Carrot Cake Murder (16 page)

Shut off the mixer and scrape down the bowl again. At low speed, mix in half of the flour. (That’s one cup.) When the flour is incorporated, mix in the sour cream.

Scrape down the bowl again and add the rest of the flour. (That’s the second cup.) Beat until the flour is fully incorporated.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and give it a stir with a spoon. Mix in the chocolate chips by hand. (A firm rubber spatula works nicely.)

Use a teaspoon to spoon the dough onto the parchment-lined cookie sheets, 12 cookies to a standard-sized sheet. (If the dough is too sticky for you to work with, chill it for a half-hour or so, and try again.) Bake the cookies at 375 degrees F., for 9 to 11 minutes, or until they rise and become firm. (Mine took exactly 9 minutes.)

Slide the parchment from the cookie sheets and onto a wire rack. Let the cookies cool on the rack while the next sheet of cookies is baking. When the next sheet of cookies is ready, pull the cooled cookies onto the counter or table and slide the parchment paper with the hot cookies onto the rack. Keep alternating until all the dough has been baked.

When all the cookies are cool, peel them off the parchment paper and put them on waxed paper for frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

¼ cup softened butter (½ stick, 1/8 pound)

4 ounces softened cream cheese (half of an 8-ounce package)

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups confectioner’s (powdered) sugar (no need to sift unless it’s got big lumps)

Mix the softened butter with the softened cream cheese and the vanilla until the mixture is smooth.

Hannah’s 2ndNote: Do this next step at room temperature. If you heated the cream cheese or the butter to soften it, make sure it’s cooled down before you continue.

Add the confectioner’s sugar in half-cup increments until the frosting is of proper spreading consistency. (You’ll use all, or almost all, of the sugar.)

A batch of Red Velvet Cookies yields about 3 dozen, depending on cookie size. They’re soft, velvety, and chocolaty, and they’ll end up being everyone’s favorite.

Hannah’s 3rdNote: If you really want to pull out all the stops, brush the tops of your baked cookies with melted raspberry jam, let it dry, and then frost them with Cream Cheese Frosting.

“We’re done!” Hannah said, carrying two mugs of coffee over to the stainless steel workstation in the kitchen of The Cookie Jar.

Lisa glanced up at the clock with a smile. “I know, and it’s only seven.”

“You got here at six. You really shouldn’t have come in, Lisa,” Hannah gently chided her partner. “I told you to take the week of the reunion off.”

“I took yesterday off. That’s enough. From now on I’m coming in at six to help with the baking.”

“But that’s a lot of work for you, with the reunion and all.”

“It’s a lot of work for you, too! You’re baking cookies every morning and then coming out to the lake every afternoon to help with the dinner buffet.”

“Okay, you win.” Hannah held up her hands in surrender. “I appreciate the help. But don’t feel you have to come in if you’re too tired, okay?”

“Okay, as long as you don’t feel you have to come out to the lake to help with dinner.”

Hannah laughed. “Do we have a culinary standoff?”

“I think so.” Lisa turned and pointed to the pan of bar cookies she’d baked. “The bars are cool enough to cut. Do you want to taste my new invention?”

“Sure. What do you call them?”

“Rocky Road Bar Cookies, because they remind me of rocky road ice cream.” Lisa walked over to cut a piece and brought it back to Hannah.

“I see nuts, and marshmallows, and chocolate, and…I don’t know what else.”

“Go ahead and taste. And give me your honest opinion.”

Hannah took a bite and chewed. The bars were delicious. “Yummy!” she pronounced. “On a goodness scale of one to ten, these are a twelve.”

“Do they remind you of rocky road ice cream?”

“Yes. And they also remind me of S’mores. We used to make those on Girl Scout campouts.”

“What’s a S’more?”

“A graham cracker with a square of Hershey’s milk chocolate on top. You toast a marshmallow over the campfire, plunk it on top of the chocolate square, and cover it with another graham cracker. Then you eat it when it’s hot and everything just melts in your mouth.”

“That sounds great! I think I missed a lot by not joining the Girl Scouts.”

“Why didn’t you?” Hannah asked.

“They met after school on Wednesdays, and I had to get right home. Mom was sick, and Dad worked an extra two hours four days a week so he could take Friday off to do all the stuff that was closed on the weekends.”

Hannah kicked herself mentally for not realizing that Lisa would have a selfless reason for not joining the Girl Scouts. “You’re talking about things like going to the bank?”

“Yes. And driving her to doctor’s appointments and other medical stuff. She went in for dialysis on Fridays.”

“That must have been hard on you, Lisa.”

“Yes, but worth it. Mom had some good times when she was in remission and all my sisters and brothers would come to visit.”

Hannah saw Lisa blink several times and knew she was remembering her mother and grieving for her. It was time to introduce a happier subject. “I’ve got something for you to taste,” she announced.

“What’s that?”

“Red Velvet Cookies.”

Lisa stared at her in something close to shock. “You mean you’ve got Mom’s recipe? The one Dad remembers?”

“No, but I put one together that I hope is like your mom’s. My mother thought it would be a nice surprise for your dad’s birthday.”

“It’s great! You’re wonderful, Hannah!”

“Don’t get too excited. They might not be like your mother’s cookies at all. I understand she stopped baking them years ago.”

“That’s what Iris said when she told me about them.”

“Do you remember them?” Hannah asked.

“No. I think she’d already stopped baking them. But I get to taste one anyway, don’t I?”

“Of course. I haven’t tasted one yet, either.”

Mere seconds later, both partners had fresh mugs of coffee and a cookie on a napkin in front of them to taste. Hannah tried hers first and pronounced it good, but perhaps not the exact cookie Emily Herman had baked.

“It’s better than good, it’s superb,” Lisa declared. “The chocolate melts in your mouth and the cream cheese in the frosting sends it off the top of that goodness scale you were talking about earlier.”

“Thanks, Lisa. When you get out to the lake will you find your sister and ask her what she thinks? Have Marge and Patsy try them, too. If they taste like your mother’s, I’ll bake another batch before I come out this afternoon. Maybe they’ll jog your dad’s memory and he can tell us more about the night Gus left town and why there was bad blood between them.”

“Do you really think your cookies can cure Dad’s Alzheimer’s?”

“No, but the chocolate is bound to be good for him.”

“That’s true.” Lisa gave a little laugh. “And even if your cookies don’t give us any answers, they’ll be a lovely birthday present for him.”

After Lisa left, Hannah got the coffee shop ready for customers. This meant filling the sugar and artificial sweetener containers that sat on each table and setting out dishes with coffee creamer. Once the napkin dispensers were filled and the tables were wiped down a final time, Hannah sat down at her favorite table in the back of the coffee shop and waited for Luanne to arrive.

Nothing was moving on the street except Jon Walker’s old Irish setter, who was strolling from the drugstore up the block. Jon was nowhere in sight, so Hannah unlocked the front door of the coffee shop and went out to intercept Skippy. But just as she got there, Jon appeared at the end of the block with a leash in hand. A handsome man of Chippewa ancestry, Jon was the town druggist and the owner of Lake Eden Neighborhood Pharmacy.

“Hi, Jon,” Hannah greeted him.

“Morning, Hannah. Skippy started without me this morning. By the time I grabbed the leash, he was halfway up the block and headed for your place.”

“He must have smelled the cookies. Want to come in and have one?”

“Sure. Skippy, too? I can take him back to the drugstore if you don’t want him inside.” Jon bent down and snapped on the leash.

“Skippy, too. The health board’s never around this early, and technically I’m still closed so it doesn’t matter anyway.”

Once Jon was settled in a chair with two of his favorite Molasses Crackles and a mug of coffee, and Skippy was sitting at his feet with one of the dog biscuits Hannah kept for visiting dogs, she asked the question she’d been planning to ask him ever since she’d seen the pill in the cottage Gus Klein had inhabited so briefly at the lake. “I saw someone take a pill the other night and I’m wondering what it was. I found another one the next day, so I got a good look at it.”

“Do I want to know who took the pill and where you saw it?”

“Not really.”

“Okay. What did it look like?”

“It was a capsule. One end was green and the other end was white.”

“A green-and-white capsule,” Jon repeated. “Was it a regular size capsule, or a really skinny one?”

Hannah thought about that for a moment. “I think it was a regular size. Mother used to take gelatin capsules to make her nails stronger. It was that size.”

“Regular, then. How about markings? Did you see any?”

“There was something there, but it was blurred and I couldn’t make it out.”

“Do you know the difference between a capsule and a caplet?”

“I think so. Caplets are solid, right?”

“Right. But this capsule you saw was one you could have pulled apart like your Mother’s gelatin capsules?”

“That’s right. Do you have any idea what it was?”

“I may have, if you described it accurately.” Jon leaned a little closer, even though the coffee shop wasn’t open yet and there was no one else at the tables. “Does this have anything to do with the murder out at the pavilion?”

“Uh…” Hannah dithered for about two seconds and then she decided to play it straight. “It may have. I don’t know for sure.”

Jon covered his eyes with his hands. “I wish you hadn’t said that, Hannah. You could be asking me to give you information that I should be giving to the sheriff’s department.”

“Have they asked you anything about green-and-white capsules?”

“No.”

“I don’t think they will, since I’m the only one who saw it and I flushed it down the drain so the frog couldn’t get it.”

Jon gave a little groan. “I’m not even going to ask you about the frog. It’s too early in the day. You’re going to owe me big time for this, Hannah.”

“How about a dozen Molasses Crackles?”

“You got it. But you don’t really have to give me cookies. As long as I’m not breaking any laws, I’ll be happy to tell you anything I know.”

“Great! Tell me, please?”

“It’s like I said before…if your description is accurate, it sounds like an amphetamine capsule to me.”

“Really!” Hannah began to frown. “What, exactly, does an amphetamine do?”

“It increases heart rate, decreases appetite, and makes you feel alert. It used to be prescribed as a diet pill, but it has addictive properties and some nasty side effects, like sleeplessness and occasional hallucinations. It’s more tightly regulated now.”

“Then the pill I saw couldn’t have been an over-the-counter antacid?”

Jon shook his head. “I don’t think so, not unless it’s something so new I haven’t seen it yet. I know I don’t have any antacids like that at the store.”

“Okay,” Hannah said. “Thanks, Jon. You’ve helped me a lot. Hold on a second and I’ll pack up some Molasses Crackles for you.”

A few minutes later, Hannah saw Jon and Skippy out the door with a dozen Molasses Crackles, two more dog biscuits, and the steak bone she’d been saving for the Malamute who lived next to Lisa and Herb’s neighbors. She still didn’t understand what Gus had been doing with an amphetamine and why he’d called it an antacid, but she didn’t have time to think about that right now. She had to bake another couple of batches of Red Velvet Cookies before the birthday party tonight, catch Gus Klein’s killer without alienating Mike in the process, go out to the lake to make three batches of Wanmansita Casserole to serve at Jack’s party, and check on her wayward cat to make sure he was still behaving. She knew she could do it, but it would take all the energy she had to give, and then some!

ROCKY ROAD BAR COOKIES (S’MORES)

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

24 graham crackers (12 double ones)

2 cups miniature marshmallows (white, not colored)

6-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips (1 cup)

1 cup salted cashews

½ cup butter (1 stick, ¼ pound)

½ cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Spray a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan with Pam or other nonstick spray. (If you like, buy a disposable foil pan in the grocery store, place it on a cookie sheet to support the bottom, and then you won’t have to clean up.)

Line the bottom of the pan with a layer of graham crackers. (It’s okay to overlap a bit.)

Sprinkle the graham crackers with the marshmallows.

Sprinkle the marshmallows with the chocolate chips.

Sprinkle the chocolate chips with the cashews.

In a small saucepan over low heat, combine the butter and brown sugar. Stir the mixture constantly until the sugar is dissolved.

Turn off the heat, move the saucepan to a cool burner, and stir in the vanilla.

Drizzle the contents of the saucepan evenly over the contents of the cake pan.