Fudge Cupcake Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Melt the butter. Add the sugar and mix. Let the mixture cool to room temperature and then stir in the egg. Add all of the rest of the ingredients except the flour, mixing after each addition. Add the flour, one cup at a time, and mix it thoroughly. Let the cookie dough sit for 5 minutes to “rest.”

  Drop by spoonful on a greased cookie sheet, 12 cookies per standard-size sheet. ( If the dough is too sticky, refrigerate it for a few minutes to firm it up. ) Flatten the cookies with a greased spatula. Bake at 375 degrees F. for 8 to 10 minutes.

  When the cookies come out of the oven, leave them on the cookie sheets and immediately press pieces of candy corn on top as a design. Do this right away, so that the candy will stick after the cookies have cooled. ***

  Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 2 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.

  Yield: 6 to 7 dozen, depending on cookie size.

  Tracey’s friends really loved these cookies and they all offered to help me decorate them next year.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Three

  “S

  he didn’t!” Andrea was still sputtering when Hannah came back to the room after hanging Tracey’s costume in the closet.

  “She did. As I recall her description was, the most marvelous, sophisticated man. She even compared him to an older version of Kenneth Branagh. I could be wrong, but she sounded pretty smitten to me.”

  “Smitten? You mean, like…in love?”

  “I’m not sure about love, but she was a lot more than just politely interested.”

  Andrea gave an exasperated sigh. “Just what I need! Honestly, Hannah, I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. Here I am swelling up like a toad and I’m confined to this you-know-what couch while Mother’s running around town with a gigolo!”

  “What’s a gigolo, Mommy?” Tracey asked, coming into the living room in time to hear Andrea’s last comment.

  “Tracey! I didn’t know you were there. Um…” Andrea turned to Hannah with a desperate look in her eyes. “Aunt Hannah will tell you what it is.”

  “It’s an Italian word for a man who is skilled at socializing with other people, especially women.”

  “Oh,” Tracey said and she looked wise beyond her years. “You must be talking about Winthrop.”

  “You know Winthrop?” Both Andrea and Hannah asked the question, almost in tandem.

  “No, but he called the last time I was at Grandma’s. He said something funny because Grandma’s face turned all red and she giggled.”

  “Mother giggled,” Hannah repeated, giving Andrea a look before she turned back to Tracey. “Do you happen to know Winthrop’s last name?”

  “Harrington. I can spell it.”

  “That would be good, honey,” Andrea said, glancing at Hannah who was already digging in her shoulder bag purse for her notebook.

  Hannah wrote down the name, and then she asked the obvious question. “How did you know how to spell it?”

  “It was on the flowers.”

  “What flowers?” Andrea and Hannah asked simultaneously.

  “The ones Grandma got. Are you mad? I know I’m not supposed to snoop.”

  Hannah glanced at Andrea, who was fighting valiantly to keep a straight face. “Your mother’s not mad this time, but you really aren’t supposed to read things like that. When a man sends a woman flowers, the card is meant to be private.”

  “I know,” Tracey said with a sigh, “but I had to know if Winthrop was after Grandma’s money.”

  Andrea looked shocked. “What made you think that Winthrop might be after her money?”

  “I saw it on television, Mommy.”

  “So you think Winthrop might be a criminal?” Hannah asked.

  “I don’t know. All I did was read his card. It’d be naughty to tell you what it said.”

  “Not necessarily,” Andrea blurted out. “I mean, if Winthrop is a criminal, Aunt Hannah and I should know so that we can protect Grandma.”

  Tracey looked confused. “So the rules about snooping change sometimes?”

  “Yes,” Andrea said, glancing over at Hannah. “Aunt Hannah will explain.”

  Hannah muttered under her breath. If she were to be absolutely truthful, she’d have to tell Tracey that the rules changed every time her mother and her aunt really wanted to know something. “The rules do change. Maybe they shouldn’t, but they do. It’s very complicated and I don’t want to get into that right now.”

  “It’s for later, when I’m older?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Okay,” Tracey said. “The flower note started with two words I didn’t know.”

  “Really?” Hannah was surprised. Tracey had learned to read last year and she could sound out almost any word.

  “They looked like moon and cherries spelled wrong.”

  “Mon Cherie!” Andrea breathed, exchanging glances with Hannah before she turned back to Tracey. “It’s a term of endearment in French. Was the rest of the note in French, too?”

  “I don’t think so because I could read it. It said, My arms are empty without you.”

  “Oh, brother!” Hannah muttered, trying not to frown. “Did Grandma actually fall for that line?”

  Tracey shrugged. “She had this funny look on her face when she read it, like she was going to cry or something.”

  “Uh-oh!” It was Andrea’s turn to groan. “Was there any more to the note, honey?”

  “Just his name, Winthrop Harrington. And right after his name, he wrote an eleven.”

  “An eleven?” Andrea was clearly puzzled. “I wonder what that means?”

  Hannah also looked puzzled for a moment and then she laughed. “I think I know. Was it an eleven with a line above it and a line below it?”

  “Yes! How did you know, Aunt Hannah?”

  “It’s a Roman numeral and it stands for the second. It means his father is also named Winthrop Harrington.”

  “Why would he want Grandma to know that?”

  “I’m not sure,” Hannah said, but she exchanged meaningful glances with Andrea. Delores would be swept off her feet by Winthrop Harrington’s ancestry, especially if it included a crumbling old manor house from the Regency period and a title to go with it.

  “Did Grandma use any titles when she spoke to Mr. Harrington on the phone?” Andrea asked.

  “Titles?” Tracey looked confused. “You mean like the names of books?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, your mommy’s talking about words like earl, and viscount, and duke.”

  “No…” Tracey said with a frown, “but she did say something bad.”

  “What was that?”

  “Grandma swore. And she said it right in front of me.”

  Hannah was shocked. Delores would rather walk over hot coals than swear in front of Tracey. “What did she say, Tracey?”

  “I’m not supposed to say it unless I’m in church.”

  “In church?” Andrea looked thoroughly mystified.

  “Your mother will excuse you, this once,” Hannah said, smiling at Tracey, who looked very nervous about the direction this conversation was taking. “It’s not a trap, Tracey. We really need to know.”

  Tracey thought about that for a moment. “Okay. Grandma said Lord.”

  “Uh-oh. That’s bad,” Hannah said with a groan, but when she saw the panicked expression on Tracey’s face she reached out for her niece’s hand. “Not you, Tracey. When Lord is used like that, it isn’t swearing. It’s something you call a British subject who has a title.”

  “Oh.” Tracey looked very relieved. “I get it Aunt Hannah. It’s like when Anna Crinkles meets Lord Bluenose.”

  “Um…” Hannah shrugged and turned to Andrea for guidance.

  “That’s right, honey,” Andrea said and glancing at Hannah. “It’s a library book she’s reading. Maybe you’d better go finish it, Tracey. Daddy said he’d take you to the library to check out some new books tonight.”

  Once Tracey rushed off,
Hannah and Andrea just stared at each other for a moment. Hannah was the first to speak. “So Winthrop’s British, he’s got a title, he dances like a dream, and he reminds her of Kenneth Branagh. Let’s face it, Andrea. Unless we can send him on an expedition to the North Pole, Mother’s a goner.”

  “No, I haven’t eaten yet, Mike,” Hannah said, holding the phone with her left hand and dropping chunks of beef liver into boiling water with the right. “I’m just making Moishe’s dinner.”

  As if to prove her statement, Moishe yowled from the vicinity of Hannah’s left ankle. Hannah glanced down at him and then she addressed what Mike had said. “Believe me, you don’t want to know. It would turn you off food for life.”

  Working with one hand, Hannah managed to scoop out the liver with a slotted spoon, but she gave a little groan as she did it.

  Both Moishe and Mike reacted to her groan. Moishe rubbed a little harder against her ankle in kitty appreciation for what she was doing, and Mike asked her what was wrong.

  “Nothing if you’re a cat,” Hannah told him. “I can be ready in twenty minutes. Just buzz me at the gate and I’ll walk out to the road to meet you.”

  Once she’d hung up the phone, Hannah turned her attention to the liver again. It was a dead-looking gray and it smelled like…boiled liver. Since boiled liver wasn’t anywhere near her list of favorite scents, she was glad she’d thought to tell Mike she’d meet him outside.

  “Coming up, Moishe,” Hannah said, pulling out a frying pan and setting it on a burner. She turned on the heat, measured out Moishe’s allotment of oil, and tossed in the liver and the white rice she’d cooked earlier. Then she dumped an egg in her food processor, shell and all. She whirled it up until she couldn’t hear the shell clatter against the blades any longer and added it to the contents of the frying pan.

  “Lovely,” Hannah sighed, stirring everything around until it congealed into an unappetizing mass. Some seasoning might have helped, but she checked and found out that Lisa had been right; Moishe couldn’t have any. Hannah scraped it into Moishe’s food bowl and set it on the floor in front of him, faking a big smile. “Bon appetit.”

  Moishe sniffed at his food bowl and for one long moment, Hannah was afraid that he was going to refuse her home-cooked meal. But then he purred, bent down, and took the first bite.

  “Do you like it?” Hannah asked, feeling like a Culinary Institute of America student begging for praise from a C.I.A. chef.

  Moishe didn’t even bother to glance up. He just dove right in for another bite, and then another. The cat who had only sniffed at his food for the past few days was now all teeth and appetite.

  “Thank goodness for that!” Hannah murmured, breathing a big sigh of relief. At last she’d found something that Moishe would eat, something that was actually good for him. Leaving her feline roommate to his gastronomic pleasures, Hannah rinsed the dishes, stuck them in the dishwasher, opened all the windows to air out the place, and plugged in the air freshener Delores gave her on her last visit to the condo. Then she took one look at the clock and raced back to her bedroom to change her clothes for her dinner date with Mike.

  “Nobody makes onion rings the way they do here,” Mike declared, reaching for another fat, crispy golden ring from the basket at the center of the table.

  “True,” Hannah agreed, popping the last of hers into her mouth. “Do you want to split another order?”

  “Why not? I’m taking the rest of the night off. Bill and I worked until midnight last night and eleven the night before. I figure we need a little time away from the investigation to clear our minds.”

  Hannah waited until Mike had called the waitress over and placed another order for onion rings. Then she asked the question she’d been waiting to ask ever since he’d mentioned the case. “Do you have any suspects?”

  “Yes, and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’ve got suspects, but I don’t think any of them did it. Neither does Bill and he’s got good instincts for things like that.”

  From past experience, Hannah knew that Mike wouldn’t give her any details unless she asked. Even then, he might not tell her anything important. “Which suspects do you have?”

  “Uh-uh,” Mike said, grinning at her. “You first.”

  Hannah did her best to look totally innocent. “Me? What makes you think I have any suspects? You told me I should drop my investigation, remember?”

  “That’s right. Let me rephrase that question. Which suspects did you have before you dropped your investigation?”

  Hannah sighed. She wasn’t going to get anything out of Mike until she primed the pump. And priming the pump meant she had to give him something first. “Nettie Grant.”

  “What?”

  “You asked me what suspects I had. I had Nettie Grant, but I cleared her.”

  “You did?”

  From the tone of Mike’s voice, Hannah could tell he’d switched on the invisible little tape recorder in his mind that all good cops seemed to possess. Although it seemed impossible, he would remember every word she uttered.

  “Give,” Mike said, leaning forward to gaze at her intensely. “You owe me.”

  “For what?”

  “For dinner. Why did you suspect Nettie Grant?”

  Hannah sighed. She could give him this much, at least. “Because she was going to divorce Sheriff Grant and he would have fought her about the settlement. Killing him made her his widow and entitled to everything.

  “Your reasoning’s right,” Mike said, “but how did you find out about the divorce?”

  “Nettie told me. But she also told me she didn’t kill her husband and I believed her.”

  Mike frowned slightly. “I don’t think she killed him either, but since she doesn’t have an alibi…”

  “She does have an alibi,” Hannah interrupted him, grinning widely. “Lisa checked it out for me.”

  “She did? What is it?”

  “I’ll tell you right after you tell me something I don’t know.”

  Mike narrowed his eyes. Hannah imagined how fierce he’d look to a suspect who’d just been hauled in for interrogation. Thankfully, the fierce glower didn’t work that well on her. She met it with her most stubborn look and they locked eyes for long moments, each perfectly silent and each perfectly determined to come out on top. The tension built higher and higher until Hannah just couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Someone next door saw Nettie in her sewing room,” Hannah told him. And at the very same instant Mike said, “Doc Knight found traces of someone else’s blood on the lid of the dumpster.”

  “The killer must have scratched himself when he put Sheriff Grant inside,” Hannah said. At the same time, Mike protested, “But I interviewed the neighbors and none of them were home.”

  Mike and Hannah stared at each other for a moment and then they both burst out laughing.

  “You first,” Hannah said.

  “No, you first,” Mike countered.

  Hannah sighed. They were getting nowhere in a hurry. She desperately wanted to know about the blood on the dumpster and the quickest way to find out about it was to tell Mike about Nettie’s alibi. “Richie Maschler told his parents he was going out that night, but he didn’t. He invited his girlfriend over to watch a movie instead.”

  “And you know this for certain?”

  “The girlfriend’s mother told Lisa.”

  “Okay, Nettie’s off my list. I’m really glad you cleared her, Hannah.”

  “Me, too. I like Nettie. Now how about that blood on the lid of the dumpster?”

  “There was a sharp place on the lid of the dumpster where the killer could have cut himself. If it matches the smear on Sheriff Grant’s shirt, it’s definitely from our guy.”

  “Did you send it out for DNA testing?”

  “Of course. That’ll take a couple of weeks.”

  “And when the results come back you’ll have evidence you can use to convict the killer?”
r />   “Absolutely. But first, we have to catch him.”

  Hannah frowned slightly. “Will the DNA help with that?”

  “I don’t think so. We’ll crosscheck it with the existing database, of course.”

  “But you don’t think you’ll get any matches?” Hannah asked, interpreting the tone she heard in Mike’s voice.

  “It’s hard to believe we’ll get that lucky. This doesn’t have the earmarks of a professional hit, but I don’t think it’s random, either. Someone who knew Sheriff Grant hated or feared him enough to confront him up close and personal and kill him.”

  “So…you think it’s someone local?”

  “That’s my guess. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t have to guess. I’d just test everyone in the county to see whose DNA matches.”

  “In a perfect world, there wouldn’t be any murder and you’d be out of a job.”

  “True,” Mike said with a grin. “That’s what I love about you, Hannah. You always put things in perspective.”

  Hannah took a deep breath and sealed her lips together. She was afraid to ask if he’d meant love as in like, or love as in love.

  Mike didn’t seem to mind her lack of response, because he leaned across the table and took her hand, pressing it warmly between both of his. “Do you want dessert now? Or shall we get something to go and take it back to your place?”

  Hannah’s heart did a tap dance in her chest. Mike had told her he was taking the night off and now he wanted to finish the evening at her condo. Was he about to propose?

  “Hannah?” Mike smiled at her.

  Hannah’s lips turned up in an answering smile. She was glad she was sitting down. Her legs felt weak and her knees were actually knocking together. “Let’s get apple pie,” she said. And while he was ordering their dessert and paying the bill, she sat there with her fingers crossed, hoping that her mother’s room freshener had worked.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Four