“Isn’t this fun, Hannah?”

Lisa turned to grin at her and Hannah put on an answering smile. Some fun. As far as she could see, the only benefit that might come from playing the slots was a possible strengthening of the muscles in her right arm.

Hannah dropped in her last five quarters. One more pull of the handle and she’d be finished. She yanked down the lever and turned to Lisa to ask her if she was ready to leave, when a siren wailed, red lights flashed, and quarters began to spew out of her machine.

“You hit a jackpot!” Lisa jumped up from her chair and rushed over to watch the hailstorm of coins bouncing down. “How many quarters did you put in?”

Hannah just stared at the avalanche of coins clanking noisily into the metal tray. “As many as it could take. I just wanted to finish so that we could go home.”

“You did it, Hannah!” Lisa’s mouth dropped open as she looked up at the flashing numbers above the machine. “You just won one thousand nine hundred and forty-two dollars!”

Hannah stared at the flashing numbers with absolute amazement. Then she looked down at the reels and saw that they were all lined up on the jackpot icons. No wonder people liked to play the slot machines. It was a lot more fun than she’d thought.

Chapter Thirteen

“Hey, Moishe. How about some grub?” Hannah tossed her purse onto the couch and carried Moishe out to the kitchen. She draped her parka over a chair, set Moishe down next to his food bowl, and poured in a generous serving of Meow Mix. Then she remembered that she’d just won a slot machine jackpot and she opened a can of fancy albacore tuna and dumped that in, too. Moishe meant more to her than any of the other males in her life. He should enjoy the fruits of her good fortune.

She’d already shared her winnings with Lisa. Hannah had given her a bonus of two hundred dollars, making her promise to buy a fancy dress to go with her new shoes. Lisa hadn’t wanted to take it, but after Hannah had convinced her that she never would have played the slots if Lisa hadn’t urged her, she’d accepted the money.

Hannah had done some mental arithmetic as she’d driven home, taking into account the money she’d spent investigating Ron’s murder for Bill. Even after she’d subtracted the cost of the makeup from Luanne, the dress from Claire, and the money they’d spent at Twin Pines, she’d still come out over a thousand dollars to the good.

While Moishe munched and rumbled his contentment, Hannah marched to the kitchen phone to call Bill and tell him that she’d eliminated the bouncer as a suspect. Bill wasn’t at his desk at the sheriff’s station, but she left a message there and another with Andrea, who promised to prop up a note by the phone. Hannah hung up, her duty done, and went to her bedroom to change into the oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants she’d bought when the furnace had gone out last winter.