Tragic Toppings (18 page)

“You can’t just give us a free meal,” I protested.

“And why not?”

“Because it’s not fair.”

Angelica frowned for a moment, and then smiled brightly. “Send someone here with a dozen donuts tomorrow at nine, and we’ll call it even.”

“Four dozen wouldn’t even cover the tip,” I said.

“One dozen, no more, no less. Is it agreed?”

I could see I wasn’t about to win that battle. “Agreed, with my thanks.”

The boxes came out then, and Jake took them, though he was loaded down by the delicious burden.

“I’ll get the door,” I said.

When we got out to his car and stowed the boxes on the back seat, he said, “I hope you’re planning to share this with me. It will feed us for a week.”

I laughed, amazed by my friend’s extravagance. “I’ve got a feeling it will be gone by tomorrow night. We’ll put it all in my fridge, and you can come over and help raid it tomorrow. How does that sound?”

“Too good to be true,” he said. “Do we have a little time before we have to get this back to your place?”

I looked at my watch. “A little. Why?”

“I thought we might do a little sleuthing on the way back, if you’re up to it.”

I had been feeling guilty about not helping lately, so I wasn’t about to miss this opportunity. “I’d be delighted. What are we going to do?”

As Jake started the car and began to drive, he said, “We’re going to see if one of our suspects has an alibi for the night Tim was murdered.”

“Which one?” I asked.

“Orson Blaine,” Jake said. “When George and I spoke with him today, he claimed that he was at Lanskey’s Bar from six until midnight the evening Tim was killed. I don’t know if he was nervous, or if it’s just a habit, but he chewed through three toothpicks during the short time we spoke with him. If that’s a bad habit, it’s not his worst one. I can’t imagine how much alcohol he must have consumed.”

“Six hours leaves time for a lot of drinking.”

Jake nodded, and I caught a hint of sadness in his voice as he said, “He lost his wife three months ago, and from what I’ve been able to discover, he goes to the bar just about every night these days.”

“How did she die?” I asked, suddenly aware of the fact yet again that Jake had lost his wife and child in a car accident. He was usually pretty good about hiding the pain that stayed with him, but I’d been trying to encourage him to talk about them more. Not necessarily the accident, but more about the good times they’d shared. I had no desire to ever replace his wife in his heart, but I knew I could carve out a place of my very own.

“She didn’t die, Suzanne; she left him.”

“It couldn’t have been for Tim, could it?” I asked. That could very well give him a motive for murder, and using the Patriot Tree would be a fitting final touch.

Jake shrugged. “Nobody around here thinks that’s even possible but Orson. He married a woman thirty years younger than he was. I know some of those marriages work out, but not many, especially since she cheated with him when she was married to someone else. It’s been my experience that if they cheat with you, there’s a good chance that someday they’ll cheat on you. His ex, Jillian, thought he had money when she married him, and evidently Orson did a good job of hiding the fact that he was living paycheck to paycheck. I’ve heard that the second she got a better offer, she took off.”

“How is Tim involved in all of this?” I couldn’t see my friend being involved with that kind of woman, no matter how much I tried.

“It appears that he’s one of the few men who ever turned away Jillian’s advances. Tim was there putting a covered roof over their deck, and every day he came to work, she’d push herself on him more and more. Orson came home early, spotted her behavior, and immediately blamed Tim for it.”

I looked over at him in admiration. “How did you get all that in one day? You must be some kind of investigator, sir.”

“Well, it’s not my first rodeo, but today wasn’t that hard. George and I started talking to Orson’s neighbors, and a woman named Mrs. Gunderson told us all of that over iced tea and lemon bar cookies. Talk about your Neighborhood Watch. It’s like living under a surveillance camera all of the time.”

“If you just got it from one source, how can you be sure that it’s true?” I asked.

Jake shrugged. “We got bits and pieces of it confirmed later, but the main thing at the moment is his alibi. I need to talk to the bartender there and see if what Orson told us is true.”

I had a sudden thought. “Jake, if Orson’s there almost every night, won’t he be there right now?”

“I expect so,” Jake admitted.

“So he’ll know you’re checking out his alibi.”

Jake smiled broadly at me. “Why do you think I wanted to wait until after Orson got there? There are times when it’s good for your suspects to know what you’re doing. If you rattle enough cages, you can get more results than if you play nice. If I can scare him, maybe he’ll do something stupid, and we’ll get him.”

It was a dangerous game my boyfriend was playing. “What if he didn’t do it?”

“Then he doesn’t have anything to fear from me.”

Five minutes later, we pulled up in front of the bar. Jake stopped the engine, and then turned to me. “You can wait out here if you’d like.”

I laughed. “Jake, believe it or not, I’ve been in a bar before. Let’s go talk to Orson’s bartender and see what he has to say.”

“Suit yourself,” Jake said. He got my door for me, and we walked into the place. It wasn’t much, with several dark tables and a long bar littered with worn stools. A mirror lined the back of the bar, and it was the only thing in the place decently lit. Music played softly in the background, but it was turned so low that it was hard to hear. There were maybe seven people in the place, and Jake squeezed my shoulder slightly. “There on the end. That’s Orson.”

I looked at the man, slumped forward with both hands around a glass, staring into the bottom of it as though it held the secrets to the universe. There was a shredded toothpick in his mouth, and a two-day growth of beard on his face. I felt a little bad for him, truth be told, and then I thought of Tim. If he’d killed my friend, he didn’t deserve one ounce of my sympathy.

Jake walked to the bar with me on his heels, shook his head when the young bartender asked if he’d like a drink, and then showed the man his badge. I worried that he might get in trouble doing that, since he wasn’t working on an official police investigation, but I left that in his hands. One thing was certain; I doubted Jake would do it if there was a hint of impropriety to it. He believed, first and foremost, in rules. Sometimes that drove me a little crazy, but most of the time I admired him for it.

“Do you know him?” Jake asked as he pointed toward Orson.

The young man laughed. “It would be hard to miss him, sitting there every night.” He clearly had no problem with Orson hearing his end of the conversation.

“Was he here on the tenth?”

The man considered it, and then said, “I couldn’t say.”

“You didn’t see him?”

“Not from my couch. I wasn’t working that day,” he said with a smile.

“Do you happen to know who was?” Jake asked, his voice always level, ever patient.

The bartender seemed to think about that for a moment before answering. “Laney Myles. She works the two nights a week I’m off.”

“Where can I find her?” Jake asked.

“Besides here? I don’t have a clue,” the bartender said. “This is just a way for me to pay my way through school. I did a hitch in the service, and now I’m going after something that lets me sit at a desk all day. Standing here night after night really makes you appreciate getting off your feet, you know?”

Jake just shrugged and slipped the man his card. “If you hear from her, have her call me.”

The guy took the card and put it behind the bar. Whether he’d give it to his substitute bartender was beyond me.

Jake saluted Orson with two fingers as we walked past him, but he most likely didn’t see it. He certainly didn’t react to it.

After we left, I said, “That was one big fat dead end.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“He was here tonight, though,” I said. “Wouldn’t that bolster his story that he never misses a night here?”

As Jake held my door for me, he said, “I do my best not to jump to conclusions. I’ll come back and talk to this woman, and then we’ll go from there.”

“You don’t take anything at face value, do you?”

“I’ve learned my lessons the hard way,” he answered. “Check, and then double-check.”

As we drove to April Springs, I said, “I couldn’t do your job.”

“Are you kidding, with as much practice as you’ve been getting since we met?”

I wasn’t going to let him joke about it. I was perfectly serious. “Don’t laugh at me. I mean it. You have to think the worst of everyone you come in contact with, don’t you?”

Jake shook his head. “You’re missing the point. I give everyone an even break when I meet them. I don’t start feeling one way or another until I have a reason to suspect that something’s wrong.”

“I still don’t know how you do it.”

He drove a few more minutes, and then asked, “Do you think just anyone could open your donut shop and do what you do? Let’s put the skill set required aside for a second and just consider your work hours. Getting up at one-thirty every morning has to be some kind of brutal experience. You work hard until twelve-thirty, by the time you close and clean up, seven days a week. I don’t know how you do it.”

“Okay, you made your point. We each have our own special talents.”

“True, but yours are delicious, as an added bonus.” He glanced in back for a second. “Speaking of delicious, that’s still a lot of food.”

“We could always heat some of it up when we get back to my place.”

He looked at me quickly to see if I was joking. “I honestly don’t think I could eat another bite. Could you?”

“Probably not, but I won’t let you down if you want company while you snack.”

“No, I’d better not, or I’ll never get to sleep.”

I smiled over at him. “At least we don’t have to worry about dinner tomorrow night. You
are
coming over, aren’t you?”

“With all of that waiting for me? You bet I am.”

I tweaked his arm a little. “I’d like to think that you’re coming over more for me than the food.”

“That’s what I was talking about,” he said with a grin. “The food is just a bonus.”

“Good answer,” I said as we drove through town and up to the cottage. I felt happy being with him, full and warm and most important of all, safe.

It was dark out when we pulled up to the front of the cottage, but there was something flickering on the porch that gave off a dancing light.

Something was wrong.

Fire!

DONUT PUFFS

We like these puffs because they’re easy to make, and the drop donuts go great with coffee or hot cocoa on a cool day. One tip, though: use a cookie scoop. They drop a beautiful and perfect ball every time.

INGREDIENTS

• 2 eggs, beaten

• ½ cup sugar

• ½ cup whole milk

• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

• 1 dash of salt

• 1½ cups all purpose flour

• 1 heaping teaspoon baking powder

DIRECTIONS

Beat the eggs, then add the sugar and whole milk. Set aside, and sift together the flour, salt, nutmeg, and baking powder. Add the dry to the wet, stirring thoroughly. Use a small cookie scoop to add the dough to 375-degree canola oil for two to three minutes, turning the balls halfway through. Dust with powdered sugar or add icing after they are cool to the touch.

Makes about a dozen puffs

CHAPTER 12

Jake must have spotted it the same time that I did. He slammed the car to a stop, then rushed out, with me close behind.

As we raced up the steps, I could see that the fire was confined to a small rectangle on the porch. I went for the garden hose, but Jake grabbed an old blanket we kept on the porch swing and beat the flames out before I could get to it. I doused it just to make sure it was out, and then Jake said, “Turn on the porch light.”

After I did as he asked, in the glow from the light I looked down to try to see what had been destroyed.

With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I knew instantly what it had been. There was just enough left of the cover for me to know beyond a doubt that someone had just destroyed one of the things I prized most in the world.

It was my recipe book, and it was clear that I’d never retrieve another thing from it ever again.

“Look at this,” Jake said, his voice bringing me back to reality.

“It’s my recipe book,” I said, feeling dull and listless all of a sudden. I couldn’t even meet his gaze. All I could manage to do was stare down at what had meant so much to me, now destroyed. “I can’t believe that it’s gone.”

“Suzanne,” he barked at me. “Look.”

I did as he asked, and pulled my gaze upward to him.

He was pointing to something that I hadn’t seen in my haste to get to my book.

It was a note taped to the railing.

Back off, or more than your precious book will be on fire next time. Wood siding burns with the brightest flames. Just give me a reason to light the match.

“This is serious,” Jake said.

“You don’t have to tell me. That book held more than recipes. Every idea I had for the donut shop was in there. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to reproduce a tenth of it. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Jake shook his head. His voice had an angry edge to it as he said, “Suzanne, there’s more at stake here than Donut Hearts. The killer is threatening your life.”

I looked at Jake and did nothing to disguise my attitude in my voice. “I’m not going anywhere, Jake, and I’m not backing down. I’m going to catch whoever did this, and I’m going to make them pay for it.”

“Take it easy,” he said, his voice suddenly more calm and reassuring. “Is it really worth dying over?”

I had to make him understand. It was important for me that he knew just how deep a blow this was to me and my business. “Jake, let me ask you something. If a bad guy threatened you, how would you react to it? Don’t try to appease me with your answer, either. I want the truth.”