Cookery

Today was a cooking day.  It was also a sunshine day and the temperatures rose through the day until it was 37 degrees when I went to knitting at 6pm.  Of course the wind kicked up so it felt like about 18 degrees but I can't be too unhappy when it's sunny.

 I did a little web surfing and found a recipe for German Spent Grain Bread or Biertreberbrot.  (I am not even going to try to pronounce that)  I'll get in touch with DS to let him know how much of the spent grains I need to rustle up a batch of this bread.  I found another interesting looking recipe so I might have to try them both.  I'll report.

 


This morning I baked a small spaghetti squash to have with the WW Sloppy Joe piled on it.  Man, that's tasty.  The sloppy joe sauce needs a little more tweaking but I won't push it away.



Then I had to go to the store because I was out of chicken broth and onions and wanted to make Curried Chickpeas and Rice which made the house smell wonderful. (and portioned out to six servings--hooray!) I had a hard time deciding what to eat for supper--chickpeas or sloppy joe, sloppy joe or chickpeas?  Sloppy joe won.  I'll have chickpeas tomorrow.


21 February--Barbara Malcolm, Three Cheers for Murder. 

The coroner, Dr. Sidney Lange motioned to Archibald and they move into a relatively quiet area of the room.  “I found a couple of drops of blood on the back of her tennis dress, just below the neckline.  Ask your buddy there if he’ll give me a sample of his blood for comparison.” 

Archibald shook his head.  “I don’t know how that’ll fly.  No lawyer would stand for that.” 

“Well, you can ask.  Are you charging him?  Have you read him his rights?”         

“No, not yet.  I do think we’ll take him downtown for further conversation, though.  Probably want to call a lawyer then.”  Archibald suggested, “Maybe you can ask him for a sample.  That way it’ll be your neck if there’s a problem down the road.” 

“Thanks a lot,” said Dr. Lange.

Archibald asked, “Any guess as to the weapon and how long she’s been dead?” 

“The weapon, no, although it looks a lot like the wound on Tiffany Davis last Monday.  As to how long she’d been dead before she was found, I’d say less than 30 minutes.”

“Thirty minutes!” the detective exclaimed.   “Are you kidding?  The killer must have just disappeared.  Unless he’s the one who called us.”  Det. Archibald turned to look at Lars.  “Maybe I should ask this guy a few more questions.” 

As Archibald turned to resume questioning Lars, he was interrupted by one of the uniformed policemen who’d been searching the rest of the club.  “Detective Archibald, we need you upstairs.  We found someone hiding in the bar.” 

Archibald took Graybow aside and told him to keep questioning Lars.  “The doc says she’d only been dead about 30 minutes when we got the call.  Read him his rights.  Keep after him and maybe you’ll get lucky and get a confession.”  He directed another officer to remain with Lt. Graybow and Lars.

 “Let’s go,” he ordered.  He hurried upstairs to discover that it was Kenneth Edwards, the same man found outside the boutique where Tiffy was killed.  “Edwards!  What are you doing here?”

Edwards had been handcuffed by the police.   Archibald directed the officer to remove the cuffs and they sat at one of the small tables in the bar.  The pair of officers stood together nearby, arms folded, focusing on the questioning.

“Well, I came in to pick up cans the staff saves for me and figured I’d found a warm place to sleep for the night and maybe something to eat in the kitchen.”  Edwards’ head drooped in shame.  “I’d planned to bed down on the carpet after raiding the kitchen for grub.  I wouldn’t have eaten much, Detective.”

Archibald asked, “Anybody see you come in?”

“The bartender, Roy, let me in and then he left.  Said he had a date.  I just stayed.”

“Did you hear or see anyone else?”

Edwards leaned toward the detective in an effort to make him believe him.  “I heard a tennis match and people, a man and a woman, talking on the court.  Then they left and I didn’t hear anything until Lars came in to make sure the register was closed.  He turned out the last lights and then he left too.”

“He see you?”

The suspect shook his head.  “Nah, I ducked down behind the bar over there in the corner.  It’s pretty dark over there.”

“Then what?”  Archibald asked.

“Right away there was a shout and then the sirens.  I couldn’t figure out how to get out of here, so I just hid in the storeroom.”  He pointed toward the back of the room.

They all turned to look at the closed door.  “How’d you get in there?  Wasn’t it locked?”

“No, they just close the door.  There’s only a little food and cups and plates and stuff in there.”

There was silence while Archibald considered what he’s heard.

“You know, Edwards,” he mused, “I think it’s just a little too coincidental that you turn up at two murder scenes in one week.  What say we take you to the station to continue this conversation?  There’s a nice warm cell down there you can spend the night in.”  He motioned the two officers forward to take the suspect into custody.

“But...”

“Take him away,” the tired detective growled.

The officers exchanged a triumphant glance, happy to arrest someone.  They stepped forward, roughly snapped on the cuffs, muscled Edwards to his feet, and escorted him to the squad car.

And that's really all I did today, aside from tossing the sheets into the washer and dryer, sorry I don't have anything more interesting to say.
--Barbara