Cherry Cheesecake Murder (26 page)

“For what? Old age to set in?”

Andrea’s mouth dropped open, but Michelle and Norman started to laugh. They laughed so contagiously that Andrea had to join in, and eventually so did Hannah.

“Do you want to know what else I found out from Mike?” Hannah asked when the laughter had died down. There were nods around the round table and she picked up the thread of their former conversation. “Mike said his deputies searched everyone who left Granny’s Attic, but they didn’t find the prop gun. They also made an initial search of Granny’s Attic and it wasn’t there, either.”

“But it has to be!” Andrea exclaimed. “Guns don’t just vanish.”

“You’re right, they don’t. And they’ll search again tomorrow. But there’s also the possibility that whoever switched the gun left early and took the prop gun with him.”

“Winnie Henderson,” Norman said.

“What?”

“I saw her driving down Main Street after they’d already started shooting. I know her daughter was in that scene and I thought it was odd she’d leave before it was over.”

“Got it,” Andrea said, writing it down. “What else?”

“There’s the question we didn’t get around to discussing this afternoon.” Hannah took a bite of her cookie. As far as she was concerned, her almond cookies were a lot better than the commercial kind.

“What question is that?” Norman asked.

“Whether the killer actually meant to murder Dean. Or if his intended target was Burke.”

“That’s good, Hannah!” Michelle sounded very impressed. “You’re absolutely right and I bet no one else will even think of it. We’re probably light years ahead of the official investigation.”

“No, we’re not. I mentioned it to Mike.”

There was silence for a moment while the other three stared at her incredulously. It made Hannah so uncomfortable, she started to try to explain. “I know I probably shouldn’t have said anything, but he is the investigating officer. And I was really rattled. It happened at Granny’s Attic right after the murder and…”

“That’s okay,” Norman soothed her. “It isn’t supposed to be a contest.”

“True,” Andrea said, “although it seems like it most of the time.” She turned to Michelle. “Don’t you think it seems like a contest?”

“I think it does,” Michelle agreed. “But what we’ve all got to keep in mind is that it doesn’t really matter who catches Dean’s killer as long as someone does.”

Norman reached out to squeeze Hannah’s hand again. “Michelle’s right. And besides, we have your fortune to consider.”

“My fortune?”

“I saved it for you when I ate your cookie. It says, Redhead with big mouth is still better detective than tall man in uniform.”

“I think I should have changed places with Norman. I could have driven Michelle out to the inn and helped her go through the tapes.”

“You said you thought it would be boring,” Hannah reminded her sister.

“I’m changing my mind about boring. It’s not that bad and at least it’s safe.”

Hannah didn’t say a word as Andrea pulled over to the side of the gravel road that led past the Henderson farm. Her sister was right. What they were about to do was far from safe. Winnie had a shotgun and she wasn’t afraid to use it. And Winnie didn’t take kindly to intruders.

“Why are we doing this, again?” Andrea asked as she got out of her Volvo and pocketed the keys. She had driven to their destination after they’d decided that Hannah’s cookie truck was too easy to identify.

“We’re doing this because Norman said he saw Winnie driving down Main Street only minutes before the incident at Granny’s Attic. And I saw Winnie earlier, watching Alice waltz around on the cocktail party set.”

“So she was there and she left before Dean…” Andrea’s voice trailed off and she shuddered.

“That’s right.”

“And because she left early, she wasn’t searched. And that means she could have switched the revolvers and taken off with the prop gun. And nobody would be the wiser.”

“You got it.”

Andrea gave a deep sigh as she trudged up the one-lane road to the farm. They could see the house in the distance, gleaming alabaster white in the bright, cold rays from the halogen yard light.

“I wish I’d worn boots,” Andrea groused, glancing down at her sneaker-clad feet. “The ground’s still frozen and the bottoms of my feet are cold.”

“It’ll be warm in the barn.”

“You’re right. I forgot that barns were heated.”

Hannah didn’t bother to correct her sister. Strictly speaking, Andrea was right. Barns were heated. They were kept warm by herding in all the cattle, keeping them together in a closed space, and utilizing their body heat. When it came to barns in the winter, BTUs stood for Bunched Together Until Summer.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Andrea asked, stepping over a frozen rut in the road.

“It’s probably a bad idea, but somebody’s got to do it.” Hannah eyed the farmhouse again. “I don’t see any lights on in the house. Do you?”

“No, it’s dark. Winnie’s probably been in bed for hours. She told me once that she gets up at five. Can you imagine getting up that early?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Of course you can. I forgot that you get up early, too.”

Hannah didn’t say anything. Now wasn’t the time to give Andrea any grief about sleeping in. As they walked closer, Hannah noticed that Winnie’s sedan and her pickup truck were parked in the driveway. The house was perfectly silent, and the only things moving were the shadows from wispy clouds scuttling across the moon.

“Why don’t we tell Mike what we know and let him look for the gun?” Andrea suggested, not for the first time.

“I told you before. Mike can’t get a search warrant on speculation alone. And he can’t search anywhere without a warrant. If we don’t do it, nobody will.”

In the pale, blue light of the moon overhead, Hannah could read her sister’s expression. Andrea was seriously considering that option.

“Don’t even think about backing out now,” Hannah told her sternly. “You’re the one who told us that Winnie hid her valuables in the barn.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know I’d have to come out here and look for them! What if Alice made up the whole thing? Lots of kids fib when they’re in grade school.”

Hannah knew her sister was trying to bail out, but they’d come too far to give up now. Andrea had gone to school with Alice Henderson and she’d told them about what Winnie’s youngest daughter had brought to class for Show and Tell. Hannah was pretty sure Alice’s story was accurate. It sounded like something Winnie would do. “But Alice showed you the gold medallions Winnie won for her prize cows, didn’t she?”

“Yes, but maybe Winnie didn’t keep them hidden in the barn. Alice could have fibbed about that.”

“Why would she fib?”

“I don’t know. And I guess maybe she didn’t. The plastic bag with the medallions smelled a lot like…you know…the kind of smell you’d smell in a barn.”

“Let’s just hope Winnie still uses the barn for a safe. And we can also hope she stashed the prop gun there and hasn’t gotten rid of it already. It’s a long shot, but we have to look.”

“I wish it wasn’t we,” Andrea muttered, taking a deep breath as they stepped up to the front of the barn. “How are we going to get inside, again?”

Hannah explained for the third time that evening. “The door slides to the side and it’s got a counterweight. I’ll pull it open just far enough for you to slip inside. If I open it up all the way, it’ll probably make a loud screeching noise. Most farmers don’t grease the barn doors on purpose. It’s like a burglar alarm.”

“Smart,” Andrea said.

“And a lot cheaper than hiring an alarm company. Once you’re inside, I’ll let the big door close and you’ll use your flashlight to walk to the small door and unlatch it.”

“Right. There’s just one thing.”

“What?”

“Aren’t the cows going to see me when I come in?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Well, what if they don’t like me and they start doing what they do in Away in a Manger.”

“Huh?”

“You know…when the cattle are lowing. What’s lowing anyway?”

“That would be mooing.” Hannah thought fast. If her sister suspected that the cows would be awake, she might refuse to go inside the barn. “I don’t think you have to worry about any mooing, or lowing, or whatever. The cows are probably sleeping. They get up early, you know.”

“You’re right. I saw that commercial where the rooster wakes them.” Andrea stopped and took a deep breath. “Okay, Hannah. I’m as ready as I’m ever going to be.”

“Watch out for the trench by the door. That’s for the runoff when they clean the barn.”

“Run-off?”

“Never mind. Just step carefully, that’s all. The minute you’re inside, I’ll go stand by the small door.”

Hannah used every muscle she had to push open the heavy door so her sister could slip inside. Once Andrea was safely past the trench and she’d snapped on her flashlight, Hannah let the door close and tromped around the side of the barn to the smaller door. There she waited. And waited. And waited. She was about to go back and try to force open the big door again when she heard Andrea draw back the latch, and the smaller door opened.

“What happened to you?” Hannah asked, frowning at the sight of her sister in the moonlight. Andrea had several globs of hay stuck in her hair and even more on her pants and jacket.

“One of the cows woke up and lowed at me, and I got scared and fell down. I didn’t fall in anything really…um…messy, did I?”

Hannah turned on her Maglite and surveyed the damage. Messy didn’t begin to cover it. There was something on the back of Andrea’s pants that Hannah didn’t even want to try to identify and more of the same was stuck to the back of her hair.

“Hannah?” Andrea prompted, looking slightly sick. “It’s not that bad, is it?”

“It’s not that bad,” Hannah said, lying through her teeth, and breathing through her mouth while she was at it. Whatever Andrea had fallen in was pungent. “Let’s search the bullpen and get out of here so you can get cleaned up.”

“Bullpen? How do you know Winnie’s hiding place is in the bullpen?”

“I figured it out from what you told us. You said Alice told the class she had to climb over a rail to get it, and it was in a box on the wall of a big pen. All the farmers around here keep their bulls penned up when they’re in the barn.”

“How do you know so much about farms, anyway?”

“I spent a lot of time on Grandma and Grandpa Swensen’s farm. I used to love going out to the barn with Grandpa and hand-feeding silage to the cows.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Of course not. You were just a baby and you stayed in the house with Grandma.” Hannah stepped inside the barn and shut the door. “Walk down the center aisle, Andrea. That way we’ll avoid the muck.”

“What’s…never mind,” Andrea said, obviously thinking better of the question she’d been about to ask. “I see two pens way down there at the end. One’s empty and the other has a cow in it.”

“That’s a bull,” Hannah pointed out as they got closer.

“How can you…never mind,” Andrea said again, deciding she preferred to be zip for two with her questions. “I’ll check the empty pen and you can check the other one.”

Hannah smiled. She’d expected no less. “Go ahead. I’ll wait to see if you find anything before I tackle the bullpen.”

As they walked down the center aisle of the barn, Andrea let her flashlight play over the cows. “They’ve all got signs hanging above their places,” she said. “Look, Hannah. This black-and-white cow is Daisy. And this brown one is Buttercup. And here’s Petunia, and…drat!”

“There’s a cow named drat?”

“No. I was reading the names and I forgot to look where I was going. I almost stepped in some dirt.”

There was no way Andrea could get any dirtier, but Hannah didn’t want to remind her of that. She just grinned and followed in her sister’s wake to the very rear of the barn.

The empty pen didn’t take long to search. Andrea lifted the lid on the wooden box, checked for contents, and came rushing back out again. “There’s nothing there. You’re up,” she announced.

“We’re up,” Hannah corrected her. “I’ll go in, but I need you to distract the bull.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Talk to him, pet him on the head, give him a cookie, whatever. Just keep him focused on you while I climb in and check the box.”

“I don’t have any cookies.”

“Yes, you do,” Hannah reached into her pocket and pulled out a bag of day-old cookies. She’d grabbed them from her cookie truck along with her Maglite before they’d left the condo.

“What kind are these?”

“Assorted. Lisa emptied what was left in the serving jars. Just keep trying until you get to one the bull likes. And then feed it to him slowly, to give me time to get in, check the box, and get back out.”

“Okay, I guess.” Andrea started to move to the front of the pen, but she stopped and turned back to Hannah. “I can’t talk to him if I don’t know his name. And there’s no nameplate on his pen.”

Hannah thought fast. “Call him Larry.”

“His name is Larry?”

“Absolutely,” Hannah said, crossing the fingers on her left hand to negate the lie.

“Winnie told you that?”

“You bet,” Hannah said, crossing the fingers on her right hand.

“And you remembered?”

“Of course.” Hannah was running out of fingers and she gave Andrea a little shove toward the front of the pen. “Hurry up. We haven’t got all night.”

“Hi, Larry,” Andrea said, in the same tone of voice Hannah had heard her use with Bethany. “Are you hungry? I bet you are. Just look at what I’ve got for you! Try an Old Fashioned Sugar Cookie. It’s got colored sugar on it and you’re really going to like it.”

Hannah was beginning to have second thoughts. Andrea didn’t sound very confident. To tell the truth, Hannah wasn’t very confident, either. She knew nothing about Winnie’s bull. Some bulls were gentle and complacent, but others were aggressive and mean. Hannah wouldn’t know what type of bull Winnie had until she got into the pen with him. And by then, it would be too late to do anything about it.

“Don’t you like sugar cookies, Larry? Okay, they’re not my favorites, either. Let’s try a Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookie. That’s got cornflakes in it and I’ll bet you like cornflakes for breakfast. Or maybe Winnie doesn’t give you cornflakes. How about oatmeal? I think I see one of Hannah’s Oatmeal Raisin Crisps.”