Cinnamon Roll Murder

“This Sammy.” Delores lifted a corner on the blanket so that he could see the puppy in her arms. “Sammy is Lisa’s new puppy, and he’s going to be staying here during the day.”

“I take it Sammy’s another police dog in training?” Mike asked, winking at Hannah. He was the one who’d told her that it was okay to bring Dillon into the kitchen as long as he was a police dog in training.

“That’s exactly what he is,” Hannah said. “Either that, or he’s a service dog in training. We’ll just have to wait for him to grow up a little before we decide.”

“Fox terrier?” Mike asked.

“That’s what Doctor Bob thought,” Herb said. “Grab the car keys, will you Mike? Once we get that crate in and set it up, Delores won’t have to hold Sammy any longer.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Delores said. “He’s a little angel. He just licked my hand.”

Hannah stared at her mother in surprise. Delores seemed to be developing a soft spot in her heart for animals. Come to think of it, she was also getting much more compassionate about other people’s problems, and more generous with her friends. Something was changing her mother’s outlook on life, and Hannah liked the change.

Mike turned around to grab the keys. “What’s this?” he asked, noticing the envelope with the autopsy report. “It’s from Lake Eden Memorial Hospital.”

“Oh, it’s just something Doc Knight wrote,” Delores told him . “I didn’t have time to read it when I was out there this morning, so I brought it with me to read later.”

Smooth, Hannah thought. And everything you said was perfectly true and terribly misleading. That’s a real art form and I wish I could do it.

It didn’t take long for the men to bring in the crate. It took even less time for Hannah to grab the envelope with the autopsy report and slip it into a drawer.

When the men came in with the crate, Hannah had them put it in the corner and slip Sammy’s new dog bed inside. Then Herb settled the little dog inside.

“You can leave the crate door open,” Hannah told Herb. “I’m through baking for now, and I can keep an eye on him.”

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere right now,” Delores reported. “The minute he got settled in that bed, he closed his eyes, gave a big sigh, and went straight to sleep.”

Hannah glanced at the puppy in the crate. Her mother was right. Sammy was fast asleep. He looked warm and comfortable cuddled up in his new soft dog bed, and she found herself wishing that she were small enough to crawl into the crate and snuggle up next to him.

“Where’s your parka?” Delores asked, jogging Hannah out of her fantasy.

“It’s on the hook by the back door.”

“No, it’s not. And I don’t see it anywhere in the kitchen.”

Hannah glanced at the hooks by the back door. Delores was right. Lisa’s quilted coat and Michelle’s heavy wool jacket were the only things hanging there. “Don’t worry, Mother. It’s got to be around here somewhere.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Delores said, and then she laughed. “When you were a child, you lost at least one thing a week in the winter. You took off your parka, or your scarf, or your mittens and then you promptly forgot where you put them.”

“But they always turned up,” Hannah defended herself even though Delores seemed amused by the memory. “Don’t worry, Mother. I didn’t lose my parka. The only thing I’ve lost lately is sleep!”

Chapter Eleven

“What did Mike say when he saw Mother’s envelope from the hospital?” Andrea asked, turning on the access road that led to the Lake Eden Inn.

“What’s this?”

“It’s the access road for the Inn. Weren’t you paying attention?”

“I was, and I wasn’t asking you what this road was. I was repeating what Mike said. He saw the envelope with the autopsy report and he asked “What’s this?”

“Did you have to lie to him?”

“Not me. Mother answered Mike’s question, and she managed not to lie either. She said it was something Doc wrote, and she brought it with her to read later.”

“Smart.”

“It certainly was. Mother’s a master at skirting the truth.”

“That’s true, but Mike’s a detective. He was trained to be suspicious.”

“I know. I think he probably guessed what it was.”

“But then why didn’t he follow up?”

“Because he didn’t want to know for sure. If he’d known for sure, he would have had to take it. He told me a long time ago that only authorized people are allowed to have access to autopsy reports.”

Andrea gave a loud sigh. “That means Mike knows we’re investigating. And he’s going to read you the riot act about it.”

“No, he won’t. I think he knows it won’t do any good.”

Andrea chuckled. “Well, he’s right. Telling you not to investigate is like telling the wind not to blow.

They were very close to the Inn now. Hannah could see it through the trees. She expected Andrea to drive past the front and turn down the road that led to the parking lot, but she drove behind the building and parked her Volvo in a spot clearly marked for deliveries.

“You can’t park here,” Hannah said. “It’s just for deliveries.”

“I’m delivering you. You don’t want to walk all the way from the parking lot in those ratty blankets, do you?”

“No. They’re not very warm. Are you going to drop me off and drive down to the parking lot by yourself?”

Andrea didn’t say a word. All she did was shut off the motor and reach for the handle to open the driver’s door.

“Sally’s going to be mad if she gets a delivery and this spot isn’t clear.”

“No, she’s not. While you were looking for your parka, I called Sally on my cell phone and asked her if I could park here. Now hurry and shrug off those awful blankets. There’s no way I’m walking into the Inn with someone who looks like a street person!”

Hannah sighed heavily and shrugged off the blankets she’d taken from the back of her cookie truck. “I just don’t understand what happened to my parka,” she said as Andrea opened the back door and they stepped inside, into the warmth. “I looked all over and it’s just not there.”

“Are you sure you wore it?”

“Of course I wore it. It was cold this morning.”

“Then maybe somebody took it?”

“Who?”

Andrea shrugged. “A thief opened the back door when you were using the mixer? When he saw that your back was turned, he grabbed it and ran off with it?”

“Why mine, when there were better jackets hanging there? Mine was really old. And that tear in the sleeve was already there when I got it from the thrift store. I still say it’s there somewhere. It just has to be.”

“We’ll look again later,” Andrea promised, leading the way to the lobby and crossing it to the cloakroom so that she could hang up her coat.

“Nice outfit,” Hannah said once Andrea’s coat was off and hanging on the rack. “It’s a good color on you.”

“Thanks.” Andrea turned around in a circle so that Hannah could see that the embroidered border of pink roses on the jacket of her wine-colored pantsuit went all the way around the bottom. “Who did you want to talk to first?”

“I’ll talk to Sally first to get her impression of the band.”