Carrot Cake Murder (19 page)

“No, it’s a cookie deficiency emergency.” Hannah carried the pink box over to the window and presented it to Norman. “Is that Doc Knight I heard back there?”

“Iszh me!” Doc Knight answered her. “What kind of cookieszh did zhu bring?”

“Something new I baked today. They’re called Red Velvet Cookies. Would you like to try one, Doc?”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Norman confiscated the box. “Not until I reattach his bridge.”

“Sorry, Doc,” Hannah called out.

“Not half aszh shorry aszh I am.”

Hannah turned back to Norman. “Is it okay if I go back to keep him company while you’re cleaning up that bridge? I’ve got some questions I need to ask him.”

“Not a good idea. Doc’s my patient, and I have to protect his right to privacy while he’s under my care.”

“Okay, but I just wanted to talk to him.”

“Sorry, it’s not allowed. If I let you back there, I’d be violating our patient-dentist relationship.”

“Oh, nonshenszh! She’szh going to catszh me here or at the hoshpital, anyway. Might aszh well get it over wiszh.”

Norman shrugged. “You heard him. He’s waiving his right to privacy. Hold on a second and I’ll let you in.”

Hannah smiled as she went through the doorway to the inner sanctum and into the examining room. She liked Doc Knight, and he’d always been good about answering her questions. “Hi, Doc,” she said, taking the chair against the wall.

“Hi, Hannah,” Doc said, giving her a grin that showed several missing teeth. “Iszh a good thing your name iszhn’t Shuszhana or Shally. Sheila would be okay, though.”

“Not with me. I like my name,” Hannah said with a laugh. “I need to ask you some questions about Gus Klein and Mary Jo Kuehn.”

“That’szh easzhy. I don’t know anything exszhept that they were girlfriend and boyfriend.”

“How about the accident? The night of the senior prom when Mary Jo died?”

“I waszhn’t here. I waszh in Boszhton for a two-week medical convenszhon. The county coroner took care of that and he’szh been dead for twenty yearszh.”

Hannah came close to groaning. Doc Knight would be no help on that subject. “How about the fight Jack Herman had with Gus Klein? That was the night Gus left town for good, and nobody saw him again until the family reunion.”

“I waszh here for that. Fire away, Hannah. I’m your captive audienszh. There’szh no way I’m leaving here until I get my bridge back.”

“Mother told me that Dad and Uncle Ed broke up the fight and brought Jack to your office.”

“She’szh right. Tha’szh what happened. Jack waszh in pretty bad shape. They didn’t want Emmy to szhee him until I got him all cleaned up and looking aszh normal aszh I could. Didn’t work, though. She went into labor and delivered that night.”

“And the baby was Lisa’s brother Tim, right?”

“That’szh right. And Tim waszh just fine. Iszh like I told Jack…she waszh ready to deliver, anyway. He didn’t do anything wrong. He waszh juszht defending hiszh…” Doc Knight stopped and shook his head. “You didn’t hear me szhay that.”

“Szhay…I mean, say what?”

“Szhay anything about defending anybody.”

“You just told me that Jack was fighting to defend someone.” Hannah peered closely at Doc. “Was it Emmy?”

“You didn’t hear me szhay that, either.”

Hannah’s mind flew, attempting to fit the pieces she’d learned together. There’d been some important verbal salvos at the dance. When Jack had mentioned Mary Jo Kuehn, Gus had retaliated by mentioning Emmy. Then Jack had taken offense at the fact that Gus had used a diminutive name for his wife, and replied with Emily’s full name. After that, Gus had mentioned Jack’s sister Heather, but Marge had brought up their teacher, Mr. Burnside, and steered the conversation to safer ground.

“Do you know if Gus dated Emmy before she married Jack?” she asked.

“Yeszh.”

Hannah gave herself a mental kick for asking an ambiguous question. “Yes, you know? Or yes, he dated her?” she asked, hoping to clear up the confusion.

“Yeszh I know. And that’szh all I’m going to szhay.”

There was a knock on the door and Norman came in. “Just let me reattach this, and then you can have one of Hannah’s cookies. The only stipulation is that you chew on the other side.” He turned to Hannah. “Do you use nuts in your Red Velvet Cookies?”

“No. They have chocolate chips, but they melt when they bake and they’re soft. There’s nothing at all chewy, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“That’s exactly what I’m asking.” Norman set the tray he was carrying down on the round shelf that was attached to the dental chair, and turned to Hannah again. “Excuse us for a couple of minutes. This won’t take long.”

Hannah watched while Norman tilted the chair back, positioned something she assumed was the bridge in Doc Knight’s mouth and held it in place. A minute or so later, he removed his gloved fingers and stepped back.

“Okay,” he said to his patient. “You’re as good as new. I’ll go get those cookies and we’ll all have one.”

The moment Norman left the examining room, Hannah seized her opportunity and moved her chair closer to Doc Knight. “Did the fight have something to do with Emmy dating Gus in the past?” she asked.

“Of course it did.”

Now that Norman had reattached his bridge, Doc answered normally. For a brief second or two, Hannah was thrown for a loop. She’s gotten used to the lisp. “Was it a love triangle?” she asked him.

“Only in Gus’s mind. Emmy loved Jack, and Jack loved her. It was a good marriage, Hannah. Gus was a troublemaker, and he didn’t care who he hurt. To tell the truth, I was relieved when he left town. I felt sorry for his parents. It had to be hard not knowing what had happened to their son, especially since he left like a thief in the night, with no explanation and no good-byes. I still don’t know which would have been more heartbreaking.”

“Which?”

“The way he left and not knowing why. Or the grief he was bound to cause them if he’d stayed.”

Hannah took a moment to digest Doc’s statement. It was damning, but probably accurate. Doc Knight was a straight shooter, and he didn’t equivocate. But there were more questions to ask, and Norman would be back any moment.

“You said Gus didn’t care who he hurt. Does that mean there were people who hated him?”

Doc thought that over for a second. “I’m sure there were.”

“And some of them were right here in Lake Eden?”

“Oh, yes. I can think of several. You’ve got to understand that the Gus we knew was concerned only about himself. He used people to get what he wanted. And then, when he didn’t need them anymore, he discarded them like old candy wrappers. It was all about Gus, if you know what I mean. He had an ego that wouldn’t quit.”

“I know the type,” Hannah said, remembering the assistant professor she’d dated in college. “Tell me more.”

“Gus was a funny bird, at least that’s what the psychiatric head at the hospital where I did my internship would have called him. I watched Gus grow up. He was in grade school when I was in high school, and it was all in one building. Gus was a manipulator from early on and everybody, including his family, gave him whatever he wanted.”

“Marge and Patsy said he was spoiled.”

“That may be too mild a way to describe it. Spoiled kids usually know better. Most of them know right from wrong, and they’re aware that other children their age aren’t treated the way they are.”

“And you don’t think Gus was aware of that?”

Doc Knight shook his head. “I’m almost sure he wasn’t. Gus grew up with everything he ever wanted. That caused him to be amoral.”

“Amoral?” Of course Hannah knew what the word meant, but she’d never actually heard it applied to someone she knew.

“Yes, amoral. I really don’t think the question of right or wrong ever occurred to him. If Gus wanted something, he got it. And if something bothered him, he got rid of it. That went for material things, and it also went for people. He lived for the moment, and it was all about Gus. Nothing else mattered. I have no idea how many angry people he left in his wake. And even worse…I don’t think Gus did, either.”

“So you weren’t surprised when he turned up dead at the family reunion?”

“Not really.” Doc Knight gave a little shrug. “The big surprise is that it took two days for somebody to do it!”

“Whoa!” Hannah held up her hands in surrender as Michelle came barreling through the screen door at their mother’s cottage. “Where’s the fire?”

“Andrea’s talking to Bertie Straub on the road, and I wanted to get here before she did.”

“Why?” Hannah picked up the pepper grinder and prepared to grind pepper over the casserole she was preparing.

“Because I’ve got something I have to tell you. I wanted to talk to you yesterday, but every time I tried, you were with someone. And I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

“Not even Andrea?”

“Especially not Andrea!”

Hannah put down the pepper grinder with a thump. “Why?”

“Because she can be kind of…prudish.”

“And I’m not?”

“Maybe a little, but nothing like Andrea! I think it’s because she’s married.”

Hannah thought about that for a moment. “You’d think a married woman would be more sophisticated and worldly than a single woman. What you said seems counterintuitive.”

“Maybe it seems that way, but it’s not. Married women don’t date anymore, and that means they don’t do any wild and crazy things like single women do.”

“I see.” Hannah picked up the pepper grinder again and gave it a series of twists. “And since I’m single, you assume that I do wild and crazy things?”

“Well…no. Maybe you don’t. But you could, if you wanted to.”

“Hmm.” Hannah made the most noncommittal comment of all. “So what did you want to tell me? Or did you change your mind?”

Michelle walked over to the counter where Hannah was working, and pulled up a stool. “It’s about Sunday night and the murder. I think I saw the killer.”

“Really?!” Hannah was glad she hadn’t opened the bottle of cumin. If she’d been in the process of measuring it, the whole thing might have landed in her hotdish.

“Well…maybe. It was really quiet and there wasn’t anyone else out. It just stands to reason that the person I saw go across the road and around to the front of the pavilion is the murderer.”

Hannah drew in her breath sharply. “Did this person see you?”

“No. He didn’t even know I was there. Or maybe it was a she, a woman wearing pants and a jacket. I was a long ways away, and I couldn’t really tell.”

Hannah glanced out the window over the sink. If Michelle had been in the kitchen of the cottage at two in the morning, she would have had a perfect view of the road and the entrance to the pavilion. “You were standing at the sink at two in the morning?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that’s not precisely correct.”

“I know that’s what it means!” Hannah gave a little sigh. That made twice today that she’d fallen into a semantic trap. “Why don’t you just tell me where you were?” she suggested.

“Down on the dock with Lonnie. We were swimming and we climbed up on the dock to take a rest.”

At two in the morning?! Hannah’s mind shouted, but she didn’t voice the sentiment. And she didn’t ask about swimming attire, either, since she was supposed to be the nonprude.

“And you saw this person at two o’clock?” she asked instead of the thousand and one questions she really wanted to ask.

“I think it was about two. I met Lonnie on the dock at one-thirty. Mother and Carrie were asleep by then. And by the time we climbed back up on the dock and got our towels, it was probably close to two.”

“But you don’t know for sure, because you weren’t wearing a watch.”

“That’s right. I don’t have a waterproof watch. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t wearing…”

“You said you saw this person walk across the road. Did he get out of a car?”

“There was no car. I would have heard it drive up. It was really quiet except for the crickets and the frogs and the mosquitoes. And the lapping of the waves against the dock, and the loons across the lake.”

“Describe the person for me,” Hannah interrupted her sister before she could hear more than she wanted to hear. “You said you couldn’t be sure whether it was a man or a woman?”

“That’s right. I just saw him or her through the trees. And this person went inside and didn’t come out while we were sitting on the dock.”

“And that was how long?”

“I was in bed by two-thirty. I know because I looked at the clock. Do you think I should tell Mike what I saw?”

Hannah shrugged. “You probably don’t need to do that. I’m sure Lonnie has already told him.”

“No, he hasn’t. Lonnie didn’t see the person. He was sitting with his back to the road. I was right next to him, facing the other way. I really don’t want to tell Mike unless you think I absolutely have to. Mother’s bound to hear about it, and I shouldn’t have been out that late.”

“Let me get this straight,” Hannah said, reaching into her purse for her steno notebook and grabbing a pen. She really wanted to cut her baby sister a break, but this was a murder investigation. “Tell me exactly what you saw and when you saw it.”

“I saw a person walk across the road, go around the side of the pavilion, and enter through the front door.”

“You know, for sure, that this person went inside?”

Michelle nodded. “Light spilled out on the concrete when the door opened. A second later, the light disappeared, so the door must have shut again.”

“Makes sense. And you were so far away you couldn’t tell the identity of this person, or even if that person was a man or a woman?”

“That’s right.”

“Giving your best estimate, you think it was about two in the morning when the person went inside the pavilion?”

“I think so.”

“Would you have seen the person if he or she had come back out while you were still sitting on the dock?”

“Yes. The light would have spilled out again when the door opened, and I would have noticed it.”

“So you believe that the person was inside the pavilion for the entire period from two to two-thirty? And two-thirty is the time you left the dock and went back into the cottage?”