Carrot Cake Murder Part 24

"I probably did. He loves to watch them on the Animal Channel. How big is that thing, anyway?"

"It's taller than I am, so it's six and a half feet, at least. And its name is Fred. Where do you want it?"

"Right there," Hannah said, pointing at the corner by the couch. "Will Fred fit there?"

"Sure, if we fold his wing in a little." Mike did just that as Hannah watched. "Too bad Fred doesn't have a tray in its beak, or something. You could use him as a couch table."

Just what I need. A six-and-a-half-foot table shaped like a flamingo, Hannah thought, but of course she didn't say it. Even though Fred wasn't to her taste and he looked dreadful in her living room, she was touched that Mike had thought to get the toy for Moishe.

"Thanks, Mike," she said for lack of anything better to say. And then, because it sounded so spa.r.s.e, she added, "Wherever did you find it?"

"Oh. Well...actually Fred's recycled. I hope Moishe won't mind."

"I don't think he does," Hannah said, watching her cat approach the big bird and rub up against it. "Is it something the police confiscated?"

"No, it's something I had at my place. Ronni brought Fred back from Florida. She bought him on that trip she took with Bill. And then she moved and she didn't have room, so I kept him at my place. I offered to give him back when she moved in across the hall, but she said she didn't want Fred anymore because he didn't match the colors in her living room."

"I see," Hannah said, wishing she hadn't asked.

"Well, I'd better go. I'm really glad Moishe likes Fred. I got a new 50-inch television and he was in the way."

Hannah walked Mike to the door, thanked him again, kissed him briefly, and sent him on his way. Then she closed and locked the door, and turned to stare at the fuchsia Phoenicopterus.

"I know you like Fred, now," Hannah said, watching her cat rub his head up against the flamingo's legs, "but do you know what he eats?"

Moishe turned to look at her, and Hannah thought he seemed concerned about the diet of Ronni's second-hand sh.o.r.ebird.

"Fred eats shrimp, Moishe, lots and lots of shrimp. Maybe you'd better shred him up now. Then the next time I thaw a bag of shrimp for you, you won't have any compet.i.tion."

"Rowww!" Moshe responded enigmatically, staring at her with his big yellow eyes.

"You're right." Hannah gave him a smile. "Maybe I'd better take a lesson from you when it comes to Fred's first owner, and shred her, too."

Chapter Twenty-Four.

"'Bye, Moishe." Hannah tossed him a few salmon-flavored kitty treats as she headed toward her condo door. "Try to be a good boy again today. I'll be home early this afternoon to feed you."

Her hand had just connected with the doork.n.o.b when the telephone rang. Hannah muttered a phrase she wouldn't have used around her nieces in any circ.u.mstances and headed back to the kitchen to answer it. The hair on Moishe's back wasn't bristling, so it probably wasn't Delores.

"h.e.l.lo?" she said, wondering who'd be calling her this early.

"Hi, Hannah."

"Norman!" Hannah began to smile as she recognized his voice. "Where are you?"

"At the airport in Atlantic City. We landed about twenty minutes ago. I'm just waiting to rent a car with GPS, and then I'll be off to find Mood Indigo."

Hannah glanced at the clock. It was five forty-five in the morning. That meant it was seven forty-five in Atlantic City. "It won't be open this early," she reminded him.

"I know. I'll just drive over and take a look at it. Then I'll have some breakfast."

"When are you coming home?" Hannah couldn't help but ask. It was silly since Norman had been gone for less than a day, but she already missed him.

"If things go the way I hope they will, I should be back early tomorrow morning, maybe sooner if everything works out."

"Well, come by here first thing," Hannah told him. "I don't care how early it is. I want to hear all about it. Or if it's past six in the morning, stop by The Cookie Jar. I should be at work by then."

Hannah had just taken the last two trays of Cherry Winks from the oven and slid them onto the baker's rack when the back door opened and Lisa came into the kitchen.

"Lisa! What are you doing here? I thought you were frying pancakes for the big Game Day breakfast this morning."

"That was the plan, but it changed. I got your mother and Carrie to fill in for me."

"Uh-oh!" Hannah winced visibly. "I'm not sure about Carrie, but I know for a fact that Mother's never fried a pancake in her life. Dad always fixed breakfast for all of us."

"Don't worry. Your mother and Carrie are just setting the tables and mixing up the orange juice. That frees up Patsy to help Marge with the pancakes."

Hannah gave a big sigh of relief. "But that still doesn't explain why you're here. I finished the baking, so I really don't need any help."

"Yes, you do. I'm going to help Luanne open so that you can go out to the lake. Dad remembered something this morning, and he won't tell anybody except you."

"Is it about Gus's murder?"

"I don't know. Herb's with him at the cottage, and they're waiting for you to drive out. You don't think Dad might have...I mean...I just can't believe that..."

"Neither can I," Hannah interrupted her, "and I'm positive that he didn't. But maybe he remembered something from the past that'll help catch the killer."

Less than twenty minutes later, Hannah was knocking at the door of the cottage. She'd pushed her cookie truck to the limit on the highway and paid no heed to the health of her shocks as she'd flown over the gravel road that ran around the perimeter of Eden Lake.

"Hannah!" Herb greeted her, looking surprised. "How did you get here so fast?"

"Lisa said it was important."

Herb began to frown, and Hannah knew he was mentally calculating the distance and figuring out her average speed. As the only traffic enforcement officer hired by the city of Lake Eden, he'd given out enough speeding tickets to know when someone had broken the law.

"I hope you didn't speed through town," he said.

"I didn't. I did take the gravel road around the lake a little too fast, though."

"How fast?"

"I didn't look at the speedometer, but it was fast enough to b.u.mp my head on the top of the truck three times."

"That should teach you to slow down," Herb said, looking very stern. "I really ought to give you a ticket, but it's not my jurisdiction."

"But Lisa said it was important," Hannah repeated.

"That's what Jack told us. Come on in, Hannah. Jack's at the kitchen table. He wants to talk to you alone, so after I take you in to him, I'll go down and see if I can help with the breakfast."

Hannah stepped in, and Herb led her to the table where Jack was sitting with a cup of coffee and the box of cookies she'd given him for his birthday. "Here's Hannah to see you, Jack."

"Hi, there," Jack said, smiling at Hannah. And then he turned to Herb. "Thanks for keeping me company, son. Hannah will walk me down to the breakfast when we're through here..." he turned to Hannah, "...won't you, Hannah?"

"Of course I will."

Jack waited until Herb had left, and then he gestured toward the counter. "Would you like a cup of coffee? Marge made a full pot."

"I'd love a cup, thanks. I'll get it," Hannah filled the clean cup that was sitting by the coffeepot and carried the carafe over to refill Jack's cup. Then she sat down in the chair across from him and waited.

"Your cookies did it, girl!" Jack grinned at her. "I remembered the last time Emmy made them, and that made me remember the reason I got into that fight with Gus. I'll tell you, but you've got to promise me you won't tell anyone else, not even Lisa."

"I promise," Hannah said firmly. What Jack was about to tell her might give her a lead to follow, but it was unlikely that his memories from over thirty years ago would have a direct bearing on the events that had transpired after the dance on Sunday night.

"Gus asked me to lend him some money on the night he left town for good," Jack told her. "We were friends, and I would have given it to him if I'd had any extra, but Emmy and I were barely making it on my salary. Iris was almost two years old, and Emmy was due to have Tim any day. Emmy couldn't work, and it was hard to make both ends meet."

Hannah nodded. She could understand how a young married couple with a toddler and a baby on the way would have trouble paying the bills on only one salary.

"I told Gus I was sorry, but I couldn't help him. And then he said I had to help him because he owed money from a card game, and they'd come after him if he didn't pay it back. I felt awful, but I didn't have anything to give him. All Emmy and I had was the little bit of money we'd put away for Doc Knight to deliver Tim."

"I understand."

"Well, Gus didn't. He wanted me to give him our savings for the new baby. I told him I couldn't. And then I suggested that he ask Patsy. She was working, and she had a pretty good job."

"Did he?" Hannah remembered Patsy saying something about a loan she'd made to Gus that Mac had wanted to collect.

"He said he couldn't, because he hadn't paid Patsy back for the last loan. He owed Marge money, too. And his parents wouldn't help him out again. The last time he borrowed money from them, they'd told him it was time he grew up and accepted responsibility for his own debts."

Hannah was beginning to understand exactly what the fight had been about. "And you got into a fight because Gus wouldn't take no for an answer?"

"In a way, but that's putting it mildly. Now, you need a little background here, or you're not going to understand this next part."

"Okay." Hannah took another sip of her coffee. "Go ahead."

"Well..." Jack swallowed hard. "You're sure you won't tell anybody?"

"I swear I won't," Hannah promised.

"Okay, then. I was kind of shy around the girls in high school, but Gus wasn't. We were friends, so I asked his advice about asking Emmy to go out on a date with me. But before I could get up the nerve, Gus asked her out."

"That rat!" Hannah breathed.

"That's right, but it was okay because Emmy only dated him a couple of times and then she said she wouldn't go out with him anymore. When I asked Gus why he'd asked her out in the first place, especially when he knew I wanted to, he told me he was just testing the waters and they were pretty cold."

"That sc.u.m!" Hannah stated, a little louder this time.

"Another good word to describe him." Jack gave her a smile. "Of course I didn't believe Gus, but it didn't really matter because the next day Emmy asked me out."

Hannah clapped her hands. "Wonderful! And you fell in love and got married."

"That's right. Not quite that quick, of course, but we got married right after we graduated from high school. Emmy was always a good cook. I think that's where all my girls get it. And her specialty was...what did you call these things again?"

"Red Velvet Cookies."

"That's right. Red Velvet Cookies. People used to beg her to make them, and then they started offering her money to bake. Marge's mother hired Emmy to bake for her sewing circle. What do they do at those sewing circles, anyway?"

Hannah blinked. She'd been so wrapped up in Jack's story of the past, his question was a jolt. "I don't know. I've never been to a sewing circle, but maybe it's the same thing they do at the Lake Eden Quilting Club."

"And what's that?"

"They quilt a little, and then they eat cookies and drink coffee. And after that, they gossip about whoever's not there."

Jack threw back his head and laughed. His laughter made Hannah feel good. Except for brief moments with Marge and his children, he'd been solemn and dour for the entire duration of the reunion.

"Go on, Jack," she said, nudging him gently. "Tell me the rest of the story."

"Sure thing. Well..." Jack stopped, and all traces of his smile disappeared. "I'm sorry, my dear. I forget."

For a brief moment, the term of endearment puzzled Hannah. Then she remembered that Lisa had taught her father to use my dear when he couldn't remember a woman's name.

"That's okay," Hannah said, giving him an encouraging smile. She felt like groaning in disappointment, but of course she didn't. It would have hurt Jack's feelings and served no positive purpose. Instead, she tried to set the scene for him and take him back to the time he'd been describing. "You were just telling me how Emmy used to bake for people," she prompted. "And you said Marge's mother asked Emmy to bake cookies for her sewing circle?"

"That's right! I don't know how I could have forgotten. Anyway, Emmy baked those...what are they called again?"

"Red Velvet Cookies."

"Yes. She baked Red Velvet Cookies for the sewing circle. We only had the one car, and she took me to work that morning because she had to deliver them. Her mother was there for a visit, so she was taking care of...of..."

"Iris?" Hannah prompted.

"Yes, Iris. Our daughter, Iris." There was so much love in Jack's voice that Hannah felt a lump form in her throat. "And when Emmy got to Marge's mother's house to deliver the cookies, she ran into Gus. He wasn't supposed to be there. Everybody thought he'd left the night before. But he missed the bus, and he was waiting around for the next one to take him to camp."

Jack stopped and Hannah could see that he was confused. "What is it?" she asked him.

"That doesn't make any sense. I must be remembering it wrong. Gus was too old for camp. We're the same age, and I was already married to Emmy. Say...did I tell you we got married right out of high school?"

"Yes. I think you were talking about baseball camp," Hannah said quickly, before Jack could get off on a tangent. "Wasn't Gus supposed to leave for his Triple A baseball training camp?"

A huge smile spread over Jack's face. "That's it! Gus was supposed to leave the night before, but he missed the bus so he was still home. I bet he was out playing poker and didn't watch the time. He did that a lot. And if you're late for that kind of training, they fine you, and..." Jack stopped and looked confused again. "Where was I?"

"You were telling me about the cookies Emmy delivered to Marge's mother. And when she got there, she ran into Gus."