Blackberry Pie Murder (14 page)

Hannah felt as if she were on a roller coaster, experiencing an upswing in her mood when Howie said she’d make a good witness, and a downswing when he told her that her case might go to trial and her acquittal wasn’t a sure thing.

“Hannah?” One of the deputies she’d met, but didn’t know well, arrived at the cell door. “You’ve got visitors. Shall I bring them down here to you?”

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“Yes, please,” Hannah said politely and the deputy went off to get her visitors.

A minute or two later, Delores and Doc arrived at her cell, along with the deputy who was carrying two chairs. “Hello, dear,” Delores greeted her. “How was your meeting with Howie?”

“Fine,” Hannah said, not wanting to worry her mother by confiding that the outcome of her case was uncertain.

“Sheriff said I can put these inside,” the deputy informed them, unlocking the door and carrying the chairs inside. “I’m still going to have to lock you in, but since you’re the only prisoner, you can keep the chairs here when your visitors leave.”

“Thank you,” Hannah smiled at him. Her mood was swinging up again and it felt great. With chairs in her cell, she wouldn’t have to sit on the edge of the uncomfortable cot.

Once the deputy had left and Doc and Delores were seated, Doc set the large briefcase he’d been carrying on the cot and Delores put the large bag she’d brought on the floor.

“Lonnie and Michelle examined the man’s belongings and took some pictures,” Doc told Hannah. “I released them to Lonnie since he was going to attempt to find the man’s relatives.”

“Great!” Hannah said, feeling her mood elevate even more. Her emotional roller coaster car was climbing even higher and it felt good.

“I looked at them, too,” Delores said. “You were right, dear. They’re definitely expensive. Andrea was there and she saw them, too. And she totally agreed with me. That man either stole them or spent some big money on his clothing and shoes.”

Hannah was almost afraid to ask, but she needed to know the answer to another question. She just hoped it wouldn’t send her mood on a downswing. “How about the stains on his shirt?”

“We’re working on that,” Doc said. “Some spots washed BLACKBERRY PIE MURDER

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away in the rain, but that umbrella you put over the man’s face preserved a portion of them. Marlene’s examining them in the lab right now and she told me she thinks there’s enough left to identify.”

Hannah smiled, her good mood elevating again. Normally, she didn’t like roller coasters, but the one she was imagining in her mind was a good one. Doc’s intern, Marlene Aldrich, was a highly skilled lab technician. If anyone could identify that stain on the man’s shirt, it was Marlene. “How about the tooth with the diamond? Did Norman get to see it?”

Doc nodded. “Yes, he did. He took quite a few photographs with that fancy equipment of his.”

“Oh, good!” Hannah’s smile grew even bigger. “Too bad we can’t take that diamond to a jeweler to see if it’s real.”

“Oh, but we can,” Delores said. “Doc called Bill this morning and asked if he had any objections if Norman extracted the tooth.”

“And Bill said that they had crime scene photos, so it was perfectly okay with him,” Doc finished the sentence for her.

The roller coaster car moved upward, but not as far as Hannah would have liked. It was stalled between up and down, hanging there like her vacillating mood. The phrase

“crime scene photos” had stopped the car in its tracks. She’d never expected to be personally involved in anything that required crime scene photos! But the news that Bill had given Norman permission to extract the tooth was very good indeed.

You have to take the bad with the good
, another of her great-grandmother’s sayings ran through Hannah’s mind.

And for the first time she could recall, she envied those people with boring, predictable, and uneventful lives.

“They did find the man’s car,” Delores said, sending the roller coaster car upward again. “Unfortunately, something called the VIN was filed off so they don’t have any way to track the owner. It’s probably stolen, though. Judging by what I heard, it was a model, make, and color that’s very 112

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popular with car thieves. Thousands of similar cars are stolen every year. I wonder what VIN stands for.”

“Vehicle identification number,” Hannah told her mother, trying not to react as the roller coaster car continued downward. Stolen car. No vehicle identification number. Even if they got lucky on their search through hundreds of stolen car reports, the man who had driven the car to Lake Eden wasn’t the owner of record.

“I asked Bill about the man’s body,” Doc said. “The sheriff’s department doesn’t need it for any further testing, so we’ll keep it in the hospital morgue for the present.”

That meant they could take more photos if they needed them, or check if they thought of something else. Hannah’s emotional roller coaster car stopped its descent and started up the slope again.

“Of course that will change if some relative comes forward to claim him,” Doc added.

That wouldn’t be a terrible thing
, Hannah thought as the car climbed higher.
Then at least we’d know who he was
.

“But I don’t think anyone in Lake Eden will,” Delores continued, sending the roller coaster car downward again. “I activated the Lake Eden Gossip Hotline the moment that you were arrested. We asked everyone in town if they’d anticipated a visitor yesterday, a visitor who hadn’t arrived, but we didn’t get a single positive result.”

The car on the tracks was descending lower and lower and Hannah gave a deep sigh. No one in Lake Eden knew who the man was.

“But don’t lose hope, dear,” Delores told her. “We widened the telephone tree to include three neighboring towns.”

That was good! The car on the roller coaster slowed near the bottom, and started up a steep slope again. Things were looking up.

“I rode in with Doc,” Delores continued, “and he has to get back to the hospital. We’ll have to leave soon, but I BLACKBERRY PIE MURDER

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brought you two throw pillows and a flowered bedspread.

It’s so dreary in here. And Doc carried in something else I thought you could use to distract you from your surround-ings.”

Distraction was good. Hannah’s emotional roller coaster car climbed toward the top of the slope rapidly as she decided she would be grateful for whatever her mother had brought her. She knew that the pillows and bedspread must be in the bag at her mother’s feet, but the briefcase that Doc had set on the cot was still a mystery. It was large enough to contain a portable DVD player with a half-dozen movies. Or perhaps it was music, a CD player with enough music to see her through two more nights. “Thank you, Mother. What else did you bring?”

“I brought you this,” Delores said, snapping the briefcase open and lifting the lid. “I have two red pens and some of those marvelous sticky flags to mark the pages.”

Hannah watched with interest as her mother drew out a thick sheaf of papers, bound together with several rubber bands, and placed them on Hannah’s cot. Her roller coaster car was at the top of the slope now and it was all due to the surprise her mother had brought her.

“Here it is, dear!” Delores said, beaming at her.

“Here
what
is?”

“It’s the manuscript for my newest Regency romance,
A
Husband For Holly
. Since you’re here for another two days, I knew you needed something to occupy your time and make you feel as if you were accomplishing something useful. Just read it, mark any corrections you have in red, and flag the pages. I wanted to help you, so I worked all night to finish it.”

Hannah pictured the roller coaster car as it teetered on the very apex of the downslope. There was a moment when time stood still, at least in her mind, and then the car roared downward with full force, lurching, swaying, and descending so rapidly that Hannah felt her stomach drop down to her 114

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toes. This was a downswing, a real disaster. She’d been looking forward to reading the mystery she’d started the previous night, but now she had to proof her mother’s manuscript.

“Aren’t you glad I thought of it, dear? It’s exactly what you needed.”

Hannah stared at her mother. Delores looked so pleased with herself that she didn’t have the heart to disappoint her.

“It’s exactly what I needed,” Hannah repeated, hoping she sounded sincere.

Midway through the third chapter, Hannah’s roller coaster car was on its way up the track again. Her mother’s newest romance was good, very good, and it was definitely well-written. Despite her earlier fit of pique . . . Hannah stopped in mid-thought and laughed out loud.
Fit of pique?
She was obviously enjoying her mother’s book if she was spouting Regency phrases.

A few pages later, Hannah was actually disappointed at the interruption when the deputy came to tell her she had another visitor. She marked her place with a sticky red flag, and gazed down the hallway to see who would appear.

“Hi, Hannah,” Lisa called out, hurrying toward the cell.

“Hello, Lisa.” Hannah waited until the deputy had opened the cell, Lisa had entered, and they were both locked in.

“Have a chair.”

“Thanks. I’ve been on my feet all morning. Marge and Dad are helping Michelle in the coffee shop, so I decided to take my lunch now.”

“You came
here
for lunch?”

“Yes, and I brought some for you, too. I stopped at Hal and Rose’s Café right after I delivered the cookies to Winnie.

You ought to see her dining room, Hannah. She’s got those chocolates that look like gold coins scattered all over the tablecloth and placemats that look like pirate flags. And I saw the life-size standing cutout of Jack Sparrow. It looks just fantastic!”

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“I’ll bet it does!” Hannah eyed the bag that Lisa was carrying. “What did you bring for lunch?”

“Egg salad sandwiches and a big bag of Rose’s French fries. She sent along mustard for me and a container of blue cheese dressing for you.”

“Perfect,” Hannah declared. She was hungry even though she’d eaten breakfast less than four hours ago.

“I almost forgot.” Lisa stopped in the act of laying out their lunch on the seat of the empty chair she’d pulled up to the side of the cot, and reached into the bag again. “Winnie sent two copies of her Fresh Blackberry Pie recipe. Here’s yours. It’s really simple, Hannah. She gave me some blackberries, too. I’m going to go home tonight and make a pie so I can bring you a piece tomorrow.”

“That would be nice,” Hannah said, reading through the recipe quickly. “You’re right, Lisa. It’s a simple recipe, but I’ll bet it’s good.”

“I
know
it’s good. She let me taste a piece in the kitchen.”

Lisa sat down and took a bite of her sandwich. Hannah did the same and they chewed in silence for several moments.

“Oops!” Lisa exclaimed, reaching in the bag again. “I almost forgot our milkshakes. They’re chocolate. I figured you could use some chocolate about now.”

“You figured right.” Hannah picked up her straw, poked it through the slit on the lid, and took a big swallow. “I didn’t realize how much I missed chocolate until right now.”

The two partners ate for several minutes without speaking and then Lisa said, “I’ve got an idea about that man we hit.”

Hannah heard the plural Lisa had used and shook her head. Lisa was sharing the blame and that wasn’t fair. “I hit the man, not you. I was the one behind the wheel.”

“Yes, but I was riding shotgun. I should have seen him and warned you.”

“Impossible. You couldn’t see any more than I could. It was raining too hard.”

“Okay, but I still wish I’d seen him.”

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“So do I,” Hannah said, “but we didn’t. There’s no sense in wishing if there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I guess.” Lisa took a swallow of her milkshake and sighed. “I want to help you find out who he was, Hannah.

It’s the least I can do.”

“Okay,” Hannah said, agreeing quickly with Lisa’s offer since it might make her partner feel better.

“Good. What can I do?”

Hannah thought fast. What could Lisa do? And that was when a radical idea occurred to Hannah. “Tell the story of how I hit him.”

“What?!”

“Tell it. The more people who hear it, the more buzz there’ll be about it. You saw the man. Describe him. Describe his clothing and once you see the photo Norman took of the ring and the diamond in his tooth, describe those, too. Make it exciting and scary, and we’re bound to get a crowd. If it’s really exciting, everyone will repeat it.”

“But are you sure you want me to talk about . . .

killing
him?”

“Yes. I’m already in trouble and we might as well take advantage of it. People will talk. They always do. And there’s bound to be someone who knows who he is. We just don’t know who that someone is yet. If the word gets around, whoever it is may come forward.”

“Okay . . . if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“All right then. I’d better get back and start baking cookies. I’ll rehearse tonight and begin telling the story tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, Lisa.”

“I know, but we can still open the shop. I’ll ask your mother to activate the gossip hotline and we’ll do a special cookie sale, maybe a two-fer on Fresh Blackberry Cookies.

That’ll draw customers in.”

“Fresh Blackberry Cookies? We don’t make those, do we?”

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“We do now. Winnie gave me the recipe. That’s how she uses up the extra blackberries she doesn’t bake in her pies.

She told me they freeze really well and everybody loves them.

If they’re as good as she says they are, they’re going to go like hotcakes. By the time you get out of here on Monday morning, almost everybody in town will know what happened.

Maybe we’ll even know who the man was by then.”

“I hope so,” Hannah said, but the car on her emotional roller coaster was starting down the slope again. What if no one knew? Would they ever know what her victim had been doing by the side of the road and why he’d come to Lake Eden?