Raspberry Danish Murder (Hannah Swensen #22)(84)

“Right,” Hannah said. “Did you talk to anyone else?”

“We interviewed everyone at KCOW and we talked to P.K.’s parents and his aunt and uncle. We came up with a big, fat zero for that.” Mike looked very disgruntled. “How about you, Hannah?”

“We tried to talk to P.K.’s former fiancée, Pinkie. She was our prime suspect. We managed to find out some information about her, but this afternoon we learned that she was dead.”

“Yes, the suicide,” Mike said. “We learned about that from P.K.’s aunt. Did you cross Pinkie off your suspect list?”

Hannah shook her head. “No. I might have if I hadn’t done some research on her boss, Dr. Benson. He’s a vet, and Pinkie could have taken some animal-grade tranquilizers from his office to use in the drugged candy.”

“Do you know how Pinkie killed herself?” Mike asked.

“No, but we heard it was pills. Was it an overdose of tranquilizers?”

“Yes. Doc called the doctor that did her autopsy and he said they were powerful and they might have been animal tranquilizers.”

“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t cross her name off my suspect list. Pinkie could have drugged the candy with tranquilizers before she committed suicide.”

“But the candy didn’t arrive until a couple of weeks after her death. How do you explain that?”

There was an amused expression on Mike’s face, and Hannah decided to set him straight. “After Pinkie died, someone could have gone through her things, found the addressed, pre-paid mailer with the candy, and put it in the mail.”

“Yes. That was our conclusion, too. So do you have anyone else on your list?”

Hannah made a helpless gesture. “Yes, but most of them are pretty far-fetched. It seems that every time we think we have someone promising, we’re wrong. We really don’t know where to turn next.”

“We’re in the same boat,” Mike admitted. “I have two of my team interviewing P.K.’s friends to see if any of them has a possible motive. I hate to be a defeatist, but I don’t expect any positive results.”

“Have you given up on the theory that Ross might have been the target instead of P.K.?” Norman asked him.

“No, but we’ve been concentrating on P.K. up until now. We’re not discarding the notion that the candy may have been intended for Ross, but since we thought that was a longshot, we haven’t done much on it yet. I do have one thing I want to check out, though. Will you let me have that storage locker key, Hannah? I can spare a couple of guys to put on that. There’s a slim chance that there may be something in Ross’s storage locker that will help us figure this out.”

Hannah frowned slightly. She really didn’t want to give up the storage locker key. Storage lockers could contain a glimpse into someone’s past, and that key was her last link with Ross. It seemed almost wrong to let someone else go through his storage locker before she did.

“Hannah?” Norman asked, noticing her frown. “Is there some reason why you don’t want Mike to have the key?”

It took Hannah a moment to frame her answer. “I guess I wanted to be the first one to look inside.”

“I can understand that,” Mike told her. “You were thinking that there might be personal stuff there. But think of it this way, Hannah. There could be something that’ll help us find out where Ross is and why he left.”

Hannah sighed. Mike had dropped a dilemma in her lap. “You’re right. I’ll go get the key. But if you don’t find anything helpful there, you have to return the key to me.”

“I’ll see to that personally,” Mike promised.

Hannah got up from the table and went down the hallway to her bedroom to get the key. It was right where she’d placed it in her top drawer, and she carried it back and handed it to Mike. “We already checked the storage facility next to the MacAlister campus so you don’t have to go there. Unit three-twelve doesn’t belong to Ross.”

“Did you check anywhere else?”

“No. We were too busy getting ready for Sally’s gift convention.” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “In retrospect, perhaps we should have concentrated on finding the right storage facility.”

“That could be a wild goose chase, too,” Mike told her. “It’s just that I have two guys that can spend time doing it so we might as well turn over every stone we can find. Sometimes that’s the only way to solve a complicated murder case.”

Hannah nodded agreement, but in her mind she was thinking, There are way too many stones in his case, practically enough to build a wishing well. And it might take a lucky coin in a wishing well to learn who killed P.K. and why.

*

Hannah knew that she had never seen so many oranges. They were stacked in a pyramid reaching almost up to the sky. Florence, from the Red Owl Grocery, was standing in front of them in her white cap and butcher’s apron. There was a gun belt around her waist and what looked like silver revolvers with pearl grips in both side holsters.

“No oranges for you,” she said to Hannah.

“But why? I love oranges.”

“Not enough. You have to take care of your orange, say that it’s handsome, and hold it like you’ll never let it go. You have to tell your orange that you adore it, that you think it’s wonderful and that it’s the best orange in the world. You can’t invite other oranges to your condo and treat them like friends. If your orange doesn’t think that it’s your most desirable orange, you know what will happen.”