Cream Puff Murder (Hannah Swensen, #11)(66)

“It was a nickname, I guess,” Hannah said, turning to Norman again. “Please go on.”

“Victim was sixty-three inches in height, one hundred and eleven pounds, fourteen ounces in weight.”

“Almost a hundred and twelve!” Andrea exclaimed. “I’m an inch taller and I weigh only a hundred and ten.”

Hannah exchanged glances with Michelle. There was no reason to point out that the majority of Ronni’s weight had been muscle, and muscle was heavier than fat. That would have been cruel. Instead she decided to change the subject.

“Now that we’ve got a window for the time of the murder, it’ll be a lot easier to check alibis,” she said. And then she reached for the third envelope, the one with the crime scene photos, and drew them out to pass around.

To Andrea and Michelle’s credit, neither one flinched when it came to studying the photos. Perhaps they were getting used to seeing pictures of crime scenes. Or perhaps it helped that neither of them had liked the victim.

“Look at this last one,” Andrea said, passing the photo back to Hannah. “Do you think my flower looks silly?”

At first Hannah thought her sister had flipped round the bend. It was a photo of the back entrance of Heavenly Bodies, and there were two cars parked by the door. Hannah’s cookie truck was on the right, and Andrea’s Volvo was on the left. She studied the photo for another moment and noticed the flower in question. There was a red rose with the stem wound around the radio antenna on Andrea’s Volvo.

“Well, do you? You don’t have to be afraid of hurting my feelings. It’s not like anybody gave it to me for a present or anything. I just put it there when I took Tracey and her friends to the Minnesota Zoo last summer. Hundreds of people go, you know, and I thought it would make it easier to spot my car in the parking lot.”

“I think your rose looks good,” Hannah told her. “Winter’s so bleak, and it’s a bright touch of color.”

“I think it’s nice, too,” Norman said, looking at the photo over Hannah’s shoulder.

“I love it,” Lisa said, giving a little smile. “Sometimes winter seems so endless. It’s like Mom always used to say when I’d complain about how long winter was. When the sun shines and the tulips go up, we’ll all feel a lot better.”

“Maybe I’ll get roses for all of us,” Andrea said, lifting her briefcase to the top of the table and flipping it open. “Here are the tapes Bill sent for you, Hannah.”

“Videotapes?” Lisa looked puzzled.

“Yes, but they’re not just any videotapes,” Hannah explained. “They’re the Tri-County Mall security tapes of Heavenly Bodies on the night Ronni was killed.”

Lisa’s eyes grew wide. “They caught the killer on tape?” she asked, and Hannah noticed that her voice was shaking slightly.

“Unfortunately, no.” Andrea turned to smile at Lisa. “I know exactly where the security cameras are located. I took pictures of the monitors with my cell phone at the security station. The gazebo that holds the Jacuzzi doesn’t have one. And neither does the pool area, the sauna, or the bathrooms and dressing rooms.”

Lisa nodded. “I can understand about the bathrooms and dressing rooms. That would be an invasion of privacy. But why didn’t they put cameras in the gazebo, and the pools, and the sauna?”

“That’s easy,” Herb said, and everyone turned to look at him. While they’d been talking, Earl Flensburg had left and Herb was standing there with the carafe of coffee in his hand.

“The invisible waitress trick!” Lisa said with a giggle. “Herb refilled my coffee cup, and I didn’t even notice him.”

“Right.” Hannah gave her the thumbs-up sign, and then she turned to Herb. “Why don’t they have surveillance cameras in the sauna, or the pools, or the hot tub?”

“Because the owner’s biggest concern is theft. The exercise machines are expensive, so of course they’ve got cameras in the exercise rooms and the weight rooms. They’ve got them by the exits, too, so they can see if someone tries to leave with something they shouldn’t. But what can you steal from a sauna? Heat? And what can you steal from a pool? Water?”

Hannah had a laugh at her own expense. “It’s obvious, now that you explain it, but I didn’t even think of it that way.”

“Don’t feel bad. Most people wouldn’t. It’s just I’ve been looking into surveillance systems lately.”

“Lisa said you were checking out the red-light camera at the mall for Mayor Bascomb,” Hannah said. “Do you really think he’s going to put in a stoplight with a camera on Main Street?”

“Not after he gets my recommendation, but it’s nice duty for me while it lasts. I’m also looking into smoke and fire detectors. Mrs. Bascomb wants one installed in the new sauna they’re building, but it has to be a special type.”

“What type is that?” Andrea asked, and Hannah wondered if her sister and brother-in-law were thinking about adding a sauna to the new basement recreation room they’d been planning to build.

“It can’t be a heat alarm. If it is, it’ll go off every time someone turns on the sauna. It has to be a flame alarm, or a smoke alarm. Smoke’s the best bet because the redwood benches in a sauna smoke before they burn.”