Peach Cobbler Murder Read online

  ***If fresh strawberries are available, they’ll be fine in this recipe.

  ***Read the yield on the pudding package—it should be 2 cups per package if you make it according to the package directions. You can use sugar-free instant, regular instant, or the kind you have to cook. All will work. (You can also use 5 larger packages of pudding, each package yielding 3 cups of pudding—if you do this, use 2 cups of milk or Half ’n Half for each package—as you can see, this recipe is very flexible.)

  ***The yield should be 2 cups per package if you make it according to the package directions. You can use sugar-free instant, regular instant, or the kind you have to cook. All will work. (You can also use 5 larger packages of pudding, each package yielding 3 cups of pudding—if you do this, use 2 cups of milk or Half ’n Half for each package—as you can see, this recipe is very flexible.)

  ****(If you can’t find chocolate cookie wafers in the cookie aisle of your grocery store, try the section where they keep ice cream toppings and ice cream cookies—that’s where Florence Evans at the Red Owl in Lake Eden keeps them.)

  ***Measuring molasses will be easier if you spray your measuring cup with nonstick cooking spray before pouring it in.

  ***Use any combination of regular chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, white chocolate chips, milk chocolate chips, vanilla chips, cherry chips, strawberry chips, peanut butter chips, or any other flavors you think will go together.

  ****Use any nuts you like including walnuts, pecans, cashews, almonds, even peanuts. If you don’t have enough nuts to make 4 cups, fill in with crushed cornflakes, Rice Krispies, coconut, raisins, or any dried fruit.

  ***You can use frozen rhubarb. Just thaw it first and pat it dry with paper towels.

  ***I’ve used sliced strawberries, peaches, or chopped dark cherries.

  PEACH COBBLER MURDER

  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 of the bakery, but when she turned the knob she found it unlocked. She pushed the door open, praying that the two holes she’d seen in the kitchen window 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…

  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

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  A HANNAH SWENSEN MYSTERY WITH RECIPES

  PEACH COBBLER MURDER

  JOANNE FLUKE

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  This book is for my GoldenRuel.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to our kids, who aren’t shy about saying, “What’s this supposed to taste like?”

  Thank you to our friends and neighbors: Mel and Kurt, Lyn and Bill, Gina and the kids, Jay, Bob M., Amanda, John B., Trudi, Dale, Adrienne, Dr. Bob and the Bobbettes, and Mark Baker.

  I can’t thank my editor, John Scognamiglio, enough. Some people have a guardian angel; I have John S. And thanks to all the other talented people at Kensington who keep Hannah Swensen baking and sleuthing.

  Thank you to Hiro Kimura, my cover artist, who tastes every title dessert for inspiration before starting in on the artwork. (It shows!)

  Many hugs to Terry Sommers and her family for critiquing my recipes and lending the kind of moral support only Cheeseheads can.

  Thanks to Jamie Wallace, my Web expert, for MurderSheBaked.com

  A big hug for Sue Ganske who explained Kransekake to me.

  And thank you to everyone who e-mailed or wrote to share their lives, recipes, and feelings about Hannah and Lake Eden with me. I created a special treat for you, the Chocolate Overload Cookie Bars. (They’re really incredible…and Hannah agrees!)

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Baking Conversion Chart

  Index of Recipes

  Chapter One

  “Dick Laughlin just went in!” Lisa Herman stood behind the café curtains that covered the bottom half of the plate-glass window and peered out across the snow-covered width of Main Street. “And Barbara Donnelly’s right behind him. She looked this way and I think she saw me, but she still followed Dick inside.”

  “I think I can live without a running head count,” Hannah Swensen told her young partner, resisting the urge to object as Lisa pulled out the tall stool she used when she operated their cash register and repositioned it so that she had a clear view of the Magnolia Blossom Bakery across the street. The stool was no longer necessary since their bakery and coffee shop, The Cookie Jar, was as empty as one of Hannah’s cream puffs before it was filled with vanilla custard.

  “I know it’s depressing, but I’m setting up a surveillance post right here. We need to keep an eye on the competition.” Lisa grabbed one of the steno notebooks Hannah kept handy and hiked herself up on the stool, no easy task for a petite young lady who only topped the five-foot mark when she was wearing high heels. “Uh-oh!”

  “What now?”

  “Charlotte Roscoe just came out the door carrying a big bakery box. Today’s the weekly teachers’ meeting and she always comes in to get cookies from us!”

  “Once the novelty wears off, they’ll be back,” Hannah repeated what had become her personal mantra, chanted at least a dozen times a day during the two weeks since Shawna Lee Quinn and her rich, widowed sister, Vanessa, had opened their new bakery.

  “You always say that, but are you sure?” Lisa looked a bit doubtful. “I mean…what if their baked goods are better than ours?”

  Hannah was shocked. Lisa had never questioned the quality of their sweet treats before.

  “Sorry.” Lisa read the expression of betrayal on Hannah’s face and immediately backtracked. “I’m sure ours are better. They’re bound to be better. We’re professionals and they’re just doing it because Shawna Lee always wanted to own her own business and Vanessa gave her the money to indulge her. I don’t think either on
e of them can bake worth a hill of beans, but I wish I could taste something, just to be sure.”

  Hannah curbed her first impulse, the one where she told Lisa to bite her tongue, and forced herself to be reasonable. It was true that they’d never tasted anything from the Magnolia Blossom Bakery and it would be a big relief if their cookies tasted like sawdust and their piecrusts were tough. On the other hand, what if the two sisters had somehow managed to produce superior baked goods? Was it better to go on in blissful ignorance, taking their own expertise on faith and believing that their bakery was better? Or should they put it to the taste test and close their doors if Shawna Lee and Vanessa had managed to win the Main Street dessert war?

  “What’s the matter, Hannah?”

  “Just having a mental debate with myself.”

  Lisa broke into a smile. “Who won?” she quipped.

  “I did. Why don’t you take some money out of the register and run over there? You could try their Southern Peach Cobbler. They call it their signature dessert.”

  “I couldn’t!” Lisa looked properly shocked. “It would be disloyal!”

  “Not if you were just comparing their desserts to ours.”

  “I’d still feel like a traitor. Couldn’t you go in and order something just to be friendly?”

  Hannah’s eyebrows headed skyward. “I should be friendly to the woman who talked her rich widowed sister into financing her so that she could open up right across from us and steal almost ninety percent of our cookie business?”

  “Well…”

  “Do you really want me to walk across Main Street and pretend to be neighborly with the person who undercut our dessert catering and left us with sixteen cancellations?”

  “Seventeen,” Lisa corrected her. “Rose McDermott’s cousin canceled the cookies for the baby shower this morning. I had a feeling that was going to happen when Shawna Lee and Vanessa ran their catering ad in the Lake Eden Journal.”

  “I saw it. Fifty percent off of your total first order. If Shawna Lee ever challenges me to a fight, I’m going to choose grammar as my weapon.”

  Lisa laughed, but she quickly sobered. “I don’t blame you for being upset, Hannah. I’d be seeing red if Shawna Lee made a play for my guy.”

  “Which guy?”

  “Herb, of course.”

  “Not your guy. I was talking about my guy. Which one?”

  It was a legitimate question and Hannah waited anxiously for Lisa to answer. She was currently dating two Lake Eden men, something her marriage-minded mother found immensely satisfying. The thing that Delores Swensen did not find satisfying was that Hannah had been dating both men for over a year and neither one of them had proposed.

  “Well…I don’t know for sure that Shawna Lee’s making a play for him,” Lisa said, waffling a bit. “I just think she might be.”

  “Which guy?” Hannah repeated.

  “Uh…Mike.”

  Hannah took a deep breath to combat the sinking feeling in her stomach. Mike Kingston was chief detective of the Winnetka County Sheriff’s Department and more handsome than any man who didn’t make his living in front of a camera had a right to be. Hannah had long suspected that Shawna Lee and Mike might be more than merely friends, former coworkers, and apartment complex neighbors, but Mike had denied it. Since she had no proof of any hanky-panky, Hannah had done her best to believe Mike preferred his women with frizzy red hair, a sarcastic sense of humor, and some extra pounds—never mind how many—that came from sampling her own baked goods.

  “Nobody called to tell me,” Hannah complained, her stomach reaching rock bottom with the force of an elevator whose cable had snapped. If anyone in Lake Eden got the goods on Shawna Lee and Mike, they were honor bound to call Hannah immediately. That was how small towns worked. You got all the news that was fit to print in the Lake Eden Journal. The news that wasn’t fit to print was conveyed by phone on the Lake Eden gossip hotline.

  “That’s because Herb and I are the only ones that know about it. Why did you ask me which guy it was? Norman would never even look at Shawna Lee. He’s completely loyal to you.”

  “He is?” Hannah gave a slight smile as she thought of Norman Rhodes, local Lake Eden dentist and son of her mother’s partner in the antique business. Norman couldn’t come close to Mike’s sexy good looks, but he was bright, funny, and solidly dependable.

  “I’ve seen you with both of them and Mike’s got a roving eye. He always checks out the other women, even if he’s with you. Norman doesn’t do that. When he came in this morning, he couldn’t take his eyes off you.”

  “That’s because you and I were the only ones here and you’re a bride-to-be.”

  Lisa looked radiant for a moment and Hannah knew she was thinking about her wedding, only twelve days away. Hannah’s younger sister, Andrea, was making all the arrangements and she’d called every day this week to consult with Lisa about flowers, color schemes, and last-minute decorations.

  As Hannah watched, Lisa’s expression changed to one of worry. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I shouldn’t have said anything about Shawna Lee and Mike. It was just one sighting and it could have been nothing.”

  “Sighting?” Hannah smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Did somebody spot a UFO at the same time?”

  “Of course not.”

  “I didn’t think so. Extraterrestrials are supposed to be brighter than we are. They’d wait until summer to land in Minnesota. Now tell me what makes you think that Mike’s involved with Miss Blonde-To-The-Bone.”

  Lisa burst out laughing. “Blonde-To-The-Bone?”

  “That’s what I call her when I’m being petty. And I feel petty a lot of the time when it comes to Shawna Lee. She’s the kind of shallow Barbie-doll blonde that gives real honest blondes like Andrea a bad name.”

  “Shawna Lee’s not a natural blonde, is she?”

  “Andrea says definitely not. She spotted her out at the new beauty shop at the mall, getting her roots redone.” Hannah answered Lisa’s attempt to change the subject, but then she zeroed in on what she really wanted to know. “What about this sighting? Who saw them? Where was it? When was it?”

  “Herb saw Mike’s Hummer parked in the lot behind the Magnolia Blossom Bakery last night.”

  Hannah nodded, accepting the statement at face value. Herb Beeseman, Lisa’s fiancé, was the only law enforcement officer on the city payroll. Herb not only enforced parking and driving regulations within the Lake Eden city limits, he ran security checks on the local businesses before he went off duty at night. Hannah knew her former classmate at Jordan High was completely reliable. If Herb said he saw Mike’s Hummer behind the Magnolia Blossom Bakery, then Mike’s Hummer had been there. “What time did Herb see it?”

  “Eleven. And Vanessa was out of town until this morning. Herb thought maybe Shawna Lee had a problem and she called Mike to fix it.”

  Hannah doubted that, but she supposed it might be true. “Well…Mike did part-time work as a handyman when he was in high school. I guess Herb could be right.”

  “I don’t think so. What kind of problem would Shawna Lee have at eleven at night with the lights out?”

  “Electrical?” Hannah guessed, going for the humor and trying not to show how upset she was. “Seriously though, if the power went out and Shawna Lee didn’t know how to reset the circuit breaker, she might have called Mike.”

  “The power didn’t go out. Herb saw dim light from a lamp in the apartment over the bakery.”

  Hannah hated to ask, but she had to know. “Which room had the lamp?”

  “Shawna Lee’s bedroom.”

  Hannah gulped. This was serious. There was only one thing Mike could have been doing in Shawna Lee’s bedroom and it had nothing to do with his handyman skills.

  “I asked Herb to go back and check at midnight, and Mike was still there. I guess there could be some reasonable explanation, though. If you go over there and nose around, Shawna Lee might let something slip.”

  Hannah shook her h
ead. “Forget it, Lisa. If I set one foot in that bakery, they’ll know right away that I’m checking out the competition. What we really need is…”

  “Andrea,” Lisa interrupted.

  “Andrea? As in my sister, Andrea?”

  “Yes. I’m sure she’d be willing to go over there and check out the baked goods.”

  “That’s a great idea! Andrea can find out their profit margin, their operating costs, their sales, and their average customer profile in less than five minutes. And they’ll never know they told her. She’s perfect for the job.”

  “She’s certainly good at getting people to talk about themselves.”

  “She learned that from Mother. And Mother could have been a star CIA operative. I’ll go call Andrea right now.”

  “Don’t bother. She’s here.” Lisa slid off her stool and headed toward the kitchen. “She turned the corner a minute ago and she should be at the back door by now. I’ll let her in.”

  Hannah headed for the coffee urn and filled three cups. She carried them to the back booth, frowning slightly as she walked past the empty tables. They’d had a total of twelve customers all day and that didn’t bode well for the future of The Cookie Jar.

  Andrea pushed through the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the coffee shop. “Did you hear? That famous groundhog back East saw his shadow. That means winter’s over!”