Troubled Treats (9 page)

He followed me back to the donut shop, and I waved as he drove past me on his way back to our cottage.

For the moment, I needed to forget about murder and who had paid an early-morning visit to the wagon factory.

It was time, yet again, to make more donuts.

Chapter 11

For most people, it might have been difficult to go back to work after what had just happened, but I didn’t have any trouble starting my day making donuts as though Jake and I hadn’t just been so close to a possible killer.  Measuring out flour, sugar, and other ingredients was almost done by muscle-memory at this point.  It was time to come up with a new cake donut, so I leafed through my recipe book for different ideas.  I’d been meaning to play with savory donuts for some time, but I always seemed to go back to sweet offerings.  What would my customers think about a bacon-filled donut with crumbled bacon in the batter and maybe a maple glaze on top?  I was fairly certain that my husband would love the outcome, but would anyone else?  How about one with ham?  And maybe some pineapple frosting spread on it?  Someday I’d try something that different, but not today.  I kept skimming my recipe book’s sections on new ideas, but nothing really caught my eye.  Then I remembered that Jake had added a new staple to our pantry at home, one that I’d never tried until he’d come into my life.  I knew that he loved the unusual cherry tart spread on toast, so why not try it in a donut?  I’d brought some with me a few days before, so I incorporated it into one of my plain donut batters and made half a dozen at the end of the batch. Emma, my assistant, came in as I was glazing one, so I offered her a bite as I grabbed a pinch for myself.

“What do you think?” I asked her as I tasted it for myself.  It was dreadful.  There was something about the deep-frying process that had somehow curdled the spread.

“It’s… interesting,” she said after she took a nibble.

I spit out the bit in my mouth, and then I took a deep drink of water.  “It’s putrid,” I said.  “Don’t you dare start lying to me, young lady.”

“Okay, you’re right.  What was that?  I can’t believe that I actually swallowed my bite.”

I showed her the container I’d brought from home.  “Jake loves this stuff.”

“Have you thought about simmering some on the stovetop and using it as a glaze?” Emma asked after she’d bravely tasted a bit of it on the tip of her finger.  “It’s clearly not suited for being mixed in batter, but it might make a good topping.”

“We might try it another day, but for now, I’m sticking to the basics.”

“It’s always worked for us in the past,” Emma said with a grin.  “How has your morning been otherwise?”

“More exciting than I normally like,” I admitted without thinking as I threw away the rest of the failed experiments. 

“Really?  What happened?”  My assistant was suddenly eager to hear my story, but I knew better than to share it with her.  The one bone of contention we ever seemed to have was where her father, the newspaperman, was concerned.  A few times in the past, what I’d told Emma in confidence had come back to bite me, and I’d become reluctant to share anything concerning my investigations with her.

“Nothing,” I said lamely.  “Never mind.”

“Is it about the murder?  Suzanne, you can trust me.  I won’t say anything to dad unless you give me your specific approval to share it.”

I knew that it wasn’t fair to keep holding her past sins against her.  “Jake and I were at the wagon factory before work this morning.  I swung by on my way over here, and I saw flickering lights coming from the second floor.”

“Do you think that it was a ghost?” she asked me with bated breath.

“Most likely it was more like a prowler,” I said.  “Emma, you don’t honestly believe in ghosts, do you?”

“How can you not?” she asked me.  “As far as I’m concerned, there are more things going on in this world than can be easily explained or dismissed.”

She’d sounded remarkably like Gabby when she’d said it, and I had to wonder if I’d just run into another true believer in ghosts.  “Well, whether you are right or you are wrong, this was no spirit.  Someone was there, all right.”

“What could they possibly want in an old building being renovated?”

“That’s what we were trying to find out,” I said.

“Did you have any luck?”

I was willing to share some of the generalities of what had happened, but I wasn’t about to mention the crates that had been moved.  “Not so much.  Whoever was there left before Jake could get there.”

“At least you didn’t go into the building by yourself,” she said.  “That could have been really dangerous.”

I didn’t tell her that I’d done just that before I’d had a sudden change of heart.  I decided that it was time to change the subject, so I glanced at the clock.  “You’re running a little behind schedule this morning, aren’t you?”

“Sorry.  I don’t know how it happened, but my alarm didn’t go off.  It’s amazing to me that I woke up at all.”

“More out of habit than anything else, probably.”

“I’ll stay late today if you’d like me to,” she offered.

“I wasn’t scolding you, Emma,” I said with a smile.  “I was just curious.”

She looked around at the mess in the kitchen.  “Since you’re finished dropping the cake donuts, I’ll get started on the dishes.”  As she began to run the warm water in the sink, she asked, “Does this mean I don’t get my break?”

“Why would I do that?  It would be more like I was being punished if I deprived myself of your company,” I said happily.  “Half the fun of taking a break is hanging out with you outside, braving the cold temperature together.”

“I can’t wait until it starts to warm up again,” she answered.

“Just wait.  In July we’ll be wishing for chillier weather again.  Just you wait.”

“I don’t doubt it, but we could use a bit of that heat now, if you ask me.”  As Emma started washing the pots and pans I’d used making the earlier batters, I got started on the yeast donuts.  No real surprise, I finished my first round of work before she did.

“Are you ready for our break yet?” I asked her.

She looked glum as she replied, “I’ve got at least another fifteen minutes to knock these out. You go on without me.”

“Come on.  You can finish them after our break is over.  Yeast donuts wait for no man, or woman, for that matter.”

“If you’re sure,” she said as she pulled her hands out of the soapy water.

“I’m positive,” I said.

We bundled up and headed outside.  The wind had picked up, adding considerably to the chill that I’d experienced earlier.  Spring was in the air, but it was easier to believe that at noon than it was in the middle of the night.  Emma and I never let the weather stop us from our breaks, and we’d even shoveled snow from our seats on more than one occasion in the past to keep from missing our time together outside.

“So, how’s your love life these days?” I asked her as a conversation starter.

“Actually, I met a new guy recently,” she said.

“Is it serious?” I asked her.

“I thought that it might be at first, but I’m not going to go out with him anymore.”

“That’s fast, even for you,” I said with a smile.  “What was wrong with him?”

“He was just too nice for my taste, if you know what I mean,” she admitted after a long pause.

“What?  Since when was that ever a problem?” I asked her.

“The guy wouldn’t argue with me about the little things, even when he was right.  He’d just change the subject to avoid having a direct confrontation.  It didn’t take long before it started to drive me crazy.”

I laughed.  “That seems reasonable enough,” I said, letting a hint of sarcasm leak through.

“I know it sounds petty, but it was really getting on my nerves.”

“Hey, I’m not one to judge.  At your age, you can afford to be as picky as you want to be.  As you get older, though, some things might not seem as important to you as they are now.  Believe me, I’m speaking from experience.”

She frowned for a moment, and then she asked me, “Do you think I was too hard on him?”

“All I’m saying is that there are worse things in the world than being too nice,” I answered.  “It would be one thing if he was a doormat, but a little consideration can go a long way in my book.” 

“I don’t know.  I suppose that it wasn’t that bad.  He never backed down unless he didn’t consider it important.  Maybe I should give him another chance,” she said uncertainly.

“Don’t do it on my account,” I said.  I shouldn’t have butted in, but it was hard not to give her my opinion sometimes, even when she wasn’t asking for it.  “How’s school going?”  Emma was taking classes at the community college with a plan of someday going away again to a university.  She’d already tried it once, but she hadn’t liked it, so she’d come back home, something that had been a great boon for me and my donut shop.  I’d missed her, and having her with me again was awesome. 

“Good,” she said.  “You know, it’s school.  What can I say?  At least I get to sleep in my own bed at night.” 

I was happy that Emma was still close by.  Sometimes I felt selfish about being happy that she was home again, but I couldn’t help myself.  Emma was so much more than just my assistant; her presence was something that I looked forward to every day she worked at Donut Hearts.

We were nearly ready to go back in when I saw a squad car go past.  Chief Grant was driving, and he tapped his horn lightly as he passed us.

“What is he up to this early in the morning?” Emma asked.

“Jake and I called him before.  No doubt he’s been checking out the wagon factory since we left,” I said.

Emma nodded.  “From the sedate way he was driving, I’m guessing that he didn’t find anything there.”

“I can’t help believing that whoever was there tonight was the person who killed Sully Jackson.  I just wish I knew why.”  I had my own theories about the killer’s motivation, but it was nothing I cared to share with Emma.

My assistant hesitated, and then she finally said, “Dad might have a few ideas about that.”

I was starving for information about the murder, but I knew in my heart that the line that was between us shouldn’t be crossed from either side.  “Emma, you shouldn’t tell me anything your dad wouldn’t want you to.  Our information blockade is a two-way street.”

“I don’t see how it matters.  He can’t print any of his theories, and goodness knows he has enough of them.”

“Are you positive that he wouldn’t mind you sharing them with me?” I asked her.

Emma was about to reply when the timer went off.  The yeast dough was ready for more attention, and it wouldn’t wait. 

“You’re right,” my assistant said as we both stood.  “I’m sorry I said anything.”

“No worries.  It’s already forgotten,” I said as I hugged her briefly.  I was curious about what Emma’s father thought about the case, but not enough to get into a quid pro quo situation with his daughter.  “Come on.  Let’s get back to work.”

The rest of the morning’s prep work seemed to fly by, and before I knew it, it was time to open the donut shop for our first customers of the day.

I’d been expecting to see at least one familiar face when I walked out front to open the shop—like the mayor’s, or even the police chief’s—but the man I saw standing outside surprised me.

It was Jim Burr, one of my suspects, and from the look of his lowered head and drooping shoulders, he was sporting quite a hangover from his bender the night before.

The question was why was he at the donut shop so bright and early the next morning when clearly the only place he wanted to be was back home in bed?

Chapter 12

“Good morning,” I said quite a bit louder and cheerier than was called for when I opened the door for the electrician.  “How are you?”

He held his temples as he tried his best to smile.  “Take one guess.”

“If you’re here for a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you, I should warn you, none of my donuts have any alcohol in them.”

Jim shuddered a little as I closed the door behind him and flipped the sign to show the world that we were open for business.  When he spoke, his words were careful and measured.  “I drank way too much last night.  I think I’m going to go on the wagon after what happened.  How bad was I?”

“Well, for one thing, you seemed pretty sure that Shirley Edam killed your boss,” I said.  “Did you have any particular real reason to suspect it was true?  I mean now that you’re sober.”

He started to nod, but then he clearly must have thought better of the idea.  “I might have been drunk, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I was wrong.”

“Do you have any proof?”

Jim shook his head, a movement that he clearly regretted instantly.  Through clenched teeth, he said, “Sully wasn’t going through with the merger, no matter what she’s been telling everyone.  He told me himself yesterday morning that when he saw Shirley’s reaction to his personal rejection, he didn’t want to be in business with her.”

“She claims that his rejection was no big deal,” I said as I poured him a large cup of steaming black coffee.  He took it from me immediately and drank greedily, despite its temperature.

“She would say that though, wouldn’t she?” he asked.  “What nobody realizes is that Sully was her last hope.  When he turned her down, she got really desperate.”

The statement surprised me.  “I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.  There are plenty of other eligible men in April Springs alone,” I said.

“I’m not referring to his dating rejection of her; I’m talking about her electrical contracting business.  I hear things, being in the trade, you know?”  Jim stopped to take another large gulp of his coffee, and I grabbed the pot so I could give him a quick refill.  He deserved at least that much for coming by this morning in spite of the way he clearly felt.

“Such as?”

“From what I’ve heard, she’s been gambling in Union Square,” he said.  “And she’s been losing, big.  Without Sully to prop her business up, she’s going under, and it’s going to happen fast.”

“I take it you don’t have any proof of this, though.”