The Coloring Crook

by Krista Davis

24 vanilla wafers

  2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese, softened

  ½ cup sugar

  1 teaspoon vanilla

  3 tablespoons sour cream

  2 tablespoons heavy cream

  2 eggs

  ½ cup Smucker’s All Natural Cherry Spread (or any jam you

  like)

  Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line the wells of a mini-cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Place ½ teaspoon of wafer crumbs in each mini-cupcake liner.

  Place the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, sour cream, and heavy cream in a mixing bowl. Beat until just mixed. Add one egg at a time, beating after each addition.

  Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top of the vanilla wafer crumbs, filling the liners full.

  Bake 18 to 20 minutes. They will puff up while baking and deflate while cooling, leaving a small dent for the jam. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. When completely cool, warm the cherry spread over medium heat, stirring frequently. Spoon about ¼ teaspoon in the center of each mini-cheesecake.

  Killer Cocktail

  4 ounces cold orange juice

  1 ounce peach schnapps

  1 ounce rum

  4 ounces cold sparkling wine

  Mix together in a tall glass. Garnish with an orange slice.

  Turn the page for a preview

  of Krista Davis’s next

  Domestic Diva Mystery . . .

  The Diva Sweetens the Pie

  Coming May 2019

  From Kensington Publishing

  Dear Sophie,

  My new mother-in-law wins the local pie contest every year. The recipe for her piecrust is top secret, and his family makes a huge fuss about it. She and her husband are coming to visit my hubby and me for the first time. Hubby says a pie is obligatory. Each of her other daughters-in-law bakes a pie for her visit. I’m terrified! What do I do?

  Newlywed in Coward, South Carolina

  Dear Newlywed,

  Bake a cake. There’s no point in competing with her, and a cake will last longer than a pie anyway. If someone comments on the missing pie, tell your mother-in-law that you’re eager to learn how she bakes her wonderful pies that everyone raves about.

  Sophie

  Daisy, my hound mix, stopped walking abruptly. I thought she had picked up the scent of a squirrel in the night air, but then I heard rustling in the bushes. In a split second, I was face-to-face with Patsy Lee Presley, and both of us screamed like we were under attack. Daisy barked, which added to the drama.

  Wide-eyed, as though she were horrified, Patsy Lee took off running like a woman in her fifties who didn’t get much exercise.

  My heart still pounding, I sucked in a deep breath. It wasn’t long ago that someone had meant to harm me. I guessed I was still wary and a little jittery. The truth was that the streets of Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia, were safe at night. I often walked Daisy after dark, enjoying the lights glowing in the windows of the historical homes that lined the streets.

  Now that the momentary shock was over, I wasn’t certain it had been Patsy Lee. I had never met her before but I had seen her on TV many times. Patsy Lee Presley was the current darling of the TV cooking world with the number one show. Sweet as the pies she baked, she was slightly chubby, and watching her show was like a visit from a favorite doting aunt. Patsy Lee was due to be in Old Town on Saturday for the Pie Festival, so it could have been her. But what was she doing hiding in bushes and running around like she was afraid?

  I looked back in the direction she had gone, but she had disappeared. Whoever that woman was, I hoped she had the good sense to call the police if she was in trouble.

  * * *

  The next morning, I told Nina Reid Norwood and Officer Wong about it while we rolled out dough in Bobby Earl’s class on pie baking. Nina, my best friend and across-the-street neighbor, unwisely added drops of water to her dough. I watched as it became sticky and unmanageable, but decided it wasn’t my place to say anything. After all, Bobby was teaching the class.

  Nina frowned at me. “Why isn’t your dough sticking to your hands like mine?”

  Wong glanced at her. “Mercy, Nina! Dip your hands in the flour, honey.”

  Wong focused on her own dough, which looked perfect to me.

  “I’ll check the log to see if anyone called in last night. It was probably some married woman sneaking home after a rendezvous with a boyfriend. Not to put Patsy Lee down, but a lot of women still wear their hair real big like she does. It could have been someone else.”

  Bobby Earl approached our group. “Bless your sorry little heart, Nina.” Bobby gazed at the sticky lump in front of Nina and patted her on the back. “Why don’t you go to the mixer and try again? I don’t think that’s salvageable.”

  Bobby nodded approvingly at my pie dough. “Did I hear you talking about Patsy Lee?”

  “I thought I saw her in Old Town last night. Do you know her?” I asked.

  He snorted. “I taught her everything she knows.”

  “You did not,” Wong scolded him. “On the show Patsy Lee is always talking about her grandmother, from whom she learned how to cook and bake. She was just a tiny thing when she started cooking. So young that she had to stand on a chair to reach the countertop to work next to her Meemaw.”

  Bobby laughed aloud. “Is that the story she spins? Have you ever seen this Meemaw on her show?”

  “Good grief, Bobby,” said Wong. “Patsy Lee is in her forties, her Meemaw would probably be in her eighties.”

  Bobby lowered his voice and said, “Patsy Lee is so far into her forties that she has rolled over into her fifties. And her MeeMaw doesn’t come on the show because she has a receding hairline, a five o’clock shadow, and her legs are too fat to wear a skirt.”

  Bobby had done a fairly good job of describing himself. I couldn’t help grinning.

  Wong’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying there is no Meemaw?”

  “I guess she had a couple of grannies, most people do.” He shrugged. “But when I met Patsy Lee, she couldn’t crack an egg without breaking the yolk.”

  Bobby moved on, pausing to talk to Nina about the dough she was carrying back to our workstation. She sidled in next to me and plunked her dough on the table.

  “The secret to a perfect piecrust”—Bobby paused to build up suspense—“is vodka. I find drinking it helps me, but a splash in your dough will prevent too much gluten formation. There are other important factors, like keeping the ingredients as cold as possible, but the vodka is helpful because it makes the crust flaky.”

  Nina licked the spoon she had been dipping into the lemon filling for her lemon meringue pie.

  “You won’t have any filling left for your pie,” I whispered.

  “That’s okay. You didn’t think I was actually going to bake anything, did you?” she whispered back to me.

  Officer Wong shot us a dirty look, “Shh!”

  Nina had made fun of me for participating in the class. I had baked plenty of pies in my life, but pie crusts could be tricky. Bobby was a pro, and I figured I would pick up some tips. He baked pies for a living and sold them at Sweet as Pie on King Street in Old Town, Alexandria. Rumor had it that people drove an hour across greater metropolitan Washington, DC, just to buy Bobby’s pies. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, they had to be preordered because he couldn’t fill all the requests.

  He roamed the room as he spoke. The buttons on his short-sleeved white chef’s jacket strained a bit against the pressure of his stomach. I could relate. I had my own difficulties maintaining the weight I would like to be.

  Wong giggled when he stopped to praise her dough. “I’m so thrilled to be in your class. My grandmother was an expert pie baker. I wish I had paid attention to her techniques.”

  Was she flirting with him?

  Just as he had described, his hair had begun to recede but he was taking it in stride and wore it brushed back off his face. He smiled at her and the little crinkles at the outer edges of his brown eyes deepened.<
br />
  African American Wong, who attributed her name to the wrong husband by a long shot, wasn’t in her police uniform today. Her hair waved to just below her ears in a cut that was shorter in the back and longer in the front. One sassy curl dropped on her forehead.

  I looked a little closer. She had taken a lot of care with her makeup. The buttons on her shirt strained a bit, not unlike those on Bobby’s jacket. The two of them could be cute together. Nina nudged me, and I suspected she was thinking the same thing.

  While the pies baked, Bobby drifted through the room engaging all his students. When he reached Nina he asked, “Is it true that you’re judging the pie baking contest?”

  Nina turned as red as the cherry filling I had cooked for my pie. “That’s why I’m here. I thought I should have a feel for all the work that goes into baking a pie.”

  Bobby stared at her and appeared confused.

  “She has an amazing palate,” I offered.

  Wong looked over at us. “What’s that supposed to mean? I like food, too, but nobody asked me to judge anything.”

  “I mean that Nina has the ability to taste flavors that the rest of us miss entirely or barely notice. If someone in this class sliced their fruit on a cutting board that was used to mince garlic last night and was thoroughly washed, Nina would still taste the garlic when she ate the fruit.”

  “I’ve seen contests like that. They blindfold people to see who can recognize the flavors or textures,” said Bobby. “Well, Ms. Nina Reid Norwood, I apologize for doubting you. I guess there’s more than one way to judge a pie.”

  “I hope you entered in the professional category,” I said.

  “You bet. I can’t talk about it in front of a judge, though.” Bobby winked at us.

  “You’re so cute. But it’s not a problem,” Nina assured him. “The pies won’t have any names on them. It will be a blind tasting.”

  Bobby smiled. “Good to hear. I wouldn’t want to be disqualified.” He moved on to the next group.

  An hour later, everyone except Nina went home with a pie. The class was a small part of the Old Town Pie Festival, which was scheduled to commence in earnest the following day.

  Nina offered to carry the pie as we neared my house. She took deep breaths. “Do you think there are calories in what a person sniffs?”

  “I’m almost positive there are. I know I weigh more every time I leave a bakery.”

  As we approached my house, we saw a man peering in the window of my kitchen door. He cupped his hands around his eyes and leaned against the glass to see better. I could hear Daisy barking inside the house.

  Don’t miss Krista Davis’s first

  Pen & Ink Mystery:

  COLOR ME MURDER

  Or the next in her New York Times bestselling Domestic Diva series:

  THE DIVA COOKS UP A STORM

  Now on sale from Kensington Books

  KRISTA DAVIS is the New York Times bestselling author of the Domestic Diva Mysteries, the Paws & Claws Mysteries, and the Pen & Ink Mysteries. Several of her books have been nominated for the Agatha Award. Krista lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with two cats and a brood of dogs. Her friends and family complain about being guinea pigs for her recipes, but she notices they keep coming back for more. Please visit her at www.kristadavis.com.