Blackberry Crumble

by Josi S. Kilpack

  “Oh, Lois, I forgot to introduce you. This is my friend, Sadie Hoffmiller. Sadie, this is Lois Hilbert. She’s a very good friend of the family, going on some thirty years. She lives across the street.”

  Sadie stepped forward and put out her hand. “In the champagne-colored house? The one with those trellised peace roses?” Sadie had noted the home the moment she’d pulled up. It was bright and well-tended, an English cottage-style home painted a light-peach color that offset the pink-tinged yellow roses perfectly.

  Lois raised her penciled eyebrows in surprise. “Yes,” she said with a small laugh. “That is my home. You know roses?”

  Sadie hoped her smile didn’t seem too arrogant, but she took great pride in the fact that Pete’s lessons seemed to be working. She was noticing details she didn’t even mean to notice. The two women shook hands and Sadie shrugged. “My mother grew peace roses. They were her very favorite.”

  “Then she was a softhearted woman,” Lois said with a nod. “And had excellent taste.”

  “If you do say so yourself, right?” May laughed.

  Lois put a wrinkled hand to her chest. An emerald ring glittered on her right hand—a birthstone? “Who better to make the judgment than someone so equally bestowed with good judgment?”

  All three of them laughed that time. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lois,” Sadie said, trying not to look at the muffins again. Lois had called them blueberry walnut, but they looked like they were bran as well. Double prizes—delicious and packed with fiber!

  “Sadie, you were going to run some errands, right?” May asked.

  Sadie was surprised at the change in subject, but it served to put her back in her place. She wasn’t really May’s friend; she was an employee, and she had work to do. She kept her smile sincere and nodded. “I am,” she said, hoping the hurt of being dismissed didn’t show too much. “I’ll grab those salad fixings as well. It will go great with the muffins.”

  “Sure,” May nodded. “Dad’s grocery bags are there.” She pointed to a fabric parcel wedged in the gap between the fridge and the wall. Sadie pulled out the parcel and found it to be four reusable bags rolled up into one.

  “Do you need anything else while I’m out? Bread, eggs—you have real butter for those muffins, right? I don’t mean to be rude, but I do not compromise on butter.”

  Lois laughed and came over to Sadie. “This is my kind of woman!” she said, putting her arm across Sadie’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze with her spindly arm before going back to wrapping glasses.

  May smiled. “I’ve got butter—my mother was a purist, too—but we could probably use some more milk. I’ve been surviving on cereal and coffee.”

  “Oh, that reminds me!” Lois said, touching May’s arm again. “Did you get the flier about the summer picnic? Once I learned you were coming home, I put it on the back door so you’d see it when you arrived. I meant to say something when I got here, and it completely slipped my mind.”

  “I got it,” May said. Her smile was instantly more polite than it had been. “That was very sweet of you to invite me but—”

  “Not just you,” Lois said. “All of you.” She waved her hand. “Jolene and Gary come every time, you know, and Hugh’s stopped in a time or two as well. I know Jo-Jo isn’t up to it, and I don’t know about Hugh.” She gave May’s arm a squeeze. “But you must come and represent the Sandersons.”

  “Well, I don’t know,” May said, grabbing another cup and another piece of newsprint. “It seems . . . wrong, what with Dad gone and Jolene so sick.” She flicked a look at Sadie, reminding Sadie she’d been told to leave. Sadie kicked herself back into gear and dug her keys out of her pocket, though she would have much preferred to stay here and learn more about the things in May’s life she hadn’t told Sadie.

  Lois was having none of May’s excuses. “Your dad would love for you to go, you know that. And Jolene is all about people living their lives.”

  “I don’t want her to be alone,” May said.

  Lois was shaking her head before May had finished talking. “Isn’t Gary picking her up around six tonight?” She cocked her head to the side as Sadie headed for the front door, not making a production out of her exit. “Sharla-May, I insist.”

  May let out a breath, remaining unconvinced. Sadie put her hand on the doorknob and gave it a twist as May continued. “And I suppose the pitchforks will come out if I don’t show up with bacon ice cream, right?”

  Sadie whipped her head to the side. “Bacon ice cream?” she exclaimed without thinking.

  Both women turned to look at her, and Sadie felt her cheeks heat up from her outburst. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just . . . Did you really say bacon ice cream?”

  “My dad made it every year,” May said, though her tone and expression were reticent. She clearly wanted Sadie to leave, and Sadie would . . . in just a minute.

  Lois continued when May didn’t volunteer anything more. “Jim didn’t like fruity desserts. Naturally, at a summer picnic in Oregon, every dessert that shows up is berry-related. That’s why we age so well, you know”—she made an exaggerated flip of invisible hair—“all those antioxidants. So, anyway, after a couple years of berry desserts, Jim and Leena showed up with bacon ice cream, of all things.”

  “It was supposed to be a joke,” May added. The nostalgic memory seemed to have granted Sadie a stay for the moment. “A real man’s dessert, you know, and about as different from fruit as anything could be.”

  “Lo and behold, everyone loved it,” Lois said. “We all begged them to make it again the next year. After Leena died, Jim made it himself. He’s been making it for every summer picnic since.”

  “Bacon ice cream,” Sadie repeated again in wonder, releasing the doorknob and walking back toward the island. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. And it’s good?”

  “Amazing!” Lois said.

  “Fabulous!” May said at the same time. They both laughed. “Which is why showing up without it just seems wrong.”

  “Can’t you make it?” Sadie asked. She could well understand May’s hesitancy. It would be hard enough to go to the picnic for the first time in a decade and without her father, but without his signature dish, it would be even more uncomfortable. But Sadie was a great cook. And if it worked out, she would be able to eat something she’d never even heard of before today—how often did that happen?

  “I can barely butter my own toast,” May said. “Hence my living on cereal these last three days. You have to, like, glaze the bacon and stuff. And don’t even get me started on making ice cream from scratch.”

  “But there’s a recipe?” Sadie asked.

  “Sure,” May said, shrugging one shoulder. “But, like I said, I don’t cook.”

  “I do,” Sadie said quickly. “If there’s a recipe, I can make it.” She sent Lois a pleading look, begging for support.

  Lois picked up her cue immediately and winked at Sadie before turning to May—they were now officially in cahoots! “That’s perfect,” Lois said, clapping her hands together. “Your friend can make the ice cream, and we can all pay tribute to Jim one last time.” She clasped her hands together and held them beneath her chin, a perfect match to the pouty look on her face. “You’ll come now, won’t you?”

  The glance May flashed at Sadie didn’t look entirely pleased, but Sadie hoped she wasn’t entirely displeased either. “I’m not sure how I can say no.”

  “You can’t,” Lois assured her, wrapping her arms around May’s shoulders. “I brought your favorite muffins, remember. I think that’s officially called a bribe around here.”

  “If you’ve got that recipe, I can pick up what we need when I go to the store,” Sadie offered, now feeling rather eager to leave. “The salad will come together in a jiffy, and then I can work on the bacon ice cream.” It would mean the files and things would have to wait, but if she hurried, she could still get in a few more hours of work before the picnic.

  May smiled and nodded, but didn’t
make eye contact as she retrieved the recipe from the recipe box in the cupboard above the stove and handed it over. They discussed which store to go to—May insisted on organic everything—and how long Sadie would be.

  Lois was back to wrapping glasses by the time Sadie said good-bye and stepped out the front door. She paused on the porch, scanning the recipe with butterflies in her stomach. There were few things quite as exciting as discovering new ways to enjoy food, and bacon ice cream was something she’d never even thought of.

  And, while the seduction of such a recipe was a prominent motivation, Sadie also wanted to meet Jim Sanderson’s neighbors and get a feel for the people in his life. You never knew who might have seen something or heard something that might help her case. Sadie would make sure to tell May that as soon as she had the chance. For now, however, she was on a mission!

  Bacon Ice Cream

  6 slices of bacon

  2 to 4 tablespoons brown sugar

  2 quarts heavy whipping cream

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 to 4 cups sugar, to taste

  Milk to the fill line, about 4 inches from the top of the ice cream container

  To candy the bacon, line 6 slices of bacon on a jelly-roll pan covered with either aluminum foil or a silicone mat. Sprinkle approximately 1 teaspoon brown sugar on each bacon slice, keeping as much sugar on the bacon as possible (or put bacon and sugar in a zip-top bag to coat).

  Put pan in a cold oven and set heat to 325 degrees. Bake for 25 minutes. While the bacon is cooking, prepare ice cream base (see below). After 25 minutes, turn bacon over. Continue turning bacon every three minutes until bacon is crispy and the brown sugar gives it a candy coating.

  Remove pan from oven and move bacon to a cooling rack, if using foil. (Bacon can cool directly on the silicone mat.) Once cooled, chop bacon into very small pieces. Store chopped bacon in refrigerator or freezer until ready to add to the ice cream base.

  To prepare ice cream base, use a standard 4-quart ice cream maker.* Add whipping cream, then sugar. (You want it quite sweet, since the sweetness will mellow as the ice cream freezes.) Add milk to the fill line of the container (usually 4 inches from the top). Add more sugar if necessary. Mix and chill in the refrigerator for about an hour.

  When bacon has cooled, add the chopped, candied bacon pieces to the chilled ice cream base. Freeze according to ice-cream maker directions. (Adding the bacon a few minutes before the freezer is finished will keep the “candy” from dissolving into the base as much.) Final result should be a soft, toffee-flavored ice cream with bits of bacon, which give it a salty flavor and are similar in texture to bits of toffee. Serve immediately.

  *Adjust ingredients accordingly if your freezer has a different capacity.

  Chapter 28

  Sadie was back to May’s house within an hour. Her adrenaline was rushing, and she couldn’t wait to get to work in the kitchen. Despite the neighborhood being very suburban, there was a strip mall only a mile or so away, complete with a copy store and supermarket that sold genuine Oregon blackberries!

  May wasn’t in the kitchen when Sadie let herself in the side door after a light knock, but Sadie felt funny about hunting her down, so she simply got to work in the kitchen—starting with her salad. Candying the walnuts took a few minutes, but while they cooled, she mixed everything else together, and in fewer than ten minutes after entering the kitchen, she had finished the salad.

  She made up her own plate, adding a muffin to the side. It hadn’t been officially offered to her, but there were half a dozen, and it was downright unwise for May to eat all of them, seeing as how they were bran and everything. Sadie had hoped to eat with May, but she was starving and so decided to eat alone.

  After settling onto a barstool, she picked up her fork and dug into what, in her opinion, consisted of a fabulous lunch. It was as good as she’d hoped and the muffin was delicious, not too heavy, but not too light. She made a note to ask Lois for the muffin recipe before she left. She was halfway through the salad—the blackberries and walnuts were wonderful together—before she started looking around the room, noting what had been packed and what hadn’t.

  There were boxes everywhere, some full and some empty, and an overall disorganized order to everything, which was typical of packing. For the first time, Sadie noticed a large family photo over the mantel in the living room. She picked up her plate and walked over to get a better look. The picture was outdated, but Sadie assumed it was the last family photo taken before May’s mother had died. Leena Sanderson had strawberry-blonde hair and soft brown eyes. She sat next to Jim, their three children standing behind them. Sadie took in the features of each one of them, smiling at the 1980s version of adolescent Sharla-May. She had big red hair, a metallic smile, and huge hoop earrings. She looked so young and so happy—a moment frozen in time.

  The longer Sadie stared at the picture, reflecting on how much had changed since it had been taken, the heavier her heart felt. She finished her salad and returned to the kitchen to put the plate in the sink and get a start on the bacon ice cream, leaving her heavy sympathies behind.

  She’d never glazed bacon before, but the recipe—written out by Leena Sanderson, Sadie assumed—explained the process in detail. Bless conscientious cooks! Within minutes the bacon was coated with brown sugar and spread out on the foil-lined pan. She slid the pan into the cold oven and set the timer and temperature according to the recipe. Sadie then turned her attention to finding the ice cream freezer so she could mix up the cream and sugar portion of the recipe.

  “You’re back.”

  Sadie looked up. She’d been so intent on looking through the cupboards for the ice cream freezer—though the chances of it being stored in the average-sized kitchen were slim—that she hadn’t heard May approach.

  She smiled as she closed another cupboard door. “I was looking for the ice cream freezer. I can mix up the base, then let it chill until it’s time to add the bacon and get it mixing. What time is the picnic?”

  “Seven,” May said, looking uncomfortable. “I’m really not sure it’s a good idea to go.”

  Sadie saw her chance to assure May why it was important to be there. “You’re father died at home, right?” she asked, keeping her tone even.

  May furrowed her brow, but nodded.

  “And if Keith were a part of that, he could have come to the house. The only people who might know if he did are your neighbors. I have a list of Keith’s cars, as well as a photo of him. Should the opportunity arise—and I will be very careful about not blowing my cover—your neighbors might have some information about that night. In addition, it sounds like your dad was relatively close with Lois, and perhaps some other neighbors, too. Maybe he said something that will support what we’re looking for. Without him here, it’s up to those people around him to put the pieces back together.”

  May wasn’t convinced and shook her head to emphasize her lack of faith. “If anyone had seen anything, they’d have told me before now.”

  “Unless they didn’t know that what they saw was important,” Sadie reminded her. She came around the island and stopped in front of May. “Look, if you really don’t want to go, or don’t want me to go, I’ll respect that—I’ll even help you come up with an excuse. I didn’t mean to make you feel cornered. And you’re right that there may be nothing of value for this case at the picnic. But there might be something, even a small something, and”—she paused and smiled—“you have to eat more than just cereal, young lady. With all the stress you’ve been under, you’re ripe for catching some horrible virus that will send you to your bed, and you don’t want that, do you?”

  May didn’t soften as much as Sadie had hoped she would, but she did nod. “Okay,” May said. “But I really don’t want anyone to know who you are. Everyone has accepted Dad’s death as tragic, and no one suspects anything other than a natural death. They’ll all think I’m crazy if they find out why you’re here.”

  “They won’t find out,” Sa
die said. “I’m very good with people, and I won’t endanger you or what we’re looking for in the least, okay? But we need more than paper,” she said, waving toward the stack of files she needed to return the office. “And people often know things they don’t realize they know.”

  The oven dinged to indicate that it had reached the correct temperature, and Sadie let May ponder on what she’d said while she peeked in on the pan. It still looked like raw bacon coated in brown sugar. May crossed behind her to the fridge, where she took out a yogurt and a Diet Coke. Sadie moved out of the way so May could get a glass out of the cupboard.

  “I’ve got the salad right here,” Sadie said, pulling open the fridge and removing the plastic-wrapped bowl of salad. “It goes great with Lois’s muffins.”

  “This is for Jolene,” May said, setting her items on the counter. “I’d love some salad and, of course, one of Lois’s marvelous muffins.” She glanced at the plate and seemed to notice there was one missing.