Deep Fried Homicide

by Jessica Beck

  “Are you that dead-set against me retiring?” he asked me softly. There was a hint of hurt in his voice as he asked the question, and I felt a little guilty for not being more supportive.

  “Of course not. If it’s what you really want, then I’ll support you a thousand percent. To be honest with you, I’d love to have you puttering around April Springs all of the time.”

  “You’d still run the donut shop, of course,” he said, and he watched me closely as he waited for me to comment.

  “I can’t imagine doing anything else,” I admitted. “I haven’t been gone all that long, but I’m still eager to get back to it.” As I said it, I realized how it might have sounded to him. “It’s nothing against you, Jake. I’m just not sure what I’d do with myself if I suddenly quit making donuts.”

  “Yeah, I wonder about that, too.” Jake yawned, and then he added, “I didn’t mean to stir up anything. I just wanted to tell you what was on my mind.”

  “Please don’t ever stop doing that,” I said as I kissed his cheek. “I’ll be your sounding board anytime.”

  “But not tonight,” he said. “I hate to do this, but I’m going to go crash again. I don’t know why I’m so exhausted.”

  “Well, if it wasn’t getting shot, maybe it was being in the hospital. Did they wake you every hour to take your temperature?”

  “No, it was always my blood pressure they were worried about,” he said with a grin. “What are you going to do if I go to sleep now?”

  “Don’t worry about me. There’s plenty for me to do around here.”

  “Then I’ll say good-night,” Jake said, and after pulling himself off the couch, he tottered into Momma’s room. I had to stop thinking of it that way, since it was clear that my mother wouldn’t be coming back to the cottage to live even after Jake was healed. I was still a bit ambivalent about that fact, but she’d done a noble thing stepping aside so that Jake would have a place to recover, even if she did have motives of her own.

  I cleaned a little more, but mostly I just straightened up. I wasn’t all that sleepy, even though it was approaching nine o’clock, well past my normal bedtime. The problem was that I wasn’t working at Donut Hearts at the moment, the real reason that I was usually able to nod off so quickly. Jake was easy to take care of, that was for sure. When he wasn’t sleeping, he was eating or resting on the couch, and none of those activities took a great deal of effort on my behalf. I was wondering if he’d be able to take a month of idleness, but even more pressing a question, could I? Without the shop, I felt a little rudderless, ready to get going, but not exactly sure where, or how.

  Finally, I made up the couch again and stretched out with a mystery novel that Momma had left behind. It was about an amateur sleuth who turned to his pet ferret for help in solving crime, an interesting enough premise, I supposed, but it couldn’t keep me awake.

  Between the fire in the hearth and the tedious prose of the writer, I was asleep before I knew it.

  At least I was until three AM the next morning.

  When Chief Martin yelled out from the front porch, I came instantly awake, wondering what exactly was going on outside my cottage at that time of night.

  Chapter 13

  “What’s going on?” I asked the chief as I hurried out of the cottage to investigate. I’d stopped long enough to grab my baseball bat, just in case. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said gruffly as he looked off into the night. Without even glancing back in my direction, he asked, “Did I wake you up?”

  “No, not really,” I lied. “What happened?”

  “I’m not quite sure,” he said, his gaze still riveted to the shadows. “I thought I saw something out there, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “Should I wake Jake up?” I asked.

  “No, let him sleep. It was probably just my imagination. This time of night, the shadows can play tricks on your eyes. That must have been what happened.” Chief Martin rubbed his hands together. “You wouldn’t happen to have any coffee in there, would you?”

  “No, but I can make a fresh pot in six minutes.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble on my account,” he said.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” I said. “I’ll be right back.” The air had a bit of a nip to it tonight. “Can I get you a blanket or anything?”

  “Thanks for offering, but if I get too comfortable, it might knock me out, and I need to stay alert; thus the coffee,” he said with a grin.

  “Coming right up, then.” I put the baseball bat down beside my chair, close enough to reach if I needed it quickly, but still out of my way.

  I walked back in to find Jake awake and standing in the doorway of the master bedroom. “What’s going on outside, Suzanne?”

  “It turned out to be a false alarm. Chief Martin thought he saw something in the shadows at first, but now he believes it was most likely just his imagination.”

  “Should I go out there anyway?” Jake asked as he plucked his revolver off the nearby dresser. He held it a little awkwardly in his left hand, and I wondered if it was all that good of an idea for him to be armed at all.

  “There’s really no need. Like I said, he’s not even sure that he saw something,” I said. “I’m making fresh coffee for us. Would you like some, too?”

  He yawned before he said, “No, I’d better not. It’ll probably just keep me up.”

  I smiled at him. “I doubt that a brass band and a fireworks display could do that.”

  “You’re probably right, but I still don’t want to risk it. Wake me up if anything happens.”

  “I promise,” I said as I headed into the kitchen and turned the coffee pot on. By the time the coffee was ready, I’d cut two slices of apple crumb pie for us, so I filled two mugs and then put everything on a tray. Before I delivered the goods, I stepped into the master bedroom far enough to hear Jake snoring softly. It was truly amazing how much and how easily that man could sleep.

  Remembering the cool night, I grabbed a blanket and threw it over my shoulders. Taking the pie and coffee outside, I asked the chief, “Mind if I join you? I’ve brought some of Momma’s apple pie, too.”

  Chief Martin grinned at me as he took my offerings. “You could have stayed without the bribe, but I appreciate the gesture. I can never get enough of your mother’s cooking and baking. Do you have any idea what goes into this topping?” he asked as he took his first bite of pie.

  “Have you asked her about it?”

  “I’ve tried, but she won’t tell me a thing,” he said with a smile. “Come on, spill. I promise that it will be our little secret.”

  I leaned forward, and then I whispered, “If you promise not to tell anyone else, there’s butter, brown sugar, flour, and another secret ingredient in the topping.”

  “I know about the main items; what I’m after is the secret.”

  I took a sip of my coffee and then I said with a wry smile, “I don’t know either. She won’t even tell me, and I’m her daughter.”

  “It would be a shame for the world to lose that if something ever happened to her,” he said softly. I liked this version of Chief Martin. He was looser, more open at night than he ever was during the day.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “She’s leaving me a sealed envelope in her will with all of her secrets.”

  “That’s going to have to be one big packet of information,” he said without thinking it through.

  “I’m telling her that you said that,” I teased him.

  “Go on. She knows me well enough to realize what I meant by it.” There was an easy tone to his response, an assuredness that told me that he and my mother had indeed developed a relationship like one I never thought I’d see her ever enjoy again.

  “On second thought, I might just let that one slide,” I said as I put my mug down and picked up the plate with my pie on it. “This is amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Your mother is an amazing woman, so why wouldn’t her apple pie be?”

&n
bsp; “You don’t have to sell me on her virtues,” I said. As I spoke, I suddenly heard something off in the woods. “What was that?”

  “Did you hear it, too?” he asked, putting his pie down and standing up.

  “It was probably nothing,” I said, trying to dismiss the sound as a normal park noise. I’d done my fair share of camping out in the park growing up, and I knew how noises that sounded so harmless during the day could be absolutely terrifying once the sun went down.

  The world of shadows could be quite a bit more ominous than the one most folks lived with in full daylight.

  “I’d still better check it out,” he said as he stepped off the porch. “Suzanne, you might want to go inside for a bit.”

  “I’m staying right here in case you need me,” I said as I held my cell phone up. “If you need help, holler.”

  “What are you going to do with that, phone someone to death?”

  I shook my head. “No, this baseball bat is my weapon of choice,” I said as I picked it up. “The phone is to call 911 after we clobber the bad guy together.”

  “I don’t mind you grabbing your weapon, but stay here, okay? I’m serious, Suzanne.”

  “I will,” I promise.

  Taking a small flashlight from his pocket, the chief pulled out his revolver and lit the way as he walked off into the darkness.

  The only thing left for me to do was to wait.

  Five minutes later, he was back, and looking a little sheepish.

  “Did you see anything out there?” I asked him.

  “There’s a raccoon over there somewhere,” he said as he pointed his flashlight in the general direction of the hanging tree. “He wasn’t all that pleased about seeing my light.”

  “I suppose that sound we heard earlier might have been a raccoon,” I said.

  “Given the circumstances, it’s natural enough if we’re both jumping at every sound we hear,” the chief replied as he sat back in his chair and picked up his coffee.

  “Would you like me to warm that up for you?” I offered.

  “No, it’s just fine the way it is.”

  “Then I’m off to bed,” I said as I grabbed my coffee cup, my empty plate, and most important of all, my baseball bat. “Thanks again for watching over us, Chief.”

  “Happy to be here,” he said.

  The only problem was that now I was wide awake, and it had nothing to do with the coffee. I should have been working in the donut shop at the moment, and while my mind knew why I was home, my body wasn’t quite so well informed. It was certainly true what they said; old habits were hard to break.

  I decided to put the time to good use, so I moved into the kitchen and got out my recipe book. When I’d first opened Donut Hearts, the journal had been my way to constantly strive to come up with new and different things to serve my customers, and it was a habit that I’d grown to enjoy. Flipping it open to a fresh page, I started jotting down notes in my typical random fashion when I was brainstorming with pen and paper.

  Make a donut that tastes like a chocolate chip cookie. Better yet, how about those cookies Momma used to make at Christmas, the ones with the peanut butter cookie base and the little dabs of melted chocolate on the top? Speaking of chocolate, how about a hot chocolate donut, with a dollop of marshmallow on top? Marshmallows and bananas might be tasty, or better yet, bananas and chocolate. How about oranges? Okay, the fruit is too runny, but those candy orange slices could be better. I know that I’ve tried using them before, but I could make them much better than they are now. Could I do a glaze using those? Yum yum. Speaking of candy, remember those little candy hearts we all used to get on Valentine’s Day? Could they work in a donut? How about an éclair with rich whipped cream inside, and a topping of crushed candy hearts? How about fillings for yeast donuts? What haven’t you tried yet? What goes good with donuts besides milk or coffee? How about a milkshake donut? How would that work? A coffee donut? Maybe a coffee chocolate donut? Why can’t I stop thinking about chocolate?

  I put my pen down and started rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. Momma liked to keep a little candy stashed away for occasions exactly like this one. No one wanted to make a run to the convenience store in the middle of the night for chocolate. At last, I found an old bag half-filled with Christmas candy tucked behind one of the spare containers of flour. Unwrapping a green foil square, I popped the chocolate into my mouth and bit down. It was still tasty, even though it was most likely past its expiration date, and the next one was even better. After I ate seven pieces, I put the bag back where I’d found it. After all, I was fairly sure that this wouldn’t be the last time I got chocolate cravings in the middle of the night.

  With my sweet tooth mollified, at least for the moment, I started working again, but this time, before I wrote anything down, I collected an odd assortment of edibles from the kitchen that might conceivably used in donuts or glazes. Powdered sugar was a given for the glaze, as was the cinnamon and the nutmeg. Momma stocked more than just vanilla in her cabinets, though. There were also small bottles of orange and strawberry extract, not to mention containers of cloves, apple and pumpkin pie blends, and even allspice. That certainly might give a donut a distinctive taste. I knew that allspice was used in savory dishes as well as sweet ones, and I wondered how it would go with a sausage and bacon donut. If I could come up with a recipe for that combination, both in the batter and the glaze, I could have a real winner on my hands. Once Jake was fully recovered, I might even let him be my taste-tester for that one.

  I decided to play with that idea a little more, but instead of staying in the kitchen, I decided to go back into the living room in case Jake woke up and needed me. It didn’t make much sense just sitting there by myself, so I stretched back out onto the couch and threw a light blanket over my legs.

  Before I knew what was happening, I was sound asleep, with dreams of flying bacon and singing sausages haunting my dreams.

  Jake was still asleep when I checked on him a little just after six AM, and the guard on the front porch had changed again. Officer Grant was out front when I looked out the window, and he grinned as he held up another box of donuts.

  I grabbed my blanket again and quietly slipped outside. “Are you stopping by Donut Hearts every morning? They’re going to think that you’re checking up on them.”

  “I am, in a way,” he said.

  “I was just kidding.”

  “The chief wasn’t. Evidently he and Inspector Hanlan had a conversation about the possibility that Rusk might come back, so we’re keeping an eye on them, too.”

  “Not that I’m complaining, but isn’t that spreading you all a little thin?”

  “Not really,” he said. “We’re all glad to do it. We’re finally back at full staff, so it’s not that bad.” He reached beside his chair and brought out another box of donuts. “I’m supposed to give these to you.”

  “What are they trying to do, get me fat?” I asked him.

  “I’ll take them off your hands if you don’t want them,” Officer Grant said with a smile.

  “If it were just me, I might take you up on your offer, but Jake would kill me if I let those donuts get away. Here, you might as well let me have them now before I change my mind.”

  Was there a hint of reluctance in his gaze as he gave me the donuts? It couldn’t be. After all, he had a smaller box of his own. “Stephen, did you already eat all of your donuts?”

  “Hey, I only got three this morning,” he said.

  “That’s more than you ever have of mine,” I reminded him.

  “Maybe so, but I need something to do here. Nothing’s happened since I relieved the chief.”

  “We heard a raccoon last night. At least that’s the theory we decided to go with after the chief investigated,” I said.

  “That’s more than I’ve heard. I’m wondering if Rusk and Heather have given up and moved on.”

  “You don’t think that they’re together, do you?” I asked. It was an unsettling thought
having two enemies band together to harm Jake and me.

  “No, of course not,” he said hurriedly. “I’m just saying, if either one of them has come by, they’ve seen the guard, and that’s just stationed on the outside. For all they know, we could have more folks posted inside.”

  “Do you think maybe we should?” I hated the idea of having people with guns walking around the rooms of the cottage. While they were positioned outside, I could pretend that it was just me and my boyfriend, but their presence inside would bring the fact home that we both might be in danger all too well.

  “No, I don’t think it’s necessary, unless it would make you feel better,” he said.

  “Then I think we should leave things just the way they are,” I said.

  “Good, not that we’d have trouble rounding up volunteers. The chief is getting offers from so many folks that he’s having a hard time sorting them all out. In the end, he figured the simpler the arrangements, the better, so we’re holding firm with the chief, George, Inspector Hanlan, and me trading off shifts.”

  “He has a first name, you know. I’m sure that he wouldn’t mind if you called him Terry.”

  “Suzanne, that’s not going to happen,” Officer Grant said as he took his last bite.

  I couldn’t resist the sad expression on his face, so I opened my box and offered it to him. “You can have one from here, but just one.”

  He started to reach in, but then he thought better of it. “No, I’d better not. I’m going to have to do two workouts after work as it is. Thanks, though.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ll see you later,” I said as I started to go back inside.

  That’s when I saw a familiar car pull up. What was Grace doing up this time of morning? This was sheer madness.

  “What are you doing here so early?” I asked her.

  She didn’t smile. “I’ve got a question for you as well. Why is there a woman standing over in those bushes watching you?”

  Officer Grant asked, “Grace, is that a joke?”