Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #16)(61)

“Okay. Let’s talk about the coffee. Is it possible to hide the taste of the drug if it was dissolved in the coffee?”

“We asked Doc Knight that. He said yes. The artificial sweetener she used has a slightly bitter taste. So does the drug. If her coffee tasted bitter, she probably assumed it was from the sweetener.”

“Do you know where she got the coffee?”

“Not yet, but we’re working on it.”

“How about the cup it came in? It might have some residue, or something. Did you recover that?”

“No. Her coffee cup wasn’t in the car. And since we didn’t find it, there’s no way to test it for any residue. Not only that, her car was a convertible and the cup would have been submerged in water. Chances are that even if we’d found it, there wouldn’t be any residue left.”

Hannah took a moment to mentally add up the facts of the case. Doctor Bev had consumed an overdose of powerful tranquilizers. Doc Knight had identified the drug in her stomach contents, which consisted of coffee, creamer, artificial sweetener, and Hannah’s cupcakes. The drug wasn’t necessarily baked into the cupcakes. It could have been in the coffee, the cream, or the artificial sweetener. “So the evidence against me is all circumstantial at this point?”

“That’s right. But you did have a motive, the means, and the opportunity.”

“Not the means,” Hannah corrected him. “I didn’t have the drug.”

“That’s difficult to prove.”

“Right.” Hannah shivered slightly. People had been convicted on circumstantial evidence, but she didn’t want to think about that. If she did, she might have another nightmare like the one she’d had last night.

“You shivered,” Mike said, holding her tightly. “What’s the matter?”

“The thought that I could be convicted for something I didn’t do is even more terrifying than finding Doctor Bev. I just hope I don’t have a nightmare about that tonight. Last night’s dream was bad enough!”

“Tell me about it.”

“It started when I dove down to the car and Doctor Bev tried to get me to sit in the passenger seat. I wanted to leave, to go back up to the surface, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from moving closer and closer to her. Then she grabbed me and I couldn’t get away. She moved some things off the passenger seat and shoved me into it, and then she locked the seat belt. That was when I knew I was going to die down there at the bottom of Miller’s Pond with her.”

Mike rubbed her back. “I’m sorry I put you through this, Hannah. You really have no idea how guilty I feel. If I could think of some way to wipe last night out of existence, I would. You did a brave thing by trying to rescue Doctor Bev. And you got rewarded by having me haul you in for questioning. Life wasn’t very fair to you yesterday.”

“True.” Hannah’s mind kept going back to the dream, back to the point where Doctor Bev had pulled her into the passenger seat. She’d reached out with her wavy arm and pushed the thermos off the seat and . . .

Hannah gave a little gasp and Mike patted her back. “What is it?” he asked.

“The thermos!”

“What thermos?”

“The thermos in my dream. There must have been one on the passenger seat for real or I wouldn’t have dreamed it. I’m almost sure there was. I think it was one of those silver ones with a screw-on cap. I might have knocked it off the seat when I unlatched the seat belt and pulled Doctor Bev out of the car.”

“I’ll send down a diver,” Mike said, pulling out his cell phone and dialing the sheriff’s station. “If there’s a thermos, there may be contents left inside. And if there are contents, Doc Knight can test them.”

Hannah listened while Mike made the call. When he hung up, she opened the pantry door. “You’d better go before anyone knows you’re here.”

“You’re right,” Mike said, walking across the kitchen with her and opening the back door. “I’ll let you know what happens when the diver comes up,” he said. “If we’re lucky, they’ll find the thermos and it’ll clear you completely.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Hannah said, repeating one of her Great-Grandmother Elsa’s favorite expressions. And then she went back to the stainless steel work island with a smile on her face to shape and bake the Oatmeal Raisin Crisps.

Chapter Twenty-One


There was a knock at the back door, but before Hannah could cross the kitchen to answer it, Andrea rushed in. “Hannah!” she exclaimed, sinking down on a stool at the work island.

“Hi, Andrea.” Hannah pulled the last sheet of cookies out of the oven and slid them onto the baker’s rack. “Want coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’m excited enough as it is. Have you got anything chocolate?”

“We’re a bakery. Of course I’ve got something chocolate. You’ve got a choice between Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies, Black and Whites, or Triplet Chiplets.”

“I’ll take the Triplet Chiplets. Then I’ll get chocolate three ways. Just wait until I tell you what happened with the furniture!”

“What furniture?” Hannah plucked three Triplet Chiplet cookies off the rack and delivered them in a napkin. “Milk?”