Sweet Suspects (The Donut Mysteries) (2 page)

Grace and Tom were still dancing, but they were talking earnestly now as well.
 
After the song ended, Grace quickly walked over to me, but Tom stayed right where he was, staring after her.

“What just happened?” I asked Grace.
 
“What did Zane say to you, Grace?”

“It’s too complicated to go into right now,” she said.
 
“Are you ready to leave?”

I looked over at Tom, who appeared to be in shock by her sudden dismissal.
 
“Are you sure that you want to go?”

“I’m positive,” she said.

There was no debate in her voice.
 
“Let’s go, then.”

I wasn’t sure where Zane, Officer Grant, and Janet had gone, but they weren’t in the parking lot when we left the building.
 
It had been a chilly evening, but we’d walked over to the school together from my house, and as we headed back down Springs Drive, I told Grace, “I won’t push you about what just happened, but remember, I’m here if you need me.”

“I know.
 
Let’s just not talk right now, okay?”

“That’s fine with me,” I said as we started walking back home in silence.
 
There are a great many kinds of silences in our lives, from awkward moments on first dates to uncomfortable situations where we just don’t know what to say.
 
Though Grace was clearly troubled by what Zane had said to her earlier, this wasn’t one of those uncomfortable moments.
 
We’d been friends long enough to be able to share quiet moments comfortably, secure in the depth of our relationship.
 
We walked past the bank, the newspaper office, and then city hall.
 
ReNEWed, Gabby Williams’s shop, was just down from that, and then we were in front of Donut Hearts.
 
It was my very own place, a business I’d bought with my divorce settlement, and now it was as much my home as the cottage that I shared with my mother.
 
Grace and I walked across the long-abandoned railroad tracks, and I thought yet again of my late friend, James Settle.
 
He’d been killed in the park across the street from where we now walked, a blacksmith struck down in senseless death, and I found myself missing him yet again.
 
He’d deeded the rights to the tracks to me, and I promised myself that I’d hold onto them forever.
 

Soon enough we were at Grace’s place, and I walked with her up the steps of her front porch.

“If you don’t feel like being alone, you’re welcome to come home with me,” I said.
 
“Momma’s out with Chief Martin, but I’m sure we can find
something
decadent in the fridge.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just stay here,” she said.

“I understand, but call me anytime, okay?
 
I’m always available to you.”

“Thanks,” Grace said, and as she reached out to touch my shoulder lightly, I saw that her hand was shaking a little.
 
What had Zane said that had made such an impact on her?
 
She’d most likely tell me eventually, but I wasn’t about to press her at the moment.
 
There would be time enough later.

Or so I thought.

As I’d predicted, Momma was gone when I got home, and with Jake busy working across the state, I decided to take a long hot shower and get ready for bed.
 
Sleep came quickly, and when my alarm clock rang six hours later, I felt ready to tackle a brand-new day.
 
After getting dressed and tiptoeing downstairs, I grabbed a bagel on my way out the door and did my best not to wake Momma.
 
Our schedules were completely different, and it was a rare day when she was awake in the morning as I left for work.
 

I drove the short distance between my place and my business on Springs Drive in the quiet of the night, savoring the silence and the sheer solitude of the darkness.
 

As I pulled in to park in front of the donut shop, my headlights caught someone, most likely a man, judging by his silhouette, sitting slumped forward on a bench in the park across from my shop.
 

That was odd.
 
There appeared to be a long taper beside him on the bench.

He hadn’t moved when my lights hit him.
 
Could he be asleep?
 
I parked out of the way of any potential traffic that might come down the road and I got out of the Jeep, my heart in my throat as I walked toward him.

“Hello?
 
Excuse me.
 
Are you okay?” I called out before I could get a good look at him.

There was no response, and as I got a few steps closer, I could see why.

Someone had stabbed the man in the chest with one of the spears I’d seen at the reunion just a few short hours ago.
 
I hadn’t been able to make out the weapon earlier because of the poor light, but that wasn’t the most disturbing thing about the crime scene.

It was someone I knew.

When I realized that Zane Dunbar was the murder victim, I realized that it was time to call the police, no matter what the ramifications of that conversation might mean to my friends and me.

Chapter 2

“Chief Martin here,” the police chief said as he answered the phone at the police station.

“What are you doing up at this hour?” I asked.
 
I knew that the chief rarely worked nights, preferring to be off when my mother was available for a date.
 
He’d worked hard to woo her, and I knew that the man never passed up the chance to be with her.

“Got a bit of insomnia so I thought I’d come on in and make good use of it,” he admitted.
 
“What’s going on, Suzanne?”

“I hate to tell you this, but I just found a dead body near the donut shop,” I said.

After a moment’s pause, he said, “Are you serious?”

“I
wish
I were kidding, but unfortunately, I’m not,” I said, still shaking a little from just discovering Zane’s body.
 
I didn’t think that I’d
ever
get used to stumbling across someone who had just been murdered.
 
As a matter of fact, I hoped that I
never
did.
 
No matter who the victim might be, no matter how awful a person they seemed, nobody deserved that kind of end, and it never failed to shake me to my core.
 
“It’s Zane Dunbar, and it appears that someone stabbed him in the chest with one of those ceremonial spears they used during the reunion last night.
 
As close as I could tell, someone pinned him to the bench with it, and before you ask, I’m pretty sure that he’s dead.
 
He was cold to the touch, anyway.”
 
I shivered again as I remembered checking for a pulse and not finding even the slightest flutter of motion under my fingertips.

“I’m on my way.
 
I don’t have to tell you not to touch anything, do I?”

“No problem there,” I said.
 
“I’ll see you soon.”

Much to my relief, the chief was there in less than a minute, screeching to a halt near my Jeep and rushing out of his car.
 
“Hey,” he said as he hurried over to Zane to check for a pulse himself.
 
I didn’t blame him.
 
I might have easily missed something; after all, I was no trained professional.

Instead of immediately saying anything else to me, the chief got on his radio.
 
“Call for an ambulance in front of Donut Hearts,” he ordered.

“Did you find a pulse?” I asked, hoping against hope that I’d been wrong.

The chief shook his head in my direction as he continued, “After that, I need the forensics team out here on the double.”

The dispatcher said something, and the chief responded, “I don’t care
what
time it is.
 
Get them
all
out of bed, and I mean right now.”

Finally, Chief Martin turned to me.
 
“Sorry you had to find him like this, Suzanne,” he said, his voice suddenly softening.
 
Since he’d been dating my mother, his attitude toward me had changed quite a bit, and if I were being honest about it, mine had toward him as well.

“I still can’t believe this happened,” I said.

The police chief shook his head in sadness.
 
“It seems to occur all too often around here these days.
 
I don’t know what happened to the quiet of small town life.”

“Honestly, was it ever really all
that
quiet?” I asked him.

“Probably not,” he admitted as the first squad car and an ambulance both approached us.
 
The chief looked at me and added, “We’re going to be really busy over here, so if you want to go in and get started on your day, I’ll come by a little later and bring you up to speed.”

It wasn’t a dismissal: more like an invitation that I really appreciated.
 
“Thanks.
 
I’ll bring some coffee over as soon as it’s ready.”

“That would be much appreciated,” he said, so I started inside.
 
As I went in and flipped on a few lights, I headed for the coffee urn and flipped the switch.
 
There was a chill in the air outside that had nothing to do with the murder, and I knew that the chief and his staff would appreciate something to warm them up.
 
Ordinarily Chief Martin wouldn’t take anything free from me, but he made an exception every now and then.
 
As the coffee brewed, I went about my morning trying to find some order in a pretty chaotic beginning.
 
It was a real comfort to me to have something to do.
 
Though it wouldn’t eliminate the image I still had etched into my brain of Zane Dunbar pinned to the bench with a decorative spear, it might help me suppress it long enough to get on with my life.
 
Death was no stranger to me anymore, but that didn’t mean that I had to like it.

I flipped on the switch for the fryer since the oil needed time to heat up, and then I laid out some of the basics I’d be needing for my first task that day, making the cake donuts.
 
A great many people would have been surprised to learn that the cake donuts and the yeast ones required two completely different processes.
 
It was one of the reasons that I had to get up every day at such an inhumane hour, but I couldn’t imagine not offering both types of donuts to my customers every day.

I had a rough idea about how long the coffee would take, and sure enough, when I walked back out front, it was ready.
 
Transferring it to one of my largest carafes, I grabbed some cups as well and set up the pot to brew another batch when I was ready for it.
 
I wished that I had some donuts to offer them as well, but it was a rule at Donut Hearts that we
never
kept donuts from one day to the next, starting off fresh every morning.
 
It was too bad this morning, though.

I walked across the road, surprised how quickly I’d gotten used to the warmth of the donut shop.
 
It was indeed a chilly morning, and as I reached the crew of detectives, I coughed to let the chief know that I was back.
 
He was deeply engrossed as he studied the murder victim, and I wondered just what he was looking at.
 
I had no formal training when it came to investigations, but what I did have was a willingness to ask questions, and to listen to the answers I got.
 
I’d found over the years that it was a talent that not many folks, inside of law enforcement and not, possessed.

“Coffee’s ready,” I said.
 
“Should I go ahead and pour?”

“Just put it all down over there,” he said, never looking up from the body.
 
“Thanks.”

“My pleasure,” I said as I did as I was told and walked back across the street.
 
There was a bustle of activity that belied the time of morning, and I was just as glad to be heading back to a world that I was very familiar with.

“What’s going on over there?” my assistant, Emma Blake, asked me as she walked into Donut Hearts a little later.
 
I’d gotten a late start because of everything that had happened, so I still hadn’t finished the batter for my cake donuts yet.

“You’re going to want to go call your dad,” I said, and then I brought her up to speed on what had happened earlier.
 
I’d thought long and hard about advising Emma to phone her father, but in the end, I decided that it was the right thing to do.
 
Ray paid a bounty for news, even to his own daughter, so at least she’d get something out of it.
 
I could have called him myself, but I knew that Emma was saving money again, this time not for college, but for a trip to Europe, and I was glad to do anything I could to help, especially since her mother had agreed to help me out at Donut Hearts in Emma’s absence.

“Are you sure?” she asked.
 
“I don’t have to.”

“Call him before someone else beats you to the finder’s fee,” I said.

That was all it took.
 
With a grin, she said, “Thanks.
 
I’ll be right back.”

While she was gone, I put the finishing touches on the last bit of batter and started frying the first batch of donuts.
 
By the time Emma came back in, I was rinsing out my heavy dough dropper and preparing for another batch, this one spiced pumpkin.
 
It was one of my best sellers, and I often toyed with the idea of keeping it on the menu year-round, but I wasn’t sure they would still be special if I did that.

“I’ll do that,” she said.

“I’ve got it.
 
Go ahead and set up the front.”

“Thanks.”

As she started to leave, I asked, “What did your dad say?”

“He thanked me, and then he told me to thank you,” she said.

“Why thank me?
 
I didn’t do anything.”

“We both beg to differ.
 
Should I flip on the coffee pot so we can give some to the police?”

“I’ve already taken some over,” I said, “but I could use some caffeine myself, so flip away.”

“Will do, boss,” she said.

As I finished the last of the cake donuts and started icing them while they were still hot, I called out to Emma, “It’s safe to come back now.”

“Good,” she said as she walked in.
 
“I want to get started on that first batch of dishes before we’re ready to take our break.”

We always took a break when the yeast donuts were going through their first proofing, a routine that had become habit over the years.
 
“Do you ever get tired of washing dishes and cleaning up around here, Emma?” I asked her.

“Let me ask you something instead of answering you directly.
 
Do you ever get tired of making donuts?” she asked with a smile.

“No, not really.”

“Me, either.
 
I perform a needed and useful task, and I’m part of the team that brings smiles all over April Springs and beyond.
 
How could anyone ever get tired of that?
 
Besides, you let me listen to whatever music I prefer at the moment, and I have time to think deep thoughts when I’m buried up to my elbows in warm, sudsy water.
 
In a lot of ways, this is the perfect job for me, Suzanne.”

“I’m glad that you feel that way,” I said as I started adding flour, salt, and yeast into my large stand mixer.

“I am, too,” she said.
 
“Do you think they’ll still be out there when we take our break?”

“It’s a murder crime scene; I have a hunch that they’re going to be there awhile.”
 
I looked at the donuts resting on the drip trays as I added, “As a matter of fact, I made extras, so let’s take a dozen across the street on our break.
 
How does that sound to you?”

“I think it’s really nice,” she said.
 
“Maybe we can even get a little inside scoop while we’re there.”

“Emma, let’s leave the questions to your father.
 
I’d really rather not get involved if I can help it.”

When I looked at her, she just grinned at me.
 
“What’s so funny?”

“Suzanne, forgive me, but is there one chance in a hundred that you’re not going to end up investigating Zane Dunbar’s murder?”

I shook my head sadly.
 
“We both know the answer to that, don’t we?”
 
I had other reasons besides curiosity to figure out why someone had killed Zane.
 
I hadn’t liked the way Grace’s face had turned so pale the night before when he’d whispered something in her ear, and I had a hunch that my best friend might be considered a suspect the moment that Chief Martin found out about the exchange.
 
I was sure he would soon start interviewing witnesses from the reunion, no doubt starting with Officer Stephen Grant himself.

The dough for the yeast donuts was ready to proof, so I covered the top and then I grabbed a tray of donuts.
 
“I’m going to box these up, and then we can walk over there together.”