The Root of All Evil (Hope Street Church Mysteries Book 4) (37 page)

A few beads of sweat appeared on Mrs. Farmer’s brow. “Mmmhmmm.”

“He found Angela’s prints on some of the items, but he only found one set on every item.”

Angela, who had been silent until now, leaned forward. “Whose prints were they?”

Cooper shrugged. “I don’t know. They don’t belong to any employee who was printed on Friday. So I’m just trying to think of anyone else who has access to this office and who might have a reason to want Angela fired. That person would also need to have access to the master key that opens all the employee lockers without the combinations . . . Perhaps someone who owns half the business and doesn’t appreciate the fact that her brother is currently in a relationship with Angela.”

Mrs. Farmer gasped. “You’re not suggesting that
I
would do such a thing.”

Angela stood. “Well, if she’s not, then I am! You framed me!”

“This is ridiculous! You have no proof!”

Mr. Farmer put up his hands to quiet her. “Bea, I know this is an awkward situation. But you have to admit . . . You have access to the office and the master locker key, and you haven’t exactly hidden your dislike for Angela.”

“You don’t believe this idiocy, do you?”

He looked to Cooper, who continued. “I know a great way to clear your name, Mrs. Farmer. We’ll get your fingerprints and compare them to that one set of prints on every stolen item. If you’re innocent, you’ve got nothing to fear, right?”

“I . . . I . . .” Mrs. Farmer’s face turned bright red. She stood and left the room in a flurry of anger and embarrassment.

Angela threw her arms around Cooper. “You did it, Coop!”

“I’m just sorry this happened at all,” Cooper replied. “And Mr. Farmer, I’m sorry I had to accuse your sister.”

Mr. Farmer shook his head. “Don’t be. She needs to learn to keep her meddling out of my life and out of my workplace, part owner or not. Angela, I can’t begin to—”

“You don’t have to say anything,” Angela insisted. “You believed in me. That’s enough. Now, Cooper . . .”

“Yes?”

“Don’t think I didn’t see that rock on your hand. Care to share?”

Magnolia’s Marvels

Salted Caramel Banana Cookies

Cookies:

¼cup shortening

8 oz. cream cheese

2 eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla

1½ teaspoons banana flavoring

1 package white cake mix

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup chopped pecans

Salted Caramel Sauce:

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tablespoons finely ground sea salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, cream shortening and cream cheese. Add the eggs, vanilla, and banana flavoring, and mix thoroughly. Slowly add the cake mix and cinnamon, careful not to overmix. Finally, add the pecans. Drop rounded teaspoons of the mixture onto a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 9 minutes, until the edges of the cookies just start to brown. Allow the cookies to cool completely. Drizzle with salted caramel sauce.

To make the salted caramel sauce, heat the sugar and butter over medium heat. Stir constantly, until the sugar is melted and the mixture is a light caramel color. Add the cream, still stirring constantly. Bring the sauce to a gentle boil and boil for 3 minutes, or until the caramel reaches firm ball stage. Remove the caramel sauce from the stove. Add the sea salt, and continue to stir, until the salt dissolves. Drizzle the salted caramel sauce over the cookies.

Chocolate Chip Cocoa Cookies

2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

Scant ½ teaspoon salt

3/4 cup shortening

1¼cups sugar

3/4 cup baking cocoa

2 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla

6 oz. mini chocolate chips

Mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream the shortening and sugar. Add the cocoa to the shortening and sugar, and blend thoroughly. Then, add the eggs and vanilla, mixing well. Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. The final mixture will have a consistency similar to cornmeal. Stir in the mini chocolate chips, and allow the mixture to set at room temperature for approximately 30 minutes.

Form the mixture into ¾-inch balls with your hands, and then firmly press your thumb into each ball. Place cookies on cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 7 minutes. Remove from oven and place 3 mini marshmallows in the thumb indentations. Return cookies to the oven for 1 more minute. Remove and place cookies on cooling rack.

Blackberry Cheesecake Bars

Shortbread:

3/4 cup butter

1/3 cup sugar

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon vanilla

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 cups flour

Cheesecake Spread:

8 oz. cream cheese

½ cup sour cream

¼ cup sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup whipping cream

2 egg yolks

Blackberry Topping:

3/4 cup quality blackberry jam

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. To make the shortbread, cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add baking soda, vanilla, and salt to the mixture. Slowly work in flour. Gently press the mixture into a lightly greased 9x13 cake pan. Bake for 16–20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Allow to cool completely before adding cheesecake spread.

To make the cheesecake spread, mix all ingredients except egg yolks in a pan. Slowly heat to a near-boil. Temper the egg yolks (see note below) and add to the heated mixture. Stir constantly, until the mixture begins to cool, and then pour over cooled shortbread. Refrigerate until completely cool and set. Finish with the blackberry topping.

NOTE: To temper the eggs, add a small amount of hot cheesecake mixture to the egg yolks, stirring constantly. Then add the egg mixture to the cream cheese mixture, again stirring constantly. This will prevent the eggs from “scrambling” when added to the hot cheesecake mixture.

To make the blackberry topping, heat the blackberry jam until it’s soft. Spread over the cooled cheesecake spread. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours, and cut into bars before serving.

In case you missed it,

keep reading for an excerpt

from the first book in the

Hope Street Church Mystery series

by Ellery Adams,

The Path of the Crooked
!

Cooper Lee was at a crossroads. Her boyfriend of five years had just left her for another woman, she was living in an apartment above her parents’ garage, and her job as a copier repairperson was feeling a little, well, repetitious. Hoping for a fresh start and a new outlook on life, she joins the Bible study group at Hope Street Church. The last thing she expects while studying the Bible is a lesson in murder.

When Brooke Hughes, the woman who first invited Cooper to Hope Street, is found murdered in her home, all signs point to her husband as the culprit. But Wesley Hughes was an elder at Hope Street Church, and the members of the Bible study are filled with disbelief that such a kind and loving man could take a life, much less his wife’s. Unwilling to let an innocent man and friend be railroaded into prison, the Bible group decides to investigate on their own.

As Cooper and this humorously diverse group of people—including a blind folk artist, a meteorologist with a taste for younger women, and a soft-spoken web designer who might be out to catch Cooper’s eye—dig deeper into the clues, they’re about to discover that finding the truth sometimes takes a leap of faith.

1

Cooper Lee was more comfortable with machines than people. She drove all over the city of Richmond, Virginia, to fix them. By the time she got to these copiers, laminators, or fax machines as they waited in their offices, hospitals, or schools, they were broken. Broken and quiet. Cooper would kneel beside them and meticulously lay out her tools, and as she did so the machines didn’t raise their brows in surprise or barely concealed amusement that a woman worked as an office-machine repairman. A thirty-two-year-old woman dressed in a man’s uniform shirt didn’t seem odd at all.

Most importantly, they never stared at her eyes.

Her left eye wasn’t worth a second look. It was a flat, almost colorless blue. No one would have dreamed of comparing it to sapphires or deep seas or cloudless summer skies. But the other eye, the eye Cooper had received through ocular transplant surgery after she’d been smashed in the face with a field hockey stick in junior high, was a shimmering green. It was exotic—invoking images of lush jungles flecked with firefly light or the green shallows of tropical waters.

That single moment at field hockey practice, when a girl on Cooper’s own team had accidentally swung her stick too high as she prepared to hit the ball with incredible force, made Cooper more self-conscious than other teenagers. Still, she wanted what most people want. She wished for one close friend, to be loved by someone she could grow old with, and for her life to have purpose. Cooper thought she had found all of those in her boyfriend, Drew. Until he dumped her.

Shaking off her gloomy thoughts, Cooper cut a piece of crumb cake for breakfast, wrapped it in a paper towel, filled her twenty-eight-ounce travel cup to the brim with milky, unsweetened coffee, and tossed a banana onto the passenger seat of her truck. She drove east on I-64, the sun blinding her most of the way. According to Bryant Shelton’s weather report, there wouldn’t be a cloud in the sky this April Friday. For once it appeared as though Bryant might be right, though it didn’t matter much to Cooper. She’d be inside offices most of the day, but could enjoy brief moments of sunshine while driving the work van from one destination to another.

At ten minutes to nine, Cooper pulled into the parking lot belonging to one of a dozen corporate buildings resembling silver LEGO blocks. The Make It Work! headquarters was on the fringe of an area called Innsbrook, where hundreds of different companies, replete with an abundance of office equipment, depended upon Cooper and her coworkers to keep them operating smoothly.

“’Mornin’, Coop!” Angela called out a chipper greeting as Cooper approached the reception desk. Angela’s smile, combined with a vase filled with plump yellow roses, created a warm welcome. Few people visited the office as most of Make It Work!’s transactions were conducted via telephone, but Angela bought a dozen roses every Monday, claiming that a good workweek always began with fresh flowers. Angela was in charge of appointments and billing. She was at her desk every morning before anyone else, wearing one of her vintage sweaters, a pencil skirt (both of which were always too tight), and a pair of sexy heels. Angela’s platinum hair, powdered face, and fire-engine-red nails and lipstick were supposed to call to mind an image of Marilyn Monroe, but Angela was older and plumper than the late actress had ever been. Still, Angela was the heart and soul of their small operation. Filled with pluck and boundless optimism, Angela could thaw even the frostiest of customers.

“You’ve got an emergency waitin’ for you, sugar.” Angela examined her reflection in a small compact that was never out of reach. “Some poor lady has gotten her weddin’ ring jammed in the insides of a copier.” She held out a pink memo pad and ripped off the top sheet with a flourish.

“At Capital City?” Cooper asked, reading the message. “I have to go over there anyway. They ordered half a dozen Hewlett-Packard 7410 multifunction printers and I have to bring them to Building F and hook them up.” She grinned at Angela. “A wedding ring, you say? I wonder how she got it stuck inside.”

Angela shrugged. “You know folks like to try to fix things themselves. You’ve fished stranger things out of those machines. ’Member the bologna sandwich last year?”

“Do I?” Cooper laughed. “That mayo was
everywhere.
And that obnoxious executive tried to blame it on his administrative assistant. What a jerk.”

“That’s why I like workin’ for Mr. Farmer. He’s just as kind as he can be.” Angela’s eyes, beneath their curtain of long fake lashes, twinkled as they always did when she mentioned the boss’s name.

Cooper buttoned up her gray Make It Work! uniform jacket and grabbed the keys to one of the company’s two vans. Ben, the other repairman, was already off on his rounds. He came in an hour earlier than Cooper and was out the door by 4:00 p.m. He was obsessed with developing his naturally thin frame into a walking mass of muscle, so he spent two hours at the gym before heading home to his wife—a woman no one from Make It Work! had ever laid eyes on. Ben never spoke of her either.