Fudge Cupcake Murder (31 page)

A few moments later, they were back in the office. Beatrice was adding up Hannah's purchases when the phone rang. "Hold on just a second, Hannah. That might be Ted and I want to tell him you figured out the cupcakes."

"Ted's Salvage," Beatrice greeted her caller. "Oh, hello, honey! Are you and Krista all ready for your big performance tonight?"

Hannah smiled. It was obvious that Beatrice was talking to her granddaughter, Leah.

"Oh, dear! Is there anything I can do to help?" Beatrice listened for a moment. "Of course I can, honey. I'll be there just as soon as your grandpa comes back."

"What's the matter?" Hannah asked, as Beatrice hung up the phone.

"It's Leah. She tore the wing on her bat costume and she can't seem to sew it back on right. And her mother's not home."

"So you're going to go over and help her?"

"Just as soon as Ted gets back. I'd close up right now, but he's waiting for an important shipment of scrap cars. He needs to dismantle them to get the parts he needs for his big customer in Minneapolis. There's no way we want to disappoint him!"

"He's an important customer?"

"He accounts for over half of our business. There's no way we could turn a profit if he ordered from someone else."

"He must buy a lot of car parts."

"I'll say! He faxes every Monday morning with a long list of car parts for Ted to locate and ship to him."

"Locate?" Hannah was curious. She knew nothing about the auto salvage business.

"That's right. I'm not exactly sure how Ted does it, but he must call around to the other auto salvage places to find the things he doesn't have here. I know he always gets all the parts by the end of the week and ships them off on Saturday morning."

Something niggled at the back of Hannah's mind, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what it was. There was something she had to ask Beatrice, or Ted. Perhaps she should offer to stay until Ted got back. She might think of it by then.

"Go and help Leah," Hannah said, acting on her impulse. "I'll stay here and wait for Ted. I want to see his face when he tastes those cupcakes."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive. Just tell me what to do when the transport comes in."

"There's nothing to it," Beatrice said, grabbing a clipboard and setting it on the counter next to the cash register. "The driver knows where to unload, so that's no problem. It'll be that area right in front of the big metal shed. That's where Ted does the dismantling."

"Got it," Hannah said.

"All you have to do is sign the receipt, give it back to the driver, and keep the bill of lading for Ted. Just put it on this clipboard on the counter."

"How about customers? Do you want me to try to find the parts they need?"

Beatrice shook her head. "That's too much trouble. I don't think you'll have any customers this late, but if you do, just tell them to wait until Ted gets back, or to come back tomorrow. "

"Will do. Anything else?"

"One thing. When Ted gets back, tell him what happened with Leah's costume. And then give him a cupcake right away, so he won't be mad at me for leaving. Do you want me to plug in the heater before I go?"

"No, I don't think I'll need it. I'll just run out to the truck to get my jacket."

Hannah glanced at the clock as Beatrice hurried to her car and drove away. It was already after six and she'd promised to pick up Tracey and Karen at seven-thirty. If Ted didn't get back soon, she wouldn't have time to run home to feed Moishe. Of course, a late dinner wouldn't exactly kill him, especially when he'd had such a nice omelet this morning. If he got hungry enough waiting for his personal gourmet chef, he might just eat some of the senior nuggets in his bowl to tide him over.

Fudge Cupcakes

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

4 squares unsweetened baking chocolate (1 ounce each)

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 cup raspberry syrup (for pancakes-I used Knott's red raspberry)

1 2/3 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, room temperature (one stick, 1/4 pound)

1 1/2 cups white sugar (not a misprint-you'll use 1 3/4 cups sugar in all)

3 eggs

1/3 cup milk

Line a 12-cup muffin pan with double cupcake papers. Since this recipe makes 18 cupcakes, you can use an additional 6-cup muffin pan lined with double papers, or you can butter and flour an 8-inch square cake pan or the equivalent.

Microwave the chocolate, raspberry syrup and јcup sugar in a microwave-safe bowl on high for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave again for another minute. At this point, the chocolate will be almost melted, but it will maintain its shape. Stir the mixture until smooth and let cool to lukewarm. (You can also do this in a double boiler on the stove.)

Measure flour, mix in baking soda and salt, and set aside. In an electric mixer (or with a VERY strong arm), beat the butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar until light and fluffy. (About 3 minutes with a mixer-an additional 2 minutes if you're doing it by hand.) Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition to make sure they're thoroughly incorporated. Add approximately a third of the flour mixture and a third of the milk. (You don't have to be exact-adding the flour and milk in increments makes the batter smoother.) When that's all mixed in, add another third of the flour and another third of the milk. When that's incorporated, add the remainder of the flour and the remainder of the milk. Mix thoroughly.

Test your chocolate mixture to make sure it's cool enough to add. (You don't want to cook the eggs!) If it's fairly warm to the touch but not so hot you have to pull your hand away, you can add it at this point. Stir thoroughly and you're done.

Let the batter rest for five minutes. Then stir it again by hand and fill each cupcake paper three-quarters full. If you decided to use the 8-inch cake pan instead of the 6-cup muffin tin, fill it with the remaining batter.

Bake the cupcakes in a 350 degree F. oven for 20 to 25 minutes. The 8-inch cake should bake an additional 5 minutes.

Fudge Frosting

18 cupcakes, or 12 cupcakes and 1 small cake, cooled to room temperature and ready to frost.

2 cups chocolate chips (a 12-ounce package)

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

If you use a double boiler for this frosting, it's foolproof. You can also make it in a heavy saucepan over low to medium heat on the stovetop, but you'll have to stir it constantly with a spatula to keep it from scorching.

Fill the bottom part of the double boiler with water. Make sure it doesn't touch the underside of the top.

Put the chocolate chips in the top of the double boiler, set it over the bottom, and place the double boiler on the stovetop at medium heat. Stir occasionally until the chocolate chips are melted.

Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk and cook approximately two minutes, stirring constantly, until the frosting is shiny and of spreading consistency.

Spread on cupcakes, making sure to fill in the "frosting pocket."

Give the frosting pan to your favorite person to scrape.

These cupcakes are even better if you cool them, cover them, and let them sit for several hours before frosting them.

Hannah stared out the window at the highway in the distance and tapped her fingers against the counter. It was almost six-thirty and Ted still wasn't here. There also hadn't been any sign of his transport and Hannah was beginning to wish she hadn't volunteered to take Beatrice's place.

It was cold in the trailer and Hannah pulled her bomber jacket a little closer around her shoulders. Perhaps she should have taken Beatrice up on her offer to plug in the heater. It was going to be a cold night. The moment the sun had gone down, the wind had picked up in velocity. By now it was just about as fierce as a fall wind could get.

Gusting winds rattled the metal walls of the trailer and sent dead leaves skittering under the hulks of wrecked cars like thousands of miniature mechanics, trying to fix the impossible. At least it was a lot warmer inside than it was outside. When Hannah had dashed out to her truck to get her jacket and try the cigarette lighter in the hole in her dash, she thought she'd smelled a hint of snow in the air.

Hannah's Grandma Ingrid always claimed she could smell snow coming, and attempted to teach Hannah how to do it. Hannah had memories of sitting in a porch swing on the Swensen family farm, wrapped up in a warm quilt with her grandmother, so they could smell the freezing air. There had been a barely detectible odor. Hannah had smelled it. When she'd asked what it was, Grandma Ingrid couldn't identify it by name, but she'd insisted that whenever Hannah smelled that scent on the wind, it was going to snow.

Bright lights flashed as a vehicle turned off the highway. Hannah watched, her expectations high, as it came down the access road toward the scrap yard. As it approached the gates, Hannah could see that it was the kind of truck used to haul cars. She zipped up her bomber jacket and headed out the door to greet the driver. The transport was here at last.

The driver gave her a wave and proceeded to unload the cars, exactly as Beatrice had said he would. Hannah stood at the window and watched him do it, smiling at the ease with which he backed the big truck down the narrow road that led to the dismantling shed. But when the driver began to unload the cars, her smile turned to a puzzled frown. She was certainly no expert, but they looked much too nice to be sold as scrap and dismantled. There must be something seriously wrong with each of them that wasn't immediately apparent to the casual observer.

Once he'd finished, the driver climbed back into his rig and drove up to the trailer again. Hannah walked out to the driver's window, signed her name to the receipt he had on his clipboard, and took the bill of lading he handed her.

"Gonna be a cold one tonight," the driver said.

"Sure seems like it," Hannah answered.

"New here?" the driver asked, staring at her hard, as if to memorize her features. "I talked to Ted this morning and he said he'd be here."

"He had to go out on a tow, and I'm just filling in for his wife. She had a family emergency."

"Okay," the driver said, giving her a half salute before he rolled up his window. Then he put his truck into gear and pulled forward, heading for the gates.

Hannah watched his taillights until he'd navigated the access road and turned back onto the highway. Then she carried the bill of lading into the trailer and found the clipboard Beatrice had placed on the counter. She was just about to clip it on when she happened to notice the list under it.

It had to be from the man in Minneapolis. Hannah ran her finger down the neat column of typing and counted the items. Ted's customer must own a chain of repair shops. There was no way one shop could use all these parts in a week.

Hannah glanced at the top of the fax and began to frown. It had been sent from Words, Etc., a company that placed kiosks in malls so that customers could have faxes sent, copies made, and computer disks printed. But wouldn't a large chain of repair shops have at least one with a fax machine? Hannah stared down at the list of parts again and compared it to the receipt for the cars the transport driver had delivered. Every one of the items on the car parts order could be obtained by dismantling the cars that looked too good to be sold as salvage.

The pieces of Sheriff Grant's murder puzzle began to turn and jostle for position in Hannah's mind. It was possible that Ted had bought these cars from other junkyards, but she was still disturbed by their like-new condition. What if there was nothing wrong with them? What if the cars had been stolen to fill the order from the man in Minneapolis? And what if Ted and Beatrice's newfound prosperity came from running a chop shop for stolen cars?

Hannah glanced at the receipt again. It listed the cars as salvage, but didn't you need a pink slip to sell a junk car? The driver hadn't handed her any of those. She zipped up her bomber jacket again and ran out to check, but the glove compartments in all four cars were as empty as the interiors. Was she right about the pink slips? Hannah wasn't a hundred percent sure, but it was too late to call the D.M.V. today and she didn't want to wait until Monday morning.

The moment Hannah thought of it, she picked up the phone and dialed Eleanor Cox's number. Eleanor had been the head clerk at the D.M.V. for almost twenty years before she retired, and she was bound to know the answer.

"Hi, Eleanor," Hannah said when her call was answered, thanking her lucky stars that Eleanor was home.

"Hi, Hannah. What's on your mind?"

"I need to ask you a D.M.V. question. Does a person need a pink slip to sell a car for junk?"

"Is something wrong with your cookie truck that you're thinking of selling it for junk?"

"No, nothing's wrong. The question just came up, that's all. Do you know?"

"Of course I know. I didn't sit behind that counter at the D.M.V. for twenty years for nothing. Yes, you need a valid pink slip to prove ownership. The slip must be signed over to whoever takes possession of the vehicle, whether it's a used car lot, a private party, a donation to charity, or a salvage yard."

"How about if one salvage yard sells the car to another salvage yard?"

"The pink slip stipulations still apply," Eleanor said, sounding very official. "The vehicle cannot legally change hands without the pink slip."

"Thanks, Eleanor. You've been really…”

"It's not really pink, you know," Eleanor interrupted Hannah's comment. "Everybody always says that, but pink slips haven't been pink for years. But that's neither here nor there. It's downright creepy, Hannah."

"What's creepy?"

"It's just that Sheriff Grant called me on the day he was killed and asked me the very same questions."

Somehow Hannah managed to say goodbye and get off the phone. The pieces of the puzzle surrounding Sheriff Grant's death were spinning around a lot faster now. Car parts in Sheriff Grant's home office. The fact the sheriff hid Lonnie's stolen car report in his briefcase. Sheriff Grant's call to Eleanor to ask about the pink slips. All this made Hannah certain that the sheriff had been down the road she was traveling, the very same road that had led to his death. But who had killed him? The driver of the stolen car transport? The man in Minneapolis? Ted?!