Blueberry Muffin Murder. Joanne Fluke
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BLUEBERRY MUFFIN MURDER
A glimmer of light caught Hannah’s eye. The pantry door was open a few inches and someone had turned on the light. Hannah grabbed the first weapon she could find, the heavy pot she used to make boiled frostings. If the person who’d frightened Connie Mac away was hiding in her pantry, she’d get in a few good licks before she turned him over to the sheriff!
Once she had moved silently into position, Hannah inched the door open with her foot. She glanced inside, and what she saw caused the pot to slip from her nerveless fingers. Her earlier assumption was wrong. Connie Mac hadn’t left last night.
The Cooking Sweetheart was facedown on the pantry floor. She had been struck down by a massive blow to the head in the act of sampling one of Hannah’s Blue Blueberry Muffins.
Shock rendered Hannah immobile for a moment, but then she knelt down to feel for a pulse. The biggest celebrity ever to set foot in Lake Eden would never star in another episode of her television show or pose for pictures in her magazine. Connie Mac was dead…
Books by Joanne Fluke
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE MURDER
STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE MURDER
BLUEBERRY MUFFIN MURDER
LEMON MERINGUE PIE MURDER
FUDGE CUPCAKE MURDER
SUGAR COOKIE MURDER
PEACH COBBLER MURDER
CHERRY CHEESECAKE MURDER
KEY LIME PIE MURDER
CANDY CANE MURDER
CARROT CAKE MURDER
CREAM PUFF MURDER
Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation
A HANNAH SWENSEN MYSTERY WITH RECIPES
BLUEBERRY MUFFIN MURDER
JOANNE FLUKE
Kensington Publishing Corp.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2002 by Joanne Fluke
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7582-7841-8
ISBN-10: 0-7582-7841-1
eISBN: 978-1-6177-3126-6
First Kensington hardcover printing: March 2002
This book is for our Billie,
Moishe’s girlfriend
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my dedicated circle of taste-testers. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. My special thanks to Ruel, whose skin was beginning to turn a little purple after sampling three dozen batches of Blue Blueberry Muffins, and to Lyn, for rhapsodizing over Lisa’s White Chocolate Supremes.
Thanks to John S., my much-appreciated editor, who’s always full of ideas and enthusiasm, and to all the other folks at Kensington who’ve supported and encouraged me. A big thank you to Terry Sommers, who gives my recipes a final test. (Your oven is preheating, isn’t it, Terry?) Thanks to Jamie Wallace for perfecting www.MurderSheBaked.com—the official Hannah Swensen web site. And another big thank you to my new E-mail friends who wrote to say that they enjoy Hannah Swensen and her extended family almost as much as I do.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Peanut Butter Melts
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Blue Blueberry Muffins
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Twin Chocolate Delights
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Little Snowballs
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Grilled Cream Cheese Sandwiches
Chapter Nineteen
Lisa’s White Chocolate Supremes
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Short Stack Cookies
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Multiple-Choice Bar Cookies
Index of Recipes
Chapter One
Hannah Swensen awoke to a curious sensation. Her body was warm, but her nose felt like an icicle. She sat up in bed, reached out to snap on the light, and stared at the little puffs of moisture her breath left in the air. No wonder her nose felt so cold! The furnace had gone out again and Lake Eden, Minnesota, was smack-dab in the middle of a February cold snap.
“Moishe? Where are you?” Hannah glanced around the bedroom, but her feline roommate wasn’t in any of his usual places. There was no orange-and-white cat nestled in the cushioned depths of her laundry basket, the top of her dresser held only its usual collection of books, and the windowsill with its view of the bird feeder was bare. There was, however, a good-sized lump in the middle of her bed.
Hannah stared at the lump for a moment. It was too small to be one of her pillows and too large to belong to an errant sock. She lifted the covers to find her feline roommate curled up in the middle of her bed, soaking up the warmth from her electric blanket.
“What are you doing under there?” Hannah asked, eyeing her fiercely independent tomcat with surprise. Moishe seldom cuddled for more than a few moments, and he’d never crawled under the covers with her. The cold must