Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(46)

“I bet you were cute!”

Hannah felt her heartbeat speed up as Mike flashed his knee-weakening grin. How could one man affect her autonomic nervous system so drastically? Then she remembered that he’d used the past tense. She was about to call him on it, when he spoke again.

“They had enough time to get a good look at him,” Mike continued. “Did they think his physical characteristics matched their brother’s?”

“Yes, but they pointed out that any guy about the right age and height with blondish hair might have fooled them. Marge told me that Gus didn’t have any distinguishing physical characteristics or marks.” Hannah stopped speaking, but she quickly convinced herself that telling Mike about the tattoo couldn’t hurt. “But he did,” she said.

Mike’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know?”

“You don’t need to know that. Let’s just say that four different people told me about one special physical characteristic that Gus had.”

“And that characteristic would be…?”

“A tattoo. It was two crossed bats with a ball between them and it was on his left buttock.”

“And you know this for a fact?”

“Not me!” Hannah glared at him. “The people who told me about it said that he got it in high school and it was still there unless he had it removed in the intervening years.”

“Hold on,” Mike said, pulling out his cell phone. “I’ll call Doc Knight and find out. Thanks for telling me, Hannah. This could be important.”

While Mike was waiting to be put through to Doc Knight at the hospital, Hannah began to assemble her cookie dough. She mixed the softened butter with the sugars and beat them together until they were light and fluffy. Then she mixed in the baking soda and salt, and added the egg. Once that was incorporated, she mixed the sour cream with the red food coloring and added them to her mixing bowl. As she mixed them in, she half listened to Mike’s conversation with Doc Knight while she debated whether or not she should tell him about how Jack Herman and Gus had fought on the night that Gus left Lake Eden.

“Okay, then. Thanks, Doc.” Mike clicked off his phone and looked over at Hannah. “The victim has an identical tattoo to the one you described.”

“No,” Hannah said, nodding her head.

“What does that mean? You said no, but you’re nodding yes.”

“That means I came to a decision about something else, and I was acknowledging the information you gave me about the tattoo at the same time.

“Then the no you said was for the decision.”

“Yes,” Hannah said, shaking her head.

“Hold on. This time you said yes, but you shook your head no.”

“That’s right. Yes, I came to a decision. And no, I won’t tell you what it’s about.”

Mike drained the last of his coffee and stood up. “Thanks for the cookies. And thanks for telling me about the tattoo. I’ll let the family know we have positive I.D. I’d better go now. I’ve got a meeting with my team in twenty minutes.”

“Take these with you.” Hannah reached for the box of cookies she’d packed up for him to take back to the sheriff’s station. “And share them with your team. There’s nothing like chocolate to perk you right up.”

PARTY COOKIES

DO NOT preheat the oven yet. This dough must chill before baking.

2 cups melted butter (4 sticks)

2 cups powdered sugar (not sifted)

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla (or any other flavoring you wish)

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar (critical!)

1 teaspoon salt

4? cups flour (not sifted)

Food coloring (at least 3 different colors)

? cup white sugar (for later)

Melt the butter. Add the sugars and mix. Let the mixture cool to room temperature and mix in the eggs, one at a time. Then add the vanilla, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt. Mix well. Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition.

Divide the cookie dough into fourths and place each fourth on a piece of waxed paper. (You’ll work with one fourth at a time.) Place one fourth in a bowl and stir in drops of food coloring until the dough is slightly darker than the color you want. (The cookies will be a shade lighter after they’re baked.) Place the colored dough back on the waxed paper and color the other three parts. (You can leave one part uncolored, if you like.)

Let the dough firm up for a few moments. Then divide each different COLOR into four parts so you have sixteen lumps of dough in all. Place a sheet of plastic wrap on your counter and roll each lump into a dough rope with your hands (just as if you were making bread sticks.) The sixteen dough ropes should each be about 12 inches long.

To assemble, stack the dough ropes, two on the bottom, two on the top, near the edge of the plastic wrap. Squeeze them together a bit and push in the ends so they’re even. Flip the edge of the plastic wrap over the top and roll them up together tightly in one multi-colored roll. Twist the ends of the plastic wrap, fold them over on top of the roll, and refrigerate the rolls as you make them. When you’re all finished, you’ll have four rolls of multi-colored cookie dough chilling in your refrigerator.

Let the dough chill for at least an hour (overnight is fine, too.) When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 325 degrees F., rack in the middle position.