Key Lime Pie Murder (9 page)

Mix in the beaten eggs. Stir until they’re thoroughly incorporated.

Add the salt, baking soda, and vanilla. Mix it all up together.

Mix in the walnuts and let the dough rest while you chop the dates.

You can chop your dates by hand with a knife, but it’s a lot easier in a food processor or blender. Just pit them first (of course), cut each one into two or three pieces with a knife, put them into the bowl of your food processor or blender, and sprinkle a little flour (approximately 1/4cup) on top. The flour will keep them from “gumming up” when you process them.

Measure one cup of chopped dates and add them to your mixing bowl. Stir them in thoroughly.

Add the flour in one-cup increments, mixing after each addition. This dough will be fairly stiff.

Form the dough into balls with your fingers. (Make them the size of a walnut with shell.) Place them on a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. (They will flatten a bit and spread out when they bake.)

Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Let them cool on the rack for two minutes and then remove them to a wire rack to complete cooling.

These were my father’s favorites. Delores liked them, too.

Lisa says her dad likes these best with a dish of vanilla ice cream.

The display jars behind the counter in the coffee shop were filled with the day’s cookie offerings, tables were set up with napkins, sugar, artificial sweetener, and cream, and the thirty-cup coffee pot was perking merrily in preparation for the customers they might or might not have on this, the second day of the Tri-County Fair. Hannah and Lisa had just finished packing up the massive order of cookies for the Cookie Nook booth at the fairgrounds, and they were sitting on stools at the kitchen workstation, going over their weekly supply order.

“Another cup?” Lisa asked Hannah, gesturing toward the pot in the kitchen.

“Sure. One more and I might feel human.” Hannah smiled as Lisa fetched the pot and filled her mug. “Anything else we need?”

“I’m not sure. How are we doing on nuts?”

“We get more than we used to, but you really shouldn’t talk about our customers that way.”

Lisa stared at her for a split second, as if she’d lost her mind, and then she gave the giggle Hannah loved. “That’s funny!”

“Thank goodness. I thought I’d lost my sense of humor, but this last cup of coffee must have brought it back. Did you happen to notice how much oatmeal we have left? I promised Andrea I’d make her some more Swedish Oatmeal Cookies.”

“I thought Andrea didn’t like oatmeal.”

“She doesn’t, but she’s eating it now.” Hannah began to grin, relishing in the fact she’d tricked her sister into eating it at last.

“There’s a story here.”

“Yes, there is. Remind me to tell you when we’ve got more time. Just remember that if she ever asks you, oatmeal is really good for your hair.”

“Your hair?”

“That’s right.” Lisa looked uncomfortable, and Hannah knew why. Her young partner hated to lie. “You don’t have to come right out and lie about it.”

“Okay. I’ll just smile, or not, or…” Lisa stopped talking as the back door opened and Andrea came in with Bethany in her arms. “Hi, Andrea. We were just talking about…”

“Bethany.” Hannah saved Lisa in midblurt. “And there she is now! Lisa wanted to know if she was crawling yet.”

“She’s crawling, I guess. If you can call it that.”

“What’s she doing?” Lisa asked, bringing Andrea a cup of coffee and a plate filled with cookies.

“I’ll show you.” Andrea set Bethany down on the floor.

Hannah began to smile. When Tracey was a baby, Andrea was convinced that she shouldn’t be in any environment that wasn’t antiseptically clean. She hadn’t even put her down on a clean blanket in her own living room. She hadn’t allowed any visitors except family for the first three months for fear baby Tracey might “catch” something. She’d sterilized everything, boiled the washcloths she used to bathe Tracey, and cried gallons of tears when she hadn’t produced enough milk to nurse her. She’d read all the cautionary books and exhausted herself trying to do everything the baby gurus had advised. And when anything went wrong and baby Tracey came down with a cold or didn’t finish her dinner, Andrea had felt she was a failure as a mother.

It was different this time, and Hannah was glad to see it. Andrea and Bill had a live-in nanny, Grandma McCann, who took care of Bethany while Andrea worked. The results were nothing short of remarkable. Andrea was able to have a good time with Bethany and relax around her.

“I don’t think she’s going to crawl,” Hannah said, gazing down at her perfectly beautiful, perfectly immobile niece.

“We’ll fix that.” Andrea pulled a stuffed rabbit, from the diaper bag and set it a few feet in front of Bethany. “Go get it, Bethie. Show Aunt Hannah and Aunt Lisa how you crawl.”

Bethany sat there staring at her toy for a moment, and then she gave the sweetest smile Hannah had ever seen. It wasn’t clear if the smile was for the stuffed rabbit or them, but it didn’t really matter. Her youngest niece was simply adorable.

When Bethany moved, it was fast. She tucked one leg under her, leaned on it, and pushed off with the other leg. She repeated it several times, scooting toward the stuffed rabbit in spurts.

“See what I mean?” Andrea asked, smiling when her daughter reached the rabbit, grabbed it, and chewed on the ears. “It’s not really a crawl, but it works. Grandma McCann thinks it’s because we have hardwood floors. Crawling would be hard on her knees, so she scoots. It cracks me up every time I watch her. The way she tucks her leg up reminds me of something, but I don’t know what.”

Hannah thought about that for a moment, and the swimming classes she’d taken as a child flashed through her mind. They’d learned all sorts of swimming strokes and kicks, practicing them on the shore of Eden Lake and then in the lake itself. It wasn’t a flutter kick or a scissors kick, but there had been another that she’d never quite mastered and that one had been…

“The frog kick!” she said aloud.

Andrea turned to beam at her. “That’s exactly what it reminds me of, a sort of crooked frog kick. Mine were always crooked.”

“So were mine,” Hannah admitted. “And Michelle’s, too. It must be hereditary.”

“You’d better not let your mother hear you say that,” Lisa warned. “I don’t think she’d like being compared to a mother frog.”

“Right,” Hannah said, and gave a little wave as Lisa headed off to the coffee shop to open for business.

“I almost forgot why I drove over here,” Andrea said. “I’ve got news that’ll rock your world.”

“What?” Hannah asked, not believing it for a moment. Andrea tended to exaggerate when she had some juicy gossip to tell. Her news might be interesting, perhaps even mildly startling, but it certainly wouldn’t rock anyone’s world.

“I got this straight from Bertie at the Cut ‘n Curl.” Andrea reached down to pick up Bethany, who’d managed to propel her way over to the work island. “Up you go, Bethie.”

“Let me hold her.” Hannah held out her arms and was rewarded by a wide, open-mouthed grin from Bethany.

Andrea handed the baby over, and then she retrieved a bottle of juice from the diaper bag and put it in front of Hannah. “She can have this. Bethie loves apple juice.”

Hannah settled the baby in the crook of her arm and uncapped the bottle of juice. When Bethany had the bottle and she’d begun to drink, Hannah turned back to her sister. Andrea didn’t look as if she’d just had her hair done. “So what were you doing at the Cut ‘n Curl?”

“The Mother-Daughter look-alike luncheon is today, and I thought it might influence the judges if Tracey and I had the same hairstyle. Bertie’s doing Tracey’s now. Then she’s going to give Willa Sunquist a comb-out. She just had a cut and a color weave. When she finishes with Willa, she’ll do me.”

Hannah was surprised. Willa didn’t have much money, and a color weave was expensive. Perhaps her job as the chaperone for the Miss Tri-County contestants paid well. “Do you want me to keep Tracey and Bethany here while you have your hair done?”

Andrea shook her head. “Grandma McCann’s down at Bertie’s with Tracey. I just wanted to bring Bethie up to see you and give you the big news.”

“All right. Give.”

“Well, Bertie got it straight from Carrie. She’s the one who got the phone call.”

“What phone call?” Hannah asked, and she felt her frustration level jump up a notch. Andrea loved to drag things out when she had some juicy gossip. “Is it something about Norman?”

“It sure is. The secretary from the fairgrounds called Carrie this morning to tell her that the picture Norman took of you won first place in the photography competition.”

“That’s great!” Hannah exclaimed. This time Andrea’s news really was important. “Does Norman know?”

“He does, now. He was down at the café, and Carrie called him on his cell phone to tell him.”

“Thanks for coming here to tell me,” Hannah said. And then, because she just couldn’t resist, she followed it up with, “I’m really happy Norman won, but it didn’t exactly rock my world.”

“That’s because I haven’t told you the rocking-your-world part yet.”

With that, Andrea stopped speaking and grinned at her older sister. The only sound was Bethany sucking on her bottle of juice. Hannah let the absence of conversation go on. It was a test. The sister who spoke first lost.

Long moments passed without a word, and Hannah was amazed at her sister’s restraint. She really wanted to know Andrea’s news, but there was no way she was going to give in and ask. Just as she was beginning to waver, she had work to do and they couldn’t sit here like this all day, Andrea caved in.

“All right. I’ll tell you.” Andrea leaned forward as if she were about to impart a state secret. “Mike was sitting next to Norman when Carrie called and he heard the whole thing. And he bought Norman’s picture for five hundred dollars!”

“What?!”

“I told you it would rock your world!” Andrea looked smug.

“But…but why did Mike buy it? And why did he pay so much? I’m sure Norman would have made him a copy if he’d asked. And…”

“That’s all I know,” Andrea interrupted what promised to be a barrage of questions. “If you want to know more, you’re going to have to get it from the horse’s mouth.”

“Okay. I guess the horse’s mouth would be Norman. If Mike really did pay five hundred dollars for a photo of me, that makes him another part of the horse’s anatomy.”

“So what did he say?” Lisa asked, when Hannah got off the phone with Dr. Bob.

“The blood test was normal, right across the board,” Hannah reported. “More coffee?”

Lisa nodded, and Hannah filled a carafe with hot coffee and carried it to the back booth where they’d been sitting. Yesterday’s lack of customers was repeating itself today. They’d had only a few local businessmen in the morning, and a couple more for what usually was their noon rush. Now that noon had come and gone, the coffee shop was completely deserted.

Lisa reached for the carafe and poured more coffee for both of them. “What does he think you should do?”

“Nothing, at least for now. I’m supposed to change the food and water in his bowls every day so when Moishe starts eating again, it’ll be fresh. He says it won’t kill Moishe to lose a few pounds, and I shouldn’t worry. Pets sometimes go through periods of not eating. Just like humans, they lose their appetites for one reason or another.”

“Not me.”

“Me, neither,” Hannah said, reverting to the vernacular of her childhood.

Hannah was manning the counter in front while Lisa packed cookies. There was only one table filled at The Cookie Jar, a young couple who’d told Hannah they were just passing through town on their way up north. She’d already wiped down the counter and straightened the display jars, and now she was sitting on the tall stool by the cash register, looking out the window and wondering whether Mike had really purchased Norman’s photograph of her.

Hannah supposed it was possible, considering the changing dynamics between Mike and Norman. When Ross Barton had come to Lake Eden to film Crisis in Cherrywood, the two rivals had banded together to keep her from getting too serious about him. But now that Ross was gone, Norman and Mike were rivals again and each one was trying to outdo the other. Noman’s picture of her had won a blue ribbon. That was one point for him. And Mike had purchased it for more money than most people would spend. That tied the score. Just as Hannah was wondering what shenanigans would be next, the two men in question came in the door.

“Hi, Hannah!” Norman took a seat at the counter while Mike hung up his sheriff’s department windbreaker on the coat rack by the front door. “Did you hear that the picture I took of you won a blue ribbon?”

Hannah gave him a warm smile. “I heard. Congratulations!”

“And did you hear about the new artwork I’m going to hang over my couch in the living room?” Mike asked, taking the stool next to Norman’s.

“I heard that you bought Norman’s photograph, if that’s what you mean,” Hannah said. “Coffee for both of you?”

Hannah busied herself behind the counter, filling mugs and delivering their cookie orders. Once that was done, she took up a position behind the counter, midway between them, and waited to see what would happen.

For a moment all they did was crunch their cookies and sip their coffee. Mike had two Chocolate Highlander Cookie Bars, and Hannah was glad. The endorphins in the chocolate might take the edge off his tendency to challenge Norman.

Norman had ordered two Peanut Butter Melts. No help there. Hannah didn’t think that peanut butter had endorphins, but it probably wouldn’t make much difference. Like oil and water, Norman and Mike needed an emulsifier to mix, and that emulsifier was friendship. They truly did like each other. But both of them had a tendency to play one-up-manship whenever she was around. And when they started that particular game, Hannah felt obliged to referee.

The tension grew right along with the silence until, at last, Mike cleared his throat. “Did you hear how much I paid for your picture?” he asked, dipping his paddle into the waters first.