Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #16)(60)

“Me, too,” Mike said. “I didn’t want to come and get you last night, but I didn’t trust anyone else to do it. I knew I had to do everything by the book and I hated it. But when Doc gave us the list of her stomach contents and Mayor Bascomb said she was eating one of your cupcakes when he went for a ride with her, we had to bring you in for questioning.”

“Did you pull the car out of the water yet?”

Mike shook his head. “Not yet. Earl’s replacing the carburetor on the county tow truck and he’s waiting for parts. He thinks it’ll be ready by late tomorrow afternoon.”

“Then you don’t know if there were any cupcakes left in the bakery box,” Hannah said.

“We sent a diver down and he found the box. It was in the back seat and it was wedged against the mechanism that raises and lowers the top. It was empty.”

“So there’s no way to prove that my cupcakes didn’t have tranquilizers in them,” Hannah said, feeling her hopes diminish.

“I’m afraid not. Either she ate them all or they dissolved in the water. I doubt we’ll ever know exactly what happened.”

“What else was in her stomach?” Hannah asked, her mind grasping at straws.

“Doc Knight identified coffee, cream, artificial sweetener, and your cupcakes. That’s it.”

“She didn’t get that coffee from me,” Hannah said, and her stubborn hopes began to rise again. “Roger didn’t order any coffee to go. And since he didn’t take any coffee, we didn’t give him any cream or packets of sweetener.”

“How about when she confronted you on the Petersons’ porch?”

“We didn’t have any coffee there. All we had was Diet Coke for me, regular Pepsi for Lisa and Andrea, and a couple of cans of lemonade for Tracey. When she came in we didn’t offer her anything and she didn’t take anything except the box of cupcakes. Doc Knight didn’t find any Coke, or Pepsi, or lemonade in her stomach, did he?”

“No, none of those things.” Mike reached out to touch her cheek. “I really don’t like this, Hannah. It doesn’t look good for you. You’re the logical suspect and you did bake those cupcakes. There’s even a witness who saw her eating one. You have to think of some way to prove you didn’t do it.”

Hannah caught the nuance and she asked the question. “You think I can prove that I didn’t do it?”

“I hope so. I pray so. Concentrate on doing it, Hannah. I’ll help you any way I can.”

“Then you don’t think I did it?”

“I know you didn’t do it. I know it in my heart.”

“Well, I know it in my mind. Somebody else killed Doctor Bev. It wasn’t me. It’s really not fair that I’m going to have to try to prove my innocence by catching the real killer.”

“I agree. It’s not right. Our justice system isn’t supposed to work that way. But you won’t be the only one trying to find out who really killed Doctor Bev. I’ll be working on it, too.”

“But will they let you do that?”

“Not officially, but that won’t stop me. It won’t stop anyone else in the department either, but you didn’t hear that from me.”

“How about Bill? Does he think I did it?”

“Of course not. Bill knows what we’re doing . . . unofficially, of course. Everyone’s on your side, Hannah. We’re just following the rules as far as the paperwork goes, but what we do on our own time is our personal business.”

Hannah began to feel much better. The pendulum was still swinging lower and lower over her head, but there were people who believed in her innocence.

“Did Doctor Bev take tranquilizers?” Hannah asked, remembering how Clayton Wallace had taken an accidental overdose of his heart medication.

“No. I’m way ahead of you there. I sent Lonnie and Rick out to her suite at the Inn to check. Roger let them go through everything she had there, and he gave them permission to go through all of his things, too. They didn’t find any tranquilizers and Roger said he’d never seen her take anything like that.”

“I guess you already know that I don’t take them either. And I don’t have any in my possession here or at my condo.”

“I know that. I’m sorry, but we had to check.”

“That’s okay if it helps to clear me. How about the tranquilizers themselves? Were they some kind of over-the-counter thing?”

“Doc Knight says no. They were a class A narcotic and they’re only available by doctor’s prescription.”

Hannah looked at him dubiously. “Legally yes, but I’ll bet you can buy them on the street.”

“I’m sure you can, but not here in Lake Eden. We do have an occasional drug dealer, but it’s usually small stuff. This drug was powerful. Doc Knight says it isn’t something you’d take to get high. If you tried it for kicks, it would just knock you out. And he also told me that Doctor Bev had enough in her system to stop her heart. There was no water in her lungs, Hannah. She was dead before she hit the water.”

“Did you check Doctor Bev’s background to see if she ever had a prescription for the drug?”

“We checked on that the minute Doc Knight told us the name of the drug. No doctor she’s ever had wrote a prescription like that for her. We came to the end of the trail on that one, Hannah.”