Donut Shop Mystery 25 - Devil's Food Defense (9 page)

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” which I didn’t. “I just don’t want you thinking badly about either party on my account in case I’m wrong,” I said, mostly wanting to protect Gladys’s good name.

“Especially since one of them was your friend,” Grace let slip out.

“What friend are you referring to?” Gabby asked with ice in her voice.

Grace knew instantly that she’d finally revealed too much. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“It’s got to be Gladys,” Gabby said firmly. “Is she inheriting Gray’s fortune, or is Rand trying to cheat her out of it?”

So, now it was a fortune, even though we didn’t even know how much Gray had invested with Rand in the first place. “We don’t know anything about which name was going to be named the new beneficiary with any level of certainty just yet,” I said quickly. “Besides, from what I could see, the documents hadn’t even been signed yet, so it’s probably nothing. That’s why we didn’t want to say anything.”

I was doing my best to be calm and reasonable, but that wasn’t how Gabby wanted to play it. “Do you two honestly believe Gladys had something to do with what happened to Gray? I can say with utter certainty that she would never kill someone for money. It’s ridiculous. That woman wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

“We’re not saying that she would,” I said. “But since you brought it up, how can you be so sure that she wouldn’t? I honestly believe that, given the right circumstances,
anyone
can commit murder. Does Gladys need money desperately for anything that you know of, perhaps a sick relative, or maybe she was about to lose her house?”

One of my guesses appeared to strike a nerve. They had both been stabs in the dark, but one of them had paid off. “I don’t care if Gladys was about to be evicted, or if her sister needed an operation! She would never do such a thing, and I’ll ask you to leave my shop this very instant!”

Gabby Williams was angry, and she was making no attempt to disguise it. “We’re trying to help, Gabby. We like Gladys,” I said.

She wouldn’t listen to another word.

As she walked us out the door, she said frostily, “Then you have a funny way of showing it. Good day.”

Gabby didn’t even hang around for a response as she slammed the door in our faces. I heard the deadbolts click into place, and the CLOSED sign suddenly appeared in the window, though it was nowhere near time for her to shut her business down for the day.

Grace looked horrified when I glanced in her direction. “I am so sorry. Suzanne, what did I just do?”

“Don’t worry about it. She’ll calm down eventually,” I reassured her, though I wasn’t about to put it to a timetable. Gabby could forgive a transgression overnight, or she could chew on it like a dog with a bone for years; only time would tell which this would be.

“I wanted her to like me, that’s why I said so much,” Grace said, nearly crying as she said it. “Why is pleasing that woman important to me?”

“Gabby’s opinion carries a lot of weight in this town,” I said.

“And now she hates me. I’m so sorry I said anything.”

“Don’t be,” I said, doing my best to reassure her. “It wasn’t without results. Did you see her flinch when I mentioned the possibility that Gladys might be desperate for money?”

“It was pretty clear when she got so defensive all of a sudden. Suzanne, should we be looking at Gladys as a more viable suspect than we have been?”

“I don’t know how we can’t, given the papers we just saw. Greed can be an awfully powerful motive for murder, and it can turn the nicest people into vicious killers if they’re desperate enough.”

“Trish is not going to be happy with us,” Grace said after a moment’s reflection.

“She’s just going to have to get in line then, isn’t she?” I asked.

“So, what do we do now?” Grace asked me.

I was about to answer when her cellphone rang. She glanced at, and then stepped away as she said, “I have to get this.”

After a few moments of hushed conversation, she hung up and turned back to me. “That was Stephen.”

“Did he ask you out to dinner, because if he didn’t, I happen to be free tonight. I thought we might go to Napoli’s, if you didn’t have any plans.”

“That sounds lovely, but I’m not sure we’re going to be able to go anywhere.”

“Why not?”

“He’s got something to tell us, something big that’s going to change the entire course of the investigation.”

“And he’s willing to share it with us?” I asked, surprised at the level of access we were getting to a formal police investigation.

“It can’t be anything official. That’s why he wants to meet us on my front porch. He’s already there waiting for us right now.”

“Then let’s go,” I said. We jumped into the Jeep and drove to Grace’s, though we could have easily walked the short distance.

I had a reason for getting there so quickly.

I wanted to get there before the police chief had a chance to change his mind.

Chapter 11

“L
adies, thanks for coming,” the chief said as we approached Grace’s front porch. He looked a lot older to me since he’d taken on the responsibilities of being the police chief full time from Jake. Was he losing weight? His uniform seemed a little baggy on him, and there were wrinkles around his eyes that I could swear hadn’t been there before.

“We couldn’t exactly turn you down, Chief,” I said as I took one of the free chairs outside. Grace detoured toward him long enough to give him a quick peck on the lips.

“Before you say anything,” she told him, “you need to be sure that you’re comfortable sharing it with us.”

“You’re not trying to discourage him from helping us, are you?” I asked her with a grin. I’d fought my share of police chiefs in my time, even my own husband, so I wasn’t sure that was the right way to deal with one who was doing so freely and willingly.

“You of all people should understand why I’m asking,” she said. “Didn’t Jake quit being the police chief directly because of some of the things we did in our investigations?”

“I’m not sure that’s entirely fair,” I said. “He was always going to be the temporary chief here. He wouldn’t have handed the job over to the new chief if he hadn’t been certain that he was ready.”

“Hey, I’m sitting right here. You can both see me, right?” Chief Grant asked with a grin. He reached over and patted Grace’s hand. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m not violating any rules by sharing this information with you. It’s going to be public knowledge soon enough anyway, so I don’t see any harm in giving you both a head start.”

“What’s so earthshattering?” I asked him, no longer able to contain my curiosity.

“I found out who Gray really was, and more importantly, why he was hiding in April Springs.”

“How bad is it? Gladys told us a little bit about his past earlier, but she didn’t know many facts to back anything up,” I said, feeling myself tense up inside. I realized that my image of an old friend was about to be changed forever, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it on one level, though I knew that if Grace and I were going to pursue our investigation, I’d need to know. Gladys had given us the general outline of what had driven him to April Springs twenty years earlier, but I wasn’t sure I could handle the specific details.

“It’s pretty bad, actually,” he said solemnly.

“Did he kill someone?” Grace asked him.

“Not directly,” the chief said. “It might be easier if I tell this my way. Do you mind?”

“Sorry,” I said in quick apology. “Go on. I’ll try not to interrupt you again.”

He grinned at me. “I appreciate the offer, but I won’t hold you to it. Gray Vincent’s real name was Gary Manchester. He had a police record, with two convictions for breaking and entering, but there were no outstanding warrants for his arrest for the past twenty years. As far as the official law enforcement community was concerned, he’d served his time and was not wanted for any other crimes, not even a parking ticket.”

“Then why hide his identity, as well as his past?” Grace asked. “I understand if he didn’t want folks to know that he was a convicted felon, but it seems a little drastic doing all that he did to hide his past.”

“That’s not why he did it, at least according to one source I was able to uncover. It’s all unofficial, but I believe it nonetheless. Just before Gray showed up in April Springs, there was a heist in upstate New York, and rumor had it that he was directly involved in it.”

I’d promised not to comment until the chief was finished, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. “What did they steal? Gold? Cash? What?”

“He and two accomplices allegedly made off with two Monets, a Degas ballerina, and a Van Gogh haystack from a private collector, a man who’d amassed his fortune as a landscape architect,” the chief told us.

“Was the collector killed during the crime?” Grace asked.

“Not directly, but his only living relative, a son unexpectedly visiting him at the time, was shot as the thieves escaped. In a way, the owner was killed at that moment too, because when he discovered the theft and saw his son dead on the floor, he had a heart attack and died instantly. It wasn’t technically during the commission of the crime, but they might as well have put a gun to the man’s heart and pulled the trigger.”

“How awful,” I said.

“The thieves were clever,” the chief continued. “Instead of trying to sell the artwork on the open market, they negotiated with the insurance company for twenty-five percent of the artwork’s overall value in exchange for its safe return.”

“The insurance company actually negotiated with the thieves?” I asked incredulously.

“It happens more than you might imagine,” Chief Grant said. “The amount they paid to get the artwork back was one and a half million dollars, deposited in an offshore bank account upon the safe return of the artwork.”

“Half a million apiece was a pretty good haul back then,” I said. “But that was twenty years ago. Why would someone kill Gray for it now? Surely he didn’t have anything like that when he died.”

“No, he didn’t, but he wasn’t exactly broke, either,” the chief said. “When I questioned Donald Rand earlier, he told me that Gray had just liquidated half his portfolio a few days before he died. He was planning on leaving town, and he didn’t want Rand handling his money anymore. Rand convinced him to do it in two chunks instead of all at once. He said it had something to do with tax ramifications, but I had a feeling that he wasn’t ready to give up control of all of it at once.”

“What did he do with the money he received?” I asked.

The chief smiled. “That’s an excellent question. Gray made two hundred thousand dollars from the first half of the liquidation, and he took it all directly in cash. Rand was fussing about having to carry around that much money, but it all fit into a briefcase, and that’s how Gray walked out of the office with it. The problem is, the cash has disappeared, and no one knows what happened to it.”

I whistled softly under my breath. “Two hundred thousand dollars in cash is certainly a motive for murder in some circles. Do you think someone local found out about the money and killed him for it?”

“It’s possible, but I’m working off another possibility at the moment. One of his suspected partners in the crime died last week, but not before leaving some pretty incriminating clues behind.”

“Do you think the third partner tracked Gray here to April Springs?” I asked.

“At this point it’s all supposition, but it makes sense. Have either of you seen this man around town lately? He’s currently going by the name of Mickey Wright. Supposedly, he was the one who shot the collector’s son during the heist.” The chief pulled out an old mug shot, and a more recent image to go along with it.

I barely had to glance at it. It was the same man who’d been asking me about Gray earlier, the man Grace and I had accosted at my cottage earlier. “He’s here in town. I don’t know what his name is, but he’s been asking around about Gray.”

“What? And you didn’t think that was important enough to mention it to me?”

“We tried,” I said, “but you’ve been tied up with that wreck, and then we sort of got sidetracked. We weren’t keeping it from you.”

The police chief was still frowning as he asked, “Where exactly did you see him last?”

“He was trying to eavesdrop on our conversation with Gladys Murphy in the park today,” Grace told him.

“You didn’t confront him, did you?” the chief asked softly. “Please tell me at least that much.”

“I wish we could, but how were we supposed to know that he was a bad guy?” I asked. After I brought him up to date on our conversation at my cottage, I said, “In our defense, we called you right away, but you were dealing with your own problems. When he left the park, he wasn’t too happy with either one of us.”

“This is bad, isn’t it?” Grace asked.

“Do you think?” the chief asked sarcastically. “He’s a suspected killer, and you two have gone out of your way to antagonize him. In what world could that be considered good?”

“My question is if Wright killed Gray for his money, why is he still hanging around here?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” Grace asked.

“He clearly didn’t get the cash, or he would have already taken off. Either Gray hid it and wouldn’t divulge where it was, or someone else beat Mickey Wright to the punch.”

“This man is a pro,” the chief said. “I don’t think he would kill Gray without getting the money first.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Gray was stabbed only once, and there were no other signs that he’d been hurt before that happened. That tells me that either he gave the money up quickly in an effort to save his own life, or someone got a little too eager and killed him before they had their hands on the cash.”

“So, it doesn’t make sense that Mickey Wright would keep hanging around if he already got the money,” I said.

“Not unless he thought there was more cash that he could get his hands on,” the chief said.

“He couldn’t get access to Gray’s account with Rand, could he?” I asked.

“I don’t see how, but that doesn’t mean that he believed Gray if he told him the two hundred thousand was all that he had,” the chief answered. “Either way, I’ve got a hunch that Mickey Wright is the key to this mess, and I plan on finding him and then sweating the truth out of him.”

Grace frowned when he said that. “Be careful, Stephen. If you’re right, he’s already killed at least two people that we know of, and I doubt he’s the kind of guy to let a cop stop him from looking for that money.”

“Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself,” the chief said.

“I’m not saying that you can’t, but you still need to treat him like some kind of venomous snake.”

“He’s worse than that,” the chief said. “After all, the snake is just doing what it was meant to do. This guy
chose
to be a thief and a killer.”

“So, where do we come in?” I asked him. As much as I appreciated him sharing information with us, I knew that there was a price we were going to be asked to pay. “You’re not asking us to bow out now, are you?”

“No, I know better than that,” he said with a wry smile. “Just concentrate on the folks who live around here and focus on the present; leave the past and Mr. Wright to me.”

“We can do that,” I said. I wasn’t about to remind him that if someone in town had stolen two hundred thousand dollars, they might kill to keep it. I stood and said, “Thanks for sharing this with us.”

“I’m glad we could have this little unofficial, informal chat,” he said. “Just between the three of us, I’m going to lock this town down tight until I find Mickey Wright, but until I do, stick together, will you?”

“We will,” I promised.

“Well, I’ve got to get back out there. May I make a suggestion before I go?”

I shrugged. “I don’t see why not.” That didn’t mean that I was necessarily going to follow it, but I didn’t see any reason to share that with him.

“Why don’t you two have a slumber party tonight over here? Jake’s out of town, and I’m going to be tied up most of the night. I’d sleep better if I knew that you two were together.”

“Why not at the cottage?” I asked, and then I realized what his answer would be. “Strike that. Wright saw us there, and I admitted it was my place, so if he decides to come after either one of us, that’s where he’s going to look. It doesn’t mean that he can’t find Grace’s house, though. After all, it’s not that far down the street from me.”

“Just indulge me this once, would you?” the chief asked.

“Fine. I’m game if you are,” I told Grace. I’d stayed there a few times in the past, though we normally had our sleepovers at my place.

“It will be nice hosting you for a change,” she said.

“Then it’s settled,” the chief said. “Suzanne, if you need anything from your house, I’ll drive you over there and go inside with you.”

“Do you really think that’s necessary?” I asked him. The chief was clearly spooked by what was going on. I was taking it all very seriously, but evidently not as much as he was.

“Just humor me, okay? Can you imagine what Jake would do to me if something happened to you on my watch?”

He was right. “Okay. I’ll be quick about it.” I turned to Grace. “Are you coming with us?”

“No, you two go on. I’ve got to get the guestroom ready, and then I need to make a few quick phone calls.”

“I’m not inconveniencing you, am I?” I asked.

She hugged me in reply. “Are you kidding? I’m glad Stephen suggested it. I’ll see you soon.”

Though the chief offered me a ride in his squad car, I decided to take the Jeep for the short drive to my cottage. After all, if I was hiding out from the killer, it wouldn’t do for him to spot my vehicle in front of Grace’s place on the off chance that Chief Grant was right. Personally, I had a feeling that Wright was long gone, but it wasn’t exactly going to be a hardship staying overnight with my best friend, so I went along with it. I grabbed a few things and stuffed them into an overnight bag, but only after the chief did a thorough inspection of the cottage. I was glad I hadn’t allowed myself to be messy with Jake’s absence.

“I’ll take that ride now,” I said as I headed for his car with him.

“That’s smart thinking,” the chief said.

“I get a good idea every now and then,” I replied with a grin. I’d been a fan of the man’s since he’d been a new cop on the force. He’d come by the donut shop enough for us to become friends over the years, and when he’d started dating Grace, we’d grown even closer. He was quite a bit younger than we were, but it was funny how that mattered less and less the older I got.

We rode the short distance back to Grace’s, and as I got out, I said, “Thanks again.”

“For the information, or the chauffeur service?”