Bad Bites: Donut Mystery #16 (The Donut Mysteries) (5 page)

“I know it all too well.
 
It’s
going to make me sound like some kind of nut, though.”

I touched his shoulder gently.
 
“I don’t think that at all.
 
The worst it might do is make you look as though you care.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t necessarily want it to get around town that I have a
sensitive side, you know what I mean?”

Thinking about how gruff the mayor could be, I didn’t think that was
anything that he was going to have to worry about.
 
“You should be safe enough.
 
Do you have any idea what Chester’s
problem with Vince Dade was?”

“Are you telling me that you didn’t know?” George asked, clearly
surprised.

“No, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

The mayor shrugged.
 
“Now that
I think about it, I guess that all happened before your time.
  
Chester, Vince, and a few dozen other
investors were business partners on the side about ten years ago.
 
They put together a group that dabbled
in land speculation to lure a big hotel complex that was supposed to be coming
to the area, but it got too risky for Chester’s blood, so he wanted out just
before the final agreement was signed.
 
Vince took it upon himself to buy all of Chester’s shares and a couple
of others too, and a month later, the main part of the land was declared
unbuildable.
 
I heard it was due to
the ground being unstable or something like that.
 
Anyway, the hotel venture pulled out,
and apparently Vince ended up losing his shirt.”

“What did that have to do with Chester?
 
I can understand Vince being upset, but
it just sounds like bad luck to me.
 
Did Chester or the other two investors have any idea that the land was
nearly worthless when they sold their shares back to Vince?”

“Not that I ever heard, but that didn’t keep Vince from carrying a grudge
all of these years.
 
I’m kind of
surprised that your mother didn’t tell you about this.”

That was an odd thing for him to say.
 
“What does Momma have to do with it?”

“Well, she and her new husband were the other two investors Vince bought
out,” George explained.

Chapter 5

“Are you serious?”

“Suzanne, you know me well enough to realize that I don’t kid around
about something like that,” George said.

I wanted to rush right over to Momma’s to get her side of things, but I
wasn’t done with my friend yet, so that was just going to have to wait.
 
“George, you’ve mentioned a few folks
who might have wanted Chester dead, people that I’ve already suspected might
have done it.
 
Is there anyone else
you can think of that I should check out in my investigation?”

“Kevin Leeds,” George said so softly that I had to strain to hear
it.
 

“Kevin?
 
What beef did he have
with Chester?”

“I have no idea,” the mayor admitted.
 
“All I know is that there’s been bad
blood between Kevin and Chester for years.”

I stood.
 
“Well, thanks for
your time, and the explanation.”

“There’s one more person that you should look for,” George said before I
could make it out the door.

“Who might that be?” I asked.

“I don’t have a name for you, but one thing that I learned when I was a
cop was to always consider who had the most to gain by the victim’s death.”

“Did Chester carry life insurance?
 
Who gets his retirement account now that he’s dead?”

“I don’t know, but you need to ask Jake about them both.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said, not really sure whether I’d ask my
boyfriend that or not.
 
After all, it
was too far into his jurisdiction and not enough in mine.
 
I was good at getting folks to admit
things they might not to the police, but when it came to seeing restricted
records, that was all on Jake.
 
Still, it gave me something to think about.
 
Maybe if the opportunity arose, I’d ask
him about it, but I had something far more pressing ahead of me at the moment.

I needed to speak with my mother and her new husband about a land deal
that happened over a decade ago and try to figure out if it might have offered
enough motive for murder today.

“Do you have a second, Momma?” I asked after my mother answered the door
of her new place.

“For you?
 
Always.
 
Come in, Suzanne.”

“Thanks,” I said as I walked into the living room.
 
The chief, er, the former chief was
there, going through an old magazine about Alaska.

“I’ll just leave you two alone,” he said as he closed the magazine and
started to stand.

“Actually, I’d appreciate it if you’d hang around.
 
This concerns you, too.”

“Is it about Chester?
 
Did
Jake find the killer already?”
 
There
was real hope in his voice as he asked, and I hated to disappoint him.

“Not that I know of.”

“But this is part of
your
investigation; am I right there?”

“You are.”

“Well, Dot and I will do whatever we can in our power to help you,” Chief
Martin said.
 
“All you have to do is
ask.”
 
I didn’t care about his
change in status, or the shift in his demeanor.
 
He’d always be the chief of police to
me, even though Jake was currently doing his job, and there was a part of me
that liked things the way they had been.

“I’m kind of surprised that you are being so cooperative,” I said as I
took a seat near the fireplace.

“That’s because we’re on the same team now,” he said.
 
“What can we do for you?”

“I need to know about the land speculation deal you and Momma went in on with
Chester and Vince Dade,” I said.

“Who told you about that?” my mother asked me.

“Is it important?” I asked.
 
“What happened?”

“It was all such a long time ago,” Momma said.
 
“Surely you don’t think it’s the reason
Chester was murdered, do you?”

“Momma, you’ve seen me work.
 
I usually don’t know which clues are significant and which ones aren’t
until I’ve figured out the entire puzzle.”

She nodded, and the police chief spoke.
 
“I don’t mind talking about it.
 
It was going to be big for April
Springs, and everyone was trying to figure out where the hotel was going to
go.
 
Vince seemed to have the inside
track,
 
though he never told us how,
so Chester and I decided to invest when he approached us.”

“I came in a few days after they did,” my mother said.
 
“Vince could be very convincing, and
that was before I’d fully developed my keen business senses.”
 
Coming from anyone else, it would have
sounded a little pretentious, but from Momma, it was simply the truth.
 
My mother frowned for a moment, and then
she added, “I’m afraid that I was the cause of Chester pulling out in the first
place.”

The chief looked surprised to hear that.
 
“What do you mean?”

Momma sat beside him and patted his knee.
 
“Chester didn’t want you to know at the
time, and I saw no reason to tell you.
 
He came to me, worried that he was going to lose his original
investment, so I told him that if he wasn’t comfortable with the risk, he
should pull out of the deal.
 
I even
offered to buy his share, but he told me that he’d rather get it from Vince.
 
I was going to be his fallback plan, but
I never had to come through for him.
 
I was startled when Vince offered to buy me out as well when I started
asking questions of my own, but I had enough trepidation about the project at
that point to accept his offer.”
 
She looked over at her husband as she asked, “When did you sell your
portion to him?”

“After Chester, but before you,” the chief said.

“Did your brother share his concerns with you as well?” Momma asked.

The chief looked uncomfortable as he admitted, “No, it wasn’t anything
like that.
 
My wife found out what
I’d done, so she made me do it.
 
I
took a bit of a hit on the investment, but at least it kept a bit of peace in a
marriage that had precious little of it at that point.”

“So then, Vince didn’t have any reason to be mad at you, but he certainly
had cause to be angry with me,” Momma said.

“That’s not entirely true,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“He didn’t know that you advised Chester to pull out, did he?”

“I highly doubt it.
 
Chester
wasn’t one to ask anyone for help or advice, so I doubt that he shared with
Vince the fact that he had felt compelled to share his concerns with me.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t tell Vince about that part of it,” Chief Martin said
gravely.

“Honestly, you can’t seriously think that I’m in danger now because of
 
something that happened ten years ago,
can you?” my mother asked her husband incredulously.

“Dot, until we know exactly who killed Chester, and why, I’m going to
take everything seriously,” he told her.
 
“And I suggest that you both do the same.”

“I for one always do,” I said as I tried to stifle a yawn.

“Suzanne, you look tired.
 
Isn’t it past your bedtime, or have you decided to let Sharon and Emma
make the donuts tomorrow?” Momma asked me.

“No, I’m doing it myself,” I said as I tried to stop another one.
 
“You’re probably right.
 
I’d better go back to the cottage and get
some sleep,” I added.

“Be careful,” Momma said, a sentiment the chief echoed as they walked me
to their door.

After I waved good-bye, I headed back to the cottage that Momma and I had
shared once upon a time.
 
It seemed
like forever now, but it in the grand scheme of things, it hadn’t been that
long ago at all.
 
Jake was there, at
least for now, though it was clear from the lack of vehicles in the driveway
that he was still out investigating.
 
A part of me was sad not to be able to kiss him good night, but another
part was just as happy that I wouldn’t have to explain any of my partially
formed theories quite yet.
 
Besides,
they weren’t all that clear in my own mind.
 
Maybe a good night’s sleep would crystallize
things for me, but the worst-case scenario was that I would at least get some
rest, and that was never a bad thing.

Chapter 6

I’d been hoping that Jake would be there when I got back to the cottage,
but a part of me knew that probably wasn’t going to happen.
 
The man had an intensity and focus when
he was working a case like I’d never seen, and I realized that I’d be lucky if
I saw him at all over the course of the next few days and weeks.
 
I checked in with Grace, grabbed a
yogurt from the fridge, and then I curled up on the couch, though I probably
should have just gone to bed.
 
The
problem with that was if I did go upstairs, I’d have zero chance of seeing Jake
if and when he made it back to the cottage.
 
If he found me asleep on the couch,
there would at least be a chance that he’d wake me.

And that’s exactly what happened.

“Suzanne, it’s time to get up,” I heard him say as he gently shook my
shoulder.

“Five more minutes, Momma,” I said, still not completely awake.

“I don’t know whether I should feel complimented or insulted by that,” he
said as I sat up and rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
 

“What time is it?”

“Right on time for you, but too late for me, or too early, whichever way
you choose to look at it.
 
Here,
have some coffee,” he added as he handed me a mug.

“You made this?” I asked as I took a healthy drink and almost choked.
 
It was stout, much stronger than I
preferred, but I wasn’t about to be a choosy beggar.

“Hey, you’ve done it enough for me in the past,” he said as he took a sip
from his mug and smiled.
 
“Just the
way I like it, strong enough to take the paint off the side of a barn.”

“It’s got some punch to it; I’ll say that much,” I said as I took
another, more cautious sip.

“You get used to it after a while,” he said, and then he let out a loud
breath as he eased down into one of the living room chairs nearby.
 
“What a night.”

“Did you catch the bad guy yet?” I asked him with a grin.

“Not even close,” he admitted.
 
“How about you?”

“Like I said before, we have some suspects and a few motives, but that’s
about it.”

Jake shook his head.
 
“Truth
be told, that’s better than I’ve done.
 
All I’ve been doing is listening to rumors, gossip, and hearsay.”

“Are you kidding?
 
That’s where
you find all of the good stuff,” I said.
 
“What have you got so far?”

He almost answered, but then he stopped himself short and just smiled at
me.
 
“No way.
 
You go first.”

“And then you’ll chime in?” I asked him, glancing at the clock.
 
I was running on borrowed time, but if
it meant getting closer to Chester Martin’s killer, I was willing to go in late
for a month.

“We’ll see,” he said with that cryptic grin of his.

“Okay, here’s what Grace and I have managed to gather so far.
 
As of right now, our main list of
suspects includes Vince Dade; Maggie Hoff and her husband, Nathan; and Shelly
Graham.”

“Are you sure that you’re not forgetting anybody?” he asked me as he
watched me carefully.

“Well, George seems to think that Kevin Leeds had some kind of problem
with Chester, but I haven’t found anything out about that yet.”

Jake shook his head.
 
“I’m not
talking about this Leeds character; I’m talking about the mayor himself.”

So, he’d heard about the argument between the mayor and librarian himself.
 
“George explained all that away.”

“Maybe to your satisfaction,” Jake said, “but I still need to speak with
him.”

“I don’t have a problem with it, but the mayor might.
 
You haven’t known George Morris for very
long, so let me bring you up to speed on His Honor.
 
The man’s got a temper like nobody’s
business, and it comes out from time to time, especially when someone questions
him about something.
 
He’s not very
politic sometimes.”

“That’s an interesting trait for a mayor to have, but I’ll take my
chances.
 
My eyewitness told me that
George and Chester had a rather heated disagreement this afternoon.
 
She sounded positive that it nearly came
to blows.”

“Jake, you can’t take
everything
that Zelda Marks says at face value.
 
The woman has been jumping at shadows for years.”

The interim chief of police studied me for a moment before he said
softly, “I never said that Zelda was my witness, Suzanne.”

“My mistake,” I said.
 
“She
was, though, wasn’t she?”

“No comment,” Jake answered, but from the twinkle in his eye, I knew that
I was dead on.

“Fair enough,” I replied, satisfied that I was right.
 
After all, who else could have witnessed
the argument but the librarian’s second in command?

“So, that’s it?
 
No one else
had even the ghost of a reason to want to see Chester dead?” Jake asked me.

“Not that I’ve been able to find out so far,” I said as I took a longer
sip of his coffee.
 
Either I was
building up some immunity to the stuff, or it was starting to grow on me.
 
I wasn’t sure which scenario I was
hoping for.

“You said something about motives earlier,” Jake said, and then he
glanced at the clock.
 
“That’s going
to have to wait, isn’t it?
 
You’ve
got to get to work, don’t you?”

“No worries.
 
I can push it
back a little bit,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.
 
I’ve been making
donuts so long now that I could just about do it in my sleep, not that I’ve
ever tried.
 
Okay, here’s what we’ve
got so far.
 
Vince is supposed to
have lost a great deal of money on a land deal with Chester ten years ago.
 
Next up, we have some folks saying that
our former head librarian was fooling around with local gal Maggie Hoff.
 
He ended the affair pretty recently, so
she could have a motive, but then again, so could her husband, Nathan.
 
If Shelly found out what was going on,
she could have done it herself.”

Jake took all of that in.
 
“Ten
years is a long time to wait to get revenge,” he said after a few moments of
silence.

“Evidently something stirred up the old memories recently.”

“Was it just the two of them involved in the land deal?” Jake asked.

“Well, Momma and Chief Martin were a part of it, too, but evidently Vince
didn’t hold anything against the two of them for dropping out.”

“That’s interesting,” Jake said, and then he remained silent for a time.

“You don’t think my mother or her new husband had anything to do with
what happened to Chester, do you?” I asked him.

“Not until I hear something more direct than that.
 
Now, if Vince had been the victim, I
might have had to look at them, but as things stand, as far as I’m concerned they’re
in the clear.”

“Do you honestly think that Momma or the chief could have done something
to the man’s own brother?”

“I’ve seen it too many times before to discount it out of hand,” Jake
said, and as he did, I saw how the burdens he’d carried over the years had truly
begun to wear him down.
 
“Some of
the things that I’ve seen can’t ever be forgotten.”

“Your job has been tough on you, hasn’t it?” I asked with a softened
voice.

“More than I care to admit, and most likely more than I’ll ever know,” he
said with true sadness in his voice.
 
After a few moments, Jake shook his head, as though he were clearing the
cobwebs from his mind.
 
“Now, you
need to get to work, young lady.”

“Okay,” I said as I looked at the clock and realized that I couldn’t push
it any further and still make my donuts on time.
 
“You’re right.
 
Will I see you later today?”

“I’ll try to drop by the shop before you close at eleven, but I can’t
make any promises,” he said.

“I understand.”

“Suzanne, you’ll call me if you hear anything else, won’t you?” he asked
me as I put the mug on the coffee table, stood, and then stretched.

“I promise,” I said.
 
“How
about you?”

He just shook his head and laughed.
 
“You need to change.”

“Does that mean that you don’t love me the way I am?” I asked him,
intentionally misunderstanding him.

“Of course I do,” he said as he stood and wrapped me up in his arms.
 
It felt good, safe somehow, standing
there, and I never wanted the moment to end, but after ten seconds, he broke
free.
 
“If you’re going, you need to
go right now.”

“I could always call in sick,” I said with a smile.

“I know you better than that.
 
You wouldn’t do that to Emma,” he answered knowingly.

“You’re right.
 
Sometimes I
hate that about you.”

“It’s just going to be a burden that I’ll have to carry,” he said with a
smile.
 

“Can you stay up long enough for me to grab a quick shower and change my clothes?”
I asked him.

“Take your time.
 
I doubt I’ll
be able to sleep at all tonight,” he said.

Four minutes later, I was back downstairs, but he’d taken my place on the
couch, curled up with my blanket and snoring softly.

I left him with a kiss on the forehead, but he didn’t even stir.

The poor man was exhausted, so I decided to let him get every second of
sleep that he could manage before he had to hit the streets of April Springs in
the morning searching for Chester Martin’s killer.

“Good morning,” I told Emma when she came into the shop an hour after I’d
arrived.
 
That was our schedule, and
I was kind of partial to it.
 
It
gave me time to get the coffee started and work on the cake donuts by myself,
but as the work picked up, as well as the dishes, it was nice having Emma
there, too.
 
She’d started out as
just a dishwasher, but over the years she’d become a vital cog in my donutmaking
machine.

“Hey, Suzanne.
 
Can you believe
what happened last night?”

“Are you talking about Chester Martin?”

“What else happened that could top that?” she asked me as she put on her
apron.

“I can’t imagine being murdered on the very day I was set to retire,” I
said.

“I don’t want it to
ever
happen
to me, but I know what you’re saying.
 
How’s Jake managing?”

“You know him.
 
He dove right
into the thick of things,” I said, purposely keeping my answers short and to
the point.
 
Emma and I had butted
heads a few times in the past because of her father and her desire to please
him.
 
Sometimes that meant that Emma
leaked information to him that I had, and it never worked out well for either
one of us.

“Has he come up with anything yet?” she asked softly.

“No,” I said.
 
“I’m getting
ready to drop donuts, so maybe we should drop this line of questioning, too,
while we’re at it.”

“I’ll be in the dining room,” she said, quickly getting the hint.
 
I wasn’t really ready to start dropping
batter into the oil just yet, but I didn’t want to talk about Chester Martin’s
murder, especially not with Emma.
 
After a few minutes, I had the first batter ready and loaded it into the
heavy dropper.
 
Swinging it back and
forth to drive the batter to the exit point, I released the trigger and started
dropping rounds of dough into the oil.
 
I loved watching them cook, and after a few minutes, I flipped them
expertly with the long wooden skewers I kept for just that purpose.
 
Once they were ready, I pulled them from
the fryer, placed them on the rack to drain for a minute, and then I iced
them.
 
Moving on to the next batch,
I worked another twenty minutes before I was finished.
 
Whether I was ready for it or not, it
was time to bring Emma back into the kitchen.

When I opened the door to get her, she was waiting for me, tears in her
eyes.
 
“I’m so sorry, Suzanne.
 
I shouldn’t have asked you about the
case.
 
I don’t know what I was
thinking.”
 
The words tumbled out of
her, and I could see that she was clearly upset by my earlier reaction to her
probing questions.
 
How could I stay
mad at this young woman who meant so much to me?

I hugged her and patted her back gently for a moment.
 
“Don’t worry about it.
 
It’s fine.”

“But it’s not,” Emma said when she pulled away.
 
“Dad asked me to pump you for
information.
 
I should have said no,
but sometimes it’s hard.”

“I’m sure that it is.
 
Your
father can be a very persuasive man at times.”

Emma finally smiled a little.
 
“It doesn’t seem to work on your boyfriend, though, does it?”

I returned her smile with one of my own.
 
“Jake has an infinite capacity to answer
‘no comment’ to just about any question a reporter asks him.”