by Beck,Jessica
Chapter 21
“I’m guessing nobody’s buying donuts for the house today, are they?” Seth Lancaster asked as he ordered three pumpkin donuts and a pumpkin-flavored coffee. I was afraid he might overdose on the flavor, but I filled his order anyway.
“No, everyone pays for their own today,” I said with a smile as I made change from his twenty.
“In a way, that was my money Mitchell was using, anyway,” Seth said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I was one of the big losers in the poker game where he won it,” Seth said. “That should teach me to gamble. Maybe I’ll stick to the lottery. I’ve had more luck with scratch-off tickets anyway.”
Seth suddenly had my interest. Mitchell had claimed to win the money playing poker, but I’d questioned it. Had he been telling the truth after all? “You were in that game?”
“You heard about it? Yeah, I was there, along with Mitchell, Tom Thorndike, Jeff Granger, and a few other guys from Union Square. Mitchell was the big winner, and Tom lost the most, even more than I did. He didn’t have enough to make his final bet, and Mitchell let him put an IOU in the pot. He lost it, and I thought Mitchell was going to explode when Tom said he wasn’t going to pay up.”
“Is that what they were arguing about in the park a few nights ago?” I asked, ignoring the three folks waiting in line to get their donuts. They’d just have to be patient. This was important.
“Yeah, Mitchell told me about that. Tom finally paid up, and to show him that there were no hard feelings, he brought Tom by the bar and bought him a drink. I was there too, and you’d never know there had ever been any bad blood between them. By the time they left, they were best friends, and a day later, poor old Tom was dead. You just never know, do you?”
“Suzanne, I’m in a bit of a hurry,” Lilly Hamilton said from the back of the line.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hold you up,” Seth said. “I love this time of year. Pumpkin rules!”
“I’m glad you like them,” I said absently. As I waited on the next customer in line, I realized that one of my suspects had just been cleared. It appeared that Mitchell Bloom had won his money fair and square after all, and after Tom had paid off his debt, the two men had parted friends. Unless I learned something to the contrary, Mitchell’s name needed to go off my list. I had never considered the mayor a suspect, and Ray had always been a stretch for me as well. George had been the reason I was investigating Tom’s death at all, an unlikely scenario if he’d actually killed the man, and Ray, though he had his faults, wasn’t a murderer, at least not for as thin a motive as he might have had. Besides, if he’d done it, Jake would uncover it, not me. I had too much faith in my husband to believe he wouldn’t eventually uncover the truth about the newspaperman.
Daryl Lane was a very possible candidate, given his police record as well as his contacts with Tom, but he was the police chief’s problem for now.
That left me with Candy. Could the gym owner have pushed Tom over the edge? I’d seen her muscled shape in those skimpy outfits, so I knew that she was strong enough to do it. But that still left me with the question of why. Was there more to the note we’d found at Tom’s, or was it as simple as she’d explained to us? I wasn’t sure, but I knew that I wasn’t finished with her quite yet, and I wouldn’t be until I got the answer to that, unless Jake or the police chief managed to solve the case before I could.
A little before ten, my husband came by the donut shop, but he clearly wasn’t there on a social call. “Hey, Suzanne. Do you have any coffee?”
“Pumpkin spice, or our regular blend?” I asked him as I grabbed a cup.
“Just plain old coffee,” he said. “It’s getting so you can’t find it anymore.”
“Emma likes to play with our coffee offerings,” I said as I poured Jake a cup of our regular brew. “Sometimes I wonder about her choices, but the pumpkin spice seems to be popular. This time of year, it’s tough to get anything without pumpkin in it.”
“I know. We’ve got that cereal in our cabinet, don’t we?” he asked, and then he took a healthy sip of coffee. “That’s tasty. Any chance I could get an old-fashioned donut to go with it?”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like pumpkin instead?” I asked him with a grin.
“No, and no Kool-Aid donuts, either. Just the usual, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m happy to give you whatever you want, but you can’t blame a gal for trying. What brings you by, not that you need an excuse to come by Donut Hearts anytime I’m here?”
“I got a call a few minutes ago that’s been bothering me,” he admitted. I put his donut down on the bar by the counter so we could chat and I could still wait on any customers who might come in. Fortunately, we were experiencing a lull at the moment, but I knew that could change at the drop of a hat, so I wanted to be close to the register, just in case.
“Who called you?” I asked as I poured myself a little hot chocolate, just to be social. That wasn’t entirely true; I loved the stuff, much more than I liked coffee. My drinks, in order of preference, usually went: sweet tea, water, hot chocolate, chocolate milk, plain milk, and then coffee. I’d never been that big a fan of sodas, though I’d been known to have one now and then.
“Some woman. She wouldn’t leave her name, but she told me that she heard I was looking into Ray’s disappearance, and she said that she had something I needed to hear.”
“That sounds ominous. Any idea what she was talking about?”
“No, and when I pressed her, she said that she’d only do it face to face. I’m meeting her at noon in Union Square in front of Napoli’s.”
Napoli’s was an Italian restaurant run by our friends, Angelica DeAngelis and her lovely daughters. “You’re going to have lunch there first, aren’t you?” I asked him.
He grinned at me. “Well, since I’m already going to be in town during lunch hour, I thought I might go a little early so I could grab something. It would be rude not to.”
I laughed. “I’m not sure that it would be rude, but I do think passing up a chance to go there would be foolish.”
“Come with me,” Jake said. “You can close the shop a little early, and we can make it a date.”
“I’d love to, but I hate leaving everything to Emma. Can I have a rain check?”
“Of course you can. I’ll tell Angelica and the girls you said hello.”
“You do that,” I said with a smile. I knew that it wouldn’t be that much of a hardship for him to be waited on by the group of beautiful women. He usually didn’t enjoy getting attention, but I had a hunch he’d make an exception in this case. “You’re going to be careful, aren’t you?”
“I promise I won’t eat anything that’s too spicy,” he said.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. It sounds as though it might be a trap.”
Jake shrugged. “At this point, I’d take it. I’m beginning to think that Ray slipped, knocked himself out, woke up with a headache and no memory, and then started wandering around town until someone found him.”
“What about Tom?”
Jake took a bite of donut, smiled briefly, and then said, “It could all just be a coincidence.”
“You hate coincidences, and you know it,” I reminded him.
“True enough, but they still happen sometimes.”
“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t go to this meeting,” I said.
“Maybe not. Anyway, I just thought I’d stop by and let you know what’s going on. How’s your morning been?”
“Well, besides being threatened by a convicted felon, it’s been pretty quiet,” I said softly.
“What? What happened?”
I told him about my exchange with Daryl Lane, and he got angrier by the minute. “Suzanne, what were you thinking going a
fter him like that?”
“Jake, the police chief asked me to stall him. Nothing happened, so there’s no reason to get upset about it after the fact.”
“Grant should have never put you in that position,” Jake said a little sullenly.
“He didn’t. In fact, he told me not to confront him. It was my decision, so if you’re going to get mad at anybody, it should be me.” I loved the fact that my husband was so caring, but sometimes he acted as though I hadn’t been able to manage on my own before he came along. If I had to, I’d remind him of it now and then, though. “So, are you going to accept the fact that I did what I thought was right, or are we going to argue about it?”
It appeared to be touch and go for a second before he shrugged. “Sorry. I know you can take care of yourself, but this is a bad guy we’re talking about. I can’t help worrying about you.”
I touched his hand lightly. “I love you for it, but I saw something that needed to be done, and I did it. You would have done the same thing, and you don’t have any more authority than I do.”
“Maybe not, but I’ve handled this type before.”
“I’m not exactly a rookie at it, either,” I said with a smile. “More coffee?”
“No, I’ve got some other leads to follow up on before I go to Union Square. If you change your mind, give me a call.”
“I probably won’t, but thanks for thinking of me,” I said as I leaned across the counter and kissed his cheek. “Be careful, okay?”
“Right back at you,” he said with a smile. “It’s okay for me to say at least that much, isn’t it?”
“If you ever stop worrying about me, that’s when we’re going to have a problem,” I answered him happily.
“Then we’ll be good for a very long time,” Jake said. He polished off his donut, drank the last of his coffee, and then he stood. “I’m assuming you don’t want me to pay, right?”
“You could, but it would be kind of pointless, since it would just go back into the family bank account.”
“I know, but I still like to ask.”
After he was gone, I considered cancelling my sleuthing plans for the afternoon, closing up early, and going with Jake to Napoli’s after all, but I decided that we could always go there after the mystery surrounding Tom Thorndike’s death was resolved one way or the other.
In the meantime, I had donuts to sell.
Chapter 22
Half an hour before closing, I got a phone call as I was cleaning up a mess left by three toddlers and a very frustrated babysitter. I didn’t know how much she made an hour, but in my opinion, it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Hello?”
“Suzanne, it’s Chief Grant.”
“Chief. What’s up? You haven’t let Daryl Lane go already, have you?” I had a sudden image of the man storming toward my donut shop even as we spoke, and I even moved to the front so I could look out the window and see if he was coming. He was nowhere in sight, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t on his way.
“No, he’s not going anywhere for quite a while. Right now he’s cooling his jets in one of my jail cells.”
“You arrested him for murdering Tom?” I asked. Was it possible the man had confessed to the crime I was still trying to solve?
“No, he denies ever being up on Laurel Falls, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a hand in it as well.”
“What do you mean, as well?” I asked him.
“Well, when I implied that we were looking at him for murder, he suddenly got pretty talkative. It’s amazing what a man will tell you when he’s trying to save his own skin.”
“What did he say?” I asked as I made change for a customer as I cradled my phone between my cheek and my shoulder.
“It turns out that he was in Tom’s cottage when you and George showed up,” he said. “He didn’t mind giving that up, since he assumed he’d been spotted running out the back. He said that he figured that was why you were so intent on bracing him at the donut shop this morning.”
“I had no idea that he’d been there, and neither did George,” I confessed.
“You know what they say, ‘The wicked flee when no man pursues.’ He figured he’d cop to that much, at least.”
“Why was he there?” I ask. “Was it about Tom’s money?”
“You’ve been busy, haven’t you?” the chief asked me. “That’s exactly what he was doing. He tracked Tom down when he got out of prison to settle an old score, but when he found out Tom had money, he shifted his focus from revenge to robbery.”
“He killed Tom for the money?” I asked softly. It always amazed me what some people would do for little pieces of paper that intrinsically were worthless but represented untold greed to so many.
“He claims he never found it. As a matter of fact, he didn’t get into town until after Tom died. He went to South Carolina to ask one of Tom’s old cellmates if he knew about the money. We spoke to the man, and apparently Daryl was there when Tom died.”
“Where did the money come from? Did he say?”
The police chief was in a talkative mood, and I wasn’t about to discourage it, even if it meant that my customers didn’t get my full attention.
“Believe it or not, he robbed a check-cashing business as soon as he got out. Tom gave the old con some money he’d owed him when they’d been inside, and he told him the whole story while he was there.”
George had hoped that Tom had reformed, but apparently it had only served to make him a better robber than he’d been when he’d gone in. I knew the news would disappoint my friend, but I couldn’t worry about that at the moment. “So that explains that. Did you arrest him for breaking and entering? Is that why he’s locked up?”
“No, he earned that particular privilege by taking a swing at me,” the chief said.
“Did he hurt you, Stephen?” I asked, reverting to calling my old friend by his first name when I realized that he could have been injured in the line of duty.
“He tried to, but he must have slipped and hit his head on the table. He’ll be fine, but I have a feeling he’s going to have a headache for quite some time. Anyway, I just wanted to touch base with you and let you know what I’d found.”
“I appreciate that,” I said.
“Suzanne, I still think you’re chasing shadows.”
“I get it, but until George calls me off, I’m going to keep at it.”
“I would expect nothing less from you,” the chief said with a chuckle. “Well, I’m going to let Mr. Lane have some time to reflect on the choices he’s made in his life, and I’m going to take a little break. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Thanks, Chief.”
“You’re very welcome,” he said, and then we ended the call.
I began to wonder if it were possible that Tom really had slipped from the top of the falls. I’d liked Daryl Lane for it, but he had an alibi, and Mitchell Bloom was in the clear as well. Unless either Ray or George had undergone a major personality change without me realizing it, that left just Candy on my list of suspects, and again, why would she do it? I’d probably go talk to her with Grace after work just to wrap things up in my mind, but essentially, my investigation was nearly over. I wasn’t exactly torn up about the resolution, and not because Tom had reverted to a life of crime once he’d been released from prison. We make our own choices in this life, and it’s not up to any of the rest of us to judge them, good or bad. I had enough trouble being responsible for my own actions, let alone worrying about someone else’s. That didn’t mean that I approved of what he’d done. Wrong was wrong. But however it had happened, Tom was finished with the temptations and tribulations of this world.
As I waited on another customer, I couldn’t help thinking about how sometimes one bad choice in life was all it took to send someone on
a path they couldn’t, or more likely wouldn’t, break free of.
As I prepped to close for the day, even though we still had twenty minutes on the clock and there were a few customers lingering over their coffees and donuts, I decided to give Grace a call to see if she’d like to join me when I closed the shop and paid a visit to Candy Murphy.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s the paperwork going?” I asked her when she answered the phone.
“I’m taking a little break,” she said, and I could hear road noises in the background. “Hang on a second. Let me roll up my window. It’s so pretty out that I decided a little fresh air might be in order.”
“Will you be long? I’d love to do a little more detecting as soon as I close the shop for the day.”
“Sure. I’ll call you. Suzanne, I can’t really talk. I’ll talk to you later.”
She hung up on me before I had a chance to even reply. What was she up to? It wasn’t like Grace to cut our conversations off so abruptly. If I didn’t know any better, I might believe that she was up to something. But what? Oh, no. What if she’d come to the same conclusions I had about Candy being our last viable suspect, and she hadn’t been able to wait for me before she confronted her? I wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibility. Grace had been known to be rash in the past.
I called her back immediately, but she didn’t answer her phone.
I was really getting worried now.
Fifteen minutes before I was due to close, I decided that I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Emma, we’re shutting down early,” I said as I went back into the kitchen.
“Are we out of donuts already?” she asked me happily.
“No, but I’ve got something I need to take care of, and it can’t wait.”
