Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(47)

Put ? cup white sugar (granulated) in a small bowl and have it ready next to your greased cookie sheets.

Take out one dough roll, unwrap it, and slice it into ? inch thick rounds. (Each dough roll should make about 24 cookies.) Place each round into the bowl of sugar and flip it over so it coats both sides. Position the sugarcoated rounds on a greased baking sheet, 12 to a standard sheet. Return the unused dough to the refrigerator until you’re ready to slice more cookies.

Bake the cookies at 325 degrees F. for 12 to 15 minutes, just until they begin to turn slightly golden around the edges. Cool them on the cookie sheet for a minute or two, and then transfer them to a wire rack to complete cooling.

These cookies freeze very well if you stack them in a roll, wrap them in foil, and place the foil rolls in a freezer bag. You can also freeze the multi-colored unbaked dough rolls by leaving them in the plastic wrap and placing them in a freezer bag.

Yield: Approximately 8 dozen pretty party cookies.





Chapter Fifteen


By the time the hands on the kitchen clock met and pointed straight up at the ceiling, Hannah had finished baking and frosting the Red Velvet Cookies. She was about to call Norman to see if he was free to taste one, when Luanne pushed though the swinging door between the kitchen and the coffee shop.

“Norman just called,” she told Hannah. “He’s got an emergency patient in the chair, and he can’t make it in to taste those cookies you told him about.”

“Okay. Thanks for telling me. How are you holding out on cookies?”

“Just fine. It’s been only the regulars so far. As far as takeout goes, Mrs. Surma came in for two dozen Orange Snaps for the Brownies, Reverend Knudson picked up some Viking Cookies for his grandmother since she liked them so much after church, and Mr. Purvis came in for five dozen Oatmeal Raisin Crisps for his teachers.”

“But school’s not in session yet.”

“That’s what I said, and he told me it’s teachers’ prep week. They come in a week early to get things done that they don’t have time to do when they’ve got classes to teach.”

A mental picture of her second grade teacher flashed through Hannah’s mind. Miss Gladke was dressed in a pair of white overalls with a white painter’s cap pulled over her curls. And she was up on a ladder with a brush in her hand, painting the walls of her classroom.

Hannah took a step back from the ridiculous image. She knew that painting wasn’t the type of work done during teachers’ prep week. Miss Gladke would be making up lesson plans, choosing textbooks, and other academic tasks.

“You can leave for the reunion now,” Luanne told her. “I can take care of everything here. I’ll lock up when it’s time and be in tomorrow morning at nine to help you open.”

Hannah was grateful for the extra work Luanne was putting in, especially because Delores and Carrie were spending the week at the lake and she was sure Luanne would much rather spend the time with her four-year-old daughter.

“You probably won’t have many customers this afternoon. Why don’t you call your mother and Nettie, and have them bring Suzie down here for cookies? It’s a hot day, and I’ve got some Pecan Crisps made into ice cream sandwiches in the freezer.”

Luanne looked absolutely delighted at the suggestion. “Thanks, Hannah. I’ll do that. Suzie just loves to come down here with her grandmas and see all the different kinds of cookies. She says she wants to be a cookie baker when she grows up.”

“Great! She can take over for me when I retire…unless she changes her mind and decides to be a nuclear physicist or a brain surgeon, of course.”

Less than five minutes later, Hannah was zipping down the alley in back of her shop in her cookie truck. She turned west on Third and then made a right onto Main Street. Luck was with her and there was a parking spot directly in front of the Rhodes Dental Clinic. Hannah wasted no time pulling into the spot and shutting off her engine. She grabbed the pink box of cookies she’d packed as a care package for Norman, got out of the truck, and headed straight for the front door that nestled under the green-and-white metal awning that protected dental patients from the sun and rain in the summer and the snow in the winter.

A buzzer sounded somewhere in the interior of the building as Hannah opened the front door and stepped in. The sliding frosted glass windows at the reception desk were closed, but that didn’t surprise Hannah. Norman usually hired a student from the Jordan High senior class work-study program to man the desk during the school year, and he took care of things himself during summer vacation.

“Please make yourself comfortable in the waiting room. I’m with a patient, but I’ll be with you in just a minute or two.”

Hannah smiled as Norman called out to whoever had come in the door. He had no idea who it was, and she decided to surprise him. Since he was expecting a reply, she settled for a one-word response that was unlikely to give away her identity.

“Okay,” she replied, keeping her voice deliberately low. Then she walked over to the magazine rack and chose a current issue to read while she was waiting. Norman ordered magazines specifically for his waiting room, and they were delivered directly to the clinic. His patients weren’t stuck perusing three-year-old news stories, or movie magazines that featured celebrity weddings that had already ended in divorce.

As Hannah flipped through a gourmet food magazine, she heard voices coming from the examining room just inside the inner door. She didn’t consciously intend to eavesdrop, but there were no other patients that she could engage in conversation. That meant the waiting room was perfectly silent, except for the soothing music that was playing at low volume. She could hear every word that was spoken in the examining room.