Peach Cobbler Murder (29 page)

Hannah and Norman listened as Andrea read the number to the person at the other end of the line. “Okay. I’ll hold on.”

“She’s going to look in the files,” Andrea said, shaking her head like a runner after a tiring race. “She wants to help me, so that’s a plus.”

Time passed in a series of breaths in and out. Norman exchanged glances with Hannah and Andrea, and they exchanged glances with him. And then Andrea turned back to the phone. the assistant at Peachtree Photos had come back on the line.

“Hi. Yes, I’m still here. Bobby Joe Peters bought the negative? Who’s he?”

Another moment passed and Andrea laughed. “Right. I should have known you wouldn’t have that information. But he paid for the photo and the negative?”

Andrea and Hannah exchanged glances. Who was Bobby Joe Peters?

“You’re right! I don’t know why we didn’t think of that! All we have to do is scan it and take it to a copy place to make a blowup. Thanks so much for suggesting it.”

“Bobby Joe Peters?” Norman asked, when Andrea had hung up the phone.

“That’s right,” Hannah answered, reading from Andrea’s notes. “Vanessa and Winthrop must have been out with another couple, and the other man paid for the photos.”

Andrea frowned slightly. “I guess that makes sense. We really didn’t learn much, did we?”

“We learned enough to do another search on the Internet,” Norman said. “Why don’t you two go back to The Cookie Jar while I find out all I can about Bobby Joe? I’ll start a search and let it run during my next appointment. I’ve got somebody coming in at one, but then I’m free for an hour. I can walk up and bring you the printout.”

“Good heavens!” Lisa said, staring down at the framed photograph. “Does your mother know about this?”

”No. I mean, yes . . . but not really. That is, she knows, but . . . “ Andrea stopped trying to explain and turned to her sister. “Hannah!”

It was the same desperate tone Andrea had used in high school when she’d encountered a math problem she couldn’t solve Hannah responded as she had back then. “Relax. I’ll explain.“ And then she proceeded to do it. “Mother’s seen the photo, but she thinks the woman is Shawna Lee. It’s not. It’s Vanessa.”

“And Winthrop.”

“That’s right. And a man named Bobby Joe Peters paid for the photo. Norman’s checking him out on the Internet right now and he’ll be here around two with a printout.”

“Do you think this Bobby Joe Peters is important?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know. If we’re operating under the assumption that Shawna Lee was killed because she looked like Vanessa, he could be very important.” Hannah stopped and took a deep breath. “Really, it’s a long shot, but we don’t have any other clues,” she admitted. “Besides, Mother will probably want us to contact Bobby Joe Peters to find out exactly what Winthrop was doing with Vanessa.”

“You’re early!” Hannah exclaimed when she opened the back door of The Cookie Jar in response to a series of quick, had knocks and found Norman standing there. “Do you want some Shrimp Bisque? It’s really delicious.”

“I’m sure it is. Can I take some with me and heat it in the microwave?”

Hannah ladled a generous helping into a take-out container. “Here you go,” she said, handing it to him.

“Thanks. The reason I’m here is because I took a quick peek at the printout while I was waiting for Mrs. Kuehn’s X rays. She’s in the chair and I’ve got tog et right back.”

“What’s so important in the printout?” Andrea asked, shutting the door behind Norman to keep out the cold.

“Bobby Joe Peters. There’s a picture of him on page five. I think he’s Winthrop. At least he looks exactly like Winthrop without the mustache.”

“Uh-oh!” Hannah swallowed hard. “But . . . can you tell by his teeth? The way you did with Vanessa?”

“He’s not smiling. They don’t let them smile in mug shots. Read it, you’ll see. I’ve got to get back before Mrs. Kuehn thinks I deserted her.”

After Norman had left to rush back to his patient, Hannah and Andrea sat down at the workstation and read every word of the printout. Bobby Joe Peters did look exactly like Winthrop, but that wasn’t the most frightening part. Bobby Joe Peters had escaped from a minimum-security prison in Georgia last August. He’d been sentenced to ten years for scamming an elderly woman out of her retirement money.

“Do you think Bobby Joe is Winthrop? And do you think that’s why he’s dating Mother?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Hannah said, handing her sister the next page of the printout. “Read. There’s more.”

By the time the two sisters were through reading, they knew everything about Bobby Joe Peters except his shoe size. The upshot was that he was a con artist who’d gone by various aliases in the past and he’d been known to work with a female accomplice.

“But Winthrop didn’t bring a woman to Lake Eden with him,” Andrea pointed out.

“Maybe she’s still in prison. Or maybe this time he decided to work alone. Do you think we should show this to Mother right away?”

“Yes,” Andrea said, getting up to get her coat.

“I’ll be right with you,” Hannah called out, grabbing a bag and stuffing it with Twin Chocolate Delights. “Mother’s going to need chocolate after she finds out that Winthrop isn’t Winthrop.”

A cold wind was blowing as the two sisters rushed the short distance between the buildings and ducked in the back door of Granny’s Attic. As usual, there was barely room to turn around since the mothers were using the back room for a storeroom. Andrea slid around the back of an oval mirror and hopped over a footstool with clawed feet. Hannah followed her sister’s lead and eventually they beat a circuitous route to the inside door.

“Hi, Carrie,” Andrea greeted Norman’s mother, who was manning the front counter. “Where’s Mother?”

“You just missed her by a half hour or so. She said she had an errand to run and it could take most of the afternoon. She’ll be back before closing, though.”

“Do you know what the errand is?” Hannah asked, hoping that Carrie had been her usual nosy self.

“Not completely, but I now she checked to make sure she had her bankbook, so I assume she went there. And I think it had something to do with Winthrop, but I’m not entirely positive about that.”

“Why do you think it had something to do with Winthrop?” Hannah followed with the obvious question.

“Because she said something about how people in love had to trust one another and it was a good thing she knew where he hides his extra key. I figured she had to be talking about Winthrop, since he’s the only man she’s been serious about since your father died. I just hope my best and oldest friend doesn’t get hurt. There’s something about Winthrop that’s just too . . . too . . . “

“Slick,” Hannah supplied the word and then she handed over the cookie bag. “Don’t worry, Carrie. We’ll find her. In the meantime, have a couple of these cookies. They’ll make you feel better.”

After warning Carrie to keep Delores at Granny’s Attic if she came back, and making sure Lisa would do the same at The Cookie Jar, Hannah armed herself with another bag of Twin Chocolate Delights and climbed into the passenger seat of Andrea’s Volvo. Their destination was the First National Mercantile Bank. The bank was only a stone’s throw away, but Andrea had insisted on taking her Volvo so that they could chase after their mother if they saw her.

The lines at the bank were impossible and Hannah headed straight for Doug Greerson’s office instead of waiting. Doug was a hands-on bank president. He knew everything that happened at First National Mercantile and he’d know if Delores had come in. That was one of the reasons Hannah hadn’t asked Doug for a loan to bail out The Cookie Jar. Doug wouldn’t have talked, but all the loan applications had to be run past the board and it was a cinch that someone would have mentioned it.

“Hannah.” Doug stood up to greet them when Hannah tapped on his open office door. “And Andrea. Would you like a cup of coffee? I’ve got a nice French roast from Guatemala.”

“Not this time, Doug,” Hannah answered for both of them. “We’re in a real rush.”

“We just came to see if Mother’s been in,” Andrea entered into the conversation.

“She was here earlier. She left about fifteen minutes ago.”

“Did she happen to say where she was going?” Hannah asked.

“No. And I didn’t ask. What’s wrong?”

Hannah exchanged glances with Andrea. Doug could be trusted. “Please don’t say anything to Mother about this, but we think someone she knows may be conning her out of a large sum of money. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“An investment scheme?” Doug asked.

“It’s probably something like that. we were just hoping she didn’t withdraw a lot of money.”

“I can’t tell you what she withdrew,” Doug said, shaking his head. “All I can do is tell you that she needed a manager’s approval to make the withdrawal.”

“And a manger has to approve any amount over . . . ?”

“Two thousand dollars. And I have to personally approve any amount over fifty thousand. Just in case you’re interest, no one’s asked for my approval today.”

“Thanks, Doug,” Hannah said, realizing that he’d just told them that their mother had withdrawn over two thousand dollars and under fifty thousand dollars.

”At least she didn’t have to ask for Doug’s approval,” Andrea said as she slid back behind the wheel of her car.

“That’s true, but she could have withdrawn forty-nine thousand dollars.”

“That’s a lot! What should we do? Go and look for her?”

“Drive past the house and we’ll see if her car’s there.”

Andrea turned the corner and drove to their mother’s house. Hannah rang the bell, but there was no answer and the sisters let themselves in. a check of the garage revealed that it was empty. Their mother was out somewhere in her car.

“I’ll leave a note,” Hannah said, scrawling on a piece of cardboard she found in the kitchen, and propping it up by the staircase that faced the front door. “She’s bound to see that when she comes in.”

“Unless she comes in through the garage.”

“Which she probably will, since she’s driving. Thanks, Andrea. I’m so rattled, I’m not thinking clearly.” Hannah moved the note to a kitchen chair and placed the chair directly in front of the inside door to the garage. “That ought to do it. She can’t get in without moving that chair. What do you think?”

“Winthrop is a convict using a false name. Dangerous. Call Hannah and Andrea right away!” Andrea read the message out loud. “That’s good, but do you think she’ll believe it?”

“I don’t know. I hope so. Let’s go check Winthrop’s apartment. That money she withdrew was for him. I’m almost sure of that.”

“But he won’t be back until dinnertime tonight. I don’t think Mother would just sit there and wait for him, do you?”

“Not in a million years. Mother’s not a patient person. She probably dropped off the money for him in an envelope, just like she used to do with us when she wasn’t home to give us our allowances.”

“A sealed envelope,” Andrea reminded her. “That was so you couldn’t tell how much I was getting and I couldn’t tell how much you were getting. Remember?”

“Of course. So how much were you getting?”

“I’ll never tell.”

“Neither will I. Come on, let’s go. If Mother’s left an envelope with Winthrop’s name on it, I’ll just take it and that’ll solve the problem.”

It was starting to snow again as Andrea turned onto the highway, and Hannah thought about how she’d rather be driving than riding with Andrea. “We could have taken my truck this time, now that the heater’s fixed.”

“Your truck’s too distinctive. If the envelope’s there and you take it, we don’t want someone saying they saw your cookie truck behind his building in a visitor’s spot.”

“True,” Hannah said. Andrea had a point. “So do you think Winthrop is really Bobby Joe Peters? Or do you think Bobby Joe is Winthrop’s evil twin?”

“He’s Bobby Joe Peters. Remember when I said everything about him was too generic and he acted like someone playing an English lord in a movie?”

“I remember.”

“Well, that’s what he’s been doing. He’s Bobby Joe Peters all right. And we’ve got to keep Mother from giving him our inheritance.”

“Our inheritance?” Hannah was shocked.

“I didn’t really mean that the way it sounded, but Mother promised to do things for Tracey and Bethany.”

“What things?”

“Like putting them through college. And that’s getting more expensive every year. If she gives Winthrop almost fifty thousand dollars, there may not be enough.”

“Oh,” Hannah said, not commenting one way or the other. Since she was the one who’d move back in with their mother after their father died, and Delores had never even balanced a checkbook before, Hannah had assumed the role of her mother’s accountant. That made her privy to information that Andrea and Michelle didn’t have. Hannah knew that her mother had enough in securities and investments to live off the interest the rest of her life and not even touch the principle. But no one knew that except Hannah and Delores, and neither one of them was talking.

“Mother’s not going to go broke, is she?” Andrea asked, the worry plain in her voice.

“It’s not likely,” Hannah said. “even if she withdrew a fairly large hunk of cash, she’ll be okay. But there’s no way I want to see that snake get anything from her except the back of her hand.”

“Right!” Andrea said, stepping on the gas.

“Slow down, Andrea. We can’t stop Winthrop, or Bobby Joe, or whoever he really is from taking Mother’s money if we’re a highway statistic.”

“True.”

Andrea slowed down a bit, but she was still traveling too fast to suit Hannah. Hannah reminded herself that her sister had never been involved in an accident and tried not to watch as the speedometer headed upward again. They’d make it. They had to. And they’d save the day. Delores would be there, stuffing an envelope with money for Winthrop. And Hannah would spirit her mother and the cash off to safety before the rat came back to collect his ill-gotten gains.

“Park right here,” Hannah advised, pointing to the space right across from the one allotted to apartment number 223. “If Winthrop drives in, honk three times.”