Joanne Fluke Christmas Bundle: Sugar Cookie Murder, Candy Cane Murder, Plum Pudding Murder, & Gingerbread Cookie Murder (4 page)

The first thing Hannah noticed when she got out of the car was the cold. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d just left a warm car, but it seemed even colder than it had at the college. “Better plug in your car,” she said.

“Good idea.”

Hannah watched as Norman unwound the power cord that was part of winterizing a car in Minnesota, right along with antifreeze, and the survival pack careful drivers kept in the trunk. The box containing blankets, extra parkas, gloves, an empty coffee can, a candle, and matches wasn’t quite as necessary as it had been in the years before cell phones, but it was still possible to get stuck in a snowstorm with a non-working cell phone, and freeze to death in subzero temperatures.

When Norman was through, they walked across the floor of the garage and climbed the steps to ground level. When they left the shelter of the stairwell, a cold blast of wind hit Hannah’s face and her eyes began to water. Norman grabbed her arm and rushed her up the covered staircase to her second-floor condo, taking the keys from her hand and opening the door.

A projectile with orange and white fur hurtled at them the moment the door opened, and Norman caught Moishe in his arms. Hannah’s cat began to purr as Norman carried him inside and set him on his favorite perch on the back of the couch.

“Are you glad to see us, Big Guy?” Norman asked, and Moishe answered him with an even louder purr. “What do you say I throw your catnip mouse for you?”

This time Moishe gave a happy yowl and hopped off the couch to stare up at Norman while he located the mouse. With her cat occupied, Hannah shrugged out of her parka and went off to the kitchen to begin preparing dinner.

The Easy Cheesy Biscuits were first. Hannah preheated the oven, took out one of her medium-sized mixing bowls, and gathered the ingredients. She’d just completed the first step in her food processor, and she was about to dump the mixture into her bowl, when Norman came into the kitchen.

“Do you want some help?” he asked.

“Sure,” Hannah answered, never one to turn down a genuine offer of assistance. “You can grate the cheese. I need a half cup of cheddar, a half cup of Asiago, and a half cup of Parmesan. You can use the food processor with the grating blade.”

Norman eyed the food processor which still had a bit of flour clinging to the sides of the bowl. “I’d better wash it out.”

“There’s no need. I just used it to mix up the dry ingredients and butter for the biscuits. Since the cheese is going in the biscuit dough, it won’t make a speck of difference.”

Norman made short work of grating the cheeses and Hannah added the grated cheddar and Asiago to her bowl. She saved the grated parmesan for the biscuit tops and was just about to break the eggs into a glass to beat them when Norman spoke up.

“I can do that for you,” he said.

“Okay. Just crack two into my glass and beat them up with a fork. I’ll measure out the sour cream and the milk.”

They worked in silence for several moments and then Norman handed the glass to her. “Are these okay?”

“They’re fine,” Hannah said, glancing down at the homogenous mixture of yolk and white. “Do you want to stir while I add everything else to the bowl?”

“Sure.” Norman picked up the spoon.

Hannah added the eggs and he stirred them in. Then she scooped in the sour cream. When that was incorporated, she added the milk, dribbling it in slowly so that Norman could stir it in without splashing.

“Looks just like lumpy wallpaper paste,” Norman said, but Hannah saw the grin he tried to hide and knew he was kidding her.

“I prefer to compare it to cottage cheese,” she countered. “At least that’s edible.”

“I’m not so sure about that. Mother made green Jell-O with cottage cheese and chives the last time I went to her house for dinner. And speaking of Mother, there’s something I want to talk to you about. I was going to wait until after we’d eaten, but it’s really bothering me.”

“What is it?” Hannah asked, distracted enough to spray her baking sheet with Pam even though the recipe said it wasn’t needed.

“I usually meet her on Thursday nights for dinner. One week she cooks and the next week I take her out. We’ve been doing it ever since I moved to Lake Eden.”

“You’re still doing it, aren’t you?” Hannah asked, dipping a soup spoon into the batter and forming her first biscuit.

“I am, but I’m not so sure about Mother.”

“What do you mean?” Hannah wet her fingers under the faucet and made one of the biscuits she’d dropped on the sheet a little rounder.

“I always thought Mother had a good time when we got together, but she’s canceled on the last three Thursdays.”

Hannah looked over and saw the concern on his face. “Didn’t she give you a reason for cancelling?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it was the
real
reason. The first time she said she was getting a bad cold, but when I talked to her the next day, she sounded just fine. The next week she said she was going to work late at Granny’s Attic with Delores, but I drove by on my way home from the clinic and the lights were off in their shop.”

Hannah wasn’t sure what to say, but it certainly sounded as if Carrie had lied to Norman. Instead of commenting on that, she asked a question. “How about the third time?”

“That was last Thursday. When I called to confirm with her, she said that something came up and she couldn’t make it. And when I asked about it, she wouldn’t tell me anything. What do you think, Hannah? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?”

“Not necessarily,” Hannah said, sprinkling the last of the grated Parmesan cheese on her biscuits. She popped them into the oven, set the timer for fourteen minutes, and turned back to Norman. “Carrie did the same thing to Mother. That’s the reason I went to class with her tonight. Our mothers signed up for the course together, but Carrie hasn’t made it to a single class. Mother says she always backs out at the last minute.”

“Is Delores concerned, too?”

“Yes. She told me that Carrie’s always been very open with her, but things have changed lately. Mother’s feelings are hurt because she thinks Carrie doesn’t trust her enough to confide in her.”

Norman was silent for a moment and then he shook his head. “I don’t know if that makes me feel better, or worse.”

“What do you mean?”

“On one hand, I feel better that it’s not just me my mother is avoiding. On the other hand, I feel worse because if both Delores and I think there’s a problem, then there probably is. I wonder if it would work to come right out and ask Mother what’s wrong.”

Hannah shrugged. “You can try it if you want to, but I doubt she’ll tell you anything. Mother tried that and Carrie just said she’d tell her when the time was right.”

“What does
that
mean?”

“I don’t know.” Hannah took the meatloaf out of the refrigerator and sliced it. She put the slices in the frying pan with a bit of butter, turned the burner on medium, and clamped on a cover. “I’ve got a bowl of Sally’s Summer Salad. Do you want some?”

“Sure. I’ll dish it up for both of us.” Norman took the container Hannah handed to him and spooned the broccoli and cauliflower salad into two bowls. “I was just wondering…I know it’s a lot to ask, but…” Norman stopped and swallowed hard. “It’s just that I really need to know what’s going on. It’s not like Mother to cut me off from her life this way.”

“That’s true.” Hannah flipped the slices of meatloaf and clamped the lid back on. Carrie was the type of mother who’d always wanted to manage her son’s life and that meant being a nearly constant part of it. It was one of the reasons Norman had built the house Hannah had designed with him and moved five miles away. Norman had once told her he felt like a boy who had to report everything to his mother when he’d lived in the same house with Carrie.

“There goes the timer,” Norman said, sprinkling some salted sunflower nuts on top of their salads. “Do you want me to take out the biscuits?”

“Yes, if they’re golden brown on top. If they’re not, give them another minute or two. And don’t turn off the oven when you take out the biscuits. I’ll turn it up to five hundred degrees before we carry our plates to the living room.”

“Five hundred degrees is a really hot oven.” Norman sounded quite proud of himself for knowing that. “Are you planning to bake something else?”

“I thought I’d mix up some Hot Fudge Sundae Cakes for dessert. They only bake seven minutes and they’ll be ready by the time we have our second cup of coffee. You’re going to love them.”

“There’s no doubt about that since they contain two of my favorite things.”

“Hot fudge and cake?” Hannah guessed.

“That’s right. But getting back to what we were talking about before…will you help me?”

“Of course I will.” Hannah didn’t even stop to consider that she’d broken one of rules she lived by. She’d promised to do something without finding out exactly what it was.

“Thanks, Hannah. I knew I could count on you.”

Hannah gave him a smile and then she asked the important question, hoping her promise wasn’t one she’d live to regret. “What do you want me to do?”

Norman looked very uncomfortable for a moment and then he blurted it out. “I want you to help me spy on my mother.”

EASY CHEESY BISCUITS

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.,
rack in the middle position.

FIRST STEP

Use a medium-size mixing bowl to combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir them all up together. Cut in the salted butter just as you would for piecrust dough.

Hannah’s Note: If you have a food processor, you can use it for the first step. Cut ½ cup COLD salted butter into 8 chunks. Layer them with the dry ingredients in the bowl of the food processor. Process with the steel blade until the mixture has the texture of cornmeal. Transfer the mixture to a medium-sized mixing bowl and proceed to the second step.

SECOND STEP

Stir in the shredded cheddar cheese and the shredded Asiago cheese. Then add the beaten eggs and the sour cream in that order. Mix everything all up together.

Add the milk and stir until everything is thoroughly combined.

THIRD STEP

Drop the biscuits by soup spoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet, 12 large biscuits to a sheet.
(Prudence uses an ungreased baking sheet, Lisa bakes hers on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper, and I spray my cookie sheet with Pam—everyone’s biscuits turn out just fine.)

Once the biscuits are on the baking sheet, you can wet your fingers and shape them if you like.
(I leave mine slightly irregular so everyone knows they’re homemade.)

Sprinkle shredded Parmesan cheese on the top of each biscuit.

Bake the biscuits at 425 degrees F. for 12 to 14 minutes, or until they’re golden brown on top.

Cool the biscuits for at least five minutes on the cookie sheet, and then remove them with a spatula. Serve them in a towel-lined basket so they stay warm.

Yield: Makes 12 large cheesy biscuits that everyone will love!

Hannah’s Note: When I make these for Mother, she takes home one of the leftovers for breakfast. The next morning, she splits it, toasts and butters it, and eats it with her scrambled eggs.

Lisa’s Note: Herb loves to take these to work. I spread them with mayo and mustard and put a nice thick slice of ham in the middle. He says they make the best ham sandwich he’s ever tasted.

“T
his hot fudge sauce is incredible!” Norman spooned up the last of his ice cream and gave a satisfied sigh. “It’s the kind of dessert I dream about.”

“Me, too. Would you like another cake? The recipe makes six.”

Norman considered it for a brief moment and then he nodded. “I think I can handle one more.”

Hannah made a quick trip to the kitchen to upend another of the individual cakes on Norman’s dessert plate. She pulled the top apart with two forks, a technique she’d learned from serving soufflés, let the fudge sauce pool in the center of the plate, and then dropped in a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

“You can have a little bit of my ice cream this time,” she heard Norman say. The next sound she heard was a plaintive meow and it was clear he was talking to Moishe.

“This is good with coffee ice cream, too,” she said as she carried the plate into the living room and handed it to Norman. “More coffee?”

“I’d love some. Your coffee is the best…” Norman stopped speaking as the doorbell rang. “Are you expecting anyone?”

“No, and I know it’s not Mother.”

“How do you know that?”

Hannah gestured toward Moishe. “His fur’s not standing on end and it always does when Mother’s at the door.”

“So you don’t know who it is?”

“No, I have no idea.”

“Then you’d better let me get it.”

Hannah bit back a grin as Norman went to the door and looked out the peephole. She lived in a fairly secure complex, burglaries and home invasions were unusual on nights this cold, and she was perfectly capable of grabbing the decorative hand-painted rolling pin that hung by the side of her door and wailing away at anyone who tried to enter her home without her permission.

“Who is it?” Norman called out after squinting through the peephole, and Hannah understood why he had to ask that question. Anyone who stood directly in front of her door was back lighted by the powerful security light on the outside post, plunging the visitor’s features into deep shadows and rendering them totally unrecognizable.

“It’s Mike!” a voice floated through the crack under the door. “Let me in, will you? It’s cold out here.”

Norman chuckled and turned to Hannah. “Shall I let him in?” he asked in an even louder voice that Mike would be sure to hear. “Or shall we keep all the Hot Fudge Sundae Cakes to ourselves?”

There was a moment of silence and then Mike asked, “Did you say Hot Fudge Sundae Cakes!?”

Hannah laughed. “Let him in, Norman. I’ll go dish up another one for him.”

As Hannah turned another helping onto one of the dessert plates Delores had given her for Christmas, she heard Norman greet Mike. Even though both of them were dating her, the two men were friends. Occasionally jealousy reared its head, but they got past it. As long as she steadfastly refused to choose one over the other, the three of them remained friends.

“Thanks for letting me in,” Hannah heard Mike say from the living room.

“I had to let you in. You’re the law.”

“That’s true. So what’s this about Hot Fudge Sundae Cake?”

“It’s like a hot fudge sundae inside of a cake,” Norman explained. “You’re going to love it.”

At that moment Hannah came out of the kitchen with the dessert plate for Mike and two cups of coffee, one for Norman and the other for Mike. “Here you go,” she said, setting the dessert plate and one coffee in front of Mike, and handing Norman his refill. “Go ahead and eat. It’s better if it’s hot.”

Mike dipped his spoon in the pool of sauce and excavated a bit of cake and ice cream. He popped it in his mouth and gave a sound that resembled one of Moishe’s happiest purrs. Then he plunged his spoon down for another bite.

“You like it?” Hannah asked him.

“You bet! Thanks, Hannah. I’ve been running all day and I didn’t have a chance to eat.”

“How about a meatloaf sandwich?” Hannah offered. “It’s leftover meatloaf and I can heat it up like a hamburger on a cheesy biscuit.”

Mike mumbled something that Hannah interpreted as assent and she went back to the kitchen to heat a slice of meatloaf in the microwave. She halved a biscuit, spread it with mayonnaise and dotted the bottom with a few slices of the bread and butter pickles that Lisa had given her. “Ketchup?” she called out.

“Yes, and mustard if you’ve got it,” Mike replied.

As she put on the condiments, Hannah heard Mike’s spoon scrape against the bottom of his dessert plate. She slid on the slice of meatloaf, topped it with the lid of the biscuit, carried in the plate, and exchanged it for Mike’s dessert plate, which was scraped so clean she knew he was half-starved.

“Hi, Big Guy,” Hannah heard him say to Moishe as she carried the dessert plate to the kitchen. “Sure you can have a bite. Hold on a second and I’ll break off some meat for you.”

Perhaps that was what she liked best about both men, Hannah mused as she rinsed off Mike’s plate and slid it into the dishwasher. Norman and Mike were crazy about Moishe, and it was clear that Hannah’s cat felt the same way about them. Perhaps she might have been able to choose between them if Moishe had loved one and hated the other, but that wasn’t the case. And she was left, not at all unhappily, to date them both.

Hannah had just returned to her seat on the couch when the phone rang. She answered and began to frown as she heard her sister Andrea’s panicked voice.

“You’ve just got to help me, Hannah! Bill’s tied up at the station and there’s no way I can do this alone!”

“There’s no way you can do
what
alone?” Hannah asked, remembering her rule about not promising any favors until she found out what they were. Actually, Andrea was the reason for the rule. When Hannah was a senior in high school and Andrea was in eighth grade, her younger sister had elicited a promise from Hannah to help her out. To Hannah’s chagrin, the “help” turned out to be attending a rock concert with Andrea and five of her classmates. Hannah had suffered through two and a half hours of screaming teenage girls, amplification so loud it threatened to deafen her, and alternative rock so atonal and nonmusical, she could have been listening to audiotapes of multicar crashes on the interstate.

“I have to get a Christmas tree by tomorrow morning. Tracey forgot to tell me until I tucked her in bed, but her teacher asked for a volunteer to choose the tree for their classroom, and Tracey volunteered me.”

“Welcome to the world of parenting,” Hannah said, chuckling slightly. “Relax, Andrea. I’ll go with you pick out a Christmas tree for Tracey’s classroom.”

“Thanks, Hannah! I knew I could count on you.”

“That’s what big sisters are for. Shall I pick you up tomorrow?”

“Not tomorrow. It’s got to be tonight.” Andrea sounded very definite. “I have to deliver it when school starts tomorrow. The kids are going to have a tree trimming party and it needs time to spread out its branches.”

“But where can you buy a Christmas tree at nine o’clock at night?”

“The Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot,” Mike said, not even pretending he hadn’t been listening to Hannah’s end of the conversation.

“It’s open until eleven tonight and that gives us plenty of time,” Norman added.

“Us?” Hannah turned to him in surprise.

“Yes, us,” Mike replied for both of them. “Norman and I’ll go with you. Picking out a tree is men’s work. You’d probably get some silly pink froufrou flocked thing that would embarrass Tracey in front of her class.”

Hannah considered taking umbrage at Mike’s slur on her judgment, but she was more amused than offended. It was a well-known fact that Andrea was fond of flocked trees, and Hannah had heard her admire the pink tree in Doug Greerson’s bank window more than once this year. It would be considerably easier to keep Andrea from flocking if three out of four of them were non-flockers.

“Good,” Hannah smiled at both of them. “I’ve been meaning to get out there. I don’t put up a tree. My place is too small and I’m not here enough to enjoy it. But I hear Larry Jaeger did an incredible job creating a Christmas theme park and I really want to see it.”

“He sells your cookies, doesn’t he?” Norman asked.

“That’s right. I’d like to talk to him about that, too. Somebody told me he’s selling out near the end of the night. If that’s true, he might want to increase his daily order.”

Norman winked at Mike. “That business course she sat in on tonight at the community college must have given her ideas.”

Hannah was about to deny it when a voice spoke directly in her ear. “Did I hear Mike and Norman?” Andrea asked, pulling her back into the telephone conversation.

“Yes, and they’re both coming along to help. Let’s meet in the parking lot at The Crazy Elf at ten o’clock. Is that okay?”

“That’s perfect. It gives me time to go up to the attic and dig out our old Christmas tree stand. Tracey wasn’t sure if they had one, or not.”

“Okay, see you then,” Hannah said. She hung up the phone and turned to Mike and Norman. “We should leave here in ten minutes. Does anyone want another cup of coffee for the road?”

Of course the answer was yes on all counts, and Hannah went into the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Even though she’d had a long day and she was tired, she was looking forward to visiting Larry’s Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot.