Delores still wasn’t through, so Hannah used a trick she’d learned from her younger sister, Andrea. She clicked the disconnect button a couple of times, and said, “I think there’s something wrong with my phone. If we get cut off, I’ll call you back later when I get to the shop.” Then she started to say something else and cut herself off in the middle of her own sentence.
Hannah replaced the receiver and stared at it for a minute. The phone didn’t ring again, and she gave a smile of satisfaction. Andrea had sworn that no one would suspect that you’d deliberately hung up on yourself.
Twenty minutes later and freshly showered, Hannah pulled on a pair of worn jeans that were a little tighter around the waist than they’d been when she’d bought them, and a long-sleeved beige pullover that bore the legend “GOT COOKIES?” on the front in red block letters. She loved the color red, but she’d never been able to find a shade that didn’t clash with her hair.
After refilling Moishe’s food bowl and tossing him a couple of kitty treats that were supposed to be made from real salmon, Hannah hurried down the steps to the underground garage and climbed into her candy-apple red Suburban. She’d bought it when she’d first started her business over two years ago, and she’d found a local sign painter to letter the name of her shop, The Cookie Jar, in gold script on both doors. It even had a vanity license plate “COOKIES”, and it was a mobile ad for her business. At least Stan Kramer, Lake Eden’s only accountant, claimed that it was when he filled out her tax forms.
Hannah was about to back out of her parking space in the underground garage when she heard a shout. Her downstairs neighbor, Phil Plotnik, was waving his arms and pointing at something near the front of her truck. He held up one hand in a gesture to stay put and walked over to unplug her head bolt heater cord from the strip of electrical outlets that lined the garage wall. Hannah nodded her thanks and gave him the high sign as he wound it around her front bumper. She always snapped a couple of extension cords each winter, before she got used to the fact that her truck was plugged in. Phil had saved her the cost of one replacement.
It wasn’t snowing as Hannah drove up the ramp and emerged into the icy predawn darkness, but the wind was whipping up the loose flakes that had fallen during the night. When she rolled down her window to use her electronic gate card to raise the wooden bar at the exit of the complex, the frigid air whistled into her truck. Hannah turned up the fur collar on her parka and shivered. It couldn’t be more than twenty degrees outside.
The heater didn’t kick in with its welcome burst of hot air until she’d turned north onto Old Lake Road. It would be a full five minutes before it could warm the cavernous interior of her truck, and Hannah kept her collar turned up. But she did pull off one of her leather gloves to reach back and grab a bag of cookies.
Hannah never sold day-old baked goods, and the cookies were leftovers from the previous day’s baking. She packed them up in bags after she’d closed her shop for the night and stowed them in the back of her Suburban. They never went to waste, and Hannah’s generosity was legendary in Lake Eden. The younger children called her the “Cookie Lady,” and they were all smiles when she pulled up in her truck and passed out samples. One free cookie could turn into a sale, especially if a child went home and clamored for Mom to go down to The Cookie Jar to buy more cookies.
Hannah was munching a leftover Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookie as she approached the Cozy Cow Dairy and stopped for the light at the intersection of Old Lake Road and Dairy Avenue. Pete Nunke was standing by his truck, checking his orders under the bright lights of the loading dock, and Hannah gave a polite beep on her horn as the light turned to green and she drove on by. Pete was a good deliveryman, but she still missed Ron LaSalle.
Ten minutes later, Hannah pulled into the parking lot at Jordan High. It was seven in the morning, much too early for either the teachers or the students, and she found a prime parking spot right in front of the auditorium. A huge green banner hung over the double doors, declaring that it was the site of the Hartland Flour Dessert Bake- Off.
“Morning, Hannah.” Herb Beeseman, Lake Eden’s marshal and the only law-enforcement officer on the city payroll, greeted her with a smile as she pushed through the door. “You’re right on time.”
Hannah grinned back and handed over the small bag of cookies she’d brought in from her truck. “This is like bringing coals to Newcastle, but they’re your favorites, Molasses Crackles.”
“Coals to Newcastle?” Herb looked puzzled for a moment, then he laughed. “I get it. You think the contestants will want me to be their official taster?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. After all, you’re the only one here.”
“That’s right.” Herb looked pleased at the thought. “I can’t leave my post, but Mr. Hart said you could go right in. I turned on the lights for you.”
Hannah was surprised as she stepped through the inner doors. She’d graduated from Jordan High and had been in the auditorium more times than she could count. Today, it looked completely different. The raised wooden stage, which was used for school plays and programs, had been converted into four individual kitchen sets with temporary waist-high partitions between them. All the electrical wires and plumbing pipes had been enclosed in large conduits that ran into a space below the kitchen counters and could be easily removed when the contest was over. One of the stipulations Jordan High’s principal, Mr. Purvis, had made was that nothing could damage the stage floor.
Once she’d climbed the steps to the stage, Hannah examined each of the kitchens. They were identical, with new appliances and working sinks and dishwashers. Refrigerators hummed softly, stovetops glistened, and there was a full complement of kitchenware on each set. Once the contest was over and the grand prizewinner had been declared, Mr. Hart would donate all of the equipment to the home economics department at Jordan High. He’d also promised to completely renovate the cafeteria and the school kitchen over the summer, a gesture that had the head cook, Edna Ferguson, singing his praises allover town.
It took a while to test the appliances and inspect each of the four kitchen sets. As the senior judge on a panel of five, it was her responsibility to make sure that the kitchens were identical in every way. Once she was satisfied that everything was working, Hannah said good-bye to Herb and hurried back out to her truck. It was seven-thirty, and she had to help her assistant, Lisa Herman, get ready for the morning crowd that would be waiting at The Cookie Jar when they opened at eight.
When Hannah pulled into her parking spot in back of her bakery, Lisa’s old car was in the adjoining spot. There was a heavy coating of ice on the windshield, and it took at least a couple of hours for that amount of ice to build up. Lisa had come in very early this morning.
Lisa was in the process of removing two trays of cookies from the ovens when Hannah walked in. She slid them onto the bakers’ rack and wiped her hands on the towel that was looped to her apron. On Hannah, the same apron would have come to a spot just above her knees, but Lisa was petite and she’d folded it several times at the waist so that it wouldn’t trip her when she walked. “Hi, Hannah. Did you remember to plug in your truck?”
“Of course. How long have you been here, Lisa?”
“Since five. I figured you’d be busy with the contest, and I wanted to have everything ready to go. The cookies are all baked, and the coffee’s made, if you want some.”
“Thanks, I could use it.” Hannah hung her coat on the strip of hooks that ran along the back wall and walked toward the restaurant-style swinging door that led into the shop. Then she remembered what had happened with the catnip that Lisa had sent home for Moishe, and she turned back. “Moishe loved your catnip. He ate it all up in the middle of the night.”
“Did you leave it out where he could get at it?”
“Yes. My mistake.” Hannah decided not to tell Lisa how she’d crept down her hallway in the middle of the night, armed with a baseball bat. “How about the strawberries? Are they ripe, or should I use frozen for tonight?”
“They’re ripe. Now that I know how to do it, I’m going to grow them every winter. They’re in a bowl in the cooler if you want a taste.”
“No thanks,” Hannah declined. “I’m only allergic to one thing, and that’s strawberries. So that greenhouse gardening really works?”
“It works on strawberries and tomatoes. That’s all I grew this year. Dad loves BLTs, and he doesn’t remember that you can’t buy good tomatoes in the winter.”
“It’s nice of you to grow them for him.” Hannah turned and headed off to the coffeepot. Jack Herman had Alzheimer’s, and Lisa had given up her college scholarship to stay home and take care of him. It was a shame, but it had been Lisa’s decision, and Hannah knew that she didn’t regret it.
Once Hannah had switched on the old-fashioned overhead fixtures and poured herself a cup of coffee from the giant urn that sat behind the counter, she went back to the bakery to check the cakes she’d baked two days
