Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(91)

“Don’t follow him. If he is the killer, it could be dangerous if he thinks anybody’s on to him. Just let him go, and we’ll find him later.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Keep an eye on his wife, too. If he thinks she might mention that walk he took, he could try to silence her.”

Hannah gulped. “You mean he might…kill her?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Hannah heard an engine roar into life. “I’ve got to go, Hannah. I’m on my way, and I need to keep this line open.”

Once Hannah hung up, she turned to her sisters and related what Mike had said. “He said he’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” she concluded.

“Let’s go find Mac and Patsy,” Andrea led the way to the door of the pavilion. “If we fan out, it’ll be easier for us to see them in the audience. Lisa said they were making three aisles. There’s one in the middle and one on either side.”

“I’ll take left,” Michelle said.

“And I’ll take the middle and look on both sides,” Andrea said. “It’ll take me a little longer, but that way I can double check for both of you.”

“That leaves me with the right,” Hannah said. “We’ll just walk down the aisles, turn around, and walk back. Then we’ll get together right outside the door to see which one of us spotted them.”

When they entered the pavilion, the Beeseman sisters were ending their five minutes of song with “Gary, Indiana” from The Music Man, a perfect choice since it was their hometown.

The next act started the moment the Beeseman sisters left the stage. It was a group of twelve girls with lighted batons, performing an act to a Sousa march. All eyes were on the stage to see who could twirl her baton the longest without dropping it, and it was the perfect time to canvas the audience without being noticed. Once her sisters had arrived at their starting points, Hannah motioned them forward.

Hannah’s eyes scanned the rows as she moved slowly forward, down one row to the end, up to the row in front of it, and then all the way back to the aisle. Like the carriage on an old-fashioned typewriter, she wove her way to the front of the room, and then she started the return trip.

Where only the backs of heads had been visible on her way to the front of the room, Hannah could see actual faces on her return trip. She saw her mother and Carrie, Jon Walker and his wife, Earl Flensburg, and Marge’s cousins from Florida, but she didn’t spot Patsy or Mac.

Hannah finished first, and she ducked out the door to wait for her sisters. Michelle came out next and she was shaking her head.

“You didn’t spot them?” Hannah asked her.

“No, and there were no empty chairs, so they weren’t in the bathrooms or anything like that.”

“Good for you!” Hannah complimented her foresight. “Let’s just hope that Andrea spotted them.”

It seemed to take forever, but it probably wasn’t more than a minute or two before Andrea came out.

“Anything?” Hannah asked her.

“No. I checked both sides, and they weren’t there. I’m sure of it, Hannah.”

“What now?” Hannah asked, the sinking feeling in her stomach growing into a full-blown panic. “You saw them in line.”

The door opened again, and the three sisters turned to stare as Marge stepped out. “Hi,” she said. “I saw you come in, and then I saw you leave. Is something wrong?”

Hannah gave a little sigh. “It could be. We were looking for Mac and Patsy, but we didn’t spot them in the audience.”

“They decided to skip the talent show,” Marge reported, and she looked happy. “They were waiting in line, and Patsy said Mac had a change of heart. He begged her to give their marriage one more chance, and he said he wanted to take her to the water lily garden to propose to her all over again.”

“The water lily garden in the middle of the lake?” Hannah asked, feeling her panic grow.

“That’s right. It’s where he proposed to her the first time. Isn’t that just too romantic for words?”





Chapter Thirty-One


Things happened so fast that Hannah’s mind spun, even though she was the one who was making them happen. Hannah and Michelle raced for a canoe, while Marge and Andrea waited on the road for Mike so that they could tell him where they’d gone.

No more than two minutes passed before Michelle and Hannah were paddling out in one of the rental canoes. Lisa and Herb had lined them up on the shore for the relatives to enjoy, and Michelle and Hannah had claimed the one on the end for their own.

“Do you know where the water lily garden is?” Michelle asked her.

“It’s just off Sandy Point,” Hannah told her. “Norman took me there.”

It was a still night, and sounds carried across the water. There was the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, the occasional cry of a night bird, and a splash as some creature of the lake surfaced and then dove back down again.

Hannah held her finger to her lips, and Michelle nodded to show she understood. Their words would carry a great distance if they spoke aloud.

Another minute or two of steady paddling and they could hear voices. At first they were indistinct. Only the intonation was heard. It sounded conversational, rather than confrontational, and Hannah took heart. She couldn’t tell how far away they were, but she knew it would take them at least five more minutes of paddling to get to the water lily garden.