Bad Bites: Donut Mystery #16 (The Donut Mysteries) (7 page)

“Excellent,” she said as she touched his shoulder lightly and then she
turned back to me.
 
“Suzanne, I’ll
have a hot chocolate donut, please, and make it to go.
 
I have to get to work soon.
 
My buddies Cow, Spots, and Moose will be
waiting for me.”
 
The three
aforementioned friends were Emily’s childhood stuffed animals.
 
Instead of storing them away in an attic
somewhere, Emily had displayed them prominently on a shelf above the register
of her little shop.
 
In fact, she
loved them so much that she’d named the place after them.

“What are they dressed up as now?” I asked her.
 
Emily loved to clothe her stuffed
animals in all kinds of outfits, and folks in town loved seeing what she came
up with.

“They’re between costumes at the moment, but I’ve got a few ideas I’m
toying with.
 
Have I done pirate
outfits yet?
 
I’ll have to check the
photo album.”
 
Turning back to her
donut choice, she asked me, “Suzanne, is there any way that you could add some
sprinkles and some extra marshmallow to mine?”

“For you, why not?” I asked as I embellished her donut to her
specifications.
 
Emily was known for
her love of toppings, so it didn’t surprise me that she wanted something a
little fancier.

“How about you?” I asked Max after I delivered Emily’s donut to her.

“Just coffee,” he said.

“No treats today?” I asked.

Max patted his stomach.
 
“I
have to stay at my ideal weight, just in case something comes up.”

“Got it,” I said.
 
“How about
you, Emily?
 
Would you like something
to drink?”

“Let me see.
 
How about some
chocolate milk?”

“Aren’t you afraid of going into some kind of chocolate shock?” Max asked
her.

“Dear, sweet, Max, there’s no such thing as too much chocolate.
 
Am I right, Suzanne?”

“I’m with you wholeheartedly on that one,” I said as I finished filling
their orders.
 
After Max paid, I
gave him his change and said, “Thanks for coming by.”

“Thank you for the goodies,” Emily said as the two of them left the shop
hand in hand.

After they were gone, I started thinking about what Max had said.
 
I knew that he loved to exaggerate, but
I also understood that he was a student of human nature, and if he said that
Chester had been unhappy with Kevin Leeds, then I was just as sure that it was
true.
 
The only question in my mind
was
why?
 
As far as I knew, the two men didn’t
have any connection at all.
 
So why
did his name keep popping up in my murder investigation?
 
It was definitely something that Grace
and I were going to have to explore.
 
Speaking of Grace, I needed to see if she could get off work early and
help me do a little sleuthing.
 
As a
supervisor for a cosmetics company sales team, her schedule was pretty flexible
most of the time.
 
I just hoped this
was one of those occasions.

During the next lull, I grabbed my cell phone and called her.

“Hey, Grace.
 
What’s your
afternoon look like?”

“Well, the clouds are starting to build up, so I’m thinking that it might
rain.”

“That’s not what I meant.
 
Could you help me do a little digging into Chester Martin’s murder this
afternoon?”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve already cleared my schedule,” she said.
 
“Should I be there at eleven?”

“That may be when we close, but I have to run the register report, make
out the deposit, and help Emma clean the shop.”

“So then, five after?” she asked with a laugh.

“If you want to pitch in and help, that would be fine.”

After a brief pause, she said, “Eleven thirty it is, then.”

I swore I could hear her laughing as she hung up on me.

Excellent.
 

Now I had a plan for my investigation, and a partner in crime to help me
carry it out.

Honestly, what could possibly go wrong?

Chapter 8

“Which suspect should we speak with first?” Grace asked as we left the
donut shop together toward the end of the morning just after closing.
 
Emma had offered to take the deposit by
the bank for me, and I’d readily agreed, so I was free to sleuth for the rest
of the day.

“I think we should tackle the married couple,” she said firmly.

“Really?
 
I was actually kind
of hoping that we’d interview them last.”

“Why is that?” she asked as she looked at me quizzically.

“I don’t know.
 
The whole subject
matter is kind of delicate, and we certainly can’t bring it up while they’re
together.
 
Why do you want to speak
with them first?”

“I suppose it’s the whole ‘two birds with one stone’ philosophy.”

“If they’re together, we’re going to have to find a way to split them
up.
 
If we can somehow manage that,
would you like to take Nathan or Maggie?” I asked her as we got into my Jeep
and I started driving toward the Hoff house.

“Suzanne, we both know that you’re better with the men,” she said.
 

“I can’t say that that’s entirely true.”

Grace grinned at me.
 
“Okay
then.
 
Have it your way.
 
You take Maggie.”

I thought about questioning the woman about her affair with Chester,
something that wasn’t public knowledge as far as I knew, and how I could
delicately ask her for an alibi for the time of the murder.
 
I decided that maybe I’d be better off
with Nathan after all.
 
“No, you’re
right.
 
You take the cheating wife,
and I’ll deal with the spurned husband.”

“When you put it that way, I’m not sure that I like that, either,” Grace
said.

“Well, we need to decide fast, because we’re here.”

My best friend looked surprised to see that we were already at the Hoff
house.
 
“How did I miss that?”

“You were too busy trying to convince me to take Nathan on, and April
Springs isn’t all that big a town,” I said with a smile.
 
“So, first off, we need a strategy to
divide and conquer these two.”

“I could always tell Maggie that she won a cosmetics kit from my company,”
Grace said.

“Do you happen to have one in that big purse you always carry around with
you?”

“You never know,” Grace said with a grin as she started rooting around in
the voluminous bag.
 
After thirty
seconds, she came up with a lipstick sampler and a small zippered plastic bag containing
several different sample sizes of blush.
 
“It might not be much, but I’ll sell it as something much bigger before
I give it to her.”

“That I’ve got to see,” I said.

“Then watch the master and learn,” Grace said with a smile as we
approached the front door.
 
“Have
you decided what you are going to tell Nathan?”

I thought about it for a second, and then I came up with something that I
thought was fairly good.
 
“Well, he
came by the shop last month to buy some donuts for his office.
 
I’ll tell him that we drew his business
card out of the fishbowl today, and that he’s won a free dozen donuts.”

Grace frowned as her finger hovered over the doorbell.
 
“You don’t normally do giveaways, and
I’ve
never
seen you collect business
cards, in fishbowls or any other bowls, for that matter.”

“You know that, and so do I, but what are the chances Nathan’s going to
remember what he did a month ago?
 
Do you think he’s going to challenge me and refuse the donuts?
 
If he does, he’ll be one of the first
men I’ve ever known to be able to do it.”

“Good point,” she said.
 
“So,
if he won donuts, where are they?
 
You don’t even carry a purse, and if you did, you certainly couldn’t jam
a dozen donuts into it.”

“I was never going to claim that I had them on me,” I said with a
smile.
 
“Now, ring the doorbell and
let’s see what we get.”

I was ready for one or the other of them, but when they answered the door
together, I was a little flustered.
 
Nathan was a former high school football player who had grown lazy over
the intervening years, and he had the paunch to prove it.
 
He must have been thirty pounds over his
playing weight, and he didn’t wear it very well.
 
Maggie, on the other hand, had kept
herself in great shape since high school.
 
Though she was a good twenty years my senior, I would have killed to
have that body.
 
Her hair was
flaming red, and it looked natural to me, though I was no expert in hair
coloring.
 
I wondered if she
cultivated a temper to go along with her hair color, and I had a suspicion that
I was about to find out.

“Hello,” she said as she looked at us quizzically.
 
“May we help you?”

I was at a loss how to respond when Grace spoke up.
 
“As a matter of fact, we’re here to help
you.
 
Today’s your lucky day.”

“Me?” she asked suspiciously.
 

“Yes, you.”

“Both of you, actually,” I interjected.
 
“We’ve been doing a giveaway at the
donut shop, and Nathan, you won a dozen donuts of your choice.
 
Do you remember putting your card in the
drawing last month?”

Maggie frowned at her husband.
 
“You swore to me that you’d stopped sneaking treats.
 
Is this how you keep your word to me?”

“Honestly, it was so long ago that I don’t even remember entering.”
 
He turned to me and said, “I’m afraid
you’ve made a mistake.”

“You came into Donut Hearts last month,” I said, sticking with my story,
even though it was clearly getting him in trouble with his wife.
 
“I’m sorry it took me so long to get
back to you.”
 
Then I turned to
Maggie as I added, “As my way of apologizing, my friend here is giving you a mini
makeup kit as well.
 
That way you
both win today.”

That got Maggie’s attention.
 
“Where’s my prize?
 
I don’t
care about the donuts, but I’ll take whatever else you’re giving away.
 
We’re both off work this week, but this
genius I’m married to forgot to make our hotel reservations, so we’re having a
staycation.
 
Have you ever heard
anything so ridiculous in your life?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “Under the right circumstances, I think that it
could be nice.”

“See?
 
That’s what I said,”
Nathan responded.

“You say a lot, don’t you?” Maggie asked acidly, and then she spotted the
pouch in Grace’s hand.
 
“Is that all
I get?”
 

Before Grace could answer, Maggie snatched the case out of her hand and
opened it.
 
After peering inside,
she frowned at my friend.
 
“It’s not
much, is it?”

“Don’t underestimate the value of my gift.
 
Those samples are highly prized,” Grace
said.

“Okay, if you say so,” Maggie said, and then she started to close the
door.

“Hey, what about my donuts?” Nathan asked as he looked at me.

“Forget about them.
 
You don’t
need them,” his wife replied harshly, and then she slammed the door the rest of
the way shut.

“What just happened here?” Grace asked me as we stood on the stoop
alone.
 
Both of us were clearly
stunned by the recent turn of events.

“I believe that we just got dismissed,” I said, “and neither one of us
even got to ask a single question.”

“Wow, that Maggie’s a force of nature, isn’t she?”

“You say that almost as though you admire it,” I replied as we headed
back to my Jeep.

“No, ma’am, not in the least.
 
That was a real bust, wasn’t it?
 
Should we just give up and go home with
our tails tucked between our legs?”

“No, we can’t let one disaster stop us, even if it was with two of our
suspects at the same time,” I answered.
 
“We need to press on now more than ever.”

As we got into the Jeep and I started driving, Grace said, “Well, we
should look on the bright side of things.”

“I’d love to hear what your idea of a bright side is.”

“It can’t get any worse than this,” she answered.

This time, though, it just so happened that she was wrong.
 

Chapter 9

“So, should we speak with Vince Dade next or Kevin Leeds?” I asked.

“I picked the first two, and we both know what a disaster that session
turned out to be,” Grace said, “so I’m willing to let you choose this time.”

“Fair enough,” I said with a smile.

“You’re not even going to try to make me feel better about what just
happened, are you?” Grace asked me with a smile.

“No, ma’am, not on your life,” I answered happily.

For some reason, that made her laugh, and all of the earlier tensions
about our most recent failures left us.
 
After a moment, I said, “Let’s tackle Kevin Leeds.
 
He comes into the donut shop every now
and then, so at least we’ve got that much going for us.”

“That’s okay by me,” Grace said as she glanced at her watch.
 
“If we’re lucky, he should be on his
lunch hour right about now.”

“How could you possibly know that?” I asked her as I slowed the Jeep.

“Keep driving.
 
I called the bank
and asked about him.”

“And they just told you his work schedule over the phone without any kind
of explanation?” I asked her.

“Hey, it’s not as though it’s a state secret or something.
 
Head back to the park near the donut
shop.
 
Apparently he likes to brown bag
his lunch on a bench near Donut Hearts.
 
From what I’ve heard, he’s the cheapest man on the planet.
 
If it’s free, he’ll take it, no matter
what it is.”

“That’s been my experience with him in the past, but I’m not sure how it
helps us.
 
Well, at least I know the
way there,” I said as I turned the Jeep around and headed back to where we’d
been half an hour ago.
 
“Just out of
curiosity, why didn’t we speak with Kevin first?”

“That’s easy enough to answer.
 
He wasn’t on his lunch break then,” she said.

“Fair enough.
 
Is there
anything else I should know about before we speak with him?”

“After we chat, I’m going to want to go to the Boxcar and grab a bite to
eat.
 
I’m getting kind of hungry
myself.”

“That sounds great,” I said, happy for at least something to look forward
to.
 
Questioning suspects wasn’t my
favorite thing to do in the world, so a reward for doing it was always
welcome.
 
I knew that it was
critical to our investigation to get as much information as possible from the
folks we suspected, but they didn’t have to tell us anything, a fact that I was
only too aware of most of the time.
 
That meant that sometimes Grace and I had to push harder than we would
have liked just to spur reactions from our suspects, and that had left some bad
feelings in the past from folks who had turned out to be innocent after
all.
 
I’m sure that it was just an
occupational hazard of being a detective of any sort, but that didn’t make it
any easier when people started avoiding both me and my donut shop.
 
If murders kept happening around me,
sooner or later I might have to go all the way outside of April Springs in
order to keep my customer base up.

“Sorry, but I don’t have enough food to share with both of you.”
  
Those were the first words out of Kevin
Leeds’s mouth the moment he saw us approaching him.
 
I already knew that the man was cheap,
always hoping to buy day-old donuts from me instead of the fresh ones.
 
He couldn’t believe it when I’d first
told him that we gave them away to the church for the less fortunate, but I had
finally managed to convince him that I was telling the truth.

“That’s okay.
 
We’re on our
way to the Boxcar to have lunch,” I said.
 
“Mind if we join you on your bench for a few minutes before we go in?”

“That’s fine with me.
 
It’s
still a free country.
 
At least it
ought to be,” he said.
 
“I can’t
believe you two can afford to eat over there.”

“Trish’s prices aren’t all that high,” Grace told him.
 

“Maybe not for you, but they’re high enough for me,” he replied.
 
From one look at his sandwich, it
appeared to be mostly mustard between two slices of bread.
 
The bologna was sliced so thin that I
wasn’t sure that he would even be able to taste it.
 
“There’s nothing wrong with saving a
little money when you can.”

“We couldn’t agree with you more,” I said, and I caught a glimpse of
Grace as she looked skeptically at me.
 
It was a funny face, and I wanted to laugh, but it would be too
difficult to explain to Kevin.
 
“It
was terrible what happened to Chester Martin, wasn’t it?”

“A real shame,” Kevin said as he took a small, careful bite of his
sandwich.
 
I noticed that there was
a baggie with some questionable-looking celery beside him, as well as an old
soda bottle, filled now with water.

“Did you two know each other very well?” Grace asked him.

“No, not really,” he replied.
 
“We used to, but we hadn’t hung out together for a long time.”

“Funny, that’s not what we heard,” Grace answered.

Kevin stopped taking a drink mid-sip and stared at her.
 
“I’m sure that I don’t know what you’re
talking about.
 
What exactly did you
hear?”

“That you two were fighting just before he died,” she said.

“Somebody’s been lying to you.
 
I haven’t been in a fight since the third grade,” Kevin answered, and
then he resumed drinking from his bottle.

“Not a fight, then, but more like an argument,” I corrected.

“That’s true enough, I suppose.
 
Chester owed me ten dollars for the longest time, but he would never pay
up.
 
I heard a rumor that he was
selling everything he owned and planned to move away from April Springs to
start a new life, so I realized that my chances to collect my money were
slipping away.
 
When I went to the
library looking for him, he wasn’t there, so I went back home before my shift
at the bank started.
 
The next thing
I knew the man was banging on my door demanding to see me.”

“What was the ten-dollar loan for?” I asked, not sure that it was
relevant to our investigation but curious about it nonetheless.

“That’s hardly important now, is it?” Kevin said.
 
“Now that he’s gone, I’d just as soon
not talk about it.”

A man was dead, and all Kevin could think about was ten dollars the
victim owed him?
 
“If you don’t
mind, I’d still like to know.”

“I repeat, why do you care so much about it?” he asked.

“Why wouldn’t you tell us if it weren’t important?” Grace asked from the
other side.
 
Kevin had to keep
glancing from one side to the other as we spoke, something that was clearly
making him uncomfortable.

“He borrowed it from me a few years ago.
 
That’s all that matters,” Kevin said.

“And you were still fighting about it yesterday?” Grace asked.
 
Neither one of us could believe that
Kevin Leeds would let something like that go for a day, let alone a few years.

“As I said, I don’t want care to discuss it.”

“I just don’t see what all of the fuss is about.
 
Could ten dollars be all that important
in the scheme of things?” I asked him.

Kevin shrugged as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small
notebook.
 
He proudly opened a few
pages, and I saw that the man had recorded every transaction he’d ever had, no
matter how small, in his fine handwriting.

“Wow, I can’t believe you keep such meticulous records,” Grace said.

I was certain that she hadn’t meant it as a compliment, but he took it as
one anyway.
 
“I know every penny
I’ve ever spent since the first grade.”

“And it’s all in there?” I asked as I pointed to the tiny notebook.

“Of course not.
 
This just
contains my most recent income and my various expenditures.”
 
He closed the book and showed us both
the paper cover.
 
“I got these notebooks
on clearance for next to nothing.
 
They were the best investment I’ve made in years.”

I was about to ask him something else when I heard a buzzer go off.
 
Kevin put the last bite of sandwich in
his mouth, followed it with a drink of water, and then folded his paper lunch bag
neatly and tucked it into his pocket.
 
“If you’ll excuse me, I have precisely seven minutes in which to walk
back to the bank.”

“Mind if we tag along and walk with you?” I asked him.
 
We hadn’t come anywhere close to asking
enough questions yet, and I didn’t want to let him get away until we had.

“Sorry, but that’s my private time reserved for personal reflection,” Kevin
said, and then he was gone.

Grace and I watched as he walked away, and then we turned to each other
and shook our heads.

“Apparently we’re not as good at investigating as we like to think we are,”
I said.

“Apparently,” she replied, echoing the sentiment.

“What should we do about it?” I asked her.

“Well, when all else fails, we could always eat.”

“Do we even deserve a meal after three bad interrogations in a row?”

“I’m not about to base my food intake on whether I deserve it or not,”
Grace replied.
 
“Feel free to punish
yourself if you’d like, but I’m starving.”

“Well, I’ve never done well on an empty stomach,” I replied.

“Then we’ll tackle Vince Dade after we eat lunch.”

“Okay.
 
I give in,” I said as
we headed for the Boxcar.

“Funny, but you didn’t fight me on that very hard.”

“Did you want me to?” I asked her.

“No way.
 
What are you going
to have?”

I shrugged.
 
“Maybe I’ll take
a chance on whatever special Trish is running today.
 
Whatever it is, I know that it’s bound
to be good.
 
How about you?”

“I’m sticking with my tried and true: hamburger, fries, and sweet tea.”

As soon as she said it, I realized that was probably what I should get as
well.
 
“We’ll make it two, then.”

“No, sorry, but you’ve already committed to the special,” Grace said with
a grin.

“How is that possible?
 
We
haven’t even walked inside yet.”
 
It
was true, though just barely.
 
We
were on the steps and one more foot from the front door.

“Okay, I’ll let you slide this time,” Grace said as she held the door
open for me.

“No, you’re right.
 
I’m going
with my first choice after all.”

“Even if it’s liver and onions?” Grace asked mischievously.

“Trish wouldn’t do that to me,” I said.

“We both know that some folks just love that meal.”

“No doubt about it.
 
I’m just
not one of them.”
 
I was relieved to
see the special was meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans, one of my
favorites.

“Hey, Trish,” I said with a smile, knowing that I was going to love my
lunch.

“Sorry, but you just missed him,” Trish said as her ponytail bobbed once
in the air.

“Who exactly did I miss?” I asked.

“Jake, of course,” she answered, clearly confused.
 
“Weren’t you meeting him here?”

“Why?
 
Did he say that I was?”

“My mistake,” Trish said.
 
“Grab any table you’d like and I’ll be right with you.”

I didn’t budge, though.
 
“Trish, what aren’t you telling me?”

“Nothing, not a thing, nothing at all,” she said, but the diner owner
didn’t make eye contact with me, something that was a dead giveaway that
something was going on.

“Trish,” I repeated, this time much firmer.

Blurting it out as though it cost her money to say each word, my friend
the diner owner said, “He was here with another woman, okay?”