a lawyer sit in with her, one that was not her husband. Lisa was touched and Vanessa annoyed when Graham asked Lisa to be that person. With cocoa Christine had fixed for everyone, the three of them sat before the cold hearth. It was nearly midnight. The sheriff had Ellie explain her visit to Ginger's--she had driven the spare car from the lodge around the lake--and listened patiently to her tell how impressed she was with Ginger's baking skills and quaint cabin.
"So you ordered some baked goods to take back with you?" he asked, obviously surprising Ellie.
"Why, yes, I did. I suppose Vanessa or Lisa told you that. She was to bake them later. The items she'd been working on for a couple of days were to sell at the Talkeetna festival."
"Lisa," he said, turning to her, "I forgot to tell you, I got the baked goods in the trunk of the car. It's okay by Spike, it's okay by me, a nice way to honor Ginger's memory. But if word gets out you're selling a dead woman's items tomorrow, don't you or anyone else be telling your theories about what happened. Got that?"
"Got that, Sheriff. And thanks for permission."
"Now, you ladies recall if anyone paid her up front for the goods she was gonna bake for you?" he asked.
"Actually, I did," Ellie said, her index finger hooked over her gold necklace, sliding back and forth. If Lisa had had any prep time with her, she'd have told her there was nothing to be nervous about. But she could understand. Ellen Carlisle Bonner was hardly used to being interrogated by the police.
"I gave her fifty dollars," Ellie said.
"Nice price for bakery items," the sheriff said, writing in his notebook again. "But then we're gonna have to figure out where she got this--whose hand-writing's on it, too, though we can sure lift prints." He turned around to pull a ziplocked plastic bag from a paper sack he'd placed behind his chair. "There's not fifty but two hundred dollars in cash in the envelope inside here, with the printed return address of The Duck Lake Lodge, Bear Bones, Alaska," he told them. "Besides Ginger's name, the envelope bears the words more to come." Lisa leaned forward far enough to see that was exactly what it said.
"Found in a drawer in her bedroom," the sheriff added. "Of course, we'll fingerprint the envelope and money--we're kinda low-tech around here, since fancy DNA forensic work goes to Fairbanks or Anchorage. But we can also trace the handwriting on the envelope." When Ellie sat back farther in her chair as if it was beneath her to squint at the envelope, the sheriff dropped it back in his sack.
Then, as Lisa's clients had done to her many a time, Ellie blurted, "You won't have to look far, Sheriff. I did order only fifty dollars of baked goods, but I put the other one hundred and fifty in there as a gift. That's my writing. But I promised Ginger I wouldn't tell anyone, and now I have."
Thank heavens, Lisa thought, the explanation was perfectly in line with the way Ellie and the Bonners operated--gifts for the needy, generosity on a grand scale. She wouldn't embarrass Ellie by extolling the Bonners' various kindnesses in front of her, but she'd make sure the sheriff realized that there was nothing suspicious or unusual in that gesture. To the Bonners, that sort of donation was like her leaving a dollar tip on the counter at a Starbucks.
"And the more to come?" he prompted Ellie. "Why that?"
"The woman was good-hearted, and I liked her. I have discretionary money for when I see someone in need."
The sheriff nodded and said no more. He didn't seem upset, but Ellie was. After all, Ellie had been coddled and protected by strong men all her life. But after being around so many attorneys and her father's and husband's precious law firm, didn't Ellie know when she'd said enough? Lisa's lawyer sixth sense made her feel more was coming.
"Sheriff," Ellie said, "I just thought she needed encouragement for standing up to Gus Majors when he tried to bully her. I wondered why he didn't want to be around her when he brought Lisa and Mitch back from their river adventure, so I asked Ginger why. It seems she was quite afraid of the man."
"That right, Mrs. Bonner?"
"That's right, Sheriff."
Damn, Lisa thought, as he scribbled something, then flipped his small, spiral notebook closed. She hoped Mitch would take on