by Jessica Beck
“Then we’re through,” he said.
Emma’s father just shrugged as he made his way out into the growing crowd.
“Sorry about that,” I told Jake.
“It’s not your fault,” he replied curtly. “I should have been paying closer attention to who was around us.”
“That’s because of me, though. Ray wouldn’t have overheard you if you hadn’t been updating me on what was going on.”
Jake shook his head. “Suzanne, you didn’t run and tell him what I shared with you, so I’m not about to blame you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to go make that call now.” He was a little brusque with me as he said it, but that could have just been a part of him doing his job. At least that’s what I hoped it was. As Jake stepped aside to have a little privacy, I saw Momma finally show up on the scene. She headed straight for the chief the moment she arrived, and when she got to him, Officer Grant quietly peeled away and went back to stand guard in front of the empty shop. We’d run Momma’s truncated mayoral campaign out of that building, and I had been pleased for her when I discovered that she was finally selling it to Beatrice Ashe. That still didn’t tell me what Evelyn Martin had been doing inside, though. I knew that Beatrice and Evelyn were friends, forming a kind of alliance after both had been divorced at about the same time, but that didn’t explain her presence in the building.
I heard Jake raise his voice, so I glanced over in his direction and saw him arguing with someone over the phone, most likely his boss. What did that mean? I didn’t have to wait long to find out. He rejoined me less than a minute later, and he clearly wasn’t happy about the outcome of the conversation.
“Well, be careful what you wish for, Suzanne, because it might just come true,” Jake said unhappily.
“Does that mean that you got the job?”
“I tried to talk him out of it, but my boss saw it the same way that you did. I know the players involved, so he thinks I’ll have more of a chance to wrap it up quickly. I think there’s more to this than meets the eye, though.”
“How so?” I asked, trying to contain my enthusiasm for his continued presence. I hated the reason for it, but nonetheless, Jake was going to be hanging around a little longer than either of us had anticipated, and that was the sliver of silver lining in the black cloud of Evelyn Martin’s death.
“He’s clearly not sure that I’m ready to hit the ground running when I get back to Raleigh, so he’s giving me an easy one to start off with so that I can work myself back into active duty.”
“Do you think this case is going to be that simple to solve?” I asked him.
“I can’t say that one way or the other just yet, but most likely it’s not in the same league as tracking down mad dogs and serial killers,” Jake said. He frowned as he added, “Whoever tried to stage this clearly wasn’t a professional.”
“How so?” I asked him. I clearly wanted more details than he was willing to give.
“I can’t talk about it right now, Suzanne,” he said as he headed over to where Momma and Chief Martin were in deep conversation. I watched as Jake gave the chief the news. After he told him, Jake dialed a number on his phone and then handed it to the police chief. It was no doubt direct orders from his boss. I watched the chief’s expression as he listened, but all he did was nod, and then he handed the phone back to Jake. Momma pulled Chief Martin away, and Jake reentered the building, making sure to speak with Officer Grant on his way inside. The young officer nodded, and then repositioned himself in front of the building. It was clear that no one was getting in without permission, and sadly, that included me.
For the moment, there was nothing that I, or anyone else standing vigil outside, could do.
“I’m sorry about Dad,” Emma said a minute later as she rejoined me. “You know how he gets when he has the slightest whiff of a story.”
“I’m not the one who has a problem with him.”
“That’s a relief,” Emma said with a happy sigh.
“I wouldn’t be too joyous about that just yet. Jake was pretty upset, and believe me, he’s one man you don’t want to have against you.”
“Doesn’t he know that Dad was just doing his job?” Emma asked plaintively.
I knew that I couldn’t win if I let this conversation continue. If I took Jake’s side, which I was inclined to do for many reasons, it would just alienate Emma, but if by some bizarre reasoning I defended Ray’s position, it would put me in direct opposition of the man I loved. “Tell you what. Let’s just agree not to discuss this situation anymore. How does that sound?”
“Sorry. You’re right,” Emma said apologetically. “So, you’re still coming back to Donut Hearts tomorrow, right?”
“Just try to keep me away,” I said. “Could you do me a favor and ask your mother to come by the shop after we close tomorrow?”
Emma frowned. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Not a thing. I’m going to go over the books tonight, so I’d like to pay the two of you your share of the profits for the past month as soon as possible.”
“There’s no hurry,” Emma said, clearly happy that nothing else was wrong.
“Emma, you should know me well enough by now to realize that I always pay off my debts as soon as I possibly can,” I told her. “I’m going by the shop this afternoon to collect all of the reports and deposit slips for the last thirty days, and I’ll have a figure for you tomorrow.”
“Why don’t I grab them for you now?” Emma asked a little too eagerly.
What was going on? “Emma, is there something at Donut Hearts that you don’t want me to see?”
“The place is a mess,” she confessed. “We haven’t had a chance to clean up for the day yet, and I don’t want you to see it the way that it is right now. Let me grab the books for you, Suzanne. Please?”
“I suppose that’s all right,” I said. “Just make sure that the place is in good shape before you go. I want a clean start tomorrow when I come back.”
“Understood. I’ll just be a few minutes,” she said, and after grabbing her mother, Emma took off down the road back to Donut Hearts.
How bad must the place be if she was that reluctant to let me see it? I was tempted to follow the mother and daughter back to the shop, but that wouldn’t do anyone any good. I’d given Emma and Sharon time to clean things up, so it would be doing them a disservice peeking in now, no matter how much I wanted to.
As good as her word, Emma found me five minutes later as I stood vigil waiting for something else to happen in front of the crime scene.
My assistant shoved the last month’s worth of receipts into my hands.
“Does this include everything?” I asked.
“Right up to today’s receipts,” she said.
“Then I’ll work on this today and let you know where things stand tomorrow,” I said.
“Like I said, there’s no hurry.”
“Nevertheless, we’ll take care of this tomorrow.” I had a sudden thought. “If your mother would like, we could even do this before work tomorrow.”
Emma smiled, and then she said, “Thanks, but you heard her before. I think she’s looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning.”
“I can’t blame her for that a bit.” I myself still hadn’t really gotten used to my later waking hour, but ironically, I’d just started to adapt when it was time to go back to my former schedule of getting up when anyone in their right mind would still be sound asleep.
“Well, I’d better get back to the shop and finish cleaning up,” Emma said. “Suzanne, I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, and I realized as I said it that it was true. Getting back to the daily routine at the donut shop was exactly what I needed. My life had been a little rudderless in my time away, so it would be wonderful to get back to work.
I just hoped that Jake felt the same way, now that he was officially responsible for finding Evelyn Martin’s murderer.
Chapter 4
I realized that Grace must have still been at work as I walked past her place and saw that her driveway was empty, so I decided to head straight to the cottage and get started on the Donut Heart receipts. At least my place would be quiet. As a matter of fact, it would probably be a little too quiet with Momma and Jake both gone, so I decided to turn on the radio when I got home. I finally managed to find a broadcast of soft rock that served as a perfect buffer to the silence. After that, I made myself a cup of tea, and then I spread everything out on the kitchen table and organized the reports for every day of the month that I’d been absent from Donut Hearts. After studying each individual report from the register, my hunch was that they didn’t do too badly at all while I’d been gone. I went through the totals a little more thoroughly the second time around, and then I figured out what my average daily expenses were. I knew this number fairly well already, so it was easy to calculate just how much profit I’d be splitting with Emma and her mother. I knew better than anyone the razor-thin profit margins I worked with at the donut shop, and I hoped that Emma and Sharon would realize that I was doing the best that I could when I wrote their checks. I considered padding the amount that I owed them for one second, but then I realized that I wouldn’t be doing anyone any favors if I did that. In the end, I wrote out a statement that showed the donut shop’s income for the past thirty days, deducted the expenses, and then I tallied the final profit. After splitting that in half, I split their share again and wrote one check for Emma and another one for her mother. It had taken us some time to work out the details, since Emma usually drew a salary from me independent of sales. My assistant came out ahead running the shop for a month, but not by much. It was clear that she would have been better off with things the way they usually were, earning a little less money in exchange for a great many fewer headaches. I wasn’t looking forward to having that particular conversation with her the next morning, but it turned out that I didn’t have to wait that long after all. The ink on both checks was barely dry when there was a knock on my front door.
“Hey,” I said as I opened it and saw Emma and Sharon standing at my doorstep. “I thought we were getting together tomorrow after work.”
“We decided that we needed to talk about the split before then,” Sharon said gravely.
Oh, no. Were they going to ask for a bigger cut? I could probably live with it, but it was going to seriously hamper my ability to run the business for the next few weeks.
“Come on in,” I said as I stepped aside, putting on as brave a face as I could manage, given the circumstances. “I just had a cup of tea, but I’d love to join you in another if you’re interested.”
“There’s no need to do that. This won’t take that long,” Sharon said.
“Mother, I’m still not sure that we should—” Emma said before her mother cut her off.
“Emma, I’ve made up my mind.” She then turned to me and said, “Suzanne, we need to have a serious discussion about our earlier arrangement.”
“Would you at least like to sit down?” I offered.
“That won’t be necessary. We don’t want to take up too much of your time,” Sharon said.
“But we’d love to sit down and relax while we’re here,” Emma insisted, plopping herself down onto my sofa despite her mother’s refusal.
“Now, what exactly did you have in mind?” I asked Sharon after they were both settled in on the couch. “There’s no reason that this has to be tense. I’m open to any reasonable request you might have. After all, you both did me a huge favor keeping Donut Hearts open while I took care of Jake.”
“It was fun,” Sharon said, “but ultimately, the donut shop is a business, so we need to be businesslike when we discuss this. Suzanne, Emma and I have given this a great deal of thought, and we’ve decided that the percentage split you’ve offered isn’t entirely fair.”
Ouch. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that stung a little. “To be fair, I tried to talk you both out of splitting the profits with me fifty-fifty from the very start, but you insisted. It’s fine if you want a bigger share now. I understand completely. What did you have in mind?”
Sharon looked at me oddly, and then she smiled. “Is that why you think we’re here? Suzanne, we don’t want more, my dear; we’re asking for less. All we did was keep the shop open in your absence; you’re the one who built it from nothing. Fifty percent of your profits is too much, not too little. Would you settle on keeping two thirds of the profits for yourself and letting my daughter and me split the remaining third?”
“I would not,” I said sternly. “Ladies, a deal is a deal. When you see the small amount that you both actually earned, you might reconsider your kindness altogether.”
“Whatever you can spare is fine with us,” Sharon said. “Right, Emma?”
“Don’t look at me,” my assistant said. “I told you how Suzanne would react, and I agree with her one hundred percent. We made a deal to split the profits right down the middle, and it’s not fair to try to change that now, in either direction.”
I laughed at Emma’s insistence, knowing that I would have done the exact same thing if our roles had been reversed.
“What’s so funny?” she asked me.
“I don’t know which one of us should be more proud of you, me or your mother,” I replied as I stood. “Let me grab your checks, since you’re already here.”
I went into the kitchen and collected both checks, as well as the statement I’d made out as an explanation. As I handed each woman her earnings for the month, I said, “Here’s the breakdown, if you’d care to see it.”
“That won’t be necessary. We trust you,” Sharon said even as Emma was reaching for the sheet.
“Remember, we need to trust, but always verify, Mom,” she said with a smile. After studying the document for a minute, Emma said, “Suzanne, this isn’t right.”
I looked at the sheet and studied it for a few seconds. “What’s wrong with it? It looks fine to me.”
“Our daily expenses were a little higher than this while you were gone.”
“How could you possibly know that?” I asked her.
Emma admitted, “I’m taking a business accounting class at my community college, so I put everything into a spreadsheet so we could track our expenses better.” She paused a moment before adding, “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind? I think that it’s terrific,” I said. “But keep the checks I wrote you. It can’t be a big enough difference to make up for the hassle for me to rewrite them.”
“Okay,” Emma said. “Thank you.”
“I’m just sorry that it’s not more,” I said. “But then again, that’s the business that I’m in.”
“That we’re in,” Emma said, stressing the fact that we were in it together. “Don’t worry. I warned Mom that it probably wouldn’t even be this much.”
“I don’t know what you two are talking about. I’m delighted to add this much to my travel budget,” Sharon said. She’d developed a taste for Europe lately, and since her husband was married to his newspaper as much as he was to Sharon, she’d found a female friend who loved to travel as much as she did. In the end, everyone had been delighted with the arrangement, none more than Ray Blake, though I suspected that Sharon was a close second.
“Now, are you sure that I can’t get you something to drink?” I asked.
“No, we’ve got some things to do, but thank you,” Sharon said.
“The first place on our list is the bank,” Emma said with a grin. “I’ve been living on savings this past month.”
“You haven’t missed any meals, young lady,” Sharon answered with a smile. “As a matter of fact, it’s been nice having you eat at home with your father and me.”
“Well, get used to seeing me gone again, because I’m planning to eat out the rest of the week.”
After I saw the two women off, I pondered just how lucky I was to have such good friends around me. Sharon and Emma were j
ust the beginning. Nearly everyone who even remotely touched my life had helped out one way or another when I’d been taking care of Jake, and I appreciated every last one of them. I wished that there was some way I could repay each and every person, but the task would have been too daunting. In the end, all that I could do was to make sure that whenever any of them needed me, I was there for them. And honestly, that was the best way to repay their kindness, anyway.
With that straightened out, I decided to fix myself a little something to eat, since there was no telling when Jake would make it back to the cottage. I was just about to take out the last of a ham someone had brought over when I saw a police cruiser pull up outside.
Oh no! Had something else happened?
And more importantly, was Jake safe?
Chapter 5
I needn’t have worried. It quickly turned out to be Jake, currently driving a car from the April Springs Police Department.
As I went out onto the porch, I said, “That’s one sweet ride you’ve got there, mister.”
He shrugged. “They insisted that I drive it, and I got tired of fighting them, since I don’t have a car at the moment. If you’ll remember, you’re the one who drove me here in the first place.”
“I’m not likely to forget that,” I said, remembering the ride home from the hospital in Hickory. It had been almost exactly one month ago, and in many ways, my time at the cottage with Jake had flown by. Discounting a few run-ins with the criminal element along the way, we’d had a fine time of it as he’d recovered.
“Are you hungry? Because I’m starving,” Jake asked.
“I was just about to make something,” I replied. “I can do it for two just as easily as one.”
“Tell you what. Why don’t we skip that, as tempting as it sounds, and go grab a bite at the Boxcar?”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said as I closed the cottage door behind me and locked it. “It’s a beautiful afternoon. Let’s walk through the park, shall we?”
“Suzanne, are you still trying to get me to exercise?” Jake asked me with a smile that I’d grown to love even more over the past month.
