Lemon Meringue Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen Mysteries) (15 page)

Bonnie Surma, Gil’s wife, answered on the first ring. Hannah fixed a smile on her face—she’d heard that telemarketers used this technique to sound friendly—and took a deep breath. “Hi, Bonnie. It’s Hannah Swensen. I’m out here at Alfredo’s Ristorante and…”

“Take my advice and order their osso buco,” Bonnie interrupted her. “Gil picked it up for us on Friday night and it was marvelous.”

Hannah’s phony smile turned into a real grin. If Gil had taken osso buco home to Bonnie, he wasn’t Rhonda’s boyfriend.

“Friday was our anniversary and Gil wanted to do something special. I didn’t feel like getting dressed up and going out, so he ordered dinner and brought it home.”

“That was sweet of him,” Hannah said, scrounging for a pen in the bottom of her purse and crossing Gil’s name off her suspect list.

“It would have been sweeter if he hadn’t left for a meeting right after dinner, but even a good marriage can’t be perfection. Gil and I rub along very well together.”

Perfection. Rub along very well.
Hannah came close to chuckling. Bonnie must have been at the same Lake Eden Regency Romance Club meeting as Delores.

“Did you need something, Hannah? Gil’s at a city council meeting. He said he’d call before he left for home, so I need to keep the line free.”

“Uh…yes. Yes, I did.” Hannah thought fast. She should have had an excuse for her call all prepared. “Tracey was talking about joining the Brownies the other day. She wanted to know how old she had to be.”

“I’m glad Tracey’s so interested. She’s still too young, but I’ll mail a packet to Andrea tomorrow with the guidelines.”

“Thanks, Bonnie. That’s all I needed. I’ll let you go.” Hannah hung up the phone and let out a relieved sigh. She liked Bonnie and Gil and she was glad that Rhonda hadn’t been a threat to their marriage.

The next name on Hannah’s list was Kenneth Purvis. Hannah had trouble visualizing Jordan High’s principal, a man whose most notable habit was polishing his glasses, in a steamy embrace with Rhonda, but she couldn’t discount the possibility. Ken
had
picked up two orders of osso buco on Friday night.

Hannah had learned her lesson from Bonnie. She needed a good excuse for her call. When Ken or his wife, Kathy, answered, she’d ask about the community outreach night classes Jordan High was planning to hold in the fall. There had been an article about it last week in the
Lake Eden Journal.
She could pretend to be interested in signing up for basket weaving, or fly casting, or something like that.

Hannah looked up the number and dialed. The phone rang several times and then their answering machine clicked on. Rather than leave a message, Hannah hung up and turned to the third name on the list, Reverend Knudson.

“Redeemer Lutheran,” Reverend Knudson’s grandmother answered on the second ring.

“Hi, Mrs. Knudson. It’s Hannah Swensen.”

“Hello, Hannah.” Mrs. Knudson sounded pleased to hear from her. “The reverend isn’t home right now, but I can take a message and have him call you in the morning.”

“That’s okay. Maybe you can help. I meant to call earlier, but I forgot. I’m out here at Alfredo’s Ristorante. Have you ever had their osso buco?”

“No, but it’s one of my favorite dishes.”

“Maybe your grandson could pick it up as takeout for you,” Hannah said, hoping to solicit more information. It was obvious that Reverend Knudson hadn’t taken osso buco to his grandmother, but he’d left Alfredo’s last Friday night with two takeout orders. “They have it on their menu every Friday night.”

“You might know it would be Fridays!” Priscilla Knudson gave an exasperated sigh. “The reverend is always gone on Friday nights. Church-related meetings, you know.”

“Of course,” Hannah said, drawing a circle around Reverend Knudson’s name. If he’d gone to a church-related meeting on Friday night, she was willing to bet he hadn’t arrived with two orders of takeout osso buco from Alfredo’s Ristorante.

“You said earlier that you thought I might be able to help you. With what, Hannah?”

Mrs. Knudson’s question brought Hannah back from her speculations and she launched into the excuse she’d prepared. “I heard about the bake sale Redeemer Lutheran is holding on Saturdays and I wanted to contribute something. How about a box of cookies?”

“Why, that would be lovely, Hannah. I’m sure the reverend will be delighted. Can we count on you for this Saturday?”

“Absolutely.”

Hannah smiled as she hung up the phone. A box of free cookies was a small price to pay for the information Priscilla Knudson had given her. She’d eliminated Gil Surma and she had yet to reach Principal Purvis, but Reverend Knudson had just jumped to the top of her suspect list.

H
annah glanced at her watch in the light from Mike’s dashboard as they came over the crest of a long steep hill and neared the Quick Stop. They still had almost fifteen minutes before Michelle’s bus was due to arrive. “Let’s park on the side and go in. I want to see how my cookies are doing for Sean and Ron.”

Mike pulled into a spot at the side of the building and shut off his engine. “We can go in, but I already know your cookies are selling really well.”

“How do you know that? Did you ask Sean and Ron?”

“I didn’t have to ask. The guys at the station used to stop for doughnuts and coffee on their way to work, but now they bring in coffee and your cookies. Nobody buys doughnuts anymore.”

“Thanks for telling me.” Hannah was pleased. She’d started to supply the Quick Stop with cookies several months ago and the volume of their orders had been steadily increasing. That was a good sign, but she hadn’t been sure if Sean and Ron were selling more cookies, or just eating more of them.

“You can go in if you want to.” Mike turned to smile at her. “I’ll stay here and meet Michelle if her bus comes in early.”

Hannah laughed. “Thanks, but that won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“You’ve never met Michelle. You don’t even know what she looks like.”

“Yes, I do. There’s a picture of the three of you on the mantel over your fireplace. I recognized Andrea and you, so I figured Michelle had to be the one in the middle with the brown hair.”

Hannah was impressed, even though she knew Mike had been trained to notice things. “You’re right, but that’s an old picture. You might not recognize her now.”

“She can’t be that different. Her hair could be another color and she could have gained or lost weight, but her basic bone structure is the same. I’ll spot her. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Hannah began to grin. “I guess any cop who can recognize a suspect from his DMV picture wouldn’t have much trouble with an old family photo.”

“That’s right.” Mike lowered his window, looked out for a moment, and then he turned to grin at her. “It’s a good thing you didn’t go inside. Here comes the bus now.”

Hannah glanced out his window, but all she saw was an empty road. “Where? I don’t see anything.”

“You’ll see it when it comes over the hill.”

“Who do you think you are?” Hannah asked, eyeing him with some amusement. “Supercop with x-ray vision?”

“No, but I might try out for Supercop with subsonic hearing.”

“You
heard
the bus?”

“That’s right. A diesel engine’s got a certain high-pitched whine to it. On a still night it’ll carry for a long way.”

Hannah stared at him, but he didn’t seem to be putting her on. “Okay, I believe you even though I’ve met the bus lots of times and I never heard a whine.”

“You probably wouldn’t notice.”

“Because it’s a cop thing?”

“No, it’s a trucker thing. My father was an owner-operator and I drove most of his short runs every summer. It gets boring, driving the same route day after day. I looked for ways to amuse myself and I started concentrating on the sounds trucks make. I got so good, I could tell a Peterbilt from a Kenworth a quarter-mile away.”

Hannah had been aware of a low rumbling noise while Mike spoke and it had increased in volume. Her eyes widened as a Greyhound bus crested the hill and began its descent. “You were right. There’s the bus. I hope Michelle’s trip wasn’t too boring.”

“I’m sure she found someone to talk to. She’s a very pretty woman.”

“Girl,” Hannah corrected him. “She’s still a teenager.”

“Just barely. I’ve known a few nineteen-year-olds. They’d much rather be thought of as young women.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Hannah gave him a sharp glance as she climbed out of the car. She wanted to know more about the nineteen-year-olds he’d known, but it wasn’t a good idea to ask. Mike didn’t talk about his past very much and he’d already told her about driving his father’s truck. That was enough for one night.

As they walked, Hannah glanced up at the halogen lights by the bus loading and unloading area. Moths were fluttering around the bulbs in uneven halos, attracted to the hot light despite its danger. As she watched, several fell back down to the pavement and were crushed under the feet of the people who had gathered to meet the bus.

Mike found a spot near the front of the crowd and Hannah stood close to his side. He reached out to take her arm and smiled down at her. “Are you excited about seeing her again?”

“Yes,” Hannah said, smiling back. There were times when she indulged in a bit of nostalgia, remembering how she’d helped Delores soothe Michelle through bouts of colic when she was a baby, carrying her on mile-long treks around the living room until she’d finally gone to sleep.

The bus pulled up with a loud snort and a squeal of brakes, spewing out a black plume of what Hannah now knew was diesel exhaust. There was a moment of expectation while the driver flicked on the interior lights and checked something on his clipboard. Then the door opened with a mechanical hiss and a plump woman in a nurse’s uniform climbed down the steps. She was followed by a man carrying a raincoat, a mother with a baby in her arms, and an older gentleman wearing a straw hat.

There was a long pause as a young man struggled to navigate the steps with a package large enough to contain a tuba. Once he’d successfully disembarked, two teenage girls in jeans and sweaters stepped off the bus.

Hannah began to frown. There was only one more passenger waiting to get off the bus and it wasn’t Michelle. “Oh-oh. I think she missed the bus.”

“No, she didn’t. She’s right there at the top of the stairs.”

Hannah gave the woman a second glance. She had bright green streaks in her hair and a tattoo on her left shoulder, an in-your-face rendition of a coiled snake. She was wearing a shiny gold top that was so tight Hannah could see every breath she took, and her red pants were hip-height at the waist, exposing her navel. As far as Hannah could see there was no one standing behind her waiting to get off. “I don’t see her. Where is she?”

“Right there. With the green hair.”

Hannah took another look. The apparition was still at the top of the stairs and she appeared to be having trouble with one of her gold, high-heeled tennis shoes. The heel was stuck in the metal grating of the step.

“That’s not Michelle,” Hannah said, shaking her head.

“Yes, it is. Watch this.”

Mike stepped closer to wave at the green-haired woman. “Hi, Michelle. Over here!”

The woman’s face lit up in a smile and she waved back. “Hi, Hannah! Just a sec. My shoe’s stuck.”

It
was
Michelle. Hannah groaned. She knew that college students often followed the newest clothing fads and she’d expected that Michelle might have a slightly different look, but nothing could have prepared her for seeing her baby sister in an outfit that looked like…

“I’ll go help her,” Mike said, interrupting the thoughts that Hannah didn’t want to think anyway. “Don’t worry. It’s probably just some stage she’s going through.”

“Some stage,” Hannah muttered, managing somehow to put a welcoming smile on her face. She averted her eyes as Mike bounded forward, wondering if her mother had grounds to sue the college. She’d check with Howie Levine in the morning. Better yet, she’d call him the moment she got home to her condo.

“Here she is,” Mike announced, arriving at Hannah’s side with Michelle in his arms and her left shoe dangling from his fingers. “I’m going to carry her to the car so she can change shoes. Her luggage is being unloaded right now and there’s only one piece, a pink duffle bag. Can you get it?”

“Sure,” Hannah said brightly, heading off to collect the pink bag. Perhaps the college wouldn’t admit full responsibility. Michelle had lived off campus for a semester. But at the least, they ought to refund the tuition money.

“So. How was your trip?” Hannah asked, after she’d retrieved Michelle’s bag, stashed it in the trunk, and taken her place in the passenger’s seat.

“Exciting. I almost missed the bus.” Michelle grinned at her big sister. “I just wish I’d brought my camera. I’d give anything to have a picture of your face when I got off that bus.”

“You do look…uh…pretty spectacular,” Hannah said, reminding herself that they had an audience and it would be better to wait until they were alone to read Michelle the riot act.

“I wish Mother could see me like this, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Probably not,” Hannah said, knowing that she’d just made the understatement of the year. “As far as I know, she doesn’t have heart problems…yet.”

Michelle cracked up and Hannah immediately felt better. At least her sister’s new look hadn’t leached her sense of humor.

“Could we go to your place so I can wash this green stuff out of my hair?”

“It washes out?”

“It’s supposed to. It’s a spray I got from the makeup department. You don’t think I look like this all the time, do you?”

“You don’t?”

“Of course not. I don’t dress like this, either. It’s just that I was in a student play tonight. If I’d taken the time to change out of my costume, I would have missed my bus.”

“You’re wearing a
costume!”
Hannah exclaimed, beginning to smile. “Mike and I thought it was a new kind of fad. How about the tattoo? Is that real?”

Michelle shook her head. “It’s just one of those press-on things that washes right off with soap and water. If I can use your shower, I’ll be as good as new in less than twenty minutes, I promise.”

“Hannah’s place it is,” Mike said, reaching out to pat Hannah’s hand as he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “The tattoo’s impressive. I know a woman who has one just like it.”

“Here in Lake Eden?” Hannah asked, turning to him in absolute shock.

“No, in Minneapolis. I busted her three times when I was a rookie.”