Sugar Coated Sins

by Jessica Beck

  After Maria had refilled our glasses, she said, “Momma said that you should all save room for dessert.”

  “She’s kidding, right?” Phillip asked as he studied his plate.

  “My mother never kids about food,” Maria said. “Enjoy.”

  The first bite was even better than I remembered, a mean feat since I adored Napoli’s offerings. The pasta had been prepared perfectly, splitting open with my first bite and spilling the multicheese filling into my mouth as a touch of the sauce added the perfect counternote to the sampling. I didn’t think I’d be able to handle my serving size, though, no matter how delicious it might be, but to my surprise, I somehow managed to nearly clean my plate, and the two men with me had performed beyond their own expectations as well. However, the mere thought of having dessert was out of the question. So, how was I going to break it to Anita? Fortunately, I didn’t have to.

  The matriarch came out with three boxes as Maria brought the check. Anita said, “I understand that I may have been a little too enthusiastic with your portions today,” she said, and added as she glanced at our plates, “though you’ve all done admirably in spite of it. We’re trying a new recipe for a caramel fudge pie that I’d love your opinion of when you get the chance to sample it. You’d be doing me a favor just by giving me your opinions.”

  Jake studied the bill for a moment, and then he frowned. “The desserts aren’t listed here.”

  Anita looked at him with reproach. “I’m asking you all for a favor. Do you really expect me to charge you for the privilege?”

  “You should,” Phillip said. “If this is like everything else you serve, it’s worth twice whatever it costs.”

  Anita studied him for a moment, and then she turned to me. “Suzanne, do me a favor and explain it to them, would you?”

  “It would be my pleasure.” I looked at both men, each in his own turn, as I said, “Say thank you, and nothing else. Both of you.”

  They looked at each other, and then, in almost perfect unison, they said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Anita said with a broad smile.

  After Jake paid the bill, leaving a generous tip for Maria as well, we walked back out into the sunlight, carrying our treats.

  “I need a nap now,” Phillip said as he patted his belly. He was still on the lean side, but living with my mother and her cooking, not to mention the Napoli offerings, had added a few pounds back to his frame, weight he’d struggled mightily to lose in the first place when he’d been courting my mother.

  “You can sleep on the drive back,” Jake offered. “But what am I going to do?”

  “I could always drive us home,” I volunteered.

  “No, I was just kidding. I’m fine. Let’s go.”

  Back in April Springs, Jake dropped me off at Donut Hearts so I could pick up my Jeep. “What are your plans for the rest of the afternoon?” he asked me.

  “I thought I’d drop by and see Grace on the way home, if she’s there,” I said.

  “Good. You two need to spend more time together. I’ll touch base with you later.”

  “Bye,” I said, waving my dessert in the air. Both men had claimed to be too full from lunch to care about their desserts, but the half-hour trip had evidently changed their minds, since neither one of them had asked me to transport their pie slices for them.

  After Jake drove off with Phillip still in the backseat, I got into my Jeep and headed for Grace’s place. She was my best friend, but we hadn’t been spending as much time together as I would have liked, and I was about to change that if I could. Let Phillip tackle the archives of our town while Jake spoke with Gabby. Unless I missed my guess, sooner rather than later, I’d be called in for backup, so I planned to make the most of my time until then.

  Chapter 5

  “Hey, do you have a second?” I asked as Grace answered her door. My best friend had a job that didn’t require her to be in the field all the time, and she took advantage of it. Supervising the women under her in the cosmetics company allowed her a freedom that few folks experienced in their daily work lives.

  “I’m all yours. What’s up?” Grace asked. She was just the opposite of me, slim where I was curvy, blonde where I was brunette, stylish while I was comfortable with my appearance. On the outside, we appeared to be as different as night and day, but inside, where it counted, we were sisters from different mothers.

  “Did you mean what you said about not getting involved with murder cases again?” I asked her. Grace had been my longtime helper when it came to my amateur sleuthing, but a close call had made her withdraw her assistance. After sitting on the sidelines, though, she’d decided that she missed it too much after all, and she’d asked me to include her again.

  “I’m ready to go whenever you are,” she said, and then she frowned. “Who exactly was murdered?”

  “Do you remember Benjamin Port?” I asked her.

  Grace bit her lower lip for a moment before she spoke. “I think so. He died like twenty years ago, didn’t he? Anyway, I thought it was from food poisoning.”

  “It was fifteen years, and there’s reason to suspect that it was another kind of poison that killed him.”

  After we went inside, I brought her up to date on what had been happening.

  When I was finished, Grace said, “Pardon me for saying so, but it doesn’t exactly feel as though you’re in the middle of this yourself.”

  “Not yet, but can you imagine Gabby giving Jake a straight answer about anything, especially her past love life?” I asked her.

  “I doubt that she’d talk about it to anyone but you, myself included. For some odd reason, she seems to really like you, Suzanne.”

  “If she treats me the way that she does because she likes me, I’d hate to see how she behaves around someone she doesn’t care for.”

  “I’m sure that it’s an entirely unpleasant experience. I’m curious about something. Not that I mind you coming by, but if there’s nothing for you to do right now, why include me?”

  “Things have a way of changing quickly, Grace, and I needed to know if you meant what you said about helping me again.”

  “I meant it,” she said.

  “What’s Stephen going to say when he finds out that you’re digging into someone’s murder again?”

  “He doesn’t get veto power over my behavior, even if he is in law enforcement,” she said with a grin. “At least no more than Jake does over yours.”

  “Okay, you’ve got a point, but I’d never openly defy Jake if he had his heart set on something.”

  “Even if you thought he was wrong?” Grace asked me.

  “Even then.”

  “What if it happened?” Grace pushed me, softening her relentlessness with a slight grin.

  “Then I’d make it my sole purpose in life to convince him that he was wrong,” I answered with a smile of my own.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. By the way, if you’re not going to bring it up, then I’m going to have to do it myself. What’s in the box?” she asked me.

  “Just some dessert from Napoli’s,” I said nonchalantly.

  “What did you get? Is it tiramisu?” Grace loved the Italian dessert, and if I’d been thinking, I would have brought some back for her.

  “Sorry, no. It’s something new that Anita wanted me to test, some kind of caramel fudge pie.”

  “That sounds interesting,” she said as her gaze stayed on the box.

  “Would you like to try it with me?” I asked her, not able to restrain myself any longer.

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  I was more than happy to share the treat with her, and even more pleased to have such a good friend in my life. Most of the rest of my old school friends had drifted away into their own lives, but I was thrilled that Grace was still solidly a part of mine.

  “Should I get two plates, or are we going to eat it right out of the box?” she asked.

  “Let’s compromise. Grab two forks, and w
e’ll try to act as civilized as we can manage.”

  She laughed. “I’m getting a knife, too. Before either one of us takes a first bite, I’m cutting it right down the middle.”

  “Don’t you trust me to share with you equally?” I asked her with a grin.

  “No more than you trust me,” she answered with a smile of her own.

  The pie was every bit as good as I’d expected, and after we’d finished it, I gave Anita a call and gave her our five-star reviews.

  Once that was accomplished, Grace and I moved out onto the porch.

  “I wonder how many calories I just consumed.”

  “I don’t know, but it’s half the amount I would have had if you hadn’t shared it with me. Thanks for saving me from eating the entire thing by myself.”

  “You’re welcome. Any time you need me, I’m happy to help.”

  “Well, I might have to call you later. Anita gave slices to Phillip and Jake, too.”

  “It’s a sacrifice, but one that I’m willing to make,” she replied with a grin. Grace was about to say something else when my cellphone rang.

  It was Jake.

  This should be good.

  Chapter 6

  “Hey, Suzanne. It’s me. Do you have a second?”

  It was very important not to gloat, no matter how much I might want to. I’d been expecting him to call, so at least I’d been able to prepare myself. “Sure thing. What’s up?”

  “You were right about Gabby Williams,” Jake said with resignation heavy in his voice. “She shut me down after the first question. Do you feel like taking a run at her yourself?”

  “I’d be happy to try, but I can’t guarantee that she’ll cooperate with me, either.”

  Jake laughed a little, something that must have been hard to do given his recent failure. “There’s no need to soothe my ego. You made the point a long time ago that there were things you could do that I couldn’t, and I’d be a fool not to take advantage of every resource that I had.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I’ll head over there right now.”

  He hesitated a moment, and then Jake asked, “Are you bringing Grace with you?”

  “Hang on a second.” I covered up the phone, and then I asked Grace, “Are you okay with me talking to Gabby alone?”

  “Are you kidding? Am I okay with it? I absolutely encourage it,” she said.

  I uncovered the phone. “It’s just going to be me, but if I need Grace’s help with anything else, she’s agreed to lend a hand. Are you good with that?”

  “I’m fine with it myself, but the real question is how is Stephen Grant going to feel?”

  “What do you say we leave that up to the two of them to work out for themselves?”

  “That sounds good to me,” Jake answered. “Call me when you get finished with Gabby.”

  “Will do. Is there anything in particular you’d like me to try to find out?”

  Jake paused a moment for thought before he spoke. “No, I trust your instincts. Just find out what you can about Benjamin Port, who might want him dead, and anything she might know about the time capsule when it was buried under the clock. I’ll leave the way you get the information completely up to you.”

  “You’re not asking for much, are you?” I asked with a slight chuckle.

  “I’ve got faith in you, Suzanne. If anyone can do it, you can,” he replied.

  I hung up and turned to Grace. “Well, it looks like we’re in the game.”

  “Good luck with Gabby,” she said. “Keep me posted, too, okay?”

  “You bet. I’m glad you’re back on the team.”

  “So am I,” Grace said.

  I left her on the porch and headed toward ReNEWed on foot. It wasn’t that far from Grace’s place, and besides, I wanted time to formulate exactly how I was going to tackle her. The direct approach clearly hadn’t worked for Jake, so I needed to come up with something new.

  By the time I walked into her gently used clothing shop, I still hadn’t managed to come up with a solid plan.

  It appeared that I’d be winging it yet again after all.

  “I was wondering when I’d see you,” Gabby said smugly after I walked into her shop. There were no customers shopping at the moment, and I wondered how she managed to make her rent every month, but she always found a way not just to survive but even to thrive. I would much rather have been able to play it cool and detached with my questioning, but Jake had already stolen that opportunity from me. Her belief that I would be following up on his visit cut my options drastically, but I couldn’t let that fact keep me from at least trying to get some information from her.

  “Believe me, I told Jake that you wouldn’t want to talk about it,” I said, deciding on a new ploy at the last second. “He insisted that he could get everything there was to know out of you, but I insisted that you’d take your secrets about Benjamin Port to the grave with you.”

  “Does that mean that you’re not going to question me yourself?” Gabby asked, clearly a little disappointed by my reaction.

  “No, ma’am. That’s really the only reason that I came by, to tell you that you don’t have to say a word to anyone about it. As far as I’m concerned, what’s in the past can stay buried there, just like the time capsule was supposed to have.”

  I was clearly frustrating her, which was the exact plan that I’d just formulated on the fly. Gabby liked being the center of attention, the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral, and I was robbing her of her chance to hold her superior knowledge over the rest of us. Now it was time for my finishing touch. This was the real gamble in my experiment. If I left, or at least pretended to go, then Gabby would have to stop me in order to give me exactly what I wanted. If she called my bluff, though, I was about to make things much harder on Jake than I needed to.

  “I can’t make any promises, but I’ll do my best to make sure that no one bothers you about your past,” I said. “Have a good day, Gabby.”

  My hand was on the front doorknob before she spoke. “Hold up for one second. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to talk to you, Suzanne. After all, you’re one of my dearest friends in the world, and I know that you won’t abuse the privilege.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked as I turned back to face her, doing everything in my power to conceal the smile that wanted to burst forward. “I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to take advantage of our friendship.” If she could play on our so-called relationship, then so could I.

  “I’m positive. Now let me think. It was a long time ago, you know. Fifteen years seems like a lifetime in the past when I reflect on it.”

  “Anything you can add to what we’ve already learned will be a big help,” I said, trying my best to give her the impression that Jake and I knew more than we did.

  She looked a little miffed when she realized that she might not be the star after all, but there was a reason I’d put it that way. If Gabby was under the impression that she was our only source, she might be tempted to dole out her knowledge in small doses, and Jake needed to have as much information about the case gathered as quickly as he could manage it.

  “The fact of the matter is that Ben and I were close,” Gabby said. “I believe that if we’d been given enough time, he might have even asked me to marry him someday.”

  “Really. I hadn’t realized that.”

  “Oh, yes. We were quite a pair. Not that there weren’t obstacles in our way, of course.”

  “Like what?” I knew from past experience that it was important to leave my questions as open-ended as possible to allow Gabby room to expand.

  “Well, for one thing, there was my main rival for his affection,” she said, the look of pure distaste on her face quite evident.

  “Benjamin was seeing someone else?” I asked.

  “Hardly. Clearly she’d built it up in her mind to be something that it wasn’t, but she was persistent, and she was also extremely aggressive.”

  �
��Who are we talking about here?” I asked her.

  “Hilda Fremont,” she said succinctly.

  I knew only one Hilda, and though she was about the right age, I couldn’t imagine her being Gabby’s rival for someone’s love. “You’re talking about Hilda from the Boxcar?” I was certain that I’d heard her last name before, but she had been simply “Hilda” for me for so long that I’d practically forgotten that she even had a last name.

  “None other. She was jealous of what I had, and she still holds a grudge to this day that Ben preferred me over her.”

  “Hilda, the cook. Are you sure that we’re talking about the same woman?” I was having a hard time wrapping my head around this particular tidbit of information, and I was having a particularly difficult time seeing Hilda as the jealous, angry woman Gabby was describing.

  “Yes, of course she’s the cook. Suzanne, don’t be dense. She might not look like much working in the kitchen, but she knew what she wanted back then, and she went after him.”

  This was going to take some reconciling in my mind. I’d known Hilda for several years, and I would describe her in many ways, but an aggressive femme fatale was certainly not one of them. “Were there any other women Benjamin was involved with to your knowledge?”

  Gabby took affront at my question. “He wasn’t even involved with Hilda, no matter how much she wished that it were so.” She frowned a moment before she added, “At least not romantically.”

  “If not that way, then how were they connected?”

  “I don’t know,” Gabby said dismissively. Had she been hoping that I’d accept her denial of a romantic relationship between her rival and her boyfriend as fact? If so, she clearly didn’t know me at all. When I’d pressed her, she’d had nothing to back it up with, so until I learned otherwise, I was going to attempt to see if Hilda had been dating Benjamin Port at the same time that Gabby Williams had.

  “Is there anyone else you know who might have wanted to see him dead?” I asked her. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t ask you that kind of question, but your input could be really valuable to the investigation.” I’d deemed that it had been time to stroke her ego a little, but I hoped that I hadn’t gone too far overboard.