Double Fudge Brownie Murder (Hannah Swensen series Book 18)

by Fluke, Joanne

  “Thanks, but we already had two apiece for breakfast,” Hannah told her.

  Nora smiled. “Well, I know that I’ll enjoy them. My sister’s coming in to help with all the arrangements and she loves strawberries. She’s bound to love these muffins, too.”

  Hannah glanced down at her list of questions. She already knew that Judge Colfax had called his wife only minutes before he was killed. Nora had mentioned that. And Mike would be sure to pull the record of calls made from the judge’s chambers. She was almost positive that Nora was telling the truth, but it couldn’t hurt to check. There were times when intuition was the mother of disaster and Hannah wasn’t about to assume anything when it came to investigating a murder.

  The most difficult question was next and Hannah knew she had to phrase it carefully. If Nora took offense at the inference, she might refuse to answer any more questions. “I imagine your nephew was very upset,” Hannah said, hoping that she sounded sympathetic.

  “Chad?” Nora looked shocked. “I doubt he cares, one way or the other. Geoffrey didn’t like Chad and I’m sure that Chad felt the same way, especially after the tongue-lashing Geoffrey gave him for pursuing the case against you in spite of his advice.”

  Hannah was surprised at this news. “Judge Colfax tried to talk Chad out of prosecuting me?”

  “Several times. Geoffrey met with him privately and he told Chad that the charges were ridiculous, that no judge worth his salt would consent to even hear the case. But Chad wouldn’t listen. He was always stubborn, even as a child.”

  “Do you think Chad was angry with Judge Colfax for dismissing my case?” Hannah asked her.

  “I know he was angry. That’s practically a given. Chad has quite the temper, and everyone in the judicial system knew it. Geoffrey told me that one of his female colleagues ordered Chad to attend a course in anger management before she’d allow him in her courtroom again.”

  “Judge Colfax’s clerk told me about that.”

  Nora took another sip of her coffee. “Dave knows everything about everyone at the courthouse. I’m glad you talked to him. He’s a very good source of information.” Nora turned to Michelle, who’d just finished her coffee. “Would you like more coffee, my dear?”

  “Yes please, and I’ll get it,” Michelle said, rising from her chair to pour a second cup for all of them.

  “I know where you’re going with this, Hannah,” Nora continued when Michelle had replaced the carafe in the coffeemaker and returned to her chair. “It does sound conceivable to an outsider, but I’ve known Chad since he was a baby and I don’t think he could ever become angry enough to get physically involved in an altercation. He lets his mouth run away with him, but he’s a physical coward at heart. He might have been terribly angry with Geoffrey, but to . . . to strike him like that?” Nora shook her head. “No, Hannah. Chad just doesn’t have it in him.”

  Hannah nodded, but she wasn’t convinced. Although she respected Nora’s opinion, she wasn’t about to cross Chad’s name off her suspect list. She still planned to find out about the phone calls Judge Colfax had made in the days before his murder. If he had called Chad, she would be even more suspicious.

  The last and final inquiry Hannah had on her list required great tact, and tact was a skill that Hannah did not possess naturally. Again, she knew that she had to be very careful about the way she phrased her question. “We’ve already talked about your husband’s son,” she said. “Did Judge Colfax have any other children?”

  Nora sighed and shook her head. “No. Geoffrey and I never had children. I was over fifty when we married, and . . . well . . . it just didn’t happen.”

  She doesn’t know about the judge’s daughter! Hannah’s mind reminded her. Dave told you, but he didn’t tell her. What does that mean? Hannah tabled that thought for future consideration and stood up. “Thank you so much for your hospitality, Nora. I’m very sorry we had to meet under such sad circumstances.”

  Michelle smiled at Nora as she stood up. “Please call us if there’s anything we can do for you. And thank you very much for the coffee.”

  Hannah waited until they were in the cookie truck, driving away, before she glanced at Michelle. “Well? What did you think?”

  “She’s a nice lady who’s hanging on by the skin of her teeth. And she doesn’t know about Judge Colfax’s daughter.”

  “Right.”

  “Dave told you, but he didn’t tell her. And Judge Colfax didn’t tell her, either.”

  “Right again.” Hannah turned onto the highway and merged with the traffic. “I wonder what that means.”

  “You’ll find out. Whatever it is, it may have something to do with Judge Colfax’s murder. It’s possible that your court case doesn’t have any bearing on his murder. And the same goes for his other court cases. Judge Colfax could have been killed for a completely different reason.”

  Hannah gave a little groan. “You’re right. I could have been interviewing the wrong people all this time. And if that’s the case, the fact that Judge Colfax was a lawyer and a judge could be the biggest red herring I’ve ever encountered!”

  STRAWBERRY MUFFINS

  Preheat oven to 375 degrees F., rack in the middle position

  The Batter:

  ¾ cup salted butter (1 and ½ sticks, 6 ounces)

  1 cup white (granulated) sugar

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

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ½ teaspoon cinnamon

  1 cup fresh or frozen sliced strawberries (no need to thaw if they’re frozen)

  2 cups plus one Tablespoon flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)

  ½ cup whole milk

  ½ cup strawberry jam

  Crumb Topping:

  ½ cup sugar

  cup flour

  ¼ cup salted butter (½ stick)

  Grease the bottoms only of a 12-cup muffin pan (or line the cups with double cupcake papers—that’s what I do at The Cookie Jar.) Melt the butter. Mix in the sugar. Add the beaten eggs, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Mix it all up thoroughly.

  Put the one Tablespoon of flour in a baggie with your cup of fresh or frozen sliced strawberries. Shake it gently to coat the strawberries and leave them in the bag for now.

  Add half of the remaining two cups of flour to your bowl and mix it in with half of the milk. Then add the rest of the flour and the milk, and mix thoroughly.

  Here comes the fun part: Add the half cup of strawberry jam to your bowl and mix it in. (Your dough will turn a beautiful shade of pinkish red.) When your dough is thoroughly mixed, fold in the flour-coated fresh or frozen sliced strawberries.

  Fill the muffin cups three-quarters full and set them aside. If you have dough left over, grease the bottom of a small tea-bread loaf pan and fill it with your remaining dough.

  Crumb Topping:

  Mix the sugar and the flour in a small bowl. Add the butter and cut it in until it’s crumbly. (You can also do this in a food processor with chilled butter and the steel blade.)

  Fill the remaining space in the muffin cups with the crumb topping. Then bake the muffins in a 375 degrees F. oven for 25 to 30 minutes. (The tea-bread should bake about 10 minutes longer than the muffins.)

  When your muffins are baked, set the muffin pan on a wire rack to cool for at least 30 minutes. (The muffins need to cool in the pan for easy removal.) Then just tip them out of the cups and enjoy.

  These are wonderful when they’re slightly warm, but the strawberry flavor will intensify if you store them in a covered container overnight.

  Hannah’s Note: Grandma Ingrid’s muffin pans were large enough to hold all the dough from this recipe. My muffin tins are smaller and I always make a loaf of Strawberry tea-bread with the leftover dough for my nieces. If I make it for Tracey and Bethie, I leave off the crumb topping. They love to eat it sliced, toasted, and buttered for breakfast. Andrea told me that her girls love strawberries so much, th
ey even put strawberry jam on top of the butter!

  Chapter Twenty-three

  “Here she is. My cell phone technology teacher,” Hannah said to Michelle as she slid over in the booth so that Tracey could sit beside her. Hannah and Michelle had arrived at Hal and Rose’s Café twenty minutes ago and they had been sipping coffee while they’d waited for Tracey to join them.

  “Hi, Aunt Michelle.” Tracey hugged Michelle and then she slid in beside Hannah. “This is so exciting! I’ve never gone out to lunch in the middle of a school day before! Mom had to write me a note and everything!” She leaned in a little and lowered her voice. “You should have seen all the other kids. They were jealous of me. Calvin Janowski even asked me if I’d bring him back one of Rose’s pickles!”

  “So you’ve got a thing going with Calvin?” Michelle asked her.

  Tracey giggled merrily. “Oh, Aunt Michelle! You must be teasing me. Calvin’s so immature!”

  Hannah covered her laugh with a cough. There were times when Tracey sounded like her grandmother. “You’re a little young for that, aren’t you, Tracey?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. But I’ll get there. At least that’s what Mom and Grandma McCann tell me. Could we please order now, Aunt Hannah?” Tracey glanced at her watch. “I have only thirty-three minutes left before I have to walk back to school. I don’t want to be late for noon recess today. The girls are taking on the boys in kickball. And the ball isn’t the only thing we’re going to kick!”

  “Tracey!” This time Hannah didn’t cover her laugh. “I’d better not ask you what you mean by that.”

  “You can ask me. I’m just repeating what Grandma McCann said when I told her about the kickball contest. And when I asked her what she meant, she said that the girls would kick the score up so high, the boys couldn’t possibly win. Isn’t that funny?”

  “That’s funny,” Michelle said, exchanging smiles with Hannah.

  “I know that’s not what Grandma McCann meant at all, but she recovers well, and I pretended to believe that.”

  “Oh, Tracey!” Hannah said, bursting into even more laughter. “You’re cracking us up today. Do you know what you’d like for lunch?”

  “Hamburger, fries, and a chocolate shake. I’ve been dreaming about that all morning. I almost lost my place in Bluebird Reading because I was so busy trying to decide between a strawberry and a chocolate shake. I’m just glad that Cheryl reads with her finger. All I had to do was look at her and I found my place again. It’s a good thing I did because Miss Gladke called on me next. And she gets very upset with us when we lose our places.”

  “Cheryl reads with her finger?” Michelle asked, picking up on that part of Tracey’s explanation.

  “Yes.” Tracey opened the menu and traced her finger along the line of print that described Rose’s roast turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread. “Like this.”

  “I see,” Michelle said. “And you don’t read with your finger?”

  “Not anymore. Mom said I used to in pre-school, but now I just use my eyes. And I don’t read with my lips, either. Calvin still does, but he’s trying to stop. And I’m getting really good at keeping my place unless I’m too distracted by thoughts of hamburgers, fries, and chocolate milkshakes, of course.”

  “That’s good, Tracey,” Hannah said, motioning to Rose that they were ready to give her their order. “You’re going to teach me how to text today, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I think you’re ready for that lesson. And if you’re not, we’ll just table it until tomorrow after school. And after I teach you to text, I’ll take a look at Aunt Michelle’s cell and see if there are any new apps that I can explain to her.”

  Hannah saw Michelle turn away and pretend to cough into her napkin and she looked grateful for the interruption when Rose arrived to take their order.

  “Okay, Tracey,” Hannah said, after Rose had gone off to prepare their lunch. “What do I do first?”

  “You get out your cell phone.”

  “Right.” Hannah retrieved it from her purse and handed it over to her young teacher. “There’s a text I have to send. It’s important and I’d like to learn how to do it while we’re waiting for Rose to fix our lunch.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, Hannah had sent her text message and all three of them had finished Rose’s delicious hamburgers, fries, and shakes.

  “That was really good, Aunt Hannah!” Tracey said. “Thank you for buying me lunch.” She turned to Michelle. “And thank you for asking Rose for an extra pickle for Calvin.”

  “I’ll give you a ride back to school,” Hannah offered. “Then you won’t have to hurry. And I hope you girls do kick the boys’ whatevers in kickball.”

  Tracey laughed and climbed into the back of Hannah’s cookie truck. It was only a couple of blocks to the school, and Hannah pulled right up in front. “Do you see that pink box in the back, Tracey?”

  “I see it, Aunt Hannah.”

  “Grab that and take it in with you. There are three dozen assorted day-old cookies inside. You can enjoy them with your classmates after the kickball game.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Hannah! I’ll be over after school to enter your contacts.”

  “My what?”

  “Your contacts. They’re the phone numbers you call on a regular basis. How many of those numbers do you have?”

  “I’m not sure.” Hannah thought about it for a moment. “I call your mother, Michelle, Grandma Delores, Doc, Ross, Norman, Mike, and Lisa. I think that’s it.”

  “But that’s only eight!”

  Hannah shrugged. “I know. I really don’t use my cell phone that often.”

  “You will now that you have a smartphone. I’ll put my number in your contacts. You can call me if you have trouble with your phone.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I’ll need to put in your land line at the condo.”

  “Why?”

  “So that it’ll be listed under HOME. That way, if you ever lose your cell, the person who finds it can call your answer machine and leave a message.”

  “Okay,” Hannah said. “That makes sense.”

  “Just remember, all you have to do is type the first couple of letters of somebody’s name and their number will come up on your display. Then just hit CALL or TEXT and your phone will take care of the rest automagically.”

  “Automagically?”

  “That’s what I call it when my smartphone does something I like and I don’t know how it does it.” Tracey grabbed the cookie box and came around the truck to hug both Michelle and Hannah before she ran off toward the entrance. Hannah waited until her niece was safely inside and then she started the truck again.

  “So who did you text?” Michelle asked after they’d pulled away. “I didn’t want to ask you in front of Tracey in case it was personal.”

  “I sent a text to Mother to see if she knows Margaret George. That name is really familiar and I think I met her when I catered one of Mother’s launch parties.”

  “Did she get back to you?”

  “Not yet. Tracey used a special ring tone for text messages when they come in. It’s a series of chimes that sound like Big Ben. It’s totally different from the ring tone she used for phone calls.”

  “What do you have for phone calls?”

  “It sounds like a ringing phone.”

  “That figures,” Michelle said with a smile.

  Hannah gave her a sharp look. “You think it should be something else?”

  “No, it’s perfect for you. Let’s stop by The Cookie Jar and taste Lisa’s new cookies. And then we’d better get back to your condo to get ready for the dinner party tonight.”

  “Uh-oh!” Hannah said as something dreadful occurred to her. “I didn’t plug in the crockpots. Did you?”

  “I’ve got all three on timers. By the time we get back, they should be bubbling away.”

  “What if they aren’t?”

  “Then we throw everything in a pan and bake it in the oven. It takes less time in th
e oven than it does in slow cookers. Don’t worry, Hannah. Dinner will be ready on time. And we’ll all have a wonderful evening.”

  Hannah thought of being in Ross’s arms again and she began to smile. It was a slow smile that started with the corners of her lips and grew to encompass her whole face. “Yes,” she breathed. “I know that I’ll have a wonderful evening.”

  “Don’t dress the salad now!” Michelle looked horrified as Hannah poured salad dressing into the bottom of the bowl.

  “I’m not going to dress it,” Hannah told her, sprinkling thinly sliced red onions on top of the dressing and then adding fresh spinach leaves.

  “But . . .” Michelle stopped speaking, unsure of herself. “I’ve never seen you do that before.”

  “That’s because I haven’t done it before. It’s a trick I learned from Sally out at the Lake Eden Inn. When she caters a large party and one course is a salad, she puts the dressing in the bottom of the bowl, adds something like onions that won’t soak up the dressing or wilt, and then adds the greens on top of that. She finishes it off with tomatoes, but she doesn’t slice them. And then she fills little Baggies with all the extras, like croutons, bacon bits, and shredded cheese, puts those on top, and then covers the whole thing with plastic wrap and puts it in her walk-in cooler. Then all her waitresses have to do is slice the tomatoes, add the baggies with the extras, and toss the salad when it’s time to serve it.”