by Jessica Beck
“I’d better get busy, then,” I said cheerfully. I didn’t care if I won or not, but I was going to make it competitive if I could. I carried everything out and got busy selling.
I had the advantage of being mobile, and I planned on taking advantage of it.
A stranger approached and pointed to the urn labeled as coffee. “I’ll take the biggest cup you’ve got,” he said as he rubbed his hands together. He had a snaggletooth and a cowlick of black hair in front that looked to be untamable.
“Sorry, but it’s just the one size tonight,” I said.
“I’ll take two, then,” he said as he handed me a twenty-dollar bill. I filled his order and then started to make change. “You can keep that if you’ll give me a little information,” he said.
“I’m not sure that there’s anything I can tell you that’s worth that much,” I said. The man was a puzzle for sure.
“Do you happen to know a fellow around seventy with a faded scar on one cheek? He probably has a beard and shaggy long hair, and I imagine he’s quite a hermit. Does that ring any bells with you?”
It was a fit description of Gray Vincent, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. There was something about him that I didn’t like from the very start, and I’d learned over the years to trust my gut. I made the change and started to hand it to him, but he made no effort to take it. “Sorry. I can’t imagine who you’re talking about.”
He frowned for a moment before he hid it. “My mistake. I thought I saw an old friend of mine in town the other day, but now I can’t find him.”
“What’s his name?” I asked as I held onto the change momentarily. “That could help.”
“Thanks, anyway,” he said, blowing off my question and finally taking the offered change.
The entire exchange had been odd, but I quickly forgot it as I got busy selling donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate from my cart. I was still busy peddling goodies as Gladys and George took the impromptu stage together, with my mother between them. Momma tapped the mic three times, and that managed to get most folks’ attention. She made a pair of quick introductions, and then she handed the microphone to the mayor. I continued working the crowd until Momma caught my eye. She was frowning at me, not that unusual a facial expression for her when it came to me, so I pulled the cart to the side and listened to George speak. After a few moments, he turned the mic over to Gladys, who spoke surprisingly eloquently about the Food Bank. I was proud of her for showing such poise under pressure. Hilda was by far the more outgoing of the two cooks Trish had on her staff, but Gladys was holding her own, maybe because she was so passionate about feeding those who couldn’t afford a decent meal. As she spoke, I searched the crowd. It was overwhelmingly full of familiar faces, though there were a few strangers present, though still no sign of Gray. It was beginning to get dark now, and as Gladys wrapped up her comments, a motion from the back right side of the crowd caught my eye. Gray Vincent settled down on a lawn chair off to one side, characteristically alone. Something was clearly bothering him, but as I started toward him to see if I could help, Momma took the mic back from Gladys and said with a flourish, “Without further ado, we present Dial M for Murder.”
The sheet came off the temporary screen, and the movie began to play, projected from somewhere in back.
I skirted toward the back of the crowd and pushed my cart over to where Gray was sitting, despite a few protests as I cut in front of a few of the viewers sitting even farther back.
“Gray, are you okay?” I asked him in a whisper.
“No, not really,” he said, clearly worried about something. “Suzanne, I’m in trouble. I know you’ve dug into people’s problems in the past. Would you and Grace be willing to help me?”
“Of course we will,” I said, volunteering Grace’s assistance without having to ask her. “Can you at least give me a hint what it’s about?”
“Now’s not the time. We’ll talk after the show,” he said.
I wanted to push him a little harder, but this wasn’t the time or the place. After the show, we’d all have plenty of time to talk.
For now, I needed to trade places with Emma back at the shop.
I wasn’t sure how many donuts I’d managed to sell during the event so far, but at least my total should be respectable when Emma and I compared numbers in the end.
She took over the cart, carrying her own cashbox, while I took over the empty shop. There was no use sitting around inside, so I watched part of the movie with Grace from the donut shop’s front chairs. The angle was skewed, and the sound was tough to pick up, but it beat sitting on the ground, or even in a lawn chair. Trish must have made a killing on her restroom passes. It seemed to me that folks were constantly getting up and moving around, on their way to the restrooms mainly, but every now and then someone would join us and I’d have to stop to sell a donut or two and maybe some coffee or hot chocolate to go with them as well. I ended up catching bits and pieces of the movie as it played, not the best way to watch it by any means, but most of the folks who were attending the screening seemed to enjoy it.
I had no idea where Emma and I stood as the movie played, but it turned out to be the last thing on my mind when the film finally finished.
That was when things really began to fall apart.
Chapter 4
I knew that I needed to talk to Gray, but I had a few things that I had to do first. Emma and I unloaded the cart and the urns, and I was pushing the rig back to my rental building when I noticed that though Gray’s lawn chair was still there, the man himself was gone. Had he slipped off to use the restroom? I waited a few minutes, but when he didn’t return, I decided to check things out.
On top of his chair, I found a folded piece of paper, one that had obviously been torn out of a small notebook and left there for someone to find.
It was addressed to me.
“Suzanne, I couldn’t stay. Bring Grace out to my place as soon as you read this, no matter how late it might be. The gate will be unlocked. Hurry.”
I frowned as I folded the note up and stuck it in my jeans pocket. I needed to find Grace, and as soon as I stowed the cart, I made that my mission.
As I was looking for her, Emma came up, smiling. “I hope you brought your best stuff, because I made a killing tonight.”
It took me a second to realize what she was talking about. “Oh. The bet. You win. You can take your hour whenever you’d like to.”
“Suzanne, what’s wrong?” she asked. It was obvious that something was troubling me, or I never would have conceded the friendly competition so easily.
“Have you seen Grace around? She was just here.”
“She’s over there talking to the chief,” Emma said as she pointed.
“Great. Do you mind locking up? I have something I need to do.”
“Don’t you want to cash out the day’s receipts and figure out how much we’re donating to the Food Bank?” Emma asked.
I’d completely forgotten about the money we’d made tonight. “Would you mind doing it?”
“Not at all. I’m happy to. Suzanne, something is clearly wrong, so don’t bother trying to deny it. The question is, can I help?”
I touched her shoulder lightly. “You are. Thanks for everything tonight. That was above and beyond the call of duty.”
“It was my pleasure. I don’t know if I told you, but last semester I wrote a paper for class about the problems of the poor here at home, and it really shook me up. Did you know that most folks are two paychecks away from being homeless, and a great many of them don’t have enough to eat? I feel bad enough for the adults, but the kids are the ones who are really suffering. We’ve got to do something.”
I smiled at her. “We are. Sometimes I forget what a big heart you have.”
“It’s the same size as everyone else’s,” she said, trying to downp
lay the compliment.
“We both know better than that. Thanks for taking care of things at the shop.”
“Happy to do it. You’d better go catch her. It looks as though she’s leaving.”
I glanced over and saw that she was right. Grace was heading home, and I needed to stop her before she got there. “Grace. Grace! Hang on!”
The second, louder, shout caught her attention. She turned around and started back toward me. “What’s up, Suzanne? Do you need something?”
“We need to go to Gray’s cabin,” I said.
“Now? Seriously? What makes you think he’s going to let us in?”
I pulled the note from my pocket and handed it to her. It was easier than trying to explain it to her. In the dim light coming from the street lamp, she read it in silence, and after two seconds, she nodded and handed it back to me. “I’d better tell Stephen what we’re up to, and then we can go. We’re taking your Jeep, I assume.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said. “Who knows what the road to the cabin is like once we get past the gate? You don’t want to take any chances with your company car, do you?”
“No, ma’am, I do not. I’ll meet you at the donut shop in one minute.”
“Thanks for allowing me to volunteer your services,” I said as she started to leave.
“Are you kidding? I would have been upset with you if you hadn’t. I’m not celebrating the fact that Jake is out of town, but it’s going to be kind of nice doing something important and mysterious with just you again.”
“What makes you think it’s going to be either one of those things?” I asked her.
“Really? How can it not be? You have to admit that whenever we get together, trouble never seems to be very far away.”
“For once, I hope you’re wrong,” I replied.
“I do, too, but neither one of us thinks I am, do we?”
“No. I’ve got a feeling something bad is going on with Gray Vincent. I just hope we can help.”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
“What do you think is really going on with him?” Grace asked me as we drove to Gray’s cabin in the woods. It was full-on dark now, and quite a bit past my bedtime, but I wasn’t at all sleepy. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush about what we might soon learn at Gray’s place.
As promised, the gate was unlocked, though it had still been pulled shut.
“Do you want me to get it?” Grace asked.
“No, I don’t mind,” I said as I put my Jeep into park, got out, swung the gate open, and then got back in.
As I drove through, Grace asked, “Should we close it back behind us?”
“I don’t see why we should. After all, we won’t be here all night, and we’ll just have to open it again to get back out later.”
“We hope,” she said. “I just realized something. If this takes too long, you’re not even going to get a nap before it’s time to make donuts again.”
I glanced at my watch and knew that she was right. I’d gone two days without sleep before, but it was never anything I embraced willingly. The older I got, the less I was able to stay awake for extended periods of time. I didn’t have much choice now, but I did find myself wishing I’d taken that nap earlier when I’d had the chance.
There was a source of light up ahead, and as we took the last bend of the rough road before we got to the cabin, I realized that Gray had left the outside lights on for us. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t what we found. The place was a wonderland, landscaped beautifully with plantings, paths, lanterns, and a host of too much to take in with one glance. A series of precious little fairy houses were spread throughout the plantings, making the place look as though it were ready for a photo shoot for a gardening magazine. I was beginning to see what Gray did out there all by himself during the day.
“This place is absolutely magical,” Grace said. “Are you seeing the same thing I am?”
“I can hardly believe it, myself,” I said as I swung the Jeep toward the parking pad. Gray’s battered old truck was there, and I wedged my Jeep in beside it.
As I did, I caught a glimpse of an odd feature that I hadn’t noticed earlier.
There was a scarecrow with its back to us, looking out into the woods.
Why would Gray need a scarecrow there, particularly at this time of the year?
Then I realized that it was no scarecrow.
There was a man pinned against a wrought-iron trellis, his arms extended as if to welcome the woodland creatures to this bit of tortured paradise.
Chapter 5
I jerked the Jeep to a halt.
“Suzanne, what are you doing?” Grace asked me as I jumped out and ran toward what I’d just seen.
“That’s not a scarecrow!” I said as I raced to the figure. Maybe I was wrong. It might not be a man, I kept telling myself, but I knew in my heart that I was wrong.
It was Gray, and the moment I saw his whitened face and his bloody chest, I knew that we were too late.
“Who would do this?” I asked her, sobbing as I fought to untie him, though I knew that Gray Vincent was long past caring.
Grace finally managed to pull me away. “Suzanne! Stop!”
“We can’t just leave him like that,” I said through my tears.
She grabbed my shoulders and physically stopped me. It shocked me just how much stronger she was than I was at that moment. “We don’t have any choice. Stephen needs to see this.”
I took a deep breath, and the madness I’d been feeling was suddenly gone. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I’m okay. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you walk back over to the Jeep while I call Stephen?”
“I’ll be fine right here,” I said. I couldn’t look directly at the body anymore, so I kept my gaze focused out into the woods. Beyond the lights Gray had set up, there was nothing but darkness. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us from the forest, even though I knew that it was most likely just my imagination. Who would kill this harmless old man? Had they done it before they’d strung him up, or after? For some reason it was important to me to know, though I might not ever find out the answer. I couldn’t have said what Grace told the chief of police, but the next thing I knew, he and a full crew of his deputies were on the scene. Grace took my arm in hers, and we walked unsteadily back to the Jeep.
After giving the scene a preliminary look, Chief Grant joined us a few minutes later. He looked into my eyes. “Suzanne, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. We both knew that I was lying, but it didn’t seem to matter. I thought I’d been hardened to seeing things like what we’d just found, but clearly I’d been wrong.
“Sure you are. Tell me what happened.”
“Can’t this wait, Stephen?” Grace asked him. “I need to get her home.”
“I’m sorry, but what she knows could be important to my investigation,” the chief said, clearly unhappy about having to cross his girlfriend.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I need to tell him.”
Grace nodded, and then she put her arm around my waist, though I couldn’t say whether it was to offer her support or simply to steady me so I didn’t fall over.
“I spoke with Gray right before the movie. He was clearly upset about something, so I went over to check on him. He asked me for our help, but when I found his lawn chair after the movie, he was already gone. All he left behind was a note for us to come out here as soon as we could. We did as he asked, and we found him like that,” I said, trying not to glance over at where the body was still tethered. “Do you have to leave him like that? Why doesn’t someone at least cut him down?”
“We have to wait for the medical examiner,” Chief Grant said calmly. “
It shouldn’t be long.”
I wanted to protest that it was undignified leaving him so vulnerable, but then I realized how foolish I was being. Gray was long past caring, so why should I be so upset by it?
“And you don’t have any idea what he wanted to discuss with you?” the chief asked me.
“I don’t have a clue,” I admitted.
“Okay. May I see the note?”
I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him, but he wouldn’t take it directly. “It’s okay. Gray left it for me. Nobody else’s fingerprints are going to be on it.”
“That’s entirely possible, but we can’t be too careful,” he said as pulled an evidence bag from his pants pocket and had me place the note inside. After he sealed it up, he studied it for a moment, and then the chief turned back to me. “Is this Gray’s handwriting?”
“I have no idea. I just naturally assumed that it was.” The thought that someone else might have left that note for me hadn’t even crossed my mind. Was the chief onto something, or was he just being overly paranoid?
“We’ll find out. Is that all you know?”
“Yes. No. Maybe,” I said.
“Stephen, can’t you see she’s in shock? I need to get her home,” Grace insisted. “Suzanne, give me your keys. I’m driving.”
I was so numb that I actually handed them over. Grace had never driven my Jeep before in her life, and I was a tad overprotective of it, despite its age and general rough condition.
“Hang on a second. We’re not finished here yet,” Chief Grant told her, and Grace nodded once.
“You have thirty seconds, and then I’m getting her out of here, whether you like it or not.”
He shrugged, not in agreement, but not opposing her, either. “Suzanne, you were about to tell me something.”
