Sugar Coated Sins

by Jessica Beck

  The First Time Ever Published!

  The 20th Donut Mystery

  From New York Times Bestselling Author

  Jessica Beck

  SUGAR COATED SINS

  Donut Mystery #20, SUGAR COATED SINS,

  From New York Times Bestselling Author Jessica Beck

  When a time capsule is accidentally unearthed on the town square, a murder confession is discovered, leading Suzanne, Grace, and Jake on a hunt through time for a killer who clearly isn’t finished yet.

  Other Books by Jessica Beck

  The Donut Mysteries

  Glazed Murder

  Fatally Frosted

  Sinister Sprinkles

  Evil Éclairs

  Tragic Toppings

  Killer Crullers

  Drop Dead Chocolate

  Powdered Peril

  Illegally Iced

  Deadly Donuts

  Assault and Batter

  Sweet Suspects

  Deep Fried Homicide

  Custard Crime

  Lemon Larceny

  Bad Bites

  Old Fashioned Crooks

  Dangerous Dough

  Troubled Treats

  Sugar Coated Sins

  The Classic Diner Mysteries

  A Chili Death

  A Deadly Beef

  A Killer Cake

  A Baked Ham

  A Bad Egg

  A Real Pickle

  A Burned Biscuit

  The Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries

  Ghost Cat: Midnight Paws

  Ghost Cat 2: Bid for Midnight

  The Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries

  Cast Iron Will

  Jessica Beck is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Donut Mysteries, the Classic Diner Mysteries, the Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries, and the Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries.

  To the Great and Powerful E,

  You are a rock star, kiddo.

  Sugar Coated Sins by Jessica Beck; Copyright © 2015

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

  Chapter 1

  “Benjamin Port did not die by accident; I poisoned him.

  I’m not sorry that I did it; i really had no choice.

  I didn’t count on the nightmares, though.

  will they ever end, or will they haunt me for the rest of my life?”

  That note, written fifteen years earlier, set off a chain of events that ultimately sent my world into a tailspin.

  My name is Suzanne Hart. I own and run a donut shop in April Springs, North Carolina, and when I first heard about the confession’s discovery, I didn’t think it would have any impact whatsoever on my life.

  Wow, was I ever wrong.

  By the time everything was finally over, my way of looking at things would never be the same.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  The story of how the note was uncovered is really where it all started, so that’s probably the best place to begin.

  Chapter 2

  “What was that?” Emma asked me as we worked at closing up Donut Hearts for the day. Even though it was a few minutes past eleven in the morning, for us it was the end of a long shift. Then again, we started in the middle of the night, so who could blame us? The noise Emma had been referring to had been a loud screech of tires and then a jarring collision.

  “It sounded like a car wreck to me,” I said as I put the money I’d been counting down on the counter. Glancing out our window that opened up onto Springs Drive, I couldn’t see any signs of an impact anywhere nearby.

  “Can we go check it out?” my young assistant asked me.

  I didn’t like the thought of just leaving all our cash spread out on the counter like that, but then again, someone might be in need of our help. Grabbing a nearby dishtowel, I quickly spread it out over the money and then pulled off my apron. “Let’s go,” I said.

  Emma took her own apron off, and we headed for the front door.

  It was already starting to heat up to a level a little beyond my comfort zone. I knew a lot of folks loved the dog days of summer, but I was more of a winter kind of gal myself, and I couldn’t wait for the temperatures to start dropping again. Looking down the road toward the sound of the impact, I could see a crowd already starting to form a hundred yards away. They were all gathering near our town hall, and it appeared that an older car had found its way over the curb. As we hurried toward the scene, I could see our town clock lying on its side, the pole snapped off a few feet above the ground from the collision. The car had to be at least fifty years old, made back when steel had been used instead of plastic, and it had taken its toll on the heavy pole. Sixteen-year-old Jeremy Hall was out of the car, leaning against it with a look of sheer panic on his face. No wonder. He’d just been in the donut shop that morning bragging about his brand new driver’s license, and the car he’d just crashed belonged to his grandmother, Granny Gail, host of our local gardening show on the radio. Her real name was Gail Fortunata, but everyone just called her by her professional name. “Granny’s going to kill me,” he kept repeating, even as a pair of paramedics started to check him out. “Did I completely wreck her car?”

  “No, but the clock’s in pretty rough shape,” portly Charlie Clark said as he took Jeremy’s blood pressure. I saw him frown after he finished taking the reading, and I couldn’t help myself.

  “Is there something wrong with him?”

  “The kid’s pulse is a little fast, but his pressure’s just fine, even after what just happened. He’s got an engine like a racehorse.”

  I looked up to see my husband, the acting sheriff, hurry toward us. It was still odd seeing him dressed in uniform, but I personally liked the image. When Jake had left the state police, he’d worn plain clothes, so it was still taking some getting used to seeing him in khakis, no matter how good he looked in them.

  “What happened here?” he asked, and after Jeremy explained that his foot had slipped off the brake and had hit the gas pedal instead, Jake nodded and then looked directly into Jeremy’s eyes. “First things first; are you okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Charlie said as he put his blood pressure cuff away.

  “Thanks, but I was talking to him,” Jake said softly.

  “I’m fine,” Jeremy insisted. “Sheriff, am I going to get a ticket for this?”

  Jake nodded as he took in the scene. “I would have to say yes, based on what I know. Sorry. I don’t have much choice in the matter.”

  “Come on. You were young once yourself. Why don’t you take it easy on the kid, Jake?” Nick Williams said from the crowd.

  “Yeah, it’s clear to see that it was just an accident. It could have happened to anybody,” Pete Evans added.

  Jake frowned at the crowd. “Folks, this is official police business, and besides, there’s nothing to see here. I need you all to move on now and go about your business.”

  There were a few grumbles, but peop
le began to do as he’d instructed, and they started breaking up. Emma tugged on my arm and said, “Suzanne, why don’t we head back to the donut shop and finish up ourselves?”

  “You go on without me. I’ll be right with you,” I said.

  “Are you really staying? You heard what Jake just said.”

  “I just want to have a word with my husband for a second, and besides, I’m not exactly a casual bystander. Go on. I’ll be there soon. When you finish your chores, feel free to take off if I’m not back in time.”

  That was clearly what she’d been waiting for. I knew that my assistant had class that afternoon, and she was eager to get started. “Thanks. See you tomorrow.”

  After Emma and most of the rest of the crowd left, I started to ask Jake something when he lifted one finger in my direction and asked, “Give me a second, okay?”

  “I’m not in any rush,” I said. “Take your time.”

  Jake nodded, and then he turned back to Jeremy.

  “May I have the keys, son?” he asked the shaken young man.

  “They’re still in the car,” he replied. “How bad is it?”

  Jake studied the front bumper for a second, and then he smiled broadly at Jeremy. “The bumper is barely dented in. I can’t imagine that there’s any real damage to the car at all besides that. I didn’t realize that you were driving solo already.”

  “I just got my license today,” he confessed.

  Jake put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but this isn’t the worst day you’re ever going to have in your life.”

  “How do you know that?” Jeremy asked him.

  “Trust me. Things are going to come up in your future that are going to be much worse than this.”

  “I don’t know if that helps or not.” The man and the boy both smiled, and it was clear that Jeremy was beginning to feel a little better.

  Until he saw his grandmother heading toward him, anyway.

  “I’m so sorry for what happened,” Jeremy said as she approached him. “Please don’t be mad, Granny.”

  Instead of scolding him, Gail wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “Are you okay, Jeremy?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, his voice muffled from his head being pressed into her ample chest. “I can’t breathe at the moment, though.”

  She pulled away. “From the accident?”

  “No, from your hug,” he said as he caught his breath. “I can’t believe that I wrecked your car.”

  She shook her head. “None of that matters.”

  “I’ll just pull it off the sidewalk so you can drive it home,” Jake offered as I opened the driver’s side door.

  “Not me. I’m never driving again,” Jeremy said.

  “Nonsense,” Gail said. “Young man, you’re chauffeuring me back to the radio station this very minute. I left in the middle of my show when I heard the news.” She turned to Jake. “Is that okay with you, Sheriff?”

  “I think it’s a great idea. We’ll deal with the citation later.” Jake got into the car and backed it off the curb. Once he had it parked legally, he handed Jeremy the keys. “Be careful, and you’ll be okay. Take a deep breath, be aware of your surroundings, and I’m sure that you’ll do fine.”

  “Thanks, Sheriff,” he said, and then he turned to his grandmother. “Granny, are you sure about this?”

  “I’m absolutely positive. Now remember, just because we need to get back to the radio station quickly, I don’t want you rushing on my account, understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Excellent. Then let’s get going,” she said, and a minute later, the two of them drove off.

  “So goes the life of a small-town sheriff,” I told Jake.

  He nodded as he surveyed the downed clock. “The truth is, it’s the most excitement I’ve had since I took over. Not much has happened around here lately.”

  “Why do you sound a little sad when you say that?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Do I? I’m not sure bringing me in to supervise Stephen Grant was needed after all.” Grant was young, and the job of interim sheriff had been a lot for him to handle, so Jake had offered to step in on a temporary basis only.

  A crew from the town maintenance department showed up in their truck, and as they approached us, Jake said, “I can tell you one thing without any doubt: we’re going to need a new pole for that clock.”

  I glanced down at the base and noticed that the concrete it had been set in had been pulled up as well. Was there something buried under the pole? “What’s that?” I asked as I pointed to the stainless steel lip of a canister just under the rubble.

  “It’s the time capsule,” one of the older workers said knowingly. “I poured the concrete myself fifteen years ago when we buried the thing. We weren’t supposed to dig it up for another eighty-five years.”

  “Well, it looks as though we’re a little early,” Jake said. He bent down and studied the canister’s edge a little more closely. “We’re going to have to replace that as well. It looks like it got dinged in the accident. Who should I get in touch with about doing that?”

  “Why don’t you call Phillip?” I suggested. “You know how much he’s into local history now. He’ll know what to do.”

  “That’s an excellent suggestion,” Jake said as he pulled out his phone. Before he placed the call, though, he looked at me and asked me with a grin, “What are you still doing hanging around here? Don’t you have a donut shop to run?”

  “We’re closing for the day, as a matter of fact. Any interest in having lunch with me?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it with all of this excitement going on,” he said with a grin. “Check with me again in half an hour.”

  “I’ll give you a call,” I said, and then I made my way back to Donut Hearts. It wasn’t exactly a typical day in my life, but at that point, I had no idea how unusual it was about to become.

  Chapter 3

  “What’s going on?” I asked Jake later as I walked into his office. He’d given me the green light on lunch, but he’d told me that he had some things to take care of first, so I’d finished my daily sales report, made my bank deposit, and closed up Donut Hearts after another completed session of making and selling donuts to the citizens of April Springs. I felt downright domestic going to take my husband out to lunch after I was finished with my job for that day. For years, while we’d been dating, he’d been in other cities working all over North Carolina as a state police investigator. After we’d married, he’d left his job in order to be closer to me.

  “Phillip just found something,” Jake said grimly.

  “It’s a time capsule,” I said as I looked at the odd assortment of objects and packets spread out on Jake’s desktop. “What did you expect, for it to be empty?”

  My stepfather spoke up. “Suzanne, do you remember when this was buried fifteen years ago? I’d just been promoted to sheriff.”

  “I was away at college at the time,” I said. “Though Momma called me and told me all about it. The town made a pretty big production of it, didn’t they?”

  “It was quite an event. The mayor at the time decided to bury a time capsule with instructions to dig it up in a hundred years,” Phillip explained. “We included newspapers, magazines, toys, records, that kind of thing, but we also held a raffle for ten people to write letters to include in it as well. Mayor Jonas thought it would add some interesting viewpoints from ordinary slices of life.”

  “He sounds like a natural politician,” I said. “I still don’t get why the two of you are upset.”

  “I looked through the letters as a matter of curiosity,” Phillip said a little guiltily. “It’s not like they were sealed or anything, and I was interested in what folks had to say.”

  “So, what did you find?”

  “Of the ten letters included, five of them clearly identified the author. Five were not, and while four of them were about wha
t you’d expect, the last one is the one that’s been so troubling.”

  “May I see it?” I asked.

  Jake frowned a moment, and then he shrugged. “I don’t see what it would hurt, but I need to ask you to keep this to yourself.”

  Before I’d take it, I asked Phillip, “You’re not telling Momma about it?”

  “I don’t see how I can avoid it,” he admitted.

  “Good. Then I don’t have to. Let me see it,” I said. I didn’t keep secrets from my husband or my mother, so if they both were going to know already, it wasn’t that hard a promise for me to make.

  Jake handed me a sheet of paper enclosed in a plastic bag. The print was written by hand in block letters, and I knew that identifying its source might be difficult.

  As I read it, I felt the blood in my veins go cold.

  It said,

  “Benjamin Port did not die by accident; I poisoned him.

  I’m not sorry that I did it; i really had no choice.

  I didn’t count on the nightmares, though.

  will they ever end, or will they haunt me for the rest of my life?”

  “Wow, is this legitimate?” I asked after reading it twice. “Who exactly was Benjamin Port? I’m not familiar with that name.”

  “He was a local,” Phillip said. “As a matter of fact, he died a month before the time capsule was buried.”

  “Was it murder?” I asked.

  “Nobody thought so at the time, but this note certainly puts that assumption under suspicion,” Phillip said.

  “What’s your take on it?” I asked Jake.

  “If it’s true, then it’s troubling,” he admitted. “I’m going to dig into this, Suzanne. I hate the idea of a killer getting away with murder, even if it wasn’t on my watch.”