Sinister Sprinkles

by Jessica Beck

  I was just beginning to take the vinyl banner down from the top of the booth when I heard a familiar voice beside me.

  “Need a hand with that?”

  It was my ex-husband Max, more handsome than he had any right to be, with wavy brown hair and deep brown eyes. He also had a voice that could melt my toes when he put his mind to it.

  “No, thank you. I’ve got it,” I said as I reached up for the banner and managed to grab one corner of it.

  “Here, let me get that,” he said as he brushed past me and took the edge from me. From his proximity, I could smell Max’s subtle cologne, and despite my feelings about the man, I was ashamed to realize that I had to fight the urge to lean toward him and savor his presence.

  He easily plucked the banner off its hooks, then folded it before handing it back to me. “Here you go. You must have sold out fast.”

  I shook my head. “No, there are dozens of donuts inside that I don’t have a clue what to do with.”

  “Then why are we taking the banner down?” he asked.

  “I don’t need it now that the carnival’s over.”

  Max looked around, and seemed to realize that most of Springs Drive was deserted. He looked at his watch as he shook his head. “What happened? It’s supposed to run another two hours.”

  “Did you just get here?”

  Max shrugged. “You know I like to sleep in whenever the opportunity affords itself,” he said. “I haven’t been up all that long. So, what happened?”

  “Somebody was murdered under the town clock,” I said.

  It was pretty clear that Max was hearing this for the first time. “What happened? Who was it? Come on, Suze, give me some details.”

  I hated when he called me Suze, but he was too upset for me to correct him. Max, though his exterior was always cool and urbane, was a soft cookie on the inside, one of the things that had drawn me to him in the first place.

  “A woman wearing Muriel Stevens’s jacket was killed. I’m not sure how, nobody really said.”

  He frowned. “How do you know it wasn’t Muriel? And why was someone else wearing her coat?”

  “The murder victim had a gray-haired wig on, and Muriel never wore one in her life. Besides, Muriel told Gabby Williams she lost her jacket yesterday, so it couldn’t have been her.”

  “If it wasn’t Muriel, then who was it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said as I handed him a set of empty trays. “Make yourself useful since you’re here and take these in to Emma.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, adding a grin. “I’m your man.”

  “You used to be, but you quit on me, remember?”

  Max groaned. “Don’t bring Darlene up again, would you?”

  “I won’t if you don’t,” I said. “I have no desire to ever talk about that woman again.” I’d caught my ex-husband in bed with Darlene Higgins, thus the end of our marriage and the beginning of a new life for me as a single woman. I’d reacted quickly to finding them together, divorcing my husband, moving in with my mother, taking back my maiden name of Hart, and buying a rundown shop and converting it into Donut Hearts.

  Max took the trays inside, then returned to help me break down the actual booth itself. It was made of plywood, two-by-fours, and enough bolts to keep it up, but still easy enough to erect and disassemble when needed. I worked a few fairs a year selling my donuts, and it was handy having a nice place to work from when I was away from my shop.

  Max and I had just carried the last piece into the shop and put it all into my storage room when the front door chimed.

  “Do you need to get that?” he asked, once again standing more than a little too close to me than I liked.

  “No, Emma’s covering the front,” I said.

  “Then there’s no reason to rush back up there.”

  He was definitely pushing his luck now, and he knew it.

  I said, “Tell you what. I’ll buy you a donut and a fresh cup of coffee for helping me break down.”

  “How about two donuts, and a hot chocolate?” he countered.

  I couldn’t help smiling. “You never know when to quit, do you?”

  “I like to think it’s part of my charm.”

  I patted his cheek. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

  He followed me back to the front, and I was surprised to find Chief Martin talking to Emma there.

  “I said I was sorry,” I said the second I saw him. “I didn’t mean to give anything away. It was just a gut reaction.”

  “I’m not here to see you,” the chief said.

  “What did I do?” Emma asked.

  “You, either.”

  Max took a step forward. “Then you must want to see me, though I can’t imagine what it could be about.”

  “Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” the chief said as he glanced over at me.

  “If you have anything to say to me, you can say it in front of these ladies,” Max said. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” the chief said.

  “What’s this about?” Max asked, the usual playfulness in his voice now gone.

  The chief glanced over at me, then said, “There’s no use keeping it a secret anymore. Your ex-wife was right. It wasn’t Muriel Stevens.”

  It was all I could do not to say, “I told you so,” but I managed to contain myself. “Then who was it?” I asked.

  Chief Martin ignored me. He asked Max, “Do you mind telling me where you were for the last hour?”

  Max frowned. “I was sleeping—alone, unfortunately—and then I grabbed a quick shower, got dressed, and came out to see the festivities. Why do you ask? Are you just naturally curious, or do I need an alibi?”

  “Why do you ask that?” the chief said.

  “Because I’ve got the feeling you think I had something to do with whoever got killed. I can assure you, I didn’t do it.”

  The chief frowned. “Save your assurances for someone else. Did you see anybody along the way from your place to the donut shop who can vouch for you?”

  “No, I was surprised how deserted the streets were. Everyone was at the carnival, no doubt.”

  The chief frowned, then said, “Everyone but you.”

  I was amazed at Max’s patience, but I knew it couldn’t last much longer. I blurted out, “Get to the point, Chief.”

  “Stop telling me what to do, Suzanne,” he snapped at me.

  I took a step back from the force of his protest.

  Max noticed it, too. “She’s right. Why are you grilling me?”

  “You have an intimate relationship with the victim,” the chief said. “That automatically makes you someone I need to speak with.”

  “The only person I care about in all of April Springs is standing right over there,” he said as he pointed to me.

  “She’s not the only person you’ve been with in your life, though, is she?”

  I knew what he was going to say next before the words left his lips, but his voice still fell like muted thunder as he added, “The murder victim was an old girlfriend of yours. Somebody killed Darlene Higgins.”

  APPLE CIDER DONUT DELIGHTS

  These donuts are delightful any time of year, but my family particularly enjoys them when the weather outside turns a bit chilly. In particular, the first step of thoroughly heating the apple cider fills the kitchen with more than just a delicious aroma; it also infuses a host of precious memories into the air.

  INGREDIENTS

  • 3⁄4 cup apple cider

  • 1 cup granulated sugar

  • 1⁄4 cup margarine, soft

  • 2 eggs

  • 1⁄2 cup buttermilk

  • 4 cups all-purpose flour

  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg

  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon

  • 1⁄2 teaspoon salt

  DIRECTIONS

  Heat the apple cider to boiling in a shallow saucepa
n for 10 minutes, then remove from the heat and cool. In the meantime, cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat the eggs, then add them to the mixture, stirring thoroughly. Next, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, stirring just enough to blend them all together. Place the dough on a floured surface and pat out until it’s between 1⁄2 and 1⁄4 inch thick. Cut out donut shapes or diamonds, or use a ravioli cutter to make round, solid shapes. Fry the donuts in canola oil at 370°F until brown, flipping halfway through the process. This will take 3–5 minutes. Drain on paper towels, then dust with powdered sugar.

  Makes approximately 2 dozen donuts

  CHAPTER 2

  I saw Max start to wobble a little at the news, so I moved in quickly to support him before he hit the floor.

  He steadied himself in my grasp, then pulled away from me, as if he were suddenly embarrassed by the close contact.

  “Are you sure it was Darlene?” Max asked the chief.

  “There’s no doubt about it. Can you tell me why she was walking around the Winter Carnival wearing Muriel Stevens’s jacket and a wig that made her look thirty years older?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” Max said, and I knew instantly that he was lying. How odd. I was considering calling him on it, even with the chief of police standing right there, when he beat me to it.

  Chief Martin asked him, “You’re not putting on some kind of production right now, are you?”

  Max ran our local theater group, and Darlene had joined it to be closer to him, or so I’d heard from the rumor mill around April Springs. Max had sworn their affair had been a one-time event, but Darlene’s constant zeal for an encore made me doubt it.

  Max ran a finger along his nose, a sure sign he was evading the truth. I just wished I’d learned to read him that well while we’d been married. He finally said, “We’re doing A New Year in Love, and there’s one part for an older woman, but she wouldn’t have tried out for that. I haven’t started casting it yet. Auditions aren’t until tomorrow.”

  The chief wasn’t about to let it go that easily, though. “Was Darlene’s name on your list?”

  Max shrugged. “To be honest with you, I haven’t even studied it yet. Hang on a second. I’ve got it right here.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a sheet of yellow legal pad notepaper.

  “Why are you carrying that around with you?” I asked.

  Chief Martin shot me a dirty look, but it was pretty clear that he wanted to know as well.

  “I’ve got to make some hard choices, so I thought I’d walk around the carnival and think about who signed up,” he said. “I purposely didn’t look at it so I could save it for today. You know my process, Suzanne.”

  I wasn’t about to respond to that.

  Max scanned the list, and sure enough, Darlene’s name was on it. “What do you know. She was going to try out for Penelope. What I can’t figure out is why on earth she would want that part.”

  “What’s so special about that?” I asked.

  Max said, “It’s an older woman, and Darlene was obsessed with her fear of getting old. She thought it was worse than dying.”

  “Somebody saved her the trouble of finding out,” the chief said, a little too callously for my taste. Then again, he wasn’t exactly vying for my approval.

  “Who else was trying out for the role?” I asked.

  The police chief said, “Suzanne, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your crazy questions to yourself. No one’s going to kill somebody for a role in a community theater group.”

  “Don’t be so sure. These things get pretty heated,” Max said.

  He looked at the list, then shook his head. “There’s no way that’s right. It’s got to be a coincidence.”

  “Whose name is on there, Max?” the chief asked.

  He frowned, then admitted, “There are two other names written here. One is Trish Granger.”

  “Who’s the other?” Emma asked. I’d nearly forgotten she was standing behind me.

  Max shook his head as he said, “It’s Muriel Stevens.”

  “I think I’d better go talk to her next,” the chief said. As he started for the door, he turned back to Max and added, “In the meantime, you need to stay in town. You don’t have any reason to leave, do you?”

  “My calendar’s wide open at the moment,” he said. “I don’t have any jobs outside of April Springs, or any plans to go anywhere.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

  After the chief was gone, Max slumped down onto one of our sofas. “I can’t believe somebody killed Darlene.”

  “I didn’t think you two were all that close,” I said before I had a chance to realize how cold that made me sound. I was going to have to get over what Darlene had done to me, once and for all. It didn’t sit right with me, holding a grudge with a dead woman.

  Max stared at me a second, then said, “Suzanne, you know in your heart that’s not fair. Someone was murdered today.”

  “You’re right,” I said, my voice a little softer than it had been before.

  Max stood abruptly, and as he headed for the door, I said, “Max, I’m sorry.”

  “So am I, Suzanne.”

  After he was gone, I kept watching him as he walked down Springs Drive, oblivious to the falling snow. Max was in pain, and more than that, he was in trouble. I just wasn’t sure what I could do about either situation.

  * * *

  My best friend, Grace Gauge, was waiting for me on the front porch of the house I share with my mother when I drove home around one in the afternoon.

  “Don’t you ever work?” I asked her with a laugh as I approached, getting my key ready for the front door.

  “Why don’t we save the question-and-answer session for inside? I’m freezing out here. The snow’s awfully pretty though, isn’t it?”

  I looked back toward the park that touched our property, and took in the view of the trees and pathways covered with snow. It looked like a Christmas card, with swirling sparkles of white filling the air. It was no wonder that I cherished snowfalls so much in April Springs.

  “Come on, quit stalling. I’m cold,” Grace said, her teeth chattering.

  “If you carried a few more pounds on you, you’d be better insulated,” I said as I smiled and opened the door.

  As she pushed past me inside, she grinned and said, “No, thanks. I’d rather buy a bigger jacket.” Grace put her coat by the door, then settled down in front of the fireplace. Though my mother was absent, there was still a few glowing embers in the hearth.

  Grace studied the fireplace a moment, then asked, “Any chance you can throw on a log or two?”

  I did as she asked, then said, “Now it’s your turn. Why are you here in the middle of a workday?”

  She grinned at me. “They sent me home, can you believe it? My supervisor doesn’t want a repeat of last year, when Anita Ricco crashed her company car in an inch of snow. The company has decided they’d rather pay us all for goofing off than take a risk with their property. I’m all for it, myself.”

  “I was wondering where your car was,” I said as I put a pot of coffee on.

  “That’s why I’m so cold. I walked over here from my house. That Jeep of yours is four-wheel-drive, isn’t it?”

  “Why, do you want to borrow it?” I said as I put a handful of cookies on a plate and set it in front of her. They were my mother’s favorite, peanut butter cookies with Hershey Kisses in the middle of each one, placed there just before they came out of the oven.

  “Hardly, but if we need provisions later, I want to be sure we can get to them at the store. There are some necessities I’m not willing to live without.”

  I turned on the lights of our Christmas tree, then said, “I can’t wait to hear what made that list.”

  “Why don’t you leave your tree on all the time?” she asked, ignoring my question.

  “Momma’s afraid we’ll burn the house
down,” I said.

  Grace leaned over and touched one of the branches. “It’s worth it, if you can have a live tree like this.”

  “I like them, too. You have a live one, don’t you?”

  She mumbled something, and I asked her to repeat it.

  Defiantly, Grace said, “I didn’t put a tree up this year, all right? It just seemed kind of pointless, since I’m the only one who’d see it.”

  “That’s not like you,” I said. “You usually love the holidays.”

  “I do,” she admitted. “But putting a tree up this year just felt kind of pointless. Listen, I know neither one of us has to have a man in our lives to make us complete, but they can be a nice accessory, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” I said as I got two mugs and filled them with coffee.

  “Where’s Jake at the moment?” Grace asked. Jake Bishop was my boyfriend, a state police investigator who traveled all over North Carolina looking for killers. He had an important job—and nobody knew how to do it better than he did—but his travel schedule didn’t exactly make it conducive for a steady relationship.

  “He’s on the road again,” I said.

  “What about David Shelby?”

  David was a man who’d come to April Springs earlier that year, and it had taken us quite a while to figure out that we’d gone to summer camp together as kids. I couldn’t deny that there was some kind of attraction there, but with Jake in my life, I hadn’t done anything to act on it.

  “He’s just a friend,” I said as I went through a stack of cards and mail that always seemed to accumulate on our mantelpiece during the holidays. I found the card I was looking for and handed it to her. “Read this.”

  In a man’s firm handwriting, the back of the card said,

  “Suzanne, I’m off to find my last chance. David.”

  Grace looked at the back—a picture of the Alaska wilderness—then tapped the writing on the card with her finger. “That’s cryptic enough, isn’t it?”

  “I’m sure the explanation was too complicated for a postcard,” I said.