Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder by Joanne Fluke

Andrea bought a color like that once and it looked horrible on her. She’s got every other shade there is, so I figure that this one can’t be very popular.”
    â€œYou’ve got a point.” Bill started to smile. “Good work, Hannah.”
    Hannah was pleased at the compliment, but then she started thinking about the logistics of finding the Lake Eden woman who owned that color of lipstick. “What are you going to do, Bill? Inspect every powder room in town?”
    â€œI hope it won’t come to that. I’ll start with the cosmetic counters and see if they carry this color. Whoever she is, she had to buy it somewhere. That’s called legwork, Hannah, and I’ll need your help. You may not know much about lipstick, but you’ve got to know more than I do.”
    Hannah sighed. Watching paint dry held more interest for her than cosmetic counters, and legwork didn’t sound like very much fun.
    â€œYou are going to help me, aren’t you?”
    â€œOf course I am. I’m sorry I’m not more enthusiastic, but rooting around in all that garbage got me down.”
    â€œNext time just call me and I’ll do it. I’ve got coveralls in the cruiser and I’m used to stuff like that.”
    â€œI did call you. I even left a message, but you didn’t get back to me in time. And since Edna told me that the trash company was coming to empty the Dumpster at five, I figured that I’d better do it.”
    Bill reached out to pat her on the back. “You’d make a good detective, Hannah. Your dip in the Dumpster gave us the only real clue we’ve got.”
    Â 
    Rhonda Scharf, her plump middle-aged body encased in a baby-blue angora sweater that might have fit her thirty pounds ago, leaned forward over the glass-topped cosmetic counter at Lake Eden Neighborhood Pharmacy to stare at the smudge of pink lipstick on the white Styrofoam cup. Rhonda was wearing a scowl that turned down the corners of her heavily rouged lips, and her too-long, too-thick, too-black-to-be-real eyelashes fluttered in distaste. “That lipstick didn’t come from my counter. I wouldn’t be caught dead displaying a product like that!”
    Bill pushed the bag closer. “Take another look, Rhonda. We need to make sure.”
    â€œI did look.” Rhonda pushed the bag back to him. “I do all the ordering and I’ve never carried that brand or that color.”
    â€œThere’s no doubt in your mind, Rhonda?”
    Rhonda shook her head, her coal-black hair swaying from side to side. The strands moved together, like they’d been dipped in glue, and Hannah suspected that Rhonda must get a massive employee’s discount on hairspray.
    â€œSee how it’s smeared?” Rhonda poked at the bag with the pointed tip of a long, manicured nail. “I don’t sell any lipstick that isn’t smudge-proof, and the lines I buy from don’t make garish shades like that.”
    Hannah looked up from the color charts that Rhonda had handed her. Her grandmother had always said that you’d catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and she was about to put that old maxim to the test. “We really need your help, Rhonda. You’re Lake Eden’s only cosmetic expert.”
    â€œThen why did you go to CostMart? I know you did, Hannah. Cheryl Coombs called to tell me.”
    â€œOf course we went there,” Hannah acknowledged. “We checked out every cosmetic counter in town. But we saved you for last because I told Bill you’d know more about lipstick than anyone else in town. Your makeup is always so perfect.”
    Rhonda preened slightly, giving Bill a sidelong glance that was definitely flirtatious. Since Rhonda had to be pushing fifty and Bill hadn’t yet celebrated his thirtieth birthday, Hannah figured the gossip her mother had told her about Rhonda and the UPS driver might not be as ridiculous as she’d