Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(55)

“So am I, but I did learn one new thing.”

“You did?” Andrea looked surprised.

“What is it?” Michelle asked.

“Everything was exactly as I remember it. And that means one of two things. Either being in shock doesn’t affect my memory, or I’m getting much too used to finding murder victims!”





Chapter Eighteen


Hannah picked up the photos and returned them to the envelope. There was another file in the envelope that she hadn’t noticed before. “What’s this?” she asked Andrea. “A duplicate set?”

“No. Those are photos they took of the cottage where Gus was staying right before they searched it. It’s standard operating procedure. I heard Bill talk about it once.”

“It’s a good procedure!” Hannah gave a little grin. “I’ve seen other places they’ve searched, and they always looked like the aftermath of a tornado.”

“Not this time,” Michelle spoke up.

“Why not?”

“Because they confiscated almost everything after they searched, and took it to the sheriff’s station. Lonnie said they were going to go through it with a fine-tooth comb to see if there were any clues.”

“There wasn’t much more than a suitcase full of clothes and some personal items in the bathroom,” Hannah said, thinking back in time to early Monday afternoon when she’d walked through the cottage searching for Gus.

“How about the closet? Did you look in there?” Michelle asked.

“The doors were open,” Hannah did her best to bring back the mental picture. “I looked at the bed first. The suitcase was on it, and it was open. And then I turned to look at the closet. There was one of those little green frogs. You’ve both seen the type that lives at the lake. He hopped out of the closet and…it was empty inside. I remember now. There were no clothes on the hangers.”

“That’s because they were all in the suitcase,” Michelle said. “Gus probably hadn’t gotten around to unpacking yet.”

“But why hadn’t he? He’d already changed clothes twice.” Hannah turned to Andrea. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

“Twice at the minimum,” Andrea said, giving a definitive nod. “I saw him when he drove up at the church. He was wearing an eggshell white linen suit with an Egyptian cotton shirt…”

“You could tell his shirt’s country of origin by just looking?” Hannah interrupted her sister’s recital.

“Not exactly, but Egyptian cotton is distinctive, and it’s always been the hot material. It was a wonderful shade of slate blue. You know the color. It’s blue, but it’s got a lot of gray in it, too. Very subdued, and it looks great with blond or gray hair. The shirt was open at the neck, and he had on a gold neck chain and…”

“Then he must have changed clothes, because that’s not what he was wearing at the dance,” Michelle interrupted her.

“You’re right. The suit he wore at the dance was completely different. And he was wearing a different shirt. Not only that, he wasn’t wearing a tie when I saw him at the church, and he wore a designer tie at the dance. It’s right there in the crime scene photos.”

Hannah was grateful that her sisters had noticed what Gus had been wearing when they saw him in the car at the church. She’d only caught a glimpse of him, and she would have been hard-pressed to describe any item of clothing he’d worn.

“There’s one thing that really puzzles me.” Andrea turned to Hannah. “It’s the suit Gus was wearing the first time we saw him.”

“What about it?”

“It was linen. I said that before. And linen wrinkles. He wore it to the brunch. I know that, because Mother mentioned it to me. But he had to have taken it off before he showered and changed for the dance. That was an expensive suit. I’d guess it was over five hundred dollars, maybe a lot more. He was staying at a cottage with a nice big closet. Why didn’t he hang it up?”

“Are we sure he didn’t?” Michelle asked.

“I’m almost positive he didn’t.” Hannah paged through the photos of the cottage, found the one of the bedroom, and handed it to Michelle. “Here’s a picture that shows the closet. Check it out for yourself. It’s as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.”

“Maybe he spilled something on it at the brunch and it needed to be dry cleaned?” Michelle suggested a possible explanation.

“Maybe, but there aren’t any dry cleaners open on Sunday,” Andrea pointed out. “And by the time they opened on Monday morning, he was already dead.”

“So what would you do with an expensive suit you wanted dry cleaned?” Hannah asked them.

“Toss it on the floor of the closet so your wife will take it to the cleaners,” Andrea said. “That’s what Bill always does. I try to get him to stuff it in a laundry bag, but he forgets.”

“Since there was nothing on the floor of the closet, maybe he just tossed it back in his suitcase,” Michelle suggested.

“If he did, it would be right on top.” Andrea paged through the photos until she came to the one of the suitcase. “It’s not here, so he didn’t. And since he was such a nice dresser, he probably wouldn’t have thrown it in on top of his clean clothes anyway.”