Blueberry Muffin Murder

by Joanne Fluke

  “Maybe, but I have a feeling that Connie Mac was late. I think she likes to make people wait for her.”

  “She’s on a power trip?”

  “That’s the impression I got. She sure knows how to make people do what she wants. You should have seen Mr. Purvis cave in when she asked him to reserve the special sleigh for her. He couldn’t agree fast enough.”

  Lisa looked puzzled. “But I thought that sleigh was for the Prince and Princess of Winter.”

  “Not anymore. They’re riding in one of the regular sleighs now. Connie Mac can get anything out of anybody.”

  “Not you.”

  “I’m a hard case.” Hannah began to grin. “Actually, that’s another reason I bailed out of the tour. I didn’t want to find out what Connie Mac wanted from me.”

  The phone rang and Lisa got up to answer it. She listened for a moment and then she handed it to Hannah. “It’s Janie Burkholtz. She’s calling from Connie Mac’s cell phone.”

  “Great,” Hannah said with a smile. She hadn’t spoken to Janie for years. “Hi, Janie. I’m sorry we missed you when Andrea and I came out to the inn. What’s up?”

  “Your mother said I should call you, Hannah.” Janie sounded on the edge of panic. “We’ve got a real disaster on our hands. Mrs. MacIntyre’s supply van went into the ditch on the way here and the Winter Carnival cake was ruined.”

  “That’s terrible. Was anyone hurt?”

  “No. The driver’s fine and there were no passengers. All the other supplies came through just fine, but Mrs. MacIntyre is determined to bake a replacement cake and we have to find some commercial ovens to use.”

  “How about the school?” Hannah suggested.

  “I already spoke to Mr. Purvis and they’re replacing the kitchen floor this weekend. And I tried the inn, but Sally’s serving hot appetizers tonight and she’s using all of her ovens.”

  “The kitchen at the community center?”

  “That won’t work either. Edna’s baking rolls and she’ll be there until midnight or later.”

  “Really?” Hannah’s surprise was reflected in her voice. “I thought Edna was buying breadsticks and setting them out in baskets.”

  “She was, but Mrs. MacIntyre thought crescent rolls would be a nice touch with the salad course.”

  “I see,” Hannah said and sent sympathetic thoughts Edna’s way. Baking crescent rolls for two hundred guests was a lot of work.

  “Your mother suggested that I call you before you left for the night. She thought maybe we could use your ovens.”

  Hannah hesitated. She didn’t like the idea of Connie Mac baking in her kitchen, but Janie was on the spot and the Winter Carnival cake was important. “Sure, Janie. We were just getting ready to lock up. Come on over when you’re through with the pictures. We’ll wait.”

  “We’re all through. We finished a couple of minutes ago,” Janie said, still sounding stressed. “Thank you, Hannah. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

  “No problem.”

  “Can you hold on for just a second? Mrs. MacIntyre wants something.”

  “Sure. Take your time.” Hannah covered the mouthpiece and turned to Lisa, who was staring at her curiously. “Connie Mac wants to use our ovens. Her supply van went into the ditch and the Winter Carnival cake is mush. I told Janie they could bake here.”

  “Then I’d better make sure everything’s clean.” Lisa jumped up and grabbed a bottle of cleaning solution and a sponge. She wiped down the door of the cooler and then she started to giggle.

  “What?”

  “Now you know what Connie Mac wants from you. And you gave it to her, just like everybody else in town.”

  “Hannah?” Janie came back on the line. “Mrs. MacIntyre is very grateful and she wants to do something for you in return.”

  “That’s not necessary, Janie.”

  “But she insists. Norman is going to bring over his equipment and take Mrs. MacIntyre’s picture in your kitchen. She thought you’d want to hang it over your counter in the coffee shop.”

  “That’s…uh…very nice of her.” Hannah hung up the phone and snorted. Hell would freeze over before she’d hang Connie Mac’s picture over the counter in her shop!

  Blue Blueberry Muffins

  Preheat oven to 375ºF, rack in the middle position

  ¾ cup melted butter (1 ½ sticks)

  1 cup sugar

  2 beaten eggs (just whip them up with a fork)

  2 teaspoons baking powder

  ¼ teaspoon salt

  1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (no need to thaw if they’re frozen)

  ½ cup blueberry pie filling

  2 cups plus one tablespoon flour (no need to sift)

  ½ cup milk

  Crumb Topping:

  ½ cup sugar

  1⁄3 cup flour

  ¼ cup softened butter (½ stick)

  Grease the bottoms only of a 12-cup muffin pan (or line the cups with cupcake papers). Melt the butter. Mix in the sugar. Then add the beaten eggs, baking powder, and salt, and mix thoroughly.

  Put one tablespoon of the flour in a plastic bag with your cup of fresh or frozen blueberries. Shake it gently to coat the blueberries, and leave them in the bag for now.

  Add half the remaining two cups flour to your bowl and mix it in with half the milk. Then add the rest of the flour and milk and mix thoroughly.

  Here comes the fun part: Add ½ cup blueberry pie filling to your bowl and mix it in. (Your dough will turn a shade of blue, but don’t let that stop you—once the muffins are baked, they’ll look just fine.) When your dough is thoroughly mixed, fold in the flour-coated fresh or frozen blueberries.

  Fill the muffin tins three-quarters full and set them aside. If you have dough left over, grease the bottom of a small tea-bread loaf pan and fill it with your remaining dough.

  The crumb topping: Mix the sugar and the flour in a small bowl. Add the softened butter and cut it in until it’s crumbly. (You can also do this in a food processor with hard butter using the steel blade.)

  Sprinkle the crumb topping over your muffins and bake them in a 375ºF oven for 25 to 30 minutes. (The tea-bread should bake about 10 minutes longer than the muffins.)

  While your muffins are baking, divide the rest of your blueberry pie filling into ½-cup portions and pop it in the freezer. I use paper cups to hold it and freeze them inside a freezer bag. All you have to do is thaw a cup the next time you want to make a batch of Blue Blueberry Muffins.

  When your muffins are baked, set the muffin pan on a wire rack to cool for at least 30 minutes. (The muffins need to cool in the pan for easy removal.) Then just tip them out of the cups and enjoy.

  These are wonderful when they’re slightly warm, but the blueberry flavor will intensify if you store them in a covered container overnight.

  Grandma Ingrid’s muffin pans were large enough to hold all the dough from this recipe. My muffin tins are smaller, and I always make a loaf of Blue Blueberry tea bread with the leftover dough. If I make it for Mother, I leave off the crumb topping. She loves to eat it sliced, toasted, and buttered for breakfast.

  Chapter Five

  Once Connie Mac, Janie, and Norman arrived at The Cookie Jar, there was a flurry of activity. While Lisa showed Janie how to operate the kitchen appliances and Norman took Connie Mac’s picture, Hannah loaded Lisa’s car with the cookies they’d baked so that she could drop them off at Jordan High on her way home.

  “Okay. Janie’s all set.” Lisa came out the back door just as Hannah had finished stacking the last box of cookies in her trunk. “These cookies go to Mrs. Baxter’s room?”

  “Right. The girls will help you unload them. They’re all working late, making sandwiches for tomorrow. They’re going to have ham and cheese, and egg salad.”

  “At least they won’t have to worry about the mayo going bad in weather like this,” Lisa said with a shiver, opening her car door and sliding into the driver’s seat. “See you tomorrow morning, Hannah.”
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  “I don’t think so.”

  “Oh? Are you taking the morning off?”

  “No, you are,” Hannah told her. “You did the lion’s share of the work today, and I’ll pick up the slack tomorrow morning. The earliest I want to see you here is a quarter to twelve.”

  A delighted grin spread over Lisa’s face. “Dad’s been wanting to go out to see the venues and I just didn’t have time to take him. But are you sure you can spare me, Hannah?”

  “Sure, I’m sure. We shouldn’t have much business. Almost everybody in town will be out at the venues. I’ll have plenty of time to bake, and when you come in I’ll run the cookies out to the warm-up tents.”

  “Okay,” Lisa agreed, smiling broadly. “Thanks, Hannah. Dad’s going to be so excited when I tell him.”

  Once Lisa had left with her sugary cargo, Hannah went back inside. The sight that greeted her when she opened the door made her blood pressure go through the roof. Her whole kitchen was in the process of being rearranged, and Connie Mac hadn’t even bothered to ask her for permission!

  Norman walked over to her, carrying his bulky camera bag. “Come on, Hannah. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Just a second,” Hannah said, heading over to the counter to grab her purse before Connie Mac could rearrange that, too. Then she turned to Janie, who looked as if she could use a dose of blood-pressure medicine herself. “Do you have everything you need, Janie?”

  “Yes. Thanks, Hannah.” Janie moved closer and lowered her voice. “Don’t worry. I’ll put everything back and make sure your kitchen is spotless before we leave. And if there’s ever anything I can do for you, just…”

  “The mixer’s in the wrong place, Janie.” Connie Mac interrupted their conversation. “You know I like to stand in the center of the work space.”

  Janie dutifully moved the mixer, but there were no electrical outlets at the center of the work island. “The cord doesn’t reach, Mrs. MacIntyre.”

  “Then get an extension. Honestly, Janie. It doesn’t take a college degree to know that.”

  Hannah pulled open a drawer, got out an appliance extension cord, and handed it to Janie. “Good luck,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Thanks,” Janie whispered back. “She’s on a real tear tonight.”

  Connie Mac clapped her hands to get Janie’s attention. “Let’s go, Janie. I know you’re on overtime and you want to get in as many hours as you can, but I’m not going to pay you if you don’t work.”

  Hannah followed Janie to the work island and stepped right up to the Cooking Sweetheart. “Excuse me, Connie Mac.”

  “Yes, Hannah?” Connie Mac put on a smile for Hannah’s benefit.

  “I need to give Janie some last-minute instructions and then I’m out of your hair.” When Connie Mac nodded, Hannah gave Janie’s arm a comforting squeeze and drew her away to the far end of the kitchen. She’d seen enough of Connie Mac to know that it couldn’t be pleasant to work for her. “Okay, Janie. When you’re all through, leave by the back door. Just push in the button to lock it behind you.”

  “Don’t worry, Hannah. I’ll test it to make sure it’s locked.”

  “Thanks. Goodnight, Janie.” Hannah shrugged into her parka and headed back to Norman, deliberately ignoring Connie Mac. When she got to the door she turned again, almost tripping Norman, who was close on her heels. “One more thing. I baked Blue Blueberry Muffins this afternoon and they’re in the pantry.”

  “The same muffins you used to bake when I stayed overnight with Andrea?”

  “That’s right. Just help yourself if you get hungry.”

  “Janie can’t eat sweets,” Connie Mac warned, giving Janie a stern look. “She has to lose at least twenty pounds before we start taping for next season.”

  A dull flush rose in Janie’s cheeks. Connie Mac had embarrassed her, and Hannah had the urge to throttle the Cooking Sweetheart. Janie had always been full-figured, even in high school. And while it was true that she was far from model-thin, she wore clothes that flattered her figure and she was extremely attractive. “Why does Janie need to lose weight? She looks great.”

  Connie Mac turned to Hannah with a frown. It was clear she wasn’t used to being contradicted. “I realize that Janie is your friend, but facts are facts and she’s just too heavy. If my assistant is overweight, my viewers will assume that my recipes are fattening. That could reduce sales of my videos and cookbooks.”

  Hannah was stunned speechless for a moment. She opened her mouth, prepared to give Connie Mac a well-deserved piece of her mind, when Norman grabbed her arm.

  “Come on, Hannah,” he whispered. “Anything you say will only make it worse for Janie.”

  Hannah didn’t like it, but she realized that Norman was right and she let him open the door and pull her through. “Goodnight, Janie,” she called out as Norman closed the door behind them.

  “It’s a good thing we left,” Norman muttered, taking a deep breath of the freezing air. “I was ready to kill that woman!”

  “You’re second in line behind me,” Hannah shot back.

  “Because she made Janie rearrange your kitchen?”

  “That’s only half of it. She implied that Janie was fat! You don’t think she is, do you?”

  Norman shook his head. “Janie’s big, but she’s not fat. And she’d look great on camera. That excuse Connie Mac gave about how Janie could hurt her sales is a crock. Julia Child didn’t look thin on any of her cooking shows, and her cookbooks were bestsellers.”

  “That’s right,” Hannah said, wishing she’d thought of that in time to tell Connie Mac. Then she remembered what Norman had said as they walked out the door, and she turned to him with a question. “You said you wanted to kill Connie Mac. What did she do to you?”

  “What are you doing for the next eight hours? If I tell you everything, it’ll take all night.”

  Hannah laughed. “Maybe you’d better give me the abbreviated version.”

  “Connie Mac was an hour late for her appointment with me. Janie apologized, but Connie Mac didn’t say a word. And then Connie Mac ordered me to take her portrait in the dining room and I was all set up in the parlor.”

  “So you had to move all your equipment?”

  “Oh, yes. Six times. She kept changing her mind. And then, when we were finally finished and I’d already packed up all my camera gear, she decided she needed one more series of shots sitting behind the first mayor’s desk.”

  Hannah frowned. Ezekiel’s desk was a valuable antique and Delores had secured the area around it with museum-style velvet ropes. “Mother didn’t let her do it, did she?”

  “Of course she did. Connie Mac sweet-talked her right into it.”

  “Really!” Hannah was surprised. She’d thought that Delores would be the one person in town that Connie Mac couldn’t sway. “So how long did this photo session take?”

  “An hour and a half, and it seemed like months. By the time we finished, I was ready to bash her head in with one of Mrs. Jordan’s rolling pins.”

  “It’s a good thing you didn’t. It might have hurt the rolling pin.” Hannah smiled up at him and reached out to take his arm. Norman covered her gloved hand with his and they crunched through the snow together on the way to their cars.

  “I haven’t seen you for a while,” Norman said, escorting her to the driver’s side of her truck. “I’ve missed you, Hannah.”

  “I’ve missed you, too.”

  “How about some dinner? We could drive out to the inn. At least we know she won’t be there.”

  “True, but I’d probably fall asleep with my head in the soup,” Hannah said, stifling a yawn. Today had been a full day, and the strain of being pleasant to Connie Mac and baking ten times as many cookies as usual had taken its toll.

  “Do you have another date?”

  “No way. I’d really like to have dinner with you, Norman, but I’m just too tired. Can I take a rain check?”

  “Sure, but you still have to eat. Do you
want to stop by the Corner Tavern? That would be quicker.”

  “Not tonight. I just want to go home and crawl into bed with a glass of wine and a toasted sardine sandwich.”

  Norman made a face. “That doesn’t sound very nutritious.”

  “It’s not as bad as you think. Sardines are protein, and I always use the ones in ketchup sauce. That takes care of the vegetable. And the buttered toast provides the fat and the carbohydrates. It’s a very well-balanced sandwich, if you think about it.”

  “I’d rather not.” Norman unplugged her electrical cord, wound it around Hannah’s bumper, and opened the door of her truck for her. As she slid into the driver’s seat, he said, “Hannah?”

  “Yes, Norman.”

  “Let’s try to get together more often, okay?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Hannah said, reaching for her seat belt and buckling it.

  “I was thinking about it last night and I realized that I was cutting off my nose to spite my face.”

  “What do you mean?” Hannah asked.

  “Whenever our mothers start trying to push us together, I rebel like a teenager.”

  “So do I,” Hannah admitted. “Mother suggested that I call you today, and I didn’t. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to call you, it was just that I didn’t want to give in to her.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” Norman looked very serious. “I think we should stop letting our mothers influence our behavior. We’ll do what we really want to do, even if they suggest it first.”

  Hannah nodded. “That’s a great idea, but there’s one drawback.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It requires that we act like adults.”

  Norman chuckled. “Do you think that we can handle it?”

  “Of course. The next time Mother suggests I call you, I’ll call you.”

  “Good for you,” Norman said, looking pleased.