Read Online Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke - Free Book Online

on her headlights. Once she exited the complex, she turned south on Old Lake Road and took the country road that led to the Hanks place. She’d promised Bill that she’d talk to Luanne tonight to see if the lipstick was one that she carried. Luanne had finished her shift at the cafe at six and she should be home by now.
    Birch trees lined the sides of County Road 12, their white bark catching in the beams of Hannah’s headlights as she drove. The Sioux had used birch bark to make canoes. When Hannah was still in grade school, her class had taken a trip to the museum to see one. Young Hannah had decided that if the Indians had built canoes so many years ago, it should be even easier to do using modern tools. Unfortunately, her mother had spotted the barkless patches on the stand of birch in their backyard. Her canoe hadn’t gotten past the planning stage before Hannah had received the scolding of her life from Delores for attempting to kill her birch trees, accompanied by a spanking from her father for pilfering his best pocketknife.
    Hannah’s lights caught the metal reflective triangle that was nailed to a tree trunk at the mouth of Bailey Road and she slowed to take the turn. Bailey Road was gravel because it provided access to only three homes. Freddy Sawyer still lived in his mother’s cottage at the edge of the puddle they called Lake Bailey. He was mildly retarded, but Freddy did just fine living by himself and doing odd jobs for the people in town. The second house on Bailey Road had been finished only last year. Otis Cox and his wife had built their retirement home on the site of his parents’ old cottage. They’d told everyone in town that they liked the quiet and the solitude, but Hannah figured it had more to do with the Lake Eden statute that limited dog owners to three canines per residence. Otis and Eleanor were crazy about dogs and now that they lived outside the town limits, they could take in as many strays as they wanted.
    Hannah grinned as she drove past the cozy three-bedroom house. Otis and Eleanor’s matching Explorers were in the driveway, each sporting a new bumper sticker. They were rip-offs of the old “INew York” stickers. They read: “IMy Dog.”
    The only other residence on Bailey Road, way down at the end where the snowplows had no room to turn around, was the old Hanks place. Ned Hanks, Luanne’s father, had recently died of liver disease, the result of his years of alcohol abuse. Now that Ned was gone, the only occupants of the Hanks place were Luanne, her mother, and Luanne’s baby daughter, Suzie.
    As she pulled up in front of the four-room cabin, Hannah thought about Luanne’s strange reaction to Bill. He’d told Hannah that he’d stopped Luanne once, for a broken taillight on the old car she drove, and she’d seemed positively terrified of him. Hannah didn’t understand that at all. Bill was a giant teddy bear, with his easy smile and his nonthreatening manner. He didn’t have a mean bone in his body, and everyone in Lake Eden knew it.
    Hannah really didn’t know Luanne that well. She’d met her a couple of times when Michelle had brought her home from school and she’d seen her at the cafe, but they hadn’t exchanged more than a few polite words. All the same, Hannah admired her. Even though Luanne had dropped out of high school in her senior year, she’d continued to study throughout her pregnancy and she’d passed the equivalency test for her diploma. Luanne was a hard worker at the cafe, always pleasant and neatly groomed, and now that her father was dead, she was the sole support of her mother and Suzie. Though there were rumors, no one really knew who had fathered Luanne’s baby. Anyone who’d had gall to ask Luanne directly had received a perfectly polite, “I’d rather not say.”
    Naturally, Hannah had brought cookies. She’d packed up a bag with a dozen