Delores looked as if she really wanted to ask them to hurry and finish so that she could hear Doc’s news for Hannah. She even opened her mouth to start talking, but before she could reopen the subject, Doc popped a cherry tomato from his salad into her mouth. “We’ll talk about it later, Lori.”

Everyone laughed and so did Delores, but only after she’d eaten the tomato. “Thank you, dear,” she said to Doc. “That was much more delicious than a sock stuffed in my mouth and it had exactly the same effect.”

Fifteen minutes later, when almost all of the pizza had been eaten and everyone had eaten dessert and said they thought that Hannah’s new cookie was one of the best they’d ever had, Michelle cleared the table. Hannah made a fresh pot of coffee, and they carried it to the table.

“We’re through with dessert,” Delores said as soon as Michelle had refilled their coffee cups. “Tell us, Doc.”

Doc turned to Hannah. “The first part is interesting, Hannah. Marlene managed to isolate that stain on the man’s shirt. It’s blackberries.”

“Really!” Hannah exclaimed. “I didn’t expect that. I wonder where he got a stain like that.” As everyone began to speculate, she listened with one ear as her mind raced through the possibilities. She’d check with Rose at the café to see if she’d made blackberry pie on Friday. And she’d check with Florence at the Red Owl to see if any of the pre-packaged bakery pies she carried were blackberry or if she carried fresh blackberries in her produce department. “Is Marlene sure it’s blackberry and not some other kind of berry?”

“She says she’s ninety percent certain. It has to do with acidity, color, and sweetness. She tested for pH value, color density, and brix.”

“Brix?” Mike looked puzzled.

“It’s a measure of sweetness. Marlene used a refractometer to test for that. She always hedges her bets, so when she told me she was ninety percent sure, that means we can be ninety-nine percent sure.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Hannah said. “It’s got to be blackberries.”

“Now on to something more serious.” Doc took another swallow of his coffee. “Your mother was right, Hannah. What I have to tell you does have to do with the man you killed. Would you like to discuss it in private?”

Hannah thought about that for a moment and then she shook her head. Everyone here was either a relative or a friend. “That’s okay,” she said. “You can tell all of us whatever it is.”

“Something about the autopsy report was nagging me over the weekend,” he began, “so I got out the photos of the damage to your truck and compared them with my descriptions of the injuries.”