Jealousy Filled Donuts

by Ginger Bolton

  When I’d been holding that stack of donuts, Jocelyn had been beside me. Once again, she’d been completely removed from a photo and replaced by a backdrop that didn’t belong there. Both times, only seconds after the pictures were taken she had abruptly removed herself from the vicinity of Philip Landsdowner and his camera.

  Virginia pointed at a picture of a man blowing up long, skinny balloons and twisting them into animals, flowers, and tiaras. “Look. Here’s the police station where it belongs. You can tell from the angle of the sunlight and the shadows on the porch that the police station was copied from this picture and inserted in the one of you and your stack of donuts.”

  I pointed at the credit at the bottom of the page and asked if either of the women knew Philip Landsdowner.

  Neither of them remembered having heard of him. “Except he took the pictures that were in yesterday’s newspaper,” Virginia said.

  Photos of the fireworks were on the bottom half of the article’s right page.

  I didn’t tell Cheryl and Virginia that Queen Taylor, before she was injured, was the blonde behind the scraggly bush in one photo. Duke Nicholas’s arm was around her, where I’d seen it after the fatal skyrocket was lit and before it exploded. I didn’t think the stack of donuts was in this photo. It was possible, but not likely, that it was eclipsed by the gnarled trunk of the shrub. The picture had probably been taken early during the fireworks display. No one was walking uphill toward their cars.

  Cheryl pointed at the photo. “Look, Emily, here you are again! That photographer must like you!”

  Or not. I didn’t say it.

  Just uphill from Taylor and to her left, I was sitting with my backpack beside me and the empty paper bag on my outstretched legs. My hands were behind me, bracing me, and my face was tilted up toward blazing starbursts in the sky. I hadn’t yet gone to the car to fetch my sweater.

  “Don’t tell me you went to the fireworks by yourself!” Cheryl’s kind face crinkled with something resembling pain.

  “I didn’t.” It did look like I was alone on one end of the plaid blanket, however. “My friends were to my left.” Maybe I was worrying too much, but I wondered if Landsdowner had zoomed in and cropped the picture to show that I was seated relatively close to Nicholas and Taylor on that crowded hill. Although my expression couldn’t be seen in this picture, other photos in the pictorial essay could be seen as evidence that I’d been in a bad mood most of the day. Maybe Landsdowner wanted to imply that, at the end of the evening, my supposed bad mood had erupted into a horrific act.

  Cheryl said, “Look at this last picture. Her face doesn’t show, but isn’t that your friend, the police officer who comes in here, the one you said was checking your pulse in yesterday’s picture?”

  “Yes, that’s Misty.” She was holding my wrist.

  “This picture is a lot like yesterday’s. In both of them, your friend looks like she’s arresting you, but in this one, more of your face shows. And you look angry?” Cheryl’s tone rose, making that last comment a question.

  This had to be the second picture that Landsdowner had taken while Misty was checking my pulse. I had turned toward where the first flash had been, but Misty had regained my attention and I hadn’t seen the photographer. However, most of the right side of my face was in this photo, enough for Cheryl to understand my expression. I confessed, “I knew that the queen and her boyfriend had been injured. I was upset.”

  “Understandable,” Virginia said. “You could have been shocked, too.”

  “Or scared,” Cheryl contributed.

  I admitted that I was probably feeling all of those emotions and maybe a few more, besides.

  Their faces solemn about the death of the young beauty queen, Cheryl and Virginia nodded.

  More customers came in, and I had to excuse myself. Cheryl and Virginia finished their donuts and coffee, waved at the three of us in the kitchen, and went outside into the brilliant July sunshine. Again, Cheryl left her newspaper behind. I put it on the desk in the office with the one from the day before. Dep sat up straight on the couch and eyed the papers.

  “Go ahead and sleep on the growing pile of newspapers if you want to, Dep.”

  “Mew.”

  “You’re welcome.” I eased out of the office.

  Wondering if Brent had found a copy of yesterday’s paper and if I should tell him about the pictorial feature in today’s, I shut the office door and went back to the dining area.

  Customers kept Tom, Jocelyn, and me racing around all afternoon. After we tidied for the day, Jocelyn left on her bike.

  I showed Tom the pictures in the two newspapers where Jocelyn had been replaced by backgrounds that didn’t belong there.

  Tom asked, “Does Jocelyn know the photographer who was in here?”

  “She says not.”

  “I wonder.” Tom waved goodbye and headed outside.

  My phone rang. It was Brent. He asked, “Can you come to my office?” He sounded impersonal, the way he often did when he was with colleagues. “We have questions for you.”

  Chapter 12

  We? Brent’s office?

  I’d been in the lobby of the police station several times since Alec’s death, but the last time I’d been inside Brent’s actual office was when Alec and Brent shared it. “Sure.” I sounded anything but sure.

  I wasn’t worried about questions that Brent—and who knew how many other police officers—wanted to ask me. I was afraid that if I went into Alec’s former office, memories would bubble up and I might become weepy.

  Brent asked, “Where are you? Want me to pick you up?”

  “I’m at work. I’ll walk. I still have to lock up here. I should be there in about ten minutes.” That might give me time to partition off my rawest grief and keep it contained....

  I disconnected the call and apologized to Dep. “I shouldn’t be long.” I tried to sound upbeat. “Unless someone decides to arrest me.”

  Dep scooted up a kitty-width stairway and peered down at me from a catwalk.

  “You’re right,” I told her. “There’s no reason for anyone to arrest me.” But usually, if Brent wanted to ask me questions about one of his cases, he visited Dep and me at Deputy Donut or, more often, at home. Why the formality this time? And who did he mean by we?

  I went out to the back stoop and locked the office door. It was a lovely, warm evening. The summer solstice had been less than three weeks before, and at a quarter to six in the evening, the sun was high. Chin up, I strode down the alley to Wisconsin Street. I can go into the office where I used to see Alec. I can.

  As I had the night before on my way to Frisky Pomegranate’s Happy Hour, I turned left and started north toward the village square. Chatting with one another, turning to peer into windows, cheerful pedestrians meandered along sidewalks.

  I can do this....

  In front of Deputy Donut, two women I’d never seen before were strolling toward me. As we passed, one of them said to the other, “I hear they make the best donuts in Wisconsin.”

  The women were already behind me. I smiled, anyway. I was wearing my summer uniform of white polo shirt and knee-length black shorts, but there was no logo on my shirt and I’d left my hat and apron in Deputy Donut, so unless someone recognized the shirt and shorts, they wouldn’t know I worked in Deputy Donut. The best donuts in Wisconsin. I’d have to tell Tom. Brent might get a kick out of hearing it, too, if we were merely going to meet at my place, where he could play with Dep.

  I can be inside Alec’s former office without melting into a puddle of grief.

  I crossed Wisconsin Street, passed the Fireplug Pub, and turned right on the road bordering the south end of the village square. The square was now a beautifully calm green space with sunlight slanting between the leaves of tall trees onto neatly clipped lawns bordered by colorful flower beds. The reviewing stand had been removed. I remembered Queen Taylor sitting up there, wearing her cardboard crown and smiling and waving at her fans.

  Tha
t poignant memory reminded me that I wasn’t the only person in and around Fallingbrook mourning the loss of a loved one. Taylor’s friends and family had to be in shock from her sudden death.

  I would never stop missing Alec, but I had become accustomed to some of the pain. Still, I couldn’t help slowing. I was in front of the fire department and almost at the police station. I forced myself to keep going. I can do this.

  I could.

  Brent was ahead, waiting for me up a flight of stairs on the police department’s wide stone-floored veranda. Setting my feet carefully on the worn, century-old limestone steps, I climbed toward him. When Alec wasn’t using one of the back entrances, he climbed these very steps, fit the soles of his boots and shoes into these very indentations.

  Brent looked detective-like in a navy blue suit, a white shirt, and a blue tie with small green figures on it. “Hey, Em.” We shook hands. Maybe the tie wasn’t as detective-like as I’d originally thought. The small green figures were turtles. Some of my apprehension evaporated, and I couldn’t help grinning.

  Brent opened a massive oak door and let me precede him inside. In the lobby, he cupped my elbow in one gentle hand. “I said my office, but we’re actually going to a meeting room.”

  “Thank you.” The soaring ceiling made me feel small, and my voice came out barely above a whisper. Trying to keep my sandals from clacking on the terrazzo floor, I thought of something that might be worse than having to enter Alec’s old office. “Are we going to an interview room?”

  “Not one that we take hardened criminals to.”

  “Oh.” I paused. “Good.” Another pause. “I guess.”

  He squeezed my elbow. “Don’t worry.”

  He guided me down a hallway that was painted the same institutional pale yellow as the lobby and floored with the same yellow, green, and gray terrazzo. The hallway ceiling had been lowered and paneled with acoustical tiles, but it was still high. All of the doors were honey-colored oak with pebbled and frosted glass windows in their upper halves.

  Brent opened one of the doors. Dropping his hand from my elbow and touching my back gently, he again let me go in first.

  The room was carpeted in serviceable gray and furnished almost like a living room. Couches and chairs were upholstered in tweedy grays and yellow faux leather. The side and coffee tables were low. A kitchenette, with a sink, a pint-sized fridge, and a coffeemaker, was in one corner. The cabinets were painted dull gold to match the walls. Gray and gold mugs were upside down on a yellow gingham tea towel on the gray laminate counter. The room’s only window looked out over the parking lot behind the building. I recognized some of northern Wisconsin’s waterfalls in photos hanging on the walls.

  I suspected that there was at least one hidden camera, but I didn’t have time to search for it. A man I’d never seen before had been almost hidden in a gray wing chair with its back to the door. He stood, turned around, and greeted us.

  His brown suit, careful grooming, and the way one pant leg hiked up slightly as if distorted by an ankle holster marked him as a detective. He wasn’t as tall as Brent, but he was wiry, with dark, intelligent eyes and brown hair touched by gray at the temples. Brent introduced him as Agent Rex Clobar from the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation.

  Detective Clobar shook my hand. “Call me Rex,” he said.

  Without Brent’s steadying hand at my elbow or his light touch at my back, I felt slightly wobbly. Buck up, Emily, I told myself.

  Rex gestured toward a sheeny yellow couch on the other side of a coffee table from him. “Have a seat. Would you like a coffee?”

  I eased onto the couch. “No, thanks.” The air-conditioning in the building must have been set to keep police officers in bulletproof vests and detectives in suits comfortable. The faux leather felt clammy against the backs of my knees and calves, and I missed the long pants we wore at Deputy Donut on cooler days.

  Brent sat on the opposite end of my couch and waited for the other detective to speak. When the DCI helped the Fallingbrook Police Department with an investigation, Fallingbrook police officers, including detectives, reported to the DCI detective. Although I knew that the DCI could call on more resources more quickly than local police forces could, the system never made complete sense to me. Brent had solved a couple of earlier Fallingbrook murders despite interference from a rather inept DCI detective. Once again, an investigation was probably losing a couple of days while Brent and his team reviewed the crime with the DCI detective and showed him the evidence they’d already collected.

  Trying to look interested and cooperative, I took a deep breath.

  Rex removed a folder from the coffee table. “I believe that Brent has already told you that, at the Fallingbrook Fairgrounds, you were seen throwing out a bag from your donut shop.”

  I was sure that goose bumps were popping out all over my body. “Yes, he did.”

  “Can you describe that bag?” His expression matched his stern chin.

  “It was white paper, slightly sticky after I wiped blueberry jelly on it, and about ten by twelve inches.” Squinting, I reconsidered. “Probably larger than that. It was big enough to hold a dozen jelly-filled donuts without squashing them. The logo for our café, Deputy Donut, was printed on it.”

  Rex smiled. People, especially police people, tended to smile when they heard the name of our donut shop.

  I offered, “I can show you bags exactly like it at our shop if you want to come over.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Rex said, probably because investigators had picked up everything from the trash cans at that parking lot and he had seen the actual bag I’d thrown out. He added, “Can you tell me exactly where you put the bag you just described?”

  “I put it in the first trash can I came to, near where Brent parked his unmarked car that night, close to the northeast corner of the lot.”

  Brent nodded.

  Rex asked, “And you drove to the fireworks that night. Can you describe your vehicle?”

  I did and then added, “You can come over to Deputy Donut and have a look at it.”

  “That won’t be necessary, either. Can you describe where you parked that car that night?”

  Still trying not to shiver, I inched forward on the cold couch. “It was closer to the northwest corner of that same lot, a few spaces south of the actual corner.”

  Rex shot a quick glance at Brent.

  “That’s where I saw it when I drove into the parking lot,” Brent confirmed. “She left before I finished at the scene that night.”

  Rex took a photo out of the folder and held it for me to see. It showed a wrinkled, flattened white paper bag on a black table. “Do you recognize this?”

  “It’s a bag from Deputy Donut.”

  “Do you remember where you tossed this bag out?”

  Confused, I shook my head. “I don’t remember throwing one like that out recently. The one I threw out in the parking lot at the fairgrounds was larger.”

  “How can you be sure?” Rex asked. “It had been wadded up. We straightened it for this photo, but the creases in it probably make it look smaller than its original size.”

  “Our logo is the same size on all of the bags. I can tell by the proportion of the logo to the bag that the bag is one of the ones we use for a maximum of eight jelly-filled donuts. Besides, the bag I threw out at the fairgrounds must have at least some blueberry jelly on it, and if there’s any jelly on that bag, it’s on the other side.”

  “Maybe I can jog your memory.” Rex spoke with an encouraging good-cop voice, but the kindness didn’t reach his rather piercing eyes. In this situation, he would probably expect Brent to play the good cop. “You were seen throwing this bag”—he tapped the photo of the small bag—“into a trash can beside your car.”

  Chapter 13

  Mystified, I could barely speak. “That’s impossible,” I finally managed. “I didn’t take that size of bag to the fairgrounds. I couldn’t have thrown it out there.”

&nbs
p; Rex suggested, “Maybe you saw it lying on the ground and didn’t want one of your bags littering, so you picked it up and threw it out and didn’t really notice what you were doing? That evening must have been stressful. You might have forgotten some of the things you did.”

  I was not about to allow him to cajole me into making false confessions. “I didn’t even see a bag like that at the fireworks display. If someone threw out one of those smaller bags, it wasn’t me.”

  Rex didn’t seem convinced. He pulled another photo from his folder. “Can you tell me what’s in this picture?” “Besides a section of a ruler?”

  “Yes.”

  “It looks like one of the blue sugar stars that we put on some of the donuts we gave away at the picnic. And are those donut crumbs beside it?”

  “Seems so,” he answered.

  “And those thin red strips would be pieces of the red icing stripes that began the day on our raspberry jelly–filled donuts.”

  Rex informed me, “The star, the crumbs, and the red icing were found inside the bag that you said you did not possess on Thursday evening at the fireworks.”

  “I didn’t,” I repeated. I leaned forward. “I’m guessing that the person who brought that bag to the fireworks also brought jelly-filled donuts and inserted the homemade skyrocket into them before lighting it.”

  Rex asked in a dangerously mild tone, “What makes you think that the firework was inside a stack of jelly-filled donuts?”

  “It was obvious. For one thing, when the homemade skyrocket went off, it shot a sugar star into my hair and blueberry jelly onto my face.”

  “You were close,” Rex stated.

  I touched my cheek where something had bounced off and stung it. “Yes.”

  “For argument’s sake,” Rex pointed out, “the sugar star and blueberry jelly could have transferred to you when you were handling the donuts earlier that evening.”

  “That didn’t happen.” I wasn’t sure how I could prove it, but I explained, “I’m almost certain that other people in the vicinity were hit by flying donut parts. I saw pieces of donut in the grass around the split and blackened remains of the skyrocket. And I suspected that a stack of donuts had hidden that tube because I saw the remains of a jelly-filled donut, one with white icing striped in red, at the base of the tube after it went off. But most of all, I caught a glimpse of the entire contraption after the fuse was lit. Flames were shooting out the top. I couldn’t see the thing well because it was behind a bush, but it looked like the stack of donuts I’d given to a family.” I told him about the birthday boy and described the “cake” that resembled a skyrocket. “But those flames weren’t coming from a birthday candle.” I also explained that we’d used up our entire supply of dark blue sugar star sprinkles on donuts we’d given away at the picnic and that we hadn’t made other donuts decorated with stars like that for several months. I added, “I know for certain that we gave two other bags that size to people at the picnic. I’ll ask Jocelyn if we used more bags that size on the Fourth.”