Prepare your oatmeal. (Use Quaker if you have it—the cardboard canister is useful for all sorts of things.) Measure out two cups and place them in the bowl of a food processor or a blender, chopping with the steel blade until the oatmeal is the consistency of coarse sand. (Just in case you’re wondering, the ground oatmeal is the ingredient that makes the cookies crunchy.)

Add the ground oatmeal to your bowl, and mix it in thoroughly. The resulting cookie dough will be quite stiff.

Roll walnut-sized dough balls with your hands, and place them on a greased cookie sheet, 12 balls to a standard-size sheet. (If the dough is too sticky to roll, place the bowl in the refrigerator for thirty minutes and try again.) Squish the dough balls down a bit with your impeccably clean palm (or a metal spatula if you’d rather).

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown on top. (Mine took 11 minutes.) Cool on the cookie sheet for 2 minutes, and then remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: 6 to 7 dozen unusual and tasty cookies, depending on cookie size.

Hannah’s 2nd Note: These cookies freeze well if you stack them on foil (like rolling coins) and roll them, tucking in the ends. Just place the rolls of cookies in a freezer bag, and they’ll keep for three months or so as long as no one finds them and eats them without telling you.

Chapter Nineteen

Hannah followed the hostess to one of the alcoves Sally and Dick Laughlin, the owners of the Lake Eden Inn, had set aside for private dining. Delores and Carrie hadn’t arrived yet, and Andrea had stopped off to talk to Barbara Donnelly, head secretary at the sheriff’s station, in the hope that she might let something slip about Stella Parks and the results of the official investigation. Michelle was similarly occupied. She’d stopped to talk to one of her former classmates, who had dropped a class that Ronni had taught.

The alcoves sat against the back wall in the large dining room. They were elevated, and Sally had once explained to Hannah that the fact they were on a two-step podium made people feel more important. Hannah supposed that was true. If you were so inclined, you could peek out from behind the filmy draperies that hid the diners in the alcove from public view, and look down your nose at the patrons below you.

The hostess whisked aside the draperies, and Hannah stopped short as she saw that one chair was taken. So they weren’t the first ones here!

“Hi, Hannah,” Norman patted the chair next to him. “I saved you a seat.”

“Thanks. I can see they’re in short supply.” Hannah smiled as she surveyed the five empty chairs. Then she moved over to take the one next to Norman.