Sugar Cookie Murder

SUGAR COOKIE MURDER

JOANNE FLUKE

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It was a meatball, a really big meatball, and it was rolling out of her closet. It stopped a few feet from the end of the bed, and that was when she noticed its eyes and its face. The eyes stared at her in abject disappointment, and two tears of gravy rolled down its fat bumpy cheeks. It looked so miserable Hannah wanted to reach out and give it a hug.

“You forgot me,” the meatball said, “and I’m an entrée. And from what I hear, your entrées aren’t that good.”

“Yes, they are. We’ve got … “

“I’m doing my best not to take this as a personal insult,” the meatball interrupted her, “but you know I’m a lot more delicious than your mother’s Hawaiian Pot Roast. What really makes me mad is that you left me out, but you put in four of your sister Andrea’s Jell-O molds. Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to dump a can of fruit in some Jell-O. If you want her name in the cookbook, you ought to teach her to cook.”

What was the meatball talking about? No ordinary mortal could teach Andrea to cook! Her sister was firmly entrenched among the ranks of the culinary-impaired. Hannah sat bolt upright in bed, prepared to give the Swedish treat a piece of her mind. But there was no longer a round, brown entrée with the delectable scent of mushrooms and beef positioned in from of her closet or at the foot of her bed. With the exception of Moishe, who was curled up at her feet sleeping peacefully, she was alone.

Hannah blinked several times, and then the truth of the situation dawned. She’d been dreaming. The talking meatball had retreated into whatever corner of her mind had created it, but the message it had delivered remained. Hannah had goofed big time. She’d forgotten to include Edna Ferguson’s recipe for Not So Swedish Meatballs in the packet to be tested at tonight’s potluck dinner.

“Uh-oh,” Hannah groaned, feeling around under the bed for her slippers. When she’d wiggled her feet inside the fake fur lining, she patted the mattress to wake the orange and white tomcat who’d been her roommate for the past year and a half. “Come on, Moishe. Time to wake up and smell the kitty crunchies.”

Moishe opened one yellow eye and regarded her balefully. Then the phrase “kitty crunchies” must have registered in his feline brain, because he jumped off the bed and with an athletic grace that Hannah could only envy, and padded down the hallway at her side as she headed for the kitchen.

Once Moishe had been fed and watered and she’d poured herself a cup of strong coffee, Hannah sat down at the kitchen table that was on the cusp of becoming an antique and considered the problem of Edna Ferguson’s meatballs. Since the whole thing was her fault for forgetting to include them, she’d have to find time to test them herself. One thing for sure … Edna wouldn’t be the soul of understanding if she couldn’t’ find her favorite recipe in the cookbook.