Drop dough by heaping teaspoons onto cookie sheets that you’ve greased or sprayed with Pam (or other nonstick cooking spray), 12 cookies per standard-size sheet.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes. Let them sit on the cookie sheet for 1 minute, and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

When the cookies are cool, frost them with Mocha Icing.

Yield: 10 to 12 dozen delicious cookies

MOCHA ICING

1/2 cup softened butter (1 stick, 1/4 pound)

1 cup semi-sweet (regular) chocolate chips

4 to 6 teaspoons very strongly brewed coffee

3 to 3½ cups powdered (confectioner’s) sugar

Melt the chocolate chips with 4 teaspoons of the coffee in a microwave-safe bowl for 1 minute on HIGH. Stir, and if the mixture is still lumpy, remove the spoon and microwave it again for an additional 20 seconds. If the mixture is still lumpy, repeat again, stirring after each 20-second interval. When you are able to stir the mixture smooth, set the bowl on the counter to cool to room temperature.

Once the mixture has cooled to room temperature, stir in the softened butter until smooth.

Whisk in the powdered sugar, and stir until the mixture is of spreading consistency. If it’s too thick, add the remaining 2 teaspoons of coffee. If it’s too thin, stir in a little more powdered sugar.

Frost the cookies and sprinkle on shredded coconut before the frosting has fully set, if you desire.

Hannah’s 4th Note: Lisa just confessed that if she’s too tired to frost these cookies, she just dusts them with powdered sugar, plunks half of a maraschino cherry on top, and serves them that way.

Chapter Seventeen

“So Ronni was really hard on Betty Jackson?” Hannah repeated what Charlotte Roscoe, Jordan High’s head secretary and a member of Ronni’s Swim to Slim class, had told her. It was another interrogator’s trick she’d picked up from Mike. You repeated the last comment and then you were silent, waiting to see if the person you were interviewing would fill that silence by elaborating.

“That’s right. Betty’s feelings were really hurt. You know how sensitive she is about her weight. When I saw her the next morning she was okay, but she told me she was going to think of some way to get even with Ronni.”

“Do you think that…”

“No!” Charlotte jumped in before Hannah could finish her question. “Don’t even think it, Hannah. There’s no way she had anything to do with Ronni’s death. Betty’s too squeamish to do anything like that. She won’t even swat a fly. When she said get even, she was probably talking about getting Ronni fired, or something like that. Besides, she isn’t even in town.”

“You’re sure of that?”