Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(37)

Jenny clasped her hands together tightly as she nodded.

“Yes, it’s for Anna. She’s five now. But I never told anyone here in Lake Eden. How did you know?”

“Carrie thought you were pregnant when you left, but she wasn’t sure. Is Wayne her father?”

“Yes.”

“Did he know?”

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Joanne Fluke

Jenny’s face turned pale. “I was going to tell him this morning. He … He’s the reason I came back here.”

The story came out in bits and pieces, interspersed with fresh tears, but Hannah managed to put it all together. Wayne had called Jenny in Florida and asked her to come back to Lake Eden. He told her that he’d made a terrible mistake when he’d left her for Melinda and he begged for her forgiveness.

“He said he wanted to get back together.” Jenny stopped to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief that had been drier at the start of their conversation. “And he said he’d already told Melinda. We were supposed to meet this morning for breakfast and work out the details.”

“And that’s when you were going to tell him about Anna?” Andrea asked her.

“Yes. I didn’t want to do it on the phone. I wanted to see his face, judge his reaction, make sure he really wanted his daughter.”

She wanted Wayne alive, not dead, Hannah thought. But the lack of discernable motive didn’t completely clear her.

“I didn’t tell the police everything I did,” Jenny admitted, looking more than a little embarrassed. “I guess I was afraid that handsome detective would think I was acting like a teenager with her first crush.”

“Why? What did you do?” Hannah asked, giving her an encouraging smile.

“Wayne and I had a signal when we were in high school.

He lived on the next block and when he walked by my window and I was home, I used to open it and coo like a mourning dove. It was my way of saying, ‘ I love you.’ He’d whistle back like a whippoorwill and that was his way of saying, ‘ I love you, too.’”

“That’s sweet,” Andrea said.

Sweet, but silly, Hannah thought, but of course she didn’t say it. Instead, she asked, “Did you coo at Wayne when he walked past your window?”

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“No. I was all ready to do it, but he never walked past.”

“Is it possible you missed him?” Andrea asked her.

“No. I sat right there waiting. I was really excited to see him again, even if it was just through a window. I kept looking for Wayne right up until I saw all the flashing lights when the deputies drove up in front.”

! % { # 9

ANGEL PILLOWS

Preheat oven to 275 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

(Not a misprint—that’s two

hundred seventy-five degrees F.)

Hannah’s 1st Note: Don’t even THINK about making these if it’s raining. Meringue does best on very dry days.

3 egg whites (save the yolks to add to scrambled eggs)

1?4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1?2 teaspoon vanilla

1?4 teaspoon salt

1 cup white (granulated) sugar

2 Tablespoons flour (that’s 1?8 cup) 1 cup chocolate chips (6-ounce package—I used Ghirardelli’s)

1?2 cup chopped nuts (I used pecans) Separate the egg whites and let them come up to room temperature. This will give you more volume when you beat them.

Prepare your baking sheets by lining them with parchment paper (works best) or brown parcel-wrapping paper.

Spray the paper with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray and dust it lightly with flour.

Hannah’s 2nd Note: You can do this by hand, but it’s a lot easier with an electric mixer.

! % { # 9

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! % { # 9

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 sugar gradually, sprinkling it in by quarter cups and beating hard for ten seconds or so after each sprinkling.

Sprinkle in the flour and mix it in at low speed, or fold it in with an angel food cake whisk.

Gently fold in the chocolate chips and the chopped nuts with a rubber spatula.

Drop little mounds of dough on your paper-lined cookie sheet. If you place four mounds in a row and you have five rows, you’ll end up with 20 cookies per sheet.

Bake at 275 degrees F. for approximately 40 (forty) minutes, or until the meringue part of the cookie is hard to the touch.

Cool on the paper-lined cookie sheet by setting it on a wire rack. When the cookies are completely cool, peel them carefully from the paper and store them in an airtight container in a dry place.

Hannah’s 3rd Note: The refrigerator is NOT a dry place!

Yield: 3 to 4 dozen melt-in-your-mouth cookies.

! % { # 9

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Chapter


! Eleven #

“Sorry I’m so late tonight, Moishe,” Hannah apologized to her furry roommate as she spooned some vanilla yogurt into one of the antique cut glass dessert dishes that Delores had given her several Christmases ago. It had been seventhirty by the time she’d dropped Andrea off at her house and driven home. Of course she’d fed Moishe right away, and now it was time for a little dessert.

“Go ahead and eat,” Hannah told him carrying the dish out to the coffee table and setting it down. “I’ll have mine later. I need to make a few notes while the conversation with Jenny is still fresh in my mind.”