Plum Pudding Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  Sprinkle the sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon.

  Melt one stick of butter (½ cup) in the microwave for 45 seconds on HIGH. Pour it over the bread, plums, and raisins in your Bundt pan.

  Repeat the whole thing with the second part of the bread, removing the crusts, cutting it into triangles, and placing them on top of the first layer in your Bundt pan. Pit the remaining plums, cut them in half, and place them on the bread triangles. Add another cup of golden raisins, sprinkle on ½ cup sugar, and top it with one teaspoon of cinnamon. Melt the second stick of butter and pour it over the top.

  Remove the crusts from the last third of your bread, cut it in triangles and place them on top of the ingredients in the Bundt pan. Press them down a little with your impeccably clean hands. Sprinkle the top with ½ cup sugar.

  Get out a mixing bowl large enough to hold 7 eggs and 2 cups of heavy cream. Crack the eggs into the bowl and whip them up with a wire whisk (or with a hand mixer.) Be careful not to over beat the eggs. You’re making custard, not sponge cake.

  Add the cream and mix it in.

  Place your Bundt pan on a cookie sheet with sides, or another shallow pan that can hold any spills. Pour the custard mixture slowly over the top of your pan. It will need time to soak into the bread so don’t hurry. If it threatens to spill over the top or run down the fluted tube in the middle, just wait a minute or two and when the level goes down, add more custard mixture. You may not be able to add it all to the pan. That depends on how much the kind of bread you bought will soak up. Don’t overfill.

  Hannah’s 2nd Note: I was able to use all of my custard mixture. The Oroweat white sandwich bread soaked it all up.

  Once you’ve added all the custard mixture that you can, grate a little nutmeg over the top and let your creation sit and settle for 30 minutes.

  When 30 minutes are up, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

  When your oven comes up to temperature, place your Bundt pan AND the pan you’re using for spills in the oven. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 70 minutes.

  Let your Minnesota Plum Pudding cool for 20 minutes and then turn it out on a pretty platter. If you’re not going to serve it that day, let it cool completely, cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate. It will keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days.

  Let refrigerated Minnesota Plum Pudding come up to room temperature before serving. Dust it with powdered sugar, place a spring of plastic holly or another pretty nontoxic Christmas decoration in the center, and carry it to your table for a wonderful finale to your holiday celebration.

  Hannah’s 3rd Note: This pudding is best served slightly warm and drizzled with Hard Sauce (contains liquor), or Soft Sauce (contains no liquor). Recipes for the Sauces are below:

  Hard Sauce:

  ½ cup softened butter (1 stick, ¼ pound)

  2 cups powdered (confectioner’s) sugar (there’s no need to sift unless it’s got lumps)

  2 Tablespoons (1/8 cup) brandy, whiskey, or rum

  Beat the butter until it’s fluffy.

  Continue to beat as you add 1 cup of the powdered sugar and 1 Tablespoon of the liquor.

  Add the final cup of powdered sugar and the final Tablespoon of liquor and beat the mixture until smooth.

  Check for consistency. This Hard Sauce should be fairly thick, but still pourable. If it’s too thin, beat in more powdered sugar. If it’s too thick, add a bit more liquor.

  Store the Hard Sauce in a tightly-covered container in your refrigerator until thirty minutes or so before using it on your Minnesota Plum Pudding.

  Soft Sauce:

  ½ cup softened butter (1 stick, ¼ pound)

  2 cups powdered (confectioner’s) sugar (there’s no need to sift unless it’s got hard lumps)

  2 Tablespoons (1/8 cup) milk

  Beat the butter until it’s fluffy.

  Continue to beat as you add 1 cup of the powdered sugar and 1 Tablespoon of milk.

  Add the final cup of powdered sugar and the final Tablespoon of milk and beat the mixture until smooth.

  Check for consistency. This Soft Sauce should be fairly thick but still pourable. If it’s too thin, beat in more powdered sugar. If it’s too thick, add a bit more milk.

  Store the Soft Sauce in a tightly-covered container in your refrigerator. Take it out thirty minutes or so before you’re ready to serve it.

  Hannah’s 4th Note: Edna Ferguson, Lake Eden’s expert on shortcuts, says to tell you that if you don’t want to go to the bother of making Hard Sauce or Soft Sauce, just open a can of vanilla pudding and thin it with some liquor for the Hard Sauce. Make the Soft Sauce the same way, but thin it with a little milk. (You can also use instant vanilla pudding made according to the package directions and then thinned with either liquor or milk.)

  Lisa’s Note: If you don’t feel like making a sauce you can use heavy cream poured over a heated slice of pudding. You can also top individual slices with dollops of sweetened whipped cream, or scoops of vanilla ice cream. Herb says it’s good if you cut a leftover slice of Minnesota Plum Pudding for breakfast and don’t top it with anything at all.

  Chapter Ten

  “So why doesn’t Mayor Bascomb want to stay at Mille Lacs Lake and fish?” Hannah asked, as she stood side by side at the counter with Lisa, packing up the cookies for the girls at the Crazy Elf Cookie Shop.

  “He told Herb he was worried and he thought he’d better come back in case he had to pull the plug.”

  Hannah turned to look at her partner in alarm. “What happened?! I thought you said Stephanie wasn’t that sick!”

  “Oh, she’s not. Mrs. Bascomb’s fine. Mayor Bascomb was talking about the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot. He says they’re losing money every day, and he’s going to demand that Larry show him the books. If things don’t look good, he’s going to get out before he loses his shirt.”

  Hannah had trouble believing that Mayor Bascomb would lose money on his investment. Last night the Christmas tree lot had been packed with people. “It was crowded last night. And every time I’ve driven past, it’s been mobbed with families buying trees.”

  “That’s exactly what Herb thought, but Mayor Bascomb explained it to him. If trees are all they’re buying, the mayor’s in trouble because Larry’s selling them at cost. That’s what’s known as a loss leader. The whole idea behind it is that people come in for the bargain Christmas trees, but while the kids are riding on the Crazy Elf Christmas Train and going through the Crazy Elf Fun House, their parents buy trees stands, decorations, and toys from the Crazy Elf Toy Shop.”

  Hannah remembered that the only line she’d seen last night was the one in front of the cookie shop. Mayor Bascomb could be right. “But the parents aren’t buying tree stands, decorations, and toys?”

  “That’s what the mayor’s afraid of. He told Herb that Larry should have known better, especially since he was raised right here. Lake Eden people don’t fall for loss leaders. Why buy a new tree stand when you’ve got a perfectly good one down in the basement?”

  “And why buy decorations when you packed them up last year and saved them?” Hannah added her question to the mix.

  “You got it. Toys are probably cheaper at CostMart. Everybody in town knows that. And there’s no reason to buy a wreath when you can make one from the bottom branches your husband cuts off to get your tree in the stand. Mayor Bascomb suspects that the only part of the whole operation that’s showing a profit is the refreshment stand. And that’s because Larry gets the cookies from us!”

  “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back,” Hannah repeated the warning her father had given her when she’d brought home a perfect report card.

  “I won’t, but you know our cookies are the best.” Lisa set a canister of flour on the table and went back to the pantry. “Of course all this about Larry is hearsay.”

  “Yes, but it could be true. I’ll try to check it out when I deliver his cookies.”

  “How will you do that?”

 
; “Larry’s fiancée works in the Crazy Elf Toy Shop. I’ll stop in and see how many customers are waiting in line. And if it’s not crowded, I’ll ask her some questions.”

  “Good idea,” Lisa said, putting together another of their distinctive dessert boxes for Hannah. “It’s possible that Mayor Bascomb is painting things a little blacker than they really are, especially when it comes to finances. Herb says he does that sometimes. He thinks it’s because the mayor doesn’t want any of us ordinary Lake Edenites to know how much money he has.”

  “Herb could be right,” Hannah said, remembering how Mayor Bascomb had sympathized publicly with a group of homeowners who were concerned about making their mortgage payments, and how he’d claimed that he was in the same boat. It hadn’t gone well for the mayor when an investigative reporter for the Lake Eden Journal had discovered that he owned his home outright and had no mortgage payment to make.

  “I sure hope Mr. Jaeger likes your plum pudding.” Lisa lifted the plum pudding Hannah had made and placed it in the center of the dessert box. “Baking these would be a break from baking cookies all the time.”

  “Are you getting bored with cookies?” Hannah turned to look at her partner in alarm.

  “No. Every kind of cookie we make is different, so it doesn’t get boring. It’s just that plum pudding would be really different. And I just love unmolding cakes from Bundt pans. They make plain, old, ordinary cakes beautiful.”

  “You’re right. Did you know the Bundt pan was invented by a Minnesotan?”

  “Really?” Lisa sounded shocked.

  “His name was H. David Dahlquist and he was from Edina. He’s the man who founded Nordic Ware.”

  “I got a Nordic Ware Bundt pan for a wedding present. When did they make the first ones?”

  “In the early nineteen-fifties. Mr. Dahlquist modified a German design and named them Bundt pans.”

  “They must have been a huge success. Everybody’s got one now.”

  Hannah shook her head. “But they didn’t back then. Nordic Ware didn’t sell very many until nineteen sixty-six, when a Texas woman won second place in the Pillsbury Bake-Off for her Tunnel of Fudge cake. It was baked in a Bundt pan and the recipe was so tempting, everybody wanted to try it.”

  “So everybody bought Bundt pans.”

  “That’s right. And now we use them for all sorts of things.”

  “Including Andrea’s Jell-O molds,” Lisa added. “Is she making one for Christmas?”

  “Yes. She got a new one from our family friend, Sally Hayes.” Hannah glanced up at the clock and sighed. “I’d better load up and get going. I want to be back here by three at the latest so we can try out your Aunt Helen’s Christmas Lace Cookies.”

  “You’re going to love them, Hannah. Aunt Helen used to bring a box to the house every time she visited. When we saw her coming up the walkway with a box in her arms, we all used to cheer. Those cookies were so good! They’re crunchy and chewy at the same time, if you know what I mean.”

  “I don’t, but I can hardly wait to find out.” Hannah grabbed a stack of boxes and headed out to her cookie truck. The Christmas Lace Cookies sounded wonderful and if they were as good as Lisa said, they’d use them for their next holiday cookie catering job.

  After the fifth knock, Hannah stepped back and massaged her aching knuckles. She’d started by ringing the doorbell, but no one had answered her ring. She’d even leaned on it for a good thirty seconds, but that hadn’t worked either. After that she’d knocked, louder and more violently, but not even her last volley of knuckle-damaging thumps had caused Luanne to respond. Hannah was about to go to her alternate plan, the one that involved Nettie Grant and the cookies she’d use to camouflage the real purpose for the visit and sweeten her questions she planned to ask about Luanne’s whereabouts, when she heard footsteps approaching the door from inside.

  “Who is it?” a voice called out.

  It was Luanne. Hannah recognized her voice. “It’s Hannah Swensen. I need to see you.”

  There was the sound of a lock disengaging and the door was pulled open from inside. The sight that greeted Hannah wasn’t pretty. Luanne stood there swaying slightly, blinking groggily in the beam of sunlight that streamed in from the open door.

  “Hannah,” she said, moving back to let her enter. “What time is it?”

  “One-thirty.”

  Luanne looked stunned. “In the afternoon?” she asked.

  “Yes.” Hannah set the bag of cookies down on a coffee table filled with books and papers, and decided to get straight to the point. “What’s going on, Luanne? Mother was worried about you when you didn’t show up for work this morning.”

  “This morning? But…but…” Luanne took a deep breath and let it out with a sigh. “I must have fallen asleep after Nettie came to get Susie. I told myself I was just going to shut my eyes for ten minutes, but I was so tired, I was afraid I wouldn’t wake up. I set the alarm so that wouldn’t happen and I wouldn’t oversleep. But…I must have slept straight through the alarm!”

  “And the phone when we all called you. And the doorbell when I rang it five times.” Hannah was aware of a faint electronic beeping coming from the back of the duplex. She recognized the sound as a twin to her own alarm clock at home. “You’d better go shut off your alarm clock, Luanne. It’s still going off. I can hear it. Did you get to bed late last night?”

  “Late? I didn’t get to bed at all!” Luanne gestured toward the pile of papers on the table. “I must have gone over it a hundred times, but it just won’t come out right.”

  Hannah glanced down at the papers. They were filled with columns of figures that meant nothing to her. “What won’t come out right?”

  “The books for the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot. Nothing balances. I just don’t know what to do, Hannah. I added, and re-added, and double-checked every number, but the accounts won’t balance. The only thing that makes sense is that I’m missing something.”

  “Like what?” Hannah asked, wondering why Luanne was doing the books for the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot.

  “Like…I don’t know. Maybe there’s a bunch of receipts that I don’t have, or some income that’s not listed on the sheets Courtney gave me.” Luanne stopped to wipe the tears from her eyes.

  Or maybe there’s something fishy going on with Larry, the Crazy Elf, Hannah thought. Mayor Bascomb’s concerned and he’s pretty sharp when it comes to investments. There might be something really wrong with the books.

  “All I know is that if I can’t get the accounts to balance, I won’t get paid. And if I don’t get paid, I can’t buy the dollhouse I promised Susie for Christmas!” Luanne buried her face in her hands. “I don’t know how I did it, but I must have made a mistake. I looked and I looked all last night and I couldn’t find it. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “I do.”

  “You do?”

  “Absolutely.” Hannah picked up the bag of cookies and handed it to Luanne. “Have a cookie. A little chocolate will make you feel much better about everything.”

  Luanne opened the bag and took out a cookie. And for the first time since Hannah had come in the door, she smiled. “Chocolate chip. They’re my favorites.”

  “Good. These aren’t just any chocolate chip cookies. These are Valerie’s Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookies.”

  “Chocolate chip pretzel?”

  “That’s right. Take a bite and tell me how you like them.”

  Luanne took a bite and munched. Then she looked up with another smile, even bigger this time. “They’re really good. I like these a lot better than the plain chocolate chip cookies.”

  “So do I. And they came about because I made a mistake.”

  “How did you do that?”

  “Valerie was a friend of mine in college and I wanted to bake her something special for her birthday. I called her mother and asked her what kind of cookies were Valerie’s favorites, and her mother told me they were chocolate chip and Pizzelles.”

 
“I’ve heard of Pizzelles. They’re Italian, aren’t they?”

  “That’s right. And it takes a special kind of tiny waffle-like iron to bake them. But I was in a hurry, and I thought her mother said Chocolate Chip Pretzel Cookies. I wasn’t sure what those were, but I figured I could make them so I crushed up some pretzels and added them to chocolate chip cookie dough instead of chopped nuts.”

  “Did Valerie like them?”

  “She was crazy about them. And her mother thought it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard. So making mistakes isn’t always a bad thing, Luanne.”

  “Well…not in your case. But…”

  “And maybe the mistake isn’t yours,” Hannah interrupted her with a possible explanation. “Eat a couple of cookies. Then go wash your face, brush your teeth, and get dressed in fresh clothes. When you come back out, I want you to gather up all your paperwork and ride with me to the Crazy Elf Christmas Tree Lot.”

  “But…why?”

  “Because I have to deliver cookies and you have to go talk to Courtney. I’m willing to bet she forgot to give you some important piece of information that’ll balance those books.”

  “But what about my job at Granny’s Attic? I’m already over five hours late!”

  “I’ll call and explain while you’re getting ready to go. They’ll be so glad you’re all right, they won’t mind at all if it takes you another half hour or so to get there.”

  CHOCOLATE CHIP PRETZEL COOKIES

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

  1 cup softened butter (2 sticks, ½ pound)***

  2 cups white (granulated) sugar

  3 Tablespoons molasses