Key Lime Pie Murder (4 page)

“You do what?” Herb asked.

Hannah looked at him blankly. She didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about.

“When you woke up you smiled at us and said, I do.”

“Oh.” Hannah thought fast. “You said you figured I needed chocolate and I said I do.” And then, before Herb could think about it and ask more questions that might prove embarrassing, Hannah turned to Lisa. “What time is it?”

“A little after two-thirty. I closed because we haven’t had a customer since noon.”

“All the stores on Main Street are closing early,” Herb informed her. “Nobody’s doing any business, not even Rose down at the cafe. Everybody and their cousin’s out at the fairgrounds.”

“That figures.” Hannah took a gulp of her coffee and bit into a cookie. It was just as good as she thought it would be. Nothing could beat the winning combination of chocolate and coffee.

Lisa reached out to take Herb’s hand. “There’s no traffic in town, so Mayor Bascomb told Herb he could have the rest of the afternoon off.”

“I can help you and Lisa mix up cookies,” Herb offered. “Or I can make deliveries if you’ve got any. Or maybe you just want to go home for the day?”

Hannah noticed the hopeful look in her partner’s eyes. Lisa and Herb had been married for only four months, and they didn’t get much time alone together. They both worked six days a week, and they spent almost every Sunday with his mother and her father.

“I do have one delivery,” Hannah said, turning to Herb, “but you’ll have to take Lisa with you.”

“Sure. Where do you want us to go?”

“To the fair. You can take the Pineapple Delights Lisa just baked to the Cookie Nook.” Hannah gave her partner a smile. “And since all of our customers are already at the fairgrounds, you can pack up all the cookies we have left here at the shop, and take them with you. They’re not going to eat them here, so they might as well eat them out there.”

“Okay. I’ll leave a box for you to use for samples and load up all the rest.”

“Perfect.” Hannah was glad Lisa had remembered. Unless they completely sold out, she usually packed up the leftover cookies and put them in her cookie truck. There was almost always an occasion to give out samples, and Hannah was convinced that they created a lot of new business that way.

“It should only take us about forty-five minutes,” Lisa said, glancing at her watch. “We can be back here by three-thirty at the latest, and then we can mix up the cookie dough for tomorrow.”

Hannah shook her head. “We’ll do that in the morning. We don’t have any cookies on the menu that need to be chilled before baking.”

“Well…if you’re sure…” Lisa hesitated, and Hannah could tell she felt guilty about not putting in a full day’s work.

“I’m positive. I’ll just finish up a couple of things here and go home.”

Hannah had another cup of coffee while Lisa packed up the cookies. Then she helped them pack the boxes in Herb’s cruiser. As they drove away, Hannah noticed that Lisa had slid across the bench seat and was sitting close to Herb. If anyone had been foolish enough to give her odds, Hannah would have bet that the two lovebirds would be doing some billing and cooing before the night was over.

An hour later, Hannah opened the door to her condo and braced herself for the greeting ritual that Moishe had initiated on the first day he’d moved in with her. The pattern hadn’t varied in over two years. Once she opened the door, Moishe hurtled himself into her arms, landing with a thud that rocked her back on her heels. Hannah’s catapulting feline reminded her of an old picture she’d seen at the Lake Eden Historical Society. Her grandfather and some of his cronies were standing in a circle on the beach at Eden Lake, tossing a medicine ball around. According to some research her mother had done, the ball they’d used had weighed over twenty pounds. Since Moishe had tipped the scales at twenty-three pounds the last time she’d taken him to the vet, Hannah considered their greeting ritual part of her daily exercise regime. If the truth were known, it was the only part of her daily exercise regime, unless she counted the aerobic benefits of lifting giant bags of sugar and flour in her bakery kitchen or walking several miles across the coffee shop floor to refill coffee mugs and deliver orders of cookies.

Hannah stood there waiting for the onslaught, but absolutely nothing happened. The door was open, and Moishe was nowhere in sight. Heart in her throat, Hannah rushed in and tossed her purse on a chair. “Moishe?” she called, fearing the worst.

There was no answer, and Hannah felt a chill of foreboding. She should have taken Moishe to the vet this morning when she’d found him staring out the window at nothing. Animals couldn’t tell you when they were sick. Their humans had to watch for signs of illness, and one sign was atypical behavior. He’d tried to tell her, and she was a bad kitty mommy for ignoring the sign!

Relax, she told herself and took a deep breath. It would do no good to panic. She had to stay calm and think clearly. The first thing to do was to find Moishe and check for other signs of illness.

Hannah headed for the kitchen. Perhaps Moishe had his head buried in his food bowl and he hadn’t heard her come in. But there was no orange and white cat ear-deep in his kitty crunchies. Instead, Hannah found something even more alarming. She’d given him his breakfast before she’d left for work this morning, and her normally ravenous cat hadn’t touched a morsel!

“Uh-oh,” Hannah groaned, staring at Moishe’s full-to-the-brim Garfield bowl in disbelief. Moishe always emptied his bowl and was yowling for more by the time she came home. There had to be something drastically wrong.

Hannah checked the usual places, but Moishe wasn’t there. There was nothing furry under the Formica kitchen table that was only a few years short of becoming antique, and no inquisitive orange and white head peeked out from behind the kitchen wastebasket. Moishe was not in the kitchen, not unless he’d morphed into one of the dust balls that was hiding in the two-inch-high space under the refrigerator.

The laundry room was next. Hannah checked the space behind the washer and dryer, even though she thought it was too tight a squeeze for him. There was a smattering of gravel outside his litter box. He must have used it since she’d swept the floor this morning. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

Hannah went down the hall toward her bedroom, but she stopped as she noticed that the guest room door was open. She always kept it closed so that Moishe couldn’t chase after the appliquéd butterflies on the expensive silk coverlet Delores had given her for Christmas one year, but perhaps the latch hadn’t caught. She’d have to be more careful in the future or her mother’s butterflies would meet a force even more dangerous than the rigors of migration.

Hannah poked her head in, but Moishe wasn’t on the bed and the coverlet looked untouched. Since the butterflies were intact, she was about to pull the door shut behind her when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. “Moishe?” she called out.

“Brrrowww!”

It was a loud, healthy yowl and Hannah gave a huge sigh of relief. Moishe sounded just fine. But why hadn’t he come to greet her? And why wasn’t he eating? She stepped inside the room and began to frown as she saw what her cat was doing.

Moishe was balanced, rather precariously, on the guest room windowsill. He was staring out at the condo next door, where the Hollenbeck sisters lived. There was no one home. Today was Monday, and the two sisters spent all afternoon out at Lake Eden Memorial Hospital, working as volunteers. The Hollenbeck sisters were both retired. Marguerite had worked for forty years as a kindergarten teacher, and Clara had put in forty-two years as a court reporter at the Winnetka County Courthouse. They’d told Hannah that they were devoting the rest of their lives to doing good works, and they were active church members. Hannah had met them the day she moved in. They’d invited her over for dinner that night, and they’d dined on Clara’s Mexican hotdish, a casserole of hamburger, corn, mild green chilies, shredded cheese, and spicy tomato sauce. It was topped with more shredded cheese and some crushed corn chips that formed a delectable crust. Marguerite had provided the beverages, and she’d made her namesake Margaritas with white wine instead of tequila, since the sisters didn’t drink hard liquor. They were delicious, a perfect complement to the hotdish. Hannah had downed two, and she’d been very careful navigating the thirty feet that separated their second-floor condo units.

“What are you doing, Moishe?” Hannah hurried over to steady her cat on the narrow windowsill. She looked out, but she saw only windows with curtains drawn at the unit next door. “There’s nothing there. Clara and Marguerite are out at the hospital today.”

“Yow!” Moishe said, as if to contradict her, but he let her pick him up and cuddle him. He even licked her chin, which only happened when he was feeling affectionate.

“Thank you,” Hannah said, giving him a scratch behind his ear. Then she carted him out of the room, shut the door tightly behind her making sure that it latched, and took him off to the kitchen. But when she put him down in front of his food bowl, he turned around to look at her ruefully, as if to say, What are you trying to do here? I don’t want this stuff.

“Okay. Just let me change clothes and I’ll get you something you’ll like better,” Hannah promised, heading off to the bedroom with Moishe following in her wake.

It took a few minutes, but at last Hannah was dressed in an outfit that her mother would deem appropriate for an older sister of a Miss Tri-County contestant. She brushed her hair, secured it with the clasp Michelle had given her for her birthday, and turned to face Moishe.

“Okay?” she asked him. She was wearing the lightweight summer suit that Delores had bought her several years ago. The pants and top were made of a crinkled material that reminded Hannah of the pinstriped seersucker pants and jacket that her father had worn. Hers was navy blue with a white stripe, and her father’s had been tan with a white stripe. Now that she thought about it, Delores had bought her father’s suit, too. And her father had always hated it. Hannah thought about that for a split second, but time was flying and food was more important than rejecting her mother’s fashion guidance. “No time to change; it’ll have to do,” she said, leading the way to the kitchen.

Once she’d arrived, she put Moishe down on the floor. “Tuna?” she asked the cat, who loved Chicken of the Sea. But Moishe wasn’t even looking at his food bowl. He was sitting in the doorway, watching her with a hopeful expression that Hannah interpreted to mean, I don’t really care what you eat as long as it’s good and I get some.

“A Denver sandwich?” Hannah asked, smiling when her cat’s ears perked up. “With or without onions and peppers?”

Moishe’s expression changed slightly, something that only Hannah could interpret. At least she thought she could interpret it. Moishe wanted his portion without peppers or onions, and he’d appreciate it if she’d double the ham.

“Okay. I’ll call you when it’s ready. If you’re still interested in watching for the neighbors, you can see their unit from the back of the couch. It’s a lot more comfortable up there, and you won’t slip off the windowsill.”

Hannah spent the next few minutes chopping ham, green peppers, and onions, and wondering why a Denver sandwich was named after the mile-high city. She whipped up eggs in a glass with a fork, the way her Grandma Ingrid had done, and poured them into a buttered, preheated frying pan. She sprinkled chopped ham, minced green peppers, and finely chopped onions over the top, except for the section that would be the penumbra if her frying pan were a full moon. In that sickle-shaped portion, she put only ham and she made sure there was plenty of it.

In less than five minutes, Hannah’s sandwich was ready. She cut it into fourths diagonally, the way her grandmother had done to make it “special,” and arranged it on a green Fiestaware luncheon plate with the tips pointing out like a star. Then she dished up Moishe’s portion on a turquoise blue plate that set off the yellow of the eggs perfectly.

Hannah carried the two plates out to the living room. Using a Fiestaware plate for Moishe would have garnered her mother’s objections on two fronts. Delores believed that pets should have their own food bowls and never be fed from “people” dishes. She didn’t even think they should be mixed in the same load in the dishwasher. Hannah’s mother also loved antiques and family heirlooms. Letting Moishe use one of the six plates that Grandma Swensen had left Hannah would have positively horrified her.

Once their food was placed on the coffee table in front of the couch and the television was tuned to KCOW for the local news, Hannah called her cat down from the back of the couch.

Moishe’s ears swiveled forward at the sound of his name, but he didn’t move. Hannah fanned his plate with her hand so that he could catch the scent, but that didn’t do it either. As a last resort, she lifted the plate and held it in front of him, so he could see what was there. “What’s the matter, Moishe? Aren’t you hungry?”

“Rowww,” Moishe said, something that Hannah interpreted to mean she’d hit the nail on the head.

“Okay,” she told him. “I’ll leave your plate right here and you can have some when you’re ready. Be careful, though. If you break that plate, Mother will kill us both.”

The sound Moishe gave was more growl than comment. As Hannah watched, his eyes narrowed to slits, his hair puffed up to make him look larger to an opponent, and his tail switched back and forth. Mentioning her mother’s name always had this effect. Moishe hated Delores. Hannah figured it had started when they’d first met and Delores had tried to pick him up despite Hannah’s warning that he was still skittish around people. It had been a case of stubborn cat versus determined human, and stubborn cat had won. Delores had finally stopped trying to pick up Moishe, but it had taken a half-dozen pairs of shredded pantyhose to dissuade her.

“Sorry,” Hannah said, reaching up to smooth the hair on his back. “We won’t talk about her now.”

Moishe gave a sigh that convinced Hannah he understood and settled back down to stare out the window. As she ate her sandwich, Hannah divided her time between watching the news and watching her neighbors’ window, but she still didn’t see anything moving in Clara and Marguerite’s apartment. Was it possible that something was wrong and Moishe could sense it?