Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (27 page)

“H
annah dear. I’m terribly sorry to have kept you waiting,” Judith greeted her as she walked over to take the other chair. “I see that Mrs. Lawson has poured your tea.”

Hannah raised her cup to take a hasty sip. The tea was lukewarm since she’d left it standing for too long, but she managed a smile. “It’s delicious.”

“I do prefer oolong, but most of my guests are partial to Darjeeling.”

Hannah wasn’t sure whether the tea she’d just sipped was oolong or Darjeeling, but it didn’t really matter. “I came to compliment you on your party, Judith. It was perfect, as always.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Judith poured herself a cup of tea and Hannah noticed that it was steaming as it flowed from the spout of the antique teapot. There were no cracks in Judith’s rare Wedgwood, though the tea set was almost two hundred years old. Delores had mentioned that even hairline cracks diffused the heat and cooled the tea.

Judith was perfectly silent as she sipped her tea, and Hannah knew she had to say something. Her hostess wasn’t making it easy and Hannah had never been any good at polite small talk. “It was so nice to see Benton again,” Hannah began. “Will he be here for long?”

“I’m really not sure. We haven’t had time to discuss his plans.”

Nothing useful there,
Hannah thought to herself and decided to try a more direct method. “I was wondering if Benton was satisfied with the car that he rented.”

Hannah was rewarded for her efforts by a raised, perfectly shaped eyebrow and total silence. Judith was the master of the noncommittal.

“I’m talking about the car from Compacts Unlimited,” Hannah explained. “I noticed the folder when your husband gave us permission to take pictures in his den.”

“Oh, that wasn’t Benton’s car,” Judith corrected her. “The party people rented from Compacts Unlimited.”

Hannah kicked herself mentally for not thinking of that possibility. The maid at the party had told her that Judith had paid for transportation. But just because Benton hadn’t rented the car didn’t mean that he hadn’t used it while it was here. And it had been here on Wednesday morning.

“Why are you so interested in rental cars?”

Judith’s question pulled Hannah back from her thoughts with a jolt. She was getting nowhere, fishing for information, and Judith had given her the perfect opportunity. She might as well come right out and ask.

“Look, Judith.” Hannah raised her gaze to Judith’s perfectly calm green eyes. “I probably shouldn’t say anything, but a black rental car from Compacts Unlimited was spotted leaving the dairy on the morning that Max Turner was shot. I certainly don’t believe that Benton had anything to do with Max’s murder, but my brother-in-law is in charge of the investigation and he’ll probably be by to ask questions. I just wanted to warn you.”

“Warn me? Why would you want to warn me?”

Hannah sighed. “I guess
warn
was the wrong word. I should have said that I came to
alert
you. Benton does have an alibi for the time of Max’s murder, doesn’t he?”

“Of course he does!” Judith’s voice dripped ice. “Benton wasn’t even in town at the time!”

“That’s what I thought. If Benton still has his airline tickets, don’t let him throw them away. They could prove his innocence.”

Judith’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that your brother-in-law suspects Benton of murdering Max Turner?”

“No. This is just between you and me. If you can find Benton’s airline tickets and show them to me, I won’t need to mention it to Bill. You’ve always been nice to me and I’d really like to save your family from the embarrassment of a police visit.”

“Thank you for your concern, Hannah.” Judith gave her a small, cold smile. “If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll locate those tickets for you. They’re probably in Benton’s suite. Just wait right here and I’ll find them.”

Hannah gave a big sigh of relief when Judith left the room. That comment she’d made about saving the family from embarrassment had worked. She’d also saved Bill from embarrassment. Judith wasn’t the type to be intimidated by the authorities and she might have sued the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Department for harassment if Bill had dragged Benton in to interrogate him.

The seconds ticked by and Hannah reached for a sandwich. She’d skipped lunch and her stomach was rumbling. The sandwiches weren’t bad, definitely watercress, but they weren’t what she’d call substantial. She could scarf up the whole tray and they still wouldn’t make a decent meal. Hannah was just lifting the top off another—perhaps there were some with chicken or tuna mixed in somewhere—when she heard Judith’s footsteps approaching in the hallway. She replaced the bread just in time and pasted a smile on her face.

“Here they are.” Judith was carrying a silk shawl over her right arm and her voice was trembling slightly. It certainly wasn’t cold in the room, but perhaps just knowing that Benton was a suspect in a homicide had given her a chill. She sat down in her chair with the shawl on her lap and handed Hannah the tickets with her left hand. “If you’ll open the folder, you’ll see that Benton’s plane didn’t land until twelve-seventeen. I assume that this will clear him as a suspect?”

Hannah examined the tickets. “Yes, it will. I’m really sorry that I had to bring it up and I hope that I didn’t upset you too much. It was just that the circumstantial evidence against Benton seemed overwhelming.”

“Overwhelming?” Judith’s eyebrows shot up. “How can that be? A killer requires a motive. What possible motive could Benton have for killing Max Turner?”

“Actually,” Hannah hesitated, choosing her words carefully, “it concerns the personal loan that your husband had with Max Turner.”

“What are you talking about, Hannah?”

Judith looked flustered, not at all like her usual poised self and Hannah wondered if she should backpedal. But Judith had been very forthcoming and she deserved the truth. “I’m sorry I have to tell you, Judith, but Del secured a personal loan from Max Turner. I just learned about it this afternoon. And I know that Del was having some problems making the payments. You can see how this all fits together, can’t you?”

“Yes, I can.” Judith’s voice was hard and Hannah assumed that she was embarrassed. “You thought that Benton shot Max so that Del wouldn’t have to honor the loan. Is that right?”

“That’s it. I’m really sorry, Judith, but it did make sense. You’ve got to admit that.”

Judith dipped her head in a nod. “You’re right, Hannah. It did make sense. Does your brother-in-law know about the loan?”

“No. There’s no record of it and I can’t see any reason to tell him, now that Benton’s been cleared. And Del has an airtight alibi for the time of Max’s murder. He was meeting with his night supervisors at DelRay and there’s no way he could have been in two places at once. The only other person who would care about the loan is you, and…”

“Brava, Hannah.” Judith smiled an icy smile and pulled a gun from beneath the folds of her silk shawl. “It’s unfortunate that you put the pieces together, but now that you have, I can’t let you tell your brother-in-law.”

“
You
killed Max?” Hannah gulped. She’d never stared into the barrel of a gun before and it wasn’t an experience she’d care to repeat. And if the cold, calculating expression on Judith’s face was any indication, Hannah suspected that she might not get a chance to repeat anything ever again.

“You were asking too many questions, Hannah. And you were skirting much too close to the truth. I knew it only a matter of time before you arrived at the accurate conclusion and conveyed it to your brother-in-law. I couldn’t let you do that, now could I?”

Judith was going to kill her. Hannah knew that with heart-sinking certainty. She also knew that she had to keep Judith talking, to buy herself some time until the reinforcements came.

But there weren’t any reinforcements, Hannah reminded herself. She hadn’t told Bill that she was going to see Judith and he didn’t know anything about Del’s loan with Max. To make matters worse, Bill wasn’t even a detective yet. He’d never figure it out in time!

“Nervous, dear?”

Judith’s voice was taunting and Hannah shuddered. The polite socialite had turned into a cold-blooded killer and she was a goner unless she could keep Judith talking. “Of course I’m nervous! When did you get the gun? Or did you have it with you when I walked in the door?”

“Do you honestly think that I’d carry a gun around in my own home?” Judith laughed lightly.

Of course you wouldn’t. Even a shoulder holster would ruin the lines of your dress,
Hannah thought. And then she wondered how she could think flippant thoughts when Judith was about to kill her. Either she was much braver than she’d ever imagined, or she still expected the cavalry to ride in at the last minute.

Hannah’s mind spun at top speed, searching for questions that Judith might want to answer. The killers in her favorite movies seemed to like to explain why they’d murdered their victims. All she had to do was keep Judith’s mind off shooting her until she could figure out what to do. “When did you go to get the gun? I’m curious.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. That’s just the way my mind works. You’re going to shoot me anyway. You might as well do me a favor and satisfy my curiosity first.”

“And why should I do any favors for you?”

“Because I brought you cookies,” Hannah answered. “They’re some of my best, Pecan Chews. You’re going to love them.”

Judith laughed. She seemed to think that Hannah’s comment was funny. Maybe it was, but it was difficult for Hannah to see the humor past the gun barrel right now.

“Come on, Judith,” Hannah tried again. “What harm can it do to tell me? You were smart to get the gun. I just want to know when you realized that you needed it.”

“I had the gun when I came back with the plane tickets. It was under my shawl.”

Hannah sighed. She should have noticed that Judith’s silk shawl didn’t complement the dress she was wearing. If she’d been thinking straight, she would have realized that something was up. “You were planning to shoot me then?”

“Not then. I brought the gun as a precaution, but I hoped that I wouldn’t have to use it. Unfortunately you forced my hand by mentioning the loan.”

“Me and my big mouth,” Hannah blurted out. Then she sighed. “If I hadn’t said anything about the loan, you would have let me leave?”

“Yes. But you
did
say something, and now it’s too late.”

Hannah thought of another question as fast as she could. “I know about some of Max’s other loans and how he forced people to sign over their property as collateral. Is that what he did to you?”

“Yes. DelRay suffered a setback and when Del needed more capital, he signed over my home. He was a fool to do it. I advised him against it, but he wouldn’t listen. Del was never very bright.”

The gun barrel wavered slightly and Hannah wondered if she should make a grab for it. In one of the detective shows she’d watched, the main character had jammed his finger somewhere or other to keep the gun from firing. But that gun hadn’t looked like the one that Judith held. If she got out of this alive, she was going to find out everything she could about guns and how they operated.

“You’re very quiet, Hannah.” Judith’s lips twisted up in a parody of a smile. “Aren’t you going to ask me any more questions?”

Hannah shook off all thoughts that weren’t useful and latched on to another question. It was good that Judith wanted to talk about Max and what she’d done to him. “Why didn’t Del get a loan from the bank? It would have been a lot safer than going to Max.”

“The bank refused him. They said that he was overextended and they were right. I advised Del to close the doors, but all he could think about was how it would affect his work force. Those people would have found other jobs. And even if they hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered to me!”

Hannah tried not to let her emotions show. Judith was totally self-centered. Her only concern was for her home, not for the hundreds of Lake Eden workers who would have lost their jobs. “I assume that Max called in Del’s loan and that’s why you felt you had to…to act.”

“That’s exactly right. I warned Del to be careful about hidden clauses when he signed the loan papers, but he’s never been proficient at reading legal documents. Max took advantage of his naivete.”

“He didn’t have a lawyer read over the loan papers?”

“There wasn’t time. Max told him that the deal was off if he didn’t sign right away. Del was desperate and that made him vulnerable. Max counted on that. The man had no scruples!”

Hannah took a deep breath. From what she’d learned about Max, she could agree with Judith completely on that point. “You’re right, Judith. And you’re not the first person that Max tried to ruin. Was he really going to foreclose on your home?”

“Yes, and I couldn’t let that happen. Del built this house for me. It was a condition of our marriage. I had the architect follow the blueprints for my father’s house. This is an exact replica and I couldn’t bear to lose it. Surely you can appreciate that.”

“Your home means that much to you?”

“It’s my life!” Judith looked fiercely protective. “How could I stand by and do nothing while Max Turner was threatening to take my
life
away?”

Hannah bit back the urge to remind Judith that she had taken Max’s life away in a much more tangible and permanent fashion. “Is that the reason you called Benton home?”

“Of course it is. But Benton doesn’t love this house the way I do. He actually told me that I had to accept it, that his father had signed those loan papers voluntarily and there was no recourse we could take.”

“So you decided to kill Max and get the loan papers back?”

“What other choice did I have? I couldn’t stand by and let Max Turner evict me from my lovely home!”

“No, I guess not.” Hannah saw that Judith’s hand was trembling slightly and she asked another question to calm her down. “Wasn’t Max suspicious when you called and said you wanted to see him?”

Judith gave a cold little laugh. “Max wasn’t bright enough to be suspicious. I told him I’d sold some family heirlooms and that I was prepared to pay off Del’s debt. When I arrived at his office, I demanded to see the loan papers before I gave him the money.”