Tragic Toppings

by Jessica Beck

  “The caseload, you mean,” I said.

  “Suzanne, that’s the only part of me that you’re going to get rid of.”

  I smiled up at him. “Good. What did you have in mind?”

  He said, “If you’re okay with it, I think I’ll help George. We can deal with the men, and you and Grace can keep focusing on the women. Do you think George would be upset if I butted onto his turf?”

  “Are you kidding me? He’s a retired cop. He’ll love hanging out with you so you two can swap old war stories.” I leaned forward and kissed Jake soundly after I said it.

  “What was that for? Not that I’m complaining.”

  “One, for not scolding me about looking into Tim’s murder, and two, for volunteering to help out with the case.”

  He smiled at me. “The way I figure it, I should get two kisses, then, right?”

  “You can have as many as you want, after you answer one question.”

  He laughed. “There’s a fee now? When did that happen? Whatever it is, I’ll gladly pay it. Go on, ask away.”

  I stared into his eyes, because I wanted him to know that I was serious. “Why the sudden change of heart, Jake? You’ve been upset with me in the past when I dig into murder cases around here.”

  Jake rubbed my shoulder gently before he spoke. “Suzanne, I’m beginning to understand that trying to get you to do what I want is just going to frustrate us both. This is important to you, you don’t have to tell me that, and I happen to be free at the moment. If I can lend a hand without stepping on too many toes around town, why shouldn’t I? Isn’t that what boyfriends do? I have a particular skill set that you can use, and thanks to my boss, I have the time to pitch in.” He hugged me, and then added, “Besides, why should you have all the fun? I love what I do. Sharing it with you just makes it that much sweeter.”

  “But there’s another reason, isn’t there?”

  He wouldn’t meet my gaze when he finally answered. “Okay, I admit it. I have an ulterior motive. If I’m nearby, maybe I can keep you safe if something happens.” Before I could reply, he quickly added, “I know you are perfectly capable of handling yourself in ordinary circumstances, but you’re going after a killer here, and you could use the backup, whether you’re willing to admit it or not.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” I said quietly.

  Jake leaned forward. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that. What did you say?”

  I pushed against his chest. “You heard me. I’m not going to feed your ego any more,” I answered with a grin.

  We were at my porch now, and I asked, “Would you like to come in for a few minutes? I’m sure Momma would love to see you.”

  “Can I take a rain-check? I was up most of last night, and I’m dead on my feet. I’ll catch up with George in the morning, and we can come up with a game plan.”

  He noticed my grin and asked me, “Why the smile?”

  “Usually I’m the one going to bed early. It’s nice for it to be someone else for a change. Good night, Jake.”

  I kissed him good-bye, and then watched him as he walked to his car and drove away. For more reasons than I could count, it was good having him back.

  I only wished he didn’t have to go away again so quickly.

  * * *

  Momma was reading a new mystery when I walked in. “How’s your book?”

  “Excellent,” she said as she put it aside, but not before carefully placing a bookmark at the page she was reading. Momma had raised me to believe that books were sacrosanct. There was never any underlining, highlighting, or worst of all, dog-earing book pages in our household. She had raised me to treat books with respect, and it was a lesson I’d learned well.

  She frowned as she looked at the door and added, “Is Jake gone already?”

  “He had a long night, so he’s going to Cam’s to get some rest.” Hotels had become too expensive for him on a regular basis since he was coming to April Springs so often, so Jake had found a place where he could sleep in town for a rock-bottom price. Cam Jennings was a retired bachelor who rented rooms on an extremely select basis, more for the company than the money, and he and Jake were fast becoming friends. I dreamed of the day when my boyfriend might actually live in April Springs full-time when he wasn’t on the road, but he hadn’t mentioned the possibility of moving to our town, and I wasn’t about to bring it up myself. For now, I was just glad he was here when he could manage it.

  “Good enough,” Momma said.

  “He sent you his regards,” I said, “and he asked me to tell you that he’ll see you soon.”

  “I should bake a pie in the morning to celebrate his arrival,” Momma said. “What kind do you think he would like?”

  “I’m sure he’d love anything you’d make for him. I know the police chief’s eyes lit up when I told him about your baking the other evening. By the way, when are you two going out again?” I hated to pass up any chance to keep her thinking about another date. After all, it was the only way she’d ever find out if someone was right for her.

  “As a matter of fact, we’re going out tomorrow night,” she said. “Since Jake’s in town, I don’t have to worry about leaving you here all by yourself.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Hang on one second. You don’t have to wait until my boyfriend’s in town to go out on a date. I think I can manage on my own for one evening.”

  “I know that,” she said. “It just makes sense this way.”

  I knew it was probably not the best time to pick a battle with her. “It’s fine with me. Does that mean you’re going to make two pies, then? I expect each man would appreciate the gesture.”

  “You know what? I might just do that,” Momma said with a slight smile. “I probably owe him one.”

  “I’m sure Jake will love it, but you shouldn’t feel obligated to make him a pie.”

  Momma shook her head. “I’m not talking about him, Suzanne, and you know it. I ended our date rather abruptly the last time, and I’ve felt guilty about it ever since.”

  I leaned over and hugged my mother. “I’m sure he’ll be happy you’re rescheduling, with or without the pie.” I glanced at the clock and saw that it was past my bedtime, though I knew many folks were just finishing up their evening meals around town.

  I stood, stretched, and then said, “If you don’t mind, I’m calling it a night. Sleep tight, Momma.”

  “And the sweetest of dreams to you,” she said.

  As I walked up the stairs, I glanced back down at her. There was the whisper of a smile on her lips, and I had to wonder if the prospect of her second date with Chief Martin was on her mind. Whatever its source, the smile was gone just as quickly as it had appeared, and she picked her book back up and started reading again.

  It appeared that the Hart women were both thinking happy thoughts about the men in their lives, and that wasn’t a bad thing at all.

  * * *

  The next morning, Emma came into the donut shop with a package wrapped in brightly colored newspaper flyers.

  “Did someone give you a present?” I asked as I worked on the batter for my apple spice cake donuts.

  “It’s for you,” she said.

  I finished the batter, and then washed my hands. “Why on earth would you get me a present, Emma?”

  “It’s not from me,” she said as she handed the package to me. “It’s from Dad.”

  “That’s even odder,” I said as I took it. “Why would your father do that?”

  “Come on, Suzanne, you must realize that he feels bad about the ad.”

  “I shouldn’t take this,” I said as I tried to push it back at her. “We ended up making money from the deal, so as mistakes go, it wasn’t bad at all.”

  Emma smiled slightly. “Do me a favor and don’t tell him that, okay?”

  I didn’t understand her grin. “Why shouldn’t I?”

  “Because the more he thought about it, the more Dad felt as though it was as much his fault as it was
mine that the ad was wrong. This is his way of saying that he’s sorry, and it’s important to me that you take it. After all, I haven’t had the upper hand with him many times in my life, and I’m not about to throw it away this time.”

  “Let’s see what it is before I make a decision,” I said as I unwrapped it.

  Inside the box, I found an envelope buried in a mound of shredded paper. “Your dad’s a fan of recycling, isn’t he?”

  “It’s not that as much as he’s too cheap to buy anything he can cobble together himself. Go on, open the envelope. I’ve been dying to see what he gave you.”

  I did as she asked, and grinned when I saw it.

  Emma said impatiently, “Don’t hold out on me. What is it? A coupon for a free massage? A weekend getaway to the mountains? What?”

  I held the printed letter up for her to see. “It’s a coupon for a free quarter-page ad. How thoughtful.”

  “A weekend away would have been better,” she replied.

  “I think this is perfect. Should we run another ad next week?”

  Emma smiled. “You were really serious when you said we could try Take-a-Chance-Tuesday again?”

  “Of course I was. But remember, I get to see the ad before you turn it in this time.”

  “I’m not about to forget.”

  I put the coupon away, and then said, “Why don’t you grab your apron and we can get to work. I’ve got an idea for lemonade donuts with real iced tea in the batter.”

  She looked at me as though I’d temporarily lost my mind. “What made you think of trying that?”

  “Haven’t you ever had an Arnold Palmer?” I asked. “The golfer invented them, and they’re really delicious. I thought, why not try it in a donut and see how it works out.”

  “I suppose it’s worth a try,” Emma said.

  Later, when the first donut came out of the fryer, not even the glaze could help the new creation I’d come up with. Emma took a taste herself, and she couldn’t hide her unpleasant reaction to it.

  “That’s just awful,” she said as she drank a quick swallow of coffee to get the taste out of her mouth.

  “I agree,” I said as I threw out the rest of the test batch. “Hey, it was worth a shot.”

  “You never know until you try,” Emma said.

  I looked around for my recipe notebook so I could add this failure to it so I wouldn’t repeat the same mistake, but it wasn’t in its usual place in the kitchen. I hadn’t used it that morning, since I could make my cake and yeast donuts practically by heart, but that didn’t mean I could function without it. It held the sum total of my experience as a donut maker, successful recipes and failures alike.

  I looked everywhere in back, but I couldn’t find it.

  Emma looked alarmed. “Suzanne? What’s wrong?”

  “My recipe book. I can’t find it,” I told her as I kept hunting through the bags of ingredients and the invoices stacked up on my desk.

  “I’m sure it’s got to be here somewhere,” she said. “Calm down and take a deep breath. Don’t worry, we’ll find it.”

  Half an hour later, we had to acknowledge that the recipe book was gone. That book was so much more than directions to the concoctions I made. It was the operating manual for my donut shop, and I wasn’t sure that I could run Donut Hearts without it. That didn’t even cover the history it represented, the trial-and-error approach I used in making donuts, and my thoughts and dreams since I’d first opened Donut Hearts. It was, simply put, a part of me.

  Had I just carelessly misplaced it? I couldn’t see how. Emma and I had practically torn the place apart looking for it, and I was confident that it wasn’t anywhere in the shop. Then I remembered bringing it to the front with me so I could play with recipes.

  We searched the entire front area even more thoroughly, but finally, I had to admit that it was gone.

  That just left one other option.

  During the frantic rush yesterday when three-quarters of the town had been in my shop, someone must have seized the moment and deliberately taken it.

  CHAPTER 9

  “What are we going to do?” Emma asked as we stood there staring at each other. It was a disaster of epic proportions, and we both knew it.

  “I should have made copies,” I said, my heart sinking as I spoke the words. “You kept telling me to, and I ignored you. I just don’t get it, though. Who would take it?”

  Emma looked surprised by the idea. “Do you really think it’s been stolen? We could have just as easily thrown it away by accident. That’s what I was thinking, anyway.”

  “Do you honestly believe that there’s the slightest chance that happened? One of us would have noticed something as big as that recipe book in the trash.”

  “Maybe so, but I like that idea better than the thought that someone took it on purpose from the donut shop,” Emma said. “Has the trash run yet?”

  “I don’t think so.” We both headed for the back door where we kept our trash cans. It was pickup day, but I knew the truck didn’t come by until seven, so if the recipe book was there, we’d be able to find it before they came.

  I opened the back door as I flipped on the outside light. Emma was right behind me, wearing a pair of gloves, and holding another set. “Here, put these on.”

  I did as she asked, and then I lifted the first lid. “This is going to be messy.”

  It wasn’t, though.

  Our trash cans, every last one of them, had already been emptied.

  * * *

  “How is that possible?” I asked, getting more distraught by the second. “I would have heard Sam coming down the alley if he’d been by.” Sam Winston was our chief refuse and recycling engineer, a title he’d given himself when he’d first taken the job of working on the town’s garbage truck.

  Emma looked as though she wanted to cry, and I felt the same way myself.

  I walked over to Gabby’s back door, and on a whim, I lifted her lid.

  It was still full.

  “This is odd,” I told Emma.

  “What did you find?” she asked as she joined me.

  We both stared down into the full trash can, and Emma said, “That just doesn’t make sense. Why would Sam take ours and leave Gabby’s?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if it was Sam at all.” Was I making any sense, or just being paranoid?

  “Come on, Suzanne, nobody’s stealing our trash.”

  “How else do you explain it? Maybe they didn’t want to be seen walking out with my book, so they stashed it in the trash so they could come back when we were gone and retrieve it.”

  “There aren’t any military secrets in it,” Emma said. “Why would someone go to that much trouble?”

  “I don’t know, but if they did it to get my attention, it worked. We might be able to limp along without it, but it’s not going to be easy.” I dreaded the thought of re-creating the recipes in that book. It would be a real nightmare, and in the end, I still wouldn’t have my book back. In baking, the difference between a teaspoon and a tablespoon could mean success, or complete and utter failure.

  “You can do it,” Emma said. “I’ll help you.”

  “How do we even know where to begin?” I tried to hide the hopeless feeling in the pit of my stomach, but it was no use. I was beaten, and I knew it better than anyone else.

  “You start on the basic batter mix we use for cake donuts, and I’ll sit down and try to write down as much as we can remember.”

  “Do you honestly think that’s going to work?”

  She shrugged. “At this point, I’m not sure what else we can do.”

  Emma had a point. If someone was trying to distract me from Tim’s murder by stealing my recipe book, they couldn’t have found a better way to do it short of burning Donut Hearts to the ground.

  * * *

  By the time we were ready to open, we were both exhausted, and I’d written down as many recipes as I could remember. Emma and I had worked frantically trying to put out our don
uts, but about a third of them didn’t pass our taste test after they were finished. Under the stress of not having the recipe book as a safety net, I’d somehow managed to mess up several of the recipes that I made all the time. We had plenty of plain cake, frosted, and glazed donuts for sale, but our specialty section was kind of sparse.

  This was clearly not going to do, but I wasn’t sure what other options I had until we could figure something out.

  Just before opening, I tacked a hand-lettered sign to the cash register for all the world to see.

  Emma whistled, and then read it aloud.

  “Lost, one recipe book, handwritten in a plain black and white notebook. $500 reward for its safe return. No questions asked. See the management for more details.”

  “Five hundred dollars?” Emma asked. “Isn’t that a lot of money for a book?”

  “How much is the shop worth?” I asked her. “I want those recipes back by midnight, and I’m willing to do just about anything I have to do to get it.”

  “I guess so. Don’t worry, Suzanne. It will turn up.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I said, though I wasn’t at all sure the offered reward would work. If someone took it out of spite, maybe we’d get a taker, but if the purpose of the theft was to distract me, I doubted I’d ever see the book again.

  For the first time in months, I wasn’t excited when I opened my doors to the public.

  It was going to be a long day, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. If only I’d made a copy one of the dozens of times I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t be in this mess.

  Emma had made a mistake yesterday with her ad, but mine had made it look insignificant by comparison.

  I just hoped it turned up before I had to shutter my windows and lock my doors forever.

  * * *

  “Morning,” Jake said a few hours later as he came in. “George is finding a place to park, so he’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  “Hello,” I answered, trying my best to put a bright smile on for him. I didn’t get to see him all that often, and I wasn’t about to let the loss of my recipe book ruin it for either one of us.