Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (17 page)

“W
ho baked the Red Velvet Surprise Cupcakes for the victim?”

Hannah glanced over at Howie Levine. He gave a little nod and she knew that it was all right to answer Mike’s question. The moment she’d left the condo with Mike, Delores had called Doc Knight on her cell phone to find out the results of the autopsy, and Norman had called Howie Levine, Lake Eden’s lawyer, and asked him to meet Hannah when she arrived at the sheriff’s station.

“I baked them,” Hannah answered.

“Was there anyone else in the kitchen when you baked them?”

Again, Hannah looked over at Howie. She didn’t like the idea of getting legal advice on each and every question Mike asked her, but she knew it was the wise thing to do. “Lisa came in a couple of times when they were in the oven, but I was alone when I mixed up the batter.”

Howie motioned for Hannah to move closer. Then he spoke in an undertone. “You’re being too helpful, Hannah. Just answer the question he asks. Don’t volunteer information.”

“What should I have said?” Hannah asked, also in an undertone.

“You should have said yes. No more than that. There was someone with you in the kitchen when you baked them. It’s up to him to ask who that person was and how long they were there. Don’t do his work for him.”

Hannah sighed and turned back to Mike again. So far his questions had covered every single thing she’d done from the time she’d gotten up this morning to the time he’d arrived on the scene after she’d discovered Doctor Bev’s body in the car and pulled her onto the shore. He’d covered that period of time in minute detail twice, and now he was covering it for the third time.

The door to the interrogation room, the room that Mike had once called
the box
, clicked open, to admit Lonnie. Lonnie didn’t say anything. He just motioned to Mike.

“Excuse me.” Mike spoke to them politely, and then he stood up and left the room.

Hannah closed her eyes. She’d never been so exhausted in her life. She wondered if every suspect who had gone through the same material multiple times had been as exhausted as she was right now. All she wanted to do was go home and go to bed.

Perhaps she dozed for a brief moment, hoping that all this was simply a very bad dream. When she opened her eyes again, she turned to Howie with a question. “It doesn’t usually take this long to give a statement about finding a murder victim, does it?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought. They think I put something in those cupcakes to kill Doctor Bev, don’t they?”

“It seems that way.”

“Do
you
think I killed her?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I do or I don’t. It’s my responsibility to make sure you don’t inadvertently incriminate yourself during the interrogation.”

“But
do
you think I killed her? I want to know!”

Howie shook his head. “No, of course I don’t think you killed her.”

Hannah drew a relieved breath. “That makes me feel a lot better. Why don’t you think I killed her?”

“There were too many mistakes,” Howie said. “Using poison or another lethal substance as a murder weapon necessitates planning and premeditation. You have to obtain the substance, you have to devise a way to deliver it to the victim without being detected, and unless you simply don’t care about collateral damage, you have to make certain no one except your intended victim consumes it. You didn’t do any of those things.”

“That’s true, but how does that convince you that I’m innocent?”

Howie smiled. “You’re smart, Hannah. You would have known all this. And frankly, just between you and me, if you’d set out to kill Doctor Bev, you wouldn’t have made any rookie mistakes.”

Hannah blinked. She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, and she wasn’t quite sure how she should respond. But it didn’t matter because before she could think of a reply, the door to the interrogation room opened and Mike came back in.

“You’re free to go, Hannah,” he said.

“But . . .” Hannah began to ask him why he’d suddenly stopped before he finished asking all the questions he’d asked her before when Howie reached out to take her arm.

“Thank you, Detective Kingston,” Howie said, and then he turned to Hannah. “Come with me, Hannah. I’ll drive you home.”

Hannah took the hint that wasn’t exactly gentle, and merely nodded. Howie didn’t want her to say another word in front of Mike. Mike was all cop and she was all prime murder suspect. This was not a friendly situation and the sooner she put distance between them, the better.

 

Hannah dove down toward the darkness that gathered at the very bottom of the pond. As she descended into the curious half-light that caused colors to change and fade into some strange hue that went nameless on color charts, she spotted the car. The rippling water made it appear to be moving forward, driving across the bottom of the pond. Even the driver appeared to be moving with her blond hair trailing out in wispy tendrils behind her.

She wanted to leave, to go back up to the surface where it was bright and safe. The driver was dead. She knew that. But as she approached the side of the car, the woman turned her head and stared into Hannah’s eyes with her dead wavy eyes. And then she lifted one pale hand and beckoned Hannah closer.

She didn’t want to go. She knew she shouldn’t go. But some force stronger than the waving water drew her closer to the car. The driver smiled as she approached. Her mouth opened and a rush of bubbles came out. Not dead then. You couldn’t make bubbles without air in your lungs.

The woman used one long wavy finger to point to the passenger seat. She wanted Hannah to get into the car and sit next to her. But Hannah didn’t want to get in with a dead woman who still had air in her lungs.

There was another burst of bubbles and Hannah heard something. It was barely audible, but it was a word and the word was
closer
.

Despite her revulsion, Hannah felt her body move forward. She seemed to have no control over her muscles as they carried her to the side of the car. And then the woman’s arm snaked out to remove the thermos on the passenger seat and to pull Hannah into the seat. Her long wavy fingers clicked the seat belt securely into place, and then she laughed over and over, an insane, cascading laugh like the loons that called across the lake in the dead of night. And then her arms shot out to wrap around Hannah’s chest like a band of wet steel that expelled the last breath of air from her body, squeezing, scratching, and kneading her into submission.

And then, as Hannah felt herself sink lower and lower, heading toward the dim recesses of her watery grave, there was another burst of bubbles from the dead woman’s mouth that formed words.

Go for a ride
, her eerie underwater voice said.
Go for a ride and stay with me forever
.

“Noooooo!” Hannah moaned in terror, pushing back the weight of the dead woman’s arms and sitting bolt upright in bed. Almost simultaneously there was an irate yowl from Moishe as he landed on the rug by the side of the bed.

It took a full minute for Hannah to realize that it had all been a dream, a terrible nightmare. She must have made some sounds of distress while she was in the throes of the nightmare and Moishe had jumped up on her chest. She wasn’t sure if he’d been trying to protect her from her nightmare or whether he was merely curious, but her sleeping mind had incorporated him into the fabric of the horrible dream.

“I’m sorry if I scared you, Moishe. Come here and I’ll scratch you behind the ears. Everything’s okay. I’m awake now.”

Moishe regarded her with unblinking eyes from the top of her dresser. His tail flicked once and Hannah knew that he was not about to risk a repeat of his unceremonious exit from her bed.

Hannah reached out to turn on the light and stopped in midair. She didn’t need the light. Daylight was streaming through her bedroom window. But that was impossible. This was a workday and she always got up in the dark on a workday.

One glance at the clock told her the truth. It was nine-thirty in the morning. She’d slept right through her alarm. Of course that wasn’t surprising. When she’d come back to the condo, long after midnight, she’d been utterly exhausted and very grateful to see Michelle waiting up for her. They’d talked about everything that had happened until Hannah could no longer keep her eyes open, and Michelle had insisted that she go to bed. And now she’d slept right through the summons of her extra-loud alarm clock. Or had she?

The button to activate her alarm clock was not pulled out. And she distinctly remembered pulling it out when she’d gone to bed. Someone had come in and turned off her alarm, and since there was no one else here, Michelle must have done it.

Hannah pulled on her slippers, got into her robe, and padded down the hallway to the guest room. All she needed to see was the neatly made bed and she knew that Michelle was up. But Michelle wasn’t in the living room and she wasn’t in the kitchen either. There was, however, a note propped up next to the coffeemaker.

Coffee’s ready to go
, the note read.
Just turn it on
.
No need to hurry. Lisa and I have everything covered at the shop. Jack and Marge are helping. I baked Jamboree Muffins. They’re in a basket on the kitchen table. Let me know what you think of them. Mother called. Cancel taking Moishe to see Barbara this afternoon. If you can, Doc Knight wants you to come tonight around six. Mother is bringing Jenny in to meet you at work this afternoon. Hope you got good sleep. Love, Michelle
.

Hannah turned on the coffee machine and sat down in a chair at the Formica-topped kitchen table that was already considered an antique. The basket of muffins sat in the center of the table and there was a stack of paper napkins and a jar of soft butter next to it. There was even a table knife to spread the butter. Michelle had thought of everything.

Unable to resist at least a peek, Hannah lifted the napkin that covered the muffins. There were six nestled inside, their tops puffed and golden. Jamboree Muffins must be one of Michelle’s new recipes. Hannah had never tasted a Jamboree Muffin before.

She told herself she should wait for her coffee to be ready, but the aroma of freshly baked muffins was too compelling to deny. Hannah took one out of the basket, broke it open, and began to smile. Jamboree was a perfect name for these muffins since there was a spoonful of strawberry jam in the center.

She ate the first half of the muffin without butter. It was delicious. She spread butter on the second half and that was delicious, too. She wasn’t quite sure which way was best so she got up to pour herself a cup of coffee, and decided that in the interests of research, she really ought to run another trial.

It was back to the muffin basket to choose another muffin. There was no way to tell what was inside each muffin so she chose one at random and hoped it would be a strawberry again, or another kind of jam she liked. That brought up the question of whether there was any jam or jelly she didn’t like, and Hannah took a moment to think about it. “Mint jelly,” she said to Moishe, who’d just come into the kitchen. Andrea had once made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with mint jelly and they had been simply awful.

Moishe was looking at her expectantly, so she got up and filled his food bowl and gave him fresh water even though Michelle might have fed him earlier. Then she washed her hands and went back to the table to run the second trial.

The second muffin was filled with a spoonful of peach jam. Norman would love muffins with peach jam. She’d remember to get the recipe from Michelle so that she could bake them for him. She probably should have saved this one for him, but she’d already broken it open and it was too late now.

Four cups of coffee and a third trial with another muffin, one with grape jelly inside, and Hannah decided she couldn’t decide if the muffins were better with or without butter. She also concluded that she couldn’t conclude which jam or jelly she liked best. She had the terrible urge to break the remaining muffins open to see which kind of jam or jelly was inside each one, but she remembered how upset Delores had been with her years ago when Hannah had scraped some chocolate off the bottom of each piece of candy in the box so that she could identify her favorite one.
It’s not polite
, Delores had told a four-year-old Hannah.
You touched them all and now no one else will want to eat them
.

Hannah gave a little laugh at the memory. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but her mother had taught her an important lesson that day. If you wanted to eat an entire box of candy and not share it with anyone else, all you had to do was touch each piece. She had the childish urge to touch the remaining three muffins so that they would be hers, all hers, but she told herself that doing so would be childish, and she went off to take her morning shower instead.