Cream Puff Murder (Hannah Swensen, #11)(36)

Stir the sugar into the chocolate mixture. Feel the bowl. If it’s not so hot it’ll cook the eggs, add them now, stirring thoroughly. Mix in the vanilla extract.



Mix in the flour and stir just until it’s moistened.



Spoon half of the batter into your prepared pan. Smooth it out with a rubber spatula.



Unwrap the candy bars and place them on top of the batter. Make a single layer, and try to cover as much of the batter as you can. You may have to break a couple of the bars to fill in the gaps.



Spoon the remaining batter on top of the candy bars, and use the rubber spatula to smooth it out.



Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes.



Cool the Brownies Plus in the pan on a metal rack. When they’re thoroughly cool, grasp the edges of the foil and lift the brownies out of the pan. Put them facedown on a cutting board, peel the foil off the back, and cut them into brownie-sized pieces.



Place the squares on a plate and dust lightly with powdered sugar if you wish.



Hannah’s Note: These brownies freeze well if you leave them in one large piece. When they’re cool, just lift them out of the pan, fold the foil over the top, and slip them into a freezer bag. When you want to serve them, let them thaw on the counter, cut them into pieces, and dust with powdered sugar.





Chapter Twelve




“Oh, Hannah! How could you?!” Delores marched into the kitchen, coming close to mowing Hannah down. “Didn’t I raise you better than that?”

“Than what, Mother?” Hannah was ninety-nine percent certain she knew what Delores was talking about. The news must have broken on KCOW Radio, and Delores knew that her eldest daughter had found yet another murder victim.

“You know perfectly well what I mean. You found another body. Everyone in the Tri-County area knows you did. Why you decided to go in that gazebo and look in the Jacuzzi is beyond me!”

“But it’s not beyond me. Andrea and I were going to hop in the Jacuzzi until it was time for our class. She was still exercising, and I got there first.”

“Well…I guess I should be grateful for that!” Delores looked slightly mollified. “At least you’re used to things like that by now. Your sister’s the sensitive type. It would have devastated poor Andrea.”

“Right,” Hannah said. What Delores said was true. Andrea had never been able to handle things that were, to use their mother’s word, unpleasant. But if Andrea had discovered Ronni’s body, would it have been unpleasant for her? Perhaps she would have taken one look at Ronni’s lifeless countenance and let out a cheer of victory.

“Anyway,” Delores sat down on a stool at the workstation. “I know she was in the Jacuzzi. They said all that on KCOW. I want you to tell me something nobody else knows so that I can tell my friends. There’s got to be some advantage to being the mother of…of a body finder!”

Hannah thought back to the murder scene. It probably wouldn’t be politic to mention the smashed mini cream puffs, especially since Delores wanted them served at her book launch party. She didn’t want to mention the tipped stools at the bar, either. It could be something the police might use to weed out suspects. She needed a tidbit of information that was shocking enough for the Lake Eden gossip hotline, but not gross enough to upset Delores.

“I had to turn her over,” Hannah said, lighting on something titillating enough for her mother, but not something the police were likely to keep under their hats.

“You did?” Delores gave a little shiver, and Hannah knew it was more of excitement than fright.

“At first I thought someone had dropped their exercise outfit in the hot tub. Then I recognized that it was one of the outfits that the female staff wore, and I went to fish it out.”

“Oh, my!” Delores shivered again. “And you actually turned her over?”

“I did. I reached out and grabbed the outfit, and that’s when I realized that someone was wearing it.”

“Oh, my!” Delores repeated, and her voice was slightly breathless.

“I think turning her over was instinctive. I didn’t really think about it, I just did it. I don’t know if I thought she was still alive, or I could help, or what. I just rolled her over, looked at her face, and saw that she was Ronni Ward.”

“The anchorman on the news team said she suffered a blow to the head.” Delores stopped and cleared her throat. “Could I have a cup of coffee, dear? Black, of course. Hearing about something like this always makes me a little shaky.”

And caffeine will certainly help with that! Hannah thought, but of course she didn’t say it. Instead she brought her mother two newly frosted Carrot Cake Cookies along with the mug of coffee.

“Thank you, dear!” Delores took a sip of her coffee and sighed deeply. “I needed that. What are these cookies? They’re pretty.”

“They’re Terry’s Carrot Cake Cookies. She’s a friend of Lisa’s from Wisconsin. I mixed them up when I got back from the gym, and I just finished frosting them when you came in. I know they’re not chocolate, but they’re good.”

“Not everything has to be chocolate, dear. Of course that would be nice, but there’s room for other flavors.” Delores picked up a cookie and bit into it. “Cream cheese frosting?” she asked after she’d taken another bite.