Hannah was back in the kitchen adding what she’d learned to her murder book when Lisa came in. “Your mother’s here,” she announced.
“Great. Would you ask her to come back and have coffee with me? I’ve got something I’d like to discuss with her.”
By the time she’d poured two cups of coffee and set out a few Chocolate Raspberry Truffles for her mother to sample, Delores came in through the swinging door from the coffee shop. “Hello, dear,” she said in a cheery voice.
“Hello, Mother. You look as if you got a little rest.”
“I did. Luanne saw how tired I was and she sent me home to take a nap.”
“And you managed to get some sleep,” Hannah said, noticing that the dark smudges under her mother’s eyes were no longer visible.
“I slept for over two hours, dear. Now that I know why Carrie’s so secretive, I don’t have to worry. I know you and Norman will make sure he’s the right sort of man for her. I do wonder who it is, though.”
“So do I,” Hannah confessed.
“Before I forget, here’s something Luanne sent over for you,” Delores set a large envelope on the stainless steel surface of the workstation. “She said to tell you that she made copies of all the papers Courtney gave her because that’s what Miss Whiting taught them to do in accounting class. Luanne thought the papers might be useful in light of Larry’s death.”
“Great. It’s possible they will be. The more information I have about Larry and his business, the better. Thank Luanne for me, will you please?”
“Certainly.”
Hannah pushed the small dish of truffles closer so her mother could take one. “Try one of these truffles, Mother.”
Delores complied and took a dainty bite. One bite was all it took for her to finish the first and reach for a second. “The combination of raspberry and chocolate is divine, dear.”
“I’ll tell Lisa you like them. She goes to a candy exchange every year and Amy Kocias brought these. Lisa liked them so much, she asked for the recipe.”
“I’d like to take two or three with me if that’s all right, dear. Carrie and Luanne are handling Granny’s Attic for the afternoon and I need to go out to the Tri-County Mall for a bit of last-minute Christmas shopping.”
“You do?” Hannah was surprised at that news. Her mother always shopped the January sales for her Christmas presents. Because of her urging, Hannah had tried it once, but she’d placed the presents she’d purchased eleven months early in a nice, safe place and she still hadn’t found them!
“I’m getting an extra present for Michelle. She mentioned that she had to have her boots re-soled and I thought I’d buy her another pair…perhaps something a bit more feminine than the pair she’s wearing now.”
Hannah wisely held her tongue. If she argued with her mother about Michelle’s right to wear the boots she liked, Delores might focus on Hannah’s old moose-hide boots and decide her elder daughter also needed a new, more feminine pair.
“That shouldn’t take me more than an hour,” Delores continued. “And then I’m free for the rest of the afternoon. Is there any way I can help you in your investigation?”
“I’m sure there’s something,” Hannah told her, paging through her steno pad. “How about talking to Dr. Love about a possible alibi again?”
“I’d be glad to do that, but Nancy already told us she was home alone grading term papers.”
“She could still have an alibi. How about phone calls? Did she make or receive any? Did she see anyone walking by on the sidewalk between nine and nine forty-five? Does she remember a noisy truck driving past during that time period? How about a siren she heard on her street? Any of those things could prove she was home and not at the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot.”
“Very good, dear! I’ll ask all those questions and see if we can place her firmly at home and not at the murder scene.”
“That’s exactly right, Mother. Good for you! You caught on to the concept right away.”
Delores looked pleased at Hannah’s praise. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Hannah glanced down at her book again. “There is one more thing.”
“Anything, dear. I wouldn’t mind doing some undercover work again. I had so much fun the last time!”
“I think you could call this undercover,” Hannah said, attempting to think of a way to put a covert spin on what she was about to ask her mother to do. “I need you to question Earl Flensburg.”
“Earl? You don’t think he’s a suspect, do you?”
“He’s here on my suspect list.” Hannah tapped her notebook.
“But why?”
“When Mike and I were riding on Santa’s Magic Sleigh the night before Larry was killed, I saw someone who looked just like Earl going into Larry’s trailer with a briefcase. And when Larry talked to us earlier, he said he had a business meeting in a few minutes.”
“Earl? Going to a business meeting with a briefcase?” Delores looked as if she couldn’t believe what Hannah had just told her. “I can’t picture Earl at a business meeting, not unless one of the executives needed a car towed. And the only thing I’ve ever seen Earl carry with him is his lunch. It must have been someone else, dear…someone that merely looked like Earl.”
“Maybe. It’s something we have to check out. I thought because you went to school with Earl, you might be able to coax more information out of him than I could. I want you to be an investigator going undercover as an old friend.”
“Oh! Well…that’s intriguing, dear. I’m sure I could do it. Exactly what do you want to know?”
Hannah ticked off her concerns on her fingers. “I need to know if the man I saw that night was Earl. And if it was, I need to find out if Earl was one of Larry’s investors. If Earl says he wasn’t anywhere near the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot, ask him about any lookalike cousins that live around here.”
“Lookalike cousins,” Delores sounded excited at the prospect of identifying Flensburg progeny that resembled Earl. “That’s an excellent suggestion, dear. Earl’s father was a twin, and if I’m not mistaken, he married Earl’s mother’s sister. If they had children and they’re still in the area, they could resemble Earl.”
“So you’ll ask him?”
“Yes, indeed.” Delores thought for a moment. “I think I’ll ask Earl where he was at the time of the murder.”
“You think Earl killed Larry?” Hannah was shocked. Earl Flensburg was one of her mother’s oldest friends.
“Of course not, but we should alibi him anyway.”
“That’s true.”
“It should be easy for me to find out. Earl never could lie to me. When I asked him if he drew that awful picture of our sixth grade teacher on the blackboard, he admitted that he was the guilty party.”
“Did you tell on him?” Hannah asked, not even noticing that she’d slipped back to grade school vernacular.
“Of course not! I didn’t tell a soul.”
“Because Earl’s friendship was important to you?”
“Yes, but not entirely. To tell the truth, I couldn’t stand our sixth grade teacher either.”
CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY TRUFFLES
Hannah’s Note: Amy told Lisa that this recipe’s so easy, she almost hates to call it a recipe. But everyone just adores these truffles. Lisa told me she’s going to try it with white chocolate and raspberry, or maybe white chocolate and peach, or white chocolate and some other jam or jelly. Since it’s white chocolate, she’ll roll her truffles in powdered sugar rather than cocoa.
6 ounces (1 cup) semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 Tablespoons (? cup) seedless raspberry jam
Cocoa powder to coat truffles
In the top part of a double boiler over simmering water, melt the cup of chocolate chips with the raspberry jam. Stir occasionally. Heat until the mixture is of a fudge-like consistency, similar to the inside of a chocolate truffle.
Let the mixture cool on a cold burner and then shape it into truffle-sized balls with your fingers. It’s best to roll them fairly small because they are VERY rich.
Roll the balls in cocoa powder and store them in a covered container in the refrigerator.
These Chocolate Raspberry Truffles are best served at room temperature. Take them out of the refrigerator thirty minutes before you plan to serve them.
Yield: 18 sinfully delicious truffles, depending on the size you roll them.
Hannah’s Note: Lisa and I tried refrigerating the truffles without rolling them in cocoa. We melted some chocolate, pierced the cold truffles with a food pick, dipped them quickly in melted chocolate and then placed them on waxed paper to harden. They were fantastic! Lisa also suggested a couple of alternatives including rolling the truffles in shredded coconut, or in finely chopped nuts.
Chapter Twenty-One
“B usy?” Hannah asked, as Lisa came through the swinging door with a display cookie jar in her hand and headed for the baker’s rack to fill it.
“And how! Andrea’s out there covering for me while I get more cookies. I’ll send her back here in a couple of minutes.”
“Great.” Hannah sliced the apples she’d peeled and spread them out in the bottom of a cake pan she’d sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
“What are you making?” Lisa asked her, filling another cookie jar from the extras lined up on the counter next to the baker’s rack.
“Dixie Lee’s German Apple Cake.”
“I love that cake! It smells so good while it’s baking.”
“I know. After that, I’m going to mix up more cookies. What questions are people asking about the murder?”
“Mostly they want to know about the holes in the flat screen,” Lisa said, giving a little shrug. “I guess there’s something universal about wanting to shoot a television set. And they love your description of how it looked when Norman opened the door to the trailer.”
“How did it look?” Hannah asked. She’d given Lisa a brief description and counted on her partner’s imagination to do the rest.
“It was like the Northern Lights inside the room, that faint kind of glow you see when it’s overcast and there’s something bright glowing and flashing, hidden under the clouds. It was eerie. You weren’t sure if you should enter the trailer or not. And then there was the announcer’s disembodied voice, calling out a play-by-play description of a basketball game with no image there.”
“So what did I do?” Hannah was fascinated. Lisa really had a way with words.
“You took a step inside and just stared at the ragged holes in the mammoth, expensive flat screen. You couldn’t stop staring as the sportscaster went on and on about the Knicks’ chances now that they were finally on a roll. Your eyes dropped to the coffee table and you noticed the nearly-empty brandy bottle. For a brief moment you wondered whether Larry had thrown his glass at the screen, but you decided that a glass hurled as hard as a man could throw couldn’t leave a jagged hole like that. And there were three holes, glowing, flashing, occasionally sparking like fireflies. Should you and Norman look for the remote to shut it off? Or should you take the chance that the whole trailer might go up in flames from twisted wires, smoking circuitry, and sparking resistors?”
“What did I decide?” Hannah asked.
“You didn’t get the opportunity to decide. As you turned to pose the question to Norman, you saw a huddled figure on the floor, a man curled into semi-fetal position. His hands were splayed out as if he were trying to ward off the devil himself, and a glossy puddle of his lifeblood had gathered around him.”
“Yuck!”
“Oh, I know. But they love it, Hannah.”
“I’m sure they do. Go on, Lisa.”
“At first all you could do was hold out one quaking hand. Tremors shook your whole body as you gestured toward the unmoving form you hoped and prayed was merely an apparition. Then, after you’d swallowed several times to ease your parched throat, you managed to croak out one word.”
“Which was?”
“Look! you uttered, your voice trembling like a stalk of grain in a tornado. And then you took a deep bracing breath and uttered two more words. There! Look!”
“Bravo!” Hannah clapped her hands together. “You’re really good at this, Lisa. I think the Lake Eden Players have dropped the ball by not snagging you as their leading lady.”
“Thanks,” Lisa said, blushing. “I’d better get back and let Andrea come in. She says she has news for you.”
Hannah had no sooner covered the apple slices with the batter she’d mixed up earlier and slipped the pan into the oven than Andrea fairly flew through the door.
“Oh, boy!” she said pouring herself a cup of coffee before Hannah could do it. “It’s a zoo out there!”
“Lots of questions about the crime scene?”
“Yes, but they don’t dare talk to me about it, being that I’m the sheriff’s wife and all. The only question anyone asked me was when Lisa was coming back.”
“Lisa’s got quite a story to tell,” Hannah said, pouring her own coffee and taking a seat at the workstation across from her sister.
“That’s what everyone said. Bertie pulled me aside and told me it was simply hair-raising.”
“Hair-raising is something she’s qualified to talk about,” Hannah said with a laugh, referring to the fact that Bertie Straub owned the local beauty parlor, the Cut ’n Curl.
“What do you have to eat?” Andrea asked. “I didn’t have time for lunch.”
“I could make you a sandwich. There’s tuna in the pantry.”
“No, thanks. I’m really in the mood for something sweet.”
“Then help yourself to anything on the baker’s rack. I’d offer you some apple cake, but it won’t come out of the oven for almost an hour, and it has to cool before I frost it.”
“Cookies will be fine.” Andrea walked over to take a look and gave a little sigh of contentment. “Lisa’s Pieces,” she said taking one of the macadamia nut, white chocolate chip cookies. “They’re just about my favorite. And here’s my Pecan Divines. I just love those. And Blueberry Crunch. Those are so good! And just look at these beautiful Cherry Winks with red and green cherries. They’re so nice and Christmassy. I think I’ll have a red one and if I’m still hungry, I’ll come back for a green one.”
Hannah just shook her head as Andrea loaded four cookies on a napkin and carried it to the workstation. Her sister had a perfect figure, but if she kept this up, she’d be eating nothing but salads with low-cal dressing before long. “Did you find out anything for me?” she asked once Andrea had finished her first cookie.
“Yes.” Andrea took a sip of coffee and drew a piece of paper from her pocket. “I wrote it down so I could give you the exact words. I asked Doug about investing and whether there were any records of the people who’d invested in Larry’s business. He said, Larry probably kept records. There should be contracts between the investors and Larry, but I don’t believe it’s necessary to file any legal papers.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. “How about Al? Did you get a chance to talk to him?”
Andrea nodded. “Al said, If they didn’t have a signed contract with Larry, they’re dumber than dumb. And when I asked him if he’d invested with Larry he said, Are you kidding? And then he laughed like crazy.”
“Anything else?” Hannah gave a little sigh.
“Yes. I called Howie Levine and asked him if you had to fill out any paperwork to invest in a private corporation. He said no, but you’d be an idiot if you didn’t get a signed contract clearly stating all the terms.”
“Did he mention whether anyone in town had hired him to draw up such a contract?”
“I asked him that and he told me that information like that was confidential.”
Hannah rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “That sounds like Howie.”
“I know. So I asked him a couple of other legal questions to throw him off the track and then I went in the backdoor.”
“How did you do that?”
“That’s not important. What’s important is that Howie drew up contracts for two businessmen in Lake Eden. One was Mayor Bascomb, but we already knew about him. And the other was Jon Walker.”
Hannah flipped open her notebook and reached for her pen. She was about to add the owner of Lake Eden Neighborhood Pharmacy to her suspect list when she remembered who’d been in the last private booth at the Inn last night when she’d passed by with Norman.
“Aren’t you going to write him down?” Andrea asked her.
“No. Jon and his wife were at the Lake Eden Inn for dinner last night and they were just being served their entrees when Norman and I left.”
“Oh, drat!” Andrea looked very disappointed. “I thought we had another live one.”
“Another live one?”
“Yes! I forgot to tell you. Right before I left the office, Mayor Bascomb came in to see Al. I already knew he’d signed a private contract with Larry when he invested in the Crazy Elf, so I asked him whether he’d visited Stephanie last night and how she was doing in the hospital.”
“Smart,” Hannah said.
“He said Stephanie’s still there and he stayed with her until visiting hours were over. And I promised to go see her tonight and take her something.” Andrea turned and stared at the baker’s rack.
It didn’t take a particle physicist to understand Andrea’s gesture. “I’ll pack up some cookies for you,” Hannah said.
“Anyway, I called the hospital to check on visiting hours and I found out that everyone has to leave at nine. It’s only about ten minutes from the hospital to the park, and that means Mayor Bascomb might not have an alibi for the time of Larry’s murder.”
“Bingo,” Hannah said, flipping to the suspect page again and putting a star by Mayor Bascomb’s name. “I’ll send Mother to see him. She’s fearless.”
“Good! If anybody can intimidate Mayor Bascomb, it’s Mother.” Andrea picked up her last cookie and by the expression on her sister’s face, Hannah knew that if there were a little gauge from Andrea’s mouth down to her stomach, it would be full to the brim. “Can I take this one with me?” she asked.
“Of course. Let me go pack up those cookies for Stephanie.”
Andrea nibbled at her one remaining cookie as Hannah packed a dozen of Lake Eden’s first lady’s favorite Carrot Cake Cookies. By the time she turned back to her sister, the Cherry Wink had disappeared and Andrea was blotting her lips with the napkin.
“I couldn’t help it. They’re so good,” Andrea said by way of explanation. “I’m showing a house at four, but I’m free until then. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
Hannah was about to shake her head when she thought of a bit of legwork that Andrea could do quite easily. She pulled out one of the papers that Luanne sent with Delores and referred to it again. “How about dropping by to see Jessica Murphy?”
“She’s not a suspect, is she?”
“No. I just need to know what Larry paid her for those crocheted animals she makes. And I also need to know if he asked Jessica to sign any blank receipts.”
“I can do that. I need to talk to Jessica anyway about finding a bigger place now that they have two children. That house is going to be too small for them really soon now. Anything else I can do?”
Hannah glanced down at the sheet again. “Larry got his Christmas trees from Winnie Henderson’s farm. I need to ask her what he paid and whether she signed any blank receipts.”
“You got it,” Andrea got up from her stool, took the box of cookies Hannah handed her, and headed for the door. “Don’t worry. I won’t eat these cookies. I know they’re really good, but I’ve finally had enough.”