Plum Pudding Murder (8 page)

“I’m thinking of something they wouldn’t make at home. And something that’s not available at local grocery stores. We might even need something that people around here haven’t tasted before.”

Hannah thought of several desserts that fit Larry’s description, but she wasn’t about to name them. They were overworked as it was at The Cookie Jar and there was no way they were going to bake cranberry tarts or miniature chocolate meringue pies. She’d wait for him to come up with something and then see if they had time to do it.

Larry thought for a moment and then he leaned forward in excitement. “How about plum pudding? They have it in England and I think it’s a traditional Christmas dessert.”

“It may be traditional, but nobody’s going to order it twice,” Mike said, entering the conversation for the first time. “I had it at a fancy restaurant in Minneapolis. It tasted like fruitcake, but what really got to me was there wasn’t a single plum in it.”

“No plums in plum pudding?” Larry asked, turning to Hannah for confirmation.

“Mike’s right. The traditional recipe has citron and some other dried and candied fruit, but no plums.”

“Then why do they call it plum pudding?”

Hannah shrugged. “Maybe it’s because it’s wrapped up in cloth and steamed. Somebody probably thought it came out shaped like a plum.”

“Well, I guess plum pudding won’t work.” Larry looked disappointed.

“Don’t give up quite yet,” Hannah told him, her mind working a million miles a minute. She still had to come up with a spectacular dessert for Claire and Reverend Knudson’s wedding dinner and she might be able to kill two birds with one stone. “I think I can create my own recipe for plum pudding and I’ll make sure there are real plums inside. You probably don’t want to flambé it if you’re going to serve individual slices, though.”

“Right,” Larry agreed.

“Do the girls in the cookie shop have a microwave?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I think it’ll be better if it’s heated. I’ll try it and see.”

Larry still looked slightly worried. “I hate fruitcake. It’s not going to taste like fruitcake, is it?”

“Absolutely not. There won’t be any citron or dried fruit in it except maybe a few golden raisins. Do you want me to try to bake a sample and bring it to you so you can taste it?”

“Yes.”

Both men spoke at once and Hannah laughed. “I’ll work on it at the The Cookie Jar tomorrow and bring you something with your afternoon cookie delivery. How’s that?”

“That’s great,” Larry said.

Hannah turned to Mike. “And you can stop in around noon to try your sample. In the meantime, I’ll give you extra sugar cookies, if that’s okay.”

“That’s fine. Your sugar cookies are always a big hit.” Larry stood up to walk them to the door, but Mike stayed in his chair.

“One more thing,” Mike said. “I noticed you don’t have any Christmas decorations in here.”

“That’s right. I get enough of all that every time I open the door. I don’t know how Courtney can stand it.”

“Courtney?”

“My fiancée. She heads up the sales staff in the toy shop and she has to listen to all those animated toys with the squeaky recorded voices every day.”

“That must be tough,” Mike said.

“It is. She complains about it all the time, but she won’t shut them off. She says it’s good for business.” Larry stood up and gestured toward the door. “Sorry to cut this short, but I have a business meeting in five minutes and it’s important.”

Mike and Hannah rose from their seats. They followed Larry toward the door and once they’d reached it, Mike stopped and turned back to Larry. “I noticed your sign by the checkout booth, the one about selling below cost and making it up on volume. You were kidding, weren’t you?”

“Of course I was kidding! You can’t sell below cost and make a profit regardless of the number of units you deal. Everybody knows that.”

“Then why do you have the sign?” Hannah asked, hoping for an addition to her story for Miss Whiting.

“When I was still in junior high a guy on a TV commercial said that he was selling below cost and making it up on volume. I think it was some spokesman for a mattresses store. I thought it was funny and I signed up for a shop class so I could make up a professional-looking sign. That’s the original out by the checkout booth. It’s turned into a tradition for L. J. Enterprises. That sign has hung by the door in every business I’ve ever started.”

It was a clear winter night and the stars were sparkling as if they were made of multifaceted ice crystals. The moon was up, a silvery ball overhead casting blue shadows on the snow below them. The music was pleasant at this altitude. The melodies floated up to embrace them for brief moments and then dispersed in the dark frigid air.

“Are you cold?” Mike asked, and not waiting for her answer, slipped an arm around her shoulders.

Not at all was the answer on the tip of Hannah’s tongue, but Mike’s embrace felt wonderful and rather than speak, she smiled.

“There’s the cookie shop.” Mike leaned out the side of their sleigh to see. “And there’s the flocking tent. I’m really glad Andrea didn’t go for one of those.”

“So am I!” Hannah’s reply was heartfelt. A flocked tree was fine for the lobby of a hotel, or the front window of the First Mercantile Bank, but school kids should experience a real tree that wasn’t sprayed all over with plastic and adhesive and whatever else the Crazy Elf used for flocking material.

“They really swing up high on that Yule Log.” Mike leaned out the side of their sleigh to take a better look. “I think there’s one point where you stop and you’re perfectly suspended before you go on the downswing again.”

Hannah thought about being suspended with Mike’s arm around her. That would be nice, but only if they could just stay there and not go on the downswing again.

“There’s Larry’s headquarters,” Mike pointed from his side of the sleigh. “See it?”

Hannah glanced down in time to see a man entering Larry’s trailer. He must be arriving for the business meeting Larry had told them about. As the man passed through the doorway, Hannah realized that he looked a bit like Earl Flensburg. Of course that was about as likely as snow in July. The Winnetka County tow truck and snowplow driver wasn’t the type to attend a business meeting, especially a one-on-one meeting with a high-powered executive like Larry Jaeger.

“It’s funny, isn’t it, how there wasn’t a single Christmas thing inside?” Mike asked.

For a moment Hannah was puzzled and then she realized that Mike was referring to Larry Jaeger’s trailer. “Not really. If you were around something every waking minute, you’d probably want to get away to something completely different.”

“Careful, Hannah,” Mike said, giving her the devilish grin that always made her toes tingle. “I think you just gave me the guy’s argument for infidelity.”

And naturally you recognized it, Hannah thought, but of course she didn’t say it. “I prefer to think of it as an argument for going camping after a hard week at work,” she countered, “or the reason someone who lives in Minnesota likes to vacation in Hawaii.”

“You’ve got a point. I wouldn’t mind a little fun in the sun in the dead of winter. Say, Hannah…I’ve got two weeks of vacation coming at the end of January. I was thinking about flying to St. Thomas and I…isn’t that Andrea?” Mike leaned out even farther and waved his arm. “It’s her, all right. Andrea’s down there waiting for us.”

Saved by the sister, Hannah thought, not quite sure if she was grateful or disappointed that Mike hadn’t finished what had sounded like an invitation to come along on his winter vacation.

The sleigh began to descend and their time for privacy was over. Hannah leaned out to smile at her sister as they came to rest and an attendant rushed over to help them out.

“Did you have fun?” Andrea asked when they were both on the ground.

“It was nice,” Hannah answered.

“Nice,” Mike teased her. “I thought it was more than nice.”

“Okay, it was fun.” Hannah turned to Andrea. “You can go on this one with Tracey. It won’t make her sick. You could even take Grandma McCann and Bethany if you want to. But watch out for the Yule Log.”

“I know. I walked past it on the way over here, and the Yule Log is definitely out.” Andrea led them toward the entrance. “We’re all through shopping and Norman’s out in the parking lot helping them tie on the trees.”

“I’ll go help him,” Mike said, striding forward and leaving the two Swensen sisters alone.

“You said trees,” Hannah reminded her. “Did you get more than one tree?”

“Did I say trees? I didn’t mean to. I just hope mine doesn’t scratch the roof of my Volvo.”

“Yours?” Hannah asked. “Does that mean there’s a tree that isn’t yours?”

“Of course there is. My tree is mine. It’s the one I bought for Tracey’s class. It’s mine as opposed to somebody else’s. My tree is mine. Their tree is theirs. I didn’t mean anyone else’s tree in particular. I just meant somebody else’s tree in general. This is a tree lot and there are other people here. Some of those people are buying trees, right?”

Hannah turned to stare at her sister, who immediately averted her eyes. Andrea was dissembling and that meant something was up. She moved a little closer to her sister and asked the question. “Do you want to tell me now? Or do you want to tell me later?”

“Later,” Andrea said with a sigh. “I promised I wouldn’t say anything and I already blew it. Don’t ask me anymore questions, okay?”

“Okay.” Hannah capitulated. Andrea looked completely chagrinned. “Just tell me if you happened to go into the toy shop. I’m curious.”

“Yes, I did.” Andrea looked very relieved. “I was looking for a toddler’s globe for Bethany, but they didn’t have one.”

“What’s a toddler’s globe?”

“It’s a globe filled with soft squishy padding. Toddlers can grab it, and roll it, and squeeze it, and throw it. It’s a really great early learning tool. They can learn about the world, and the oceans, and the continents, and the countries before they even go to school.”

“Right,” Hannah said. It was a sweet idea and Bethie would love a globe ball, but it would be hopelessly out of date by the time she could read the names. Proof of that pudding was at the Olympics. Every year new countries were formed, old countries were dissolved, and other countries were renamed. The parade of nations was never the same from one Olympics to the next.

“It was just a thought and I found something else for her,” Andrea said, approaching the gate to the parking lot.

“What?”

“They had these darling crocheted animals. The clerk said they were handmade by someone in Lake Eden, and I bought an elephant for Bethie. Then I noticed a lion and I got that for Tracey. She’s into big jungle cats this year.”

“Were they expensive?”

“Yes, but they were really well made and they’re washable. I don’t think twenty dollars is too much to pay for a handcrafted stuffed animal, do you?”

“No, especially not if you’re supporting a local cottage industry. That’s important.” Hannah remembered what Larry had told her and turned to look at her sister. “Did you happen to notice the woman who was running the toy shop? Her name is Courtney and she’s Larry Jaeger’s fiancée.”

Andrea thought for a moment. “She was probably the short brunette wearing the red velvet jumper and white lace blouse. She had on a Santa hat and all the rest of the cashiers were high school girls dressed like elves.”

The two sisters walked down the row until they came to Andrea’s car. Norman and Mike had loaded the tree on top and tied it down securely. Hannah turned to look at Norman’s car and she saw that he also had a tree tied to the top. “You got a tree?” she asked him.

“No, you got a tree.”

“Me!?” Hannah looked up at the huge Scotch Pine and then she turned back to Norman. “This is really nice of you, Norman. But cats and Christmas trees don’t get along.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

“Well…no, but I’ve heard it doesn’t work out. Cats do things like climb up the branches, bat all the ornaments to the floor, and swallow the tinsel.”

“You won’t know that for sure unless you try it,” Andrea pointed out. “Barbara Donnelly has a cat and she always gets a Christmas tree.”

“That’s right,” Mike said. “Barbara told me that her cat never even notices her tree. I think you should try it. Moishe’s a nice cat. He’s always been a good boy and he probably won’t bother your tree at all.”

Hannah turned to stare at Mike in disbelief. He’d just described the cat who’d run laps in her bathtub at two in the morning as a nice cat. This same good boy had torn all of the stuffing out of her couch pillows, emptied his litter box on the laundry room floor, chewed a hole in the side of her kitchen broom closet, and dragged her underwear out of the laundry basket to scatter over the living room rug as a display for any company she might bring home with her. Moishe was a funny cat, a great companion, and a well-loved roommate. But not by any stretch of the imagination could he be accurately described as a nice cat, or a good boy.

“Just try the tree overnight,” Norman suggested in an attempt to overcome her lack of enthusiasm. “I’ll set it up for you and everything. I just hate to think of you without a Christmas tree. It smells good, and it’s pretty, and it’ll make your whole condo feel like Christmas.”

“Well…” Hannah hesitated. She’d really missed having a Christmas tree.

“I tell you what,” Norman went into his closing argument. “If it doesn’t work out, I’ll come and take it away.”

“How can I refuse an offer like that?” Hannah stepped closer to hug him. Buying a Christmas tree for her was a sweet thing to do. “But I want you to have a heart-to-heart talk with Moishe tonight, right after you set it up.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Just tell him that my tree isn’t really a tree.”

“What?”

“I mean…it’s a tree, but it’s not a regular outside tree. It’s an inside tree and it’s a decoration for Christmas.”

“Do you think Moishe can tell the difference?”

“I think so, especially if you give him an example. You might want to explain that his kitty kondo is entertainment for kitties, and the Christmas tree is entertainment for people.” Hannah stopped and shook her head. “On second thought…never mind.”