Lemon Meringue Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen Mysteries) (7 page)

D
elores sighed and leaned back against the headrest in the passenger seat of Hannah’s truck. “You were right, Hannah. The chocolate helped.”

“Chocolate always helps.” Hannah held out the bag of leftover Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cookies. When she’d started her business, she’d vowed never to sell day-old cookies. She always had some in her truck and she gave them away as samples, telling everyone that if they thought her leftover cookies were good, they should come in and taste them fresh out of the oven. People did, and they were hooked. Business at The Cookie Jar was thriving. “Have another cookie, Mother. I guarantee you’ll feel even better.”

Norman peered closely at Delores. “Your color’s coming back and you’re beginning to look like yourself again. When you feel up to it, tell me exactly what you saw. I need to go down to the basement to check it out.”

“I’m not going with you!”

“Nobody expects you to,” Hannah assured her. “I’ll go with Norman if you’ll tell us exactly where to look.”

“In the furnace room, just like I said. It’s way in the back. I was standing by a shelf filled with jars when I saw the pile of dirt.”

“Okay,” Hannah said, reaching in through the open window to pat her mother’s arm. “Do you want to come inside with us and sit in the kitchen while we look?”

“No! I’m not setting foot inside that house again, not with that dead body in there. I’ll stay right here, thank you very much.”

“That’s fine, Mother. Just honk the horn if you need us. And if it makes you feel better, roll up the windows and lock all the doors.”

Norman led the way toward the house and Hannah followed. They went down the hallway to the kitchen and approached the basement door.

“You don’t have to go, Hannah.” Norman turned to look at her. “I can take care of it.”

“And let you have all the fun?” Hannah gave him a grin. “I want to be there when we discover it’s a pile of rags, or a bag of old clothes.”

“You don’t think your mother saw a body?”

“I doubt it. Andrea said looky-lous have been traipsing through this house for the past three months. If there was anything in the basement, one of them would have found it.”

“Maybe they didn’t go down there. Your mother was very descriptive, Hannah. She said the body was partially buried in a grave.”

“A grave is nothing but a hole and someone could have dug up the floor to fix the plumbing. Mother said the furnace room light was burned out and she admitted that she couldn’t see very well. I know her better than you do, Norman. I’m sure she saw something, but she’s a drama queen. I’ll never forget the time she swore she saw a black bear going through our trash can and it was only our neighbor’s French poodle.”

“That’s good to know,” Norman said, looking relieved. “But we still have to look. Did you bring those flashlights?”

“Of course I did.” Hannah handed him a flashlight and kept one for herself.

Norman started down the steps first and Hannah let him. It was clear he was exercising his manly prerogative, and that was fine with her. She really didn’t think her mother had found a body, but it would be negligent of them not to check.

As they reached the bottom of the stairs and started to walk across the basement floor, Hannah looked around her curiously. The basement ran the full length of the house. It looked cavernous in the light from the single string of bulbs that hung from the rafters and the shadows were deep and slightly menacing.

“It’s creepy down here,” Hannah said, her voice much louder than she’d intended.

“It’s also a mess,” Norman added, stepping over a pile of old newspapers and detouring around a stack of decaying boxes. “Rhonda’s cleaning woman didn’t clean down here.”

As they picked their way past piles of greasy rags, old paint cans, and stacks of old magazines tied up with twine, Hannah let her flashlight play over the walls. One wall was covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves that held an array of home-canned vegetables and fruit. The jars were laden with years of dust, but she could still see the brightly colored contents and she was impressed. “Look at all those preserves. Mrs. Voelker must have spent a lot of hours canning.”

“Rhonda said she used to win blue ribbons for her jams and jellies at the county fairs.”

“Really?” Hannah stepped closer and let the beam of her flashlight play over the jars. “I don’t see any. These are pickles, and canned corn, and things like that. Maybe Rhonda took all the jam.”

The door to the furnace room was open and hanging by one hinge. Hannah was surprised that her mother had ventured so far into the basement without a flashlight. The lure of antiques must have been stronger than her distaste of spiders and grime.

“Hold on, Hannah.” Norman held up his hand. “I want to make sure this door doesn’t fall. I’ll hold it to let you through and then I’ll find something to prop it up.”

Norman held the door and Hannah stepped into the furnace room. It was much larger than most, a rectangular, dirt-floored space with the furnace near the center. There was a coal chute set into the outside wall, and Hannah surmised that this room had once been the entire basement. A homemade set of shelves was sitting against one of the walls. Hannah saw that it contained jam. A few jars were broken and she stepped over the shards of glass as she made her way past the furnace.

“Something’s been digging back here,” she called out to Norman, as she spotted a mound of dirt. “It was probably a big badger or mole.”

“Do you think that’s what your mother saw?”

“Maybe. I don’t see anything resembling a body, though. Mother’s imagination must have been working overtime.”

“Where are you?” Norman asked, his voice floating eerily into the darkened silence.

“In back of the furnace. Go around it to the right. Be careful where you step. There’s some broken glass on the floor near the shelves.”

Hannah stepped closer, shining her light over the mound of dirt. Just beyond it, there was a large hole in the dirt floor and she could see why Delores had assumed it was a grave. She moved closer, letting the beam of her flashlight play over the partially filled-in hole, and she drew her breath in sharply as she saw something that couldn’t be explained by any animal, no matter how large. It was a tennis shoe and it was attached to a human foot.

“Oh!” Hannah gasped, turning and almost bumping into Norman.

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Hannah said, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the doorway. “Let’s go.”

“Was it a body?” Norman asked, puffing a little as he hurried to catch up with Hannah.

“Yes!”

“In the hole?”

“Yes!” Hannah took a deep breath. “Mother was right. We have to get out to the sheriff’s station and tell them about it.”

Hannah left Norman getting coffee for Delores at the bank of machines that lined the lobby. The coffee was awful; she’d had it before, but even bad coffee was good in a pinch. She’d driven out to the sheriff’s station on autopilot, trying not to think about the gruesome discovery they’d made. The tennis shoe she’d seen had been lime green and the only person in Lake Eden who wore shoes that color was Rhonda Scharf.

“Hannah,” Mike smiled as he saw her coming toward his desk. “How’s it going?”

“Not good. Is there somewhere private we can talk?”

Mike nodded, led her to one of the conference rooms, and closed the door. When he motioned her to a chair, Hannah noticed that he looked anxious. “Don’t tell me that…”

“Norman didn’t propose,” Hannah said, guessing what was foremost in his mind. “This is something entirely unrelated.”

“What?”

“There’s a body in the basement at the Voelker place. I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s Rhonda Scharf.”

Mike looked stunned for a moment and then he pulled out his notebook. “You found another body?”

“Not this time. Mother had that honor.”

“Delores?” Mike looked even more stunned. “Is she all right?”

“Yes, if she survives the coffee in your vending machine. Norman’s with her and I gave her a triple dose of chocolate.”

“What happened?”

“We were out there looking for antiques and Mother went down to the basement to search for old tools. When she came back up, she told us she’d found a body. Norman and I checked it out, and she was right.”

“Hold on a second,” Mike interrupted her. “Let me get Bill in on this, and we’ll take your statement right now. We’ll catch your mother later, after she calms down a little.”

“Good idea,” Hannah said, settling down for a lengthy session. These things always took time and there was no rushing it. She knew that from prior experience.

By the time Hannah got back to The Cookie Jar, it was almost four in the afternoon. Jed and Freddy had finished work for the day, the customers had thinned out, and almost all of their cookies had been sold. Hannah joined Lisa behind the counter to tell her what had happened, but she didn’t say anything about the identity of the body. That could wait for official confirmation.

“Well, at least your
mother
was first on the scene,” Lisa said, speaking in an undertone so their customers couldn’t hear her. “This time she can’t accuse you of trying to embarrass her by finding dead bodies.”

“Oh yes she can. I’m not sure how, but I know this’ll wind up being all my fault.”

“You could be right,” Lisa conceded, grabbing a towel and wiping an already spotless counter. “You’re going to look into it, aren’t you?”

“No way. We’ve got a lot to do to get ready for the Fourth of July party, and Mike and Bill were pretty bent out of shape the last time I interfered in one of their cases. I am curious about one thing, though. When we got out to the Voelker place, there was one of our Lemon Meringue pies on the kitchen table. I was wondering how it got there.”

Lisa looked thoroughly stumped. “I know Norman didn’t buy a pie, and Rhonda didn’t, either. Do you want me to check my customer list?”

“What list?”

“I keep a record of everyone who buys our pies. I call them up if you’re going to bake their favorite.”

Hannah was impressed. “That’s smart marketing.”

“It works,” Lisa said, smiling broadly. “Most of them want me to save one for them and a couple have standing orders. Mrs. Jessup told me to put her down for two pies every time you bake apple.”

“And you have a record from last Friday?”

“It’s at home, but I’ll call you tonight and read off the names. It’ll probably be after ten. I’m going out to dinner with Herb.”

“That’s fine. I really want to know who bought a whole pie and only ate one piece. It’s practically an insult.”

“I know, especially when it’s your Lemon Meringue.” Lisa looked up to see a customer holding his coffee mug aloft. “Mayor Bascomb wants a refill. Do you want to get it while I mix up a batch of Walnuttoes for tomorrow? Donna Lempke called and ordered six dozen for her cousin’s birthday party.”

“I’ll do the Walnuttoes. You do the coffee.”

“But are you sure? They’re chocolate and you’re on a diet.”

Hannah gave an ironic grin. “That’s okay. Seeing that body took my appetite away.”

“The Dead Body Diet?” Lisa started to grin as she picked up the carafe. “I’m surprised someone hasn’t thought of it before. What do you want me to say if anyone asks me about what you saw in the basement?”

“Nobody will. Bill and Mike won’t release any information until they confirm the identity, and Norman won’t say anything because they asked him not to.”

“But how about your mother?”

“Oh-oh,” Hannah groaned. It was a sure bet that Delores had told someone by now. Actually, the odds were good that she’d told hundreds of someones. “Just say that Mike and Bill are handling it and I’m not involved.”

Lisa snorted. “They’ll never swallow that.”

“Maybe not, but it’s true. Wild horses couldn’t drag me into this one. As of right now, I’m officially retired from the murder business.”

“Then you think it was murder?” Lisa’s eyes grew round.

“All I know is someone’s dead. It’s up to Doc Knight to determine who, when, and how.”

Hannah turned and headed back to the kitchen before Lisa could ask more questions. She was convinced that the body they’d found was Rhonda Scharf, and as she got out her recipe book, Hannah swallowed past the lump in her throat. Rhonda had never been one of her close friends, but she hadn’t disliked her. And no one should have to die in a gloomy, moldy basement only hours before leaving on the best vacation of her life. Of course Rhonda had been murdered. The fact that someone had tried to bury her confirmed that. If Rhonda had died accidentally, the person who’d found her would have called the sheriff’s department to report it.

It didn’t take long to mix up the dough for the Walnuttoes. Hannah had baked them twice a week for the past two years, but she still took the precaution of checking off the ingredients on the laminated surface of her recipe. She was preoccupied with Rhonda’s death and preoccupation led to mistakes.