“Those smell great!” Norman said, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. “I just want to lean over you and sniff.”
“I’m leaving now. I’m too young to hear things like this,” Michelle said with a perfectly deadpan expression.
Both Hannah and Norman started to laugh. They laughed so hard, Michelle just had to join in. When they’d calmed down a bit, Michelle said, “They
“Yes. Shall we cut one in thirds and try it before Lonnie and Mike get here?”
“Best idea I’ve heard all night,” Norman said, watching as Hannah cut a biscuit in three pieces and buttered them.
Michelle was the first to taste hers. “Mmmm,” she said. “I think I just burned my lip, but it was worth it.”
“Excellent!” Norman pronounced, wolfing down another bite.
“Oh, boy!” Hannah said, knowing that it might be impolite to praise her own baking, but unable to keep her enjoyment nonverbal. The richness of the cheese and the mild heat of the green chilies were perfect with the flaky biscuits.
“What did you do for a salad, Michelle?” Norman asked her. “I know I didn’t have any lettuce.”
“You didn’t have any cabbage either, so I made Carrot Slaw.”
“Carrot Slaw?” Hannah stared at her sister, intrigued. “What’s in it?”
Michelle gave a little shrug. “Anything I could find in Norman’s refrigerator and freezer that I thought would go with carrots.”
“Can we taste it?” Hannah asked.
“Sure. I want to taste it, too. I have absolutely no idea how it turned out.”
Hannah and Norman watched while Michelle put servings of her Carrot Slaw in small bowls. “Here you go,” she said, passing the bowls around. “Tell me what you think.”
Hannah smiled as she tasted a bite. Michelle had a natural sense of food combinations and the salad was wonderful. “Crunchy, salty, sweet ... it’s great, Michelle. I’ve never had anything like it before.”
“I thought it should work, but I wasn’t completely sure.”
“Well, I’m sure it worked,” Norman gave his approval. “There’s a pad of paper in the drawer next to the sink. Write down what’s in it before you forget. You don’t want to lose this recipe.”
Michelle had just finished jotting down the ingredients and the dressing when the doorbell rang. “That must be Lonnie and Mike,” she said. “I’ll go let them in.”
“And I’ll put on the steaks,” Norman said, getting up to don a chef’s apron.
Hannah felt a warm glow when she saw the apron. It said FOOD BY NORMAN on the front in block letters, and it was the one she’d given him the first time he’d barbecued at the Fourth of July celebration at Eden Lake. “You still have the apron,” she said.
“Of course I do. You gave it to me. I’ll never give it up.”
Their eyes locked and a wealth of emotions welled up in Norman. Hannah could tell that because the same emotions were welling up in her. He knew it shouldn’t end like this. She knew it shouldn’t end like this. There was too much history, too much laughter, too much love to separate them forever.
“Hey, you two!” Mike burst into the kitchen. “What’s cooking? I’m hungry as a bear.”
“You’d better be,” Hannah warned him. “I just made eleven huge Cheese and Green Chiles Biscuits.”
“And I just made a big bowl of Carrot Slaw,” Michelle added, smiling at Lonnie.
“I love your Carrot Slaw,” Lonnie said, smiling back.
Michelle burst into peals of laughter and Lonnie looked puzzled. “Did I say something funny?”
“Yes. You said you loved my Carrot Slaw, and tonight is the first time I’ve ever made it.”
“Oh. Well ... how about this? I love
Hannah felt good, watching her sister and Lonnie interact. They appeared to have a clear understanding between them, and they were definitely a couple.
“Okay, guys. Five minutes to dinner.” Norman flipped the steaks on the grills. “I just want you to know that we expect you to do justice to this meal.”
“Oh, we will,” Mike promised, reaching out to snag a biscuit.
“You’ll spoil your dinner!” Hannah warned, but it wasn’t until the words left her mouth that she realized she sounded exactly like Delores when she’d caught them snacking on cookies an hour before dinner. “Forget I said that. If you want a biscuit now, eat a biscuit. There’s softened butter on the counter.”
The kitchen was filled with the mouthwatering smells of prime-cut steak cooking on a grill. Hannah’s stomach growled even though she’d eaten Sally’s excellent dinner less than three hours ago and sampled the Peaches and Cream Cookies even more recently than that. She certainly wasn’t hungry, but she knew that this was going to be a wonderful meal.
Since both Lonnie and Mike liked their steaks rare, it didn’t take long before they were cutting off chunks of rare beef and washing them down with fresh, hot coffee. There wasn’t much time for conversation between bites of steak, biscuit, and slaw, but Mike finally stopped eating long enough to say, “There was a partial print on the murder weapon, but it belonged to the nurse who brought supplies to the treatment room.”
“How about defensive wounds?” Hannah asked, even though she’d read the autopsy report and knew there hadn’t been any.
“No. That’s probably because the victim was tranquilized. Doc’s theory is that he didn’t even see it coming.”
“Do you think that the killer had some kind of medical training so that he knew exactly where to stab Buddy?” Hannah asked.
“Maybe. It was a hospital, after all. There are a lot of people with medical training at a hospital. Either that, or the killer simply got lucky. We won’t know until we catch him.”
“Or her,” Hannah added.
“Or her.” Mike gave a little nod. “It could have been a woman. It didn’t take that much strength. The scissors were very sharp.” Mike looked down and grinned. “Hi, Moishe. Hi, Cuddles. Are you two sniffing around my steak?”
“Rowwww!” Moishe said, rubbing up against Mike’s ankle.
“Sorry, Big Guy. I’m not going to give you anything quite yet. Go over and see if Lonnie’s a softer touch.”
Michelle laughed. “Lonnie’s a softer touch,” she said. “He’s been feeding them both little pieces of meat for a couple of minutes now.”
“That’s it, though,” Lonnie said, pushing back his plate. “My steak is history.”
“I still have some left, but you two aren’t getting any,” Mike said, “not until the last bite. Then I might reconsider if you stop bugging me now.”
Hannah watched the two cats in amazement as they backed off, turned tail, and walked out of the kitchen.
“How did you
“It was cop to cat. They understood that they couldn’t sway me, so they gave up. It’s my commanding manner.”
“Right,” Hannah said, almost believing it, but not quite.
“Did you have any luck finding out who Buddy really was?” Michelle asked Lonnie.
“Not yet, but we’re working on it.”
Hannah was silent. It was Doc’s place to tell Mike he was posting Buddy’s photo in the
“How about you, Hannah?” Mike asked her. “Any luck?”
“I don’t know who he really was, either. Norman tried to find out online tonight.”
Mike turned to Norman. “What did you find?”
“Basically ... nothing. When I go back to the office, I’m going to go at it another way.”
“What way is that?”
“I’m going to approach it from the jazz keyboard player angle. There’s got to be some kind of organization
