Carrot Cake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Andrea gave a big smile. “That explains the rest of the name, then. There are a lot of American Indians in Oklahoma, and Wanmansita is probably an American Indian word. I should ask Jon Walker.”

  Hannah shook her head. “Jon’s Chippewa, and I don’t believe they got as far west as Oklahoma.”

  “Well, what American Indian tribe would it be?”

  “It depends on when the recipe was named,” Michelle told her. “And there are lots of Indian tribes in Oklahoma. They’ve got the Delaware, Arapaho, Miami, Iowa, Shawnee, Caw, Creek, Chickasaw, Cheyenne, Cherokee, Witchita, Patawatomi, Peoria, and Osage, plus a couple of others I can’t remember.”

  Andrea looked impressed. “How do you know all that?”

  “I took a course in Indian Studies last fall, and it was taught by a visiting professor from O.S.U. The names were so intriguing, I remember them. And besides, there’s a mnemonic. It’s Donna Asked Mom In Secret, Can Wally Play Outside? The first letter of each word stands for the first letter of an Indian tribe.”

  “But you named more C’s than that!”

  Michelle laughed. “You’re right. You have to remember that there are five C’s and two P’s. It’s not as easy as the word HOMES for the Great Lakes.”

  “Or Roy G. Biv for the colors of the spectrum.” Hannah added.

  “Or Mother Very Eagerly Made Jelly Sandwiches Under No Protest.”

  “The planets,” Michelle said. “I never could remember them without that.”

  “But now you’ll have to, since Protest is gone,” Hannah reminded her.

  “Pluto.” Michelle gave a little sigh. “I forgot all about Pluto.”

  “What about Pluto?” Andrea asked.

  “It’s not a full planet anymore. It’s been downgraded to a dwarf.”

  “Oh, no!” Andrea looked horrified.

  “What’s the matter?” Hannah asked her. “You look as if you just lost your best friend.”

  “It’s Tracey. I just taught her the planets that way! And now she’s going to get them wrong when she goes in to be tested for her Girl Scout badge.”

  “She’s smart enough to remember to leave Pluto out,” Hannah comforted her sister. “Just remind her before she goes to the meeting, or wherever they go to be tested.”

  “It’s the school. The scouts are using the auditorium since school hasn’t started yet. And Tracey’s the youngest one going for a badge, and she really wants to get it right.”

  “She will,” Michelle said with a smile. “But I thought Tracey was a Brownie Scout, not a Girl Scout.”

  “She is, but Bonnie Surma got a special exception for Tracey to study for her badges early. And it’s a really big deal this year because one of the ladies from national is coming to award the badges.”

  “Tracey will be fine. Don’t worry,” Hannah reassured her sister again, and then she picked up the envelope and removed a file that was inside. “Let’s go over the crime scene photos together.”

  “Don’t look,” Andrea instructed Michelle.

  “What do you mean, don’t look? It’s not like I’m a child, you know. You don’t have to protect me from the ugly side of life.”

  “You’re too young to know anything about the ugly side of life. The ugliest thing you ever saw was the stuffed boar’s head that hung over Grandpa and Grandma Swensen’s couch!”

  “I thought that boar’s head was cute! All that bristly hair sticking up. He looked like a character in a cartoon. But getting back to the ugly side, I bet I’ve seen more ugly things than…”

  “That’s enough, girls!” Hannah interrupted, stepping in with her best big-sister-in-charge voice. “If you don’t stop squabbling, I won’t let you taste the new cookies I brought.”

  There was complete silence for a moment, a phenomenon that deeply gratified Hannah. She hadn’t lost her big sister touch.

  “New cookies?” Michelle was the first to speak.

  “Yes. I made them for Jack Herman’s birthday party tonight. Lisa’s mom used to make a similar cookie years ago.”

  “Do they have chocolate?” Andrea wanted to know. “I’m going to need chocolate if I’m going to look at anything the least bit gory.”

  “They’ve got plenty of chocolate. There’s chocolate in the cookie dough and more chocolate chips inside. And there’s cream cheese frosting, too.”

  Michelle gave a little whimper of anticipation. “Cream cheese frosting is my very favorite. Sometimes I make up a batch and spread it on soda crackers.”

  “Is that good?” Andrea asked her.

  “Yes, but make sure you buy salted soda crackers. Then you lay them out with the salt side down and frost the other side. You can spread it between two graham crackers, too. Or two chocolate cookie wafers. That tastes almost like Oreos.”

  With peace restored and cookie hunger kindled, Hannah wasted no time opening her box of Red Velvet Cookies and giving each of her sisters a sample. While they were tasting her newest creation, she paged through the crime scene photos. Since nothing was really gory, she left them all in the pile.

  When she was finished censoring the stack of photos, Hannah almost called out, You can look now, the phrase her father had used on Christmas morning when they sat by the Christmas tree, eyes tightly shut, until he brought in the presents that had been too large to wrap. But the photos she held in her hand weren’t presents. They were grim reminders of what could happen when the sanctity of human life was violated.

  “I’m ready with the photos,” she said instead.

  “These are great cookies, Hannah!” Andrea complimented her, wiping her fingers on a napkin. She picked up the stack of photos, examined the one on top, and then she handed it to Michelle.

  “Yuck!” Michelle commented.

  “My cookies are yuck?” Hannah, who hadn’t noticed the photo pass from hand to hand, was clearly astounded by Michelle’s remark.

  “Not your cookies. They’re absolutely fantastic, and they remind me of red velvet cake. I meant this photograph. He was stabbed, right?”

  Hannah nodded. “Keep your eye out for something unusual that I might have missed, or anything that doesn’t fit with the way you remember the pavilion from the night of the dance.”

  “But you were right there,” Michelle pointed out. “You found him. You saw everything with your own two eyes. How could you have missed something?”

  “Hannah was probably in shock,” Andrea reminded her. “Finding a dead body isn’t fun.”

  “Okay. You’re right,” Michelle said, taking the next photo from Andrea and examining it.

  Nobody said anything for at least five minutes, an unusual occurrence when the three Swensen sisters got together. But Hannah was busy watching her younger sisters, and Michelle and Andrea were absorbed in examining the photos. Finally the last one was placed facedown on the counter.

  Andrea gave a big sigh. “I didn’t see anything unusual,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure that everything looked just the way it did when I left the dance.”

  Michelle gave a little nod. “I agree. I’m sorry we didn’t learn anything new, Hannah.”

  “So am I, but I did learn one new thing.”

  “You did?” Andrea looked surprised.

  “What is it?” Michelle asked.

  “Everything was exactly as I remember it. And that means one of two things. Either being in shock doesn’t affect my memory, or I’m getting much too used to finding murder victims!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hannah picked up the photos and returned them to the envelope. There was another file in the envelope that she hadn’t noticed before. “What’s this?” she asked Andrea. “A duplicate set?”

  “No. Those are photos they took of the cottage where Gus was staying right before they searched it. It’s standard operating procedure. I heard Bill talk about it once.”

  “It’s a good procedure!” Hannah gave a little grin. “I’ve seen other places they’ve searched, and they always looked like the aftermath o
f a tornado.”

  “Not this time,” Michelle spoke up.

  “Why not?”

  “Because they confiscated almost everything after they searched, and took it to the sheriff’s station. Lonnie said they were going to go through it with a fine-tooth comb to see if there were any clues.”

  “There wasn’t much more than a suitcase full of clothes and some personal items in the bathroom,” Hannah said, thinking back in time to early Monday afternoon when she’d walked through the cottage searching for Gus.

  “How about the closet? Did you look in there?” Michelle asked.

  “The doors were open,” Hannah did her best to bring back the mental picture. “I looked at the bed first. The suitcase was on it, and it was open. And then I turned to look at the closet. There was one of those little green frogs. You’ve both seen the type that lives at the lake. He hopped out of the closet and…it was empty inside. I remember now. There were no clothes on the hangers.”

  “That’s because they were all in the suitcase,” Michelle said. “Gus probably hadn’t gotten around to unpacking yet.”

  “But why hadn’t he? He’d already changed clothes twice.” Hannah turned to Andrea. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

  “Twice at the minimum,” Andrea said, giving a definitive nod. “I saw him when he drove up at the church. He was wearing an eggshell white linen suit with an Egyptian cotton shirt…”

  “You could tell his shirt’s country of origin by just looking?” Hannah interrupted her sister’s recital.

  “Not exactly, but Egyptian cotton is distinctive, and it’s always been the hot material. It was a wonderful shade of slate blue. You know the color. It’s blue, but it’s got a lot of gray in it, too. Very subdued, and it looks great with blond or gray hair. The shirt was open at the neck, and he had on a gold neck chain and…”

  “Then he must have changed clothes, because that’s not what he was wearing at the dance,” Michelle interrupted her.

  “You’re right. The suit he wore at the dance was completely different. And he was wearing a different shirt. Not only that, he wasn’t wearing a tie when I saw him at the church, and he wore a designer tie at the dance. It’s right there in the crime scene photos.”

  Hannah was grateful that her sisters had noticed what Gus had been wearing when they saw him in the car at the church. She’d only caught a glimpse of him, and she would have been hard-pressed to describe any item of clothing he’d worn.

  “There’s one thing that really puzzles me.” Andrea turned to Hannah. “It’s the suit Gus was wearing the first time we saw him.”

  “What about it?”

  “It was linen. I said that before. And linen wrinkles. He wore it to the brunch. I know that, because Mother mentioned it to me. But he had to have taken it off before he showered and changed for the dance. That was an expensive suit. I’d guess it was over five hundred dollars, maybe a lot more. He was staying at a cottage with a nice big closet. Why didn’t he hang it up?”

  “Are we sure he didn’t?” Michelle asked.

  “I’m almost positive he didn’t.” Hannah paged through the photos of the cottage, found the one of the bedroom, and handed it to Michelle. “Here’s a picture that shows the closet. Check it out for yourself. It’s as bare as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard.”

  “Maybe he spilled something on it at the brunch and it needed to be dry cleaned?” Michelle suggested a possible explanation.

  “Maybe, but there aren’t any dry cleaners open on Sunday,” Andrea pointed out. “And by the time they opened on Monday morning, he was already dead.”

  “So what would you do with an expensive suit you wanted dry cleaned?” Hannah asked them.

  “Toss it on the floor of the closet so your wife will take it to the cleaners,” Andrea said. “That’s what Bill always does. I try to get him to stuff it in a laundry bag, but he forgets.”

  “Since there was nothing on the floor of the closet, maybe he just tossed it back in his suitcase,” Michelle suggested.

  “If he did, it would be right on top.” Andrea paged through the photos until she came to the one of the suitcase. “It’s not here, so he didn’t. And since he was such a nice dresser, he probably wouldn’t have thrown it in on top of his clean clothes anyway.”

  Something niggled at the back of Hannah’s mind, and she shut her eyes to concentrate. A second or two later, she had it. “I just remembered something. When I went to the cottage to look for him, his car was parked in the driveway. And I’m almost sure there was a jacket hanging up on the hook in the backseat.”

  “Was it the jacket to his linen suit?” Andrea asked her.

  “I don’t know. I really didn’t pay much attention. Is the Jaguar still parked in front of the cottage?”

  Michelle shook her head. “Mike sealed it up and had it towed to the impound lot. It’s going to stay there until they find out if Gus had a will, or any other family members back in Atlantic City.”

  “I wonder if the jacket’s still in it,” Hannah said. “I’d like to find out if it’s the one to the missing linen suit.”

  “But why would Gus take it off inside the cottage and then carry it out and hang it in his car?” Andrea asked.

  “Maybe he planned to take it to the cleaners, but he was killed first?” Michelle suggested.

  Andrea shook her head. “Then he would have just tossed it in the backseat, or the trunk. He wouldn’t have bothered to hang it up.”

  “Wait!” Hannah began to smile. “I know why he hung it in the car!”

  “Why?” both sisters asked her, almost in unison.

  “Because that’s how you keep linen from getting wrinkled. Mother mentioned that this morning. She always hangs up her linen jacket when she drives the car.”

  “I get it,” Michelle said, looking excited. “Gus didn’t carry the jacket back out to his car to hang it up. He slipped it off when he left the brunch, and hung it up for the drive back to the lake.”

  “And forgot to take it with him when he went inside the cottage.” Andrea finished the scenario.

  “But where are the pants?” Michelle reminded her. “We still haven’t found them.” Then she turned to Hannah. “Do you think the missing pants are a clue?”

  Hannah shrugged. “Search me. But it is interesting, and it might mean something. I’m just not sure what.”

  “Nobody’s using the cottage, so you can go back and go through it again,” Andrea told her. “You might find something that the crime team missed.”

  Hannah gave her a grin. It wasn’t the first time she’d found something the crime team hadn’t thought was important, but that later turned out to be an important clue. “You say it’s vacant?”

  “Yes. Lisa thought maybe somebody else would move in, but none of the relatives want to use it.”

  Hannah was puzzled. “Why not? It’s a nice cottage. And it’s not a crime scene or anything like that. Why doesn’t anybody want to use it?”

  “Because Gus stayed there,” Andrea explained.

  “But he was only there for an hour or so. He didn’t even have time to unpack!”

  “That’s true, but I guess they think it’s bad luck.” Michelle did her best to explain. “A lot of people are really superstitious.”

  “Maybe so,” Hannah said, turning back to her cooking duties. She was glad that no one else was using the cottage. She intended to go back there at the very first opportunity, but her primary purpose wasn’t to search for clues Mike’s crime team might have missed. It had more to do with the frog. She hoped he’d hidden out somewhere when the crime team had searched the cottage, or hopped out the door to find a new place to inhabit. Maybe it was silly of her to be concerned, but she’d try to get over there later this evening to check.

  WANMANSITA CASSEROLE

  Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

  2 pounds lean hamburger***

  2 medium onions, sliced

  1 cup diced celery (that’s
about 3 stalks)

  1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced

  1 large package of crinkle noodles (I used egg noodles that were twisted in the middle.)

  2 cans (14.5 ounces each) of diced tomatoes with juice

  1 can (5 ounces) sliced water chestnuts**** (Sally uses chopped)

  1 can (4 ounces) mushroom pieces

  2 teaspoons cumin

  2 teaspoons chili powder

  2 teaspoons salt

  1 teaspoon pepper (freshly ground is best, of course)

  2 cups grated cheddar cheese

  Start by spraying a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan, or a half-size disposable steam table pan with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray. If you choose to use a disposable pan, set it on a cookie sheet to support the bottom and make it easier to move it from the counter to the oven, and then out again when it’s finished.

  Pour 6 quarts of water into a big pot and put it on the stove to boil. You’ll use this to cook the noodles. (If you start heating the water now, it should be boiling by the time you’re ready to cook the noodles. If it boils too early and you’re not ready, just turn down the heat a little. If it’s not ready when you are, crank up the heat and wait for the boil.)

  Crumble the hamburger and brown it over medium heat in a large frying pan, stirring it around with a metal spatula and breaking it up into pieces as it fries. This should take about 15 or 20 minutes.

  When the hamburger is nice and brown, put a bowl under a colander so that you can save about 1/3 cup of fat to use with the onions. Dump the hamburger into the colander to drain it.

  Put the drained hamburger into the prepared baking pan.

  Pour the 1/3 cup of hamburger grease back into the frying pan.

  Peel the onions and slice them into 1/8 inch thick slices. (When you do this they may fall apart in rings and that’s perfectly okay.)

  Place the onion slices in the frying pan, but don’t turn on the heat quite yet.

  Dice the celery. Add it to the onion slices in the frying pan.