by Joanne Fluke
“No, but that makes sense. If you live in the country, there’s not much to do in the winter. And in Minnesota, you can get snowed in for weeks unless the county plow happens to come through. And that was before they probably had cable or satellite out in the country. And there were only one or two television stations to watch.”
“That’s true. At times like that, you had to rely on your family for entertainment. It’s possible that lady entertained her husband and children by signing the songs she wrote.”
“Maybe,” Michelle said, sounding doubtful. “But if that woman made it big and sold a lot of songs, the whole family probably moved to a big house in Minneapolis and went out to dinner and a movie whenever they wanted.” Michelle was silent for a moment and then she abruptly changed the subject. “What cookies did you bake, Hannah? I’m getting a little hungry and they smell really good.”
“I’m calling them Citrus Sugar Cookies. They have lemon and orange zest in them and I rolled them in sugar and baked them. The pans at the bottom of the bakers rack came out of the oven first and they should be cool enough to try if you want to taste them.”
Michelle didn’t wait for a second invitation. She jumped to her feet and rushed to the bakers rack to put some cookies on a plate. “Here you go,” she said, arriving back at the workstation slightly breathless.
Hannah took a cookie and smelled it. It still had a lovely scent of lemon and orange. She bit into it and began to smile. “Not bad,” she said, taking another bite.
“Not bad?” Michelle questioned, looking a bit dumbfounded. “Not bad? Think again, Hannah. They’re fabulous!”
Hannah preened slightly. She always loved it when a new recipe worked the first time around. “You’re right. I’m happy with them.”
“And everybody else will be happy with them, too. Are we going to serve them today?”
“We might as well. You can fill a couple display jars with them and carry them out front, but save at least a dozen for me to take to Lorna. I have to catch her at the office before she goes to lunch.”
“Lorna Kusak at Howie’s law office?”
Hannah nodded. “Howie goes to lunch first and then he comes back to relieve Lorna so she can go. I need to catch her after Howie leaves and before he comes back.”
“You’re going to find out about Tori’s will,” Michelle said and it was a statement rather than a question.
“That’s right. It might not matter if Mayor Bascomb believed it, but I’d like to know if Tori really changed her will, or if she was simply making an empty threat to try to bring the mayor back in line.”
CITRUS SUGAR COOKIES
DO NOT preheat the oven. The dough must chill before baking.
2 cups salted butter, melted (4 sticks, 16 ounces, 1 pound)
2 cups powdered sugar (don’t sift unless it’s got big lumps and then you shouldn’t use it anyway)
1 cup white (granulated) sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 teaspoon orange extract
Zest of 1 lemon
Zest of 1 orange
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar (critical!)
1 teaspoon salt
4 and ¼ cups all-purpose flour (don’t sift—pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
____________________
½ cup white sugar in a small, shallow bowl (for later—you’ll be using the sugar to coat dough balls after the dough has chilled)
Hannah’s 1st Note: Just in case you don’t know, zest is the finely shredded colored part of the peel on citrus fruit. Use the colored part of the peel only. The white part under it contains pectin and it’s very bitter.
If you haven’t already done so, melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl. 60 seconds on HIGH should be enough.
You can also melt the butter in a saucepan on the stovetop at LOW heat. If you do this, stir the butter with a spoon to make sure the butter doesn’t brown.
Pour the butter into a large bowl or the bowl of an electric mixer.
Add the powdered sugar and the white (granulated) sugar and mix it in thoroughly.
Let the mixture cool to room temperature before you proceed further.
When the butter and sugar mixture is cool, turn the mixer on LOW. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing after each addition.
With the mixer running on LOW speed, mix in the lemon and orange extracts.
Mix in the lemon zest and the orange zest.
Add the baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt. Mix until everything is thoroughly combined.
Add the flour in one-cup increments, mixing well after each addition. (You can mix the quarter-cup at the end in with the fourth full cup of flour.)
Give your dough a final stir by hand and cover the bowl.
Chill the covered dough in the refrigerator for at least one hour. (Overnight is fine, too.)
When you’re ready to bake, preheat your oven to 325 degrees F. with the rack in the middle position.
Prepare your cookie sheets by spraying them with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray, or lining them with parchment paper.
Prepare a shallow bowl with the half-cup of white sugar.
Take your chilled Citrus Sugar Cookie dough out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter. Remove the cover.
Use your impeccably clean hands to roll the dough into walnut-sized balls. Roll only a half-dozen dough balls or so to start. Then cover the bowl again so that it will remain chilled.
One at a time, dip the dough balls into the bowl of sugar and roll them around until they’re coated.
Place the sugar-coated dough balls on the cookie sheets you’ve prepared, 12 dough balls to a standard-sized sheet. Flatten the dough balls with the back of a metal spatula.
Bake the cookies at 325 degrees F. for 10 to 15 minutes. (The cookies should have a tinge of gold around the edges when they’re fully baked, but they should not be brown.)
When the cookies have baked, take them out of the oven and set them on cold stovetop burners or on wire racks to cool. Leave them on the cookie sheets for 1 to 2 minutes.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you remove the cookies from the cookie sheets right away, they may break into pieces. The reason you cool them on the sheets for a minute or two first is so they will “set” and not crumble when you move them.
After the cookies have cooled slightly, remove them from the cookie sheets to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you used parchment paper, just pull it off the cookie sheet and onto the rack. The cookies can finish cooling on the paper and you can peel them off later.
Yield: approximately 10 dozen crunchy, buttery, citrus-infused sugar cookies that children and adults will love.
Michelle’s Note: I bet that you can’t eat just one!
Chapter Twelve
Michelle had agreed to come with Hannah and thirty minutes later, they were entering Howie Levine’s law office. The person Hannah wanted to see was Lorna Kusak and, as she’d explained to Michelle, if Howie had decided not to go to lunch today, it would be extremely helpful if Michelle could ask Howie a few questions about legal procedure to keep him busy while Hannah talked to Lorna.
“Oh, my!” Hannah exclaimed as they entered Howie’s outer office. It had been completely redecorated and it was gorgeous.
“Hi, Hannah,” Lorna, who did double duty as Howie’s receptionist as well as his legal secretary, greeted her. Lorna then turned to Hannah’s sister, “Hello, Michelle. I thought you were still in college.”
“I was, but I’m doing work-study here in Lake Eden. I’m taking over as director of the Lake Eden Players for their Thanksgiving play.”
“That’s great! Everybody was afraid that it wouldn’t happen now that Tori’s gone.” Lorna sighed heavily, and then she turned back to Hannah. “You’re late.”
“What?”
“I said, you’re late. Mike was here when we opened this morning at nine.”
It was Hannah’s turn to sigh. “I should have figured he’d beat me to it. I suppose he asked you about Tori’s new will.”
Lorna shook her head. “Nope. He said he needed to talk to Howie. and when Howie got here a couple of minutes later, he took Mike into his office and shut the door.”
“So you didn’t hear their conversation?” Michelle asked her.
“No, but Howie buzzed me on the intercom and asked me to bring in a copy of Tori’s new will.”
“Did you type it up?” Hannah asked, hoping that Lorna was privy to its contents.
“Yes. It’s a computer form and all I have to do is fill in the blanks and print it out.”
“Did Howie make out Tori’s previous will?” Michelle asked her.
“Oh, yes. She came in right after she moved to town. I prepared that one, too.”
“Since there’s a new will and that other one is now null and void, can you tell us what was in it?” Hannah asked her.
Lorna shook her head. “I wish I could, but I can’t. That will is now the will of record.”
“You mean Tori never got in here to sign the new will?” Michelle guessed.
“That’s right. She had an appointment to sign all the paperwork at ten o’clock on the day after she was murdered.”
“Who was the new beneficiary?” Hannah asked her.
“That’s a somewhat tricky ethical question,” Lorna said. “But since Tori’s revised will is now null and void, I don’t think I could be faulted for telling you what Tori intended.”
“Please tell us,” Hannah said, taking out the bag she’d brought with the Citrus Sugar Cookies inside. “And before I forget, I brought you some of the new cookies I made.”
“Ooooh!” Lorna took the bag and looked inside. Then her eyes narrowed. “You’re not trying to bribe me with cookies, are you, Hannah?”
“Of course not! I’m just delivering a little gift to a friend and neighbor of mine.”
Lorna began to smile. “Well . . . since you put it that way, I don’t see how I could object. And I’m even more certain that it wouldn’t be unethical to tell you that Tori’s new will, the one she didn’t sign, divided her inheritance between the drama department at Jordan High and the Lake Eden Players.”
“Oh, boy!” Michelle said, looking shocked. “Do you think anybody in town knew that?”
Lorna shook her head. “They didn’t know it from me. And I’m ninety-nine percent certain they didn’t know it from Howie. Unless Tori told someone that she’d changed her will, nobody knew it except Tori, Howie, and me.”
Michelle and Hannah exchanged meaningful glances and Hannah knew that both of them were thinking the same thing. There were two other people who knew about the new will before Tori had been murdered. And those two people were Tricia and Mayor Bascomb.
* * *
Hannah had dropped Michelle off at the Jordan High auditorium where the Lake Eden Players rehearsed. She’d intended to go straight back to The Cookie Jar, but she decided to drop by the antique shop that Delores owned with Carrie Rhodes Flensburg before she returned to work. She parked behind The Cookie Jar and hurried across the parking lot to the antique store.
“Hi, Mother,” she called out as she followed the narrow path past the stored antiques in the back storage room and entered the store.
“Hello, Hannah!” Luanne Hanks called out. Luanne was Delores and Carrie’s assistant and Hannah doubted that her mother or Carrie could have made a success of their business without her.
“Is Mother here?” Hannah asked, arriving at the counter in the front of the store where Luanne was studying a page in a ledger.
“She’s up in the break room with Carrie. Go on up, Hannah. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”
“I will,” Hannah said with a smile. “What are you doing, Luanne?”
“Figuring out the profit margin on the antiques I bought at the estate sale last weekend. I don’t want your mother and Carrie to price them too low.”
“And they tend to do that?”
“Yes. Both of them want to give everyone a break. That’s very nice of them, but they have to make a profit to stay in business.”
“You’re right, Luanne.”
“I know. You used to do the same thing, Hannah. You’d give away cookies for free. Generosity must run in your family.”
“Either that or poor business sense.”
Luanne laughed. She had the best laugh Hannah had ever heard. It started off softly and grew in volume until it died off into a series of soft giggles.
“Go on up, Hannah,” Luanne told her pointing to the stairway in the center of the shop. “They’ll both be happy to see you. I know your mother wants to ask you about how your investigation is going.”
“Hannah!” Delores greeted her as she came in the door of the coffee room. “Thank goodness you’re here! I called The Cookie Jar, but Lisa wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”
Her mother looked highly agitated and Hannah felt a stab of concern. “What’s the matter, Mother?”
“I need you to go to lunch with me! I can’t go with Carrie because she’s meeting Earl at Bertanelli’s, and I can’t take Luanne because someone has to keep Granny’s Attic open.”
Hannah was puzzled. Her mother was in a real state and she didn’t understand why. “You need me to take you to lunch because you don’t want to go alone?”
“No, that’s not it! I need you because you know how to ask questions. I need to have lunch at the Red Velvet Lounge before Georgina Swinton finishes her waitress shift!”
Hannah still didn’t understand, but she nodded. “All right. Let’s go then.” She gave Carrie a wave that served as both greeting and departure, and was gratified when Carrie winked at her. Her mother’s best friend knew just how demanding Delores could be.
“You drive,” Delores ordered, heading across the parking lot at a trot that was only a few paces slower than a gallop. She glanced behind her to make sure that Hannah was following and arrived at Hannah’s cookie truck quite breathless. “Get in, Hannah! And step on it! We have to be there in twenty minutes if we want to get Georgina as our waitress. Otherwise, it’s all for naught!”
All for naught? Hannah’s mind repeated the phrase. Her mother must have started working on her new Regency romance. “Don’t worry, Mother. We’ll get there in five minutes or less,” she promised.
Three and a half minutes later, Hannah pulled into her mother’s extra parking spot right next to the entrance to the Albion Hotel. True to her word, they slid into a booth at the Red Velvet Lounge with fifteen seconds to spare.
“Please tell me what all this is about,” Hannah said, reaching for the menu on the table. She hadn’t been planning on having lunch, but now that they were here, it would be foolish not to sample the food that her mother had told her was very good.
“In just a minute,” Delores said, gesturing toward the busboy who was heading for their table with two glasses of water. “Is Georgina working?” she asked him before he even had time to deliver their water.
“She’s here. Do you want her to wait on you?”
“Yes, please,” Hannah answered for her mother. She still didn’t know why Delores had asked her to come here and insisted that Georgina be their waitress.
Delores took a sip of water and sighed heavily. “That’s better,” she said.
When the busboy had left, Hannah turned to her mother. “Will you please tell me now?”
“Yes. I talked to Irma York. Georgina is her cousin. Irma said that Georgina told her that Mayor Bascomb was in here having drinks with his wife on the night that Tori was killed.”
“Okay. So you want me to ask Georgina about Mayor Bascomb?”
“Of course I do. But there’s more. Irma said that Georgina said she overheard the mayor say something about having to go up to Tori’s place to straighten her out about something important. And then he told Stephanie to order another drink for him because it wouldn’t take long for h
im to set Tori straight.”
“That’s interesting,” Hannah said, not mentioning that she already knew that from the one-sided conversation Tricia had overheard. “Do you happen to know what time that was?”
“No. Georgina didn’t say, so Irma didn’t know.”
“And you’d like me to find out when that was?”
“Of course I would.” Delores turned to give Hannah a questioning look. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Her mother seemed to be waiting for something more than a simple answer, and for a moment, Hannah was puzzled. Then she realized what Delores wanted. “It certainly might be helpful. Thank you for bringing this to me, Mother.”
Delores smiled and Hannah knew she’d given the correct response. “You’re welcome, dear.”
A moment later, a woman with obviously dyed black hair swept up in a tight knot on the top of her head came over to their booth. “Hello, Hannah,” she said with a smile. “It’s good to see you again.”
Hannah’s mind went into high gear, searching her memory banks. She knew she’d seen the woman before and her name was obviously Georgina, but where, exactly, had that been?
One by one, in rapid succession, she eliminated the possibilities. Not a customer at The Cookie Jar. Not a relative or a friend of a relative. Not at her mother’s Regency Romance Reader’s Club. Her synapses flew through the other venues and came up with a possible winner. But it wouldn’t hurt to double check the accuracy of her assumption.
