by Joanne Fluke
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position
10-ounce package Lorna Doone shortbread cookies
(if you can’t find them, you can use Pecan
Sandies, or Nilla Wafers)
2 cups miniature marshmallows (white, not colored)
6-ounce package butterscotch chips (approximately
1 cup – I used Nestle)
1 cup chopped pecans
2 teaspoons Kosher or sea salt
½ cup butter (1 stick, ¼ pound)
½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Spray a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan with Pam or other nonstick spray. (If you like, buy a disposable foil pan at the grocery store, place it on a cookie sheet to support the bottom, and then you won’t have to clean up. You can also avoid clean up by lining your regular cake pan with heavy-duty aluminum foil.)
Line the bottom of the pan with a layer of Lorna Doone shortbread cookies. (It’s okay to overlap a little.) Alternatively, crush the round cookies, and spread the cookie crumbs out over the bottom of the pan. Make enough cookie crumbs to completely cover the bottom and press them down with a metal spatula when you’re through.
Hannah’s 1st Note: If you couldn’t find the shortbread cookies and you need to use round cookies instead, crush the cookies by putting them in a sealable plastic bag and rolling them with a rolling pin or dropping them into a food processor and processing in an on-and-off motion with the steel blade. The crumbs should be the size of coarse gravel.
Sprinkle the shortbread cookies (or the cookie crumbs) with the marshmallows.
Cover the marshmallows with the butterscotch chips.
Cover the butterscotch chips with the chopped pecans.
Sprinkle the chopped pecans with 2 teaspoons of Kosher or sea salt.
In a small saucepan over low heat, combine the butter and brown sugar. Stir the mixture constantly until the sugar is dissolved.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: Alternatively, you can place the butter and brown sugar in a microwave-safe container and melt it on HIGH for 1 minute. If you choose to do it this way, let the mixture sit in the microwave for another minute and then take it out and stir it to see if the brown sugar has melted. If it hasn’t, process it for another 20 seconds, let it sit in the microwave for another minute, and try again. Repeat as often as necessary.
Once you have melted your butter and brown sugar and stirred the mixture smooth, add the vanilla extract and stir it in thoroughly.
Drizzle the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla extract mixture over the contents of the cake pan as evenly as you can.
Bake your Butterscotch Marshmallow Bar Cookies at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until the bar cookies are golden brown on top.
Remove the pan from the oven and cool it on a wire rack.
When the bar cookies are completely cool, cut them into brownie-sized pieces and serve.
If there are any leftovers (which there won’t be unless you have less than three people), store them in the refrigerator in a covered container. They can also be wrapped, sealed in a freezer bag, and frozen for up to two months.
Yield: 2 and ½ to 3 dozen yummy treats that will please adults and kids alike.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: Tracey loves to make these with me and take them to class for a treat. Since her little sister, Bethie, wants to help, her job is to take the marshmallows out of the bag, one by one, and put them in the measuring cup. Bethie does a really good job doing this and Tracey and I pretend not to notice if she eats a couple of marshmallows while she’s doing it.
PICCADILLY CHEESE MINI MUFFINS (PICKLE-DILLY)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
1 and ½ cups dry biscuit mix (I used Bisquick)
¾ cup grated cheddar cheese (I used Kraft sharp cheddar)
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon onion powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon white (granulated) sugar
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
cup (2 Tablespoons) whole milk
1 large egg, beaten (just whip it up in a glass with a fork)
¼ cup dill pickle relish (I used Vlasic Dill Relish)
Hannah’s 1st Note: Do not mix up these mini muffins with an electric mixer. Any time you make muffins, they should be mixed by hand for best results.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: This recipe can be doubled, but only use one egg, not two.
Prepare your baking pans by filling 2 mini muffin pans (6 cups apiece) with mini muffin papers.
Measure out one and a half cups of biscuit mix and place it in a medium-size bowl. (Press it down in the cup when you measure it.)
Sprinkle the sharp grated cheddar cheese on top of the biscuit mix.
Sprinkle on the garlic powder.
Sprinkle on the onion powder.
Sprinkle on the quarter-teaspoon of salt.
Sprinkle on the Tablespoon of sugar.
Sprinkle on the dry mustard.
Mix all the dry ingredients together with a wooden spoon.
Pour the whole milk in a small bowl and add the beaten egg. Mix with a fork (you can use the same fork you used to whip up the egg) until they are thoroughly blended.
Pat the dill pickle relish with paper towels to get off some of the moisture. Then add it to the bowl with the milk and egg. Mix well with the fork.
Pour the contents of the small bowl (the wet ingredients) into the medium-size bowl (the dry ingredients). Mix them with the wooden spoon just until they are blended. Do not overmix. There are supposed to be some small lumps.
Using a small melon baller, or a teaspoon from your silverware drawer, fill the mini muffin cups almost but not quite to the top of the cups.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: These mini muffins don’t rise very much, just enough to get rounded on the tops.
Bake your Piccadilly Cheese Mini Muffins at 350 degrees F. for 12 to 15 minutes or until they are golden brown on the tops.
You can test your mini muffins for doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center. If the toothpick comes out without sticky dough clinging to the sides, your mini muffins are done.
Hannah’s 4th Note: You can also make this recipe as regular-size muffins using a cupcake pan. If you do this, you’ll need to bake your larger muffins for 20 to 25 minutes.
Yield: approximately 3 dozen mini muffins.
Chapter Twenty-five
“Great meal, Hannah!” Norman said, leaning back in his chair. “I don’t think I could eat another bite.”
“Not even my Butterscotch Marshmallow Bar Cookies?” Michelle asked him.
“Oh boy!” Lonnie said, before Norman could respond. “Butterscotch and marshmallows are two of my favorite things. They sound great, Shelly!”
“I might try one,” Norman admitted with a smile. “I don’t think I can handle more. I ate two pork chops and three of Hannah’s Piccadilly Mini Muffins.”
Mike just smiled as he chewed and then he held up his thumb and forefinger in an okay sign. Hannah could understand why Mike was currently speechless. He was too busy eating his fourth pork chop and his fifth mini muffin.
Hannah stood up, intending to clear the table, but Michelle waved her back down. “Lonnie and I will clear the table, put up the coffee, and cut the bar cookies,” she said. “Just relax and try not to trip over Moishe if you go down the hallway for anything. He did the Moishe flop again and he’s in the middle of the hallway, stretched out and sleeping.”
“What’s the Moishe flop?” Mike asked, popping the last bite of pork chop in his mouth and putting down his fork at last.
“That’s Michelle’s term. Sometimes, if we’re walking down the hallway and Moishe is walking ahead of us, he just flops down in the middle of the carpet and goes to sleep.” She turned to Norman. “Does Cuddles do that?”
“She does something similar when I decide to go up to bed and I climb the stairs.”
“She flops on the
stairs?” Mike asked.
“That’s right. And a second later, she’s asleep.”
“Doesn’t she roll off the step when she does that?”
Norman shook his head. “No. She’s small and she stretches out lengthwise. I used to go up the stairs in the dark because I always leave a light on in my bedroom and there’s a glow from that at the top of the stairs. Now I have to turn on the hanging light over the stairs so I don’t trip over Cuddles.”
“Was this before or after Doctor Bob ran his tests?” Hannah asked.
“Both before and after. I told him about it, and he was concerned until all her tests came back in the normal range.”
“What did he say then?” Mike asked.
“He told me to be very careful not to trip over Cuddles.”
“Because you might injure her?”
“Not exactly. He said to be careful because he wasn’t qualified to put a cast on me unless I had four legs.”
“That sounds like Doctor Bob,” Hannah said with a laugh. Then she sobered and turned to Mike. “How are you and Lonnie coming along with your investigation?”
“Slowly. We did eliminate Scotty MacDonald for lack of motive. He really didn’t want P.K.’s job that much, and since P.K. offered to share Ross’s office, there was no reason for Scotty to kill P.K.”
“Right,” Hannah said. “Did you talk to anyone else?”
“We interviewed everyone at KCOW and we talked to P.K.’s parents and his aunt and uncle. We came up with a big, fat zero for that.” Mike looked very disgruntled. “How about you, Hannah?”
“We tried to talk to P.K.’s former fiancée, Pinkie. She was our prime suspect. We managed to find out some information about her, but this afternoon we learned that she was dead.”
“Yes, the suicide,” Mike said. “We learned about that from P.K.’s aunt. Did you cross Pinkie off your suspect list?”
Hannah shook her head. “No. I might have if I hadn’t done some research on her boss, Dr. Benson. He’s a vet, and Pinkie could have taken some animal-grade tranquilizers from his office to use in the drugged candy.”
“Do you know how Pinkie killed herself?” Mike asked.
“No, but we heard it was pills. Was it an overdose of tranquilizers?”
“Yes. Doc called the doctor that did her autopsy and he said they were powerful and they might have been animal tranquilizers.”
“Then it’s a good thing I didn’t cross her name off my suspect list. Pinkie could have drugged the candy with tranquilizers before she committed suicide.”
“But the candy didn’t arrive until a couple of weeks after her death. How do you explain that?”
There was an amused expression on Mike’s face, and Hannah decided to set him straight. “After Pinkie died, someone could have gone through her things, found the addressed, pre-paid mailer with the candy, and put it in the mail.”
“Yes. That was our conclusion, too. So do you have anyone else on your list?”
Hannah made a helpless gesture. “Yes, but most of them are pretty far-fetched. It seems that every time we think we have someone promising, we’re wrong. We really don’t know where to turn next.”
“We’re in the same boat,” Mike admitted. “I have two of my team interviewing P.K.’s friends to see if any of them has a possible motive. I hate to be a defeatist, but I don’t expect any positive results.”
“Have you given up on the theory that Ross might have been the target instead of P.K.?” Norman asked him.
“No, but we’ve been concentrating on P.K. up until now. We’re not discarding the notion that the candy may have been intended for Ross, but since we thought that was a longshot, we haven’t done much on it yet. I do have one thing I want to check out, though. Will you let me have that storage locker key, Hannah? I can spare a couple of guys to put on that. There’s a slim chance that there may be something in Ross’s storage locker that will help us figure this out.”
Hannah frowned slightly. She really didn’t want to give up the storage locker key. Storage lockers could contain a glimpse into someone’s past, and that key was her last link with Ross. It seemed almost wrong to let someone else go through his storage locker before she did.
“Hannah?” Norman asked, noticing her frown. “Is there some reason why you don’t want Mike to have the key?”
It took Hannah a moment to frame her answer. “I guess I wanted to be the first one to look inside.”
“I can understand that,” Mike told her. “You were thinking that there might be personal stuff there. But think of it this way, Hannah. There could be something that’ll help us find out where Ross is and why he left.”
Hannah sighed. Mike had dropped a dilemma in her lap. “You’re right. I’ll go get the key. But if you don’t find anything helpful there, you have to return the key to me.”
“I’ll see to that personally,” Mike promised.
Hannah got up from the table and went down the hallway to her bedroom to get the key. It was right where she’d placed it in her top drawer, and she carried it back and handed it to Mike. “We already checked the storage facility next to the MacAlister campus so you don’t have to go there. Unit three-twelve doesn’t belong to Ross.”
“Did you check anywhere else?”
“No. We were too busy getting ready for Sally’s gift convention.” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “In retrospect, perhaps we should have concentrated on finding the right storage facility.”
“That could be a wild goose chase, too,” Mike told her. “It’s just that I have two guys that can spend time doing it so we might as well turn over every stone we can find. Sometimes that’s the only way to solve a complicated murder case.”
Hannah nodded agreement, but in her mind she was thinking, There are way too many stones in his case, practically enough to build a wishing well. And it might take a lucky coin in a wishing well to learn who killed P.K. and why.
* * *
Hannah knew that she had never seen so many oranges. They were stacked in a pyramid reaching almost up to the sky. Florence, from the Red Owl Grocery, was standing in front of them in her white cap and butcher’s apron. There was a gun belt around her waist and what looked like silver revolvers with pearl grips in both side holsters.
“No oranges for you,” she said to Hannah.
“But why? I love oranges.”
“Not enough. You have to take care of your orange, say that it’s handsome, and hold it like you’ll never let it go. You have to tell your orange that you adore it, that you think it’s wonderful and that it’s the best orange in the world. You can’t invite other oranges to your condo and treat them like friends. If your orange doesn’t think that it’s your most desirable orange, you know what will happen.”
“No. Really I don’t.” Hannah was puzzled. “Please tell me what will happen, Florence.”
“It’s simple, and you’ve been through it before. The orange you chose will leave you. It’ll roll away from you one day when you’re not at home. And you’ll never see it again!”
“But why?”
“Your chosen orange has to be your only orange. It’s that simple.”
“If my orange rolls away, I’ll just choose another.” Hannah reached out for another orange, but Florence pushed her hand away. “Oh no, you don’t, Hannah Swensen!”
“But I need another orange!”
“Need, schmeed,” Florence snorted derisively. “You don’t deserve another orange after the way you treated your first one!”
“But . . . it wasn’t my fault that my first orange rolled away!” Hannah could feel the tears gather in her eyes. “Really it wasn’t!”
“I should have known you wouldn’t believe me. Your kind never does. You treat your orange badly and then you’re surprised when it doesn’t want to stay with you.”
“Please, Florence. I love oranges! Can’t you please let me have another? I promise I’ll do better with the next orange.”
Florence shook
her head. “I can’t give you another orange. You knew the rules. Your orange gave you the key to its heart and you didn’t appreciate what your orange had given you.”
“But I promise that I won’t do it again!”
“I don’t believe you. I let you have not one, but two oranges who wanted to stay with you forever. Both of them were willing to give you the keys to their hearts, and you rejected both of them. I really thought you’d changed your attitude, that you were ready to appreciate citrus, but you haven’t changed one bit! It’s clear to me that you don’t know how to treat the oranges you say you love!”
“But I do! And I want one! Please! I love oranges and I’ve got to have one!”
“Hannah?” a voice asked, but it didn’t sound like Florence. Perhaps Florence had developed a cold.
“I want an orange! I need an orange! I can’t live without an orange!”
“Hannah! Wake up. You’re dreaming,” the new voice said. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
Hannah opened her eyes. At first, everything was hazy, but then she realized that Michelle was sitting on the edge of her bed. Florence was gone, the pyramid of beautiful oranges was gone, and the nightmare began to dissolve. “I was dreaming?”