Page 25 of Christmas Mittens Murder

Strain into your ice-filled cocktail glass. Garnish. Salut!

Hayley’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge

Ingredients:

1½ cups semisweet chocolate chips

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup mini marshmallows

¾ cup peanut butter

2 teaspoons vanilla

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add your condensed milk, chocolate chips and marshmallows, stirring to combine. Add your peanut butter and vanilla, and then stir again until well combined.

Remove from heat, pour the mixture into a greased 9 × 9 pan and spread with a spatula to smooth the top.

Place in the fridge to chill until firm.

Slice into 1-inch pieces, and store in an airtight container.

A happy holiday treat!

Chapter Eleven

Dick Crimmons’s Christmas Tree Lot—located just outside of town at his small farm across from the Hulls Cove schoolhouse, which served as a community center for wedding receptions, birthday parties and high school reunions—boasted an impressive array of Christmas trees and wreath products for sale during the holiday season. Because there was stiff competition from other sellers around the island, Dick went that extra mile to make his own lot special. Every Saturday and Sunday in December leading up to Christmas Day, Dick and his wife, Doris, would dress up as Santa and Mrs. Claus to greet their customers. He even enlisted the help of a small band of local teenagers to serve as elves, serving hot cider and helping people load and secure the trees on their car roofs or in the back of their flatbeds.

Dick was a natural performer and relished playing the role of St. Nick. He would strap a giant pillow around his gut and glue on the fluffy white beard. And whenever a car would pull into the lot, he would bellow at the top of his lungs, “Ho Ho Ho!” Doris was less of a method actor than her husband, refusing to obscure her slim figure with any kind of padding. She opted for just a bulky sweater instead. She didn’t want to mess up her hair wearing a gray wig with a bun, but she did relent to putting on a pair of granny glasses and resting them at the bridge of her nose to complete her look. She did love her rouge, so some rosy red cheeks were okay as long as it didn’t make her look too much like a clown. Less was always more, in Doris’s opinion.

Dick worshipped Doris and always claimed he was put on this earth to keep his wife happy, joking, “In my marriage, I always make sure to get in the last two words. ‘Yes, dear!’” They had been together forty years, raised five children, all grown up now, and happily doted on their nine grandchildren, some of whom were dressed as elves today raking in a cool twelve dollars an hour.

When Hayley arrived at the Crimmonses’ Christmas Tree Lot, she spotted Dick as Santa Claus showing off an eight-foot-tall Fraser fir tree to a young couple with an infant in a baby sling that was strapped to the father’s chest.

Hayley scanned the area for Doris, finally catching sight of her sitting on one of two high-backed hand-crafted hardwood Canterbury celebrant chairs that served as Santa and Mrs. Claus’s thrones, where they would greet any children who wanted pictures or to present their Christmas lists. At the moment, no one was waiting. Doris was knitting a Christmas stocking, and a mug of hot cider was on top of her armrest.

Sensing someone approaching, Doris raised her eyes from her knitting needles and grimaced slightly before forcing a smile. “Hayley, are you just getting around to buying a tree? You’re usually the first one in town to have one up and decorated.”

“That’s the second time someone’s told me that. I had no idea I had such a reputation for being so eager to start celebrating Christmas. But no, Bruce and I are officially done. We just have to hang the stockings.”

Doris showed off the stocking she was knitting. It was a beautifully woven green one with the name Jason emblazoned around the top. “This is for my youngest grandson. I’ve already knitted seven, so after this I only have one more to go for little Selena.”

“You’re a very talented knitter, Doris,” Hayley said.

“Why, thank you,” Doris cooed, blushing.

At least Hayley thought she was blushing.

It could have just been the liberally applied rouge for her Mrs. Claus look.

Hayley figured it could not hurt to butter up Doris a bit because she was about to steer the conversation into a very uncomfortable turn.

“If you don’t need a tree, can I interest you in one of our Christmas wreaths? Dick makes them himself. Fresh noble fir with incense cedar, and then he adorns them with juniper, canella berries, dogwood and pine cones. They’re ready to hang and only $49.95.”

“Thank you, Doris, but we’re good on wreaths. Bruce brought one home for the front door the other day.”

“I hope it wasn’t one of those cheap ones from the Shop ’n Save! I think they’re the tackiest things I have ever seen,” she sniffed. Doris read Hayley’s expression and saw that it was indeed one of the cheap, tacky wreaths from the Shop ’n Save for half the price, so she quickly followed up with “But I’m not one to judge.”

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