Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen #1)(61)

“Twelve hundred in cash, his driver’s license, and a folder of credit cards,” Hannah reported.

“Then Max didn’t kill Ron and run away.” Andrea sounded very sure of herself. “He might have left the credit cards and his driver’s license, especially if he was afraid of being traced. But the cash? He would have taken the cash.”

“You’re right.” Hannah flipped through the papers in the briefcase and pulled out an agenda for the Tri-State Buttermakers’ Convention. A line was highlighted in yellow and it read: Opening Address by Maxwell Turner—10 A.M.

“Look at this, Andrea.”

Andrea stared at the highlighted line. “The speech Max didn’t give.”

“I wonder where it is.” Hannah began to frown. “Betty said she worked late Tuesday night, typing it up. She left it on her desk for Max, and it was gone when she came in to work on Wednesday morning.”

Andrea looked puzzled. “It’s not in Max’s briefcase?”

“No. Let’s check out the house.”

Andrea looked as if the last thing she wanted to do was go into Max’s house. “Do we have to?”

“I think we do. Max may have left something behind that’ll give us a clue to where he is.”

“Okay,” Andrea reluctantly agreed. “Do you think we should arm ourselves, just in case?”

“Good idea.” Hannah grabbed a claw hammer from the workbench by the door and handed Andrea a rubber mallet. A hammer and a mallet were no match for a killer with a gun, but she was almost positive that no one was inside. If arming themselves with carpenter’s tools made Andrea feel safer, that was fine with Hannah.

Hannah tried to turn the knob on the connecting door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Oh, great! Max did lock his door. See if his keys are in his Cadillac, will you? I think I noticed them in the ignition.”

Andrea hurried back to the Cadillac and came back with the keys. She handed them to Hannah and watched as her sister unlocked the door.

Hannah stepped into the kitchen, flicked on the light, and jumped slightly as the refrigerator kicked in. “Nice kitchen. I guess Max had a thing for cows.”

Every round handle on the row of kitchen cabinets was painted with black and white patches like a Holstein cow. There was a collection of china cows in various poses on the shelves of the greenhouse window over the sink, and a large painted plate with frolicking cows around the border hung over the stove. There were cow magnets on the refrigerator door, a cow creamer and sugar bowl on the table, and a cow cookie jar sitting on the counter. A farm dog would have gone crazy in Max’s kitchen, trying to round up all the cows.

“It’s a little much for my taste,” Andrea admitted, “but I guess Max had to do something with all the cow things that people gave him. That’s the trouble with collections. Once people know you’re collecting something, they give it to you for every occasion.”

There was a strange burning odor in the kitchen and Hannah noticed that the red light was glowing on the coffeemaker. She reached out to shut it off and realized that the pot was dry, just inky sludge that once had been coffee in the bottom. “Max left the coffee on.”

“Don’t run water in it,” Andrea warned. “I did that once and the carafe cracked.”

Hannah set the glass pot on one of Max’s burners to cool. Then she noticed a thermos on the counter, right next to a dishtowel with happy-looking bovines grazing across its green terrycloth surface. The thermos was empty and its cap was off. “Max must have planned to come back here. He made a pot of coffee so that he could fill his thermos. He probably wanted to take it with him for the drive.”

Andrea looked sick as she stared at the empty thermos, and Hannah knew she was thinking about what might have happened to Max. She grabbed her sister’s arm and propelled her past the cabinets with their cow-painted knobs and into the deserted living room.

Hannah flicked on the lights, but there was no sign that anyone had been here since Max had left early Wednesday morning. She glanced at her sister—that sick look was still on her face—and decided that she’d better do something fast. Andrea’s face was pale, her knees were shaking, and she looked as if she might faint.

“Andrea? I need you to help me out here,” Hannah ordered in the same tone of voice that Delores had used when she’d told them to clean their rooms. “Have you ever been in Max’s house before?”

Andrea blinked once, twice, and then she turned to Hannah. She looked disoriented and more than a little frightened. “What did you say?”

“Have you ever been in Max’s house before?”

Andrea nodded. A little color was beginning to come back to her cheeks, now that Hannah had given her something else to focus on. “Al sent me out with some papers last fall. Max bought some property over in Browerville and Al handled the paperwork for him.”

“Can you remember what the house looked like then?”

“Of course I can. I’m a real estate agent.” Andrea’s voice was less tentative. “Max even gave me a tour. It was right after he fixed it up and I wanted to see it. I thought he might want to put it up for sale later on and move to a bigger place in town.”

Hannah smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “I knew I could count on you. Just keep your eyes open for anything that looks out of place. How about this room? Does it look the same as it did then?”