Cream Puff Murder (21 page)

The scales tipped in Norman’s favor. And come to think of it, that was a really bad metaphor under her dietary circumstances. All the same, her decision was clear, and Hannah turned to smile at Norman. “That was really thoughtful of you. I can hardly wait to taste it.”

There wasn’t a whole lot you could do with a boneless, skinless chicken breast if you couldn’t use apricot jam for a glaze. Honey with mustard was also out, and not even barbecue sauce was acceptable. Sally had proven herself a master with salt, pepper, garlic, and tarragon. And although Hannah’s entrée was succulent and roasted to perfection, it was still naked chicken. Hannah had eaten enough naked chicken in the past week to populate at least half of Winnie Henderson’s prize-winning coop.

The broccoli was good. It would have been even better with cheese sauce, but dieters couldn’t be choosers. Kathy Purvis, a member of Ronni’s Slim and Trim class, had told Hannah that if she shut her eyes and used her imagination, she could make plain baked chicken taste like filet mignon with burgundy mushroom sauce.

Hannah shut her eyes and tried it. She thought of a succulent filet, so tender she could cut it with a butter knife, so perfectly grilled that the center was still the deep, dark red that she loved. As she chewed the tender beef, the mushrooms would provide a slight resistance to the teeth, and the flavor of good wine paired with the silky, buttery richness of the sauce would form a marriage that would linger long after the morsel was gone.

It was poetic, but it didn’t work. It was still plain chicken. No amount of imagery could make it what it was not. It looked like chicken, it tasted like chicken, and it was silly to pretend that it wasn’t chicken.

“How is your chicken, dear?” Delores asked, smiling at Hannah across the table.

“It’s wonderful, Mother,” Hannah said, not untruthfully. Does a chicken by any other imagining taste the same? Of course it does! Even Shakespeare knew that. But a person can take only so much chicken, and Hannah figured that she was chickened out.

It seemed to take forever before the plates were removed and the bread basket, an item she’d been ignoring for close to an hour, had gone off on the busboy’s tray. Even the plate of butter had disappeared, and it wasn’t a moment too soon. Hannah had spent the past thirty minutes squelching the urge to stab one of the perfectly square pieces of butter and pop it into her mouth.

“Coffee all around?” Delores asked, and everyone nodded. It was a silly question to ask a bunch of Minnesotans who couldn’t remember ending a meal with any other beverage.

When everyone had been served coffee, Delores called for the dessert cart, and Hannah noticed that Norman had a word with their waitress. She was almost certain that meant her special dessert was about to arrive. Of course she’d enjoy it. She’d have to be dead not to enjoy dessert. But enjoyment came at a price, and Hannah knew that guilt and regret would set in immediately after she swallowed the last bite.

The dessert cart arrived with little fanfare. It didn’t need any bells and whistles. The desserts spoke for themselves on their glass plates and attractive bowls. Three different flavors of crème brûlée, four multilayered cakes, several pies, two choices of puddings, an array of pastries, and various flavors of sorbets and ice creams.

Hannah waited until her mother, her sisters, and Carrie had made their choices. Then Norman nodded at their waitress, and she lifted the cover on six lovely parfait glasses filled with layers of colors that shimmered and caught the light from the candle at the center of the table. The top of each dessert was decorated with three perfect raspberries, and Hannah wondered where Sally had found them this time of year.

“For you.” The waitress set one parfait glass in front of Hannah and another in front of Norman. “Sally hopes you’ll enjoy this special parfait. She said to tell you to please drop by the kitchen after dessert to tell her how you liked it.”

Hannah picked up her spoon to taste the concoction that Norman and Sally had wrought. But she couldn’t resist asking, “How many calories? Do you know?”

“Yes,” Norman gave her a big smile. “Twenty-five.”

“Twenty-five?!” Hannah couldn’t believe her ears. Perhaps he’d said something else and she’d heard what she wanted to hear. “Did you say twenty-five as in five less than thirty?”

“Yes. Sally calls it Guilt-Free Parfait, and it would be less without the raspberries, but she thought they were a nice touch.”

“They are a nice touch. I’m going to save them for last.”

With that said, Hannah removed the berries and stared down at the brightly colored parfait. There were three layers. The top was red, the middle was green, and the bottom was yellow. But she couldn’t think of any ingredients that would add up to only twenty-five calories. What was it? Plastic? She dipped her spoon in cautiously and raised a bite of the ruby-colored top layer to her lips.

“Raspberry,” she said, immediately recognizing the flavor of one of her favorite berries. “It’s raspberry and…something else.”

“What does the something else taste like?” Norman asked.

“I’m not sure, but it makes my tongue tingle. I like that. It’s fun. What is it?”

“Sugar-free raspberry Jell-O and soda water.”

“So that’s the fizzy part.” Hannah dug down with her spoon to taste the green second layer. “Lime?”

“Lime with Diet 7 Up. Try the third layer. That’s my favorite.”

Hannah excavated to the third layer, the sparkling yellow one. “Sugar-free lemon Jell-O,” she guessed after she’d tasted it. “But there’s something else, something tingly and zingy.”

“It’s diet ginger ale,” Norman told her. “Sally thought the ginger taste would go well with the lemon.”

“Sally’s right. It does.” Hannah spooned up another bite of her dessert. It was dessert. She felt she was ending her meal with a parfait loaded with yummy calories, but she wasn’t. “Are you sure that this is less than twenty-five calories?”

Norman nodded. “Sally and I figured it out.”

“Wonderful!” Hannah said, spooning up another bite. It was amazingly exhilarating to feel indulgent and virtuous at the same time. “Only twenty-five calories,” she repeated, giving Norman a big smile. “In that case, I might just have two!”

GUILT-FREE PARFAIT

1 small box sugar-free lemon gelatin
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1 small box sugar-free lime gelatin

1 small box sugar-free raspberry gelatin

1 cup boiling water for each package of Jell-O (3 cups in all)

1 cup cold diet ginger ale for the bottom layer (Sally used diet Vernor’s)

1 cup cold diet lemon-lime soda for the middle layer (Sally used diet 7 Up)

1 cup cold soda water (Sally used Canada Dry Seltzer)

Hannah’s Note: You can use any flavors of sugar-free gelatin you wish, but it’s prettier if the layers are contrasting colors. You can also use any carbonated diet drinks that you wish in the gelatin layers.

Sally’s Note: Use canned diet soda whenever possible. It has more fizz than the large bottles. If you can find it, use a small bottle of soda water or seltzer rather than the 2-liter type.

Norman’s Note: Of course you could make this dessert in a dish using just one flavor of sugar-free gelatin. Making it with three layers gives you three flavors and three colors and makes you feel as if you’re eating something very special.

Get out six small parfait glasses. You can also use large balloon wine glasses if you don’t have parfait glasses.

Boil one cup of water for the bottom layer. Pour the boiling water in a small bowl, and add the sugar-free lemon gelatin. Stir it until it’s dissolved. That should take about one minute.

Let the gelatin cool in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Set your kitchen timer. You don’t want it to harden, just to cool to room temperature.

Open a can of icy cold diet ginger ale. Measure out one cup and add it to your cooled gelatin. Stir it in gently. Avoid stirring too much—that will break down the bubbles. Pour bottom layers in each of the six glasses you’ve chosen to use.

Rinse out your bowl. You can use it again for the next layer.

Refrigerate the glasses until the bottom layer is set. This will take approximately one hour.

When the bottom layer is set, it’s time to make the middle layer. Boil one cup of water. Pour the boiling water into the small bowl you rinsed, and add the sugar-free lime gelatin. Stir it until it’s dissolved, about one minute.

Let the gelatin cool in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Open a can of icy cold diet lemon-lime soda. Measure out one cup. Add it to your cooled gelatin, and stir it in gently. Stir just enough to blend. You don’t want to lose the bubbles.

Take your glasses out of the refrigerator and pour in the middle layer. Return them to the refrigerator, to set for one hour.

Rinse out the bowl you used so that you can use it again for the top layer.

When the middle layer is set, it’s time to add the top layer. Boil one cup of water. Pour the boiling water into the small bowl you rinsed, and add the sugar-free raspberry gelatin. Stir it until it’s dissolved, about one minute.

Let the gelatin cool in the refrigerator for 10 minutes.

Open a small bottle of icy cold seltzer or soda water. Measure out one cup and add it to your bowl of gelatin. Stir it in gently. Avoid overstirring—you don’t want to break down the bubbles.

Take your glasses out of the refrigerator, and pour in the top layer. Return the glasses to the refrigerator. Once the top layers are set, you can cover each glass with a piece of plastic wrap to keep the top fresh.

Add three raspberries to each parfait glass before serving. You can also use a small strawberry, or a thin slice of peach or pear. The calorie count will be approximately the same.

Sally says to tell you she’s going to make some with Sugar-Free Strawberry Kiwi Jell-O on the top layer and decorate each glass with a slice of kiwi because that’s really exotic here in Lake Eden, Minnesota.

“N orman and I will be right back.” Hannah rose to her feet and motioned to Norman. “We’re just going to dash to the kitchen and compliment Sally on her Guilt-Free Parfait.”

Delores pulled a stack of papers from her briefcase-sized purse. They were stapled together, and Hannah assumed they constituted the list of names her mother and Carrie had called on the phone. “Go ahead, dear. I just want to go over these names with Carrie one more time. If you see our waitress, would you ask her to leave a large carafe of coffee?”

“I’ll make sure she does that, Delores,” Norman promised.

“Thank you, dear. That’s very sweet of you.”

Hannah couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Dear? At some time when she hadn’t been looking, Norman had been elevated from Norman to dear.

“I should call Lonnie,” Michelle pushed back her chair. “He may have some information for us. The reception’s better in the lobby, so I’ll just go out there to call.”

Andrea jumped up. “Hold on and I’ll go with you. I need to check on the kids.”

Hannah gave a glance back at the booth as everyone bailed. Carrie and Delores didn’t look at all upset, and she guessed it was okay with them. What on earth could she ask them to do that would be exciting and not injurious to their health?

“You look worried,” Norman commented.

“Just trying to think of something the mothers can do.”

Norman reached out to take her hand as they walked down the hallway to the kitchen. “That’s a tough one. They’re going to know if you feed them a placebo.”

“Nicely put,” Hannah teased him. “Do they teach about placebos in dental college?”

“Dental school,” Norman corrected her. “It’s just like med school, except it’s for dentists. We take courses in pharmacology so we can prescribe medications.”

They’d reached the plain wooden door near the end of the hallway. It wasn’t marked in any way, but both Norman and Hannah knew it led to Sally’s kitchen.

“Let’s go,” Hannah said, pushing it open and stepping into the busy interior of a working restaurant kitchen. “Come on, Norman. Let’s find Sally and tell her we love her parfait.”

Less than a minute later, Hannah and Norman were standing in the office Sally called her own, a room just off the busy restaurant kitchen. Large picture windows looked out onto the controlled chaos of the kitchen, providing Sally with a view of what her chefs and servers were doing on this busy night.

“Sit down and have one of my special espressos,” Sally said, pouring them both an espresso in the doll-sized cups Turkish coffee had made popular.

“The parfait was great,” Norman told her, leading off the conversation.

“I know. I tasted it. I’m thinking about adding it to the menu. But enough about desserts. I’ve got some news for you,” Sally leaned across her desk. “You’re working to solve Ronni’s murder, aren’t you, Hannah?”

“Yes, Norman and I are working on it together.”

“Well, you might not know it, but Ronni came out here last week looking for a cocktail waitress job. I told her we really didn’t have cocktail waitresses, that if there was a big crowd in the bar, our regular wait staff filled in. She said that was fine, and she told me she’d worked as a cocktail waitress at The Moosehead Bar and Grill and that they served food in the bar. She said she quit that job last week because the tips weren’t good and it was too far to drive to Anoka and back every other night.”

“Did you hire her?” Norman asked.

“I never hire anyone without checking their job history. The last place she’d listed was The Moosehead, so I called the owner to ask about her. He wouldn’t tell me exactly what Ronni did, but he told me that she lied when she said she quit.”

“She was fired?” Hannah guessed.

“That’s right. He said he didn’t want to go into details, but they couldn’t afford to keep her on any longer.”

“I wonder what that means,” Norman said, looking puzzled.

“I’m not sure, but I thought maybe you might want to drive to Anoka to check it out.”

After everyone had a full cup of coffee and their waitress had left a carafe, Hannah pulled out her stenographer’s notebook, the one she’d come to think of as her murder book, and started their discussion. “Why don’t you go first, Mother? Tell us what you and Carrie found out.”