Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “I won’t say anything.”

  “I know that Coach Watson has been battering Danielle. I talked to her about it, but she won’t press charges.”

  “There’s nothing I can do if she won’t file a report.” Bill sighed deeply. “It’s really a shame, but my hands are tied.”

  “I know. Boyd’s in therapy, but I’m still worried. I just wondered if you could keep an eye on him unofficially.”

  “I can do that.”

  “You can’t say anything to him. If he thinks that Danielle told anyone, he might just snap.”

  “That’s been known to happen. Can I ask Mike for some advice on this?”

  “Good idea.” Hannah smiled. “He must have dealt with this type of situation before. But don’t mention Boyd or Danielle by name.”

  “I won’t. It’s a good thing you told me now, just in case something happens.”

  Hannah shivered as she walked back into the dining room with Bill. She hadn’t known Danielle very well before Ron had been killed, but she did now, and she liked her a lot. She wished that she’d been able to do more to protect her, but Danielle was in denial and the system couldn’t work if she wouldn’t let it.

  Hannah’s mood improved as they rejoined the group around the table. The conversation was lively and there was a lot of good-natured ribbing. It was one of the best parties they’d ever had, and Hannah wondered if they should always invite some extra guests to their family affairs.

  Several times, as they were eating dessert and drinking coffee, Delores winked at her. Hannah winked back. Her favorite old Nikes didn’t seem to be in any danger.

  Dating was the furthest thing from Hannah’s mind when she went into the kitchen to fetch the extra pan of bar cookies she’d brought and found Norman already there, waiting for her. “Hi, Norman. Are you sneaking bar cookies behind our backs?”

  “No.” Norman looked very serious as he shook his head. “I was waiting for a chance to talk to you alone, Hannah. I wanted to thank you for those loan papers. My mother would thank you, too, if she knew.”

  “That’s okay, Norman. I didn’t want anyone else to see them, so I just…uh…”

  “Appropriated them?” Norman grinned as he supplied the word.

  Hannah grinned back. “That’s right.”

  “Will you have dinner with me next Friday night? We could drive to that steak place out by the lake. I really need to talk to you in private, Hannah. It’s about my mother.”

  “Sure,” Hannah agreed without a second thought. “That’d be really nice, Norman.”

  It wasn’t until Hannah was back in her chair that she realized Delores had won fifty percent of the bet. Norman had asked her to dinner and that counted as a date. She glanced at Mike. There was no way he’d ask her out. Her favorite shoes were secure.

  The party broke up about ten. Bill and Mike had to report in at eight and Norman had an early appointment. They walked Delores out to her car, and Hannah lingered to help Andrea toss the paper plates and pizza boxes in the trash. When the cleanup was finished and Bill had set out the garbage cans for pickup the next morning, she slipped into her boots, said good night to her sister and brother-in-law, and walked through the soft white snow to her truck.

  “Hannah?”

  “Hi, Mike.” Hannah was surprised to see Mike Kingston leaning up against the hood of her truck. “I thought you’d left.”

  “Not yet. I wanted to talk to you, Hannah.”

  His voice sounded stressed and Hannah began to frown. “Sure. What is it?”

  “I like you, Hannah.”

  Hannah was confused. What did liking her have to do with anything? “I like you, too, Mike.”

  “And I’d like to get to know you better.”

  Hannah began to suspect that something she hadn’t thought would happen was happening. “I’d like to know you better, too.”

  Mike grinned and his whole face lit up. “That’s a relief. I just moved here, so I don’t know what there is to do on the weekends, but if I can come up with something good, how about going out with me on Saturday night?”

  Hannah was so stunned her mouth dropped open. “You’re asking me to go out this Saturday night?”

  “That’s right. We can find something to do in Lake Eden, can’t we?”

  “Sure, we can.” Visions of satin sheets and feather pillows flitted through Hannah’s head for a split second, but she pushed them firmly out of her mind. It was just that Mike was so handsome and sexy. And she was so…available.

  Mike grinned again. ‘’I guess I’d better hit the road. Six o’clock comes pretty early.”

  “Six?” Hannah’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought you didn’t have to be at the station until eight.”

  “I don’t, but my new place has a gym and I like to work out in the mornings. Do you want me to follow you home?”

  Hannah pushed another image from her mind. She didn’t think Mike had meant that. “Why would you want to follow me home?”

  “I can think of several reasons, but we’d better not get into that now. I just meant that I was concerned for your safety. You’re all alone and it’s dark.”

  “I’ll be perfectly safe, Mike. This is Lake Eden. We don’t have any crime here.”

  “You don’t count a double homicide as a crime?” Mike started to laugh.

  Hannah laughed too, even though the joke was on her. “You’ve got a good point, but that was the exception rather than the rule. I’ll be just fine. You should go home and get some sleep.”

  “I will.” Mike turned to walk to his car. He climbed in, started the engine, and then rolled down the window. “I’ll call you at work tomorrow and we’ll set a time for our date.”

  “I’ll be there all day.” Hannah waved as he drove off. She was sliding in, behind the wheel of her Suburban, when his last words sank in. She’d just accepted a date with Mike Kingston.

  “Uh-oh!” Hannah frowned as she reached out and grabbed the sneakers that she’d tossed on the passenger seat. She got out of her truck, marched over to one of the garbage cans that Bill had set out for the morning pickup, and hoped that Delores would appreciate what she was about to do. She had a date with Norman, and she had a date with Mike. They’d both asked her out before the night was over, and she’d never welshed on a bet in her life.

  Two dates in one night—not bad at all! Hannah’s frown changed to a grin as she lifted the lid and dropped her very favorite five-year-old pair of Nikes inside.

  Lovely Lemon Bar Cookies

  Preheat oven to 350° F, rack in the middle position.

  2 cups flour (no need to sift)

  1 cup cold butter (2 sticks, ½ pound)

  ½ cup powdered (confectioners’) sugar (no need to sift, unless it’s got big lumps)

  4 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork)

  2 cups white (granulated) sugar

  8 tablepoons lemon juice (½ cup)

  1 teaspoon or so of zest (optional) (zest is finely grated lemon peel)

  ½ teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  4 Tablespoons flour (that’s ¼ cup—don’t bother to sift)

  Cut each stick of butter into eight pieces. Zoop it up with the flour and the powdered sugar in a food processor until it looks like coarse cornmeal (just like the first step in making a piecrust). Spread it out in a greased 9 x 13 inch pan (that’s a standard sheet cake pan) and pat it down with your hands.

  Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden around the edges. Remove from oven. (Don’t turn off oven!)

  Mix eggs with white sugar. Add lemon juice (and zest, if you want to use it). Add salt and baking powder and mix. Then add flour and mix thoroughly. (This will be runny—it’s supposed to be.)

  Pour this mixture on top of the pan you just baked and stick it back into the oven. Bake at 350 degrees F. for another 30 to 35 minutes. Then remove from the oven and sprinkle on additional powdered sugar.

  Let cool thoroughly and cut into br
ownie-sized bars.

  Brought these to the pizza party following Mike Kingston’s move, the day after Bill solved the double-homicide case and got his promotion. (I’m a good sister-in-law. I gave him every speck of the credit.)

  Index of Cookie Recipes

  Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies

  Regency Ginger Crisps

  Pecan Chews

  Black and Whites

  Chocolate-Covered Cherry Delights

  Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies

  Lovely Lemon Bar Cookies

  Please turn the page for an exciting bonus novella and additional recipes from Joanne Fluke!

  The Cookie Jar

  Lake Eden, MN

  Joanne Fluke

  Hannah Swensen Mystery Series

  Kensington Publishing Corporation

  New York, NY

  Dear Joanne,

  It seems like forever since I’ve seen you, now that you’ve packed up and moved to Southern California. When are you coming back to Lake Eden for a visit? You have friends here, you know. And I really miss our morning coffee at The Cookie Jar.

  I’m so glad you’re finally telling Candy’s story! I was surprised you didn’t write about it when it actually happened, only two weeks after I helped Bill solve his first double homicide case, but I guess you were busy writing the other books in my biography.

  Now that I think about it, I believe I know why you waited so long to write Candy’s story. It’s because there’s no murder. Just think about it, Jo…you’ve written about murder in every single book. It’s even in every title! There’s this one, Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, and Strawberry Shortcake Murder, Blueberry Muffin Murder, Lemon Meringue Pie Murder, Fudge Cupcake Murder, Sugar Cookie Murder, Peach Cobbler Murder, Cherry Cheesecake Murder, and Key Lime Pie Murder. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in clinical psychology to realize that you’re obsessing about homicide. Even Mayor Bascomb noticed. Now, both of us know that Lake Eden is a very nice place to live. And while it’s true that we have a lot of homicides for such a small town, we don’t want people to get the idea that it’s the murder capital of the world, do we? One other thing…could you make it perfectly clear that I don’t enjoy finding dead bodies, despite what Mother thinks?

  Thank you for doing such a good job of chronicling my life, and thanks again for writing about Candy. I’m just glad that we could solve the puzzle of her identity. Now I’ve got to run. Moishe is yowling for me to fill his food bowl, the phone is ringing off the hook (it’s probably Mother,) and I’m late for work at The Cookie Jar. You lived here long enough to know that time never slows down in Lake Eden, unless you happen to be on Old Lake Road stuck behind a snowplow.

  Hannah Swensen

  P.S. How about making me ten pounds thinner in the next book? I’d really appreciate it!

  CANDY FOR CHRISTMAS

  Joanne Fluke

  Chapter One

  “’Bye, Moishe.” Hannah Swensen tossed a few salmon-flavored treats that were shaped like little fish to her twenty-five-pound feline roommate. It was the same leave-taking ritual they’d gone through every morning for the past year, but on this particular morning, as she locked the condo door behind her and started down the covered stairs that led to the basement garage, Hannah had a startling thought. If the salmon-flavored treats were shaped like little fish, what shape were the liver-flavored treats? The only thing she could think of that was shaped like a liver was…somebody’s liver. And what shape was that, anyway?

  Ten minutes later, Hannah was on the road, driving the familiar route to her shop in Lake Eden, Minnesota. The winter landscape at four-thirty in the morning was gorgeous. Her headlights sparkled on the freshly fallen snow and sent what looked like diamonds skittering across the road. The lazy flakes that fell from the sky served as a curtain, muffling sound until all she could hear was the soft rumbling of her motor and the rhythmic swish of her tires. There was no other traffic. Nothing else was moving in the bitter-cold Minnesota predawn. Hannah felt like the only woman left on earth, traveling smoothly into the night in a magical candy apple red coach with four-wheel drive that was filled with the aroma of vanilla, cinnamon, and chocolate.

  It would have been a perfect fantasy, except for one jarring note. The heater in Hannah’s truck was failing, and her teeth were chattering in a lengthy drum roll that would have been the envy of the rhythm section of the Jordan High marching band. As she had on every other morning this week, she promised herself that as soon as she got a little ahead, she’d have it fixed. In the meantime, her warmest parka and gloves would have to do.

  Almost there, Hannah told herself as she stopped for the red light at the intersection of Old Lake Road and Carter Avenue. Old Lake Road was fairly busy at peak traffic hours, but Carter Avenue led to only one sprawling showplace home in the center of a private pine forest. That home belonged to Mayor Bascomb’s in-laws and everyone knew that he’d installed the stoplight to please his wife, Stephanie.

  Since the light had a reputation for taking a while, Hannah wiggled her toes inside her boots in an effort to restore warmth and mobility. Then she counted to a hundred. And then two hundred. She had reached five hundred and was mentally composing a letter to the editor of the Lake Eden Journal, expressing the need for a sensor on the stoplight, when it finally clicked to green and she could drive forward again.

  Another five minutes and she was turning in at the city limits, driving down the quiet streets with their darkened houses. Everyone was asleep, and she would be too, if she didn’t have to bake the day’s cookies before she opened her coffee shop and bakery, The Cookie Jar.

  The Lake Eden business district was deserted at this time of morning. All the stores had dim lights inside, the result of an article Sheriff Grant had written for the Lake Eden Journal on burglary prevention, but nothing was moving inside. It would be another hour before Hal unlocked the front door at the café for the workers on the morning shift at DelRay Manufacturing.

  Hannah drove down Main Street and was about to turn on Fourth, when she noticed that the twinkle lights around the inside of the window of her coffee shop were still on. She thought she remembered turning them off, but perhaps she’d forgotten. She had been in a rush to get home last night. Hannah just hoped her power bill wouldn’t be sky high for this one infraction. After all, how much current could a hundred-bulb string of minilights draw? Perhaps she wouldn’t even see an increase. She was usually very careful when it came to turning off the lights and locking up.

  As she pulled into the alley, Hannah slowed her truck to a crawl to navigate the icy ruts that a truck had made, delivering donations to the Helping Hands Thrift Shop. A hundred yards and a dozen or so jarring thumps later, she was turning into her own lot and parking in her spot by the back door.

  To plug in, or not to plug in. That was the question. Rayne Phillips, the weatherman on KCOW radio, had promised the day would warm to the high twenties. As Hannah climbed out of her truck and eyed the strip of outlets installed at bumper level at the back of her building, she added that bit of information to the mix. If Rayne had it right, she wouldn’t need to use her heater. But if Rayne was wrong, her oil would chill to the consistency of chewing gum and her truck wouldn’t start when it was time to drive home.

  Hannah stood still, debating with herself for a moment, and then she laughed. Rayne Phillips had been wrong about the weather more times than he’d been right, and it would be wise to play the percentages. Plugging in her car might be unnecessary, but not plugging in her car could mean she’d have to call Cyril Murphy at the garage.

  Once plugged in, Hannah headed for the back door of the white stucco building. She was about to insert her key in the lock when she stopped short and frowned. The knob was a bit icy, as if a warm hand had recently gripped it. That was odd. Her assistant, Lisa Herman, wasn’t scheduled to come in this early. If, for some reason, Lisa had arrived first, her old car would be here. Unless, of course, her car had failed to start and she’d caught a ride to
work with one of her neighbors.

  Hannah stood dithering for a moment. If Lisa was here, it would account for the lights she’d seen. She always turned them on and propped open the swinging door to the coffee shop, so that she could enjoy them while she helped with the early morning baking.

  Standing here wondering was not only silly, it was cold! All she had to do was go inside and see. Chiding herself for her chilly mental debate, Hannah unlocked the door and flicked on the lights. And then she blinked. And blinked again. Several times.

  Lisa had been here and the proof was right in front of her eyes. The dirty dishes they’d left in the sink were gone, and the floor had been freshly mopped. Normally, Hannah and Lisa did these things before they left for the night, but Hannah had been in a hurry to get home, and Lisa had invited two of her dad’s friends for dinner. Unless the elves had left the shoemaker’s shop and taken up residence at The Cookie Jar, Lisa must have come in sometime during the night to wash the dishes and mop the floor!

  Perhaps she’d put on the coffee, too? Hannah glanced at the kitchen pot, but the little red light wasn’t glowing. No coffee there. She went through the swinging door to check the big thirty-cup percolator, but it was still tipped upside down on a towel, the way they always left it after they washed and dried it. Lisa loved coffee as much as Hannah did. It would be ready if she’d come in early.