Key Lime Pie Murder. Joanne Fluke

Chapter Three

      Uh-oh! There was Mike Kingston and there was Norman Rhodes, and they were both waiting for her at the altar! There was going to be a fight right here in church, and it was all her fault. She must have done something incredibly stupid and accepted both of their proposals!

      They didn’t sound angry. She could hear them talking, and they seemed perfectly friendly. Mike said something and Norman laughed. They were getting along like best buddies, and that was fine with her. At least she wouldn’t have to choose between them. The laws must have changed so that she could have two husbands instead of just one.

      Norman said something about coffee, and he walked over to the counter that had replaced the front pew. It was where Priscilla Knudson, the reverend’s grandmother, usually sat, and Hannah hoped that she was all right. Even a summer cold could be dangerous for a lady in her eighties.

      There was a coffee pot behind the counter, and Hannah wondered how the church elders felt about that. Coffee in the basement or at the very back of the church might be welcome, but this was up at the front and it was sure to disrupt Reverend Knudson’s sermons. Of course it could have been installed specifically for her wedding. Everyone knew how much she loved coffee, and Holy Redeemer Lutheran had made exceptions for brides before. Just last month Reverend Knudson had given Annice Borge permission to hold her little teacup poodle when she took her vows.

      The coffee smelled wonderful. Hannah felt her nose twitch, and her mouth began to water in anticipation. Coffee was one of her favorite things, and she could really use a cup about now. Would it be a terrible breach of etiquette for the bride to make an early appearance, just so she could get a cup of coffee? Or should she ask Mike and Norman? Except they didn’t sound like Mike and Norman anymore. One of them sounded like a woman, and the other one sounded like a man. They must be joking around about something.

      “Hannah? I brought you some coffee.”

      Norman’s voice was still high-pitched, but she didn’t care about that. He’d actually read her mind! Somehow she’d managed to communicate with him without words. She had coffee, and now the only other thing that she craved was chocolate. If she could have chocolate, she’d be perfectly content.

      “And I brought you a couple of Black and Whites. I figured you could use the chocolate.”

      Mike sounded different than he usually did, but that didn’t concern her. This was a miracle. She’d obviously communicated with him, too. No wonder both of them had been waiting for her at the altar! It was only right that she marry them both, since both of them could read her mind.

      “I do,” she said, opening her eyes wide to smile at them. And that was when she noticed that she wasn’t in a church at all. She was sitting at a back table in her own coffee shop. Lisa was sitting across from her, right next to her husband, Herb. There hadn’t been any wedding. She’d caught forty winks while Lisa had been mixing up the cookie dough, and she’d dreamed the whole thing.

      “You do what?” Herb asked.

      Hannah looked at him blankly. She didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about.

      “When you woke up you smiled at us and said, I do.”

      “Oh.” Hannah thought fast. “You said you figured I needed chocolate and I said I do.” And then, before Herb could think about it and ask more questions that might prove embarrassing, Hannah turned to Lisa. “What time is it?”

      “A little after two-thirty. I closed because we haven’t had a customer since noon.”

      “All the stores on Main Street are closing early,” Herb informed her. “Nobody’s doing any business, not even Rose down at the cafe. Everybody and their cousin’s out at the fairgrounds.”

      “That figures.” Hannah took a gulp of her coffee and bit into a cookie. It was just as good as she thought it would be. Nothing could beat the winning combination of chocolate and coffee.

      Lisa reached out to take Herb’s hand. “There’s no traffic in town, so Mayor Bascomb told Herb he could have the rest of the afternoon off.”

      “I can help you and Lisa mix up cookies,” Herb offered. “Or I can make deliveries if you’ve got any. Or maybe you just want to go home for the day?”

      Hannah noticed the hopeful look in her partner’s eyes. Lisa and Herb had been married for only four months, and they didn’t get much time alone together. They both worked six days a week, and they spent almost every Sunday with his mother and her father.

      “I do have one delivery,” Hannah said, turning to Herb, “but you’ll have to take Lisa with you.”

      “Sure. Where do you want us to go?”

      “To the fair. You can take the Pineapple Delights Lisa just baked to the Cookie Nook booth.” Hannah gave her partner a smile. “And since all of our customers are already at the fairgrounds, you can pack up all the cookies we have left here at the shop, and take them with you. They’re not going to eat them here, so they might as well eat them out there.”

      “Okay. I’ll leave a box for you to use for samples and load up all the rest.”

      “Perfect.” Hannah was glad Lisa had remembered. Unless they completely sold out, she usually packed up the leftover cookies and put them in her cookie truck. There was almost always an occasion to give out samples, and Hannah was convinced that they created a lot of new business that way.

      “It should only take us about forty-five minutes,” Lisa said, glancing at her watch. “We can be back here by three-thirty at the latest, and then we can mix up the cookie dough for tomorrow.”

      Hannah shook her head. “We’ll do that in the morning. We don’t have any cookies on the menu that need to be chilled before baking.”

      “Well…if you’re sure…” Lisa hesitated, and Hannah could tell she felt guilty about not putting in a full day’s work.

      “I’m positive. I’ll just finish up a couple of things here and go home.”

      Hannah had another cup of coffee while Lisa packed up the cookies. Then she helped them pack the boxes in Herb’s cruiser. As they drove away, Hannah noticed that Lisa had slid across the bench seat and was sitting close to Herb. If anyone had been foolish enough to give her odds, Hannah would have bet that the two lovebirds would be doing some billing and cooing before the night was over.

      An hour later, Hannah opened the door to her condo and braced herself for the greeting ritual that Moishe had initiated on the first day he’d moved in with her. The pattern hadn’t varied in over two years. Once she opened the door, Moishe hurtled himself into her arms, landing with a thud that rocked her back on her heels. Hannah’s catapulting feline reminded her of an old picture she’d seen at the Lake Eden Historical Society. Her grandfather and some of his cronies were standing in a circle on the beach at Eden Lake, tossing a medicine ball around. According to some research her mother had done, the ball they’d used had weighed over twenty pounds. Since Moishe had tipped the scales at twenty-three pounds the last time she’d taken him to the vet, Hannah considered their greeting ritual part of her daily exercise regime. If the truth were known, it was the only part of her daily exercise regime, unless she counted the aerobic benefits of lifting giant bags of sugar and flour in her bakery kitchen or walking several miles across the coffee shop floor to refill coffee mugs and deliver orders of cookies.

      Hannah stood there waiting for the onslaught, but absolutely nothing happened. The door was open, and Moishe was nowhere in sight. Heart in her throat, Hannah rushed in and tossed her purse on a chair. “Moishe?” she called, fearing the worst.

      There was no answer, and Hannah felt a chill of foreboding. She should have taken Moishe to the vet this morning when she’d found him staring out the window at nothing. Animals couldn’t tell you when they were sick. Their humans had to watch for signs of illness, and one sign