Free Criminal Crumbs by Jessica Beck Page A

me, and for the first time since we’d met, I saw a little spark of light in her eyes. “That is really cool.”
    “I don’t know about that. The hours are dreadful, the pay works out to be less than minimum wage, but on the plus side, I’m my own boss, and I make people happy with what I provide them. All in all, it’s a pretty sweet deal.”
    “I’ll bet it is,” Celia said. “Was it hard to learn how to do?”
    “Maybe at first, but it’s like anything else. After a while, I managed to get the hang of it.” There was a great deal more to it than that, but it was all the explanation Celia needed.
    “I think it sounds like a blast.” She hesitated a moment, and then she asked, “Suzanne, could you teach me how to do it?”
    “Why not?” What could it hurt? If it helped to let her guard down, maybe she’d tell me something inadvertently.
    “Excellent. What should we do first?” Celia asked me. The change in her was so dramatic I almost had a hard time believing that she wasn’t putting me on, but one glance at her face told me that she was genuinely interested.
    “Let’s see what kind of ingredients we can find on hand,” I said as I went to the massive refrigerator. There was no danger of anything spoiling for quite some time, since the warmth from the fireplace two rooms away couldn’t reach where we were working. Still, it would be a good idea to get in and out. “As I hand you things, put them on the counter behind you.”
    “I can do that,” she said.
    I opened the door, and in quick succession, I grabbed a massive tub of sour cream, a few eggs, and some whole milk.
    “That can’t be all that you need,” she said doubtfully.
    “That’s all of the wet ingredients, except for the sugar.”
    “Sugar isn’t wet, though, is it?” Celia asked.
    “It combines so easily with moisture that it’s classified that way in most recipes.” Grabbing one of the large mixing bowls hanging from hooks above my head, I measured out two cups of milk and then followed it up with a cup of sour cream. After that, I put the containers back into the refrigerator.
    “Now let’s raid the pantry,” I told her.
    “What do we need besides sugar?”
    I was using one of my most basic recipes, the one I’d first learned to make donuts myself, as a matter of fact, and I’d made it so many times that it had been committed to memory. When I’d had my recipe book stolen and burned once a long time ago, before I got a copy from Sharon Blake, it was my fallback donut I’d prepared while I’d searched for my way back. Before I walked into the pantry, I grabbed another mixing bowl, along with cup, tablespoon, and teaspoon measuring devices. Scanning the shelves, I collected sugar, bread flour, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt and put the containers on the center island in the pantry. It was a nice space, and I envied the chefs there, but not for long. I had donuts to make.
    “Now we measure out and mix the dry ingredients,” I said.
    “I really would like to help,” she said.
    “Have you ever baked before?”
    “A little,” she admitted, which probably meant not much, if any, at all.
    “Why don’t you help me when it’s time to cut the donut rounds out of the dough? How does that sound?”
    “Can I be the one who bakes them?”
    “These will be fried, not baked, and there’s an art to putting them in without burning yourself in the process.”
    She clearly hadn’t realized there was any danger involved in the process. “Fine. I’ll watch.”
    “Good,” I said as I started measuring out ingredients and adding them to the new bowl, calling out the names and quantities as I worked. “In the bowl, I’m adding eight cups of bread flour, two cups of granulated sugar, two teaspoons of baking soda, two teaspoons of cinnamon, two teaspoons of nutmeg, and finally, four or five dashes of salt.”
    “How much is a dash?” she asked me.
    “Pretend you have a salt shaker in your hand. Shake it