by Joanne Fluke
“If you’d practiced as much as I did, you’d be comfortable in high heels.”
“No, I wouldn’t. I have lousy balance and no inclination to break my neck.”
“Well, whatever.” Andrea patted her shoulder bag purse. “This purse wasn’t made by the same manufacturer, but I think it’s a good match with my boots.”
“Looks good to me,” Hannah said. She’d never bothered having shoes and purses that matched, but both her mother and Andrea insisted that mismatched accessories were a fashion no-no.
“Bill called me a couple of minutes ago and said he might drop by. You clued in Lisa, didn’t you?”
“Yes, if you’re talking about her fictional aunt. And she knows that Candy is a runaway who’s supposed to be my college roommate’s younger sister.”
“How about Candy? Does she know who she’s supposed to be?”
“Not yet. I thought I’d let you tell her. You’re the one who made up her cover story.”
“All right. Where is she?”
“In the front helping Lisa. I’ll go get her and introduce you. Be really careful. She’s still a little nervous, and she might run if you say the wrong…”
Hannah stopped speaking as the swinging door between the coffee shop and the kitchen barged open and Candy rushed in. She didn’t look to the right or the left. She just made a beeline for the back door, jerked it open, and rushed out.
“Uh-oh!” Hannah gasped. “I’d better go catch…”
For the second time in a row, she stopped speaking in midsentence, but this time it was from sheer relief. Norman was coming in the back door, and he had Candy by the arm.
“We’ve got to stop meeting this way,” he said, grinning down at her. “Why were you running like that? I thought you and Hannah worked things out.”
“She called the cops!” Candy gasped. “She promised me she wouldn’t but she…”
“No, I didn’t,” Hannah interrupted.
“Well, one just came in the door. And Lisa must have known what you were going to do, because she said ‘Hi’ to him!”
“Bill?” Hannah guessed, turning to Andrea.
“Bill,” Andrea concurred, getting up from her stool. “I’d better go out there before he comes back here.” She turned to Candy. “Nice to meet you, Candy. Bill’s my husband and he won’t bother you. I’m going to tell him that you’re Hannah’s college roommate’s sister.”
“What was that again?” Candy asked, looking perplexed.
“Hannah will explain everything. But I want you to know that you don’t have to worry about a thing. There’s no way we’re going to let you spend Christmas at the county children’s home.”
CHOCOLATE MINT SOFTIES
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position
2 one-ounce squares unsweetened baking chocolate
½ cup (1 stick, ¼ pound) butter at room temperature
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 cup white (granulated) sugar
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 large egg
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
½ teaspoon chocolate extract (if you can’t find it, just use vanilla)
¾ cup sour cream
2 cups flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
¾ cup very coarsely chopped pecan pieces (you’ll want some big pieces)
Line your cookie sheets with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray. Leave little “ears” of foil sticking up on the side, large enough to grab later. (This is so you can slide the cookies and the foil right off the sheet when they’re baked.)
Unwrap the squares of chocolate and break them apart. Put them in a small microwave-safe bowl. (I use a 16-ounce measuring cup.) Melt them for 90 seconds on HIGH. Stir them until they’re smooth and set them aside to cool while you mix up your cookie dough.
Hannah’s 1st Note: Mixing this dough is a lot easier with an electric mixer. You can do it by hand, but it’ll take some muscle.
Combine the butter and sugars together in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat them on medium speed until they’re smooth. This should take less than a minute.
Add the baking soda and salt, and resume beating on medium again for another minute, or until they’re incorporated.
Add the egg and beat on medium until the batter is smooth (an additional minute should do it.) Add the peppermint and chocolate extracts, and mix for about 30 seconds.
Shut off the mixer and scrape down the bowl. Then add the melted chocolate and mix again for another minute on medium speed.
Shut off the mixer and scrape down the bowl again. At low speed, mix in half of the flour. When that’s incorporated, mix in the sour cream.
Scrape down the bowl again and add the rest of the flour. Beat until it’s fully incorporated.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and give it a stir with a spoon. Mix in the pecan pieces by hand. (A firm rubber spatula works nicely.)
Use a teaspoon to spoon the dough onto the foil-lined cookie sheets, 12 cookies to a standard-sized sheet. (If the dough is too sticky for you to work with, chill it for a half-hour or so, and try again.) Bake the cookies at 350 degrees F., for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they rise and become firm.
Slide the foil from the cookie sheets and onto a wire rack. Let the cookies cool on the rack while the next sheet of cookies is baking. When the next sheet of cookies is ready, pull the cooled cookies onto the counter or table and slide the foil with the hot cookies onto the rack. Keep alternating until all the dough has been baked.
When all the cookies are cool, set them out on waxed paper for frosting.
Chocolate Butter Frosting:
2 one-ounce squares unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
1/3 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered (confectioners’) sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Approximately 2 Tablespoons cream (or milk)
Unwrap the squares of chocolate and break them apart. Put them in a small microwave-safe bowl. (I use a 16-ounce measuring cup.) Melt them for 90 seconds on HIGH. Stir them until they’re smooth and set them aside to cool.
When the chocolate is cool, mix in the butter. Then stir in the powdered sugar. (There’s no need to sift unless it has big lumps.)
Mix in the vanilla extract and the cream. Beat the frosting until it’s of spreading consistency.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: This frosting is the no-fail type. If it’s too thick, add a bit more cream. If it’s too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar.
Frost your cookies and leave them on the waxed paper until the frosting has hardened. (If you’re like me, you’ll sneak one while the frosting is still soft, just to test it, of course.)
When the frosting has hardened, arrange the cookies on a pretty platter and enjoy. They store well in a covered container if you separate the layers with wax paper.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: Lisa says that when she’s in a hurry and doesn’t have time to make a frosting, she just sprinkles the cookies with a little powdered sugar while they’re still warm. She does a second sprinkling when they’re cool and calls it a day.
Yield: Approximately 6 dozen cookies
Chapter Eight
It was four days before Christmas and Hal & Rose’s Café was decorated for the season. There was a silver metal Christmas tree in the corner that was illuminated by a spotlight with a slowly revolving color wheel. The tree was red for ten seconds, blue for ten seconds, green for ten seconds, and yellow for ten seconds. Then the cycle started all over again. Hal had purchased the tree from Hannah’s father at Lake Eden Hardware in the seventies, and it was still going strong.
Hannah, Andrea, and Norman sat in the back booth under several strings of multicolored tinsel garlands that had been looped over the ceiling light fixtures in a crisscross pattern. A small fake poinsettia sat in the exact center of each table, and brightly colored cardboard cutouts of wreaths, snowmen, and sleighs were taped t
o the backs of the booths.
Except for the perpetual poker game that Hal hosted in the private banquet room in the back, the restaurant was deserted. It was two-fifteen in the afternoon, too late for lunch, and too early for the students at Jordan High to order after-school hamburgers and french fries. Even Rose had defected. She’d refilled their mugs, plunked the coffee carafe down on the table, told them to help themselves, and headed upstairs to the apartment over the restaurant to wrap a few Christmas presents.
“So what do we have so far?” Andrea asked, blowing on her coffee to cool it before she took a tentative sip.
Hannah got out her steno pad and prepared to read her notes aloud. She was taking a breather from work so that they could have a strategy meeting. Lisa and Candy were handling everything, and after a week at The Cookie Jar, Candy was fitting right in. Everyone appeared to believe Andrea’s cover story, although Hannah thought Bill might be a bit suspicious. He was letting it slide, though. Bill wasn’t about to haul Candy off to the county home right before Christmas, especially since she was now staying in the guest room at Hannah’s condo.
“She’s approximately fifteen, she doesn’t have a driver’s license yet, and she lives with her mother. Her father was a veterinarian, and he’s dead.”
Andrea shook her head. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“We don’t know what for sure?” Hannah asked with a frown.
“We don’t know her father’s dead.”
“Why would Candy lie about something like that?” Norman wanted to know.
“Divorce. I heard all about it on a talk show. Some kids don’t want to admit their parents have broken up. They’d rather say that one of them is dead.”
Norman looked puzzled. “But why?”
“It ends the discussion. If someone says, My dad is dead, you say, I’m sorry. And then you change the subject. If someone says, My parents are divorced, you might ask questions about which one they live with, and how often they see the other one, and things like that.”
Norman nodded. “That makes some kind of sense, but I still think he’s dead.”
“So do I.” Hannah glanced down at her notebook again. “I’m almost positive her name really is Candy. She answers to it even when she’s distracted, and it sounds natural when she says it. And I’m pretty sure her last name starts with an R.”
“She told you that?” Andrea asked.
“In a way, but she didn’t mean to. That first night when I woke her up, I asked her name. She said Candy, and then she began to say something that started with an R. When she realized what she was doing, she stopped cold and told me that I didn’t need to know her last name.”
“It’s probably an R, then,” Norman decided. “What else?”
“She has a photographic memory, although I’m not sure if that’s a clue or not. And when she was demonstrating it for me, she said she remembered the personalized license plate her mom gave her dad for his van. It said critters. And she told us her dad’s phone number at his clinic. It was eight-one-four, eight-four-four-one.”
“That’s a great clue!” Andrea exclaimed, giving her a thumbs-up.
“Only if her father’s not dead and the clinic she was talking about is still open.”
“Chances are, it’s still open even if he’s dead,” Norman told her. “Most clinics don’t go out of business when the doctor dies. Look at my father’s practice. If I hadn’t come back to run it, my mother would have sold it to another dentist. And you can bet he wouldn’t have changed the number, since all the patients already have it. You see medical practices for sale all the time. What you’re buying is the equipment and the existing patient list.”
Andrea gave him a bright smile. “Norman’s right, Hannah. Just look at Bertie. She didn’t start the Cut ’n Curl from scratch. She bought the former owner’s equipment and her client list. And I know for a fact that she kept the same phone number.”
“Maybe the vet clinic still has the same phone number, but unfortunately, there’s a hitch.” Hannah didn’t bother to point out that buying a medical practice wasn’t exactly the same as purchasing a beauty shop, and that Andrea was guilty of trying to add apples and oranges.
“What’s the hitch?” Norman asked.
“Candy didn’t give me the area code.”
Andrea waved off that concern. “We ought to be able to get around that. I mean, how many area codes can there be?”
“Over two hundred sixty, and that’s not counting Canada. I looked it up in the phone book. It would take hours to dial all those numbers.”
“I’ll do it,” Andrea volunteered. “It won’t take me that long since I’ve got programmable one-button dialing. All I have to do is punch in the area code and my phone will put in the rest.”
Hannah just shook her head. “Okay, if you think you can do it, but I don’t even want to think about what Bill will say when you get your next phone bill.”
“He won’t say anything, because it’ll be the same as this month’s phone bill.”
“You have a cell phone with unlimited minutes and no roaming charges?” Norman guessed.
“That’s right. I’ll start calling the minute I get home and work until Bill comes in the door. I’ll do what it takes, Hannah. If I have to, I’ll wait until he goes to sleep and I’ll call all night.”
“They might not be open all night,” Hannah pointed out.
“I know that. But since it’s a clinic, there’s bound to be an answering service. Is there anything else I should know about Candy’s family?”
Hannah glanced back down at her notes. “Her mother taught her how to make candy, but you already knew that. And here’s something, but it doesn’t do us a whole lot of good.” Hannah pointed to a note she’d made. “She said her Grandfather Samuel is a Methodist minister, but I don’t know what side of the family he’s on.”
“So far the phone number’s our best bet,” Norman said. “I’ll hop on the Internet to see if I can track down that license plate, but it’s a long shot since she didn’t say exactly how they spelled it and we don’t know the state. And if her father’s dead and her mother sold the van or something like that, the plate could have gone back into circulation.”
“I’ve got a theory about her home state,” Hannah told them. “My guess is, it’s not Minnesota. We watched the news last night right before she went to bed, and she wasn’t a bit jumpy.”
Norman gave a nod. “And she would have been jumpy if she was afraid her mother had reported her missing? And they might show her picture on television?”
“Exactly. Not only that; they did a sound bite from the governor’s last speech, and Candy asked me who he was.”
“Then she’s not from Minnesota. Where do you think she came from?” Andrea asked.
“Somewhere in the Midwest, probably no more than a day or two away from Lake Eden on the bus, or by hitchhiking. I could be wrong, but the night we found her, I noticed that her clothes were still clean and her sleeping bag looked almost new.”
“That all makes sense to me,” Andrea told them, finishing her coffee and sliding out of the booth. “I think your idea about the Midwest is right, especially since she doesn’t have an accent. I’ll try the Dakotas first and work my way around in a circle. Where will you be if I get a hit, Hannah?”
“I’m at the shop until six. We’re closing at five, but I want to mix up a double batch of Fudge-Aroons to take to Sally’s Christmas party on Friday night. You’re going aren’t you, Norman?”
“Yes. Will you save me a dance?”
“Absolutely,” Hannah said, hoping her smile wasn’t slipping. Norman was a great guy, but he wasn’t what anyone without steel-toed boots might call an accomplished dancer.
“How about Candy? Is she going?” Andrea wanted to know.
“Of course. I told her it was one of the biggest parties of the year and she’s all excited about it.”
“Does she have a dress?”
“Not yet, but I talked
to Claire and I’m taking her over to Beau Monde tomorrow.”
“Don’t forget shoes. She can’t wear tennis shoes with a fancy party dress.”
“I won’t forget.” Hannah was grateful for the reminder, but she wasn’t about to let her sister know that she hadn’t even thought about shoes.
“So you’ll be home at…what? Six-thirty?”
“That’s about right.”
“Okay.” Andrea turned to go, but then she turned back. “What do you want me to say when I find Candy’s mother?”
Hannah thought about that for a moment, and she remembered what Mike had said. Some runaways had a very good reason for leaving home. “If the mother’s not too far away, see if you can get her to come here. Tell her that if I bring Candy back without resolving anything, she’ll just run away again. And the next time she could get into big trouble.”
“Okay, but what if she won’t come here?”
“Then I’ll go there, wherever it is.” Hannah felt the same surge of fierce protectiveness she experienced when she held small kittens and puppies. “Just make it clear that I’m not letting Candy out of my sight until I know she’s going to be okay.”
