Fudge Cupcake Murder (Hannah Swensen, #5)(10)

"Are you okay, Moishe?" Hannah asked, getting up on her feet. Moishe never went into the laundry room unless he needed to use his litter box. If his new senior food was upsetting his stomach, she'd call the vet in the morning.

When Hannah stepped into the laundry room, she found Moishe standing by his litter box. But instead of getting in, as she expected him to, he just leaned over the side, dropped something in, and reached out with a paw to cover it.

"That's strange," Hannah commented, watching as her cat headed back to the kitchen again. Several months ago, Moishe had buried the back half of a mouse in his litter box. Perhaps he'd caught something and was giving it the feline version of a decent burial.

Hannah grabbed the scoop and exhumed the item that Moishe had buried. It wasn't a mouse, or a part of a mouse. It wasn't even a cricket, or a moth. It was a pristine nugget of his new senior cat food. Suddenly suspicious, she dug around a bit in the litter box, uncovering more evidence of Moishe's distaste. By his choice of burial spot, her cat was making a graphic comment about the palatability of his dinner.

"Okay," Hannah sighed, accepting the inevitable. Nothing was ever as easy as it seemed.

As she stepped into the kitchen, Hannah glanced over at Moishe. He was standing by his food bowl, watching her every move. His yellow eyes seemed to brighten as she headed for the broom closet and his stash of old kitty crunchies. When she took out the bag, his eyes fairly gleamed with an eager light.

"You win, Moishe," Hannah said, rinsing out his bowl and filling it with his regular chow. She knew she was surrendering in the war between feline wits and human wits, but there was no way she wanted to listen to hungry yowls all night.



The next day, The Cookie Jar was crowded. It seemed that almost everyone in town had heard about Sheriff Grant's murder, and Hannah suspected that her own mother had spread the word to at least half the population of Lake Eden all by herself.

"Absolutely not," Hannah said, pouring more coffee as she responded to Bertie Staub's question. It was the same answer she'd been giving all morning. Everyone who came in for cookies and coffee wanted to know if she'd be investigating.

"But don't you want to help?" Bertie asked, turning to smile at Andrea, who'd just come in the front door.

"I'll help in any way I can, but only as a private citizen."

"But what if they ask you to help? Would you do it then?"

"They won't." Hannah slid over to make room as Andrea ducked behind the counter. "One of their own has been killed and they'll want to run their own investigation. I wouldn't dream of interfering and I'm not involved in any way."

"Yes, you are," Andrea hissed, just loud enough for Hannah to hear it. Her lips were perfectly stationary and fixed in a smile, and Hannah was impressed. She hadn't known that Andrea had ventriloquism skills.

"Kitchen," Andrea said under her breath and around the fixed smile she still wore. "I need to talk to you."

Hannah motioned for Lisa to take over the counter and led Andrea back through the swinging door to the kitchen workstation. Her sister settled on a stool and Hannah sat down beside her. "What is it? You look rattled."

Andrea paled at that observation. "Oh, no! Do you think anyone noticed?"

"You mean out there?" Hannah gestured toward the coffee shop.

"Yes."

"No one except me. And that's only because I know you so well. What's wrong?"

"Everything! My world is spinning and there's nothing I can do to stop it!"

Hannah decided not to remind Andrea that spinning is what the world did, and without the pull of gravity, they'd all fall off. "I think you need some orange juice. You look a little pale."

"Coffee," Andrea corrected her. "I didn't have my one cup this morning. I was too upset to make it."

As Hannah went to the kitchen coffee pot to pour Andrea a cup, she wondered how anyone could be so upset, they couldn't make coffee. This was especially puzzling in Andrea's case, since all she did was put a spoonful of instant coffee in a mug, fill it with water, and microwave it until it was hot enough to drink.

"Thanks, Hannah." Andrea accepted the mug and curled her hands around it. Then she took a long sip and sighed gratefully. "That's so good! I feel much more in control now."

"Good. Why did you feel out of control in the first place? And what did you mean by what you said back there?"

"What did I say?"

"I was telling Bertie that I wasn't going to interfere in Sheriff Grant's murder investigation and you said, Yes, you are. And you said it without moving your lips."

"Oh, that. I learned how to talk that way in seventh grade. Mr. Becker used to give us demerits if he caught us talking in class, so we learned to talk without moving our lips. He never caught on and we did it all year long."

"Not that! I'm talking about when you said I was going to interfere in Sheriff Grant's murder investigation."

"You are. You have to do it, Hannah. Bill needs you."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm positive."

Hannah gave Andrea a long level look. "Are you telling me that Bill asked you to ask me to investigate Sheriff Grant's murder?"