Put the cream cheese in a small bowl and microwave for 30 seconds on HIGH to soften it. If it can be easily stirred with a fork, add the sour cream and mayonnaise, and mix well. If the cream cheese is still too solid, give it another 10 seconds or so before you add the other ingredients.

Stir in the garlic powder and onion powder.

Add the cream cheese mixture to the bowl with the eggs and stir it all up. Add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, and chill until ready to serve.

Serve by itself on a lettuce leaf, as filling in a sandwich, or stuffed in Hannah’s Very Best Cream Puffs for a fancy luncheon.

Yield: Makes approximately a dozen superb egg salad sandwiches.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Hannah let the springs on the machine she thought of as the Push Me, Pull Me snap back into place with a loud thwack. It was bad for the machine, she knew that, but she simply didn’t have enough energy to return the pedals and the handlebars to the starting position any other way. She was weary, worn out, ready to drop, and dead beat. In other words, she’d had it!

Three hours of exercise classes was too much for any normal human being. Hannah was willing to testify to that. Thank goodness she didn’t have to go back to The Cookie Jar today! She could go straight home, take a shower, feed Moishe, make some sort of dessert, and drive to Norman’s to watch surveillance tapes. Big whoopie.

“Miss Swensen?”

Hannah turned to see an older man with short-cropped gray hair smiling at her. He was wearing a mall security uniform, his bearing was stiffly military, and he looked alert and competent. “Yes?”

“I’m Frank Hurley. Charlotte called and said you might want to talk to me.”

“Hello, Frank,” Hannah greeted him. She should have known that Charlotte would jump the gun. “I’m glad to meet you, but I don’t really have any questions for you. You weren’t working the night of Ronni’s murder, were you?”

“I was working, but my shift ended at midnight. I heard she was killed a lot later than that. Is that right?”

“Yes.” Hannah didn’t see any harm in telling the security guard the facts. “Doc Knight says it was sometime between one and two-thirty in the morning.”

“It was a terrible thing to happen, but I won’t lie and say I’m sorry she’s gone. Miss Ward wasn’t a nice person. She caused a lot of hurt feelings around here. I’m just sorry that Tad was working that night. I know it was hard on the boy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s never been at a murder scene before.”

“And you have?” Hannah was curious.