Chocolate Cream Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen #24)(85)

*

“Hannah.” Grandma Knudson came into the kitchen. “How are you?”

“Still a little shaky, but I’m all right. Have you told anyone about your new hearing aids yet?”

“Not yet. I will eventually though. You want to know if I’ve heard anything, don’t you, Hannah?”

“Yes. Someone killed Ross and I have to find out who did it and why.”

“Of course you do. It’s that insatiable curiosity of yours. That drives you as much as your thirst for justice.” Grandma Knudson smiled. “You’re a good person, Hannah. And before you ask me, I didn’t do it.”

Hannah was shocked. “I never thought that you did!”

“What a pity. I’d like to think that I might be capable of a bold action like that. But no, Hannah, I haven’t heard anyone in town mention anything about it. Everyone’s speculating just like you and Mike are.”

“Carrie was worried about Earl because he carried a rifle and a handgun on his snowplow.”

“Do you suspect Earl?”

“Not really. I talked to him and I don’t think he’d be that violent. But there’s always the possibility that I’m wrong.”

“What time was Ross shot, Hannah?”

“Doc says between noon and five p.m., but since Mike arrived at my condo at a little past three, we know that the time of death was between noon and three.”

“Then Earl didn’t do it.”

“How do you know? Earl said he wished that Ross would come back to Lake Eden so that he could teach Ross a permanent lesson.”

Grandma Knudson laughed. “Earl talks a good game, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Have you heard the story about the bobcat he shot?”

“Yes. Carrie mentioned it when she told me about the firearms that Earl carried on his snowplow.”

“Earl loves that story, but he told me the truth about the whole incident.”

Hannah was surprised. “Earl didn’t shoot the bobcat?”

“Earl shot over the bobcat.”

“You mean . . . he didn’t actually kill the bobcat.”

“I mean Earl didn’t hit the bobcat at all. He just fired over the bobcat’s head to scare it away from the snowplow. There’s no way Earl killed Ross. The worst he’d do if he ran into Ross would be to hit Ross’s car with his snowplow and run him off the road.”

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good to know! But still . . . sometimes people do terrible things in the heat of the moment and regret it later.”

“True, but Earl was nowhere near your condo complex when Ross was murdered.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he was up on our street at a quarter to one, plowing out the church parking lot, and there’s no way he could have killed Ross at noon and gotten back to town in the snowplow that fast. I looked out the window at twelve forty-five and saw him working on the church parking lot. And he’d already cleared the street that runs past the church. After that, Earl cleared our circular driveway at the parsonage and he didn’t finish until one-thirty.”

“But he still could have driven out to my condo and killed Ross before three.”

“There’s nothing wrong with your math, Hannah. You just don’t know the whole story. After Earl cleared our parsonage driveway, I went out and invited him in for coffee. Earl was really cold. There’s a heater on the snowplow, but the wind was blowing and it’s an open cab. His feet stay warm, but the snow blows in when he’s plowing.”

“Did Earl tell you that?” Hannah asked, wondering if that was accurate.

“No, Carrie did. She tapes cardboard over the inside of the cab when she rides with Earl.”

That was good enough for Hannah and she quickly revised her timetable. “How long did Earl stay at the parsonage?” she asked.

Grandma Knudson smiled. It was what Delores would have termed the smile on the cat that got into the cream pot in one of her Regency romance novels.

“I gave Earl coffee and since he’d been out there in the cold since morning, I convinced him to have a tot of my homemade rhubarb wine with it. I make my own, you know.”

“I didn’t know.”

“There’s no reason you should. I don’t advertise it, or I’d have a lot more visitors at the parsonage. Rhubarb wine used to be my husband’s favorite treat. Every time he ate ice cream, he wanted my rhubarb wine poured over the top as syrup.”

Hannah started to grin. “You’re a woman of many talents, Grandma Knudson.”

“That’s exactly what he used to say! And Earl said it yesterday afternoon, right after his third glass. When he left me, he told me that he was going to Granny’s Attic to pick up Carrie because he’d given her a ride to town on his snowplow. And since Carrie had always wanted to drive his snowplow, he thought he might let her drive him home.”

“So Carrie was with Earl after he left you?”

Grandma Knudson nodded. “Lisa said they came in for coffee before they left for home and Earl ordered two coffees to go. That was past three, so Earl couldn’t have killed Ross.”

“You’re right,” Hannah admitted, reaching for her murder book and flipping to Earl’s page. She crossed out that page with a big x-mark and flipped to the next page.