Carrot Cake Murder (25 page)

It took Hannah all of thirty seconds to evaluate the supplies on her pantry shelves. The something would be Scandinavian Almond Cake. It would make her whole place smell wonderful while it was baking, and it was easy to assemble and serve. She even had some sliced almonds to sprinkle on top of the batter. What could be easier?

Ten minutes later, Hannah slipped her loaf pan into the oven and set the timer. She was about to pour herself a cup of the coffee she’d just made when there was a knock at her condo door.

“Already?” Hannah said to Moishe, whose head had emerged from his food bowl when he’d realized that there was someone at the door. She glanced at the clock, calculated the time, and shook her head. “It’s not Norman. It couldn’t be. Even if he broke the land speed record, there’s no way he could make it here this fast!”

Always cautious, especially when she was working on a murder case, Hannah didn’t simply open the door. The fisheye peephole that had been in the door when she’d bought her unit was practically useless. It distorted her visitors’ features so much she couldn’t even recognize her own mother! From force of habit, Hannah looked through it anyway, and what she saw made her rear back with a start. It was her own mother. At least she thought it was Delores.

“Uh-oh!” Hannah whispered under her breath. Delores didn’t visit her at the condo. She’d stopped when Moishe had shredded her tenth pair of pantyhose. There must be something drastically wrong to have brought her here this late in the evening. But perhaps it wasn’t Delores. It could be another woman with dark hair. She wasn’t going to open the door until she knew for sure, so she called out, “Who is it?”

“Don’t you recognize your own mother?” Delores asked. “We’re sweltering out here, not to mention we’re getting eaten alive by the mosquitoes. Open the door, Hannah.”

Hannah opened the door and saw why her mother had answered in the plural. Delores had Michelle and Andrea in tow.

“I thought you went home after the party,” Hannah addressed Andrea.

“I did, but Grandma McCann had everything under control. She said Bill called to say he’d be tied up until late, and then Mother called, and…here I am.”

“Me, too,” Michelle added. “I was getting ready for bed, but Mother decided we needed a family meeting, so she dragged us all over here.”

“Well, the family’s about to get bigger,” Hannah said, ushering them into the living room. “Norman should be here in ten minutes or so.”

Delores smiled. “That’s just fine. Norman’s practically family, anyway. And we don’t have any secrets from him…do we, dear?”

Hannah was saved from the necessity of a response by an orange-and-white blur that streaked through the living room, tore through the opening in the bottom floor of his new Kitty Kondo, scrambled up two floors, and emerged at the penthouse floor to glare at his archenemy.

“Oh, how cute!” Delores exclaimed, not even noticing that Moishe was puffed up and practically spitting. “You got one of those wonderful Kitty Kondos for my darling grand-cat. You must have been saving your pennies, dear.”

“I always do. And that’s what it cost me. They’re having a twofer sale at the pet store in the mall, and Norman bought one for Cuddles. This one cost just a dollar, so he got it for Moishe.”

There was total silence for the count of ten, and then Delores cleared her throat. “Who told you that, dear?”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed. “Norman did,” she responded. “There isn’t a twofer on the Kitty Kondos at the pet store?”

“Well…I haven’t checked recently, but…”

“Mother!” Hannah interrupted her. “I need to know if there was a twofer on the Kitty Kondos two days ago.”

“Well…actually…I’m not really sure that…”

“Give it to me straight, Mother,” Hannah demanded. “I can take it.”

Delores gave a big sigh and shook her head. “I don’t think so, dear. Of course he may have negotiated a special price for some reason or other, but…”

“But Norman lied to me about the twofer,” Hannah interrupted what was going to be another excuse.

“That would be my guess, dear. But you’ve got to admit that it was sweet of him to buy it.”

“It was sweet,” Hannah admitted, “but he lied to me.”

“You could be right. What are you going to do about it?”

Hannah stared at her mother in shock. “Well…I’ll just have to pay him back, that’s all. I’ll find out what it costs, save the money and…”

“And make Norman feel really bad that he gave Moishe such a wonderful present,” Michelle jumped into the mother-daughter conversation. “Are you really sure you want to do that?”

“Of course I don’t want to make Norman feel bad!” Hannah was outraged at the assumption. “But I don’t want to accept charity, either. I own a successful business. I can pay.”

“But you’d spoil all his fun,” Andrea said, frowning at her older sister. “Norman thinks he put one over on you. He’s proud of himself, and he’s happy he found something to give you. And he’s crazy about Moishe, and he wants to give him something, too. And now you want to ruin it all for him?”

“And make him feel bad for even trying to please you?” Michelle added.

“Of course not. But…” Hannah stopped and thought about it. Maybe her mother and sisters were right. Maybe she ought to let Norman think he’d put one over on her. And maybe she should be grateful that he cared enough about Moishe and enough about her to try to give them both a present.

“Well?” Delores raised her eyebrows in a question.

“You’re right,” Hannah said, giving in as gracefully as she could. “I won’t say a word about it.”

“Good for you!” Michelle said.

“You’re doing the right thing,” Andrea added.

“It’s very smart of you, dear,” Delores had the final word on the matter as she took a seat on the couch. “What’s that divine scent?”

“Almonds,” Hannah told her. “I’m baking Joyce’s Scandinavian Almond Cake.”

Delores looked pleased. “Is that the recipe Joyce gave me from her friend Nancy?” she asked.

“That’s the one. The only difference is that I used clarified butter instead of margarine.”

“When will it come out of the oven?” Andrea asked her.

Hannah turned to glance at the clock on her end table. “In about five minutes. And then it has to cool a bit, but I’ll serve it warm.”

“Marvelous!” Delores gave a nod. “I suppose you’re wondering why we’re here, dear.”

“The thought did cross my mind.”

“It’s about Gus, of course. Marge and I got together this afternoon and made a list of all the women Gus dumped. And we called every one of them this afternoon. They all have alibis.”

“All of them?”

“That’s right. But I didn’t come here just to tell you that. I stopped in at Ava’s store when I left Jack’s birthday party, and she told me that she talked to the credit card company. It seems the gas card Gus used to fill his tank wasn’t valid.”

“Uh-oh!” Hannah said, as a couple of the puzzle pieces clicked together. Gus had worn what Mike thought was a fake Rolex on his wrist, and a diamond pinkie ring made of paste. If he had been living a lie and only pretending to be rich, how many other merchants along his route from Atlantic City to Lake Eden, Minnesota, would discover they’d been defrauded?

“When did he gas up his Jaguar?” she asked, recognizing the loose end. She wasn’t sure if it was important, but she knew from experience that murder cases were usually solved by asking questions and remembering the answers.

“He filled his tank when he came back from the brunch at the Inn,” Delores told her. “And that was a Sunday, so Ava couldn’t call in the card. She did it today, and that’s when she found out that the gas card he used was no good.”

“No good? Does that mean it was stolen?’ Hannah asked.

Delores shook her head. “Ava said it was canceled, not stolen. The lady she talked to told her they canceled his account because the bill hadn’t been paid.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Hannah said, taking a moment to digest the information she’d been given. Then she turned to her mother again. “Will you go out to the Inn tomorrow morning and see if Gus’s charges for the brunch were accepted on his credit card? Sally must have called them in by now.”

“Of course,” Delores agreed.

“Great.” Hannah turned to Michelle. “Will you ask Lonnie if Gus’s Rolex was real? Mike told me he was pretty sure it wasn’t, especially when the guys in robbery said the diamond in the pinkie ring he was wearing was paste.”

“I’ll do it right now,” Michelle said, pulling out her cell phone and ducking into the kitchen to place the call.

Andrea began to frown. “What’s going on here, Hannah? Do you know yet?”

“Not yet,” Hannah told her, wishing her answer could be more definitive. “All I know is that Gus wasn’t what he said he was.”

“Fake,” Michelle said, poking her head through the doorway. “Lonnie got a call from the jeweler today. I’ll be with you in a minute, okay?”

“Do you think Gus was deliberately trying to defraud his friends and relatives?” Delores asked Hannah.

“I don’t know. I didn’t know him when he was growing up, but you did. What do you think?”

Delores thought about that for a long moment and then she sighed. “It’s possible,” she said. “I don’t really want to believe it, but it’s definitely possible.”

SCANDINAVIAN ALMOND CAKE

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

Before you start to mix up this recipe, grease (or spray with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray) a 4-inch by 8-inch loaf pan. (Mine was Pyrex and I measured the bottom.)

Cut a strip of parchment paper (or wax paper if you don’t have parchment) 8 inches wide and 16 inches long. Lay it in the pan so that the bottom is covered and the strip sticks out in little “ears” on the long sides of the pan. (This makes for easy removal after your cake is baked.) This will leave the two short sides of the pan uncovered, but that’s okay. Press the paper down and then spray it again with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray.

1 stick (½ cup, ¼ pound, 4 ounces) salted butter

1 ¼ cups white (granulated) sugar

1 egg (I used an extra large egg)

½ teaspoon baking powder

1½ teaspoons almond extract

2/3 cup cream (you can also use what Grandma Ingrid used to call “top milk” or what we now call Half ’n Half)

1¼ cups flour

¼ cup sliced almonds (optional—they make your cakes look pretty)

If you decided to use the sliced almonds, sprinkle a few in the very bottom of your paper-lined loaf pan. (This cake is like a pineapple upside down cake—the bottom will be the top when you serve it.)

Hannah’s 1stNote: Now don’t let this next step scare you. It’s extremely easy and it will keep your cakes from turning too brown around the edges.

Place the stick of butter in a one-cup Pyrex measuring cup or in another small microwave-safe bowl. Zap it for 40 seconds on HIGH, or until it’s melted. (You can also do this in a small saucepan on the stove.) Now pour that melted butter through a fine-mesh strainer, the kind you’d use for tea, (or a larger mesh strainer lined with a double thickness of cheesecloth.) After the melted butter has dripped through, dump the milk solids that have gathered in the strainer in the garbage (or throw away the cheesecloth, if you’ve used that method.) What you have left is clarified butter.

Set your clarified butter on the counter to cool while you…

Mix the white sugar with the egg in a medium sized bowl, or in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat them together until they’re light and fluffy.

Add the baking powder and the almond extract. Mix well.

Cup your hands around the bowl with the clarified butter. If you can hold it comfortably and it’s not so hot that it might cook the egg, add it to your bowl now and mix it in. If it’s still too hot, wait until it’s cooler and then mix it in.

Hannah’s 2ndNote: In the following steps, you’re going to add half of the cream, and then half the flour. You don’t have to be precise and measure exactly half. Just dump in what you think is approximately half and it’ll be just fine.

Add half of the cream and mix it in.

Add half of the flour and mix it in.

Now add the rest of the cream, and mix.

And then add the rest of the flour, and mix thoroughly.

Pour the batter into the loaf pan you’ve prepared and smooth the top with a spatula.

Bake the cake at 350 degrees F., for 50 to 60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the loaf pan sit on a wire rack or a cold burner for 15 minutes. Then loosen the cake from the short sides of the pan (the non-papered sides) with a metal spatula or a knife.

Tip the cake out on a pretty platter, and remove the parchment paper. Let it cool and then dust the top with powdered sugar if you wish.

Hannah’s 3rdNote: Mother’s friends, Joyce and Nancy, have special half-round loaf pans especially for baking Scandinavian Almond Cake. Joyce’s cake bakes for the same length of time as mine does. Nancy’s pan has a dark nonstick surface. It’s heavier than Joyce’s pan and the dark surface makes it bake faster. Nancy bakes her cake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

“This is delicious cake, dear,” Delores said, sipping the coffee Hannah had brought her and taking a bite of her slice of almond cake. “I think I prefer it warm…”

“Thank you, Mother.”

“A man would be lucky to have you for a wife. You’re such a good cook.”

“It’s my business, Mother.”

“You keep a nice home, too.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Hannah said again. Then she took a deep breath because she knew that two compliments in a row from her mother were usually followed by a lecture about how she should settle down, get married, and start a family.