“You can pour the egg mixture over the sandwiches now,” Hannah told Edna. “Then we’ll cover the pans with plastic wrap and leave them out on the counter for twenty minutes while the oven preheats.”

“And then we take off the plastic wrap and bake them?” Florence asked.

“Not quite. We melt the rest of the butter first, and pour it over the sandwiches. Then we bake them.”

“That’s a lot of butter!” Edna commented.

“True, but that’s what makes them so good. They have to sit for a couple of minutes when they come out of the oven to set up. Then we’ll sprinkle them with powdered sugar and they can be served. Tell whoever does it that a half-sandwich is one serving.”

The three women had just settled down to a cup of Edna’s excellent coffee at the large round booth that had been especially designed for the kitchen workers, when the kitchen door opened and Winnie Henderson marched in.

“Here!” she said, setting a box on the round table in the center of the booth with such force that the spoon in Edna’s cup rattled. “A promise is a promise so I brought ’em. Six-dozen homemade doughnuts, half powdered sugar, and half cinnamon and sugar. But if I’d known what I know now, I never would have promised!”

“Wait!” Edna reached out to grab Winnie’s hand as the raw-boned farmwoman turned to go. “Are you mad at me, Winnie?”

Winnie shook her head so hard, the salt and pepper hair she wore in a no-nonsense cut swung across her face. “Not you, Edna. It’s him! He sold us out just like Judas, excepting this time it wasn’t for pieces of silver. He got a part in that movie and that’s why he’s sitting back and doing nothing to keep our town from getting ruined!”

“Who’s sitting back and doing nothing?” Florence asked, eyeing Winnie with some trepidation. Although Winnie didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds and she was at least a decade past the mid-century mark, she’d worked hard all her life and she was as strong as an ox. “That is

if you don’t mind saying, of course. You don’t have to say if you don’t want to.”

“Don’t mind at all! The more people that know, the better. They ought to find out the truth about the man they vote for year after year. He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, that’s what he is!”

“Mayor Bascomb?” Hannah guessed, since he was Lake Eden’s most important elected official and she’d heard he had a part in the movie.