Fudge Cupcake Murder

Chapter Eight

When the door opened in response to Hannah's knock, she almost stepped back in shock. Nettie was dressed in jeans and a bright pink sweatshirt. To Hannah's knowledge, Nettie had never worn casual clothes before. She'd always dressed in designer clothing. But there was an even bigger change and Hannah just stood there and blinked. Nettie's brown hair, which had always been impeccably curled and coiffed, was now in a casual and slightly untidy ponytail.

"Nettie?" Andrea asked, and Hannah could tell her sister was also wondering if the grieving widow had a relative who resembled her in every aspect but dress and grooming.

"It's me." Nettie gave a little smile and gestured for them to come in. "You both look shocked. I guess I must look different."

"You do," Hannah said, recovering first. "Do you want us to come back another time?"

"Come in and visit for a while. Everyone else left an hour ago and you caught me indulging a whim."

"The jeans?" Hannah guessed, following Nettie into the living room.

"That's right. Jim hated it when I wore them. He said it wasn't the right image for a sheriff's wife. The last time I put them on has got to be at least twenty years ago. I was afraid they wouldn't fit, but they do. Of course I was never really slim like you, Andrea. Not even when Jim and I met."

"I'm not slim now. Doc Knight weighed me yesterday and I've gained twenty pounds in the past two months." Andrea walked over and took a seat on the sofa.

"You'll lose that in a hurry when you have the baby." Nettie turned to Hannah. "Would you girls like something to eat? The ladies left me enough food for months."

"Well, maybe just a bite… or a dozen bites," Hannah said.

"Just help yourself," Nettie said with a smile. "The baked goods are on the counter in the kitchen and they put the Jell-O and meats in the refrigerator. Did your mother tell you she dropped by this afternoon?"

Both Andrea and Hannah shook their heads.

"The whole Regency Romance Club was here. Your mother pointed out that in Regency England widows had to stay in full mourning for at least a year and then they could be in half-mourning. That meant they were allowed to dress in gray or lavender."

"How long did half-mourning last?" Andrea leaned forward as she asked the question. She appeared intrigued and that didn't really surprise Hannah. Her sister was always interested in fashion.

"According to your mother, half-mourning usually lasted a year or two, but there were quite a few women who never wore bright colors again. And then there were others, like Queen Victoria, who remained in full mourning for the rest of her life." Nettie glanced down at her bright pink sweatshirt and shrugged. "Thank goodness the customs are a lot different now! Of course, I'm not out in public, either."

Hannah stood up, preparing to head to the kitchen. "I'm going to see what the ladies left in the way of food. How about you, Nettie? Can I bring you something?"

"A ham sandwich would be nice. I was just so happy to see that ham when Carrie Rhodes carried it in. It's that spiral-cut kind from CostMart and it's absolutely delicious. I adore ham, but Jim didn't care for it. We never had it in the house unless he was gone overnight."

"How about you, Andrea?" Hannah turned to her sister.

Andrea looked uncomfortable and Hannah could tell that she was nervous about being alone with Nettie. "A ham sandwich sounds wonderful, but I'll go with you. Then I can help carry things."

"Hannah can manage for a minute alone." Nettie reached out and put her hand on Andrea's arm. "I need to talk to you, Andrea."

Nettie's dining room area was part of the living room and the kitchen was at one end. Since the rooms flowed together without walls and the shutters that could be used to cordon off the kitchen were open, Hannah could keep an eye on Andrea and Nettie while she made the sandwiches.

"Look, Andrea," Hannah heard Nettie say. "I know all about Bill."

"You do?" Hannah could see Andrea's panicked expression from where she stood at the kitchen counter.

"I just wanted you to know I think it's pure hogwash."

"Then you don't think that Bill…"

"Of course not!" Nettie interrupted, reaching out to pat Andrea's hand. "And that's exactly what I told Mike when he was here."

Hannah watched as her sister visibly relaxed. Andrea even ventured a small smile. "I really felt strange about coming over here, Nettie. I wanted to offer my condolences, but I just wasn't sure how you felt. I mean… it could have been awkward."

"Mustard, Nettie?" Hannah called out from her spot at the kitchen counter.

"Yes, thank you."

"Andrea?"

"Yes. Doc Knight told me I should watch it with the spices, but I've been really good today."

Hannah added the mustard, put a piece of lettuce on top of the ham, slapped on the top slices of bread, and cut each sandwich into fourths on the cutting board. Then, since the sandwiches were all the same, she arranged them on a platter around a small dish of pickles she'd found in the refrigerator.

"Soup's on," Hannah called out, carrying the platter into the living room. "Can I get anyone something to drink? There's a whole cooler of soft drinks on the counter."

"I'll take a Diet Coke, if it's there," Andrea made her choice. "And if it's not, I'll have a diet anything."

"The same for me," Nettie said, smiling at Hannah. "Unless you'd rather have wine. Your mother brought me a nice bottle of Bordeaux."

Hannah shook her head. "Thanks anyway, but I'm driving and Andrea can't drink."

"Just because we can't doesn't mean you can't," Andrea jumped in quickly, turning to give Hannah a wink. "I think you should have some, Nettie. It's been a rough day and you need to relax. Hannah? Why don't you pour a glass of wine for Nettie?"

For a brief moment, Hannah was confused by the wink, but then she caught on. Andrea believed that Nettie would be more forthcoming if she drank some wine. Hannah spotted it on the bar at the end of the living room, went over to open it and pour a glass, and carried it back to their hostess.

"Thank you, Hannah." Nettie put down her sandwich and took a sip of wine. "There's dessert if you want some later. I stuck four cakes in the freezer, but there's at least five still out on the counter."

Hannah remembered the dessert she'd brought and she reached for the bag and handed it to Nettie. "I almost forgot… these cookies are for you. I guess it's a little like bringing coals to Newcastle."

"No, it's not." Nettie shook her head. "No one else brought cookies, and I like cookies better than cakes, anyway. What kind are they?"

"Cashew Crisps. I hope you like them."

"I adore these cookies." Nettie drew one out of the bag and bit into it. "Mmm. These are absolutely scrumptious. I tasted one when you first started baking them and I told Jim they were the best cookies I'd ever had."

"I'm surprised he never brought any home for you. He used to come in a couple times a week to pick up orders."

"Oh, he took most of those to the office. And he wouldn't have bought cashew cookies home, anyway. Jim didn't like cashews."

Andrea exchanged a glance with Hannah. "But you do?"

"Cashews are my favorite nut. That's why I love these cookies so much."

Hannah took another bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. It seemed that Nettie's likes and dislikes hadn't mattered much to her husband. Sheriff Grant didn't liked ham, so he'd refused to have it in the house. And even though Hannah had been baking Nettie's favorite cookies for over a year now, Sheriff Grant never bothered to take them home to her.

"I know what you're thinking," Nettie said, staring hard at Hannah.

"You do?"

"I believe so. You're thinking that my husband was a selfish man. And you're right. Jim thought he was the center of the universe and other people just floated in orbits around him. Sometimes they were useful and he liked them. Other times they weren't, and he didn't."

A tear rolled down Nettie's cheek and Hannah leaned forward. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. It's just that you can't be married to a man for twenty-six years without feeling abandoned when he's gone." Nettie took a deep breath and faced both Hannah and Andrea squarely. "Can I be frank?"

"Of course," Hannah said.

"You've probably guessed that life with Jim wasn't any picnic. There were big problems in our marriage that we just couldn't resolve. You probably know that I almost had a breakdown when Jamie died."

"It must have been awful."

"It was. It took a whole year of counseling before I learned to cope. But I did learn to cope. Jim never did. That's one of the reasons I spoke with Howie Levine on the Saturday before Jim died. I went in to ask his advice about a divorce."

Andrea's mouth dropped open and Hannah had to work to keep hers closed. She hadn't heard a word about the Grants breaking up.

"No one knows except you two. My meeting with Howie was confidential, but someone will find out about it, sooner or later. And since I don't have an alibi, that'll make me the number one suspect in my husband's murder."

Hannah's ears perked up. "You don't have an alibi?"

"No. I was working alone in the sewing room, finishing an appliquй wall hanging for a client."

"Where's your sewing room?" Hannah asked, intending to check out the location of windows. It was always possible that one of Nettie's neighbors had spotted her working on the night the sheriff had been killed.

Andrea and Hannah followed Nettie up the stairs and down the hallway. She stopped at the second door to open it and ushered them in. "This is my sewing room. It's where I was working the night Jim was killed."

Hannah looked around the small, crowded sewing room in surprise. She'd thought that Nettie's workroom would be much more spacious. For years, she had been quite well-known, locally, for making appliquй wall hangings to order. Her work had been featured in several craft magazines and she always won a blue ribbon at the Minnesota State Fair. Just last year, a big name decorator had ordered several of Nettie's wall hangings to use in a celebrity's home. There had been a tour of the home on national television with an interview with the celebrity in front of a large wall hanging Nettie had designed. Since then, Nettie had been deluged with orders from people who were willing to pay large amounts of money to have an original Nettie Grant hanging on their wall.

"I love it, Nettie!" Andrea crowed, having somehow made her way between the sewing machine and the cutting table strewn with bolts of cloth to stand in front of the wall hanging Nettie had just completed. "The cows look so real, I almost expect them to moo. Who gets it?"

"The Minnesota Dairy Council commissioned it for their headquarters."

Hannah turned to look at the wall hanging, but she didn't try to get any closer. The room was so small she couldn't have managed it without knocking Andrea off her feet. "I like it a lot, Nettie. The cows look like they're all enjoying some huge joke at our expense."

"That's exactly what I wanted, but I doubt that anyone else will catch it." Nettie turned to smile at Hannah. "Their big concern was that I have every breed of cow in Minnesota represented."

Hannah sidled past the ironing board, steadying the iron as she went, and made her way to the single window. The drapes were heavy and no one passing outside could have seen any shadows from within. "Did you have the drapes open that night?"

"Yes. I see what you're driving at, Hannah, but it won't do any good. The Maschlers live on that side and they were gone."

"You asked them?"

"Mike did. He called right after I brought him up here to show him what I was doing when Jim was killed. Jerry dropped Kate off at the school and then he went bowling with a couple of friends. And Richie was out with his friends."

"So you didn't see or hear anything from next door?"

"I heard the television. They must have left it on as a burglar deterrent and I wish they'd switched it to another channel. It was some kind of kung fu movie and the yelling and grunting almost drove me crazy."

Andrea looked surprised. "It was really inconsiderate of Kate to leave the television on so loud."

"Oh, it wasn't that loud. I wouldn't have heard it at all if I'd had the window closed. But I had to open it because I was cutting material. If I don't, the fibers and dust make me sneeze. This is a really small room and it's impossible to keep to keep it dust free."

"It certainly is tiny," Hannah commented, glancing around her again.

"It's the smallest bedroom. When Jamie died, I thought I'd move my things to his room. It's a lot larger. But Jim didn't want me to touch anything in there. He was so insistent about it, I didn't."

"You mean… everything is still just the way it was when Jamie was alive?"

"That's right. I tried to talk him into giving some of Jamie's things to charity, but he just couldn't bear to get rid of anything, not even the clothes in the closet."

Hannah looked over at her sister. Andrea looked a little sick and that was understandable. Leaving a dead boy's room intact for three years was a peculiarity that had crossed over the line into obsession.

"He wouldn't even let me clean in there," Nettie went on. "He said he'd take care of it. And he kept it locked so that I couldn't go in there when he wasn't home."

"Did he go in there sometimes?" Andrea pulled herself together enough to ask.

"Almost every night. He used it as a sort of home office. He said it made him feel close to Jamie to be surrounded by his things."

Hannah was thoughtful as she followed Nettie and Andrea back down the stairs. When you saw a person almost every day and you lived in the same small town, you thought you knew them. But it turned out that Hannah hadn't really known much about Sheriff Grant at all.

A few minutes later, the three women were back in the living room, eating slices of Rose MacDermott's famous coconut cake. Hannah had cut the slices double the size that Rose served at the cafй, working under the theory that larger was better.

"Did Rose give you the recipe for the Lake Eden cookbook?" Nettie asked, finishing her last forkful.

"Not yet," Hannah answered with a grin. "She keeps promising, but I don't think she's quite ready to give it up."

Andrea looked thoughtful. "Maybe she's afraid that if people know how to make it, it'll hurt her sales at the cafй."

"That wouldn't happen." Nettie seemed convinced. "Most people don't have time to bake. I never did. Now I almost wish I had. What Jim really wanted was a movie wife."

"A what?" Andrea asked.

"A movie wife. You know the type. She's a great mother, she cooks like a dream, she wears makeup and dresses up even when she's cleaning out the cupboards, and she always puts her husband first. I tried to be the wife Jim wanted, and I think I succeeded when Jamie was alive. But after our son died, it started to feel more and more like a farce." Several tears rolled down Nettie's cheeks and she brushed them away with the side of her hand. "So when are you going to start grilling me?"

Andrea gulped. "Grilling you?"

"You and Hannah are investigating my husband's murder, aren't you?"

"Yes, but…"

"You girls will have to put me down as a suspect. You won't be doing a good job if you don't. I'm strong enough to have hit Jim over the head and dragged him to that dumpster. And Kate Maschler, bless her nosy little soul, saw me arguing with Jim on the day he was killed."

"What about?" the question was out of Hannah's mouth before she could rephrase it politely.

"I really don't want to go into that, Hannah. It's personal and it can't possibly have any bearing on Jim's murder."

"Okay," Hannah said. She recognized a stubborn look when she saw it and she knew Nettie wouldn't say another word about the argument she'd had with her husband.

"Unless you girls can come up with a more likely candidate, I'm the prime suspect."

Andrea shot Hannah a look of pure desperation, and Hannah knew that the response would be up to her. She'd heard Delores say that Nettie could be candid, but she hadn't expected her to be quite that outspoken. "You're a suspect, but we don't think you did it."

"Why not?"

"Why follow your husband to the school and take the chance that someone might see you kill him? A wife can find a more secluded place."

Nettie thought about that for a moment. "I can see your reasoning on that. But if I didn't kill him, who did?"

"That's what we were hoping you could tell us," Andrea chimed in. "Did Sheriff Grant have any enemies?"

Nettie just stared at her for a moment and then she started to laugh, an incongruous reaction from a woman whose cheeks were wet with tears. She laughed until tears of mirth mingled with her tears of grief and then she stopped with a quivering sigh. "Yes," she said. "And we'll be here all night if I name all of them."