Tragic Toppings

by Jessica Beck

  I looked around the shop, and realized that no matter how much he was offering, I knew I could never give up Donut Hearts, and what it had come to mean to me.

  “Thanks, but no, thank you. This is home for me now.”

  The stranger shrugged, and as he moved on, I called out, “Next.”

  If nothing else, the newspaper misprint made for an exciting morning for us.

  * * *

  An hour later, Emily Hargraves came into the shop pushing a child’s stroller. I was about to ask her whose kid she was babysitting when I saw that she had Cow, Spots, and Moose safely buckled into the stroller together. All three of them were wearing sunglasses and brightly colored caps, and I had to admit, they looked rather dapper sitting there.

  I couldn’t hide my grin when I saw them. “Taking the guys out for a walk?”

  She nodded. “I felt that I owed them at least that after leaving them unprotected and unguarded yesterday.”

  I laughed out loud. “You know, there are some folks in town who think you’ve lost your mind. I don’t mean me, but you know how people around here talk.”

  Emily smiled broadly at me. “Are you kidding? Sometimes I think I’ve slipped over the edge myself, but I’m not about to apologize to anyone. It’s fun, and if they don’t get it, then they don’t get me.” She looked down at the stroller and asked, “Right, guys?”

  I swear, for a split second, I waited for one of them to answer. Who did that make the craziest one of us? Emily looked at the cases behind me, now nearly empty, even with the double batch of donuts we’d made that morning.

  “I’m sorry there aren’t many left,” I said. “It’s been a big day.”

  “I heard about the misprint. How bad a hit are you going to take?” It wasn’t the first time I’d been asked that question, each time by another small-business owner. They knew, better than anyone else, how razor-thin profit margins could be when you owned your own place.

  “I don’t even want to think about it yet,” I answered. “We’ll do a rough count when we close, which, judging by this display case, will be after the next few customers. I take it you want our day’s special.”

  As I started to get her coffee, she shook her head and said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d like one coffee, one donut, and one favor.”

  I turned around and handed her the cup. “A favor?”

  She lowered her voice and moved the stroller aside so she could get closer to me. “Suzanne, I need you to find out what happened to Uncle Tim.” There were tears in her eyes as she spoke, and her voice quivered a little.

  “I’m not really qualified,” I answered. I’d been debating the same course of action no matter how many promises I made to myself to butt out, but as much as I wanted to walk away from the murder case, I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to do it.

  “Come on. You’ve done it before, Suzanne. I know the police chief can follow up on all of the ordinary leads, but you’ve got a knack for looking at things from a different angle than he can.” She looked frustrated as she continued, “I can’t let this go unpunished, but I don’t know what to do. Please don’t say no to me.” She reached into the stroller, and for a second I thought she was going to pull Spots out, but instead, she grabbed an envelope she’d stored there. “He’s my watch cow,” she explained as she nudged Spots back into his position. Emily held the envelope for a moment, and then slid it across the counter to me. “Take it.”

  I did as she asked, opened it, and found it was stuffed with twenties, tens, and fives.

  I waved the envelope at her and asked, “What is this for?”

  “I’m willing to pay you for your help,” she said. “It’s that important to me.”

  I pushed the envelope back into her hands. “You know that I can’t take your money.”

  She looked forlorn. “Does that mean you won’t help? I don’t know where else to turn.” She hesitated a moment, and then asked, “It’s because of Max, isn’t it? That’s over, I promise you.”

  There. It was finally out in the open, and now we could deal with it. “Emily, you don’t have to explain to me how impulsive Max can make you feel; I know better than most. Trust me, you don’t owe me any explanations.”

  “Then why won’t you help?”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said as I patted her hand. “But I won’t take a dime of your money. Friends don’t do that. I can’t promise you anything concrete, but I’ll do my best.”

  The relief on her face was obvious. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  I wasn’t sure just how much I’d be able to accomplish, but if I could give Emily some peace of mind by trying to help her, I wasn’t about to deny her that.

  She started to go when I said, “Hang on a second. You’ve still got a donut coming to you.”

  “Thanks, but just the coffee is fine.”

  The next two customers took care of the last bit of inventory I had left, and it was barely past ten-thirty. It looked like Donut Hearts was about to set a new record, not for actual sales, but for depleting our inventory in amazing time.

  “It’s closing time,” I announced to the customers remaining in the shop. “Thank you all for coming.”

  “But you’ve got another hour and a half to stay open,” Maggie Brentwood said as she looked at the hours posted on my door.

  “We would, but there’s just one problem. There’s nothing left to sell,” I replied. “The donuts are gone, and the coffee’s nearly had it, too. I hope you all enjoyed your donuts and coffee today.”

  To my surprise, the ten customers left in the shop all started applauding, and I was glad we’d honored the ad, even if it may have cost us a day’s sales.

  Emma heard my announcement from the kitchen, and as I showed the last customer out and locked the door, she came up behind me. “Suzanne, I’ve been thinking about this all morning, and I hope you respect my request. I want to forfeit my pay today because of my mistake. It may help the bottom line, at least a little.”

  I smiled at her and hugged her. “Emma, there’s no way that’s happening. We both worked harder today than we ever have here. If anything, we both deserve bonuses.”

  She pulled away, but couldn’t meet my gaze. “How bad was it?”

  I thought about it, and then said, “In all honesty, I’m not sure, but even if we lost a lot, the PR had to be amazing. I can’t imagine folks not talking about this day for quite a while.”

  She wasn’t going to let me get away with that, though. “Suzanne, quit dodging the question. I know you keep pretty close tabs on what things cost, so you have to have a decent idea of what we spent today.”

  I couldn’t deny it. I’d learned early on to be aware of my expenses, so I could probably have guessed within a few dollars how many supplies we’d used catering to the crowds we’d faced today. “I told you before; it doesn’t matter, as long as we’re careful the next time we run an ad.”

  She looked at me as though she didn’t believe it. “Do you mean that there’s actually going to be a next time?”

  I hugged her, and then said, “Of course there is. I would like to see the ad before it’s approved, though, the next time, if you don’t mind.” I didn’t think there was a chance in a million that she wouldn’t be ultracareful when we ran another ad, but I’d feel better knowing that if we made another mistake, both of us would share the blame equally.

  “Consider it done,” she said. “You know, I was thinking about a Hawaiian theme next time. You can do some kind of pineapple-coconut combo donut, and the Kona coffees are awesome. We can even decorate the place and give away plastic leis with every purchase.”

  “Why not? It sounds like fun. Tell you what, since we’re both dying to know how we did today, why don’t you finish the last dishes, and I’ll run the reports.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  As Emma disappeared in back, I moved to the register and started punching in the report keys.

  It was time to see how bad a hit we took.


  CHAPTER 6

  I ran the report on the cash register, and then checked the cash against the totals I’d gotten. The two numbers weren’t even close, and I didn’t have any idea how I was going to reconcile them. I’d had many people tell me to keep the change over the course of the morning, and I’d kept the money in the till without really worrying about accounting for it. I did a rough estimate of what our costs were for the day on the back of a donut bag, and then subtracted that amount from our total take.

  I called Emma back up front so I could tell her where we stood.

  She joined me with a bright smile on her face, but that quickly faded when she saw the report in my hands.

  “How bad was it?”

  “They don’t come anywhere close to adding up,” I said.

  She looked shocked by the news. “What happened? Did I mess up again?”

  I shook my head. “We both know that you never touched the register, so if any mistakes were made up here, they were all mine. I lost track of how many people told me to keep the change, we were so busy this morning.”

  “Where do we stand?” It was clear that the suspense was killing her.

  “Two hundred and ten dollars,” I said solemnly.

  She was shattered. “That’s all we brought in for everything we sold today? It’s even worse than I thought it would be. I’m so sorry.”

  I couldn’t hide my smile any longer. “Are you? Considering everything, I think that’s a wonderful profit for today.”

  Emma couldn’t believe it. “We actually made money? How is that possible?”

  “It appears that a lot more people overpaid and told me to keep the change than I realized. Don’t forget, I also charged a few folks who tried to take advantage of us with our special, and we sold other things as well in the course of the day. All in all, I think we should be happy with what we took in.”

  “Does that total even count the tip jar?” Emma asked.

  We’d put one in a few months before after getting a few requests, and despite Emma’s protests, I usually managed to convince her to put whatever was there into her college fund. “Honestly, I’d forgotten all about it,” I said.

  “That counts, too,” she said. “It goes in the pot.”

  “That’s for your college expenses,” I said.

  “Suzanne, are you really going to fight me on that today after what I did?”

  I thought about it, and then realized that she was right. While it’s true we all make mistakes, it’s also important that we pay for them. How else can we learn from them otherwise?

  “I give up. Just for today, we’ll put it with the rest of the cash. Count it out for me, would you?”

  She did, and then proudly announced, “There’s almost a hundred dollars in there.”

  “Then we had a banner day,” I said. How was that possible? There was only one way it could have happened; it was purely through the generosity of our customers and friends. Without them, Donut Hearts would be just another place to grab a donut and run.

  As I made out our deposit slip, Emma said, “I may be crazy, but I’ve got a question for you. Should we do the same thing next time?”

  I had to smile at her audacity. “Buy one, get eleven free? Don’t kid yourself. We were lucky this time. It could have been a disaster.”

  “I’m just happy it worked out,” she said.

  “So am I.”

  * * *

  I sent Emma on her way as soon as the dishes were finished and the front was swept and cleaned. I’d tried to help a little, but she’d insisted on doing it all as additional penance, and I wasn’t going to fight her on it. If it was a normal day, I’d wonder what to do with myself that early, but I’d made a promise to Emily Hargraves, and I wasn’t about to break it. I’d do my best to find out what had happened to Tim, but I couldn’t do it alone.

  I needed my crew.

  It was time to call in reinforcements in the form of George and Grace.

  * * *

  To my surprise, I found them both at Grace’s, sitting on the front porch in deep conversation. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” I asked as I walked up the steps and joined them.

  “Be careful, that handrail is loose,” Grace said.

  “Is that why you were waiting on Tim to come by?” I asked.

  “No,” Grace answered. “I wanted to get his opinion on increasing my back deck. But for Andy, George and I just loosened the handrail ourselves.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?” Had they both lost their minds?

  George held a flyer up, exactly like the one Momma had, only printed on bright green paper this time. “We thought Handy Andy could give us an estimate,” he said with a grin.

  “And while he’s here, you can grill him about what happened to Tim,” I said, nodding my approval.

  “Not me,” George said. “I’d probably make him suspicious. I’m going to be inside, and Grace is going to be helpless out here all by herself.” He couldn’t get over the levity in that statement, and I had to agree. Grace Gauge was many things, but helpless didn’t even make the top one thousand items on the list.

  “Are you up for it?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding?” She batted her eyes at us and added, “You know me. I was born for the stage.”

  “For you to convince anyone that you’re helpless is going to take some major-league acting,” I said.

  “I can do it. Besides, I’d have to be better at it than you would be. You couldn’t act helpless if you had a broken leg and a concussion.”

  “Hey, I’m good, too,” I protested. “I was in every school play you had a role in.”

  “Let’s leave it to the judges,” Grace said. “George?”

  “Sorry, Suzanne,” he said as he pointed both fingers at Grace as the winner. “Hey, what are you doing here, anyway?”

  “Thanks for that,” I said. “It’s always good to feel welcome among my friends.”

  “You know what I mean. You should be open for at least another hour.”

  I did my best to look sad as I explained, “Ordinarily I would be, but we got wiped out early because of that ad.”

  “We heard about it,” Grace said as both their faces fell.

  “That’s tough,” George said.

  “Don’t feel bad for me,” I said with a grin. “We made out just fine. Now, who’s the best actress?”

  “Still me,” Grace answered with a smile.

  I looked around. “Okay, I concede. Where should I be when Handy Andy shows up?”

  “Inside with me,” George said. “The windows are open, so we should be able to hear everything they say.”

  “That sounds good,” I replied. “Will we have popcorn and soda for the show?”

  Grace shook her head. “You know, it’s going to be difficult to give my best performance with you two for an audience.”

  “But you’ll manage somehow, right?” I asked.

  “You know it.”

  “When exactly is Handy Andy supposed to show up?”

  George replied, “Not for another fifteen minutes. We’ve got plenty of time to get in position.”

  I looked down the street and saw a pickup headed our way with a bright sticker on the side. “He’s early,” I said as I helped George stand. “We need to get inside quick.”

  George and I had barely made it to our window view when the pickup truck pulled up in front of Grace’s house. Normally I liked being in the middle of the action, but for once, it was nice to just sit back and watch someone else at work.

  And right now, it was time for the show.

  I could see a young man get out of the truck from my vantage point. He wore a red shirt, crisp new blue jeans, and a white cap. It appeared that Andy was going for the patriotic look.

  I couldn’t believe it when he actually tipped his cap to Grace as he approached. “Good morning,” he said. Now that he was closer, I could see that he was barely in his twenties, and I wondered if he really knew
how to fix things. Most handymen I’d ever met had been older, but I knew I shouldn’t judge him by his age alone.

  He studied Grace for a few seconds with more interest than he should have shown a prospective customer. “Are you Mrs. Gauge?” he asked her.

  “Actually, it’s ‘Miss,’ but you can call me Grace.”

  “Grace. I like that. It suits you.” He looked at her for a few more seconds, like a shark watching a surfer, and when his smile returned, there was something kind of oily about it. “Grace, I’m Andrew Martin. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Good to meet you, Andy,” Grace said, doing her best to keep him at bay. She took his offered hand, and I wished I could see her face as he continued to hold it a little too long. After a delay that lasted longer than I ever would have believed, Grace finally managed to pull her hand away.

  “Now, should we talk about my problem?”

  Andy looked at the clipboard in his free hand. “It says here that you need an estimate for your porch rail, is that right? Why don’t we have a look?”

  I watched as Grace approached the rail that she and George had just loosened. As she put a hand on it, she said, “It wiggles a little, see?”

  Andy got down on one knee and studied the bracket that held the rail. After thirty seconds, he frowned, and then stood up. “I’m afraid your problem is a little more serious than you might think.”

  “It’s not just a screw or something?” Grace asked. I couldn’t believe how naïve she sounded.

  I could see Andy try his best to look solemn as he said, “I’m afraid it’s worse than that. The anchor bolts are missing, and you need a cross-brace to keep it all from falling over. I’ll need to do some major reconstructive work to get it right again.”

  “How much would all that cost?” Grace asked, the fear and trepidation clear in her voice. I couldn’t believe she didn’t tell him what she’d done on the spot, and I wasn’t sure I would have been able to keep my mouth shut. It appeared that we’d chosen the right actress for the role after all.

  Andy pulled a calculator from his shirt pocket, and started entering figures. As he punched the add button, he explained what he was doing. “Let’s see, that’s sixty-eight for the anchors and another one-fifty for the bracing.” He looked up at her and smiled as he added, “I cut you a break there. That includes tax and labor.” As he hit the button again, he finally said, “That’s two eighteen, but let’s call it an even two hundred dollars.”