Donut Shop Mystery 25 - Devil's Food Defense (4 page)

Chapter 5

I
jerked the Jeep to a halt.

“Suzanne, what are you doing?” Grace asked me as I jumped out and ran toward what I’d just seen.

“That’s not a scarecrow!” I said as I raced to the figure. Maybe I was wrong. It might not be a man, I kept telling myself, but I knew in my heart that I was wrong.

It was Gray, and the moment I saw his whitened face and his bloody chest, I knew that we were too late.

“Who would do this?” I asked her, sobbing as I fought to untie him, though I knew that Gray Vincent was long past caring.

Grace finally managed to pull me away. “Suzanne! Stop!”

“We can’t just leave him like that,” I said through my tears.

She grabbed my shoulders and physically stopped me. It shocked me just how much stronger she was than I was at that moment. “We don’t have any choice. Stephen needs to see this.”

I took a deep breath, and the madness I’d been feeling was suddenly gone. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. I’m okay. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now, why don’t you walk back over to the Jeep while I call Stephen?”

“I’ll be fine right here,” I said. I couldn’t look directly at the body anymore, so I kept my gaze focused out into the woods. Beyond the lights Gray had set up, there was nothing but darkness. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching us from the forest, even though I knew that it was most likely just my imagination. Who would kill this harmless old man? Had they done it before they’d strung him up, or after? For some reason it was important to me to know, though I might not ever find out the answer. I couldn’t have said what Grace told the chief of police, but the next thing I knew, he and a full crew of his deputies were on the scene. Grace took my arm in hers, and we walked unsteadily back to the Jeep.

After giving the scene a preliminary look, Chief Grant joined us a few minutes later. He looked into my eyes. “Suzanne, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I said. We both knew that I was lying, but it didn’t seem to matter. I thought I’d been hardened to seeing things like what we’d just found, but clearly I’d been wrong.

“Sure you are. Tell me what happened.”

“Can’t this wait, Stephen?” Grace asked him. “I need to get her home.”

“I’m sorry, but what she knows could be important to my investigation,” the chief said, clearly unhappy about having to cross his girlfriend.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I need to tell him.”

Grace nodded, and then she put her arm around my waist, though I couldn’t say whether it was to offer her support or simply to steady me so I didn’t fall over.

“I spoke with Gray right before the movie. He was clearly upset about something, so I went over to check on him. He asked me for our help, but when I found his lawn chair after the movie, he was already gone. All he left behind was a note for us to come out here as soon as we could. We did as he asked, and we found him like that,” I said, trying not to glance over at where the body was still tethered. “Do you have to leave him like that? Why doesn’t someone at least cut him down?”

“We have to wait for the medical examiner,” Chief Grant said calmly. “It shouldn’t be long.”

I wanted to protest that it was undignified leaving him so vulnerable, but then I realized how foolish I was being. Gray was long past caring, so why should I be so upset by it?

“And you don’t have any idea what he wanted to discuss with you?” the chief asked me.

“I don’t have a clue,” I admitted.

“Okay. May I see the note?”

I pulled it out of my pocket and handed it to him, but he wouldn’t take it directly. “It’s okay. Gray left it for me. Nobody else’s fingerprints are going to be on it.”

“That’s entirely possible, but we can’t be too careful,” he said as pulled an evidence bag from his pants pocket and had me place the note inside. After he sealed it up, he studied it for a moment, and then the chief turned back to me. “Is this Gray’s handwriting?”

“I have no idea. I just naturally assumed that it was.” The thought that someone else might have left that note for me hadn’t even crossed my mind. Was the chief onto something, or was he just being overly paranoid?

“We’ll find out. Is that all you know?”

“Yes. No. Maybe,” I said.

“Stephen, can’t you see she’s in shock? I need to get her home,” Grace insisted. “Suzanne, give me your keys. I’m driving.”

I was so numb that I actually handed them over. Grace had never driven my Jeep before in her life, and I was a tad overprotective of it, despite its age and general rough condition.

“Hang on a second. We’re not finished here yet,” Chief Grant told her, and Grace nodded once.

“You have thirty seconds, and then I’m getting her out of here, whether you like it or not.”

He shrugged, not in agreement, but not opposing her, either. “Suzanne, you were about to tell me something.”

“It’s probably nothing,” I said.

“Tell me anyway.”

“This afternoon, I saw Gray near the city hall. He looked haunted by someone or something. When I turned around, I could swear I saw someone ducking behind the other side of the building, but when I got there, whoever it was that might have been following him was gone.”

“Do you have any idea of who it might have been?”

“She would have said so if she had, don’t you think?” Grace asked crossly.

“Bear with me for just one more minute,” the chief said. “Any impressions at all? Man or woman? Young or old? Anything you might remember could help us find his killer.”

I searched my memories to see if I could answer his questions, but I kept drawing a blank. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who it was.”

The chief nodded. “It’s okay. You’ve had quite a shock. Both of you have,” he added, including Grace with a soft smile.

She didn’t respond in kind. It was as though she were a mother lion looking after one of her kittens.

The chief frowned for a moment, but then he continued, “If you think of something later, call me, day or night, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “There’s one other thing.”

“What’s that?” he asked eagerly.

“I ran into a man before the movie who described Gray and asked if I knew where he could find him. It struck me as a little odd at the time, but I forgot all about it until now.”

“Tell me about him,” the chief said.

After I gave him a general description of the man, I said, “There was something about him that I didn’t like. I didn’t tell him a thing, and he didn’t linger.”

“Could he have been the same person following Gray earlier?” the chief asked.

“I couldn’t say. I’m sorry. That’s really all that I know.”

“Thanks. We’ll see if we can track him down,” he said as he closed up his notebook.

“Come on, Suzanne. I’m getting you home,” Grace said. It was clear there was no overruling her this time. It felt odd getting into the Jeep’s passenger side. Jake usually didn’t even drive my Jeep, but I wasn’t in any shape to put up a fight.

As Grace drove, I asked, “Why aren’t you as shaken as I am by what we found out there?”

“Believe me, at the first opportunity I get, I plan on collapsing into a ball of mush. Right now, I have to be strong for you. I didn’t try to get him down; in fact, I didn’t even touch him. You’re the one who had the guts to check for a pulse.”

“For all of the good it did him,” I said, remembering with a shudder the feeling of Gray’s dead skin as I’d searched for any sign of life.

“At least you tried. That’s what counts,” she said. “You should close the donut shop tomorrow. You need your rest.”

“Funny, I was thinking just the opposite. I’ve got a feeling that I’m going to be needing the shop to take my mind off what we just saw.”

“Will you at least be able to get a nap before you have to start making donuts? You’ve got four hours before you need to get to work. It’s not much, but it might help.”

“Grace, I can’t imagine going to sleep tonight after what we just saw. Can you?”

“No,” she quickly admitted. “We could always watch a movie at your place, since Jake’s gone.”

“You don’t have to babysit me,” I said, though the idea of having her company actually lightened my heart a little.

“How do you know I’m not doing it as much for me as I am for you?” she asked me with a grin.

“I don’t,” I answered. “Okay. We’ll make it a party. Strike that. There’s not going to be anything festive about it, but I wouldn’t say no to having you at the cottage with me.”

“And there’s no place on earth I’d rather be,” she said as she reached over and patted my knee.

We settled in on the couch back home and put a movie in the DVD player. At least we’d have each other for company until it was time for me to go to work again.

The truth was that the opening credits hadn’t even finished rolling before I found myself drifting off to sleep. The strain of the current events had clearly taken more out of me than I could have imagined.

The next thing I knew, my internal alarm clock was waking me up.

It was time to make the donuts again.

I glanced over at Grace, but she was sound asleep herself, and I didn’t have the heart to wake her. I got up as quietly as I could manage, got ready for work, and left her a note before I took off, flashing back for an instant to the one I’d gotten from the recently dead man.

To my surprise, there were lights on at the donut shop when I got there.

Had Emma decided to show up early, or was someone else paying me a visit?

I thought about calling Chief Grant, but when I looked through the front window, I saw that everything appeared to be intact, and to my surprise, Emma’s coat was hanging up on the rack.