Chocolate Cream Pie Murder - Joanne Fluke Page 0,1

expression crossed her face. “You’re not planning to wear your winter boots, are you?”

Hannah had the urge to laugh. She had never, in her whole life, walked down the aisle of their church wearing winter boots. She came very close to saying that, but she realized that the root of her mother’s concern was anxiety about how the congregation would receive what Hannah had to tell them.

“Relax, Mother,” Hannah told her. “I brought dress shoes with me and I’ll change in the cloakroom as soon as we get inside.”

Delores nodded, but she still looked worried. “Your dress shoes aren’t brown, are they?”

“No, Mother. I know how you feel about wearing brown shoes with blue. These are the black shoes we bought at the Tri-County Mall last year.”

“Oh, good!” Delores drew a relieved breath and glanced at the jeweled watch her husband, Doc Knight, had given her. “Then let’s go, girls. It’ll take us a while to get Hannah ready.”

Hannah wisely kept her silence as she walked to the church with her family. Once the cookies she’d brought for the social hour after the church service had been delivered to the kitchen next to the basement meeting room, Hannah suffered her family’s attempt to make her into what Delores deemed church appropriate.

“It’s time,” Delores declared, glancing at her watch again. “Follow me, girls.”

As they walked down the center aisle single file, Hannah spotted her former boyfriend, Norman Rhodes. Norman was sitting on one side of his mother, and Carrie’s second husband, Earl Flensburg, was sitting on her other side. Norman smiled at Hannah as she passed by and he held his thumb and finger together in an okay sign.

Hannah swallowed the lump that was beginning to form in her throat and reminded herself that she knew almost everyone here. The Holy Redeemer congregation consisted of friends, neighbors, and customers who came into The Cookie Jar. They would appreciate her apology and no one would be angry with her . . . she hoped.

She was beginning to feel slightly more confident when she noticed the other local man she’d dated, Mike Kingston. He was sitting with Michelle’s boyfriend, Lonnie Murphy, and both of them smiled and gave her friendly nods. Mike was the head detective at the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Department and he was training Lonnie to be his partner. Both men usually worked on Sundays, but they must have traded days with a pair of other deputies so that they could come to hear Hannah’s apology.

Doc Knight saw them coming up the aisle and he stepped out of the pew so that they could file in. Hannah went first so that she would be on the end and it would be easier for her to get out and walk up the side aisle to the front of the church when it was time.

“Are you all right?” Michelle asked her as they sat down.

It took Hannah a moment to find her voice. “Yes, I’m all right.”

“But you’re so pale that the blusher on your cheeks is standing out in circles.” Michelle reached for the hymnal in the rack and flipped to the page that was listed in the church bulletin.

“Is something wrong?” Andrea asked in a whisper.

“Everything’s fine,” Hannah told her, pretending to be engrossed in reading the verse of the familiar hymn they were preparing to sing.

The organist, who had been playing softly while people filed into the church, increased the volume and segued into the verse of the hymn. This precluded any further conversation, and Hannah was grateful.

If there had been a ten-question quiz about the sermon that Reverend Bob delivered, Hannah would have flunked it. She was too busy worrying about what she wanted to say to pay attention. There were times during the sermon that Hannah wished Reverend Bob would hurry so that she could get up, apologize, and go back home. At other times, she found herself wishing that the sermon would go on forever and she’d never have to walk to the front of the church and speak.

When Reverend Bob finished, stepped down from the pulpit, and went into the room at the side of the nave to hang up his vestments, the butterflies of anxiety in Hannah’s stomach awoke and began to churn in a rising cloud that made her feel weak-kneed and slightly dizzy. She concentrated on breathing evenly until Reverend Bob reappeared in the black suit he wore once the sermon was over.

The announcements Reverend Bob made were short and sweet. There was