by Joanne Fluke
“At first I liked Connor. He had a good motive, but it turns out that he couldn’t have done it. He wasn’t at Granny’s Attic that afternoon.”
“Right. His name isn’t on Frances’s list. Who else?”
Hannah drew a big breath of relief. Since Mike had eliminated Connor, he hadn’t bothered to run a background check. Connor’s prison days would remain his secret unless he chose to tell someone. “I thought maybe Sharyn had found out about Dean’s extracurricular activities and lowered the boom. I even entertained the thought that Tom Larchmont might have done away with Dean because he was a lousy husband for his niece, Sharyn.”
“Nope. I cleared them both. They alibi each other, and an independent third party swears they never left their chairs between takes.”
Hannah made a mental note. There was no need to ask Sophie about the fight she’d overheard between Tom and Lynne since Mike had cleared Tom. “How about Lynne, herself? She was certainly in a position to switch the revolvers.”
“She was, and she was my prime suspect when Ross told me that she wanted to direct. But I searched her myself right after the murder and she didn’t have the prop gun anywhere on her.”
Anywhere on her? Hannah bit back an amused chuckle. Lynne was a gorgeous leading lady and she couldn’t blame Mike if he’d enjoyed his search just a little more than he should have. “So who do you like for Dean’s murder?”
“Jared’s a possibility.”
“Jared? Why do you think he did it?”
“Remember when I told you someone saw him straightening some flowers on the desk?”
“I remember.”
“Well, he had the opportunity to switch the revolvers. I watched the tapes of the rehearsals and one of the cameramen caught Jared blocking the drawer with his body. If he’d had another working and loaded revolver, he could have switched them.”
“I agree,” Hannah said, “but why would he do that? As far as I know, he didn’t have a grudge against Dean. And even if Burke was the intended victim, Jared doesn’t have a reason to want him dead, either.”
“Maybe he does and we just don’t know about it yet.”
“You could be right,” Hannah said. “I’ll ask around about him and see what I can dig up. In the meantime, why don’t you concentrate on your other suspects.”
“Okay,” Mike said, giving a weary sigh. “I’ll go back to work and you can go back to your baking.”
“I’m all through. Have a couple of my new cookies and tell me what you think.”
Mike bit into a cookie and his frown disappeared. “These are good, Hannah. Do you have a name for them yet?”
“Not yet.”
“I think you should call then Angel Kisses. They’re light and sweet.”
“Good idea. Have another.”
Mike finished four more cookies and when he turned to go, he was smiling, especially when Hannah pressed a bag of Angel Kisses in his hand and told him to share with his deputies.
When the door closed behind him, Hannah popped a cookie into her own mouth. Mike had gotten such a lift from the chocolate, he was all fired up and ready to catch Dean’s killer. Maybe a dose of her own medicine would work to inspire her, too.
ANGEL KISSES
Preheat oven to 275 degrees F., rack in the middle position
(That’s two hundred seventy-five degrees F., not a misprint.)
3 egg whites (save the yolks in the refrigerator to add to scrambled eggs)
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon vanilla
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup white (granulated) sugar
2 Tablespoons flour (that’s 1/8 cup)
approximately 30 Hershey’s Kisses, unwrapped (or any other small chocolate candy)
Separate the egg whites and let them come up to room temperature. This will give you more volume when you beat them.
Prepare your baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper (works best) or brown parcel-wrapping paper. Spray the paper with Pam or other non-stick cooking spray and dust it lightly with flour.
Hannah’s note: These are a lot easier to make with an electric mixer, but you can also do them by hand with a copper bowl and a whisk.
Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, vanilla, and salt until they are stiff enough to hold a soft peak. Add the cup of sugar gradually, sprinkling it in by quarter cups and beating hard for ten seconds or so after each sprinkling. Sprinkle in the flour and mix it in at low speed, or fold it in with an angel food cake whisk.
Drop little mounds of dough on your paper-lined cookie sheet. If you place four mounds in a row and you have four rows, you’ll end up with 16 cookies per sheet.
Place one Hershey’s Kiss, point up, in the center of each mound. Push the candies down, but not all the way to the bottom. (You don’t want the chocolate to actually touch the parchment paper.) Drop another little mound of meringue on top of the candy to cover it up.
Bake at 275 degrees F. for approximately 40 minutes, or until the meringue part of the cookie is slightly golden and dry to the touch.
Cool on the paper-lined cookie sheet by setting it on a wire rack. When the cookies are completely cool, peel them carefully from the paper and store them in an airtight container in a dry place. (A cupboard shelf is fine, just NOT the refrigerator!)
Yield: 3 to 4 dozen cookies with a nice chocolate surprise in the center.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
It was a noon meeting of the sisters and it was taking place in the small coffee room at Bertie Straub’s Cut ’n Curl beauty parlor. Thankfully the owner, the biggest gossip in Lake Eden, was watching Honey apply Tracey’s makeup and the sisters had the coffee room all to themselves.
“Did you ever see so many flamingos in your life?” Andrea asked, glancing around at the flamingo lamp standing in a corner, the wastebasket with a rather rotund pink flamingo painted on the side, the wallpaper with bright pink flamingos flapping their wings and marching in parallel lines around the room, and the mirror peppered with flamingo decals in various hues of pink.
“Bertie said this place used to be called The Flamingo Hair Salon before she bought it,” Hannah explained. “She threw out a lot of the decorations, but she saved some for back here.”
“The seller didn’t want to take the decorations with her?”
“I guess not. Maybe she figured they’d compete too much with the real thing.”
Andrea looked puzzled for a moment. “She moved to Florida?”
“That’s right. Here comes Michelle.”
Michelle, the last to arrive for their designated rendezvous, rushed into the back room. She pulled out a white vinyl-covered chair with a pink flamingo painted on the back. The chair was old and there were cracks in the flamingo, with yellow foam stuffing peeking through them. “I’ve never been back here before,” she said, sitting down at the pink Formica-topped table.
“That’s a blessing,” Andrea quipped, pulling out her dark glasses and putting them on.
“Why did you do that?” Hannah asked her.
“To tone down the pink. The only thing that’s not a flamingo in here is that.”
Hannah and Michelle looked where Andrea was pointing. It was a wicked-looking machine standing in the corner, with wires hanging down from a metal hood.
“What is it?” Michelle asked.
“I think it’s an old-fashioned permanent wave machine,” Hannah told her. “They used it to do marcelled hair.”
“What’s marcelled hair?”
“A marcel was a hairstyle back in the nineteen-thirties. They also called it a finger wave. You know what a wave is, don’t you?”
Michelle nodded. “Dad’s hair was wavy when he put hair oil on it. Mother liked it that way.”
“But Dad didn’t,” Andrea broke in. “He said it felt greasy.”
“So did a marcel. The waves were all perfectly lined up and they were sharp and even all over the head. Think about the early pictures yo
u’ve seen of Joan Crawford and Mae West. They wore marcelled hair.”
“How did the machine work?” Andrea wanted to know.
“See those metal rods hanging down on cords from that hood?” Both of her sisters nodded and Hannah continued her explanation. “I’m not a hundred percent positive, but I think the operator wound hair around those metal rods. The wires led to the power source and when the operator turned on the machine, electricity heated the hair and curled it.”
Andrea looked shocked. “But that would be dangerous! I wonder if anybody was ever electrocuted.”
“I don’t know. That was way before my time.”
“I can ask Mother about it,” Michelle offered.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Andrea warned.
Hannah nodded her agreement. “That was way before her time, too. And you know Mother doesn’t like to be reminded of her age.”
“I know that. I just thought I could ask her if she ever came in here when she was a little girl and if she ever saw anyone actually using…” Michelle stopped and sighed. “You’re right. Better not.”
“Let’s get down to business,” Andrea suggested. “I have to take Tracey over to wardrobe when Honey’s done with her makeup.”
Michelle turned to Hannah. “I found out about Jared.”
“What’s all this about Jared?” Andrea asked, grabbing the steno pad Hannah had placed on the table and flipping to the suspects page. “He’s not even on here.”
Hannah handed her a pen. “We were waiting for you to write him down. Michelle and I watched the tape from the dress rehearsal and Jared was one of the people who had the opportunity to switch the revolvers.”
“What’s his motive?” Andrea asked, jotting down Jared’s name.
“He doesn’t have one,” Michelle answered quickly. “And he didn’t do it, either.”
“How do you know that?” Hannah asked her.
“Because once Jared finished straightening the flowers on the desk, he walked over and took the chair next to Honey. He sat there with her until the gun went off, and he was still with her when they were all ushered out by the deputies and searched.”
“So he never had the opportunity to get rid of the prop gun?” Hannah asked, catching on immediately.
“That’s right. I checked it out with Honey and she substantiates everything Jared told me.”
“Well, that lets Jared out,” Andrea said, crossing his name off the list. “Is there anybody else I don’t know about”
“There’s Lloyd,” Michelle said.
“Lloyd,” Andrea repeated, her pen poised over the suspect column. “Shall I write him down? Or will I just have to cross him out again right away?”
“Write him down,” Michelle said.
And at the very same time, Hannah said, “Don’t bother to write down his name. Lloyd’s in the clear.”
“You cleared him?” Andrea wanted to know.
“No, Mike did. He told me about it this morning. Lloyd didn’t have any time to get rid of the gun. Mike watched him go over to the desk and check the drawer, and then he came right back to where Mike was standing so they could finish their discussion about guns.”
“Opportunity to switch, but no opportunity to hide the prop gun,” Andrea summarized. “Okay, who else did we eliminate?”
“Connor,” Hannah told her.
“How did we do that?”
“He didn’t have the opportunity. Frances wrote down the names of everyone who came in the door at Granny’s Attic for the dress rehearsal, and Connor wasn’t on her list.”
“Oh, good!” Andrea said with a smile. “I like Connor. Besides, I’ve talked to him a lot and I’m a pretty good judge of character. He’s just not the type to do anything violent.”
Michelle and Hannah exchanged glances, but they remained mum. Let Andrea have her illusions. The secret of Connor’s past wasn’t theirs to tell.
“We’re down to practically nobody,” Andrea told them, glancing at the list. “And I guess I should cross off Winnie’s name since we didn’t find the prop gun in her barn.”
Hannah reached out to still her sister’s hand. “Not quite yet. We only searched in one place and that gun could have been anywhere on her property. She could even have thrown it in the lake on the way home.”
“You mean…you think Winnie did it?”
“No, but she certainly had the motive. Everyone in town knew she couldn’t stand Dean, and she was bound and determined to stop him from filming at the park because he was going to move her brother’s statue.”
“Wait a second,” Andrea said, looking confused. “I thought she agreed to let Ross move the statue.”
“No, all they’re going to do is lift it with a crane and shoot the scene under it. Then they’ll lower it right back down again in exactly the same spot. That was the whole point. Dean wanted to put the statue in another location while he shot the scene, and move it back again when he was through. Winnie didn’t want it moved twice.”
“I guess that makes sense.” Andrea said. “That statue’s been sitting there for years, and she was probably afraid it wouldn’t hold up if they had to move it twice.”
Michelle looked a little sad. “If Dean had been satisfied with just lifting it up and shooting under it the way Lynne is going to do, Winnie might have signed the release form right away. But Dean had to have everything exactly his way. He was just as stubborn as Winnie. The only way two people that stubborn can reach a compromise is for one of them to back down.”
“Or wind up dead,” Hannah pointed out, turning to Andrea. “And that’s why you shouldn’t cross out Winnie’s name. Logically, she’s still a suspect…however illogical that seems.”
Hannah smiled as someone knocked on the back door of The Cookie Jar. It was probably Norman. He’d called this morning and asked if he could take her to watch Tracey’s big skating scene.
“Are you ready to go?” Norman asked, stepping inside when Hannah opened the door.
“Just let me get my coat. Mother and Carrie left about ten minutes ago and they said they’d save us a seat.” Hannah grabbed her parka coat from the hook by the door, and Norman held it as she put her arms into the sleeves. “Thanks,” she said, turning around to face Norman. Being this close to him was nice, a little like warming herself in front of a blazing fireplace on a cold winter’s afternoon, or snuggling up in a warm afghan with a good book.
“What?” Norman said, noticing her bemused expression.
“I was just thinking how much I missed you.”
“But I’ve been right here.”
“That’s true, but I haven’t been.” Hannah put her arms around his neck and gave him a hug and a kiss.
“That was nice,” Norman said, leading her out the door to his waiting sedan. “Maybe you should not be here more often.”
The Lake Eden Municipal Park looked like the circus had come to town. Since the skating scene was supposed to take place at a Winter Carnival–type affair, warming tents were set up around the outer perimeter of the park. The tents were heated and between takes, the extras could crowd into them to warm up. It was a bit colder than it had been the preceding two days, but this afternoon it had warmed up to a balmy forty degrees. That was rather pleasant for March, but standing for hours in the snow or on the frozen ground could drain body heat even from a hardy Minnesotan who was wearing insulated boots.
As they made their way through the crowd of people, Hannah spotted Eleanor and Otis Cox, each holding a leash attached to one of their huskies. Next to them were the First Couple of Lake Eden, Mayor and Mrs. Bascomb, and Hannah began to like Stephanie Bascomb much better when she saw her bending down to pet the dogs. “What a crowd! It looks like everyone in town is here!”
“They put out a call for more extras this morning on KCOW radio. I heard it when I was driving out to the new house.”
“Why did you go out there?” Hannah asked.
“I wanted to make sure they installed the countertops w
hen they said they would. You wanted black granite, didn’t you?”
“Right,” Hannah said. The moment the word left her lips she thought better of it, but it was too late. “I thought the black would look nice with the light oak cabinets. But really, Norman…you should have ordered what you wanted.”
“I want what you want,” Norman said, putting an end to that discussion. And then he slipped his arm around her shoulder and gave her a little hug as they walked over to join the mothers.
“You have no idea how difficult it was to save these chairs!” Delores said, greeting them with a complaint. “I put down my purse to show it was taken, but people kept asking me to move it.”
“Thank you so much for saving them, Mother.” Hannah knew it was time for compliments. Her mother always complained in an effort to gain her gratitude. “I’ve been on my feet all morning and I don’t think I could have stayed on them for another minute. By the way, these are for you and Carrie.”
Delores smiled as she took the bag. “Cookies? How sweet of you, dear! What kind are they?”
“They’re called Mock Turtles and you’d better eat them right now. It’s like a refrigerator out here and these cookies have caramel in the center. You could break a tooth if they got too chilled.”
“More business for me,” Norman said, causing the three of them to laugh. But Hannah noticed that her mother and Carrie each took a cookie immediately.
“Excuse me for just a minute,” Hannah said, getting up from her chair. “I see Frances over there and I need to ask her a question.”
“About the murder?’ Delores wanted to know.
“In a way, but only indirectly. I’ll be right back.”
Frances was standing in front of the statue, obviously guarding it from curious onlookers. She was a substantial woman with curves that were apparent even under her bulky parka, and she had curly brown hair and wire-framed glasses. Despite her jeans and boots, Frances looked like she should be passing out signup forms at a P.T.A. meeting and she reminded Hannah of a painting she’d once seen, titled, Everyone’s Mom.
