Chapter Twenty-Six
She was sleeping on a cloud, and it was incredibly soft and fluffy. That meant it was a dream cloud, not a real cloud. Real clouds were cold and damp, a thick mist that glommed together in a semi-amorphous shape to hang in the air above people’s heads. She’d learned that in grade school science, but it was so contrary to the image clouds presented from the ground that she’d chosen to ignore the fact and embrace the misconception.
She was awake…almost. Hannah rolled over and dislodged the cat who’d been sleeping next to her on the pillow.
Cuddles. And Moishe was right next to Cuddles on the neighboring pillow. But what was Cuddles doing in her bed?
Not her bed. And these were not her pillows. She had two expensive goose down pillows on her bed, and this bed had four. It also had an eiderdown coverlet, something she’d priced but couldn’t afford.
Not her room. Hannah realized that the window was in the wrong place. And so was the door to the bathroom. And the fireplace…the fireplace!
Hannah sat up with a gasp. She was in Norman’s bedroom! She blinked, concentrated, and tried to remember what had happened the previous night. It was just starting to come back to her when she realized that there was a border of sunlight around the heavy curtains at the window.
What time was it?! Hannah glanced at the clock on the bedside table and gave a loud groan. Eight o’clock. Too late to meet Andrea at Heavenly Bodies. Too late for Roger’s Body Sculpting Class. She’d overslept by almost four hours, and she had to go home right away!
One step inside the luxurious master bathroom and Hannah changed her mind. Perhaps she didn’t have to go home immediately. Ever since they’d designed this wonderful room, she’d wanted to try out the surround shower. It had jets on all four walls, and it was reputed to be the closest thing to a massage you could get without a masseuse.
Two fluffy red towels awaited her on the warming rack. The letter H in a flowing script was embroidered on each towel, and Hannah gave another little groan. Towels with her monogram. When Norman had built this house, he really had planned for her to share it with him.
No time for regrets now. She had to take a shower and get on the road. Norman was probably gone already, and she had to take Moishe home and change clothes before she could show up at The Cookie Jar.
The shower was heavenly, and Hannah took longer than she knew she should. She stood in the center of the enclosure on the sunburst made out of multicolored tile to get the full benefit of the massaging jets.
“Incredible,” Hannah breathed, letting the water wash her exhaustion away. She started to feel halfway human, and then fully human, and then so good that she smiled and hummed a little tune.
She really didn’t want to get out, but she did. She could have stayed in the rejuvenating enclosure all day. But there were places to go, people to interview, tapes to watch, and killers to catch. Hannah toweled off, delighting in the thick richness of the towels, and then she dressed quickly, brushed her teeth with the new toothbrush Norman had left for her on the counter, and brushed her hair with a brush that was a clone of the one she had at home.
Hannah felt so good she almost skipped down the stairs. It was amazing how invigorated she felt after a full eight hours of sleep, and a massage in the surround shower. She burst into the kitchen, hoping that Norman had left some coffee in the pot for her, and stopped short as she saw that he was sitting at the kitchen table.
“Norman!” she said, completely surprised. “I thought you’d left by now.”
“And miss the chance to show off my cooking skills by making your breakfast?” Norman laughed and rose from his chair.
“But I can’t eat anything good.”
“You mean you can’t eat anything fattening,” Norman corrected her.
“Same thing.”
“No, it’s not. Hold on for a second and I’ll show you. Everything’s ready, and it’s in the warming oven. While I’m dishing it up, have some coffee. I just made it fresh, and your mug’s on the counter next to the coffeepot.”
Hannah honed in on the coffeepot and poured some coffee for herself. Then she took a seat at the table and hoped that what Norman had made for her wouldn’t irretrievably blow her diet. She was going to eat it, even if it meant she’d gain weight today. Having breakfast served to her in the morning was a real luxury. It made her feel special, and pampered. The clock on the kitchen wall read eight-thirty, and Hannah gave an exasperated sigh.
“What’s the matter?” Norman asked her.
“I really ought to call Andrea on her cell phone. I’m sure she’s wondering what happened to me.”
“No, she’s not. I talked to her last night when I walked her to her car, and she urged me to keep you here. Both of us agreed that you were too tired to drive home by yourself.”
“So Andrea knows I spent the night with you?” Hannah asked, a bit nervously.
“She knows you might have spent the night with me, but I told her that if you insisted on going home, I’d drive you there.”
“Oh.”
“So nobody knows, not even Michelle, because she stayed with your mother. You can say anything you like about where you spent the night, Hannah.”
Perhaps it was only her imagination, but Hannah thought that Norman looked a bit disappointed. Perhaps it was a guy thing, and it would be a blow to his ego if she lied about spending the night with him. “If anyone asks, I’m going to tell them exactly where I spent the night,” Hannah said, “unless you don’t want me to, that is.”
A smile spread over Norman’s face, and Hannah knew she was right. It was definitely a guy thing.
“Whatever you decide is fine with me,” Norman said, walking over to set the plate on the place mat in front of her.
Hannah glanced down at the plate. “A popover!” she said, and immediately, her mouth began to water. “It looks delicious.”
“That’s not all,” Norman told her. “Take off the top and see what’s inside.”
Hannah removed the top, which had been sliced off and then replaced, almost like one of her cream puffs. “Eggs. And bacon. And…” Hannah stopped and took another sniff. “Parmesan cheese?”
“That’s right. There’s a little freshly chopped parsley in there for color, too. You’ll see when you start to eat it. Do you want to know the calorie count?”
Hannah was almost afraid to ask, but obviously Norman had totaled it up. “Yes, I want to know. How many calories for the whole thing?”
“I’ll break it down for you. Seventy calories for the popover, one-ten for the egg, thirty-seven for one slice of crumbled bacon, and seven for the sprinkling of fresh parmesan. The parsley is negligible. That’s a grand total of under two hundred and twenty-five calories. And it’s good, isn’t it?”
“Mmmmph,” Hannah said, even though she could have swallowed and then answered his question.
Norman laughed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Hannah was amazed at how fast she ate the breakfast that Norman had prepared. It really was good, and she was hungry. When her plate was empty, she got up to refill their coffee cups and sat back down again. “That was the best breakfast I’ve had in a long time! You’re wonderful, Norman. You thought of everything to make me comfortable; my own sleep shirt, a fire in the bedroom fireplace, warm towels for my shower, a new toothbrush, and on top of it all, a gourmet breakfast. I could get used to being treated like this.”
“That’s the general idea.”
He was smiling at her in a way that let Hannah know he was about to say something about sharing their dream house again. It was time to change the subject unless she wanted to say yes. And she did…at least part of her did. But the other part still wasn’t sure she wanted to give up her independence. “I still can’t believe you went to all the trouble of figuring out the breakfast calories.”
“It wasn’t any trouble. I just looked up the ingredients online. There are a couple of Web sites with free calorie counters.”
“Well…thanks. I really appreciate it. The breakfast was great, and the shower was heavenly, and the towels were splendid, and your bed is magnificent. I think I got the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years!”
“Under any other circumstances that last comment might not be a compliment.”
Hannah laughed. And then she blushed slightly. It was best to change the subject again. “What are your plans for today?”
“I’m going to see if I can farm out the tapes. Another night of staring at empty hallways and closed doors is going to drive us crazy. What are your plans?”
“I’m going to avoid getting any more instructions from anybody,” Hannah said. “I’ve been thinking it over, and the advice I’ve been getting from Mike, and Lonnie, and Rick, and Bill just isn’t very helpful. It’d be fine if I had a whole team of detectives to send out for this and that, but I don’t. I can’t run their investigation, so I’m going to concentrate on my investigation. I’m just going to trust my instincts about what to do next and hope I end up catching Ronni’s killer.”
She hadn’t been home for more than five minutes when the phone rang. Hannah said a few choice words she’d never utter around her young nieces and plucked it from the cradle. “Yes?”
“Hannah!” It was Mike’s voice and he sounded worried. “Where have you been? I’ve been calling you every hour since midnight!”
He’d called her at midnight. Again. Mike wasn’t concerned that she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since Ronni was murdered. He’d probably wanted her to meet him in the garage again with a thermos of coffee and cookies so that he could give her more instructions on investigative procedure.
“So where were you?” Mike asked, sounding more than a little irritated.
Here was the acid test, and it wasn’t even difficult. “I spent the night at Norman’s,” she said.
“At Norman’s?”
“Yes.”
“I should have known somebody would tell you, but I didn’t think you’d run to Norman on the rebound.”
You should have known somebody would tell me what? Hannah felt like asking, but she didn’t. It was better to let Mike hang himself with his own rope.
“It didn’t mean anything, Hannah. It was just…convenient, you know? She was right there across the hall from me and…these things happen. You’re an adult. You know that.”
So that’s what an adult was. She had to remember to share that little gem of knowledge with her sisters.
“Well, anyway…now we’re even, and we can start over. I’ll call you tonight, okay? I’ve got to get off the phone now. Herb’s going to call and tell me where to meet him. He said he needs to talk to me about something important. Talk to you later, Hannah.”
There was a click and the line went dead, just as dead as Hannah’s respect for Mike. He’d lied to her about being involved with Ronni, and then, when he thought she’d found out about it, he’d tried to explain his behavior away by saying it meant nothing. Even worse, he’d jumped to the wrong conclusion about the night she’d spent at Norman’s house.
There was a sound from the top of the couch, a low growl. Hannah glanced up to find Moishe standing there with his fur bristling. He gave another low growl, just like he did when he spotted Delores coming up the stairs, and then he jumped down to the cushions and hopped on her lap to lick her cheek.
“It’s okay, Moishe,” Hannah said, petting her loyal friend. And then she settled down again to watch the tape she’d decided she’d view before she headed off to The Cookie Jar to meet her sisters.
The tape was clearly labeled with the date and camera number. The mall security staff was well organized. She didn’t have the list of camera numbers and their locations that Andrea had written up for them, but it took Hannah only a second or two to realize that the outdoor camera had generated this tape. There was a quick pop of the parking lot by the backdoor to Heavenly Bodies. It lasted a minute or two, showing nothing but parked cars and no movement. Hannah recognized several of the cars. There was Mayor Bascomb’s new Saab, Roger’s black Jeep, and Ronni’s old green wreck. Then horizontal lines began to stretch across the screen, and the image deteriorated until it was nothing but what her Grandmother Swensen, who’d had less than adequate television reception on her antenna out at the farm, had called “snow.”
Hannah hit the fast-forward button, but the snow remained snow. This must be the camera that had malfunctioned and failed to record Lonnie and Mike leaving the area, thereby causing them to be considered as suspects. Even though Hannah doubted that the camera would suddenly heal itself, she watched the tape until the end.
Something niggled at the back of her mind, something that wasn’t right. Hannah thought back to the beginning of the tape when the image had been clear, and she realized that Ronni’s old car was the problem. Mike had told her that the car had been sitting untouched on the street in front of the apartment building for at least two weeks. But that wasn’t true. There it was in all its dubious glory, on the security tape from the night Ronni was killed.
Had Mike lied to her? Again? It was certainly possible, but Hannah couldn’t think of any reason he’d lie about something like that. And perhaps it wasn’t a lie. Perhaps Mike simply didn’t know that Ronni had taken her car to work the night of her death. But there was an even more puzzling question. How had Ronni’s car gotten back to the same parking spot on the street in front of the apartment complex? Had someone at her birthday party driven it home for her? Or had the sheriff’s department gone through it for possible evidence and then towed it back to The Oaks?
It was something she had to check out, but there wasn’t time to do it now. One glance at the clock and Hannah knew she had to leave. She was expected at The Cookie Jar at eleven. After a quick scratch under the chin for Moishe and four of his favorite salmon-flavored treats, she flicked on the surveillance camera and went out the door.
She was almost to her cookie truck when she heard someone calling her name. Hannah turned and saw Sue Plotnik putting Kevin into his car seat.
“Hi, Sue.” Hannah walked over to greet her. “You’re out early.”
“Not really. We have to be at Kiddie Korner by noon, and I need to stop to pick up some cookies for story time.”
“Cookies? Consider yourself stopped. I’ve got three dozen Triplet Chiplet Cookies in the back of the truck if you want them.”
“You bet I want them!” Sue finished buckling Kevin in and waited for Hannah to come back with the cookies. “Thanks for the job, Hannah. I just adore it. We’re having so much fun, it’s almost a crime Janice pays us.”
“She needs you, Sue. The last time I dropped in on her at Kiddie Korner, she was really stressed out.”
“I know. Sometimes it’s not the work. It’s just that you need another adult to talk to. Being around children as your only companions all day is…well…it’s wearing. But there’s two of us now, and we’re having a really good time.”
“I can believe it.” Hannah smiled at her downstairs neighbor.
“There’s something new every day, especially at Show and Tell time. You wouldn’t believe what some of the kids say!”
“Tell me,” Hannah said. If she was a bit late, it wouldn’t matter, and it was wonderful seeing Sue so happy and energetic.
“Well…the first day I started, Sonny Newberg got up and said, Mom had a big fight with Uncle Tad because he didn’t pay back the money for Nikki’s flowers. Mom said he shouldn’t buy flowers for a bimbo like that. What’s a bimbo, Mrs. Plotnik?”
Hannah just shook her head. It sounded as if Tad Newberg’s sister-in-law didn’t approve of the girl he was dating. “What in the world do you say to a question like that?”
“I just said I wasn’t sure what his mother had meant, and then I asked him about flowers and what kind he liked best. A couple of the other kids told me which flowers they thought were the prettiest, and then somebody else got up to tell about going to the Minnesota Zoo. Kids are fairly easy to distract at that age.”
“Car go, Mommy!”
Hannah and Sue turned to look at Kevin, who was twisting the little steering wheel attached to his car seat.
“I think he’s getting impatient,” Hannah said.
“Definitely impatient. I’d better go, Hannah. I’m going to be at work early because of your cookies.” Sue shut the back door of her car and climbed into the driver’s seat. “Thanks again, Hannah…for everything.”
Hannah got into her cookie truck and followed Sue up the ramp and out of the parking garage. It was good to know that something she’d arranged had gone well. Now all she had to do was solve Ronni’s murder, lose enough weight to fit into the dress for her mother’s book launch party, and pretend that it didn’t matter at all that Mike was a skunk.
TRIPLET CHIPLET COOKIES
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
2 cups melted butter (4 sticks, one pound)
3 cups white (granulated) sugar 1? cups brown sugar
4 teaspoons vanilla
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt 4 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork)
5 cups flour (not sifted—pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
1 cup white chocolate chips (6-ounce package)
1 cup milk chocolate chips (6-ounce package)
1 cup semi-sweet (the regular kind) chocolate chips (6-ounce package)
2 cups chopped salted cashews
Hannah’s 1st Note: If you can’t find white chocolate chips, you can substitute butterscotch chips, peanut butter chips, or any other chips you like.
Melt the butter by heating it in a microwave-safe bowl on HIGH for 3 minutes, or in a pan on the stove.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: This dough gets really stiff—you might be better off using an electric mixer if you have one.
Mix the white sugar and the brown sugar with the butter. Add the vanilla, baking soda, and salt. Mix well.
Feel the bowl. If it’s not so hot it’ll cook the eggs, add them now and mix well.
Add 2 cups of the flour and stir well. Then add the chips, and the chopped nuts. Mix it thoroughly.
Add the 3 remaining cups of flour, and stir them in well.
Drop by rounded teaspoons onto greased (or sprayed with Pam or other nonstick cooking spray) cookie sheets, 12 cookies to a standard-sized sheet. If the dough is too sticky to handle, chill it for an hour and try again.
Bake the cookies at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until nicely browned. (Mine took 11 minutes.)
Let the cookies cool for two minutes, and then remove them from the baking sheets. Transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Yield: Approximately 10 to 12 dozen crunchy, nutty, chocolaty cookies that everyone will love.
This recipe can be cut in half if you wish.