Lemon Meringue Pie Murder (Hannah Swensen Mysteries)

by Joanne Fluke

  Mystery Cookies

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.,

  with rack in middle position.

  ½ cup melted butter (1 stick)

  3½ cups white sugar

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

  1 can condensed tomato soup (the regular plain kind, not “Cream Of Tomato” or “Tomato with Basil” or anything else fancy—I use Campbell’s)

  2 teaspoons cinnamon

  2 teaspoons nutmeg (if you grind your own, use 1 teaspoon instead of 2)

  2 teaspoons baking soda

  2 teaspoons salt

  2 cups raisins (either golden or regular)

  2 cups chopped walnuts (measure after you chop them)

  4½ cups flour (no need to sift)

  Microwave the butter in your mixing bowl to melt it. Add the sugar, let it cool a bit, and mix in the beaten eggs. Open a can of condensed tomato soup, add that to your mixing bowl, and then mix it all up. Stir in the cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Then add the raisins and the walnuts, and stir. Measure the flour and add it in one-cup increments, mixing after each addition.

  Let the dough sit for ten minutes or so. Drop the dough by teaspoons onto a greased or Pammed cookie sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. (If the dough is too sticky to scoop, you can chill it for a few minutes, or dip your teaspoon into a glass of cold water.)

  Bake at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until the cookies are golden brown on top. Let them sit on the cookie sheet for a minute or two (no longer or they’ll stick) , and then transfer them to a wire rack for complete cooling.

  A batch of Mystery Cookies yields about 10 dozen. (I know that’s a lot, but they’ll be gone before you know it.) They’re soft and chewy and a real favorite. (And if you don’t tell the kids that they’re getting a helping of tomatoes with their cookies, I guarantee they’ll never guess.)

  Chapter

  Twenty-One

  “I t’s eleven-thirty. Aren’t you tired?” Hannah asked her sisters when she came back into her living room.

  “Not me.” Michelle shook her head.

  “How about you, Andrea?” Hannah turned to her. “You’re the one who’s sleeping for two.”

  Andrea laughed. “That’s eating for two. There’s no such thing as sleeping for two. The baby sleeps whenever he wants to. It doesn’t matter whether I’m awake or not.”

  “Are you sure you’re not tired?”

  “You sound like Bill. Really, Hannah. I’m not a bit tired.”

  Michelle looked confused. “But I thought pregnancy was so tiring.”

  “It is, in the last couple of months. But that’s when you’re carrying around all that extra weight. I’ve only gained five pounds so far. My feet get tired if I stand all day, but that’s the only part of me that does. I actually have more energy now than I did before I got pregnant.”

  “I’m a real lightweight when it comes to pulling all-nighters, like when I have to study for a test. Maybe I should get pregnant and then I’d have more energy.” Michelle noticed the shocked expression on her sisters’ faces and she giggled. “Just kidding. I want to wait to get pregnant until I’m as old as Hannah.”

  Hannah groaned. She wasn’t sure if that was an insult, but it sure felt like it.

  “That’s a bad idea. Don’t wait that long,” Andrea advised.

  Hannah groaned again. This time she was sure it was an insult. “Forget about my biological clock. Mother’s already got that covered. If we’re going to stay up and talk, I’ll make us some hot chocolate. Andrea? You can bring Michelle up to speed on everything we learned about the robbery case.”

  It took a while to make the hot chocolate, because Hannah made it the old-fashioned way with cocoa, milk, and sugar. Once she’d poured it into two mugs and refilled her own mug with no-calorie coffee, she carried them back out to the living room. She caught the tail end of the conversation when she entered the room.

  “…like him a lot, but there’s someone at school I’m dating.” Michelle turned to smile as Hannah set down her mug of hot chocolate and went on. “It’s not exclusive, but we’re really good friends, if you know what I mean.”

  “How good?” Andrea asked, taking her mug from Hannah.

  Hannah winced as she took her place on the sofa. She’d apparently missed a conversation about Michelle’s boyfriends and it sounded as if Andrea was grilling their baby sister.

  “Not that good.” Michelle looked a bit exasperated. “I’m not sleeping with him, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Tell me about him. Is he a student?”

  “Yes. He’s twenty-four, he’s going for his M.B.A., and his name is Raj.”

  It was time for her to step in and Hannah did it with a rush. She wasn’t sure how Andrea felt about inter-cultural dating. “Will you ask Raj if his mother has a good recipe for curry? I know most families from India have their own blend of spices and I don’t really like the bottled curry powder you can buy in the stores.”

  Michelle laughed. “Raj’s family isn’t from India. His full name is Roger Allen Jensen. ‘Raj’ is just a nickname they got from his initials.”

  “Oh,” Hannah said, feeling slightly foolish. Since she didn’t enjoy that feeling, it was time to change the subject and fast. “I still can’t believe that Freddy mooned people on the road, and I’m really disturbed about Jed. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that he knows something about the stolen money and he somehow got his hands on it.”

  “Do you think so?” Michelle asked, looking relieved that the boyfriend discussion was over.

  “It makes some kind of sense, especially if you got that ten-dollar bill at the drugstore. Freddy showed me his new sports watch today and I know the drugstore carries watches like that. Freddy told me it cost less than ten dollars and Jed gave him the money to buy it.”

  “But a lot of people shop at the drugstore,” Andrea pointed out.

  “Wait. There’s more. Jed told me he used to work on a maintenance crew at Stillwater Prison. He said he got some back pay, some sort of retroactive raise, but I don’t believe it.”

  “Do you think Jed was a prisoner?” Andrea asked.

  “No. Mike checked it out and he wasn’t. But he could have met the bank robbers while he was working there and they could have told him where they stashed the money.”

  Andrea shrugged. “I guess it’s not impossible.”

  “I hope Hannah’s right,” Michelle said. “Is it illegal to spend stolen money when you’re not the one who stole it?”

  “I think so, if you know it’s stolen.” Hannah looked at Andrea. “Do you know?”

  “It’s got to be. But even if Jed claims he didn’t know the money was stolen, it still might be enough to separate him from Freddy, at least for a while.”

  “That would be good,” Michelle said with a sigh. “Lonnie and I tried to explain things to Freddy when we took him home, but I don’t think we did any good. Freddy still doesn’t realize that Jed was the one who got him into trouble in the first place.”

  Hannah sighed. “That figures. Freddy’s always been very loyal and trusting. It’ll take a lot to convince him that Jed isn’t a good guy. He’s honest, though. If he finds out that Jed’s been spending stolen money, that might be enough to change his opinion.”

  “That’s a good place to start.” Andrea motioned to Hannah. “Hand me my purse, Hannah. My cell phone has free long distance. I’ll call Stillwater and see if the two bank robbers are there.”

  “Now?” Hannah stopped in the act of reaching for Andrea’s purse. “But the prison offices will be closed.”

  “I know and that’s just perfect. Whoever answers the phone might not know the rules and they’ll give me the information I need.”

  “But won’t they just tell you to call back when the office opens up in the morning?”

  Andrea shook her head. “They might tell somebody else that, but not me. I’ve got a perfect reason for calling right now and they’re goin
g to fall over backwards getting me what I need. Now will you please hand me my purse?”

  Hannah gave Andrea her purse, watched as her sister took out her cell phone, listened as she got the right number from directory assistance, and came very close to crossing her fingers as Andrea began to speak to someone at the prison. If Andrea could verify that the bank robbers were in Stillwater Prison, they’d be one step closer to proving that Jed was trafficking in stolen money.

  “I’m really sorry to call so late, but I’m trying to balance my mother’s checkbook and I noticed she sent a check to a man by the name of Loren Urlanski.” Andrea paused and winked at them. “That’s right. Urlanski. He’s supposedly an inmate at Stillwater and my mother made a contribution to his appeal fund. Since it’s a fairly large check, I wanted to make sure that Mr. Urlanski is really an inmate.” Andrea paused again and then she smiled. “Of course. I’ll be happy to hold while you check.”

  “You did it!” Michelle whispered, gazing at Andrea in awe.

  Andrea shook her head. “Not quite yet. But he said he’d check the computer.”

  Hannah just shook her head. Andrea could lie like a trooper when the occasion warranted.

  “Yes, I’m here,” Andrea said, speaking into the phone again. “He’s not? Are you sure?” She paused to make a note in her book and then she continued. “How about David Aspen? My mother also contributed to his appeal fund. Could you check that name for me?”

  Hannah grabbed Andrea’s pen as she waited and scribbled a note to her sister. It said, Transferred? Dead? Paroled? Andrea glanced at it and turned back to the phone. “He’s not, either? That’s exactly what I was afraid of. How about if they were transferred? Or if they died? Or if they’re out on parole? Is there any way your computer can tell that?”

  Hannah held her breath as she waited for the answer. If neither bank robber had been an inmate at Stillwater, their theory was a washout.

  “I see. Well, thank you so much for checking. I really appreciate it. I’ll turn these canceled checks over to the proper authorities in the morning. Obviously somebody is running one of those scams that targets the elderly.”

  Hannah waited until Andrea hung up and then she started to laugh. “The elderly? If Mother had heard that, you wouldn’t have a chance to get elderly.”

  “You’re right. She’d kill me.” Andrea grinned from ear to ear. “But she’s never going to find out about it…right?”

  “Right,” Michelle said.

  “Absolutely,” Hannah agreed. “Thanks for checking on it, Andrea. You were incredible.”

  “Anytime. What do you want me to do next?”

  “I don’t know.” Hannah sighed deeply. “My theory about Jed is blown. If the two bank robbers were never at Stillwater, Jed couldn’t have met them there. It’s a shame. I really wanted him to be the one who was passing that stolen money.”

  “Me, too,” Michelle said. “He’s a jerk.”

  “I know, but I guess not every jerk is a criminal.” Hannah picked up her notebook and paged through it. “We’re spinning our wheels with this bank robbery thing, especially when we can’t prove it has anything to do with Jed or with Rhonda’s murder. Maybe we’d better tell Bill and Mike what we know and drop it.”

  When her alarm went off the next morning, Hannah had to squelch the urge to throw it across the room. The only thing that stopped her was that she didn’t have the energy to lift her hand. It had been almost one in the morning by the time Bill had come to collect Andrea and close to one-thirty by the time she’d gotten Michelle settled in the guest room. It would be a two-pots-of-coffee morning before she was alert enough to drive to work.

  “That new pillow had better come in soon,” Hannah grumbled, rubbing her neck as she crawled out of bed. She’d ended up with the foam pillow again because she’d been too tired to dislodge Moishe from hers.

  After a quick shower that eased some of the pain in her neck, Hannah dressed in cotton pants and a short-sleeved top. She slipped her feet into a pair of moccasins and padded to the kitchen with Moishe, who was following on the trail of his breakfast. Once she’d filled his food bowl and given him fresh water, Hannah poured her first cup of coffee, grabbed her master file of recipes, and sat down at the table to page through it while she woke up. Today was the day before the Fourth, and she still hadn’t decided what type of dessert to bring to the potluck picnic and barbecue.

  Long minutes passed while Hannah paged and sipped. When the hands of her apple-shaped kitchen clock approached five o’clock, the time she’d decided to leave for work, she was no closer to deciding which dessert to bring than she’d been before she’d started. She might have actually welcomed the diversion of a morning call from her mother, but it was too early, even for Delores. Hannah finished the first cup of coffee from the second pot and poured the rest in her insulated car coffee caddy. She wrote a quick note for Michelle, telling her to come down to the shop when she woke up, and propped it up against the saltshaker where she’d be sure to see it. Then she refilled Moishe’s food bowl for the final time, slung her purse over her shoulder, and stepped out into the muggy early morning air.

  The air outside was like a sauna and Hannah imagined that she could hear steam hissing up as the water hit the rocks. It would be another scorcher today. If this heat wave didn’t let up before tomorrow, the students in Jordan High’s marching band would be dropping like flies in their uniforms at the parade.

  Hannah drove through the still morning with her windows down, attempting to catch every breath of wind. Crickets chirped in the fields, somewhere a cow was lowing, and several frogs hopped dangerously close to her wheels as they crossed the road to a pond on the opposite side of the road.

  The sun was just beginning to peep over the horizon when Hannah parked in back of The Cookie Jar. The first thing she did after she unlocked the door was to beat a path straight to the air conditioner and turn it on full blast. Then she got down to the business of baking the cookie dough that she’d mixed up with Lisa before they’d left the shop the previous night.

  In less than an hour, Hannah was very grateful for the cool air that circulated in her kitchen. With the ovens baking and cookies cooling on the racks, it was warm, but not hot. It made her wonder how she’d ever managed without her window unit.

  When Lisa came in, at seventy-thirty, she was smiling. Hannah took one glance at her partner’s happy face and was instantly curious. “What’s up? Did Herb propose?”

  “No, it’s Dad. He’s Uncle Sam!”

  “What?”

  “The Seniors Center rented him a costume and Dad’s leading his whole group in the parade. He’s going to be the best Uncle Sam they ever had!” Lisa stopped and frowned slightly. “That’s strange, Hannah.”

  “What’s strange?”

  “I just remembered something. Dad got all excited when I got to be the Easter Bunny in my second-grade play. He told all his friends that I was going to be the best Easter Bunny they ever had. And now I’m doing the same thing for him, just like I’m his proud parent. I guess it’s true that roles get reversed when you get older.”

  “I guess so.” Hannah tried to think of something to say to cheer Lisa up. She’d been smiling, but now she looked sad. “You should take some pictures of your dad and his group in the parade. They might like to put them up on the bulletin board at the center.”

  Lisa started to smile again. “That’s a great idea. I already bought a disposable camera to take pictures of our float.”

  “How’s it coming?” Hannah asked. She wasn’t about to miss a golden opportunity to see if she could find out more about The Cookie Jar float.

  “It’s almost finished. Tracey’s class is putting on the final touches today. It’s absolutely precious, but that’s all I’m allowed to say.”

  “But can’t you just tell me…”

  “No,” Lisa interrupted, grinning widely. “You’ll see it tomorrow at the parade.”

  Hannah recognized the stubborn set of Lisa
’s chin. She could beg and plead, but she wouldn’t get any more information. “Delores and Carrie are coming to watch the parade with us, and they can help us take pictures of your dad and the seniors. Andrea can help, too. Take some money out of the till and run down to the drugstore as soon as they open to get more disposable cameras.”

  “Thanks, Hannah. We should get lots of good pictures that way.”

  “Even if we don’t, we’ve always got Norman as a backup. He’ll be here with his own camera.”

  Lisa smiled happily. “I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I love the parade and the whole celebration out at Eden Lake. Have you decided what dessert we’re going to bring?”

  “Not yet. I tried to think of something special this morning, but I’m fresh out of ideas.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Lisa offered. “You’ve got enough on your mind with Rhonda’s murder. What did you find out about that ten-dollar bill I gave you yesterday? Did Mr. Greerson think it was counterfeit?”

  “Sit down for a second and I’ll tell you.” Hannah gestured toward a stool at the workstation. And then she told Lisa all about the robbery and the stolen money that had surfaced in Lake Eden.

  Lisa’s eyes were round with surprise by the time Hannah finished. “I guess a lot happened after I went home last night!”

  “There’s more,” Hannah said, and told her about Freddy Sawyer’s drunk and disorderly charge.

  “This just gets stranger and stranger.” Lisa shook her head. “We’ve had a mooning, a murder, and money turning up from an old bank robbery, all in one week.”