Joanne Fluke Christmas Bundle: Sugar Cookie Murder, Candy Cane Murder, Plum Pudding Murder, & Gingerbread Cookie Murder (79 page)

“D
id you get it?” Andrea called out. She was sitting in the first row of three dozen seats in the community center’s mini-auditorium, the only Swensen sister who was too large to slip behind the big-screen television to hold tools for Norman while he hooked up his camera.

“We got it!” Michelle emerged, smiling broadly. “All we had to do was unhook the cable and attach the camera’s feed.”

Hannah came out right behind Michelle. She dusted off her hands and frowned slightly. “I don’t think anyone ever cleans behind there.”

“Probably not.” Andrea handed Hannah one of the napkins Norman had thought to bring with the plate of fruit. “This television is Mayor Bascomb’s baby. Bill told me that he watches every Vikings game in here and he holds his own tailgate party.”

“Tailgate? Like in the parking lot?” Michelle wanted to know.

“No, right here in the auditorium. It’s not really a
tailgate
party, but there’s food and drinks, and all the mayor’s friends come to watch the games with him. For the really important events like the Super Bowl, he sends out printed invitations. Bill thinks he’ll get one, now that he’s sheriff.”

“If he does, will you go?” Hannah asked. Andrea was probably the most disinterested sports fan in town. She memorized the scores and took note of the big plays so that she could mention them to her real estate clients, but often she just settled for the old, tried-and-true
How about those Vikings, huh?

“I can’t go. It’s a guy thing, with no wives allowed. I think that’s because it gets a little rowdy.”

“You’re probably right,” Hannah said, but she wondered if the mayor invited any women who weren’t in the spouse or helpmate category. She doubted it. If there were any non-wifely females present, Stephanie Bascomb and her friends would hear about it on the Lake Eden gossip hotline and the Super Bowl parties at the community center would soon be ancient history.

“Turn it on, will you?” a voice floated out from the rear of the television, and Hannah hurried to turn on the set. A few seconds later, she saw the image of Edna standing by the Christmas tree.

“You got it,” Hannah called out to Norman, walking closer to examine the image that was almost the size of the real Edna.

“For a second there, I didn’t think it was going to work.” Norman came out breathing a deep sigh of relief. “At the last minute, I noticed that I had the input in the output.”

Hannah decided she wouldn’t touch that comment since she had no idea what Norman was talking about. “It’s a great photo, Norman, but how are we going to tell when you…”

“Hold on and I’ll turn on the date–time feature,” Norman interrupted her.

“Perfect,” Hannah said, taking a seat next to Andrea and watching as the numbers appeared at the bottom of the screen. “Can you page forward to those shots you took of the knife?”

“Sure, but it’s not
page
forward.”

“I realize that, but you know what I mean.” Hannah kept her eyes on the screen as Norman began to advance the photos, giving them a quick peek of each.

“Six-twenty,” Michelle called out when the first shot of the cake knife came on the screen. There were several more shots, one with Hannah holding the knife, and then Norman had moved on to the kitchen, where Edna and her helpers were setting out the appetizers.

“So we know that the knife was still there at six twenty-three.” Andrea flipped open the pink notebook, jotted down the time, and turned to Hannah. “What do we look for next?”

“Any shots Norman took after Brandi met with Kirby Welles. That was at seven-thirty, wasn’t it?”

Andrea flipped to the page with the timeline. “That’s right.”

“We should watch for any shots with the dessert table in the background, or Brandi walking toward the kitchen door. If we’re lucky, Norman got a shot of someone following her.”

“The killer,” Michelle breathed.

“Right.”

Norman advanced his camera until the time code read seven twenty-nine. “Okay…let’s start watching.”

Their eyes were glued to the screen for several minutes and then Hannah called out. “There’s the dessert table! But it’s so far away, I can’t tell if the knife is missing.”

“Hold on. I’ll fix that,” Norman said.

Hannah gasped as the shot began to zoom in. “I didn’t know you could do that!”

“It’s the beauty of digital photography.”

There was a brief moment of silence and then all four of them gasped.

“Look!” Michelle was the first to speak. “Norman caught a hand reaching for the knife!”

“Is it Brandi’s hand?” Hannah asked, turning to Andrea. “You notice manicures and things like that.”

“I think so,” Andrea said, but she didn’t look convinced. “It looks like she’s wearing Pearl Blush nail polish, and that’s what Brandi was wearing, but it’s a really popular color right now. And she’s got her hand tipped, so I can’t see if she’s wearing her ring.”

“Michelle?” Hannah turned to her youngest sister.

“I think it’s her, but I couldn’t swear to it.”

Hannah sighed. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t cut it in a murder investigation. The only thing we know for sure is that a woman wearing pink nail polish picked up the knife.”

“But she could have put it back down again,” Andrea said.

“That’s right. She might have picked it up to have a closer look. Let’s see the next shot, Norman. Maybe that’ll tell us more.”

Norman put the next photo up on the screen. It was a second shot very similar to the first, but the time code read two seconds later. He zoomed in and let out a holler. “The knife’s gone, and there’s nobody else even remotely close to the dessert table. Whoever that woman was, she took it.”

“What’s this?” Hannah asked, getting to her feet and pointing at the screen. “Is that her leg, walking away?”

“I don’t know what else it could be.”

“Brandi was wearing silver boots,” Hannah reminded them. “Can you pan down to her calf, Norman?”

“Sorry, no. The lower half of her leg is hidden behind that plant in the foreground. I can zoom in a little more on what I’ve got, but that’s it.”

“There’s a spot on her leg,” Andrea commented, staring intently at the zoom of what they assumed was Brandi’s thigh.

“Let me see if I can enhance it a little more,” Norman offered, fine-tuning some controls on his camera. “How’s that?”

“It’s Brandi!” Michelle shouted, getting so excited she hopped up and down in her seat.

“How do you know that?” Hannah asked. “You have to be certain, Michelle.”

“I
am
certain. Remember when I told you that I saw her tattoos? Well, that’s the first one she ever got. It’s a tiny little brandy snifter.”

“She’s right. Somebody gave us a set of four just like that for a wedding present, and it’s a distinctive shape.” Andrea turned to Hannah. “Do you want me to write down that Brandi stole the knife at seven forty-two and walked off with it?”

“Absolutely. Let’s see what you’ve got next, Norman. And let’s keep a sharp eye out for Brandi going into the kitchen.”

“This could do it,” Norman said, as he put up the next shot. “It’s a shot of Edna and her workers by the Christmas tree, but someone’s going through the kitchen door in the background.”

Hannah held her breath as Norman zoomed in and she let it out in a whoop. “It’s Brandi, all right! Now all we need to do is find a shot of someone following her.”

The next few shots yielded nothing, but three minutes later, in the background of a shot Norman had taken of a table of diners, the kitchen door was partially open.

“Hold on…I’ll zoom in,” Norman said, and then he sighed. “It’s a woman, but she’s almost completely blocked by the foreground. The only thing I can tell for sure is that she’s wearing a black skirt.”

Andrea gave a little gasp of excitement. “But that’s enough! We solved another one, Hannah! All we have to do is look for a woman wearing a black skirt and we’ll have Brandi’s killer!”

“Not necessarily. The woman in the black skirt could have some perfectly reasonable reason for going into the kitchen. For all we know, she went in, washed her hands, and came right back out again.”

“So it all depends on how long she was gone,” Michelle said, looking thoughtful. “How long does it take to kill someone?”

Hannah shrugged. “She’d have to walk through the kitchen, go through the pantry, open the outside door, and follow Brandi all the way out to Martin’s car. That would take a couple of minutes. And then it would take another couple of minutes to stab her. This is just a ballpark figure, but I’d say that if she’s gone for more than five minutes, she’s definitely a suspect.”

“She’s definitely a suspect,” Norman said, and all three Swensen sisters turned to look at him. “While you were speculating, I’ve been running through the photos on the internal camera screen. It’s a lot faster that way. I’ve gone through five minutes and she hasn’t come out of the kitchen yet. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything after five minutes.”

“Why not?” Hannah asked.

“I moved on to take pictures of the jazz ensemble. And then I took a couple of the Plotniks in front of the Christmas tree. After that, I moved upstairs to do some photos of the miniature Christmas village. I’m really sorry, Hannah, but I don’t have anything in that area again until after you found Brandi’s body.”

“There’s no need to feel sorry. You gave us the only lead we’ve got.” Hannah turned to smile at him. “You’re a great photographer, Norman.”

“Thanks. So what do we do next?”

“We look at it logically. Either the woman in the black skirt is the killer, or she’s a material witness. If she didn’t stab Brandi, she knows who did because the killer must have passed right by her in the kitchen. The upshot is, we need to talk to her. And the caution is, we have to be careful because we don’t know if she’s Brandi’s killer, or not.”

“Makes sense,” Michelle said, nodding quickly. “What do you want us to do?”

“Just observe for right now. We need to canvass the whole community center and make a list of every woman who’s wearing a black skirt or dress.”

“That shouldn’t take long if we split up,” Norman said, pulling a notebook from his camera bag. “I’ve got a couple of extra pens, if anyone needs them. They’re leftover Rhodes Dental Clinic giveaways from last Christmas.”

Michelle raised her hand. “I need one. My roommate gave me five dollars for the last one you gave me. She said she’d never seen a pen shaped like a toothbrush before and she just had to have it.”

“Maybe I should give up dentistry and manufacture pens for a living,” Norman quipped. “Where do you want me to start, Hannah?”

“Will you take the south end of the banquet room and work your way to the center? That way Michelle can start on the north end and meet you halfway.”

Andrea began to frown. “How about me? You want me to help, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. I need someone to check every room up here and that’ll give you a chance to see Tracey. And don’t forget the high school kids who came up here to watch movies in the library and the Senior Center. Let’s just make lists for now. We won’t ask anybody any questions quite yet. We can meet in the lobby in twenty minutes to compare notes.”

“What are you going to do, Hannah?” Michelle asked.

“I’ll canvass the kitchen, the ladies’ room, the cloakroom, and the dance floor. But first, I’m going to talk to Mike and tell him about the lady in the black skirt. It’s only fair. And I’ll let him know that we’re just doing the legwork and we’ll leave the actual questioning up to him.”

“And you really think he’ll believe you?” Norman did his best to maintain a straight face and failed.

“Of course he’ll believe me. It’s the truth. It’s just as I told Michelle and Andrea earlier. It’s a different situation, this
time around. Mike’s shorthanded, and I’m going to give him all the help I can.”

The door to the room Mike was using as a temporary office was closed, and Hannah stood there, frowning. She didn’t want to interrupt, but the information she had could lead to the capture of Brandi’s killer. Mike might be angry at the interruption, but he’d be grateful just as soon as she told him why she needed to talk to him.

Hannah knocked and put a welcoming smile on her face. Mike would be startled to see her, but he was bound to be pleased once she’d had her say. She shifted from foot to foot, waiting for the sound of the latch clicking open, but the door remained closed.

“Come on, Mike,” Hannah muttered, knocking again, a little harder this time. Again, she waited, her smile in place, but no one answered the door.

It was possible Mike had left. He could be in another part of the community center, checking up on a lead. Perhaps she should open the door. If Mike wasn’t there, she’d leave him a note telling him she had urgent information for him.

Hannah turned the knob and eased open the door. Mike was there, and he was in the middle of an interview. If the scowl on his face was any indication, he wasn’t at all happy about being interrupted.

“I’m busy here, Hannah,” Mike said, waving her away.