Fatally Frosted (11 page)

I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Trish. “Sorry, Momma, I’ve got to take this.”

“Not at the table then,” she said.

I frowned, jammed the bite I had poised ready to go into my mouth, then got up and walked out onto the front porch.

“Hey, Trish. What did he say?”

“You were right. He thought I was trying to help you,” she said. “I used to think you were paranoid thinking the chief was out to get you. I’m not so sure anymore.”

I wished I could tell her that I was surprised by his reaction, but I couldn’t. “You tried, and that’s what counts. Thanks for believing in me.”

“Suzanne, we’ve been friends forever. I’ll always look out for you, you should know that.”

“I do,” I said, then hung up.

If Chief Martin wasn’t going to talk to Burt, that
meant that I had to do it myself. The hardware store was already closed, though, and I couldn’t just show up on his doorstep without a really good reason. It would have to wait until tomorrow.

I planned to go to his store to find out what was really going on.

After the delicious meal, I’d just finished doing the dishes when my cell phone rang again. Momma was on the couch working her way through our complete set of Agatha Christies yet again. I put the last dish in the drying rack, then answered the call.

“Suzanne Hart, I’m going to shoot you,” I heard Grace say.

“Is there a particular reason this time, or is it just out of sheer meanness?”

“You didn’t call me after what happened to Peg Masterson. I had to hear it from Emma.”

“Why on earth did she call you?”

“Don’t take it out on her. She’s worried about you. Don’t worry. I’m coming home in the morning.”

“You shouldn’t cancel your trip because of me,” I said.

“Nonsense. We had our meeting this morning, and I spent the rest of the day shopping at Barefoot Landing. There’s nothing going on tomorrow, except for a golf outing at Myrtle National. Honestly, I was planning on coming home early anyway. I’ll see you around lunchtime,” she said.

“That would be wonderful,” I admitted. It would be good having Grace nearby. She was more than just a dear friend. She was a rock I could lean on if I needed to, and a partner in my earlier unofficial investigation.
While she wasn’t all that interested in coming up with lists of suspects and motives, Grace was a whiz at play-acting, and there wasn’t a role she wouldn’t tackle to help me find the truth.

“See you then,” Grace said, and hung up.

I thought Momma had missed the telephone call altogether, but she looked up from our copy of
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
, putting her finger on the page to mark her place, and asked, “Who was that?”

“Grace just found out what happened today,” I said.

“I thought she was out of town,” Momma said.

“She was. I mean, she is. But she’s coming home tomorrow.”

I got that look from her again. “Suzanne, you’re not going to drag her into this, are you?”

“Momma, I don’t drag anyone anywhere they don’t want to be. She’s my friend, and she wants to be here to support me.”

“She’s a good girl,” Momma said, then went back to her book.

I slipped off to my bedroom upstairs. Tomorrow was another big day of making donuts. Some folks in town gave me grief for being open on Sundays, but it was my biggest day of the week, what with Sunday schools and other folks indulging in a little weekend decadence. I’d made a conscious choice to stay open seven days a week, and I found most of my regular customers appreciated the convenience.

As I got ready for bed, I kept staring at my telephone, not even aware at first that I’d been doing it. Was I actually expecting Jake to call? He’d made it pretty clear that he was busy at the moment, and if
he was thinking of me at all while he was back in April Springs, it was probably as a murder suspect.

To keep myself occupied until bedtime, I decided to follow my mother’s lead and read a good book. For the rest of the evening, I was going to spend a little time with one of Carolyn Hart’s books. The adventures of Annie Darling were just what I needed to take my mind off my own troubles.

I had finally dozed off when my bedside phone rang. I’d forgotten to turn off the ringer, and as I grabbed it, I found myself hoping it was Jake.

No such luck.

“Hi, Suzanne. It’s Heather Masterson.”

“Hi, Heather,” I said, fighting a yawn.

She said, “Oh, dear, I’m calling too late, aren’t I? I guess I’m used to college time. Wait, it’s only ten.”

“Yes, but I get up every morning at one,” I said.

“I should have realized that someone had to get up to make the donuts you sell every day. I’m sorry I bothered you. Go back to sleep.”

“No, it’s fine,” I said as I rubbed my eyes. “I can talk. What’s up?”

“I wanted to ask a favor from you, but I surely didn’t start off on the right foot by calling this late, did I?”

“What is it? I’ll do anything I can. You know all you have to do is ask.”

She hesitated, then said, “I’ve been going through Aunt Peg’s things, and there’s a lot I’m not sure what to do with. Do you know anyone who could help me sort through her clothes and things and tell me
what’s worth keeping? I’m afraid I have no talent for it at all, and I don’t want to get rid of something valuable by mistake.”

“I understand,” I said, as I thought about who could help.

She must have misunderstood my delay, because she added quickly, “I can’t bear to be here any longer than I have to, you were right about that. The memorial’s planned, and the sooner I can put this all behind me and get back to school, the better. I just can’t stand being surrounded by all of this sadness.”

“Why don’t I help you myself?” I asked as inspiration struck. The best way to learn more about Peg might be going through her things.

“I thought you had a shop to run.”

Making it up as I went along, I said, “I can get my assistant to fill in, as long as I make the donuts myself. Tell you what. I have an even better idea. If you wait until noon, I can come over after work and she won’t be alone at all.”

“That’s too much to ask of you,” Heather said. Her voice caught as she added, “I can’t pay you much.”

“Don’t worry about that all. I’m perfectly willing to do this as a favor to you.”

“Thanks, Suzanne. I don’t know how I’d get through this without you.”

“You’d be fine, I’m sure.”

After we hung up, I tried to get back to sleep, but it was no use. I suddenly realized I’d forgotten to talk to Peg’s neighbors, but it really didn’t matter any more. After all, tomorrow I’d be inside the woman’s house, and if there was anything to learn from it, I planned to take full advantage of the opportunity.

I knew that if I picked up my book and started reading again that I’d never manage to fall back to sleep, so instead, I lay there in bed in the dark, trying to drive the thoughts of what had happened that day from my mind.

I was only partially successful, but I still managed to drift off to sleep before it was time to get up again and start another day from scratch.

I woke up the next morning a little before one
AM
. My alarm clock was due to go off in ten minutes, but it was the sound of thunder that had brought me awake. I looked out the window, and through the gloom, I saw rain pounding down in the night.

It was going to be one of those dismal days we sometimes got in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and I hoped it didn’t keep customers away from Donut Hearts. I figured with the poisoning, I was going to lose some regulars anyway, and I didn’t need a downpour to keep other customers from coming in. It might just be Emma and me today when we opened up, but I couldn’t worry about that. I had donuts to make, and if folks bought them or not, I still had to be ready.

I dressed quietly, grabbed a yogurt from the fridge, and left the house, hoping the rain would have let up by the time I was ready to go. No luck. It was coming down in sheets, and the small umbrella I’d chosen was no match for it.

In twenty paces, I was soaking wet.

I crept along in the Jeep toward the shop, and finally made it without having an accident. At least there hadn’t been any other traffic on the road.

To my surprise, Emma was waiting for me inside the shop when I pulled up.

She ran outside with a huge golf umbrella one of our customers had left, and escorted me into the building, though I was already soaked to the bone.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she said with too much enthusiasm for that time of night as we walked inside. “I just love thunderstorms, don’t you? There’s something so romantic about them.”

I dabbed at my wet hair with one of our towels. “Yes, it’s absolutely magical,” I said with a deadpan voice.

“Come on, you’ll feel better once you’ve had your coffee,” she said. “I’ve already made a pot.”

I took a mug from her and sipped it gratefully. “How long have you been here, anyway?”

She grinned. “Honestly? I never went to bed. I had a date with Paul Simms, and he dropped me off here an hour ago. He wanted to keep me company until you showed up, but I told him that wasn’t going to happen.”

“He’s new in your life, isn’t he?” I asked her.

“Tonight was our first date. I just love the start of a relationship, don’t you?” Emma paused a moment, then added hastily, “Not that what you have with Jake isn’t still special, too.”

I looked at her a second, then said, “Listen, I’m happy for you, honestly, I am. But my love life is not a topic of conversation we’re going to be covering. Agreed?”

“That’s fine,” she said. I hated to step on her grand mood, but I didn’t particularly want to be around her
when she was in her giddy stage of the first blush of romance.

“What are we making special today?” Emma asked.

“It’s business as usual. After we get the cake donuts made, we’ll go to work on the yeast ones.”

We worked through the variations of our cake donuts first—turning out plain, old-fashioned, pumpkin, orange spice, apple cinnamon, and lemon—and after they were finished and dripping in glaze, I turned the fryer up to 365 degrees, an easy temperature to remember. As I added twenty pounds of flour to the mixture of yeast and water already in the stand mixer, I turned it on to blend the mix and set the timer to five minutes.

When the timer went off, I turned off the mixer, removed the beater, and put a cloth over the top of the mixing bowl while it was still in the stand. I reset the timer to forty minutes, and it was finally time to stop for a while. Emma and I enjoyed our breaks outside, where the world was still dark and quiet and we felt as though we had it all to ourselves. Not even the rain, still pouring down in prodigious amounts, could keep us inside, since the awning over the front of the shop was enough to protect us from anything short of a hurricane force wind. There were a pair of modest tables with accompanying chairs outside for those who liked to eat their donuts alfresco, but the seats were wet, so we stood under the awning together and watched it rain.

“Are you really going to eat that?” she said as she pointed to my modest treat. Emma always had a power
bar with her coffee, while my snacks were varied, depending on the current state of my diet. Today I was having a rice cake, after getting on the scale a few days before and being alarmed by what my donuts were doing to my waistline.

I nodded. “Sadly, until I can stop sampling our wares, I’m going to have to. Walking doesn’t seem to help as much these days as it used to.”

Emma took another bite of her power bar, then said, “I read that as women get older, our metabolisms start slowing down, so it’s harder and harder to lose weight.”

“Fascinating. Did the article also mention that rain is wet, and fire burns?”

She said softly, “I didn’t mean anything by it, Suzanne. I just thought it was interesting.”

I laughed gently. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m just concerned about how the town’s going to perceive me as some kind of killer, and I don’t even want to talk about what Jake is thinking.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll come around,” Emma said.

“We’ll see, won’t we,” I said. I glanced at my watch and saw that we still had a few minutes left, but the tone of the conversation and the pelting rain were depressing me. “I’m going on in, but feel free to stay out here a few more minutes.”

She said, “No, I’m ready to go back in, too.”

Three minutes after we were back inside, the mixer timer went off again, and it was time to get back to work. I moved the dough to my counter, punched it down, and waited another ten minutes before touching it again. After the timer went off yet
again, I divided it into sections, and got to work. Rolling a section at a time out on my floured board, once I had it about a quarter-inch thick I was ready to make donuts. Now was the fun part. I don’t know who the genius was who thought of the cutting wheel, but I’d buy him a cup of coffee if I could. An aluminum contraption that looked like a children’s game, it featured a continuous circuit of donut and hole cutters on a hand-held wheel. The process of cutting out donuts was simplicity itself. Starting on the edge closest to me, I rolled the cutter across the dough, leaving perfectly formed donut rounds behind, with the holes separated as well. Any dough that was left was kneaded a little, then added to a big bowl to be used again later. I loaded the donut rounds onto trays, then handed them to Emma, who slid them into the proofer. There are much fancier rigs on the market, but ours worked just fine, though it wasn’t much more than a glorified box with a light bulb in the bottom and a humidifier. Twenty-five donuts fit on each tray, and we liked to put a hundred holes on one. After the first round was in the proofer, I set the timer to twenty-eight minutes and got to work on the scraps of dough I’d collected. I rolled these out again, made more donut cutouts, then went through the process again. This time though, I used the bismark cutter, a long-john-shaped rectangular grid that cut out perfect forms. With this cutter, we made long johns, honey buns, twists, pinecones, and whatever else I was in the mood to create. Finally, there was just a little dough left, now too tough for anything but fried pies and fritters. Fortunately, I
had customers who liked both, so by the time we were finished, there wasn’t a scrap of dough left.