Peach Cobbler Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “Exactly.” Hannah exchanged an understanding look with her sister. “Did you say you were going out to the mall tonight?”

  “Yes. Do you want to go along?”

  “I’d love to,” Hannah said, surprising everyone in the kitchen. She’d made it perfectly clear that she hated the mall and its myriad of shopping experiences back when it had first opened.

  “Why?” Andrea asked, echoing the question that was in everyone’s mind.

  “I’m making a timeline for the day Shawna Lee was shot and I need to talk to Kyle.”

  “Who’s Kyle?” Lisa wanted to know.

  “The deliveryman for Bouchard’s Bouquets.” Hannah paused as she took in everyone’s identical frown. “I know a timeline’s never done us any good before, but maybe it’ll work this time. It’s just that…I’m really not sure what else to do. I’m stymied.”

  There was a moment of silence worthy of a great loss in basketball, or perhaps a presidential assassination. Norman was the first one to gather his wits about him. “You’re stymied?”

  “Yes.”

  Andrea reached out to pat Hannah’s shoulder. “I know exactly how you feel. Unless Delores and Carrie come up with something, we’re stuck in a canoe heading for the rapids without an oar.”

  “Canoes don’t have oars, they have paddles!” Delores said, coming in the door with Carrie in time to hear Andrea’s comment. “What’s wrong?”

  “Hannah’s stymied,” Norman repeated, turning around to explain to the mothers. “How about you? Have you come up with something?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Delores said, accepting the mug of coffee that Lisa brought to her. “We checked out all the names on our suspect list with the ones in the guest books and we only found one person who missed the service and came to the reception.”

  “Who was that?” Hannah asked, hoping against hope that it was someone with a motive.

  “Gloria Travis,” Carrie told her.

  “She sat with us at the reception,” Delores explained, “and she’s with the Pretty Girl convention. She didn’t know the area and this is the first time she’s ever been in Lake Eden.”

  “No motive,” Hannah said with a sigh. “And that was it?”

  When both of the mothers nodded, Hannah got up to get the plates of cookies she’d prepared earlier and set them down in front of her mother. “Try one of these, Mother. I made them just for you.”

  “German Chocolate Cake!” Delores exclaimed after taking one bite. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “You’re right.”

  “How did you make these, dear?”

  “Baker’s secret,” Hannah replied, smiling at her mother.

  “Well, they’re simply marvelous! I think they’re even better than your grandmother’s German Chocolate Cake.”

  Hannah smiled widely, and she felt happy all the way down to her toes. Delores liked her cookies.

  “The only thing that’s different is the texture, and Mother’s cake was always a little too light to suit me.” Delores stopped speaking and began to frown. “You did write down the recipe, didn’t you, dear?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “And you can make more of these?”

  “Yes, Mother.”

  “Well, that’s a relief!” Delores pulled the plate of cookies toward her possessively. “I’ll need you to cater the Lake Eden Ladies’ Club meeting next Thursday and I want you to serve these.”

  “I’ll be happy to, Mother.”

  “Excellent. You have other cookies you can serve now, don’t you, dear? I want to take these home with me. They’ll be perfect for tonight’s bedtime snack.”

  Hannah and Andrea exchanged glances. This was a first. Their mother limited herself to one serving of dessert a day, and she’d often claimed that this minimum of sweets was her secret to maintaining a perfect figure. But now she had taken to snacking at bedtime? This revelation, so casually disclosed, made Hannah wonder if the newly instituted bedtime snack was Winthrop’s idea. And if it was, did Winthrop share that snack with their mother?

  “I’ll put them in a bag for you,” Hannah said, getting up to take the plate and transfer the contents to one of the miniature shopping bags she used for takeout orders. Then she put another dozen cookies on a plate and brought them to the workstation.

  “Now what are these?” Delores wanted to know.

  “I’m not quite sure. I think I’ll call them Desperation Cookies. We had so many customers today, we ran out of cookie ingredients.”

  “Then what’s in these?” Norman asked, reaching out for one.

  “A little dab of this and a little dab of that. Whenever there’s a little bit of something in the bottom of a bag, I save it. I don’t know why, I just do. So when we ran out of things to put in cookies, I made a basic dough and used up all those bags.”

  “I like these!” Norman said, swallowing his first bite. “Every bite tastes a little different than the last.”

  Lisa took a cookie and tasted it. “This one has four different kinds of chips.”

  “Mine, too,” Andrea said. “I got butterscotch and regular chocolate chips in the first bite.”

  Carrie tested a cookie. “I got white chocolate and milk chocolate. It’s a nice combination. What kind of nuts do I taste?”

  “I put in walnuts and pecans, and there were a few cashews thrown in.”

  “There’s something chewy,” Lisa said.

  “That could be the coconut, or maybe a raisin. I threw in some of those. There might even be some dried cranberries in there. I’m just not sure.”

  “So could you make these again?” Norman wanted to know.

  Hannah thought about it for a minute and then she laughed. “Not in a million years,” she said.

  “What are all these people doing here?” Hannah asked, dodging a young mother pushing a stroller with one hand and holding a toddler’s arm with the other. They’d stopped off at her condo so she could feed Moishe and she found herself wishing she’d stayed there. The mall was noisy, a cacophony of sound, with hundreds of people talking at once. The concrete walls and ceilings, bare of baffles or any other means of muffling the noise, bounced the voices back and forth until no words were distinguishable and utterances of happiness, excitement, or dismay became one homogenous reverberation that resembled the lowing of a large herd of cattle.

  “It’s always crowded in the winter, especially at night. When people get off work, they come out here to do a little shopping, catch a bite to eat, and take in a movie. It’s nice to be able to walk around without parkas and boots.”

  “I guess,” Hannah said, although she’d much prefer going home to her cat, heating something in the microwave, and watching a movie on television in the comfort of her own living room.

  “Here’s where I’m going.” Andrea pointed to a small storefront with a sign that read, MR. LOGO. “Come on in with me. It’s a fun store.”

  Hannah followed in her sister’s wake, wondering when the word fun had become an adjective, and listened as Andrea placed an order for three hundred Lake Eden Realty pens. While her sister and the clerk were discussing font style and color, Hannah wandered away to look at a rack of bright purple T-shirts with white block lettering. They all bore the legend LAKE EDEN GULPS instead of LAKE EDEN GULLS, the name of Jordan High’s sports team, and they had been discounted to a dollar apiece.

  “Hello, my name is Tammy. Could I help you, ma’am?” asked a pretty brunette wearing a MR. LOGO golf shirt with the name Tammy embroidered in flowing script over the pocket.

  “Yes,” Hannah replied, wondering precisely when she’d reached the age where high school students called her ma’am. “Are these shirts really a dollar?”

  “Not anymore. The manager just told me to mark them half off, because we need to hang something else on the rack. They’re supposed to say, Lake Eden Gulls.”

  “I’m from Lake Eden. I figured that out,” Hannah said.

  “Oh. Well, anyway, that’s why t
hey’re so chea…um…inexpensive. Would you like to buy one?”

  “No, I’d like to buy them all,” Hannah said as a brilliant idea popped into her head. At the last town meeting, Mayor Bascomb had asked the business owners if they’d be interested in sponsoring softball teams to compete against each other in the summer. Both Lisa and Hannah were all for the idea, but part of the responsibility of a sponsoring business was to provide team outfits. Now the solution to The Cookie Jar’s team uniforms had presented itself. Jeans and a Lake Eden Gulp T-shirt would be perfect, since The Cookie Jar was a bakery and coffee shop and their customers gulped coffee with their cookies.

  “You want…all of them?” Tammy stared at her in surprise when she nodded. “Um…I know it’s none of my business, but…why?”

  Once Hannah had explained, Tammy was delighted. “Can I play on your team? I played softball in high school and I really miss it.”

  “You mean you’re a graduate?”

  “Two years ago from Eagle Valley High. I’m from Clarissa. I’ve been taking classes at the community college, but they don’t have an athletic program.”

  “We’d love to have you play for us,” Hannah said, making a manager’s unilateral on-the-spot decision and handing over one of the cards Norman had made for her on his computer. “Call me next week and we should have everything set up by then.”

  “Thanks! I’m so excited! Now you stay right here and don’t take anything up to the register. I’m going to talk to the boss and see if I can get you a bulk deal on these shirts.”

  Hannah stood and waited. And while she waited, she pondered another age-related question. At what point in her life had high school graduates started to look so young? As she got older and older, would everyone start to look younger and younger? Perhaps she should go out to the Lake Eden Convalescent Home and ask Grandma Walstrom, since she’d just celebrated her hundred and first birthday. There had been a picture of the celebration on the front page of the Lake Eden Journal, showing Grandma Walstrom sitting in a straight-backed chair, eating a piece of chocolate birthday cake and sipping a martini. When asked about the martini, the newspaper had quoted the centenarian as saying, I always said I’d never touch strong spirits, not even if I lived to be a hundred. I lived to be a year over that, so now I’m trying this martini. Don’t know what all the fuss is about. Tastes like turpentine to me!

  “Four for a dollar if you take them all,” Tammy said, rushing up to Hannah’s side with a piece of paper, and pulling her from her thoughts. “All you have to do is take this note to the register. And the best part is, we’ll deliver! We’ve got a big order going to Jordan High next week, so the driver will drop yours off on the same run. There are eight shirts in each size and we have small all the way up to double extra large.”

  “Thanks, Tammy.” Hannah gave the girl a big smile and reminded her to call in a week to find out more about The Cookie Jar team. Then she hurried up to the register to pay before the manager changed his mind.

  “I saw you hand over a ten-dollar bill,” Andrea said as they left the store. “What did you buy? And why didn’t you take it with you?”

  “Not it. Them. I bought more than one thing. Forty T-shirts, as a matter of fact.”

  Andrea turned to stare at her. “And I thought I was a good shopper! You really bought forty T-shirts for ten dollars?”

  “That’s right, and they’re being hand-delivered next week. Somebody made a mistake in the lettering and it says Lake Eden Gulps, instead of Gulls, but that’s perfect for The Cookie Jar’s new softball team. We might even bring along iced coffee and pass it out to our fans.”

  “I didn’t know you were sponsoring a softball team.”

  “Neither did I until I found those shirts. Lisa and I thought team shirts would be too expensive.”

  “Are you going to have cheerleaders?” Andrea asked, looking wistful.

  “I don’t know. The team’s not even formed yet.”

  “Maybe I could find some cheerleaders for you. I could head up the squad. I still remember all the cheers. How about it?”

  “Sure, if you think you’ll have time,” Hannah agreed.

  “I’ll make the time. It’ll be a fun thing for me to do.” Andrea glanced over at the flower shop. “So what do you need to find out at Bouchard’s Bouquets?”

  “I’ll tell you while we’re having a pretzel,” Hannah said, pointing to a cart just past the entrance to the flower shop. It was selling hot salted pretzels, one of her favorite fast foods and the downfall of several low-carb diets she’d started.

  “You go ahead. I have to eat dinner with Bill when he gets home.” Andrea waited until Hannah had bought a pretzel and then they walked back to the florist shop. “So what do you need to know?”

  “What time Kyle delivered Shawna Lee’s flowers, whether he saw her in person, and what time he left. He’s working the counter tonight. I called to ask. I also need to know anything else that Kyle knows about Shawna Lee’s schedule for the rest of that day. I’m willing to bet that she offered him some of her peach cobbler and lots of personal attention.”

  “To generate more business?”

  “No, to keep him there longer. Kyle’s really cute.”

  DESPERATION COOKIES

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

  2 cups melted butter (4 sticks, one pound)

  3 cups white sugar

  1½ cups brown sugar

  4 teaspoons vanilla

  4 teaspoons baking soda

  2 teaspoons salt

  4 beaten eggs

  5 cups flour (no need to sift)

  3 cups chips***

  4 cups chopped nuts****

  Melt the butter. (Nuke it for 3 minutes on high in a microwave-safe container, or in a pan on the stove.) Mix in the white sugar and the brown sugar. Add the vanilla, baking soda, salt, and mix. Add the eggs and stir it all up. Then add half the flour, the chips, and the chopped nuts. Stir well to incorporate. Then add the rest of the flour and mix thoroughly.

  Drop by teaspoons onto greased cookie sheets, 12 cookies to a standard-size sheet. If the dough is too sticky to handle, chill it slightly and try again. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until nicely browned.

  Let cool two minutes, then remove cookies from the baking sheet and transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.

  Yield: Approximately 10 dozen.

  Norman really likes these cookies. He says they’re like life in Lake Eden because you’re never quite sure what to expect.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bouchard’s Bouquets had an incredible display in the window and both Hannah and Andrea stopped to admire it. It was called Delicious Daisies and it consisted of pieces of fruit cut to look like daisies and other flowers. The flowers were held in place with long wooden skewers and arranged in a pretty basket.

  Hannah stared in silent admiration for long moments. It was almost impossible for her to believe that such gorgeously succulent fruit could be found in Minnesota in the winter. There were daisies cut out of fresh pineapple with raspberries at the center of each flower. Red grapes and green grapes strung on wooden skewers looked like exotic ferns on long stems, and strawberries, point out, provided riotous splashes of color. Cheese wedges cut in fancy shapes and skewered in place served as a yellow, orange, and white accompaniment to the fruit, and the card that advertised the sumptuous bouquet stated that the whole arrangement, with the exception of the skewers and the basket, was entirely edible.

  “It’s got to cost a fortune,” Andrea breathed, and Hannah knew she was wishing she’d gotten one for Bill’s inaugural party when almost everyone in town had shown up to see him sworn in as Winnetka County Sheriff.

  “I’m sure neither one of us could afford it,” Hannah said, hoping that Andrea wasn’t going to order one just because it was pretty and put it on a credit card. “What we ought to do is take a picture. Lisa’s so artistic, I’ll bet she’ll try to make one as soon as fruit is in season
.”

  “I wonder where they get their fruit,” Andrea mused.

  “I don’t know, but it’s almost too beautiful to be real.” Hannah stopped and began to frown. “Do you think it is?”

  “Do I think what is?”

  “The fruit. Do you think it’s real?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask.” Andrea started to lead the way into the shop with Hannah in close pursuit. But then she stopped suddenly and turned in her tracks, nearly causing Hannah to mow her over.

  “What?” Hannah asked, noticing her sister’s intent expression.

  “I think you should go sit on that bench over there, and eat your pretzel before it gets cold. You can’t eat it inside anyway. I’ll go talk to Kyle by myself. He already knows you, and he might clam up if both of us start asking questions. This way I’m just a talkative stranger who happened to drop in to ask about the fruit. I’ll come out when I’m through pumping him for information and let you know what he said.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Hannah agreed, backing off and heading toward the bench without another word. Andrea was a wizard at getting people to talk and she’d be smart to go along with whatever her sister thought would work.

  Ten minutes and most of a soft pretzel slathered with mustard later, Hannah was wondering what was taking her sister so long. She was about to get off the bench and wander past the window to see if she could spot Kyle and Andrea in the interior of the shop when a familiar voice called out her name.

  “Mike?” Hannah whirled around and swallowed noisily. There he was across the mall from her with his reddish blond hair and mustache, piercing blue eyes, and six-foot-three-inch frame resplendent in his Winnetka County Sheriff Deputy’s uniform. It was enough to take a girl’s breath away, and Hannah was no exception even though she was no longer a girl. And even though she was still angry at him, her heart started the old familiar Mike Kingston drumroll in her chest.

  Despite her resolve to ignore him, Hannah’s hand had a mind of its own. It rose and her fingers waggled a greeting that Mike must have construed as an invitation, for he headed straight toward her across the steady stream of people filing into the movie theater.