that Tracey’s in school, she asks for these cookies every time there’s a holiday and mothers bring refreshments for class parties.
Yield: 2 to 3 dozen very pretty and tasty cookies.
Andrea’s 2nd Note: Tracey wants these cookies for her birthday party. She made me promise not to serve them to anyone except family until then.
Chapter Ten
When they’d eaten every single cookie that Andrea had brought, Hannah refilled coffee cups and gave Lonnie an assessing look. Lonnie’s face was pale and he still looked as if he wished he were anywhere except here, discussing the fact that any day now, he could be charged with first-degree murder.
“Would you like to take a break, Lonnie?” Hannah suggested. “If you don’t mind, we’ll play your interview for Mike so we can bring him up to speed. You don’t want to listen to it, do you?”
Lonnie shook his head. “No. If I do, it’ll be like I’m . . . I’m back there again . . . you know?”
“I do know. Why don’t you and Michelle put on your parkas and take a little stroll around the complex? And if you’re interested, Michelle can show you the gym. There’s a brand-new machine down there that nobody’s ever touched. You use the gym at the sheriff’s station, don’t you, Lonnie?”
“Yeah, I work out a couple of times a week.” Lonnie gave a little sigh. “Of course, I haven’t done that lately. The sheriff’s station is off-limits for me now.”
“I figured it might be. Check out our gym. You’re welcome to use it if you’d like. And while you’re there, maybe you two can figure out what that new machine does and how to use it. Norman and I looked at it and we didn’t have a clue.”
“I noticed that machine!” Michelle picked up on Hannah’s idea and Hannah knew that her sister realized that she should keep Lonnie out of the condo until Mike had heard Lonnie’s recorded interview.
“I can take a look at it,” Lonnie told Hannah. “I know a lot about exercise machines. Between us, Michelle and I can probably figure out how to use it.”
“There’s a booklet on the machine,” Norman told them. “I looked at it, but it was all Greek to me.”
Lonnie smiled. Hannah wasn’t sure if he knew that they were trying to keep him occupied for a reason, but if he did, he wasn’t objecting. “Come on, Shelly,” he said, grabbing Michelle’s parka and handing it to her. “Let’s go take a look.”
Hannah, Norman, Andrea, and Mike sat at the table until Lonnie and Michelle had gone out the door. Then Andrea reached for the tote bag she’d brought with her.
Hannah watched as Andrea reached inside the tote and drew out a folder with papers inside. “Here,” she said, handing it to Hannah.
“Doc’s autopsy report?” Hannah guessed before she even opened the folder.
“Yes, it was in Bill’s briefcase, but I had to wait until he went up to read Tracey and Bethie a bedtime story before I could copy it. There’s another report in there, too. It has the results of Lonnie’s blood test and all the other tests they did when he went to the hospital with the paramedics.”
“Lonnie was drugged?” Norman guessed.
Andrea nodded. “The report says he was still under the effects of it when he got to the hospital. Doc told Mother he guessed it was some kind of sleeping pill that reacted with the alcohol.” She turned to Hannah. “Do you think that’ll help to clear Lonnie?”
Hannah exchanged glances with Mike, but he waited for her to answer. She wondered for a split second if this constituted a test of some sort, but quickly put that idea out of her head.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it could go either way,” she said. “If Lonnie was drugged, for whatever reason, he might have acted out some resentment he had against Darcy and killed her without even realizing what he was doing. On the other hand, if Lonnie was drugged by a third person who wanted Lonnie to be at the scene when the killer murdered Darcy, the fact that Lonnie was drugged could exonerate him.”
“Exactly right,” Mike said. “Our first priority should be finding out how Lonnie got that drug in his system.”
“Either Lonnie took that drug on purpose, or someone else gave it to him without his knowledge,” Norman concluded.
“Do you think Lonnie took it on purpose?” Andrea asked, looking shocked at the thought.
Mike shook his head. “Of course not! But a