Deadly Donuts (22 page)

It was still hot the next morning as I made my way to Donut Hearts.
 
I was beginning to wonder if this heat wave would ever end, and I found myself longing for cool weather again.
 
As I drove up to the donut shop, I realized that the streetlight in front was burned out.
 
Something about that gave me an uneasy feeling, and though I knew that I was probably just being paranoid, I drove past the shop, pulled into a parking spot down the block, and killed my headlights.
 
Instead of getting out, though, I let my eyes adjust to the darkness first.
 
Once I could see better, I scanned the area around Donut Hearts, searching for something, or perhaps
someone
, that didn’t belong there.
 
I waited at least ten minutes, and during the entire time, I didn’t see anything move.
 
Getting out of the Jeep, I closed my door as quietly as I could, and then headed back up the street toward my donut shop.

I was nearly there when I felt glass crack under my shoes.
 
Looking around on the ground, I realized that there were shattered pieces everywhere.

The light hadn’t burned out after all.

Someone had destroyed it, and I had a very bad feeling about who might have done it.

Without giving it another thought, I started hurrying back to my Jeep as I reached for my phone to dial 911.

I never made it, though.

 
Stepping out of the shadows, someone grabbed my arm, and my cell phone clattered to the ground.

“What do you want, Larry?” I asked as I made out my assailant.
 
It was Morgan’s best friend, Larry Landers, and he didn’t look happy at all.

“Where is it, Suzanne?
 
I know you know, so don’t try to play dumb with me.”

“Who’s
playing
?” I asked.
 
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.
 
Let me go, Larry.”

I’d tried to use my most authoritative voice, but he didn’t respond to my command.
 
Instead, he tightened his grip even harder.
 
“That hurts,” I said.

“It’s about to hurt a lot worse if you don’t tell me the truth.
 
I want that blackmail information, and I want it now.”

“We haven’t found it yet,” I said.
 

“Why should I believe you?”

“You were following us around all day yesterday.
 
Did it
look
like we found anything?”

I could make out a frown on his face in the near darkness.
 
Maybe I should have lied to him.
 
I couldn’t be in a worse position than I was at the moment, and at least I might have been able to buy myself some time.
 
“You
knew
that I was watching, so you didn’t want to tip your hand.
 
I can’t trust anything you tell me, can I?
 
I hate that it’s come to this, but if I can’t believe that you’re telling me the truth, why do I even need you anymore?”

He drew back his free hand, and I readied myself for the blow that I knew was about to land.

And then, in an instant, a light blinded us both, and Larry’s grip eased as a voice near the light commanded, “Hit the ground and put your hands behind your head.”

Larry disobeyed, whether he was frozen in the moment, or he chose not to move for some other reason, and the voice ordered, “This is your last warning.
 
If you do not immediately comply, I
will
shoot you.”

“Do what he says,” I pled with Larry.
 
It wasn’t that I cared so much about him; I just didn’t want to see him shot dead while I was standing right beside him.

My words seemed to have some impact on him, because Larry finally released me and dropped to the ground.
 
I took a step backward, and an instant later Chief Martin was on top of him, cuffing him, and then pulling him up to his feet in easy, practiced motions.
 
The chief must have been pumped up on adrenaline, because he had no problem at all doing it, even though Larry was no small man.

“Are you all right?” Chief Martin asked me as he steered Larry toward his squad car.

“I’m fine,” I said, even though my voice was a little bit shaky.
 
I would probably get a bruise on my arm from the way Larry had grabbed me, but it could have been worse—a lot worse.

I started to walk back to the donut shop when the chief called out, “Are you really going to open up the donut shop after what just happened?”

“My customers are depending on me,” I said.
 
What I didn’t tell him was that I needed the comfort and assurance of that part of my life to help me cope with what just happened.

“I can understand that.
 
At least you don’t have to worry about the murderer coming after you anymore,” the chief said.

That got Larry’s attention.
 
“Are you talking about me?
 
I didn’t kill anybody!”

“Yeah, and we should believe you
why
, exactly?” Chief Martin asked.
 
“Because otherwise, you’re a respectable kind of guy?”

“I might have wanted to take over his blackmail business, but I never would have laid a hand on Morgan.
 
He was the only friend I had in the world.
 
I never would have killed him.”

“Shut up and get in the car.”

“I didn’t kill him,” Larry repeated.

The chief shook his head, and then he shrugged.
 
“We heard you the first time.”

Once they were both gone, I unlocked the front door of the donut shop, flipped on the outside lights, and then I got out my broom and dustpan.
 
I couldn’t have my customers walking across glass to get to me, and I felt better taking care of that first.

When the sidewalk was clean, I went back inside and started my daily routine as though nothing had happened.
 
Getting my hands into the flour, sugar, butter, and yeast was just what I needed, and I could feel my stress start to vanish as I converted the raw ingredients into dough.

Chapter 18

“The streetlight’s out in front,” Emma said casually as she walked back into the kitchen as her shift started.
 
“You might want to get someone to take a look at that.”

“Thanks.
 
I already made the call,” I said.
 
“By the way, it didn’t burn out.
 
Somebody broke it on purpose.”

“What’s wrong with people these days?
 
Don’t they respect anything anymore?
 
Sometimes it just drives me nuts with the random vandalism we’re seeing.”

“I didn’t realize that you felt that strongly about it.”

“Dad just wrote an editorial about it, and he got me all fired up.
 
Sorry about that.”

“That’s okay.
 
Actually, there wasn’t anything random about this.
 
Someone did it so they could catch me by surprise.”

“Seriously?” Emma asked.
 
“Who would do that to you?
 
You weren’t hurt, were you?”

I rubbed my arm where Larry had grabbed me, and I could feel how tender it was.
 
“No, not much, anyway.”

“Who did it?
 
Did they get away?”

“No.
 
He’s in jail right now, as a matter of fact.
 
As much as I like to complain about Chief Martin, he really saved me this morning.”
 
I brought her up to date about Larry Landers and his attack, but I didn’t mention anything about his close ties to Morgan Briar, or the blackmailing scheme he’d been trying to take over.
 

Emma frowned when she heard the news, bit her lip for half a second, and then she shook her head.
 
I knew exactly what she was thinking.
 
She wanted to call her father and report what had happened to me, but we’d had words about that behavior before, so I knew that she was reticent to push me too far.

“Go on.
 
Call him,” I said.
 
She might as well be the one who offered him the tip.
 
Her dad would find out himself soon enough when he read the police arrest blotter.

Emma looked down at the floor.
 
“Nope.
 
I’m not going to do it this time.”

“I’m giving you my blessing.
 
Call him before someone else does.
 
At least that way you’ll get his crimestopper’s tip money.”
 

“Okay.
 
If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.
 
You’d better hurry up and do it, or I might just be tempted to call it in myself.”
 
I tried my best to smile as I said it, but I wasn’t sure that I was convincing at all.

Emma grabbed her phone, and I kept working on the dough for the day’s cake donuts.
 
She came back in just as I started to drop donuts, so I shooed her right back out again.
 
I’d let the dropper slip out of my hands once, and I wasn’t about to let anyone near me again while I was working with it.

When I called for her to come back in, she was smiling.

“I take it that your father was happy to get the tip,” I asked.

“You might say that.
 
He told me to tell you that he’d pay you twice what I just got if you’d give him an exclusive interview about the attack.”

I had to laugh.
 
“Do you even have to ask for my answer?”

“Just tell him that I pitched the idea to you, okay?”

“Sure thing,” I said.
 
“I can do that.”

“It’s funny, but Dad was in such a good mood that he volunteered to share some information about the case you’ve been working on.”

“Why does he think that I’m doing anything?” I asked.
 
If Chief Martin was right, the case had just ended with Larry Landers’s arrest.

“Come on.
 
He
knows
what you and Grace have been up to.
 
So, do you want it, or not?”

“Why not?
 
What did he have to say?”

“It seems that Martha Hickok has been going around town bragging about someone trying to blackmail her with risqué photographs.”

“I thought that she was trying to keep that a secret,” I said as I remembered her clandestine conversation with Jake about it.

“Apparently she changed her mind.
 
Dad said that he wondered if she told him about it so she could take out a front page ad, but it turns out that instead, it ended up giving her an alibi by accident.”

“Why is that?” I asked, curious about what Martha had been up to.

“It turns out that she was playing Midnight Bingo in Hickory when Morgan was murdered,” Emma said.
 
“Evidently, the first game starts at nine and they finish up around one a.m., so she was too far away to get back in time.”

“She could have always slipped out, and then come back again,” I said, though I had a hard time envisioning Martha as a murderer.

“The tickets are time-stamped, and once you leave, you can’t get back in.
 
That’s not the kicker, though.
 
Martha doesn’t drive, so she couldn’t have done it.
 
She rode the bus down, and then she rode it back when the last game was over.”

I took all of that in, and then I nodded.
 
It worked for me.
 
“Tell your dad that I said thanks, and that I owe him one.”

“Enough to do the interview he wants to do with you?” Emma asked with a smile.

“Not quite,” I replied, happy that I’d at least managed to strike
someone
else’s name off my list, no matter how little the viability of the candidate was.
 
If I discounted Larry as the murderer, that just left Rose, Heather, Cliff, and Polly.
 
George might still be a remote suspect, and so was Ellen for that matter, but I had a feeling that one of them was a murderer.
 
Now all I had to do was figure out which one was guilty, and that wasn’t going to be easy.

“Suzanne, are you all right?” Momma asked me half an hour after Chief Martin had left the scene with Larry Landers.

“I’m fine.
 
What are you doing up so early?”

“Phillip called me, of course,” she said.
 
“Is it true?
 
Did he catch the killer?”

“I don’t think so,” I said.

After a moment’s pause, Momma said, “Then I’m confused.
 
Phillip is under the impression that this Landers man killed Morgan Briar.”

“He might be positive, but I’m still not convinced,” I said.

“What makes you think that he’s
not
the one?”

“I can’t say for sure,” I admitted, “but I just don’t believe it.”

Momma sighed, and then she said, “Well, I’ve grown to trust your instincts over the years.
 
Be careful.”

“I always am,” I said.
 
“Now why don’t you go back to sleep?”

“So you can get back to your donut-making?” she asked.

“I can’t fool you, can I?”

After I hung up, I told Emma, “That was my mother.
 
She was worried about me.”

“Do they ever stop?” Emma asked.

“Not as far as I can tell.
 
Sometimes I fuss about her being a little too overprotective with me, but in the end, it’s nice to have someone who worries about me.”

“I’m sure Jake does, too.
 
When are you going to tell him what happened?”

I shook my head.
 
“I’m not, at least not until I’m satisfied that this case is over.
 
All it would accomplish would be to cause him needless worry, and he has enough to focus on with what he’s doing.”

“Are you sure?
 
He might be upset if he finds out that you held something back from him,” Emma said.

“Maybe, but he knows me well enough to realize that I have reasons for the things I do.
 
Now, would you grab more vanilla extract from the storage room?”

“I’d be happy to,” she said.
 
As Emma left the kitchen, I thought about calling Jake, but he was most likely still asleep, and I didn’t feel right waking him.
 
That was only part of it, though.
 
What I’d told Emma was the truth.
 
There was nothing that he could do about what had happened earlier, and the last thing I wanted was for him to rush back to April Springs because I couldn’t take care of myself.
 
If I truly believed that I needed him, I’d call him in a heartbeat, but for now, I’d save that phone call for later.

In the meantime, I had donuts to make.

I’d been open ten minutes when Chief Martin pulled up outside in his squad car.
 
Since he’d started dating Momma, he’d stopped eating donuts in an effort to lose weight, and he’d been quite successful at it.
 
The man was practically wasting away, but I still couldn’t entice him with one of my treats.
 

Before he could get in the door, I poured him a cup of coffee and had it waiting for him.
 
“Care for some coffee?” I asked as he walked in.

“That would be great.
 
I haven’t been to bed yet.”

“You never told me how you happened to be there when I needed you.
 
Not that I’m not grateful, but it was a pretty big coincidence.”

“It wasn’t a coincidence at all,” he admitted.
 
“I was working on something else, and I thought I’d swing by the donut shop to check up on you on my way home.”

“Were you spying on me, Chief?” I asked him with a grin.
 
“Don’t tell me that my mother put you up to it.”

“She’s worried about you, and if I can help ease some of her fears without costing me too much more than a little sleep, why wouldn’t I?
 
Do you really mind all that much?”
 

I kissed him on the cheek, something that made him blush instantly, and I said, “No, I want to thank you for it.
 
As much as I like to believe that I’m a modern woman capable of handling any situation, I appreciated the fact that you were there when I needed you more than I can say.”

He looked absolutely flabbergasted by my compliment, which made me smile broadly.

“Uh, I was happy to do it,” he said as he tried, and failed, to make eye contact with me.
 
After another sip of coffee, the police chief added, “Your mother is still worried about you, you know.
 
She told me that you’re still not convinced that Larry Landers killed Morgan Briar.”

“I’m not,” I said.
 
“When did she tell you that?”

“Right after the two of you spoke,” he said.
 
“Listen, I know how these things can be, but you don’t have anything to worry about.
 
The case is over.”

“I just don’t buy it,” I said.
 
“There’s no evidence that Larry killed Morgan, and besides, there are a ton of other people who had more of a motive than just greed.”

“Don’t sell avarice short,” the chief said.
 
“You’d be amazed by how many people commit the most horrific acts just because they want something that someone else has.”

“I realize that, but fear is an even bigger motivator, wouldn’t you say?
 
Someone you’d never dream of as being capable of killing could commit murder if they were backed into a corner.”
 
Jake had told me that enough times that I had no doubt that it was true.

“I understand that, but it’s not the case this time.”

“Convince me,” I said.

He thought about it for a few seconds, and then he said, “Tell me the names of your other suspects, one at a time, and I’ll do the best that I can do.”

I considered his offer, and then I nodded.
 
“You’ve got yourself a deal.
 
Let’s start with the blackmail victims themselves.
 
First up, we have Heather Morningstar, and her fiancé, Cliff.”

“They had dinner in Charlotte the night of the murder, and then they went to a formal ball.
 
Half a dozen witnesses verified that, so they’re both in clear.”

“It would have been nice knowing that earlier,” I said with a frown.

“Young lady, you are
not
privy to what my department knows.
 
I’m doing this strictly as a courtesy, so don’t give me a reason to walk out of here.
 
If I do, your mother won’t be pleased with either one of us.”

“Sorry,” I said, promising myself to put my petulance aside.
 
“How about the florist in Union Square named Rose?
 
I don’t know her last name.”

Without even consulting his notes, he said, “She was in the Emergency Room with her mother.
 
We’ve got video surveillance that proves it.”