Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(27)

“I don’t see why not. Just don’t tell anyone what it’s called.”

“But what if they ask?” Patsy wanted to know.

“Make up something. I’m sure Joyce and the committee won’t mind. You could call it Anniversary Hotdish. They probably serve it for anniversaries, too.”

“That’s a good idea,” Marge complimented her. “An anniversary’s a happy occasion.”

“Not necessarily.”

Marge turned to give her sister a sharp look. “You still haven’t worked things out with Mac?”

“The only thing we agree on is not to agree. Would you believe Mac wanted me to ask Gus for the five hundred dollars I lent him right before he left Lake Eden? With thirty years of interest, no less! He even offered to do it for me. Can you believe it?”

“I believe it,” Marge said, shaking her head. “Mac’s never been shy about money.”

“Tell me about it! But that’s only one of the things we fought about.” Patsy glanced over at Hannah. “I don’t want to bore Hannah with the details. Hand me the onions and celery, will you, Marge? I’ll chop them up and start frying them.”

Hannah could see that Patsy was uncomfortable, and Marge didn’t look exactly calm and serene, either. Since they were already upset, she figured she might as well introduce another upsetting subject.

“You know that I found Gus, don’t you?” When both sisters nodded, Hannah went on. “Are there any questions that you’d like to ask me about how he died?”

Marge and Patsy turned to each other and frowned. “Not really,” Marge answered. “The police told us everything we needed to know.”

Hannah just stared from one to the other in surprise. Usually the victim’s relatives wanted to know everything.

“To tell you the truth, Hannah, none of the relatives really liked him all that well,” Patsy confided.

“Why?”

“Well…” Marge took over. “He just wasn’t like the brother we remember. His personality was completely different.”

“In what way?”

“He bragged a lot, and he flashed money around. People from Minnesota don’t usually do that,” Patsy explained. “And he seemed to think he was a lot better than we were. It was like he was amused by us.”

“But he came back to see all of you when he saw the notice of the reunion in the paper.”

Both Marge and Patsy shook their heads. “No, he didn’t,” Marge insisted. “Lisa and Herb didn’t put any notices in the paper. All they did was mail out invitations to the relatives in our address books.”

“So how did Gus find out about it?” Hannah was puzzled.

“We think he must have seen the posters that Lisa and Herb put up on Main Street,” Patsy answered.

“You mean, he just stumbled on the reunion when he came back to see his long-lost family?”

“Came back to gloat is more like it,” Patsy commented.

“Patsy!” Marge chided her.

“Well, it’s true. We both know Gus wasn’t like that when he left. He was a little wild, but that was because Mom and Dad spoiled him.”

“The high school girls didn’t help. The way they fell all over him made him pretty full of himself.” Marge gave a little sigh. “He was never a bad person, though…at least not back then.”

For the second time in less than an hour, Hannah kept her expression perfectly blank. Maybe Gus hadn’t been a bad person when he’d left Lake Eden, but the years that had passed had turned him into someone she wouldn’t describe as nice. A nice person didn’t talk about all he had to the have-nots in Lake Eden. A nice person didn’t try to control everything, or order other people to wait on him hand and foot. A nice person would have made allowances for Jack Herman when he learned that Jack had Alzheimer’s. Gus knew about it. Hannah had heard Marge mention it to her brother. But Gus had still faced off against Jack the night of the dance.

“Maybe Gus changed over the years,” Hannah offered, since they seemed to be waiting for her to say something.

Marge exchanged glances with Patsy. “Or maybe there’s another explanation,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“Neither one of us is sure he really was our brother Gus.”

“You think he was pretending to be your brother Gus?”

“We don’t know, for sure.” It was Patsy who answered this time. “We had a family meeting while you were in talking to Mike. Some of the relatives thought he was Gus, but the others were positive he wasn’t.”

Hannah felt knocked completely off balance. She hadn’t expected this turn of events! “If he was an imposter, he was a good one. He seemed to know a lot about your brother’s life.”

“Not that much, really.” Patsy shook her head. “We compared notes, and all he really knew were the basics. We think maybe he knew Gus and that’s why he was so good at pretending to be him. Marge could pretend to be me around people who hadn’t seen me for over thirty years. Nobody would know the difference.”

“How about his appearance? Did he look like your brother?”

Marge nodded. “We think so, but Mac pointed out that any guy just under six feet tall with dark blond hair who was close to the same age could pass for Gus.”