Fudge Cupcake Murder

and heaviest gems fall out with the first washing. A diamond of the first water would be very valuable, just like you, Lisa.'

    'Thanks.' Lisa blushed slightly at the compliment. 'I think you should go in through Nettie's backdoor. Her yard is fenced and once you're inside the gate, nobody can see you.'

    'Good idea.'

    'And whatever you do, don't touch the houseplants.'

    Hannah was confused. 'I wasn't really planning to, but why?'

    'They'd die for sure, and then Bill and Mike would know you'd been there. You've got the biggest black thumb in town.'

    'You brought your camera?' Hannah asked, spotting it around Norman's neck when he met her in the alley behind Nettie's duplex.

    'I thought I'd take pictures as we go along. It'll help to refresh our memory later.'

    'Good idea. Where did you park?' Hannah asked, opening the gate and hustling Norman inside the fenced backyard.

    'Two blocks over. How about you?'

    'I walked. I was afraid my truck would be spotted.'

    'You mean because it's candy apple red with a license plate that says COOKIES and the name of your store on both sides?'

    'That's it,' Hannah said with a laugh, appreciating Norman even more today than she had last night. 'I'm glad you're back, Norman. I wouldn't want to break into a place with anyone else.'

    Norman smiled and gave her a little hug, obviously taking what she'd said as a compliment. Then he climbed the steps to Nettie's backdoor and took out a little leather case. 'Dental tools,' he explained, unzipping it. 'I thought they'd come in handy for picking the lock.'

    'I'm sure they'd be perfect, but we don't need them.' Hannah reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out the key ring Lisa had given her. 'I've got the key.'

    'Oh. Okay then,' Norman said, sounding a bit disappointed as Hannah unlocked the door.

    Hannah stepped in, glanced back at Norman, and saw he was frowning. He had obviously wanted to test his skills as a burglar. 'Don't put those tools away. The door to Sheriff Grant's home office is probably locked.'

    'Right.' Norman looked much happier as he followed Hannah up the stairs and down the hallway. The pleased expression remained on his face until they arrived at the office door and he noticed that it was taped off. 'That's crime scene tape.'

    'I know.'

    'But I thought that Sheriff Grant was killed in the school parking lot.'

    'He was.'

    'So this isn't a crime scene?'

    'Not technically. When Mike sealed it off, he must not have had the KEEP OUT JUST BECAUSE I SAY SO tape.'

    'I see,' Norman said with a grin. 'And if we get caught in here, you'll argue that since it wasn't a crime scene, the tape must have been put up by mistake.'

    Hannah gave a little nod to show that he was right and grinned right back. Then she reached out to check the doorknob. 'It's locked, all right. Do you think you can open it?'

    'I don't know why not,' Norman said, unzipping his leather case of tools again. 'Picking a lock has got to be easier than tightening braces.'

    It was a simple mechanism and picking the lock didn't take long, especially for a dentist with nimble fingers. In less than a minute, Hannah and Norman had ducked under the crime scene tape and were standing inside Sheriff Grant's home office.

    'This looks more like somebody's bedroom than an office,' Norman commented.

    'That's because it was a bedroom. It belonged to Sheriff Grant's son, Jamie and it's just the way he left it when he went away to college. Sheriff Grant wouldn't let Nettie throw away any of Jamie's things after he died.'

    'How long ago was that?'

    'Almost three years. Don't you think that's a little weird?'

    Norman shrugged. 'Maybe, if it's an obsession. But if the sheriff just wanted to hang onto his son's things a little longer, I can understand that.'

    Hannah turned to look at Norman in awe. He'd managed to walk the fence brilliantly. When the next political office opened up, she was going to nominate him.

    'Let me take a base set of pictures,' Norman said, proceeding to do just that. 'We'll want to remember what this looked like before we started to search.'

    When Norman had taken pictures from every angle, Hannah handed him a pair of gloves. 'I brought these for you. We don't want to leave fingerprints. You can start in the closet and I'll try Sheriff Grant's desk.'

    'Okay. What are we looking for?'

    'Briefcases. If you find any, give a holler. We're also looking for anything that looks like it doesn't belong in a teenager's room or a home office.'

    Hannah slipped on her own gloves and went through the desk. All she found were old bills, canceled checks, and household accounting records. It looked as if Sheriff Grant had moved all of Jamie's things into one drawer when he'd commandeered the desk. The lower left-hand drawer contained a college catalogue, several transcripts of Jamie's high school grades, a program from the senior prom, a stack of CliffsNotes with sections highlighted in yellow marker, and the thick, dog-eared book Jamie had used to study for the SATs. There was nothing at all from the sheriff's department and nothing to indicate which case Sheriff Grant had been working on at the time of his death.

    'I found a briefcase, Hannah,' Norman's voice was muffled and Hannah could tell he was in the depths of the closet.

    'Is it brown?'

    'Yes.'

    'Then we'll take it with us. Just set it aside and keep looking. '

    'Okay. Did you find anything in the desk?'

    'Not really, unless you're interested in a stack of CliffsNotes.'

    'A stack of what?'

    'CliffsNotes. You know, the yellow and black pamphlets kids use to cram for tests?'

    'Oh, those. I thought they were called CliffNotes, like somebody sat on top of a cliff and wrote them.'

    'No, it's CliffsNotes, like a guy named Cliff Hillegass formed a company to publish them in nineteen fifty- something.'

    'Okay, I stand corrected. Did you find anything else?'

    'Nothing important.' Hannah pushed back the desk chair and went to the dresser to check the drawers. They were filled with Jamie's clothes and Hannah felt a bit like a ghoul as she went through piles of his underwear, socks, and handkerchiefs.

    'Ouch!' Norman yelped from the recesses of the closet.

    'What's wrong?' Hannah asked, hurrying over to see if she could help.

    'I just stubbed my toe on something hard. Hand me a flashlight, will you?'

    Hannah passed Norman the flashlight she'd brought from her truck and held Jamie's clothing out of the way so that he could see what he'd encountered.

    'Looks like a box of car parts,' Norman said, backing out of the closet and dragging the box out after him. 'Jamie probably had an old clunker he repaired himself.'

    'Probably. Most high school kids can't afford to take their cars to mechanics to get them fixed.'

    Norman glanced into the box and frowned. 'That's funny. Here's a starter for a Chevrolet and a fuel injection harness for a Ford.'

    'You must know a lot about cars if you can tell who made the parts just by looking.' Hannah was impressed.