girls are at the church right now with your wedding clothes. They’re going to get everything arranged so all you’ll have to do is get dressed and look beautiful.”

“Fat chance!” Hannah said, and then she winced. “Sorry, Mother. The words just popped right out. What I meant was that I don’t think anything could make me look beautiful, but I promise you that I’ll look as good as I can.”

“You’ll be beautiful, dear. You’re already beautiful, even though you don’t seem to know it.”

Tears sprang to Hannah’s eyes. Her mother had never said anything like that to her before. “Thank you, Mother. I love you and I’ll see you later.”

The moment she’d hung up the phone, she reached for a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. Her mother was being unusually sweet, and Hannah wasn’t quite sure how to deal with that. Instead of attempting to figure it out, she decided to run out to the Lake Eden Inn and ask Sally’s advice about a truly special bottle of red wine for Ross. She had plenty of time to talk to Dick and Sally in person. Her wedding was at eight-thirty that evening, and it was only a few minutes past five in the afternoon. There was nothing, absolutely nothing she had to do to get ready. She’d already taken a shower, carefully protecting the elaborate hairstyle that Bertie had fashioned for her. That meant her hair was perfect and she needed to do nothing with it before the wedding. Her sisters had picked up her bridal gown, and she would go to the church to get dressed with their help. Right now, she was wearing clean jeans and her favorite sweatshirt, and she could stay in her comfortable clothing until it was time for Andrea and Michelle to help her put on her wedding finery. Staying here at the condo was boring. Moishe was already gone. Norman had picked him up earlier this afternoon so that he could run off some energy by racing around Norman’s house with Cuddles.

Did she have everything she’d need for her wedding? Hannah glanced around her condo. She didn’t need any extra clothing or toiletries. Her sisters had taken care of all that. And why in the world did she feel like crying as she took one last walk through the condo?

“Bridal nerves,” Hannah said out loud. It was a simple case of anxiety before the wedding. She remembered how nervous her mother had gotten before her marriage to Doc. Delores had been a bundle of nerves, and it had taken chocolate to calm her. Even Doc, who wasn’t convinced that the endorphins in chocolate made a difference, had agreed that if eating chocolate worked to make his bride-to-be less nervous, he was definitely in favor of doing it.

Hannah hurried to the kitchen, ripped the top off a bag of chocolate chips, shook out a handful, and popped them into her mouth. It was a bit too late to start counting calories. Today was her wedding day and she intended to enjoy it to the fullest.

Once a second handful of chocolate had been consumed, Hannah picked up her purse and headed for the door. It was time to go. Perhaps the chocolate would start to work on her drive to the Lake Eden Inn.

The air outside was crisp and it was scented with a mixture of pine and something vaguely flowery. It puzzled Hannah for a moment, and she paused at the landing on the outside staircase to try to identify it. She’d smelled this particular scent before, usually in the late afternoon. It was coming from the direction of the condo directly below hers, and this was the time that Sue Plotnik usually did her laundry.

“Dryer sheets!” Hannah exclaimed, identifying the scent. One glance at her neighbor’s window, as she hurried down the staircase and passed by, told Hannah that she was right. The light was on in Sue’s laundry room.

Hannah was smiling as she raced down the concrete steps to the underground garage and hurried to her cookie truck. She was right about the dryer sheets, this was her wedding day, and she was marrying the man she loved. Could anything be more perfect than that?

She drove out of the garage, out of her condo complex, and down the access road to the highway. There was very little traffic on the roads, and Hannah felt her spirits soar as the miles clicked by on her odometer. It was a picture-perfect evening, warmer than anyone had the right to expect in late October in Minnesota, and the stars were just beginning to emerge in a darkening sky. There were no clouds. The starry night would be perfect. It made her wish for a skylight in her bedroom so that she could watch the stars with Ross and Moishe, but the attic that ran the length of the building made that dream impossible. That didn’t matter in the giant scheme of things. All the rest of her dreams would come true tonight. And she could always go out on her tiny second-floor balcony, or stand on the landing by her door to watch the stars.

It didn’t take long to get to the Lake Eden Inn, and by the time she got there, she knew the red wine she wanted. It was the very same Cabernet Sauvignon that Chef Duquesne had been drinking in the kitchen on the night he’d been killed. Thank goodness she wasn’t superstitious, or ordering the same wine for the bridal table might have bothered her. Instead, it was quite the opposite. Chef Duquesne had been touted for his knowledge of vintage red wines in several magazines devoted to spirits. Any wine he’d chosen would have been the very best Dick and Sally had to offer.

Hannah pulled up in front of the Lake Eden Inn and found that the parking gods had smiled on her. There was a vacant spot just to the left of the door. She pulled in, shut off her cookie truck, locked it, and headed inside.

“Hi, Miss Swensen. What are
you
doing here?” the college student who manned the desk asked. “The wedding’s still on, isn’t it?”

Hannah laughed. “Yes, it’s still on. I just made a quick trip out here to talk to Dick or Sally.”

“Sally’s upstairs getting ready for your wedding, but Dick’s in the bar.” The student paused and then he said, “Your hair looks nice.”

Hannah’s first instinct was to ask him if it usually
didn’t
look nice, but she quickly squelched that impulse. “Thank you,” she said, following her mother’s advice for dealing with compliments and heading across the lobby in the direction of the bar.

The large room was crowded, but there was a stool at the bar and Hannah took it. There were two women she didn’t know on either side of her and she presumed that they were new guests at the hotel. Some of the Food Channel guests had already left, and only the contestants, the judges, and the members of the film crew were staying on for another night. Everyone would leave the following morning, and Sally and Dick were hosting a convention at the new convention wing they’d built in a separate addition attached to the side of the existing hotel.

“Are you here for the Pretty Girl convention?” the lady on Hannah’s left asked. She was a middle-aged woman who was dressed to look younger and she had bright pink streaks of color in her blond hair.

“Actually . . . no. I’m a local from Lake Eden. I just came out here to talk to the owners.”

“Dick? The guy behind the bar?” the lady on Hannah’s right asked. She was a tall, thin brunette who should not have been wearing the low-cut, tight-fitting top that she’d chosen for the evening. “He told us he was the owner.”

“He is,” Hannah said.

Just then Dick came over and did a double-take when he saw Hannah. “What are
you
doing here?”

“I came out to talk to you or Sally. And the college student at the desk told me that Sally was upstairs getting ready for the wedding, so I came in here to find you.”

“That’s right. What can I do for you, Hannah?”

Before Hannah could answer, the lady on her left spoke up. “Hannah? I knew I recognized you from somewhere! You won the Food Channel
Dessert Chef Competition
!”

“Guilty as charged,” Hannah said, and both women laughed.

“And you’re getting married tonight and they’re going to televise it on the Food Channel,” the lady on her right stated. And then she started to frown. “There’s nothing wrong, is there, Hannah?”

“Not a thing. I just drove out here to ask a question about red wine for the wedding reception.”

Since the ladies were listening, Hannah didn’t want to mention the name of the wine that Chef Duquesne had consumed right before he’d been murdered, so she turned to Dick and rephrased the question she’d originally planned to ask. “What’s the best red wine you carry? I want to have something special on the head table for Ross.”

“Cabernet, Merlot, or Cabernet Sauvignon?” Dick asked her.

“Cabernet Sauvignon.”

Dick sighed. “Sorry, Hannah. I don’t have any of the really high-end Cab left. I had four bottles of 2008 Hourglass Estate Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley. They lay it down for four years before they sell it, and I bought it for a hundred and ten a bottle. Now it sells for over a hundred and fifty. If I had any left, I’d give you a bottle for a wedding present.”

“But you don’t?”

“No, but I do have another Cab that’s really very good. I’ll put a bottle of that on your table.”

“Thanks, Dick. I’m sure it’ll be wonderful.” Hannah felt her excitement build. She was almost sure that the wine in the crime scene photos had been the one from Hourglass Estate that he’d mentioned. “I’m curious, Dick. Who bought those expensive bottles of wine?”

“I sold three bottles to Chef Duquesne. Someone else ordered the fourth from room service.”

“When did that fourth bottle sell?”

“Uh . . . night before last, maybe? Yes, that’s it. It was the same night that . . .” he stopped short, glanced at the ladies who were clearly listening, and turned back to Hannah. “I get it,” he told her. “Someone else took the room service order, but I can find out if it’s important.”

“It could be.”

“Okay. It’ll take a couple of minutes. Do you have time to wait?”

Hannah glanced at the time display on her phone. “I’ve got an hour before I have to get to the church.”

“Good. Jackie comes on in ten minutes and then I’ll get a break. I’ll look it up for you during my break and tell you what I find. Then I have to go upstairs and get dressed for your wedding.” He paused and looked at the empty bar space in front of Hannah. “Would you like a little liquid courage, Hannah? This is a big step for you.”

“I know, but I don’t need courage. I need some liquid that’s not at all courageous. How about something nonalcoholic? Aunt Nancy said you have some really good pink lemonade, and I could use a glass of that.”

“Done.” Dick put ice in a glass and filled it from one of the spigots behind the bar. He added a sprig of mint and handed it to her. “Here you go. Pure pink lemonade. Cheers, Hannah.”

“Cheers!” the two ladies said, raising their glasses as Hannah took her first sip.

“Thank you.” Hannah smiled at them in acknowledgment. It had been a nice gesture.

“So tell us about your handsome groom,” the blonde with the pink streaks said.

“Yes!” her fellow Pretty Girl conventioneer chimed in. “Is he as incredibly sexy as he looked that night on television?”

Hannah managed to keep the smile on her face, but she shot Dick a desperate glance. She couldn’t leave. She needed the information that Dick would give her. But this was going to be a very long ten minutes!

Hannah was right. She made what she hoped was polite conversation for at least twenty-five minutes before Dick came back to the bar. He no longer had on his bar apron, and he tapped her on the shoulder. “Come with me, Hannah. I have something for you.”