Red Velvet Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #16)(67)

“Hannah?” Mike interrupted her unwelcome thoughts.

“Don’t you want to know why I called?”

“I do. Of course I do.”

“We found the thermos. It was under the passenger seat. You must have seen it yesterday and you just forgot about it with so many other things on your mind.”

Like the fact you interrogated me and almost arrested me for murder, her mind said, but Hannah quite wisely didn’t repeat it to Mike. After all, he’d recovered the thermos and that was the important thing. “So where is the thermos now?” she asked.

“Doc Knight has it. There was about a cup of liquid left inside and he’s running tests on it.”

“If he finds tranquilizers in the coffee, does that mean I’m in the clear?”

“It does. I talked to Roger and he says he didn’t pick up any coffee from you or from Lisa. It all depends on the lab report. Doc’s going to call me the second he gets the results.”

“Okay. Thanks for telling me, Mike. I’m really happy that they found it and it wasn’t just part of my dream.”

“I’m happy too, Hannah. Tell Barbara hello from me, okay? And let her know that everyone out here at the station misses her and wants her to come back soon.”

“I’ll tell her,” Hannah promised and then she handed the phone back to Norman. “Thanks for the phone, Norman.”

Just then Jenny came racing up the hallway after them. “Your mother just called,” she said to Hannah. “She wants to see you before you go to visit Barbara.”

“Okay,” Hannah agreed. “Is she in Doc Knight’s office?”

“Where else?” Jenny asked with a smile. “Your mother spends most of her time in there. She does a lot of things for Doc Knight.”

I wonder exactly what things she does. Hannah’s mind asked the question as she relayed the message to Norman, and they continued down the hall to Doc Knight’s office.

“Mother,” Hannah said, walking in the door. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, dear.” Delores turned to Norman. “Hello, Norman. Are you going to see Barbara, too?”

“I’d like to find out how she’s getting along with her temporary bridge,” Norman said.

“She’s getting along just fine,” Delores said. “She knows she looks better and now she can eat some things she couldn’t have before. Pureed everything has to be boring after a while.”

There was a yowl from Moishe and Hannah lifted him into her arms. “Say hello to Moishe, Mother.”

“My darling Grandcat,” Delores crooned, opening the top drawer of Doc’s desk. “Come on up here, Moishe. I’ve got something for you.”

Hannah saw the familiar cat treat canister in her mother’s hand and immediately placed Moishe on the desktop. “That’s very smart of you, Mother,” she said.

“That’s self-preservation,” Delores answered, doling out one of Moishe’s favorite fish-shaped treats. “Or perhaps I should say it’s silk-preservation since I’m wearing hose tonight. What do you have in those boxes, dear? Something for Barbara?”

“Yes. I brought some Monkey Bread for her,” Hannah said.

“What’s that?”

Hannah took one of the boxes out of Norman’s arms and set it on the desktop. She opened it and let her mother see the contents. “It’s a lot like cinnamon rolls and it has chocolate chips between the layers. I didn’t have time to make my Special Cinnamon Rolls so I got this recipe from Lisa.”

“Very pretty,” Delores said. “It smells absolutely fabulous. And that reminds me, have you eaten, dears?”

“Not yet,” Hannah answered, turning to Norman. “How about you?”

“Not yet. I was going to ask you if you wanted to go out to eat after we saw Barbara.”

“And I was going to ask both of you if you wanted to join us for dinner out at the Inn,” Delores said, before Hannah could answer Norman. “Doc’s running a test on that thermos they found in the car. He just called to tell me he’ll have the final results in about an hour, but there’s definitely a foreign substance in there.”

Without any conscious thought, Hannah crossed her fingers. If the foreign substance turned out to be the tranquilizers that had killed Doctor Bev, she would be cleared!

“I thought we might be celebrating tonight,” Delores continued. “Will you join us, dears?”

“Sounds good to me,” Norman said.

“Me, too,” Hannah agreed. “Tell me what happened when you took Barbara the things from her house.”

“She was perfectly rational,” Delores said. “I brought a bowling trophy from the mantle. It had her father’s name on it. She recognized it immediately and knew exactly where I’d gotten it. She said, That’s my dad’s bowling trophy. He won it the year before he died. I kept it because it used to make my mother laugh. It’s so funny, Delores. Just look. They spelled his name wrong.”

“Did they?” Norman asked her.

“Yes. It was engraved Patrick Donnelly and there were three N’s in Donnelly.”

“The last time Barbara talked about her father, she got very upset and started to cry,” Hannah said, remembering how Delores had patted Barbara’s hand and told her not to think of sad things.