Cream Puff Murder (Hannah Swensen, #11)(60)

“Done,” Andrea said. “I’ll ask Bill to bring them home.”

“Thanks. That’s all I have then.” Hannah closed her notebook.

“But I thought you were going to give us something exciting to do,” Delores complained. “Talking to Vonnie when we go out to give blood doesn’t quite cut it, dear.”

“I know. But I really don’t have any…” Hannah stopped and glanced at Norman. And then she started to smile. “I do have something. It’s a real clue, and you’ll have to be careful how you play it. As a matter of fact, you’ll have to go undercover at a bar in Anoka.”

“Undercover at a bar!” Carrie turned to look at Delores. “We can do that, can’t we?”

Delores laughed. “Of course we can.”

“You may have to make a real friend of the bartender to get information,” Hannah told them.

“Not a problem.” Delores looked supremely confident. “It’s the type of assignment that’s absolutely made for us. Tell us all about it, dear.”





Chapter Twenty-One




“Andrea!” Delores pulled her daughter away from the curtain that ensured their privacy. “A good wife doesn’t spy on her husband.”

“If not me, who?” Andrea countered, causing Hannah to cringe at the grammatical infringement.

“If not you, me,” Michelle said, putting her eye to the crack where the curtain met the wall. “Where is he sitting?”

“To the left of the fountain. Right now he’s alone. She was sitting across from him, but her back was to us and I never really had the chance to see anything but the back of her head.”

“What did that look like?” Hannah asked.

“Blond hair, fairly short. It looked like an expensive salon cut, but it’s hard to tell from this far away. They just finished their entrées, and I think Bill just ordered coffee.”

“Cops drink a lot of coffee,” Michelle said. “Lonnie says they go through hundreds of dollars in coffee every week.”

“She didn’t leave, did she?” Hannah asked.

“I doubt it. She probably just went to the ladies’ room.”

Michelle watched for several minutes while the rest of them made casual conversation. Suddenly she laughed. “Relax, Andrea! You don’t have a thing to worry about!”

“What do you mean?” Delores asked, and Hannah realized that she hadn’t told Michelle that it wasn’t nice to spy. Evidently spying on a husband was a bad thing to do, but it was okay if you spied on your brother-in-law.

Michelle let the curtain drop and turned around to face them. “The lady cop just came back to Bill’s table, and I saw her before she sat down. There’s no way Bill would be interested in her.”

“She’s ugly?” Andrea sounded hopeful.

“No, she’s not ugly. But she’s a lot older than Bill. You were wrong about her hair. It’s gray, not blond. I got a really good look at her and she’s really old, at least fifty, maybe more.”

“Really…old?” Delores said, her words clipped and her tone as cold as ice.

Uh-oh! Michelle had put her foot in it this time! Hannah tried to think of something to say to defuse the situation, but before she could come up with a thing, Michelle opened her mouth.

“Did I say old? I didn’t mean old. Everybody knows that fifty’s not old.” Michelle almost stammered in her hurry to extricate herself. “It’s just that Bill has got to be at least twenty years younger than…well…most of the time, younger men don’t go for women old enough to be their…uh…”

Delores held up her hand. “Quiet, Michelle. You’re only digging yourself in deeper.”

“But I really didn’t mean that…”

“I said that’s enough, Michelle.”

Delores hadn’t raised her voice, she never did, but Michelle clamped her lips shut tightly. It was childhood all over again, and Mother was angry.

“It’s time for us to leave.” Delores stood up and motioned to Carrie. “Old people need their sleep, you know, and we have a big day coming up tomorrow.”

“Thank you for dinner, Mother,” Hannah said, hoping to change the subject.

“Yes, thank you, Delores,” Norman added quickly.

“Thank you, Mother,” Andrea said. “Dinner was delicious.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Michelle added her thanks. “Would you like me to go out and bring the car around for you? It’s pretty cold out tonight.”

“Thank you, Michelle, but no. I realize I’m old, but I think I can still walk to the parking lot without incident.” Delores gave her youngest daughter a withering glance.

“Oh, boy!” Michelle breathed when the curtain had closed behind her mother and Carrie. “Do you think she’ll ever forgive me?”

“Of course she’ll forgive you,” Andrea said. “She has to. She’s your mother.”

“And because she’s your mother, she’ll make you eat a caseload of crow before she forgives you,” Hannah added.

Andrea’s cell phone rang. She retrieved it from her purse and flipped it open. “This is Andrea.” She listened for a moment and then she smiled. “We can do that, honey. We’d like to meet her, too. We can’t stay long, though. I haven’t given Hannah your notes yet, so I’m running out there before I come home.”