Carrot Cake Murder (14 page)

“Anyway…I knew right away what was happening. Mr. Garrison was spanking Gus with that paddle. And from the sound I was hearing, there was nothing between that paddle and Gus’s behind.”

“I understand.”

“Now normally I wouldn’t have done anything at all. I mean, I was only the secretary and Mr. Garrison had a right to punish the students however he wanted. It’s different now, of course. But I was a little worried because Gus wasn’t making any noise at all. So I went to the door, peeked through the keyhole, and saw the whole thing.”

“What whole thing?”

“Mr. Garrison was spanking Gus. His pants were down, he was bent over, and his back was to me. I could see the tattoo as plain as day, Hannah. It was crossed bats with a baseball between them. Of course everything around it was inflamed and I knew Mr. Garrison had been paddling him for quite a while.”

“What did you do?” Hannah asked, not able to resist.

“What could I do? I was Mr. Garrison’s secretary, and I couldn’t interrupt him. So I went back to my chair and I waited until he was finished and Gus came out of the office.”

“And then you…?”

“Offered Gus some lanolin. I had it in my desk drawer because my hands were chapped. And I figured that if it helped my hands, it might be good for Gus’s you-know-what.”

“Makes sense,” Hannah said. “So you gave Gus some lanolin?”

“That’s right. And next time he came in, a week later, he tossed the tube of lanolin on my desk and thanked me.”

“That’s nice.”

“Not really. Because right after he thanked me, he dropped his pants and mooned me to show me that the Board of Education paddle hadn’t left any marks.”

“Oh.” Hannah said, still slightly confused. “But I don’t understand why you’re so nervous about Hal finding out you gave Gus the lanolin.”

“It’s not that,” Rose said. “It’s just that Hal was in the Army with Bill Garrison, and if he ever found out that one of the students Bill disciplined mooned me to show that Bill’s paddling had healed, he’d be really angry at me for not telling Bill about it.”

“I understand,” Hannah said, even though she didn’t. It was another case of chalking it up to sensibilities she didn’t comprehend. “Well, you don’t have to worry. I’m not about to say anything to anybody.”

“I know you won’t.” Rose stood up. “I’d better get back before Hal realizes I didn’t just go to the ladies’ room. Thanks, Hannah. And I really hope you catch Gus’s killer…if it really was Gus.”

Hannah sat there a moment after Rose left, just soaking up the peace of the night. The stars glittered brightly overhead and cast rippling streaks over the water. She could hear the mosquitoes buzzing, but her repellent was still working. It was a perfect summer night except for the puzzle of Gus Klein’s murder.

When she felt capable of actually moving, Hannah got up and went down the steps to the path that led to the parking lot. She passed by the picnic area and heard sounds of merriment and clapping as the slide show continued. She walked on for a minute or two and finally arrived at the public parking lot. She was just about to unlock the door to her cookie truck when someone called out to her.

“Hannah! Wait!”

Hannah stopped with the key in her hand and turned to see Delores rushing down the gravel road. Her mother had exchanged the high-heeled sandals she’d been wearing earlier for a pair of ballet-type flats, but she was hobbling a bit, as if they didn’t fit her.

“What’s the matter with your feet?” Hannah asked, when her mother arrived at the cookie truck.

Delores sighed loudly. “They’re Carrie’s shoes. She always brings an extra pair. But they’re too big and I have to curl my toes to keep them on.” Delores stopped and took several short breaths. “I need to talk to you, Hannah. It’s important.”

“Are you going to give me a lecture about how embarrassing it is for you when I find dead bodies?”

“No.”

Hannah reared back slightly in surprise. “You’re not?”

“I’m not. I’m responsible for this one, Hannah. I asked you to go look for Gus, but I really didn’t think you’d find him dead. It’s all my fault!”

Hannah began to frown. In the bluish light cast by the arc lights that ringed the public parking lot, she could see that her mother was agitated. “Are you trying to tell me you had something to do with his death?”

“Of course not. The last time I saw him was when I left the dance with Carrie at midnight.”

“But you look upset. What is it?”

“Marge and Patsy told everyone that Gus didn’t have any distinguishing marks.”

“That’s right,” Hannah confirmed it, “or at least they didn’t know about any distinguishing marks,” she amended, since she’d found out about one distinguishing mark from three sources so far.

“They wouldn’t necessarily know. Marge’s mother was death on body adornments. Marge really wanted to get her ears pierced, but her mother wouldn’t let her. After Patsy got married, Marge and I went to visit her while Mac was training at Camp Ripley. He was in the National Guard. All three of us went to the doctor and got our ears pierced.”

“That’s interesting, Mother,” Hannah said, even though it wasn’t. And then, despite the fact she didn’t really want to know, she asked, “But what does that have to do with distinguishing marks on Gus Klein?”

“Gus had a tattoo.”

Hannah worked hard to appear unfazed by the question that flashed through her mind. How did her mother know about Gus’s tattoo?

“This is highly embarrassing, but I feel it’s my duty to tell you,” Delores went on, “since you’ve agreed to investigate the murder.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Hannah blurted out.

“Yes, I do. You see, I dated Gus in high school, long before I met your father.”

Hannah came close to groaning. The best thing to do would be to cut her mother off at the pass, before she could say anymore. “I don’t need to know that, Mother. Was the tattoo two crossed bats with a baseball between them?”

“Yes!”

“And it was on the left of Gus’s backside?”

“That’s right! But how did you…?”

“Three women already told me about it,” Hannah interrupted her mother’s question. “And there’s probably a couple more waiting to catch me alone.”

“And they all told you about his tattoo?” Delores looked outraged. “That rat! He told me he loved me! Who were they? I have to know.”

“No, you don’t. They all found out about the tattoo by accident.”

“By accident? What do you mean?”

“One was visiting Marge and walked by his bedroom door when he was dressing, one peeked over the wall in the boys’ changing room at the lake, and the other one…” Hannah stopped abruptly. She couldn’t mention the principal’s office because her mother would be able to identify Rose as the secretary. “He mooned the other one,” she settled for saying, only recounting the second part of Rose’s experience.

“Likely stories!” Delores gave a little snort. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I knew all along that Gus was a rakehell.”

“Is that the same as a bounder and a scoundrel?” Hannah asked, exhausting her Regency Romance vocabulary.

“In a way, dear. It’s a matter of degree. But it’s water over the dam. It happened years ago, and I don’t know why I got so upset.”

“I do,” Hannah said, before she could stop herself.

“You do?”

“Yes. You wonder how you could have been so naïve.”

“And gullible. And you wonder how many people know you were that vulnerable back then.”

“That, too.” Hannah reached out and squeezed her mother’s shoulder. Since she’d grown up in a family that seldom showed overt affection, this was tantamount to a hug. “The same thing happened to me when I was in school. But I was older and I really should have known better.”

“Really?” Delores gave Hannah’s hand a pat, the Swensen family way of returning a hug.

“There was someone in college, an assistant professor. He said he loved me, and I believed him, but I found out that he was engaged to somebody else.”

Delores looked shocked. “That’s just awful, dear!”

“It was. It took me a long time to get over it. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to go back to college after Dad died.”

“Because he was still there?”

“That’s right. He probably still is, for all I know.”

Delores gave her a shrewd look. “You don’t care enough to find out?”

“Not really.”

“You’re over it, then,” Delores pronounced. “The strange thing is, I was sure I was over Gus when I started dating your father.”

“But you weren’t?”

Delores frowned. “I think I was. And I’m sure it wouldn’t have bothered me a bit if your father were still alive. But he isn’t. And seeing Gus again brought up old memories.”

“I understand,” Hannah said. And she did.

“But I almost forgot to tell you something. I talked to Iris Herman Staples this afternoon. She’s Lisa’s oldest sister, you know.”

“I know.”

“Well, she remembered some cookies that their mother used to make, and she said they were Jack’s favorite cookies. She was just a toddler at the time, but she remembered them. Marge and Patsy did, too. They said their mother used to love those cookies so much, she’d hired Emmy to bake them whenever she had ladies over for meetings.”

“What kind of cookies were they?” Hannah asked.

“Patsy said that Emmy called them Red Velvet Cookies. We were eating a piece of Edna’s red velvet cake at the time, and they all agreed that the cookies were just like the cake, except that they had more chocolate in the batter and there were chocolate chips inside. They were even frosted with a cream cheese frosting. You’ve eaten Edna’s cake, haven’t you, dear?”

“Yes.” Hannah thought she knew exactly where her mother’s conversation was heading.

“I mentioned the cookies to Lisa, and she looked through her mother’s recipe box, but she couldn’t find any cookie recipe like that. Jack remembers them, though, and he told Lisa they were the best cookies he’d even eaten.”

Hannah couldn’t stay silent any longer. “So you want me to try to make a red velvet cookie that tastes like the one Jack remembers?”

“That’s right, dear. It won’t be too much trouble, will it?”

Hannah felt like laughing, but she didn’t. Her mother had no concept of how many batches of trial-and-error cookies she’d have to bake before she found the proper balance of ingredients. And even when she arrived at a cookie recipe that worked, she still had no assurance that it would even remotely resemble the cookie that Jack Herman remembered.

“Dear?”

Hannah gave a tired little sigh and bowed to the inevitable. “I’ll do my best, Mother,” she promised.

“I asked Edna to write out her recipe for you.” Delores handed her a piece of notebook paper covered with Edna’s fine, spidery writing.

“Thanks, Mother. This’ll help.”

“Then you think you can do it?”

“I’ll give it my best shot.”

“By tomorrow night? It’s Jack’s birthday, and I think it would be wonderful to surprise him with a batch of his favorite cookies. Unless, of course, you’re too busy to bake them.”

“I’ll try, Mother,” Hannah repeated, realizing that it would be another night with less sleep than she needed.

“Thank you, dear. Just let me know if there’s any way I can help you.”

Hannah was about to say there was nothing her mother could do, when she thought of something. “There is one thing…”

“You want me to help you bake?” Delores sounded even more panic-stricken than Andrea had when Hannah had once asked her to listen for the timer and take cookies out of the oven at The Cookie Jar.

“No, Mother. I can handle the baking part. It’s just that I need to ask you more questions about Gus. Will you drop by the shop around ten for coffee tomorrow morning?”

“Of course I will.”

“Good. I’ll try to have a test cookie ready for you to taste. And could you ask Marge to let you into the library later tonight or early tomorrow morning to collect any Jordan High yearbooks you can find with pictures of Gus?”

“I’ll do it right after the slide show’s over. Marge wants to help you any way she can.”

“Thanks. I’d better get going, Mother. I want to mix up some cookie dough tonight and bake it first thing tomorrow morning.”

Hannah wasn’t quite sure what to expect when she opened the door to the condo, but when Moishe wasn’t there to leap into her arms, she knew what she’d find wouldn’t be good. He was hiding again and that meant trouble.

The living room looked fine at first glance. It even looked fine when she walked through it, eyeing anything that could be destroyed by a determined feline. The one remaining couch pillow was intact, and so were the couch, the crocheted throw from her Grandma Ingrid’s farmhouse, and the bouquet of silk flowers Delores had given her for her coffee table. Her desk appeared to be fine, but there was something hanging over it, something new, something…

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, stepping closer. Norman must have had time to deliver the Kitty Kondo because it was standing…perhaps looming was a better word…over her desk.

There was a sound, and Hannah turned to see Moishe sidling into the room. He stepped cautiously closer but stopped short of her, staring at his Kitty Kondo with narrowed eyes. Then he puffed up like a Halloween cat, and the hair on his back stood up. He made a low, growling noise Hannah had only heard him make a few times before, and she knew he was suspicious and fearful of the new piece of furniture that had invaded his living room.

“It’s okay. Norman put it there for you,” Hannah attempted to explain. “It’s a Kitty Kondo, and it’s an activity center for cats.”

Moishe’s ears canted back to flatten against his head, and Hannah knew he wasn’t convinced. “Just look at this,” she said, stepping up to the carpeted tower and batting at one of the jingling balls hanging from the pole on the second story. “Isn’t that fun?”

Moishe’s growl was not an assent, and Hannah was wise enough to know it. Some less savvy human roommates might have attempted to pick him up and put him on the activity center, but not Hannah. She valued the skin on her arms too much, and she didn’t want to arrive at Jack’s birthday party tomorrow night covered in Band-aids. Moishe would have to learn to like his new Kitty Kondo gradually.