Cinnamon Roll Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Wrong, Hannah thought frowning deeply. Beige is your favorite color. That’s what you wrote on the Rhodes Dental Clinic website. If you’re going to lie about everything, you’d better keep your lies straight!

  There was the sound of another zipper. Claire must be zipping up the back of Doctor Bev’s dress. Hannah stood up, raring to go. The liar was in the box, and it was time for the turquoise-clad detective to interrogate her.

  “Just step out and we’ll take a peek in the mirror,” Claire said, and Hannah knew she was about to position Doctor Bev in front of the three-way mirror in the back of the Beau Monde Dress Shop.

  “Showtime!” Hannah mouthed.

  “Almost,” Michelle mouthed back as she flipped to a blank page in Hannah’s steno pad and picked up the pen.

  “Are you ready in there, dear?” Claire called out. “I hope you like the selections I made for you.”

  “They’re great,” Hannah said, marching out the door and straight for the ice blue vision in the mirror. “Well hello, Doctor Bev. Fancy meeting you here.”

  If ever a woman looked as if she’d just swallowed a cow, it was Doctor Bev. She gaped at Hannah as if she couldn’t believe her own eyes. “What are you doing here?” she asked in a tone that was decidedly unsweet.

  “Why I’m looking for an outfit to wear to your wedding. That is, if your wedding is still on.”

  “Of course it’s on! What do you mean?”

  Once you get them rattled, you’ve got to keep them rattled, Hannah’s mind repeated the advice Mike had once given her about conducting interrogations. “I thought you might be too busy to get married, since your daughter’s so sick. Or perhaps she’s not sick at all. Perhaps you’re too busy because you’re spending time at Club Nineteen.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re crazy, Hannah. I don’t know any place called Club Nineteen. I’ve never heard of it.”

  “Just like you’ve never heard of the tight red sweater and high-heeled boots you wore when you went there on the second Saturday in February?” Hannah whipped the photo out of her folder and handed it to Doctor Bev. “There you are with Buddy Neiman, but that’s not his real name. Of course you knew that, didn’t you? And you knew he was from Seattle because both of you were there at the same time!”

  Doctor Bev glanced down at the photo and her face turned a bit paler. She swallowed hard, and then she raised her eyes to Hannah again. “This isn’t me. This isn’t anybody I know. And it’s ridiculous to think I knew Buddy Neiman or whatever his name was.”

  “Is it? When I passed by with Buddy at the hospital, you were pretty quick to step behind Norman so that Buddy didn’t see you.”

  “You’re imagining things.”

  “I thought I was for a while. But now I know there’s a connection. Can you look me straight in the eye and swear you didn’t know Buddy in Seattle?”

  “Certainly!” Doctor Bev faced Hannah squarely. “I didn’t know Buddy in Seattle. I might have passed him on the street, but even that’s doubtful. There are over six hundred thousand people in Seattle. Any intelligent person should realize that I couldn’t possibly have known all of them.”

  “But I’m not concerned with all of them. I’m only concerned with one of them. What was his name back then? You knew it.”

  “This conversation is absurd. I’m leaving!”

  “Not in that dress, you’re not!” Hannah warned her. Then she turned to Claire. “Has she paid for it?”

  “Not yet.”

  Doctor Bev shot Hannah a scathing look, and then she turned back to Claire. “Just put it on my bill, please.”

  Hannah noticed that Doctor Bev’s hands were shaking slightly. This was the time to really put her on the defensive. Once a subject begins to crack, all you have to do is widen the crack, Mike’s words echoed in her mind. “Just tell me Buddy’s real name and you can go.”

  “How should I know?”

  “You know because you said you did,” Hannah stated, “on the second Saturday in February when you argued with him in the parking lot at Club Nineteen. You said, I’d know you anywhere.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Someone overheard you. And after you said, I’d know you anywhere, Buddy said, You got the wrong guy, lady. Leave me alone! I’m not the guy you think I am! And you shouted, Yes you are! I know you are! And then you slapped him and walked away.”

  “That’s ... that’s ... ridiculous! You made that whole thing up because you’re jealous that I’m marrying Norman!”

  “No, I didn’t make it up. I got it from a waitress at Club Nineteen who just happened to be out in the parking lot taking a break when you were there arguing with Buddy.”

  “I told you before. I don’t like jazz, I’ve never been to Club Nineteen, and I don’t own a red sweater, a black leather skirt, or a pair of high-heeled boots. And I’ve never slapped anyone in my life!”

  “A black leather skirt? It’s interesting you should mention that. I didn’t say anything about a black leather skirt. Since you knew without me telling you, I’d say that proves you were there.”

  Doctor Bev grabbed her purse, pulled out a credit card, and tossed it on a chair. “There! Now I’ve paid for the dress and I’m out of here!”

  Michelle emerged from the dressing room just as the front door slammed behind Doctor Bev. “Uh-oh,” she said glancing at the coat rack by the front door. “Doctor Bev stormed out of here in such a hurry, she forgot her coat.”

  “That’s okay,” Hannah told her. “She’s hot enough under the collar without it.”

  “Well, I’ll be!” Claire walked over to pick up the credit card. “You nailed her, Hannah. And you did it in front of me. Thank you!”

  “Why are you thanking me?”

  “Because this has got to be the most fun I’ve ever had collecting a bill.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hannah’s eyes burned from lack of sleep when her alarm went off the next morning. It was five o’clock, and she’d tossed and turned most of the night, thinking about Buddy Neiman’s murder case. At one in the morning, she’d been sure that there was something she was missing, so she’d padded out to the living room, retrieved her steno pad, and gone over every note she’d taken. There was a Seattle connection. She was sure of that now, despite Doctor Bev’s initial attempt to convince her that she’d never encountered Buddy in Seattle, a city of six hundred thousand.

  At two in the morning, Hannah had gone back to bed, but her mind wouldn’t sleep. She kept going over the clues, one at a time, trying to decide if Doctor Bev could be the killer. She’d slapped Buddy at Club Nineteen, and Shelby, the waitress, had told them that Buddy still had a red mark on his face when she saw him at least fifteen minutes later. Slapping was an act of physical aggression. It was clear that Doctor Bev wasn’t shy about confronting Buddy and using force when she didn’t get whatever it was she wanted. The red mark on Buddy’s face proved that she’d delivered a forceful slap. But what if just slapping Buddy hadn’t been enough for her. What if Doctor Bev had initiated an even more violent encounter, an encounter that ended with surgical scissors thrust into Buddy’s chest?

  Perhaps she’d slept for a while. Hannah had no way of knowing. But she did know that she was wide awake at four in the morning, wondering where Doctor Bev had gone when she’d fled Claire’s dress shop in her bridal finery. She wasn’t at her own apartment and she wasn’t at Norman’s house. Hannah knew that for a fact because when she’d called Andrea to tell her about the confrontation, Andrea had driven around town looking for Doctor Bev’s car. It had vanished. She was no longer in Lake Eden and that, to Hannah’s way of thinking, was also suspicious.

  And now it was five minutes past five. She could smell the coffee, and even though it was on an automatic timer, she suspected that Michelle was already up.

  It was a struggle to get out of bed, but Hannah made it. It was also a struggle to put the correct arm in the correct sleeve of her robe. After three attempts, she
triumphed.

  One glance into the guest room as she passed by told her she was right. The bed was neatly made. Unless Michelle had fallen asleep on the living room couch last night, she was up and dressed, ready to go to the hospital with Hannah.

  “Here,” Michelle said, taking Hannah’s arm as she entered the kitchen and guiding her into a chair. “Drink your coffee. I heard you get up and I poured you a mug. It’s not too hot. I put a coffee ice cube in it.”

  “Thanks.” Hannah gulped down the coffee with a speed born of desperation. If there was any coffee left this morning, she’d make more coffee ice cubes. Leftover coffee went into an old-fashioned ice cube tray in her freezer. One coffee ice cube would cool down a large mug of coffee in a hurry without diluting it.

  “Now shower and get dressed,” Michelle ordered, but she smiled as she gave her command. “We’re meeting Mike for breakfast at The Corner Tavern in thirty minutes.”

  “Mike called here?”

  “No, I called Mike. Somebody’s got to tell Norman that Doctor Bev lied about knowing Buddy Neiman, and it would be awkward if you had to do it. As a cop and as Norman’s best friend, Mike’s the logical choice. And since Doctor Bev wasn’t at Norman’s last night, and she wasn’t at her apartment either, she must have used the excuse that Diana was sick and driven back to the Cities. I think Norman ought to know that Diana’s just fine and it’s just another one of Bev’s lies.”

  Hannah nodded. Her brain was beginning to work, and what Michelle said made sense. “Okay. You’re absolutely right. Mike has to be in the loop at this point.” She pushed back her chair. “Will you pour me another mug of coffee, please? I’m going to shower and dress, and I’ll be back here to gulp it down in less than ten minutes.”

  The Corner Tavern was crowded when they walked in, but Mike had already snagged a table in the back room. Hannah sat across from him, directly in front of a planter on top of the room divider that was filled with bright green plastic ivy. She seemed to remember reading somewhere that placing something red next to something green made the red less intense. With the green ivy directly in back of her head, perhaps Mike wouldn’t notice her red, scratchy, didn’t-sleep-a-wink eyes.

  “Nice job, Hannah,” Mike said, handing the steno book back to her. “Of course you shouldn’t have handled it yourself. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I know.” Hannah did her best to look contrite. This was difficult because she felt like smiling at Mike’s praise.

  “You don’t contact her again. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Hannah agreed quickly. “Are you going to contact her and follow up?”

  “You bet I am! It’s pretty clear she knows Buddy Neiman’s real name, and I need to have it.”

  “But will she tell you?” Michelle asked. “She wasn’t exactly what I’d call forthcoming. Hannah had to trick her to get her to admit she was at Club Nineteen that night.”

  “She’ll tell me.”

  There was a hard glint in Mike’s eyes that told Hannah he’d get the information he wanted from Doctor Bev. “Do you think she killed Buddy? It’s pretty clear she had some kind of previous relationship with him.”

  “I agree. She’s my number one suspect right now, and I’m going to haul her in for questioning.”

  “But what if she’s left town?” Michelle asked. “She was so upset after Hannah questioned her, she left Claire’s dress shop without her coat.”

  Hannah was impressed with how innocent Michelle looked, considering the fact that Andrea had driven around looking for Doctor Bev’s car and reported back to them.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find her. And after I do, I’ll have a talk with Norman. She’s probably fed him a pack of lies, and I need to straighten him out about that and everything else. Norman’s a reasonable guy. He’ll listen to me.”

  “Thanks, Mike,” Hannah said. She’d expected no less. Although Mike had dated Doctor Bev before her recent engagement to Norman, he was a cop. There was no way any tender feelings he might still harbor for her would affect his ability to put Bev through the wringer.

  “These are wonderful, Michelle!” Delores beamed at her youngest daughter. They were sitting in Doc Knight’s office, and Michelle had just given her mother a box of the bran cookies she’d made.

  “Do you think Doc will like them?”

  “I know he will. He likes bran a lot better than I do. He eats a big bowl of bran flakes every morning for breakfast. Are you sure these have bran in them?”

  “I know they do. I measured out the bran flakes myself.”

  “Well, all I can say is they’re very good. And I haven’t liked bran since Grandma Ingrid made those wonderful ...” Delores stopped speaking, and Hannah watched the light dawn on her face. “They’re Grandma Ingrid’s Bran Muffins!”

  “You got it!” Hannah said, giving her the high sign. “I had the recipe and I didn’t even know it. Michelle found it and baked it in cookie form.”

  “I’ll give one to Doc the moment he gets back here,” Delores said, putting the cover on the cookie tin. “It’ll cheer him up.”

  “What’s wrong with Doc?” Hannah asked.

  “It’s just this whole intern thing. He’s going to have to interview candidates again, and that takes time. He’d much rather spend that time with his patients. And then he’ll have to train the new intern he chooses. Of course Marlene will help. Thank goodness she’s staying. It’s just that it’s all so sudden. When the clinic called Ben, they told him they needed him to start next week. It’s just a pity that they gave him such short notice, and he had to turn around and give Doc such short notice.”

  Short notice. The words repeated themselves several times in Hannah’s mind. Short notice was what Lee complained about when Buddy gave notice right after his argument with the dark-haired woman they now knew was Doctor Bev. If Buddy had trusted his instincts and left right away instead of giving Lee the time to find his replacement, he’d probably be alive today. But that wasn’t the situation with Ben. He had to leave Lake Eden right away because he took another job.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” Delores asked.

  “I don’t know. Something just struck me. You said something about Ben’s new internship, that the clinic had given him such short notice and that’s why he had to give Doc such short notice. Did Doc talk to the clinic to see why there was such a rush?”

  “No, dear. Ben talked to them. They called him directly.”

  “Did they know he was working here?”

  “Of course. Ben told Doc they asked for a recommendation, and Doc wrote one and gave it to him. Ben faxed it to the clinic.”

  “So Doc has never spoken to the doctors at the clinic. Is that right?”

  “That’s right.” Delores began to frown. “I see where you’re going with this. It is a little odd that the doctors at the clinic didn’t speak to Doc directly. It would have been the courteous thing to do. I think we should call the clinic.”

  “Do you want to do it, or shall I?” Hannah asked.

  “I will. I’ll say I’m Doc’s secretary. What was the name of that clinic again?”

  “Rolling Hills Vista Clinic,” Michelle said promptly. “I remembered it because I thought it sounded fake.”

  Five minutes later, they had their answers. Hannah’s head was reeling and she knew that Michelle and their mother felt the same way. There was a Rolling Hills Vista Clinic and it was a leader in the field of facial reconstruction. They did have several interns at the clinic, but none of them had left recently. There were no vacancies for interns, and they’d never heard of Doctor Ben Matson.

  “So what does this mean?” Delores asked, “other than the fact Ben lied to us.”

  “It means he wants to get out of Dodge for some reason,” Hannah speculated.

  Michelle looked puzzled. “Get out of Dodge?”

  “Dodge City, Kansas. That phrase comes from the Old West. Dodge City became a law-abiding town when Marshall Dillon took over, and all the criminals had
to get out of Dodge.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Lisa told me. Herb loves to watch re-runs of Gunsmoke while she’s fixing supper. That’s where she heard it. Dillon loves Gunsmoke, too. He gives a little woof every time he hears his name.”

  “That’s cute,” Delores said. “Doc and I watch M*A*S*H. He says it relaxes him. But let’s get back to business. Why would Ben want to get away from Lake Eden?”

  Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know, but I think we’d better find out. Maybe there’s a clue somewhere in his background. Can you get his personnel file?”

  “That’s easy.” Delores swiveled in her chair and switched on the computer. “All the employee records are accessible from Doc’s computer. I’ll pull it up.”

  Hannah and Michelle waited as Delores located and pulled up the file. “That’s interesting,” she said.

  “What’s interesting?” Hannah asked her.

  “Ben’s from Seattle.”

  “Seattle again?!” Hannah was dumbstruck. There were just too many people from Seattle. It was like a Washington State invasion in their own little town! “That settles it!” she said.

  “Settles what?” Michelle asked.

  Hannah was at a loss to explain. Her mind was churning too fast. It was all about opportunity, and coincidence that might not be coincidence, and things they had yet to discover. The key to Buddy Neiman’s murder was missing, but there might be a place they could find it.

  “Settles what, dear?” Delores asked, repeating Michelle’s question.

  “It settles what we’re going to do next. Ben’s working all day today, right?”

  “I believe so. At least that’s the way the schedule stood yesterday. Let me check to see if there are any changes.”

  Hannah waited impatiently as her mother pulled up another file. It seemed to take forever, but at last Delores nodded.

  “Ben’s scheduled for a twelve-hour shift from eight this morning until eight tonight. Then Marlene comes on. She works until eight tomorrow morning.”

  “Great. Do you know where Ben lives?”