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Authors: Joanne Fluke

Double Fudge Brownie Murder (Hannah Swensen series Book 18) (18 page)

BOOK: Double Fudge Brownie Murder (Hannah Swensen series Book 18)
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“Because he can’t get out.”
“Do you have any loose screens?” Mike asked her.
“I could have loose screens, but they wouldn’t do him any good. I never leave any windows open when I leave the condo in the morning.”
“Is there any other way you can think of that Moishe could be using to get out?”
Hannah shook her head. “No. I always check the windows to make sure they’re closed and locked. And right after I step out on the landing, I check the door to make sure it’s locked.”
“And there’s no other entrance or exit to your apartment?”
“No.” Hannah frowned slightly. Mike was acting as the interrogator again and she didn’t like it. “You’ve been there enough times to know that all I have is the one staircase.”
“How about a dryer vent? That would have access to the outside.”
“That’s true,” Hannah conceded. “But I close my dryer door after I use it and it’s still hooked up to the vent. I know because I used it last night and it was working just fine.”
“An attic?”
“I have an attic. It serves the whole building. But the only way to get up there is to go through a little trap door in the ceiling of my bedroom walk-in closet.”
“Have you checked that trap door lately?”
Hannah thought about that for a moment. “Actually . . . no. I’ll check it as soon as I get home.”
“If that’s not it, call me,” Mike said, looking amused. “I’ve got a new surveillance system that a security company asked me to test for them. I’ll come over and install it at your place and we’ll make sure that Moishe isn’t getting out.”
“Thanks, Mike,” Hannah said, and this time she was totally genuine in her gratitude. If Moishe was getting out during the day, she wanted to know about it so she could cut off his escape route and keep him safely at home.
Chapter Seventeen
 
S
he was getting dressed for church in a phone booth. It wasn’t an ordinary phone booth like the ones they had outside city hall in Lake Eden. This phone booth had stained glass on three sides, very like the church windows in Reverend Bob’s church. And now that she looked, she noticed that there were pews in front of the fourth side of the phone booth, the one with clear glass.
The pews were beginning to fill up with people. As she watched, Hannah realized she had to hurry to get ready or church would start without her. She turned to Ross, who was in the phone booth with her, and handed him his tuxedo jacket. Now Ross was ready, but she wasn’t. Where was her wedding gown? She couldn’t get married like this!
There was laughter from the front pew. Bertie Straub. Hannah recognized her laugh. Rod Metcalf sat beside her and he was taking photos. They would be in tomorrow’s paper and she couldn’t find her wedding gown. She searched the phone booth, but it wasn’t there. Had she left it at home in her closet?
And now the phone was ringing, one ring, two rings. She had no choice. She was forced to answer it.
She reached out and her fingers touched the phone on her bed table.
Her bed table.
It was a dream, but the phone was still ringing.
“Hello,” she managed to say, sitting up in bed and shaking her head to clear it.
“Hannah? Did I wake you?”
It was Mike. Was he real, or was he part of her dream?
She wasn’t in the phone booth any longer and she was wearing the sleep shirt she usually wore when she went to bed. “What time is it?” she managed to ask.
“Eight o’clock. I called The Cookie Jar, but Michelle said you weren’t in yet.”
Hannah glanced at her alarm clock. Mike was right. It was eight o’clock. Michelle must have turned off her alarm so that she could sleep late again.
“I
did
wake you, didn’t I?” Mike sounded apologetic, a rarity for him.
Hannah hurried to reassure him. “Yes, but I’m glad you did. I have to get up and get started. I have a ton of things to do today.”
“Don’t we all!” Mike gave an audible sigh. “Did you get a chance to check that trap door in your closet?”
For a moment, Hannah was at a loss. What was he talking about? Then she remembered why he’d asked about the trap door. “I checked it when I got home last night. It was closed.”
“And there’s no way Moishe could have opened it to get up there, and closed it when he came down?”
Hannah laughed. “He’s smart, but he’s not
that
smart.”
“Right. I was just exploring all the possibilities. I brought that surveillance system with me to work this morning. If you want me to, I can run out there and install it right now. It should only take ten or fifteen minutes.”
“That’d be great!”
“Then I’ll leave here in five and you’ll see me in twenty. Does that work for you?”
“Perfectly,” Hannah said. “Thanks, Mike.”
Five minutes later, she had gulped her first cup of coffee and was stepping into the shower. Ten minutes later, she was dressed and back in the kitchen, wondering what she could fix for breakfast. That was when she saw the note Michelle had left propped up between the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table.
Baked Fruited Oatmeal in the oven. Lisa picked me up again this morning and we’ve got it covered. Take your time coming in.
 
Hannah glanced over at her double ovens. The bottom one was set on WARM and the light was on. She could see a casserole dish inside and it was obviously filled with baked oatmeal. What in the world was baked oatmeal? She’d never heard of it before. It would be good. She knew that. Everything Michelle made was good.
A second or two later, she opened the oven door with a spoon in hand. As she did, a wonderful scent drifted out to entice her and she dipped in her spoon to taste the breakfast dish that Michelle had created. Once she’d blown on her spoon several times to cool it, she tasted the baked oatmeal. “Cinnamon,” she said aloud. “And vanilla, and brown sugar. And . . . apricots!” The complexity of flavors was wonderful. Michelle’s Baked Fruited Oatmeal was utterly delicious.
She wanted a whole bowlful immediately, but Hannah forced herself to put the lid back in place and have another cup of coffee instead. She’d wait for Mike and once he’d installed the surveillance system, they could enjoy Michelle’s breakfast dish together.
 
“I like your baked oatmeal,” Hannah said, the instant her youngest sister came into the kitchen of The Cookie Jar. “Mike liked it, too. He came over to install the surveillance system and said he hadn’t had time for breakfast, so I gave him a bowlful. He told me he doesn’t usually like oatmeal, but your oatmeal is the exception.”
“Mike doesn’t seem like the oatmeal type. Are you sure he wasn’t just being polite?”
“I don’t think so. He had three helpings.”
Michelle laughed. “Then he must have liked it. I’ll give you the recipe if you want it.”
“I want it. How are the cookies holding out?”
“We’re okay so far, but we’ll probably blow through what we have left when the noon rush comes in.”
“Then I’d better start baking.”
“Good idea. I’ll help you.”
“But don’t you have to go out there?” Hannah gestured toward the swinging door that led to the coffee shop.
“Not really. Aunt Nancy’s out there and she said she’d stay and help Lisa. She wants to meet you later.”
“I want to meet her, too. I’d like to thank her for all the recipes she’s given us. We use a lot of them here.”
Michelle smiled. “She noticed that right away. She asked Lisa if the spice cookies she was serving were made with her Secret Spice Cookie recipe.”
“Was she pleased when Lisa told her that they were?”
“
Pleased
isn’t the word. She was practically ecstatic, especially when she realized that people were trying to guess what the secret spice was.”
“That’s a great recipe and so are all the others she gave us. Is she all moved in?”
“She’s in, but she hasn’t unpacked everything yet. Right now she’s looking for someone who can build floor-to-ceiling bookcases for her kitchen.”
Hannah was surprised. Most people had cookbooks in their kitchens, but they didn’t need a floor-to-ceiling bookcase to hold them. “She’s going to put a floor-to-ceiling bookcase in the kitchen?”
“That’s what she said, except think bigger. She’s going to cover one whole wall with floor-to-ceiling bookcases.”
“Why isn’t she putting her books in her living room?”
“She is. She’s having bookcases built for the living room, too. And her bedroom.”
“How many books does she have?”
“I asked her that and she said she had enough books to make two brawny movers weep.”
Hannah laughed. “I think I’m going to really like Aunt Nancy. So she’s going to put her overflow books from the bedroom and the living room into her kitchen?”
Michelle shook her head. “Oh, no. The kitchen bookcases are for her cookbooks. And she’s buying three file cabinets for her loose recipes.”
“Good heavens!”
“I know. We’ve got to go over and look at her place when everything’s unpacked. She might have even more recipes than you do.”
 
Two hours later, Hannah stood back and surveyed her work. The baker’s rack was full of cookies and she needed a break. She’d go out into the coffee shop to tell Lisa the cookies were ready and meet Aunt Nancy. If there were some tactful way to ask, she would find out how long Lisa’s aunt would be staying to help and if it was long enough, she’d ask Michelle to go with her to see Sheila Dortweiler, Judge Colfax’s ex-wife.
Just as Hannah was about to go into the coffee shop, Lisa came through the swinging door. “Oh, good!” she said eyeing the full baker’s rack. “We’re about to run out of cookies. Would you like to go up front and meet my Aunt Nancy?”
“I’d love to,” Hannah said. “Do you have any idea how long she’ll be here?”
“In Lake Eden? Or here at The Cookie Jar?”
“Here at The Cookie Jar. If she’ll stay to help you in the coffee shop, I’ll borrow Michelle and go to see Judge Colfax’s ex-wife.”
“She’ll be happy to stay until closing. As a matter of fact, she asked if she could. She wants to meet Herb and he wants to meet her, so he’s dropping by when he gets off work. After that, we planned to stop to see Dad and Marge, but I’ll call and ask them to meet us here. We can have coffee and cookies.”
“Then it’s okay if I take Michelle with me?”
“It’s fine. You two go ahead. Aunt Nancy really enjoys meeting new people and she caught on to the coffee shop routine right away. She’s always been very sociable and she’s helped us a lot this afternoon. If it’s okay with you, we might stick around after I close and bake a batch of cookies. She’s got a new recipe she wants to show me.”
“That’s fine with me,” Hannah said quickly.
“Oh, good! This is turning into a great day!” Lisa sounded happy and energized, an amazing feat for someone who’d already worked a nine-hour day and still had three hours to go. For the first time in her life, Hannah wished she were ten years younger. She’d been working for less than six hours and she was already craving mindless television and her comfortable living room couch.
“I’m going to invite Dad and Marge if they want to come over to our house for dinner tonight. I made a big pot of spaghetti sauce this morning and I’ve got Dad’s favorite garlic cheese bread all ready to stick in the oven. All I have to do is stop at the Red Owl to pick up salad fixings and Neapolitan ice cream for dessert.”
“Take some leftover cookies home with you,” Hannah told her. “You can have them with the ice cream.”
“Great idea! Aunt Nancy already said she’d come and we’ll have a family party.”
“Sounds like fun,” Hannah said, even more impressed with Lisa’s enthusiasm for what sounded like a lot more work for her.
“Oh, I know it’ll be fun! I’ll drag out the old photograph albums and if Dad is having a good day, he can tell us family stories.”
For one brief moment, Hannah felt sad for Jack Herman. Lisa’s father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and he had good days and not-so-good days. On good days he was almost his old self, a very bright and sociable man.
“Dad loves to tell the story about Uncle Buster and the fish,” Lisa went on. “That fish gets bigger every time he tells it!”
Hannah laughed. “That’s what usually happens with fish stories. The fish grow in drama, weight, and length. My dad had one he used to tell and Mother always said that the fish started out the size of a minnow and ended up the size of a whale.”
“Men are all the same when it comes to fish stories. Come up front with me and I’ll introduce you to Aunt Nancy. Then you and Michelle can leave. Grab a few cookies for the ex-Mrs. Colfax. It can’t hurt and it might make her put on the coffee and start talking to you.”
Hannah smiled and shook her head. “I’ll do it, but from what I’ve heard about Sheila Dortweiler, I’d need a whole display jar full of cookies to sweeten her up.”
BAKED FRUITED OATMEAL
 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
 
Michelle’s 1
st
Note: I got this recipe from Grandma Knudson. She told me it was another recipe from her granddaughter-in-law, Janelle.
2 large eggs
½ cup brown sugar
(pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
1 and ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup salted butter, melted
(1 stick, 4 ounces,
¼
pound)
1 cup whole milk
3 cups dry oatmeal
(either the original or the Quick 1-Minute) (I used Quaker Quick 1-Minute)
1 cup raisins or dried fruit
(your choice)
 
Grandma Knudson’s 1
st
Note: Janelle says everyone in her family likes dried blueberries in their Baked Oatmeal.
 
Lightly grease a 2-quart baking dish. Alternatively, you can spray it with Pam or another nonstick baking spray.
 
Crack the 2 eggs into the baking dish and whisk them up.
 
Add the brown sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and cinnamon. Mix until everything is well combined.
 
Stir in the melted butter.
 
Add the whole milk and stir it in.
 
Sprinkle in the oatmeal and the dried fruit. Stir until everything is well combined.
 
Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F. for 25 to 30 minutes or until the baked oatmeal is “set” in the center.
(This means that if you hold the baking dish with potholders and shake it gently, the center does not look as if it’s still liquid. If it does, bake it until the center is firm.)
 
If you’re not going to serve this oatmeal immediately, turn off the oven, put a cover on the dish, and leave it in the oven until everyone arrives for breakfast or brunch.
 
To serve, spoon the oatmeal into cereal bowls and accompany it with a pitcher of warm milk or cream. Alternatively, you can serve it with a dollop of vanilla yogurt and fresh fruit.
 
Michelle’s 2
nd
Note: My roommates at college like this with raspberries or strawberries. When Lonnie comes to visit, he likes his oatmeal made without fruit and he slices a banana to put on top of his bowl.
 
Grandma Knudson’s 2
nd
Note: I make this on Saturday night, cover it with plastic wrap, and stick it in the refrigerator. Then, when I get up early on Sunday morning, I take off the plastic wrap and set it out on the counter for 30 minutes or so to warm up. Then I bake it so that Claire and Bob have a hearty breakfast before Sunday School and morning church services.
 
BOOK: Double Fudge Brownie Murder (Hannah Swensen series Book 18)
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