Chocolate Cream Pie Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “Are you warmer now?” Hannah asked as she refilled Tom’s coffee cup again.

  “Yes. I’m finally warming up,” Tom told her. “The coffee and the parka really helped.”

  “I can always run back in the coffee shop and get your hat,” Hannah offered. “Mother always says that most of your body heat escapes from the extremities and if your feet and your head are warm in the winter, you’ll stay warm all over.”

  “It’s okay, Hannah. I don’t need my hat. It’s warm here in the kitchen.”

  “I noticed your hat and it’s really nice,” Hannah opened the subject of Tom’s hat. “I haven’t seen Buffalo Plaid on a hat before.”

  Careful! the rational part of Hannah’s mind warned. He’s beginning to look suspicious.

  Go ahead, Hannah, the suspicious part of her mind egged her on. You have to find out if Tom pushed Clara down in the snow because he didn’t want anyone to know that he was hiding out in the clubhouse and watching our staircase for Ross.

  But where’s the motive? the rational part of her mind asked. If Tom killed Ross, he had to have a reason.

  Hannah ignored the ongoing debate in her mind and asked another question. “Do you know anyone who lives in my condo complex, Tom?”

  Tom looked puzzled by her question. “I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I was in the clubhouse yesterday and there was a towel from the Gala Expedition hanging in the men’s shower room. I thought that it might be yours.”

  Now you’ve stepped in it! the suspicious part of Hannah’s mind chided her. Just look at his face. He’s on to you!

  You’re right, the rational part of Hannah’s mind agreed. The fat’s in the fire now. But if Tom watched for Ross and killed him, what’s the motive?

  Hannah dipped another frozen peanut butter ball in the chocolate. She had to work quickly because it wasn’t quite cool enough.

  “I should never have stopped here,” Tom said, reaching inside his pocket and pulling out a gun. “I should have known you’d figure it out. Sorry, Hannah. I liked you. And I liked Ross, too, until he double-crossed me with the movie.”

  Hannah froze with her hand on the handle of the pan with the chocolate. Do something! both sides of her mind shouted. Keep him talking!

  It was good advice and Hannah took it. She had to keep Tom talking until Mike arrived! “I don’t understand. Ross double-crossed me, but how did he double-cross you?”

  The pistol pointed at Hannah’s head didn’t waver, but a slight smile crossed Tom’s face. “It won’t do you any good, you know. I have to kill you whether I tell you or not.”

  “I understand that. What I don’t understand is how Ross double-crossed you.”

  “It was an investment. I invested other people’s money in Ross’s movie.”

  “Are you talking about Crisis in Cherrywood?”

  “Yes, and I convinced several of my biggest investment clients to join me. We completely financed the movie.”

  “But Crisis in Cherrywood made money, didn’t it?”

  Tom gave a humorless laugh. “Yes, it did. And that’s the problem.”

  Hannah could tell that Tom was watching her face and not paying much attention to her hands. Her right hand was on the handle of the chocolate pan and her left hand was holding the food pick that contained the peanut butter candy ball. Slowly, Hannah released her hold on the food pick and let the peanut butter ball slip down into the melted chocolate. This meant she had both hands free. She wasn’t quite sure how much good this did, but she told herself to concentrate on asking questions. Somehow, she had to keep Tom talking until Mike got here.

  “I knew that Crisis in Cherrywood made money. A few weeks before we got married . . .” Hannah stopped speaking and sighed. “I guess I should rephrase that. A few weeks before I thought we got married, Ross sold his independent films to WCCO-TV and he told me he made a lot of money. Didn’t he pay you and your clients back for your investment?”

  “That wasn’t the problem, Hannah. You see . . . we’d invested in Ross’s films before and all of them had lost money. My clients and I thought that Crisis in Cherrywood would lose money, too.”

  “You wanted it to lose money?”

  “That’s right. You can buy insurance against bad investments. Backers of Broadway plays do it all the time. The insurance pays off if the play fails to make money in a certain time frame. I found an insurance company that did this for indie films, and my clients and I bought the insurance.”

  Hannah knew exactly what Tom was talking about, but she decided to play dumb. If he had to explain it to her, it would buy her a few more minutes.

  “That seems . . . wrong somehow. You and your clients paid to finance Crisis in Cherrywood, but you wanted it to fail?”

  “That’s right. It all has to do with the insurance, Hannah. We were all ready to collect on the insurance when Ross sold Crisis in Cherrywood as a television movie. If he’d waited a month, we would have collected on the insurance company.”

  “But . . . how was that double-crossing you?”

  “Ross knew about the insurance and he agreed to hold off on the sale. But what they offered him was a lot more than we’d invested, and he decided to go for the bigger bucks.”

  “And he didn’t pay back your original investment?”

  “Oh, he paid that back. But we weren’t looking for our money back. We were looking for the insurance payoff. And that was a lot more money.”

  “And Ross knew that?”

  “He knew, but he didn’t care. Fame was more important to Ross than fortune. He loved going to film festivals and being touted as the new auteur in the indie circuit. And remember. . . we also lost money because we couldn’t write off the losing investment on this year’s taxes. Instead, every one of my clients simply broke even and they were counting on taking advantage of the loss.”

  “I think I’m beginning to understand,” Hannah said, sending up a silent prayer for Mike to hurry.

  “And now, Hannah . . . hand me one of those candies you just made and I’ll tell you if I like them right before I pull the trigger.”

  Hannah reached for a piece of candy with her left hand and carefully lifted the melted chocolate with her right hand. “Here you go,” she said, holding out the candy so that Tom would have to reach out with his hand to pull the candy off the food pick.

  Things happened very fast from that point on, although Hannah saw them in slow motion.

  Tom reached out for the candy. Hannah lifted the pan with the hot, melted chocolate. Tom grasped the candy, preparing to pull it off the food pick. Hannah threw the chocolate. Tom screamed as the heated chocolate drenched his face. A shot rang out. There was another scream and Hannah knew that it came from her as Tom crumpled to the floor.

  It took long moments for the realization to hit her. She was still alive. Tom was stretched out on the floor, but she was still alive.

  Hannah sat down hard as her legs gave out beneath her. She was still alive. She could feel her toes and her legs, and her arms, and there was chocolate everywhere. Then strong arms wrapped around her and Hannah burrowed into them.

  “Easy, Hannah. It’s over now,” Mike said. “And if you ever do this again, I’m going to take away your license to heat chocolate.”

  Hannah couldn’t help it. She started to laugh. And as she laughed, the room stopped whirling around her and she drew a deep breath of air.

  “Thank you, Mike,” she said. “But next time, please get here faster.”

  CHOCOLATE-COVERED PEANUT BUTTER CANDY

  No need to preheat oven—this is a NO-BAKE recipe.

  ½ cup peanut butter (I used Jif)

  ¼ cup salted butter (½ stick, 2 ounces), softened

  ¼ cup finely chopped salted peanuts (measure AFTER chopping)

  ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

  2 cups powdered (confectioners) sugar (do not sift)

  1 small box food picks or long toothpicks

  2 cups (12-ounce b
y weight package) semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used Nestlé)

  1 rounded Tablespoon salted butter, softened

  Hannah’s 1st Note: If you can’t find food picks in your grocery store, you can buy them at a party store or a restaurant supply store. Most food picks look like toothpicks, but they have a colored cellophane decoration on one end and you’ve probably seen them used on cheese platters or on platters of little appetizers.

  Prepare your pan by lining a cookie sheet with wax paper.

  Use a wooden spoon or fork to mix the peanut butter with the ¼ cup softened butter in a medium-sized bowl.

  Sprinkle the ¼ cup finely chopped salted peanuts on top and mix them in thoroughly.

  Add the vanilla extract and mix that in.

  Add the powdered sugar in half-cup increments, mixing well after each addition.

  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for at least one hour so that the mixture will firm up. (Longer than one hour is fine, too.)

  Using impeccably clean hands, roll pop-in-your-mouth-size balls from the peanut butter mixture.

  Stick a food pick into each ball and place the completed balls on your prepared cookie sheet lined with wax paper.

  Hannah’s 2nd Note: The food picks will make it easier for you to dip the balls in melted chocolate chips once they’ve firmed up in the refrigerator again.

  Place the cookie sheet with your Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Candy in the freezer for at least 1 hour. (Overnight is even better.)

  When your candy balls are frozen, prepare to melt your chocolate coating. Leave your candy balls in the freezer until your chocolate coating has melted and you are ready to dip them.

  Place your 2 cups of chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl. Add the rounded Tablespoon of butter on top. (I used a 1-quart Pyrex measuring cup to do this.)

  Heat the chocolate chips and butter on HIGH for 1 minute. Let them sit in the microwave for an additional minute and then stir to see if the chocolate chips are melted. If they’re not, continue to heat in 30-second increments followed by 30 seconds of standing time until you can stir them smooth.

  Take the cookie sheet with the candy balls out of the freezer and set it on the counter. Using the food picks as handles, dip the balls, one by one, in the melted chocolate and then return them to the cookie sheet. Work quickly so that the balls do not soften.

  Place the cookie sheet with the Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Candy in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours before serving.

  When you’re ready to serve, remove the candy from the refrigerator, arrange the balls on a pretty plate or platter, and leave the food picks in place so that your guests can use them as a handle when they eat the candy.

  Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you plan to serve these at a party, you can either leave the food picks in place or pull them out and use cake decorator frosting with a star tip to cover the hole with a pretty frosting rosette. Then, if you like, you can place the candy, rosette up, in fluted paper candy cups.

  Yield: Approximately 3 dozen Chocolate-Covered Peanut Butter Candies. The quantity depends on the size of the candy balls.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  One week later, Hannah rolled down the window in her cookie truck as she drove out of town. She breathed deeply of the fresh, cold air and turned on the road that led around Eden Lake. She had an appointment in twenty minutes, and she both welcomed and dreaded it.

  Unanswered questions rolled through her mind like a bowling ball on its way toward the pocket. She had facts, plenty of them, but they didn’t answer her questions.

  They knew who’d killed Ross. It had been Tom Larchmont and he’d told Hannah exactly why he’d committed the crime. That much was known, but there were still irritating, niggling, frustrating questions to be answered.

  Ross had been desperate for the money. Hannah would testify to that fact. But exactly why had Ross needed a hundred thousand dollars? It wasn’t to pay Tom and his investors back. Ross had already done that. There had to be another reason, a reason that Hannah had not yet discovered.

  Then there was the matter of the locker key. She had looked. Michelle and Norman had looked. Mike had looked, and Mike’s team of detectives had looked, but no one had been able to find the storage locker that could be opened by the key that Hannah and Mike had found in Ross’s safe deposit box. Where was it? What was in it? Did it have anything to do with the reason Ross had so desperately needed the money?

  Had Ross told the truth when he said that his wife needed the money to file for a divorce? Hannah needed to know. And did Ross’s wife have anything to do with her husband’s murder?

  Hannah turned at the sign with an arrow that pointed toward Lake Eden Hospital. She drove down the snowy road, turned into the parking lot, and got out of her cookie truck. Her legs were shaking slightly as she got out of the truck and walked toward the hospital. She was early, but that was better than being late.

  “Hi, Hannah,” Vonnie Blair, Doc Knight’s secretary, greeted her as she came in the door. “Doc sent me down to bring you to his office.”

  “Thanks, Vonnie. Mother’s not here, is she?”

  “Not today. Did you want to see any of the other Rainbow Ladies?”

  “No, that’s all right. I couldn’t remember if this was her day to volunteer.”

  Hannah breathed a sigh of relief as she followed Vonnie down the hallway. She’d deliberately chosen to see Doc on a day that her mother wasn’t scheduled to work.

  “Hannah.” Doc stood up and came around his desk to give her a hug. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need to ask you a couple of questions,” Hannah said, glancing at Vonnie.

  “Of course. You can go on your break now, Vonnie. I’ll catch the phone while you’re gone.”

  Once Vonnie had left and shut the office door behind her, Hannah gave Doc a thumbs-up. “Thanks, Doc. I was hoping you’d realize that I wanted a private conversation with you.”

  “No problem. Or maybe it is. What’s wrong, honey?”

  He’d called her honey. The unexpected endearment took Hannah by surprise and tears began to roll down her cheeks. She cleared her throat, took a deep breath, and blurted out the secret she’d been living with for weeks on end. “I’ve got to know the truth, Doc. I think that I may be pregnant.”

  Baking Conversion Chart

  These conversions are approximate, but they’ll work just fine for Hannah Swensen’s recipes.

  VOLUME

  U.S. Metric

  ½ teaspoon 2 milliliters

  1 teaspoon 5 milliliters

  1 Tablespoon 15 milliliters

  ¼ cup 50 milliliters

  ⅓ cup 75 milliliters

  ½ cup 125 milliliters

  ¾ cup 175 milliliters

  1 cup ¼ liter

  WEIGHT

  U.S. Metric

  1 ounce 28 grams

  1 pound 454 grams

  OVEN TEMPERATURE

  Degrees Degrees British (Regulo)

  Fahrenheit Centigrade Gas Mark

  325 degrees F. 165 degrees C. 3

  350 degrees F. 175 degrees C. 4

  375 degrees F. 190 degrees C. 5

  Note: Hannah’s rectangular sheet cake pan, 9 inches by 13 inches, is approximately 23 centimeters by 32.5 centimeters.

  ONE BY ONE

  Ellen Wingate thinks she’s hit the jackpot when she learns the millions she’s inherited comes with a super-exclusive condo in the mountains outside of Las Vegas. But leaving Minnesota for paradise turns out to be the ultimate nightmare. Trapped with her neighbors in a freakish winter avalanche, a chilling discovery at the bottom of an indoor pool signals a frightening turn of events . . .

  UNTIL THERE WERE NONE

  A ruthless killer has infiltrated the Deer Creek Condos. With each killing more terrifying than the last, the panicked survivors face almost certain death. Their only hope is to band together to escape the unrelenting pursuit of a deadly intruder, but trusting each other could b
e their most fatal instinct . . .

  Please turn the page for an exciting sneak peek of

  Joanne Fluke’s

  DEAD GIVEAWAY

  now on sale wherever print and e-books are sold!

  Prologue

  The meeting took place in a high-rise office building, twenty stories above the Vegas Strip. The five men wore fashionably cut business suits. There wasn’t a bodyguard in sight, the strains of an Italian aria did not fill the air, and no one’s name was Guido.

  The tanned, blond man looked uncomfortable as he addressed the senior member of the group. “I’m sorry it has to be this way, but our only option is to take a hard line.”

  Reluctantly, the older man nodded, perspiring heavily. “I know, I know. She thinks she’s in love and she won’t listen to reason. She doesn’t realize he’s playing her for a fool.”

  “She’s already talked too much.” The short, thin man frowned. “We managed to take care of it this time, but we can’t take another chance.”

  The older man peered into their faces for some sign of compassion, but no one would meet his eyes. “But she’s my daughter! There’s got to be some other way!”

  The fourth member of the group, a heavyset man with a ruddy complexion, sighed deeply. “You know we’re reasonable men. If there’s another solution, we’re willing to consider it.”