Joanne Fluke Christmas Bundle: Sugar Cookie Murder, Candy Cane Murder, Plum Pudding Murder, & Gingerbread Cookie Murder (32 page)

H
annah had just finished packing up everything she needed for the luncheon when Lisa came in through the swinging restaurant-style door carrying a tub of miniature candy canes, and a large shopping bag with Bergstrom’s logo emblazoned on the front. “Your mother was just here and she dropped these off for you,” she said.

“I know about the candy canes. I asked her to pick them up for me. I’m almost afraid to ask, but…what’s in the shopping bag?”

“Two things. The first is a Santa suit.”

“But I wanted her to look at it, not buy it!”

Lisa laughed. “That’s exactly what she said you’d say. She bought it for Bill so that he could play Santa at the sheriff’s department Christmas party. She says she’ll give it to him later, after you take a good look at it.”

“Okay. What’s the second thing in the bag?”

“A new purse. She says she just wants you to see it. You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want to.”

Hannah groaned. “So you think she’ll be insulted if I don’t keep it?”

“She’s your mother. Of course she’ll be insulted. You’ll have to use it at least once, Hannah.”

Hannah wanted to object, but Lisa was right. It was inevitable. Delores was determined to give her the purse and it might just be time to clean out her old one, although she hated to admit it. “Later,” she said, deciding to tackle that problem once she’d solved Wayne’s murder.

“You’d better get going if you want to preheat those ovens down at the community center.”

“I’m just going to crush some of those candy canes for the batch of Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies I’ve got in the cooler.”

“I’ll do that while you’re gone. Do you need help loading your truck? Marge and Dad are out front taking care of the customers so I can carry stuff out for you.”

“Not a problem. I’ve got it covered.” Hannah glanced at her partner. Lisa was wearing the frilly dress apron they used in the coffee shop and her light brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked like what Hannah’s grandmother would have called “a slip of a girl,” but Grandma Ingrid would have been wrong to dismiss Lisa Herman Beeseman so lightly. Not only did Lisa work full time at The Cookie Jar, she also kept what Hannah’s grandmother would have termed a “preacher-ready house,” cooked nutritious meals for her new husband every night, and visited her father, who had Alzheimer’s, at least five times a week. Lisa was on the go every second, and Hannah often wished she had that kind of energy. She told herself it was because a twenty-year-old possessed double the energy of women who’d passed the thirty-year milestone, but that probably wasn’t true.

“Did you use the invisible waitress trick?” Hannah asked her, referring to the strange phenomenon she’d discovered the first day she opened her coffee shop. If two customers were having a private conversation, they kept right on talking about confidential matters while Hannah or Lisa refilled their coffee mugs, or delivered their cookie orders. It was as though the moment Hannah or Lisa picked up a coffee carafe, or a tray of cookies, they became incapable of overhearing anything that was said. Armed with the invisible cloak of a frilly serving apron, they ceased to exist as living, breathing human beings and turned into part of the woodwork.

“You bet I used it,” Lisa replied with a grin. “When you first told me about it, I thought you were crazy, but it works every time I do it. I didn’t hear anything though, not unless you want to count Cyril Murphy’s crazy theory about what happened to Wayne.”

“What’s Cyril’s theory?”

“The part I heard had to do with alien abductions gone bad.”

“I didn’t know Cyril believed in aliens!”

Lisa shrugged. “It doesn’t surprise me. It’s a lot like believing in the Little People. Cyril tells everybody he believes in them.”

“He’s Irish. He has to say he believes in Leprechauns even if he doesn’t. It goes with the territory along with the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, kissing the Blarney stone, and drinking green beer on St. Patrick’s Day. What did you hear Cyril say?”

“I have to tell you what happened first.”

“Okay.” Hannah motioned to a stool at the stainless steel work counter and Lisa sat down. “Go ahead.”

“Cyril came in with Brigit and they sat at a table with Rick and Jessica,” Lisa named Cyril’s wife, oldest son, and daughter-in-law. “Jessica was talking about how nice Sally’s party was and how much fun they were having until Mike came over and put Rick to work interviewing everybody.”

“Go on.”

“Then Brigit asked Rick for more particulars about how Wayne died, and Rick told her he wasn’t supposed to give out any information. And Brigit wanted to know why not since Jake and Kelly had announced on KCOW that it was a massive blow to the back of the head that had caved in Wayne’s skull and caused his death.”

Hannah made a mental note to try to get her hands on the crime scene photos. If she remembered correctly, Wayne had been wearing his Santa hat when she found him. The hat was made of thick, furry red material and it had a wide cuff of white fur all the way around it. The blow must have been delivered with considerable force to cave in Wayne’s skull right through his padded hat.

“Then they started to talk about who could have killed Wayne. Rick didn’t say much and I figured he was a little uncomfortable about maybe leaking some information without meaning to do it, but Jessica and Brigit were talking about all the people Wayne had overcharged at the store. And then Cyril spoke up and said he knew exactly how Wayne had died, and the killer was going to get away with it.”

“That’s when the subject of alien abduction came up?” Hannah guessed.

“That’s right. But first Cyril asked them if they’d noticed how bright the moon was last night. And they all said they’d noticed.”

“Cyril’s right about that. I noticed it, and so did Andrea and Michelle. We even commented on it when we were walking to the parking lot.”

“Well, Cyril said the reason it was that bright was because the aliens were refracting the moon’s energy with the hull of their giant space ship. And what they’d thought was the moon was really the hull of the ship.”

Hannah snorted. She couldn’t help it. “Oh, boy!”

“That’s not all. Cyril claimed that the aliens practiced thought control on Wayne, drawing him off the path and making him climb up the side of that steep snow bank.”

“Why would they do that?”

“That’s what Jessica asked him. And Cyril said the reason they wanted Wayne to climb up to the top was so they could take a better look at him.”

“They were too nearsighted to see him on the ground?” Hannah’s grin grew wider.

“I guess so. Or maybe they just didn’t refract enough of the moon’s energy to light him up.” Lisa gave a little giggle. “Anyway, that was when Brigit had to leave the table. She pretended to have a bad cough, but I could tell she was laughing.”

“Can’t blame Brigit for that.”

“I know. I almost lost it, too. But Cyril kept right on talking. He said that when the aliens caught sight of the white fur on Wayne’s Santa costume, they assumed he was an animal instead of a human. And since they had already abducted enough animals, they pushed him back down the snow bank.”

“Killing him in the process?”

“That’s what Cyril said. Is he crazy, or what?”

Hannah was about to agree that the master mechanic who fixed her cookie truck had slipped several cogs. But before she could say that, she remembered a small notice she’d read in the
Lake Eden Journal
. The Wolf Pack Lodge would be holding their annual Whopper Contest next week. If she remembered correctly, Cyril had won last year with his story about how the porcupine got its quills. “He’s not crazy,” she said.

“He’s
not?
”

“No, he’s just practicing for the Whopper Contest.”

Lisa rolled her eyes. “I don’t think it’s very nice to joke about murder. Of course Cyril isn’t exactly mourning Wayne Bergstrom, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Herb said they got into a really big fight a couple of days ago at the garage. Herb was picking up his squad car and there they were really going at it. Cyril was accusing Wayne of trying to put him out of business, and they were yelling, and shaking their fists, and…oh, gosh!” Lisa stopped speaking and her mouth dropped open. When she recovered enough to speak again, she raised shocked eyes to Hannah. “You don’t think that…?”

“Anything’s possible,” Hannah told her. “One thing’s for sure. I’m going to call Herb the minute I get those ovens turned on and find out all about it.”

Edna Ferguson, the head cook at Jordan High and Hannah’s helper for the luncheon, came into the kitchen at the community center and sniffed appreciatively. “They’re going to love your quiches,” she said.

“I hope so.” Hannah stared down at the lineup she’d just taken from the oven. “What’s our E. T. L.?”

Edna looked puzzled for a moment and then she laughed so hard, her tightly wound gray curls bounced. “Estimated Time of Luncheon?” she asked.

“That’s right.”

“I’d say twenty minutes. The last club member just came in and your mother’s getting ready to present the awards.”

Hannah was confused. Delores had called her at the shop to say that Jenny Perkins had canceled, and so had one other award recipient. “I talked to Mother this morning and she thought the awards would take only ten minutes.”

“It always takes longer than they think it will. I’ve been coming to these things for years now, and everybody always wants to thank somebody. It’s their time in the limelight, you know? I call it the Oscars at Lake Eden.”

“You’re right,” Hannah said. But unlike the Academy Awards, she couldn’t crank up the music to get the winners to stop talking. There was one thing she could do though, and she turned to Edna with a question. “Do you know if there’s a fan around here?”

“You mean an exhaust fan?”

“No, a window fan. It doesn’t have to be very big.”

Edna turned on her heel and headed for the big walk-in pantry. In just a moment, she was back with a small round fan that looked ancient. “How’s this?”

“Perfect, if it still works.”

“It does. I used it last summer. Where do you want me to set it up?”

“Behind the row of quiches. Then I want you to open the shutters to the pass-through window an inch or two, and turn on the fan.”

Edna looked puzzled as she hooked up the fan and opened the shutters. “What are you doing, Hannah?” she asked.

“Aroma therapy.”

“Aroma ther…oh!” Edna gave a very girlish-sounding giggle for someone who’d passed the age of consent more than thirty years previously. “You’re a clever one, Hannah! And it ought to work. Once they get a whiff of your quiches, the only person they’ll want to thank is the cook!”