Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Add the white sugar and mix it in thoroughly. Let the bowl sit on the counter while you do the next step.

  Melt the jam in the microwave or in a saucepan over low heat. Once it’s the consistency of syrup, mix it in with the butter and sugar.

  Add the eggs, baking soda, and salt, stirring after each addition.

  Add the flour and mix thoroughly. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours. (Overnight’s even better.)

  When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

  Roll the chilled dough into small walnut-sized balls with your hands. Put 1/3 cup white sugar in a small bowl and roll the balls in it. Place them on a greased standard-sized cookie sheet, 12 cookies to a sheet. Flatten the dough balls with a greased spatula. Make a small indentation with your thumb or index finger in the center of each cookie. Fill the indentation with a small bit of jam (about 1/8 teaspoon.)

  Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes at 350 degrees F. Let them cool for 2 minutes on the cookie sheet, and then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

  These cookies freeze well. Roll them up in foil, put them in a freezer bag, and be sneaky about how you label them or the kids will find them and eat them frozen.

  Yield: 8 to 10 dozen, depending on cookie size.

  Chapter Four

  Perhaps a more imaginative person could have seen mythical figures in the irregular swatches of plaster on her bedroom ceiling, but Hannah wasn’t in the mood. She also wasn’t keen on counting sheep, reciting her times tables all the way through the dreaded sevens, or mentally cataloguing her cookie recipes. Her never-fail sleep aid, reading the statutes of the Winnetka County Health Board, hadn’t even made her eyelids heavy, and there was no way she was going to take any over-the-counter remedies when she had to get up in less than five hours.

  Hannah switched on the light, causing her bedmate to blink and then stare at her with startled yellow eyes. She’d been tired when Norman had left, so tired that she’d barely been able to get ready for bed and climb under the covers. The pillow had been perfectly supportive, cradling her head just so, and the quilt had formed a warm and comforting cocoon. Moishe had purred softly beside her, actually letting her cuddle him close for ten seconds or so before he’d padded down to sleep on her feet, and the rhythmic whoosh of warm air from the heat vents had been positively soporific. Unfortunately, it had all gone downhill from there.

  She’d started thinking about Candy and how frantic her family must be, and that had made her eyes open wide and her mind kick into high gear. She had to figure out where Candy came from, discover why she’d run away, and try to get her to go back home where she belonged.

  There was no way she could sleep with a problem this weighty on her mind. Hannah put on her slippers and shrugged into her robe, knotting the sash around her waist. She always thought best when she was cooking, and since she was wide awake anyway, she might as well look for Ibby’s toffee recipe and make it tonight. She could take some to work tomorrow morning so Norman could taste it.

  “Coming?” Hannah asked, turning to look at her feline roommate. But Moishe had commandeered her pillow the moment she’d left it and he was stretched out on top like a sphinx, his front paws aligned in front of him, his head held perfectly erect, and his expression regal.

  “Guess not,” Hannah said, answering her own question as she walked out of the room.

  To Hannah’s sleep-deprived eyes, the kitchen appeared glaringly bright with its white walls and appliances. She had the urge to fetch her sunglasses as she got out her box of recipes marked “TO TRY” in big red letters. She lifted the lid, frowned at the pieces of multicolored and mismatched paper that were stuffed haphazardly into the interior, and set it down on the kitchen table with a clunk. Then she put on the coffee, snatched the carafe aside, and stuck her mug directly under the stream of fresh coffee dripping through the grounds. When her mug was full, she completed her juggling act by removing her mug and replacing the carafe.

  Going through recipes without reading them was like eating a cream puff before it was filled. Even though Hannah did her best to page quickly through them, she found herself pulling out several she wanted to try immediately, some she needed to make for Christmas, and even more she intended to try within the next few months.

  Her mug was empty by the time she finished sorting all the papers in the box, and Hannah got up to refill it. She hadn’t found Ibby’s toffee recipe, but she was sure she had it.

  There was another place she could look. Hannah headed for the bookshelf in the living room where she kept her collection of cookbooks. One was from her father’s mother, Grandma Ingrid, and it had an envelope for recipes on the inside of the front cover. She might have slipped it in there.

  By the time she’d finished going through the envelope, Hannah had a fistful of recipes to add to her piles on the kitchen table. Unfortunately, Ibby’s toffee recipe wasn’t among them. That meant there was only one more place to look and the moment Hannah thought of it, she was off and running to the guest room closet, where she was almost certain she’d stashed her old college backpack.

  It took some doing. The closet was stuffed with cast-off clothing and other useless items she hadn’t been able to throw away, but eventually Hannah emerged from the depths, her search complete. Her naturally unruly red hair had been made even more unruly by an intimate encounter with a black plush coat that had belonged to her maternal grandmother, but she was clutching a bright red backpack covered with sewn-on patches from exotic places she’d never been.

  “I found it!” she said, as she switched off the lights and carried it down the hall to the kitchen. That was another advantage of living alone. There was no one to think you were crazy if you talked to yourself. And on the off-chance that someone dropped by and caught her at it, Hannah could always pretend she’d been talking to Moishe and she hadn’t realized he’d left the room.

  Hannah sat down, took another sip of coffee, and eyed the backpack. Without books it seemed oddly deflated, like a beach ball that had been left out all winter. It didn’t look promising, but it was the only place she had left to look.

  “Here goes nothing,” Hannah said to the cat that wasn’t there, and plunged her hand down into the bottom of the backpack. The first thing she encountered was her old lunch sack with something in the bottom. Whatever it was, or had been, it was light years past the expiration date. Hannah also found a pair of sunglasses, a handful of assorted pens, and a combination lock to which she’d forgotten the combination. Eventually her fingers touched paper, stiff paper the size of an index card.

  Heart beating hard, Hannah drew her hand from the backpack and took a look. It was Ibby’s recipe for Metaphysical English Toffee. She could hardly wait to taste it again!

  A quick glance at the list of ingredients and Hannah realized that she was in luck. She had everything, even a package of Club Crackers. They were her mother’s favorite cracker and Hannah had stocked up for the holidays.

  It didn’t take long to line a pan with foil and spray it with nonstick cooking spray. Hannah covered the foil with crackers and mixed the toffee ingredients together in a saucepan. As she was stirring the boiling toffee mixture, waiting for five minutes to elapse, she thought about Candy again. It certainly couldn’t hurt to ask an expert some questions, and she had an expert right in the family. Her brother-in-law, Bill, was a sheriff’s deputy.

  Hannah glanced at the clock. It was eleven-thirty, but Bill always stayed up until midnight. If she were in luck, he’d answer the phone before it woke her sister, Andrea. Hannah reached for the phone, punched in the number, and kept right on stirring while it rang.

  “It’s right here on the table by the front door. You must have set it down while you were looking for your car keys. I’ll drive it out there right now if you want me to, but that means I have to wake Tracey and…”

  “It’s me, Andre
a,” Hannah said, interrupting what was obviously an explanation meant for her brother-in-law. “Bill left for work and he forgot his lunch?”

  “Yes, and he’s pulling a double. One of the guys called in sick.”

  “Do you want me to take something out to him?”

  “That’s nice of you, Hannah, but you don’t have to. He can just call out for pizza again. He’s done this same thing a couple of times before, and that’s what he did then.” There was a pause, and when Andrea came back on the line she sounded puzzled. “Come to think about it, it’s usually when I make bologna and pimento cheese sandwiches. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he didn’t like them.”

  Hannah didn’t join in as her sister gave a little laugh at what she assumed was an absurdity. Hannah had tasted Andrea’s bologna and pimento cheese sandwiches. Once. On a scale of one to ten, they were a minus six.

  “What are you doing up so late?” Andrea asked.

  “Making toffee. If it’s good, I’ll save some for you.”

  “Anything you make is good. And I love toffee. Is it the kind with the chocolate and nuts on top?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, good! That’s Bill’s favorite, too. Maybe you can teach me how to make it.”

  When cows do calculus, Hannah thought, but she didn’t say it. Andrea was a disaster in the kitchen. There was no way a mere mortal could teach her to cook.

  “So did you need something?” Andrea asked, erasing Hannah’s mental image of bovines standing on their hind legs to write complicated mathematical formulas on a chalkboard.

  “Not really. I just wanted to ask Bill a question.”

  “About Mike Kingston, I’ll bet.” Andrea named the newest detective on the squad. “Well, I can save you the trouble. Mike told Bill he had a great time going bowling with you. And he’s going to ask you out again for this weekend.”

  “That’s…great,” Hannah said. She wasn’t sure she liked the early date-warning system, but it was probably unavoidable since Bill was working with Mike.

  “Anyway, if there’s nothing else, I’ve got to get to bed. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

  “You’re getting up early?” Hannah hoped she didn’t sound as shocked as she felt. Andrea set her own hours at Lake Eden Realty. She usually slept until nine or so and then took another hour to get ready for work. Since most people didn’t go out house hunting until noon or later, that worked out just fine.

  “I’ve got a showing at one,” Andrea explained. “And that means I have to get up at seven.”

  “It takes you six hours to get ready for a showing?”

  “Of course not! It’s just that tomorrow afternoon is the Dorcas Circle Luncheon and the Cut ’n Curl is booked solid. The only time Bertie can squeeze me in is at eight in the morning. And that reminds me…”

  “I’ll be glad to,” Hannah interrupted, knowing exactly what her sister was going to ask. “Just bring Tracey in before you go to Bertie’s, and I’ll make sure she gets to Kiddie Korner on time.”

  “Thanks, Hannah. You’re a doll, you know that?”

  “I know. That’s why Mike wants to take me out again.”

  “Actually…that’s not why,” Andrea said, taking Hannah literally. “He told Bill you were the funniest woman he’d ever met.”

  Hannah tried to think of something to say, but it was difficult. She wasn’t sure if being funny was more important than being a doll. She also wasn’t sure if what Mike had said was a compliment or not. After all, clowns were funny, but you wouldn’t necessarily want to date one.

  The timer dinged, saving her from analyzing the problem further, and Hannah pulled her pan of toffee off the heat. “I’ve got to go. My toffee needs me. I’ll see you in the morning, Andrea.”

  Pouring the hot candy mixture over the crackers wasn’t difficult and neither was slipping the pan into the oven. Hannah set the timer for ten minutes and sat down at the kitchen table to wait. If the toffee turned out well, she’d drop some off for Bill on her way in to work tomorrow morning. He’d probably ask her to join him for some perfectly dreadful squad room brew that resembled coffee about as much as a tractor resembled a high-performance sports car, but it would give her a chance to ask him some theoretical questions about police procedure and runaways.

  When the timer rang again, Hannah took the pan out of the oven and sprinkled on the milk chocolate chips. She waited until the chips started to melt, and then she spread them out with her spatula. Once she’d scattered chopped pecans over the top and put the pan in the refrigerator, she cleaned up the kitchen and headed off to bed for a second attempt at sleep.

  Just as she’d expected, Moishe was still spread out on her pillow. Hannah climbed into bed on the other side and grabbed Moishe’s pillow. It was foam and she hated foam pillows. Not only that; it was lumpy foam that was starting to crumble and smell. It was almost worse than no pillow at all, but she was simply too tired to get into a turf war with her cat over the expensive goose-down pillow she’d bought at the Tri-County Mall. She bunched the foam up, shoved it under her neck, and hoped that she wouldn’t be as stiff as a board in the morning. And then, even though she wasn’t used to sleeping on that side of the bed, and the foam pillow felt like a giant bag of petrified miniature marshmallows, and she’d forgotten to take off her slippers, she fell asleep almost instantly.

  IBBY’S METAPHYSICAL ENGLISH TOFFEE

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees, rack in the middle position.

  16-ounce box Club Crackers*** (Mine were made by Keebler)

  1 cup butter (2 sticks, ½ pound)

  1 cup brown sugar (tightly packed)

  2 cups milk chocolate chips (12-ounce bag)

  2 cups chopped pecans (salted or unsalted, it really doesn’t matter)

  Line a 10-inch by 15-inch cookie sheet with foil. If you have a jellyroll pan, that’s perfect. If you don’t, turn up the edges of the foil to form sides.

  Spray the foil with Pam or other nonstick cooking spray. (You want to be able to peel it off later, after the candy hardens.)

  Line the pan completely with Club crackers, salt side up. Cover the whole bottom. (You can break the crackers in pieces to make them fit if you have to.) Set the cracker-lined jellyroll pan or cookie sheet aside while you cook the toffee mixture.

  Hannah’s 1st Note: You don’t need a candy thermometer to make this candy.

  Combine the butter with the brown sugar in a saucepan. Bring it to a boil over medium high heat on the stovetop, stirring constantly. Boil it for exactly five minutes, stirring it constantly. If it sputters too much, you can reduce the heat. If it starts to lose the boil, you can increase the heat. Just don’t stop stirring.

  Pour the mixture over the crackers as evenly as you can.

  Hannah’s 2nd Note: I start by pouring the mixture in lines from top to bottom over the length of the pan. Then I turn it and pour more lines over the width of the pan. Once the whole pan is crosshatched with the hot toffee mixture, I pour any that’s left where it’s needed. If it doesn’t cover the crackers completely, don’t worry—it’ll spread out quite a bit in the oven.

  Slide the pan into the oven and bake the toffee at 350 degrees F. for 10 minutes.

  Remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle the milk chocolate chips over the top. Give the chips a minute or two to melt and then spread them out as evenly as you can with a heat-resistant spatula, a wooden paddle, or a frosting knife.

  Sprinkle the chopped pecans over the top of the chocolate and refrigerate the pan.

  When the toffee has thoroughly chilled, peel it from the foil and break it into random-sized pieces.

  Hannah’s 3rd Note: Ibby used her toffee as a reward for high quiz scores. Once you taste it, you’ll know why I can still recite at least one stanza from each of the Metaphysical Poets.

  Chapter Five

  The headlights of Hannah’s cookie truck glared against the row of single-pane windows marching across the front of the squat red brick building that
housed the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Department. It was a fairly new structure, built with county money, and the windows, one to each office, didn’t open. This made it more energy efficient, according to county government guidelines. Regardless of the season or the outdoor temperature, the inside was maintained at a politically correct sixty-eight degrees.

  There were eight head-in parking spots that were earmarked for visitors, and Hannah had her pick of all eight of them. Since her mother hadn’t raised a fool, she took the one closest to the front door. Grabbing the sample box of toffee she’d prepared before she’d left her condo, and armed with three bags of day-old cookies that would be speedily devoured by anyone on duty inside, she made a hasty exit from her truck and hurried to the front door.

  Hannah pushed open the first door and stepped into the enclosure that served as a cloakroom. It was narrow, more like a hallway than a room, and it contained a rack for boots and a series of hooks for hanging parkas and scarves. The door to the inside of the sheriff’s station was at the end, and the enclosure also served as a buffer between the frigid winter air and the deputy who manned the front desk.

  Hannah couldn’t help grinning as she slipped out of her boots and hung her parka on a hook. The county board had spent thousands of dollars to research the energy-saving inner door and outer door plan, something any Minnesotan who had an enclosed front or back porch could have told them for free.