Fudge Cupcake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Norman rang the bell and Barbara pulled the door open so fast Hannah concluded she’d watched them come up the walk. “Come in. I just made fresh coffee.”

  “You’re a lifesaver, Barbara. I was so tired, I fell asleep on the way over here.”

  “Then it’s a good thing I made it strong,” Barbara said, leading them to her kitchen and seating them at the table. “How about you, Norman?”

  “Yes, thanks. I can always use a cup of coffee.”

  Barbara poured the coffee, handed Hannah and Norman theirs, and took a cup for herself. She put cream and sugar on the table, and then she motioned to the briefcases. “Let me take a look at those. I’m assuming you don’t want me to ask where you got them?”

  “That’s right,” Hannah said with a little sigh of relief. She hadn’t wanted to lie to Barbara, but Barbara was an employee of the sheriff’s department and she had a duty to report any crime that she encountered. Since Hannah had unlocked Nettie’s door with the key, she could argue that they didn’t break in. But gaining access to Sheriff Grant’s home office by picking the lock with dental tools, whether or not the door had been incorrectly crisscrossed with crime scene tape, was as illegal as all get out.

  Barbara shook her head as Norman set the three briefcases on the table. “That’s not it, and neither is this. But this one…”

  Hannah held her breath as Barbara picked up the third briefcase. And then she let it out again when Barbara nodded.

  “This is it.” Barbara opened the briefcase and glanced inside. “It looks completely empty, doesn’t it?” When Norman and Hannah both nodded, Barbara tipped the briefcase so that they could see inside. “Now look at the liner. It’s got little squares with letters and numbers in them as a design.”

  “And the letters and numbers mean something?” Norman guessed.

  “That’s right. You have to put the briefcase on a flat surface and press them in the right order. You start with zero-zero-seven.”

  “For James Bond?” Hannah guessed.

  “Yes. And when you’re finished with that, you have to punch in the code word. It’s Bond.”

  Norman and Hannah watched while Barbara punched in the name that had become almost synonymous with spy.

  “Now you have to hold the briefcase in place with your left hand and twist the handle really hard to the right. When you pick it up again, this is what happens.”

  Hannah gasped as the bottom of the briefcase dropped down to reveal a space that was open on one side and about a half an inch thick. “Wow!”

  “Wow is right,” Norman said, staring in awe at the briefcase. “Is that deep enough for a gun?”

  Barbara laughed. “That’s exactly what Sheriff Grant asked me when I gave it to him. I told him that there was another one for guns, but since he could wear his right out in the open, I figured he didn’t need it. This one’s for important papers, like the files he used to carry home with him.”

  “Is there anything in it now?” Hannah asked the important question.

  Barbara reached into the narrow space with her fingertips and pulled out a file folder. “Here’s that missing report. Let’s see what’s in it.”

  Hannah held her breath as Barbara read it. She had the urge to grab it out of Barbara’s hands, and she just barely managed to curb that impulse.

  “I’m sorry, Hannah.” Barbara said as she passed it over. “It’s just an incident report that Lonnie Murphy filled out right before he left on vacation.”

  “Could it be important?” Hannah asked.

  “I don’t see how. It’s just routine.”

  Norman looked curious. “If it’s just routine, why did Sheriff Grant put it in the secret compartment?”

  “I don’t know, unless…” Barbara glanced down at the report again and she gave a little humorless chuckle. “I think I just figured out why. Lonnie forgot to assign a number to it and Sheriff Grant was a real stickler for office protocol. He probably took it home with him, intending to write Lonnie a reprimand.”

  “That figures,” Hannah said under her breath, remembering how picky the sheriff had been about rules and procedures. If Sheriff Grant hadn’t been the unlucky recipient of a violent death, Lonnie would most certainly have had a reprimand in his file when he came back to work.

  “Read it if you want,” Barbara handed the report to Hannah.

  Hannah took the report from Barbara and skimmed it quickly. Lonnie had written it to chronicle spotting a suspicious car, using his on-board computer to ascertain that it was stolen, and apprehending the driver.

  “See what I mean?” Barbara said, as Hannah handed the report to Norman.

  As far as Hannah could see, this incident report didn’t have any bearing on Sheriff Grant’s murder. Even if the driver’s friends had wanted to get even for his arrest, they would have come after Lonnie, not Sheriff Grant.

  “This looks pretty straightforward to me,” Norman said, looking up from the document. “Would you like us to drop this off at the station for you, Barbara? Hannah said you were out on leave.”

  Barbara shook her head and reached out for the file. “That’s okay. I’ll take care of it when I get back to work.”

  “But Shawna Lee’s spending a lot of time looking for it.” Hannah was confused. “And you’re planning to stay home for at least another week, aren’t you?”

  Barbara nodded and an impish grin crossed her face. “I’m going to let Shawna Lee keep right on looking. If she keeps busy enough, she won’t have time to flirt and maybe we’ll be saved from another homicide.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-Six

  H

  annah’s mind was going a million miles an hour as they drove away from Barbara’s house. She was so engrossed in her thoughts she only dimly registered the fact that Norman had spoken to her. “Sorry, Norman. What did you say?”

  “Do you think Lonnie’s stolen car report has anything to do with why Sheriff Grant was killed?”

  “I just don’t know. Lonnie busted a car thief, and we found car parts in Jamie’s room. Cars do seem to be a common denominator here.”

  “And didn’t you say that Jamie was killed in an auto accident?”

  “That’s right!” Hannah was excited for a moment, but then she went back to being puzzled. “But how does that figure in?”

  Norman shrugged. “I’m not sure. There’s also the fact that Sheriff Grant was killed in a parking lot filled with cars.”

  “And he was attacked while he was standing by his cruiser,” Hannah added with a sigh. “I think we’re going overboard on this car thing, Norman.”

  “Probably. I just thought that if we could find all the pieces, we might be able to figure out how they fit together.”

  “That makes sense,” Hannah said, turning to smile at him. She was about to throw him a mind-bender. “But what if some of the pieces are from another puzzle? Won’t they only confuse us?”

  Norman thought about that while he waited for the stoplight at the corner of Elm and First to turn green. “Yeah. I guess they might confuse us. How do we get around that?”

  “I’m not sure,” Hannah replied, feeling helpless in the face of the challenge. “I think the first thing we have to do is gather more facts. That report from Lonnie was pretty sketchy and it was obvious that he wrote it in a hurry. He probably left out things he thought didn’t matter. I have to talk to him and find out everything that happened when he pulled over that stolen car.”

  “That’s a good place to start. What do you want me to do while you’re doing that?”

  “Develop the film. That’s a good place to start, too. Maybe we’ll spot something important in the pictures that we missed when we were at Nettie’s house in person. And do you think you’ll have time to do some research on the Internet?”

  “Sure.” Norman pulled up in back of The Cookie Jar and parked between Lisa’s old car and Hannah’s cookie truck. “I wasn’t supposed to be back from Seattle yet and Doc Bennett’s still filling in for m
e at the clinic. What sort of research do you need?”

  “It would really help if you could print out the articles that ran in the Lake Eden Journal when Jamie was killed. And do the same thing for the papers in Ann Arbor.”

  “Why Ann Arbor?”

  “Jamie was killed when he was away at the University of Michigan.”

  “Okay. I’ll do a search under his name. Would that be Jamie, or James?”

  “Try both. He went by Jamie, but his real name was James just like Sheriff Grant.” Hannah remembered what Norman had said and brightened up a bit. “You can do a search just by typing in someone’s name?”

  “As long as you know where to look.”

  “And you do?”

  “I’m pretty good at it. I can access quite a few public records and that gives me a surprisingly large amount of information.”

  Hannah thought about it for a long moment. What she wanted to ask Norman to do was an invasion of her mother’s privacy, and it would make her feel like a rat. But feeling like a rat might be better than feeling like a dope if her gut-level feelings were right and she failed to take steps to protect Delores from a Romeo swindler.

  “What do you need, Hannah?” Norman prompted, when she’d been silent for several moments.

  “Winthrop Harrington the Second.”

  “What?”

  “That’s his name. I need you to check him out for me.”

  “Okay. Who is he?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Hannah said, glancing over at Norman. She knew he could be trusted. If she told him this was a private matter, he’d die before he’d mention it. “I hope I’m wrong, Norman, but he could be a con artist. And the way things are going, he might just become my new stepfather.”

  Halloween morning came in with a yowl, at least ten minutes before Hannah’s alarm clock was due to go off. Moishe was hungry and he wasn’t the type to suffer his hunger pangs in silence. Hannah pulled on her slippers and shuffled to the kitchen while she was still half-awake. It was best not to be fully alert when one had to boil liver before daybreak.

  Hannah stumbled to the stove and turned the burner on high. She’d set a pot of water at the ready before bed last night. Then she poured a cup of coffee, sipped it until the water boiled, and dropped in the pieces of liver she’d cut up the previous night. When they turned an unappetizing gray color, she scooped them out and put them in a frying pan with oil and the rest of the ingredients.

  In less than five minutes, Moishe’s omelet was ready and Hannah scraped it into his food bowl. She checked to make sure the stovetop exhaust fan was on its highest setting, poured herself a second cup of coffee, and sat down at her kitchen table, deliberately turning her back on the culinary creation she’d made for her feline. The scent of liver first thing in the morning made her stomach lurch and roil. If the twinges of nausea she felt were anything like the morning sickness Andrea had complained about, she should have been more sympathetic.

  It didn’t take Moishe long to eat his breakfast, about one-fourth the time it had taken her to prepare it. There was something wrong with this equation. Hannah rinsed out the pan she’d used to boil the liver, the frying pan that had held the omelet, and Moishe’s bowl, and stuck them all in the dishwasher. It was already partially loaded with dishes from the previous night. There was the pot she’d used to cook the rice, the bowl and top of the food processor she’d used to whip up the egg and pulverize the shell, and the knife she’d wielded to cut up the liver. Once she’d gathered up the implements she’d used to cook Moishe’s breakfast and the containers she’d used to store the egg and the rice in the refrigerator, the dishwasher was almost full. Hannah poured in the soap, set it on wash, and stood there shaking her head. This was crazy. She didn’t eat breakfast unless she went out and the only dish she used in the morning was her coffee mug. Yet here she was at five in the morning, washing a full load of dishes she’d dirtied by cooking breakfast for her cat!

  The phone rang and Hannah poured another cup of coffee before she walked over to answer it. There was only one person who called her this early. It had to be Delores calling in to give her report. When Hannah hadn’t been able to find out where Lonnie was vacationing by asking his family or his friends, she’d tapped her best resource and recruited Delores and Carrie who had promised to research Lonnie’s whereabouts on the Lake Eden gossip hotline.

  “Hello Mother,” Hannah answered. Answering the phone that way had become almost a tradition. Hannah knew her mother would miss these morning squabbles if she simply said hello.

  “I wish you wouldn’t answer the phone that way, Hannah. What if it wasn’t me?”

  “Then I’d say, Sorry, I thought you were my mother. And they’d say, That’s all right . And then they’d try to sell me some stock over the phone.”

  Delores laughed. “Still…you shouldn’t presume. Think how embarrassed you’d be if it was someone important and you called them Mother.”

  “You’re not someone important?”

  “Of course I am. It’s just that…never mind,” Delores said, giving it up with a sigh. “How are you this morning, dear?”

  “Not so hot. Do you know the phrase, Wake up and smell the roses?”

  “Yes, dear. I’ve heard it.”

  “Well, this morning it’s, Wake up and smell the liver.”

  “The liver?”

  “That’s right. Doctor Bob put Moishe on a new diet. I just cooked breakfast for him and it smells awful.”

  “Well, open the windows, dear. And use some of that air freshener I gave you. It’s scented like an English garden.”

  “Right,” Hannah said, wrinkling up her nose. She’d used the air freshener, and if the manufacturer’s claim was accurate, she’d be sure to give English gardens a wide berth.

  “I always used it when your father made corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day,” Delores said. “He insisted on making it every year and none of us liked it.”

  Hannah laughed. It was true. More of the corned beef and cabbage had gone down the garbage disposal than into their mouths. But even though Hannah didn’t care for the meal, the custom pleased her. It was exactly as her dad used to say; everyone was Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

  “Did you find out anything about Lonnie, Mother?”

  “Not much.” Delores sighed so deeply it came out as a whoosh over the line. “Bridget doesn’t even know where he’s gone. She told me to check with Rick.”

  “Did you?”

  “Of course I did. Rick doesn’t know either, but he thinks Lonnie must be with a girl.”

  “Did Lonnie tell Rick that?”

  “Not exactly, but he refused to say where he was going. And since Lonnie usually tells Rick everything, Rick thinks he was going to meet a girl.”

  “That makes some kind of sense.” Hannah leaned back and took a sip of her coffee. “Any candidates?”

  “Only one and that’s impossible.”

  “Which one?”

  “Your sister. Rick thought that Lonnie might have gone to the Cities to see Michelle.”

  “Did he?” Hannah asked, hoping that he hadn’t. Delores liked Lonnie well enough, but she wouldn’t be pleased if she found out that he was serious enough to visit Michelle at college.

  “Of course he didn’t. I called Michelle last night and she said she hadn’t seen him.”

  “Did you ask her if she knew where he was?”

  “Do I look like a fool, Hannah? Of course I did. Michelle said that she didn’t have the slightest idea where Lonnie was, that they were just friends, and Lonnie certainly didn’t call to tell her every time he went off on vacation somewhere.”

  “So she was a little testy because you asked?”

  “She was very testy. I don’t know why. It was just a simple question and I certainly wasn’t accusing her of anything.”

  “Maybe she’d had a rough day at school,” Hannah said, voicing the first excuse that came to mind. “Don’t worry about it, Mother. I’
m sure Michelle feels bad that she was short with you.”

  “Well, I hope so. There’s such a thing as respect for your parents, you know.”

  “Of course there is and Michelle knows that. She’ll probably call you today and apologize.”

  “No, she won’t. She’ll just send a card. That’s what she always does. If she mails a card, she doesn’t have to come out and say that she was wrong.”

  “Oh, well. A card lasts longer than a phone call.” Hannah changed the subject and chatted on for a few more moments. Then she signed off and hung up the phone.

  “Methinks the sister doth protest too much,” she said to Moishe, who was lapping at his water bowl. “I’m going to call her and see what she says to me.”

  Hannah poured another cup of coffee, opened her crime notebook to the right page, grabbed the phone, and dialed her sister’s number. Delores might be satisfied by Michelle’s denial, but Hannah had the sneaking suspicion that Lonnie had been no further away than the length of the phone cord when her baby sister had claimed she hadn’t seen him.

  Hannah slipped four more pans of cookies into the oven and picked up the phone again. No one was answering at Michelle’s rented house and the answering machine wasn’t on. She listened to the empty ringing for several more moments and hung up when the back door opened and Lisa came in. “Hi, Lisa. I’m almost through with the Corn Cookies.”

  “They look great,” Lisa said, hanging her parka jacket on a hook and heading for the sink to wash her hands. “Do you want me to start on the regular cookies? Or should I mix up the batch of cupcakes for the sheriff’s station? They asked for chocolate with chocolate icing and some kind of design in orange.”

  “You do them while I bake the cookies.” Hannah glanced down at the Fudge Cupcake recipe on the counter. “Why don’t you bake some of Alma’s cupcakes for the sheriff’s station? You can use applesauce as the secret ingredient. I’ve got some in the cooler. Just set one cupcake aside for Beatrice to taste and decorate the rest.”