“You discovered a dead body.” Michelle gave a little chuckle. “I wouldn’t worry about that. There’s no Jacuzzi here. And it’s certainly not a reason to avoid this machine. You won’t find a dead body here in your bedroom unless someone breaks in and exercises himself to death.”

“That could happen. If I start using this machine, the victim could be me.”

“You’re going to use it?” Michelle asked, sounding surprised.

“Maybe. My jeans are getting a little tight around the hips. And it does have a DVD player. I don’t necessarily have to watch an exercise tape. I could amble on the treadmill and watch one of my favorite movies.”

Michelle looked down at the machine. “Sorry, Hannah. There’s no setting for amble. The closest you could come would be fast walk.”

“I could do a fast walk, especially if I watched Chariots of Fire or a documentary about the life of Roger Bannister.”

“That’s true. And it might take the onus out of exercising for you. Actually . . . I wouldn’t mind using it while I’m here. If you don’t mind, that is.”

“I don’t mind. Have at it. I’m going to go make a dessert for tonight’s dinner. Norman’s picking up pizza at Bertanelli’s.”

“He’s going to leave the cats in the car while he goes inside?” Michelle asked, sounding worried.

“Of course not. They’ve got a drive-in window now. Ellie told me that Bert put it in himself. They hired an extra person to man the window and business has increased fifteen percent already.”

“I can understand that. Their pizza is the best in Winnetka County. What kind of pizza is Norman getting?”

“He’s getting three. Sausage and pepperoni, five cheese, and a garbage pizza with everything on it.”

“Who else is coming?”

“Nobody, as far as I know. But Norman wanted us to have plenty of leftovers so we wouldn’t have to cook for a couple of nights.”

“That’s nice of him. What are you making for dessert?”

“I don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something.”

“Okay,” Michelle said, paging through the manual that had come with the machine. “It says that this machine can take the place of almost every machine in a well-equipped gym.”

“That’s interesting,” Hannah said for lack of something better to say.

“I’ll be there to help you in a couple of minutes. I just want to try this thing out and see if it does what they say it can do.”

“No hurry,” Hannah told her, turning to leave. “Knock yourself out, but not literally, of course.”