Devil's Food Cake Murder (13 page)

Both sisters looked proud to be counted as Grandma Knudson’s friends. “But will Reverend Bob be angry at us for not telling him?” Clara posed another possibility.

“I can’t see why he would be. It’s not like he can hop on a plane and get here right away. He’s on a ship sailing for Hawaii, and he won’t even get there for another three days. Don’t you think it would be a real shame for Bob and Claire to dock at such a beautiful island and have to go straight to the airport to come home?”

Clara nodded and so did Marguerite. “You’re right, Grandma Knudson,” Marguerite said, and Hannah noticed that the normally soft-spoken lady had picked up a bit of Grandma Knudson’s firmness. “If we all pull together, we can get along just fine until the seminary sends us another minister. In the meantime, I think our brother’s minister, Reverend Collins from Grey Eagle, might agree to perform some of the duties.”

“Hank Collins is a nice young man,” Grandma Knudson agreed. “I’m sure he’ll fill in as best he can. And there’s Tom Sherman from Little Falls. Bob helped him out once when he was on vacation.”

Mike cleared his throat, and everyone turned to look at him. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said. “I need to ask Grandma Knudson some questions.”

“Of course you do, son.” Grandma Knudson turned to Clara and Marguerite. “I’m putting the two of you in charge of the Bible study meeting. When the other ladies come, take them straight to the living room, tell them that there’s been an accident at the church, and get their input on who we can get to fill in until the seminary sends another minister to substitute for Bob. If you make a list of their suggestions, I’ll look it over when I join you and we’ll place some calls. I put on the coffee, so that should be ready, and Hannah brought a box of…what are they, Hannah?”

“Big Soft Chewy Molasses Cookies. They’re Lois Thielen’s recipe.”

“I’ve had those. They’re delicious,” Clara said, and then she turned to look at Grandma Knudson. “We could bring coffee and a plate of them in here if you’d like.”

Grandma Knudson nodded. “That would be nice. Thank you, Clara. You girls are always so thoughtful.”

When Clara and Marguerite had left, Hannah turned to Mike. “Would you like me to leave so you can talk to Grandma Knudson alone?”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to leave on my account.”

“Nor on my account,” Grandma Knudson added. “Besides, you should tell Mike everything you and Andrea found out about Matthew.” Grandma Knudson turned to Mike. “We missed you at church services on Sunday, Mike. If you’d been there, you would have had the chance to meet Matthew in person.”

Mike took the gentle chiding in stride, but Hannah knew him well enough to know he was slightly embarrassed. She was willing to bet he’d be in church this coming Sunday.

“When was the last time you saw Reverend Walters?” he asked.

“About nine last night when I went to bed. I said goodnight to him, and he told me that he was going to get up early and work on his sermon in the church office.”

Hannah gave a little shiver as she remembered the blood-soaked pages spread out on the desk. She wondered if Reverend Matthew had finished his sermon, and then she wondered if it really mattered at all.

“Do you know if Reverend Matthew had any enemies?” Mike asked his second question.

“I don’t know of any. Except …” Grandma Knudson stopped and looked thoughtful. “He may have had a falling out with his cousin Paul. Or perhaps it was the other way around and his cousin Paul had a falling out with Matthew. In any event, they hadn’t seen each other for years. When they were here, staying with me while their parents went off to do missionary work, Matthew and Paul were quite close. Toward the end of the year, Paul did get into a bit of trouble, but we suspected it was because Matthew had a girlfriend and Paul was jealous of the time Matthew spent with her.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Minor trouble. He broke into lockers at school and took mementos, little things that weren’t valuable. The principal at the time thought it was a bid for attention, but Matthew thought it was the start of something. He said Paul committed a crime and was sent to a prison in Iowa. Matthew wasn’t sure of the details because Paul’s parents didn’t want to talk about it, but he thought it was some kind of burglary gone bad.”

“Do you know Paul’s parents?”

“I did. Not well, but we exchanged Christmas cards and they always sent me a little something for my birthday. They’re both dead now. Paul’s mother died six years ago, and his father died last year.”

Hannah interpreted the tightening of the muscles around Mike’s mouth. He was disappointed that he couldn’t interview Paul’s parents. “So when was the last time Reverend Matthew saw his cousin Paul?”

“I’m not sure, but it has to be when Matthew was in his twenties. I know he tried to contact Paul after his cousin got out of prison in Iowa, but the private detective he hired couldn’t find him.”

“Why did Reverend Matthew want to contact his cousin?”

“To tell him that Paul’s mother was dying of cancer. Matthew said he owed it to Paul to tell him. He thought Paul might want to come home to see his mother, or write a letter, or do something, but he couldn’t find Paul to notify him.”

Mike made a couple of quick notes in his notebook. “All right. How about when Reverend Matthew was here in Lake Eden? Were there any incidents with local people? Altercations? Disagreements? Old grudges from when both boys stayed here with you?”

“Nothing I can think of. Matthew was a lovely person. He liked everyone and everyone he met liked him.” Grandma Knudson stopped talking as Marguerite came into the sitting room carrying a tea tray. “Oh, thank you, Marguerite. Just set it right here and Hannah will pour, won’t you, dear?”

“Of course,” Hannah said, handling the delicate bone china with care as she poured coffee and passed the cookie plate.

Once they’d sipped their coffee and pronounced it good, and taken bites of their cookies and pronounced those excellent, Grandma Knudson turned to Hannah again.

“Tell Mike what you and Andrea found out when you called the seminary to check Matthew out for me,” she said.

Mike’s eyebrows raised. “You checked out Reverend Matthew?”

“Yes,” Hannah said, and proceeded to tell him everything they’d learned about the minister who’d become the unfortunate victim of violent crime.

“Why don’t you go home,” Lisa said after the third time Hannah had forgotten to put sweetened dried cranberries in a batch of Boggles. “Your mind’s not on baking, and I can finish up here by myself. Are you okay to drive home? Or should I call Herb to give you a ride?”

“I’m fine,” Hannah told her, even though she was about as far from fine as she could get and still manage to function. She was still rattled after finding Reverend Matthew’s body, but that wouldn’t affect her ability to step on the accelerator, apply the brakes, or steer her cookie truck down the road to her condo complex.

Lisa noticed the play of emotions on Hannah’s face and wrinkled her brows in concern. “What is it? You look really sad.”

“It’s silly,” Hannah said. “I’m anthropomorphizing.”

“Attributing human characteristics to something not capable of having them?”

“Yes. I keep thinking about Jacob.”

Lisa looked lost for a moment and then she asked, “Who’s Jacob?”

“Pete Nunke’s mynah bird. They’re keeping him at the parsonage while Pete recovers from back surgery.”

“But Jacob’s okay, isn’t he? The killer didn’t …”

“No, Jacob’s fine,” Hannah interrupted Lisa’s thought to reassure her. “But Jacob was in his cage at the church office when Reverend Matthew was murdered. He must have seen the whole thing.”

Lisa gave a little shiver. “That’s awful, all right! They say mynah birds are very intelligent. I wonder if Jacob could identify the killer.”

“Only on a bad TV detective show.”

“You’re right.” Lisa gave a little laugh. “I guess Jacob’s lucky he’s a bird. After all, what is he going to say if they put him on the witness stand? Polly wants a cracker?”

Now it was Hannah’s turn to shiver. And she shivered so hard, Lisa noticed.

“Now what’s the matter?” Lisa asked her.

“I just remembered what happened right after I found Reverend Matthew’s body.”

“What’s that?”

“I was just standing there staring at Reverend Matthew’s body and his voice said, The wages of sin is death.”

“His voice? You mean…Reverend Matthew’s voice?”

“Yes.”

“Then he wasn’t dead?”

“Oh, he was dead. One look and I knew that. But his voice came from above and behind me. For a split second there, I actually thought something supernatural was going on.”

“Like the restless spirit of someone who’d suffered a terrible wrong and died in the process?”

“Exactly. And then I looked up and saw Jacob in his cage and realized that he must have learned to imitate Reverend Matthew’s voice. I know everyone at the parsonage was trying to teach Jacob to repeat Bible verses, and that must be one he learned from Reverend Matthew.”

Lisa gave another little shiver. “Or maybe…just maybe…Jacob learned it when Reverend Matthew said it to his killer.”

“Now that’s really creepy!”

“I know. Can I use it tomorrow at story time?”

Hannah laughed. She couldn’t help it. Lisa loved to embellish the story of how Hannah had found the most current murder victim, and their customers looked forward to hearing the tale. By the time Lisa performed her one-woman show, and it was a show, no doubt about that, Hannah probably wouldn’t recognize herself.

“Can I?” Lisa prodded.

May I, not can I, the grammarian in Hannah’s mind corrected, but she didn’t say it out loud. That might embarrass Lisa. “It’s fine with me,” she said instead. “Do you want me to tell you how I found the body? Or would you rather fabricate the whole thing?”

“Tell me,” Lisa said quickly, rushing to the drawer where Hannah kept her stash of shorthand notebooks, and coming back to the workstation with notebook, pen, and fresh cups of coffee for both of them. “I’m ready,” she said, opening the notebook and readying her pen. “Shoot.”

“Don’t say shoot.”

“He was shot?” Lisa looked horrified when Hannah nodded. “Oh, dear! That’s just awful! I wish he’d been stabbed, or bludgeoned, or smothered, or something.”

“Why?” Hannah was puzzled at Lisa’s reaction.

“The shooting sports are going to take it in the chops again when people find out that Reverend Matthew was shot. The politicians are already making noise about declaring our guns illegal. If they do that to us, they ought to make knives, and hammers, and pillows illegal, too!”

“I’m sorry, Lisa,” Hannah commiserated. She knew Lisa and Herb enjoyed competitive shooting.

“So am I. Herb and I love to shoot trap and skeet, and he says I’m getting pretty good at it. And we love to get all dressed up in Wild West outfits to compete at cowboy shoots. If they make our guns illegal, we’ll have to…to…to go bowling instead!”

Hannah came very close to laughing, but she managed to contain herself. Lisa had spit out the word bowling the way Hannah and her sisters used to spit out watermelon seeds in the backyard to see who could reach the greatest distance. “Careful, Lisa. Alice Vogel wouldn’t be happy to hear you say that. And she’s one of our best customers.”

“You’re right.” Lisa looked a little sheepish. “There’s nothing wrong with bowling. A lot of people love to bowl. And Alice does a great job running the leagues down at Ali’s Alley. But I like shooting a million times better than bowling. Just think about it, Hannah. You could kill a person with a bowling ball, too!”

Hannah could tell that Lisa was getting worked up again, and she gave her a comforting smile. “It’s really unlikely that they’ll make guns illegal in Minnesota. We need hunting to keep down the deer population, and people come from all over to hunt and fish. Those tourist dollars speak loudly. They stimulate the economy of towns all over Minnesota. And there are the farmers who live way out in the country. They have to protect their livestock from predators.”

“That’s right. And there’s something else about the farmers, especially in the winter when they live miles from their nearest neighbor. Remember when Arnie Carson fell down and broke his ankle during that storm last year, the one that took down the phone lines?”

“I remember.”

“Well, Arnie couldn’t walk on it and Sadie couldn’t get him into the house by herself.”

“I can understand that. Arnie’s a big guy and Sadie’s really tiny.”

“That’s why Sadie went into the kitchen, brought back Arnie’s shotgun, and fired it off three times at a snowbank. It was a signal they’d worked out with their neighbors. You can hear a shotgun blast a long ways away and that’s how she let them know that she needed help.”

“That’s very smart.”

“Yes, it is. And it goes to show that guns can be used for other things, not just for weapons. I just hope you’re right about Minnesota voters, Hannah. I don’t want to have to give up the new shotgun Herb gave me as a wedding present.”

“That’s a new twist on a shotgun wedding.”

“I know. Everybody makes that joke.” Lisa was smiling as picked up her pen again. “Now tell me exactly what happened after Grandma Knudson sent you over to the church office to fetch Reverend Matthew for lunch.”

BIG SOFT CHEWY MOLASSES COOKIES

Do NOT preheat oven yet—this cookie dough needs to chill.

Hannah’s 1st Note: Lois does this all by hand, but we use our stand mixer down at The Cookie Jar. She also makes these as rolled cookies, rolling out the dough a quarter-inch thick on a floured board and using a 3 and 1/2 inch round cookie cutter to cut them out. In the interest of saving space and time, we do ours as refrigerator cookies.

1 and 1/4 cups white (granulated) sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 cup light molasses (I used 1/2 cup dark molasses mixed with 1/2 cup light Karo syrup)

2 beaten eggs (just whip them up in a glass with a fork)

1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces, 1/2 pound) salted butter, melted

2 Tablespoons (1/8 cup) hot water (hot water right out of the tap is fine)