Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder (Hannah Swensen #1)(83)

“It’s been a madhouse out here!” Betty sounded even more harried than usual. “I can’t get into Max’s office. There’s yellow tape blocking the doorway, and Bill warned me not to go in there. And everybody in town has been calling me to find out what’s going to happen to the dairy.”

“Do you know yet?”

“Yes. I just got off the phone with Max’s nephew and he’s planning to move here and take over the operation. He asked me to call an employee meeting and tell everyone on the payroll that he’s not planning to make any changes. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“It certainly is.” Hannah did her best to sound enthusiastic. She was glad that the dairy was staying open, but she had a lot of other things on her mind. “I’m sorry to bother you, Betty, but I need to ask you a very important question. Do you know if Max ever had any business dealings with Del Woodley?”

“Just a minute and I’ll get that invoice for you. Could you hold, please?”

There was a thunk as Betty set the receiver down on her desk, and Hannah heard her tell several people to leave her office because she had an important supplier on the line. A few seconds later, there was the sound of a door closing and then Hannah heard heavy footsteps as Betty returned to her desk.

“Sorry, Hannah. I didn’t want to say anything while there were people in the office, but Max did have dealings with Del Woodley. I’m not supposed to know anything about it, but I just happened to pick up the extension while Max was talking to Del.”

Hannah grinned. It sounded as if Betty spent most of her working hours listening in on conversations that she wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Del called a few months ago,” Betty continued. “It was about a personal loan. He was complaining about the high interest rates, and Max wasn’t very nice to him.”

“Really?” Hannah feigned surprise.

“As a matter of fact, he was very nasty. Max told Del that if he didn’t like the interest rates, he could just come up with the money and pay off the loan.”

“Did Del pay off the loan?”

“I don’t know, Hannah. Del didn’t call again and that’s the last I ever heard about it.”

“Thanks, Betty.” Hannah hung up the phone and dropped her face in her hands. This was all very confusing. Perhaps she should take a run out to the dairy and look at the crime scene again. It was possible that Bill might have missed something that pertained to the loan that Del had taken out with Max.

“I’m leaving again, Moishe,” Hannah announced as she stood up and felt around in her pocket to make sure she had her keys. But Moishe didn’t rush to the food bowl as he usually did. He just opened his good eye and gave her what amounted to an extremely bored kitty shrug.





Chapter Twenty-Five




Hannah zipped down Old Lake Road at seventy miles an hour, just about as fast as her Suburban would go. She had almost reached the intersection at Dairy Avenue when she began to reconsider her destination. It would be a waste of time to go over the crime scene. The killer had planned everything carefully, making a private appointment with Max and tricking him into opening the old safe in the original dairy. There was no way such an organized killer would have left any incriminating evidence behind.

So what should she do? Hannah took her foot off the gas pedal and let her Suburban slow to the legal limit. Perhaps she should run out to the sheriff’s station to find Bill. She had more facts for him, information that she hadn’t yet learned when she’d left her voice mail message. She could pull Bill aside and tell him everything. Between the two of them, they could figure out what to do next.

Hannah glanced in her rearview mirror and saw that the road was clear behind her. She slowed her truck to a crawl and did something she’d never done before in her life. She hung a U-turn right across the double yellow line and headed for the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Station.

As she pushed the speedometer up to seventy again, Hannah thought about Del Woodley. He couldn’t have killed Max. The laws of physics were absolute and he couldn’t have been in two places at the same time. Even if Phil had been wrong by five minutes and Danielle’s watch had been off by the same amount, it still wasn’t possible to drive from DelRay Manufacturing, out on the interstate, to the Cozy Cow Dairy in that length of time.

But Benton could have killed Max. Hannah’s hands tightened on the wheel as that thought occurred to her. Phil had said he’d come home because he was worried that the family money would run out. If Max had called in his loan and Del had told Benton about it, Benton could have decided to protect his inheritance by shooting Max and stealing the paperwork.

Hannah thought about Benton as she raced down the highway. He’d always enjoyed having money. From first grade on, Andrea had come home from school talking about Benton’s new leather backpack, or the complete set of Disney movies that Benton’s parents had bought for him, or the souvenirs that he’d brought back from his summer vacations. Benton had been the most popular boy in the class because he’d treated his classmates to the luxuries their parents couldn’t afford. “Give them things and make them friends” had been his motto.

Benton’s family wealth had been even more apparent in high school. Then Benton had dazzled the girls, Andrea included, by picking them up in his shiny new convertible and showering them with expensive gifts. The huge bottle of perfume that he’d given Andrea for Christmas had been just one example. Delores had priced it and she’d told Hannah that it had cost over two hundred dollars.