Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #16)(52)

“Yes, but I don’t have time to eat.” Mike gave a little wave to the group assembled in the living room and then he turned back to Hannah. “I’m sorry, Hannah, but you’ll have to come with me.”

Hannah was thoroughly puzzled. “But . . . why?”

“I was going to take your statement here, but things have changed. We need to keep this formal. Will you go with me, or not?”

Mike sounded so serious, Hannah knew something was dreadfully wrong. “Of course I’ll go with you,” she said. “Just tell me what things have changed.”

“Doctor Beverly Thorndike’s accident was not an accident.”

“Murder?” Hannah’s voice shook slightly as she asked the question.

“Yes.”

There were gasps from the others, but no one spoke. Hannah surmised the reason was that they were every bit as shocked as she was and they didn’t know what to say.

“But you’ve taken my statements in other murder cases right here in the condo. You’ve never asked me to go down to the station before. Why is it so different this time?”

Mike sighed deeply. He was obviously reluctant to elaborate. He swallowed hard and then he answered in as few words as possible. “Because you’re the prime suspect,” he said.

Chapter Eighteen


“Who baked the Red Velvet Surprise Cupcakes for the victim?”

Hannah glanced over at Howie Levine. He gave a little nod and she knew that it was all right to answer Mike’s question. The moment she’d left the condo with Mike, Delores had called Doc Knight on her cell phone to find out the results of the autopsy, and Norman had called Howie Levine, Lake Eden’s lawyer, and asked him to meet Hannah when she arrived at the sheriff’s station.

“I baked them,” Hannah answered.

“Was there anyone else in the kitchen when you baked them?”

Again, Hannah looked over at Howie. She didn’t like the idea of getting legal advice on each and every question Mike asked her, but she knew it was the wise thing to do. “Lisa came in a couple of times when they were in the oven, but I was alone when I mixed up the batter.”

Howie motioned for Hannah to move closer. Then he spoke in an undertone. “You’re being too helpful, Hannah. Just answer the question he asks. Don’t volunteer information.”

“What should I have said?” Hannah asked, also in an undertone.

“You should have said yes. No more than that. There was someone with you in the kitchen when you baked them. It’s up to him to ask who that person was and how long they were there. Don’t do his work for him.”

Hannah sighed and turned back to Mike again. So far his questions had covered every single thing she’d done from the time she’d gotten up this morning to the time he’d arrived on the scene after she’d discovered Doctor Bev’s body in the car and pulled her onto the shore. He’d covered that period of time in minute detail twice, and now he was covering it for the third time.

The door to the interrogation room, the room that Mike had once called the box, clicked open, to admit Lonnie. Lonnie didn’t say anything. He just motioned to Mike.

“Excuse me.” Mike spoke to them politely, and then he stood up and left the room.

Hannah closed her eyes. She’d never been so exhausted in her life. She wondered if every suspect who had gone through the same material multiple times had been as exhausted as she was right now. All she wanted to do was go home and go to bed.

Perhaps she dozed for a brief moment, hoping that all this was simply a very bad dream. When she opened her eyes again, she turned to Howie with a question. “It doesn’t usually take this long to give a statement about finding a murder victim, does it?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought. They think I put something in those cupcakes to kill Doctor Bev, don’t they?”

“It seems that way.”

“Do you think I killed her?”

“It doesn’t matter whether I do or I don’t. It’s my responsibility to make sure you don’t inadvertently incriminate yourself during the interrogation.”

“But do you think I killed her? I want to know!”

Howie shook his head. “No, of course I don’t think you killed her.”

Hannah drew a relieved breath. “That makes me feel a lot better. Why don’t you think I killed her?”

“There were too many mistakes,” Howie said. “Using poison or another lethal substance as a murder weapon necessitates planning and premeditation. You have to obtain the substance, you have to devise a way to deliver it to the victim without being detected, and unless you simply don’t care about collateral damage, you have to make certain no one except your intended victim consumes it. You didn’t do any of those things.”

“That’s true, but how does that convince you that I’m innocent?”

Howie smiled. “You’re smart, Hannah. You would have known all this. And frankly, just between you and me, if you’d set out to kill Doctor Bev, you wouldn’t have made any rookie mistakes.”

Hannah blinked. She wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not, and she wasn’t quite sure how she should respond. But it didn’t matter because before she could think of a reply, the door to the interrogation room opened and Mike came back in.