Drop Dead Chocolate: A Donut Shop Mystery

by Jessica Beck

  “For new glass? No, ma’am, I’d be happy to,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “No need, Suzanne. If you don’t mind, I’m going to stay until I’m sure they live up to their word.”

  “Be my guest. Would you like some coffee or a donut while you wait?”

  “Coffee would be great, and maybe one of those donut holes as well.”

  The glazier did better than he promised, and two minutes before we were set to close, he walked in. After studying the plywood in place of the glass, he asked, “Who did this?”

  “The chief of police,” I answered, and Momma looked at me quizzically, the surprise clear on her face. “Phillip fixed this for you?” she asked.

  “He was off duty and he volunteered,” I admitted. “You don’t mind, do you?”

  “Mind? Of course not. I’ll have to thank him for it.”

  “I already did, but I’m sure he’d like it better coming from you,” I said with a slight smile.

  Emma came out to dispel any reply Momma might have made, something I was grateful for. “The back’s clean, so I’m ready to take care of the racks up here,” she said. “Hello, Mrs. Hart,” she added when she saw my mother. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  “Hello, Emma.” Momma looked closely at her, and then asked, “Have you been crying, child?”

  “Crying? No, of course not,” Emma said. “Why would I have any reason to cry?” She grabbed the racks and hurried back to the kitchen without even boxing the remaining donuts first.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Momma asked as the glazier began removing the plywood.

  “She’s leaving,” I said.

  “You fired her?” Momma asked, incredulous.

  “I would never do that. She turned in her notice; she’s finally going off to college.” As the plywood came down, I suddenly realized just how dark it had been in the shop. I needed that window, and was happy that Momma had pulled some strings to make it happen sooner rather than later.

  “Good for her,” Momma answered. She was a firm believer in education, as was I. Momma patted my shoulder and said, “I’m sure you’ll find a suitable replacement.”

  “I wish I were as certain,” I said.

  “Suzanne, I know how special Emma is to you, but you have to let her go. You might as well make her remaining days here as pleasant as possible. You want her to always remember Donut Hearts with fond memories, and what you do for the rest of her time here is crucial for that.”

  As usual, my mother made a good point. “I’d pretty much come to that conclusion myself earlier,” I said.

  “I’m not at all surprised,” she answered. “You always were savvy when it came to dealing with people.” Momma’s cell phone rang, and she stepped outside to take it, though she knew she was welcome to take it there. I wondered what she might be hiding, but I knew better than to ask her to stay.

  Once she was outside, the glazier turned to me and asked me, “I’m just curious, but what do you do with the donuts you don’t sell at the end of the day?”

  “We usually donate them somewhere,” I said.

  He looked disappointed, so I added quickly, “But the soup kitchen is overflowing with them at the moment, so I’m sure they’d appreciate a break. Would you like some?”

  “I’d be happy to pay full price for them,” he quickly said. “I just got pulled away from my lunch to do this job, and I’m going to be jammed for time the rest of the day, so the chances aren’t good for me eating anything.”

  I suddenly felt bad about Momma throwing her weight around just so I could have my window back. “Tell you what. I’ll throw in half a dozen donuts and a large mug of coffee as my gratitude for your prompt service. How does that sound?”

  “Like my wife’s going to kill me.”

  “She doesn’t let you have donuts?” I asked.

  “Not six at a time she doesn’t,” he grinned.

  I went into the kitchen and found Emma finishing up the last rack. “I’ll take off now, if you don’t mind.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said as I got a plate and put the donuts on it.

  She started for the door, and then paused. “Suzanne, this was the hardest decision I ever had to make in my life. You know that, don’t you?”

  I put the plate down and hugged her. “Emma, you deserve a chance to live your dreams. I’m proud of you.”

  After a minute she pulled away. “Then we’re good?”

  “As gold,” I said.

  She clearly felt better as she walked out of the kitchen, and truth be told, so did I. I hated for there to be any tension between us. Our time together ought to end the way we’d spent it, with friendship and laughter.

  I got back out to the kitchen and handed the glazier the donuts, stopping to pour his coffee along the way.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Can I get these to go? I’ll be back in an hour with a helper.”

  “You don’t have the glass with you?” I asked, disappointed.

  “No, I have to go back to the store and cut it. Don’t worry, you’ll be set before one.” I meant to ask him to reinstall the plywood before he left, but I was so surprised by his sudden departure that I didn’t think of it until he was already gone.

  I looked outside for Momma after the glazier left, but she must have already left, too. Was that mysterious phone call related to Cam’s murder, or did it involve something else entirely? Either way, I’d have to wait until later to find out.

  I ran my cash register report, balanced the till, made out the deposit slip, and still had forty minutes left to wait. I couldn’t just leave Donut Hearts open and vulnerable like that.

  Soon enough, though, that’s exactly what I wished I’d done when an unfriendly face popped into my open window.

  OLDIE GOLDIES

  This is an old-time drop-donut recipe for frying in oil. I like canola oil, but peanut oil can be used as well. The taste of this recipe is a little too subtle for most palettes, but the folks who love them swear by them. Truth be told, I don’t make them that often, but when I do, for some odd reason it’s usually raining outside and a little cold. Not the greatest donuts in the world, but certainly not the worst ones I’ve ever made, either.

  INGREDIENTS

  Wet

  • 1 egg, beaten slightly

  • ½ cup granulated white sugar

  • ½ cup sour cream

  • ½ cup buttermilk

  Dry

  • 1¼ to 2 cups all-purpose flour (I prefer unbleached, but bleached is fine, and so is bread flour); enough to stiffen the dough

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • ½ teaspoon cinnamon

  • ½ teaspoon nutmeg

  • A dash of salt

  • Enough canola oil to fry donuts

  DIRECTIONS

  Heat canola oil to 360 degrees while you mix the batter.

  Combine the dry ingredients (1 cup flour to start, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt) in a bowl and sift together. In another bowl, combine the wet ingredients (beaten egg, sugar, sour cream, and buttermilk). Slowly add the wet mix to the dry mix, stirring until it’s incorporated. Don’t overmix.

  Take a teaspoon worth of batter and rake it into the fryer with another spoon. If the dough doesn’t rise soon, gently nudge it with a chopstick, being careful not to splatter oil. After two minutes, check, and then flip, frying for another minute on the other side. These times may vary given too many factors to count, so keep a close eye on them. Drain and top with powdered sugar if desired.

  Makes about a dozen small donuts

  CHAPTER 14

  “What happened, Suzanne? Doing a little remodeling?”

  “Hello, Max. What’s going on?” He had flowers in his hand, and my ex was wearing his best suit. Oh, no. Was this idiot actually trying to win me over again? “Please tell me that those aren’t for me.”

  My ex-husband looked at me as though I’d just lost my mind. “Sorry, but no.”

 
I laughed out loud, maybe a little too long. “Trust me, I’m relieved, not disappointed. Who are they for?”

  “Emily,” he said.

  “You’re not, Max. She’s through with you. She told me so herself.” Emily Hargraves ran a newsstand in town called Two Cows and a Moose, a place I loved to visit. It was named after three childhood stuffed animals which Emily liked to dress up for special holidays in costumes she made herself. At first I thought it was a bad idea, but Emily claimed that it brought in unbelievable business, and I didn’t doubt it. Cow, Spots, and Moose presided over the place from a shelf above the cash register, and they must have more than pulled their own weight bringing customers into her shop.

  “I refuse to accept that she’s truly finished with me,” he said.

  “You’re setting yourself up for failure, Max, you know that, don’t you?”

  He shook his head with a determination I hadn’t seen all that often. “I have love on my side. There’s no way I can fail.”

  After he was gone, I immediately called Emily. “You might want to lock your door, pull the blinds, and turn off all of your lights.”

  “I’m game, but would you mind telling me why? What happened?”

  “I just saw Max walking toward your newsstand. He was wearing his best suit, and he had roses.”

  “For me?” she asked incredulously. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “That’s what I told him,” I said. “Anyway, I just thought you might like a heads-up. You should sic Spots on him.”

  Emily laughed. “Max wouldn’t stand a chance if I did that. He’s ferocious when it comes to defending me. Don’t worry, I can handle him myself.”

  After we hung up, I realized that she was right. Though Emily had fallen under my ex-husband’s spell once, I had a feeling that it wasn’t going to happen again.

  * * *

  Soon enough, the glazier and his assistant were back, and the window was quickly put in place. “Sorry I can’t do anything about the lettering,” he said as he handed me his bill.

  “I’ll take care of it myself,” I assured him, looking at the large number at the bottom of the invoice. I’d have to sell a lot of donuts to replace that glass, but it was still better than turning it over to my insurance company.

  It just gave me one more reason to track the killer down and make him pay for what he’d done.

  * * *

  I called Grace as soon as I was free, but her phone was busy, and she didn’t use her call waiting to see what I wanted. I wasn’t sure if she was dealing with another crisis at work or if she was talking to Peter, but I didn’t want to keep investigating without her. It was nice out, so I left the Jeep at the donut shop and walked over to her place.

  Her car was in the driveway, but she didn’t answer the door after three rings. Whatever it was must have been important. I sat on one of the chairs on her front porch, trying to decide if I should wait, or go on and talk to Evelyn on my own. The police chief’s ex-wife was on the outs with everyone I knew, so I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to push her again myself. Since there was no way I could know how long Grace was going to be, I decided to tackle Evelyn alone.

  I was on the sidewalk, heading back to the shop, when Grace’s door flew open.

  “Sorry about that,” she said as she beckoned me to join her.

  “I was worried about you,” I said, and then I noticed that her eyes were red, and it was pretty clear that she’d been crying. “Grace, what happened? Is everything all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said as she dabbed at her nose with a tissue. “It’s all good.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  She looked at me a second, took in a deep breath, and then blew it out. “It’s nothing. Peter and I had a little spat, that’s all. It happens to every couple now and then, right?”

  “I suppose so,” I said.

  She studied me for a moment, and then asked, “You and Jake fight, don’t you?”

  I thought about my relationship with Jake, and I knew that the question was more complicated to answer than it might seem to Grace. I wasn’t exactly sure what Jake and I did when we disagreed could be called fighting, certainly not compared to my stormy relationship with Max during our marriage. “Every couple have to find their own way,” I said.

  “That’s not much of an answer, is it?”

  “I know, but everyone’s different. Listen, if you want to skip sleuthing with me today, that’s not a problem at all. I don’t mind a little digging on my own.”

  She shook her head. “The last thing I need right now is time alone. I’ll be okay. Just give me a minute to get ready. Do you want to come inside?”

  “No, thanks. I’ve been cooped up in the shop all morning. I think I’ll stay out on the porch, if it’s okay with you.”

  “That’s fine. See you in a jiff.”

  As Grace went inside, I had to wonder what Peter had said to upset her so much. Grace wasn’t usually so emotional, at least not outwardly. I knew that couples disagreed, but I hated seeing Grace torn up like that. As tough as it was minding my own business, Grace knew that I was there for her if she wanted to talk. Until she said something to me, though, I was going to do my best to stay out of her love life. After all, I’d asked her to stay out of mine.

  She came out a few minutes later, all signs that she’d been crying now gone. Grace was in the cosmetics business, after all, and she was a whiz at using their products to mask and conceal her pain.

  Unfortunately, I knew that, like beauty, it was only skin-deep.

  “Where are we off to?” she asked, her voice laced with more cheerfulness than I knew she felt.

  “It’s time to go after Evelyn with our guns blazing,” I said. “Since no one seems to be able to get through to her, I think it’s time for a direct confrontation.”

  “That might be dangerous, given the woman’s attitude toward you,” Grace said as we got into her car.

  “Maybe, but I don’t have any better ideas, do you?”

  She shook her head as she drove to Evelyn’s. “So, it’s going to be bad cop/bad cop again today.”

  “I don’t see how else we can handle it.”

  We got to Evelyn’s place and parked out in the street. As we walked up the path, I looked over to the right when something caught my eye. There was a line of old brick pavers there, laid out in a grid that must have acted as a patio of some sort at one time, but that wasn’t the first thing I noticed.

  The bricks looked suspiciously like the one that had been thrown through my window; worse yet, one was missing from the grid, as clear as a cheerleader missing her front tooth.

  “Look over there,” I told Grace as I put a hand on her arm.

  She glanced over and said, “Not a great place to entertain, is it?”

  That’s when I remembered that Grace hadn’t seen the brick that had been thrown through my window. As soon as I brought her up to date, she said, “Surely Evelyn isn’t stupid enough to use one of her own bricks to threaten you.”

  “What if she’s trying to be cagey? Would anyone, even the police, think she was that dumb? I’m guessing it might just be a ploy to keep the suspicion away from her.”

  Grace frowned. “Do you see Evelyn acting that subtly? I have a hard time believing she thought it out, if she was the one who broke your front window.”

  “I don’t know one way or the other, but I’m going to ask her the second I see her.” Then I had a sudden thought. “Hang on a second.”

  I walked over and pried up another brick, brushed the dirt off of it, and then looked at Grace. “Let’s go.”

  “You’re not going to retaliate, are you?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking,” I said.

  I walked up, with Grace on my heels, and rang the doorbell. I was counting on Evelyn not noticing us outside before. If she had been watching me when I took the brick, my bluff wasn’t going to work.

  She answered the door with an angry expression. “What do you
two want?”

  I didn’t have to feign anger as I said, “I just wanted to bring your brick back to you. You left it inside my donut shop this morning.”

  I watched her face, but she looked honestly surprised by my accusation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You tossed this through my window and told me to butt out. Did you honestly think I wasn’t going to know that you’re the one who did it?”

  Evelyn’s bewilderment just seemed to increase. “Suzanne Hart, have you lost your mind? I never did any such thing.”

  I pointed to the patio. “Funny, but it’s a perfect match to the ones you have left.”

  “Anyone could have taken a brick from there. They aren’t exactly under lock and key, are they?”

  “Then you’re denying it?” I asked, trying to make my voice sound as disbelieving as I could.

  “Of course I am. Why would I do such a thing?”

  “To warn me to stop what I’m doing,” I said. “Trust me, it’s not going to work.”

  “Stop doing what, exactly? Making donuts?”

  “We’re not fools,” Grace said, chiming in. “You know we’re investigating Cam’s murder, and you must be afraid that we’re getting too close to the truth if you feel as though you have to threaten Suzanne’s donut shop like that.”

  Evelyn held her hands up as though she were trying to slow us down. “Hang on a second. I thought this happened at your cottage.”

  I couldn’t believe it, but I found myself beginning to think that she hadn’t done it after all. “It was at my donut shop, and you know it.”

  “I know no such thing. I didn’t do it,” Evelyn said.

  “Then help us figure out who did,” I answered. “The only thing you have to lose is being a suspect in Cam’s murder.”

  “I don’t care what people think,” she said flatly.

  “Not even when you’re suddenly a candidate for his old job? Or are you going to drop out now that Cam is gone? Have you decided to let my mother have the job without a fight?”

  “Don’t believe that for one second. When the truth finally comes out, I’m going to crush her,” Evelyn said.