by Joanne Fluke
Hannah laughed at Lisa’s description of Doctor Bev. “Are you going to use that line tomorrow?”
“I think so. It’s a real grabber. As a matter of fact, that’ll probably be my last line in tomorrow’s story.”
“You’re a drama queen, Lisa. Just go for it! If I have the stomach later, I’ll even listen to one of your performances. And if I manage to prove my innocence while you’re doing all that, we’ll use the money to go on vacation to someplace where it’s warm next winter.”
Hannah had just tasted one of Marge’s new Chocolate-Covered Peanut Cookies when Jack came back into the kitchen.
“You tried one?” he asked, noticing that a cookie was gone from the six dozen on the baker’s rack.
“I did and they’re wonderful. Tell Marge I said so, will you?”
“I will. She’ll like that.” Jack stood there for a moment and then he took a deep breath. “Do you have a minute, Hannah? I need your help.”
“Sure, Jack. What is it?”
“I need to . . .” Jack stopped and looked confused. Then he cleared his throat and began again. “I need to pro . . . pro-something. I always forget that word!”
“Say it in a different way,” Hannah suggested. It was a tactic she’d learned from Lisa. “What does the word mean, Jack?”
“It means to get married. To . . . propose! That’s it! I need to propose, Hannah.”
“Okay,” Hannah said, crossing to the coffee pot to pour two mugs, one for each of them. She gestured toward the stools around the stainless steel work island and said, “Come over here and sit. Have a little coffee and tell me all about it.”
Jack smiled as he sat down. “You are good, Hannah. That’s why I want to ask you to help. I can’t ask Marge and I can’t ask Lisa. And Herb’s too busy or he’d do it. That boy loves me.”
“I know he does. So do Lisa and Marge.”
“Yes, they do. But I can’t ask them to help me. They’re in . . . in something. In the middle of it, you know?”
“Involved.”
“Yes. That’s the word. They’re involved. It has to be a secret until I get it right. Then I’ll ask Marge and then I’ll tell Lisa. That’s the way it should be.”
“All right.”
“You won’t tell, will you?”
“No, Jack. I won’t tell.”
“I knew you wouldn’t. Marge is good, Hannah. And I love her. Did you know that she gave her house to the kids when they got married?”
“Yes, I knew. It was an incredibly generous wedding gift.”
“Well, now she doesn’t have a house, but I do. And I want my house to be her house. I want us to have it together. That’s the way it’s supposed to be between a man and a woman. So I want to pro . . . you know . . . ask her.”
“You want to propose to Marge.”
“Yes. But every time I try to work it out, I can’t find the right words. It has to be right, Hannah. She deserves that.”
“Of course she does. Did you want me to help you find the right words?”
“Yes! That’s exactly what I want. And then, once I know what the words are, I want you to help me re . . . re . . . rehash isn’t right. It’s a different word. It means to do like actors do.”
“Rehearse?”
“That’s it! You’re so smart, Hannah. I want you to help me rehearse so I can propose to Marge. Will you? Please?”
“Of course I will. When do you want to start?”
“Right now? They said I could take a break. Is right now good for you?”
“It’s perfect,” Hannah said, even though she had more cookies to bake. Helping Jack rehearse his proposal to Marge was a lot more important than mixing up cookie dough.
CHOCOLATE-COVERED PEANUT COOKIES
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.
Hannah’s 1st Note: Mike loves chocolate-covered peanuts and he adores these cookies. For those with peanut allergies, use chocolate-covered something else and another flavor of chips. (I’ve baked these with M&Ms and white chocolate chips, and they were delicious.)
1 cup salted butter, softened (2 sticks, 8 ounces,
½ pound)
1 small package (makes 4 half-cups) vanilla instant
pudding mix (NOT sugar-free)
½ cup white (granulated) sugar
½ cup brown sugar (pack it down in the cup when
you measure it)
1 egg, beaten (just whip it up in a glass with a fork)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 and ½ cups all-purpose flour (pack it down in the
cup when you measure it)
1 and ½ cups quick rolled oats (I used Quaker’s
Quick 1-minute kind)
1 cup chocolate-covered peanuts (I used a 12-ounce
bag. There was about ¼ cup left, but not for very
long!)
1 cup peanut butter chips (a 6-ounce package—I
used Reese’s)
Hannah’s 2nd Note: You can mix these cookies up by hand, but it’s a lot easier with an electric mixer.
Mix the softened butter, dry pudding mix, white sugar, and brown sugar together. Beat them until they’re light and fluffy.
Add the egg and the vanilla extract. Mix them in thoroughly.
Add the baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Mix until everything is incorporated.
Add the flour in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition.
Add the rolled oats in half-cup increments, mixing after each addition.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the chocolate-covered peanuts and the peanut butter chips by hand.
Drop the cookie dough by rounded teaspoonfuls onto an ungreased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart, no more than 12 cookies to a standard-sized sheet. (I covered my cookie sheet with parchment paper.) You can also use a 2-teaspoon size scooper to dish out the cookie dough.
Bake the Chocolate-Covered Peanut Cookies at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.
Cool the cookies for 2 minutes on the cookie sheets. Then remove them to a wire rack to complete cooling.
Yield: Makes approximately 4 dozen wonderful cookies.
Chapter Twenty
Lisa was between performances when Delores and Jenny came in. She led them back to the kitchen and smiled as she saw that Hannah had baked more cookies. “Thanks, Hannah. We were getting close to running out.”
“You won’t run out. I’ve got six pans of bar cookies in the oven right now.”
“Great.” Lisa turned to the smiling, brown-haired woman standing next to Delores. “Jenny? This is Hannah.” And then she turned to Hannah. “I told Jenny and your mother we’d have coffee in the kitchen if you weren’t too busy back here.”
“I’m not too busy. Nice to meet you, Jenny. Sit down and I’ll get our coffee.”
“I’ll do it,” Lisa said quickly. “All I’ve been doing is telling stories since we opened. With Marge, Dad, and Michelle here, I haven’t had to wait on a single table.”
“This story was very dramatic,” Delores said, sitting down on a stool at the work island. “Good job, Lisa.”
“It was scary too,” Jenny added, taking the stool next to Delores, “especially the part about her hair floating in the currents.”
Delores gave a slight shiver. “I know. I think I ate two cookies without even knowing I was eating them.” She turned to Hannah. “You were very brave to dive down there, dear.”
“Brave or foolish, I’m not sure which,” Hannah said, accepting a mug of coffee from Lisa.
“Your slaydar makes you do it,” Delores said. And when Jenny looked puzzled she explained. “Slaydar is like radar except you don’t use it to find speeders. Hannah uses it to find murder victims.”
“That’s cute,” Jenny said, and then she frowned slightly. “Or maybe it’s not. It must be frightening to discove
r murder victims.”
“It’s not all fun and games,” Hannah admitted. “Unfortunately, I can’t seem to stop doing it.”
“I know. I read about you in the paper, Hannah.”
“The Lake Eden Journal?” Hannah asked her.
“No, the Minneapolis Star Tribune.”
“Really?” Delores looked impressed. “When was that, Jenny?”
“It was when Hannah caught Buddy’s killer.”
Hannah went on full alert. Jenny hadn’t said When Hannah caught that keyboard player’s killer, or When Hannah caught that jazz musician’s killer, or even When Hannah caught Buddy Neiman’s killer. She’d said When Hannah caught Buddy’s killer, as if she’d known him. “Did you know Buddy Neiman?” Hannah asked.
“No, but I felt almost like I did. Clay talked about him a lot. He told me he thought there was something very secretive about Buddy. And Clay was right.”
“Clay,” Hannah repeated. “Are you talking about Clayton Wallace?”
“Yes.”
“Then you knew him?” Hannah asked, drawing the obvious conclusion.
“Oh, yes. I was his nurse. And we were . . . friends. Good friends. I love to cook and I used to cook dinner for him every once in a while.”
Hannah remembered the bottle of premium Chianti, and the gift-wrapped box of truffles that Mike said the Minneapolis police had found in Clayton’s house. “Do you like to cook Italian food?” she asked.
“It’s my favorite. It was Clay’s favorite, too. He always brought me a bottle . . .”
Hannah held up her hand. “Let me guess. A bottle of premium Chianti and a box of Fanny Farmer truffles?”
Jenny looked mystified as she nodded. “How did you know?”
“I knew because the Minneapolis police found those two items in his house. Were you planning on having dinner with him right after his trip to Lake Eden?”
“Yes,” Jenny said, and her voice shook slightly. “He was such a nice man and I was hoping that . . .”
Hannah didn’t say anything. She just gave Jenny some time to compose herself. A few moments passed and Hannah waited until Jenny was calm again before she asked the next, very critical question. “You said you were Clayton’s nurse. Where was that?”
“At the Hennepin Eye Clinic. He was so brave and his sense of humor was wonderful. He knew he was losing his sight, but somehow he managed to cope with it. I think that’s why I fell in love with him. And then, after he died, I just couldn’t work at the clinic anymore. There were too many memories and I had to go somewhere else.”
“Of course you did,” Delores said, patting Jenny’s hand.
“I have one more question,” Hannah told her. “How bad was Clayton’s eyesight when he drove the Cinnamon Roll Six here? It’s important.”
“Not bad enough to cause an accident,” Jenny said, sitting up a little straighter. “I can give you his complete diagnosis and his prognosis, but you probably won’t understand it. To put it in layman’s terms, his vision was disintegrating from the center out. That means he had just started having trouble seeing small items in the center of his field of vision.”
Like pills, Hannah thought, her heart beginning to pound faster. “By small items do you mean things like pills?” she asked.
“That’s it exactly. He said he was having trouble putting pills in the proper compartments of his pill box. He said he might need help doing that very soon and I told him to call me any time he needed me.”
“When did he say that?”
“The afternoon he left for Lake Eden. He told me he’d managed to do it, but it had been difficult. And I never . . .” Jenny stopped and swallowed hard. “I never heard from him again.”
“Would you be willing to tell all this to a detective from the sheriff’s department?” Hannah asked her.
“Yes, but . . . I don’t understand. Why does the sheriff’s department want to know about it?”
“Because the Minneapolis police concluded that Clayton’s death was a suicide. And you can prove it wasn’t.”
Quickly Hannah explained about Clayton’s son and how the insurance company wouldn’t honor Clayton’s policy if the cause of death was suicide. Jenny’s eyes flashed with anger.
“Of course I’ll help you clear this up!” she promised. “Clay told me all about the provisions he made for his son, and there’s no way I’ll let the insurance company get away with that!”
Once they’d made some plans and had their coffee and cookies, Jenny and Delores left. Lisa went back to tell her story to the next group of customers, and Hannah was left alone in the kitchen.
“This one just fell in my lap,” she said to absolutely no one as she removed the pans of bar cookies from the oven and slid them onto shelves on the baker’s rack. “I must have done something right because I really lucked out with Clayton.”
Then she poured a fresh cup of coffee, sat down on her stool again, and fervently wished that proving herself innocent in Doctor Bev’s death wouldn’t be as difficult as she thought it would be.
“Once more from the heart, Jack,” Hannah told him. “And remember to keep it simple. All you have to do is tell her you love her and say you want her to be your wife. After that just say, Will you marry me, Marge?”
“But what if I forget her name like I did the last time we rehearsed? It won’t be good if I forget her name.”
“You only forgot because you were nervous.”
“I know, but what if I’m nervous again?”
Hannah thought about that for a moment. “You can work around it. Just say, Will you marry me, my love?”
“That’s good. I can do that. Let’s do it again, Hannah.”
“Okay.” Hannah stood up and Jack got down on one knee. He took her hand and kissed it.
“My dearest,” he began, looking up at her. “I love you so much. You’re so good, and kind, and . . . and sweet. I want you to be my wife. Please be my wife. Will you marry me, my love?”
Hannah was about to tell him what a wonderful job he’d done when she heard two gasps from the doorway that led into the coffee shop.
“Uh-oh!” Jack said, getting to his feet as fast as he could. “We’re busted!”
Hannah swiveled around to see Lisa and Marge standing there with identical expressions of shock and dismay on their faces.
“Jack!” Marge gulped.
“Dad!” Lisa exclaimed, sounding stunned.
If they’d all been acting in a romantic comedy, it would have been hilarious. But this was no comedy and Hannah knew it wouldn’t be romantic for very much longer unless she explained things fast.
“It’s not what you think,” she said. “Jack’s not proposing to me. I’m just helping him rehearse.” She turned to Jack. “Ask her now!”
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now!”
“But we’re not through rehearsing.”
“Yes, we are. Do it now, Jack!”
As Jack walked over to Marge, Hannah realized that everything was going to be all right. Marge’s lips were twitching and she was shaking slightly, as if she was holding back laughter. One look at Lisa further reassured Hannah. Lisa was holding her hand over her mouth and her eyes were bright with suppressed mirth.
“My dearest,” Jack said and then he stopped. “Do I have to get down on my knee? This floor is hard and I did it five times already.”
“Here, Jack,” Marge said, grabbing a towel from the counter and tossing it to him. “Use the towel to cushion your knee.”
“Thanks, Marge.” Jack positioned the towel, got down on one knee, reached up to take Marge’s hand and kissed it. “I love you so much. You’re so good, and kind, and sweet. I want you to be my wife. Please be my wife. Will you marry me, my love?”
Marge reached down with her other hand and helped Jack to his feet. Then she smiled and kissed him. “Of course I’ll marry you,” she said.
“Lisa?” Jack turned to his daughter. “Is it okay with you?”
“It’s perfect with me, Dad,” Lisa said, going over to give him a hug. “Herb and I were wondering when you’d get around to it.”
Hannah had just finished mixing up her last batch of cookies, Oatmeal Raisin Crisps this time, when there was a knock on the back door. She crossed the room and pulled the door open to reveal someone she’d never expected to see.
“Mike!” she exclaimed.
“Hi, Hannah,” Mike said, standing there obviously ill at ease. “Is there anyone with you in the kitchen?”
“No.” Hannah remembered how hard and cold he’d looked last night when he’d questioned her. He didn’t look like that now, but perhaps he was playing good cop today. “You don’t have an audience this time around. Should I invite some people so that you can arrest me in front of a crowd?”
Mike looked pained as he shook his head. “Don’t be like that, Hannah. I know last night was bad for you, but I was just doing my job.”
“I think that’s what they said in Nazi Germany!”
“Hannah . . . can you please forget last night for a minute? I’m sorry about what happened. I really am. But I had to follow the rules and do my duty.”
“And you’re not doing your duty now?”
“No. It’s exactly the opposite. I shouldn’t be here. I could be fired for being here. It’s against every rule in the book. So I’m not here, okay? You can’t let anyone know I’ve been here. I could be brought up on charges if anyone sees me here.”
Hannah had the urge to slam the door in his face, but she thought better of it. Mike was here for a reason and unless she was drastically mistaken, it wasn’t to try to fool her into incriminating herself.
“Hannah? Please. Can I come in?”