Chapter Twenty-seven
“I
’m so glad we’re baking!” Hannah said to Michelle as they gathered the ingredients for a sugar cookie dough. “I didn’t realize how depressed and frustrated I was about Judge Colfax’s murder case. All I could think about was how I was getting nowhere fast.”
“It’s not just the murder case,” Michelle told her, bringing several pounds of salted butter to the work station.
“What do you mean?” Hannah set the sugar and flour canisters on the stainless steel surface.
“I came back in from the coffee shop when you were hugging Norman. Are you having second thoughts about Ross?”
“No! I just don’t want to lose Norman’s friendship, that’s all. You know how I feel about him. We’re . . .” Hannah stopped in mid-sentence and sighed. “I’m not sure how to describe it.”
“Completely compatible? Soul mates? Joined at the hip? Cut from the same cloth?”
“Yes. All of the above. I can’t bear the thought of losing him.”
“How about Ross?” Michelle ducked back into the walk-in cooler to get the eggs and brought them to the work table. “Can you bear the thought of losing Ross?”
“No!”
“Then you’ve got a problem that has nothing to do with Judge Colfax’s murder case.”
“I know. Let’s bake. I’m getting stressed again just talking about it.”
“Sounds to me like you’re in a real emotional jam,” Michelle told her. “And that’s what we should call these cookies.”
“Emotional jam?”
“No, Hot Jam Cookies. That way the name won’t give them away. They could be hot from the oven, not hot from hot peppers.”
“But the name doesn’t work. We’re not using jam. We’re making these cookies with jelly.”
“Picky, picky,” Michelle said with a grin. “Jelly? Jam? What’s the difference?”
“Jelly is made from clear fruit juice. And jam is made from pureed fruit. They look entirely different.”
“Okay, let’s call them Hot Jelly Cookies. But that doesn’t sound as good as Hot Jam Cookies.”
Hannah thought about that for a moment. “You’re right,” she admitted. “Hot Jam Cookie it is. Let’s taste the jelly and see just how spicy it is. That way we’ll know how much to use.”
“You first.”
Hannah laughed. “Okay. I’ll taste the green and you can taste the red.”
“Oh, sure! I might have known it. You’re giving me the hotter one.” Michelle smiled to show she was teasing. “Let’s taste and then let’s switch. We should know what both jellies taste like.”
“Deal.”
The two sisters tasted their respective jellies. “What did you think of yours?” Michelle asked.
“The green’s really tasty and it has a little kick, but not all that much,” Hannah answered. “I like it. How about the red?”
“It’s hot, but not too hot. I like it, too.”
“Take a sip of coffee to clear your palate and then let’s switch,” Hannah said. “I want to make sure they’re both good enough to use in the cookies.”
“Good idea,” Michelle replied, handing her a clean spoon.
Both sisters sipped coffee for several moments. Then they switched jars, and tasted again.
“I think they’re both perfect,” Michelle said. “All you have to do is tell your customers which is which and they can choose how much heat they’d like.”
“I agree. Let’s mix up the cookie dough and try them. I want to see what effect baking has on the jellies.”
They worked in companionable silence until Hannah heard the faint strains of the “Wedding March.” At first she thought she was imagining things, but then she realized it was coming from Michelle’s purse. “Your purse is playing the ‘Wedding March.’ ”
“My
phone
is playing music,” Michelle corrected her. “It’s a text from Mother. That’s her text ring tone.”
“Don’t even think about asking Tracey to set that up for me!” Hannah warned her.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. You’ve got enough problems of your own when it comes to the subject of weddings.” Michelle wiped her hands and went off to get her purse. She glanced at the screen and said, “It’s a long one. Mother must be feeling chatty. I’ll read it to you.”
“Great.” Hannah covered the cookie dough with plastic wrap and put it in the coldest spot in the walk-in cooler to chill. Then she came back, poured fresh coffee for both of them and sat down to hear the message.
“I’ve never had so much fun in my life!” Michelle said.
“Making cookie dough?” Hannah asked her.
“No. I’m reading Mother’s message to you.”
“Oh. Go ahead.”
“I’ve never had so much fun in my life!”
Michelle repeated.
“Doc and I went to the Empress Hotel for high tea! It’s in Victoria, British Columbia, and that’s a port of call on the trip back from Alaska. It was just wonderful and Doc doesn’t even like tea! They brought out a round silver serving platter with five tiers. It was filled with delicious tiny sandwiches on bread with no crusts, crumpets, scones with clotted cream, biscuits—that’s what the English call cookies, you know—and petite bites of cakes and desserts with creams and fruit. The smallest, top tier had four absolutely amazing chocolate truffles. That’s not exactly a tradition for high tea, but neither Doc nor I minded once we’d tasted them. They were from a chocolate shop just down the street and I’m bringing you girls some. Don’t tell Hannah, but I’m worried about . . .
Uh-oh!”
Hannah frowned. “Mother’s worried about uh-oh?”
“The uh-oh! was mine. I wasn’t supposed to read you any of the next part.”
“You can’t leave me hanging like that. You started it. Now finish reading it.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“So what? I want to know what Mother doesn’t want me to know.”
Michelle covered her face with her hands. “That was really convoluted,” she said in a voice that was muffled by her fingers.
“You know what I mean. Now read it.”
Michelle sighed deeply and looked down at her phone again. “All right. If you insist.”
“I insist.”
“Don’t tell Hannah, but I’m worried about her reaction to Ross. I know she knew him in college, but I’ve never seen her so starry-eyed before, not even when she was dating that horrid English professor who duped her into thinking he was an available suitor when he was nothing but a cad and a bounder.”
Hannah laughed. She couldn’t help it. “An available suitor? A cad and a bounder? I think high tea in British Columbia affected Mother more than she realizes.”
“And how!” Michelle laughed right along with Hannah. “Do you want me to finish reading Mother’s text or shall we just forget about it?”
“Let’s hear the rest.”
“Okay.” Michelle picked up her phone again.
“Let us hope that Ross does get the job at KCOW. Then Hannah will have time to judge whether her affections for him are real or simply a reaction to her boring, single life.”
Hannah didn’t say anything at first. She just thought about what her mother had written. Then she shrugged. “I don’t think my single life is boring, but Mother’s got a point. Las Vegas was a romantic fantasy. A man from my past that I’d always wanted to date showed up unexpectedly and swept me off my feet in an exciting interlude away from my ordinary life.”
“Was that
all
it was?” Michelle asked, and Hannah thought she sounded a bit disappointed.
“I don’t think that’s the case at all, but I can see why Mother might think so.”
“She’s interfering in your life again, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but only because she loves me and wants the best for me.”
Michelle looked thoughtful. “I guess that mitigates it a little, but I know that I wouldn’t like it.”
“Of course not. I don’t like it either. I understand it, though.”
“You’re a bigger woman than I am!”
“Oh, I know that,” Hannah said with a perfectly deadpan expression. “I haven’t been a size three since I was two years old!”
Hannah had just taken the Hot Jam Cookies from the oven when there was a knock on the back door. “That’ll be Mike.”
“How do you know?”
“I made Hot Jam Cookies for him. That means there’s food involved. Need I say more?”
“Probably not,” Michelle said and went to open the back door. “Hi, Mike.”
“Hi, Michelle. Is Hannah here? I need to talk to her.”
“Of course,” Hannah called out. “Come in, Mike. I’ll pour a cup of coffee for you.”
“Something sure smells good,” Mike said, taking his usual place on a stool at the stainless steel work island.
“Hot Jam Cookies,” Hannah told him. “If you wait three or four minutes, you can taste them for me.”
“I’ve got time. I need to talk to you anyway. Are you busy right now?”
“Not at the moment.” Hannah poured a glass of juice for herself and sat down across from Mike.
“So,” Mike said, “I understand you went to see Mrs. Colfax.”
Hannah tried to read his expression. He didn’t really look that angry. “Yes, I did,” she admitted. “Michelle and I went to pay a condolence call. Michelle baked Strawberry Muffins and we took some to Nora.”
“And Seth Colfax. I checked in on him this morning and he said he’d talked to you and Michelle at the Eight Ball Bar. Really, Hannah!”
“What are you so upset about? The fact that I’m meddling? Or the fact that Michelle and I went to the Eight Ball Bar?”
Mike stared at her for a long minute. “I’m not sure which one’s the worst.”
It was time to take the bull by the horns, but it might help to sweeten that hunk of beef up first. Hannah got up. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” Hannah headed straight for the baker’s rack where she picked up two cookies for Mike.
“Try these,” she said, carrying them back to him. “The green is mild pepper jelly. The red is hot pepper jelly.”
“Pepper jellies?” Mike said, biting into the green one. “Wow! That’s really good.”
“That’s the mild one. Let me know what you think when you get to the hot one.”
Mike picked up the other cookie and took a bite. “Oh, yeah!
Really
good!”
“Do you think the red jelly is too hot for ordinary people?”
“No. I know about twenty guys that’d love it. Can I have a couple more, Hannah?”
Hannah got more cookies and then she handed him something else, a piece of information he might not have. It was time to trade it for something he had that she didn’t have. “I went to see Margaret George. And Michelle checked out her daughter, Sara.”
“Who are Margaret and Sara George?”
“Judge Colfax’s mistress and the daughter he fathered by her. Michelle and I interviewed the mother this morning.”
“How did you find them?”
Hannah hesitated. She didn’t want to get Dave Johansen in trouble. “I don’t exactly remember. Does it matter?”
Mike thought about that as he ate another cookie. “Not really, as long as you cleared them. And you didn’t go to see Chad Norton?”
“Uh . . .” Hannah thought fast. “No, I didn’t.”
“Then how did you clear him?”
Hannah hemmed and hawed for a moment and then she noticed that Mike was laughing. “What?”
“I know how you cleared him. I just wanted to put you on the hot seat for a minute. I know you cleared him. You saw the phone records.”
“How do you know
that
?”
“Because I made
sure
you saw those phone records. I gave them to Bill and told him to put them in his briefcase to take home.”
“But . . .” Hannah stopped speaking as the full implication of what Mike had just told her sunk in. “You
knew
Andrea would find them and copy them for me?”
“Sure, I knew. She always does.”
“But if you knew what was going to happen, why didn’t you just give them to me in the first place?”
“I couldn’t. I told you before, cops have rules. I couldn’t deliberately break them, but I figured out a way around them.”
“And you’re not hiding anything from me?”
Mike shook his head. “No, I’m not. I’m stuck on this one. And there’s a lot of pressure on me to solve it fast. You’re not hiding any leads from me, are you?”
“No. I don’t have any other leads.”
“So we’re both stuck.”
Hannah sighed and nodded. “We’re both stuck, Mike.”
“Okay. If you think of anything, will you call me? Or text me? Tracey told me she taught you how to text.”
“I will. Can I count on the same consideration from you?”
“You can. You’re good at this, Hannah. You’re better than anyone else in my department. I don’t really want to admit this, but you might even be better than me.”
“Never,” Hannah said. “You’re the best. Don’t you remember all the advice and the books you gave me? What I learned, I learned from you.”
“I wish you’d learn one more thing from me, Hannah.”
“What’s that?”
“I wish you’d learn how much I love you,” Mike said. And then he turned and walked out the door.