Part 22 (1/2)
”Thank you, Mother.”
”A man would be lucky to have you for a wife. You're such a good cook.”
”It's my business, Mother.”
”You keep a nice home, too.”
”Thank you, Mother,” Hannah said again. Then she took a deep breath because she knew that two compliments in a row from her mother were usually followed by a lecture about how she should settle down, get married, and start a family.
”I know you think there's plenty of time for a husband and family, but your...”
The start of her mother's biological-clock-is-ticking lecture was interrupted by a knock at the door. Hannah sent up a quick prayer of thanks for Norman's timely arrival and held up her hand.
”Hold that thought, Mother. I've got to get the door.”
With that said and her mother momentarily silenced, Hannah hurried over, bypa.s.sed the nearly useless peephole, and called out, ”Who's there?”
”Mouse delivery for Moishe,” Norman announced, and Hannah opened the door. ”I can just drop them off if you're tired.”
”Come in and join the party,” Hannah said, opening the door all the way so he could see the a.s.sembled crew of Swensens.
”Good thing you got your second wind,” he said just loudly enough for Hannah to hear him. And then he turned to them. ”You came to help Hannah tie squeaky mice to Moishe's Kitty Kondo?”
”Not exactly,” Mich.e.l.le said, laughing. ”We were just eating and discussing murder.”
”Sounds like a good combination to me. Eating what?”
”Scandinavian Almond Cake,” Hannah told him. ”Find a seat, and I'll get you a piece with your coffee.”
”Moishe's purring, Hannah,” Norman remarked, after Delores, Andrea, and Mich.e.l.le had left. ”I can hear him all the way over here.”
”That's because Mother's gone. He probably thought I was punis.h.i.+ng him when I let her in the door.”
”Or he's just glad everything's back to normal and you've forgiven him for past transgressions. You have forgiven him, haven't you?”
”Long before you got here. And long before Mother and the girls got here, too. Thanks to you, that's one problem solved. Now all I have to do is figure out who killed Gus.”
”If you're not too tired, tell me what you've got so far.” Norman took a sip of the coffee Hannah had just refilled.
”I've got lots of motives, but not many suspects. Gus wasn't a very nice person, and there's a long list of people who had a reason to dislike him, even hate him.”
”And they are...”
Hannah grabbed her shorthand notebook and opened it to the suspect page. ”I'll start at the beginning. There are a lot of girls he dated in high school and then dumped for someone else. Mother and Marge made a list. Unfortunately, every single one of them has an alibi.”
”Okay. Who else?”
”Bert Kuehn. There's speculation that Gus was driving drunk and he got into the car accident that killed Bert's sister, Mary Jo. The official police report states that Mary Jo was driving, but Gus's high school baseball coach was the first on the scene, and he could have helped Gus put Mary Jo in the driver's seat.”
”Did you talk to the coach?”
”No. He left Jordan High and went to coach college baseball at the University of Michigan. I haven't had time to track him down yet.”
”I'll help you do that before I leave. Anyone else?”
”There's the possibility of a robbery gone bad. Gus was flas.h.i.+ng around money and telling everyone that he was rich.”
”But didn't you say that the money in his wallet was still there?”
”Yes. Mike thinks the robber might have panicked when he realized he'd killed Gus, and he fled without anything.”
”But you don't agree?”
”Not really. He could have grabbed the Rolex. He wouldn't have had any way of knowing that it was a fake.”
”You're sure the Rolex was a fake?”
”Positive. Mich.e.l.le checked with Lonnie before you got here tonight, and he said he talked to the jeweler. It was definitely a fake, and the ring Gus was wearing was paste. Mike told me that it wasn't unusual for rich people to wear fake watches and jewelry and keep their expensive things in a safe at home. That's what he thinks Gus did.”
”But you don't agree?”
”No, but I have more information now. Ava told me that Gus charged gas on a gas card that had been canceled by the company for nonpayment. Mother's going to check with Sally tomorrow to see if the credit card he used to pay for the brunch went through okay.”
”And Mike doesn't know about the canceled gas card yet?”
”No.”
”Are you going to tell him?”
”I don't know yet. I'm afraid that if he thinks there aren't any valuables in Gus's apartment in Atlantic City, he might delay sending someone there to check it out. It wasn't high on his list of priorities, anyway. It's really doubtful that someone from New Jersey followed Gus here and killed him.”
”That's probably right,” Norman said, but he didn't look completely convinced. ”But a hired killer could have hidden himself in the crowd of people here for the reunion, bided his time, and killed Gus when n.o.body else was around.”
”Impossible.”
”Why? There's got to be at least a hundred and fifty people at the lake.”
”And they all get together and talk,” Hannah explained. ”Somebody who's not a relative would be found out in a hurry. I walked through that crowd enough to know everybody asks everybody else about how they're related, and their background, and the other relatives they know.”
Norman thought about that for a moment. ”You've got a point. It would be a lot harder than trying to crash a convention or another event like that.”
”Back to the suspects,” Hannah said, flipping the page. ”There's Jack, of course. You already know about that. And then there's the gambling Gus used to do. It could be someone who thought Gus cheated him, someone who carried a grudge all these years. Or it could be someone he borrowed money from and never paid back. Mother told me he was terrible about that. He still owed her twenty dollars from high school when he left Lake Eden for good.”
”He sounds like someone I'm glad I met only once,” Norman said, shaking his head.
”Well put!” Hannah complimented him. ”But that doesn't mean he deserved to die.”
”True. Anybody else on your suspect list?”
”Ava.”