by Jessica Beck
“In half an hour?” I asked.
“You can count on it,” she said.
After she hung up, I felt better about Grace going with me. I didn’t believe for one second that Gladys might suddenly turn on me, but if she did, I wanted my best friend there beside me. If the unthinkable actually did happen, I doubted that the older cook could take both of us, at least not in such a public place.
I was still trying to figure out how best to approach Gladys when we started getting busy all of a sudden. Sometimes there was no rhyme or reason as to why business ebbed and flowed at the donut shop, but I’d learned not to question it, and to just enjoy any attention Donut Hearts was getting.
When the rush was over, it was nearly time for me to leave, and there was still no sign of Grace. I walked back into the kitchen and found Emma finishing up with the next-to-last round of dishes. “You don’t have to stay late to do the final washing,” I said. “I’ll do it when I get in tomorrow morning.”
“That’s okay. I don’t mind,” she said with a grin. “Besides, your two days off start tomorrow, or had you forgotten?”
It had actually slipped my mind in the frenzy of what had been happening lately. “I can come in and work tomorrow, if you’d like.”
“No, Mom and I will be fine. Are you going to meet up with Jake in Raleigh?”
Was it bad that I hadn’t even considered doing that? “No, he needs some time alone with his sister and her kids.”
“What are you going to do with yourself if he’s gone?” Emma asked as she drained the sink and dried off her hands.
“Young lady, I was perfectly capable of filling my days before Jake Bishop ever came into my life,” I said with a grin as I picked up a hand towel and swatted her gently with it.
“Sure you did,” Emma said with a smile of her own. “You also used to work seven days a week, remember? I’m as big an advocate for Woman Power as the next gal, but it can be nice having someone else in your life.”
“Sorry you’re going through a rough patch in the dating department,” I said. Emma had a tendency to fall in and out of love fairly easily. Were her standards too high? It wasn’t for me to say, even though I suspected that it was true.
“It’s fine. I’ve decided to dedicate the extra time I’ve got at the moment to become a better me,” she said proudly.
“A worthwhile goal if ever there was one, not that you need it,” I added quickly. “If you need me, call, okay? I won’t be very far.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, and I knew that it was true.
We walked back out front together, and as I headed for the door, I said, “Thanks again for covering for me. I appreciate it.”
“Not only am I happy to do it, that’s what you pay me for, remember?” she asked with a laugh. I was about to put my jacket on as I stepped outside, but I realized the day had warmed up quite a bit, so I put it over one arm and headed across Springs Drive to the park.
Gladys was easy to spot, and as I started in her direction, I heard a familiar voice from behind me call out, “Hey, wait for me.”
Grace had made it after all.
“I wasn’t sure you were going to get here in time,” I said as she joined me.
“Suzanne, you should know by now that you should never doubt me,” Grace said with a grin. “I even had time to go home and change first.”
She was indeed wearing casual clothing, at least for her. Grace’s blouse and slacks looked natural on her, but for me, it would be something I’d wear to a wedding, or maybe a job interview. The few times I got dressed up beyond jeans and a T-shirt, or maybe a sweater too, people always overreacted, as though I never wore nice things. I was just more comfortable in casual clothes, and I didn’t mean Grace’s definition. It was a good thing Jake loved me best dressed as I was right now; I was certain that it was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with him. “You look wonderful, as usual,” I told her.
She studied my outfit and frowned for a moment. “I’m envious of you. You know that, don’t you?”
Her comment startled me. “Why is that?”
“You make that outfit look like a million dollars. If I tried to pull it off, I’d look like a hillbilly hobo. I have to dress this nice to get people to take me seriously. I’d kill to be able to do what you do so effortlessly.”
I grinned at her before I spoke. “I was just thinking the same thing about you and your style. We’re a pair of odd birds, aren’t we?”
She locked her arm in mine as we started to walk together. “I like us just fine the way we are.” As we headed toward Gladys, Grace asked, “Do we have a game plan, or are we just going to wing it? I don’t mind either way, but I thought I’d at least ask.”
“I’ve been giving it a lot of thought all morning, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we should just come out and ask her about Gray point-blank,” I admitted. “It’s not going to do us much good beating around the bush, and we have less than half an hour before Gladys has to be at work. I’m not sure how Trish is going to feel about us grilling one of her cooks as it is.”
“I’m sure that she’ll understand,” Grace said.
“I’m not so certain. She’s pretty possessive about her people.”
“We’re not going to beat her up, Suzanne, we’re just going to have a nice little chat.”
“Let’s just make sure we keep it friendly,” I said. “We can both get a little intense sometimes, so we can’t forget that these people are talking to us of their own free will. We don’t have any way of compelling them to speak with us.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll play nice,” Grace said with a quick grin.
Gladys was sitting at a bench in the park near the gazebo, staring off into space. She didn’t even realize that we had approached her until I spoke. “Mind if we join you for a minute or two?” I asked her.
The cook looked up with a start. “What? Oh, hello, girls. Certainly, why not?”
Grace sat on one side of her, and I took the other. The bench was crowded with all three of us, but we scrunched together to make it work. “First of all, we’re both sorry for your loss,” I said, starting right in. I’d meant what I’d told Grace; there was no time for small talk.
“You knew about me and Gray,” she said as a statement of fact, an air of resignation in her voice. “I’m not surprised, though we did our best to keep our relationship secret. How is that you two always seem to know what’s going on in April Springs?”
“You’d be amazed by just how much we miss every day,” I said. Was that the reputation Grace and I had? Were we thought of as a pair of busybodies? Sure, we’d dug into a few murders in the past, and to do that, we’d had to ask a great many people some very uncomfortable questions, but I didn’t think that was what defined us. I was the town donutmaker, Dot’s daughter, Jake’s wife, Emma’s boss, Grace, Trish, and Emily Hargraves’s friend, Max’s ex-wife, and at least a dozen other things I could think of off the top of my head. Amateur sleuth was just one of the many labels that defined me, or at least I hoped so.
“And yet you are here,” she said wearily.
“We really are sorry about Gray,” Grace said, patting her shoulder. “It’s tough to lose someone you care about. We can both testify to that fact.”
Gladys nodded. My friend had found the perfect chord to strike with the woman. “I couldn’t stay with him, not after what he told me, but I’m sorry for the way I broke his heart, and I’m in complete despair knowing that I’ll never get another chance with him,” Gladys said after a moment’s pause.
“Did he tell you his secret?” I asked her, wondering if him stealing someone else’s identity had been a deal-breaker for her.
Gladys turned abruptly to me. “How do you know anything about his past? Who told you, Suzanne? No one was su
pposed to know about that but me.”
“I can’t tell you how I know, just that I do,” I said. I’d been talking about his false name and documentation, but Gladys was clearly talking about something much bigger than that. Now, if only we could get her to share it with us, we might have someplace to start digging.
“He lied to me the entire time we were together!” Gladys said with vehemence. “Gray wasn’t who I thought he was. That wasn’t even his name, but you clearly already know that! How could I trust him after he confessed the truth to me?”
“Was it really all that bad?” I asked, sincerely curious about how a man could keep a secret for twenty years and then suddenly let it just slip away. It didn’t make sense, unless he’d done it intentionally, wanting Gladys to find out. How wearying it must have been to keep his secrets to himself all those years, and how lonely he must have felt being the only person who knew the truth.
“He only told me because he thought that someone from his past had come back to haunt him,” she said. “It was killing him, so late one night, he started to confess it all to me.”
“What did he say?” I asked, relieved that we were finally going to find out the truth.
“His real name wasn’t Gray. It was Gary. He stole his name from a dead man because it was so close to matching his own. Who does that, Suzanne? It’s a travesty to pass yourself off as someone else.”
“Did he happen to mention his real last name?” I asked.
“Or more importantly, why he’d done it?” Grace followed up. She was right. That was a much more important question.
“Just that he’d been forced into taking such drastic steps to save himself. He told me that he’d gotten involved in something really bad. He knew that he was in over his head almost from the start, but when he tried to get out of it, one of the members of the group told him that he’d kill him if he tried to change his mind and back out. Gray—or Gary, I guess—said that he had no choice. I’m going to keep calling him Gray, since that’s the only name I ever knew him by. Anyway, Gray didn’t think anyone would get hurt, but things went wrong at the end, and someone died as they were getting away.”
“From what, though, exactly?” Grace persisted.
“I don’t know!” Gladys sounded distraught. “I’m guessing they stole something valuable, like money or gold, but I didn’t give him a chance to explain. I told him that I never wanted to see him again, and then I ran out of his cabin. He kept trying to win me back, but I was too foolish to listen to him, and now I’ll never get the chance.”
“Would you have taken him back if he were still alive?” I asked softly, interested in her answer, not for the investigation, but for my own sake.
“I don’t know,” she said wistfully. “I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the answer to that question. He came to Movie Night for one last try with me. I knew that it was a big concession on his part. Gray hated being seen in public, especially lately. I have to admit that him coming meant a lot to me. I may have softened, but with a murder charge hanging over him from his past, I might not have had any choice. I urged him to give himself up and face the consequences for his actions, but he told me if he did that, he might as well take a gun to his head and end it all right then and there. He was a troubled man. I might not have known his real name, but I’d like to think that I knew the man he was, you know? Gray was good, and kind, and I can’t imagine the circumstances that would force him into ending someone else’s life.”
That explained, at least to a certain degree, his past, but what about his present? “Was there anyone in town in particular that he’d been having trouble with lately?” I asked her. I noticed some movement behind the gazebo, but I couldn’t tell if whoever was there was trying to listen in on our conversation, or if it was just a random person enjoying the park and the nice weather we were having.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, there was,” she said with a frown. “You don’t honestly think someone from April Springs killed him, do you?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” I told her. “Don’t worry about telling tales out of school. What you tell us will be strictly confidential.”
“I’m not sure either one of you can promise me that,” she said with a frown. “You’re married to a former cop, and Grace is dating the chief of police right now.”
“You can trust us,” Grace said, and I nodded as well. It was an easier promise for me to keep since Jake was in Raleigh, but I knew if Grace gave her word, she’d stick to it, regardless of the consequences. “We won’t tell anyone whatever you choose to share with us.”
“In the end, I suppose that I’ll have to trust you, because if either one of you betray me, you’re going to have to deal with the wrath of my boss.” She didn’t smile as she said it, not that it would have done any good. She was right. I knew that if we broke our word to Gladys, we would lose more than a great place to eat; we’d lose one of our best friends as well. “Very well. It can’t hurt Gray any more than he’s already suffered. Let’s start with Barry Vance.”
“Why did Gray have trouble with the mailman?” I asked. Barry was big on snooping, and heaven help anyone who got a postcard and wanted to keep the contents confidential. I’d always thought of Barry as kind of harmless, but maybe I’d been wrong.
“I thought the same thing, but we were in Union Square eating at Napoli’s when we ran into Barry a week ago. I swear, Gray turned white when Barry approached us. The mailman seemed awfully cocky about something, as though he knew something that he shouldn’t have.”
“Could he have found out about Gray’s real identity?” I asked.
“I have no idea. All I know is that Gray was jumpy for the rest of the night. He barely touched his food, and he loved Napoli’s. He dropped me off at home right after we ate, and he couldn’t get back home fast enough. We broke up right after that. Anyway, I thought it was odd, but after what happened to Gray, I think someone should talk to Barry. He knows more than he’s willing to let on.”
“That’s helpful,” I said. “Is there anyone else you can think of?”
“Donald Rand,” she said flatly. I knew the investment broker from an earlier investigation. Grace and I had pretended to be people we weren’t to get him to cooperate, but that wouldn’t work anymore, since Rand had been by the donut shop half a dozen times since finding out who I really was. I wouldn’t have trusted the man with my spare change, but had Gray? If the hermit had really stolen any money, would he bury it in his backyard, or would he invest it to try to wash it through Rand?
“Did he have any investments with the broker?” Grace asked.
“I believe so, but he never came right out and said it. All I can say for sure is that Gray was extremely upset with the man over the course of the past two weeks.”
“Okay, we’ll speak with him, too,” I said.
“But you’re not going to tell him that I told you about his connection with Gray, right?” Gladys asked, looking worried for a moment.
“Are you afraid of him, Gladys?” Grace asked her.
“You’re kidding, right? Grace, at the moment, I’m afraid of everyone, including the two of you! Someone tied Gray to a tree and then stabbed him in the chest! I personally think you two are crazy going after someone who could do that. If the killer didn’t find what they were looking for when they came after Gray, how long is it going to take them to come looking for me? I have half a mind to leave town until this all blows over, but I can’t right now! The Food Bank needs me, and I won’t let a killer run me off.” She seemed to find a new level of resolve as she said it. “It’s nearly time for me to go to work,” she said. “I’ve told you all that I can. Find whoever did this to Gray, ladies. He might not have deserved a free pass after what he did, but he deserved better than he got.”
As she got up from the bench, I noticed the person hiding
behind the gazebo shift again. It was the stranger who’d asked about Gray before he was murdered!
I thanked Gladys, and then, to everyone’s surprise, I sprinted straight for the gazebo.
The cook looked at me oddly, but I didn’t even have to clue Grace in on what I was doing. Without a word, she ran with me.
I motioned for her to go one way, and I took the other.
But he was too quick for us.
He was already gone.
How much had he heard, and why was he so intent on eavesdropping on our conversation? I didn’t know, but I was determined to find out.
Chapter 9
“This is crazy! He couldn’t have just vanished into thin air! Where did he go?” I asked Grace as we met at the back of the gazebo.
“Look. Someone’s trying to sneak around the back of your cottage!” Grace said as she pointed to the retreating figure nearly hidden by the trees.
“You swing around by your house and come up the road,” I shouted instructions as I chased after him. “I’ll keep him from backtracking.”
“What am I supposed to do if I catch him?” Grace asked as she began to do as I’d asked.
“Find a way to keep him there until I can get to you both,” I said as I hurried away.
“Looking for something in particular?” I asked the man, nearly out of breath, as I found him lurking behind my cottage.
“I was thinking about buying the place,” he said, doing his best to act nonchalant under my glaring scrutiny.
“Oh, really. I didn’t realize that it was for sale.”
“It’s one of those private showing things,” he said.
“Ordinarily I might be tempted to believe you, but I know for a fact that you’re lying to me.”