“The cookie lady!” Heiti reached out to shake her hand. “Nancy talks about you all the time. She told me that you’re a marvelous baker.”
It was the perfect opening for Hannah and she took it. “And she told me that you’re a wonderful carpenter and painter.”
“She said you were building bookcases for her,” Michelle said, once Heiti had taken her hand and greeted her with a similar handshake.
“That’s right. Would you like to see my work?” Heiti asked, opening the door wider.
“We’d love to!” Andrea told him, stepping in.
Hannah and Michelle followed on Andrea’s heels as Heiti led them into the kitchen and showed them the bookcases lining one wall.
The kitchen was exactly as Aunt Nancy had described it, a long, fairly narrow room with the appliances against one long wall, and bookcases against the other. The bookcases were finely crafted, and Hannah immediately wished she had them instead of the old plank and brick bookcases she’d built herself in her living room.
“They’re beautiful,” she commented, “and there are so many!”
Heiti laughed and it was clear that he was amused. His laugh was obviously genuine, and the sound of his laughter was musical in nature. Hannah felt herself smiling back at him, and she saw that Andrea and Michelle were also smiling. She began to understand how Aunt Nancy had become so fond of him. Heiti seemed like a man who loved life and found enjoyment in little things.
“Yes, there are many bookcases,” Heiti told her, “but not enough to hold all of Nancy’s books. Come with me, and I’ll show you the others I built for her.”
“Wait!” Andrea stared up at the border around the kitchen ceiling. “This is just incredible, Heiti! Did you paint it?”
“Yes. I finished it last week. This week, I’ve been working on the border in the living room.”
“Aunt Nancy mentioned that,” Hannah told him. “She said she invited you to go to the competition with her, but you were painting the border in the living room and you wanted to finish it.”
“That’s true. Tole painting is a new hobby of mine and Nancy was kind enough to let me try my hand at it in her house.”
“The border you painted in the kitchen is just wonderful,” Michelle told him, “and I can hardly wait to see the one in the living room. Aunt Nancy said that you’d just finished and you were cleaning your brushes when she got home from the competition.”
“She also said that you were very sympathetic when you heard about what had happened with Chef Duquesne,” Hannah picked up where Michelle had stopped.
“Your aunt told you about that?”
“Yes, but she’s not our aunt. We call her Aunt Nancy because she’s my partner’s aunt. It just seems to fit her. She’s such a caring, kind-hearted person.”
“She certainly is,” Heiti agreed. “Did Nancy say how very upset she was?”
“Yes,” Michelle replied. “She said you poured her a glass of sherry and asked her to tell you about it.”
“She also said that you were a wonderful listener,” Hannah repeated Aunt Nancy’s words.
Andrea reached out to touch Heiti’s arm. “We’re very glad you comforted her. We’re very fond of Aunt Nancy. And I know you must have been tired from working all day.”
“It was a long day,” Heiti admitted, “but I didn’t want Nancy to come home to an empty house. And then, when she was so upset, I stayed for another couple of hours. I remember glancing at the alarm clock when I got home and went to bed, and it was close to three in the morning. And now you know how late I was here on the night Chef Duquesne was murdered.”
Hannah knew she must have looked shocked. She thought they’d been very clever, but Heiti had obviously caught on. “Sorry about that,” she said, wincing slightly. “You see, I’m investigating . . .” Heiti held up his hand in a motion to stop and she did.
“Nancy mentioned that you investigated murders, and the moment you gave me your name, I knew that was why you were here. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so blunt, but . . .”
“That’s all right,” Hannah interrupted him. “If I’d known that you knew about that, I would have come right out and started to . . .”
“Grill me!” Heiti interrupted, breaking into his wonderfully contagious laugh again. “To be perfectly honest with you, Hannah, I wanted to drive out to the Lake Eden Inn to give that man a piece of my mind. But there was a very good reason why I couldn’t do that.”
“What was the reason?” Andrea asked him.
“I ran out of gas! I had to leave my car by the side of the highway and walk back to my apartment.”
Hannah remembered the car that had been parked in Aunt Nancy’s driveway. “But that’s your car outside, isn’t it?”