Cherry Cheesecake Murder (5 page)

The next two weeks passed much too slowly, as winter weeks often do, but at last the big day arrived. Everyone who wasn’t engaged in business of the utmost necessity turned out to watch as the movie crew rolled into town. Lisa and Hannah were no exception. The Cookie Jar wasn’t open. It was never open on Sunday, but both partners and their extended families sat at tables in front of the window, watching the cars, motor homes, tractor trailers, and smaller cube trucks turn the corner by the lumber yard at First and Main, and drive down Main Street to Sixth, where an area had been set aside for them to park.

“That’s the wardrobe truck,” Michelle explained, as a truck pulling a long, narrow trailer came down the street. “The inside looks just like a closet with two long poles and hangers that lock so they don’t jiggle off the poles.”

Hannah smiled at her youngest sister. Michelle had arrived the previous night on the bus, and this morning she was holding court at a table with Delores, Carrie, Andrea, and Lisa. Norman, Mike, and Herb were at a separate table and they were wearing almost identical I couldn’t care less expressions designed to convince everyone else that they weren’t at all interested in spotting the actors and actresses as they drove by the plate glass window.

Hannah, herself, was perched on a stool between the two tables, watching the clock over the counter. In a few minutes, she’d head out to the community center to help Edna Ferguson with the brunch Mayor Bascomb had arranged so that the movie crew could meet the residents of Lake Eden.

“That’s Dean Lawrence’s car,” Michelle said, drawing everyone’s attention to the black limousine that rolled past the window. “He’s got his own driver.”

Delores looked envious. “That must be nice, especially in the winter.”

“You said it!” Carrie agreed. “I’d love to have a driver who’d warm up the car before he came to get me.”

“A driver would be great,” Lisa said. “You’d never have to worry about getting a good parking spot. If there wasn’t anywhere to park, he could drop you off right in front of wherever you were going.”

“That’s what I do now,” Herb groused, but his loving smile told his new wife that his complaint was far from serious. “I guess that makes me your chauffeur.”

“Maybe it does. I’ll look around for one of those cute little hats with the stiff brim.”

“Dean Lawrence’s chauffeur isn’t just a chauffeur,” Michelle spoke up. “His name is Connor and he’s listed on the credits as a production assistant, just like me, but he’s really a combination driver, bodyguard, and secretary.”

Hannah turned to smile at her youngest sister. “I’ll bet he makes more money than you do.”

“Lots more.” Michelle gave a little laugh. “Connor makes scale for extras, too. He gets a walk-on part in every movie Mr. Lawrence directs.”

“D. L. is practically a household name in Hollywood,” Andrea informed them. “Variety just did an article on him.”

“D. L.?” Hannah turned to her sister in surprise.

“Variety?” Michele asked, picking up on another part of Andrea’s comment.

“D.L. is how Daily Variety refers to Dean Lawrence,” Andrea explained to Hannah. Then she turned to Michelle. “And yes, I read Variety every day. I subscribed right after you told us that they were shooting C.I.C. here.”

“What’s C.I.C.?” Hannah asked, wishing her sister wouldn’t use so many initials.

“Crisis in Cherrywood. That’s the name of the movie. What I want to know is how a little Indy Prod like this landed such a big-name director. After Three Minutes to Paradise, everyone thought he’d go on to another big box office success.”

“Connections,” Michelle answered Andrea’s question. “It’s all about who you know and who owes you. I asked one of the prop guys about that and he said there’s some sort of family connection between Mr. Lawrence and the man who financed the film. He didn’t know the details, but he said that’s why Mr. Lawrence signed on.”

“I wonder if there’s been any trouble yet,” Andrea mused. “In the article I read, they called D. L. the Bad Boy Director. He’s got a huge ego and last year he was named the director that most actors love to hate.”

Michelle laughed. “Mr. Barton told me that, but he said there’s an upside. Mr. Lawrence is really hard on his actors, but he makes them look good because he always gets great performances out of them.”

“As interesting as this is, I’ve got to go.” Hannah glanced at the clock and slid off her stool. “I promised Edna I’d be at the community center in less than five minutes.”

Andrea got up from the table. “Do you need any help? I have to go home to pick up Tracey.”

“Not really. The food’s already down there, and the only things I need to bring are napkins and tablecloths.”

Hannah said goodbye to everyone and hurried through the kitchen, grabbing her parka coat on the run. Once she’d successfully negotiated the ruts in her alley, she rolled down her window and took a deep gulp of air. The breeze was ice cold, but it felt fresh, full of promise and new beginnings. Almost everyone in town was looking forward to a brush with celebrity and a tiny taste of fame if they were lucky enough to be chosen as extras. The size of the part didn’t really matter. They just wanted to appear in the film. And when it was all over and Lake Eden had been captured forever on film, they would exercise bragging rights with friends and relatives who lived more humdrum lives in less fortunate places.

There was a parking spot in front of the community center and Hannah took it. She went around to the back of her truck and opened the rear doors, eyeing the stacks of tablecloths and napkins she’d picked up from her condo neighbors, the Hollenbeck sisters, who’d washed and ironed them in honor of this special occasion. It had taken her three trips to load them in her truck and it would take that many to deliver them to Edna at the community center kitchen.

Hannah stacked up her first load, the widest brown paper-wrapped bundle on the bottom and smaller paper-wrapped bundles on top. When she had a pyramid of five packages, she picked them up and started for the door.

“Hold it!” a female voice called out, and Hannah stopped in her tracks. The top bundle was blocking her view and she peered around it like a kid with a periscope to see who’d halted her forward progress.

“Hi Pam,” Hannah greeted Jordan High’s Home Economics teacher.

“Girls?” Pam addressed the half-dozen high school seniors who’d volunteered for waitress duty and were following in her wake. “Don’t just stand there. You know what to do.”

Beth Halvorsen, one of Hannah’s favorite high school seniors, led the charge to Hannah’s cookie truck and soon the packages were being loaded into younger arms. One of the girls veered off to relieve Hannah of her burden and before she could do more than say thank you, Pam’s students had disappeared inside the building and Hannah was left as free as a bird, with nothing but her purse to carry.

“It’s times like this that I wonder if I should have been a teacher,” Hannah said, falling into step with last year’s teacher of the year.

“Maybe. My girls adore you.”

“Don’t let that fool you. It’s because I bring cookies every time I visit your class.”

“You’ve got a point,” Pam said, as they stepped inside and headed for the stairway that led down to the community center banquet room.

The two friends parted ways at the bottom of the stairs. Pam went to help her student teacher, Willa Sunquist, supervise the girls, who were draping tablecloths over the tables and setting out the centerpieces they’d made in class.

“Hannah!” Edna called out as Hannah pushed open the kitchen door. “I’m so glad you’re here early!”

“There’s a problem?” Hannah asked, guessing that something besides blusher must have caused the high color in Edna’s normally pale cheeks.

“You can say that again! What can we make to take the place of Loretta Richardson’s Sausage and Egg Casserole?”

“I’m not sure. Why do we have to think of something to replace it?”

“Because Loretta slipped on a patch of ice on the way out to the garage and all three pans spilled in the snow. We need something else and we need it in less than two hours.”

Hannah thought fast. Since Edna had been planning to put three pans of Sausage and Egg Casserole in the oven, she had extra oven space. “I could make Fruit Pocket French Toast.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s something my Grandma Ingrid used to bake for breakfast on Christmas morning.”

“Then it’s a holiday dish and it’s bound to be good. How long does it take to make it?”

Hannah added up the cooking time of forty-five minutes, preparation time of ten minutes, and standing time of twenty minutes. “If I can get all the ingredients I need in ten minutes, I can have it ready to serve in about an hour and a half.”

“Perfect.” Edna looked around for Florence Evans and beckoned her over. “Can you open up the Red Owl? Hannah’s going to pull off a miracle and she needs supplies in a big hurry.”

“No problem. Give me a list.”

Hannah scrawled a quick list and gave it to Florence. “Can you be back in here in ten minutes? Time’s going to be a factor.”

“I’ll be back in five,” Florence promised, grabbing her coat and heading out the door to the parking lot.

While Florence was gone, Hannah and Edna prepared the pans. They’d just finished heating the butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup they’d found in the community center kitchen when Florence came back carrying two sacks of groceries.

“Here, Hannah. I brought you canned peaches, pears, and apricots,” she said, setting the cans out on the counter.

“Thanks, Florence. What kind of bread did you get?”

“One loaf of raisin bread, one of egg, and another called country potato. They’re all sliced. And here’s your chopped pecans, whipping cream, eggs, and butter. What can I do to help you?”

“Open the cans of fruit and dump them in strainers,” Hannah instructed. “And then you can soften half of the butter in the microwave.”

“I’ll do that,” Edna said, grabbing the butter and starting to unwrap it.

While the two women set about their assigned tasks, Hannah poured the heated syrup, brown sugar and butter mixture in the bottoms of the pans. She sprinkled the chopped nuts over the top and was just opening the first loaf of bread when Edna came back with the softened butter.

“What do you want me to do with this?” Edna asked, holding the bowl aloft.

“Make fruit sandwiches. We’ll do one pan at a time so we won’t get mixed up. Butter six pieces of bread and put slices of drained fruit on top. Then cover the fruit with another six slices of buttered bread.”

“I’ll slice the fruit and put it on,” Florence volunteered. “It’s just like making sandwiches for the grandkids. I always lay out the bread in pairs and do it like an assembly line.”

“That’ll work just fine. When you’re through with a sandwich, cut it in half and put it in the pan on top of my syrup mixture. We can’t have any more than one layer in each pan. You can crowd them together, but don’t overlap them or the recipe won’t work.”

“Okay. What next?”

“We beat the eggs with sugar and cinnamon, and then we mix in the cream. Is there any vanilla in the pantry? I forgot to add it to the list.”

“I brought some, just in case,” Florence told her, dropping several thin slices of pear on a buttered piece of raisin bread. “It’s still in the bag.”

Hannah found a large bowl and started to crack eggs. When the eggs were beaten with the sugar and cinnamon, she handed the bowl to Edna, who mixed in the cream and added a generous slug of vanilla.

“How are you coming?” Hannah asked, glancing over at Florence.

“All done.” Florence added the last sandwich to the pan, and then she headed for the sink to wash her hands.

“You can pour the egg mixture over the sandwiches now,” Hannah told Edna. “Then we’ll cover the pans with plastic wrap and leave them out on the counter for twenty minutes while the oven preheats.”

“And then we take off the plastic wrap and bake them?” Florence asked.

“Not quite. We melt the rest of the butter first, and pour it over the sandwiches. Then we bake them.”

“That’s a lot of butter!” Edna commented.

“True, but that’s what makes them so good. They have to sit for a couple of minutes when they come out of the oven to set up. Then we’ll sprinkle them with powdered sugar and they can be served. Tell whoever does it that a half-sandwich is one serving.”

The three women had just settled down to a cup of Edna’s excellent coffee at the large round booth that had been especially designed for the kitchen workers, when the kitchen door opened and Winnie Henderson marched in.

“Here!” she said, setting a box on the round table in the center of the booth with such force that the spoon in Edna’s cup rattled. “A promise is a promise so I brought ’em. Six-dozen homemade doughnuts, half powdered sugar, and half cinnamon and sugar. But if I’d known what I know now, I never would have promised!”

“Wait!” Edna reached out to grab Winnie’s hand as the raw-boned farmwoman turned to go. “Are you mad at me, Winnie?”

Winnie shook her head so hard, the salt and pepper hair she wore in a no-nonsense cut swung across her face. “Not you, Edna. It’s him! He sold us out just like Judas, excepting this time it wasn’t for pieces of silver. He got a part in that movie and that’s why he’s sitting back and doing nothing to keep our town from getting ruined!”

“Who’s sitting back and doing nothing?” Florence asked, eyeing Winnie with some trepidation. Although Winnie didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds and she was at least a decade past the mid-century mark, she’d worked hard all her life and she was as strong as an ox. “That is…if you don’t mind saying, of course. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t mind at all! The more people that know, the better. They ought to find out the truth about the man they vote for year after year. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that’s what he is!”

“Mayor Bascomb?” Hannah guessed, since he was Lake Eden’s most important elected official and she’d heard he had a part in the movie.

“That’s him! I’m glad you said it, Girl. I don’t even want his name to pass my lips. And now I got to get going, ’cause if I set even one of my eyes on him, I’m going to kick his you-know-what to kingdom come!”