Cherry Cheesecake Murder (11 page)

When you’re ready to serve, fill in the crater in the center and frost the top of the cake with sweetened whipped cream. If you want it to look fancy, decorate it with chocolate shavings, chocolate curls, and/or a sprinkling of raspberries or strawberries. Slice it and serve it on dessert plates with plenty of excellent coffee.

Hannah’s 2nd Note: This is really a type of chocolate soufflé and it’s delicious!

It was eight-thirty on Monday morning and Hannah was at her wit’s end. Moishe, her wannabe movie star, was yowling like a banshee. He’d been expressing his extreme displeasure ever since she’d delivered him to the kitchen of The Cookie Jar and placed him in the crate Eleanor Cox had provided for the week. The crate was large and roomy. Eleanor rescued huskies and malamutes, and these homes away from home were designed to accommodate large-breed dogs. It had a nice, soft pad on the bottom and Moishe had plenty of space to stroll around. Hannah had equipped it with his food and water bowls, his litter box, and even the feather pillow he loved so much at home. Despite all these comforts, Moishe was not a happy cat and he wasn’t one to hide his emotions.

Hannah had wracked her brain and tried every trick she could think of to make her pet feel at home. She’d turned the crate so that Moishe could see them working, and put music on the radio so that he wouldn’t feel deprived. She’d gone over to reach through the grating and pet him every few minutes, and she’d even resorted to bribing him with a fresh pot of catnip that Lisa had grown in her greenhouse. Nothing had worked. It was clear that Moishe would complain until he lost his voice and then heaven knew what he’d do!

“Six,” Hannah said, shaking her head as her usually accommodating feline roommate tipped over his bowl of water. “But who’s counting?” She glanced over at her partner, who was smiling despite the fact that Moishe was vocalizing, and that was putting it nicely, at the top of his lungs. “How can you smile when you have to listen to that?”

“Excuse me?” Lisa asked, frowning slightly. “I didn’t hear you, Hannah.”

It was little wonder, Hannah thought, shaking her head. Just like the teens who listened to music blaring from their earphones, Lisa had probably experienced what Hannah hoped would be a temporary hearing loss. “I said,” Hannah got set to repeat herself in a much louder voice. “How can you smile when you have to listen to that?”

“Oh, gosh! Sorry!” Lisa apologized as she reached up with both hands to pull two small, bright orange objects from her ears.

“You’re wearing ear plugs?”

“Yes. I got them from Herb. They’re the kind we use when we go cowboy shooting.”

Hannah laughed. It amused her every time Lisa referred to cowboy shooting. It sounded as if her partner went out to shoot cowboys, but the only things Lisa and Herb had in their sights were steel targets. Cowboy shooting was a sport with stages that replicated Wild West settings. Everyone wore period clothing and participants were judged on their speed and accuracy using replicas of guns that had been available during the period.

“I know, we don’t actually shoot cowboys,” Lisa correctly interpreted Hannah’s laugh, “but that’s what everyone calls it. When I told Herb that you were bringing Moishe down here and keeping him in a crate so he’d be handy when they needed him for a scene, he figured I’d need earplugs.”

Moishe gave another deafening yowl and both Hannah and Lisa reached up to cover their ears. When the sound stopped, Hannah gave an exasperated sigh. “I don’t suppose you’ve got another pair of those?”

“I was a Girl Scout. I come prepared.” Lisa reached into her apron pocket and handed Hannah a new pair of earplugs. “Just roll them around in your hands for a few seconds to compress them, and then push them in your ears. They’ll expand to fit.”

Hannah did what her partner advised and soon both women were working in relative peace. Moishe’s yowls, although every bit as loud as they’d been before, had faded by the grace of the bright orange barriers to fit into their auditory comfort zone.

Once nine o’clock approached, Hannah went to the cooler to retrieve the cheesecake she’d baked after Ross had left the previous evening. “I’m going to run over to Mr. Lawrence’s trailer to deliver this,” she told Lisa. “Have some coffee and relax. We don’t open for another hour.”

“Do you think he’ll stop yowling soon?” Lisa asked, moving closer so that she could hear Hannah’s answer.

“Your guess is as good as mine. Try turning out the kitchen lights and going in the coffee shop. He’s used to being alone all day and maybe that’ll do it.”

“You think?”

“Not really, but it’s worth a try. And dream up some story about how he’s just rehearsing for a singing career in case the S.P.C.A. drops by.”

As Hannah approached the huge Winnebago, she was impressed. It was a home on wheels in the true sense of the words, and it must have cost a pretty penny to rent it. The only other motor home she’d seen that approximated the size of the one Dean Lawrence was using as an office was at the Road Deals on Wheels Trade Show she’d attended last year with Andrea and Bill. That particular motor home, the featured item at the show, had cost triple the price of a nice two-bedroom home in Lake Eden.

Hannah supposed she could understand the outlay of money if the big motor home had doubled as a hotel room, but the director of Crisis in Cherrywood was comfortably billeted in a luxury suite at the Lake Eden Inn. There was no way he needed an office this large.

Since she couldn’t stand here staring at this example of conspicuous consumption all day, Hannah looked for an entrance to the massive mobile home. There were two sets of steps. One was in the rear, but the other set, at the side near the front of the vehicle, had a sign that read, ENTRANCE—RING BELL.

Hannah did as she’d been directed and stood there shivering slightly in the frozen air. The March mornings were crisp and cold, and she hadn’t bothered zipping up her parka coat. Until someone invented a zipper that could be operated with one hand, Hannah chose to shiver rather than turn around, go back down the steps, and set her prized cheesecake in the snow in order to zip up her coat.

One of the curtains near the back of the motor home pulled back slightly and Hannah thought she heard faint voices from within. It sounded like a man’s voice, and whatever the man said was followed by female laughter. A moment later, Hannah heard the male voice again, much louder this time. “Just wait a second! I’ll be right there!”

Hannah’s curiosity shifted to high gear, especially since Ross had described his director as a womanizer. She told herself it was none of her business, that he might have been listening to television and that’s what she’d heard, but she didn’t believe it for a second. There was a woman in Dean Lawrence’s Winnebago. She was sure of it. The only thing she didn’t know was which woman it was.

A moment later, Dean pulled open the door, greeting her with a smile and a fork held high. “See, Lovey? I’ve got my fork ready. Just bring it in and set it on my desk.”

Hannah was surprised he’d invited her in, especially since the woman had to be somewhere in the immediate vicinity. She set the cake down on the polished desk that sat against the large window, and glanced down the hallway. If she remembered correctly, the motor home she’d seen had the master bedroom in the rear. But there was no way of telling if the director’s motor home shared the same design, because the door at the end of the long corridor was closed.

“I really hope you like it, Mr. Lawrence,” Hannah said setting the box down on the uncluttered surface.

“It’s Dean,” he corrected her, lifting the top of the bakery box and gazing down at the cheesecake. “It looks perfect, but looks aren’t everything. I’m quite a connoisseur, you know. Promise me you won’t have any hard feelings if I give you some constructive criticism?”

“Okay, no hard feelings,” Hannah said, although she knew it was a promise she couldn’t keep. Of course she’d have hard feelings if Dean didn’t like her cheesecake!

“Good for you, Lovey. You have no idea how many people can’t take criticism, even when it’s friendly and for their own benefit. Would you cut me a slice?”

“Of course.” Hannah folded down the sides of the box so that she could lift her cheesecake out without damaging it. “I’ll need a knife.”

“There should be one here somewhere. They took out the kitchen to make a larger space for my office, but they left some things in the cupboards and drawers.”

As Dean brushed past her, she jumped slightly. Unless she was imagining things, Mr. Lawrence had just patted her inappropriately! Hannah turned around to glance at him, but he was busily pawing through the contents of the drawers for a knife. Perhaps he had just bumped into her. It was difficult to tell if his touch had been intentional when she was wearing her heavily quilted parka coat.

Even though the Bad Boy Director was making quite a racket, opening drawers and slamming them closed, Hannah heard a door shut at the back of the Winnebago and a faint clanging as someone went down the set of metal steps at the rear of the vehicle. Whoever had been in the master bedroom, if it was the master bedroom and hadn’t been turned into some sort of a workroom, had exited the back way. That was certainly suspicious. If Dean’s early morning visitor had come to see him for business reasons, she should have come out to greet Hannah and enjoy a piece of cheesecake.

Hannah was just inching toward the curtain, hoping to peek out to catch a glimpse of Dean’s visitor, when he came back holding a knife and a plate.

“Here you go, Lovey. I found a plate, too. I would have brought another, but I assumed you had to get back to your shop.”

“You’re right. I do.” Hannah cut a slice of the creamy cheesecake and slid it onto the plate. “We’re opening in less than an hour.”

“I’ll see you later then.”

Dean reached out to give her a little hug and his hand was overly affectionate. Hannah stepped back. Was that intentional? She couldn’t quite decide.

“I’ll see you at lunch. And I’ll let you know what I think of your cheesecake then. Right now, I have to get back to work myself.”

It was a dismissal and Hannah turned to go, even though she really wanted to know what he thought of her creation. Dean was being pretty high-handed, if you asked her, and she wondered if his cast felt the same way. Constructive criticism, indeed! And even more important, had Dean made a pass at her? She just wasn’t sure if he had, or hadn’t.

As Hannah opened the door to go, she decided give Dean the benefit of the doubt. The trailer was wide, but not as wide as a regular office. And the area they’d been in was crowded with his massive desk and office equipment. Perhaps it had been difficult to get past a less than svelte woman in the confines of the trailer. Everything that had happened could be perfectly unintentional.

Hannah reminded herself to look on the bright side as she closed the door behind her and hurried down the stairs. Less than two minutes had elapsed since she’d heard Dean’s visitor go down the back stairs. If she were very lucky, Hannah might still catch a glimpse of her.

She hadn’t been lucky. Dean’s visitor had been gone by the time she’d stepped outside. All Hannah had found when she took a slight detour past the back of the Winnebago on her way to her truck were footsteps in the snow. The footsteps were much smaller than most men would leave and the heel mark was a dead giveaway, since the heels on men’s shoes were usually only slightly smaller than the overall width. Hannah felt safe in surmising that she’d been correct when she’d identified the laughter she’d heard as female.

When Hannah opened the back door of The Cookie Jar, she found Lisa sitting at the stainless steel work island across from Mike and Norman. Both men had coffee and cookies, and all was blessedly silent from the vicinity of Moishe’s crate.

“Moishe gave up?” she asked Lisa, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it on a hook by the back door.

“He negotiated a truce,” Norman answered, moving back on his stool so Hannah could see that he was holding Moishe on his lap. “He’s just fine as long as someone pays attention to him.”

“We tried putting him back in, but he started yowling the minute Norman got him near the cage,” Mike informed her.

“It’s a crate,” Hannah corrected. “A nice big home-away-from-home crate.”

“Technically yes, but he thinks it’s a cage. Why don’t you put on his leash and leave him out?”

Hannah’s eyebrows rose in surprise. She couldn’t believe that Mike was suggesting something illegal. “Believe me, I’d like to! His yowling drives me crazy, but I’m taking a chance just having him here. I think it’s okay as long as he’s away from the cookies we bake and serve, but I’m not a hundred percent sure of that.”

“Don’t worry about it, Hannah. You can forget about the health board.”

Hannah’s mouth dropped open. “Forget about the health board? I can’t believe you said that, Mike. The health board has the power to cite me and fine me. And if the inspector’s really in a bad mood, they could yank my license and close me down!”

“No, they can’t. You’re already closed down for the week. What you have here is a private party for the movie cast and crew. And since Moishe is an official part of the cast, he’s got a perfect right to be here.”

Hannah turned to look at Lisa, who shrugged. “Maybe I’m crazy, but it sounds reasonable to me.”

“Me, too,” Norman said, giving Moishe a scratch under the chin.

“Our eardrums salute you,” Hannah said with a grin, turning back to Mike. “But…are you sure I won’t get into trouble?”

“I’m sure. Don’t forget that I’m the acting sheriff. If I say that it’s a private party and health department regulations don’t apply, then it’s a private party and health department regulations don’t apply.”

Hannah clamped her lips shut. She suspected that the power of his new office might be corrupting Mike, but she’d wait until next week to point it out to him.

The first arrivals started to trickle in shortly after they opened at ten o’clock. Hannah met Sophie, the wardrobe mistress, and Honey, the head beautician. Ross had rented Bertie Straub’s shop, the Cut ’n Curl, for the week and Honey was using it as her headquarters. Bertie was acting as an advisor on hairstyles of the fifties, and unlike Delores, who didn’t want to admit that she remembered the fifties, Bertie didn’t seem to mind at all.