Blackberry Pie Murder (10 page)

76

Joanne Fluke

Hannah glanced at the clock on the wall outside her cell and sighed deeply. She’d only been in jail for fifteen minutes and time was passing much too slowly to suit her. She wished she were home on her couch in the living room, watching a vintage movie on television, munching buttered popcorn with Moishe purring beside her. She wished she were in her condo kitchen with Michelle, baking treats and laughing. She wished she were back at the Lake Eden Inn, enjoying her coq au vin with Norman, Doc, and her mother. She wished she were anywhere but here in this cell with steel bars between her and freedom.

“If wishes were horses, beggars could ride,” she said aloud, repeating one of her Great-Grandmother Elsa’s favorite sayings. She was in a cell at the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Station and she had to try to make the best of it. Perhaps the time would pass more quickly if she had something to read, something to take her mind off this horrible situation.

“Rick?” she called out. “Is there anything around here to read?”

“I’ll go see. Sometimes the secretaries leave magazines in the break room.”

Hannah watched as he got up from behind the desk and left. She heard the sound of his footsteps echoing down the corridor and then stopping. She imagined him opening the door of the break room, switching on the lights, and check-ing to see if there were any magazines on the long wooden table in the center of the room. All too soon, she heard the door close and the sound of his footsteps increasing in volume as he walked back.

“Sorry, Hannah.” Rick came up to her cell. “No one left any magazines. I’ll check in Barbara’s office. Maybe there’s something to read in there.”

Again Hannah waited, hoping that there was something, anything to get her mind off the events of this horrible day. It didn’t really matter what it was. She’d settle for a book on police procedures, or a drivers manual, or a copy of the BLACKBERRY PIE MURDER

77

county statutes. Even a phone book would do although there weren’t that many pages in the Lake Eden phone book.

Rick was coming back. Hannah listened eagerly as his footfalls approached. He simply
had
to have found something!

“Not much to choose from here,” Rick said, arriving with several choices in his hand.

“That’s okay. I’ll take anything.”

Rick laughed. “That’s good.” He reached through the bars to hand her part of a calendar with daily tear-off pages. “It’s last year’s, but it’s got a knock-knock joke at the top of every page. Since it starts in November, it must have belonged to that temporary secretary we hired last year when Sandy was on maternity leave.”

“Thanks, Rick,” Hannah said, even though she wasn’t very fond of knock-knock jokes. “What else have you got?”

“A booklet on . . . never mind. I shouldn’t have brought that.”

“What is it?”

“Something you probably don’t want to read.”

Now Hannah’s curiosity was aroused. “Come on, Rick.

Hand it over. I’ll decide if I want to read it, or not.”

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Rick passed a slim booklet through the bars and Hannah read the title aloud. “
Symptoms and Treatment of Venereal
Disease
?”

Rick’s face colored slightly. “I don’t know who brought that in. Actually, I don’t think I
want
to know who brought that in.”

“Me, either,” Hannah said, handing it back to him. “Better put it back where it was.”

“Good idea. Here’s the other thing I found, Hannah. It looks pretty dull.”

Hannah took the thick volume and began to smile. “
A
Chronology of Minnesota Weather
,” she read the title aloud.

“This is absolutely perfect, Rick!”

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Joanne Fluke

“Really?” Rick sounded shocked. “Then you want to keep it?”

“You bet I do! That cot on the wall doesn’t look very comfortable and I was afraid I’d be up all night. A couple pages of this and I’ll be so bored, I’ll go right to sleep.”

Hannah was on her fourth week of bad knock-knock jokes when she heard her mother’s voice. She looked up to see Delores and Andrea standing at the front desk. Andrea was carrying two large bags of food, and Delores was equally burdened.

“This one’s for you, Rick,” Delores said, handing him one of her bags. “Sally said you liked her prime rib dinner so she sent it for you.”

“Thanks!”

Hannah couldn’t see Rick’s face but she knew he was wearing a big grin.

“It’s okay if we take Hannah’s dinner back to her, isn’t it?”

Andrea asked him.

“Sure. I’ll let you in and you can talk to her while she eats.

Follow me and I’ll show you where she is.”

Rick led the little procession and Hannah watched her mother and sister follow him down the hallway. When they arrived at the holding cell, Rick unlocked the door.

“There you go,” he said. “I’ll lock you in and then I’m going to get a cup of coffee and dig into my dinner before it gets cold.”

“You’re going to lock us in?!” Andrea turned to glare at him.

“Well . . . yeah, Mrs. Todd. I have to. Hannah’s a prisoner and I can’t leave the cell door open.”

“But I’m the wife of your boss! Bill’s not going to be happy with you if you lock my mother and me in a cell with my sister!”

Hannah watched as a myriad of expressions crossed Rick’s face. First he looked as if he were about to object, and then he looked as if he’d thought better of it. He vacillated be-BLACKBERRY PIE MURDER

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tween the two extremes and Hannah knew exactly what was running through his mind.
It’s true. She’s Bill’s wife and I
don’t want to make her mad. But that doesn’t mean she can
waltz in here and tell me what to do. My boss is the only one
who can tell me what to do. But will he be mad at me if I
don’t follow procedure? Should I play it by the rules and tell
her that I can’t do that? She’s got me between a rock and a
hard place and I don’t know what I should do. Bill suspended Mike without pay for not doing his duty, and I sure
don’t want to end up like that! Jessica will kill me if I come
home suspended without pay!

“I’ve got an idea,” Hannah said, feeling sorry for Rick and his obvious dilemma. “Why don’t you bring me the food, lock me up again, and get a couple of chairs so Mother and Andrea can sit right outside in the hall and visit with me while I eat.”

“Yeah, that’ll work!” Rick looked very relieved as he took the food from Delores and Andrea and carried it inside the cell. “Hold on, ladies. I’ll get chairs for you.”

Rick got the chairs in short order and rushed off to enjoy his dinner. Andrea didn’t look happy at this turn of events, but she sat down right outside the holding cell with Delores.

“Oh, Hannah!” Delores sighed deeply. “I just knew something bad would happen today. And it did. I still can’t believe that a daughter of mine is in jail!”

“And
my
husband locked you up!”

One look at Andrea’s face and Hannah knew her brother-in-law wouldn’t be forgiven soon.

“I am not going to read the paper tomorrow,” Delores declared. “That snake in the grass was there and he heard the whole thing!”

“Rod Metcalf?” Hannah asked, unable to think of anyone else her mother might call a snake in the grass.

“That’s right. And I think he took a picture of you with his cell phone as Bill led you out of the dining room.”

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“It’ll probably be on the front page,” Andrea said, frowning deeply. “I wish there was something we could do to kill that story, but I don’t think asking Rod to do it will work.”

There was a moment of silence and Hannah knew her mother and Andrea were thinking thoughts of public scandal and how they could possibly avert it. It was time to change the subject before all three of them got depressed. “So what did Sally send for my dinner?” Hannah asked.

“There’s a new appetizer she made for you,” Andrea replied quickly and Hannah knew she also wanted to change the subject. After all, her husband would be in the infamous article, too. “Open the bags and take a look.”

Hannah opened the two bags of food and looked around for something to use as a table. There was nothing even remotely resembling a table in the cell. She finally settled for the cot nearest the door and then she began to explore the takeout boxes that Sally had sent.

“These are darling,” she said, opening a box with four mini open-faced sandwiches spread with cream cheese that were topped with a small piece of smoked salmon.

“Aren’t they though!” Delores looked pleased that Hannah liked them. “Do you think they’d work as an appetizer for the wedding reception?”

Hannah stared at her mother in shock. They’d been suggesting appetizers for weeks now and Delores had rejected every one of their suggestions. “I think these would be just perfect,” she said, hoping that agreeing with her mother wouldn’t mean that Delores would disagree.

“That’s set then.” Delores gave a quick nod. “I thought of it the moment I saw them. They’re festive, and fancy, and not messy at all. I think that’s important when the guests are wearing their best clothing and don’t want to spill.”

“That’s very smart, Mother,” Andrea complimented her.

“Yes, it is,” Hannah agreed. “We’ll have to keep that in mind when we figure out the rest of the menu.”

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“Thank you, dears.” Delores looked pleased. “And by the way, I’ve also decided on the entrée.”

“Really?” Hannah was amazed. If she’d only known that her mother would make decisions about the wedding the minute her eldest daughter was behind bars, she would have figured out a way to get locked up much earlier and saved them all the aggravation. “What did you decide on for an en-trée, Mother?”

“Individual Beef Wellington. Sally told me she could make it for a crowd using small filets wrapped in puff pastry.”

“What a good idea!”

“That’s what Mother ordered tonight and she said it was just delicious,” Andrea explained.

“Did she send one for me?” Hannah asked, hoping that Sally had given her a sample.

“No, dear. Sally said it wouldn’t travel well. You have Fettuccini Porcini. It’s a pasta dish Sally’s cousin had when she was in Australia.”

“It’s really good. That’s what I had tonight after you left,”

Andrea said. “I told Sally that there was a microwave in the break room here at the station and she told me that we could warm it up if it got too cold.”

“It feels hot enough to me,” Hannah said, pulling the pasta dish out of the hotbox and feeling the bottom. “How about dessert?”

“You have two desserts,” Delores said. “Sally sent a slice of that Buttermilk Pie you tasted, and there’s a slice of Rummy Tum Tum Cake.”

The dessert box had a see-through plastic lid and Hannah’s stomach growled as she gazed at the pie and the cake.

“They both look absolutely wonderful.”

“I had the cake for dessert,” Andrea told her. “I was really upset and Mother thought I needed chocolate. It’s delicious, but the slice you have is special.”

Hannah picked up the fork that Sally had sent and pried the lid from the box. “I’ll have a bite of the cake first.”

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Joanne Fluke

“Careful!” Andrea warned her, getting up to move right up against the bars. “I said yours was special, Hannah. Don’t eat it yet!”

“Why not? There’s nothing wrong with having a bite of dessert before I start my entrée.”

“Stop!” Delores hissed out the word, jumping up to join Andrea at the cell bars. “We said it was
special
.”

“That’s why I wanted to taste it.”

“Not special
that
way,” Andrea tried to explain. “Special because . . .” she lowered her voice to a whisper. “It’s special because it’s got something in it.”

“Of course it has something in it. All cakes have ingredients in them. Why are you whispering, Andrea?”

Andrea pressed right up against the bars. “This cake is special because we put a file in it,” she whispered.

Hannah stared at her sister in amazement. “You’re trying to help me break out of jail?”

“Yes!” Delores whispered. “It was my idea. I asked Sally if she had a file and she didn’t, but Andrea had one in her purse.”

“Andrea had a
file
in her purse?”

“Shhh!” Delores hissed. “It’s right near the bottom and it’s wrapped in foil. All you have to do is pull it out.”

“The cake’s still good. You can eat it,” Andrea explained.

“That’s why we wrapped the file in foil.”

Hannah stared down at the piece of cake. It was a big piece, but it wasn’t big enough to contain a file. She felt around with the fork and found a hard object at the bottom, just as her mother had said. She pulled it out, unwrapped it, and began to laugh. “A
nail
file?”

Andrea looked highly embarrassed. “It was the only thing we could find.”

Hannah was still laughing, but she managed to gasp out her questions. “What did you expect me to do? Pick the lock on the cell door?”

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Delores shrugged. “No, but we wanted to bring
something
. And your nails are looking a bit ragged, dear.”

“Then thank you. If Rick doesn’t confiscate it, I’ll file them. It’s not like I don’t have the time. I’ll be in here for two more days before I’m arraigned.”

“Oh, no!” Delores looked very concerned. “Will you be all right, dear? It’s rather dreary in that cell.”

“We should have stopped at my house and brought a nice bedspread,” Andrea said. “And a few throw pillows to dress up the place.”

“What a good idea! I’ll do it tomorrow.” Delores looked pleased that she had something she could do.

“They’ll grant you bail, won’t they?” Andrea asked Hannah. “I mean, you have strong ties to the community, you own a business and a condo here, and you’re not a flight risk . . .

are you?”

“Not really. For one thing, I wouldn’t know where to go.