Cream Puff Murder (20 page)

Pay dirt! Hannah sidled a bit closer. The span of the tapes covered two weeks, and that was obviously as long as the security team kept them. Perhaps the older tapes were archived. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was the gap for the night of Ronni’s murder, a bare spot on the shelf.

There was only one conclusion to draw. Hannah assumed that the sheriff’s department had taken the tapes. If she carried her theory further, Detective Stella Parks could be viewing them at this very moment.

There were other assumptions to draw as well, although spotting the gap in coverage had nothing to do with it. Hannah had to assume that Ronni’s murder had not been caught on tape. If the killer had been identified, an arrest would have been made, and the Lake Eden Gossip Hotline would be buzzing like a whole boxcar of bees. Delores would have wasted no time in calling to tell all three of her daughters, and no such call had come.

Perhaps viewing the tapes would be a waste of time, but Hannah’s gut feeling was that they might learn something about the people who had visited Heavenly Bodies that night, gym members who might have seen something that would prove to be important.

Try to get those tapes, Hannah made a mental note. And then she added, And meet Stella Parks to find out her agenda.

“What an absolute nerd!” Michelle said as she climbed into the rear seat of Hannah’s cookie truck. They’d decided to go out to the inn together in Hannah’s truck. On the way back, Andrea would pick up her Volvo in the mall parking lot.

“You’re talking about Tad Newberg?” Andrea asked her.

“Who else? The only thing that bothers me is where I met him before. It’s one of those questions that’ll keep me up for hours tonight.”

“Nothing is going to keep me up for hours tonight!” Hannah pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the Lake Eden Inn.

They were just turning onto the access road that led to the inn when Andrea’s cell phone rang. “It’s Bill,” she said, identifying her husband’s ring tone. “I’d better take this.”

As Hannah guided her truck over the bumpy road that wound through the trees, she heard Andrea’s end of the conversation.

“Oh, hi, honey!” Andrea said, and Hannah could almost hear the smile in her voice. “Don’t tell me you’re coming home early! We’re just about to meet Mother at the inn for dinner.”

There was a silence, and then Andrea spoke again. “Of course. I entirely understand. You have to make Detective Parks feel welcome. Where are you taking her?”

In her rearview mirror, Hannah saw Michelle lean forward so that she could hear better. Was trouble brewing in paradise?

“You’re coming here, too?” Andrea sounded surprised. There was a beat of silence while Bill obviously said something. “But we can’t! Of course we’d love to, honey, but Mother planned this out so that we could discuss Ronni’s murder case. I don’t think you want her to hear about that…do you?”

Another beat and Andrea laughed. “That’s what I thought. It’s okay, honey. You just tell her all about Lake Eden and how nice it is to live here.”

“And if he wants us to join them for coffee afterwards, that would be nice,” Hannah jumped in, even though it meant that she had to admit she’d been following what was supposed to be a private conversation.

“Nice touch,” Michelle said, patting Hannah on the shoulder.

Hannah smiled. “I thought so. I want to meet her.”

“But does she want to meet you?” Michelle countered.

Andrea shushed them both by holding up her hand. “Bill says that’ll be fine. She wants to meet us all anyway. They’re leaving the sheriff’s station now, so they’ll be only fifteen minutes or so behind us.”

Michelle waited until Andrea had ended the call, and then she tapped her on the shoulder. “Have you met her yet?” she asked.

“No. I just hope she’s not…”

“Really attractive?” Michelle guessed.

“That, too. But I was thinking more about the department. I hope she’s not critical of the way Bill’s been running things.”

“Right,” Hannah said.

“I understand,” Michelle added. “Maybe we should point out that Bill has no unsolved murder cases on the books.”

Hannah gave a nod. “That’s good. We could all sing Bill’s praises, but if his cliché is true and her mind really is like a steel trap, she’ll see right through it. Maybe we ought to give her some cookies for her office instead. That usually brings people around.”

“Good idea.” Michelle turned to look at the cookies Hannah always carried in the back. “Do you have anything good to give her?”

“Do I have anything good?” Hannah did her best to sound outraged.

“You know what she means,” Andrea gave a little laugh. “Do you have anything that a tough-as-nails, brave-as-a-lion, mind-like-a-steel-trap visiting detective would like?”

“I’ve got Blueberry Crunch Cookies. I packed them up for Mother, but I’ve got enough for Detective Parks, too.”

“Perfect,” Andrea pronounced. “They ought to sweeten her up.”

“In more ways than one,” Hannah said.

BLUEBERRY CRUNCH COOKIES

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

1 cup melted butter (2 sticks, ½ pound)

2 cups white (granulated) sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

½ teaspoon salt

1½ teaspoons baking soda

2 large eggs, beaten (just whip them up with a fork)

2½ cups flour (no need to sift—pack it down when you measure it)

1 cup dried sweetened blueberries (other dried fruit will also work if you cut it in blueberry-sized pieces)

2 cups GROUND dry oatmeal (measure before grinding)

Hannah’s 1 st Note: Mixing this dough is much easier with an electric mixer, but you can also do it by hand.

Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl for 1 minute on HIGH. Add the white sugar and mix it in thoroughly.

Add the vanilla, salt, and the baking soda. Mix it in well.

When the mixture has cooled to room temperature, stir in the beaten eggs. When they are fully incorporated, add the flour in half-cup increments, stirring after each addition.

Mix in the dried blueberries.

Prepare your oatmeal. (Use Quaker if you have it—the cardboard canister is useful for all sorts of things.) Measure out two cups and place them in the bowl of a food processor or a blender, chopping with the steel blade until the oatmeal is the consistency of coarse sand. (Just in case you’re wondering, the ground oatmeal is the ingredient that makes the cookies crunchy.)

Add the ground oatmeal to your bowl, and mix it in thoroughly. The resulting cookie dough will be quite stiff.

Roll walnut-sized dough balls with your hands, and place them on a greased cookie sheet, 12 balls to a standard-size sheet. (If the dough is too sticky to roll, place the bowl in the refrigerator for thirty minutes and try again.) Squish the dough balls down a bit with your impeccably clean palm (or a metal spatula if you’d rather).

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown on top. (Mine took 11 minutes.) Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, and then remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: 6 to 7 dozen unusual and tasty cookies, depending on cookie size.

Hannah’s 2 nd Note: These cookies freeze well if you stack them on foil (like rolling coins) and roll them, tucking in the ends. Just place the rolls of cookies in a freezer bag, and they’ll keep for three months or so as long as no one finds them and eats them without telling you.

H annah followed the hostess to one of the alcoves Sally and Dick Laughlin, the owners of the Lake Eden Inn, had set aside for private dining. Delores and Carrie hadn’t arrived yet, and Andrea had stopped off to talk to Barbara Donnelly, head secretary at the sheriff’s station, in the hope that she might let something slip about Stella Parks and the results of the official investigation. Michelle was similarly occupied. She’d stopped to talk to one of her former classmates, who had dropped a class that Ronni had taught.

The alcoves sat against the back wall in the large dining room. They were elevated, and Sally had once explained to Hannah that the fact they were on a two-step podium made people feel more important. Hannah supposed that was true. If you were so inclined, you could peek out from behind the filmy draperies that hid the diners in the alcove from public view, and look down your nose at the patrons below you.

The hostess whisked aside the draperies, and Hannah stopped short as she saw that one chair was taken. So they weren’t the first ones here!

“Hi, Hannah,” Norman patted the chair next to him. “I saved you a seat.”

“Thanks. I can see they’re in short supply.” Hannah smiled as she surveyed the five empty chairs. Then she moved over to take the one next to Norman.

“I came early so I could go over some notes Mike gave me,” Norman explained, slipping a small notebook into his jacket pocket.

“More instructions on how to proceed?”

“Right. He’s going stir-crazy, Hannah. He even gave me a stack of books for you.”

“Let me guess…Five Easy Steps to Running a Tight Investigation? The Detective’s Guide to Solving Crimes? Collecting Clues and Closing Cases?”

Norman laughed. “Something like that. I had to promise Mike I’d give them to you and tell you how important he thought they were. I didn’t have to promise that you’d read them.”

“Good, because I’ll be so busy trying to figure out who killed Ronni that I won’t have time to read them. Is there anything else Mike said to tell me?”

“Yes, but I’ll wait to tell you when we discuss the case after dinner. The mothers want to be in on the kill this time.”

“The kill?”

“Metaphorically speaking, they’ve helped with the hunt before, but they’ve never been in on it when you’ve closed in on the murderer.”

“Mother was there once. She’s the reason I’m still here.”

“I pointed that out to her, but she says it doesn’t count, that it was just a happy coincidence.”

“Happy?! That’s not exactly the way she felt at the time!” Hannah stopped and thought over what Norman had told her. “Okay. I think I understand what the mothers are trying to say. They’re tired of doing phone work, and they’d like to do something more exciting. Does that sound about right to you?”

“I’m almost sure that’s what they mean.”

“What sort of exciting homicide case assignment can we give to two post–middle-aged women who love antiques and can’t run very fast?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is I wouldn’t want to get them into any trouble.”

“Maybe we could ask them to read the books Mike gave you?”

Norman laughed. “Nice try, but somehow I don’t think that’s the type of thing they had in mind.”

“I suppose not.” Hannah sat there for a moment trying to come up with something, and then she shook her head. “I can’t think of a thing. Maybe I’m just too tired.”

“You need brain food.”

“That would be fish, right?”

“That’s what they say. I saw Sally when I came in, and she told me about her new appetizer. It’s tuna sashimi.”

“Isn’t sashimi like sushi without the rice?”

“That’s one difference between them. When Sally serves her tuna sashimi appetizer, she arranges very thin strips of tuna over a bed of mixed greens. She sauces everything lightly with soy and ginger, and decorates the plate with rosettes of pickled ginger.”

“That sounds wonderful. I know I’d like it if I could just get past the raw fish part. Maybe it’s because I’m from Minnesota and my father fished.”

“Could be. How are you coming along at the gym?”

“I’ve added a bunch of new suspects to my list.” Hannah gave a little laugh. “Ronni insulted quite a few women in her classes. Of course when it came to the men, she was exactly the opposite.”

“That figures.”

“I was just wondering…you joined Heavenly Bodies, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but not because of Ronni. I thought you knew me better than that. I’m a one-woman guy, and I’ve found her. And just because she hasn’t said yes yet doesn’t mean I’m going out looking.”

“That’s not really what I…well, maybe it was, but I…”

“I’m flattered you were jealous.” Norman seemed to sense that she was uncomfortable, and he jumped in before she could stutter out any more half-explanations. He reached out for her hand, squeezed it once, and started to say more when footsteps approached and the curtains parted.

“Well hello, you two!” Delores arrived with Carrie, and Andrea and Michelle were right behind her. “Our waitress will be right here with tonight’s specials. Let’s have a nice meal, and then we can get down to business over dessert and coffee.”

Dessert. The word rang in Hannah’s mind like a tolling bell. No dessert for her, even though Sally’s dessert cart was laden with some of the most scrumptious concoctions she’d ever tasted. Her flourless chocolate cake was fantastic, her mousse of the night was always mouthwatering, and her lemon torte was nothing short of legendary.

“What’s the matter, Hannah?” Norman asked.

“Dessert,” Hannah said in a mournful tone. “I can’t even have fresh fruit.”

“Why not?”

“There is no fresh fruit in November. This is Minnesota. The only things that grow in Minnesota in the winter are icicles.”

Norman laughed, and when Hannah joined in, he slipped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a little hug. “I promise you’ll have dessert, Hannah. When the mothers decided to meet out here for dinner, I talked to Sally and we dreamed up a special dessert just for you.”

Hannah opened her mouth to say she couldn’t possibly eat it, not if it contained over fifty calories. And what dessert didn’t contain over fifty calories? But then she thought about how hurt Norman would be if she refused to eat his carefully planned dessert.

Life was a balancing act, and this time the scales were really skewed. The dessert was on one side, and Norman was on the other. It was all a matter of priorities. She had to decide which was more important in the giant scheme of things. The fact that she’d have to spend an extra hour at Heavenly Bodies tomorrow, working off the extra calories her special dessert contained, didn’t count for much when you weighed it against Norman’s disappointment if she didn’t eat it.