Hannah spent another couple of minutes making conversation and then she said she had to go. As she climbed up the steps to her own unit, she tried to fit the new pieces of the puzzle into place. Del Woodley couldn’t have killed Max, not if Phil had seen him at the plant. But it was certainly possible that Del had secured a loan from Max Turner four years ago. She had to check on that, and there was only one person who might know.

When she unlocked her door, no furry orange ball barreled across the room to meet her. Hannah glanced around anxiously. Where was Moishe? Then she saw him sitting on the back of the couch. The novelty of having her dash in and out had obviously worn off for him.

“Hi, Moishe.” Hannah walked over to pet him anyway. “Go back to sleep. I just came home to make another phone call.”

Moishe yawned and settled back down, and Hannah reached for the phone. Betty Jackson might know if Del Woodley had borrowed money from Max four years ago.

Betty’s extension was busy and Hannah had to press the redial button a dozen times before she finally got through. When she said hello, Betty immediately started to tell her what was going on.

“It’s been a madhouse out here!” Betty sounded even more harried than usual. “I can’t get into Max’s office. There’s yellow tape blocking the doorway, and Bill warned me not to go in there. And everybody in town has been calling me to find out what’s going to happen to the dairy.”

“Do you know yet?”

“Yes. I just got off the phone with Max’s nephew and he’s planning to move here and take over the operation. He asked me to call an employee meeting and tell everyone on the payroll that he’s not planning to make any changes. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“It certainly is.” Hannah did her best to sound enthusiastic. She was glad that the dairy was staying open, but she had a lot of other things on her mind. “I’m sorry to bother you, Betty, but I need to ask you a very important question. Do you know if Max ever had any business dealings with Del Woodley?”

“Just a minute and I’ll get that invoice for you. Could you hold, please?”

There was a thunk as Betty set the receiver down on her desk, and Hannah heard her tell several people to leave her office because she had an important supplier on the line. A few seconds later, there was the sound of a door closing and then Hannah heard heavy footsteps as Betty returned to her desk.

“Sorry, Hannah. I didn’t want to say anything while there were people in the office, but Max did have dealings with Del Woodley. I’m not supposed to know anything about it, but I just happened to pick up the extension while Max was talking to Del.”

Hannah grinned. It sounded as if Betty spent most of her working hours listening in on conversations that she wasn’t supposed to hear.