Chocolate Frosted Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 5

by Susan Gillard

  “Okay,” she said. “I understand.”

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you to understand,” he said. “I love my job, but I hate what it does to family life. That’s another thing that makes you amazing, that you don’t mind.”

  Wait, did he say family life?

  “You’re worth it,” she said.

  This time, the silence lasted for only two seconds. “I’m coming over,” Ryan said. “See you in five.”

  ***

  Sure enough, five minutes later, she met him at the door. As he stepped into her living room, he pushed the door shut and turned the lock. Then, he pulled her close for a long, lingering kiss.

  “Wow,” Heather said when they finally pulled apart, her voice husky. “Was that what you wanted to come over and say?”

  “No,” Ryan said. “Well, yes. But that wasn’t all of it. Come sit down.” He took his usual armchair that sat at right angles to her couch. Heather plunked herself down on the end of the couch nearest him and waited for him to speak.

  “There’s something I wanted to tell you,” Ryan said. “But like I said, I wanted to say it in person.”

  Heather’s heart thudded in her chest. This couldn’t be bad news, could it? No, not after he kissed me the way he just did.

  “You know that for a long time after Liz died, I wasn’t ready to date again,” he said, and Heather nodded. “Part of the reason was that I missed her. Part of the reason was that I was afraid of falling in love again. Afraid I’d get my heart broken again.”

  Heather kept her eyes fixed on his face as he sat leaning forward, his gaze meeting hers so intensely and sincerely she couldn’t have looked away even if she had wanted to.

  “But as much as I might have tried not to fall in love, I couldn’t help it. You’re an amazing woman, Heather. You’re beautiful, and smart, and determined, and caring, and I love you.”

  He said it! He said ‘love!’ Heather exulted, as she tried to think of words to express the happiness bubbling up in her heart.

  “Uh…this is where you say you love me too,” Ryan said, sounding uncertain. “Hopefully.”

  “I love you, too, Ryan,” she said. “Of course I do.”

  In the space of a few seconds, Ryan stood up, sat down next to her on the couch, and took her in his arms. This time, his kiss lingered even longer. And it was followed by another, and another.

  ***

  The pounding on Heather’s front door interrupted them. Who in the world?

  She glanced toward the front door and saw Amy peering in through a gap in the curtains at the window beside the door. Reluctantly, she got up and went to answer the door.

  “You guys should really pull the blinds before you make out,” Amy said, stepping inside. “Not that I’m against making out. I’m all for it. But there are old people in this neighborhood, and you don’t want to give them a heart attack if they look in and see you, shall we say, enjoying each other’s company.”

  “Thanks for the advice,” Heather said. “But most of the people in this neighborhood—most people in general—would content themselves with knocking at the door and wouldn’t feel the need to find a gap in the curtains they could look through.”

  “I’m not most people,” Amy said airily.

  “You got that right,” Ryan muttered.

  “Don’t worry, Romeo, I’ll be out of your hair soon,” Amy said. “And she can be back in it. I just came to pick up the donuts.”

  What was Amy talking about? Heather wondered.

  Amy noticed her blank look. “You know, the donuts? For the reception?” she prompted.

  “Oh, no!” Heather slapped a hand to her forehead. “I forgot! Oh, no! I’m so sorry.”

  “Obviously, you had other things on your mind,” Amy teased. “It’s okay. I’ll just go to Kroger. They know me there.”

  “At Kroger?” Ryan asked.

  “Specifically, the bakery counter,” Amy said. “Since I don’t cook, I let them do the cooking for me whenever I need a dessert that anybody’s going to see.”

  “Good plan,” Ryan said.

  “I’m really sorry,” Heather said again. “Today has been absolutely crazy.”

  “It’s okay,” Amy said. “But I gotta run. I’ll let you know how it goes. Ta!” She wiggled her fingers at them in a sort-of wave and let herself quickly out.

  “I feel terrible about forgetting those donuts,” Heather said. “I’ve been such a flake lately.”

  “But you’re a beautiful flake, and I love you,” Ryan said. “Now—where were we?”

  She came back into his arms and showed him.

  ***

  Heather sat at her kitchen table, Gustavo’s cell phone in front of her. It had contained nothing useful. Not that she had expected it to, but still, she had hoped.

  At 6:42, Gustavo had texted Maricela to tell her the painting wasn’t ready yet and he would be late. Maricela had responded, Okay. But don’t be too late.

  I won’t be, he texted back.

  It was the last text message he received until the messages from Maricela began around 7:45. Where are you? How much longer until you get here?

  Of course, he never answered.

  There were no phone calls. There was no video. There was nothing at all that had any bearing on why Marcus killed him.

  Think! Heather ordered herself. We know Marcus killed him. Why did he do it?

  She decided to start with the premise that the murder had nothing to do with drugs. That Marcus had probably planted both the drugs and the gun on Gustavo’s body to make it look like that’s what the shooting had been about.

  But those assumptions left her no closer to a solution than she had been.

  Okay, then let’s think about Gustavo, she thought.

  Why would Gustavo have approached the girl on the bench? Stella was pretty enough, Heather supposed, but she wasn’t so pretty that a young man who was already late to his grandmother’s birthday party would put the painting in the back seat, then approach her and strike up a conversation.

  Could he have seen the bruise on Stella’s cheek? Maybe he approached her to make sure she was okay? Did Marcus get back from retrieving his cell phone and take offense that Gustavo was checking on Stella? Did the two men begin to argue? Did Marcus then pull a gun?

  No, that didn’t sound right, either. From what she’d heard of Gustavo’s character, She figured that if Marcus tried to start something, Gustavo would have backed off. She could almost see him walking backwards toward his car where it was parked at the curb, hands raised, saying, “Hey, man, okay. No problem.”

  Heather pounded her fists against the table in frustration. What possibility was she missing? What had happened that night in the park that led to a murder?

  Brushing her hair back from her face, she sighed. They might never know what took place that night.

  But one thing she did know: tomorrow morning, she would attend the funeral of a young man who should still be very much alive.

  Chapter 9

  When the graveside service ended, and the mourners began forming a line to offer condolences to Tia Teresa and other family members seated in the front row of white folding chairs beneath the white tent, Heather decided to go home. She knew Maricela and Angelica were aware of her presence at both the funeral and the graveside service; she also knew that with the crowd of people in attendance, she would prefer to offer her condolences to her friends in private.

  Picking her way carefully across the grass in high-heeled shoes she wasn’t used to wearing, Heather made her way back to where her car was parked along the road that led from the cemetery entrance to Gustavo’s gravesite. Carefully, she eased the car out of its spot between two other cars parked in front of and behind hers and pulled forward onto the one-way road that wound through the cemetery before leading to the exit.

  As she was about to pull into traffic on the main street, Heather remembered that her cell phone was still on silent. She fished it out of her purse and restor
ed the volume. Hmm, one missed call and one voice message.

  Glancing in the rearview mirror, Heather saw that there was no one behind her, so she retrieved the recorded message.

  It was from Jung, who had left it half an hour ago. “Hi, Heather, this is Jung,” his familiar voice said. “I know you’re still at the funeral. I just wanted to let you know that a personal letter came for you here to the shop. At least I guess it’s a personal letter. Your name and the address are in handwriting. I don’t know who it’s from, because there’s no return address. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know about it in case you wanted to pick it up before you go home. It’s on your desk. If you don’t get it today, it’ll still be there in the morning. Bye.”

  That was interesting. A personal letter that came to her at the shop? With no return address? After checking in both directions for oncoming traffic, Heather pulled out into the street and headed toward Donut Delights. Despite the fact that she was pretty tired, as well as emotionally drained after Gustavo’s funeral, she was still curious. She wanted to know whom the letter was from, and what it said. And since the shop was closed, she couldn’t just call and ask Jung to open it and read it to her. She’d have to go get it herself.

  A few minutes later, she parked in her spot by the back door and entered her shop through the kitchen. Sure enough, the letter was lying in the middle of her desk. She didn’t recognize the handwriting, but she hadn’t expected to. She debated for about two seconds whether she should take it home to read it or read it here, then sat down in her desk chair. Might as well satisfy her curiosity now.

  She forced her finger under the flap and tore the envelope open. The paper inside was standard, 8.5x11 white paper. It was folded up, presumably with the contents of the letter concealed. But on the back of the paper was some kind of document, as if the writer had taken paper that had been used, but which was no longer needed, and written on the blank side.

  She unfolded the single sheet of paper, with the handwriting on the inside facing away from her, and examined the document on the back.

  It was an invoice.

  An invoice for a shipment of 6 boxes of 42-oz. Styrofoam cups.

  Heather flipped the paper over, her gaze going straight to the bottom of the page, looking for a signature.

  There it was, the single word she’d somehow known she’d find.

  Stella.

  ***

  “Ryan?” Heather said into her cell phone two minutes later, wiping tears from her cheeks with a tissue she’d pulled from the box on her desk. “I have something you need to see. Right away.”

  ***

  For the third time that week, Heather parked in Tia Teresa’s driveway behind several other cars. The text from Ryan had come through moments ago: Got him.

  After checking one last time to make sure the photocopy she’d made was still there, folded up in her purse, she slung the purse’s strap over her shoulder and got out of the car.

  Almost before she had shut her car door, the front door of the house opened, and Maricela stepped out onto the porch. “Heather? What’s going on?” she asked, as Heather approached.

  “I’ll tell you all at once,” Heather said gently. “If that’s okay.”

  Maricela nodded and ushered Heather inside. As Heather entered the living room, the people gathered there fell silent. “Heather, thank you for coming,” Tia Teresa said from where she sat in the middle of the couch, her relatives surrounding her. “May we get you something to drink?”

  Amazed at the elderly woman’s hospitality even in the midst of the present circumstances, Heather shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said. “I’m fine.”

  “Please have a seat,” Tia Teresa said, gesturing to an armchair that one of the cousins had vacated.

  “Thank you,” Heather said. As she sat down, the painting over the couch caught her attention. It was the one the family had commissioned to be painted for Tia Teresa’s birthday party. Tia Teresa sat in the middle of the group, just as she did now. Only in the painting, Gustavo sat at her right side.

  “What a beautiful painting,” Heather said.

  “Yes, it’s beautiful,” Tia Teresa agreed. “I will treasure it forever because in it, all my family is together. Including Gustavo.”

  Heather nodded. She tried to find words for a segue into why she’d come, but couldn’t think of any. Silence fell. Heather cleared her throat.

  “I have a letter I want to read you all,” she said, glancing at everyone assembled there. “I know nothing can take away the pain of losing Gustavo. But perhaps this letter can take away a different kind of pain. It’s a letter I received today at my donut shop. After Gustavo’s funeral, I went to the shop and picked it up. And read it. And I want to share what it says with you. I think it will explain itself.”

  Again, she cleared her throat. Holding the paper in both hands, she began to read.

  “Dear Heather,

  “When you came in to the Quik-Mart today, I could tell you knew who I was. I could also tell you are a nice person. So I’m going to tell you why I lied about what happened in the park.”

  Heather stopped reading. She glanced up at Tia Teresa. But it was Maricela who spoke. “Is that from the girlfriend of the man who killed Gustavo?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  Heather nodded. She waited for the knowledge to sink in for Gustavo’s family members, then watched the import register on their faces. She kept reading.

  “I didn’t want to lie. But Marcus made me. He said he’d kill me if I didn’t back up his story. So I lied. But I felt terrible about it, because that kid wasn’t doing anything wrong. He didn’t deserve to die.

  “Marcus and I argued all the time. We were arguing that night, and he pulled a gun on me. All of a sudden, this kid runs up and shouts, ‘Hey! What are you doing to her? Leave her alone!’

  “That’s when Marcus turned the gun on him. I was hoping he would just leave. I know how Marcus gets when he’s angry. I knew if he didn’t back off, Marcus would kill him. But he didn’t back off. He stood his ground and tried to make Marcus leave me alone.

  “I tried to get in between them and push them apart. I tried to make the kid see that he’d have to leave. That I’d be okay. But he didn’t leave. I kept screaming, and Marcus pushed me. That’s when the kid, whose name I now know was Gustavo, put out his hand to stop Marcus.

  “And Marcus shot him. It was over just like that. Marcus tossed some stuff toward Gustavo’s body. Then we were running away, and he said if I didn’t back him up, he’d kill me. I was afraid, because I believe him. I know he would kill me if he thought I talked to the police.

  “That’s why I’m writing to you. I’m hoping you can find some way to get this information to the police so that Marcus doesn’t know I turned him in. Because I don’t want to die. But I also don’t want the police to think Gustavo was just some punk. I don’t want his family to think bad of him. I want them to know the truth, that he didn’t die because of an argument over drugs. He didn’t die because he was harassing me. He died because he was defending me.

  “Stella.”

  There was complete, utter silence, except for the sounds of the paper as Heather folded it back up.

  Then, everyone was crying at once and holding each other close. Heather sat silently, tears running unchecked down her own face. Wordlessly, Maricela and Angelica came to her. Heather slipped out of the chair, and the three of them knelt on the floor together, hugging and crying.

  When Heather felt them pulling away, she looked up and saw Tia Teresa approaching her, arms extended wide to receive her. She stood up so the older woman wouldn’t have to kneel on the hard floor, and Tia Teresa embraced her fiercely tight. “You’ve brought Gustavo back to us,” she said into Heather’s ear. “You’ve given us a reason to be proud. A reason to hold our heads up in this community.” She stepped back and said to Heather in a voice loud enough for all to hear, “You are part of our family now.”

  ***

&n
bsp; In the midst of all the embracing and crying, Heather almost forgot to pass on the message from Ryan that Marcus Johnson was now in custody. But when she remembered, Tia Teresa responded in a way she didn’t expect. “That is good,” Tia Teresa said. “Justice will be served. But it brings us no joy. Joy would be to have Gustavo back again. But at least we have his memory, here in our hearts.”

  Placing one hand over her heart, Tia Teresa turned and gazed up at the painting on the wall.

  ***

  “You were right,” Ryan said. “He did make one mistake.”