Deadly Donuts (8 page)

“We’ll take them with us,” Grace said suddenly.

“Feeling peckish, are you?” I asked her with a grin.

“What can I say?
 
I’m still a growing girl.”
 
The statement was patently false, since Grace could still fit into her high school prom dress, but I let it go.
 
I also knew that she wasn’t about to eat all of those donuts, or probably even one.

Emma put the boxes on the counter, and then she said, “If that’s it, I’ll go ahead and take off.
 
I’ve got a class in twenty minutes.”

 
“Go on.
 
Take off.”

After she was gone, I asked Grace, “What are we going to do with all of these donuts?
 
I know for a fact that
you’re
not going to eat them.”

“What we always do,” Grace said.
 
“We’re going to use them to bribe people to talk to us.
 
You don’t mind, do you?”

“Are you kidding?
 
I love that they might be going to good use, but I doubt that the DeAngelis ladies are going to want someone else’s donuts around their restaurant.”

“Then we’ll use them on somebody else.
 
Are you ready?”

“Let’s drop my deposit off at the bank, and then I’m raring to go.
 
I’ll drive the Jeep so your car doesn’t end up smelling like donuts.”

“There are worse aromas in the world,” she said, but she didn’t disagree with my suggestion.

And just like that, we were off on another investigation.

Chapter 5

“Grace, there’s something you should know,” I said as I drove us to Union Square to visit Napoli’s and the DeAngelis women, our sources there.

“Is it about the case?”

“Sort of.
 
Jake is going to take some time off to help us solve it.
 
That’s not a problem, is it?”

“Why should it be?” she said.
 
“I’m delighted.”

“Good.
 
I was afraid that you might not like him being a part of our team.”

“Suzanne, I adore your boyfriend.
 
Why wouldn’t I want him around?”

I hesitated for a moment, and then I said, “Snooping is
our
thing, you know?
 
I just didn’t want you to feel left out.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?
 
If Jake’s helping us, where is he right now?”

“I have no idea.
 
He said that he was going to try to tap into his official police sources for some inside information.
 
In the meantime, we’re going to keep each other up to speed about our progress, but unless something significant happens before then, we’re meeting back at my house tonight for dinner.
 
That reminds me,” I said as I took out my phone and called my mother.
 
“Hang on one second, Grace.”

When my mother answered, I asked her, “Momma, would you mind making dinner for three unofficial investigators tonight?”

“I’d be delighted,” she said.
 
“Suzanne, you didn’t drag George into this, did you?”

“No, ma’am, I realize that our mayor has enough on his hands without me adding to his problems.
 
Jake is taking some vacation time to help us.”

“Did he have any trouble getting leave on such short notice?”

“No, as a matter of fact, his boss was all for it,” I said, not really sure if I was stretching the truth or not.

“Then that’s perfect.
 
Do you have any preferences about what’s on the menu?”

“I’m sure that whatever you make will be splendid,” I said, meaning every word of it.
 
My mother was a fine cook, a savvy businesswoman, and a real pistol if anyone had the nerve to cross her.
 
Not many did it twice; that was for sure.

“Give Grace my love.
 
You two need to be careful, do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
 
“Loud and clear.”

After I hung up, I told Grace, “Momma sends her love.”

“Right back at her.
 
How’s she holding up?”

“You know my mother nearly as well as I do.
 
I have a tough time reading her sometimes, but I can tell that she’s pretty upset right now.
 
Who can blame her?
 
This is something no one would want dumped in their lap.”

“Between the three of us, we’ll figure this out,” Grace said reassuringly.

“Don’t forget that Chief Martin isn’t exactly an innocent bystander in all of this.
 
He wants this case solved as much as any of us.
 
It can’t be easy for him having his girlfriend as a prime murder suspect.”

Grace glanced over at me.
 
“Suzanne, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say that you’re becoming quite a fan of our dear police chief.”

“He has his good points,” I admitted.
 
In all honesty, the chief really
had
started to win me over.
 
No one that devoted to my mother could be all bad, and I was trying harder and harder to see him for what he was, and accept him.
 

I was willing to admit that some days were better than others, but it was good between us at the moment.

When Grace and I got to the restaurant, we found a sign on the door that said Napoli’s was closed.

“What’s going on?” Grace asked.
 
“I thought they were open every lunchtime during the week.”

“Me, too,” I said as I grabbed my phone and called Angelica, the mother and patron saint of the best Italian restaurant I’d ever enjoyed.

“Angelica, this is Suzanne Hart.
 
Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Suzanne,” she said rather abruptly.
 
“Why do you ask?”

“Grace and I are out in front of the restaurant, and we just saw your sign that you were closed.
 
I hope nothing’s happened.”

“I’m sorry to say that it has.
 
Come around back.
 
Hurry.”

“If it’s not a good time, we could always come back later.”
 
I felt bad asking her for a favor when she was clearly having trouble of her own.

“There’s no time to talk.
 
I’ll be waiting.”

Angelica hung up before I could protest any further.

 
“What’s going on?” Grace asked.

“I don’t have a clue, but we’re about to find out.”
 
I led my friend around the back of the building.
 
We had to knock twice on Napoli’s rear entrance before anyone heard us.
 
Sophia, Angelica’s youngest, finally opened the door, a pained expression on her face.
 
There was an expanding puddle of water at the base of the door, and I wondered if they’d had a rainstorm here that we’d missed in April Springs.

“What’s the big mystery, Angelica?” I asked her.

“We’ve got a leak somewhere inside,” she said as Grace and I walked into the kitchen.

A leak was the mildest way their problem could be described.
 
A central pipe must have broken somewhere overhead, flooding the kitchen with at least six inches of water, and the tide was rising even as it came pouring out through the open back door.
 
There were towels stacked up at the door that led to the main dining area, so I was hoping that the public spaces had been saved from the torrent of water.
 
What made it worse was that there was the sound of more water coming in as Angelica, Antonia, and Maria tried to stem the tide, but they were clearly in a losing battle.
 
The fourth daughter was nowhere to be found, but that didn’t surprise me.
 
Tianna had left the restaurant business abruptly over a boy that was sheer trouble, and sometimes Angelica was so distraught by it all that she claimed only three daughters, not four.
 
I even caught myself on occasion forgetting about Tianna, but I hoped that someday she would come back into the fold.
 
I knew that it must have broken Angelica’s heart to lose contact with one of her children.

“Where’s the cutoff valve for the main supply line?” I asked frantically.

“We don’t know,” Angelica said with great distraught.
 
“I called our landlord, but he isn’t picking up the phone.
 
Everything’s going to be ruined if we don’t stop this water, and fast.”

I looked around and tried to trace the exposed overhead plumbing, searching for some kind of cutoff valve.
 
The only problem was that I couldn’t find one.
 
“How do you get up onto the roof?” I asked.

“I can’t ask you to climb up there, Suzanne.
 
Sophia, you go.”

“I’m afraid of heights, and you know it.”

“Just go!” her mother urged her, but she wouldn’t move.

“I’ll help you down here with a broom,” Grace said as she started trying to push more water out the backdoor.
 
It was clearly futile, but at least she was trying to do something.

“Come on, Sophia,” I said as I grabbed her hand.

Once we were outside, I asked, “Can
you
think of any way to get up there?”

“I saw a ladder over there one time,” she said as she pointed to a spot along the back wall, “but I’m not climbing up it.
 
Suzanne, I wasn’t kidding.
 
I hate standing on a chair, let alone climbing around on a roof.”

“Show me the ladder.
 
I’ll take care of the shutoff myself, but I have to be able to get up there first.”

Sophia led me to the area she’d pointed to earlier, and there was indeed a ladder there, just as she’d promised.
 
After taking a look at it, though, I wasn’t at all certain that it was going to be tall enough for me to climb up onto the roof using it.

I grabbed it and leaned it against the building anyway.
 
Just as I’d feared, it was a good two feet short of the roof.

“It’s not going to work,” Sophia said.

“I can climb it and pull myself up the rest of the way once I’m at the top,” I answered.
 
“Steady it for me, would you?”

I started climbing before I could chicken out.
 
When I got to the top step, I reached up with both hands and pulled myself up the rest of the way.
 
I managed to get my waist onto the edge, and then I pulled myself up.
 
The T-shirt I was wearing was probably ruined by the hot tar on the lip of the roof, but I couldn’t worry about that right now.

I had thought it was hot on the ground, but being up on that roof was a thousand times worse.
 
Gravel that had once been embedded in hot tar was now loose and stuck to my shoes with every step I took.
 
Hot exhausts from a dozen air conditioning units blew straight into my face, and I felt my feet grow heavier with every step.
 

I suddenly realized that I had to do this quickly if I was going to be able to do it at all.

Sophia yelled up, “Are you okay?”

“Walk to the restaurant’s back door,” I told her.

I started in the general direction, and as I looked over the edge, I saw Sophia standing there, shielding her eyes with one hand.
 

It was a great deal further up than I’d originally thought.

As I looked around the roof’s maze of pipes, I found a plumbing stack with valves clustered together over to one side.
 
This had to be where the leak was coming from.
 
I grabbed the nearest valve and tried to turn it, but there were two problems with that: the valve was burning hot to the touch, and it was rusted a bit as well.

As I blew some air onto my fingertips to try to cool them off, I walked back and said, “I need a wrench.”

“Sure, we’ve got one, but how am I going to get it up to you?”

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to climb up to let me have it.
 
You can throw it.”
 
That girl really was afraid of heights.

“Okay.
 
I’ll be back in a sec.”

She took ten of them, and each one felt like a full minute apiece in the blistering heat.

Finally, Sophia reappeared.
 
“Here it is.”

“Throw it up,” I said.

I’d planned on trying to catch it, but Sophia chucked it a little too hard, and it fumbled out of my hands.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No worries,” I answered.

I took the wrench, returned to the three valves, and with a little more effort, I shut them off one at a time.
 
That most likely meant that I’d deprived two other businesses of their water as well, but let the landlord straighten it out.

I went back and found Sophia still standing there.

“See if that did the trick,” I asked.

Sophia left my field of my vision, then she returned five seconds later.

“That did it,” Sophia said.
 
“The water stopped.”

“Good,” I answered as I walked back to where the ladder was.
 

It was further than I thought to that first rung when I looked down at it again.

I dropped the wrench to the ground, where it took an uncomfortable amount of time to fall, and then I shimmied my body over the side of the building and hoped that I’d be able to find the ladder with my feet.
 
I could feel the tar and rocks of the roof bite into my hands, and my shoes were weighed down with tar and gravel, but I somehow managed to find the rung anyway.

After that, it was simply a matter of getting off that ladder as fast as I could and plant my feet firmly back onto the ground.

Sophia started to hug me as I stepped off onto the pavement, but I pushed her away.
 
“Thanks, I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m a mess.”

“Come into the restaurant.
 
We’ll take care of you.”

I followed her back to Napoli’s, stopping to take off my tennis shoes just before we got to the door.
 
The shoes were a real mess, and I didn’t want to track anything into Angelica’s kitchen, as crazy as it must have seemed at the time, but I had to admit, that water felt good on my feet all the way through my socks.

Angelica took one look at me, and then she said with great distress, “Suzanne, you shouldn’t have done that.”