Custard Crime: Donut Mystery #14 (The Donut Mysteries) (12 page)

“I didn’t realize you were going to be up this early,”
I said.

“You know how I get when I’m working on a case,” he
said, and then he gestured to the flowers.
 
“Are those from an admirer?”

“This is embarrassing,” I said with a shrug.
 
“Evidently I just can’t help that I’m so
irresistible.
 
We had so many arrangements
in back that we can’t even move around in the kitchen.
 
This has become our overflow area.”

He laughed as he glanced at the card.
 
“I’m guessing that Polly had a hand in
this.”

“I didn’t realize you were that in sync with the
folks around here,” I said as I got him one glazed donut and a cup of coffee to
go.

“That’s why I got this assignment in the first place,
remember?
 
So, what are your plans
today?”

“I’m going to sell donuts for most of the rest of the
morning, and then I’m going to clean up, make the bank deposit, and then maybe
take a quick nap.”

He raised one eyebrow.
 
“So, you aren’t going to do any
investigating?”

“Oh, that, too.
 
I forgot.
 
Grace and I are
headed out later to chat with a few of our suspects.”

He laughed, which was the exact reaction that I’d
been hoping for.
 
“Just stay out of
trouble,” he said as he shook the bagged donut at me.
 
I thought for a second that he hadn’t
paid, which would have been fine with me, but then I looked down at the counter
and saw a five there.
 
That was the
best tip that I’d gotten in some time, but it wasn’t going to stand.
 
I made change in the register, put a
suitable amount in our tip jar, and then I tucked the rest into my front pocket.
 
I’d return it that evening, along with a
lecture about how he should learn not to overtip, especially at Donut Hearts.

It was nearing eleven, our standard closing time, and
I couldn’t wait to lock the doors after I shooed everyone out of the building.
 
Running the place had been tougher than
I’d remembered, and I was thrilled about the idea that I wasn’t that far from a
nap in my near future.

At least I thought so, until I heard a strange woman
asking me if I was Suzanne Hart.

“I’m Suzanne,” I said.
 
“How may I help you?”

“You don’t know me, but I’m Evelyn Martin’s cousin,
Julie Gray.”

She was a mousy little blonde in her late twenties,
with sharp eyes and a pinched nose.
 
Her clothes were second-rate, but she had a brand-new manicure, and I
could swear the ring on her finger had belonged to Evelyn not that long
ago.
 
She didn’t need that for
identification, though.
 
I could see
the resemblance between the two women immediately.
 
“Hi, it’s nice to meet you, even under
such trying circumstances.
 
I’m so sorry
for your loss.”
 
It was as automatic
as wishing someone a nice day, or saying ‘Bless you’ when they sneezed.

“Thanks.
 
Suzanne,
I was wondering if you could do me a huge favor.”

“I’d be glad to do what I can,” I said as I rubbed my
hands on my apron.
 
“But I’m afraid
that I don’t have much pull around here, though.
 
You might be better off asking someone
else for help.”

“From what I’ve heard, you’re exactly the right
person I need to speak with.
 
It’s
about your boyfriend.”

“What about him?” I asked her guardedly.

“It’s just that he won’t tell me anything about what
happened to Evelyn, no matter how much I ask him for specific details.
 
I was hoping that you could put in a
good word for me.”

Her hopes were in vain.
 
“I’m sorry, but I don’t interfere with
police business.”

Julie bit her lower lip for a moment, and then she
said, “That’s not what I heard from Evelyn.”

I should have closed early when I had the
chance.
 
This was my reward for
being so dedicated on my first day off.
 
“I’m not sure what your cousin might have told you, but the woman wasn’t
my biggest fan, not by a long shot, so you should take anything you heard with
a grain of salt.”

Julie waved a hand in the air.
 
“You don’t have to explain my cousin to
me.
 
I know better than anyone how
capricious Evelyn’s affections could be.
 
She’s given up on me a dozen times in my life, but she always came
back.
 
Like they say, you can pick
your friends, but you’re stuck with your family for your entire life.”

“I happen to love my family,” I said, probably acting
a little stiffer than I should have.
 
This woman not only looked a little like her cousin, but she had
Evelyn’s bite as well.
 
Maybe it was
a mean gene that passed around the family from generation to generation.
 
If that were so, I was glad that my
family tree was planted in a different orchard.

“I’m sure you do, but I’m equally as certain that
Evelyn wasn’t quite so loveable.
 
Be
that as it may, I still want to find out what happened to her.”

“And Jake wouldn’t tell you anything?” I asked.
 
Surely he had a reason if he were
behaving that way toward her.
 
Was
she more of a suspect in the murder than I’d realized?

Julie waved a hand in the air.
 
“Oh, he told me about his theory that
she had been pushed, and that finding her the way he did made him suspicious
that something darker was the cause of it.”

I looked at her oddly.
 
“That’s all anyone knows at this
point.
 
What makes you think that
he’s holding something else out on you?”

“He wouldn’t name a single suspect, for one thing,”
she said.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there, either.”

Julie shrugged slightly, and then she smiled for a
moment.
 
“I understand.
 
You might not know anything now, but who
knows what the future might hold?”
 
She reached into her purse and pulled out a business card.
 
After scribbling something on it, she
handed it to me.
 
“That’s got my
personal cellphone number on it.
 
I’d be most appreciative if you’d call me the second you learn
anything.”

I wanted to refuse the card, but the easiest thing
for me to do was to just take it from her and then, after she was gone, toss it
into the drawer where I kept other pieces of useless information.
 
When I reached for it, she wouldn’t let
it go, though.
 
Before Julie would
release the card, she said in a soft voice, “My cousin has left me a great deal
of money, and I promise to reward those who have helped me, if you get my
meaning.”

“If I can’t do it, a bribe is not going to change
anything.
 
That kind of motivation
is honestly sort of lost on me,” I said.

“Don’t think of it as a bribe.
 
Consider it motivation and an incentive
to help me.”

“Call it what you will, but it’s not going to change
anything.”

She looked puzzled by reaction.
 
“But you’ll keep the card, right?”

“Sure,” I said, “but I make no promises
whatsoever.
 
Is that understood?”
 
I realized that there might be a way to
leverage her request for information in my favor later on if she continued to
be a suspect in her cousin’s murder.
 
The most prudent thing to do was go along with her until I had a chance
to gather more information about her true relationship with the murder
victim.
 
I knew from experience that
a great many people claimed warm and loving joy toward some folks after they
were gone, but wishing didn’t make it true, and the facts were many times quite
a bit uglier than anyone let on.

“I get it completely,” Julie said, and then she
looked around the donut shop as though she just realized what kind of
storefront she was currently in.
 
“My, how quaint your place is.”

“Thanks.
 
I
like it,” I said.

“So do I,” Emma echoed from the kitchen doorway.
 
How long had she been standing
there?
 
“Are we ready to close now,
boss?”

I glanced at the clock on the wall and saw that it
was three minutes after eleven.
 
I
now had the perfect excuse to get myself out of this situation.
 
“I hate to be this way, but we’re
closed, so unless you feel like pitching in and mopping the floor for us, it’s
time to go.”

I knew my audience.
 
Julie Gray wouldn’t voluntarily mop up a
floor under any circumstances, even if she thought it might mean securing my
help.

“I’d love to, I truly would, but I’ve got pressing
matters dealing with Evelyn’s estate.
 
So sorry that I couldn’t help.”

“I understand completely,” I said with my cheesiest
smile that meant nothing to anyone who truly knew me.
 
“Good-bye.”

“Until we meet again,” she said as I opened the door
for her, and then I made sure that I locked it once she was standing out on the
sidewalk.

Emma asked me, “What was that about?
 
Did you really expect that girl to mop
the floor?
 
With those fingernails?”

“It seemed like the easiest way to get rid of her,” I
admitted.
 
“How are things in back?”

“Ready for inspection, ma’am,” she said as she
clicked her heels together.

“Since when did we start having inspections around
here?
 
If you say that it’s clean, I
believe you.”
 
I gestured to the
display cases.
 
“If you’ll just box
the last of the donuts, you can go ahead and take off.”

“I don’t mind hanging around if you need me,” she
said.

“I think you’ve done more than your share lately,” I
said, and then I felt a twinge of guilt about how small her check had been,
given how hard she and her mother had worked.
 
“I really do wish that I’d been able to
pay you and your mother more for all of the hard work you did.”

“Don’t sweat it, Suzanne.
 
Mom is in heaven planning her next trip,
all thanks to you,” she said.

“And what about you?”

“It’s going where everything else I make goes,
straight into my college fund.
 
I’ve
been thinking about something I wanted to run past you.”

Was she heading back to school sooner rather than
later?
 
I’d lost her once, albeit
temporarily, and I hated the thought of losing her again.
 
“You’re going back in the fall, aren’t
you?”

“What?
 
No
way.
 
But it does kind of relate to
that, when and if I do go.”

“Go on.
 
I’m listening.”

“I kind of enjoyed my time running Donut Hearts when
you were gone, not that I didn’t miss you, you understand.
 
It was just really cool being my own
boss.”

“That’s one word that I’d use,” I said with a
smile.
 
“I have a few others, if
you’d like to hear them.”

“Believe me, I know the pluses and minuses of running
your own business.
 
But I still
might want to try something myself later on down the line.”

“You want to open a donut shop of your own?” I asked
her incredulously.

“Are you kidding?
 
I’m not insane,” she said loudly.
 
“Hang on.
 
I didn’t mean it that way.”

“I hope that’s exactly how you meant it,” I said.

“Not a donut shop, but something else for sure.
 
Don’t worry.
 
It’s going to be a long, long time from
now.”

“I hope so, but I understand the benefits of being
your own boss.
 
Do you have any idea
what you might be interested in doing?”

“Not a clue,” she said with a smile.
 
“And I don’t need to know right
now.
 
All I have to do is figure out
what classes to take to make it happen.”

“I’ve got a feeling the school might be able to help
you with that.”

She waved a hand in the air.
 
“Sure, I’m going to talk to them, but
the reason I’m telling you now is that I want to ask you a question.”

“I’ll answer it if it’s in my power to,” I said.

In a meek voice, she asked me, “Be brutally honest
with me.
 
Do you think I’ve got what
it takes?”

I hugged her as I said, “You bet I do.
 
I think you’ll be terrific at whatever
you decide to do.”

“Thanks,” Emma said, and then she pulled away a
little.
 
“Do you really mean that,
or are you just saying it because we’re friends?”

“We’re more than friends, Emma.
 
I’ve worked with you side by side for
years.
 
You have every
characteristic it takes to run a successful small business, at least in my
mind.
 
I have complete and utter
faith in you, for whatever it’s worth.”

“Suzanne, it’s worth everything to me,” she said as
she rubbed one eye.

“What do your folks think about your plans?” I asked
her.