Beyond a Reasonable Donut

by Ginger Bolton

  “Yeah, I guess. Driving in a new place, you don’t get a feel for how far apart things are.”

  Driving. After she’d been peering into the donut car at the carnival, she had headed toward a gray car, but I hadn’t actually seen her in a gray car. I wanted to ask her what color her car was, but if Kassandra had been the driver who had almost hit us, she might suspect correctly why I was asking, which could mean trouble for me.

  Either the magician or Kassandra—or both—could have stayed in Suds for Buds until Zippy entered Nina’s building. Had the killer known that the woman was Zippy, or did he or she think Zippy was Nina? Had he seen Nina try her door, and was that why he’d stood up as if about to leave? But Nina hadn’t gone inside. That could be why the man sat down again and watched. And then Zippy could have come along with a screwdriver and a white plastic bucket labeled PAINT. And the man could have left the pub and followed her.

  I wanted to ask Kassandra where she’d gone and what she’d done on her break and whom she’d seen, but I didn’t want her to notice that I’d realized she’d placed herself close to the scene of the crime at about the time it was committed.

  And I still wondered if the man Kassandra said she’d seen really existed. I asked her, “That man who sat in Suds for Buds all afternoon and evening—what color was his suit, and what color was his briefcase?”

  “Both dark. Maybe black or dark brown or even dark blue. He was beside the window, but it’s tinted, and there are colored lights from a sign in the window. Mostly, the pub is dark inside, even during the day.”

  Kassandra seemed so nervous and hesitant that I suspected she’d spent most of her life being told what to do, so I didn’t want to tell her outright what I thought she should do. Hinting was probably no better, but I suggested, “Maybe you should call the Fallingbrook police and tell them what you told me.”

  Apparently, she wasn’t about to take the hint. “I’m not . . . it’s not really . . . well, you know, I don’t know if it means anything.”

  I tried to sound encouraging without frightening her into silence. “The police are nice people, and they’ll figure out if it means anything.”

  She looked away. “But if it didn’t, they might just get mad at me. I don’t like being involved, but I thought maybe I could help you get your assistant out of jail. You seem nice, and so did she, from what I saw of her.”

  “Thank you. What you’ve told me could help.”

  She rewarded me with the briefest of half-frightened smiles. “I need to get back to work.” She turned around and ran in a girlish way, her hands out as if for balance, toward The Craft Croft.

  Wondering if she’d been trying to help Nina or rehearsing a story about a man in a suit in case she needed to explain herself to the police, I watched her go. Below the hem of her gauzy skirt, her black boots thumped on the pavement.

  She’d worn sneakers when she came into Deputy Donut to apply for a job the day before, but had she worn those boots to work at Suds for Buds Friday afternoon and evening? Their heavy black soles could have made the scuff mark on Nina’s new ladder.

  Chapter 16

  With all of the other people around, many of whom knew me, I couldn’t stand on Wisconsin Street gaping at Kassandra running back toward The Craft Croft, and it wasn’t a great place to call Brent, either. I hurried up the street and around to the back door of Deputy Donut. In the office, Dep leaped to the desk and rubbed, purring, against my arm. Brent’s phone went straight to message. With Dep attempting to chew on my phone, I said, “Kassandra Pyerson, the artist who applied to work at Deputy Donut, wrote on our application that she lives in Lapeer, Michigan. She’s now working at The Craft Croft. On her application there, she said she lived in Fallingbrook. Also, she told me that on Friday, a man sat in Suds for Buds most of the afternoon and evening and stared out the window. He left Suds for Buds around ten Friday night. You probably know that Suds for Buds is across Wisconsin Street from Nina’s apartment, but a couple of doors south.”

  I tried to leave the office. Dep pounced on my shoes. I managed to let myself out of the office without her, and with my shoelaces tied. I washed up and put on my hat and a clean apron. I made certain that my phone went into the apron’s front pocket, along with my pen and notepad.

  Brent didn’t return my call during Tom’s break. Maybe I’d given Brent enough information for him to go talk to Kassandra at The Craft Croft. Tom returned, and Jocelyn left for her lunch break.

  A couple came in. It took me a second to recognize them. They were Alf, the tourist I’d met briefly at the Faker’s Dozen Carnival, and Connie, the woman who’d been telling him about sights to see in and around Fallingbrook. Instead of a hot pink shorts outfit, Connie wore a purple sundress decorated with giant poppies the same crimson as her lipstick. Her lips were pursed as if she were about to bestow a kiss on someone. She was hanging on to Alf’s arm. He looked relaxed in khakis, loafers with no socks, and a light blue dress shirt worn unbuttoned over a T-shirt. Neither of them was wearing a hat.

  With a determined look on his face as if he expected to fend off more reporters, Tom started out of the kitchen. I waggled a hand at him. Tom tilted his head as if to ask if I was sure he didn’t need to intervene. I nodded and then turned to the couple. “Welcome to Deputy Donut!”

  Alf smiled back at me. “I told you I’d come see you. Sorry we didn’t make it sooner. We’ve been sightseeing.”

  Despite the puckered-up lips, Connie managed a coy smile. “Not all of the time.”

  Afraid she was about to offer too much information, I quickly showed them to one of our cute tables for two and asked what they would like.

  Alf wanted to try our Nicaraguan single-origin coffee. “I’ve probably been to that particular coffee plantation,” he told me. “All of the ranches from that area grow fantastic coffees.” He studied our blackboard listing the day’s special donuts. “And how about a pistachio saffron cream donut?” He had chosen the most expensive items on our menu that day.

  Connie told me, “I want iced tea, but it should be brewed, and not out of a can or bottle or made from syrup.”

  I assured her, “We always brew our tea.”

  She didn’t want either sugar or lemon. Judging by the simper, she’d already been into the lemons. “No donuts, either,” she told me. “Too much sugar and fat.”

  I wanted to explain that plain donuts didn’t contain much sugar, and ours were fried at a temperature that prevented them from absorbing much oil, but I only smiled, returned to the kitchen, and explained to Tom, “He’s visiting Fallingbrook, and she’s showing him around. I accomplished some matchmaking at the carnival!”

  Tom sighed. “You and your matchmaking.”

  “I’m good at it. Samantha and Hooligan. Misty and Scott.”

  He gave me a side-eye.

  “Okay, Samantha and Hooligan didn’t need my help, but maybe Misty and Scott did. Not that they’re engaged. Yet.”

  After Alf and Connie ate, Alf signaled for the bill and paid me. “We’ll be back.”

  Connie had barely touched her tea. “If we have time.”

  Walking out, Connie clung to Alf’s arm again, maybe because her high heels had an unfortunate tendency to wobble.

  I cleaned their table and then joined Tom in the kitchen. He glanced toward the opening front door. “That’s an odd getup for a journalist.”

  Near the door, a man in a fringed suede vest, blue jeans, a red plaid shirt with pearl snaps, and black, pearl-trimmed cowboy boots removed his white felt cowboy hat and held it at his side. “I don’t think he is one,” I told Tom. “He was at the carnival on Friday. He told us he’s Rodeo Rod. He’s performing at the rodeo out at the fairgrounds this coming Saturday. I’ll take his order.”

  I showed Rod to the table that Connie and Alf had vacated. Instead of sitting down, he peered toward the kitchen. “Where’s that gal who was working with you at the carnival? Please don’t tell me she’s the one who was arrested for murder. I thought
I recognized her picture in the news from when I saw her racing around the carnival threatening people and from later, when I saw her with you.”

  I had to defend Nina. “They’ve got the wrong person. She would never hurt anyone.”

  “I can believe that. She has the look of an angel. But that mime she was threatening ended up dead, didn’t she?”

  “I didn’t see Nina threaten anyone.”

  His handsome face was sad. “She was yelling at the mime to stay away from your tent, or else. That was the threat. Or else.”

  “Did you tell the police?”

  “They talked to me, but no. It wasn’t that big a threat, you know?” He smiled down at me in a way that was almost flirtatious. He still didn’t sit down.

  “I agree. Are you from around here, Rod?”

  “Just passin’ through, always looking for greener pastures and more rodeos.”

  “What made you come to Fallingbrook a week before the rodeo here?”

  He set his hat carefully, its crown down, on a chair. “Oh, you know. I had some extra time after my last rodeo in Iowa, and I mostly travel around, and it just happened that I got here early.” Just happened, I thought. He just happened to arrive over a week early and stumble into the carnival where Zippy Melwyn was doing her mime performances. He didn’t seem to notice that I might suspect him of ulterior motives, including planning a murder. He gestured at his hat. “And good luck, like at your carnival, always helps. Know why I set my hat upside down?”

  “So you won’t distort the brim?”

  “That, and they say that if you put it right side up, good luck will fall out of it.”

  “Like upside-down horseshoes.”

  ” You got it!” He beamed at me. “This Fallingbrook seems like a pretty nice place. Lived here all your life?”

  “Yes, except for college.”

  “Figured. You look pretty happy here.”

  “It’s home. Northern Wisconsin is beautiful, and the people are friendly. What can I get you?”

  “Just plain coffee, nothin’ fancy, and a plain, old-fashioned donut. Don’t you be sprinkling nonsense like powdered sugar on it.”

  I nodded and headed to the kitchen. What had made Rod think of powdered sugar? I didn’t think the police had revealed the details of Zippy’s death.

  I brought Rod his coffee and donut. He leaped up from his chair and thanked me. His manners were sweetly old-fashioned, like taking off his hat inside and standing in the presence of a woman even when he towered over her. He didn’t spend long with his coffee and donut. He waved at me and clomped out in his flashy boots. His outfit lacked only a lasso, a couple of pearl-handled six-shooters, and spurs. And a horse.

  Jocelyn returned from her break and apologized for being away so long. It had been less than an hour, but she seldom took more than twenty minutes.

  She helped me clean Rod’s table. “Nice tip!”

  “I think he was hoping to see Nina. Did you see him?” I described Rod.

  “He was dawdling in front of the library, then he got into a van and drove away.”

  “What kind of van?”

  “Bigger than a minivan, but not much, like one of those small delivery vans. It was black with a galloping horse on the back where the window would be if it had windows.”

  I asked, “How big was the galloping horse?”

  “Small, about the size of my hand. It was the silhouette of a horse. White.”

  I didn’t remember seeing a decal like that on the back of the van that had been parked beside the donut car for a while on Friday morning, but it could have been there and I hadn’t noticed. Or the galloping horse could have been a magnetic sign that Rod had stuck on his van later. Brent and I had not seen any windowless black vans when we’d toured the parking lot, but Rod had come to the Deputy Donut tent and talked to Nina and me after Brent left. Where had Rod’s van been between when he saw Nina chase and yell at Zippy and when he talked to us at our tent? I was certain that the magician and Rod were two different men. Rod was taller than the magician, and it wasn’t only due to the cowboy boots. I supposed it was possible that Rod and the magician shared a van.

  Jocelyn’s dark brown eyes were bright with excitement. “And do you know who else I saw, Emily?” She didn’t wait for me to answer. “That deflated-looking woman who was in here yesterday applying for a job. I think she’s working at The Craft Croft.”

  “She is. I talked to her there.”

  Jocelyn looked totally innocent. Surely she hadn’t taken a longer break to search for clues to prove Nina innocent. I was going to have to keep an eye on Jocelyn. I wasn’t about to tell her about the possible connection between a black windowless van and the magician who might have killed Zippy. Jocelyn was clever and spunky. What if she became overconfident and got herself into trouble? I wasn’t certain that she thought about every angle before she leaped, sometimes literally, into something.

  Tom probably thought the same of me, except unlike Jocelyn, I never added somersaults and backflips to my ventures into righting wrongs.

  Knowing that Jocelyn could look after everyone in the dining room and wasn’t likely to leap into any danger there, I joined Dep in the office. I would keep an eye on the shop. If it became busy or if the magician slunk inside, I would run into the dining area and kitchen to help.

  Dep made it clear that I was to sit in the desk chair. I did, and she curled up on my lap and purred. I called Brent and left another message. “This is not connected to my call earlier about Kassandra Pyerson. Have the police publicly revealed the cause of Zippy Melwyn’s death? I’m asking because Rodeo Rod, a rodeo performer who was at the carnival, was just here at Deputy Donut. He made a point of not wanting powdered sugar on his donut. I can’t help wondering if he’s squeamish about powdered sugar because he killed Zippy. Also, and maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but he said that at the carnival, he heard Nina tell Zippy to stay away from our tent ‘or else.’ I don’t know if he heard the ‘or else’ or added it to deflect suspicion from himself.”

  Dep was asleep on my lap. Rather than disturb her by getting up, I phoned Mr. Arthurs and introduced myself. He remembered me from the short time we’d talked together in Deputy Donut. I told him, “I know Nina very well, and she would never have done anything like what she’s accused of.”

  “I hope you’re right. If you’re not, and if we did open the show, I’d feel like I was exploiting the death of an innocent woman, and I don’t want to make money on something that is really a tragedy for both women. You see, I knew Zipporah Melwyn.”

  If Dep hadn’t been anchoring me in my chair, I might have tumbled off it. “You knew Zipporah Melwyn?” I’d dismissed Zippy’s diary entries about communicating with Mr. Arthurs as the meanderings of a woman who was jealous of a distant cousin named Nina, but maybe Zippy had been writing the truth. Not that I believed that Nina could have hurt her or anyone else.

  Mr. Arthur’s voice was almost apologetic. “If it’s the same Zipporah Melwyn, that is. But how many Zipporah Mel-wyns could there have been in Lapeer, Michigan?”

  “Probably not many, unless the Melwyn family kept naming their daughters Zipporah. Apparently, she usually shortened her name to Zippy.”

  “She communicated with me as Zipporah. The news said that the Zipporah Melwyn who was just murdered was thirty-one. That’d be approximately the same age as the Zipporah Melwyn who contacted me about her paintings. Plus, I find it interesting that Nina’s last name is Lapeer. Was Nina’s family some of Lapeer’s first settlers? Could Nina and Zipporah have known each other in Lapeer?”

  “Nina told me that her family was not from Lapeer.”

  “Where is Nina from? I don’t think she ever told me.”

  “I’m not sure, but right before she was arrested, she said she’d never been to Lapeer.” I felt terrible about not knowing much about her. Was that because I’d never asked, had never wanted to pry, or did she have secrets she was afraid of sharing? She had never talked a
bout siblings, which wouldn’t be surprising if she didn’t have any, but I didn’t remember her ever mentioning parents, either, even when I talked about mine.

  Mr. Arthurs went on. “I shouldn’t have said I knew Zipporah Melwyn. I never met her, but we talked. She was also an artist. She sent me photos, but I haven’t seen the actual paintings. From what I could tell, she’s not as original as Nina, and her work didn’t warrant a separate trip to Michigan. However, I’m heading to Detroit next month, so I want to go on up to Lapeer and look into having someone show me Zipporah Melwyn’s paintings. I guess I’ll call your police department up there in Fallingbrook for guidance about next of kin and possibly getting access to her paintings. It seems to me that Nina mentioned that you folks at Deputy Donut have connections with the police department.”

  “My partner is Fallingbrook’s retired police chief, and between the two of us, we have lots of friends in the department. You could talk to Detective Brent Fyne. Tell him Emily Westhill sent you.” I gave him Brent’s work number.

  He thanked me.

  “Meanwhile,” I said, “have you ever heard of an artist named Kassandra Pyerson?”

  “The name doesn’t ring a bell.”

  I couldn’t tell him about Kassandra’s possible connection to Lapeer, Michigan, and perhaps to Zippy Melwyn. For one thing, he didn’t need to know, and for another, I wasn’t about to tell anyone except police officers about my suspicions of Kassandra. “Summer Peabody-Smith and I both think, only from photos, that Kassandra’s work is good, and as you might recall, Summer and I noticed Nina’s talent before you heard of her. I think you might be interested in Kassandra’s paintings, too. Do you mind if I send you a few pictures? She doesn’t know I was thinking of doing this, so you don’t have to say or do anything about them.” My matchmaking had now extended to matching artists with art galleries.

  “Send them along.” Mr. Arthurs gave me his e-mail address. He was easier to talk to than he’d been on his first, nearly silent, visit to Deputy Donut. He’d come a second time, also, but I was inside when he waylaid Nina out on the patio and told her he wanted to feature her in a one-person show at his gallery. Remembering how thrilled she’d been that sunny Halloween afternoon, I felt even sadder about her being locked in the basement of the police department, and possibly about to have her show canceled. I hoped she had no inkling that Mr. Arthurs was considering it, but knowing Nina, she was already worrying about it.