Lemon Meringue Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen #4)(30)

Hannah knew she was rationalizing, a no-no for a person on a diet, but her mind was spinning with possible suspects and motives, and she was sure she'd never be able to get to sleep without a small glass of wine. It was obviously the correct thing to do for her health and well-being, and who was she to argue with that? She carried the dessert dish into the living room for Moishe and went back to pour a glass of wine for herself. One sip and then she'd call Mike and face the music.

Once she'd taken up her favorite position on the couch and tasted the forbidden fruit of the vine, Hannah reached

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for the phone and called the sheriff's station. A moment later, she was smiling. Mike wasn't in. If her luck held, he wouldn't be home either, and she could put off their argument until morning.

Hannah crossed the fingers on both hands and punched in Mike's home number, no easy feat. Then she held her breath as the phone rang once, twice ...

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mike." Hannah sighed deeply. Her luck had turned rotten and perhaps it was a good thing she hadn't bought more than one ticket for the quilt the Lake Eden Altar Guild was raffling off. "I need to talk to you about Rhonda's murder case."

"Now? I'm in a rush, Hannah. I just stopped off to grab a clean shirt. Bill's waiting for me in the cruiser."

"It won't take long. I just wanted to tell you that I changed my mind about investigating. I'm going to do it."

"I sort of figured you would," Mike said, and then he shocked Hannah by chuckling.

"You're laughing?" Hannah heard her voice squeak in surprise.

"Of course I'm laughing. I was wondering how long it would take you to change your mind. It's only ten-thirty and that means I won."

Hannah's mouth dropped open. "You won what? "

"The office pool. I took the lowest number. Bill thought you'd cave in by midnight, but I figured it wouldn't take you that long. Rick Murphy said eight tomorrow morning and Sheriff Grant thought you'd hold out until noon. The others were all somewhere between that, except for Lonnie, Rick Murphy's younger brother. He had you down for two full days."

"How many people were in on mis?" Hannah asked, not really sure if she wanted to know.

"A dozen. We each put in ten bucks, so I just won a hundred and twenty."

"A hundred and ten," Hannah corrected him. She was still

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fuming about the fact that she'd been the subject of an office pool and her words hissed out like droplets of water skittering across the surface of a hot griddle. "It's only a hundred and twenty if you forget to subtract your own ten dollars."

"You're prickly tonight." Mike sounded amused.

"Of course I am. You're betting on me like a football game and I don't like it. Besides, office pools are illegal."

"I guess you could turn us all in, but then you'd have to explain what the pool was about. I don't think you'd like to do that."

"You're right. I wouldn't," Hannah said, giving it up as a bad job.

"Thanks for winning me a bundle, Hannah. I'll take you out to dinner with it. If there's nothing else, I've got to run. I'll drop in to see you tomorrow and we'll compare notes, okay?"

"Uh ... okay." Hannah hung up the phone with a sigh. She wasn't sure what she should be feeling. Of course she was relieved that Mike hadn't been upset at what he'd always referred to as her interference, but it seemed that no one at the sheriff's station had expected her to keep her word about not getting involved.

Hannah thought back to the scene of Rhonda's death. Something was bothering her, niggling at the back of her mind, and she couldn't help feeling that she'd missed an obvious clue. She went over the scene of the crime in her mind, trying to remember everything she'd noticed. The Voelker house had two entrances. They'd gone in through the front and she'd used the back door when she'd carried out the garbage. She'd gone through every one of the rooms, helping Delores tag the items she wanted. The only things that might have been clues were her pie on the kitchen table and the takeout containers and disposable wineglasses in the garbage. There had been nothing else unusual or out of place, no signs of a struggle, and nothing that would lead anyone to suspect that Rhonda's body was in the basement.

The stairs to the basement had seemed perfectly ordinary,

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Joanne Fluke

in good repair and clear of debris. Once she'd followed Norman down into the basement, she hadn't noticed anything alarming. There had been the usual clutter and moldy smell, but it was a rare basement that wasn't cluttered and moldy. The door to the furnace room had been hanging from one hinge, but since Hannah hadn't examined it closely, she had no idea whether it had pulled loose recently, or had been that way for years.

Hannah took herself through the door to the furnace room in her mind. Other than the broken jam jars on the dirt floor, there hadn't been any visible clues. Who had broken those jars? Delores, in her shock at seeing Rhonda's grave? Or Rhonda's killer, as he'd struggled with her?

"Sorry, Moishe." Hannah reached out to run her fingers through his glossy fur. "This may upset you, but I need to call your least favorite person."

Hannah picked up the phone, punched in her mother's number, and a few seconds later she had her mother on the line. "Thanks again for dinner, Mother."