Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(55)

Norman looked over at Hannah. “A caged lion?” he repeated.

“Don’t ask me. Lisa tells these stories in her own way.”

“But is that what happened?”

“Not exactly, but it’s close enough.”

“Then, when she opened the door a bit wider,” Lisa continued, “Hannah saw the one sight in the world that turned her blood to ice.”

There were gasps from Lisa’s audience and a low murmur that carried all the way to the kitchen. Everyone knew what was coming next. Hannah thought she recognized Florence’s voice. She must have called in one of her extra checkers and left the Lake Eden Red Owl so that she could come to hear Lisa’s story. And then a very familiar voice said, “Go on, Lisa.”

Hannah turned to Norman in shock. “Was that Michelle?” she asked, wondering if she’d heard wrong.

“It was Michelle,” Norman answered with a nod. “She must have taken the bus down when she heard about Reverend Matthew’s murder.”

“I don’t know about you, but I would have turned tail and run,” Lisa addressed her audience directly. “How about you?”

“No way I’d go in there!” a familiar voice declared, and Hannah knew it was Bonnie Surma.

“I might have, but I would have thought long and hard about it first.”

“Doug Greerson,” Hannah said to Norman.

“I would have kept the door closed and called the police from my cell phone,” another voice stated, a female voice that Hannah didn’t recognize.

“That’s Bev,” Norman told her. “She must have walked up here on her lunch hour.”

Hannah gave silent thanks that she hadn’t decided to tell the story herself. Even though they were here, together, on a quest for the killer, she was still enjoying her day with Norman. She didn’t want to be reminded of Doctor Bev and how much time Norman’s former fiancée spent with him on every other day at the dental office.

“Tell us more, Lisa. I can’t stand the suspense!” a male voice urged her.

“Earl Flensburg,” Hannah said to Norman.

“What happened next?” Carrie’s anxious voice rang out.

“There’s my mother,” Norman said with a smile. “I don’t think they’ve been apart more than ten minutes since they got married.”

“Our Hannah didn’t stop or call for reinforcements,” Lisa continued. “She didn’t even hesitate. She just squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and walked right in. She may have felt like turning tail and running, but she didn’t. Her legs were trembling, her breath was coming in little gasps like an old-fashioned steam locomotive just pulling away from the roundhouse, and her teeth were chattering, but she forced herself to move forward toward Reverend Matthew to feel for a pulse.”

“Why did she do that?”

“Doug Greerson again,” Hannah said softly to Norman. “He’s really getting into it.”

“Hannah felt she owed it to him,” Lisa explained, “that if there was any thread of life remaining, she’d pick up the phone and call for the ambulance. But of course there wasn’t. Reverend Matthew was stone-cold dead. And then, right then and there, is when it happened, the most unexpected sound in the world.”

“The phone?” Doug guessed.

“No, not the phone. It was a voice from above. Reverend Matthew’s voice.”

There were more gasps, a whole roomful of them, and several startled exclamations.

“And Reverend Matthew’s voice said, The wages of sin is death.”

“Come on, Lisa,” Earl broke the stunned silence. “Everybody here knows that’s impossible. You said Reverend Matthew was dead, and dead men don’t talk.”

“It wasn’t Reverend Matthew,” a voice called out from the back of the office shop. “It was Jacob!”

“Pete Nunke,” Hannah explained to Norman.

“Who’s Jacob?” Carrie asked Pete.

“That’s my mynah bird. Reverend Bob and Claire kept him for me when I was in the hospital, and Grandma said he could stay with her until I could get out of this darn wheelchair. She told me that Reverend Matthew spent a lot of time with Jacob, trying to teach him Bible verses and stuff like that.”

“You heard it from Jacob’s owner himself,” Lisa said, taking charge of her story again. “But our Hannah didn’t know that Reverend Matthew had taken Jacob to the church office with him and set his cage on the bookcase. When Jacob said, The wages of sin is death, in an imitation of Reverend Matthew’s voice, our Hannah nearly jumped out of her skin!”

“Gracious, yes!” Bertie Straub said, and Hannah wondered if she’d canceled all of her appointments for the afternoon. Bertie had come in when they opened, Hannah had seen her, and she’d spotted Bertie again when she’d left with Norman. Now Bertie was back once again. The owner of the Cut ’n Curl must have every one of Lisa’s lines memorized by now.

“As soon as Hannah realized that Jacob was the one imitating Reverend Matthew’s voice, she gave a deep sigh of relief. But then there was another sound that startled her. The phone on the desk, right next to Reverend Matthew’s head, began to ring.”

The phone rang, and for a split second Hannah wondered how Lisa had arranged that. Then she realized that it was The Cookie Jar phone, and she leaped up to answer it. “The Cookie Jar. This is Hannah.”