Fudge Cupcake Murder

Chapter Four

Hannah had no sooner stepped inside her condo than the phone rang. She knew exactly who it was and she headed straight for the kitchen to answer it. "Hello, Mother."

"Hello, Mother? How did you know it was me?"

"Who else would it be? Andrea probably called you right after Bill called to tell her."

"Well… actually, that's right." Delores sounded a bit perturbed that Hannah had guessed her gossip source. "I just can't believe that you found another body!"

"It's true, but you shouldn't be jealous. I let you find the last one." Hannah glanced down at Moishe, who was rubbing against her ankle so hard he was very close to knocking her off balance. His bowl was empty and he didn't seem to mind the switch in his diet at all. "Hold on for a second, Mother. Just let me feed Moishe and then we can talk."

Hannah set the phone on the table and walked over to the broom closet where she kept Moishe's food. She unlocked the padlock, opened the door and poured Moishe a bowlful of his new food. It might have seemed strange to guard cat food with a padlock, but it kept the bag safe from the feline who wasn't shy about getting his own breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Moishe had defeated every other attempt Hannah had made to keep him out of the broom closet, but he hadn't figured out the padlock yet. He had made progress on the wooden door, though. There was a series of bite and claw marks near the bottom and Hannah suspected it was only a matter of time before her four-footed roommate triumphed once again.

"Okay, Mother. I'm back," Hannah said, grabbing the phone and sitting down at the table in one fluid motion. "What did you hear?"

"Not much. All Bill told Andrea was that you found Sheriff Grant inside the school Dumpster."

"That's what happened all right."

"I feel so sorry for poor Nettie Grant!"

"Me, too," Hannah said. Sheriff Grant's wife had practically gone into seclusion three years ago when the Grants had lost their only child in a car crash.

"This is going to be so difficult for her," Delores went on. "She was just getting over Jamie's death, and now her husband is gone, too! Do you think they're related, Hannah?"

"Who?" Hannah asked, thoroughly confused by her mother's question.

"Not who… what! I'm talking about Jamie's death and Sheriff Grant's death."

"I don't see how they could be related, Mother."

"Use your head, Hannah. We know that Nettie was totally grief-stricken when Jamie was killed and it took her almost a whole year to come out of her depression. It must have hit Sheriff Grant just as hard. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out that his grief had gotten the best of him and he'd decided that he just couldn't go on any longer."

"You mean… suicide?"

"Of course I mean suicide. Do you think that's what happened?"

"No."

"Why not? It makes sense to me."

Hannah sighed deeply. She hadn't intended to give her mother any of the gruesome details, but she couldn't let Delores run around town expounding her suicide theory.

"It wasn't suicide, Mother."

"How do you know?"

"I think it's unlikely that Sheriff Grant ate one of my cupcakes, bashed himself in the back of the head so hard that he cracked it open, and then dragged himself to the school Dumpster and crawled in to die. I'll admit my cupcakes weren't perfect, but they weren't that bad."

"This is not the time to be flippant, Hannah!"

"Right," Hannah said and then she was perfectly silent. Her mother was a bright woman. It might take her a moment or two, but Delores would pick up on the obvious.

"Wait a minute!" Delores was so excited her voice shook. "Did you say that Sheriff Grant was killed by a blow to the back of his head?"

"That's right."

"But that's impossible, unless…" Delores drew out her last word so long it came out of Hannah's receiver as a hiss. "He was murdered! Why didn't you tell me before?!"

"You didn't ask."

"Well, I'm asking now. And a good daughter would have told me before I had to ask! Sit down if you're not sitting already, and tell me everything that happened. And don't you dare leave anything out!"

Ten minutes later, Hannah hung up the phone. Her neck was sore from cradling the phone between her head and her shoulder while she talked and foraged for something to eat, but her hunt through the refrigerator and the pantry had been successful. It was a far cry from a steak, but she managed to open a can of tuna, mix it with a little mayonnaise, and spread it on a piece of dark pumpernickel. She spread a second piece of pumpernickel with cream cheese softened in the microwave and topped it off with wafer thin slices of sweet onion that Lisa had grown in her greenhouse. Once the two halves of the sandwich were stacked together and cut into quarters, Hannah poured herself a glass of what she called Chateau Screwtop, the white jug wine currently on sale at CostMart.

"You've got your own yummy food," Hannah said, glancing down at Moishe. He was pressing against her ankle again and a twenty-three pound cat could press hard.

Moishe yowled and Hannah realized that she was being ridiculous. Who was she trying to kid? The most expensive cat food in the world couldn't compare to one of her tuna sandwiches.

Once she'd managed to seat herself on the sofa despite Moishe's efforts to trip her, Hannah flicked on the television with the remote control and bit into her sandwich. Delicious! Lisa's onion was excellent. She'd have to remember to mention it tomorrow morning when Lisa came in to work. In the meantime, there was a whole sandwich to eat and Hannah applied herself to that task with true dedication.

Once the sandwich was gone and Moishe had been pacified with several morsels of tuna that she'd set aside for him, Hannah settled down to watch television with her glass of wine.

Cable programming was nothing to write home about on this particular Monday night and Hannah flicked through the channels, wondering how anyone could be content to stay home and watch television. There was only one program that interested her, a study of holiday fruitcakes and how they had evolved over the years.

Hannah watched with interest. Most of the fruitcakes they showed were beautiful when they were sliced, the candied fruit resembling brightly colored jewels under the lights. She'd always thought that in a perfect world, fruitcake would taste as good as it looked. Unfortunately, as far as Hannah was concerned, it didn't. There was only one fruitcake that Hannah liked and it was her own recipe. She created it for her father and it didn't have a single speck of citron or candied fruit. It was called Dad's Chocolate Fruitcake and she planned to put it in the Lake Eden cookbook.

The program was almost over when Hannah caught a glimpse of an orange and white blur out of the corner of her eye. It was Moishe, heading off to the laundry room, even though he'd just come from there a few minutes ago. Now that she thought about it, Hannah was almost sure she'd seen him take the same route several times.

"Are you okay, Moishe?" Hannah asked, getting up on her feet. Moishe never went into the laundry room unless he needed to use his litter box. If his new senior food was upsetting his stomach, she'd call the vet in the morning.

When Hannah stepped into the laundry room, she found Moishe standing by his litter box. But instead of getting in, as she expected him to, he just leaned over the side, dropped something in, and reached out with a paw to cover it.

"That's strange," Hannah commented, watching as her cat headed back to the kitchen again. Several months ago, Moishe had buried the back half of a mouse in his litter box. Perhaps he'd caught something and was giving it the feline version of a decent burial.

Hannah grabbed the scoop and exhumed the item that Moishe had buried. It wasn't a mouse, or a part of a mouse. It wasn't even a cricket, or a moth. It was a pristine nugget of his new senior cat food. Suddenly suspicious, she dug around a bit in the litter box, uncovering more evidence of Moishe's distaste. By his choice of burial spot, her cat was making a graphic comment about the palatability of his dinner.

"Okay," Hannah sighed, accepting the inevitable. Nothing was ever as easy as it seemed.

As she stepped into the kitchen, Hannah glanced over at Moishe. He was standing by his food bowl, watching her every move. His yellow eyes seemed to brighten as she headed for the broom closet and his stash of old kitty crunchies. When she took out the bag, his eyes fairly gleamed with an eager light.

"You win, Moishe," Hannah said, rinsing out his bowl and filling it with his regular chow. She knew she was surrendering in the war between feline wits and human wits, but there was no way she wanted to listen to hungry yowls all night.

The next day, The Cookie Jar was crowded. It seemed that almost everyone in town had heard about Sheriff Grant's murder, and Hannah suspected that her own mother had spread the word to at least half the population of Lake Eden all by herself.

"Absolutely not," Hannah said, pouring more coffee as she responded to Bertie Staub's question. It was the same answer she'd been giving all morning. Everyone who came in for cookies and coffee wanted to know if she'd be investigating.

"But don't you want to help?" Bertie asked, turning to smile at Andrea, who'd just come in the front door.

"I'll help in any way I can, but only as a private citizen."

"But what if they ask you to help? Would you do it then?"

"They won't." Hannah slid over to make room as Andrea ducked behind the counter. "One of their own has been killed and they'll want to run their own investigation. I wouldn't dream of interfering and I'm not involved in any way."

"Yes, you are," Andrea hissed, just loud enough for Hannah to hear it. Her lips were perfectly stationary and fixed in a smile, and Hannah was impressed. She hadn't known that Andrea had ventriloquism skills.

"Kitchen," Andrea said under her breath and around the fixed smile she still wore. "I need to talk to you."

Hannah motioned for Lisa to take over the counter and led Andrea back through the swinging door to the kitchen workstation. Her sister settled on a stool and Hannah sat down beside her. "What is it? You look rattled."

Andrea paled at that observation. "Oh, no! Do you think anyone noticed?"

"You mean out there?" Hannah gestured toward the coffee shop.

"Yes."

"No one except me. And that's only because I know you so well. What's wrong?"

"Everything! My world is spinning and there's nothing I can do to stop it!"

Hannah decided not to remind Andrea that spinning is what the world did, and without the pull of gravity, they'd all fall off. "I think you need some orange juice. You look a little pale."

"Coffee," Andrea corrected her. "I didn't have my one cup this morning. I was too upset to make it."

As Hannah went to the kitchen coffee pot to pour Andrea a cup, she wondered how anyone could be so upset, they couldn't make coffee. This was especially puzzling in Andrea's case, since all she did was put a spoonful of instant coffee in a mug, fill it with water, and microwave it until it was hot enough to drink.

"Thanks, Hannah." Andrea accepted the mug and curled her hands around it. Then she took a long sip and sighed gratefully. "That's so good! I feel much more in control now."

"Good. Why did you feel out of control in the first place? And what did you mean by what you said back there?"

"What did I say?"

"I was telling Bertie that I wasn't going to interfere in Sheriff Grant's murder investigation and you said, Yes, you are. And you said it without moving your lips."

"Oh, that. I learned how to talk that way in seventh grade. Mr. Becker used to give us demerits if he caught us talking in class, so we learned to talk without moving our lips. He never caught on and we did it all year long."

"Not that! I'm talking about when you said I was going to interfere in Sheriff Grant's murder investigation."

"You are. You have to do it, Hannah. Bill needs you."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm positive."

Hannah gave Andrea a long level look. "Are you telling me that Bill asked you to ask me to investigate Sheriff Grant's murder?"

"Not exactly."

"How, exactly?"

"It's Mike." Andrea took another sip of her coffee and her eyes began to flash fire. "He's a first-class jerk! I still can't believe that I invited him into my home and fed him sandwiches and everything, and then he turned on us like a rat in the grass!"

"Snake," Hannah corrected her automatically.

"What?"

"It's snake in the grass, not rat in the grass. What did Mike do?"

"He betrayed our trust, that's what he did! If you ever speak to him again, I'll… I'll disown you!"

Since Andrea only used that threat when she was upset, Hannah decided not to mention the fact that sisters couldn't disown sisters. If looks weren't deceiving, Andrea was working herself up into a full-scale snit. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were flashing fire. Hannah hadn't seen her this angry since high school, when someone had spilled grape soda on her favorite pink cashmere sweater.

"Mike is… just awful! He's a… a…" Andrea stopped and covered her tummy with her hands. "I'd better not say what I'm thinking. I just read an article that said babies hear sounds before they're born and I don't want little Billy to hear how mad I am."

"Just take it easy and tell me what Mike's done to get you so riled up."

"Mike…" Andrea stopped and took another deep breath, letting it out with a whoosh. "Mike thinks Bill murdered Sheriff Grant!"