Custard Crime: Donut Mystery #14 (The Donut Mysteries)

by Jessica Beck

  “Phillip and I don’t keep secrets from each other. The meeting was my idea, as a matter of fact.”

  “Your idea? Why on earth would you suggest that?”

  Momma shrugged. “April Springs is a small town. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. Since none of us had plans of ever going anywhere else, I thought it was important to try to make peace with Evelyn. I didn’t want it to be any more uncomfortable running into her at the grocery store or the gas station than it had to be.”

  “That’s a nice thought, but it makes it appear that the chief may have had something else in mind.”

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, off the top of my head, it could have been half a dozen things, and none of them good for you. Momma, that’s my point. If I find something out about him that relates to Evelyn’s murder, it’s my obligation to tell Jake about it immediately. I made him that promise, and in fact, it’s the only way I could get him to agree to let Grace and I investigate at all.”

  “By all means then, tell him. I’m confident, though, that you won’t find anything else. Phillip has assured me that there are no other secrets lying in wait.”

  “I hope that he’s right,” I said. “Are we good, Momma?”

  “Why do you ask such a curious thing like that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I just miss you,” I said. I wasn’t about to remind her how unhappy she’d been with me earlier.

  “Suzanne, we see each other all of the time.”

  “Maybe, but we’re not living together anymore, and that makes a big difference in my life. Sometimes just knowing that your things are gone and that you’re never coming back make me so sad.”

  My mother hugged me, and even though I towered over her tiny frame, I still felt small in her arms. “My dear, sweet child, you are a part of me and my life, and that’s never going to change, no matter where I might live.”

  “I know that in my heart, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way in reality.”

  “Then we need to do something about that,” she said with a smile as she pulled away. “I know. Let’s have a few planned lunches every week, just the two of us, after you close the donut shop for the day. We can make it a special event every time that we get together.”

  “That sounds nice,” I said.

  “There was a bit of hesitation just now in your voice,” Momma said. “What’s wrong? Isn’t that enough?”

  “It’s fine. I just liked it when we didn’t have to plan our time together.”

  She caressed my cheek as she said, “Things change and life moves on, doesn’t it? I miss you, too. I’m sorry if I’ve been so wrapped up in this new life with Phillip. I never meant to ignore you.”

  “You haven’t,” I said as I hugged her again. “I swear, sometimes I can be such a big baby. Of course you need to focus on your new marriage. I get that. Lunches do sound good, though.” I frowned, and then I added, “Just not today, if that’s okay. Grace and I have a few things to look into this afternoon.”

  “I would hope so,” Momma said. “After this case is resolved, we’ll institute our new plan of girl time.”

  “That sounds great. I love you, Momma.”

  “I love you, too,” she said as she patted my cheek lightly. “Now, you should get back to work. It’s not fair to leave Emma to fend for herself for too long.”

  “Are you kidding? She’s enjoying it. I’ll talk to you later,” I said as I started back for Donut Hearts.

  “Good luck, and be careful.”

  “Always.”

  Having things resolved with my mother would lighten my load considerably, and that was a good thing, since I needed to focus on catching a killer, and that took everything I had.

  Chapter 18

  “Hi, Grace. Give me a sec. I’m almost finished up here,” I said when my best friend and fellow investigator walked into Donut Hearts two minutes after closing time. I’d sent Emma on her way a minute earlier, trying to give her a bit of a break after all of the hard work she’d done on my behalf so recently.

  “No hurry here. Did I see you outside talking to your mother when I drove by earlier?”

  “I didn’t even notice you,” I said.

  “That’s because I’m stealthy,” she said with a grin. “Besides, you two looked as though things were getting pretty intense. Is she upset that we’re investigating?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but it turns out that she was asking me if we could work even harder at solving this case. I’m relieved that we’re not fighting anymore.”

  “What made her change her mind?”

  “Well, for one thing, she knows what a bind the sheriff is in, especially after Jake found out about the inheritance.”

  “What inheritance are you talking about?” Grace asked me.

  “That’s right. You haven’t heard the latest development, have you? Apparently Evelyn never got around to changing her will from when she was married to the chief. Everyone, including Julie, thought that she was going to get everything, but it turns out that Chief Martin is getting it all. Not including the building Evelyn just bought with Beatrice, I’m guessing that the chief’s going to get about three hundred grand, not to mention the house.”

  “You know what? That doesn’t even surprise me,” Grace said.

  “Why not?” I asked her. “It shocked the daylights out of me.”

  “Suzanne, think about it. The woman still had her wedding picture on display long after the divorce. Clearly Evelyn had a problem with letting the chief go, no matter what she might have said in public.”

  “You could be right, but she was dating someone else. If she was seeing Conrad Swoop, she couldn’t have still been carrying that much of a torch for Chief Martin.”

  “Maybe that explains the meeting she had with her attorney, and the one she’d scheduled with the chief as well.”

  “Momma had something to do with that one, I’m afraid,” I said as I ran the reports from the cash register.

  “Your mother set it up?” Grace asked incredulously.

  “She wanted them to all at least get along on the surface, given how small April Springs can be sometimes.”

  “I didn’t know the boundaries changed that frequently.”

  “You know what I mean,” I said as I finished counting out the money in the register. “Huh. Well, that’s not good.”

  “What’s not?”

  “I’m short twenty dollars,” I said after I counted the money again.

  “Somebody got more change back than they deserved to,” Grace said lightly.

  “I can’t believe it happened,” I said as I counted one more time, with the exact same results.

  Grace reached into her purse and pulled out a bill. Slapping the twenty down on the counter, she said with a smile, “There you go. Problem solved.”

  I handed the bill back to her. “Thanks, but not really. I can’t believe I slipped up like that.” I pulled the till out of the register, and then looked below it. On rare occasions, money slipped down there, and eureka, there was the errant twenty. “Found it,” I said triumphantly as I waved it overhead.

  “Well, I’m just glad that we got that settled, because I might not have been able to sleep tonight,” she said with a wry grin.

  “You’re joking, but it would have been enough to keep me awake. It’s been tough enough getting used to the work and the hours again, but I couldn’t handle it if I started making simple mistakes making change. I pride myself on being competent in a world that doesn’t always stress perfection.”

  “As for me, I like to phone it in most of the time,” she said.

  “I’m not kidding.”

  “Neither am I,” Grace answered. “There’s nothing all that precise about my job, especially since so much of it involves being a supervisor. My people either meet their sales goals, or they don’t. Shoot, I don’t even run the totals myself.”

  “Then how do you know the level of their performance?”

  �
�Corporate tells me, trust me on that. When my people underachieve, I get a call from my boss. When they do something exemplary, I get an email.”

  “And when they’re just plain average?”

  “Then nobody says anything at all. That’s the state of being I prefer.”

  “You don’t want overachievers working for you?” I asked as I finished up the deposit slip and got everything ready for the bank.

  “No way. If I have too many of those on my staff, then they get antsy and start gunning for my job. No ma’am, I’ll take status quo every day of the week.”

  “I’m glad I have just the one employee.”

  “This place is so small, if you had any more than that, you’d have to step outside to change your mind.”

  I looked around the shop and smiled. “It might be cozy, but it’s all mine, and I like it.”

  “I do, too,” Grace replied. “After the bank, where should we go?”

  “I don’t know about you, but I’d like to ask Julie about that birthday card we found in Evelyn’s trashcan. I’ve got a hunch that things weren’t as sweet between them as she wanted me to believe the last time we chatted.”

  “Oh, goody. I just love an ambush, especially when it’s someone else that’s in your crosshairs.”

  “I never ambush anybody, do I?” I asked.

  “Maybe that’s a little too harsh of a way to phrase it, but yes, you can ask questions abruptly when we’re grilling our suspects.”

  “Should I change the way I interview people?” I asked her, honestly concerned about the way that I came across.

  “No way, Suzanne. It’s really the only way that we get honest reactions most of the time. If anything, I believe that we should do it more often.”

  I smiled at her, and then I said, “I’m not so sure about that, but whatever we’ve been doing so far seems to have been working. We’ve had more than our share of success in the past, even if some of it has been due directly to luck.”

  “If by luck you mean preparation meeting opportunity, then I agree with you wholeheartedly.”

  “Someone famous said that, didn’t they?” I asked, vaguely remembering hearing that particular quote before.

  “Of course they did. I like to think that I’m famous, if nothing else, in my own mind.”

  “You’re famous to me, too,” I said. “Let’s drop this deposit off, and then we can go looking for Julie.”

  “I’m glad we have a bit of a car ride. That way we can scheme a little more as we head to Union Square,” Grace said as we locked up Donut Hearts and headed for my Jeep.

  “I prefer to call it strategizing,” I said, grinning slightly.

  “Potato, potato,” she said, with absolutely no change in inflection from the first to the second pronunciation.

  “Julie, I’d love to chat, if you’ve got the time,” I said. Fortunately, we’d found her at her apartment. Unfortunately, she was walking out the door as we’d been walking up the steps to her place.

  Evelyn’s cousin glanced at her watch, and then she said, “I don’t have much to spare, to be honest with you. What’s this about?”

  “We’ll make it as quick as we can. It’s about our earlier conversation,” I said.

  “And who exactly is this?” she asked me as she pointed directly at Grace.

  “This is my best friend, Grace Gauge,” I said as Grace offered her hand. Julie took it as I continued, “She’s helping me look into your cousin’s murder.”

  “So, you’re investigating after all. Suzanne, I don’t mean to be rude, but what makes you believe that you are better qualified to solve Evelyn’s murder than the police?”

  “I don’t, not necessarily. Think of us as supplemental assistance,” I said.

  “What could you possibly do that would help anyone involved in the case?”

  “Lots of things,” Grace said. “For instance, we know that you got shut out of another will, and that you aren’t getting a dime from Evelyn’s estate, either.”

  Julie frowned at that. “I didn’t think that would be common knowledge. I’ll have to have a word with the state police inspector.”

  “Actually, my mother told me,” I said, addressing the statement myself.

  Julie nodded. “And she’s married to Chief Martin now. My, you have a cozy little situation going on in April Springs, don’t you?”

  “We like it,” I said.

  “I’m sure there’s nothing else that you know,” she said confidently.

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Grace said.

  Julie looked at her sharply. “What do you mean by that?”

  I’d been holding the torn card for later, but it was out there now, so I didn’t have any choice but to address it. After I explained what we’d found, I added, “It was found in Evelyn’s trashcan.”

  My statement didn’t seem to faze her in the least. “My dear cousin was never really very sentimental,” she said brusquely. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “I don’t know that’s at all true. As a matter of fact,” I said, “she still had her wedding photo with the chief on display in her house.”

  Grace piped up, “And as for the card, it wasn’t just discarded. It was torn in half, too.”

  Julie just shrugged at hearing the news. “Why on earth should I believe you, or even care about it if it happens to be true?”

  I pulled out my phone and showed her the picture, glad that I’d thought to take it. “Here’s the evidence, if you don’t believe us.”

  Julie looked at it, and then to my surprise, she smiled.

  “What’s so funny?” Grace asked.

  “Did either one of you actually bother reading the card?” Julie asked us.

  I hadn’t even thought about doing it, and evidently neither had Grace. “No,” I said. “What does that have to do with how we found it?”

  “My cousin and I had a running gag about birthday cards. We tried to find ones that were disrespectful, inappropriate, or in any way not acceptable. It started when I was a kid and she sent me a card for my seventh birthday congratulating me on my retirement. That part of the message was crossed out, and she’d written in that I’d retired from being her favorite cousin. Mean, but funny, too. I found a condolence card for her next birthday, marked through it, and added a message that I was sad about her being so old. My mother had a fit when she found out about it, but Evelyn had enjoyed it, so we kept the tradition up over the years.”

  I tapped my phone to study the message a little closer, and I was surprised to see that the card was originally intended for someone on their hundredth birthday. Sure enough, on the face of it, Julie had written, “You don’t look a day over 99” on it.

  Julie said, “I would have loved to see her face when she read that one. It would have been priceless.”

  “I’m sure that it was,” I said.

  As I showed the image to Grace, Julie said, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have to get going. Phillip may be inheriting everything of my cousin’s, but I’m still in charge of her funeral arrangements, and if I don’t leave right now, I’m going to be late.”

  “Thanks for taking the time to chat with us,” I said, but she didn’t linger long enough to respond.

  “That was odd,” I said after she was gone and we were left standing there on her porch.

  “I don’t know. I thought it was kind of funny. Maybe we should start exchanging cards like that. It could be a real hoot.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not,” I said. “The real question is, does that make Julie look guiltier in our view, or less?”

  “About the same, I’d say,” Grace replied as we headed back to the Jeep. “I hate when we’re stalled on a case like this. After we speak with a suspect, I’d rather we clear them or believe even more that they’re guilty. Ambivalence is not going to do us any good.”

  “Unfortunately we both know that sometimes that’s how it works,” I said.

  “Hopefully we�
�ll have more luck with Violet.”

  “If not with her,” I answered, “then perhaps with Conrad.”

  “For having so many suspects, we’re not doing great eliminating many of them, are we?”

  “Not so far, but we’re not the only ones working on this, remember? Jake could be chipping away at the list even as we speak.”

  “Hey, as long as one of us is advancing this case, I’ll be happy,” Grace said. “Now, let’s go see what Violet has to say for herself.”

  “At least she and Conrad both live in Union Square,” I said as I started the Jeep. “It’s nice to be able to talk to three suspects in one trip.”

  “There’s that,” Grace said. “Maybe if there’s time later, we can get another bite at Napoli’s.”

  I glanced over at her sleek form as I said, “For someone with such a slim figure, you sure do dream about Italian food an awful lot.”

  “What can I say? I have a strong metabolism. Sometimes it can be a real curse.”

  “Feel free to share some of that with me,” I said. “I can just talk about Angelica’s restaurant and gain three pounds.”

  “We each have our strengths,” Grace said with a grin.

  “And weaknesses, as well,” I replied. “Let’s go tackle Violet and see if we can discover what her shortcomings are.”

  Chapter 19

  “Hey, Violet,” I said when she finally came to her door. I’d nearly given up hope that she was going to answer, but she finally made it. From the look of things, she’d hastily gotten dressed, though it was late afternoon. Two buttons on her blouse were undone, and her hair was disheveled. Had we just woken her up? Maybe that would play in our favor if she were still a little groggy from her nap.

  “What do you two want now? I thought we were finished talking.”

  “You might be done, but we’re not,” Grace said. “We would still love to hear where you were when Evelyn was murdered. You never told us the last time we spoke.”

  “You’re not the police. I don’t have to tell you a thing,” she said.