Key Lime Pie Murder (30 page)

“Lights are to the right of the door,” Hannah said, remembering Willa’s instructions.

“Okay.”

With Norman leading the way, they entered the pantry. Once the lights were on and the area was illuminated with a burst of pseudosunlight from the fluorescent bulbs overhead, Hannah glanced around at the pantry shelves. Everything was lined up just the way she remembered. The spices were at the end, the canned goods arranged by food group on the shelves, and the bulky items like flour and sugar stored at waist height at the other end.

“Everything looks all right to me,” she told Norman.

“Me, too.”

“Let’s go in, then.” Hannah moved up behind Norman as he approached the door to the classroom. “Lights are on the left.”

“Got it.” Norman flicked on the lights in the classroom, and both of them immediately saw the reason for the noise that Hannah had heard. One of the chairs near the door to the hallway was tipped over on its back.

“Somebody was here,” Norman said.

“Somebody or something,” Hannah added. “Hold on.”

Since she’d used this classroom only months ago for her adult class, Hannah remembered where the kitchen utensils were kept. She pulled open a drawer near the first kitchen pod, pulled out a rolling pin, and handed it to Norman. A moment later, she had a second rolling pin in her hand. “Okay. Let’s make sure we’re alone in here.”

With both of them walking the rows of desks, it didn’t take long to discover that they were, indeed, the only occupants of the home economics classroom. The intruder, if there’d been one, had left.

“All clear,” Norman said, putting down his rolling pin. “We don’t need these anymore.”

“Not right now, but I think I’ll keep mine handy until I go shut that outside door.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Okay. Take your rolling pin with you. On your way back, you can drop it off on the counter in kitchen number one.”

While Norman shut the outside door, Hannah checked the classroom door to the hallway. It was shut, but not locked. She opened it, rolling pin at the ready, and went out to look down the hallway. Even by the dim lights that were left on at night, she could see that it was completely deserted. By the time she went back in and closed and locked the door behind her, Norman was back and they headed for the desk that Willa had used under the windows.

“Let me see what kind of a lock it is,” Norman said, tugging on one of the drawers. It slid open, almost knocking him back, and both of them just stared at it.

“Pam said Willa always locked her desk,” Hannah said.

“Well, it’s not locked now.” Norman pulled out the drawer beneath the one he’d opened, and then he tried the drawers on the other side. They all slid open, even the long, shallow center drawer.

“Do you think someone broke in?”

“Doesn’t look like it. I don’t see any scratch marks, and all the wood is intact.”

“But Pam told me there was only one key. And Willa had that.”

“Where it is now?”

“I don’t know. Mike told Pam to change the locks on her basement apartment because Willa’s keys weren’t recovered from the crime scene.”

Norman thought about that for a moment. “Then I guess we can assume that the killer has them, the killer threw them away and someone else has them, or someone found Willa before you did and took her keys.”

“You forgot one.”

“One what?”

“One other possibility. Willa could have lost her keys earlier in the day and someone found them.”

“But how would that someone know to come here and look through her desk?”

That stymied Hannah for a moment, but then she recovered. “Maybe Willa’s name was on her key ring. Or maybe someone stole her keys from her purse for some reason.”

“What reason? She wasn’t wealthy, there probably wasn’t anything valuable in her desk, and why would they go to the trouble of snatching her keys without taking her whole purse? It’s a dead end.”

“It’s a cul-de-sac,” Hannah corrected him. “You just turn around and go back to something you passed by before.”

“And that is….?”

“The killer or the person who found Willa’s body before I did.”

“My money’s on the killer,” Norman said.

“Mine, too. Let’s search the desk and get out of here. I’m getting a really bad feeling, and it’s getting harder and harder to convince myself that it’s all in my imagination.”

They were silent for long moments as they went through the desk. Norman started with the drawers on the right side, and Hannah took the drawers on the left. Norman found Willa’s college transcripts, some lesson plans she’d written for Pam, and a whole folder of recipes. Hannah found printouts of e-mail messages from Gordon Tate, confirming meetings at the campus coffee shop, dates for dinner, or simply hello-how-are-yous. The tone of the messages was more friendly than intimate, and Hannah could understand why Pam had doubted the passion in Willa and Gordon’s relationship.

They reached for the center drawer and smiled as they met there. They’d both finished their side drawers at the same time.

“Only one place left,” Norman said.

“I know. So far, we’ve struck out. Let’s hope there’s something here.”

And there was something. They both saw it at the same time. Sitting in the exact center of the otherwise empty center drawer was a small album with a red enamel cover. The cover had a word stamped in gold on the front, and both of them bent down to read it. It said, “Photos,” in script so fancy it was almost indecipherable.

“After you,” Norman said.

“Thanks.” Hannah reached for the album and opened it. The first photo was a picture of an older couple leaning against the fence of a corral. “They’re probably Willa’s parents,” Hannah said.

“And that must be a favorite horse,” Norman guessed when Hannah turned the page.

“Right,” Hannah said, flipping to the next picture. It was Willa astride what appeared to be the same horse. There were several similar pictures, one of the older man they’d identified as Willa’s father on another horse, and one of the older woman standing in front of a stove.

“Nice ranch,” Norman commented as Hannah flipped through several photos of the house, pastures, and horse barn. And then they came to the last photo.

“What in the world…?” Hannah stared down at the picture of Willa in what she assumed was her wedding dress. There was no veil, but it was certainly fancy enough to wear to a wedding. It was a professional photo of the happy couple, and Willa did look happy. But the groom who had stood at her side was missing, cut cleanly off with a scissors.

“Do you think this was a picture of Jess Reiffer?” Norman asked.

“Yes,” Hannah answered. She’d told Norman everything she’d learned from Mike on their way to the school.

“And do you think the noise you heard before I opened the door was Jess Reiffer cutting himself out of this picture?” Norman took things a step further. “Or is that too far-fetched?”

“I guess it could have been Jess Reiffer, but that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. He had no reason to kill Willa. And why would he track her down just to cut himself out of their wedding picture?”

“Good point. But you still think the noise you heard was Willa’s killer searching her desk?”

“That’s my guess. And if he took something, it’s gone. And since we don’t know what was in here in the first place, we can’t even guess what it was.” Hannah dropped the photo album in her shoulder bag and stood up.

“Ready to go?” Norman asked.

“Oh, yes.” Hannah picked up her rolling pin and gripped it tightly. “Get your rolling pin on the way out, okay? I can return them to Pam tomorrow.”

“Good idea. It never hurts to be ready.”

Hannah did her best to keep from wondering how much damage a rolling pin could do to a determined killer and gave Norman a smile. “That’s right. You never know when you’ll have to roll out a piecrust.”

Hannah locked her door and buckled her seatbelt. They’d seen absolutely nothing out-of-the-way in the parking lot, and they’d arrived at Norman’s car without incident. “He’s probably long gone.”

“Probably. If you’re right and he got whatever he came for, there’s no reason for him to stick around.”

Not unless he thinks I’m closing in on him, Hannah thought, but she didn’t say it. It would be counterproductive to make the driver nervous. They’d been in Pam’s classroom for at least twenty minutes. Willa’s killer was probably across the Winnetka County line by now.

“Home?” Norman asked, pulling out of the parking lot and onto Gull Avenue.

“Yes.” Hannah took a deep breath and prepared to ask for another favor. “I know you’re really busy and you want to print those photographs tonight, but do you think you’ll be on your computer?”

Norman laughed. “I have to be on my computer. That’s where I download the photos. And that’s how I print them.”

“Oh. Well…do you think you might be able to e-mail someone for me?”

“I can do that. And then I can hook up your computer this weekend so that you can discover the joys of cyberspace for yourself.”

Hannah gave a little groan. “I’m sorry, Norman. I should have hooked it up weeks ago. It’s just that I’ve been so busy, and I’m trying to decide just where to put it, and…”

“You’re resisting,” Norman interrupted her. “Some people have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century.”

“It’s the twenty-first century?” Hannah acted shocked. But then, before their good-natured kidding could go on, she noticed headlights in the rearview mirror. “There’s a car behind us, and it’s coming up fast.”

“I know. I’ve been watching it for a couple of blocks, now. Is your seatbelt fastened?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I want you to hang on. We’re going to make a few sharp turns.”

Hannah braced herself as Norman took a hard left onto Third Street. She’d never been in a car that went around the corner on two wheels before, and she did all she could do not to scream. But just when she was recovering from the first turn, Norman made another hard left onto Maple.

Hannah felt the breath whoosh from her lungs. Her life hadn’t quite flashed before her eyes, but it was close.

It was the screeching left onto Fourth Street that did it. Hannah was sure she was going to die in a fiery wreck. And then Norman took another hard left that put them back on Gull Avenue, and before Hannah had even caught her breath, he pulled into someone’s driveway, cut the engine, and flicked off the lights.

“What are you…?” Hannah gasped out.

“Duck.” Norman reached over the pushed her down in the seat. “He missed that first turn, so it’ll take him a minute to catch up.”

“You…you mean the…the car that was following…?”

“Yes.” Norman interrupted her attempt to ask an intelligent question. “He should be coming around the corner of Fourth and Gull any second now.”

Hannah’s window was down an inch or so, and she listened for the sound of a car. For a breathless moment, all she heard was the sound of crickets in the grass next to the driveway and two cats yowling somewhere in the distance. She was about to tell Norman that they must have lost him when she heard the sound of an engine.

“There he is. Stay down,” Norman warned her. “If we’re lucky, he’ll think he’s still behind us and keep on going.”

Hannah shut her eyes and did her version of positive thinking. Keep on going, we’re ahead of you. Keep on going, we’re ahead of you, she chanted in her mind. And then she risked a glance. Her silent suggestion must have worked because the car kept on going right past the driveway where they were hiding and on down the street.

“Did you see him?” she asked Norman, wondering if he’d also risked a peek.

“Yes. Lone driver. Looked like a man to me,” Norman said, turning on the engine and backing out of the driveway. “Is that what you saw?”

He knows me too well, Hannah thought. But she said, “What makes you think I looked?”

“We both put our heads up at the same time. I saw you. It’s a good thing he wasn’t looking at my car.”

“You’re right,” Hannah said, agreeing completely. “And I saw the same thing you did. Do you think we ought to tell Mike?”

“Tell him what? That we think someone followed us from the school, but we don’t have a description or a license plate?”

Hannah thought about that for a moment. “Guess not,” she concluded, and then she changed the subject. “You know how people who’re about to die say that their lives flash before their eyes?”

“I’ve heard that.”

“Well, mine almost did.”

Norman was silent for a moment and then he reached out to take her hand. “You were never in any danger, Hannah. There’s no way I’d risk your life.”

“I wasn’t?”

“No. Every turn I made was carefully calculated.”

Hannah wasn’t sure that made her feel any better, but she nodded. “Okay. I believe you. How did you learn to do that?”

“Do what?”

“Drive like that. You took those corners at just the right speed. Any faster and we would have wiped out. Any slower and he might have caught up to us.”

“Oh, that,” Norman said, shrugging slightly. “I used to race when I was in college.”

“You mean…professionally?”

“Yes. It was only two years, though. When I started out, I was on the pit crew. Did you know that I can change a tire in ninety-three seconds flat?”

“No…”

“Well, I can. I’ll show you if we ever have a flat. You don’t mind if I take you back to the condo by a different route, do you? I think it might be safer, just in case he’s still out there.”

“I don’t mind at all.”

The moon was almost full, and Hannah stared at Norman all the way back to her condo. A racecar driver! Norman was full of surprises. Just when she thought she knew him as well as anyone could know anyone else, he threw her a curveball.

“Will you be all right alone?” Norman asked, standing just inside the door to the condo.

“I’ll be fine. Nobody can drive in without a gate card.”

“Unless they drive through that flimsy plywood arm at the entrance. Or park outside and walk in on foot.”

“True, but no one followed us here. You checked.”

Norman stood there for a moment, clearly undecided. And then he sighed. “Okay. But turn on the alarm system after I leave. It’ll make me feel a whole lot better about leaving you here.”