by Joanne Fluke
“I’d better get back to work,” Hannah said, rising to her feet.
Michelle caught Hannah’s cue and she stood up, too. “I’ll go tell Aunt Nancy that you want to see her on her break. She might know more about Chef Duquesne’s relatives.”
“And I’ll take her place in the coffee shop,” Andrea offered, also rising to her feet.
Hannah waited until both of her sisters had left the kitchen and then she turned to smile at her mother. “Thank you for telling me, Mother. And I promise to visit you in jail.”
“What are you talking about?!!” Delores was clearly flabbergasted.
“It took you twenty minutes to tell me about the DNA. And you could have covered everything in two minutes or less.”
Delores gave a little laugh. “That’s not exactly a criminal offense, dear.”
“Oh, yes it is.” Hannah smiled, so that her mother would know that she was teasing. “While I was waiting for you to get to the point, I just about died of curiosity. And that means you’re guilty of attempted murder!”
Chapter Twenty-three
Hannah smiled as she sniffed the air. Her Angel Crunch Cookies were almost ready to come out of the oven and they smelled delicious. It was a new recipe she’d decided to try, a variation on an old recipe she’d been using for the past few years, and she was surprised she hadn’t thought to try it before. The oven timer went off, and she walked over to peek in at the cookies. They were a lovely shade of golden brown, and she quickly pulled the pans from the oven and slipped them on the baker’s racks to cool.
“Those cookies smell great!” Michelle complimented her. “What are they?”
“A meringue cookie made with brown sugar, vanilla, and ground pecans.”
“They sound really good, too. When will they be cool enough to eat?”
“In five minutes or so. Then we can sample them to see if they’re good enough to serve.”
Hannah walked over to join Michelle at the stainless-steel work island. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go over what we learned about Chef Duquesne’s family.”
Michelle pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and activated the notebook function while Hannah turned to the correct page in the steno pad.
“I’ll go first,” Michelle said. “Stop me if you want to add anything. Chef Duquesne has an older sister. She’s married and she runs a fishing lodge with her husband in Canada. Aunt Nancy called her and she hasn’t been back to the States since she attended her mother’s funeral four years ago.”
Hannah glanced down at her steno pad. “Chef Duquesne’s father is still alive, but he’s confined to a wheelchair. He lives in an assisted living place back east. Aunt Nancy talked to his nurse on the phone and he’s too frail to travel. She needed some excuse for asking about him, so she told the nurse she wanted to send him some cookies.”
“So we’re going to ship some from these batches?” Michelle gestured toward the baker’s rack.
“Yes, as long as Mike doesn’t eat them all.”
“Mike’s coming here?”
“Probably. He usually checks in with me the day after a murder to find out if I’ve learned anything that he doesn’t know.”
“And to warn you to leave murder investigations to the professionals, like him,” Michelle added with a laugh.
“That, too. He always manages to get here about the time a fresh batch of cookies is cool enough to eat.”
“That’s not difficult. You bake cookies all day long. There’s always a fresh batch of cookies.”
“True,” Hannah admitted. “I guess it wouldn’t really matter what time he came in.”
Just then there was a knock at the door, and both Hannah and Michelle broke into laughter.
“Mike?” Michelle asked.
“Yes, that’s Mike’s knock. I’ll put some cookies on a plate.”
“Okay. I’ll grab a couple, and then I’ll go up front and make myself scarce. You’re not going to tell him about the DNA, are you?”
“No. Doc will notify him when the results are conclusive. Will you please go let him in, Michelle? I’ll pour his coffee and get the cookies.”
Less than five minutes later, Hannah was sitting across from Mike, watching him wolf down Angel Crunch Cookies. She’d eaten one, and she had to admit that they were really good, with a perfect balance between crunch and softness.
“Oh boy, these are good!” Mike said, reaching for the last one on the plate. “I think I could eat a dozen.”
“You already have . . . and then some.” The words were out of Hannah’s mouth before she could call them back, so she smiled to take the sting out of her words. “Eat all you want, Mike. They’re light and they’re not all that big.”
“Thanks. I will. They’re new, aren’t they?”
Hannah nodded. “I just baked them to try them out.”
“Well, they’re great!”
Mike looked down at the empty plate and then up at her. It didn’t take a genius to get his unspoken message and Hannah got up to refill the plate. “Here you go,” she said when she put it down in front of him.
“Thanks, Hannah.” Mike took another cookie. “Will it do any good to tell you to stay out of my investigation into Chef Duquesne’s death?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Just remember, you had a close call last time. If you hadn’t texted everyone when you did, you could have ended up dead.”
“That’s true,” Hannah admitted.
“It’s not that I resent you trying to help. It’s just that I feel it’s my duty as a sworn police officer to keep you safe. The last thing I want is to see you hurt. And if you keep doing things on your own, you will be hurt eventually.” He sighed heavily. “I really don’t know what to do with you, Hannah. You’ve never listened to me when I’ve warned you to stay out of it. Will you listen this time? I don’t want to have to chase a killer and worry about you at the same time.”
Hannah was touched by his concern, but she had to be truthful. “No, I probably won’t listen.”
“I didn’t think so. You’re a stubborn woman, Hannah. So . . . I might as well ask you, who do you think killed Chef Duquesne?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You don’t have any suspects?”
“Oh, I have suspects. Quite a few, as a matter of fact. I did have a prime suspect, but I already cleared him.”
“Who?”
“Is it important? It involves some rather sensitive information.”
“It’s important, Hannah.”
“If you agree to keep it confidential and not put it in any police report or mention it to anyone else, I’ll tell you.”
Mike thought about that for a minute. Then he nodded. “Agreed, as long as I’m convinced that you cleared the suspect.”
“Fair enough.” Hannah took a deep breath and told Mike about Aunt Nancy’s encounter with Alain Duquesne and what had happened in his room.
“But Dick saw her on the security camera at the front door as she left?” Mike asked.
“That’s right. Aunt Nancy was never a suspect. It was Heiti. He was there at her house when she got home, and she told him what Chef Duquesne did to her.”
“Who’s Heiti?”
“He’s the man who built her new bookshelves, and he’s helping her fix up the house.”
“So Heiti is Aunt Nancy’s boyfriend?”
Hannah hesitated. “I’m really not sure what to call him. Boyfriend seems a little juvenile when they’re both over fifty. But yes, they really like each other and I think it might develop into something more than that.”
“Okay. So you thought that Heiti might have gone out there to confront Chef Duquesne and it got out of hand?”
“It seemed possible. Heiti’s very fond of Aunt Nancy. But he couldn’t have done it.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. Just how do you know that?”
“For one thing, Heiti doesn’t drink red wine. It gives him a headache. And I’m sure you had the two w
ineglasses you found in the kitchen tested at the police lab.”
“I did and you’re right. They both contained red wine, but the one that was empty had been wiped clean of fingerprints. There’s no way to prove who used that glass.”
Hannah smiled. She now knew that there had been no fingerprints on the empty glass, and that meant it had belonged to the killer. “There’s something else, too. Heiti lives about a mile from Aunt Nancy’s house and he ran out of gas on his way home. He left his car by the side of the road and walked the rest of the way to his apartment. The next morning, his neighbor gave him a ride to the Quick Stop, where he bought a gas can. The neighbor took him back to his car and waited until Heiti poured in the gas and got it started. Then Heiti drove straight to the Quick Stop and filled his gas tank all the way.”
“Did you simply take his word for that?”
“No, of course not. I checked with Ron and Sean. They said Heiti bought a gas can and when he drove back to the Quick Stop, his car took a full tank of gas.”
“All that’s good, Hannah, but he could have run out of gas on his way home from killing Chef Duquesne.”
“Heiti didn’t go out to the inn. Or if he was lying and he did drive out there and run out of gas on his way back, he still couldn’t have killed Chef Duquesne.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Heiti didn’t go inside the inn. I called Dick to check. Dick went over the security tape and no one came in after Aunt Nancy left. There was no activity at all at the front entrance until Michelle and I came in for our practice time in the kitchen this morning.”
“Okay. You did everything right, Hannah.”
“Thank you. So you’re not going to talk to Heiti?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m definitely going to talk to Heiti.”
“But why?”
Mike smiled the devilish smile that always made Hannah feel slightly weak in the knees. “Didn’t you say that Heiti built custom bookcases for Aunt Nancy?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“I need a carpenter to build a bookcase in my office at the station.”
ANGEL CRUNCH COOKIES
Preheat oven to 275 degrees F., rack in the middle position
(That’s two hundred seventy-five degrees F.)
3 egg whites (save the yolks in the refrigerator to add to scrambled eggs)
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
2 Tablespoons flour (that’s cup)
½ cup finely chopped pecans (measure AFTER chopping)
3 to 4 dozen candied pecan halves OR 3 to 4 dozen Maraschino cherry halves to place on top of your cookies before baking.
Before you do anything else, separate the egg whites from the yolks. Place the egg whites in the bowl of your mixer so that they will warm to room temperature. Egg whites at room temperature yield more volume and whip easier than cold egg whites.
Place the egg yolks in a Tupperware container with a cover. Store the yolks in the refrigerator to add to your scrambled eggs the next morning. (My mother always said that there’s nothing like a little extra protein for breakfast to give you a head start to the day. I once tried to convince her that cookies had extra protein, but it didn’t work.)
Hannah’s 1st Note: I always use a stand mixer when I make these cookies. It’s a lot easier than whisking egg whites by hand in a copper bowl.
Prepare your baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper (works best) or brown parcel-wrapping paper (also works, but parchment is preferable). Spray the paper with Pam or another non-stick cooking spray and dust it lightly with flour. You can also use baking spray, which is cooking spray mixed with flour.
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 brown sugar gradually, sprinkling it in with your impeccably clean fingers by quarter cups and beating hard for ten seconds or so after each sprinkling.
Take the bowl out of the mixer.
Mix the flour with the ground nuts. Sprinkle them on top of the whipped egg whites and fold them in with a rubber spatula, keeping as much air in the mixture as you possibly can.
Drop mounds of dough by heaping Tablespoons onto your prepared cookie sheets. If you place 4 mounds in a row and you have 4 rows, you’ll end up with 16 cookies per sheet. These cookies do not spread out very much as they bake.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: I use a Tablespoon from my silverware drawer to drop the mounds on the baking sheets. A cookie scooper doesn’t work very well for this.
Place one candied pecan or a half Maraschino cherry (rounded side up) in the center of each mound. Push the pecan halves or half cherries down a bit, but leave them clearly visible.
Bake your Angel Crunch Cookies 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 your cookies on the paper-lined cookie sheets by pulling the paper, cookies and all, over to 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 sweet and crunchy meringue cookies that are as light as air and that everyone will love to eat.
Chapter Twenty-four
When Mike left, Hannah mixed up a batch of Honey Drop Cookies. She was tired when she sat down on a stool at the workstation to wait for them to bake. As always, baking had helped to clarify her thoughts and she reached for her shorthand notebook, flipped to the suspect page, and was just beginning the process of deciding which suspect to interview next, when Michelle came through the swinging door from the coffee shop.
“Lisa’s telling the story again,” Michelle announced, “and I found out more from Aunt Nancy. She touched base with a couple of friends from her old hometown and she found out that Chef Duquesne’s older brother is a career Navy man and he’s an instructor at Annapolis Naval Academy. I called the academy and found out that he had an eight o’clock class the morning after Chef Duquesne was murdered. There’s no way he could have flown to Minnesota from Maryland, killed his brother, and then flown back in time to teach that class.”
“Good work, Michelle!” Hannah praised her. “I’ll cross him off my suspect list.”
“Who do you have left?”
“No one except Chef Duquesne’s children, if he has any.”
“And the unidentified suspect for an unknown motive,” Michelle reminded her.
“Of course. That’s a given in all murder investigations.”
“Andrea and I took a few minutes to check online for other biographies of Chef Duquesne. Neither one of us found any mention of children.”
Hannah thought about that for a moment. “I guess it’s possible that Doc’s friend at the DNA lab was wrong.”
“He must have been, unless Chef Duquesne had children that no one knew about.”
“He could have had a child that not even he knew about,” Hannah suggested.
“I guess so, but that’s really unlikely, isn’t it?”
Hannah shrugged. “Given his background, it might not be as unlikely as you think!”
Michelle laughed. “You’ve got a point. According to what Aunt Nancy told us, he’s been a womanizer all his life.”
“That’s right. Just think about it for a minute, Michelle. What if Allen Duke got some girl pregnant when he was in high school? If that happened, and the girl’s parents didn’t want her to marry Allen, they might have convinced her to leave town and live with a relative until the baby was born. Then she could have given it up for adoption.”
“That’s certainly possible. And sometimes parents who adopted really young children don’t tell them that they’re adopted.”
There was a knock on the door and Michelle turned to Hann
ah. “Mother again?”
Hannah shook her head. “It’s not Mother’s knock. And it’s not Norman’s or Mike’s either. I don’t know this knock at all. I’d better go find out who it is.”
Hannah hurried to the door and opened it. She stared at the man standing there in surprise, and then she laughed. “Ross! I didn’t expect to see you before the competition! Come in and have a cup of coffee with us. And try out some of the new cookies I just baked.”
“There’s no way I’ll turn down an invitation like that,” Ross said, pulling her into his arms for a kiss. “Do you know you have flour on your nose?”
“No, but it makes sense. I’ve baked a lot of cookies today.”
“Too bad it’s not powdered sugar.” Ross gave her a look that made the heat rise to her face, and Hannah knew she was blushing. Then he turned to Michelle. “Hi, Michelle. All ready to steal the show tonight?”
“I’m always ready to steal the show. They teach us how to do that in our beginning acting class. But tonight I’ll let Hannah be the star. Those cookies of hers are phenomenal.”
“All of Hannah’s cookies are phenomenal.”
The stove timer rang and Hannah motioned to Michelle. “Pour coffee for all three of us, will you please? I’ll just take these cookies out of the oven and be with you in a minute.”
The Honey Drop Cookies were the perfect color on top, golden brown. They smelled divine as Hannah took the pans out of the oven and set them on the baker’s rack to cool. She didn’t usually bake with honey. It was messy and it didn’t keep as neatly as sugar in her pantry. But Aunt Nancy had promised that this recipe would work like a charm, and it certainly looked as if it had. Hannah could scarcely wait to taste them!
“Great aroma,” Michelle commented as Hannah walked back to the work island and took a stool next to Ross. “They look really good, too.”
“We’ll find out in a couple of minutes.” Hannah turned to Ross. “What brings you here?”
“I came by to see if there’s anything I can do to help you. I’ll be going out to Sally and Dick’s in an hour or so, and I wondered if you wanted me to sound anyone out.”
