Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(34)

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.”