Plum Pudding Murder. Joanne Fluke

thank you to Lou Malcangi for designing such a delightful dust jacket.

      Thanks also to all the other talented folks at Kensington who keep Hannah sleuthing and baking up a storm.

      Thank you to Trudi Nash, a great friend and traveling companion! And thanks to David for batching it while she’s gone.

      Thank you to Dr. Rahhal, Dr. and Mrs. Line, and Dr. Wallen.

      Thanks to John at Placed4Success for Hannah’s movie and TV spots.

       And thanks to Hans who saved me from buying a flat-screen TV to use for target practice.

      Thanks to Ken Wilson, the master of iced coffee. And a big hug for Lois Brown, superb food stylist and baker.

      Thanks to Jill Saxton for correcting my Minnesota mistakes, baking bloopers, spelling slips, and grammatical goofs. (You’ll notice she doesn’t correct alliteration.)

      Many thanks to Terry Sommers for wading through the Wisconsin snow to her grocery store for the ingredients to test my recipes.

      Thank you to Sally Hayes for so many yummy recipes. If I click my heels together three times can I come to your Kansas kitchen and bake with you?

      Thank you to Jamie Wallace for keeping my Web site,

       MurderSheBaked.com

       up to date and looking great.

      Hugs to everyone who sent favorite family recipes for Hannah to try.

       I’m going to increase the size of my “To Test” box…again.

       And thanks so much for all the friendly letters and e-mails about Hannah.

       I’m delighted that you enjoy reading about her and trying her recipes.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      Chapter Twenty

      Chapter Twenty-One

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      Chapter Twenty-Seven

      Hannah Swensen’s Christmas Eve Dinner

      Plum Pudding Murder Recipe Index

      Chapter One

      Lake Eden, Minnesota

       Ten Shopping Days Until Christmas

      There were nights like tonight, right after he’d bet a bundle on the losing team, when Larry Jaeger wondered why he’d ever come back to this dinky little town. When it came to money matters, people around here were clueless. Swindling them out of their savings was no contest at all. He preferred an even playing field where he could outwit the investors he thought of as his adversaries. It was a game, after all, and the game was boring if your opponents were pushovers.

      In an effort to even the odds he’d taken more risks than usual, but not a single one of the locals were suspicious, not even Mayor Bascomb, who prided himself on his business savvy. This was like counting the leaves on a three-leaf clover, and that wasn’t his idea of fun. The thrill came from taking off with the money right before someone was about to catch on. These people weren’t about to catch on.

      And then there was Courtney, his biggest investor, his partner, and his fiancée. She owned fifty percent of the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot…on paper.

      Courtney had insisted on taking a room at the Lake Eden Inn, rather than staying with him in the double-wide trailer they called Elf Headquarters. She was afraid that people would talk because they weren’t married. She was right. They would talk. But that wouldn’t bother him. His concern was that Courtney was living separately, and that gave her time to think. It was much easier to keep tabs on her when they were together twenty-four seven. She had some surprisingly good business instincts, unlike some of the other girlfriends he’d had. Courtney might just have the smarts to compare the business he’d fabricated for her on paper to what was actually happening right here in Lake Eden Park. If she did that, she might discover the inconsistencies that no one else had noticed.

      The customers were long gone and the last employee had left the lot at least ten minutes ago. He was completely alone and once Hannah came to pick up her check, he’d be alone for the rest of the night.

      It was time to close up shop. He stepped out the back door of the trailer and walked to the pole that held the breaker box. It was cold tonight, now that the elves had turned off the standing heaters, and he shivered even though he was wearing a heavy sweater.

      There were three switches inside the weather-proof box. The top one controlled the electricity for the buildings, tree tents, rides, and tall candy cane lampposts that illuminated the park. The second switch powered the bare bulbs that were strung in a crisscross pattern overhead. They were the night security lights and they kept the park dimly illuminated when the main lights were out. The third breaker controlled the electricity for Elf Headquarters, and that was permanently set in the on position. He’d told the electrician to rig it so that no misguided employee could cut the power to his television set in the middle of an important game.

      The music was blaring as usual and it seemed even louder now that it wasn’t tempered by noisy crowds and the squeals of children riding the attractions. His trailer wasn’t soundproof, but he’d learned to tune out the noise when he was inside. Now that the park was empty, the continuous loop of Christmas carols seemed ear-splitting.

      Silent Night was playing as he clicked on the overhead security lights. He’d learned his lesson the first night he’d spent in the park. Once the main lights were doused, it was impossible to see the second switch. He’d picked his way gingerly back to the trailer to get a flashlight to illuminate the second switch so that he could engage it.

      Larry reached for the top switch as the music went into the chorus. “Silent night, holy night. All is calm, all is…”

      He threw the switch and smiled. “Not bright. Not bright at all,” he said, heading back to the lights and warmth of Elf Headquarters.

      A big swallow from the brandy snifter on the coffee table made short work of his shivers. A second snifter took care of his icy toes and hands, and then he played channel roulette with the remote in an effort to find something interesting. He bypassed cooking shows, nature programs, reenactments of great moments in history, several movies with actors he didn’t recognize, a performance by a symphony orchestra with a conductor he didn’t recognize, and reruns of ten-year-old game shows. He finally concluded that there was nothing he really wanted to watch on any of his two hundred plus satellite channels. The only thing that was slightly better than nothing at all was a replay of the championship college basketball tournament that had taken place last year.

      A few sips from a third snifter of brandy made it easier to pretend that he hadn’t seen the game before. He watched a three-pointer sink in without even rippling the net, and then he looked up as car lights flashed outside his window.

      Someone