Beyond a Reasonable Donut

by Ginger Bolton

  She hesitated. “That would be nice.” Luckily, she didn’t glance toward the office. Dep had puffed herself up into a scary monster and was staring straight at her.

  I brought the woman a mug of our special Nicaraguan coffee and a strawberry donut with vanilla frosting topped by dark chocolate shavings. Barely looking up from the application, she thanked me. Dep’s fur was still on end, and the tip of her tail twitched.

  I went around offering more coffee and donuts and smiling and chatting with customers, but all the time, I was wondering if the woman sitting near the office and filling out an application had killed a woman she thought was Nina in order to create a job vacancy. It hardly seemed likely.

  Dep must have decided something similar. Her fur smooth again, she sat with her tail wrapped around her feet. She was still facing the woman, but her eyes were mostly closed as if she were about to go back to sleep.

  I hoped Nina would return while the woman was still in Deputy Donut. If the woman believed she had killed Nina the night before, how would she react when she saw Nina?

  The woman shoved the application across the small table and laid the pen across it. I went back to her table and picked them up. Her name was Kassandra Pyerson, and she had experience as a waitress at Suds for Buds. Although it sounded like it could be a dog groomer, Suds for Buds was a pub south of downtown Fallingbrook. Alarm bells in my head clanged so loudly I was surprised that no one turned to stare at me.

  Suds for Buds was across Wisconsin Street from Nina’s loft, a couple of buildings farther south, but, as far as I was concerned, suspiciously nearby.

  I told Kassandra, “I’ll keep this on file and let you know if we need you to come in for an interview.”

  She’d eaten her donut. She pushed her empty coffee mug toward the center of the yellow-frosted donut painted on her table and gazed around the room at our art-covered walls. “I see that you have lots of artwork for sale. Would you let me display some of my paintings here?” Bracing her shoulders, she sat a little straighter. “I’m an artist, and I’d like a place to show off my work and get my name out there.”

  An artist. The alarm bells clanged even more loudly. Had Kassandra heard about Nina’s show, and was she jealous enough to break into Nina’s loft, vandalize her painting, and attack a stranger she mistook for Nina?

  I glanced around at some of the art on our walls. “We don’t make the arrangements with the artists themselves.” Hoping she wouldn’t suggest that we needed to hire her as a liaison between us and the artists, I added rather lamely, “The system works well.”

  “I’ll show you.” The woman reached into a brown, tan, and white crocheted bag with a long braided strap that she wore over one shoulder and across her body. She spread about a dozen photos on the table. “I painted these.” I heard pride in her voice, and also the hesitancy of someone fearing rejection.

  I was afraid to look at her photos for fear I wouldn’t like the paintings and wouldn’t be able to hide my feelings. Reminding myself that art was subjective and my opinion couldn’t be very important to her, I adjusted the photos to eliminate reflections from the pink glass fixtures hanging from the ceiling. The photos were blurred, and I couldn’t be certain the colors were true, but I suspected that the paintings themselves were very good. I’d thought the same about Nina’s work, and so had Arthur C. Arthurs when he’d come to Fallingbrook to see it. “These look wonderful, but the displays in here and the sales of the artwork are done through The Craft Croft.”

  Kassandra looked bewildered.

  “It’s an artisans’ co-op a couple of blocks south on Wisconsin Street.” I pointed. “You might like to join it. Many of the artists and crafters whose work we show in here also display their work at the co-op, and the co-op arranges for displays at other shops and businesses around Fallingbrook. What we have here is only a small representation of what artists and craftspeople around Fallingbrook can do.”

  She showed the closest thing to a smile yet. “Thanks. I’ll go see them.” She stood.

  I offered, “I’ll call if we need you.”

  She thanked me and walked cautiously, as if she were afraid that someone might actually look at her, outside.

  I had been careful not to say that I would call her if we had an opening. Nina and Jocelyn and their enthusiasm and genuine fondness of other people had spoiled me. Folks came to Deputy Donut for our delicious beverages and treats, but they also came because Jocelyn and Nina—and probably Tom and I, too—were like friends and family. I wasn’t sure that Kassandra was outgoing enough to make people want to return to talk to her.

  I also wasn’t certain that her main aim was to find a job. Maybe she only wanted a place to display her paintings.

  Besides, I’d seen her peering into the donut car around the time our sugar was stolen and before the mime was killed. I put Kassandra’s application with others in the filing cabinet.

  Nina was gone longer than I expected. When she came back, her face was bright red. She stormed into the kitchen where Tom, Jocelyn, and I were making more donuts. She looped one finger underneath the gold chain around her neck and pulled the chain out from underneath her shirt. “They wouldn’t give me back my locket!”

  “Who?” Jocelyn asked. “Thieves?” I could almost see her mentally kickboxing the locket out of a thief’s hand.

  “No. The police.” Nina turned to me. “It was that Detective Gartborg from the DCI who was in here this morning. She didn’t like me the last time she was in Fallingbrook, and although she was friendly this morning when we were chatting with her, she still doesn’t like me.”

  I asked, “Was Brent in on the interview?”

  “Yes, and I don’t think he was playing at being a good cop. He really is one. He seemed empathetic. I told them the locket was mine, and that the mime stole it and dropped it in my loft. It was mine all along and I got it back, so that crime—the theft—was solved. I don’t see what it has to do with whoever attacked that mime. That woman!” I wasn’t sure if Nina was talking about the mime or Detective Gartborg. Nina flung herself into the storeroom. She returned with her Deputy Donut hat on crooked. With jerky movements, she brought her apron strings around to the front and tied them. “It’s that mime’s fault that I lost that family heirloom. Now I might never get it back.”

  “You will,” Tom said, “if I have to go get it myself. But it might be awhile. It depends on how soon they catch the person who killed the mime and how long the trial takes.”

  Nina knocked her hat into place with a fist. “That locket has nothing—probably has nothing—to do with the killer. It could be years before I see it again, if ever.”

  I pushed the rolling pin over the dough with more force than was absolutely necessary. “I’m glad to have the company, and you can stay at my place as long as you need to, but did they say anything about when you could return to your apartment?”

  “Oh, maybe in a week or so. But what if it’s so long that I won’t be able to repair my painting and have it shipped in time for my opening?” She waved her hands in the air like she was describing a vast space. “There’s going to be this big blank wall at the gallery and it’s all that mime’s fault.” Nina seemed at least as angry as she’d been when she chased the magician and the mime away from our tent the day before.

  Customers were coming in. Nina glanced toward them. “I’m okay, really. Don’t worry, I won’t bite anyone’s head off. I’ll go look after them. It’ll take my mind off that Gartborg woman and help me calm down.”

  “Wow,” Jocelyn muttered when Nina was in the front of the shop laughing and talking to the new arrivals. “She really has it in for that DCI detective, and for the dead woman, too. But I understand. That art show means a lot to her, and I really want her to become a famous artist.”

  I pushed a round cookie cutter into my rolled-out dough and twisted to make certain the cutter went all the way through the dough. “So do I.”

  Tom put dough for the next day into our proofing ca
binet. “Whatever works best for her and makes her happy.” His wife, Alec’s mother, Cindy, had been well-known as a ceramicist. The MoMA had at least one of her pieces in its collection, and so did other museums, but when Alec was a teen, Cindy had given up that world to teach high school art. As far as I knew, she had never regretted it. She believed that helping kids grow and learn was more important than making pretty things that ended up unused and barely touched in glass cases. Her work—and Tom—made her happy.

  The last of our customers left. We tidied the shop for the Jolly Cops Cleaning Crew, a group of retired police officers who came in during the night to clean everything and haul away the used cooking oil. Tom drove home to Cindy, and Jocelyn pedaled away on her bicycle.

  Nina and I went into the office. Dep had climbed to her highest catwalks and seemed uncertain about coming down, but when I rattled her harness, she trotted to me. She stayed far from the cupboard we’d built for her carrier, but after we put her into her harness and snapped her leash on, she pranced outside ahead of us.

  It was a hot, hazy evening. We walked several blocks south on Wisconsin Street before we turned west onto my street. The sun was still high, but the haze made the light almost painfully bright. We both put on sunglasses. I could hardly see through mine. “Ugh, I should clean these once in a while.”

  Nina laughed. “Me, too. How do we manage to get so many smudges on them?”

  Tail up, Dep marched ahead of us. Nina was next to the grass between the sidewalk and the road, and I was next to the front yards. I turned my head away from the sun and toward the houses lining the street. Close to Wisconsin, they were large and old, frame with gingerbread trim, wide porches, and charming paint choices showing off architectural details. In the next block, houses were a little smaller and closer together. Some were brick and some were frame, but they still boasted whimsical gingerbread trim. Most of them had gardens in front boasting the season’s last roses and first mums, and nearly all of the gardens were lined with hedges or low fences next to the sidewalk.

  Dep zigzagged back and forth in front of Nina and me. She meandered to the other side of Nina and walked on the grassy area close to the road.

  I was about to hand Nina the leash when Dep puffed up and raced toward the hedge beside me, nearly tripping both Nina and me. I might have thought that Dep was playing one of her cat-and-mouse games, but she leaped onto the flat top of a privet hedge.

  Dep never climbed trees and bushes.

  Behind us, a car’s engine raced. I glanced over my shoulder.

  A gray car swerved over the curb and across the grass between the street and the sidewalk. Its right wheels were on the sidewalk.

  The car was heading straight at Nina.

  Chapter 11

  I yelped, threw one arm around Nina, and hurled both of us into the base of the hedge.

  Twigs snapped and scratched my face and arms. Tiny leaves cascaded over us.

  Rattling, the car thumped off the curb and sped away as if the driver hadn’t noticed the near collision.

  Nina struggled to a sitting position with her feet below her on the ground sloping toward the sidewalk and her head still among twigs and branches. “What was that?”

  Dep let out an indignant howl.

  I brushed leaves off my face. “Dep! Are you all right?”

  Something tugged at my ankle. Dep’s leash was tangled around it, but Dep wasn’t anywhere near my ankle. Behind me, her leash led upward.

  “Meow!”

  I looked up and over my shoulder. Dep was still near the top of the hedge. With her toes spread and her claws extended, she was clinging to branches that didn’t look strong enough to support her.

  Her fur was fluffed. Her pupils huge, she stared down at me. “Mew.” She wriggled and let go. Using my head and one shoulder as a stairway, she landed on my lap.

  I stroked her soft fur. “Hello, baby.”

  “Mew.”

  I felt her all over. She hadn’t damaged anything besides her dignity. I picked bits of brush off her and set her on the grass beside me.

  Nina helped me untangle the leash and crawl out of the hedge.

  Dep licked one of her shoulders as if trying to smooth down hairs that were still standing on end. She had leaped into the top of the hedge and had made a reasonably soft landing up there. I had flung myself and Nina into the hedge’s trunks. Our landings, at least mine, had not been soft. Belatedly, I asked Nina, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. What happened?”

  “Someone nearly hit us. Did you get a look at the driver?”

  “I heard a car and the next thing I knew you were throwing me into a bush. Did you see the driver?”

  I resettled my even-more-smudged sunglasses on my nose. “I caught a glimpse of the top of a baseball cap behind the steering wheel. The driver must have been looking down instead of where he was going.”

  “Was it a he?”

  “I couldn’t tell. I think the car had Wisconsin plates, and there were two fives on it, beside each other.”

  “I thought I saw Wisconsin plates, too, and a four and a five.” She grinned down at me. “You’re strong for someone so small.”

  I flexed my arm. “You’re light for someone so tall.” My voice was shaking almost as much as I was.

  “Thanks for saving me.”

  “That’s two possible attempts on your life in two days.”

  “Or zero. If that was an attempt on my life, it was a brazen one. In full daylight, with a witness.”

  “Exactly.” My voice was as dry as the dust I was brushing off the back of my shorts.

  “It could have been an accident. Besides, who knows? Maybe it was an attempt on your life, and I just happened to be in the way.”

  It was a good argument, but mine was better. “You were closer to the street.”

  “Collateral damage. But really, I doubt that anyone tried to hit us. I think it was a distracted driver. Probably texting, and even when they looked up and drove off the sidewalk, they might not have noticed that they’d scattered pedestrians and pets into bushes. It’s so hazy out here that they might not have seen us at all, especially if the windshield was as dirty as our sunglasses.”

  I teased, “You don’t own a car and we keep the donut car pristine. How do you know about dirty windshields?”

  “I’ve driven other cars, but even someone who doesn’t drive knows what it’s like to try to see through a dirty windshield.” She pushed her glasses up her nose. “Or smudged glasses.”

  “Especially if she’s an artist.”

  “Yep. Artists might make more smudges than other people, but we’re also super-observant.”

  I thought, Except when cars are aimed at you. “Just be careful, okay?”

  “I am. See? You told me not to be alone, and I walked with you and you saved me from a reckless driver.”

  I wanted us to run home and lock ourselves inside, but a quavering voice called out, “Hello?”

  I picked Dep up and cuddled her whether she wanted me to or not. I backed a few steps to see around the hedge.

  A tall and wiry white-haired woman in a ruffled lavender tunic and black yoga pants stood beside the house. She was carrying some very businesslike pruning shears.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m afraid we might have damaged your hedge by falling into it.”

  Nina muttered, “Or being thrown.”

  The woman slid the shears onto her porch and then faced us again, barehanded. Had she come outside planning to wield pruning shears as a weapon against people and animals barging into the hedge in front of her house?

  I apologized for the snapped-off twigs and leaves.

  The woman joined us on the sidewalk side of her hedge. “It’s nothing, I was just coming out to prune it, anyway. Don’t worry about it. You probably saved me some work.” She looked from one of us to the other. Nina had debris in her hair, and I probably did, too, while Dep had acquired a few more leaves on her back and head. “How did you mana
ge to fall into the hedge? All three of you?”

  “All three of us,” Nina concurred. “The cat jumped, and Emily threw me and landed there, too.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows about as far as they would go. “You threw her? It was an accident, surely.”

  Nina smirked at me.

  Clutching the squirmy cat to me, I stood as tall as I could. The woman was closer to Nina’s height than to mine. “I did it on purpose.” I turned around and pointed at the street behind us. “A car was speeding. It drove up onto the sidewalk. It nearly hit us.”

  The woman placed one hand on her heart. “That’s terrible. The street is perfectly straight and it’s not raining or anything. Why would anyone jump the curb?”

  Nina answered quickly, “We figure the driver was distracted, and the sun could have been in his or her eyes. If the windshield was dirty . . .”

  The woman peered up the street as if watching for the distracted driver to turn around and come back. “Nothing like that’s ever happened before in the sixty-however-many years I’ve lived here!” Either she was exaggerating, or she had lived in that house since she was in grade school.

  I asked her, “Did you see or hear the car?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t. It must have happened when I was out in the shed rummaging around for pruning shears. Are you three all right?”

  I hugged Dep. “We are.” Dep twitched her ears. A teensy leaf fell off her head.

  The woman called across the street, “Did you see a car drive up on the sidewalk over here?”

  I couldn’t see anyone, but a man answered from behind a screen of morning glories climbing a lattice on the front porch. “No. I just came out.”

  The woman confided quietly, “He probably did. He sits on his swing every evening about this time and reads the paper while he sips a glass of wine. He probably wouldn’t have noticed a bulldozer tearing up his front lawn.” She frowned. “Or the old lady across the street pruning her hedge.” She scratched Dep’s forehead. “I had a kitty almost like you about fifty years ago. She was the best pet ever.”