“And they tend to do that?”
“Yes. Both of them want to give everyone a break. That’s very nice of them, but they have to make a profit to stay in business.”
“You’re right, Luanne.”
“I know. You used to do the same thing, Hannah. You’d give away cookies for free. Generosity must run in your family.”
“Either that or poor business sense.”
Luanne laughed. She had the best laugh Hannah had ever heard. It started off softly and grew in volume until it died off into a series of soft giggles.
“Go on up, Hannah,” Luanne told her pointing to the stairway in the center of the shop. “They’ll both be happy to see you. I know your mother wants to ask you about how your investigation is going.”
“Hannah!” Delores greeted her as she came in the door of the coffee room. “Thank goodness you’re here! I called The Cookie Jar, but Lisa wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”
Her mother looked highly agitated and Hannah felt a stab of concern. “What’s the matter, Mother?”
“I need you to go to lunch with me! I can’t go with Carrie because she’s meeting Earl at Bertanelli’s, and I can’t take Luanne because someone has to keep Granny’s Attic open.”
Hannah was puzzled. Her mother was in a real state and she didn’t understand why. “You need me to take you to lunch because you don’t want to go alone?”
“No, that’s not it! I need you because you know how to ask questions. I need to have lunch at the Red Velvet Lounge before Georgina Swinton finishes her waitress shift!”
Hannah still didn’t understand, but she nodded. “All right. Let’s go then.” She gave Carrie a wave that served as both greeting and departure, and was gratified when Carrie winked at her. Her mother’s best friend knew just how demanding Delores could be.
“You drive,” Delores ordered, heading across the parking lot at a trot that was only a few paces slower than a gallop. She glanced behind her to make sure that Hannah was following and arrived at Hannah’s cookie truck quite breathless. “Get in, Hannah! And step on it! We have to be there in twenty minutes if we want to get Georgina as our waitress. Otherwise, it’s all for naught!”
All for naught? Hannah’s mind repeated the phrase. Her mother must have started working on her new Regency romance. “Don’t worry, Mother. We’ll get there in five minutes or less,” she promised.
Three and a half minutes later, Hannah pulled into her mother’s extra parking spot right next to the entrance to the Albion Hotel. True to her word, they slid into a booth at the Red Velvet Lounge with fifteen seconds to spare.
“Please tell me what all this is about,” Hannah said, reaching for the menu on the table. She hadn’t been planning on having lunch, but now that they were here, it would be foolish not to sample the food that her mother had told her was very good.
“In just a minute,” Delores said, gesturing toward the busboy who was heading for their table with two glasses of water. “Is Georgina working?” she asked him before he even had time to deliver their water.
“She’s here. Do you want her to wait on you?”
“Yes, please,” Hannah answered for her mother. She still didn’t know why Delores had asked her to come here and insisted that Georgina be their waitress.
Delores took a sip of water and sighed heavily. “That’s better,” she said.
When the busboy had left, Hannah turned to her mother. “Will you please tell me now?”
“Yes. I talked to Irma York. Georgina is her cousin. Irma said that Georgina told her that Mayor Bascomb was in here having drinks with his wife on the night that Tori was killed.”
“Okay. So you want me to ask Georgina about Mayor Bascomb?”
“Of course I do. But there’s more. Irma said that Georgina said she overheard the mayor say something about having to go up to Tori’s place to straighten her out about something important. And then he told Stephanie to order another drink for him because it wouldn’t take long for him to set Tori straight.”
“That’s interesting,” Hannah said, not mentioning that she already knew that from the one-sided conversation Tricia had overheard. “Do you happen to know what time that was?”
“No. Georgina didn’t say, so Irma didn’t know.”
“And you’d like me to find out when that was?”
“Of course I would.” Delores turned to give Hannah a questioning look. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Her mother seemed to be waiting for something more than a simple answer, and for a moment, Hannah was puzzled. Then she realized what Delores wanted. “It certainly might be helpful. Thank you for bringing this to me, Mother.”
Delores smiled and Hannah knew she’d given the correct response. “You’re welcome, dear.”
A moment later, a woman with obviously dyed black hair swept up in a tight knot on the top of her head came over to their booth. “Hello, Hannah,” she said with a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”
Hannah’s mind went into high gear, searching her memory banks. She knew she’d seen the woman before and her name was obviously Georgina, but where, exactly, had that been?
One by one, in rapid succession, she eliminated the possibilities. Not a customer at The Cookie Jar. Not a relative or a friend of a relative. Not at her mother’s Regency Romance Reader’s Club. Her synapses flew through the other venues and came up with a possible winner. But it wouldn’t hurt to double check the accuracy of her assumption.
“I didn’t realize you worked here, Georgina,” Hannah said, fishing for information.
“Only a couple shifts a week,” Georgina responded with a smile. “It gets really busy when we have a special on Reubens or Patty Melts. We get very crowded then.”