Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(37)

“I’ll try, Mother,” Hannah repeated, realizing that it would be another night with less sleep than she needed.

“Thank you, dear. Just let me know if there’s any way I can help you.”

Hannah was about to say there was nothing her mother could do, when she thought of something. “There is one thing…”

“You want me to help you bake?” Delores sounded even more panic-stricken than Andrea had when Hannah had once asked her to listen for the timer and take cookies out of the oven at The Cookie Jar.

“No, Mother. I can handle the baking part. It’s just that I need to ask you more questions about Gus. Will you drop by the shop around ten for coffee tomorrow morning?”

“Of course I will.”

“Good. I’ll try to have a test cookie ready for you to taste. And could you ask Marge to let you into the library later tonight or early tomorrow morning to collect any Jordan High yearbooks you can find with pictures of Gus?”

“I’ll do it right after the slide show’s over. Marge wants to help you any way she can.”

“Thanks. I’d better get going, Mother. I want to mix up some cookie dough tonight and bake it first thing tomorrow morning.”





Chapter Twelve


Hannah wasn’t quite sure what to expect when she opened the door to the condo, but when Moishe wasn’t there to leap into her arms, she knew what she’d find wouldn’t be good. He was hiding again and that meant trouble.

The living room looked fine at first glance. It even looked fine when she walked through it, eyeing anything that could be destroyed by a determined feline. The one remaining couch pillow was intact, and so were the couch, the crocheted throw from her Grandma Ingrid’s farmhouse, and the bouquet of silk flowers Delores had given her for her coffee table. Her desk appeared to be fine, but there was something hanging over it, something new, something…

“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, stepping closer. Norman must have had time to deliver the Kitty Kondo because it was standing…perhaps looming was a better word…over her desk.

There was a sound, and Hannah turned to see Moishe sidling into the room. He stepped cautiously closer but stopped short of her, staring at his Kitty Kondo with narrowed eyes. Then he puffed up like a Halloween cat, and the hair on his back stood up. He made a low, growling noise Hannah had only heard him make a few times before, and she knew he was suspicious and fearful of the new piece of furniture that had invaded his living room.

“It’s okay. Norman put it there for you,” Hannah attempted to explain. “It’s a Kitty Kondo, and it’s an activity center for cats.”

Moishe’s ears canted back to flatten against his head, and Hannah knew he wasn’t convinced. “Just look at this,” she said, stepping up to the carpeted tower and batting at one of the jingling balls hanging from the pole on the second story. “Isn’t that fun?”

Moishe’s growl was not an assent, and Hannah was wise enough to know it. Some less savvy human roommates might have attempted to pick him up and put him on the activity center, but not Hannah. She valued the skin on her arms too much, and she didn’t want to arrive at Jack’s birthday party tomorrow night covered in Band-aids. Moishe would have to learn to like his new Kitty Kondo gradually.

“Let’s go have some tuna,” Hannah said, leading the way to the kitchen without checking the rest of the rooms for damage. Moishe had obviously been traumatized by the forest green Kitty Kondo that had invaded his living room, but a whole can of albacore tuna should take his mind off the carpeted intruder.

Two hours later, Hannah slipped on the oversized T-shirt she wore as a summer nightgown and crawled into bed. Moishe had cut a wide berth around the activity center when they walked through the living room on their way to bed, but he hadn’t growled or bristled, and that was a good sign.

She certainly hoped the cookie dough she’d mixed up after two failed attempts would work. She’d read through Edna’s red velvet cake recipe, balanced the wet and dry ingredients for drop cookie dough rather than a cake batter, and added more chocolate and some chocolate chips. There was no point in using the vinegar and baking soda, since the cookie dough would sit out on the counter and lose its fizz between batches. She couldn’t use buttermilk, either, since she didn’t have any in her refrigerator and she certainly didn’t want to drive out to the Quick Stop to buy some.

The first batch she’d baked looked fine, but they were too flat and chewy. The second batch solved that problem, but they fell apart when she tried to take them off the cookie sheet. She thought she’d managed to mix up a winner with the third batch, but she was so tired her eyes were beginning to cross. She covered the dough and stashed it in her refrigerator. She’d be risking disaster by baking more cookies tonight. The third batch would have to wait until morning to bake.

“’Night, Moishe,” she whispered, reaching out to give her pet a scratch under the chin. Then she closed her eyes and fell asleep to dream of Red Velvet Cookies dancing around the floor of the Lake Pavilion while Frankie and the Frankfurters played the Beer Barrel Polka.

It wasn’t morning. It couldn’t be morning. But it must be morning, because a rooster was crowing in the living room.

Hannah rolled over and pulled the covers over her head, but that didn’t help. The rooster kept right on crowing. Except it wasn’t exactly crowing. It was more of a chirping sound, like a cricket on steroids, or a frog croaking in a falsetto, or a mouse being terrorized by a…