Dead As A Donut

by Kathryn Lin

  “I’ll think about it.” I was just afraid to jeopardize the friendship between the three of us if things didn’t work out.

  “Go on. I’ll hold down the fort.”

  Ben’s workshop was a large wooden hangar at the edge of town. It stood next on the shores of picturesque Whitestone Lake, one of the many small lakes found throughout Michigan and a favorite weekend spot for families in Grand Arbor.

  Seeing as the hangar door was open, I peeked my head in and knocked on the wall to announce my arrival.

  “Liv!” Ben seemed surprised at my visit, but excited to see me.

  I walked around the large half completed boat in the middle of the hangar to where he was sitting.

  “I baked some biscuits and thought you might like some for lunch.”

  I stopped short when I saw that he already had company and a table with burgers, fries, and beers—already opened and half eaten.

  “I can come back another time…” My earlier confidence fled like a gust of wind.

  “Nonsense, come sit and eat with us.” Ben beckoned me over and pulled another chair over to the table.

  “This is Dylan O’Keefe, we used to work together in New York.”

  “Dylan, this is my best friend, Olivia Faulkner.”

  I set down the box of biscuits and shook Dylan’s hand. He had the soft hands I would expect from an architect. Ben had long lost the softness in his hands from years of woodworking and building sailboats.

  “What have you got there? They smell amazing.” Ben opened up the box and his face lit up like a little boy opening up his presents on Christmas morning.

  “I haven’t had these in years! I hope you don’t mind?”

  I shook my head and Dylan made a go ahead gesture before Ben grabbed a biscuit and took a giant bite.

  “I can see why you left us and moved back here,” Dylan said with a laugh. I blushed. Somehow I had a feeling he was talking about more than the biscuits.

  “Did you know Dylan works for Banks in their East coast office?” Only Ben said this around a mouthful stream of gibberish. He held up a finger and swallowed before he repeated himself.

  “Really? What was Edward Banks like?”

  “The biggest jerk in the world. Let’s just say this. You can take the stereotype of the rude and ruthless New York businessman and he would still call my boss the rear end of a donkey.” Dylan finished talking and grabbed a biscuit.

  “That matches his reputation here in town.”

  “I think the only person who could stand to be around him was his personal assistant. Although I don’t know what a pretty young woman like her would see in a grouch like Edward Banks.”

  I could think of several things, but they weren’t things you mentioned in polite company.

  “Holy smokes, these are really good. You’ve got to share your recipe.”

  “Thanks. I’ll email you the recipe when I get home.”

  We exchanged contact details and I made a note on my phone to write up the recipe for Dylan.

  “I guess none of it really matters anymore. The police are going to arrest Robert Morgan for the murder.”

  Dylan stopped eating. “Really? Robert knew all about Edward’s coup attempt. He has been working with an outside buyer to secure enough votes to keep his position.”

  “Do you know if his plan was successful?”

  “I would think so. I know a new company none of us had heard of had bought a lot of shares in the company right before Edward was killed. Robert was celebrating in his office that he had enough votes on his side just last week.”

  This was definitely interesting. If Robert already had a way to maintain power in the company, then why would he kill Edward and potentially draw attention to himself?

  “Hey, the local branch is hosting a party for architects and other people in the biz on Sunday evening. You guys should come.”

  Ben and I must have looked at each other like two deer caught in front of a headlight.

  “Oh god, I’m sorry. I thought you guys were…My wife was right. I’m awful at reading people.” Dylan chuckled nervously.

  “No, we’d love to go,” Ben paused and looked at me, “that is if it’s what you want, Liv?”

  “I want. I definitely want.”

  Chapter 14

  After an afternoon that was as awkward as getting asked out to prom in the middle of the school cafeteria, what I needed was a nice quiet night at home.

  Thank goodness it was Friday night.

  Friday night at the Faulkner house meant classic movies with lots of junk food and zero judgment. Vi had everything set up by the time I finished microwaving the popcorn in the kitchen. There were two bags of potato chips, one plain and one barbecue, and a box of milk duds and twizzlers on the coffee table.

  I flopped down onto the couch and handed a bowl of popcorn over to Vi. “What’s on the schedule tonight?”

  “The Women, with Joan Crawford, then 9 to 5, and then finally The First Wives Club.”

  “Huh. Go girl power.”

  Since I had promised Vi that I would finally knit her something to wear this winter, I picked up the half-finished garter stitch scarf I was making for her. Knitting with my eyes on the television screen was not a problem since the entire piece was just one stitch back and forth. What did prove to be a problem was Fox’s sticky paws.

  “Fox, no!” I tried to shoo her away from the ball of yarn I was working from. But Fox was determined to tangle the yarn and make a mess of things.

  “Oh honestly.” I gave up on the idea of knitting and set Fox onto my lap where she stayed until we finished all three movies.

  That night, my sister, Piper, appeared in my dreams again. She was still eternally six years old, the same as the last day I saw her before her disappearance.

  This time we were in a field of lavender. She stood in the middle of the field and I ran until my legs were burning, but I could never reach her. The field in between us just kept growing and growing faster than I could run.

  “Be careful, Livy. Don’t trust her,” she whispered.

  Even though she whispered her message to me, I could hear it loud and clear as if it had been broadcasted from a loud speaker.

  “What do you mean by her?” I tried to ask, but the act of trying to force the words out of my mouth jolted me out of my dream and back into the darkness of my bedroom.

  The awful screech of the alarm clock greeted me the next morning and after I silenced it with a slap, I rolled over and buried my head in my pillow.

  Details of my dream floated in my mind, but the more I tried to remember what happened, the fuzzier the details became. What I did remember about the dream was that it was weird. I blamed all the junk food I had with Vi. I wasn’t a teenager anymore and I couldn’t eat like one without paying the price for it the next day.

  After a nice long shower I headed downstairs to the kitchen.

  “Morning, Mom.” Vi poured a cup of coffee and shoved it into my hands before she sat back down at the kitchen table.

  “Mm, good girl,” I praised before I took a sip of the inky black ambrosia.

  With a bit of caffeine flowing in my veins, I finally felt ready to speak in multisyllabic words.

  “What are you doing up so early on a Saturday morning?”

  The kitchen table in our breakfast nook was covered in printed papers and Cranbrook brochures. She looked like she hadn’t slept a wink.

  “Oh honey.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulder and gave her a kiss on the head.

  “You’re stressing out over nothing. You’ll pass their interview with flying colors.”

  “You don’t know that, Mom. I have to be prepared.” She propped up her head with an elbow on the table.

  I didn’t know for sure, but I had a pretty good feeling. Vi was one of those rare kids who actually took initiative in her own education and studied hard, unlike most of the trust fund kids who were forced by their parents to attend the school.

  I s
aw that her own cup of coffee was empty and the bottom was dried. I refilled her cup and made sure to add plenty of cream and sugar, just the way she liked it.

  “Look at this, Mom.” Vi said when I put down her cup.

  She shoved a brochure into my hand and pointed.

  “The tuition for just one year costs more than Grandma’s car.”

  She flipped frantically through the pages before pointing out another figure to me.

  “There’s also uniforms, and textbooks, and school trip fees. Did you know that students go on a trip abroad every year? How are we going to afford this?”

  I hated that Vi felt guilty about the burden of the costs of her education.

  “I’ve got it covered, okay. This is not something you should be worrying about. Our online sales have been better than I could have ever expected and your father and grandparents also set some money aside for you. If we still need money, we can always draw from our savings if necessary.”

  All of this was true. We weren’t rich by any means, but Vi’s father had left her a bit of money with his life insurance policy, and my parents had set up a trust for her schooling before their deaths. Cranbrook had a payment plan and I was confident that I would be able to make the payments with profits from my online cheesecake sales without having to dip into our savings.

  “Okay?” I wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to let money discourage her from trying to get into Cranbrook.

  “Okay,” she said hesitantly.

  Satisfied that the issue was settled for now, we had a quiet breakfast together of Belgian waffles and freshly whipped cream.

  “Is it alright if I go to Abigail’s house today?”

  Abigail was the only friend Vi had made so far at Grand Arbor High. I had been so worried that she wouldn’t make any friends after transferring from her school in Chicago. I had met Abigail once when she came over to our house to study. She seemed like a good kid with a good head on her shoulders so I wasn’t worried about Vi spending the day with her.

  “Of course. Be back before sundown.”

  “I promise. Love you, Mom.” Vi hugged me from behind before she ran upstairs to get ready.

  I cleared the table and loaded the dishes into the dishwasher and then I went upstairs to get ready to open up the café.

  Chapter 15

  Saturday at the café ended uneventfully. I drove home at a quarter past six o’clock. When I passed by the Banks’s house, an angry young woman stormed out of the front door and slammed the door when she got into her car. She pulled out of the driveway with a screech of tires against pavement and sped off.

  I wondered who she was. I looked back to the house and saw Elizabeth watching me from the front door. I flushed red with embarrassment at getting caught rubbernecking. It was quite stupid of me to stop in the middle of the street and gawk at what was happening on her front doorstep. Most people at least had the decency to hide behind their curtains or behind the hedges.

  Seeing as there was no way out of this awkward situation, I waved awkwardly at her with the hand I had on the top of the steering wheel. She remained stony faced and shut the door.

  Yikes.

  Next door, Jeremy was carrying bags of trash from his house out to the curb. There were already six large plastic bags in front of his house. This was an odd time of the year to do some spring cleaning, I thought.

  After I parked my car in front of my house I walked over to Jeremy’s house.

  “How are you, Jeremy? Do you need a hand?”

  “Evening, Olivia. I’m just getting rid of some old devils.”

  His phrasing made me scratch my head. He tossed the bag in his hand onto the ground next to the growing pile. I heard the clinking of glass bottles.

  Ah, now it started to make sense.

  “I’m a recovering alcoholic. Bowie and Ziggy were my therapy dogs. When they were taken away…I relapsed.”

  Even though it looked like it was painful for him to admit all this to a stranger, he seemed to gain strength from it, like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

  “Well I’m glad you’re doing better.”

  Jeremy nodded. “Edward’s death was a wakeup call. That could have been me. If he couldn’t defend himself, what chance did I have if I was stumbling drunk all the time?”

  “If you ever need help, or someone to talk to, you know where I live.”

  Vi was already home when I came into the house. She was also sitting at the same seat at the kitchen table as this morning. If I hadn’t seen her leave to go to Abigail’s house in the morning, I would have thought that she hadn’t moved at all. Stacks of books replaced the brochures and papers on the table from this morning.

  “What are you studying?”

  “Oh, hey. I didn’t hear you come in. I’m brushing up on my classic lit in case there’s a quiz at the interview.”

  “Vi, they already have all of your academic records. I doubt they’re going to test you on Greek myths or Mary Shelley.”

  “I know, but I have to be prepared. I don’t want to sound uncultured and stupid.”

  This was the first time I had seen my daughter freak out like this. What happened to my carefree little girl?

  Next Saturday couldn’t come soon enough. I wanted this interview over and done with.

  Chapter 16

  Today was the big day—my kind of but not really date night with Ben—so I was thankful that the customers coming into the café were relaxed and undemanding. The early birds on Sunday mornings were too busy reading their newspapers or doing the crossword puzzle. We didn’t get a lot of customers until later in the afternoon when people started coming in for brunch and church services ended.

  The only customers who really demanded my time and attention were the old ladies sitting by the window.

  “Olivia, dear, we’re out of coffee,” Maude called out across the dining room.

  “So, what are you wearing for your date with Ben tonight?” Trixie asked as I poured fresh coffee into their carafe.

  My head snapped up. “How do you know about the party tonight?”

  “Coffee, dear!” Helen cried out.

  “Oh, sorry!” I stopped pouring just in time to avoid getting coffee all over the table.

  “We have our sources,” Maude said mysteriously.

  Trixie rolled her eyes. “Yesterday we were visited Helen’s daughter in law who works at the Westin in Detroit and decided to have lunch at the hotel. We found the guest list for tonight’s party and Ben’s name on the list. Naturally, we assumed that you were his plus one.”

  Holy smokes. I may have underestimated the old ladies. Not only did they know everything that happened in Grand Arbor, their range of influence extended to downtown Detroit more which was a two plus hours’ drive away on the highway.

  “So, what are you wearing?” Maude asked, like a bloodhound narrowing in on her target.

  “A knee length black dress with black stilettos and a lilac silk shawl.”

  They nodded approvingly.

  “Black is always appropriate,” said Trixie.

  “It’s a good choice now that the weather’s colder. I would have suggested something lighter, maybe fuchsia, if it were still summer,” Maude added.

  “Can I get you ladies anything else?” I was desperate to get out of this conversation.

  “We’re alright, dear. Enjoy yourself tonight,” said Helen with a kind smile.

  ***

  I felt like a princess as Ben escorted me into the hotel ballroom where the party was already underway. As we were slightly late, crowds had already formed with people mingling in groups and going to and fro from conversation to conversation.

  Everybody was dressed in glamorous formal wear, the men in tuxes and the women in the latest elegant fashions. I feared that my own dress was a bit simple, but Ben put that all to rest.

  “Have I told you how beautiful you look?” Ben had to bend down and whisper into my ear as the music and the buzz of convers
ation in the room was overwhelmingly loud.

  I couldn’t help blushing at his compliment.

  “Thank you. You don’t look too shabby yourself.”

  A waitress walked by carrying a tray of champagne. Ben grabbed two flutes and handed one to me.

  “Ben!” Dylan waved to us and I followed Ben as we went to socialize. The conversation among the group of architects and real estate professionals all went over my head so I smiled and nodded appropriately at the right moments during the conversation.

  I sipped at my glass and studied Ben. Even though I had only seen him in jeans and various versions of old t-shirts and sweaters since I came back to Grand Arbor, he had cleaned up well tonight. He was freshly shaven and he must have gotten a haircut earlier today as his hair was immaculately styled. He looked like a suave all-American James Bond.

  Sensing a lull in the conversation, I gestured to Ben that I was going to go to the bar.

  I placed an order for a martini and leaned against the bar counter to people watch. There was nobody else at the bar except myself and a forlorn looking woman sitting two stools down from where I stood.

  She was attractive in her sparkling gold dress and I guessed that she was in her mid-twenties. Despite the appreciative glances directed her way from various party goers, she didn’t seem to be in a celebratory mood.

  The bartender slid my drink over to me and I sat down next to her.

  From up close, it was obvious that the woman had been crying. Her eyes were red and puffy in a way that no amount of expertly applied concealer and mascara could cover up.

  “Are you alright?” I asked her.

  I don’t know if it was because of my trusting face or if it was because we were two strangers at a bar, but she decided to confide in me.

  “I could be better. The last place I want to be is here.”

  “I sensed that. What happened to upset you?”

  She fiddled with the swirl stick in her drink. I feared that I had overstepped and she was closing up on me.

  “My boss and mentor, who was like a father to me, died recently. I don’t know how everybody here can party and celebrate like nothing happened.”