Ten minutes later, Hannah was sitting in her favorite spot on the couch, sipping her wine and holding Moishe. He was always starved for affection when she’d been gone for hours, and tonight was no exception. She scratched him under his chin until he purred in ecstasy and she sang the silly little song she’d made up for him. She’d never been able to carry a tune, but as long as she kept on scratching, Moishe seemed to enjoy it. Perhaps it was a very good thing that she lived alone. If anyone had heard her singing about how much she adored her “big strong puss,” she’d be locked up as a nutcase.

The condo complex had free cable and Hannah surfed through the channels. There were fifty, but there was still nothing she wanted to watch. She settled for a documentary on forensics. It was possible she might learn something. But all the expert talked about were the new advances in fingerprint technology. Hannah listened to him expound on the use of superglue in subzero temperatures to lift prints from a victim’s skin and then she switched to the classic movies channel. Klute was playing and she’d seen it before, but she didn’t feel like channel-surfing any longer and she left it on.

Hannah thought about the crime for a while, but that was depressing. None of her sleuthing had done a particle of good. The cup with the lipstick had been promising at first, and she’d managed to find out that Danielle had been with Ron right before he’d been murdered. But what Danielle had told her really hadn’t mattered in the long run. She’d checked out Coach Watson and the jealousy motive, but he’d been with Maryann at his mother’s house when Ron had been shot. Norman was no longer a suspect, now that Delores had confirmed his alibi, and the homeless man that Claire had seen had been eating breakfast at the critical time. The bouncer that Ron had fought with at Twin Pines would be in the clear just as soon as Bill checked with the hospital, and Hannah was fresh out of suspects. She had to come up with some other suspects, but she didn’t have any idea where to start.

She reached for the notepad she kept by the couch and scrawled a list of names: Coach Watson, Norman, Blaze, and Alfred Redbird. Then she sighed and drew a line through each of them. As an afterthought, Hannah added Danielle to the list, but she really didn’t think that Danielle had shot Ron. All the same, she decided to check to see if she had an alibi.

Hannah picked up the phone book and paged through to find Danielle’s number. If Coach Watson answered, she’d just hang up.

Danielle picked up on the second ring and Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. “Hi, Danielle. It’s Hannah Swensen. Can you talk?”

“Just a minute, Hannah.” Hannah heard Danielle say something to Boyd about ordering cookies and then she came back on the line. “We’ll need five dozen for my art class Halloween party, Hannah. I was thinking of something with orange frosting.”