by Joanne Fluke
Norman smiled. “I can do that for you if we stop by my place. I’ve got a really fast online connection, and I’ll print out a list for you. Or, if you’d like, I can help you call the hospitals to ask.”
“That would really save time,” Michelle told him. “Then there’d be three of us calling.”
“Michelle’s right,” Hannah agreed. “If you’ll get that list for us and come to the condo with it, we’ll all work on making those phone calls. And bring Cuddles. Doctor Bob said that all Moishe’s tests came back just fine and he’s perfectly healthy. He even lost a pound and a half, and that’s good.”
“So Doctor Bob wasn’t worried about the Moishe flop?”
“Not at all. Sue said that if there were anything wrong, Doctor Bob would have found it.”
“I’m sure that’s right,” Norman agreed. “I’ll bring Cuddles, and with all three of us calling, it shouldn’t take long to locate the right hospital.”
“If she’s actually in the hospital,” Hannah reminded him.
“Right.” Norman looked up to see Adam Wang coming out of the kitchen door. “Here comes our order of giant shrimp rolls.”
“Are the rolls with shrimp giant, or does giant refer to the shrimp?” Michelle asked.
“I posed that same question to Adam when I ordered them,” Norman told her. “The shrimp are giant shrimp. And I’m going to order two giant shrimp without the rolls to take back for Moishe and Cuddles.”
Once she’d ordered the rest of her meal, Hannah glanced around at the décor. The dining room was lovely with pale green booths lining the walls and ebony tables in the center. A chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, casting a soft light over the interior. It was made of cylinders covered with something that reminded Hannah of rice paper. Some cylinders were longer and others were shorter, and they were arranged in a pattern that made them resemble the petals of a mammoth flower. The muted light cast a soft glow on the honey-colored floor. Even the window treatments added to the serene feel. The plate glass was covered with ebony wooden-framed panels of printed silk so thin that it was almost possible to see outside, but not quite. The print on the silk was done in muted colors and the design was of pink cherry blossoms with pale green leaves. There were large prints of flowers on the walls, soft music was piped into the room, and the serving dishes picked up the color of the cherry blossoms in the panels that covered the windows.
“Lovely,” Hannah breathed, not even realizing that she’d spoken aloud.
“Yes, isn’t it,” Michelle agreed. “I’m glad we finally came in to eat here. It’s very relaxing.”
Their main dishes arrived, delivered by Adam and his wife. Hannah felt a sense of déjà vu as the succulent food was placed on the table. “It’s just like at home when we unpack the takeout,” she commented once Adam and his wife had left the table.
“We ordered too much food?” Michelle guessed.
“Right. We won’t have to worry about dinner tomorrow. There’s no way we can finish all this food, and we’ll be taking it home to enjoy tomorrow night.”
* * *
“Let’s see if Moishe will be more active today,” Hannah said, motioning for Michelle to stand in front of the outside door to the condo.
Michelle braced herself and prepared for Moishe to race out the door and jump into her arms. “I bet he will be. He’s been waiting at least half an hour for his dinner.”
Hannah retrieved her keys from her purse and inserted the door key in the lock. She turned it, opened the door, and stepped quickly to the side.
Nothing, absolutely nothing happened. There was no sound of Moishe rushing down the hallway, no welcoming yowl, and no leap into Michelle’s waiting arms.
“Looks like you were wrong,” Hannah said. “Let’s go wake him up and give him his dinner. He’ll perk up when Cuddles comes.”
After Michelle had closed and locked the door behind her, they heard a noise from the bedroom. Then there was a thump as Moishe jumped off the bed and, a moment or two later, he padded into the living room, yawning.
“Were you sleeping?” Michelle asked the obvious.
“Rrrroowww!” Moishe answered her. Then he jumped up to the back to the couch and looked at Hannah expectantly.
“Okay,” Hannah told him, reaching out to pet his soft fur and giving him a scratch behind his ears. “Michelle will get your kitty treats and then I’ll feed you. How’s that?”
The answer this time was a loud purr, and Hannah thought, not for the first time, how Moishe truly appeared to understand what she was saying. “You’re going to have shrimp later tonight. Norman is bringing Cuddles to play with you.”
“Rrrroowwwww!”
The response was loud and prolonged, and Hannah laughed. “That’s right. Cuddles and shrimp, your favorite combination. You two can eat and play until Norman, Michelle, and I finish making phone calls.”
Moishe turned to Michelle, who was coming in from the kitchen with a canister he recognized. It contained the fish-shaped, salmon-flavored kitty treats that were his favorites.
“I’ll put some food in his bowl and then I want to take a quick shower,” Hannah told Michelle. “It’ll only take me a few minutes, and then you can shower if you want to.”
“I want to,” Michelle said. “I feel a little grubby after working all day. Go ahead, Hannah. When you leave, I’ll put on a pot of coffee and check the answering machine to see if Mike called. Fingers crossed, his team has found Ross’s storage locker and discovered some clue to where Ross went and why he left in the first place.”
The smell of fresh coffee was an incentive to hurry as Hannah emerged from her shower. She dressed in a clean pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, ran a brush through her hair, and went down the hallway to the kitchen to get a cup.
“My turn,” Michelle said, gesturing toward the kitchen. “I poured a cup for you and set it on the counter.”
“Anything on the answering machine?” Hannah asked.
“No calls. If you want to do something, cut that pan of bar cookies on the counter.”
“You baked bar cookies in fifteen minutes?” Hannah asked, clearly astounded.
“Of course not. I baked them this morning before you got up and stuck them in the refrigerator in case we needed a dessert for tonight.”
“And you think we need a dessert after that huge meal?”
“Yes, definitely. I don’t know about you, but an orange cut up in fancy pieces just doesn’t do it for me.”
* * *
“Are you ready?” Norman asked, standing by the cat carrier, his hand on the grate.
“I’m ready,” Hannah said.
“Me, too,” Michelle added.
“Rrrroowwww!” Moishe confirmed it.
“Okay. She’s going to come out like a rocket. Here goes!”
Norman was right. Cuddles shot out of the crate like a circus clown shot out of a cannon. The first thing she did was make a sharp right and race down the hallway with Moishe in close pursuit.
“Where are they going?” Michelle asked.
Hannah laughed. “Probably to the bedroom, where they’ll launch themselves up to my bed, congratulate each other for startling us, burn what we used to call a wheelie in high school, hop down again, and sprint back here.”
“You’re probably right,” Norman said quickly. “I think I just heard them hit the floor again. Head for the couches and feet up! Quick!”
Hannah, Michelle, and Norman made a beeline for the sofas and got their feet up just a split second before the two cats came roaring through the living room.
“Okay,” Michelle said. “Let’s get to work making those . . .” She paused and stared at Hannah and Norman. “Why are you two shaking your heads?”
“Norman and I have seen this game more than you have,” Hannah told her. “We figured out the pattern, and the cats always do this three times.”
“Oh!” Michelle said, lifting her feet again. “But I don’t hear any . . .” She sto
pped speaking again and gave a little nod. “Yes, I do. They just jumped down from your bed.”
When the second race was over, Hannah got up and hurried to the kitchen for the treat canister. She got back just in time to watch the third race. When it was over, both cats jumped up on the back of the couch and watched while Hannah took the lid off the small canister. “That was a good show,” she told them, placing an equal number of treats in front of each cat. Then she turned to Norman and Michelle. “If we’re right about the number of races, it should be over now. And that means that we can get to work.”
Fueled by strong coffee and an occasional Lovely Lemon Bar Cookie, they made calls to each of the hospitals on Norman’s list. He’d also made another list of rehabilitation and physical therapy facilities attached to hospitals, and Hannah called those. Since Norman had numbered his initial list, he took the even numbers and Michelle took the odd. They worked until they’d called every place on both lists, and then they just sat there and looked at each other in consternation.
“She’s not there,” Norman said, telling them what they already knew.
“That’s right, unless she checked in under her married name,” Michelle said.
“We can check for that,” Norman said. “What was her married name?”
“We don’t know,” Hannah told him. “We might be able to find out tomorrow, but we’ve done all we can for tonight. Thank you for helping us tonight, Norman. And thanks for dinner. It was fun.”
“Yes, it was,” Michelle agreed.
“I thought so, too. We’ll have to do it again instead of always getting takeout.” Norman got up. “I’d better let you two get some sleep.”
Norman was just getting ready to put Cuddles in her kitty carrier and leave when Michelle’s cell phone rang. She reached out to answer it, listened for a moment, and then she put out a hand to stop him.
“Don’t leave yet,” she said. “This is important.”
There was no way either Hannah or Norman could figure out who Michelle’s caller was or the subject of the call from Michelle’s side of the conversation. It consisted of yes, no, not really, and I’ll check. When Michelle got off the phone, Hannah could contain her curiosity no longer. “Who was that?” she asked.
“The lady on night shift at the Superior Storage facility that I called, the one close to my campus. She said I spoke to someone new, but the woman had written everything down. June, the supervisor I talked to tonight, was going over the new employee’s work, and she found the record of my phone call. She checked the list of rental units for the name, Ross Barton, and it wasn’t there, but there was a name that was very similar.”
“What was the name?” Norman asked.
“Russ Burton.”
Norman looked hopeful. “That’s pretty close.”
“That’s what she thought. And then she told me that they were about to put the contents up for auction because the rent was three months in arrears. And she said that if we wanted to come there to look at the contents, that would be fine with her.”
“And it’s unit three-twelve?” Hannah asked.
“No, but the contents could still belong to Ross. I think we should go and take a look.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Hannah sat in the front seat of Norman’s car, clutching a thermos of coffee. “More coffee, Norman?”
“No, thanks. I’ll wait until we stop for breakfast. We have an hour to eat. June doesn’t get to work until nine.”
“I wonder how everyone’s doing down at The Cookie Jar,” Michelle said from the back seat. “Lisa said that Marge and Aunt Nancy were going to meet her there at four to do the baking.”
“That’s right. And then Marge and Jack will handle the customers at The Cookie Jar while Lisa and Aunt Nancy take care of the booth at the convention.”
“I hope they can handle all that,” Michelle said, sounding a bit worried.
“I’m sure they can,” Hannah said, but she began to feel guilty at taking the day off. She’d have to make it up to them somehow. “We should have met them there at four. We could have helped with the baking.”
“Stop feeling guilty,” Michelle told her. “Aunt Nancy said she was looking forward to it. And we’ll be back early and we can help out. We can even bake more cookies if they run short.”
“But I could have gotten up an hour earlier,” Hannah argued.
“No,” Norman said firmly. “You need your sleep, Hannah.”
“Not as much as Michelle. She thought a yard light was the sun.”
“You promised you wouldn’t say anything about that.”
“Oops. Sorry about that, but it was so funny, I had to tell Norman.”
They rode in silence for several miles and then Norman cleared his throat. “Seriously, Hannah . . . I meant what I said about getting more sleep. You have to keep your mind sharp to solve P.K.’s murder. Both Mike and Lonnie said they weren’t getting anywhere.”
“Neither are we. The only lead we have is Gary, and that’s really tentative.”
“But he lied,” Norman pointed out.
“Maybe not if Violet used her married name. And lying about his sister and the hospital doesn’t really make him an automatic suspect. People lie, and you can’t prosecute them for lying unless it’s under oath. We need a lot more than lying to link Gary to the murder case.”
“Maybe we can get more tomorrow,” Michelle said. “You know . . . bring things up in casual conversation and hear what he has to say.”
“Yes. It has to be tomorrow. We’ve only got one more day with Gary,” Norman said, turning off the interstate and taking the exit road. “This is right, isn’t it, Michelle?”
“Yes,” Michelle told him, and there was a big smile on her face. “I’m going to have a Reuben omelet. They’re really good here. Or maybe I’ll have the chopped liver and corned beef on rye. And afterwards, I’m going to buy a loaf of rye to take home with us. It’s the best I’ve ever tasted.”
* * *
Fifty-five minutes later, they were walking back to Norman’s car. They were heavier than they’d been walking into the deli, but it wasn’t entirely from the huge breakfasts they’d consumed. Norman was carrying two bags, Hannah was carrying one, and Michelle was carrying three. They’d walked past the strategically placed deli section on their way out and the delicious scents coming from the long, refrigerated glass case had prompted them to buy even more. Then they’d passed the bakery section, which had sung a siren’s song to Hannah. She had six chocolate rugalach, four different kinds of hamantaschen, some mandelbread, and a loaf of egg challah. She also had a container of chopped liver, a container of fish salad, a half-pound of sliced corned beef, a half-pound of lox, and two huge containers of pickles, one half-sour and the other sour.
The Superior Storage building wasn’t far from the deli, and they pulled up in the parking lot at five minutes after nine. They sat there for a moment, still digesting their breakfasts, and then Norman opened his car door.
“Let’s go see that unit,” he said.
“We’re ready,” Hannah told him, and since she knew that Norman always opened the car door for her, she waited until he walked around the back of his car and opened her door and Michelle’s door.
The small rental office was clean and bright. There was an older woman with short brown hair sitting at a desk, and Norman walked up to her. “Are you June?” he asked.
“Yes.” June smiled as she spotted Michelle and Hannah. “You came to see the Russell Burton storage unit, right?”
“Right,” Hannah said.
“The unit isn’t far from the office. I’ll show you where it is.”
They followed June past several large buildings. She stopped at another building that was identical to the others, and pointed to the door. “All the units in this building are inside units.”
“You have units that are outside?” Norman asked.
“I know what you’re thinking, so let me explain,” June said. “All the
units are inside units, but the door to an outside unit is a big aluminum door that rolls up. It’s wide enough for large items like cars and boats.”
June opened the door to one of the buildings, switched on a bank of lights, and led the way down a wide hallway to a door. “Here it is,” she said. She chose a key on the ring she carried, unlocked the padlock, and opened the door. “There you go,” she said. “You can’t go in and touch anything, but take a look and see if these are your husband’s things.”
Hannah stood just outside the open door and stared at the things that were stored inside. “It looks like everything is in cases of some sort.” She turned to Norman. “I see a few that look like camera cases. Am I right?”
“Yes. I’m not sure what’s in the larger, suitcase-like cases, but they could be some sort of video equipment.”
“You’re welcome to go in and look if you’re willing to pay the back rent,” June told them.
“I’m willing,” Hannah told her. “My husband studied photography and filmmaking in college so these things could be his. I’ll definitely pay the back rent.”
“But you didn’t even ask how much the rental is,” Michelle pointed out.
“It’s okay, Michelle,” Norman reassured her. “I’m sure it’s worth it.”
“The back rent isn’t that expensive,” June told them. “This unit was rented five years ago when this facility first opened, and they had a special deal for anyone who rented in the first month. The original rent remains the same for the first five years and then it goes up to the current rate. This particular until is only forty-five dollars a month.”
“That’s fine with me,” Hannah told June. “And I saw some trucks parked outside. You rent them, don’t you?”
“Yes. We’re partners with a national chain. You can rent a truck and drop it off at any of the approved locations.”
“I don’t suppose there’s an approved location in Lake Eden, Minnesota,” Norman said.
“As a matter of fact, there is. We just opened a branch office out by the community college. You could rent a small truck here and drop it off there if you’d like.”