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 BOOKS

      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