Qwilleran - An all expenses-paid vacation to Moose County - for Hercule Poirot. That way, Qwill can take some well-deserved time off the next time murder strikes Pickax.
Arch Riker - More knitting supplies and a good copy of A Tale of Two Cities. What? In a mystery series that racks up multiple fatalities per volume, Arch's hobby should be encouraged - Madame Defarge and her crew show just the use to which it can be applied.
Polly - Contact lenses tinted green, so that her outward appearance will better reflect her defining character trait.
Amanda Goodwinter - A copy of The Cat Who Came for Christmas and a plane ticket to Ney York City - so she can fly over to Cleveland Amory's and provide living disproof of his assertation that there exist no female curmudgeons. And James Carville's services as campaign manager for her run for Pickax mayor - I think they'd make a good pair, don't you?
Hixie Rice - A good book editor and publisher, so she can finally print up either a) her life story or b) that books on the nation's worst restrooms she threatened to write in Went into the Closet. Then she can rake in some bucks for herself for once and do the talk-show publicity circuit, hopefully attractign enough attention to land her the perfect fellow for 'er.
Pender Wilmot - A raison d'être.
Thornton Haggis - A raison d'être.
Susan Exbridge - A remarriage. That way, she can finally escape from the "divorcée" epithet Braun shackles to her every time she appears on page.
Nick Bamba - A good, solid, well-paying job. I know he has the position at the Split Rail Farm, but there's no future in goat cheese. [Note, added later on: Tanis has thankfully informed me during my Complete Memory Failure Week that Nick in fact works for the Cold Turkey Farm, not the Split Rail. Actually, now that I think of it, considering the frequent involvement of turkeys in Moose County homicides (Played Brahms, Said Cheese), this's an even worse job for Nick to hold than goat-cheese processing. Nick's a nice guy, and I'd hate to see him end up as chalk-outline fodder.]
Eddington Smith - Perhaps a bullet for his gun. (If anything, he can take a tip from Barney Fife and keep it in his shirt pocket.) And his rightful share of royalties back from that four-flusher Bartlett.
(Say, Lilian, how 'bout giving Edd a few more appearances in the books while we're at it?)
Onoosh Dolmathakia - A giant mallet with which to bop the pasty-and-turnip-raised customers she must get in her place every time any one of them orders stuffed grape leaves and then either complains "I didn't get any spaghetti sauce on my meatballs" or "I ain't eatin' any food that contains ingredients you harvest with a rake".
Yum Yum - Liberation from the shadow of her male companion!
Koko - A fruitcake. He wouldn't eat it, of course, but he could put it up on his bookshelf, and the next time he knock an appropriately- or portentiously-titled book down from the shelf, he could send the fruitcake's giant, thudding weight down after it. There'd be no way Qwilleran would fail to notice his clues then.
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