Lemon Meringue Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen #4)(56)

LEMON MERINGUE PIE MURDER 189

she had carried her new book bag into a classroom that had sported completely clean blackboards, long pieces of perfectly formed chalk, and bigger desks.

Hannah stopped at the end of the hall and peeked around the comer at Ken Purvis's office. The door was open and the secretary's desk was unoccupied. She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped into the outer office, glad that she didn't have to make up an excuse to see Ken privately.

There was the sound of rustling papers from the inner office, Ken's domain. Hannah approached the open door and stopped in her tracks as she smelled a familiar scent. Old Spice. There could be no mistake about it. Her father had used Old Spice aftershave and the scent was as familiar to her as chocolate. Ken Purvis had been Rhonda's boyfriend. Hannah was certain.

Ken glanced up as Hannah knocked on the open door. He looked startled at the interruption, but the moment he saw that it was Hannah, he smiled. "Come in."

Hannah entered the inner sanctum that caused most high school students to tremble in their sneakers and took a chair in front of Ken's desk. She was trying to think of something polite to say to warm Ken up for the ensuing conversation when he beat her to it.

"It's always good to see you, Hannah. You're not planning to enroll for the fall semester, are you?"

Hannah laughed at the standard principal's joke. "No, I've got something else on my mind."

"What can I do for you?" Ken removed his reading glasses and placed them upside down, bows crossed, on the pile of papers he'd been reading.

Hannah hesitated. She wanted to handle this tactfully, but she couldn't think of a way to do it. "Why did you bring two takeout dinners to Rhonda Scharf at the Voelker place on Friday night?"

All the color in Ken's face fled and so did his smile. "How do you know that? "

"I know."

190

Joanne Fluke

"Does anybody else know?"

"Not yet. Maybe they won't have to if you're honest with me."

Ken sighed and it was like letting all the air out of a basketball. Hannah could almost see him deflate before her eyes. "What you're thinking is right, Hannah. I'm not proud of it, but I was involved with Rhonda."

"Does that involved mean what I think it means?"

"Yes. It's entirely my fault that it went this far and I take full responsibility. I just hope that Kathy won't have to find out about it."

Hannah could understand his concern. Ken's wife had a fiery temper and she wouldn't take the news of her husband's infidelity lightly. "This is just between you and me right now. Tell me how it started."

"I was having troubles at home with Kathy." Ken sighed deeply. "You don't need to know about that, do you?"

"No."

"Well... I wanted to ease the situation a bit and I went to the drugstore to buy a bottle of perfume as a peace offering."

Hannah decided to cut to the chase. She knew about Rhonda's bag of tricks. "And Rhonda came on to you?"

"That's exactly what happened. It was right after she inherited her great-aunt's place. She said she really wanted to go out and look at it, but she needed the help of a big strong man. And ..."

"Never mind, I get the picture," Hannah cut him off. "And you went out there for another... uh ... rendezvous with Rhonda on Friday night?"

Ken shook his head. "Not exactly. Kathy and I worked out our problems. When she left on Wednesday to go to her family reunion, I decided the time was right to break it off with Rhonda."

"Because Rhonda would have two weeks to get over being mad at you before she came back from her vacation?"

"That was a factor," Ken admitted. "I was trying to make it easier on everybody involved."

LEMON MERINGUE PIE MURDER 191

"Including you?"

"Including me."

Hannah gave Ken a long hard look, but he appeared completely sincere. "And you decided to bring Rhonda dinner before you broke the bad news to her?"

"It sounds a little strange now, but that's exactly right. I called and asked to see her, but she said she had to go out to her great-aunt's place to pick up some things. I told her that was fine, that I'd take her out there and then I'd go get us some dinner. She thought that was fine and she offered to bring dessert."

Hannah was sure that Ken was telling the truth, but that didn't mean that he hadn't killed Rhonda. She felt slightly uncomfortable for a moment, wondering if she should have brought some kind of weapon, but she quickly dismissed that concern. Ken wasn't a large man and Mike had taught her some good self-defense moves. "Tell me exactly what happened that night and don't leave anything out."

"All right," Ken agreed, but he looked very uncomfortable. "Just let me take a pill first."

Hannah watched as he pulled out his center desk drawer and took out a prescription pill bottle. "What are you taking?"

"Something Doc Knight prescribed for my bursitis. He said it would work, but it hasn't had much effect so far." Ken shook out a pill and downed it with a sip of water from the glass that was sitting on his desk. "You want to hear everything?"

"Yes."

"I had an appointment with Doc Knight at five on Friday afternoon. After that, I went straight over to Rhonda's apartment and drove her out to her great-aunt's place."