Christmas Cupcake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  ½ cup heavy (whipping) cream

  2 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork)

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon cream of tartar

  1 teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon peppermint extract

  4 and ¼ cups flour (don’t sift - pack it down in the cup when you measure it)

  3 or 4 drops red food coloring (enough to make the dough bright pink)

  2 cups (11- or 12-ounce package) white chocolate or vanilla baking chips (I used Nestlé)

  ½ cup white (granulated) sugar in a small bowl for coating cookie dough balls

  Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses (or any soft, pink peppermint candy) to decorate

  Hannah’s 1st Note: If you want to make these cookies extra crunchy, use either white or red decorators sugar when you roll the cookie balls.

  Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Add the sugars and the cream, and stir thoroughly. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.

  Add the beaten eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and peppermint extract, stirring after each addition.

  Add the flour in one-cup increments, mixing thoroughly after each increment. Add the 3 or 4 drops of red food coloring and stir well.

  Add the chips and stir them in.

  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough at least 2 hours (overnight’s even better).

  When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

  Roll the chilled dough into walnut-sized balls with your impeccably clean hands. Put ½ cup white sugar in a small bowl and roll the balls in it to coat them. Place them on a greased cookie sheet (or a cookie sheet you’ve sprayed with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray), 12 dough balls to a standard-sized sheet. Press the dough balls down just a little so they won’t roll off on the floor when you put them in the oven. Place a peppermint candy in the center of each dough ball and place the cookie sheet in the oven.

  Bake for 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees F. The dough balls will flatten out, all by themselves. Let the cookies cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet and then move them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

  Yield—approximately 7 to 8 dozen cookies, depending on cookie size.

  Chapter Three

  Breathing a sigh of relief once she was out of sight, Hannah walked down the hall to the lobby. She found Delores and Carrie sitting at a table, sorting through ornaments.

  “You’re here!” Delores said, spotting Hannah the instant she came through the door. “We haven’t put the lights on yet, dear. Will you help us with that?”

  “Of course,” Hannah said, but inwardly she was groaning. The tree, which was standing tall and proud in the center of the lobby, was at least fourteen feet high. As she’d feared, there would be a ladder involved.

  “Freddy Sawyer should be here any minute,” Carrie told her. “He’s going to climb the ladder and we want you to hand him the strings of lights. Is that all right with you, Hannah?”

  “That’s just fine with me!” Hannah said immediately, feeling the jolt of trepidation she’d felt when she’d seen the height of the tree disappear completely. “Have you tested the lights yet?”

  “Not yet,” Delores said. “We were saving that for you. And you got here just in time. Thank you, dear.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Hannah!”

  Hannah turned around to see Freddy Sawyer standing by the lobby door. “Your mother said you were coming here.”

  “Hi, Freddy,” Hannah greeted him. “I’m glad you’re still working here.”

  “Me too!” Freddy grinned back at her. “They all like me here, ’specially Doc. I lift things for him almost every day. I’m strong.”

  “You certainly are!” Delores told him. Then she turned to Hannah. “Freddy carried all the decorations in here for us. We didn’t have to lift a thing.”

  “My mother said ladies shouldn’t lift very much. She died.”

  “I know.” Hannah walked over to give him a pat on the shoulder. “Come on, Freddy. Let’s plug in all those strings of lights to make sure they work before we put them on the tree.”

  Freddy nodded. “That’s smart. It’s the way my mother used to do it. Then she could re . . . re . . .” He stopped speaking and looked at Hannah for help.

  “So she could replace them?”

  “That’s it! Then she could re . . . place the bulbs that didn’t work. Let’s do it, Hannah. I want to make the tree really pretty this year.”

  “We will,” Hannah promised, leading him over to the box that had LIGHTS written on the cover.

  As Freddy plugged in the strings and tested them, she thought about how much better he was now that he had a job, and Doc and the nurses had taken him under their wing. Freddy was what some people called slow several decades ago. When his mother died, Freddy lived in her little house for a while, but everyone knew he needed some help. The people in Lake Eden liked Freddy and he had plenty of what his mother had called odd jobs around town, but it was clear that he needed someone to guide him. That was when Doc Knight had stepped in and offered Freddy a job at the hospital three days a week. Freddy loved working at the hospital and everyone there liked him. Freddy had found his niche.

  “I did it, Hannah!” Freddy said proudly, once he’d tested all the lights. “Do you think we’ll have enough? This tree is fatter than last year’s tree.”

  “There’ll be enough, Freddy,” Delores answered, overhearing the question. “I bought extra strings of lights, just in case.”

  “Shall I start from the top or the bottom?” Freddy asked.

  “The top,” Carrie said.

  “The bottom,” Delores said at the same time.

  “Oh-oh!” Freddy said, almost under his breath as he turned to Hannah. “What do we do now?”

  “I’ll start from the bottom and you start from the top,” Hannah said quickly, knowing she was bound to receive complaints from both Carrie and her mother.

  “You can’t do that!” Carrie said immediately.

  “Carrie’s right.” Delores gave a little nod. “You’re bound to come out uneven near the middle of the tree, and that’s right at eye level.”

  “Right. People will notice if it’s not symmetrical,” Carrie added. “Since you’re used to starting from the bottom, you had better do it that way. If you’re not used to starting from the top and stringing the lights vertically, it might be more difficult.”

  Freddy exhaled in relief so loudly that all three women heard him. “Okay. That’s what we’ll do,” he said, “but Hannah will have to walk around the tree to hand me the lights.”

  “I can do that,” Hannah agreed. “I’ll string the lights as high as I can reach and you can do the rest.”

  “While you’re doing that, we’ll set out all the decorations we want to use,” Delores told them.

  “And we’ll tell you where we want you to hang them,” Carrie added.

  “The breakable things should go on the upper half of the tree just in case Reverend Bob brings Vespers with him when he visits this year.”

  Delores laughed. “You’re right. I almost forgot about Vespers. He came very close to eating an antique gold ball last year.”

  “Don’t blame Vespers. Dogs play with balls,” Freddy pointed out. “We’ll put those on the top half where Vespers can’t reach them. I really like him. He wears a little Santa hat and all the patients like to pet him and give him treats.”

  Hannah chuckled. Vespers usually spent nights at the hospital if there were young patients who needed to stay over Christmastime. He slept in the corner of the child’s hospital room on a bed that Reverend Bob brought, and the young patients seemed to find comfort in that. There was one drawback though. The children gave Vespers so many little treats that he gained weight over the holidays. Grandma Knudson, Reverend Bob’s grandmother and housekeeper, had told Hannah that she needed to put Vespers on a diet after every Christmas season
he spent at the hospital.

  With all four of them working, the huge Christmas tree was decorated in less than an hour. Freddy went to close the lobby door. They’d all agreed that they didn’t want anyone to see the tree fully lighted before the official ceremony.

  “Beautiful!” Delores breathed, as Hannah stepped on the foot switch that was attached to the extension cord.

  “Yes, it is,” Carrie agreed. “I think it’s even better than last year.”

  “Pretty,” Freddy said, but his voice sounded a bit hoarse.

  Hannah looked at him, realized that he had tears in his eyes, and walked over to slip her arm around his shoulders. “Does the tree make you miss your mother?” she asked.

  Freddy didn’t say anything. He just nodded, but he gave her a little smile.

  “Your mother would be very proud of you, Freddy. The tree looks beautiful.”

  “Let’s do the staff lunchroom next,” Delores suggested. “I have a big wreath to hang in there and a little tree for the table where they keep the coffeepot.” She turned to Freddy. “Do you think you could hang some big Christmas ornaments from the ceiling the way you did last year?”

  Freddy smiled. “Sure. I know how to do it now, and I like to climb ladders.”

  Delores looked at Freddy gratefully. “Well, I don’t and neither does Carrie. We’re glad you’re helping us, Freddy.”

  Freddy looked proud as he picked up the boxes that Delores indicated and led the way to the lunchroom. They left Freddy there to finish up and went off to decorate the patients’ rooms.

  “Let’s split up,” Carrie suggested. “It’ll go faster that way. We’re doing each room the same, aren’t we, Delores?”

  “Yes. We’ll do the first one together, so that Hannah can see what to do, and then we’ll split up.”

  Hannah nodded. “That sounds like a plan to me. Where shall we meet up when we’re finished?”

  “The lobby,” Delores told her. “Then all three of us will go to decorate Doc’s office.”

  It took several hours to complete the hospital rooms. By the time she finished, Hannah was tired of stretching and bending. She hurried back to the staff lunchroom to get a rejuvenating cup of coffee and carried it to the lobby to wait for her mother and Carrie.

  Christmas music was playing softly over the loudspeakers in the lobby and Hannah leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. Even though she’d gotten a full night’s sleep, she was tired. And although she loved providing sweet treats for her customers, she sometimes wished that she could take a little time off during her favorite holidays. Baking was always a joy for her. The scent of vanilla, chocolate, and spices was practically an addiction, but there were times when she wished that she could take a little time for herself. Today had been one of those days. Helping her mother and Carrie decorate was a welcome break, and Hannah found she was relaxed for the first time since the overwhelming holiday orders had begun to pour into The Cookie Jar.

  Listening to the Christmas music brought happy childhood memories. She remembered stretching out under the branches on the Christmas tree and gazing up at the colored lights. It was an early memory, back before Andrea was born. It was so pretty, she had begged to stay there instead of going up to her bedroom to sleep. Her mother had objected, claiming that regular bedtimes were good for children, and that Hannah had already stayed up too long. Luckily for Hannah, her father had overruled Delores. And when she’d finally fallen to sleep, her father had carried her up the stairs and tucked her into bed.

  Memories of her father brought tears to Hannah’s eyes and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. He had died several years ago while she was in college working on her doctorate, but she still missed him. Lars Swensen had been a loving father, full of fun, and never so busy that he didn’t have time for his children. Even though he’d worked a full day in the hardware store he owned, he’d never been too tired to attend a school play, take them on long drives through the countryside to see the fall leaves, or play games in the backyard with them. He had died several years ago, but Hannah missed him as much now as she had back then.

  “Frosty the Snowman” played over the loudspeaker and Hannah began to smile as another, happier memory surfaced. It had been a sunny winter afternoon and her father had told her to put on her parka and snow pants because they were going out to play in the snow. Andrea had been very young, so Delores had stayed in the house with her, but Hannah and her father had gone out to build a snowman outside the living room picture window. The snow had been the perfect consistency, sticky enough to roll into large balls that left patches of bare frozen lawn. They’d rolled three balls, one large, one medium-sized, and one, Hannah’s ball, small enough for the head. Her father had stacked them up so that Delores and Andrea could see.

  Hannah remembered hearing a tapping on the glass of the window and turning to see her mother holding up an old top hat and the broom she used to sweep the back porch.

  “Go get the hat and the broom from your mother,” her father had instructed, and Hannah had hurried to the front door. Delores had handed over the things she found for their snowman and Hannah had rushed back to give them to her father.

  “Will he have a face?” Hannah had asked after her father had perched the hat on top of the smallest snowball.

  “Yes. I’ve got buttons for his eyes right here,” he told her, patting his jacket pocket. “Let’s go inside and ask your mother if she has something we can use for his nose.”

  Hannah had rushed back to the door with her father, but before they could open it, Delores stepped out with several vegetables in her hand. “I’ve got a little cucumber, a mushroom, and a carrot,” she told Lars. “Which one do you think will work best for a nose?”

  “Hannah?” her father asked, turning to her. “Which one would you like to use?”

  “The carrot,” Hannah said immediately, remembering the picture of Frosty, the snowman shown on the Christmas paper her mother had used to wrap her presents.

  “That’s a good choice,” her father complimented her, and then he turned to Delores. “Go back inside, honey. It’s cold out here.”

  Delores handed the carrot to Hannah and stepped back inside. “I’ll put on some hot chocolate for you two,” she promised before she shut the door.

  “Our snowman doesn’t have any arms,” Hannah reminded her father. “And he doesn’t have any legs, either.”

  “We’ll pretend that he’s sitting on his legs,” Lars explained, “and I’m going to get two branches for his arms.”

  Hannah watched as her father went to the lilac bush in the corner of the lawn and broke off two long branches. “Will those work?” she asked him.

  “I think so. Just watch while I attach them.”

  Once the branches were in place, Hannah began to smile. “It’s perfect,” she told her father. “I like our snowman, Dad.”

  “So do I, but you have to do one more thing before we go back inside.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You have to choose his name. We can’t have a snowman without a name.”

  Hannah thought for a moment and then she began to smile. “Chilly,” she said.

  “You’re cold?”

  “No, Dad. His name is Chilly.”

  “That’s perfect,” Lars had told her, slipping his arm around her shoulders and leading her back to the door. “Let’s go see if your mother had time to make that hot chocolate for us.”

  Memories of hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows floating on top brought a smile to Hannah’s face. She shut her eyes, remembering how comforting it had been to sit next to her father and mother at the kitchen table and enjoy the rich chocolate flavor.

  “Hannah? Are you awake?” a female voice asked.

  Hannah opened her eyes and stared up at the young woman who was standing next to her. “Yes. I’m awake.”

  “I’m Rachael,” the young woman said, sitting down in the chair next to Hannah. “You probably don’t remember me.
I’m Lisa’s cousin.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Hannah said, smiling back. “Did you bring the cupcakes?”

  “Yes. Actually . . . I brought two kinds of cupcakes. I brought yours and the ones Lisa let me bake this morning. I wanted you to taste mine to see if you like them.”

  “I’d love to try one. What kind are they?”

  “They’re called White Chocolate Eggnog Cupcakes. My college roommate’s older sister works at the Kraft test kitchens. She sends us some of their new recipes and we test them for her. How about some fresh coffee to go with it? You take it black, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. How did you know?”

  “Lisa mentioned that you’d probably want coffee about now, so the hospital cook put on coffee for us.”

  Hannah watched as Rachael hurried back to the kitchen to get her coffee and one of the Kraft test kitchen cupcakes. In less time than she’d expected, Rachael was back. She was carrying a tray with three cupcakes, three cups, and a carafe of coffee.

  “Here they are,” Rachael said, lifting one cupcake onto a napkin and pouring a cup of black coffee for Hannah. “Let me know if you like the cupcake and I’ll text my roommate so she can tell her sister.”

  “Who are the other cupcakes for?” Hannah asked, reaching for her cupcake so that she could remove the paper.

  “Your mother and her friend. I ran into them in the corridor and they said they’d be here in a couple of minutes.”

  “These cupcakes smell like Christmas,” Hannah said, enjoying the scent of eggnog spices. “Do you use real eggnog when you make them?”

  “Yes, the commercial kind. There’s a cup of it in the batter along with a little extra nutmeg. I really hope you like them, Hannah. My roommate and I made them right after her sister sent us the recipe, and I brought some to Lisa and Herb.”

  Hannah took a bite of the cupcake and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “There’s whipped cream inside!” she said.

  “Actually, it’s Cool Whip. And it’s mixed with cream cheese, butter, rum extract, and powdered sugar. You have to refrigerate it while the cupcakes are cooling, and then you inject some of it inside each cupcake.”