Stake & Eggs (25 page)

“That’s right. We’re going to have ourselves a little confab.”

“Good luck,” said Toni, as the door whooshed open and Sheriff Doogie stomped in. With
typical noisy bluster, he pulled off his giant-size mitts, peeled off his parka, and
whooped out
hello
s to everyone. His khaki shirt had bunched around his belly, looking untucked and
unkempt, but Doogie didn’t seemed to mind. Or care.

“Come on over here,” Suzanne said, waggling her fingers at him. “Sit at the counter
so we can talk while I work.”

“Or you can work while I talk,” guffawed Doogie.

“Whatever,” said Suzanne. She reached into the pie saver and pulled out a sticky roll
covered with thick caramel frosting and a scatter of pecans. “Lunch isn’t quite ready,
so how about a little appeteaser?” She slid the roll onto a plate and held it up like
she was about to train a circus bear.

“Sure thing,” said Doogie. “And coffee if you got it.”

Suzanne set the roll in front of Doogie, then splashed coffee into a ceramic mug.
“Have you thought about what we talked about?” she asked.

Doogie bit into his sticky roll and chewed thoughtfully. “You had a good insight,”
he said, “about Joey being mistaken for Colby. I’ll admit that.”

Suzanne’s heart leapt. Now they were getting somewhere!

“Is there any word yet on Colby?” she asked.

Doogie continued to chew. “Nope. If he’s still in the area, he sure as heck found
himself a bolt hole to hide in. Because we’ve been actively looking. I even sent two
deputies over to the Crossroads Mall in Jessup. They poked around, asked questions,
even went into a couple of those crazy stores that the kids hang out in. Whadya call
’em—
head shops? But no Colby. And no kid that fit his description either.”

“You’re going to continue searching for him, aren’t you?” asked Suzanne.

Doogie shifted uncomfortably. “How much can we really look? I mean, my department’s
got limited resources. You know that.”

“But Colby could be the key to everything!” said Suzanne. “Plus, he’s a runaway.”

“I don’t have a missing person’s report on file,” said Doogie. When Suzanne started
to interrupt, he said, “You gotta look at it from my perspective. We got no last name,
no background information, no worried parents making inquiries. So I’m flyin’ blind
here, Suzanne.”

“I hear you.”

“And don’t forget, I still got Mayor Mobley badgering me like a duck on a beetle to
solve Busacker’s murder. And that wackadoodle banker guy Ed Rapson is backing him
up. They say they can’t bring in a new bank president until this murder is solved.
They say nobody wants to take the place of a murder victim!”

“I suppose they’ve got a point,” said Suzanne.

“So that just puts more pressure on my department,” said Doogie.

Suzanne thought for a moment. “Have you heard anything more about Lester Drummond
getting the bank presidency?
He
wouldn’t mind sitting in the office of a dead guy.”

“He’s a cold-hearted son of a gun,” Doogie agreed. “But Drummond surely doesn’t seem
like the proper candidate for the job.” Doogie whisked a scatter of crumbs off the
front of his shirt. “It’d be like he was transitioning from bail bonds to treasury
bonds.”

“Hey, Doogie,” said Toni, as she swung by with a stack of dishes. “What do you know
about the new warden out at the prison? I hear they call him Weasel Face.”

“Who calls him that?” asked Suzanne. “The prisoners?”

Doogie chuckled. “Actually, pretty much everybody at city hall is calling him that.”

“Isn’t it wonderful,” said Suzanne, “how Warden Fiedler has established such a high
standard of trust and respect so early on. That there’s so much collegiality.”

“Got a chicken potpie here!” called Petra.

Suzanne stepped to the pass-through and grabbed it. She set it, all golden and steaming
hot in front of Doogie. Then she placed a checkered napkin, knife and fork, and glass
of ice water next to it.

Doogie’s eyes lit up when he saw the potpie. “Doesn’t that look good!” He grabbed
his fork, ready to dig in.

“Poke it first,” called Petra, “and let the steam out. Otherwise your tongue and brains
will explode.”

“Thanks for the warning,” called Doogie, as he prodded it with great anticipation.

Suzanne edged closer to Doogie and lowered her voice. “I’ve got something else for
you, but you have to keep it under your hat.”

Doogie gave her a flat-eyed stare. “Okay.” He took an enormous bite, juggled it around
inside his mouth, then flapped a pudgy hand in front of his blistered lips. “Good,”
he said. What he really meant was “hot.”

“I’m pretty sure Claudia Busacker is having an affair with George Draper,” said Suzanne.

Doogie almost had his water glass up to his mouth. Upon hearing Suzanne’s words, his
hand wavered and he sloshed a few drops down the front of his shirt. He hastily set
his glass down and hissed, “The heck you say! The crepe hanger?”

Suzanne nodded. Almost laughed. “The funeral director, yes.”

“How do you know this?” asked Doogie. “From one of your stitchy bitchy groups or romance
reader clubs?”

“Ham Wick heavily implied it,” she told him, “when I ran into him at the coronation
last night.”

“But he didn’t say it was the gospel truth, did he?” said Doogie.

“What Wick said was that Claudia and Ben had a very unhappy marriage, and that she
was seeing someone else on the sly.”

“So how did you come to the conclusion she was seeing George Draper?” asked Doogie.

“I kind of put two and two together,” said Suzanne. “From watching the two of them…um,
interact.”

“Yeah?” Doogie, almost dazed, was staring at her.

“It’s a guess,” Suzanne admitted.
Or maybe even a psychic
vision.
“But I’m ninety-nine percent sure that I’m right.”

Doogie squinted at her. “That high?”

“Okay, maybe ninety percent,” said Suzanne. “But you saw them together at Busacker’s
funeral. That wasn’t just decorum, that was…love.”
Or lust.

“Could have fooled me,” said Doogie, “but I’m listening. Granted, I’m still skeptical,
since most of this seems to be based on female intuition, which is a funny kind of
instinct that tells a woman she’s right even when she’s not.”

“No,” said Suzanne. “I’m pretty sure their relationship is fact.”

Doogie dug into his potpie again. “At best it’s a hunch.” He chewed methodically.
“And you can’t run an investigation on hunches.”

Suzanne put her elbows on the counter and leaned forward even more. “Then how about
this, cowboy…”

Doogie stopped chewing.

“Claudia had a one-point-five-million-dollar insurance policy on her husband. Which
she’s now poised to collect—and spend in any frivolous and disgusting manner she sees
fit.”

Doogie sat in silence, digesting this new information along with his potpie.

“So…you still think it’s a crazy hunch?” Suzanne asked.

“Maybe not,” Doogie said slowly. “Maybe not.”

*  *  *

P
ETRA
was flipping Monte Cristo sandwiches on the grill and Toni was plopping radishes
and carrot sticks on white luncheon plates when Suzanne swung into the kitchen.

“I got something to run by you guys,” she said. Doogie had finished his lunch and
left, and the café was starting to fill up. She knew she had to hurry.

“What’s up?” said Toni. “You got some juicy gossip for us?”

“Yes,” said Suzanne.

Petra turned around and frowned. “Suzanne.” Her voice carried a warning.

“Hear me out,” said Suzanne. She quickly told them about the Claudia Busacker–George
Draper affair.

“That’s what you were whispering about with Doogie?” said Toni. “That’s crazy interesting!”

“No, it’s not,” said Petra. “It’s shameful innuendo.”

“Wait a minute,” said Toni. She cocked her head, as if deep in thought. “Suzanne,
are you telling us that Claudia might have had a motive for wanting her husband dead?
That maybe she hired some kind of…hit man?”

“Really,” said Suzanne, “I suppose anything’s possible.”

“Suzanne,” said Petra, gesturing with a wooden spoon. “You’re the one who’s always
harping about motive. People don’t generally kill indiscriminately, unless they’re
crazies like Charles Manson…”

“Or Hannibal Lecter,” put in Toni.

“Plus there’s no hard evidence and certainly no possible motive,” continued Petra.
“So let’s just let it go.”

Suzanne gazed at Petra, ready to drop her bombshell. “What I’m about to tell you ladies
cannot go beyond the boundaries of this humble kitchen,” she said.

“What? What is it?” cried Toni, eager for more.

“Claudia stands to inherit one-point-five-million dollars from her husband’s death,”
said Suzanne.

Petra gasped, clapped a hand to her chest, and said, “What?”

“Holy bazooka!” said Toni. “Where’s that payout coming from?”

“A big, fat life insurance policy,” said Suzanne.

“Whoa,” said Toni. “One-point-five-million dollars is a humongous pile of greenbacks!”

“This is for real?” said Petra. “You wouldn’t just make this up?”

“Serious
dinero
!” said Toni.

“It’s for real,” said Suzanne. “Which makes this information kind of a game changer.”

“The plot thickens,” said Toni.

“Or my waistline,” said Petra, looking unhappy. “Whichever comes first.”

S
UZANNE
was at odds and ends. She was worried about Colby, musing about Claudia, and letting
everyone else—Ducovny, Steiner, Ed Rapson, George Draper, and Lester Drummond—enjoy
a walk-on roll in her roiling, overtaxed brain. Nothing made sense, nothing seemed
to connect. And yet, there’d been a murder and an aggravated assault. So where did
this all lead? How did it connect? And was the Claudia–George Draper affair just too
perfect? Or was the couple’s motive perfectly obvious?

Even the dead Busacker lurched through her thoughts, as if prodding her to cough up
an answer!

Finally, Suzanne escaped to a small space next to the cooler, where she’d been thinking
about putting in her Shabby Chic Boutique. She wanted to stock vintage items or fun
things that had been distressed to
appear
vintage, all with a soft, minimalist, feminine feel.

One crafty lady had already brought in a few items to sell on consignment.
Hmm.
Suzanne stood poised for a moment, like a ballet dancer ready to execute an arabesque,
then
hurried into her office and pulled out a box from beneath her desk.

There was a lamp that had been painted eggshell white and trimmed with a pink fabric
shade. Cute. And a spoon bracelet and a pillow stenciled with a French crown. Also
very saleable. And here was a picture of Marie Antoinette in a vintage blue curlicue
frame.

Suzanne gazed at Marie, and thought,
Poor lady lost her head, too. Just like Busacker.
Which sent her mind reeling back to the events of this past week. And last night…with
Joey. And how he’d switched jackets.

I wonder if…

Suzanne stopped right there and quickly dialed Joey’s house. She made polite chitchat
with his mom for a few minutes, then finally got Joey on the line.

“How are you feeling?” asked Suzanne.

“Pretty good,” said Joey. “Mom just made my favorite lunch, sloppy joes.”

“Joey,” said Suzanne, “do me a favor. Look in the pockets of that jacket Colby gave
you, okay? See if there’s anything in there.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Joey said, “Huh?”

“Just do it, honey, okay? I need to know if there’s anything in there.”

“Okay.”

There was the
clunk
of the phone being set down, then Suzanne listened to dead air for thirty seconds.
Finally, Joey came back on the line.

“I dug through all the pockets and pretty much came up empty,” said Joey.

“There was nothing at all?”

“Just a piece of gum, kinda smells like spearmint or something, and a ticket stub
for a concert.”

“What’s it say on it?”

“The gum?”

“No, the ticket stub.”

“Uh…Fire Spokes,” said Joey.

“That’s a group, right?”

“Yeah. Slammin’ sound. I got most of their stuff on my iPod.”

“What’s the venue?” asked Suzanne.

“The what?”

“The place where the concert was held.”

“Um…wait a minute.” More silence, then Joey came back again. “It says First Avenue.
In Minneapolis.”

“Anything else?”

“Not really.”

Suzanne thought about this small shred of evidence. Colby had attended a concert at
First Avenue in Minneapolis and had claimed that he’d once worked in a Minneapolis
restaurant. So is that where he was from? Maybe. Possibly.

“Okay, Joey, take care,” said Suzanne. “And thanks for your help.”

“Bye,” said Joey.

The minute the line disconnected, Suzanne punched in Doogie’s number. She waited while
her call was transferred; then he came on the line.

“Doogie,” she said quickly into the phone, “get in touch with the Minneapolis police.
See if they have a missing kid that matches Colby’s description.”

“What’s this all about?” asked Doogie.

Suzanne hastily told him about the ticket stub in the pocket of the Raiders jacket.

“Minneapolis, huh?” said Doogie.

“Look, it’s worth a shot,” said Suzanne.

“Maybe,” said Doogie, and promptly hung up.

Suzanne gazed at the wall across from her desk where photos, paintings, and some memorabilia
were hung. Petra had stenciled a lovely photo of a dark green woods onto raw canvas
and then had embroidered the words
The best
way out is always through.
It was a quote from Robert Frost.

“I wonder,” said Suzanne, “how we’ll all make it through?”

“T
HE
thing for us to do now,” said Toni, “is sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.”

“The play’s the thing, huh?” said Suzanne.

Suzanne and Toni were shoehorned into straight-backed wooden seats in the tenth row
of the cavernous high school auditorium. All around them, people coughed, hiccupped,
talked in excited whispers, and jiggled in their seats, anxious to see the stage presentation
of
Titanic
put on by the Community Players, the local troupe dedicated to the performing arts.
If you could call
Titanic
and last year’s presentation of
The Producers
actual art, that is.