Blended Bribes

by Jessica Beck

I must have reacted oddly as I took that in, because Paige quickly added, “Forget I said anything. I’ve been reading too many mysteries lately. I’m sure it’s just my overactive imagination. We’re going to find out in a few hours that it was a bad circuit, or someone flipped a cigarette butt into the trash can, or something like that, and it can all be explained away.”

  “Probably,” I said, chewing over the idea that the arson had been meant for me and not Gabby. It was a chilling thought that I hadn’t even considered up until that point.

  “I’m sorry I said anything. I know I’ve upset you,” she said.

  “No, it’s fine. I’m good,” I said, and then I tapped the box of donuts she’d already paid for. “Not that I don’t love having you around, but shouldn’t you be getting back to the bookstore? You don’t want to keep your book club waiting.”

  “You’re right,” she said as she picked the box up. “Suzanne, are we good?”

  “Good as gold,” I said with a smile.

  “Okay. Let me know about Gabby later, okay?”

  “You bet,” I said.

  After Paige was gone, I started chewing over what she’d said. It was true that it had been difficult to tell from the backs of our shops which business was which, but that didn’t necessarily mean that an arsonist had mistaken Gabby’s shop for mine. Then again, since Patty Cakes had stood empty for some time, there certainly hadn’t been any reason to burn that building to the ground. I was going to have to get the official verdict on the reason for Gabby’s fire. Otherwise I’d be looking over my shoulder and wondering who might be out to get me for a very long time.

  “Hey, Grace,” I said as my best friend walked into the shop. “I was going to stop by and see you later. What are you doing in town?”

  “Catching up on paperwork, as always,” she answered. Grace was stylish and petite, while I was constantly twelve pounds overweight. Why did I seem to have so many diminutive friends? Then again, none of them worked in a donut shop, so who knew how heavy they might be if they faced the temptations I did on a daily basis? “Have you found anything out about Gabby?”

  “No, but I’m meeting Penny at the hospital for lunch, so while I’m there, I’ll ask around,” I said softly. I had half a dozen customers nursing their coffees, their donuts long ago consumed. I had to wonder how many of them were sticking around just in case I said something interesting about what had happened next door.

  “She’s a good source to have,” Grace agreed.

  “That’s not why I’m taking her lunch,” I answered softly. “She called me on something, and she was absolutely right. I’ve been letting down my end of our friendship lately, so this is going to be a strictly social call. As a matter of fact, I’m grabbing us a couple of burgers from the Boxcar Grill and taking them to the hospital after I close the shop, but I’m not bringing up Gabby’s name, at least not with her.” I had a sudden thought. “Hey, would you like to join us? It could be fun.”

  “I’d love to, but I’ve got a hard deadline of twelve noon to get these reports in, so I’ll have to pass.” She hesitated and then added, “I’ll be free later if you want to do something.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “Jake is tied up with this remodel with George, so he’ll be busy all afternoon.”

  “That suits me,” she said. “I don’t mind being second choice.”

  She was clearly joking, but was there a hint of steel in her voice below the surface? I took her hands in mine. “You have never been my second choice for anything, and you never will be. I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

  She squeezed my hands before letting go. “Suzanne, lighten up. I was just kidding,” she answered with a grin.

  “Okay, if you’re sure,” I said. Penny already felt that I hadn’t been the best friend to her that I could be, and I didn’t want Grace to feel that way, too.

  “Absolutely positive,” she said with a smile. “But if buying me dinner tonight will make you feel better, I won’t say no.”

  “We’ll see,” I said with a grin of my own. “Now go do that paperwork.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, saluting me and then leaving Donut Hearts to finish up her reports. I suddenly realized that Grace hadn’t ordered anything. That was when I knew that she’d been there to check up on me, to make sure that I was handling what had happened next door well. It was just one of the things that made her such a good friend, and I was once again—and always—thankful that she was in my life.

  “Hey, Momma. What are you doing here?”

  My mother, yet another petite woman in my life, looked a bit frazzled, which was unusual for her. Usually she was the type of person who gave other folks ulcers, but she was clearly being tested at the moment. It was fifteen minutes before I was due to close, and I was already preparing to shut the place down for another day. “How’s Phillip doing?”

  “As a matter of fact, he seems to be getting crankier by the minute,” she said as she bit her lower lip.

  “He’s probably in pain,” I allowed.

  “No doubt, and the stubborn old fool won’t take the drugs his doctors have prescribed for him. The only thing he’ll take is something over the counter that’s more suited for a headache or a hangnail than for what he’s going through.”

  “Why is he resisting?” I asked.

  “He’s afraid he’ll get addicted after one or two pills,” she said. “As much as I’ve tried to convince him otherwise, he won’t listen to me.”

  “So you had to get out of the house for a few minutes?” I asked her sympathetically. “I’m honored that you chose to come here with your limited amount of free time.”

  Momma looked a bit guilty as she admitted, “Suzanne, I do love seeing you, but I have an ulterior motive.”

  “I’d love to help you take care of him,” I said. “Things are just a little crazy right now, but I should be free by this evening.”

  Momma took my hands in hers. “Darling child, I would never dream of asking you to do that. No, Phillip has been requesting an apple fritter, a lemon-filled donut, and a plain glazed one. Please tell me you still have one of each in stock.”

  “And you’re going to give him all three?” I asked, astounded by the news. Phillip had lost a great deal of weight in his efforts to court my mother, but lately she’d been helping watch his calorie intake so he didn’t revert to his old ways.

  “I am,” she admitted. “Don’t judge me, Suzanne.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said as I bagged up the treats, which I fortuitously had on hand. “May I throw something in for you as well?”

  “I could probably use a sugar rush to help me cope with him, but I’ll pass.”

  “Some coffee, perhaps?” I suggested.

  “That I will take,” she said as she reached for her purse.

  “If you finish that motion, you and I are going to have a problem,” I said with a smile.

  Momma moved her hand away instantly. “Believe me, having a problem with one family member at the moment is more than enough for me.”

  “How’s he feeling, really?” I asked her as I handed her the coffee and the treats.

  “He’s feeling his age, which is never a good thing,” Momma said sympathetically. “I’m sure he’ll be fine, but it’s going to take some time.”

  “I wouldn’t want anyone else taking care of me but you, if I were him,” I said gently. “You are amazing.”

  Momma began to tear up for a moment, but then she quickly got her emotions under control again. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear,” she said. “I’m so happy you’re mine.”

  “Right back at you,” I said.

  Almost as an afterthought, Momma asked, “Is there any news on Gabby?”

  “The last I heard, there was no change,” I admitted.

  “I know she presents a crusty exterior to the world, but she’s got a good heart, and she thinks the world of you, Suzanne.”

  “I appreciate that,” I told her. “I just
wish there was something I could do to help her.”

  “Just be there for her when she needs you, as you are for me,” Momma answered.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much else that I can do,” I admitted.

  “You’d be surprised by how much of an impact you have on the lives of the people around you,” Momma said, and then she took off, no doubt to get home to her husband and help him recover, not just his health but his generally positive attitude as well. I’d have to see if I could come up with something to help lift his spirits, but for the moment, I had other things on my mind.

  In fact, I was still mulling over my next move when I saw Chief Grant approach the donut shop two minutes before I was set to close Donut Hearts for the day.

  Maybe I’d finally get some answers to the questions that were swirling around in my head.

  Chapter 5

  “I really appreciate you taking care of all of us this morning,” the chief said.

  “Hey, you paid for it,” I said as I continued wiping down the counter. “Can I get you something while you’re here?” I had plenty of donuts left over for Penny, but I could certainly spare a few for the police chief.

  “No thanks, I’m good,” he said. He looked around at my empty shop and then gestured toward the kitchen. “Is Emma still back there?”

  “At the moment, she has her earbuds cranked up, and she’s rocking to something while she does dishes. For all intents and purposes, I’m alone.”

  He nodded, but I noticed that he still kept his voice down. “There are a few things I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Go on,” I said. “Do I need to stop working while you talk?”

  “No, go ahead and do whatever it is you need to do,” he answered.

  “Good enough,” I said as I locked us in and flipped the sign to CLOSED. “What’s up?”

  “The SBI fire and arson investigator just left,” he said. “I thought you might want to know what he found.”

  “Was the fire at ReNEWed intentionally set?” I asked as I stopped sweeping for a second.

  “No, it appears Gabby’s toaster oven in back had a short in the cord and caught some nearby boxes of clothes on fire. He didn’t have his dog with him, but he was pretty sure that was what caused it.”

  “What does his dog have to do with anything?” I asked. “Is that new?”

  “No, the SBI has been using trained dogs since the mid-eighties,” he said. “They can smell accelerants down to the smallest trace, but this guy’s dog has a head cold, of all things, so he stayed home. Anyway, he found the frayed cord and the boxes at the heart of where the fire started, so he was pretty confident in saying that it was accidental and not natural or intentional.”

  “If that’s the case, then what happened to Gabby?”

  The chief shrugged. “We’ll probably have to wait for her to tell us, but my guess is that sometime between six and seven p.m., she spotted the fire, panicked, tried to put it out, and slipped on something and fell in the process. Either that, or the smoke overcame her and she passed out. Whichever scenario is true, she must have hit her head as she fell. It’s the only way it makes sense.”

  “I can think of some other possibilities,” I said as I resumed sweeping.

  “Suzanne, not everything that happens around here is due to a criminal act.”

  “I know that,” I answered, “but that doesn’t mean that it’s all innocent, either.”

  “I agree, but there’s really not much we can do until Gabby regains consciousness.”

  “But,” I said.

  “But what?”

  “There was definitely a ‘but’ hanging in the air just then. You were going to say if she recovers, weren’t you?”

  Chief Grant frowned a moment before answering. “Well, the truth of the matter is that she’s been out for a while.”

  “What do the doctors have to say?” I asked.

  “I haven’t spoken with them in the past few hours. I’ve been with the SBI guy next door.”

  “Did he happen to know Jake, by any chance?” I asked. “My husband still has a great many friends with the State Bureau of Investigation.”

  “I asked him, but he’s pretty new. He didn’t know him. I asked Jake about it, and he didn’t know the guy, either, so there you go.”

  “When did you talk to Jake?” I asked him, more out of curiosity than anything else.

  The police chief immediately looked guilty. “Maybe you should ask him about that yourself.”

  “I will, but he’s not here right now, and you are,” I said with a smile. “Come on, Stephen. We’ve known each other for a long time. What’s going on?”

  The police chief shrugged, and after letting out a long sigh, he said, “I’ve been talking to him about the robberies in Union Square this morning.”

  “There were more robberies today?” I asked him. What was happening in that quaint little sister city of ours?

  “That’s not what I meant. I should have said that I spoke with Jake this morning about what’s going on in Union Square.”

  “I didn’t think you were going to get involved anymore.”

  “I’m not, at least not as much as Chief Erskine would like me to. He wants me to team up with him on the case, but I’ve got my hands full dealing with April Springs at the moment. I suggested to him that he might want to reach out to Jake and hire him as a consultant. I’m sorry for not running it by you first,” he added, “but I thought Jake would be perfect for the job.”

  “You know what? He would be,” I said, realizing that it was true. “Is he taking it?”

  “He said that he wasn’t interested, that he wasn’t a cop anymore, and that he wanted to leave it to the professionals,” the chief admitted.

  “Did you believe he meant any part of that?” I asked him gently.

  “Like I said, maybe you should discuss it with him,” the chief said reluctantly.

  “Okay, I’ll do that,” I said. “Thanks for thinking of him, Chief.”

  “Hey, I should have thought of him before and suggested it in the first place,” Chief Grant said with a smile. “We both know that Jake is the best cop in a five-hundred-mile radius.”

  “Used to be, you mean,” I corrected him.

  “He still is, in my opinion. Those skills don’t go away just because you hand in your badge.” The chief shrugged. “Anyway, I thought you might want to know what they found at the scene next door. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  I thought about sharing Paige’s idea with him that ReNEWed might not have been the target after all, but given what the police chief had told me, I decided to keep that speculation to myself. “And you believe it’s true?”

  “Which part of it?” he asked me with a frown.

  “All of it,” I answered. “What you’re saying is that the official verdict of the state of North Carolina is that the fire was accidental, and so was Gabby’s injury. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s the way things stand at the moment, unless we learn something that counters that. Why do you want to know?”

  “It’s easy. If you don’t believe there was a crime committed next door, then you won’t mind if Grace and I do a little digging on our own, would you?” I asked him with a grin.

  Chief Grant let out a long sigh before he answered. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do about it, is there? Go on. Knock yourself out.”

  “Thanks, that’s exactly what I was hoping you’d say.”

  “Suzanne, do you know something that I don’t?” The question was sincere. The police chief really wanted my opinion on the matter. It was a far cry from the way my stepfather had behaved when I’d first started investigating homicides on my own.

  “The truth of the matter is that I find it hard to believe that Gabby slipped and fell—whether from the smoke or from the excitement—and it’s almost as likely that she would never use a toaster oven in her shop.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

&nbs
p; “If something she was toasting happened to burn, which things sometimes do in toaster ovens, the smell could easily get into the clothes, and that would reduce their value greatly, or else she’d have to pay to have everything cleaned again. In all of the years I’ve known her, I’ve never seen her use anything like that in her shop, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the back with her, too.”

  “I can understand what you’re saying, but there’s really no hard evidence to back all of this speculation up, is there?”

  “Not yet, at least,” I said with a grin.

  The police chief headed for the door, and after I unlocked it and let him out, he turned back and looked at me before I closed it again. “Suzanne, if you do happen to stumble across anything, keep me posted, okay?”

  “You bet,” I said. “Thanks for coming by.”

  “Happy to do it. All a part of the service, ma’am,” he added with a grin as he tipped his imaginary cap to me and then left.

  Once he was gone and Emma and I were safely locked inside again, I had to wonder if maybe the inspector—and the chief—were right after all. Were Grace and I investigating something that had really just been an unfortunate accident? Or had it just been staged to look that way?

  Until Gabby could tell us what had really happened, we were going to go forward with the case.

  I wasn’t about to let an attempt on my friend’s life go unpunished, especially if it turned out to be a successful one.

  “Hey, Trish, it’s Suzanne,” I said when I finally got the owner of the Boxcar Grill on the phone. “Things must be hopping there.”

  “It’s crazy,” she admitted. “I know you’re not calling ahead for a reservation, so what can I do for you?”

  “Since when did you start taking reservations?” I asked her. The diner was strictly casual dining, and though it got busy at times, I couldn’t imagine anyone trying to reserve a table.

  “I don’t, at least not for the general public, but I’m always willing to make an exception for you.”

  I took a deep breath and asked a question that I knew was going to get me in trouble with my friend. Trish believed food should be eaten as soon after it had been prepared as possible, and I generally agreed with her, but I couldn’t bring Penny to the diner, so I was going to have to make a special request. “Listen, I hate to ask, but I’m trying to patch things up with Penny Parsons, and I promised her I’d bring her a cheeseburger from the Boxcar. Is there any chance you’d bag a couple up for me? I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”