Jealousy Filled Donuts

by Ginger Bolton

  We stared at each other, both of us undoubtedly thinking about Alec and our own reactions to his death. To his murder.

  Breaking the staring contest by looking away, Brent conceded, “That’s a little extreme.”

  “There’s more. Nicholas is left-handed. Lighting that homemade skyrocket from the position he was sitting in wouldn’t have been as difficult for him as it would have been for a right-handed person.”

  Again, Brent wrote in his notebook.

  Not having brought any donuts home, I served us each a couple of scoops of lemon sherbet from Freeze.

  After we finished eating, Brent didn’t seem in a hurry to end his allegedly quick break and return to work. He carried Dep into the living room and relaxed on the couch with her on his lap. She purred.

  I sat in the armchair across from them. Staring into the distance beyond the street outside, Brent stroked Dep’s warm fur.

  “Jealousy.” Brent’s one word broke into the purring quiet and startled me. “Felicia might have been jealous of Taylor’s hair. Gabrielle might have been jealous because Taylor was elected queen and Gabrielle came in only second. Kelsey might have been jealous because Taylor was about to be promoted. Same goes for your assistant.” Sitting on my hands, I resisted the urge to defend Jocelyn. “Nicholas might have been jealous of Ian. Even if Nicholas hadn’t really cared about Taylor, he might have decided he had to prevent her from returning to Ian. Or maybe Ian was jealous of Nicholas and had tried to aim that skyrocket at Nicholas, not at Taylor. Jealousy can be a strong motive.”

  “Detective Clobar can stop suspecting me, then,” I teased. “According to Philip Landsdowner, I was angry at Taylor for insulting my car.”

  Brent winked. “You could have been jealous of Taylor’s convertible.”

  I snapped my fingers and gave my head a haughty shake. “I have my own car, and it’s fast and bright red, not a girly pastel. Besides, even if I had killed Taylor, how would I have ended up with her car? She didn’t know me, and I couldn’t be in her will, if she had one.”

  “She didn’t, and that car is actually her mother’s. All that Taylor left behind was a walk-in closet full of clothes and shoes plus about fifty-six dollars in the bank.”

  Those personal details made her death seem even sadder. “So, no one killed her for her possessions.”

  “I doubt it, but we haven’t ruled out anything or anyone.”

  “I couldn’t have craved her car. Besides my fast red car, I own one half of a vintage police car with a donut on top. Everyone in the world should be jealous of me.”

  He grinned. “We are.”

  “What about Philip Landsdowner? What would be his motive for killing Taylor?”

  “Until you told me he used to go into Freeze, I didn’t know he had a connection with Taylor.”

  “I did manage to tell you something useful this evening.”

  He had a really nice smile. “You often tell me useful things. And I probably don’t thank you enough.”

  “Sure you do.”

  “I’m most interested in Landsdowner, thanks to all you’ve told me about him that he didn’t mention to us and that we wouldn’t necessarily have noticed. It sounds like he could be stalking both you and Jocelyn, and we take stalking seriously. But that’s not all that concerns me. Maybe he had a good reason for editing Jocelyn out of photos, like he thought she and her parents would be stickier than other people about her photo being published, but I don’t understand why he gave us that clearly doctored photo of you carrying the donuts. He’s either up to mischief or trying to protect someone.”

  “Like himself.”

  “Exactly.” Brent’s hand on Dep’s back stilled. “Thank you for the break.”

  “I didn’t exactly give you a break from thinking about your latest case.”

  His smile was warm. “It was a break from other police officers. And with a purring cat.” Dep had become a boneless lump of contentment in his lap. “You know why I don’t want you playing amateur sleuth, don’t you?” Those gray eyes focused on my face.

  I had to look away. “So I won’t compromise the police investigation.”

  “That, too. I also don’t want you putting yourself in any sort of danger.”

  I still didn’t look at him. Once, almost two years before, he’d said something similar and then he’d added for Alec’s sake, and I had snapped at him because I’d been hurting too much to discuss Alec with his best friend. This time, I didn’t have the least desire to snap at Brent. “Or Jocelyn,” I said. “Or Tom.”

  “Or anyone.”

  I wanted to remind him that by keeping my eyes and ears open I might prevent a killer from striking again, but I knew that argument wouldn’t work, not with Brent.

  Probably figuring out what I was trying hard not to say, he sighed. “I suppose I should go back to work.”

  “Don’t go,” I teased. “You’ll upset Dep.” Having lightened the atmosphere a little, I risked looking at him.

  He was staring down at my cat. Gently, he lifted her, brought her to me, and deposited her in my lap. “I’ll see myself out, but don’t forget the dead bolt as soon as she lets you get up.”

  Dep barely stirred. “Yes, sir,” I said.

  Because I was in the armchair, my back was to the door. Brent was behind me. A strong, warm hand gripped my shoulder for a second and then let go. I didn’t hear Brent walk to the door, but I figured he was putting his feet down extra quietly so he wouldn’t disturb Dep.

  Then I felt warm breath riffle through the curls on top of my head, and there was the lightest of butterfly touches on my hair, like a kiss. Unsure how to react, or even if I could or should react, I sat still, not breathing.

  The floor creaked. The door latched.

  I heard Brent’s footsteps as he trotted down the porch steps.

  I remained sitting in a sort of shock.

  What just happened?

  Dep’s purring gradually brought me back to a semblance of consciousness, and then, without moving, I mentally replayed and analyzed parts of Brent’s short visit.

  When he’d arrived with the bags of food, I’d used both hands to take them from him the way I always did, which prevented the casual and impersonal sorts of hugs we often gave each other as greetings when neither of us was carrying anything.

  Usually, whenever Brent left we managed a semblance of a hug, or Brent gave Dep, me, or both of us knuckle-rubs. Sometimes, Brent ruffled my hair.

  Tonight, though, Dep had been sleeping. Brent had eased her gently into my lap, and I hadn’t been able to get up. And Brent had squeezed one of my shoulders and then . . . What?

  Calm down, I told myself. Nothing happened.

  Nothing in our relationship had changed. Brent had not kissed the top of my head. That had been a light knuckle-rub. That was all.

  Try not to hurt Brent, Misty had said.

  I wasn’t sure I could hurt him. For all I knew, he was dating someone, and the affection he showed me was only because Alec had been his best friend and we both missed Alec.

  Dep yawned, stood up, stretched, and hopped off my lap.

  I remembered to shoot the dead bolt.

  Chapter 26

  By morning, I’d convinced myself that the touch I’d felt had been a gentle pat, not a kiss.

  Dep and I arrived at Deputy Donut before six thirty, the time that Jocelyn usually parked her bike and breezed into the kitchen. I told Tom that I’d given her permission to work that day.

  Tom didn’t mind. Although he had no grandchildren, his smile was grandfatherly. “She’s a great help. As long as she doesn’t burn out or miss any of her gymnastics, we’re good.”

  Jocelyn didn’t arrive at six thirty. At seven, after Tom had made dozens of donuts to be decorated, he asked if I was sure she was coming in.

  I tried to remember exactly what we’d said. “Maybe I didn’t make it clear that she could work today. I thought I did. But I’m not sure she actually said she would.”


  At nine, I tried her phone number. She didn’t answer. I left a message for her to call me. When she’d applied for the job, she’d also given us her parents’ numbers. I tried them. No answer. Maybe her parents were like me and usually ignored numbers they didn’t recognize.

  Misty, Hooligan, and Scott met for their morning coffee break and sat out on the patio in the sun. They seemed to have a great time together, and while Scott was his usual attentive self toward me during those short periods when I was beside their table, he was smiling a lot, mostly at Misty. I’d have liked to sit down and enjoy their company, but the patio and the shop were full, not that I was about to complain about having to rush around chatting with happy customers. Or about Scott and Misty seeming more than usually aware of each other. They were subtle and restrained about it, and I might have been the only one who noticed, though I did catch Hooligan watching them. A little grin twitched at his mouth. Recently having fallen for Samantha, he was probably super-alert to signs of budding romance in others, especially people he liked.

  Not long after Misty, Scott, and Hooligan sauntered away together, I was in the kitchen, right behind the serving counter. Philip Landsdowner opened our front door only enough to slip in sideways. His gaze darting back and forth through the shop, he ambled in his loose-kneed way to the serving counter.

  Again, he was wearing jeans, sneakers, a photographer’s vest, and a long-lensed camera on a strap around his neck. His wandering gaze drifted beyond me into the kitchen. He asked quietly, “Where’s Jocelyn?”

  My spidey senses went on such high alert that I could almost feel the spideys crawling around in my curls underneath my Deputy Donut hat.

  Philip Landsdowner knew Jocelyn’s name. He wanted me to tell him where she was. I was almost glad she hadn’t come to work.

  But where was she? Did this droopy-looking man know, and was he only pretending that he didn’t in order to establish an alibi for the approximate time when she disappeared?

  Trying to keep my suspicions from showing, I said between almost clenched teeth, “I don’t know.”

  “She works here, doesn’t she?”

  I turned my head. Tom was watching us. He looked casual, dipping donuts in brown sugar glaze, but I knew his retired police chief antennae were extended to their highest, and I was glad he was there. “Not at the moment.” If anything, my teeth were more tightly clenched. I wanted to send Landsdowner away, but I didn’t want to cause a scene. I also needed to learn as much as I could from him, especially if he had something to do with Jocelyn’s not having come to work that morning.

  Landsdowner leaned forward and asked in an even softer voice, “What’s going on with the investigation into Taylor Wishbard’s murder?”

  Why would he think I could or would answer that? Had he noticed that I’d been with uniformed police officers at the fireworks even before Taylor’s fatal injury? Maybe before he came inside just now, he had been watching me joke and chat with Misty and Hooligan, who had both been in their police uniforms.

  “I don’t know.” I forced my teeth apart and tried to relax my face into a more natural expression. “You should give the police investigators all of the photos you took that night. And earlier in the day, too.”

  He made a disagreeable smirk. “I did.”

  “The original, unedited files,” I stated sternly.

  The smirk became a sneer. “When’s Jocelyn coming in again? I’d like to do a feature on her.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know.” My jaw was nearly clamped shut again.

  “Tell her she needs to talk to me. It’s for her own good.” He turned around.

  A pocket spanned the lower half of the back of his vest. That pocket, pleated at the bottom and elasticized at the top, was definitely big enough to hold the bag containing six donuts that Jocelyn and I had given the birthday boy.

  Landsdowner sidled through the dining area and went outside.

  The spideys were holding a gymnastic event all over my scalp. Tell her she needs to talk to me. It’s for her own good. That had sounded like a threat. Would Jocelyn and her parents even want Philip Landsdowner to do a feature on her?

  I joined Tom, now tending the fryers. He lifted a basket of perfectly fried unraised chocolate donuts out of the shimmering oil. “What was that all about?” he asked.

  My face heating, both from being beside the deep fryer and from a combination of fear and anger at Philip Landsdowner, I told Tom what the man had said.

  Tom lowered another basket of donuts into the fryer. “We’re going to have to keep an eye on that girl.”

  “When she’s here. Do you think we should call the police and report that she didn’t show up for work?” It would have been a ridiculous idea if Landsdowner hadn’t oozed in here and started asking questions about her.

  “It’s too soon,” Tom answered, “considering that you’re not sure she actually meant to come in today.”

  “Do you remember suspecting Philip Landsdowner of anything when you were on the Fallingbrook police force?”

  “I don’t remember that name.”

  I questioned him about other people I suspected of possibly having harmed Taylor, but he didn’t know if any of those people had ever been involved in criminal activities, either. His eyes twinkled. “It might help if you told me their last names. Duke, Duchess, and King don’t quite work for me.”

  I grinned back at him. “I don’t know their last names.”

  He glanced past me. “Isn’t that guy one of them?”

  His handsome face a study in suppressed despair, Ian came into Deputy Donut and chose a table near the window.

  “Yes, that’s King Ian,” I told Tom.

  Sitting on the office windowsill overlooking the kitchen, Dep stared at me with a demanding look on her face, obviously requesting my presence in the office.

  I wiggled my fingers at her and went to Ian’s table. “How are you doing, Ian?” I tried to sound sympathetic without brashly inserting myself into a tragedy that was obviously affecting him.

  He fiddled with his Deputy Donut coupon book. I could just make out the edges of a folded piece of paper crammed into the back of it. “Can I redeem one of these today?”

  “You can redeem them any day in any way you want.” I wondered what had become of the coupon book that had been destined for Taylor. Had she picked up her prizes before she was killed? Our fifty-two coupons weren’t worth killing over, but were any of the prizes, assuming that her killer could obtain them, valuable? “What can I get you?”

  He ordered the day’s special coffee, a medium roast from the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and a raised donut with vanilla frosting and chocolate sprinkles.

  I brought him the coffee and donut. He fingered the mug as if testing how hot it was and then blurted, “I know you helped find out who the real killers were a couple of times.”

  Dread flickered deep in my mind. I’d achieved quite a reputation, mostly undeserved, and it wasn’t a reputation I wanted. And it was one that Brent definitely did not want me to have. Remembering the way Brent had parted from me the night before, I felt myself flush. “You give me too much credit.”

  “Yeah, but can I talk to you?”

  Chapter 27

  Despite my reluctance to be known as an amateur crime solver, I was certainly interested in anything that Taylor’s exboyfriend might say about her murder and possibly about suspects. “Of course.”

  “You asked how I was, and I didn’t answer. Sorry for being rude.”

  I dismissed that with a shake of my head. “You weren’t.”

  “I was.”

  “Even if you were, I would understand.” Hoping that Ian would tell me more and unwilling to explain my own long-term grieving, I stayed quiet and waited for him to explain.

  He took a large bite out of the donut. “Taylor and I dated for years. I was sure I could win her back from that . . . from that . . . well, he didn’t l
ove her. Taylor and I had quarreled, so the timing was right for him to steal her from me. He just wanted to prove that he could.”

  I told him I was very sorry about her death.

  “I’ll get over it.” A second bite almost demolished the donut.

  Silently, I corrected him. No, you won’t. Not completely. Not if you loved her.

  He grabbed a coupon, gave it a vicious jerk, and tore it almost in half before it came out of the book. He swore under his breath and then apologized. “Should I give you a different one, instead?”

  “That one will do.”

  With two long fingers, he guided the torn coupon across the glossy table toward me. “The police suspect me of harming Taylor. Why would I do a stupid thing like that? I was sure she would see what kind of guy Nicholas was and come back to me. And the quarrel that Taylor and I had was nothing. But the police won’t believe that.” Unlike Nicholas, Ian was obviously in pain. Emotional pain, not physical pain.

  “They must have better suspects.” I wasn’t sure if it was true. I wasn’t about to tell Ian that Philip Landsdowner was at the top of my list of suspects.

  “They got a search warrant, and they took my computer and my phone.”

  I braced myself with one hand on the back of the chair next to his. “Does that worry you?”

  As if taking a moment to rehearse his answer, he sipped at his coffee. “They’ll find all the e-mails and texts I ever sent to Taylor. Most were totally innocent, like ‘meet me after work’ or ‘call me tonight.’ I was angry and hurt when she dumped me for that . . . for him, but I never threatened her. Never. Except they think I did. They think the e-mail I sent her on July third was a threat. I printed a copy to give her on the Fourth, in case she hadn’t read the e-mail, but I chickened out, so I still have it. I wanted to see what you thought of what I wrote.”

  I could barely contain my curiosity as he pulled the folded piece of paper out of the back of the coupon book and started opening it. He must have read and reread his e-mail many times during the week since he printed it. Its edges were already ragged. Its creases were worn, and a couple of them looked about ready to split.