Chapter Eighteen
“Ill help you bake,” Norman offered when they got back to The Cookie Jar.
“Okay, but do you really want to bake?”
“Yes. Ever since you showed me how easy it was to make popovers, I like to bake. I think I could be good at it if I follow your recipes.”
Hannah smiled. That was a compliment, and it deserved her acknowledgment. “How about starting with brownies?”
“That’s a great place to start! Is it okay if I make your Brownies Plus? They’re delicious.”
“That’s fine with me.” Hannah flipped through her sheet-protected recipe book and turned to Brownies Plus. “I think I have some Symphony bars in the pantry. Everybody loves those in the middle layer.”
Once she’d gotten Norman started with her standard-size bowl and pan, Hannah turned to the next recipe on her list. It was another bar cookie, and she couldn’t think of a single customer who didn’t like it.
“What are you making?” Norman asked her.
“Chocolate Euphoria Cookie Bars.”
“What are they?”
“Six-layer cookie bars with chocolate cookie crumbs on the bottom, semi-sweet chocolate chips next, miniature marshmallows on top of that, white chocolate chips sprinkled on the marshmallows, chocolate cereal layered on top with some milk chocolate chips over everything.”
“Wow! That’s a chocolate euphoria, all right!”
“You’d better believe it. I tested the recipe last week on Andrea, and she said that after eating only two, she felt like she was walking on air.”
“That’s a good testimonial.”
“Tracey’s is even better. She said her mother was in a good mood all day, even when she brought up the subject of a puppy again.”
“I think I should try one of those.”
“You got it. I’ll just assemble them, pop them in the oven, and we can try them when they’ve baked and cooled. And then I’ll help you with the Brownies Plus if you need it.”
Hannah grabbed the ingredients and several pans, and made short work of assembling the cookie bars. She put them into the oven, set the timer for twenty-five minutes, and turned to see how Norman was coming along.
“Done,” Norman said, gesturing toward his pan of brownies.
“You’re fast,” Hannah complimented him. “You finished at the same time I did.”
“But you made four pans and I only made one.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’ve been doing this at least four times longer than …” Hannah stopped speaking as Marge came into the kitchen with two empty cookie jars. “You need more cookies?”
“Yes. Everyone loves Lisa’s story. A couple of people have been here twice, and new people are coming in the door in droves.”
“What’s a drove, anyway?” Norman asked Hannah.
“Cowboys who went on cattle drives to take livestock to market were known as drovers,” Hannah told him. “I guess that means that the droves were herds of cattle.”
“Makes sense to me.”
Marge filled the cookie jars from the cookies on the baker’s racks and headed back out to the coffee shop. “I don’t want to miss this part,” she said. “It’s my favorite. Lisa’s really good today. Do you want me to stuff a dishtowel in the door so you can hear?”
“Yes,” Norman answered, and Hannah could do nothing but agree. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Lisa’s stories. It brought them lots of business. But she’d already found Reverend Matthew’s body once, and she wasn’t too keen on hearing it again.
“… knocked once, but there was no answer,” Lisa’s voice carried to the kitchen. “So our Hannah knocked again. Reverend Matthew? Are you in there? Hannah asked, but again there was no answer. So Hannah, whose heart was beating like a caged lion, turned the knob and inched open the door.”
Norman looked over at Hannah. “A caged lion?” he repeated.
“Don’t ask me. Lisa tells these stories in her own way.”
“But is that what happened?”
“Not exactly, but it’s close enough.”
“Then, when she opened the door a bit wider,” Lisa continued, “Hannah saw the one sight in the world that turned her blood to ice.”
There were gasps from Lisa’s audience and a low murmur that carried all the way to the kitchen. Everyone knew what was coming next. Hannah thought she recognized Florence’s voice. She must have called in one of her extra checkers and left the Lake Eden Red Owl so that she could come to hear Lisa’s story. And then a very familiar voice said, “Go on, Lisa.”
Hannah turned to Norman in shock. “Was that Michelle?” she asked, wondering if she’d heard wrong.
“It was Michelle,” Norman answered with a nod. “She must have taken the bus down when she heard about Reverend Matthew’s murder.”
“I don’t know about you, but I would have turned tail and run,” Lisa addressed her audience directly. “How about you?”
“No way I’d go in there!” a familiar voice declared, and Hannah knew it was Bonnie Surma.
“I might have, but I would have thought long and hard about it first.”
“Doug Greerson,” Hannah said to Norman.
“I would have kept the door closed and called the police from my cell phone,” another voice stated, a female voice that Hannah didn’t recognize.
“That’s Bev,” Norman told her. “She must have walked up here on her lunch hour.”
Hannah gave silent thanks that she hadn’t decided to tell the story herself. Even though they were here, together, on a quest for the killer, she was still enjoying her day with Norman. She didn’t want to be reminded of Doctor Bev and how much time Norman’s former fiancée spent with him on every other day at the dental office.
“Tell us more, Lisa. I can’t stand the suspense!” a male voice urged her.
“Earl Flensburg,” Hannah said to Norman.
“What happened next?” Carrie’s anxious voice rang out.
“There’s my mother,” Norman said with a smile. “I don’t think they’ve been apart more than ten minutes since they got married.”
“Our Hannah didn’t stop or call for reinforcements,” Lisa continued. “She didn’t even hesitate. She just squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked right in. She may have felt like turning tail and running, but she didn’t. Her legs were trembling, her breath was coming in little gasps like an old-fashioned steam locomotive just pulling away from the roundhouse, and her teeth were chattering, but she forced herself to move forward toward Reverend Matthew to feel for a pulse.”
“Why did she do that?”
“Doug Greerson again,” Hannah said softly to Norman. “He’s really getting into it.”
“Hannah felt she owed it to him,” Lisa explained, “that if there was any thread of life remaining, she’d pick up the phone and call for the ambulance. But of course there wasn’t. Reverend Matthew was stone-cold dead. And then, right then and there, is when it happened, the most unexpected sound in the world.”
“The phone?” Doug guessed.
“No, not the phone. It was a voice from above. Reverend Matthew’s voice.”
There were more gasps, a whole roomful of them, and several startled exclamations.
“And Reverend Matthew’s voice said, The wages of sin is death.”
“Come on, Lisa,” Earl broke the stunned silence. “Everybody here knows that’s impossible. You said Reverend Matthew was dead, and dead men don’t talk.”
“It wasn’t Reverend Matthew,” a voice called out from the back of the office shop. “It was Jacob!”
“Pete Nunke,” Hannah explained to Norman.
“Who’s Jacob?” Carrie asked Pete.
“That’s my mynah bird. Reverend Bob and Claire kept him for me when I was in the hospital, and Grandma said he could stay with her until I could get out of this darn wheelchair. She told me that Reverend Matthew spent a lot of time with Jacob, trying to teach him Bible verses and stuff like that.”
“You heard it from Jacob’s owner himself,” Lisa said, taking charge of her story again. “But our Hannah didn’t know that Reverend Matthew had taken Jacob to the church office with him and set his cage on the bookcase. When Jacob said, The wages of sin is death, in an imitation of Reverend Matthew’s voice, our Hannah nearly jumped out of her skin!”
“Gracious, yes!” Bertie Straub said, and Hannah wondered if she’d canceled all of her appointments for the afternoon. Bertie had come in when they opened, Hannah had seen her, and she’d spotted Bertie again when she’d left with Norman. Now Bertie was back once again. The owner of the Cut ’n Curl must have every one of Lisa’s lines memorized by now.
“As soon as Hannah realized that Jacob was the one imitating Reverend Matthew’s voice, she gave a deep sigh of relief. But then there was another sound that startled her. The phone on the desk, right next to Reverend Matthew’s head, began to ring.”
The phone rang, and for a split second Hannah wondered how Lisa had arranged that. Then she realized that it was The Cookie Jar phone, and she leaped up to answer it. “The Cookie Jar. This is Hannah.”
“Hannah!” Grandma Knudson’s voice was quavery and breathless. “Hannah!”
“Grandma Knudson, are you okay?” Hannah asked, keeping her voice as calm as possible. Grandma Knudson sounded upset beyond belief.
“Yes. Yes. I am. Oh, Hannah! The most amazing thing has happened!”
“What is it, Grandma Knudson?” Hannah wondered if the shock of Reverend Matthew’s murder and the stress of the past twenty-four hours had taken its toll on Grandma Knudson’s health.
“It’s Matthew! You’ve got to come right away, Hannah! Matthew isn’t dead. He’s alive!”
CHOCOLATE EUPHORIA COOKIE BARS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
? cup butter (one stick, 4 ounces, ? pound)
1 and ? cups chocolate wafer crumbs (or Oreo cookie crumbs)***
1 cup (6 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups miniature marshmallows
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk!)
1 cup (6 ounces) white chocolate chips (or vanilla chips)
2 cups Cocoa Puffs cereal (or any other chocolate crunchy cereal)****
1 cup (6 ounces) milk chocolate chips
*** - My store had Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers, but they weren’t crumbed. I zooped them up in my food processor with the steel blade. The 9-ounce package of Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers made about 2 cups of crumbs.
**** - I couldn’t find Cocoa Puffs in my neighborhood grocery store, so I used chocolate Cocoa Krispies (like Rice Krispies, only chocolate).
Spray a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan with Pam (or another nonstick cooking spray) and set it aside to wait for its yummy contents.
Melt the butter in a small microwave-safe bowl on HIGH for 50 seconds.
If you bought chocolate wafers, break them down into crumbs with your food processor or put them in a large, sealable plastic bag and crush them with a rolling pin. Measure out the chocolate wafer crumbs (or the Oreo cookie crumbs) and add them to the bowl with the melted butter. Stir the cookie crumbs and the butter until everything is moistened. (The resulting mixture will resemble wet, dark sand.)
Spread the butter and cookie crumb mixture in the bottom of your cake pan and spread it out as evenly as you can. Pat it smooth with the palms of your impeccably clean hands or with the blade of a metal spatula.
Sprinkle on the semi-sweet chocolate chips. Try to distribute them as evenly as possible.
Arrange the miniature marshmallows on top of the chips as evenly as you can.
Open the can of sweetened condensed milk and pour it over the top of the marshmallows as evenly as you can.
Sprinkle the white chocolate chips on top, trying for an even distribution. Your goal is to get something of every ingredient in each cookie bar when you cut them.
Measure out the Cocoa Puffs (or whatever chocolate cereal you used) and spread it out on top of the white chocolate chips. Again, try for an even distribution.
Sprinkle the milk chocolate chips over the chocolate cereal as evenly as you can.
Press everything in the pan down with the flat blade of a metal spatula. (If the cereal crunches a bit, that’s okay.)
Bake the Chocolate Euphoria Cookie Bars at 350 degrees F. for 20 to 25 minutes. (Mine took 24 minutes.)
Remove the cookie bars from the oven and cool them in the pan on a cold stovetop burner or on a wire rack.
When the Chocolate Euphoria Cookie Bars reach room temperature, cut them into brownie-sized pieces right in the pan. Don’t take them out unless you’re going to eat them immediately.
You can now refrigerate the cookie bars in their pan to set up firmly.
Hannah’s 1st Note: If you don’t cut the bars before you put them in the refrigerator, you may have a problem. They’re very firm when they’re chilled.
When you’re ready to serve, use a metal spatula to remove the cookie bars from the pan. No one will be able to resist.
Yield: 23 to 35 rich, decadent cookie bars, depending on how generous you are when you cut them. (This yield would be from 24 to 36 bars, but I know you’ll eat one right away.)
Hannah’s 2nd Note: These cookie bars are a huge hit at The Cookie Jar. They especially appeal to hardcore chocoholics like Mother. Andrea warns me that they’re extremely rich, so you should “save” your child by eating half of his or her Chocolate Euphoria Bar before handing it over.
Hannah’s 3rd Note: Mother actually said she thought I should frost Chocolate Euphoria Cookie Bars with Fudge Frosting! She really is incorrigible.