Chapter Eighteen
“That’s Tad Newberg?” Michelle asked as she spotted the short, heavyset young man in the perfectly pressed uniform standing by the mall security station.
“Yes, that’s Tad. Why do you look so surprised?”
“I think I know him from somewhere, but I’m not sure where.”
“You probably saw him out here when you were shopping,” Andrea told her. “He’s been here for about two years.”
“Maybe,” Michelle said, but she sounded doubtful.
“Tell him you think you met him before,” Hannah suggested. “Maybe he’ll remember where it was. Even if the two of you can’t figure it out, it’ll keep him distracted so that Andrea can take pictures of the security monitors.”
“Hi, Hannah,” Tad greeted her as they stepped up to the station.
“Hello, Tad. I just wanted to drop by and thank you for your help the other night.”
“No thanks needed. That’s my job.”
“Both Andrea and I are grateful that you waited with us until the sheriff’s department arrived.”
“That’s right. We felt a lot safer with you there,” Andrea chimed in.
“They brought you some cookies,” Michelle held out the box. “They’re chocolate with mocha frosting.”
Tad looked genuinely pleased as he accepted the box. “Wow, thanks! I’m crazy about chocolate cookies.”
“Do you like chocolate sauerkraut cake?” Hannah asked him.
“I like it a lot. My sister-in-law makes one almost every Sunday for dinner. It’s my brother’s favorite cake.”
“These cookies are based on that cake. I call them Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Cookies.”
“Because of the sauerkraut? Or because of the military?”
“The sauerkraut.”
“That’s funny. I like the name.” Tad turned to Michelle with a contemplative look. “You look familiar. Do I know you from somewhere?”
That was Andrea’s cue to take her phone out of her pocket. “Sorry,” she said to Tad, after glancing at the display. “It’s my babysitter. I’ve got to take the call.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Michelle said, stepping a bit closer to completely capture Tad’s attention. “I mean, I was thinking I know you from somewhere.”
“How about high school?” Tad asked her. “I’m a couple of years older than you are, but what school did you go to?”
“Jordan High. How about you?”
As the conversation went on between Michelle and Tad, Hannah glanced in Andrea’s direction. She’d managed to walk all the way back to the wall of security monitors and she was pacing back and forth, pretending to hold an imaginary conversation with Grandma McCann. And all the time she was talking, Hannah knew she was using her in-phone camera to take photos of everything inside the security station.
“I don’t think I know anybody from Elmdale,” Michelle said, “but maybe we met at some kind of statewide school contest. Were you in the band? Or the chorus?”
“Not me, but I was always in line at the Dairy Queen in Little Falls when they opened in the spring. How about you?”
Hannah tuned out for a moment and stepped away slightly so that she could examine the rest of the station. It was fairly large, the size of someone’s living room, and other than two small cubicles in the back that were walled off into offices, everything was open to view.
“Maybe I saw you out here when you were on duty,” Michelle suggested.
“I don’t think that’s it. I know I saw you somewhere, but I don’t think it was out here.”
Hannah tuned out again. She moved back slightly so that she could see what appeared to be bookshelves on the far wall. They were filled with tapes, clearly labeled with the day and date, and there was an obvious gap for the night of Ronni’s murder.
Pay dirt! Hannah sidled a bit closer. The span of the tapes covered two weeks, and that was obviously as long as the security team kept them. Perhaps the older tapes were archived. It didn’t really matter. What mattered was the gap for the night of Ronni’s murder, a bare spot on the shelf.
There was only one conclusion to draw. Hannah assumed that the sheriff’s department had taken the tapes. If she carried her theory further, Detective Stella Parks could be viewing them at this very moment.
There were other assumptions to draw as well, although spotting the gap in coverage had nothing to do with it. Hannah had to assume that Ronni’s murder had not been caught on tape. If the killer had been identified, an arrest would have been made, and the Lake Eden Gossip Hotline would be buzzing like a whole boxcar of bees. Delores would have wasted no time in calling to tell all three of her daughters, and no such call had come.
Perhaps viewing the tapes would be a waste of time, but Hannah’s gut feeling was that they might learn something about the people who had visited Heavenly Bodies that night, gym members who might have seen something that would prove to be important.
Try to get those tapes, Hannah made a mental note. And then she added, And meet Stella Parks to find out her agenda.
“What an absolute nerd!” Michelle said as she climbed into the rear seat of Hannah’s cookie truck. They’d decided to go out to the inn together in Hannah’s truck. On the way back, Andrea would pick up her Volvo in the mall parking lot.
“You’re talking about Tad Newberg?” Andrea asked her.
“Who else? The only thing that bothers me is where I met him before. It’s one of those questions that’ll keep me up for hours tonight.”
“Nothing is going to keep me up for hours tonight!” Hannah pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the Lake Eden Inn.
They were just turning onto the access road that led to the inn when Andrea’s cell phone rang. “It’s Bill,” she said, identifying her husband’s ring tone. “I’d better take this.”
As Hannah guided her truck over the bumpy road that wound through the trees, she heard Andrea’s end of the conversation.
“Oh, hi, honey!” Andrea said, and Hannah could almost hear the smile in her voice. “Don’t tell me you’re coming home early! We’re just about to meet Mother at the inn for dinner.”
There was a silence, and then Andrea spoke again. “Of course. I entirely understand. You have to make Detective Parks feel welcome. Where are you taking her?”
In her rearview mirror, Hannah saw Michelle lean forward so that she could hear better. Was trouble brewing in paradise?
“You’re coming here, too?” Andrea sounded surprised. There was a beat of silence while Bill obviously said something. “But we can’t! Of course we’d love to, honey, but Mother planned this out so that we could discuss Ronni’s murder case. I don’t think you want her to hear about that…do you?”
Another beat and Andrea laughed. “That’s what I thought. It’s okay, honey. You just tell her all about Lake Eden and how nice it is to live here.”
“And if he wants us to join them for coffee afterward, that would be nice,” Hannah jumped in, even though it meant that she had to admit she’d been following what was supposed to be a private conversation.
“Nice touch,” Michelle said, patting Hannah on the shoulder.
Hannah smiled. “I thought so. I want to meet her.”
“But does she want to meet you?” Michelle countered.
Andrea shushed them both by holding up her hand. “Bill says that’ll be fine. She wants to meet us all anyway. They’re leaving the sheriff’s station now, so they’ll be only fifteen minutes or so behind us.”
Michelle waited until Andrea had ended the call, and then she tapped her on the shoulder. “Have you met her yet?” she asked.
“No. I just hope she’s not…”
“Really attractive?” Michelle guessed.
“That, too. But I was thinking more about the department. I hope she’s not critical of the way Bill’s been running things.”
“Right,” Hannah said.
“I understand,” Michelle added. “Maybe we should point out that Bill has no unsolved murder cases on the books.”
Hannah gave a nod. “That’s good. We could all sing Bill’s praises, but if his cliché is true and her mind really is like a steel trap, she’ll see right through it. Maybe we ought to give her some cookies for her office instead. That usually brings people around.”
“Good idea.” Michelle turned to look at the cookies Hannah always carried in the back. “Do you have anything good to give her?”
“Do I have anything good?” Hannah did her best to sound outraged.
“You know what she means,” Andrea gave a little laugh. “Do you have anything that a tough-as-nails, brave-as-a-lion, mind-like-a-steel-trap visiting detective would like?”
“I’ve got Blueberry Crunch Cookies. I packed them up for Mother, but I’ve got enough for Detective Parks, too.”
“Perfect,” Andrea pronounced. “They ought to sweeten her up.”
“In more ways than one,” Hannah said.
BLUEBERRY CRUNCH COOKIES
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
1 cup melted butter (2 sticks, 1/2 pound)
2 cups white (granulated) sugar 2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1? teaspoons baking soda
2 large eggs, beaten (just whip them up with a fork)
2? cups flour (no need to sift—pack it down when you measure it)
1 cup dried sweetened blueberries (other dried fruit will also work if you cut it in blueberry-sized pieces)
2 cups GROUND dry oatmeal (measure before grinding)
Hannah’s 1st Note: Mixing this dough is much easier with an electric mixer, but you can also do it by hand.
Melt the butter in a large microwave-safe bowl for 1 minute on HIGH. Add the white sugar and mix it in thoroughly.
Add the vanilla, salt, and the baking soda. Mix it in well.
When the mixture has cooled to room temperature, stir in the beaten eggs. When they are fully incorporated, add 197 the flour in half-cup increments, stirring after each addition.
Mix in the dried blueberries.
Prepare your oatmeal. (Use Quaker if you have it—the cardboard canister is useful for all sorts of things.) Measure out two cups and place them in the bowl of a food processor or a blender, chopping with the steel blade until the oatmeal is the consistency of coarse sand. (Just in case you’re wondering, the ground oatmeal is the ingredient that makes the cookies crunchy.)
Add the ground oatmeal to your bowl, and mix it in thoroughly. The resulting cookie dough will be quite stiff.
Roll walnut-sized dough balls with your hands, and place them on a greased cookie sheet, 12 balls to a standard-size sheet. (If the dough is too sticky to roll, place the bowl in the refrigerator for thirty minutes and try again.) Squish the dough balls down a bit with your impeccably clean palm (or a metal spatula if you’d rather).
Bake at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown on top. (Mine took 11 minutes.) Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, and then remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.
Yield: 6 to 7 dozen unusual and tasty cookies, depending on cookie size.
Hannah’s 2nd Note: These cookies freeze well if you stack them on foil (like rolling coins) and roll them, tucking in the ends. Just place the rolls of cookies in a freezer bag, and they’ll keep for three months or so as long as no one finds them and eats them without telling you.