“I did and you’re right. They both contained red wine, but the one that was empty had been wiped clean of fingerprints. There’s no way to prove who used that glass.”
Hannah smiled. She now knew that there had been no fingerprints on the empty glass, and that meant it had belonged to the killer. “There’s something else, too. Heiti lives about a mile from Aunt Nancy’s house and he ran out of gas on his way home. He left his car by the side of the road and walked the rest of the way to his apartment. The next morning, his neighbor gave him a ride to the Quick Stop, where he bought a gas can. The neighbor took him back to his car and waited until Heiti poured in the gas and got it started. Then Heiti drove straight to the Quick Stop and filled his gas tank all the way.”
“Did you simply take his word for that?”
“No, of course not. I checked with Ron and Sean. They said Heiti bought a gas can and when he drove back to the Quick Stop, his car took a full tank of gas.”
“All that’s good, Hannah, but he could have run out of gas on his way home from killing Chef Duquesne.”
“Heiti didn’t go out to the inn. Or if he was lying and he did drive out there and run out of gas on his way back, he still couldn’t have killed Chef Duquesne.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because Heiti didn’t go inside the inn. I called Dick to check. Dick went over the security tape and no one came in after Aunt Nancy left. There was no activity at all at the front entrance until Michelle and I came in for our practice time in the kitchen this morning.”
“Okay. You did everything right, Hannah.”
“Thank you. So you’re not going to talk to Heiti?”
“I didn’t say that. I’m definitely going to talk to Heiti.”
“But why?”
Mike smiled the devilish smile that always made Hannah feel slightly weak in the knees. “Didn’t you say that Heiti built custom bookcases for Aunt Nancy?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”
“I need a carpenter to build a bookcase in my office at the station.”
ANGEL CRUNCH COOKIES
Preheat oven to 275 degrees F., rack in the middle position
(That’s two hundred seventy-five degrees F.)
3 egg whites (save the yolks in the refrigerator to add to scrambled eggs)
? teaspoon cream of tartar
? teaspoon vanilla extract
? teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
2 Tablespoons flour (that’s cup)
? cup finely chopped pecans (measure AFTER chopping)
3 to 4 dozen candied pecan halves OR 3 to 4 dozen Maraschino cherry halves to place on top of your cookies before baking.
Before you do anything else, separate the egg whites from the yolks. Place the egg whites in the bowl of your mixer so that they will warm to room temperature. Egg whites at room temperature yield more volume and whip easier than cold egg whites.
Place the egg yolks in a Tupperware container with a cover. Store the yolks in the refrigerator to add to your scrambled eggs the next morning. (My mother always said that there’s nothing like a little extra protein for breakfast to give you a head start to the day. I once tried to convince her that cookies had extra protein, but it didn’t work.)
Hannah’s 1st Note: I always use a stand mixer when I make these cookies. It’s a lot easier than whisking egg whites by hand in a copper bowl.
Prepare your baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper (works best) or brown parcel-wrapping paper (also works, but parchment is preferable). Spray the paper with Pam or another non-stick cooking spray and dust it lightly with flour. You can also use baking spray, which is cooking spray mixed with flour.
Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar, vanilla, and salt until they are stiff enough to hold a soft peak. Add the cup of brown sugar gradually, sprinkling it in with your impeccably clean fingers by quarter cups and beating hard for ten seconds or so after each sprinkling.
Take the bowl out of the mixer.
Mix the flour with the ground nuts. Sprinkle them on top of the whipped egg whites and fold them in with a rubber spatula, keeping as much air in the mixture as you possibly can.
Drop mounds of dough by heaping Tablespoons onto your prepared cookie sheets. If you place 4 mounds in a row and you have 4 rows, you’ll end up with 16 cookies per sheet. These cookies do not spread out very much as they bake.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: I use a Tablespoon from my silverware drawer to drop the mounds on the baking sheets. A cookie scooper doesn’t work very well for this.
Place one candied pecan or a half Maraschino cherry (rounded side up) in the center of each mound. Push the pecan halves or half cherries down a bit, but leave them clearly visible.
Bake your Angel Crunch Cookies at 275 degrees F. for approximately 40 minutes, or until the meringue part of the cookie is slightly golden and dry to the touch.