Melinda Wells - The Proof is in the Pudding

“Penni Crenna’s Mexican Chicken Kiev has to be made in advance and kept in the refrigerator before baking,” I told the class. “Last night I prepared four casseroles, one for each of our ovens here.” I indicated the line of crockery baking dishes on the prep table. “I wanted you to see what they look like after refrigeration and just before they go into the ovens. Eileen and I have the oven temperatures ready at 350 degrees, so let’s put them in now. They only take twenty minutes to bake, so by the time you’ve watched and helped put the recipe together, the ones I prepared last night will be ready to be enjoyed.”

I took a package from the refrigerator.

“We start by putting these skinless, boneless chicken breasts between two pieces of wax paper.” I smiled at the children and picked up a wooden mallet. “Now who’d like to help me pound them down until they’re about a quarter of an inch thick?”

Eight little hands shot up.

My noon to three PM adult class was composed of eight men over sixty-five of them were either widowers or divorced-a newly married couple in their twenties, and two women in their fifties or sixties whom I suspected were trolling for second husbands. They always dressed as though they were going to an upscale luncheon and brought their own heavy-duty aprons that protected their clothing better than the paper ones I handed out.

Whatever their individual reasons for enrolling, they were a compatible group and a pleasure to teach. Still, I was eager for three o’clock to come. I had places to go, and a murder to investigate.

“Today’s menu starts with dessert,” I said as they assembled around the preparation counter. “It’s a delicious ice cream cake that we have to make first so it can spend time in the freezer before we’ll be able to eat it near the end of the class.”

I removed a package from beneath the counter. “This is a store-bought pound cake,” I said. “Of course you can bake your own, but if you’re in a hurry-say if you have visitors who show no sign of leaving by dinnertime-keep a plain cake and containers of ice cream in your freezer so you can come up with something yummy without leaving the house. The other two dishes we’re making today will be my favorite green peppers stuffed with a ground turkey mixture, and Pasta Caruso. That’s a recipe created by Fred Caruso, whose day job is producing movies and TV shows. He produced one of my favorite HBO movies, The Rat Pack. We’ll start on those dishes just as soon as we get this dessert into the freezer.”

I held up a loaf pan lined with two lengths of wax paper placed crosswise. “When cutting the wax paper, leave yourself at least two extra inches of paper on each side, because you’ll be using them to lift the ice cream cake out of the pan after it’s frozen.”

I sliced the pound cake into sections and demonstrated how to place several slices around both sides and at the two ends inside the loaf pan. “Next, we take either a quart of one flavor of softened ice cream, or-my favorite-two pints in different flavors. Begin to pack them into the loaf pan, halfway up. Then place the last pieces of cake on top of the first layer of ice cream. Next, add the second layer of ice cream and put the loaf pan in the freezer. Allow an hour or two for the ice cream cake to set, then lift it out of the loaf pan and turn it out onto a dessert plate. Sprinkle some fresh fruit, like raspberries or blueberries or sliced strawberries around the cake. Top it with fresh fruit, or with a few swirls of whipped cream, or Cool Whip, or even with a light dusting of powdered sugar. Then slice and serve. But don’t expect to have any left over for a midnight fridge raid.”

Liddy arrived a few minutes after three. The last members of the cooking class had left and Eileen and I were cleaning up.

She held up the Neiman Marcus shopping bag she carried. “Here’s your costume, Nurse Ratched.”

Liddy took a folded set of scrubs out of the bag, handed them to me, and reached into the bag again. “And here’s your prop.”

It was an authentic-looking medical chart, encased in a metal holder.

“When you carry it in front of you, it covers most of the face on your ID badge.”

“You’ve thought of everything,” I said.

“Go get changed, Aunt Del. I’ll finish up here.”

“Thanks, honey.”

The tiny bathroom in the corner of the school area was clean, but it was the size of the broom closet it had been before the toilet and the tiny sink were installed. I wouldn’t be able to tell how I looked because there was no mirror over the washbasin.

It took quite a bit of twisting and stretching in that cramped space, but I managed to take off my own slacks and sweater and wiggle into Liddy’s hospital employee costume without straining one of my muscles, or splitting the seams on her blue scrubs.

I folded up my own clothing and put those items into Liddy’s shopping bag.

When I emerged, Liddy nodded in approval and said, “You look very official.”

“Does the staff at St. Clare’s wear this color?”

“I suddenly thought about that in the middle of the night, so I went over this morning and wandered around to check. Apparently, there’s no regulation, because I saw the employees in both blue and green. A couple were in a sort of salmon shade, or maybe those started out orange and faded. Anyway, some of the women wear print tops over scrub pants, but I’d never do that because the contrast cuts the body in half and would make my rear look wide.”

Eileen was gazing at me with worry in her eyes. “Are you sure you should do this? Is it illegal to pose as somebody who works in a hospital?”

“I’m just wearing the outfit. I’m not going to work on a patient,” I said.

That was mostly true, but I knew that if I got caught in this impersonation by a hospital official and the police were called, I’d be in a fix trying to explain what I was doing there, dressed as I was. And if Detective Hatch caught me questioning Roland Gray, I might get slapped with a charge of interfering with a police investigation. That, on top of having my fingerprint at the scene of the break-in at Ingram’s house, could land me in big trouble indeed.

During the ride to St. Clare’s Hospital, I’d pulled down the passenger seat’s visor and flipped open the mirror. With a tissue from the packet Liddy kept in her glove compartment, I wiped off my mascara and lipstick. As a final touch, I’d twisted my hair into a coil and pinned it against the back of my head. The style-if one could call that a style-wasn’t meant to look good, and it didn’t.

As we approached the hospital, Liddy asked, “Which parking lot? For the emergency entrance, or the main one?”

I pointed to the right. “Main entrance. The last information I had was that he’d been moved to the second floor.”

Liddy steered her Range Rover toward the visitor’s ticket booth, took one from the machine, and proceeded into the lot.

She’d just nosed into a parking space when I saw someone I recognized exiting through the hospital’s large glass front doors.

“Quick-duck down!” I thrust my head below the windshield until my face was level with her gearshift.

Automatically, Liddy bent down, too.

She whispered into my shoulder. “Why are we doing this?”

“Yvette Dupree just came out of the hospital. I don’t want her to see us.”

“Do you think she went to visit Roland Gray?”

“She must have. It’s too big a coincidence for her to be here for any other reason,” I said.

A few more seconds passed.

“I’m getting a neck ache,” Liddy said. “How long do we have to stay down here like this?”