Plum Pudding Murder. Joanne Fluke

sheet and slip them in the oven.

      Bake at 500 degrees F. for EXACTLY 7 minutes. Set the oven timer and don’t open the oven door while they’re baking. The success of this recipe depends on high even heat for a limited amount of time. You want to bake the outside and leave the inside filled with hot molten chocolate.

      When your timer rings, immediately take the cakes from the oven and place them on a wire rack. The damp center of each cake will be barely visible and they may jiggle a bit when you move them to the cooling rack. Don’t worry. That’s the way they’re supposed to be.

      Give the cakes 2 minutes to set up slightly. Then upend them on dessert plates or bowls. Use two forks to pull apart the tops to expose the chocolate sauce in the center.

      Use a small ice cream scoop to drop vanilla ice cream in the center of the rich molten chocolate.

      Serve immediately to rave reviews.

      Yield: 9 cakes in large muffin tins, 6 cakes in large removable popover tins, 8 cakes in small soufflé dishes, 6 cakes in large soufflé dishes, or 6 cakes in disposable foil pot pie tins.

      If you have leftover cakes, they can be reheated in the microwave, but they won’t be the same. They’ll still be tasty, but the centers will turn into moist cake rather than hot fudge sauce.

      Hannah’s Note: If I want my dessert to be extra fancy, I make up some of the fruit sauce I use on potato pancakes and create little designs around the edge of large dessert plates while the Hot Fudge Sundae Cakes are baking. Mother prefers it that way. My sisters like it with their choice of ice cream. Andrea prefers chocolate, Michelle likes butterbrickle, and I think it tastes best with coffee ice cream.

      Chapter Five

      When Norman pulled into the crowded parking lot, Hannah saw her sister standing in the center of a parking space right next to the entrance, waving her arms frantically. Andrea’s green Volvo was parked next to the spot and it didn’t take an expert on string theory to surmise that she was standing there to save the parking place for them.

      The first thing Hannah heard when she emerged from Norman’s car was a tinny version of Hark the Herald Angels Sing played at earsplitting volume. She glanced across the street at the houses nearby, and wondered whether any of the homeowners had filed nuisance complaints.

      Hannah covered her ears and gave a little groan. And then she greeted her sister. “Hi, Andrea.”

      “Hi, Hannah.” Andrea turned to Norman. “I’m really glad you came along. Three opinions are better than two.”

      “And four opinions are even better,” Hannah told her. “Mike should be here any minute, and before he gets here I need to warn you about standing in the middle of parking spots to save them. That really wasn’t smart, Andrea. What if someone had pulled in too fast? They could have plowed right into you.”

      “But nobody would do that! Everybody knows I’m the sheriff’s wife!”

      “True, but what if they didn’t see you in time? It’s not exactly daylight out here.”

      Andrea thought about that for a moment and Hannah could tell from her sister’s set expression that she wasn’t willing to give up the argument quite yet. “Norman saw me in plenty of time. He slowed down.”

      “Norman’s a good driver. But what if someone else had been driving, someone who’d stopped at the Lake Eden Municipal Liquor Store to have a couple of hot toddies before coming here to buy a tree?”

      “Well…” Andrea sighed. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have been standing there in the middle of the space.” She turned to Norman. “Don’t tell Bill, okay?”

      Norman smiled. “Don’t worry, I won’t. I know what can happen to a messenger who delivers bad news.”

      “What’s that?” Andrea asked.

      “Sometimes they’re killed. Sophocles’ messenger in Antigone starts right off by saying, Don’t kill the messenger.”

      “That’s awful!” Andrea was clearly appalled. “You can’t just go around murdering people because you don’t like the news they give you. Did the killers get life sentences? Or did this happen in a state with capital punishment?”

      Hannah was used to her sister’s hit or miss brush with literature and history and she hurried to explain. “This happened a long time ago in a different part of the world, and nobody really knows what happened. But the phrase stuck with us. Shakespeare used it in Henry IV, Part 2, and some people say that Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain used it, too.”

      “Mark Twain’s real name was Samuel Clemens,” Andrea announced, clearly proud of herself for remembering. She turned to look as a car entered the parking lot and gave a smile. “Oh, good! Here comes Mike. But there’s no space left. I wonder where he’s going to park.”

      “Anywhere he wants to,” Hannah replied, watching as Mike turned on the flashing red lights on top of his cruiser and pulled up horizontally behind Norman’s sedan and Andrea’s Volvo.

      Once Mike had joined them, Andrea gave them the note Tracey had brought home from her teacher. The tree should be between four and five feet tall, it should have short needles, and the branches should have space between them so that it would be easier for the children to hang ornaments.

      “Blue Spruce,” Mike said.

      “Or Scotch Pine,” Norman offered. “Let’s go see what kind of trees the Crazy Elf has.”

      “I’m just glad you all came along with me,” Andrea said, leading the way toward the entrance. “Bill always picks out our tree. He doesn’t go to a tree lot. His parents have plenty of pines on the back forty and he drives out there to cut one down every year.”

      “Does Tracey go with him?” Norman asked her.

      “For the last two years. Before that she was too little.” Andrea turned back to Hannah. “You used to go with Dad when he picked out the tree, didn’t you?”

      “Yes, but we got ours from the Red Owl. Florence’s father had them trucked in, and he stood them up outside the store like spears against the brick wall.”

      “They didn’t thaw them out?” Norman asked.

      “No, they were frozen solid. A delivery came in one time when I was there with Dad. The trees were stacked in a flat bed truck with a tarp tied over the back. The thing I remember best is how they were trussed up with twine like mummies. I asked Dad how he could tell what they’d look like when they thawed out, and he said there was a trick to it.”

      “What trick?” Andrea grabbed Hannah’s arm. “You’d better tell us. Maybe the Crazy Elf’s trees are frozen, too.”

      “Dad’s trick didn’t make any sense to me at the time. He said the tree should resemble a carrot and the height should be two times the circumference of the base. And when I asked him what that meant, he said you had to wrap a string around the bottom, cut it off with a knife, and then see if the string would reach halfway up to the top of the tree. I watched him do it.”

      “Wow!” Mike sounded impressed. “You must have had some beautiful trees.”

      “We did, except for one year. Dad and I brought home the tree and he put it in the stand. He took off the twine and then it was time for me to go up to bed. He told me that the tree would thaw out before I got up the next morning and it would be beautiful.”

      “Was it?” Andrea asked. “I don’t remember this at all.”

      “You couldn’t remember it. You were just a baby. And yes, it thawed overnight. But it must have been old because every single needle fell off while we were sleeping and it was perfectly bare when I came down the stairs in the morning.”

      “Dad must have been very disappointed.” Andrea looked