Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(66)

“Oh, I do! They remind me of Christmas.”

Hannah was surprised. “Really?”

“I think it’s because of the nutmeg,” Alice explained. “I always grate some fresh nutmeg on my eggnog during the Christmas season.”

“Makes sense,” Hannah said, sliding onto one of the stools at the counter and motioning for Michelle to do the same. “You know my youngest sister, Michelle, don’t you?”

“I sure do. Hi, Michelle. How’s it going with college?”

“Really well, thanks. I’ve got a couple days off, so I’m home to help Hannah. She’s really busy this week.”

“I figured she would be.” Alice turned to Hannah. “Are you going to try to catch Matthew’s killer?”

“Well …” Hannah hedged slightly. “I generally like to leave all that to the professionals, but Grandma Knudson asked me to see what I could find out.”

“That’s what I thought. Well, you’re about five hours ahead of Mike and Lonnie. They didn’t come in to ask me questions until suppertime.” Alice sighed and sat down on her own stool behind the counter. “Tell me honestly, Hannah, am I still your prime suspect?”

“Not anymore. I cleared you about an hour after Norman and I were here.” Hannah was silent, waiting for Alice’s response.

Alice looked surprised for a moment, and then she smiled. “That makes me feel a lot better! How did you clear me?”

“Doc Knight set the time of death between midnight and two in the morning. And you left the church office at eleven-thirty.”

As the two Swensen sisters watched, tell-tale spots of red appeared on Alice’s cheeks. “How do you know that?” she asked.

“Jacob told us. Remember the mynah bird that was sitting on the bookcase in his cage?”

“Yes. But …” Alice stopped speaking abruptly, realizing that she’d admitted to being at the church office the night of the murder, something she hadn’t intended to admit.

Hannah was silent. So was Michelle. Both of them just sat there waiting for Alice to go on.

“It’s not like it looks. I mean…I just needed to see him again, to find out if he still…liked me, you know? It was just a matter of curiosity, that’s all.”

“And did he still like you?” Hannah asked.

“Yes. He was the old Matthew, just like in high school. And he explained why he didn’t come over to see me before he left town. He said that he just couldn’t bear to see me again because he knew that if he saw me, he’d do something foolish like ask me to run off with him to get married, or settle down in Lake Eden and turn down the offer he got from Concordia College. He told me he wrote me a letter saying all that, and asking me if I’d be willing to wait for him to graduate and get his first posting as a minister, and then we could be married.”

“But you never got the letter,” Michelle said with a sigh.

“That’s right. My dad kept it from me. He didn’t want me to marry Matthew and leave Lake Eden. He wanted me to stay right here and help him run the bowling alley.”

“Did you believe Matthew?” Hannah asked.

“Of course! He was …” Alice stopped and wiped away a tear with the back of her hand. “He was kind, and sweet, and considerate, just the way he’d been all those years ago. He even said I looked wonderful, and that was when he invited me out to dinner on Monday night. Maybe nothing would have come of it. Maybe we would have gone our separate ways once he was through filling in for Reverend Bob. But I can’t help wondering if …” Alice’s voice trailed off, and tears began to roll down her cheeks.

“Here,” Hannah said, pulling a couple of paper napkins from the dispenser that sat on the refreshment bar and handing them to her. “Brace yourself, Alice. I’ve got some news that’ll change everything.”

Alice looked up with tear-filled eyes. “What?”

“Matthew’s alive. The minister you went to see at the church office wasn’t a minister at all. He was Matthew’s cousin Paul.”

For a brief second Alice was silent and then she began to shake her head. “No,” she said. “No, he couldn’t have been Paul. I know he wasn’t Paul. I knew Paul. They looked alike, sure, but they weren’t anything alike really. Paul wasn’t a nice person. I would have known if the man I met was Paul!”

“Matthew’s here now,” Michelle told her. “He drove in from Wisconsin this morning, right after he heard the news that he was murdered in Lake Eden.”

“Matthew positively identified the victim as Paul this afternoon at the morgue,” Hannah told her.

“But …” Alice swallowed hard. “I was so sure. I never doubted that it was Matthew. And now you tell me that it was Paul.” Alice reached for another paper napkin and wiped her eyes again. “I just can’t believe it.”

“Do you want to go see the real Reverend Matthew?” Michelle asked her. “I could fill in for you here.”

Alice shook her head. “No! I’ve had enough for today! I just can’t…cope with anything else. Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after. I just…have to get this all straight in my head.”

“Of course you do,” Hannah said comfortingly, sliding off her stool and motioning for Michelle to do the same. “We understand, Alice. This whole thing has been a terrible shock. I only have two more questions for you, and if you can answer them, it’ll help me a lot.”