Joanne Fluke Christmas Bundle: Sugar Cookie Murder, Candy Cane Murder, Plum Pudding Murder, & Gingerbread Cookie Murder (17 page)

ORANGE JULIUS COOKIES

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

Prepare your cookie sheets by spraying them with Pam
(or another nonstick cooking spray.)
You can also use a parchment-lined cookie sheet if you prefer.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking soda. Stir well and set aside.

In another bowl, beat the softened butter, white sugar, and brown sugar.

Add the beaten egg to the bowl with the butter and the sugars. Stir it all up. Then stir in the grated orange zest.

Stir in the flour, salt and baking soda mixture and mix well.

Stir in the white chocolate chips.

Drop by teaspoonfuls on a prepared cookie sheet, 12 cookies to a standard-size sheet. Flatten the cookies in a crisscross pattern with a fork, the way you’d do for peanut butter cookies.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes.
(Mine took 11 minutes.)

Leave the cookies on the cookie sheet for a minute or two, and then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: 5 to 6 dozen cookies, depending on cookie size.

Hannah’s Note: Delores thinks these cookies taste just like the drinks from the Orange Julius stand at the mall.

“D
elores!” Dr. Love was clearly pleased when she saw who was knocking on her office door. “And Hannah, too! Come in. What brings you out here so early this morning?”

Dr. Love started to rise to greet them, but Delores waved her back down to her chair. “You’d better sit down, Nancy,” she said. “I have some bad news for you.”

Hannah saw Dr. Love’s posture stiffen. It was clear she was bracing herself. “What is it?” she asked.

“Larry Jaeger is dead. Someone murdered him last night.”

There was a moment of disbelief. Hannah could see it on Dr. Love’s face. And then an expression replaced it, an expression that Hannah didn’t understand, but could only be described as profound relief.

“Well, that saves me a whole lot of trouble!” Dr. Love said.

There was a moment of absolute silence. Both Hannah and Delores were at a loss for words.

“I…don’t understand,” Delores ventured at last.

“Of course you don’t.” Dr. Love gestured. “Sit. You probably think I’m in shock.”

That’s exactly what Hannah thought. She exchanged a glance with her mother, who made a gesture with her hands. Hannah interpreted instantly and she set the bag of cookies on Dr. Love’s desk.

“Chocolate?” Dr. Love asked with a small smile.

Hannah nodded. “Endorphins. Mother thought they might help if you were upset.”

“How sweet!” Dr. Love smiled at Delores and then she turned back to Hannah. “Do you really believe that chocolate is a cure for anxiety, grief, and depression?”

“Maybe not, but it can’t hurt,” Hannah said, turning to her mother. It was time for Delores to take the lead in the conversation.

Delores caught on immediately. It was time to open the Larry Jaeger discussion. “I’m so sorry about your ex-husband,” she said, reaching out to pat her friend’s hand.

“He’s not. He’s
not
my ex-husband.”

“You mean you weren’t married to Larry Jaeger?” Hannah asked, slipping easily into question mode.

“Oh, I was!” Dr. Love reached for a cookie. “And I’m
still
married to him…or at least I was married to him right up until the moment he died. You see, we never divorced.”

“Because you couldn’t stop loving him?” Delores asked, sensing a romantic tragedy in the making.

“No, it’s because I couldn’t find him. I wanted to divorce him fifteen years ago, right after he left me high and dry, but I needed his address to serve him with papers.”

“How awful for you!” Delores breathed.

“It wasn’t one of the happier times of my life,” Dr. Love agreed. “Since I was only months from graduating from college and I didn’t have the money for a quickie divorce in another state, I simply let it go. I always thought Larry would turn up somewhere and I’d hear about it, and
then
I’d serve him with papers and divorce him.”

“But what if you’d met someone else you wanted to marry?” Delores posed a dilemma.

Dr. Love gave a little shrug. “Then I would have been forced to do something. But I
didn’t
meet anyone I wanted to marry, so there wasn’t any rush to divorce Larry.”

“Did you hear from him during those fifteen years?” Hannah asked.

“Never.”

“No calls? No letters? No e-mail?”

“Nothing. It was like he’d dropped off the face of the earth.”

“And he didn’t tell you where he was going?” Delores asked.

“I didn’t even
know
he was going! It was a total shock to me. We were having trouble in our marriage, but I didn’t expect him to vanish.”

“What kind of trouble?” Delores asked her.

“What kind do you want?” Dr. Love gave a rueful chuckle. “He was dishonest, disloyal, and he couldn’t hold down a job.”

“That must have been frustrating for you,” Hannah said.

“It was. I was working part time as a secretary at the college and taking a full load of classes. Whenever Larry got fired, I’d have to increase my hours so we could pay the rent. And then there was Brenda.”

“Brenda?” both Hannah and Delores asked at once.

“Brenda lived in the apartment next door. She had an inheritance from her grandmother and she didn’t have to work like the rest of us.”

Hannah had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She thought she knew where this story was heading. “So Brenda was home all day?”

“That’s right. I think it all started when Larry lost his job at the carpet store. He told me he went out looking for work every day, but several people I knew said he was spending his afternoons at the Indian Casino with Brenda.”

“Gambling?” Hannah asked, remembering how Larry had kept track of the score of the basketball game while he’d discussed her cookie order and wondering whether he’d bet on the outcome.

“Larry loved to gamble and he was pretty good at it. That was the unfortunate thing. It was a game to him, like playing with Monopoly money, and he started believing that he couldn’t lose.”

“Did Brenda finance his gambling?” Delores asked.

“Yes, but I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that when I got home from a three-day graduate seminar on
Marriage and the Family
at another university and opened our apartment door, every stick of furniture was gone. The only thing that was left was the pink plush teddy bear Larry won for me at a carnival when we were newlyweds. It was sitting on a huge pile of my books in the corner, and there was a note pinned to its chest.”

“What did the note say?” Delores asked, clearly heartsick for her friend.

“It said,
I left your clothes in the closet.
” Dr. Love gave a little chuckle that sounded bitter to Hannah. “I still get mad when I think about it. And that’s one story about the Lunatic that I’ll
never
tell on the air.”

“How about Brenda? Did you confront her?” Delores wanted to know.

“I couldn’t. Brenda was gone, too. No one had actually seen her leave with Larry, but it was the logical conclusion.”

“So what did you do?” Hannah asked the follow-up question.

“What
could
I do? I coped. My friends helped me out with the extra furniture they had, and my landlord was understanding about the rent. I worked overtime at the college and after a month or two, I managed to replace all the essential items Larry took with him, including the money in our joint checking account.”

“He took the furniture
and
all the money?” It was clear from the tone of Delores’s question that she was fuming over Larry’s actions.

Hannah wasn’t surprised when Dr. Love nodded. She’d only met Larry briefly, but he’d struck her as the type of man who put himself first and rarely gave a passing thought to the feelings of others.

“When I found out he was in Lake Eden, I made an appointment with a lawyer. And that’s why I’m relieved that Larry’s dead,” Dr. Love stated in no uncertain terms. “The killer saved me lawyer’s fees, time in court, the airing of our dirty laundry in public, and the necessity of seeing Larry again. It’s not nice to say, but I’m glad he’s dead!” She stopped and gave each of them a searching look. “I hope you’re not too shocked with me.”

Delores reached out to pat her hand again. “Good heavens, no! I’m not one bit shocked after what you’ve told us.”

“Hannah?”

Dr. Love turned to her and Hannah said the first thing that popped into her head. “I’d be shocked if you
didn’t
feel that way. I don’t blame you for being glad he’s dead. You must have hated him for all the trouble he caused, and I can certainly understand why you wanted him out of your life for good.”

There was a moment of silence when her words echoed back to her.
Glad he’s dead. Hated him for all the trouble he caused. Wanted him out of your life for good.
And then Hannah stopped and stared at Dr. Love hard.

“What is it?” Delores asked, acknowledging the worried expression on her daughter’s face.

“This isn’t good,” Hannah said, her eyes locked with Dr. Love’s. “I wouldn’t tell anyone else what you just told us, not unless you have an airtight alibi for the time of Larry’s death.”

“Hannah!” Delores looked shocked at the implication. “Surely you don’t think that…”

Hannah interrupted her mother’s question with a look. “Of course
we
don’t, but someone else might.”

“Someone like Mike?”

“Yes.” Hannah turned back to Dr. Love. “
Do
you have an alibi?”

“I don’t know. What time was Larry killed?”

“Sometime after I called him at a little before nine and when Norman and I got there at nine forty-five.”

“Between nine and nine forty-five,” Dr. Love repeated and as they watched, her face turned pale and she swallowed with difficulty. “This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.”

“You don’t have an alibi?” Hannah asked, fearing the worst.

“I’m afraid not. I was home alone from eight o’clock on, grading term papers.”

Of course she’d promised to help clear Dr. Love and Delores seemed relieved as they walked down the hall. Hannah was about to push open the heavy outer door when it opened from the other side and a woman dressed in a heavy parka and a ski cap pulled down low over her ears rushed in.

“Hello, you two,” the woman said, pulling off her cap to reveal her features. “Were you looking for me so that you could turn in your homework?”

Hannah laughed. “Not exactly, Miss Whiting. I followed Mother here so she could drop off her car for my youngest sister. She goes to Macalister and she’s in the Christmas Follies.”

“How nice.” Miss Whiting dismissed that bit of information quickly and turned to Delores. “Tell me, have you discovered the bad business practice on the handout I gave you?”

“We think we have. If we’re right, it has to do with paying for supplies in cash and recording higher prices than were actually paid on supplier receipts.”

“That is correct,” Miss Whiting frowned slightly, “but you sound as if you had help. This was intended as an individual homework assignment.”

Her mother looked a bit deflated and Hannah stepped in. “My mother and I discussed it, Miss Whiting. And several other people in the shop were interested, including my partner and Mayor Bascomb. I believe you met him?”

“Oh, yes. Mayor Bascomb. What a charming man.” A smile flickered across Miss Whiting’s face. “Don’t tell me it took all four of you to unravel my little puzzle!”

“It took five,” Hannah corrected her, “and we weren’t completely sure we had the correct answer. You dish out some hard homework, Miss Whiting.”

“It’s my job to keep you on your toes and my duty to keep you from being cheated by people who employ nefarious business practices.”

Delores cleared her throat. “Yes…well…thank you, Miss Whiting. And we’ll see you in class on Monday evening.”

“Yes, indeed you will. I haven’t missed a class since I arrived here as a visiting professor three months ago.”

Hannah waited until they had exited the building and then she turned to her mother. “Miss Whiting’s an odd duck.”

“Perhaps, but she’s an excellent teacher.” Delores headed toward the parking lot and then she turned back to Hannah with a frown. “I just saw something else odd…I think.”

“What was it?” Hannah moved a little faster to keep pace with her mother.

“I thought I saw a student jump off the edge of the parking lot!”

“Where?”

“At the far end. Right over there by that big pine tree. It looked exactly as if he were on the end of a diving board and he dove off into space.”

“Have you seen any programs about lemmings on the animal channel lately?”

Delores turned to give her a stern look, but the corners of her lips twitched up. “Very funny, dear.”

“Don’t worry, Mother. Midterms are over and the students have no reason to commit suicide in hordes. Your eyes must be playing tricks on you. I notice that you’re not wearing your glasses.”

“They’re for reading, not distance. And this was in the distance, dear. It was right over…” Delores pointed and then she gasped. “There goes another one over the edge! You’re wrong, Hannah! They’re jumping off like lemmings!”

Hannah looked where her mother was pointing. Delores was right. Another student was hurtling off the edge of the parking lot and disappearing into thin air. “Wait here. I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on.”

It didn’t take Hannah long to discover exactly what phenomenon was occurring. It wasn’t an illusion at all. The students really were jumping off the edge of the parking lot, or very close to it. Three or four feet beyond the asphalt was the crest of a steep hill. A rack of stiff plastic sheets sat next to the precipice with a sign that read,
Take a Slider Made by the Lake Eden Community College Shop Class. Ride and Return Please.

Hannah watched as a girl in a parka grabbed a green plastic Slider from the rack. It had a handle at the top that was fashioned of plastic rope and the rest was simply a sheet of industrial plastic. The girl grabbed the handholds on either side, held the sheet against her chest, and raced to the crest of the hill to throw herself over on her stomach.

“Want to try one?” the girl’s companion, a student Hannah didn’t think could be any older than twelve, asked her with a grin.

“No, thanks. I think I’m a little old for that type of sledding.”

“You’ll never know unless you try it,” the boy encouraged her, holding out the top slider on the rack, a bright red one.

Hannah wavered. Red was her favorite color, but her mother was waiting. “Maybe later,” she said, giving him a smile and heading back to tell Delores that she wasn’t imagining things after all.

“Colored plastic sheets?” Delores looked amazed as Hannah finished telling her about the Sliders the shop class had made.

“It makes sense. That’s a great sliding hill and the plastic is probably impervious to the elements. I had a plastic disk when I was a kid, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but I took it away.”

Hannah started her cookie truck and turned to look at her mother. “Why did you do that?”

“Because it made you sick. You never were any good with things that whirled around.”

Hannah had a flashback to the Tilt-A-Whirl at the last county fair and shivered slightly. “You’re right,” she said. “The Sliders don’t whirl, though. I watched and they go straight down the hill.”