inherited my parents' house last year, and I thought I might turn it into a bed-and-breakfast.'
'Well, the inn is certainly a good example of what you can do with an old place,' Hannah said, still watching Alex closely. She looked perfectly sincere, but she didn't quite meet Hannah's eyes. That made Hannah suspect that Alex wasn't telling her the whole truth and that she had a second reason for accepting Sally's job.
'I'll start in on these,' Alex said, glancing down at the recipe. 'I'll go get a fresh box of oatmeal.'
When Alex had gone, Hannah turned to Lisa. 'Did you find out anything more about her?'
'She's forty-five years old, she lives in Edina, she has two cats, she loves to dance, and she sews in her spare time. That's about it. You got more real information from her in two minutes than I did in two hours.'
'You primed the pump,' Hannah said, patting Lisa on the shoulder. 'I just happened to be here when the water gushed out.'
'Do you really think so?'
'Absolutely. Just keep working on her.'
Alex came back in with a jumbo-sized box of oatmeal, and the three of them worked in silence for several minutes. It didn't take long to mix up the cookie dough with all three of them working, and that was all to the good. Sally's staff had begun to arrive to prepare the lunch buffet, and Hannah didn't want to get in the way.
'Don't worry,' Alex said, noticing Hannah's concerned expression as more kitchen workers arrived. 'Sally's serving soup and sandwiches for today's lunch buffet. She figured that most of the guests would be out at venues and she could keep it simple. All the kitchen staff has to do is lay cold cuts, cheeses, and breads on platters and carry it out. There's potato salad, but that's already made, and so is the coleslaw and the soup.'
Another five minutes of work and they were finished Hannah covered the bowls with plastic wrap, and Lisa and Alex stashed them in Sally's walk-in cooler.
'Why don't you go pull your truck around to the back entrance?' Lisa suggested. 'We'll finish up here and then we'll help you load.'
Hannah headed out to get her truck. As she walked through the halls to the lobby, she didn't meet another soul. Sally had been right. Almost everyone was out at the venues.
Her boots were on the rack by the front entrance, right where she'd left them when she'd come in, and Hannah sat down on the bench to pull them on. She was just putting on her parka, preparing to go out into the cold, when she noticed a small crowd of people out on the lakeshore. Two parka-clad men were unloading a wooden structure from a pickup truck that had been driven out on the ice, and Hannah realized that they were setting up for the ice-fishing contest. The actual contest would take place tomorrow, but the preparations had to be made in advance. By the time night fell, the surface of Eden Lake would be sprinkled with ice-fishing houses.
Hannah was about to step out the door when she noticed that the plume of smoke on the far side of the lake was still there. A die-hard Winter Carnival attendee would be out at the venues by now. He wouldn't be huddled in his summer cabin, feeding the fire in his fireplace. But this column of smoke showed no signs of diminishing. It was still just as thick as when she'd first spotted it.
Hannah turned on her heel and headed for the phone. If she remembered correctly, Janie's parents had owned a cabin on the far side of the lake. She had to find out if they'd sold it when they'd moved to Florida, and there was one person who could tell her that in a flash.
Two minutes later, Hannah had Andrea on the phone. But the moment she started to ask her question, Andrea interrupted her.
'Wait a second, Hannah. I've got big news. You can take Ray off your suspect list.'
'The bus driver called you?'
'That's right. Ray rode all the way up to Duluth and his parents were there to meet him. The driver saw him get into their car. That was at eight last night, and the driver told me that the roads up north were a mess. He was an hour behind schedule, and there's no way Ray could have driven back to Lake Eden last night.'
'Great. That'll make Earl happy. Now listen carefully, Andrea. I just got a wild idea. Didn't Janie's parents own a cabin on the far side of Eden Lake?'
'Yes, and they still own it. We rent it out for them every summer. They didn't want to sell, because they thought that someday Janie might want to . . .' Andrea stopped speaking and gasped. 'Do you think she's there?'
'She could be, if the smoke I saw is coming from her parents' cabin.'
'I know which one it is. I'll drive right out and check.'
'No, you stay put,' Hannah ordered. 'There's an APB out on Janie, and if you find her, you'll have to tell Bill.'
There was a long silence and then Andrea sighed. 'You're right. I love Bill, but sometimes I wish I'd married a dermatologist. They never get called out on emergencies and you don't have to worry about what you tell them. You're going out there, aren't you?'
'I'm on the way.'
'Are you going to turn Janie in?' Andrea asked, sounding very worried.
'Not until she tells me exactly what happened last night. And then I'll get her to turn herself in.'
Hannah uttered a word that she would have swallowed if her niece had been a passenger in her truck. The road that ran around the lake was in poor repair, and this was the fourth time she'd hit the top of her head as she bounced over the ruts. She glanced in the rearview mirror and heaved a sigh of relief as she saw the cookie boxes, still exactly where they'd placed them. It would be a real pity to arrive at the venues with broken cookies.
Andrea had given her detailed directions, and Hannah turned left at the fork in the road by the green cabin with yellow trim. Every cabin she'd passed had been vacant. No one except a desperate person would sleep overnight in a summer cabin in this kind of weather. She turned off again, at the pink cabin, and took the winding road down to the lakeshore. Andrea had told her to look for the sky blue cabin, and she could see it through the pine trees.
As Hannah approached, she spotted a familiar car. It was Janie's. She breathed a sigh of relief. She parked next to a little snowdrift near the front door of the cabin and got out of her truck.
The padlock on the front door was open, and Hannah gave a polite knock on the door. Then she opened it and stepped in. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior of cabin after the brightness of the snow outside, but she could see a huddled shape in a sleeping bag by the fire.
'Janie?' Hannah stepped forward and the sleeping bag moved.
'Hannah?' Janie sounded very tentative as she poked her head out of the sleeping bag. Then she smiled as she recognized her. 'Oh, Hannah! I'm so glad to see you! But how did you know I was here?'
'The smoke from your chimney, but that's not important Are you okay?'
'I'm all right, but I really did it this time. And there's no way I'm going back, not even if she calls me to apologize. She's a horrible person and I'll find another job!'
Hannah didn't say anything, but her mind was working overtime. It was pretty obvious from what Janie had said that she didn't know Connie Mac was dead. 'What are you doing here?'
'I didn't want to face all the rest of them this morning. I knew they'd be sympathetic, and I just couldn't stand it That's why I'm here.'
'But you went back to the inn to pack up your clothes. Didn't you see any of them then?'
Janie shook her head, and now that Hannah's eyes had adjusted to the lack of light, she could see tearstains on her cheeks. 'I guess they were all busy, or in their rooms, or out somewhere else. That was a big relief. I was really upset and I didn't want to talk to anybody about it. She accused me of sleeping with her husband, Hannah. She said all sorts of awful things, and then she fired me!'
'Look, Janie. . .' Hannah winced slightly, but she had to ask. 'Were you sleeping with Paul?'
'Of course not! I'm practically engaged, Hannah. Jim's saving his money and he's getting me a ring next month. I told her all that, but she just wouldn't listen to reason. She went ballastic and she. . . she started to throw things at me!'
'What did you do then?'
'I grabbed my purse and my coat and I ran out the back door. She's got a horrible temper, Hannah. It's practically legendary. I sure didn't want to be on the receiving end of it.'
'Has she ever thrown things at people before?'
'Not me, but I've heard stories, and I know she fights with Paul all the time. I had the room next to them when we opened the boutique in Shakopee, and I heard her yelling at him and throwing things. The next morning he
