Cream Puff Murder (Hannah Swensen, #11)(86)

“Are you going to leave now, too?”

“I’ll get dressed and see how I feel. I might do that final ten minutes on the cross-country ski machine.”

Hannah got out of the Jacuzzi, wrapped a towel around her shoulders, and followed Andrea to the dressing room.

The first thing Andrea did when they got there was to pull her cell phone from her purse and plug it into one of the wall sockets at the mirrored dressing table. “Don’t let me forget it,” she said to Hannah.

“You’re charging it while you dress?”

“Yes. It’s got a built-in high-speed charger so I can do it anywhere. That’s one of the features I love about this phone. I don’t think it holds a charge very well, though.”

“Really?” Hannah opened her locker and took out the sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt she kept there.

“There was a lot of interference when Bill called, and that happens sometimes when the battery’s low. I’ll let it charge up while I dress and see if it’s better when I’m ready to go.”

Both sisters toweled off with the large bath towels the spa provided and began to dress. Andrea put on the clothes she’d worn on the drive out, and Hannah pulled on her sweatpants and hooded sweatshirt.

“Don’t forget your cell phone,” Hannah reminded Andrea.

“Thanks!” Andrea unplugged it and flipped it open. She dialed a number and listened for a minute, and then she nodded. “It’s fine now. No interference at all.”

“Who did you call? You didn’t say anything.”

“I called the number for time of day. I didn’t want to get involved in a long conversation.” Andrea dropped her cell phone in her purse, picked up her winter jacket, and headed for the door. “Are you leaving or staying?”

“I’m staying.” Hannah grabbed her purse and her parka and followed her sister out of the dressing room. “I’ll still have lots of time to drive home and dress for dinner with Norman.”

“I’ll touch base with you tonight, then,” Andrea said, giving a little wave and heading for the exit. But she took only a couple of steps before she turned and came back again. “Here,” she said, drawing a plastic bag from her purse. “I almost forget to give it to you. I got one for Michelle, and Lisa, and Norman too. Now we can all have roses in the winter.”

Hannah glanced inside the bag and smiled. Andrea had given her a red plastic rose with a very long stem. “For my antenna?” she asked, remembering their conversation about Andrea’s flower on the antenna of her Volvo.

“That’s right. There’s a wire in the stem so you can just wind it around your antenna and it’ll stay there. And because it’s plastic, it won’t get ruined by the snow and ice.”

“This is really sweet of you, Andrea,” Hannah said, and she meant it. Andrea had cared enough to shop for the roses and give them to Norman, Lisa, and her sisters. For someone who’d been extremely self-centered a few years ago, Andrea had turned into a thoughtful and caring person.

After Andrea had left, Hannah glanced down at the rose in her hand. Instead of shoving it into her purse where it might not see the light of day for several weeks, she put it, plastic bag and all, in the horizontal patch pocket on the front of her sweatshirt, the one that could be used as a hand warmer. She’d keep it there while she finished her workout routine and put it on her antenna when she got back out to the parking lot.





Chapter Twenty-Nine




The rhythmic swooshing of the cross-country ski simulator was soothing, releasing her mind for other pursuits. Hannah watched the video of a winter scene rolling past on the screen in time with her movements, and she relaxed. Only a small portion of her mind took charge of the repetitive motion and pace, and she began to think of what she’d learned about Ronni’s murder.

Swooshing down the hill, push with the left foot, push with the right foot, to the first clue that entered her mind. Sonny Newberg told Sue Plotnik that his uncle Tad gave flowers to Nikki. It was pretty clear that Nikki was a nickname and Tad had nicknames for the women he liked. Ronni’s real name was Veronica, but what if Tad gave her his own personal nickname? Could it have been Nikki, based on the last part of her name?

According to Frank, Tad didn’t have much luck with women. That meant his self-confidence was probably low. When Ronni had refused to take his flowers and insulted him at her birthday party in front of the other guests, it must have been a terrible blow to Tad’s ego. Could he have gotten embarrassed enough and angry enough to go back when all the party guests had left and kill Ronni?

Hannah thought about that on a slight downhill slope as she skied her way past a small stand of pines. Dig in with the right pole, dig in with the left pole, swoosh to the next clue to Ronni’s killer. There was the security tape of the parking lot with Ronni’s old car in the picture. Mike said Ronni hadn’t driven it recently and Hannah believed him. What if the tape she’d watched hadn’t been recorded on the night of Ronni’s death? What if it was an old tape slipped into a new sleeve, a tape that had been made when Ronni’s car was still working?

It would have been easy for Tad to switch the tapes. And if Tad had killed Ronni, he might have wanted to set it up so that everyone who came to Ronni’s birthday party was automatically a suspect. It would certainly muddy the waters and hinder the investigation, especially since quite a few attendees were members of the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Department.