Devil's Food Cake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #14)(89)

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?”





Chapter Thirty

“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.”