Cherry Cheesecake Murder (21 page)

“He…he wants what?” Hannah sputtered, looking at her young partner with dismay. “And by when?”

“Hors d’oeuvres, that’s what. And he had the nerve to ask me if I knew what they were!”

“That’s not the insult you think it is,” Hannah informed her. “He asked me if I knew what finger food was!”

Lisa gave a started little giggle, and Hannah knew her good mood had been restored. That was one of the things she loved about her partner. Lisa had a sunny disposition, and even though Dean had introduced a few storm clouds on her horizon, her cheerful nature couldn’t remain hidden for long.

“What sort of small bits of appetizing food does he want?” Hannah asked, giving the dictionary definition and earning a smile from her partner.

“He said he’d leave that up to us. The only thing is, everything has to be edible, because he wants the extras at the cocktail party to mingle and munch.”

“Mingle and munch?” Hannah repeated, making a face. “That sounds positively inane. I wonder what sort of appetizers they served in the fifties.”

“I’ll call Marge. The library’s got a section of old cookbooks. She can look it up for us.”

“Good idea,” Hannah said, heading for the pantry to see what supplies they’d need to buy for mingle-and-munch time at the nineteen-fifties house.

Searching the pantry didn’t take long, and neither did going through the walk-in cooler. When she came back out to the coffee shop again, Hannah found Lisa just hanging up the phone.

“I’ve got three,” Lisa said, holding up one of Hannah’s steno pads. “What do you think of celery sticks stuffed with peanut butter? Everybody served it at parties back then.”

“Okay. We’ve got plenty of peanut butter, but we don’t have celery. Put that down on our shopping list. One of us will have to make a quick trip to the Red Owl.”

“I’ll go,” Lisa said, “I’ll just call Florence and give her a heads-up, so she’ll let me in the back.”

While Lisa called Florence, Hannah took the notebook and looked at the other appetizers Lisa had listed. There was something that sounded interesting using olives, crackers, and cream cheese tinted with food dye. They could certainly make those. And there was no reason why they couldn’t take the stuffed celery idea and run with it. They could make a second type stuffed with flavored cream cheese, and a third stuffed with Mike’s Busy Day Pâté. All three would look nice on a platter.

The last appetizer was the most difficult and it all had to do with the timing. The ingredients were simple enough, just cream cheese mixed with minced onions and a little mayonnaise. The mixture was spread on crackers and the crackers were broiled just before serving so that the cream cheese would puff up. Hannah was sure they could handle that. Delores and Carrie had a toaster oven in their upstairs break room. All it would take was someone to man the toaster oven and they could have hot appetizers at the scene.

“So what’s on my grocery list,” Lisa asked.

Hannah explained about the three kinds of stuffed celery they could make, and then she read the list she’d made. “Celery, mayonnaise, horseradish, crackers, dried onions, braunschweiger, flavored cream cheese, and a can of tuna.”

“Okay.” Lisa took the list and headed for the back door, but she turned before she got there. “What’s the tuna for?”

“Moishe.”

“Because…?”

“He didn’t scratch Andrea.”

“I see,” Lisa said. “I guess I’d better pick up a can of salmon, too.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because he didn’t scratch me, either!”

CREAM CHEESE PUFFS

Hannah’s Note: If you’re not going to serve these right away, you can mix up the cream cheese part and refrigerate it until it’s time to spread it on the crackers.

8-ounce package cream cheese (the firm kind, not the whipped)

2 Tablespoons (1/8cup) mayonnaise (We used Helmann’s*
)

3 Tablespoons minced green onion

OR 3 Tablespoons minced dried onion

OR 3 Tablespoons minced shallots

1 beaten egg

A box of salted crackers (We used Ritz Crackers and they were great!)

*
Helmann’s Mayonnaise is also known as Best Foods Mayonnaise in some parts of the country.)

Unwrap the cream cheese and put it in a microwave-safe bowl. Nuke it on HIGH for 30 seconds, or until it begins to soften.

Mix in the mayonnaise and stir until the mixture is smooth.

Mix in the onion. (If you use green onion instead of shallots or dried onion, you can use up to one inch of the stem.)

Mix in the beaten egg.

Lay out the crackers on a broiler pan, salt side up. (We used a disposable broiler pan so we could trash it at Granny’s Attic and we wouldn’t have to carry it back to The Cookie Jar.)

Spread the cream cheese mixture on top of the cracker in a circle that reaches the edges. Mound it slightly in the center. Use about two teaspoons of cheese mixture per cracker.

Position the rack approximately three inches below the coil of the broiler and turn it on HIGH. Broil the crackers (with the oven door open to the first latch so the broiler doesn’t kick on and off) until the cream cheese puffs up and is just starting to turn golden. This should take about 90 seconds if the rack is correctly positioned.

Let cool for a minute or two, so your guests won’t burn their tongues. Transfer the Cream Cheese Puffs to a platter and serve.

Yield: Approximately 2 dozen hot and yummy hors d’oeuvres.

Another Note From Hannah: I haven’t actually tried this, but I’m willing to bet a dozen of my best cookies that you could also add a quarter cup chopped smoked salmon to the cream cheese mixture.

Hannah had just finished giving instructions to Luanne Hanks, who’d offered to broil the Cream Cheese Puffs. “Michelle will cue Mother and she’ll beep you on the intercom when we need a batch. But are you really sure you want to be stuck up here while they shoot the fancy cocktail scene?”

“I’m positive. I don’t want to have anything to do with some of those movie people.”

Luanne wore a very determined look on her pretty face, and Hannah sensed a story. One of those movie people had caused some sort of problem for Luanne.

“Are you talking about any one movie person in particular?” Hannah asked, doing a little fishing.

“Mr. Lawrence. He’s a dirty old man, Hannah!”

The old classification took Hannah back a little, but then she remembered that Luanne was Michelle’s age, only twenty. Dean Lawrence, who was in his forties, would seem old to her. “He made a pass at you?” she asked.

“How did you know?” Luanne looked profoundly shocked. “I didn’t tell anybody.”

“It was a guess, but I figured it was a good one. From what I hear, Dean’s made a pass at almost every woman in town.”

“Even you?”

Hannah winced slightly. Luanne didn’t have to sound so incredulous. “Yes, even me. He’s a frustrated adolescent, Luanne.”

“You mean like the high school boys? When all they can think about is girls?”

“Exactly. Dean probably doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s just a game to him. And maybe they don’t mind his behaving like that in Hollywood.”

“Lake Eden isn’t Hollywood,” Luanne retorted, her eyes flashing with anger. “And I don’t appreciate grown men acting like high school boys.”

“Neither did some of the other women I talked to,” Hannah said, thinking about Lisa and how she’d almost poured hot coffee down Dean’s neck.

“Well…I guess it helps to know it’s not just me. And here I was, trying to figure out what I did to make him think I’d say yes when he invited me to his trailer. I thought maybe it was Suzie and the fact I had a baby without being married and all. But it’s just the way he behaves with everybody…right?”

“Just women. I think the guys in town are safe.”

Luanne gave a startled giggle. “Oh, that’s funny. Thank you, Hannah. You made me feel a lot better, but I still don’t want to get within ten feet of Mr. Lawrence. It’s insulting, you know? If he even looks at me crosswise, I’ll probably kill him.”

“Don’t do that. Just come and tell me. We’ll organize all the other women and run him out of town on a rail.”

“Do we even have a rail?”

“I’m not sure, but if we don’t, we’ll get one. Besides, he’s probably on his best behavior now that his wife’s in town.”

“I didn’t know he was married!” Luanne looked shocked. “He certainly didn’t act like he was. That poor woman! She must not know about what he does behind her back.”

“What makes you think that?” Hannah asked.

“Because if she knew, she’d either leave him or kill him, whichever one seemed better at the time.”

Hannah busied herself by filling the silver trays the movie waitresses would use for the cocktail scene. No one was here yet, but they were due to arrive any minute. As she placed stuffed celery sticks in a giant sunburst around the radish roses that Lisa had made, she thought about all she’d learned in the past several days about the movie business.

Her first revelation had been that movie scenes weren’t shot in sequence. Ross had come to Lake Eden to film the “hometown” scenes. Three were with Tracey playing Amy as a child, four were with Erica playing Amy as a teenager, and three were with Lynne playing Amy as an adult. Today’s scene, the second to the last in the movie, was the cocktail party. And even though Burke’s character would die in the scene they were shooting today, he’d be back tomorrow to play Jody walking arm in arm with Amy down the street.

Tomorrow would be another full day of filming. There would be a scene with Erica in her blue-and-white bedroom, a scene with Burke and Lynne visiting their “father’s” grave, and a third scene as they attended their “aunt’s” funeral. On Friday they would shoot a scene at the high school with the actor playing Jody as a teenager, the skating scene with Tracey in the park, and the final scene of the movie where an adult Amy, played by Lynne, said good-bye forever to Cherrywood and drove off to return to her husband and family.

Hannah finished the tray of stuffed celery and started to arrange the chilled Mini Cherry Cheesecakes. She’d also learned that there was no good time to deliver cheesecakes to Dean’s trailer. After that first morning, when she’d heard someone who’d sounded suspiciously like Erica leave by the rear door, she’d taken the precaution of calling Dean’s office before she left The Cookie Jar. But that hadn’t helped a speck. Every time she called, she got the answer machine and it was clear that Dean hadn’t heard even one of her messages. And each time she’d knocked on the trailer door, she’d heard a female voice and then a muffled curse from the Bad Boy Director. Several minutes later, Dean would open the door looking rumpled and very crabby, Hannah would step in, and then she’d hear the rear door open and close.

So far, in the course of her cheesecake delivery experience, she’d heard five women leaving Dean’s Winnebago. She couldn’t swear to it in a court of law, but she’d thought about the women’s voices she’d heard and come to some tentative conclusions. The first voice had sounded like Erica. There were just too many giggles for anyone else. And the voice on the second morning had sounded a whole lot like Lynne. After lunch, when she’d delivered the second cheesecake, Hannah was almost positive she’d heard Jeanette, Erica’s mother. Then there was the voice this morning, the voice that she really hadn’t wanted to recognize. She’d denied it at first, but now Hannah had to admit that the woman with Dean had sounded exactly like Andrea. It all tied in with what Dean had said as they’d left the school after Tracey’s spelling bee scene. Hannah sent up a silent prayer that she was dead wrong and her sister wasn’t involved with the Bad Boy Director.

This afternoon, when she delivered Dean’s second cheesecake, Hannah had recognized the woman’s voice. She was almost positive that it had been Honey, the head beautician. Even though Sharyn was now in town, his wife’s presence didn’t appear to be modifying Dean’s behavior one bit.

In spite of all this, Dean was a gifted director. Everyone in the cast agreed about that. What Burke had said in his interview was partly true. If Dean wasn’t getting the performance he wanted from an actor or actress, he was quick to step in and demonstrate what he wanted them to do. While he didn’t actually get dressed up in their costumes, he did occasionally use a hat, or a scarf, or some prop to enhance the illusion.

Only a few people were allowed in to watch the scene that was being filmed, and Hannah breathed a sigh of relief as she spotted Winnie Henderson.

“Hi, Winnie,” Hannah said, rushing up to her. “I need to talk to you after all this is over. Will you stop by The Cookie Jar?”

“Sure, but only if you promise not to mention the park. I’m sick and tired of people trying to talk me into signing off so those movie people can use it.”

“I can’t promise you that,” Hannah said truthfully. “But if you listen to what I have to say and you still say no, I’ll shut up and I won’t say another word about it.”

Winnie laughed good-naturedly. “Okay then. That’s fair enough. I’ll stop by if you save one of those little cherry cheesecakes for me. They look mighty tasty.”

“It’s a done deal,” Hannah agreed, borrowing Andrea’s favorite phrase. And then she excused herself and hurried off to check the extra coolers she’d brought to hold the little cheesecakes, in case the ones on the platters began to droop under the lights.

“We’re here!” a voice shouted out, and Hannah turned to see Michelle coming in with the cast and crew. Everyone who was in the scene was in full costume, including the extras, and Hannah watched her youngest sister and several other movie people as they helped the extras find their places and coached them on what to do.

They were all ready and waiting to go when Dean strolled in. He moved a few people, stepped back to look at the result, and nodded. While he was giving some last-minute instructions to Burke and Lynne, Michelle came over to stand with Hannah.

“Am I late?” Andrea asked, coming up to join them.

“No, it’ll be at least another ten minutes, maybe fifteen,” Michelle told her. “Where’s Tracey?”

“At home, doing her homework with Grandma McCann. When she’s through, they’re going to watch a movie.”