Chapter Thirty
“Where are you, Hannah?” Mike answered on the first ring.
“Outside the pavilion with Andrea and Michelle. I found the ice pick, Mike.”
“Where?”
“In Mac and Patsy’s cottage. And I think Mac killed Gus.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Mike sighed. “But that doesn’t make sense, Hannah. If Mac killed Gus with the ice pick you found, why would he keep it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was afraid that the owner of the cottage would notice it was missing. And since Gus was killed with an ice pick, somebody like you would put two and two together and come up with him as the killer.”
“Okay. It’s circumstantial, and we don’t even know if the ice pick you found was the murder weapon, but I can see why you’re suspicious. Do you have anything else to point a finger at Mac?”
“Yes! Mac told me he looked out the kitchen window in the cottage where he’s staying with Patsy, and he saw Jack Herman out for a walk right around the time Gus was murdered. And he was lying.”
There was a long silence, and Hannah began to frown. “Mike? Did I lose you?”
“You didn’t lose me. It’s just that Mac told us the same thing. Why do you think he’s lying?”
“Patsy told me Mac went out for a walk that night. He goes for one every night, doctor’s orders. He couldn’t have seen Jack through the cottage window. There’s a big pine tree in the way. He saw Jack on the road, all right, but they were both out there. And all this time, I’ve been afraid that Jack killed Gus.”
“Me, too,” Mike said, “and there’s no way I wanted to believe that.”
“But you didn’t bring him in for questioning,” Hannah reminded him.
“No. I probably should have, but…why? We all know Jack’s memory goes in and out. And…well…there’s no real proof he did it.”
“You’re a good man, Mike,” Hannah said, meaning every word of it.
“Thanks. But maybe I’m not. Maybe I just didn’t think I could get anything useful out of questioning somebody with Alzheimer’s.”
“There’s that, too,” Hannah said, “but I prefer to think that you cut him some slack because you thought it was the right thing to do.”
There was another silence, and then Mike cleared his throat. “You said you found the ice pick. Where was it exactly?”
“It’s in the kitchen tool drawer.”
“You didn’t touch it, did you?”
“Of course not! I left it right where it was.”
“Okay. Everything you told me is circumstantial, but it’s the best we’ve got unless we actually find traces of blood on the ice pick. Do you think Patsy will testify that Mac went out for a walk?”
“I’m almost sure she will. She told me that Mac came to her and asked her to lie for him. He wanted her to say he was with her all night, but Patsy refused. She told Mac she wouldn’t volunteer the information, but if you asked her directly, she wouldn’t lie for him.”
“Good for her! I’ll be right out to pull Mac in for further questioning. He’s definitely a person of interest, if not more. Where is he right now? Do you know?”
“He’s watching the children’s talent show, and Patsy’s with him. Andrea and Michelle saw them in line, waiting to get inside the pavilion.”
“Good. Go on in and watch him for him, and don’t say anything to anybody. I don’t want him to know we’re interested in him. I should be there in less than fifteen minutes to take him in for questioning.”
“Okay. We’ll go inside and watch him. What do you want us to do if he leaves?”
“Don’t follow him. If he is the killer, it could be dangerous if he thinks anybody’s on to him. Just let him go, and we’ll find him later.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“Keep an eye on his wife, too. If he thinks she might mention that walk he took, he could try to silence her.”
Hannah gulped. “You mean he might…kill her?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.” Hannah heard an engine roar into life. “I’ve got to go, Hannah. I’m on my way, and I need to keep this line open.”
Once Hannah hung up, she turned to her sisters and related what Mike had said. “He said he’ll be here in fifteen minutes,” she concluded.
“Let’s go find Mac and Patsy,” Andrea led the way to the door of the pavilion. “If we fan out, it’ll be easier for us to see them in the audience. Lisa said they were making three aisles. There’s one in the middle and one on either side.”
“I’ll take left,” Michelle said.
“And I’ll take the middle and look on both sides,” Andrea said. “It’ll take me a little longer, but that way I can double check for both of you.”
“That leaves me with the right,” Hannah said. “We’ll just walk down the aisles, turn around, and walk back. Then we’ll get together right outside the door to see which one of us spotted them.”
When they entered the pavilion, the Beeseman sisters were ending their five minutes of song with “Gary, Indiana” from The Music Man, a perfect choice since it was their hometown.
The next act started the moment the Beeseman sisters left the stage. It was a group of twelve girls with lighted batons, performing an act to a Sousa march. All eyes were on the stage to see who could twirl her baton the longest without dropping it, and it was the perfect time to canvas the audience without being noticed. Once her sisters had arrived at their starting points, Hannah motioned them forward.
Hannah’s eyes scanned the rows as she moved slowly forward, down one row to the end, up to the row in front of it, and then all the way back to the aisle. Like the carriage on an old-fashioned typewriter, she wove her way to the front of the room, and then she started the return trip.
Where only the backs of heads had been visible on her way to the front of the room, Hannah could see actual faces on her return trip. She saw her mother and Carrie, Jon Walker and his wife, Earl Flensburg, and Marge’s cousins from Florida, but she didn’t spot Patsy or Mac.
Hannah finished first, and she ducked out the door to wait for her sisters. Michelle came out next and she was shaking her head.
“You didn’t spot them?” Hannah asked her.
“No, and there were no empty chairs, so they weren’t in the bathrooms or anything like that.”
“Good for you!” Hannah complimented her foresight. “Let’s just hope that Andrea spotted them.”
It seemed to take forever, but it probably wasn’t more than a minute or two before Andrea came out.
“Anything?” Hannah asked her.
“No. I checked both sides, and they weren’t there. I’m sure of it, Hannah.”
“What now?” Hannah asked, the sinking feeling in her stomach growing into a full-blown panic. “You saw them in line.”
The door opened again, and the three sisters turned to stare as Marge stepped out. “Hi,” she said. “I saw you come in, and then I saw you leave. Is something wrong?”
Hannah gave a little sigh. “It could be. We were looking for Mac and Patsy, but we didn’t spot them in the audience.”
“They decided to skip the talent show,” Marge reported, and she looked happy. “They were waiting in line, and Patsy said Mac had a change of heart. He begged her to give their marriage one more chance, and he said he wanted to take her to the water lily garden to propose to her all over again.”
“The water lily garden in the middle of the lake?” Hannah asked, feeling her panic grow.
“That’s right. It’s where he proposed to her the first time. Isn’t that just too romantic for words?”