Read Plum Pudding Murder for Free Online Page B

the crack under the door. “Let me in, will you? It’s cold out here.”
    Norman chuckled and turned to Hannah. “Shall I let him in?” he asked in an even louder voice that Mike would be sure to hear. “Or shall we keep all the Hot Fudge Sundae Cakes to ourselves?”
    There was a moment of silence and then Mike asked, “Did you say Hot Fudge Sundae Cakes!?”
    Hannah laughed. “Let him in, Norman. I’ll go dish up another one for him.”
    As Hannah turned another helping onto one of the dessert plates Delores had given her for Christmas, she heard Norman greet Mike. Even though both of them were dating her, the two men were friends. Occasionally jealousy reared its head, but they got past it. As long as she steadfastly refused to choose one over the other, the three of them remained friends.
    “Thanks for letting me in,” Hannah heard Mike say from the living room.
    “I had to let you in. You’re the law.”
    “That’s true. So what’s this about Hot Fudge Sundae Cake?”
    “It’s like a hot fudge sundae inside of a cake,” Norman explained. “You’re going to love it.”
    At that moment Hannah came out of the kitchen with the dessert plate for Mike and two cups of coffee, one for Norman and the other for Mike. “Here you go,” she said, setting the dessert plate and one coffee in front of Mike, and handing Norman his refill. “Go ahead and eat. It’s better if it’s hot.”
    Mike dipped his spoon in the pool of sauce and excavated a bit of cake and ice cream. He popped it in his mouth and gave a sound that resembled one of Moishe’s happiest purrs. Then he plunged his spoon down for another bite.
    “You like it?” Hannah asked him.
    “You bet! Thanks, Hannah. I’ve been running all day and I didn’t have a chance to eat.”
    “How about a meatloaf sandwich?” Hannah offered. “It’s leftover meatloaf and I can heat it up like a hamburger on a cheesy biscuit.”
    Mike mumbled something that Hannah interpreted as assent and she went back to the kitchen to heat a slice of meatloaf in the microwave. She halved a biscuit, spread it with mayonnaise and dotted the bottom with a few slices of the bread and butter pickles that Lisa had given her. “Ketchup?” she called out.
    “Yes, and mustard if you’ve got it,” Mike replied.
    As she put on the condiments, Hannah heard Mike’s spoon scrape against the bottom of his dessert plate. She slid on the slice of meatloaf, topped it with the lid of the biscuit, carried in the plate, and exchanged it for Mike’s dessert plate, which was scraped so clean she knew he was half-starved.
    “Hi, Big Guy,” Hannah heard him say to Moishe as she carried the dessert plate to the kitchen. “Sure you can have a bite. Hold on a second and I’ll break off some meat for you.”
    Perhaps that was what she liked best about both men, Hannah mused as she rinsed off Mike’s plate and slid it into the dishwasher. Norman and Mike were crazy about Moishe, and it was clear that Hannah’s cat felt the same way about them. Perhaps she might have been able to choose between them if Moishe had loved one and hated the other, but that wasn’t the case. And she was left, not at all unhappily, to date them both.
    Hannah had just returned to her seat on the couch when the phone rang. She answered and began to frown as she heard her sister Andrea’s panicked voice.
    “You’ve just got to help me, Hannah! Bill’s tied up at the station and there’s no way I can do this alone!”
    “There’s no way you can do what alone?” Hannah asked, remembering her rule about not promising any favors until she found out what they were. Actually, Andrea was the reason for the rule. When Hannah was a senior in high school and Andrea was in eighth grade, her younger sister had elicited a promise from Hannah to help her out. To Hannah’s chagrin, the “help” turned out to be attending a rock concert with Andrea and five of her classmates. Hannah had suffered through two and a half