Carrot Cake Murder Part 26

Jack shook his head. "I don't think so. What did you have in mind?"

"We could get a double Popsicle and ask Mrs. Schultz to split it for us. She's really good at it, and she never breaks them the wrong way."

"Sounds good to me as long as it's not a root beer Popsicle. I don't like root beer Popsicles."

"Me, either. Maybe she'll have lime. That's really good. Or cherry. That's even better." Tracey turned to Andrea. "Is it okay if I go with Grandpa Jack, Mom?"

Andrea smiled. "It's fine with me."

"How about you, Marge?" Jack turned to her. "Is it okay if I go to the store with Tracey?"

Marge laughed. "It's fine with me. I have to start in on the cleanup anyway."

"We'll be right back, so don't worry about us." Tracey stood up and took Jack's hand. And then they walked off together down the road to the store.

"Popsicles for breakfast!" Patsy gave a little laugh as she stood up. "I'd better get started. I have to be down at the lake at eleven to judge the swimming races. I just hope I don't topple off the judge's raft and fall in the lake!"

Andrea laughed. "Falling in the lake with all your clothes on isn't what I'd call fun. That's a nice outfit, and you might ruin it."

"Thanks," Patsy said, glancing down at her light green pantsuit. "It's not just the clothes I'm worried about, though."

"Patsy can't swim," Marge explained.

Hannah was absolutely amazed. The Lake Eden school district had a mandatory water safety program for all of its students. They'd built one of the very first indoor pools, and swimming instruction started in grade school and continued right up until senior lifesaving. "You went to school in Lake Eden and you can't swim?"

"That's right, and it's not for lack of trying." Patsy smiled ruefully. "Tell them Marge."

"She can't float," Marge said. "And since she can't float, she can't swim. Patsy can paddle and kick like crazy, but she can't keep her head above water for long."

"They taught me all the strokes and the kicks in the shallow end of the pool. I was really good at those. I know how to swim, but I just can't do it. After three or four strokes, I go straight down to the bottom of the pool."

"The swimming teacher came to the house to explain it to our parents," Marge told them. "We were supposed to be playing outside, but we came in and listened. It has something to do with bone density, or specific gravity, or natural buoyancy, or maybe all of those things."

"All I know is, everybody in the whole school tried to teach me to swim, and nothing worked," Patsy said.

"We dressed alike in grade school," Marge went on. "We looked exactly alike, and we had matching pink swimsuits. The swimming teacher couldn't tell us apart."

Patsy gave a little laugh. "Until she told us to get in the pool and float. Marge floated. I sank like a stone. I think that's the reason I don't really want to get out on that raft and judge the swimming races. I get really nervous around deep water. I tried to get Mac to take over for me. He was on the swim team at Jordan High, and he won all sorts of awards. But he's coaching the red softball team, and they've got practice."

"I'll take your place," Mich.e.l.le offered. "I love to swim, and it won't bother me a bit. You said it starts at eleven?"

"That's right."

"And ends when?"

"It's for all ages, and over a hundred kids are entered. You should be through in two hours."

Mich.e.l.le gave a little groan. "Uh-oh. I have a conflict. I'm supposed to help with the tricycle parade from noon to two. Unless you want to take my place helping kids decorate their tricycles?"

"I can do that. It's perfect for me. I love kids, and Mac and I never had any of our own. He never really cared one way or the other, but I always wanted to be a mother."

"You would have been a good one," Marge told her. "You sure were good with mine. How about you two?" She smiled at Andrea and Hannah. "What are your plans for the day?"

"We're going out for pizza," Hannah said, motioning to Andrea.

"You're hungry? You can't be hungry! You just had a big pancake breakfast!"

"We're not going for the food," Andrea said, catching on to her sister's agenda. "We're going fishing."

"For information?" Mich.e.l.le asked.

"Exactly right," Hannah said. "It's about Mary Jo Kuehn and the night she died in that car crash. There are still some people around town who think that it was Gus's fault."

Marge looked sick. "We heard that back then. And he said he wasn't driving, but..."

"Looking back on it, we think he could have been." Patsy gave a little sigh. "Do you think that Bert could have killed Gus because he believed that Gus was driving that night?"

"It's a possibility," Andrea said.

"And we won't know until we check out his alibi," Hannah added. "We need to ask Bert where he was between one and three on Monday morning."

"I'll watch Tracey," Mich.e.l.le promised. "And if you're not back by eleven, I'll take her out to the raft to judge the swimming races with me."

Patsy looked horrified. "Oh, don't do that! What if she falls in the water?"

"It's okay. Tracey can swim," Andrea rea.s.sured her. "As a matter of fact, she's entered in the kindergarten races."

"She learned to swim this early?" Marge asked.

"Oh, yes. When Tracey was in preschool, Janice c.o.x taught the whole cla.s.s to swim. And this year Tracey's in kindergarten, so she gets to use the school pool."

"I'll make sure I go to the races to cheer her on," Marge promised.

"How long do you think you'll be gone?" Patsy asked, stacking up the plates on the table.

"An hour at the most," Hannah told her.

"You should be fine then," Patsy said with a nod. "I looked at the schedule when I thought I'd have to be a judge, and the kindergarten race is the last one."

Chapter Twenty-Six.

When Hannah and Andrea pulled up in Bertanelli's parking lot, it was far from packed. It was clear that pizza was not the breakfast of choice in Lake Eden. Hannah parked her cookie truck near the door, and they hopped out.

"How are we going to do this?" Andrea asked her.

"We'll just wing it. Do you think you can eat a pizza?"

Andrea thought about it as they went through the door and headed to the main room to find a booth. "I think so," she said. "But only if it's sausage, pepperoni, and extra cheese."

"No anchovies?" Hannah teased her.

"Not before noon. There's something about anchovies in the morning that's just not right, you know?"

Hannah knew. It was a lot like orange juice on corn flakes, a combination she'd once seen a friend attempt to eat when she was out of milk. It wasn't that it was so awful. It was just that it wasn't right.

"Hi, ladies," a waitress came over to greet them a moment after they'd taken a booth near the back of the room. "Can I get you something to drink?"

"Coffee would be good," Hannah told her.

And almost simultaneously, Andrea said, "I'll have coffee, please."

"Two coffees coming right up."

Andrea waited until they were alone again, and then she leaned closer to Hannah. "You mentioned that Norman was out of town. Did he go where I think he went?"

"That depends on where you think he went."

"Atlantic City?"

"That's right."

"To check out Mood Indigo?"

"Right, again. He said he'd call me on my cell phone just as soon as he found out anything at all."

"And you've got your cell phone with you?"

"I do," Hannah said, patting her oversize purse.

"And you remembered to plug it into the charger last night?"

"I did."

"And you've got it turned on?"

"I do."

The waitress came back to their booth with two mugs of coffee. "Here you go," she said, setting a mug in front of each of them.

"Thanks." Hannah decided that there was no time like the present to find out about Bert. "Is Bert in?"

"Not yet."

"How about Ellie?" Andrea asked.

"She's not here yet, either. They're still catching up on sleep from Sunday night."

Hannah and Andrea exchanged glances. "What happened on Sunday night?" Andrea asked.

"The weekly cash register tapes didn't tally with the orders from the kitchen, and we had to find the error."

Hannah picked up on the collective p.r.o.noun. "Who's we?" she asked.

"Bert, Ellie, and me. I'm the head waitress, so I'm responsible for the others. We went through everything until we found it."

"What was it?" Andrea asked her.

"One of the new waitresses transposed a couple of numbers. It was an honest mistake, but the register was short and we had to account for it."

"So how late were you here?" Hannah asked the critical question.

"Until a quarter to three. We close at midnight on Sundays, so it took us two hours and forty-five minutes to find it."

"I'm glad you found it," Hannah said. And in her mind she added, in more ways than one.

"So am I! I'm just glad that n.o.body had a hand in the till. That happens sometimes in the restaurant business. Would you ladies like a menu? Or do you know what kind of pizza you want?"

"We'd like a medium sausage with pepperoni, and extra cheese." Hannah ordered what Andrea had dictated.

"And mushrooms," Andrea added. "And black olives, too. What other toppings do you have?"

The waitress looked up from her order pad. "How about onions, fresh tomatoes, and anchovies?"

"Yes on the onions and fresh tomatoes," Hannah told her, "but no anchovies." She motioned toward Andrea. "She doesn't like anchovies before noon."

"Can't say I blame her for that!" the waitress said, grinning at Andrea. And then she looked down at her order pad again. "That's a medium sausage pizza with pepperoni, extra cheese, mushrooms, onions, ripe olives, and tomatoes. Is that right?"

"That's right," Hannah said.

"Can I give you ladies a little tip?"

Hannah began to smile. "Absolutely. And if it's a good tip, we'll give you a good tip, too."

"Believe me, it's a good tip!" the waitress said. "You ordered a medium sausage pizza with six extra toppings. Each extra topping is fifty cents and that means you've got an extra three dollars tacked onto your one-topping pizza, okay?"

Both Andrea and Hannah nodded.

"A medium garbage pizza is only a dollar fifty more than a one-topping pizza. And a garbage pizza has all the toppings you just ordered plus anchovies. Do you follow me so far?"

"I think I'm beginning to," Hannah said, starting to smile. "What are you telling us?"