Peach Cobbler Murder (4 page)

“Time for my dinner,” Hannah announced, entering the kitchen again. She was wearing her winter at-home outfit, a cardinal red long-sleeved sweatshirt with matching drawstring pants. “Are you going to be a pest if I have a Klondike Salad?”

Moishe regarded her with the most innocent of expressions, as if he had absolutely no interest in what she was doing as she took a can of red sockeye salmon from the cupboard and opened it. Hannah harbored no illusion that his disinterest would last any longer than the first whiff of fish-scented air that reached his nostrils. Moishe loved salmon, especially the most expensive kind the Red Owl Grocery had to offer.

True to form, Moishe was rubbing against her ankles before Hannah had drained the salmon. She scraped off the silver skin to save for him, along with the soft column of backbones. Then she flaked the salmon into a salad bowl and put a small bag of frozen green peas in the microwave. While the peas were cooking, she grated a quarter of an onion and added it to the salmon. Then she peeled an chopped two of the hard-boiled eggs she always kept as a staple in the refrigerator, cooled the cooked peas by immersing them in ice water, and added everything to her bowl. Mayonnaise was next, mixed with a little sweet pickle juice for flavor. A few grindings of pepper from her pepper mill and her salad was finished.

Hannah carried her salad to the living room and took her favorite seat on the couch. Moishe, merely to be friendly of course, jumped up to sit right next to her and leaned over so that his nose was only inches from her bowl.

“I wonder why they call it Klondike Salad,” Hannah mused, picking up her cat and moving him a safe distance away. “I guess it’s because a lot of salmon comes from Alaska.”

Hannah savored every mouthful and Moishe watched her do it. This went on for several minutes until Hannah couldn’t stand seeing Moishe track her fork from the bowl to her mouth and then back again one more time. She got the scraps she’d saved for him and put them in a bowl on the coffee table. She was just sitting down again when her phone rang.

“Is it Mother?” Hannah asked the cat whose tail had suddenly swelled into a bush. Moishe wasn’t fond of Delores Swensen and he’d shredded several pairs of her panty hose to prove it. As the phone rang again, Moishe’s hackles rose and he arched his back like a Halloween cat. It was definitely her mother, Hannah decided, and she reached for the phone. “Hello, Mother,” she said.

“Hannah! I’m so glad you’re home!”

Delores was breathing hard, in loud little gasps, and Hannah went on instant alert. “Are you all right/”

“No! Something horrible happened and I‘m still reeling in shock! I came within an inch of having a coronary!”

The mother who was not known for understatement sounded truly panic-stricken, and Hannah’s pulse sped up to crisis rhythm. This could be a real emergency. “What happened?”

“There was a mouse in my hall closet! I just went to hang up my coat and it . . . it ran over my foot! You’ve got to help me, Hannah!”

“I see,” Hannah said, although she didn’t. What did her mother expect her to do? Drive over and chase the mouse out of her house? “Don’t panic, Mother. A mouse can be a nuisance, but it can’t hurt you.”

“I know that. It’s just that it touched me! You don’t know how that makes me feel, Hannah. My skin is just crawling!”

“I’m sorry it upset you, Mother. Do you still have that package of traps Dad kept in the garage?”

“They’re on the shelf, but I just can’t bring myself to use one. Mousetraps are so cruel.”

“Not if you bait them right. Put a little glob of peanut butter right in the center of the bait tray so the mouse’s neck is in the right position. Then when he nibbles, the bail snaps forward and . . . “

“I don’t want to hear it!” Delores interrupted her daughter’s description. “I refuse to use mousetraps, Hannah. They’re inhumane.”

“Whatever you say, Mother. But you said you wanted my help. What do you expect me to do?”

“I thought you could bring Moishe over here and he could take care of the problem. It’s only a few miles and you told me he was a good mouser.”

“You want Moishe to catch your mouse?” Hannah couldn’t believe her ears. The woman who thought mousetraps were inhumane preferred letting Hannah’s mean feline killing machine loose on her tiny rodent?

“I’ll make it worth his while. I’ve got a package of shrimp in the freezer. You can take it with you when he’s done and he can have a nice treat when he gets home.”

Hannah started to chortle. “You want to hire my cat as an assassin and pay him off in frozen shrimp?”

“You don’t have to put it quite that way. But really, dear . . . I’ve always hated mice and I won’t get a wink of sleep tonight knowing that it’s running around loose.”

Hannah sighed. That was probably true. The sleeping mind could play all sorts of tricks. Her mother might dream that she was being chased by a giant rodent and really have a heart attack.

“Hold on and I’ll talk it over with Moishe,” Hannah said, unwilling to cave in too easily and encourage more requests for help from her mother. Coaxing Moishe into his traveling crate wasn’t easy, and listening to him complain as she drove to town wouldn’t be pleasant.

“You have to talk it over with a cat? For heaven’s sake, Hannah! You’re acting as if he’s your child!”

“He’s better than a child. Think about it, Mother. Moishe doesn’t ask for an allowance, he eats cold food straight out of the can, he toilet trained himself, and he’s never going to need money for college.”

There was silence for a moment and then Delores started to laugh. There were times when her sense of humor won out over her oh-so-proper exterior. Hannah was grinning as she turned to her cat, who was sitting on the coffee table grooming his tail. “What do you say, Moishe? Are you in the mood to do a little mouse hunting for hire?”

As she said the word mouse, Moishe’s ears tipped toward her, swiveling like miniature satellite dishes. Hannah turned back to the phone. “He’s definitely interested,” she reported.

“Then you’ll come?”

“Of course I’ll come,” Hannah said, wondering why out of three daughters, a son-in-law, and whole phone book of friends, Delores always called her when there was a problem.

“Why is he hissing like that?” Delores asked, leaning down to peer into the cat carrier. “Do you think he smells the mouse?”

No, he sees you, Hannah thought but she didn’t say it. It was probably best if her mother didn’t now how much Moishe disliked her. “He’s not fond of traveling,” Hannah excused her bristling, hissing pet. And that was a masterful understatement, since her ears were still ringing from Moishe’s nonstop yowls of protest all the way from her condo garage to her mother’s driveway. “Where’s the mouse?”

“In the guest room. He dashed out of the closet and ran in there. I chased after him and shut the door.”

Hannah Moishe through her mother’s living room, a pale blue room filled with museum-quality antiques and artwork. It was immaculate, as always. Delores didn’t clean it herself. Marjorie Hanks, Luanne’s mother, came in to polish, dust, wash, and wax every Tuesday and every Friday. In high school science, Hannah had learned that nature abhorred a vacuum and the same could be said for her mother.

“Is it heavy?” Delores asked, as Hannah set the carrier down in the hallway for a moment to get a better grip.

“Yes,” Hannah answered, not mentioning that it was one of the more inane question she’d ever heard. She hoisted her hissing burden, carried him to the guest room door, and set him down again with a grunt. “Okay. He’s ready to go.”

“He doesn’t look very happy about it,” Delores said, peering in through the grate again.

“He’ll be okay once I let him out of the carrier, but I’d better supervise to make sure nothing gets knocked over. And I think we should shut the door behind us so the mouse can’t escape.”

Hannah glanced up at her mother. She was a bit concerned about what would happen when she let Moishe out of his carrier. If Delores was in the room with them, he might just decide to shred her stockings before he hunted down the visiting rodent. “You don’t want to come in with us and watch, do you?”

“Good heavens, no!” Delores looked horrified. “I’ll go put on a pot of coffee. You can come and get me when it’s over.”

“It just about killed Moishe not to go for that mouse, but he sat there like a miniature statue of the Sphinx and let it run circles around him,” Hannah reported to Lisa as they had an early morning cup of coffee at their favorite table in the back of The Cookie Jar. “I know he wanted it. He was making that excited little ack-ack sound in his throat, the one he always makes right before he pounces on a bug.”

“That’s really strange, especially because he’s such a good mouser. Do you think the strange surroundings threw him off?”

“I guess that could have been a factor, but I don’t think so. I’m almost positive he knew he’d be catching that mouse as a favor to Delores.”

“And he didn’t want to do a favor for someone he didn’t like?”

“Right. Do you think I’m crazy for attributing such a complicated motive to a cat?”

Lisa shook her head. “Moishe’s not just any cat. He’s the smartest cat I’ve ever met and it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if you were right. Was your mother upset when he didn’t get rid of her mouse?”

“She doesn’t know. I told her she didn’t have to worry about the mouse anymore, and I made sure the guest room door was open when we left. I’m hoping it’ll go out the same way it got in.”

“How about if she sees it again?”

“She’ll think it’s a different mouse. It’s not like they wear name tags, you know. And that might be enough to convince her to let me come over and set traps.”

The phone shrilled sharply and Hannah exchanged glances with Lisa. It could be someone with a catering order, but there hadn’t been any catering orders for a least a week.

“Your mother?” Lisa asked.

“Mother,” Hannah said at the very same time.

The two friends and business partners laughed. Then Hannah got up to answer the phone, hoping that the call had nothing to do with the reappearing mice. “Hello, Mother.”

“How did you know it was me?” Delores asked. “It could have been someone with a catering order.”

“I don’t think there’s much chance of that.”

“You’re right, and that’s why I called. I was in the Magnolia Blossom Bakery yesterday and it was wall-to-wall people. They’re cutting into your business, aren’t they?”

“You could say that.”

“That’s what I was afraid of. We tasted their cobbler and it wasn’t anything special. I think that you should make a peach cobbler and give those two a run for their money.”

Hannah was silent for a moment. The idea of fighting fire with fire appealed to her. The population of Lake Eden in the winter wasn’t large enough to support two bakeries and that meant the Magnolia Blossom had to go.

“What do you think? Will you do it? The Lake Eden Quilting Society meets tomorrow afternoon and I’m in charge of refreshments. I thought I’d order a pan of peach cobbler from Shawna Lee and Vanessa, and a pan of peach cobbler from you. We can serve them side by side and the girls can compare.”

“I’ll do it,” Hannah said. She was spoiling for a showdown, just like John Wayne in The Shootist. “This town’s not big enough for the both of us.”

“The meeting’s at one, so I’ll pick up the cobbler right before I leave Granny’s Attic.”

“You don’t have to do that. I can deliver it.”

“But isn’t that your busy time?”

“Not anymore.”

“Oh. Well, maybe we can change that. One other thing dear . . . I picked up another package of shrimp for Moishe. He enjoyed it, didn’t he?”

“There’s nothing left but the empty package.” Hannah told the absolute truth, but not all of it. Moishe had refused to touch the shrimp and Hannah had ended up making shrimp gumbo for tonight’s dinner.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the way he got rid f that mouse!”

“And I can’t tell you what fun he had,” Hannah countered. That was true, too. She couldn’t tell her mother about the fun that Moishe hadn’t had.

After Hannah had said good-bye and hung up the phone, she turned to find Lisa staring at her curiously. “Sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear your part of the conversation. Did your mother just give you a catering order?”

“Yes, for peach cobbler. She’s ordering one pan form us, and one from the Magnolia Blossom Bakery. The ladies in the Lake Eden Quilting Society are going to compare them.”

“It sounds like a Bake-Off where the contestants all have to make the same dish.”

”With one important difference,” Hannah said, looking slightly abashed. “I was so excited at the prospect of facing down Shawna Lee and Vanessa, I forgot that I’d never made a peach cobbler before in my life!”

“Definitely better,” Andrea said, popping another spoonful of Hannah’s peach cobbler into her mouth. “You won, Hannah!”

“What do you think, Tracey?” Hannah asked her five-year-old niece, who’d just gotten out of school.

“It’s yummy.” Tracey nodded so hard, her blond curls bounced. “Can you bake this for my birthday, Aunt Hannah?”

“Sure, Hannah promised. Tracey’s birthday was in September and this was February. Tracey would probably change her mind several times in the interim.

“But I always make you a Jell-O Cake for your birthday,” Andrea reminded her, sounding a bit hurt.

“I know, Mommy. And that’s what I want for my regular birthday cake. Your Jell-O Cake is my very favorite. But I was wondering if maybe, since it’s my birthday, I could have two desserts.”

“Well . . . I think that might be arranged,” Andrea said.

Hannah noticed that her sister was all smiles again. She’d long thought that her niece would make a great candidate for the diplomatic corps and now she was even more convinced.

Every chair at the back of the coffee shop was filled for this important taste testing. Lisa had called in Hannah’s most ardent fans. Lisa’s husband-to-be was there, of course. And once Herb had learned the purpose of Lisa’s urgent summons, he’d stopped at the community center library to pick up his mother, Marge Beeseman, and Lisa’s father, Jack Herman.