Carrot Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #10)(24)

“How long did you sit there?”

“Through two sets of music. That was probably between twenty and thirty minutes.”

“Well, that’s long enough.”

Mike gave her one of his famous grins, the kind of smile that made her almost believe that she was the only woman in the world who mattered to him.

“Long enough for what?” Hannah gathered herself together enough to ask.

“Long enough to give me your take on the family dynamics.”

Yellow caution lights began to blink in Hannah’s mind, and warning bells sounded. “What are you asking?”

“I want your personal take on the victim. How did he get along with his long-lost family?”

Hannah hesitated. There was no way she wanted to mention the animosity she’d noticed between Jack and Gus. “I think he got along just fine,” she said, “considering that he took money out of the family teapot and skinned out in the middle of the night to disappear for over thirty years. There were bound to be hurt feelings, especially since he didn’t contact any family or friends during the time he was gone.”

“I heard that the victim and Jack Herman were buddies at Jordan High. Did they appear to be friendly last night?”

Uh-oh! Hannah kept her expression carefully blank. Someone Mike had interviewed must have told him about the animosity between Jack Herman and Gus.

“Hannah?” Mike prompted.

Hannah conducted a lightning-fast inner debate and decided not to mention the fact that there had been some sort of problem between Jack and Gus. “I already told you, there were hurt feelings all around. And hurt feelings lead to resentment. The conversation I heard was polite, if that’s what you’re asking. But most of the time I wasn’t personally involved, so I wasn’t paying close attention.”

“Do you think you would have noticed if there was any overt hostility?”

“Nobody came out and threatened anybody, if that’s what you mean. And there certainly weren’t any punches thrown, or anything like that.” Hannah told herself she wasn’t really being untruthful. After all, Jack hadn’t threatened Gus, and they hadn’t gotten physical. “When I found Gus, there was blood on his shirt,” she said, deliberately steering the conversation away from Jack Herman. “Was he shot?”

“No.”

“Then what was the murder weapon?”

“We’re not sure yet. Doc Knight said it was something long, thin, and sharp, like an ice pick or an awl. You didn’t touch anything, did you?”

“I know better than that! It was clearly a murder scene. The only thing I did was feel for a pulse on the side of his neck.”

“Then you didn’t move him?”

“No.” Hannah switched gears again. “I did notice one thing I thought might be unusual, especially now that you tell me it was a stabbing.”

“What’s that?”

“There wasn’t very much blood, and I thought stabbing victims bled a lot.”

“Not in this case. Doc Knight explained it to me. He said that if there are multiple stab wounds and the first few aren’t fatal, the victim bleeds. In this case there was only the one wound, and death was almost instantaneous. Stab wounds don’t bleed unless the victim is alive and his heart is still pumping. Gus died so fast, he didn’t have very much time to bleed.”

Hannah’s stomach lurched, but she didn’t want to let on that Mike’s explanation had made her queasy. “I see. I really hope it wasn’t my grandfather’s.”

“What wasn’t your grandfather’s?”

“The ice pick. If it was an ice pick, that is.”

Mike looked a bit dazed. “You think the murder weapon belonged to your grandfather, personally?”

“No, not that. He gave them away at his hardware store for Christmas one year.”

Mike flipped open his notebook and jotted that down. “Do you know who got them?”

“Almost everyone in town. People still had iceboxes in those days, and they chipped ice off the block for cold drinks.”

“But everybody’s got refrigerators now. Why would they still have ice picks when they’re not needed anymore?”

“Ice picks come in handy for all sorts of things. I’ve got one in my kitchen drawer at home, and I just used it to poke another hole in a leather belt.”

“Yeah, that would work. I bought a leather punch when I went down a size last year. I didn’t want to replace all my belts, so I poked another hole and made them smaller.”

Hannah nodded, hoping he wouldn’t guess that the hole she’d punched with her grandfather’s ice pick was to make her belt larger.

“So what you’re telling me is that there are a lot of similar ice picks floating around, and anyone in town could have one.”

“Yes, but I don’t know how many are left now. That was a long time ago, and they had wooden handles. My grandfather had them painted red and green for Christmas, and the name of his hardware store was stamped on in gold. If the handles broke or splintered, people probably threw them away. But if they were still in good shape, a couple of them could have wound up out at the lake cottages.”

“Okay,” Mike said, snapping his notebook shut again. “There’s not much help there.”