Devil's Food Cake Murder (6 page)

“I’ve got a great idea,” he said, giving her the smile that had fluttered at least half of the female hearts in Lake Eden. “Norman put me in charge of the guest list and I haven’t gotten around to inviting anyone except a couple of people from work.”

Hannah held her breath, waiting for the second shoe to drop. She was almost certain she knew what was coming and she wasn’t wrong.

“How about you, Hannah? Do you want to come?”

DEATH BY CAFFEINE (Mocha Trifle)

You don’t have to preheat your oven at all—this dessert requires no baking.

Hannah’s 1st Note: If you can’t find a sponge cake at your local bakery and you don’t feel like baking one, you may be able to find the little round, indented cups for strawberry shortcake in your grocery store. I did, and mine were called “Dessert Shells,” and one serving was two shells. (They’re NOT pie shells, but squishy like a sponge.) It took 10 little cups to make 6 cups of cubed sponge cake, and the total weight of the cake was 8 ounces.

6 cups sponge cake

1 cup strong brewed coffee, cooled to room temperature

16 ounces (6 cups) of dairy topping (I used Cool Whip Real Whipped Cream)

1/4 cup coffee liqueur (I used Starbucks Cappuccino)

2 Tablespoons (1/8 cup) chocolate liqueur (I used Godiva)

2 six-ounce containers of chocolate yogurt***

3/4 cup mini chocolate chips

3/4 cup chopped pecans

*** - I couldn’t find chocolate yogurt in my store so I used two 6-ounce containers of vanilla yogurt and mixed it with 1/8 cup chocolate syrup. It worked just fine.

Hannah’s 2nd Note: If you would prefer to whip your own sweetened whipped cream, that’s fine. Just make sure you end up with 6 cups. To do this, start with 3 cups of chilled whipping cream, whip it up, and when it begins to hold a peak, continue beating and slowly sprinkle in a half-cup of white, granulated sugar. Continue to beat until the sugar has dissolved. (You can tell by shutting off the mixer and rubbing a bit of whipped cream between your finger and thumb. If it’s gritty, it’s not dissolved yet.)

Cut the sponge cake into cubes roughly twice the size of those little cheese cubes with fancy toothpicks that they serve at parties. You don’t have to be exact. Nobody’s going to measure.

Place the cake cubes in a bowl and add the strong coffee. Toss the cake cubes around a little so they all get soaked with coffee.

Combine the dairy topping, yogurt, and liqueurs in a small bowl. Set the bowl aside.

In another small bowl, toss the mini chocolate chips with the chopped pecans. Set that bowl aside.

Get out a pretty bowl that will hold 12 cups, and set it on the counter. You’re ready to assemble your trifle.

Place a third of the coffee-soaked cake cubes in the bottom of the bowl.

Top the coffee-soaked cake with a third of the whipped topping mixture.

Sprinkle a third of the chip and nut mixture over that.

Repeat these layers two more times, ending with the last of the nut and mini chocolate chip mixture.

Hannah’s 3rd Note: Linda tops her trifle off with a few espresso coffee beans, but Sally uses chocolate curls at the Lake Eden Inn. Even though all you have to do to make chocolate curls is run the blade of a sharp knife down the side of a thick chocolate bar, I sometimes don’t have time to do it. Then I just sprinkle on a few seasonal berries or more mini chocolate chips for decoration.

This dessert must chill for at least 3 hours before serving. If you have all the ingredients, you can make it in the morning in about fifteen minutes, stick it in the refrigerator while you go about your busy day, and serve it to company for dinner that night.

Yield: This trifle serves 12 unless you invite Mike. I watched him eat three helpings at the Lake Eden Inn.

“So what are you going to do?” Andrea asked.

“I couldn’t think of a good excuse that fast, so I said I’d go. What else could I do?”

“You could have listened to the message I left on your answering machine at a quarter to five last night. I called to warn you that Mike invited Bill to her birthday party and Bill accepted for both of us.”

Hannah groaned. She’d seen the red light blinking, but she’d fixed Moishe’s dinner first. And she’d fully intended to listen to her message right after she got dressed for her dinner with Mike, but her hair had been impossible after her shower, sticking up in wiry red corkscrew curls all over her head. It had taken what seemed like forever to brush it into some semblance of normalcy. Then Mike had arrived and she’d forgotten all about the message she hadn’t retrieved. And when he had brought her home, she’d gone straight to bed without even glancing at her answering machine.

“You’ve got to start checking your messages, Hannah, especially when your cell phone is off.”

“My cell phone’s off?” Hannah rummaged around in the bottom of her purse until she found it. The moment she did, she remembered why she’d silenced it. “I turned it off when I catered Mother’s Regency Romance Club meeting, but I’m almost sure I turned it back on.”

Andrea shrugged. “It’s either off, or dead. All I know is I called you and it went straight to voicemail. You probably haven’t checked your voicemail in a while, either. If you don’t leave any way for people to contact you, they can’t tell you what you need to know.”

“That’s true,” Hannah admitted, pressing the button to turn on her phone and holding it down. But even though she held it for double the time it usually took, there was no burst of sound and the display remained blank. “There’s something wrong with my phone. It won’t turn on.”

“Then you probably forgot to charge it. Where’s your charger?” Andrea held out her hand for the phone. “I’ll go plug it in.”

“It’s at home. I don’t have one at work.”

Andrea just shook her head. “Really, Hannah! They’re not expensive, and you should have a charger in both places. I’m going to the phone store anyway, and I’ll pick up a second one for you. I’ve got one in my office, one at home, and one in my car. It’s very important to keep your phone charged.”

“I know it’s important for you. You use your phone for work. Mine is just for personal use.”

“That’s important, too. Now tell me about Mike. What did he say when he asked you.”

Hannah didn’t say, Asked me what? She knew that her sister had gone back to their original topic of conversation. “He said, I’ve got an idea. Do you want to come? But that was after I’d already promised to make a Mocha Trifle for the party.”

“Why did you do that? I thought you were upset about Doctor Bev moving here.”

“I am, but Mike asked me to make the trifle for a birthday party, and I said I would, but that was before I found out whose birthday it was.”

“Mike’s an idiot,” Andrea said, giving an exasperated sigh. “The man has zero sensitivity. I really don’t know why he would ask you to make a dessert for Doctor Bev’s party, unless …” Andrea stopped in midsentence and frowned.

“Unless what?”

“Unless he has his own selfish interests at heart. He wants you to get so mad at Norman that you’ll fall into his arms on the rebound. Either that, or …”

Andrea faltered and Hannah stepped in with a possible explanation. “Either that or Mike has the IQ of a small kitchen appliance.”

“Exactly!” Andrea looked very pleased at the comparison. “Which small kitchen appliance would he be?”

“A toaster.”

“Because every single woman in town thinks he’s hot?”

“Exactly. And any woman who thinks she’s his one and only will get burned every time he looks at another woman. And he’ll do it all the time.”

Andrea gave a brief nod. “Sounds like you’ve got Mike figured out. How about Norman? Why do you think he brought Doctor Bev here in the first place?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure that out.”

“Do you think he’s trying to make you jealous so you’ll fight for him?”

Hannah thought about that for a moment and then she shook her head. “I don’t think so. Norman’s not that devious. He brought her to Lake Eden for some other reason, but I’m not sure what it is. Whatever it is started in Minneapolis when he went to see the new dental clinic his friends from Seattle built.”

“Are you sure?”

“Almost positive. He was fine when he left Lake Eden. I know because he dropped Cuddles off to stay with Moishe and he gave me a big hug and kiss when he left. But when he got to the Cities, things changed. He left a couple of messages, but he sounded …” Hannah paused to think of the best word to describe Norman’s voice. “Cold. He sounded cold like he was talking to a stranger. And when he came back he was cold, too. He gave me a hug and thanked me for keeping Cuddles, but…he was cold. I don’t know any other way to describe it.”

“Before he left you were his love? And when he came back you were just a friend?”

“That’s exactly right. And I’m still just a friend. I know something happened to change his state of mind, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Maybe you should find out,” Andrea suggested, getting up to leave. But she turned back at the door. “And you’d better do it before you wind up baking a wedding cake for Norman and Doctor Bev.”

Hannah took Andrea’s words seriously, but there were orders to fill and cookies to bake, and there wasn’t much she could do about it at the moment. She was knee deep in cookie dough when Lisa pushed open the swinging door from the coffee shop and announced that Grandma Knudson had come in to see her.

“She said it was important,” Lisa said. “Shall I send her back here?”

“Yes. She probably wants more cookies for Sunday. I heard they were giving a bon voyage party after church for Claire and Reverend Bob.”

Lisa shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. When she came in she looked worried and she said she’d walked down here from the parsonage.”

“She shouldn’t be walking that far in this weather! It’s ten below and the streets are slippery.”

“I know. That’s why I called Herb to take her back home. He’ll be here in five minutes, and I figured that was long enough for you to warm her up with some coffee and listen to what she has to say.”

As Lisa left to fetch Grandma Knudson, Hannah did what she did at least a dozen times a day. She thanked her lucky stars she’d found such a wonderful, caring business partner. Lisa had been young, just out of high school, when Hannah had hired her two and a half years ago. At that time, Lisa had earned scholarships to several good universities, but she’d explained to Hannah that she wanted to stay at home in Lake Eden to care for her father, Jack Herman, who’d just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

A lot had happened in the intervening years. Lisa had been so good for business that Hannah had made her a full partner. And Lisa had married Hannah’s classmate, Herb Beeseman, on Valentine’s Day last year. Herb’s mother, Marge Beeseman, had given the happy couple her family home, and she’d moved in with Jack to give the newlyweds time to themselves.

There had been talk when Marge, a widow, had moved in with Jack, a widower. But that gossip had been quickly nipped in the bud by Hannah’s mother. Now the citizens of Lake Eden were used to the arrangement, and no one said a word. Jack Herman and Marge Beeseman were a couple and that was that.

“Hi, Grandma Knudson,” Hannah greeted her when she came into the kitchen. “Come sit at the workstation and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“Thank you, Hannah.”

Hannah noticed that Grandma Knudson’s voice sounded shaky and she hurried to pour the coffee. The walk from the parsonage in subzero temperatures had obviously tired her. “Did Lisa tell you? Herb’s going to take you back home so you won’t have to walk up the hill.”

“She told me, and that’s very sweet of him. Herb Beeseman’s always been a good boy. Did you bake anything special today? I want to take a box of something special back with me so that Bob and Claire think I walked down here to bring back a surprise for them. If they guess the real reason I came to see you, they might not leave on their honeymoon.”

Uh-oh, Hannah’s mind warned. Grandma Knudson looked very serious. “Of course I can pack up something special,” Hannah reassured her, glancing over at the bakers’ racks. “I’ve got Chocolate Sugar Cookies, Mocha Nut Butterballs, Walnut Date Chews, and Blonde Brownies. And if you’d like something different from cookies or cookie bars, I baked a batch of Carrot-Oatmeal Muffins this morning.”

“I like the sound of those muffins. Are they new?”

“Yes. Lisa got the recipe from Lois Theilen. She says they’re the best oatmeal muffins she ever made, and the recipe won first place at the Minnesota State Fair.”

“Oh, my!” Grandma Knudson was clearly impressed, but she still looked worried.

“Try one to see if you like it,” Hannah offered, putting a muffin on a plate and setting it in front of Grandma Knudson.

“Gladly. I know Lois and she’s a wonderful cook. If this is her favorite oatmeal muffin recipe, it’s going to be delicious.” Grandma Knudson took a bite and nodded. “I told you. It’s delicious. And these muffins are perfect for Bob and Claire. She likes oatmeal cookies, and Bob’s really fond of carrots.”

“How about Matthew? Do you think he’ll like them?”

Grandma Knudson began to frown. “I’m not concerned about Matthew, at least not when it comes to muffins. Matthew’s the reason I came down here to talk to you.”

It took three cups of coffee and every bite of the Carrot-Oatmeal Muffin before Hannah had the whole story. Grandma Knudson was concerned that Matthew might not be the boy she remembered from so long ago. She wasn’t sure why anyone would assume Matthew’s identity, but there were just too many inconsistencies between the Matthew she remembered as a teenager and the man who claimed to be Matthew as an adult.

“Let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Hannah said, glancing down at the notes she’d jotted in one of the shorthand notebooks she kept in the kitchen. “The teenage Matthew was allergic to chocolate, but the adult Matthew isn’t.”

“That’s right. And I don’t think you can outgrow a chocolate allergy. My sister Bertha was allergic to strawberries for her whole life. She broke out in hives every time she tried to eat them.”