Chapter Twenty-Five
If there had been more time between the opening of the outer door and the breaching of the inner door, Hannah might have reconsidered. The music barreled out to greet them, a rendition of “My Way” by a Frank Sinatra wannabe that was just as loud as it was incompetent.
“It must be karaoke night,” Michelle said.
“What?” Hannah moved closer to her youngest sister.
“I said it must be karaoke night,” Michelle shouted, very close to Hannah’s ear.
There was an empty table near the back, as far from the stage as they could get, and Norman led the way. The lighting was dim, and the stage was the only bright spot in the wood-paneled room. Red plastic banquettes lined two walls, and round wooden tables with wooden chairs were scattered throughout the rest of the space.
There was a candle on every table in a green glass holder, but that provided little light, barely enough to read the menu or the list of special drinks in a Plexiglas sleeve that leaned up against it. Except for the spotlights on the stage and the soft lights behind the bar, the room was deep with shadows.
Hannah glanced around, noting the wooden rafters that loomed above them. And that’s when she saw something that made her gasp.
“What’s the matter?” Norman asked her.
“It’s that moose head hanging over our table. I swear it moved.”
The other three looked up at the moose head. It was huge, with a magnificent rack, and Hannah guessed the animal’s weight when it was alive would have been close to a half-ton.
“I saw it move,” Michelle said, shrinking back slightly. “There! It did it again!”
Norman glanced up at the moose head and down at the table. “I think it’s the candle,” he said. “Whenever it flickers, it makes the moose head appear to move.”
“Let’s test out your theory,” Hannah suggested, pulling the candle toward her and blowing it out. “There. Now let’s see if the moose head moves.”
They watched the wall for at least a minute, but absolutely nothing happened. The moose head remained stationary.
“You’re right,” Hannah told him. “Do you want to light the candle again?”
“I’ll do it.” The voice came from above, and they looked up to see a waitress standing by the table. She picked up the candle, drew the kind of lighter used to ignite a barbecue from her apron pocket, and lit the candle. “Was the moose head moving for you?”
“Yes,” Andrea said. “We thought maybe it was animated or something.”
“Oh, it’s animated, all right. Some people say it dances to the music if you have enough drinks.” The waitress gave a little laugh. “What’ll it be, folks?”
The waitress turned to Norman first, and Hannah thought that perhaps it was because she assumed her tip would come from him. “How about you?”
“I’ll have a ginger ale. I’m the designated driver.” Norman gave his order. “What would you like, Hannah?”
Hannah thought about it for a split second. If she had a glass of wine, she’d probably fall asleep at the table. There was another reason not to imbibe, and that had to do with her diet. A glass of dry white wine had about eighty calories. “I’ll have a diet drink. Coke, ginger ale, anything is fine.”
“The same for me,” Andrea said.
“I’ll have an ice-cream drink,” Michelle said, glancing down at the list of fancy drinks that had been propped up next to the candle. “You make your Brandy Alexanders with chocolate ice cream, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“I’ll have one of those, but leave out the brandy, please.”
“Okay, but it’s going to taste like a chocolate shake.”
“I know,” Michelle said with a smile.
While they were waiting for their drinks to arrive, Hannah turned to watch the stage. A woman a few years past her prime in an outfit that should have been worn by a teenager was singing a country western ballad about losing her job, and her boyfriend, and her car.
“She ought to just sing it backward,” Andrea said.
Norman looked puzzled. “Why should she do that?”
“Because then she’d get them all back.”
There were predictable groans around the table, and Andrea gave a dainty little shrug. “Don’t blame me. It’s Bill’s joke. He says it’s going around at the sheriff’s station.”
Hannah listened to the singer for a few moments and then she asked, “Does anybody know what karaoke means?”
“No clue,” Michelle said, and Andrea shook her head to show she didn’t know, either.
“I know it’s Japanese,” Norman answered her, “but that’s all I know.”
“It’s a compound word made from two Japanese words. Kara means empty, and oke is orchestra. When you put them together they mean empty orchestra.”
“That makes sense,” Norman said. “They usually remove the vocals from the sound track electronically, and that leaves only the orchestra.”
The singer tried for a high note and missed abysmally. Hannah gave a little groan and decided to concentrate on something else, anything else except the song and the singer. “Does anybody see the mothers?” she asked, scanning the dimly lighted room.
It took a few moments with all of them looking, and then Michelle leaned across the table. “There’s a blonde and a brunette over there in the far corner under the moose head by the Cold Spring beer sign.”
“That could be Mother and Carrie. I can’t really tell,” Andrea offered her opinion.
“I don’t think it is,” Norman said. “Mother never wears her hair like that.”
The country western song ended to loud applause. Hannah wasn’t sure if it was because the audience liked it, or whether they were relieved it was over.
“Maybe they left already,” Michelle suggested, taking a sip of the milkshake their waitress had delivered while they were scanning the room. “If they got what they needed right away, they could be home in Lake Eden right now.”
“I…don’t…think…so.” Hannah forced out the words from a throat that had gone suddenly dry. She swallowed with difficulty and followed it with, “Tell me that’s not Mother climbing the steps to the stage.”
Norman turned to look. “It’s Delores,” he confirmed, “and my mother is right behind her.”
“Are they going to sing?” Andrea sounded horrified.
“I don’t know what else they’d be doing up there,” Hannah told her.
“Good for them!” Michelle looked delighted. “I didn’t know Mother could sing.”
“She can’t,” Hannah said and left it at that. There was always the possibility that the floor would open up and swallow them. Or perhaps the karaoke machine would malfunction. Or maybe the microphone would start screeching with feedback and they’d have to shut it off.
Hannah watched in shock as the mothers reached the top step and turned to walk to the center of the stage. Delores picked up the microphone and held it between them as the first bars of the song they’d chosen began to play.
“What song is it?” Andrea asked.
“I don’t know,” Hannah answered her, and then she groaned as Carrie and Delores linked arms. “They’re not going to dance…are they?”
“I think they’re going to do some kind of step,” Michelle said.
“Bye Bye Love,” Norman said, and when all three Swensen sisters turned to look at him, he hurried to explain. “That’s what they’re going to sing. I recognize the intro. It’s an old Everly Brothers song.”
A few beats later, the mothers opened their mouths and began to sing. They looked as if they were having great fun as they stepped back and forth in perfect unison, and sang the lyrics.
Hannah had all she could do not to cover her ears. One glance around the table and she realized she was not alone. Norman looked pained, Andrea looked highly embarrassed, and Michelle looked as if she wanted to burst out laughing. As for Hannah, every extremely flat and loudly amplified note that reached her ears made her head throb and her teeth hurt. It had to be the worst rendition of an Everly Brothers song that had ever been performed.
The agony went on through verses too painful to enumerate, but it was met by a wave of raucous applause. When it was over, Hannah breathed a huge sigh of relief and wished she’d ordered that glass of wine. “That was really awful,” she said. “They weren’t in tune at all.”
Norman turned to smile at her. “That’s true, but both of them were equally flat, and that means that they were harmonizing.”
“I thought it was kind of cute,” Michelle said. “They weren’t nervous at all and the audience liked it.”
Hannah had to admit that Michelle had a point. The audience was still applauding, and a guy at the front table was calling for an encore.
“It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Andrea said, and Hannah knew she was trying to be charitable. “At least they looked good.”
Hannah glanced toward the stage again and what she saw made her eyes widen. “Smiles everyone, and remember…we thought their performance was fantastic. They must have spotted us while they were singing, because here come the mothers!”
When the mothers reached their table, Michelle was the first to jump to her feet. “That was amazing, Mother,” she said, giving Delores a little hug. “I’ve never heard anything like it.”
Hannah stifled a chortle. Michelle had come up with a wonderful way of saying something that sounded like a compliment. And since she’d given Delores a hug, she was obviously trying to get back into their mother’s good graces.
“What did you think, dear?” Delores turned to Hannah.
“We all agreed that you and Carrie were in perfect harmony,” Hannah said, stealing Norman’s line.
“And you were in perfect step, too,” Andrea said, smiling at the mothers. “That must have taken some practice.”
“Five minutes in the ladies’ room,” Carrie admitted, turning to Norman. “What did you think, son?”
“It was quite a show,” Norman said, giving Carrie a kiss on the cheek. “All these years, and I never knew you could sing like that.”
Five minutes later, they were seated at a blue plastic booth in The Yum-Yum coffee shop, sipping mugs of coffee. Since the mothers needed caffeinated fortification for the trip back to Lake Eden and it was far too noisy to talk inside The Moosehead anyway, they’d all met at the small restaurant at the end of the block. Some last-minute arrangements had been made. Michelle would be driving Delores and Carrie home and staying the night with Delores. They’d only had two drinks at The Moosehead, but Michelle had offered and Delores and Carrie had accepted. Hannah was glad. It was a sign that forgiveness was right around the corner for Michelle’s untimely age-related remarks.
“Before I forget,” Delores said, turning to Hannah, “we found out why Ronni quit her job.”
“Except that she didn’t really quit,” Carrie added. “She was fired for skimming.”
Delores nodded. “She totaled her customers’ bar tabs early, took their credit cards, and rang them up. And then, when they wanted another round of drinks, she asked them to pay in cash and she slipped it in her apron with her tips.”
“How did she get caught?” Hannah asked.
“The bartender spotted her, the same bartender who was on tonight. The owner was giving him grief about coming up short. He knew he wasn’t giving away free drinks, so he kept an eye on the cocktail waitresses and caught Ronni in the act.”
“Ronni begged him not to turn her in,” Carrie took over the story. “She told him she needed more money so that she could quit her job at Heavenly Bodies. She said she was being stalked by someone when she was at work.”
“Stalked?” Hannah asked. “Did she get a look at the person stalking her?”
Delores shook her head. “No, but she told the bartender that she’d stopped using the Jacuzzi at night when she was alone. She said she was sure someone was spying on her in there.”
“You don’t think she was actually stalked, do you?” Andrea asked Hannah.
“I don’t know. Unfortunately, it’s a little late to ask her, but I think I’d better add a possible stalker to my suspect list.” Hannah pulled out her steno pad and flipped to the suspect page, but before she could start to write, she heard Michelle give a little gasp.
“What is it, dear?” Delores asked her.
Michelle swallowed hard, and Hannah noticed that her hands were shaking slightly. “It’s…it’s…the stalker! I just remembered where I saw Tad Newberg before!”
“Where?” Hannah leaned closer. Whatever Michelle had remembered had upset her.
“He was a night security guard at Macalester when I was a freshman. I used to see him outside the Fine Arts building on Wednesdays when I went to my night class.”
“So you knew him?” Hannah asked.
“Not really. He was one of those familiar strangers, like a person you see on the bus every day or a checker at the grocery store. A couple of weeks before midterms, our professor told us there was a stalker, and he warned us to walk in pairs on campus at night. And then, the next time the class met, he said they caught him and it turned out to be one of the security guards.”
“And you think the stalker was Tad?” Andrea asked her.
“I don’t know. He didn’t give us a name. All I know is, I never saw Tad in front of the Fine Arts building again.”
“We have to find out who the stalker was,” Hannah decided. “I’ll call Detective Parks in the morning and see if she can find out. If the stalker was Tad, I’ll add him to my suspect list.”
“That reminds me,” Carrie said to Hannah. “You can cross Vonnie Blair and Immelda Giesse off your list. Vonnie spent the night at her mother’s house.”
Delores nodded. “And Immelda’s sister came for a visit. Father Coultas said they sat up talking until all hours of the morning.”
“Great,” Hannah said. “Michelle eliminated Bridget. And Carly said her mother and Trudi hosted a sleepover for a dozen of her little sister’s friends.”
“Serena Roste couldn’t have done it, either,” Carrie told them. “My friend in Elk River read her wedding notice in the paper. She got married last week and they’re on a two-week honeymoon in Jamaica.”
“And I found out that Babs Dubinski was at Marvin’s babysitting all night,” Andrea said. “You know Babs. She’s crazy about her grandsons. She’d never leave the boys alone at night.”
“Did you get the listing?” Hannah asked, remembering that Andrea had intended to ask Babs about her rental property.
“Of course I did, and I think I already have a buyer. But let’s get back to business. I called my friend in Duluth, and she said Betty Jackson couldn’t have done it. She was at a bridal shower the night that Ronni was killed.”
“Cross off Gail Hansen, too,” Norman told Hannah. “She drove to the airport in Minneapolis to meet her husband. His plane was delayed, and they didn’t get back here until almost three in the morning.”
“That’s it, then,” Hannah said with a sigh. “The only suspects I’ve got left are the ones I know didn’t do it, the mysterious stalker Ronni told the bartender about, who might or might not turn out to be Tad, and the unknown suspect with the unknown motive that we haven’t discovered yet.”
The drive back to Norman’s was uneventful, and Hannah had all she could do to keep from nodding off. She was profoundly tired, and she wondered how in the world she’d be able to stay awake on the trip home, especially now that Michelle wouldn’t be riding with her. All she really wanted to do was crawl into a warm cocoon and pull the covers over her head.
“Hannah? We’re here,” Norman said, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
For one brief moment Hannah was disoriented, but then she realized that she was sitting in the passenger seat of Norman’s car and they were in the driveway in front of his house.
“I’d better get home,” Hannah said, fishing in her purse for her car keys.
“You have to get Moishe,” Andrea reminded her.
“Right. It completely slipped my mind. Will you help me get his leash on, Norman?”
“Sure,” Norman agreed quickly. “Just sit there for a second, and I’ll walk Andrea to her car. I’ll be right back for you.”
Hannah was about to say that she was perfectly capable of getting out of Norman’s car by herself, but why argue? She’d just use the few minutes it took Norman to walk Andrea to her car to shut her eyes and take a brief rest before starting on the drive home. She’d have to fight to stay awake, perhaps roll down the window to let the cold air in or turn the radio up so loud it hurt her ears.
It was peaceful here in the country. She heard the soft whistle of the wind in the distance, the low hooting call of an owl, and the rustling of small animals in the brush at the sides of Norman’s driveway. She was toasty warm. Her parka was pulled up to her chin, and although the fur tickled her, it felt cozy and comforting.
“Hannah?”
It was Norman again, and Hannah opened her eyes. She must have nodded off. “Yes.”
“You’re too tired to drive home tonight.”
He was right. She was. But propriety must be observed. “Can’t,” she said, forcing her tired mind to work again. “You’re here alone. What would people think?”
“Do you care?” Norman asked her.
“Yes. Maybe”
“How much do you care, Hannah?”
“Not enough,” Hannah said and let him escort her into the house and up the stairs. They stopped at the doorway to the master bedroom.
“You take the master,” Norman said. “I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
“But it’s your bedroom.”
“It’s our bedroom, but I don’t think you’re up to discussing that now. Here’s a sleep shirt. Go put it on.” Norman handed her a folded bundle of clothing and pushed her off toward the master bathroom. “While you’re changing, I’ll light a fire and turn down the covers for you.”
Her limbs felt like lead, but somehow she managed to get out of her clothes and into the red flannel sleep shirt. Red was her favorite color and it was brand-new. Even though her brain felt like overcooked oatmeal and she was too tired to figure anything out, she knew that he’d bought it for her.
She opened the bathroom door, wondering what would await her, and found Norman sitting on the side of the bed. “Climb in and get warm, Hannah,” he invited, patting the blankets. “I’ll go get the cats.”
“Cats,” Hannah said, slipping under the eiderdown coverlet and resting her head against the most comfortable feather pillow she’d ever encountered. The fire flickered, its light was golden, and the room was exactly the right temperature.
“Here you are, Big Guy,” Norman’s voice was soft as he brought the two cats into the room. “Go ahead, Cuddles. You can sleep with Hannah, too.”
There was a thump as Moishe landed and padded up to lick her cheek. A second later, there was another thump, a less heavy one, and Hannah heard Cuddles start to purr. As she drifted off to sleep, Hannah knew that life was good and everything was almost perfect.