Apple Turnover Murder, Key Lime Pie Murder, Cherry Cheesecake Murder, Lemon Meringue Pie Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “So where is everybody?” Lisa asked, lifting her coffee mug to take another sip of the strong coffee their customers called Swedish Plasma. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

  “Me neither,” Hannah said, lapsing into a colloquialism she seldom used. They were sitting at their favorite table in the back of the coffee shop, enjoying the fact everyone in town seemed to think that it was too early for a lunch cookie and too late for a breakfast cookie.

  “So do you want to stay out here to wait for customers while I mix up more Pineapple Delights? Or would you rather do it yourself and make me sit on the edge of my chair out here?”

  “Huh?” Hannah blinked hard as she stared at her petite partner. She hadn’t gotten much sleep last night, and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Lisa was wearing one of their serving aprons with their logo printed on the bib, the ties wrapped twice around her waist. Hannah blinked again. The cookie in their logo, the one with the bite missing, was shimmering like a mirage.

  “You’d better stay here, Hannah. Put your head down on the table and take a snooze. Everybody’s out at the fair anyway, and if friends come in, they’ll help themselves to coffee and leave the money on the counter.”

  Hannah knew that Lisa was right. She hadn’t slept well last night because she was worried about Moishe. Her feline roommate usually came to bed with her, snuggled for a second or two, and then moved down to his favorite place at the foot of the bed. But last night Moishe hadn’t come to bed. He’d stayed out in the living room all night, and Hannah had gotten up several times to check on him. Since she’d found him staring out the window and he hadn’t seemed to be in any distress, she’d gone back to bed and slept fitfully for the rest of the night.

  “Deal,” Hannah said, giving her partner a grateful smile. “Have I told you lately that you’re a gem?”

  “Only last week, and I hope I’m a sapphire.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s my gemstone. I just love the blue ones. They’re so pretty.”

  And with that, Lisa headed off to the kitchen, leaving Hannah to gratefully comply with the urge to rest her head on her folded arms. It was exactly what she’d done in her eight o’clock geography class during her first semester at college. The professor had used slides of maps to illustrate his lectures. He’d dimmed the lights and Hannah had immediately nodded off. She’d slept through every lecture, and it was only by the kind intervention and last minute cramming from a classmate who liked the cookies she brought for their study sessions, that she’d managed to pass the course.

  PINEAPPLE DELIGHTS

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

  2 cups butter (4 sticks, one pound—melted)

  2 cups brown sugar

  2 cups white (granulated) sugar

  4 eggs—beaten (just beat them up in a glass with a fork)

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1 teaspoon salt

  2 teaspoons pineapple extract (if you can’t find it, you can use vanilla)

  4 cups flour

  2½ cups chopped sweetened dried pineapple (measure AFTER chopping—if you can’t find pineapple, you can substitute any dried fruit chopped in chocolate chip sized pieces)

  ½ cup chopped coconut flakes (measure AFTER chopping)

  3 cups rolled oats (uncooked oatmeal—I used Quaker Oats Quick 1-Minute in the round paper can that you save, but you don’t know why)

  Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. (About 3 minutes on HIGH.) Add the sugars and let it cool a bit. Then add the beaten eggs, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pineapple extract. Mix in the flour. Then add the chopped pineapple, chopped coconut, and rolled oats, mixing them in thoroughly. The dough will be quite stiff.

  Drop by teaspoon onto a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a sheet. (I roll mine in a ball so the cookies turn out nice and round.)

  Bake at 350 degrees F. for 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes and then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely.

  These freeze really well if you roll them in foil and put them in a freezer bag.

  Chapter Three

  Uh-oh! There was Mike Kingston and there was Norman Rhodes, and they were both waiting for her at the altar! There was going to be a fight right here in church, and it was all her fault. She must have done something incredibly stupid and accepted both of their proposals!

  They didn’t sound angry. She could hear them talking, and they seemed perfectly friendly. Mike said something and Norman laughed. They were getting along like best buddies, and that was fine with her. At least she wouldn’t have to choose between them. The laws must have changed so that she could have two husbands instead of just one.

  Norman said something about coffee, and he walked over to the counter that had replaced the front pew. It was where Priscilla Knudson, the reverend’s grandmother, usually sat, and Hannah hoped that she was all right. Even a summer cold could be dangerous for a lady in her eighties.

  There was a coffee pot behind the counter, and Hannah wondered how the church elders felt about that. Coffee in the basement or at the very back of the church might be welcome, but this was up at the front and it was sure to disrupt Reverend Knudson’s sermons. Of course it could have been installed specifically for her wedding. Everyone knew how much she loved coffee, and Holy Redeemer Lutheran had made exceptions for brides before. Just last month Reverend Knudson had given Annice Borge permission to hold her little teacup poodle when she took her vows.

  The coffee smelled wonderful. Hannah felt her nose twitch, and her mouth began to water in anticipation. Coffee was one of her favorite things, and she could really use a cup about now. Would it be a terrible breach of etiquette for the bride to make an early appearance, just so she could get a cup of coffee? Or should she ask Mike and Norman? Except they didn’t sound like Mike and Norman anymore. One of them sounded like a woman, and the other one sounded like a man. They must be joking around about something.

  “Hannah? I brought you some coffee.”

  Norman’s voice was still high-pitched, but she didn’t care about that. He’d actually read her mind! Somehow she’d managed to communicate with him without words. She had coffee, and now the only other thing that she craved was chocolate. If she could have chocolate, she’d be perfectly content.

  “And I brought you a couple of Black and Whites. I figured you could use the chocolate.”

  Mike sounded different than he usually did, but that didn’t concern her. This was a miracle. She’d obviously communicated with him, too. No wonder both of them had been waiting for her at the altar! It was only right that she marry them both, since both of them could read her mind.

  “I do,” she said, opening her eyes wide to smile at them. And that was when she noticed that she wasn’t in a church at all. She was sitting at a back table in her own coffee shop. Lisa was sitting across from her, right next to her husband, Herb. There hadn’t been any wedding. She’d caught forty winks while Lisa had been mixing up the cookie dough, and she’d dreamed the whole thing.

  “You do what?” Herb asked.

  Hannah looked at him blankly. She didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about.

  “When you woke up you smiled at us and said, I do.”

  “Oh.” Hannah thought fast. “You said you figured I needed chocolate and I said I do.” And then, before Herb could think about it and ask more questions that might prove embarrassing, Hannah turned to Lisa. “What time is it?”

  “A little after two-thirty. I closed because we haven’t had a customer since noon.”

  “All the stores on Main Street are closing early,” Herb informed her. “Nobody’s doing any business, not even Rose down at the cafe. Everybody and their cousin’s out at the fairgrounds.”

  “That figures.” Hannah took a gulp of her coffee and bit into a cookie. It was just as good as she thought it would be. Nothing could beat the winning com
bination of chocolate and coffee.

  Lisa reached out to take Herb’s hand. “There’s no traffic in town, so Mayor Bascomb told Herb he could have the rest of the afternoon off.”

  “I can help you and Lisa mix up cookies,” Herb offered. “Or I can make deliveries if you’ve got any. Or maybe you just want to go home for the day?”

  Hannah noticed the hopeful look in her partner’s eyes. Lisa and Herb had been married for only four months, and they didn’t get much time alone together. They both worked six days a week, and they spent almost every Sunday with his mother and her father.

  “I do have one delivery,” Hannah said, turning to Herb, “but you’ll have to take Lisa with you.”

  “Sure. Where do you want us to go?”

  “To the fair. You can take the Pineapple Delights Lisa just baked to the Cookie Nook booth.” Hannah gave her partner a smile. “And since all of our customers are already at the fairgrounds, you can pack up all the cookies we have left here at the shop, and take them with you. They’re not going to eat them here, so they might as well eat them out there.”

  “Okay. I’ll leave a box for you to use for samples and load up all the rest.”

  “Perfect.” Hannah was glad Lisa had remembered. Unless they completely sold out, she usually packed up the leftover cookies and put them in her cookie truck. There was almost always an occasion to give out samples, and Hannah was convinced that they created a lot of new business that way.

  “It should only take us about forty-five minutes,” Lisa said, glancing at her watch. “We can be back here by three-thirty at the latest, and then we can mix up the cookie dough for tomorrow.”

  Hannah shook her head. “We’ll do that in the morning. We don’t have any cookies on the menu that need to be chilled before baking.”

  “Well…if you’re sure…” Lisa hesitated, and Hannah could tell she felt guilty about not putting in a full day’s work.

  “I’m positive. I’ll just finish up a couple of things here and go home.”

  Hannah had another cup of coffee while Lisa packed up the cookies. Then she helped them pack the boxes in Herb’s cruiser. As they drove away, Hannah noticed that Lisa had slid across the bench seat and was sitting close to Herb. If anyone had been foolish enough to give her odds, Hannah would have bet that the two lovebirds would be doing some billing and cooing before the night was over.

  An hour later, Hannah opened the door to her condo and braced herself for the greeting ritual that Moishe had initiated on the first day he’d moved in with her. The pattern hadn’t varied in over two years. Once she opened the door, Moishe hurtled himself into her arms, landing with a thud that rocked her back on her heels. Hannah’s catapulting feline reminded her of an old picture she’d seen at the Lake Eden Historical Society. Her grandfather and some of his cronies were standing in a circle on the beach at Eden Lake, tossing a medicine ball around. According to some research her mother had done, the ball they’d used had weighed over twenty pounds. Since Moishe had tipped the scales at twenty-three pounds the last time she’d taken him to the vet, Hannah considered their greeting ritual part of her daily exercise regime. If the truth were known, it was the only part of her daily exercise regime, unless she counted the aerobic benefits of lifting giant bags of sugar and flour in her bakery kitchen or walking several miles across the coffee shop floor to refill coffee mugs and deliver orders of cookies.

  Hannah stood there waiting for the onslaught, but absolutely nothing happened. The door was open, and Moishe was nowhere in sight. Heart in her throat, Hannah rushed in and tossed her purse on a chair. “Moishe?” she called, fearing the worst.

  There was no answer, and Hannah felt a chill of foreboding. She should have taken Moishe to the vet this morning when she’d found him staring out the window at nothing. Animals couldn’t tell you when they were sick. Their humans had to watch for signs of illness, and one sign was atypical behavior. He’d tried to tell her, and she was a bad kitty mommy for ignoring the sign!

  Relax, she told herself and took a deep breath. It would do no good to panic. She had to stay calm and think clearly. The first thing to do was to find Moishe and check for other signs of illness.

  Hannah headed for the kitchen. Perhaps Moishe had his head buried in his food bowl and he hadn’t heard her come in. But there was no orange and white cat ear-deep in his kitty crunchies. Instead, Hannah found something even more alarming. She’d given him his breakfast before she’d left for work this morning, and her normally ravenous cat hadn’t touched a morsel!

  “Uh-oh,” Hannah groaned, staring at Moishe’s full-to-the-brim Garfield bowl in disbelief. Moishe always emptied his bowl and was yowling for more by the time she came home. There had to be something drastically wrong.

  Hannah checked the usual places, but Moishe wasn’t there. There was nothing furry under the Formica kitchen table that was only a few years short of becoming antique, and no inquisitive orange and white head peeked out from behind the kitchen wastebasket. Moishe was not in the kitchen, not unless he’d morphed into one of the dust balls that was hiding in the two-inch-high space under the refrigerator.

  The laundry room was next. Hannah checked the space behind the washer and dryer, even though she thought it was too tight a squeeze for him. There was a smattering of gravel outside his litter box. He must have used it since she’d swept the floor this morning. That was a good sign, wasn’t it?

  Hannah went down the hall toward her bedroom, but she stopped as she noticed that the guest room door was open. She always kept it closed so that Moishe couldn’t chase after the appliquéd butterflies on the expensive silk coverlet Delores had given her for Christmas one year, but perhaps the latch hadn’t caught. She’d have to be more careful in the future or her mother’s butterflies would meet a force even more dangerous than the rigors of migration.

  Hannah poked her head in, but Moishe wasn’t on the bed and the coverlet looked untouched. Since the butterflies were intact, she was about to pull the door shut behind her when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. “Moishe?” she called out.

  “Brrrowww!”

  It was a loud, healthy yowl and Hannah gave a huge sigh of relief. Moishe sounded just fine. But why hadn’t he come to greet her? And why wasn’t he eating? She stepped inside the room and began to frown as she saw what her cat was doing.

  Moishe was balanced, rather precariously, on the guest room windowsill. He was staring out at the condo next door, where the Hollenbeck sisters lived. There was no one home. Today was Monday, and the two sisters spent all afternoon out at Lake Eden Memorial Hospital, working as volunteers. The Hollenbeck sisters were both retired. Marguerite had worked for forty years as a kindergarten teacher, and Clara had put in forty-two years as a court reporter at the Winnetka County Courthouse. They’d told Hannah that they were devoting the rest of their lives to doing good works, and they were active church members. Hannah had met them the day she moved in. They’d invited her over for dinner that night, and they’d dined on Clara’s Mexican hot dish, a casserole of hamburger, corn, mild green chilies, shredded cheese, and spicy tomato sauce. It was topped with more shredded cheese and some crushed corn chips that formed a delectable crust. Marguerite had provided the beverages, and she’d made her namesake Margaritas with white wine instead of tequila, since the sisters didn’t drink hard liquor. They were delicious, a perfect complement to the hot dish. Hannah had downed two, and she’d been very careful navigating the thirty feet that separated their second-floor condo units.

  “What are you doing, Moishe?” Hannah hurried over to steady her cat on the narrow windowsill. She looked out, but she saw only windows with curtains drawn at the unit next door. “There’s nothing there. Clara and Marguerite are out at the hospital today.”

  “Yow!” Moishe said, as if to contradict her, but he let her pick him up and cuddle him. He even licked her chin, which only happened when he was feeling affectionate.

  “Thank you,” Hannah said, giving hi
m a scratch behind his ear. Then she carted him out of the room, shut the door tightly behind her making sure that it latched, and took him off to the kitchen. But when she put him down in front of his food bowl, he turned around to look at her ruefully, as if to say, What are you trying to do here? I don’t want this stuff.

  “Okay. Just let me change clothes and I’ll get you something you’ll like better,” Hannah promised, heading off to the bedroom with Moishe following in her wake.

  It took a few minutes, but at last Hannah was dressed in an outfit that her mother would deem appropriate for an older sister of a Miss Tri-County contestant. She brushed her hair, secured it with the clasp Michelle had given her for her birthday, and turned to face Moishe.

  “Okay?” she asked him. She was wearing the lightweight summer suit that Delores had bought her several years ago. The pants and top were made of a crinkled material that reminded Hannah of the pinstriped seersucker pants and jacket that her father had worn. Hers was navy blue with a white stripe, and her father’s had been tan with a white stripe. Now that she thought about it, Delores had bought her father’s suit, too. And her father had always hated it. Hannah thought about that for a split second, but time was flying and food was more important than rejecting her mother’s fashion guidance. “No time to change; it’ll have to do,” she said, leading the way to the kitchen.

  Once she’d arrived, she put Moishe down on the floor. “Tuna?” she asked the cat, who loved Chicken of the Sea. But Moishe wasn’t even looking at his food bowl. He was sitting in the doorway, watching her with a hopeful expression that Hannah interpreted to mean, I don’t really care what you eat as long as it’s good and I get some.