by Jessica Beck
“You never know,” I said.
“See? I told you this would work,” Sophia told her mother.
“We’ll see,” Angelica said, and then she winked at me.
Promptly at four, Angelica locked the front door, and Antonia stood by to let people out as they finished their meals. It was half an hour later before Grace and I got to eat in the kitchen with the rest of the DeAngelis women.
“That was kind of fun,” Grace said as she finished eating.
“We couldn’t have managed without you,” Angelica said.
“You would have been fine, but thanks for letting us help out,” I said as I stood. “What do we owe you for lunch?”
“One hug apiece will be sufficient,” she said as the girls all swooped in on us to give us one giant family hug. Jake would have been envious if he’d seen it, as the DeAngelis matriarch was famous for raising beautiful daughters, and I couldn’t blame him. After all, he was only human.
“Ladies, we owe you a debt of gratitude beyond words,” Angelica said as she walked us out the back door.
“We were happy to help,” I said.
“I promise you both that the next time you come, I won’t make either one of you work,” she said with a grin.
Once we were out of earshot of her daughters, I said, “Admit it, Angelica, you had fun.”
“Of course I did,” she said with a smile. “I’m the luckiest woman alive, working with my family at something I love doing. Safe journeys,” she said as she added one last bonus hug for each of us.
Grace settled in beside me as we drove back to April Springs. “Wow, I don’t know how they do that day in and day out. I just worked a few hours and I’m ready to drop. I can’t imagine how you must feel, since you already put in a full shift at the donut shop.”
“That was work,” I said. “Napoli’s was fun. I love that we were able to lend a hand.”
“So do I, but we still haven’t made much progress on our case.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I say we take it back up tomorrow after I close the donut shop for the day. I’m kind of beat myself.”
“What are you and Jake going to have for dinner?” she asked.
“I’ll make eggs for him,” I said, “but I couldn’t eat another bite. In fact, I’m going to go home, take a hot soak in the tub, and go to bed early tonight.”
“I might do the same thing myself,” she told me, and then we both started laughing. I loved having a best friend like Grace. She was always up for anything, and I knew that I could count on her, no matter what. We’d had fun, we’d helped a friend, and we’d still managed to eat some of the best food our area had to offer. I’d say that was a pretty good time, even if we hadn’t advanced our case any.
Hopefully Jake had had more luck than we had.
“Let me get this straight. They all hugged you at once?” Jake asked later that night after I recounted my day’s activities with him in front of the fireplace.
“I knew that would be the part you’d envy,” I said with a grin. “Not that I blame you. It was a bit overwhelming being surrounded by that much beauty.”
“I’m sure that you more than held your own,” Jake said with a smile.
“Thank you, but we both know you’re lying,” I answered with a grin of my own.
“Suzanne, I wouldn’t trade the whole clan for one of you, and that’s the unvarnished truth,” he said.
“You know what? I actually believe you.”
“Why wouldn’t you? I’m an officer of the law, committed to the truth, justice, and the American way.”
“I thought that was Superman.”
“It works just as well for me,” he said, stretching out a little as he stifled a yawn. The poor thing was as beat as I was.
“Speaking of the law, did you make any more progress today than we managed to?”
“It’s still hard to say,” Jake replied. “You know how it goes. I plod along until I find something interesting that helps, but until then, I’m just gathering random facts.”
“That is the biggest understatement about what you do that I’ve ever heard,” I said. “You, sir, are a trained detective, outstanding in your field.”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But if that were the case, why are small-town murders so much harder to solve than the cases I used to get when I was with the state police?”
“Could it be because back then, you didn’t know any of your suspects? You’d come into a case with fresh eyes and see what didn’t fit. Now that you’re in one place all of the time, your thinking process has to be influenced by the fact that you know a great many of these people.”
“You might be right,” Jake said. “I don’t think I gave Phillip enough credit when he had this job.”
“Neither did I, but we can’t tell him that now.”
“Why not?”
“Jake, I’m not sure the man’s ego could handle it. He’s just now settling into someone I don’t mind being around. If we puff him up any, he might go back to his old ways.”
“You like him, don’t you?”
“I’m beginning to,” I admitted, “but if you tell him I said that, I’ll just deny it.”
Jake laughed as it was my turn to yawn. “You look beat. Shouldn’t you be off to get some sleep?”
“I need to, but I hate leaving you out here all alone.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be there soon enough.”
After he kissed me good night, I decided that I’d give it five minutes. If he didn’t make it in by then, I’d get up and rejoin him out on the couch, no matter how much my body might protest the move.
The only problem was that I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
I woke up more on instinct than anything else, watching my alarm go off just as I opened my eyes.
The bed beside me was empty, though. Had Jake already left, even given the hour?
He was still on the couch, snoring softly. The poor dear hadn’t even made it to the bedroom. I covered him with a throw, kissed his forehead, and then left for work. I had a busy day ahead of me between Donut Hearts and my investigation, and I knew that I had to get cracking. I just didn’t realize how sore I’d be after basically pulling two shifts yesterday, one at the donut shop and the other at Napoli’s. I couldn’t do that very often, but I was still happy that Grace and I had pitched in.
As I drove down the short section of Springs Drive between the cottage I shared with Jake and Donut Hearts, I marveled about how many good friends I’d accumulated over the years. I wasn’t rich in terms of my finances, and Jake and I would be working until we were old and gray based on what we currently made, but I wouldn’t have traded my life for that of the richest person in the world, not if it meant giving up the people I knew and loved. It was being wealthy in a way that meant more to me than any bank account, and I felt blessed just to be able to live the life I led.
As I walked into the donut shop, flipping on lights and the fryer in the kitchen, I started on the donuts for another day. Emma wouldn’t be in for a while, and as I settled into my morning solitary routine, I let part of my mind wonder about why someone had murdered Harley Boggess. We’d certainly found enough folks that had their reasons, at least in their own minds. Sorting them out to find the guilty one was the problem. I wished that I had some litmus test to use, but if there was anything in this case that might act as one, I didn’t know what it might be. As always, the motive had to be the key. Either Curtis or Wendy could have done it because of greed, Nathaniel could have been motivated by power, while Amber and Megan could have done it because of their hearts. Who would have guessed that there would be so many reasons to kill the man? As I worked on the cake donuts, I decided that we needed more information before we tackled our suspects again. I had a feeling that we’d gotten as much as we could out of them base
d on questioning alone.
It was time to sniff around the edges of Harley’s life to see if there was something that Jake and everyone else had been missing.
I just wasn’t sure how to go about it, at least not yet, but I had faith in my group. After all, we’d managed to find killers before. That confidence made me believe that we could do it this time as well.
Chapter 19
“Do you have any of them raspberry-filled donuts?” a young girl asked me as she looked over my donut stock a few hours after we’d opened for the day. She was too young to be in grade school, and apparently her mother had brought her into the shop just to get her out of the house. After a bit, I understood why she might crave some adult contact, but I didn’t know it at that moment. What was odd was that they hadn’t approached the counter together; instead, the mother hovered nearby, no doubt trying to give her daughter a little sense of independence.
“Sorry, we didn’t make any of those today. We have lemon filled,” I offered.
“How about strawberry?” she asked with a frown.
“There’s cherry. Is that close enough?”
“No,” she said. After frowning at the case again, she turned to her mother. “They don’t have no raspberry, or no strawberry, either,” she said. “This place stinks. Can we go somewhere else?”
The little lady’s charm had suddenly worn off on me. “Let me know when you decide,” I said as I wiped down the counter.
“Heather, just pick one,” her mother said as she approached us, and then, as an aside to me, she added, “Sorry about that. Heather always has been precocious.”
“No worries,” I said, though I could think of a few other words that might describe her more aptly. “I’m just sorry she caught me on a day where raspberry and strawberry were both off the menu. I like to rotate my filled donuts so my customers don’t get bored with my offerings. How about custard?”
“Where are the Santa donuts?” the little girl asked me with a deepening frown.
“We stop selling those after Christmas,” I explained.
“Why would you do that?” she asked pointedly.
“Well, Santa needs his rest after what he’s been through.”
Her lip curled a little. “I don’t care anymore. Just give me a plain one.”
“It would be my pleasure,” I said as I grabbed her a plain old-fashioned cake donut and put it on a plate.
“Not that kind,” she said, nearly wailing about my incompetence. “The kind with icing on it.”
“You want a raised donut, then,” I said, swapping out the cake for a yeast one. “Would you care for anything to drink?”
“Do you have Kool-Aid?” she asked me.
“No, but we have some nice hot cocoa you might like.”
“Forget it,” she said as she shoved a handful of sticky change toward me. The reason I knew that it was sticky was because it clung to the counter as though it had been coated with glue. That would have probably been preferable to what it was really covered in.
“Isn’t she such a fine little lady? She earned that money herself by picking up her toys without having to be asked more than three times,” Heather’s mother explained as her daughter inhaled the donut I’d just put before her.
“How nice,” I said.
“Do I get any change back?” the little pain demanded.
I looked down at the money and saw that she was actually eleven cents short, but I wasn’t about to tell the little princess that. “No, we’re good.”
After her donut was gone, Heather looked at her mother. “I thought it would be better than that. Can we go now?”
At least her mom had the decency to usher her out of there before I had a complete meltdown. I understood that the little girl was just a child, but had manners gone completely out of fashion? I felt like Grandma Hart as I took a clean dishtowel and gathered the change up as best I could. Emma came out of the kitchen with a grin on her face.
“Did you hear that?” I asked.
“I did,” she said. “Wow, I can’t believe how well you handled her.”
“What can I say? I’m a people person. Here,” I said as I thrust the towel at her. “Why don’t you clean this money, and then we can put it in the till.”
Emma opened the towel and looked inside. “This is disgusting,” she said.
“Tell me about it. I’m not sure that counter will ever get clean enough for me again.” I got out some strong cleaner and went to work on it, and soon enough, it was back to its pristine condition, though every time I glanced at that spot, I saw the goo-covered coins there in my mind.
The rest of my morning was fairly uneventful. We had a steady stream of customers come by, but none of our suspects made an appearance, and really, why would they? None of our last conversations had gone all that well, and I couldn’t imagine any of them seeking me out for more of the same. What I needed was a new source of information, and there was only one untapped one I could think of. After I closed Donut Hearts for the day, I was going to have to go pay a visit to Gabby Williams.
It turned out that I didn’t have to do that after all. Twenty minutes before closing time, she came to me instead.
“Suzanne, why haven’t I seen you lately?”
“Hello, Gabby. As a matter of fact, I came by to see you earlier, but you were closed.”
“What can I say? I felt like getting out of town,” she said. “Sometimes a drive can do wonders. What were you trying to see me about?”
She knew the purpose of my visit, and what’s more, I knew that she knew that I’d been coming to her for information about Harley Boggess. I suddenly got very stubborn at the thought that she was holding it over me now, and I vowed not to ask her for help if the case’s solution itself depended on it. “I wanted to see if you had any new blouses in that fit me. Jake’s been talking about taking me to Charlotte for a night out next weekend.”
“Sorry, I’m not sure I have anything in your size that would look good on you,” she said almost automatically.
If she was expecting to get a rise out of me, I planned to disappoint her. “Thanks for coming by, then. You just saved me a trip.”
She looked flustered at my cavalier handling of her rebuff, and it was clear that Gabby didn’t know quite what to do next.
“May I interest you in any donuts?” I asked as sweetly as I could manage.
“No, you know I don’t care for them any more, not since that incident we had.” Gabby had experienced a bad encounter with a customer with a grudge once who’d peppered her place with pastry, and she’d never forgiven me for selling them to him in the first place.
“Then you have yourself a nice day,” I said, and then I just stood there, smiling at her like an idiot.
She had no choice, really; Gabby decided to leave before things got even more confusing. I relished my small victory for a moment, and then I realized that I’d only punished myself by my mischievous behavior. Gabby could have witnessed the murder herself, but she wouldn’t tell me about it now. I’d have to find a way to apologize for my rashness and try to get on her good side again, if I’d ever in fact been on it in the first place.
I heard from Grace ten minutes before I was due to close. “Suzanne, I’m going to be late,” she said.
“Problems at work?”
“I suppose you could say that. No good deed goes unpunished, you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“My rep with the excess suitors included me in her problem,” Grace said. “It turns out that the one she ended up rejecting wants my head on a platter, and I’ve got to go calm him down before he does something stupid.”
“Would you like me to go with you?” I asked. “It might not be safe for you to see him alone.”
“I’ve already thought of that. Jake is giving Stephen enough time off to go with me. Ordin
arily I’d handle this on my own, but I’ve got a cop for a boyfriend, so why wouldn’t I use his help if he offered it?”
“I think you’d be foolish to turn him down,” I said. “Let me know how it goes.”
“I will, but it might be a while,” she said.
“That’s fine. Momma and I will carry on without you as best we can.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. I hate missing all of the action.”
“Grace, at this point, I don’t think there’s any action to miss. See you later.”
“I’ll call you when I get back home,” she said. I hoped that this experience didn’t put Grace off helping others. Of the two of us, I was the busybody of the pair. I couldn’t help myself. If I saw someone going astray, how could I not say something? Come to think of it, that was one of my biggest complaints with my mother, butting in where her advice hadn’t been sought in the first place. I didn’t care to think about how far my apple had fallen from her tree, so I set about getting ready to close up shop for the day.
Momma came in just as I finished my deposit slip and zipped the bag shut. Emma had already headed out, since she had an early class to catch. As for me, I was ready for some action.
“Suzanne, I’m afraid I won’t be able to join you this afternoon in your sleuthing,” she said.
“What do you mean? You’re right here,” I said.
“Alas, not for long. I have a meeting I cannot avoid any longer. If things work out in my favor, which I’m going to do my utmost to ensure happens, I could make a substantial profit from the deal.”
“Momma, why do you work so hard? You’re already so rich you couldn’t spend it all in three lifetimes, and if you’re worrying about leaving anything to me, I’m pretty happy with the way things are right now.”
“Suzanne, I don’t do it for the money. It’s fun,” she said.
“If you say so. I’d rather make donuts myself.”
