Cinnamon Roll Murder

proved that she’d delivered a forceful slap. But what if just slapping Buddy hadn’t been enough for her. What if Doctor Bev had initiated an even more violent encounter, an encounter that ended with surgical scissors thrust into Buddy’s chest?

Perhaps she’d slept for a while. Hannah had no way of knowing. But she did know that she was wide awake at four in the morning, wondering where Doctor Bev had gone when she’d fled Claire’s dress shop in her bridal finery. She wasn’t at her own apartment and she wasn’t at Norman’s house. Hannah knew that for a fact because when she’d called Andrea to tell her about the confrontation, Andrea had driven around town looking for Doctor Bev’s car. It had vanished. She was no longer in Lake Eden and that, to Hannah’s way of thinking, was also suspicious.

And now it was five minutes past five. She could smell the coffee, and even though it was on an automatic timer, she suspected that Michelle was already up.

It was a struggle to get out of bed, but Hannah made it. It was also a struggle to put the correct arm in the correct sleeve of her robe. After three attempts, she triumphed.

One glance into the guest room as she passed by told her she was right. The bed was neatly made. Unless Michelle had fallen asleep on the living room couch last night, she was up and dressed, ready to go to the hospital with Hannah.

“Here,” Michelle said, taking Hannah’s arm as she entered the kitchen and guiding her into a chair. “Drink your coffee. I heard you get up and I poured you a mug. It’s not too hot. I put a coffee ice cube in it.”

“Thanks.” Hannah gulped down the coffee with a speed born of desperation. If there was any coffee left this morning, she’d make more coffee ice cubes. Leftover coffee went into an old-fashioned ice cube tray in her freezer. One coffee ice cube would cool down a large mug of coffee in a hurry without diluting it.

“Now shower and get dressed,” Michelle ordered, but she smiled as she gave her command. “We’re meeting Mike for breakfast at The Corner Tavern in thirty minutes.”

“Mike called here?”

“No, I called Mike. Somebody’s got to tell Norman that Doctor Bev lied about knowing Buddy Neiman, and it would be awkward if you had to do it. As a cop and as Norman’s best friend, Mike’s the logical choice. And since Doctor Bev wasn’t at Norman’s last night, and she wasn’t at her apartment either, she must have used the excuse that Diana was sick and driven back to the Cities. I think Norman ought to know that Diana’s just fine and it’s just another one of Bev’s lies.”

Hannah nodded. Her brain was beginning to work, and what Michelle said made sense. “Okay. You’re absolutely right. Mike has to be in the loop at this point.” She pushed back her chair. “Will you pour me another mug of coffee, please? I’m going to shower and dress, and I’ll be back here to gulp it down in less than ten minutes.”

The Corner Tavern was crowded when they walked in, but Mike had already snagged a table in the back room. Hannah sat across from him, directly in front of a planter on top of the room divider that was filled with bright green plastic ivy. She seemed to remember reading somewhere that placing something red next to something green made the red less intense. With the green ivy directly in back of her head, perhaps Mike wouldn’t notice her red, scratchy, didn’t-sleep-a-wink eyes.

“Nice job, Hannah,” Mike said, handing the steno book back to her. “Of course you shouldn’t have handled it yourself. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know.” Hannah did her best to look contrite. This was difficult because she felt like smiling at Mike’s praise.

“You don’t contact her again. Okay?”

“Okay,” Hannah agreed quickly. “Are you going to contact her and follow up?”

“You bet I am! It’s pretty clear she knows Buddy Neiman’s real name, and I need to have it.”

“But will she tell you?” Michelle asked. “She wasn’t exactly what I’d call forthcoming. Hannah had to trick her to get her to admit she was at Club Nineteen that night.”

“She’ll tell me.”

There was a hard glint in Mike’s eyes that told Hannah he’d get the information he wanted from Doctor Bev. “Do you think she killed Buddy? It’s pretty clear she had some kind of previous relationship with him.”

“I agree. She’s my number one suspect right now, and I’m going to haul her in for questioning.”

“But what if she’s left town?” Michelle asked. “She was so upset after Hannah questioned her, she left Claire’s dress shop without her coat.”

Hannah was impressed with how innocent Michelle looked, considering the fact that Andrea had driven around looking for Doctor Bev’s car and reported back to them.

“Don’t worry. I’ll find her. And after I do, I’ll have a talk with Norman. She’s probably fed him a pack of lies, and I need to straighten him out about that and everything else. Norman’s a reasonable guy. He’ll listen to me.”

“Thanks, Mike,” Hannah said. She’d expected no less. Although Mike had dated Doctor Bev before her recent engagement to Norman, he was a cop. There was no way any tender feelings he might still harbor for her would affect his ability to put Bev through the wringer.

“These are wonderful, Michelle!” Delores beamed at her youngest daughter. They were sitting in Doc Knight’s office, and Michelle had just given her mother a box of the bran cookies she’d made.

“Do you think Doc will like them?”

“I know he will. He likes bran a lot better than I do. He eats a big bowl of bran flakes every morning for breakfast. Are you sure these have bran in them?”

“I know they do. I measured out the bran flakes myself.”

“Well, all I can say is they’re very good. And I haven’t liked bran since Grandma Ingrid made those wonderful ...” Delores stopped speaking, and Hannah watched the light dawn on her face. “They’re Grandma Ingrid’s Bran Muffins!”

“You got it!” Hannah said, giving her the high sign. “I had the recipe and I didn’t even know it. Michelle found it and baked it in cookie form.”

“I’ll give one to Doc the moment he gets back here,” Delores said, putting the cover on the cookie tin. “It’ll cheer him up.”

“What’s wrong with Doc?” Hannah asked.

“It’s just this whole intern thing. He’s going to have to interview candidates again, and that takes time. He’d much rather spend that time with his patients. And then he’ll have to train the new intern he chooses. Of course Marlene will help. Thank goodness she’s staying. It’s just that it’s all so sudden. When the clinic called Ben, they told him they needed him to start next week. It’s just a pity that they gave him such short notice, and he had to turn around and give Doc such short notice.”

Short notice. The words repeated themselves several times in Hannah’s mind. Short notice was what Lee complained about when Buddy gave notice right after his argument with the dark-haired woman they now knew was Doctor Bev. If Buddy had trusted his instincts and left right away instead of giving Lee the time to find his replacement, he’d probably be alive today. But that wasn’t the situation with Ben. He had to leave Lake Eden right away because he took another job.

“What’s the matter, dear?” Delores asked.

“I don’t know. Something just struck me. You said something about Ben’s new internship, that the clinic had given him such short notice and that’s why he had to give Doc such short notice. Did Doc talk to the clinic to see why there was such a rush?”

“No, dear. Ben talked to them. They called him directly.”

“Did they know he was working here?”

“Of course. Ben told Doc they asked for a recommendation, and Doc wrote one and gave it to him. Ben faxed it to the clinic.”

“So Doc has never spoken to the doctors at the clinic. Is that right?”

“That’s right.” Delores began to frown. “I see where you’re going with this. It is a little odd that the doctors at the clinic didn’t speak to Doc directly. It would have been the courteous thing to do. I think we should call the clinic.”