Key Lime Pie Murder (24 page)

“Maybe it’s nature of the beast,” Hannah muttered, heading off to her bedroom. “Just when you think you’ve got the male of the species all figured out, they go and change the rules on you.”

SPICY DREAMS

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

Hannah’s 1st Note: This recipe is from Lindy Frank and I’m glad she finally sent it to me. Her cookies disappear faster than a Popsicle on a hot day. Lindy calls these cookies “Ginger Cookies,” but since we already serve a cookie by that name down at The Cookie Jar, we’ve renamed these “Spicy Dreams.”

Hannah’s 2nd Note: Lindy says to tell you that she makes these cookies festive by using colored sugar for holidays, i.e., pink for Valentine’s Day, orange for Halloween, green for St. Pat’s Day, etc.

1 cup soft butter (2 sticks, 8 ounces, 1/2 pound)

1 lb, 6 oz white granulated sugar (2 2/3cups)

3 eggs

1 cup molasses

2 Tablespoons vinegar (white will do just fine)

2 Tablespoons baking soda

4 teaspoons ground ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 lb, 12 oz all purpose flour (6 cups—not sifted)

1/2 cup powdered (confectioner’s) sugar, for rolling*

*
In her original recipe Lindy used white granulated sugar for rolling. Lisa and I use powdered sugar so that we won’t get the Spicy Dreams mixed up with the Molasses Crackles when we serve them on the same day down at The Cookie Jar.

Mix the butter and the sugar together and beat them with a mixer or a spoon until they look nice and fluffy. (That’s what the phrase “cream the butter and sugar” means if you see it in another recipe.)

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition.

Mix in the molasses and the vinegar. (I always spray the inside of my measuring cup with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray before I pour in the molasses. Then it glops right out without sticking to the sides.)

Lindy sifts the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom together before she mixes them in with the wet ingredients. (She also weighs the flour and the sugar the way a true pastry chef would do.) That means she’s probably a better baker than I am, because I don’t do any of that. I just mix in the baking soda first, and then the spices. I stir everything up thoroughly, and then I add the flour in one-cup increments, stirring after each cup is added.

Use your hands to roll the dough into walnut-sized balls. If the dough is too sticky, put it in the refrigerator a half-hour or so—that’ll make it easier to roll.

Put the powdered sugar in a small bowl and roll the balls in it. Place them on a greased cookie sheet (I used Pam) 12 cookie balls to a standard-size sheet. Press them down just a bit when you place them on the sheet so they won’t roll off when you carry them to the oven. You don’t have to flatten them. They’ll spread out all by themselves while they bake.

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

Let the cookies cool for a minute or two on the cookie sheet and then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Yield: Approximately 10 dozen, depending on cookie size.

“More coffee to get us thinking straight?” Lisa asked, bringing the carafe to the back table and pouring them all another cup. They were having a strategy meeting at The Cookie Jar, and they had less than an hour before the first customers would arrive. Hannah had called the meeting so that they could go over the suspect list.

Norman had called in to cancel. He was whitening Bertie Straub’s teeth before her first appointment at the Cut ‘n’ Curl. It was an old-fashioned barter. Norman whitened Bertie’s teeth, and Bertie gave Carrie a special treatment guaranteed to give her hair a glorious sheen.

“Thanks, Lisa. I can use this.” Andrea took a sip of her coffee and smiled. “I’m not used to getting up this early. And I didn’t get to bed until almost two. I don’t have bags under my eyes, do I?”

Michelle leaned over to take a look. “No bags.”

“Let me see,” Hannah said, looking deeply into her sister’s eyes. “Michelle’s right. No bags. Your eyes are a funny shade of red, but other than that…”

Andrea let out a shriek that would have raised the dead and jumped up. “Call Jon at home. He’s just got to open early so I can get some eye drops. Tracey and I have to be on stage at two for the mother-daughter judging, and we’re not going to win if I’ve got a case of redeye!”

“Relax.” Hannah pulled her sister back down. “Your eyes are fine. I was just kidding.”

“Don’t do that. It’s mean!” Andrea said petulantly. But then she started to laugh. “The last time I said that, I hit you with a pillow.”

“I remember. It broke open and the feathers flew all over.”

“And we had to clean it up and try to sew it back together before Mother got home from the grocery store.”

“Did you make it?” Michelle asked.

“No,” Hannah answered. “Andrea didn’t know how to sew yet, and I was terrible at it. We ended up dumping all the feathers in a garbage bag and tying it shut. We put that in the pillowcase, and I had to sleep on a pillow that crinkled every time I moved my head.”

Lisa looked a little wistful. “My sisters were all grown up by the time I was born. Two of them were married, and the other one had her own apartment and a job in Minneapolis. It must have been wonderful growing up with sisters.”

Hannah turned to Andrea. “Did you ever notice how people who didn’t grow up with sisters are the ones who think it would have been wonderful?”

“Right. And those who did grow up with sisters don’t say anything at all?”

“Well, nobody has better sisters than I do. Last night proves that.” Michelle turned to Andrea. “Did Bill check out those alibis?”

“First thing this morning. The highway patrol officer who stopped them remembers Elvis. He said he’d never seen a pickup with pictures of naked women painted on the bottom of the truck bed before.”

Michelle made a face. “What a creep! And he wanted to show me his truck! But at least we know they’re not murderers.”

“Right.” Hannah opened her steno notebook, the type she habitually carried in her large leather shoulder bag, and flipped to the suspect list. “Tasha’s brothers. I guess I can fill in the names now, just so I can cross it out.”

“It pays to be thorough,” Michelle said. “Something might happen to make the Hicks brothers suspects again.”

“They were thirty miles away from the scene at the time of Willa’s murder,” Andrea reminded her. “What could possibly make them suspects again?”

“I don’t know, but there could be something.”

They were getting nowhere fast, and Hannah knew it. It was time to take charge of the meeting. “Listen up,” she said, glancing at the three women around the table. “Let’s go over the motives and see if we can think of any more suspects.”

“Good idea,” Lisa said, giving Hannah a glance that said she understood. “Why don’t you read us the motives?”

“Motive number one,” Hannah didn’t waste any time jumping in. “Willa’s murder and the burglary are connected. Either Willa was a witness to the burglary, or she found out who did it. And she was killed before she could notify the authorities.”

“So if we find the burglar, we find Willa’s killer?” Lisa asked.

“If the motive is the correct one, we do.”

Michelle looked thoughtful. “Then we’re running two investigations. Willa’s murder and the burglary.”

“Right. And we haven’t even started working on the burglary yet. Are you ready for motive two?”

Everyone nodded and Hannah went on. “Motive two. There’s no sense reading this one. We’ve already eliminated it.”

“Read it anyway,” Andrea suggested. “It might make us think of something else.”

“Okay. Willa disqualified Tasha Hicks from the beauty pageant. And Tasha comes from a family known for violent retribution. We eliminated her brothers, but…” Hannah turned to Michelle. “Didn’t you say her father entered her in the contest?”

“That’s what she told me.”

“Can you find out more about their father from Grandma McCann?” Hannah asked Andrea.

“I can try, but it’ll be like pulling teeth. She’s the one person in Lake Eden who doesn’t gossip.”

“I can do it,” Lisa spoke up. “Marge knows everyone around here. And if she doesn’t know the Hicks family personally, she’ll know someone who does.”

Hannah turned back to her notebook again. “Okay. Lisa’s going to take care of that one. Let’s go on to motive number three. It’s something I found out from serving on the judging panel with Willa.”

“Go on,” Andrea said, leaning closer.

“Pam Baxter flunked a male home ec student on Willa’s recommendation. Let’s find out who he was and whether he’s the type to take revenge.”

“That one’s mine,” Michelle said. “Some of my friends have younger brothers and sisters that are still in school. I’ll ask around.”

“‘Good.” Hannah made another note in her book. “Motive four. Willa gave Mrs. Adamczak’s cinnamon bread a low grade, and now she can’t win the baking sweepstakes again this year.”

Andrea’s mouth dropped open. “You think Mrs. Adamczak killed Willa?”

“Not really, but it’s a motive. And we won’t be doing our job if we don’t check it out.”

“Okay.” Andrea looked dubious, but she nodded. “I’ll see what I can find out from Mrs. Adamczak. I have to drop off some real estate flyers on her street anyway. What’s next?”

“I don’t really have a motive for the next one, but I do have a suspect. Unfortunately, we don’t know who he is. It’s Willa’s boyfriend.”

“What boyfriend?” Lisa wanted to know.

“The one she got all dressed up for,” Andrea explained. “That dress she was wearing was expensive, and so was her new hairdo.”

Hannah nodded. “Pam asked Willa whether there was a man involved and Willa said, Isn’t there always? And then, when I walked out of the building with her after the judging, she told me she was meeting someone.”

“That means we need to find out more about her personal life,” Andrea said.

“Maybe you should go over and search her apartment,” Lisa suggested. “I can hold down the fort here, if you want to do it now.”

“Good idea,” Andrea said. “I’m sure Mike and Lonnie have already done it, but they could have missed something. I’ll call Pam right now and set it up.”

While they waited for Andrea to complete her call, Lisa refilled coffee mugs. Hannah replenished the cookie platter, and they were all ready to continue when Andrea came back.

“She’ll be home all morning,” Andrea reported. “We can go over there right after we finish our meeting.”

Hannah glanced down at her notes again. “That’s it, at least for now. I couldn’t think of any other motives, except for the common one, of course.”

“What common one?” Michelle wanted to know.

“Willa was killed by some unknown person for some unknown reason.”

“That should be simple to check out,” Lisa said, and they all shared a laugh.

“There’s one more thing…” Hannah frowned slightly. “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with her murder, but I think Willa had a secret.”

At the word secret, all three women leaned closer.

“What secret?” Andrea asked.

“It wouldn’t be a secret if I knew it,” Hannah said. And after she’d gotten the groans she expected, she went on. “When we were judging the baked goods, Willa talked about a couple of things did that didn’t fit with her personality…at least as I knew it. And Pam, who certainly knew Willa better than I did after a whole year of working with her, seemed totally surprised, too.”

“Can you give us an example?” Michelle asked.

“Yes. Willa said something about picking cherries. She seemed to know all about it, and Pam asked her why. Willa said she worked in a cherry orchard for a while in Washington State.”

Andrea shrugged. “Okay. I guess it could have been a summer job or something like that.”

“That’s true. But then she said something about working as a waitress down in Florida and how she’d served key lime pie. And she also said something about California.”

“So she must have traveled,” Lisa came to the obvious conclusion. “Maybe her family moved a lot when she was in high school.”

Michelle shook her head. “I don’t think so. One of the contestants was all upset because her parents were selling their house and moving to a condo when she went off college. Miss Sunquist told her to take lots of pictures and that would keep the memories alive. She said she knew how hard it was to lose the house where you grew up, because she had to sell her family home a couple of years ago when her parents died, and it was really hard to leave it.”

“So she must have traveled after high school.” Andrea was clearly not ready to give up her theory. “Maybe she took the money she got from selling her parents’ house and used it to see America, or something like that.”

Lisa looked puzzled. “But it sounds like she worked her way across the country. Why would she do that if she had all the money from selling her family home?”

“Maybe there were outstanding bills,” Andrea suggested. “She might have cleared only a few thousand or so, especially if her parents had medical problems and they needed special care.”

“But if they were old enough, they’d be on Medicare,” Lisa pointed out.

“There are things that Medicare doesn’t cover. And maybe her parents weren’t old enough to be on Medicare.”

“Enough speculation.” Hannah held up her hand and everyone turned to her. “Here’s what we have to do. Andrea and I will go through Willa’s apartment to see if we can find out something about her background. There may be photos that could give us a clue, or papers of some kind. We’ll also see if Pam has any background information on her. I’m sure the college forwarded something when Pam agreed to be Willa’s supervising teacher.”