Donut Shop Mystery 25 - Devil's Food Defense

by Jessica Beck

  My cellphone rang immediately.

  “You need to be more careful there, Momma,” I said happily before she could say anything.

  “Suzanne, what have you done this time?” she asked.

  I laughed. “Believe it or not, Grace and I are just catching a ride back to her car, but thanks for jumping to that conclusion so quickly.”

  “Can you blame me?” she asked. The relief in her voice was evident, and I couldn’t really be mad at her. In fact, it was probably a reasonable thing to assume, given my history.

  “No, not really. Sorry we missed you last night.”

  “Phillip told me all about it. How’s your investigation going?”

  “So far, we’re hitting one dead end after another,” I admitted.

  “Well, don’t give up. You and Grace are too good at this to stop now.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence,” I said as we pulled up at the police station. “I’ve got to go now.”

  “Take care,” she said.

  “I will if you will. Watch that road now, you hear?”

  “I can be forgiven this time. After all, it’s not every day I see my daughter in the back of a police squad car,” she said in her defense.

  “No, but it’s not that unexpected either, is it? Bye.”

  I was just telling Grace and Chief Grant what Momma had said when I noticed someone standing in front of the station, wringing her hands together.

  Gladys Murphy was standing there impatiently, apparently waiting to speak with the chief of police.

  She didn’t know it yet, but there were going to be two more participants in the conversation, at least if I had anything to say about it.

  Chapter 16

  “If you two will excuse me, I’ll handle this,” Chief Grant said as we all started to get out of the car.

  At least Grace had the option of leaving freely.

  “I need a hand here,” I said. “There’s no doorknob, remember?”

  He shrugged as he got out and unlocked my door and opened it for me.

  Gladys rushed toward us. “Chief, I need to speak with you. It’s important.”

  “Absolutely. Let’s go into my office,” the police chief said.

  “Mind if we tag along?” I asked Gladys. I’d already gotten Chief Grant’s opinion, but I figured Gladys might overrule him. Anyway, it was worth a shot.

  “That’s fine. It might be nice having a few friendly faces nearby when I tell this.”

  “What’s wrong? I’m not a friendly enough face all on my own?” the chief asked her.

  “Of course you are,” she said, “but it’s directly because of Suzanne and Grace that I’m even here. It’s only fitting that they hear what I have to say.”

  “Then let’s all go back and make ourselves comfortable,” the chief said graciously.

  Gladys was clearly not a fan of the idea. “I was in there earlier, so if you don’t mind, I’d rather do this out here.”

  He was beyond fighting now. “Suit yourself. What’s up?”

  I braced myself for what Gladys was about to say. Were we about to hear a murder confession?

  Chapter 17

  “There’s something you all need to know. I’ve kept it from you all too long.”

  “What do you need to tell us?” Chief Grant asked softly. He was doing his best to make it easy on Gladys, but I couldn’t imagine what she might be about to tell us.

  “It’s my fault that someone killed Gray!” she said through her tears.

  “What makes you say that?” I asked her, overstepping my bounds, but not caring. A friend was in pain, and I felt the urge to help her.

  “When he told me that he had a dark past and hinted that he had a criminal record, I didn’t even wait to hear the facts. I told him that I didn’t want to have anything to do with him! He said he’d do anything to show me that he was a changed man. I told him to prove it, and he asked me how he could possibly do that. I said that he should go to the people he’d wronged and say that he was sorry. He told me that if he did that, it would be a death sentence for him. I thought he was exaggerating! He said that he couldn’t make up for what he’d done, but he must have tried, and he was murdered for it! It’s all my fault.” Her sobs wracked her entire body now.

  Without thinking, I rushed forward and embraced her, with Grace close behind me. We enveloped her in our arms, and after a full minute, we finally managed to calm her down. “It’s okay, Gladys,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”

  “If I hadn’t pushed him to make amends, none of this would have ever happened,” she said, clearly a beaten woman.

  “He was a grown man,” Chief Grant said. “I doubt anyone could have made him do anything he didn’t want to do. If he did act on what you said, that just proves that he really loved you. None of what happened was your responsibility.”

  “Then why can’t I make myself believe it?” she asked.

  “Did he ever say anything more specific about who he might need to apologize to?” the chief asked. He was interviewing her, but subtly, and I had to admire his technique.

  “No,” she said, drying the tears from her eyes. “We dropped it, and I just figured it was over. Then he found me during the movie and told me that he’d done as I’d asked. He’d tried his best to find the all of the people he’d wronged, but he couldn’t find most of them. They were either dead, in prison, or missing. He begged me for another chance, but I refused. Me and my pride! How I wish I had that moment in time back. I would do things so differently!”

  Nobody had anything to say to answer that. I stroked her arm, and after a few moments, she said, “Anyway, I just wanted you to know. I’ve got to get over to the diner.”

  “We’ll walk you,” I offered.

  “I appreciate that, but I just want to be alone right now,” she said as she drifted off in the general direction of her workplace.

  “That was bad, wasn’t it?” Grace asked.

  “She’s going to have a lot to deal with,” the chief said.

  “Is it true? Did she really cause all of this?” Grace asked hesitantly.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say yes,” the chief answered pragmatically.

  “That’s kind of harsh, isn’t it?” I asked him.

  He just shrugged. “I can’t help it if it sounds that way to you. Maybe he reached out to the wrong person, and it cost him his life, too.”

  I caught that last bit, as subtle as it was. “Too? Was someone else murdered recently?”

  “What? What are you talking about?” the chief asked. I’d clearly caught him revealing something that he didn’t want exposed.

  That’s when I had a solid hunch what he was talking about. “The author of that ebook Phillip told us about didn’t die of natural causes, did he? Someone helped him along. Am I right?”

  He started to protest; I could see the words form on his lips, but finally, he threw up his hands. “Wow, remind me never to do anything wrong around you. It’s possible. We just got word that the author might not have died of natural causes after all. My questions prompted the cops there to reexamine the case. He’d been diagnosed with cancer and was close to death, but there’s a chance that someone couldn’t wait that long for nature to run its course. They are going to exhume the body and retest it. After that, they’ll contact me and tell me what they discovered.”

  “So, it’s possible that someone else has died because of this,” I said.

  “Or not. It might be nothing,” the chief reminded me.

  “But you don’t think so, do you? That’s why you’re after Mickey Wright, isn’t it?”

  “He’s the only one of my suspects actively linked to the robbery way back when,” he said. “It just makes sense, if that’s the case.”

  “
Have you had any luck tracking him down yet?” Grace asked him.

  “We’ve had half a dozen leads, from him being holed up in the woods nearby to someone spotting him on the Outer Banks. We just don’t know yet.”

  “I hope you find him, and soon,” I said.

  As I finished speaking, the chief’s radio sprang into life. “Chief, are you there? Chief!”

  It was one of his deputies. “What’s up, Murphy?”

  “Shots fired at the Vincent place! I was patrolling like you told me to, and the next thing I know, someone took a shot at me!”

  “Take a deep breath,” the chief said. “Were you hit?”

  “No, he missed me, but I might have clipped him. He jerked a little when I fired, anyway.”

  “Did you get a good look at the suspect?” the chief asked as he opened his car door and jumped in.

  “I might be wrong, but I could swear it was Mickey Wright!” he said.

  “Any chance we can tag along?” I asked him.

  “No, and don’t follow me. I’ll call you later, Grace.”

  “Be careful!” she yelled out, but he was already gone.

  Perhaps our case, and the hunt for Gray Vincent’s killer, was finally over.

  Chapter 18

  “So, what do we do in the meantime?” I asked Grace after Chief Grant was gone. We started the short walk to where her car was parked. “Do we just give up and wait to see what happens at Gray’s place?”

  “I don’t know. Is that what you want to do?”

  “No,” I said firmly, realizing that it was true. Even if Officer Murphy had shot Mickey Wright at Gray’s house, it didn’t necessarily mean that he had killed his old partner in crime. If he’d come searching for Gray’s stash, a little thing like murder probably wouldn’t get in his way. “I still have a hard time believing that he killed Gray,” I told Grace.

  “Why not? I’m willing to keep an open mind.”

  “Gray died too easily,” I said, surprising myself by saying it.

  “It didn’t look all that easy to me,” Grace said with a frown. “In fact, it looked like a pretty hard way to go.”

  “I’m not saying it was pleasant, but let’s play this through in our minds. Let’s say for a moment that Mickey Wright killed the partner who wrote the book, and then he came after Gray for his share. If they knew each other all that well in the past, he’d know that Gray was tight with his money, so there would be a good chance he still had a nice-sized chunk of it.”

  “Okay. But so what?”

  “Grace, Gray was tied up and stabbed once. I imagine he died pretty quickly. Now think about it. If Mickey Wright did it, do you think there’s a chance he wouldn’t have put Gray through a lot more than that if he didn’t know where that cash was hidden?”

  Grace nodded. “And if he told Wright, there would be no reason to still be here in town searching for the loot. I see where you’re going with this. That might mean that the ebook author rat may have died of natural causes after all. Do we wait until we get official confirmation one way or the other?”

  “I’m still not sure it matters,” I said.

  “I’m guessing that it mattered to him.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Something in my gut is telling me that Mickey Wright didn’t kill Gray Vincent. If he did, it would have been sloppy of him to do it before he found out where Gray’s stash was hidden.”

  “Okay. Let’s go on the assumption that Mickey didn’t do it. You’re right. What does it hurt if we assume that much? Stephen has Mickey covered anyway. That leaves us with Gladys, Rand, and Barry Vance. We can’t find Rand or Vance, and after what Gladys told Stephen, can you see her killing Gray, especially like that?”

  “She might have poisoned him, but I doubt that she would have stabbed him, let alone tied him up like that first,” I said.

  Grace looked at me uncertainly. “Do you think that’s even possible?”

  “What? No. I’m just saying, with her working around food all the time, don’t you think it would have been easy for her to pretend to make up with Gray, feed him a poison-laced meal, and then just watch while he ate it?”

  Grace shivered a little. “That’s kind of dark, Suzanne, even for you.”

  “I’m not suggesting that she did it. In fact, I don’t think she killed anyone. She was too torn up by the fact that she’d pressed Gray into doing something he didn’t want to do. There’s no way she could have faked that, if you ask me.”

  “It’s probably not enough to clear her of suspicion,” Grace said.

  “No, but it makes me want to focus more on Barry Vance and Donald Rand.”

  “Okay, but we can’t find Donald, and Barry is clearly not in the mood to speak with us,” Grace said.

  “Are you talking about Donald Rand?” a voice asked from just behind us.

  It was Gabby Williams. Evidently she’d been following us on foot from the police station. Just how much had she heard? “Gabby, what are you doing out walking? Are you having car problems?” I asked her.

  “No, my doctor is insisting that I get more exercise, so I started walking to ReNEWed when the weather is nice. I heard you mention Donald’s name. Why do you want to see him?”

  “We have some things we need to discuss with him,” I said, trying to be as vague as possible. Gabby wouldn’t need much to start up a whirlwind of rumors about our search for the man, but I was determined not to feed her any information I didn’t have to.

  “We went by his office earlier,” Grace said. “There was a note on the door that he’d be gone for a while, and when we tried to dial the listed number, we found out it had been disconnected.”

  Gabby was trying to hide it, but I could swear that I saw her smile a little before she stifled it. I asked her, “Gabby, what do you know that we don’t?”

  “There’s not enough daylight left to cover that expansive ground,” she said as she walked past us. “Excuse me, but I’ve got to get to my shop.”

  “We’ll walk with you,” I said as I motioned to Grace to follow as well. “Tell us about Donald.”

  “Well, the first thing is that the sign you saw is merely a ruse. He’s used it for years, and I know for a fact that the number he listed has never worked.”

  “Then why put it on the sign at all?” I asked.

  “It gives his clients a sense that he’s in touch, when it’s the farthest thing from it. That’s his hiding sign. We all have one. Don’t you, Suzanne?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “Come now. There must be times when you don’t want to see or speak to anyone. I know I do. When I’m in one of my moods, I put the sign up, turn off the lights, and spend some time in back until I’m feeling a bit more social.”

  I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that. “How do your customers react?”

  “How can they? Surely you’ve noticed mine before. It says that I’m off buying inventory for the shop. Who can dispute that, or argue that I should be open around the clock?”

  “And the entire time you’ve been cowering in back?” I asked, immediately regretting my choice of words. “I meant that you’ve been in seclusion,” I amended quickly.

  Gabby wasn’t buying it. “The public doesn’t own me, Suzanne. I thought you, of all people, would understand that.”

  “I do,” I said hastily. “I just don’t know how you can afford to do it.”

  “You’re kidding, right? Once I open my doors again, folks stream in searching for my ‘new finds’.”

  “But you don’t have anything to show them,” Grace noted.

  “I’ve always got things in back. I rotate some of them out front, and no one has ever caught on yet.”

  “So, you think Donald is hiding in his office, despite what hi
s sign says?”

  Gabby laughed, enjoying having more information than I did. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

  This was getting frustrating, and what was more, we were running out of space between where we were and where Gabby was heading. If we didn’t get any useful information out of her by the time she crossed the threshold of her shop, it would take forever to get anything out of her. The only way I could turn things around was to make her an ally instead of an opponent. “What should I write on mine?” I asked her humbly.

  “On your what?” Gabby asked, not following me. Grace looked puzzled too, but she stayed silent, something I greatly appreciated.

  “My sign,” I said. “I could really use your advice.”

  Gabby looked pleased by my request. “If I were you, I think I’d say something like, “Gone on a Supply Run”, or perhaps “Fryer Broken” don’t you think they would work?”

  “I’ll make one up this weekend,” I said.

  “Just don’t overuse it, or folks might get suspicious.”

  I wasn’t planning on using it at all, so that wasn’t going to be a problem. “We know you’re busy, but before you start your day, if you were looking for Donald Rand, where would you begin?”

  “Try Union Square,” she said with that mischievous twinkle back in her eye.

  “It’s a good-sized town,” Grace said. “Can you narrow it down any?”

  “Lolly’s Pops,” she said.

  “The candy store? What would Donald Rand be doing there?”

  “It’s simple. He’s sweet on the owner,” Gabby said, smug that she’d said something clever.

  “Seriously? I never would have thought that.”

  “That’s why you have me,” Gabby said as she unlocked her front door.

  I couldn’t let her go just yet. “How do you know about them?”