Fudge Cupcake Murder

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Let's save a dozen of these for Norman as a welcome home present," Lisa suggested, pulling the last two pans of Orange Snaps from the oven and sliding them onto the bakers rack.

"That's a good idea. I'm really glad he's back in town."

"So is there anything special we have to do today?"

"Actually… yes." Hannah took a deep breath to calm her frazzled nerves. She had yet to tell Lisa about the break-in she planned to accomplish with Norman and that was because she felt slightly guilty at contemplating the commission of a crime. She knew she was being silly. She'd never felt guilty about collecting evidence in not-so-legal ways before. But this time it was different. This time she wasn't rushing into things. She'd had the whole night to think about it and she'd gone over all the things that could go wrong in her mind. Her grandmother used to say that it was wise to think before you acted, but if everyone did that, they'd be so busy thinking over the pros and cons that nothing would ever get done.

"What is it?"

"What is what?" Hannah had been thinking so intensely, she'd entirely lost the thread of their conversation

"What's the special thing we have to do today?"

"Oh, that." Hannah took another deep breath and plunged in. "I need you to hold down the fort for a couple of hours this morning. Norman and I are going over to Nettie's duplex."

"But Nettie's gone."

"I know that. If she didn't leave any windows open, we're going to pick the lock."

"But why do that?"

"Because I need to search Sheriff Grant's home office for clues."

"Not that. I mean, why break in when I've got the key?"

"You've got the key?!" Hannah's voice hit a high note that made her wonder if her high school music teacher had been wrong to seat her in the alto section.

"Nettie gave it to me when I offered to water her house-plants."

Hannah just shook her head. Lisa had surprising depths. "It occurred to you that I might want to get into her duplex while she was gone?"

"Yes," Lisa said, grinning widely, "and I didn't want you to have to break in."

"I've said it before and I'll say it again. You're a gem, Lisa."

"A diamond of the first water," Lisa said and then she giggled when Hannah gave her a surprised look. "Bonnie Surma called to order cookies for the next Regency club meeting. She used it to describe their guest speaker and I asked her what it meant."

"What did she say?"

"She told me it meant quality and it usually referred to ladies. If they're diamonds of the first water, their appearance is perfect and so are their manners and their breeding."

Hannah thought that over for a moment. "That makes sense. Diamonds are sorted by water, and the best and heaviest gems fall out with the first washing. A diamond of the first water would be very valuable, just like you, Lisa."

"Thanks." Lisa blushed slightly at the compliment. "I think you should go in through Nettie's backdoor. Her yard is fenced and once you're inside the gate, nobody can see you."

"Good idea."

"And whatever you do, don't touch the houseplants."

Hannah was confused. "I wasn't really planning to, but why?"

"They'd die for sure, and then Bill and Mike would know you'd been there. You've got the biggest black thumb in town."

"You brought your camera?" Hannah asked, spotting it around Norman's neck when he met her in the alley behind Nettie's duplex.

"I thought I'd take pictures as we go along. It'll help to refresh our memory later."

"Good idea. Where did you park?" Hannah asked, opening the gate and hustling Norman inside the fenced backyard.

"Two blocks over. How about you?"

"I walked. I was afraid my truck would be spotted."

"You mean because it's candy apple red with a license plate that says COOKIES and the name of your store on both sides?"

"That's it," Hannah said with a laugh, appreciating Norman even more today than she had last night. "I'm glad you're back, Norman. I wouldn't want to break into a place with anyone else."

Norman smiled and gave her a little hug, obviously taking what she'd said as a compliment. Then he climbed the steps to Nettie's backdoor and took out a little leather case. "Dental tools," he explained, unzipping it. "I thought they'd come in handy for picking the lock."

"I'm sure they'd be perfect, but we don't need them." Hannah reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out the key ring Lisa had given her. "I've got the key."

"Oh. Okay then," Norman said, sounding a bit disappointed as Hannah unlocked the door.

Hannah stepped in, glanced back at Norman, and saw he was frowning. He had obviously wanted to test his skills as a burglar. "Don't put those tools away. The door to Sheriff Grant's home office is probably locked."

"Right." Norman looked much happier as he followed Hannah up the stairs and down the hallway. The pleased expression remained on his face until they arrived at the office door and he noticed that it was taped off. "That's crime scene tape."

"I know."

"But I thought that Sheriff Grant was killed in the school parking lot."

"He was."

"So this isn't a crime scene?"

"Not technically. When Mike sealed it off, he must not have had the KEEP OUT JUST BECAUSE I SAY SO tape."

"I see," Norman said with a grin. "And if we get caught in here, you'll argue that since it wasn't a crime scene, the tape must have been put up by mistake."

Hannah gave a little nod to show that he was right and grinned right back. Then she reached out to check the doorknob. "It's locked, all right. Do you think you can open it?"

"I don't know why not," Norman said, unzipping his leather case of tools again. "Picking a lock has got to be easier than tightening braces."

It was a simple mechanism and picking the lock didn't take long, especially for a dentist with nimble fingers. In less than a minute, Hannah and Norman had ducked under the crime scene tape and were standing inside Sheriff Grant's home office.

"This looks more like somebody's bedroom than an office," Norman commented.

"That's because it was a bedroom. It belonged to Sheriff Grant's son, Jamie and it's just the way he left it when he went away to college. Sheriff Grant wouldn't let Nettie throw away any of Jamie's things after he died."

"How long ago was that?"

"Almost three years. Don't you think that's a little weird?"

Norman shrugged. "Maybe, if it's an obsession. But if the sheriff just wanted to hang onto his son's things a little longer, I can understand that."

Hannah turned to look at Norman in awe. He'd managed to walk the fence brilliantly. When the next political office opened up, she was going to nominate him.

"Let me take a base set of pictures," Norman said, proceeding to do just that. "We'll want to remember what this looked like before we started to search."

When Norman had taken pictures from every angle, Hannah handed him a pair of gloves. "I brought these for you. We don't want to leave fingerprints. You can start in the closet and I'll try Sheriff Grant's desk."

"Okay. What are we looking for?"

"Briefcases. If you find any, give a holler. We're also looking for anything that looks like it doesn't belong in a teenager's room or a home office."

Hannah slipped on her own gloves and went through the desk. All she found were old bills, canceled checks, and household accounting records. It looked as if Sheriff Grant had moved all of Jamie's things into one drawer when he'd commandeered the desk. The lower left-hand drawer contained a college catalogue, several transcripts of Jamie's high school grades, a program from the senior prom, a stack of CliffsNotes with sections highlighted in yellow marker, and the thick, dog-eared book Jamie had used to study for the SATs. There was nothing at all from the sheriff's department and nothing to indicate which case Sheriff Grant had been working on at the time of his death.

"I found a briefcase, Hannah," Norman's voice was muffled and Hannah could tell he was in the depths of the closet.

"Is it brown?"

"Yes."

"Then we'll take it with us. Just set it aside and keep looking. "

"Okay. Did you find anything in the desk?"

"Not really, unless you're interested in a stack of CliffsNotes."

"A stack of what?"

"CliffsNotes. You know, the yellow and black pamphlets kids use to cram for tests?"

"Oh, those. I thought they were called CliffNotes, like somebody sat on top of a cliff and wrote them."

"No, it's CliffsNotes, like a guy named Cliff Hillegass formed a company to publish them in nineteen fifty-something."

"Okay, I stand corrected. Did you find anything else?"

"Nothing important." Hannah pushed back the desk chair and went to the dresser to check the drawers. They were filled with Jamie's clothes and Hannah felt a bit like a ghoul as she went through piles of his underwear, socks, and handkerchiefs.

"Ouch!" Norman yelped from the recesses of the closet.

"What's wrong?" Hannah asked, hurrying over to see if she could help.

"I just stubbed my toe on something hard. Hand me a flashlight, will you?"

Hannah passed Norman the flashlight she'd brought from her truck and held Jamie's clothing out of the way so that he could see what he'd encountered.

"Looks like a box of car parts," Norman said, backing out of the closet and dragging the box out after him. "Jamie probably had an old clunker he repaired himself."

"Probably. Most high school kids can't afford to take their cars to mechanics to get them fixed."

Norman glanced into the box and frowned. "That's funny. Here's a starter for a Chevrolet and a fuel injection harness for a Ford."

"You must know a lot about cars if you can tell who made the parts just by looking." Hannah was impressed.

"You bet. It also helps that the manufacturer's name is stamped on the bottom."

Hannah laughed, but she quickly sobered when she remembered what Norman had said. "Do you know if you can put a Chevrolet starter and a Ford fuel injection harness in the same car?"

"Not really, but my guess is no. Most car companies don't want their parts to be interchangeable. Do you know what kind of car Jamie drove?"

"No, but I can find out. Will you take some pictures of the car parts, Norman? They might be important. I have to make a phone call."

In less than five minutes, Hannah was back, looking more puzzled than she had when she left. She'd talked to Luanne Hanks and what she'd found out was disturbing. "Did you take the pictures?"

"I took a whole roll. And I found another briefcase while I was at it. It was in the corner by the wastebasket. What did you find out about the car?"

"That's the strange part. Jamie didn't have a car. He borrowed Nettie's whenever he needed one. The rest of the time, he rode his Harley."

Norman glanced down at the box again. "But these are car parts. I'm sure of it."

"And I'm sure that car parts don't fit motorcycles." Hannah sighed and sat down on the edge of Jamie's bed. She tucked her feet back and her heels encountered something hard. "There's something under this bed."

In no time at all both Hannah and Norman were stretched out on the floor, peering under Jamie's bed. She manned the flashlight while he held up the bedspread.

"It's another box," Norman said, grabbing the edge and tugging it toward them. "It's heavy enough to be more car parts. But why would Jamie have car parts if he didn't have a car?"

"That," Hannah said, reaching out to help Norman with the box, "is the million dollar question."

It took some muscle, but between the two of them, Hannah and Norman managed to retrieve the four boxes of car parts that were stored under Jamie's bed and take pictures of them. Hannah also recovered a brown briefcase that had been under the bed. Once they'd pushed boxes back where they'd found them, Hannah collected the briefcases and, they left, locking the door securely behind them.

"Where to now?" Norman asked, opening the passenger door of his car for Hannah.

"Barbara Donnelly's house. She's expecting us. I called her before we left Nettie's."

"And she's going to tell us which one is the James Bond briefcase and open the secret compartment?"

"That's right." Hannah was glad Norman had listened when she'd explained everything last night. She was so tired, she didn't think she could string enough words together now.

"It's at least ten minutes to Barbara's." Norman looked over at her with a worried expression. "Why don't you lean back and take a quick nap. You look really tired."

"I am," Hannah admitted, closing her eyes. And then, lulled by the motion of Norman's car, her mind floated free and she hovered in that timeless place between consciousness and slumber.

"Hannah? We're here."

Hannah opened her eyes to find Norman's car parked in the driveway at Barbara's house. "How did you get here so fast?" she asked. "I just shut my eyes a second ago."

"It was twenty minutes ago. I took the long way around to let you sleep."

"Oh," Hannah felt a little foolish for conking out in Norman's car. "Well… thanks."

"Didn't you get enough sleep last night?"

"I guess not," Hannah said and left it at that. There was no way she was going to tell Norman that she'd been awake for over an hour after he'd left, trying to decide whether she'd preferred Mike's kisses, or his.

Hannah climbed the steps to Barbara's neat little house and opened the front porch door. It was a screen porch to keep out mosquitoes and other bugs, and since it was already nearing the end of October, Barbara had winterized it by tacking up heavy plastic on the outside of the screens to keep out the snow flurries that would be coming soon.

"Indoor-outdoor carpeting?" Norman asked, glancing down at the porch floor.

"Artificial turf," Hannah corrected him. "Barbara's brother works for the company that makes it and she gets it for free. She doesn't have room for a garden in back, so she sets pots of flowers out here in the summer and it looks really nice. It's almost like sitting outside without any bugs."

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 friend's 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."