Cherry Cheesecake Murder (3 page)

“What’s wrong, Hannah?” Norman asked as she arrived at their booth and stood there in front of it, her hands on her hips.

“Everything,” Hannah said, deciding not to mince words. “Why did you have to ask me to marry you anyway?”

“Because I love you,” Norman was the first to respond.

“And I love you, too,” Mike said.

“Well, that’s just great, because I love you.”

“Who?” Norman asked.

“Yes, who?” Mike added.

“Both of you. But that’s not the biggest problem. I’m sick and tired of people telling me that I have to choose between you! And I really resent the fact that everyone in this whole town is urging me to make a decision right now!”

Mike held up his hand. “But, Hannah…”

“Quiet!” Hannah interrupted. “Just this morning, I got calls from Bill, Lisa, Barbara Donnelly, Doc Bennett, and Mother. I even got an ultimatum from Mayor Bascomb! They all want me to make my decision right now, but they’ve got it all wrong. I should be the one to decide when to decide!”

“Huh?” Norman asked, looking confused.

Mike wore the identical expression. “What was that, Hannah?”

“Never mind. I know what I mean and that’s good enough for me. Do you still want to marry me?”

If it had been raining, both men would have drowned as they looked up at her with their mouths open in surprise. Mike was the first to recover. “I do.”

“So do I!” Norman added.

“Good.” Hannah gave them both a tight smile. “That means I’m going to turn both of you down. You’re off the hook. You can stop moping around and waiting for the other shoe to drop. There’s no way I’m going to bow to peer pressure and choose between you.”

“Hold on,” Norman said, looking dismayed. “Does that mean you’re not going to marry either one of us?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“But…is there someone else?” Mike asked.

“No, there’s no one.”

“Then why…”

Norman started to frame a question, but Hannah interrupted. “It’s a matter of principle. Who decided that the man had to be the one to propose, anyway?”

Both men shrugged and Norman finally answered, “I don’t know, but I think it’s always been that way.”

“Well, I don’t like it and I’m changing the rules. I’m taking back my own life and following my own timetable. Nobody’s going to push me into anything I don’t want to do. I’ll decide when I want to get married. And when I do, I’ll ask the man of my choice if he wants to marry me. Is that clear?”

Mike and Norman exchanged glances. Then they both turned to her and nodded.

“Perfect. Now can we all stop acting like characters that escaped from a soap opera and get back to a seminormal life?”

“Yeah,” Mike agreed, smiling for the first time since Hannah had come in the door.

“You bet!” Norman said, but he didn’t smile. “I don’t want to open a can of worms here, but will you still go out with me, Hannah?”

“Absolutely.”

“And me?” Mike asked.

“You, too. Let’s just forget about marriage and go back to the way we were.”

“You’re on,” Mike said.

“Deal,” Norman concurred, smiling at last.

“I’m really glad we got that settled.” Hannah was smiling as she turned to Norman. “Would you please go get me a chair? If I’m not sitting next to either one of you, the customers that are staring at us from the counter can’t speculate on what that might mean.”

“Sure thing,” Norman said, and slid out of the booth.

“And would you go tell Rose I’m as hungry as a bear and I want two eggs over easy, bacon extra crispy, and toast?” Hannah asked Mike.

“Of course.”

Mike slid out of the booth, but Hannah grabbed his hand as he was about to walk away. “Just a second,” she said. “Do you think you can pretend you’re on duty for a minute?”

“I guess. Why?”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d remind those guys at the counter that gambling’s illegal in Minnesota. And then you can tell Hal that I’m not going to marry either one of you and that he should donate every cent of the money he’s holding to charity.”

When Hannah came in the back door at The Cookie Jar, Lisa gave her a thumbs-up. “You were absolutely right to turn both of them down.”

“Thanks, but how did you hear about it so soon?”

Lisa pointed to the wall next to the sink and Hannah turned to look. The cord from the wall phone was stretched out to its limit and the phone attached to the end of the cord was out of sight, shut tightly in the drawer that held the dishtowels. “Too many calls?”

“You said it!” Hannah’s petite partner gave a little laugh. “Everybody in town who doesn’t know wants to pump me for information. And everybody who does know wants to be the first to tell me about it. I couldn’t get the baking done and answer the phone at the same time, so I took it off the hook.”

“And you hid it in the drawer so you wouldn’t see it on the counter and feel guilty?”

“You know me too well.”

“Well, I’m here now. I’ll take care of the calls.” Hannah opened the drawer, retrieved the phone, and hung it back on the hook. There was a moment of breathless anticipation and then it began to ring.

“Your turn,” Lisa declared, slipping into her coat and heading for the door. “I’m running over to the school with the cookies for the faculty meeting.”

“Put on your gloves. It’s cold out there,” Hannah called after her. Then she reached for the phone, hoping the person on the other end of the line was someone comfortable, someone friendly, someone from out of state. “The Cookie Jar. Hannah speaking.”

“Hi, Hannah!” A familiar voice reached Hannah’s ear. “I figured you were here when I couldn’t get you at home.”

“You were right,” Hannah said, giving a big sigh of relief. It was Michelle, her youngest sister, calling from the house she rented with friends and fellow students just off the Macalester campus.

“I heard you turned both of them down.”

Hannah sputtered slightly. Michelle was over sixty miles away. “How did you know?”

“It’s not like I live in a vacuum. Lots of people keep me up to date on what’s happening in Lake Eden.”

“Mother!” Hannah breathed.

“Mother,” Michelle confirmed. “You did the right thing, Hannah. It’s a whole lot better than saying yes to one of them and changing your mind later.”

“You’re right. Is that why you called?”

“That’s part of it. The other part is to tell you that I spent a whole week talking up Lake Eden and saying what a great town it is.”

“It is a great town.”

“I know that, but Mr. Barton didn’t.”

“Who’s Mr. Barton?”

“The producer of the Indy Prod.”

Hannah felt like she was running around in circles. “What’s an Indy Prod? And what does it have to do with Lake Eden?”

“Mr. Barton was a guest in our drama class and he’s the producer of an independent production. That’s what Indy Prod means.”

“You’re talking about a movie producer?” Hannah cut to the chase.

“Yes. He’s almost through shooting a film set in Minnesota and he said he was looking for a small town close to a lake, with a church, a school, and a park.”

“That’s practically every small town in Minnesota.”

“I know. I told him that, and then I recommended Lake Eden.”

Hannah hoped that Michelle didn’t have her heart set on seeing her hometown on the big screen. While Lake Eden was a very nice town, there were other, more picturesque settings for movies. “That certainly would be interesting, Michelle, but I doubt that…”

“That certainly will be interesting,” Michelle interrupted to correct her.

“Will be? You mean…?”

“That’s right! My drama professor called to tell me this morning. Mr. Barton sent a scout to check out Lake Eden. You met him, Hannah. He came into The Cookie Jar.”

“He did?”

“Yes. Do you remember a guy named Mitch who asked about the name for the lake and the town?”

“A couple of strangers asked me that,” Hannah said, not mentioning that almost every nonlocal who stopped at The Cookie Jar wanted to know why the town was called Lake Eden, and the lake was called Eden Lake. The answer was that the lake had been named first, almost thirty years before the town had been built, and the town fathers had wanted a name that tied in with the lake, but was different. Tired of answering the same question over and over, Lisa’s cousin, Dianne Herron, had suggested a solution. Hannah had ordered cards printed up with the answer and they set them out on the tables in the summer during the tourist season.

“Well, Mitch said you were really nice about explaining it to him, and he was crazy about your Molasses Crackles. He wrote up a glowing report and once Mr. Barton did a drive-through, he decided to talk to Mayor Bascomb and find out how much it would cost to rent Main Street for a week.”

“Rent Main Street?” Hannah was amazed. “But what will that mean for our businesses?”

“You’ll all get compensated. That’s the way these production companies work. Mitch told me that Mr. Barton usually pays last year’s gross revenues for the same period plus ten percent for the inconvenience. And they always use locals for extras. Isn’t that exciting?”

“Exciting,” Hannah repeated, not sure what effect a movie company would have on her sleepy little hometown. “Does Mayor Bascomb know about this?”

“Not yet, but he will. The producer is going to call him this morning. I just wanted to give you a heads-up before it happened, and to tell you the best news of all.”

“You’re getting married?” Hannah quipped, knowing full well her youngest sister was doing no such thing. Michelle had made it abundantly clear that she was going to finish college before she even considered walking down the aisle.

Michelle laughed. “Of course I’m not and you know it. But the producer hired me as a production assistant and I’ll be coming home for a week. I’m getting paid and I’m getting college credit for the job.”

“Good for you!” Hannah did an abrupt reversal. She’d been half-hoping that the movie company wouldn’t disrupt life in Lake Eden, but now she was all for it. Michelle would enjoy the experience and it would be wonderful to have her home again. “Would you like to stay in my guest room?”

“I’d love to, you know that, but I’d better stay with Mother, especially after all the trouble she had with Winthrop and all. She’s bound to be lonely. And speaking of Mother, the producer promised me that he’ll hire Mother and Carrie to help locate props. And when I told him how they decorated Granny’s Attic to look like the first mayor’s house, he said he’d have his set decorator look at it and maybe they’d use it as a set in the movie.”

“Too bad the movie’s not set in Regency England,” Hannah mused. Both Carrie and Delores were founding members of the Lake Eden Regency Romance Club and the producer would have to look far and wide to find anyone more familiar with the period.

“I know, but this is almost as good. The part of the movie they’re filming in Lake Eden takes place in the nineteen-fifties. That should be a snap for Mother and Carrie since both of them were around back then.”

Hannah gave a little chuckle. “Yes, but neither of them will admit it.”

After a few more minutes of chatting about the advance crew that would be arriving next week, and the full cast and crew the week after that, Hannah said good-bye and attempted to hang up. But the phone rang again the moment she settled it in its cradle. Since she didn’t feel like talking to anyone, there was only one thing to do.

“This is Hannah at The Cookie Jar,” she said in the flattest voice she could muster. “I’m sorry I can’t answer your call right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number, I’ll call you back just as soon as…” There was a click, and Hannah stopped speaking. Her caller, assuming Hannah wasn’t available, had hung up.

She was about to hang up on her end when she reconsidered. It was time to take a lesson from Lisa. Hannah stretched out the cord, opened the drawer, and hid the phone under the dishtowels again. Then she hurried through the swinging restaurant-style door to the coffee shop.

Hannah’s first task was to put on the coffee and she made short work of filling the thirty-cup urn and plugging it in. She set out cream, sugar, and artificial sweetener on each table and wrote the daily cookie specials on the blackboard behind the front counter. She had just gone back into the kitchen to fill the glass canisters they used to display the day’s cookies when Lisa came back.

“I’ll help,” she said, shedding her coat and heading for the sink to wash her hands. “Everybody at the school wanted to know why you turned both of them down.”

Hannah just shook her head. It was barely eight in the morning, but there were no slackers on the Lake Eden Gossip Hotline. “What did you say?”

“I told them I hadn’t asked you because it was none of my business.”

Hannah eyed her diminutive partner with new respect. “Being married is good for you. You’ve picked up some of Herb’s assertiveness.”

“That’s not all I picked up!”

“What do you mean?” Hannah asked and then wished she hadn’t as all sorts of dire possibilities ran through her mind.

“I picked up all of Great-Grandma Beeseman’s recipes. They were in boxes up in Marge’s attic, and she said I could have them. She couldn’t read them because they’re in German.”

“You read German?”

“No, but Herb found an Internet translation service and a woman from Germany is helping me.” Lisa reached out for a cookie on the baker’s rack and handed it to Hannah. “Try this. They’re called Kokosnuss Schokolade Kekse.”

“Coconut chocolate cookies?” Hannah asked, seriously draining the small cache of German words she’d picked up over the years.

“That’s right! Do you speak German?”

“Not unless you count Volkswagen and sauerkraut as vocabulary. I was just reacting to the cognates.” Hannah took a bite and smiled her approval. “These are good.”

“I know. Do you want to add them to our cookie list?”

“Absolutely, but let’s think of another name. The German is too hard for customers to remember and the English translation isn’t catchy enough.”

“How about Cocalattas?” Lisa suggested.

“I like it. It sounds like coconut and chocolate, and that’s what they are. Write it on the board and we’ll give them a trial run today.”