A Second Helping of Murder and Recipes: A Hot Dish Heaven Mystery Read Online Free

“To access that underground area, called the scale pit,” she said to me alone, apparently punishing Margie for her petulance, “you have to climb down what looks like a square manhole.” She formed “Ls” with the fingers on both her hands.
    Margie blew a wayward wisp of hair from her face while trudging to the stainless-steel refrigerator. She dug around inside until she found the decorative tin she obviously wanted. Grabbing it, she kicked the door closed with her heel and made her return.
    Apparently sensing that Barbie was nowhere near the end of her tale, Margie was providing us with sustenance. She pulled off the canister cover, dropped it on the prep table with a clang, and tilted the container our way. The two of us snatched what smelled like chocolate-covered peanut butter cups. “Barbie doesn’t like Banana Bars,” Margie informed me, “but she loves these Peanut Butter Bars.”
    Barbie lifted her chin. “I wouldn’t say I dislike Banana Bars. I just don’t understand why anyone would make something out of rotten fruit.”
    Margie set a fist to her hip. “That recipe calls for regular bananas, not overripe ones.”
    It didn’t matter. Barbie was on a roll. “And another thing. What’s the deal with lutefisk ?Yeah, I’m Norwegian, but still . . . eating dried fish that was soaked in lye? Really?”
    She went on, but I zoned out. Not intentionally. It’s just that the sweet smell of milk chocolate and sugar-laced peanut butter had filled my head and overtaken my senses. While the Banana Bars were great, these were incredible. After only a couple bites, the fret residing in my stomach had been evicted, and my insides were inhabited by the warmth of homemade goodness and memories of childhood.
    In my mind, I saw my mom in the kitchen of our old Victorian house in southern Minnesota. She was baking peanut butter cookies that she partially dipped in chocolate shortly after they came out of the oven. While only allowing me to dip a few, she would let me lick the dipping pan clean.
    “I’ve gotta get back to cookin’.” Margie punctuated the sentence by slapping the metal prep table, bringing my reverie to a noisy conclusion. “So, Barbie, either get to the point about what happened at the piler or point yourself on out of here.”
    “Okay, okay,” Barbie mumbled, her mouth full of the sweet and sticky peanut butter mixture. “You’re kind of grouchy, aren’t you?”
    “No, just busy. I don’t have time for all this lollygaggin’.”
    Truth be told, Margie did sound grumpy, or at least exasperated, but I figured it wasn’t my place to say anything. I was just a visitor. What’s more, she was preparing to feed close to a hundred people, a daunting task. So I kept my mouth shut other than for the occasional bite of my dessert bar.
    As for Barbie, she finished her bar and brushed her empty hands together. “Okay, Margie, I’m sorry.” Plainly, she wasn’t. There wasn’t an ounce of remorse in her tone. “I just thought you’d want to hear the whole story. But if you don’t care about facts . . .”
    Margie raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if she might discover some much-needed restraint there. Or absent that, a club good for clobbering her friend. She also tapped her foot in a steady rhythm that played out her annoyance. Yes, Margie could express a lot without saying a word.
    “Geez,” Barbie hissed. “Don’t get your panties in a bind. I’ll tell you.” She tossed in an eye roll. “They found a guy in there. In that underground area. He was dead.” She licked her fingertips. “There. I’m done. Happy?”
    “Dead?” Margie repeated. She met Barbie’s gaze with her own blank stare. “As in from a heart attack or somthin’?”
    Barbie twisted the tips of her spiked hair, a smug look tripping across her face. She was unmistakably pleased that in spite of her complaints, Margie was captivated by the story.
    And me? Well, the anxiety temporarily ousted by peanut butter and