Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Cherry Chocolate Chip Cookies

  1 (10-ounce) jar maraschino cherries (chopped, should yield 3⁄4 cup)

  1⁄2 cup butter

  1⁄2 cup shortening (Breanna uses butter-flavored shortening)

  1⁄2 cup sugar

  3⁄4 cup brown sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  3 tablespoons reserved cherry juice

  2 eggs

  21⁄2 cups flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  1⁄2 teaspoon baking powder

  3⁄4 teaspoon baking soda

  3⁄4 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips*

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Drain jar of cherries but reserve the juice. Chop cherries and set aside.

  Cream butter and shortening, add sugars and beat until fluffy. Add vanilla, cherry juice, and eggs. Mix well. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix until combined. Add chopped cherries and chocolate chips. Mix until combined.

  Drop by rounded teaspoons (or use a 1-inch scoop) onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 12 minutes or until the edges begin to brown slightly. (The center of the cookie may still appear uncooked.) Cool on pan for 2 minutes before moving to cooling rack. Makes 3 dozen.

  *Milk chocolate chips work, too, but they have a higher tendency to scorch, so don’t overcook. I prefer white chocolate chips; they keep the cherry flavor center stage.

  Chapter 10

  Sadie could hear Mindy talking a mile a minute when she reached the Baileys’ house. The front door was open, with only the screen serving as a barrier. She stepped into the shade of the porch and sighed with relief. It was maybe eighty yards from her house to Mindy’s, and she was already sweating. She took a deep breath, prayed for calmness, and then rang the doorbell. Mindy’s voice got louder but didn’t stop as it approached the door.

  “ . . . So then I said, what did you think I was calling you for, you’re a plumber right? And he goes, Well, lady—but I didn’t even let him finish. I said, Don’t call me lady when you’re treating me like some stupid teenage girl who doesn’t know a floater from a wax ring. I mean, really.” She pulled open the screen door while she paused for breath. Her frizzy blonde hair was pulled up into a high bun on top of her head, and her cheeks were flushed. Sadie suspected it was due to the thrill of having a new set of ears to fill with her babble.

  An instant smile lit Mindy’s face when she recognized Sadie, reminding Sadie that while Mindy could be annoying, she meant no harm. Sadie just hoped she didn’t accidentally cause any harm. The woman could have easily told Sadie’s entire life history to Jane in twenty minutes.

  “Oh, hi, Sadie, how are you doing? You brought me cookies?” She pushed open the screen door. “You shouldn’t have, but you know we never say no to your treats. I honestly don’t know how you find time to bake with everything else you do in a day. My kids are lucky to get a store-bought cake on their birthdays, that’s how often I bake anything around here.” She took the plate, not seeming to realize that Sadie had yet to speak a single word.

  “Speaking of birthdays, did you know Gina turns fifteen on Thursday? Fifteen—as in a full decade and half of another decade. That is just cra-zy! Do you remember when she was born?”

  “Anyway,” another voice cut in. Sadie looked past Mindy and glared at Jane, who was coming toward her. “Thanks for your time, Mindy. You’ve been very . . . informative.”

  Sadie scanned Jane’s face for sarcasm, but took smug satisfaction in the wide-eyed look on her face that held none of her usual, arrogant superiority. Go Mindy.

  “Oh, are you leaving already?” Mindy said, turning toward her guest with her eyebrows raised. “You should stay for some cookies. And milk, of course. You can’t have cookies without milk. When I was a little girl, my mother made cookies twice a week and kept the leftovers in an old bread bag so we could have cookies after school every day.”

  Jane smiled and nodded as she reached the door. “Yeah, that sounds great. I better go though.”

  Sadie stepped back, giving Jane a pointed look as she passed her on the porch.

  “Well, at least let me get you a baggie of cookies to take back to Denver with you. I always love to have something to snack on when I have to drive long distances, which is probably why I had to buy a size sixteen the other day. I’ve never been a size sixteen in my life. Well, other than when I was pregnant. I found that buying larger sizes gave me more variety of styles than if I just settled for maternity clothes.”

  Jane was on the sidewalk, waving over her shoulder. Mindy came out onto the porch as well, still working her magic. “And cheaper, too. I couldn’t believe how expensive maternity clothes were. I mean, you only wear them for a few months.”

  Jane reached the road and practically sprinted across the cul-de-sac. Sadie watched her with a smile, then gave Mindy a hug, cutting her off just as she was launching into her regrets of not saving those size sixteen clothes since she fit into them now.

  Mindy went quiet and looked at Sadie in confusion when she pulled back. Sadie didn’t think she’d ever hugged her neighbor before. But had she had a good enough reason before now?

  “Mindy, you are one of a kind.”

  Mindy pulled her eyebrows together, thoroughly confused. And, for once, entirely speechless.

  “Did she ask about me?” Sadie asked, glancing over her shoulder to see Jane fumble for her keys as she neared her car.

  “Um, I don’t remember,” Mindy said, scowling slightly. “I’m afraid I didn’t give her much time to talk. It’s kind of a problem I have.”

  Sadie grinned at the understatement.

  Mindy took the smile as an invitation. “Like this one time, at work, my boss said I talked to the patients on the phone too long, so I decided to time myself and at the end of the week reported that the average phone call lasted only four and a half minutes. He said they should be less than a minute. Less than a minute? Honestly, can you believe that?”

  Jane’s engine started up, and Sadie listened to her car drive off before turning her full attention back to Mindy. She could listen to Mindy for twenty minutes as a thank-you for running Jane off, even though knowing May’s number was on her caller ID made it harder than usual.

  Sadie hoped Jane wouldn’t come back; yet as Mindy jumped from talking about work to her mother-in-law and then Sea World, Sadie thought back to why Jane had come. Did she really think Sadie wouldn’t be upset about the article? Or was she curious enough about something—May, perhaps—to come all the way up to Garrison in hopes of getting information?

  But Mindy wouldn’t have information about May. What was it Jane wanted? Denver was a long way away to come for something that wasn’t important. Granted, Jane must have known Sadie wouldn’t have talked to her over the phone at all, so driving up was her only option. But still, what was Jane trying to find out? What had she hoped Mindy knew? It was an unsettling thought, and one Sadie was determined to ponder as soon as Mindy stopped talking.

  It might be a while.

  Chapter 11

  It was nearly an hour before Sadie returned home, leaning her back against the door and letting out a breath. Even after so many years, it amazed her how much Mindy had to say. Sadie found herself less annoyed than usual, however, simply because Mindy had managed to run Jane off. That took skills.

  Sadie lined up the wall phone in her sights. The moment had arrived; it was time to call May Sanderson. In the time it took to cross from the front door to the kitchen phone, Sadie tried to come up with what she was going to say, mentally debating the options for what felt like the hundredth time.

  It was a chance to prove that, like Mindy, Sadie had skills of her own.

  It was ridiculous to encourage May to put her faith in Sadie, who was not, after all, an investigator, professional or otherwise.

  May contacting her was a sign that Sadie was supposed to pursue this.

  May contacting her was a temptation sent by the devil himself.

  She was reaching for the phone when it ra
ng, causing her to jump about a foot in the air. Just like with Gayle’s call an hour earlier, her first thought was that it was May. She was so caught up in her assumption that she grabbed the handset before the caller ID registered.

  “Hello,” she said, a little breathless.

  “Sadie? It’s Karen. Are you coming to the women’s meeting? I need those handouts you made of the new committee chair people.”

  Sadie spun around to look at the glowing numbers on the oven clock. It was 3:14. The women’s meeting started at 3:00. “Oh my goodness,” Sadie said, horrified to have forgotten. “I am so sorry. Yes, I’m on my way. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  As soon as she hung up, Sadie ran for the fridge, only to realize that she hadn’t finished putting the crab dip appetizer together. Thank goodness the easy part wasn’t simply a clever title. However, it still took another ten minutes to spread the cocktail sauce and crab meat over the cream cheese and cover it with plastic wrap again. She dumped a variety of crackers into a basket, grabbed the handouts and her keys, and flew out the door at 3:26—with hardly a moment to be frustrated that despite having May’s number for more than an hour now, she still hadn’t managed to call her back.

  It was 3:38 when she appeared in the doorway of the fellowship hall. Two dozen women continued eating their meals while Sadie tried to catch her breath, the appetizer that was no longer necessary in her hands. Karen stood up from her place at one of the tables and hurried toward Sadie, a brilliant smile on her face. Karen was an eighty-year-old grandmother in the body of a thirty-year-old woman; she was full of grace, kindness, and boundless energy.

  “Oh, this looks delicious, Sadie,” Karen said, taking the plate and leading Sadie toward the buffet, drawing everyone’s attention to her tardiness in the process. “Everyone, Sadie brought her cream-cheese crab dip, so be sure not to miss it.”

  A few sincere smiles helped ease the sting of the polite ones as Karen arranged Sadie’s appetizer between a half-eaten pasta salad and a picked-over veggie tray. Sadie gave Karen the handouts and then began filling her plate, wondering if she should just go back home. How could she have forgotten about this meeting in the first place? Sadie never forgot. In fact, she was usually the first one to these meetings—force of habit after having been president for six years. By the time anyone showed up, she’d have the chairs arranged, the tables covered, and the napkins laid out in a fan design.

  She slid into a seat between Sister Maxine and Sister Tana; Karen’s table was full. Everyone smiled a hello, and Sadie turned her attention to her food so as not to interrupt the ongoing conversations. The topic under discussion was timeshares, which was something Sadie knew nothing about. She picked at her meal and tried not to look as out of place as she felt, counting the minutes until she could go home and wondering if anyone was going to bring up the article.

  Bertie sat at another table, but Sadie swore she could feel it every time the other woman looked at her. Annie Samulson’s famous triple-berry salad was, of course, divine—a perfect summer salad for a hot day—but it didn’t distract her as much as she’d hoped.

  After most of the women had finished their meal—and Sadie had helped herself to another serving of the wonderful salad—Karen stood and updated them on last month’s project of care. The school bags they had put together for children in Kosovo had been a huge success, and Karen read a thank-you card from the head of the organization. The women’s group chose a service project each month, so, following the update, Karen introduced this month’s project—baby quilts for the YWCA.

  “As always, I need two women to head up the project. Do we have any volunteers?”

  Sadie slunk down in her seat and tore off a piece of her roll before stuffing it in her mouth. She’d overseen this project the last two times they’d done it. She wasn’t an expert quilter by any means, but baby quilts were easy, and since she already volunteered at the YWCA on a regular basis, she made the perfect liaison. In fact, she had been the one who had brought the project idea to the woman’s group in the first place. But the last thing she wanted was to stand up in front of these women and take some position of authority right now.

  “Sadie?”

  Her stomach dropped as she looked up to see two dozen sets of eyes looking her way. She straightened in her chair and opened her mouth to accept, despite how much she didn’t want to—she always said yes—but very different words came out. “I can’t do it this time, Karen. I’m sorry.”

  The room was silent, each of them as surprised to hear “no” as Sadie was to have said it. Karen blinked while Sadie tried desperately to analyze her feelings. At the other table, Bertie leaned over to her neighbor and whispered something in her ear. The two women looked at Sadie quickly, then looked away again.

  Sadie felt her cheeks heating up and wondered how so many things had changed so quickly. Service projects had been a priority for her for years; they made her feel connected to her church and her community. Yet, even before the dreaded article had been written, something had begun to feel different. She was unsettled, almost . . . bored with the very things that had given her meaning a few months before. And yet, until right now, she’d still done them. She’d gone above and beyond anytime anything was asked of her. What had changed?

  Jennie Owen raised her hand after several silent seconds. “I can oversee it this time, Karen,” she said, casting Sadie a quick look of understanding. Jennie had assisted with the project before, and Sadie knew she’d do a good job.

  Sadie shoved another bite of roll into her mouth and chewed slowly while using her fork to line up the rigatoni noodles of the somewhat bland pasta salad on her plate.

  “Wonderful,” Karen said, quickly repairing her expression. “We still need another helper. Keep in mind you won’t be doing all the work yourself, just making sure it gets done.”

  Tana Mills, sitting to Sadie’s left, raised her hand. “I can do it if no one else can.”

  “Thank you, Tana,” Karen said with relief. Sadie could feel everyone looking between herself and Tana, their gazes shooting across the room, hitting her like darts.

  She felt her face heat up again, but this time it was as much with anger as it was with embarrassment. For years Sadie had taken meals to the new moms, made cakes for every funeral, helped with fun runs, blood drives, and food collections. She was glad to have helped these organizations, and she took pride in having been part of so many good causes, but here she was facing a personal crisis and, other than Gayle and Pete—and Carrie, sort of—not one person had stepped up to assure her that they knew her better than some reporter with an ax to grind. Some, like Karen, had ignored the situation, but not a single woman in this room had come up to Sadie and told her that she was more important than some juicy story they could dissect over the back fence.

  The thought actually brought tears to her eyes. She may never have expected to have her reputation questioned, but she’d unconsciously assumed that the people she knew and loved, the people she had served with for so many years, would reach out to her and lift her up rather than avoid her, ignore her, or talk about her behind her back. For the first time ever, Sadie felt as though she didn’t fit here, that she was a liability rather than an asset to this group of women.

  Discussion filled the room on how they would execute the quilting project. Sadie waited until a few ladies stood to get dessert, then she blended in with them, picked up her mostly untouched appetizer—no one wanted crab dip now that the desserts were ready—and headed through the doors, not looking back. She was sure her exit didn’t go unnoticed. Bertie, especially, would love that Sadie had left early, but Sadie didn’t care about that as much as she did about the need to get away.

  She turned on the car, and a gust of musty air blew out of the vents as the air conditioner came to life. She looked at the church in front of her, at the melting crab dip on the passenger seat, and at her own eyes in the rearview mirror. The last forty-eight hours of her life had not been enjoyable in the least.
Tomorrow was Monday, the start of a new week. Would Jane run another article? Would Eric do another interview? Would she keep smiling as though none of this bothered her? Or would she step out of her self-pity and do something?

  She was a proactive woman, and she needed to be as proactive as she could. Maybe she couldn’t make this go away, but maybe she could make it better.

  Take the job, a voice inside her head said. It might have been her own voice, she didn’t rule that out, but she absorbed the possibility. If she took the job, she’d have something to distract her from the muckraking. She’d also physically remove herself from the situation, which would be a relief in itself. More than both those reasons, however, was the chance to prove that she didn’t simply get in the way of serious work. Helping to solve those other cases hadn’t happened by accident. She’d put together clues the police had missed, uncovered family secrets, and righted wrongs that had gone on for years and years without resolution. May was offering Sadie her first actual job as an investigator. If Sadie took May up on her offer, and if she solved this case as she had the others, maybe she could redeem a little bit of her tarnished reputation.