Devil's Food Cake Murder (33 page)

Paul leveled the gun, and Hannah knew her time had run out.

“Stop!” she said. “I know where the jewels are.”

The gun wavered slightly as Paul considered that. “Tell me!” he demanded.

“Will you let me go if I tell you?” Hannah asked, knowing full well that he wouldn’t.

“Sure.”

“Then you’d trust me not to call the police?”

Paul gave a nasty laugh. “Not on a bet! I’ll fix it so you can’t call the police.”

“How?” Hannah asked, even though she knew she was treading on dangerous ground.

“Well, let’s see.” Paul looked amused. “I can lock you up here until someone walks by the church and hears you screaming for help. Or maybe that’s not such a good idea. I think I’d be better off stuffing a gag in your mouth so you can’t scream at all. It’ll be an educational experience for you. You can see how smart your friends are about finding you before you freeze to death. Of course, it all depends.”

“On what?” Hannah asked, listening with one half of her mind while the other half was engaged in trying to think of some clever way she could throw him off balance and recover his gun. She was almost within striking range of tackling him. He’d shoot her, of course, but if she were lucky, it would be in a nonlethal spot. If she moved fast, Paul would only have time to fire one or two shots, and it was her only chance to gain the advantage.

“It depends on whether you really know where the jewels are,” he said.

“Oh, I know.” Hannah did her best to sound confident. “I found something you missed.”

“What?”

Hannah shifted her weight, made up a story on the spot, and moved forward another inch closer to the gun. “I found the note Matthew left in the baptismal font. He knew someone would be back for the jewels, and he wrote down exactly where he put …”

She was interrupted by a massive burst of sound that resonated and reverberated through the belfry, shaking the walls and causing several of the bats that Hannah had hoped weren’t there to take flight and swoop through the small space. For a moment, she was so taken aback, she just stood there. And then she realized what it was.

It was the bell! Someone was ringing the church bell, and the noise was deafening at this close range.

Paul ducked to avoid a swooping bat, and Hannah didn’t stop to think. She just hurtled forward like her favorite Vikings linebacker, leading with her elbows swinging wildly the way Michelle and her mother had done to get through the crowd at the Eagle.

As she barreled into him, a good thing happened, something she hadn’t expected. The gun flew out of Paul’s hand and went skittering along the floor to the edge of the hole that had been cut into the floor to accommodate the bell ropes. It teetered there for a split second, and then it fell through to the platform below. Immediately after that another good thing happened, or perhaps it was bad, depending entirely on your point of view.

Paul stumbled back and lost his balance. He flailed his arms and attempted to attain equilibrium, but it was too late. With a hoarse cry of terror, he fell through the hole to the floor below.

For one shocked moment, there was silence. And then a voice hailed Hannah from the bell-ringer platform below.

“Are you all right?” Grandma Knudson called out.

“Yes. Are you?”

“I’m fine. I’ve got the gun, Hannah. And I’ve got him covered.”

“He’s not…dead?” Hannah asked, not sure if she should be relieved or disappointed.

“No, but he’s unconscious. It looks like he broke his leg. Mike and Lonnie are on their way. I called the sheriff before I climbed up here. They should be here any minute.”

Hannah glanced out the belfry window. “I see them! They’re just turning off the highway!” she called out, hoping her legs would stop shaking enough so that she could climb safely down the ladder. “I’ll be right there, Grandma Knudson.”

The first few descending steps were tough going, but Hannah managed them. She arrived at the bottom of the built-in ladder still shaken, but eager to give Grandma Knudson a hug. “You saved my life!” she said.

“All I did was ring the bell. It was the least I could do. After all, I got us into all this trouble in the first place when I doubted dear Matthew. I’m so glad he never knew that. He was a good man.”

“Yes, he was,” Hannah agreed, greatly relieved that Grandma Knudson appeared to be handling this crisis so well.

“We’ll have a memorial service when Bob and Claire get back. People should know what a fine man he was. He was already a fine man as a teenager.” Grandma Knudson stopped and gave a little gasp. “Did I hear Paul say that Matthew hid the stolen jewels?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh, my! I probably know where they are.”

“You do?” Hannah asked, staring at her in shock.

“I think so. It’s that davenport, dear, the awful pink one in my sitting room. There’s a space behind the cushions. It’s the way it’s designed. When Matthew stayed here, he used to hide his journal there so that Paul couldn’t find it.”

“His journal?”

“That’s right. Back then, girls called them diaries, and boys called them journals. It was a place to write down your private thoughts, and it was perfectly safe from Paul. I’ve always held my ladies’ groups in the sitting room, and Paul had no interest in Bible study or charity work for the church.”

The sirens were loud now, and Hannah heard tires screech as a police cruiser pulled into the church lot. Help was about to arrive. “You make a great detective, Grandma Knudson,” she said. “You not only saved my life by ringing the bell, you recovered the murder weapon when it fell down the hole, and you think you know where the stolen jewels are hidden.” “Thank you, Hannah,” Grandma Knudson said, and then they heard footsteps pounding up the spiral staircase. “I’ll ask the deputies to check, but I’m almost certain I’m right about the davenport. That’d mean I’m three for three. I guess that’s not bad for someone who’s tuning ninety next month, is it, dear?”

“Wow! What a spread!” Mike exclaimed, accepting a cup of coffee from Hannah and eyeing the cookie and dessert buffet set up at the far wall of the Lake Eden Community Library. “How many desserts are there, anyway?”

“An even dozen, including three of Grandma Knudson’s Red Devil’s Food Cakes.”

“Why so many?” Mike asked and then he reached out to pat her arm. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

Hannah shrugged. “Mother kept changing her mind, so Lisa and I just baked some of everything she mentioned.”

“Well, people are sure digging in. I think I’d better hurry up before everything’s gone.”

“No worries,” Hannah told him, lifting up the tablecloth that covered the beverage table so that he could see the bakery boxes that were stacked there. “We have enough desserts to feed every man, woman, and child in Lake Eden.”

“Not counting the dogs and cats?” Mike teased.

“Oh, I think there’s enough for them, too. And speaking of cats…did I tell you Michelle discovered how Moishe was getting my sock balls?”

“No. He wasn’t pulling out that heavy drawer, was he?”

Hannah shook her head. “He was pulling out the drawer above it. That’s my sweater drawer, and Michelle figured it out when I had to use tape to lift the cat hairs from my sweater the other night.”

“Okay, so Moishe was pulling out your sweater drawer and jumping inside. How did he get the socks?”

“He went fishing in the sock drawer below.”

“You mean he was snagging them with his claws?”

“That’s exactly what I mean. There was just enough room for him to bring up a sock ball, jump down from my sweater drawer, and run to the kitchen to put it on top of the refrigerator.”

Mike laughed. “The Big Guy’s a real character!”

“I’ll say.”

“So what are you going to do about it? Put your socks in a different drawer?”

“No, I’m going to let him do it. Michelle caught him in the act, and she said he was having a lot of fun doing it. I have to get out my socks every morning anyway, so I’ll just get them from the top of the refrigerator instead of getting them from my sock drawer.”

“Wait a second,” Mike started to frown. “How about that sweater drawer? Didn’t you think something was up when you saw it pulled out?”

“I never saw it pulled out. Moishe closed it after he put the socks on top of the refrigerator.”

“No.” Mike shook his head. “I don’t believe any cat could be smart enough to cover his tracks like that.”

“Well, the sock balls are still appearing on top of the refrigerator and the sweater drawer is closed when I get home from work. I don’t have any other explanation.”

Mike thought about that for a few seconds. “Neither do I,” he finally admitted. “Moishe’s smarter than most of the crooks I catch. And that reminds me…Paul talked more than Pete Nunke’s mynah bird once we got him down to the station.”

“He gave up his partner?” Hannah asked.

“That and more. He told us about three other heists they pulled. Are you going to punish him?”

“Paul?” Hannah looked at him askance.

“No, Moishe. He’s stealing your socks, after all. That’s at least a misdemeanor.”

“It’s not that bad. It’s just a little feline no-no. To tell you the truth, I thought pushing the drawer back in was so clever, I made him a Good Kitty Cake.”

“A who?”

“A Good Kitty Cake, except I probably should have called it a Smart Kitty Cake.”

“How do you make that?”

“It’s just like a three layer cake. There’s ground chicken, ground turkey, and flaked salmon in big patties. You frost it with cream cheese and decorate it with kitty treats. I used the fish-shaped, salmon-flavored kind that Moishe loves.”

“That sounds rich.”

“It is. I can only give him a little bit at a time, but he’s really enjoying it. There’s too much for one cat to eat, so I’ll probably give some to Norman for Cuddles.”

There was a clinking sound, and they looked over to see Doc Knight tapping his champagne glass with a spoon in a bid for attention. When the room was quiet, he cleared his throat.

“It’s my pleasure to introduce the best author in Lake Eden, Delores Swensen, also known as the famous Kathryn Kirkwood. How about a few words, Lori.”

There it was again. Doc had called her mother Lori. Before Hannah had time to think about what possible meaning that could have, her mother began to speak.

“Thank you, Doc. I’m just so grateful to be here on this important day with my friends. I have some wonderful news from my publisher to share with all of you. My first Regency romance, A Match For Melissa, did so well that Kensington is going to publish it as an e-book. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Everyone applauded, including Hannah. Electronic books were becoming very popular and not just with the techno-geek crowd. Grandma Knudson even had an electronic reader. Hannah had seen it on the table in her sitting room.

“My new book, A Season For Samantha, will also be released as an e-book. There’s only one problem with e-books. I can’t autograph them. But you can buy the paperback edition of my newest book from Marge today, and I’ll be happy to autograph it for you.” Delores gestured toward their librarian, Marge Beeseman, who was selling a rapidly dwindling stack of paperbacks at a table near the door.

“Nice sales pitch,” Mike said under his breath, grinning at Hannah as he patted his jacket pocket. “I’ve got mine right here. Have you seen the dedication yet?”

Hannah shook her head. “I’ve been too busy serving refreshments. What does it say?”

“It says …” Mike pulled the book from his pocket and flipped to the dedication page, “This book is dedicated to Doc Knight for so many reasons I can’t list them all.”

“Really! I wonder what that means.”

“So do I. That’s why I brought it up. I asked Michelle and Andrea, but they didn’t know, either. Maybe you should ask your mother.”

“Maybe I will.”

“We were wondering about it, too,” a voice said, and Hannah turned to see a slightly chubby blonde with short hair, round, gold-framed glasses perched on the end of her nose, and a smile that was as wide as all outdoors. She was standing next to a man with reddish-brown hair that was thinning on top and the slender but powerful build of a longdistance runner.

“Hi, Doc Aldrich,” Mike greeted the blonde, and then he turned to the man. “Doc Matson. Glad to see you here.”

“We wanted to come since we know Delores,” the blonde said.

The man nodded. “Yes. We see her almost every day at the hospital.”

“Meet Hannah Swensen. She’s Delores’s daughter,” Mike said, and then he turned to Hannah. “This is Doctor Marlene Aldrich, and Doctor Ben Matson. They’re Doc Knight’s new interns.”

“Glad to meet you,” Hannah said to both of them, and then she turned to Ben. “So you don’t know what the dedication means, either?”

Ben shook his head. “Not unless it has something to do with The Rainbow Ladies.”

“That’s probably it,” Marlene agreed. “They’re doing a great job for our patients, and I know Delores works with Doc on a daily basis to make out schedules and go over patient request lists.”

Hannah felt vaguely uneasy. Daily meetings about work were fine, but was there something else going on? She knew her mother and Doc had been friends for years, but could there be something new that she didn’t know about?

As she poured coffee for Marlene and juice for Ben, Hannah couldn’t help worrying a bit. When the two interns had left, she turned to Mike. “Do you think Mother could be sick?”

Mike gave a little shrug. “I don’t know. She doesn’t look sick, but sometimes people don’t. Look, Hannah. I’m really sorry I brought up that dedication in the first place if it’s going to make you worry.”

“That’s all right. I would have read it tonight anyway. And this way I can catch a couple of minutes with Mother right after the party and ask her to explain it to me.”

GOOD KITTY CAKE

Preheat oven to 350 F., rack in the middle position.

one pound ground chicken

one pound ground turkey

one large can (14.75 ounces) pink salmon (I used Chicken of the Sea)***

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup cracker crumbs (or matzo meal)

three 8-ounce packages of cream cheese (the brick kind, NOT the whipped kind in a tub)