Blueberry Muffin Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “I know, Grandma. ‘This is my room. I sleep here with my sisters, Emily, Catherine, and Lucinda. My father and mother gave me this teddy bear for my fourth birthday. His name is Brownie and I love him very much.’”

  “Wonderful!” Delores clapped her hands and then turned to them. “Tell Tracey how wonderful she was, girls.”

  “You were wonderful, honey,” Andrea said with a smile.

  “Yes, you were,” Hannah seconded. “Do you have any more to say?”

  “Just one more thing. When the guests are ready to leave, I stand by the front door and say, ‘Thank you for coming to see the Ezekiel Jordan House that my Grandma Delores and my Grandma Carrie made.’”

  The words Grandma Carrie set off warning bells in Hannah’s mind. Every Lake Eden resident who took the tour would hear Tracey, and the phone lines would overload with rumors that she was about to marry Norman.

  “We’d better run along, dear,” Delores said, taking Tracey’s hand. “Our audience is waiting.”

  Hannah walked over to grab her mother’s arm. “Go ahead, Tracey. I need to talk to your grandma for a minute.” She waited until Tracey was well out of earshot, and then she turned to her mother with fire in her eyes. “How could you, Mother! You know what people are going to think if Tracey calls…”

  “Delores? I’m early.” The back door opened and Luanne Hanks rushed in, cutting Hannah off in the middle of her planned tirade. She stopped short as she saw Andrea and Hannah, and then her face lit up in a smile. “Hi, Andrea. Hello, Hannah. How are you two? I haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “We’re fine,” Hannah said, putting on a smile for Luanne’s benefit.

  Luanne caught the tension in the air and she glanced uneasily between Hannah and Delores. “Uh…if you’re busy right now, I can come back later.”

  “No, dear.” Delores shook her head. “I have to check on the tour group. Stay and visit with Andrea and Hannah until I get back.”

  Hannah sighed as her mother made good her escape. They would definitely have words later. Then she noticed that Luanne was carrying her Pretty Girl cosmetic case. “Are the portraits starting early?”

  “No, I just came in to chat with your mother.”

  “You’re not working at the café today?” Andrea asked her.

  “I’m on vacation. Rose figured there wouldn’t be much business, and she told me to take a week off.”

  “I hope it’s a paid vacation.” Hannah knew that Luanne needed every cent she could earn to support her mother and her two-year-old daughter, Susie.

  “It is. Rose is paying me my regular salary and Norman’s paying me, too. I’m making double the money for half the hours.”

  “That’s great, Luanne!” Hannah was relieved.

  “That’s not the half of it. If the ladies who come in like Pretty Girl makeup, I might get some new customers.”

  “That reminds me,” Andrea said. “I’m completely out of mascara and eyeliner. Do you have any with you?”

  Hannah silently blessed her sister as Luanne opened her makeup kit and gathered up the items that Andrea had mentioned. She knew Andrea didn’t use Pretty Girl makeup, but she bought it anyway to help Luanne. Hannah had done the same, and she had a guest bathroom medicine cabinet filled with unused makeup to prove it. Adding a few more things to the collection wouldn’t break her budget, and Hannah walked over to the table where Luanne had set her makeup case. “I need another lipstick, Luanne.”

  “Where did the last one go?” Luanne asked, giving Hannah a suspicious look. “I’ve never seen you wear it.”

  Hannah knew that Luanne had a strong aversion to anything she regarded as charity, and she apologized to Moishe in absentia for what she was about to say. “My cat knocked it off my bathroom counter and it ended up in the toilet. I fished it out to save myself from a plumbing bill, but I didn’t want to…well…you know.”

  “I’m really glad you didn’t!” Luanne plucked a lipstick from her case. “I have your color right here, Hannah.”

  “Did you do Connie Mac’s makeup yesterday?” Hannah asked, selecting two more items and handing Luanne the money for her purchases.

  “No. I was all ready to come in, but Norman called and told me that she was having her personal beautician do it before she left the inn. I never even got to see her.”

  Hannah bit her tongue to keep from saying, You didn’t miss much.

  “Hannah?” Delores poked her head in the back room. “Could you come here for a minute?”

  Hannah walked over, even though she felt like refusing. It wouldn’t be polite to get into a knock-’em-down, drag-’emout fight with her mother in front of Luanne. “What is it, Mother?”

  “I thought you should know that I changed Tracey’s last speech,” Delores said in a hushed voice. “You were right. I overstepped.”

  Hannah’s mouth fell open in shock. Her mother had never apologized to her before. She knew she should let sleeping dogs lie, but her curiosity got the better of her. “What made you decide to change it, Mother?”

  “Carrie says Norman’s going through a rebellious stage and she thought it might be pushing him too far. The last thing we want to do is upset the applecart.”

  Twin Chocolate Delights

  Preheat oven to 350ºF, rack in the middle position

  1 cup butter (2 sticks—melted)

  2 ½ cups white sugar

  ½ cup cocoa (unsweetened, for baking)

  2 teaspoons baking soda

  1 teaspoon salt

  2 teaspoons vanilla

  4 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork)

  3 cups flour (no need to sift)

  1 cup chopped nuts (optional—your choice of nut)

  2 cups chocolate chips

  Melt butter in a large microwave-safe bowl. Add the sugar and mix. Then add the cocoa, soda, salt, and vanilla and stir until smooth. Add the beaten eggs and stir thoroughly. Mix in the flour, the chopped nuts (if you want to use them), and then the chocolate chips.

  Place rounded teaspoons of dough on a greased cookie sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. (They’ll flatten out as you bake them.)

  Bake at 350ºF for 10 minutes. Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, then remove them to a wire rack to complete cooling.

  Mother loves these cookies. If I bake them when she’s mad at me, she sweetens right up.

  Twin Chocolate Delights cookies should freeze well, but I can’t swear to that—they never last long enough to try it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Do you want to put your coat in a locker?” Andrea asked as they entered the Tri-County Mall.

  “No, we won’t be here that long.” Hannah gazed around her at the throngs of people. “It’s only ten-thirty. What are all these people doing out here so early?”

  “The mall opens at nine and a lot of people make a day of it. What other place could you go to jog in the morning with the family, have lunch at a restaurant, watch a movie at the multiplex, mail your packages at the post office, buy a new book at the bookstore, and get your hair done while your kids play computer games? Malls are wonderful in the winter.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Hannah said.

  “And in the summer they’re just as nice. You can do all the same things in air-conditioned comfort, without ever having to swat at a single mosquito. If they’d put in a school for Tracey and let us sleep in a couple of the display bedrooms at the furniture store, I could live out here and be perfectly happy.”

  “Not me,” Hannah said. “There’s something about a controlled environment that makes me crazy. It’s too much like being in jail.”

  Andrea turned to her in surprise. “Have you ever been there? In jail, I mean?”

  “No, but that could change in a hurry if Mike finds out what we’re doing.”

  Andrea agreed and dropped the subject, leading the way to the escalator. “Connie Mac’s boutique is on the second level, where Greg Canfield’s import store used to be.”

  The two sis
ters rode up to the second level in silence, and when they stepped off, Andrea sighed deeply. “If they haven’t heard about Connie Mac’s murder, you’re going to tell them, not me. You stuck me with telling Alex and I don’t want to do that again.”

  “Relax,” Hannah reassured her. “Unless they’re living in a plastic bubble out here, they’ve heard.”

  The kitchen boutique was in a prime location in the middle of the mall, only a few feet from the escalator. Giant banners in the window proclaimed, “Grand Opening Monday,” and Andrea and Hannah walked closer to peer in the windows.

  “There’s a woman inside stocking the shelves,” Andrea announced, trying the door and turning back to Hannah with a frown, “but the door’s locked.”

  “Knock.”

  “But they’re closed until their grand opening on Monday. It says so right on the sign.”

  “Knock anyway.”

  Andrea raised her hand and knocked softly on the glass door.

  “She can’t hear that. Knock louder.”

  Andrea gave a solid knock on the door, and the woman looked up from her work. Andrea knocked again and the woman walked toward the door, pointing up at the sign.

  “Now what?” Andrea asked. “She’s not going to let us in.”

  “Yes, she will.” Hannah moved up to the door with a friendly smile on her face and motioned for the woman in the smart business suit to come forward. She looked like some sort of corporate executive. Under other circumstances, Hannah would have avoided her like the plague, but she needed information from someone who’d worked for Connie Mac, and this was her best shot.

  “I’m sorry, we’re closed,” the woman said, raising her voice so that they could hear her. “Come back on Monday for our grand opening.”

  “I have a question about the china in the window,” Hannah told her, moving right up to the glass.

  “Just a moment,” the woman answered, turning the lock on the door. She opened it and smiled what Hannah knew was her very best never-lose-a-customer smile.

  “We need to buy a wedding present and we’re looking for a complete dinner service for twelve. We’ll need china, silver, glassware, linens…everything, really.”

  The woman’s smile warmed considerably. “I really shouldn’t do this since we’re not officially open for business, but come in and take a look. I’m Rhea Robinson, and I manage the Connie Mac’s Kitchen Boutique chain.”

  “This is really nice of you.” Hannah matched Rhea’s brilliant smile. “Our best friend’s wedding is next Saturday and we have to find the perfect gift.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find everything you need right here. We have a very extensive selection. I can’t actually sell you anything today, but you could pre-choose and come back on Monday. We’re giving a fifteen-percent discount to our customers on opening day.”

  “That’s perfect,” Hannah said, turning to Andrea. “What do you think of that china in the window?”

  Andrea looked startled for a moment. Then she said, “I think she’d really love it.”

  “How about the glassware?”

  “This is beautiful,” Andrea said, heading over to a table with some cut-glass crystal goblets. “We should get two water pitchers, one for each end of the table.”

  “It’s Baccarat and it’s very expensive,” Rhea warned them.

  “Price is no object,” Andrea told her. “We want to give her the best wedding present that money can buy. How about flatware? You’ll have to advise me. I know next to nothing about silver.”

  Rhea’s eyes began to sparkle, and Hannah knew that she was hooked. Now all Hannah had to do was figure out how to ask questions about Connie Mac.

  “We have some exquisite gold-plated flatware. It was very popular in the forties and it’s come back into fashion. It’s the very top of our line, and to make it even more special, it’s Connie Mac’s original design.”

  This was just the opening she’d been hoping for, and Hannah did her best to look worried. “I just thought of something. We were listening to the radio on the way out here and we heard that Connie Mac was…er…”

  “Deceased?” Rhea supplied the word.

  “That’s right. It’s such a tragedy. And when you mentioned that the gold-plated silverware was her design, that made me worry.”

  “Worry?”

  “Yes. What if our friend wants to buy more pieces, or replace something her staff might break? With Connie Mac dead, these stores could go out of business. We might be better off going to an older, more established place. I’m sure there are others out here at the mall.”

  “No, there aren’t,” Rhea said, stepping closer. “Connie Mac refused to sign a lease in any mall that had competing stores. She wanted to keep her image exclusive, and her boutiques are all one of a kind.”

  “I can understand that,” Andrea agreed. “She was one of a kind. But now that she’s gone, will her boutiques survive?”

  “Of course. We have excellent financing, and our boutiques are very popular. And while it’s true that Connie Mac did some product design, we plan to keep on producing unique products with her name. Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but other than the occasional personal appearance, Connie Mac was never actively involved with the boutiques. It’s a separate division of Connie Mac Enterprises, and her husband has been in charge since the day we opened our first store.”

  “I’m so glad you explained that,” Hannah said with a smile. “You’ll see us back here on Monday, then.”

  After Rhea had escorted them out and locked the door behind them, Andrea turned to Hannah. “What did we learn?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’ll write it all down as soon as we get back out to the truck.”

  “Why don’t you do it right now while it’s still fresh in your mind?” Andrea pointed to a bench under a potted tree. “And while you’re writing, I’ll dash in and look for some shoes to go with the dress I bought last week. It shouldn’t take more than five minutes.”

  “Good try, but no dice,” Hannah said, grabbing her sister’s arm and piloting her to the escalator. Andrea’s five minutes would turn into an hour, and she wanted to get out to the dogsled race to tell Norman that he was a suspect.

  “There’s Norman,” Andrea said, pointing toward the finish line, where three judges were gathered in a tight group.

  “And he’s got his camera.” Hannah grinned as she spotted it hanging around his neck. “I guess he’s hoping for a photo finish.”

  The two sisters crunched across the snowy clearing and made their way toward the finish line. They had to stop several times to exchange greetings with the bystanders they knew, and it was slow going. By the time they had navigated the crowd that surrounded the final quarter mile of the course, they’d learned that there were only five teams entered because Charlie Jessup had been disqualified for sled runners that were too wide, Eleanor Cox had hand-sewn leather booties for her husband’s dogs, Jerry Larson had dropped out only a mile into the race when he’d upended and lost his earmuffs, and Sam Pietre’s sled was sporting a schnapps-bottle holder that he’d designed in his metal shop last night.

  “Go ahead,” Andrea said, spotting Eleanor Cox in the crowd. “I want to ask Eleanor if she really made those booties. You’d better get a move on, though. I can hear the dogs.”

  Hannah could hear the barking in the distance, and she figured the two-legged contestants with their four-legged transportation were about a mile and a half away. “Okay. I’ll pick you up on my way back.”

  The air was crisp and cold, and Hannah shivered slightly as she ducked under the rope at the side of the course and stepped knee-deep in a snowdrift. She’d have to change jeans, but that wouldn’t be a problem. She always kept a change of clothes in the back of her cookie truck.

  A wooden platform six feet high had been built at the side of the finish line. Two of the three judges had climbed to the top with binoculars, but Norman was underneath with his camera.

  “Norman?” Hannah called out as sh
e approached.

  Norman turned and a smile spread over his face. Hannah couldn’t see it under the ski mask that covered his face, but she could tell he was smiling by the way his eyes crinkled when he spotted her.

  “Hi, Hannah. Did you come to see the race?”

  “No, I came to see you.”

  “You did?”

  Norman’s eyes crinkled even more, and Hannah hated to disillusion him. On the other hand, he had to be told. “I came to warn you that you’re a suspect in the murder case.”

  “What?”

  Now Norman’s eyes were big and startled, and Hannah mentally kicked herself. She’d given him the news with all the subtlety of a bulldozer. “Sorry, Norman. I should have said that better. Bill doesn’t suspect you. It’s just Mike.”

  “Oh,” Norman said, and his eyes looked normal again. “I guess I shouldn’t have lipped off to him this morning. Okay, Hannah. Thanks for coming all the way out here to tell me.”

  “Then you’re not worried?”

  “Not really. Once Mike cools off and thinks about it, he’ll know I didn’t do it.”

  “Maybe,” Hannah said, trying not to sound too doubtful, “but I think you’d better come up with an alibi. Let’s sit together at the banquet tonight and talk about it.”

  “I’d like that, but I’m not going to the banquet. I have to develop the portraits I’m taking this afternoon and I won’t have time. Could we get together later?”

  “Sure. I should be home by ten. Why don’t you come by my place and I’ll buy you a cookie?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll be there.”

  Norman’s eyes crinkled again and Hannah was glad. At least he wasn’t too worried to smile.

  “Are you going to stick around for the finish? They should be here soon.”

  “Sure. I’ll make a dash for the sidelines.”

  “Stay with me and you can have a dog’s-eye view. I’m going to be here under the platform. Get on my other side, just in case one of the mushers runs off course.”