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

by Joanne Fluke

  “Maybe now would be a good time to meet Mr. Lawrence,” Hannah suggested. “Ross asked me to bake for him and I need to know what kind of cheesecake he likes.”

  “Cherry.”

  “I know that, but there are different kinds of cherry cheesecakes. Does he like the light and fluffy type with cherry swirled all the way through? Or would he prefer it dense and heavy with the cherries only on the top?”

  Lynne shrugged. “I really don’t know. Let’s go ask him.”

  A moment later, Hannah was being introduced to the most theatrical looking man in the room. Dean Lawrence wasn’t that tall, but what he lacked in stature, he more than made up for in rugged good looks. He reminded Hannah of a Bantam rooster, posturing next to the stage. The fact that his hair was tousled and stuck up slightly on the top of his head added to the rooster illusion, and the ascot he wore around his neck had a pattern that looked a bit like neck feathers.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Lawrence,” Hannah said politely, after Lynne had introduced them.

  “It’s Dean, Lovey. Only my enemies call me Mr. Lawrence.”

  Lovey? Hannah did her best not to bristle. She really didn’t care to be tagged with pet names by someone she’d just met. “I’m baking your cheesecakes, Mr…. er…Dean. And I’d like to know your preferences.”

  “Preferences?”

  “Yes. Do you prefer your cheesecake light or dense?”

  “Light or dense?”

  “A light cheesecake is fluffy. A dense cheesecake is heavy.”

  “Oh. I see what you mean. I like a dense cheesecake, very heavy. And it should be very smooth, too. When you take a bite, it should almost melt in the mouth.”

  “Okay. Do you like it with a sweet crust, or a crust that tastes like toast crumbs?”

  “Sweet. I have a sweet tooth, Lovey.”

  There it was again, the unwarranted and unwanted term of endearment. Hannah did her best to ignore it and asked the next question. “How about the cherries? Would you prefer your cheesecake to have cherries all the way through, a swirl of cherries mixed in for color and flavor, or just cherries on the top?”

  “Cherries on the top, with cherry sauce running over the sides. And I like the kind of cheesecake with sour cream spread over the top under the cherries. I think it’s called New York cheesecake. Do you think you can bake it?”

  “I’m sure I can.”

  “That’s the attitude, Lovey! Never say you can’t do it until you try, isn’t that right?”

  “Right,” Hannah agreed. “I’ll deliver it to your trailer by nine tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s just fine, Lovey. I’ll be waiting for you with a fork in my hand.” Dean switched his attention from Hannah rather abruptly and waved at Ross, who was just taking his seat in the front row. “Ready to roll, Duckie?”

  “Ready,” Ross said, with no apparent reaction. Since Michelle had mentioned that they’d been in production for almost two months now, Hannah figured that Ross must be used to Dean’s nicknames.

  “So…” Hannah said to Lynne, delaying the rest of her thought until they were out of earshot. “Does Dean give everyone nicknames?”

  “Oh, yes. He calls all the women Lovey and all the guys Duckie. I don’t know why he does it. He’s not even English!”

  “I think I know why.”

  “You do?”

  “It’s just a guess, but I’ll bet it’s so he doesn’t have to bother remembering their names.”

  Chapter

  Eight

  “Just wait until you see what’s on the dessert cart,” Han-nah said, watching as Jordan High senior, Amber Coombs, pushed the lusciously laden serving cart their way. Even from this distance, Hannah could see Sally’s towering Neapolitan cake, a six-layer concoction with alternating layers of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry cake, each layer affixed to its neighboring layer with a matching frosting.

  Ross gave a theatrical whimper as he eyed the contents of the cart, and Hannah knew exactly how he felt. It was close to impossible to choose one dessert when they all promised to enchant the taste buds.

  “I want one of each,” Ross said.

  “Me, too. But if we do that, Amber’s going to have to roll us out of the dining room.”

  “We should have skipped the entrée and come straight here,” Ross remarked, pulling his gaze away from the decadent delights to smile at her. “I can still remember your motto in college. Always…”

  “Eat dessert first,” Hannah joined in as he recited it.

  “How about if we get two desserts and split?”

  “That sounds perfect to me. It’s almost as good as getting two desserts apiece.” Hannah smiled up at Amber Coombs, who was trying not to laugh at their antics. “I’ll have a piece of Sally’s Flourless Chocolate Cake. With two forks.”

  Ross had drawn a bead on the bowl of Apricot Bread Pudding, and he spoke without lifting his gaze. “And I’ll have the bread pudding. I’ve been dreaming about Hannah’s bread pudding ever since she packed up her recipes and left college. This looks a lot like one you used to make, Hannah.”

  “That’s because it is,” Amber spoke up. “Mrs. Laughlin uses Miss Swensen’s recipe.”

  “Well…that changes everything!” Ross said with a smile. “If it’s Hannah’s bread pudding, I’ll have a double helping.”

  “Would you like that warmed?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “With heavy cream, sweetened whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Amber cracked up, but she quickly sobered. “Would that be with all three of them, sir?”

  “No, I’ll have the heavy cream. That’s the way Hannah used to serve it.” Ross glanced at Amber, who looked very pretty and trim in her flattering waitress uniform. “I wish you’d been at the auditions this afternoon, Amber. I would have cast you as one of the waitresses in the cocktail party scene.”

  Amber, who up to this point had been the quintessential waitress, dropped her newfound maturity right along with her jaw. “Really, Mr. Barton?” she squeaked.

  “Absolutely. Of course waiting on us tonight was just like an audition, wasn’t it?”

  “If you say so, Mr. Barton,” Amber said, barely managing to hide her excitement.

  “Then you’ve got the part if you want it. Do you think you can work it into your schedule?”

  “Oh, yes!” Amber breathed. “Mr. Purvis, he’s the principal at Jordan High, told us we could take time off class if we got a part in the movie. All we have to do is make up the work later.”

  Hannah watched Amber as Ross told her about the release form her mother would have to sign and when to report to wardrobe. Amber couldn’t seem to stop smiling and by the time she pushed the dessert cart away, she was practically dancing across the dining room.

  “Maybe that was a mistake,” Ross said, watching the excited girl push the cart into the kitchen.

  “You mean…you don’t want to use her in the movie?”

  “Oh, no. I want to use her. It’s just that she’s so excited, she might forget about bringing my bread pudding.”

  An hour later, Hannah was unlocking her condo door. Amber hadn’t forgotten Ross’s dessert and they’d devoured both of them with gusto.

  “You’d better stand back,” Hannah said, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Okay, but why?”

  “Moishe has a greeting ritual when I come home at night.”

  “Greeting ritual?”

  “He jumps up into my arms. And since he weighs over twenty pounds, it knocks me back a step or two…especially if I forget to brace myself.”

  “Forewarned is forearmed,” Ross said, moving closer and placing his hands against Hannah’s back. “If he knocks you over, I’ll catch you.

  “Deal,” Hannah agreed, surprised at the reaction she had to Ross’s touch. Just this totally impersonal gesture even through his gloves and her coat made her heart beat a bit faster.

  Ross gave a startled chuckle
as Hannah opened the door and an orange-and-white ball of flying fur hurtled through the air directly at them. Hannah caught her cat expertly, resisted the urge to lean back against Ross even though she wasn’t one bit off-balance, and stepped forward into her living room.

  “Meet Ross,” she said, giving Moishe a little scratch behind the ears before placing him on the ledge at the back of the couch. “If you act cute, Ross might make you into a movie star. Then she turned to Ross, who was smiling. “This is my roommate, Moishe.”

  “Lucky cat,” Ross said with a grin.

  Moishe stared at Hannah for a moment, as if he were digesting the information she’d given him about being a kitty movie star, and then he arched his back and went into his Halloween cat pose. He held that position for a moment or two, and then he relaxed his whole body and did what Hannah thought of as his kitty toupee, tucking his tail under his body and stretching out flat over the back of the couch like a miniature throw rug.

  “He’s going through his paces,” Hannah told Ross. “Do you think he’s auditioning for you?”

  “Without a doubt. He must have understood what you said about being a kitty movie star, and he wants his paw prints at Mann’s Chinese.”

  “Not to mention his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.” Hannah’s smile turned into a laugh as Moishe lifted his head and yawned widely, showing them a full set of sharp white teeth. Then he swiveled his ears, first together, like twin satellite dishes receiving the same signal, and then separately, one ear turning forward and the other backward.

  “I still can’t do that,” Ross said, glancing over at Hannah. “Can you?”

  Hannah shook her head. She knew exactly what Ross was talking about. When they were all in college, Lynne had learned to simultaneously move her right hand in a circle going forward, like a miniature Ferris Wheel, while her left moved in a circle traveling in the opposite direction, backward toward her chest. Both circles had to be started at the same time and they had to be of the same size and speed. “I tried for months and I still couldn’t do it. I think it takes more than practice.”

  “I know it does. I practiced, too. Lynne didn’t. She got it right the first time she tried it. I’m sure there’s some sort of psychological measure we could devise about the differences between the people who can do it and the people who can’t, but we probably shouldn’t get into that now.”

  Hannah turned to give Ross a sharp look, but he was staring at Moishe. Ross had claimed he wasn’t bitter about the breakup with Lynne, but she’d heard an undercurrent in his voice that told her it hadn’t been all sweetness and light. It wasn’t really any of her business and she certainly wasn’t going to ask him about it now, but that curious bone in her body began to tingle. “Do you want coffee?”

  “I’d love some, if you’re not in a hurry to get to bed, or anything like that.”

  What a line! Hannah thought, but it probably wasn’t and she wasn’t sure if she was disappointed, or not. “Coffee’s no trouble at all. I usually stay up until at least ten on nights before work, and it’s only a little after nine.”

  “Okay. You’re the boss. What time do you open your shop?”

  “We’ve been opening at nine. When the tourists are here in the summer, we open earlier.”

  “Well, I don’t need you to open before ten, so that’ll give you an extra hour.”

  “Not really. I promised to deliver Mr. Lawrence’s cheesecake at nine and I still have to bake it. That’ll take me about two hours.”

  “Do you want company while you bake it?”

  “Sure,” Hannah said, hoping Ross would be content to spend most of that time sitting at her kitchen table drinking coffee. Now that he was a big-time movie producer, he might have different ideas about what behavior was appropriate between two friends who hadn’t seen each other for years, but he was a guest in her home and that meant she defined the terms.

  By the time Hannah came back with two mugs of coffee, Ross was sitting on the couch and Moishe was on his lap. “He must know it’s a casting couch,” she quipped, and then wished she hadn’t when Ross gave her a devilish smile.

  “Well, he’s got the part so he doesn’t have to extend himself any further. His owner, however, could…”

  Right on cue, Moishe yowled, interrupting what Hannah was fairly certain had been an opening gambit from her old college chum. Then her overprotective feline undraped himself and settled down on the couch between them, discouraging any possible intimacy.

  “Does he do this with everyone?” Ross asked, just as the phone rang.

  “Only men,” Hannah answered, reaching out to pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Hannah.” Hannah frowned as she recognized Mike’s voice. “I just wanted to tell you that someone drove through the wooden arm on your entrance gate again.”

  “I know. It was broken when we came in. It happens almost every weekend. People put their gate cards next to their credit cards and the little magnetic strip gets corrupted. And then, when it won’t open the gate, they get mad and drive right through.”

  “You’re probably right, but you don’t know for sure,” Mike sounded very serious. “Someone could have broken in and I thought I should warn you.”

  “Okay, I’m warned. Thanks for calling, Mike.”

  “Don’t hang up, Hannah! I was just thinking that maybe I should come over so you’re not alone. I mean, you shouldn’t be alone when someone could be out there roaming around with an eye to a possible break-in.”

  And the only thing you’re concerned about is my safety, Hannah thought, but instead of saying that, she said, “That’s okay, Mike. I’m not alone.”

  “You’re not? But it’s almost ten o’clock and you always go to bed at ten on work nights. I mean, you have to get up early to open the shop tomorrow, don’t you?”

  “Not really. Ross just told me that I don’t have to open until ten,” Hannah said, not mentioning that she still had a cheesecake to bake. “Isn’t that just great?”

  “Great,” Mike repeated, sounding massively insincere. “So…maybe I’ll take a run out there and do a little patrolling on foot. You know…just to make sure and all. That broken gate has been nagging at me ever since I saw it.”

  Gotcha! Hannah thought and started to smile. She’d suspected from the beginning that Mike was calling because he was jealous of the time she was spending with Ross, and now she knew it for a fact. “Ever since you saw it?”

  “Yeah. Uh…it’s like this, Hannah. I had to take a run out your way earlier. Somebody thought they spotted a guy on one of those Most Wanted programs. And since I was so close anyway, I decided to drop by to see if you were home. That’s when I noticed the gate.”

  “I see,” Hannah said, seeing much more than Mike had hoped she would. “Well, you don’t have to bother. Everything’s perfectly all right out here. Thanks for being concerned, though. I appreciate it. See you tomorrow, Mike.”

  “So Mike’s jealous?” Ross asked the moment Hannah hung up the phone.

  “You could say that. I might not say it because it wouldn’t be nice, but you could.”

  Ross laughed. “He’s jealous, all right. It’s probably because you turned him down.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Michelle told me. I asked if you were dating anyone, and she gave me the lowdown.”

  “It seems that everybody knows my business,” Hannah said, trying not to sound churlish.

  “Life’s like that a lot. I’ll give him five minutes. How about you?”

  “Who?”

  “Norman. Mike’s bound to touch base with him. They’re probably in each other’s back pockets, now that you rejected them both. There’s nothing that unites two former rivals more than a third guy coming on the scene.”

  “And the third guy would be you?” Hannah asked, noticing his wicked grin and smiling in spite of herself.

  “Oh, yes. That would be me. So, do you want to bet, or…” The phone rang again, int
errupting Ross’s sentence and he laughed. “There he is.”

  “It’s not him.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Look at Moishe,” Hannah said, gesturing toward the feline between them.

  “What’s wrong with him? He’s all puffed up and his hair is standing on end.”

  “Cats do that instinctually when they’re angry or frightened. It’s a defense mechanism to make them look bigger. Moishe gets like this when Mother calls. He’s not infallible, but he gets it right more times than he gets it wrong.” She plucked the receiver from the cradle and brought it up to her ear. “Hello, Mother.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t answer the phone like that, Hannah,” Delores complained, but Hannah could tell from her tone of voice that her heart wasn’t it it. “Carrie just called. She said Norman told her that Ross was still out at your place. Don’t you think it’s time you went to bed?”

  “What a marvelous idea!” Hannah turned to grin at Ross. “I’ll tell him you suggested it. I really had no idea you were so liberal minded.”

  There was a sputtering on the line, a close cousin to the sound of Bill’s old Ford when the plugs were dirty. “That’s not what I meant and you know it!” Delores finally managed to say. “What are you doing, Hannah?”

  “We’re having coffee, Mother. And then I’m going to bake a cheesecake. But your suggestion sounds like a lot more fun than…”

  “Cut that out right now, Hannah Louise!” Delores interrupted her.

  “Just kidding, Mother.”

  “Well, it’s not funny! I want you to bake that cheesecake now. And then send him straight home. Don’t forget that you have to face yourself in the mirror in the morning.”

  Hannah heard a resounding click and she laughed as she hung up the phone. “I’m a mean person. I gave my mother such a hard time, she hung up on me. A good daughter wouldn’t have done that.”

  “Maybe not, but it feels good once in a while, doesn’t it?”

  “It sure does!” Hannah turned to give him a grin. “Your five minutes are almost up and Norman hasn’t…” The phone pealed loudly, drowning out the rest of her sentence.