Hannah thought about that for a moment and then she sighed. 'I hate to admit it, but you could be right. We'd better find out if Norman has an alibi.'
'Hi, you two.' Lisa breezed into the kitchen. 'I dropped Dad off at the seniors' center and Tracey's in the dining room with Bill and Mike. They're having breakfast and she's snitching their bacon.'
'That's fine.' Andrea nodded absently.
Lisa walked over to join them, but she stopped short as she noticed their serious expressions. 'What's wrong?'
'Mike thinks Norman's a suspect,' Hannah told her.
'Norman Rhodes?'
'That's right,' Andrea confirmed it. 'Did you happen to see him last night between ten and midnight?'
'Not me,' Lisa replied, sitting down next to them, 'but I'll ask Herb. He bowled last night and then he came over for night lunch.'
'What's night lunch?' Andrea asked her.
'That's what Herb's mother calls the little snack you have before bedtime so you won't get hungry in the middle of the night. She told me to try it with Dad and it's working just great. He never wakes up and wanders around in the dark anymore.'
Hannah tried to keep her mouth shut, but she just had to ask. 'How is Marge getting along with your dad?'
'They're just great together,' Lisa said with a smile. 'Marge is always offering to come and sit with him when Herb and I want to go out. They used to date in high school, you know. Now that Mom's dead and Herb's father is gone, I keep thinking that Marge and Dad might have gotten together again, if only. . . you know.'
Hannah understood what Lisa wasn't saying, and she reached out to give her arm a sympathetic pat. Marge Beeseman had never been credited with being a martyr, and it was unlikely that she'd choose to marry a man who'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. 'A lot of times life isn't fair.'
'I'd better let you two get to work,' Andrea said, rising to her feet. 'I'm going up to talk to Francine and I'll take Tracey along. She adores babies, and she hasn't seen little Danny yet. I'll check in with you right afterwards, Hannah.'
Lisa waited until Andrea had left, and then she turned to Hannah. 'I didn't want to say anything in front of your sister, but Tracey might have gotten us into trouble.'
'What happened?'
'We ran into Edna Ferguson when I dropped Dad off at the seniors' center, and she was in a panic about what to serve for dessert at the banquet.'
Hannah groaned, guessing the rest. It wasn't the first time her precocious niece had volunteered her services. 'Did Tracey promise Edna that we'd bake the Winter Carnival cake?'
'I'm afraid she did. She told Edna that her Aunt Hannah could do anything.'
Hannah laughed. 'I guess I should be flattered, but there's no way we can replace Connie Mac's cake. We could bake it, no problem, but cake decoration isn't my long suit.'
'Mine, either. I can decorate cookies, but doing a cake is a huge project. Do you want me to call Edna and tell her that we can't do it?'
Hannah shook her head. 'We'll just give her buckets of Little Snowballs for dessert.'
'Snowballs?' Lisa looked shocked. 'You're joking, aren't you?'
'I'm perfectly serious. The snowballs I'm talking about are cookies that my Grandma Ingrid used to bake. We'll present them in the crystal ice buckets Sally uses to chill champagne, and they'll fit right in with the Winter Carnival theme.'
'They sound just perfect.' Lisa glanced over at the swinging door as it opened. 'Here comes Alex. Sally introduced us when I came in through the dining room.'
Alex spotted them sitting at the counter and hurried over. 'Sally said to tell you that you could use anything in the pantry, and she sent me in to help you bake.'
'That's great,' Hannah told her. 'We can use all the help we can get. Just let me check my recipe file and I'll give you a list of what we need.'
While Lisa and Alex retrieved the bowls of cookie dough from the cooler, Hannah found her grandmother's recipe and made a list of the ingredients. When she was through, she handed it to Alex. 'Could you gather these up for us? We'll bake the cookies for the Winter Carnival first, and then we'll start in on the Little Snowballs.'
'Go do what you have to do, Hannah,' Lisa said after Alex had left them. 'I'll handle the baking with Alex.'
'Are you sure?' Hannah felt a little guilty. Every time she got involved in an investigation, Lisa ended up doing all the baking.
'I'm positive. The faster you solve Connie Mac's murder, the faster we can get back into our own kitchen.' Lisa gestured toward the bowls of dough they'd set on the counter. 'I should have these ready for you by noon.'
'Great. I'll drop them off at the venues. You shouldn't have to do everything.'
'Okay, but only if you want to.'
'I do. I have to go out there anyway. Norman's a judge at the dogsled competition, and I need to warn him that he's a suspect.'
'I hope he's got an alibi, and I won't forget to check with Herb. Is there anything else I can do?'
Hannah started to shake her head, but then she thought of something. 'See if you can get Alex talking about her background. I need to know everything I can about her.'
'I can do that,' Lisa said, and then she began to frown. 'Do you think Alex killed Connie Mac?'
'No, but everyone's a suspect until we can eliminate them. And there's something about Alex that puzzles me. She was really upset when she found out that Janie was missing, and they only met a couple of days ago. I thought she overreacted, and I'm wondering why.'
'Okay. I'll find out everything I can for you,' Lisa promised. 'Working with you, I've learned how to get people to spill their guts.'
Hannah went out the door with a smile on her face. Perhaps some people wouldn't regard what Lisa had said as a compliment, but she did.
* * *
'Look, Aunt Hannah. Isn't Danny wonderful?' Tracey looked up and smiled. 'He's got all his toes. Francine took his booties off so I could count.'
Hannah laughed. She'd been keeping Tracey occupied while Andrea spoke to Sally's stepmother, an attractive silver-haired lady whose smile seemed to be a permanent fixture on her face. 'Does Danny have all of his fingers?'
'Oh, yes. He has eight and that's just right.'
'Not ten?' Hannah couldn't resist teasing her niece a bit.
'Of course not, Aunt Hannah. You know that people have only eight fingers. The other two are thumbs.'
'That's right. I was just testing you. Thumbs aren't fingers.'
Tracey nodded. 'But they're really important. They're opposable and we couldn't pick up things if we didn't have them. Watch and see how Danny does it.' Tracey picked up a rattle and dangled it front of Danny. The baby reached up to grab it, and Tracey leaned down to kiss the top of his head. 'Good boy, Danny. You did that just fine.'
'Did Miss Cox teach you that in school?' Hannah asked, wondering how Janice Cox, Tracey's teacher at Kiddie Komer, was managing to cope with such a bright four-year-old.
'No, Mr. Herman told me about it when we looked at his animal collection. Monkeys and gorillas have opposable thumbs, and there was another animal, too. I think it had something to do with oranges.'
'Orangutans?'
'That's it.'
Hannah reached out to ruffle Tracey's blond hair. 'You liked Mr. Herman?'
'Oh, yes. He knows lots of things, but he told me that sometimes his memory turns into a butterfly.'
'A butterfly?'
Tracey nodded solemnly. 'He has to sneak up on it if he wants to catch it and there's a trick he uses. If he
