"Here you go, Miss Swensen." One of the girls handed Hannah a hot cup of coffee without asking. "Thanks for the cookies."
Hannah left the tent intending to go straight back to her truck, but she changed her mind halfway there. It wouldn't hurt to check out the site to see which area they'd be using.
The family snowman contest would take place in the center of the park. As Hannah walked closer, she saw that the individual squares had been marked with brightly colored rope tied to ski poles. Each area was tagged and Hannah found theirs, number fifteen. It had a good-sized drift of snow in the center, and Hannah figured they'd have more than enough to make a man-sized snowman.
As she turned to leave, her eyes were drawn to a tall, familiar figure in a maroon sheriff's-issue parka. It was Mike, and he was talking to a woman she didn't know, a gorgeous platinum blond in a bright-red ski outfit. Under normal circumstances, Hannah would have walked over to say hello, but these weren't normal circumstances. She was just turning to go in the opposite direction when Mike spotted her.
"Hi, Hannah!" A huge grin spread over Mike's face and he waved his arms.
Hannah grinned back. She didn't want to, but she couldn't help it. There was something about Mike's grin that was contagious.
"Come over here for a minute," he called out, motioning to her. "I've got someone I want you to meet."
"Of all the people in all this snow, I have to run into him!" Hannah muttered, borrowing heavily from Casablanca. If Mike meant the blond, and she was sure he did, Hannah didn't want to meet her. On the other hand, they knew she'd seen them, and to ignore them would be rude.
"'Hannah Swensen, this is Kristi Hampton," Mike said. "Kristi was Mrs. MacIntyre's personal beautician."
"Glad to meet you," Hannah said without meaning it.
"Likewise," Kristi responded, but she didn't give Hannah more than a fleeting glance before she turned back to Mike.
"Is it too late to enter the contest? I don't have family here, but I could recruit you."
"Sorry, I'm working." Mike looked a bit embarrassed, and Hannah could see why. Kristi had her hand on his sleeve and was stroking it like the owner of a prized stallion.
"So, Hannah," Mike said, turning to her, "why are you here?"
Hannah smiled. It didn't hurt to be friendly, and Kristi had worked for Connie Mac. Perhaps she could learn something. "I just delivered cookies to the warm-up tent. I've got extras in my truck if you and Kristi haven't had breakfast."
"Thanks, but I never eat breakfast," Kristi said with a sultry gaze at Mike, "unless I've been up all night. And I already had my breakfast. Besides, I have to watch my carbs."
"I don't, and I could use a cookie," Mike said.
"Well, that's different." Kristi patted Mike's arm. "You men have to keep up your strength."
Mike smiled and removed her hand from his sleeve. "Excuse me, Kristi. I'm going to walk Hannah to her truck. I have to talk to her about something private."
Hannah's eyebrows shot up as Mike grabbed her arm and they set off at a fast pace across the snow. She had all she could do to resist the urge to turn back and thumb her nose.
"I've got two pieces of news for you, Hannah." Mike's grip tightened on her arm. "Is Miss Burkholtz still staying with you?"
"Yes, she is. Is that against the law?"
"Of course not. It was nice of you to take her in. I just wanted to tell you that Bill and I worked late last night doing interviews with Mrs. MacIntyre's staff. I drew Kristi, and she was very cooperative."
I'll just bet she was, Hannah thought, but she didn't say it. She just waited for Mike to go on.
"I wanted you to know that Miss Burkholtz is in the clear."
Hannah almost forgave him for the sultry look that Kristi had given him. "That's great! Just wait until I tell her."
"One of the maids that Bill interviewed said she saw Miss Burkholtz leaving the hotel at ten minutes to twelve on the night that Mrs. MacIntyre was murdered. And Kristi told me that she saw her pull into the parking lot at the inn at ten."
"And since my shop is twenty-five minutes from the inn, Janie has an alibi?"
"That's right. Kristi was just leaving the parking lot, and Miss Burkholtz took the spot she vacated. I checked it out."
"How did you do that?" Hannah was curious.
"I took Kristi out to the bar at the mall last night, and a couple of the guys remembered that she walked in at ten-twenty. I'm not surprised they noticed her. Kristi's a very attractive woman."
Hannah bit her tongue so she wouldn't ask how long Mike's interview with Kristi had lasted and exactly where they'd gone after they'd left the bar. She told herself she should be grateful to Kristi for providing Janie's alibi, but that did nothing to reduce the sharp stab of jealousy she felt.
"You said you had two pieces of news for me. What's the second?"
"I cleared Norman Rhodes."
"How did you do that?'
"It was that attack he suffered last night. At first I thought it might be faked, but there's no way he could have bashed himself on the back of the head. I think the murderer hit Norman and only Luanne Hanks's arrival kept him from being killed. What I don't know is why Mrs. MacIntyre's murderer was after Norman."
"I do," Hannah said, unlocking the passenger door to her truck. "Climb in and have a cookie, and I'll tell you."
Mike went through four cookies in the time it told her to tell her story, and Hannah figured that it was a good investment. When she was finished, she leaned back in her seat with a sigh. "What do you think? Does it make sense?"
"It makes perfect sense. Good for you for figuring it out. Just between you and me, Hannah, I'm really glad that Norman's off my suspect list."
"Why?"
"Because suspecting Norman made me really uncomfortable. My gut instincts told me that he was innocent, but what if I'd been wrong? I had to warn you, Hannah."
"I understand."
"There's another thing, too. I was afraid you'd think I was jealous of your relationship with Norman, and that was the reason I put him on my suspect list."
"Really? I didn't even think of that!"
"You didn't?"
"It never crossed my mind," Hannah told him quite truthfully. It had crossed Andrea's mind, not hers. "You aren't, are you? Jealous, I mean?"
"No. To tell you the truth, I'm relieved. I'm just not ready to settle down yet, and I'd feel guilty if you just sat around like a lovesick teenager and waited for me to call."
Hannah bristled. "I don't think you have to worry about that."
"I know. I figure the time will come when I want that kind of commitment again, but not right now. If I did want to get remarried, though. . ." Mike reached across the seat and pulled Hannah into his arms. He kissed her until both of them were breathless, and then he chuckled. "When I get to that point, you'll be the first to know."
Hannah sighed, still a little dazed from Mike's kiss. She had the urge to cuddle back up to him, but he'd been the one to break their embrace.
"I'll tell you one thing. Norman really impressed me."
"He did?"
"Absolutely. He left a message on my voice mail and I just retrieved it a couple of minutes ago. Do you know that he offered himself for bait so that we could set a trap for the killer?"
Hannah winced, wondering if she had messed up some sort of sting operation by planting the ghost story with Larry Kruger. "Are you going to take him up on it?"
"Of course not. We can't involve a civilian in something that dangerous. I called him right back to tell him that, but he wasn't home. I think we'll arrange a tail for him, though. He could be in real danger."
"I already took care of that," Hannah said. And then she told Mike what she'd done. "I was worried about him and I thought he might try to do something on his own."