by Joanne Fluke
The collar of Brandi’s coat was in the way and Hannah pushed it back. This caused the coat to fall open and Hannah gave a strangled gulp as she caught sight of Brandi’s chest.
Hannah felt for a pulse, even though her rational mind told her it was useless. No one could live with a wound that deep. She’d just straightened up, dizzy and slightly sick to her stomach at the sight of the blood that had been soaked up by the expensive fur, when the pantry door banged open and she heard Edna’s voice.
“Hannah? Are you out there?”
“I’m here.”
“Did you find the knife?”
Hannah glanced down at her mother’s valuable antique knife, buried to the hilt in Brand’s too-perfectly-proportioned-to-be-natural chest. “I found it.”
“Thank the Lord,” Edna shouted out gratefully. “Bring it here before your mother realizes it’s missing.”
Hannah considered that for a moment. The urge to jerk the knife out of Brandi’s chest and head for the kitchen at a run was strong. But equally strong was the awareness of her civic duty. Brandi didn’t stab herself, and that meant murder. And disturbing a crime scene by removing the murder weapon was a big no-no. “Sorry, Edna…I can’t bring it in.”
“Why not?”
“Because Brandi’s got it.” And with that said, Hannah turned and headed back to the kitchen to explain.
With the Cookie Jar, Hannah Swensen has a mouthwatering monopoly on the bakery business of Lake Eden, Minnesota. But when a rival store opens, tensions begin to bubble….
As she sits in her nearly empty store on Groundhog Day, Hannah can only hope that spring is just around the corner—and that the popularity of the new Magnolia Blossom Bakery is just a passing fad. The southern hospitality of Lake Eden’s two Georgia transplants, Shawna Lee and Vanessa Quinn, is grating on Hannah’s nerves—and cutting into her profits.
At least Hannah has her business partner Lisa’s wedding to look forward to. She’s turned one of Lisa’s favorite childhood treats into a spectacular Wedding Cookie Cake. But Hannah starts to steam when she finds out that Shawn Lee has finagled an invitation to the reception—and is bringing the Magnolia Blossom Bakery’s Southern Peach Cobbler for the dessert table.
Hannah doesn’t like having the Georgia Peach in the mix, especially when both Shawna Lee and Hannah’s sometime-boyfriend, Detective Mike Kingston, are no-shows to the wedding. Hannah has suspected that Mike is interested in more than Shawna Lee’s baking abilities. So when she sees lights on at the Magnolia Blossom Bakery after the reception, she investigates—and finds Shawna Lee shot to death.
Everyone in town knew The Cookie Jar was losing business to the Magnolia Bakery—a fact that puts Hannah at the top of the initial list of suspects. But with a little help from her friends, Hannah’s determined to prove that she wasn’t the only one who had an axe to grind with the Quinn sisters. Somebody wasn’t fooled by the Georgia Peaches and their sweet-as-pie act—and now it’s up to Hannah to track down whoever had the right ingredients to whip up a murder….
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PEACH COBBLER MURDER
now available in hardcover!
Hannah glanced at the clock. She’d unloaded her cookie truck in only ten minutes. The earliest that Norman could arrive was five minutes from now and that was probably optimistic. She went back to her favorite table, but she couldn’t seem to relax. There was something about the bright lights glaring in the interior of the Magnolia Blossom Bakery that made her nervous.
Perhaps there’d been a robbery. The moment the idea occurred to Hannah, her imagination was off and running. If the robbery had happened during the day, the robber might not have realized that all the lights were on. At this very moment, the cash drawer could be open and the Magnolia Blossom Bakery could be minus the day’s receipts. A good citizen of Lake Eden, one who could put aside petty jealousy and hold the welfare of a neighboring business paramount, would check to make sure the cash register at the Magnolia Blossom Bakery was intact.
Hannah groaned. The last thing she wanted to do was put on her boots and her coat, and walk across the street to make sure no burglar had invaded her competitor’s bakery. But basic decency demanded she do so, and she liked to think of herself as a basically decent person. Hannah stuffed her still-aching feet into her boots and slipped into her parka coat, zipping it up all the way. She scrawled a note to Norman: Across the street at Shawna Lee’s—maybe a burglary? and taped it to the outside of the back door. And then she hurried around the side of her building to see if there was a problem with the Magnolia Blossom Bakery.
The wind had teeth and shards of ice pelted Hannah’s face as she left the protection of her building. She turned up the collar of her parka coat and held her hand up to shield her eyes as she dashed across Main Street. She ducked under the pseudo-Jeffersonian portico of Lake Eden Realty and peered in the plate glass window of her cobbler challenger.
Andrea’s description hadn’t done the Magnolia Blossom Bakery justice. It was gorgeous and Hannah would be the first to admit tit. The magnolia tree mural the Minneapolis artist had painted was spectacular, all the tables and chairs matched, and everything was new and shiny. The color scheme was incredibly appealing and everything Hannah saw fit in perfectly. The homemade decorations at The Cookie Jar couldn’t hold a candle to the decorator embellishments at Shawna Lee and Vanessa’s Bakery.
Hannah sighed. She didn’t like feeling second-rate, even in the category of decorations. Comforting herself with knowledge that at least her baked goods were better, she took another, less envious and more appraising look, and came to the conclusion that absolutely nothing was out of place. The cash register drawer was pushed in, there were no signs of vandalism, and everything looked ready and set to go for business in the morning. But something about the bright lights really bothered her, and she felt she should check further. Even though there wasn’t much petty crime in Lake Eden, it was possible that a group of teenagers had waited until Shawna Lee had left and then broke in to steal whatever pastry they could find in the kitchen. The lights were on in there, too. She could see them blazing through the diamond-shaped window in the swinging door.
Hannah wished that Norman were with her, but no cars had driven past and he was probably still doing what they not so jokingly called “mother duty.” She didn’t relish going inside to check out someone else’s kitchen, but she couldn’t just stand here and do nothing. She tried the front door, hoping it would save her a trip around to the back, but it was locked securely. If pastry bandits were to blame for turning on the lights, they must have entered and left by the back door.
“Shawna Lee?” Hannah called out, knocking loudly on the front door. When that didn’t work, she balled up her fists and hammered loudly, doing her best to wake anyone who might be sleeping upstairs. No one was home. She was certain of it. Only the dead could sleep through the racket she’d made. Hannah pushed that very unwelcome thought aside and decided she’d have to go around to the back.
Keeping a sharp eye out for broken or pried windows, or any other signs of unauthorized access, Hannah walked around the side of the building. Everything looked secure, but a glance in the kitchen window made her frown. There was a colorful pink and green box on the counter and the label read, Betty Jo’s Frozen Peach Cobbler, a division of Macon Foods. Shawna Lee had claimed that her Southern Peach Cobbler was made from an old family recipe. Maybe that was true, but it was Betty Jo’s family recipe, not Shawna Lee’s.
Hannah’s gaze moved toward the ovens and what she saw made her frown deepen. A pan of peach cobbler was on the floor next to the open oven door. It was a mess, a jumble of sliced peaches and biscuit topping strewn over a puddle of sticky juice on the white tile floor. Had Shawna Lee simply dropped the pan as she was taking it from the oven? Or was there a more sinister reason for the baking disaster?
A glance at the other kitchen window gave Hannah an unwelcome answer to her question. There wer
e two round holes in the glass, and each hole was surrounded by a spider web of cracks. She was no expert, but they looked like a couple of bullet holes to her!
Hannah swallowed hard as she pressed her nose against the glass and held her breath so it wouldn’t fog up. Was that a shoe she saw peeking out from behind the work counter?
There was the wise thing to do and the foolish thing to do. Hannah knew the wise thing would be to call for help, or wait for Norman, or do anything other than go into the kitchen to check it out by herself. But the time it took to do the wise thing could spell the difference between life and death for whoever was wearing that shoe.
Maybe the best thing to do is nothing at all, the not-so-nice side of Hannah’s psyche whispered in her ear. What difference would it make if you just went back to The Cookie Jar and pretended you hadn’t seen that shoe? Who would know?
“I’d know,” Hannah answered out loud, accepting the burden of her own good character. It didn’t matter what she thought of Shawna Lee personally. If her cookie competitor was hurt or in trouble. Hannah had a responsibility to do what she could to help.
Once she’d made up her mind, Hannah moved quickly. She raced to the back door, fully prepared to kick it in if that’s what it took, but when she turned the knob she found it unlocked. She pushed the door open, praying that the two holes she’d seen weren’t bullet holes, the shoe behind the counter had no foot in it, and the peach cobbler on the floor meant nothing more than a slip of an oven glove. But where was Shawna Lee? And why hadn’t she shut the oven door and cleaned up the mess?
“Uh-oh,” Hannah gasped, skidding to a stop as she rounded the corner of the kitchen counter. Shawna Lee was down on her back on the tile floor and there was a huge blossom of what looked like dried strawberry syrup on the bib of her white chef’s apron. There was also a neat hole in the middle of the blossom and Hannah knew that there was no point in continuing to contaminate what was surely a crime scene. Shawna Lee had been shot in the chest and anyone with an ounce of brains could see that she was dead.
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Copyright © 2004 by Joanne Fluke
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ISBN: 0-7582-4715-X