Troubled Treats

by Jessica Beck

  “Are you positive that he wouldn’t mind you sharing them with me?” I asked her.

  Emma was about to reply when the timer went off. The yeast dough was ready for more attention, and it wouldn’t wait.

  “You’re right,” my assistant said as we both stood. “I’m sorry I said anything.”

  “No worries. It’s already forgotten,” I said as I hugged her briefly. I was curious about what Emma’s father thought about the case, but not enough to get into a quid pro quo situation with his daughter. “Come on. Let’s get back to work.”

  The rest of the morning’s prep work seemed to fly by, and before I knew it, it was time to open the donut shop for our first customers of the day.

  I’d been expecting to see at least one familiar face when I walked out front to open the shop—like the mayor’s, or even the police chief’s—but the man I saw standing outside surprised me.

  It was Jim Burr, one of my suspects, and from the look of his lowered head and drooping shoulders, he was sporting quite a hangover from his bender the night before.

  The question was why was he at the donut shop so bright and early the next morning when clearly the only place he wanted to be was back home in bed?

  Chapter 12

  “Good morning,” I said quite a bit louder and cheerier than was called for when I opened the door for the electrician. “How are you?”

  He held his temples as he tried his best to smile. “Take one guess.”

  “If you’re here for a bit of the hair of the dog that bit you, I should warn you, none of my donuts have any alcohol in them.”

  Jim shuddered a little as I closed the door behind him and flipped the sign to show the world that we were open for business. When he spoke, his words were careful and measured. “I drank way too much last night. I think I’m going to go on the wagon after what happened. How bad was I?”

  “Well, for one thing, you seemed pretty sure that Shirley Edam killed your boss,” I said. “Did you have any particular real reason to suspect it was true? I mean now that you’re sober.”

  He started to nod, but then he clearly must have thought better of the idea. “I might have been drunk, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I was wrong.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  Jim shook his head, a movement that he clearly regretted instantly. Through clenched teeth, he said, “Sully wasn’t going through with the merger, no matter what she’s been telling everyone. He told me himself yesterday morning that when he saw Shirley’s reaction to his personal rejection, he didn’t want to be in business with her.”

  “She claims that his rejection was no big deal,” I said as I poured him a large cup of steaming black coffee. He took it from me immediately and drank greedily, despite its temperature.

  “She would say that though, wouldn’t she?” he asked. “What nobody realizes is that Sully was her last hope. When he turned her down, she got really desperate.”

  The statement surprised me. “I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it. There are plenty of other eligible men in April Springs alone,” I said.

  “I’m not referring to his dating rejection of her; I’m talking about her electrical contracting business. I hear things, being in the trade, you know?” Jim stopped to take another large gulp of his coffee, and I grabbed the pot so I could give him a quick refill. He deserved at least that much for coming by this morning in spite of the way he clearly felt.

  “Such as?”

  “From what I’ve heard, she’s been gambling in Union Square,” he said. “And she’s been losing, big. Without Sully to prop her business up, she’s going under, and it’s going to happen fast.”

  “I take it you don’t have any proof of this, though.”

  Jim Burr shrugged slightly, being careful not to move his shoulders too much. “The guy who told me this isn’t the type to stand up and swear to it in court, you know? It’s true enough, though. You can take it to the bank.”

  If that were indeed the case, it would provide Shirley Edam with a more powerful motive than personal rejection. The question was how could we confirm it? “How about your partner, Bob Greene? Can he at least vouch for your source as well?”

  “Let’s just leave Bob out of this, okay?” Jim asked.

  That surprised me. I’d been under the impression that the two men did everything in lockstep. “Are you having some kind of problem with Bob?”

  “No, but just because we work together doesn’t mean that we’re twins, you know what I mean? I do plenty of stuff without him, and he does the same without me.”

  “That still doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t speak with him again. Who knows what he’s heard on his own?”

  “You could always try, I guess, but not right now.”

  “Why not? Is there an issue?”

  “No, it’s just that he’s getting ready to leave town and take a little vacation,” Jim said. “But don’t tell him that I’m the one who told you about it. He’s leaving town tonight, so if you want to talk to him, I’d suggest you do it before he leaves.”

  “How long is he going to be gone?” I asked him.

  Jim shook his head slightly. “I have no idea. He wouldn’t tell me. For all I know, he could be gone for a month, or he might not ever come back.”

  “Can he afford to do that?” I asked him. “You two couldn’t have made that much working for Sully.”

  “You’d be surprised. He paid us both well, and we’ve each been saving our money for years,” Jim said evasively. Why didn’t I believe him? I knew for a fact that those extravagant new cowboy boots he was wearing hadn’t been cheap. I’d had a customer come in with a similar pair the year before, and he’d been bragging about just how much he’d paid for them.

  “I like your boots. They couldn’t have been cheap.”

  He stared down at them, and then kind of shrugged. “I got them on sale.”

  “I highly doubt that. They were custom made for your feet, weren’t they?” I suddenly began to wonder what kind of vehicle he’d driven to the donut shop in. Was I missing something here?

  “What are you implying, Suzanne?”

  “Jim, where did the money really come from?” I asked him softly, but the question seemed to annoy him more than it should have.

  “I told you. We’ve been saving up. So what if I splurged a little on a new pair of boots? It’s not that big a deal.”

  “If you say so, but is that going to stand up after someone takes a peek at your bank account?” I asked him.

  “You can’t do that. You don’t have the authority.” He was afraid of something; that much was clear.

  “I may not be able to, but the police won’t have any problem accessing your records,” I said. “It will make it easier for you if you come clean with me right now before they discover it on their own.”

  He wanted to tell me something. I could see it in his eyes. After a moment, though, he dismissed the urge. “I’m not going to get into that with you. I just wanted to drop by and say that I was sorry.”

  “You don’t have anything to apologize for, at least not to me,” I said.

  Jim shoved a twenty into my hands, along with the nearly empty mug. “Thanks for the coffee. It was exactly what I needed.”

  As he started to leave Donut Hearts, I said, “Let me get you your change.”

  “Keep it,” he said as he fled the donut shop as fast as he could.

  I watched as he hurried down the street, but I couldn’t see where he’d parked whatever he’d been driving. As I grabbed my jacket to follow him, I called out, “Emma, you’ve got the front.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked as she stepped out of the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

  “I’ll tell you later,” I said as I bolted out the door.

  I was too late, though.

  By the time I got outside, he was already gone.

  I stuffed the twenty into the till as I wondered about Jim’s behavior. What had brought him to the do
nut shop the first thing in the morning, particularly when he clearly had such a massive hangover? Why was it so important for him to speak with me so early? While he’d been there, he had done his best to reinforce the belief that Shirley had killed Sully, but was it sincere, or had he done it simply to deflect our attention away from him? And what about Bob? Had the two men had a falling out? I needed to speak with Sully’s other employee before he escaped town, and I had to tell Jake about what had happened the second I saw him. I wasn’t going to wake him up, though. He’d had a long night, directly because of me, so if he could sleep in, I wasn’t about to take that from him.

  Jim’s visit had left me with more questions than answers, but for the moment, there was nothing I could do about it.

  After all, I still had a donut shop to run.

  “Good morning, ladies,” I said as the three women in my book club came into Donut Hearts at the appointed hour. Once long ago, they’d stumbled into the shop looking for a place to hold their meetings, and they’d quickly welcomed me into their group. I’d nearly forgotten about today’s meeting, but fortunately I’d read the book on our honeymoon while Jake had been snoozing from eating too much fine food.

  “How was your trip?” Jennifer, the stylish redhead of the gang of elegantly dressed women, asked me with a smile.

  “Did you eat anything fantastic while you were there? Of course you did. After all, you were in Paris,” Hazel said, a woman who seemed to constantly be on a diet for one occasion or another.

  “Paris is Jenkins Bole’s favorite city, you know,” Elizabeth added. He happened to be the author of the book we’d be discussing in a few minutes, and she couldn’t wait to drop his name into our conversation. “He told me so himself.” Elizabeth lived to correspond with authors, and for the ones who actually responded to her inquiries, she claimed them as dear friends, regardless of the level of contact they ultimately shared.

  “And why wouldn’t it be?” I asked with a smile as I distributed coffee to each member of the group. “Before we get started, does anyone want a treat?”

  “I really shouldn’t,” Hazel said as she studied the display case filled with goodies.

  “Come on. You know you want to,” Jennifer said. “I myself would love an elephant’s ear.”

  “Is there any chance that you’d split one with me, Jenn?” Hazel asked tentatively.

  “No, ma’am, I would not. Get one of your own. This one’s going to be all for me,” Jennifer said with a smile. I knew that she didn’t eat like that all of the time. With her trim figure, she couldn’t, unless she had one of those sickeningly fast metabolisms that burned the calories up as fast as she could consume them.

  “I’ll split one with you,” Elizabeth volunteered.

  “Are you sure?” I asked as I got out two of the massive confectionary treats. “You can each have one if you’d like.”

  “We’re positive,” they said in near unison. After I sliced the massive donut in half and plated them, I grabbed a few blueberry donut holes for myself.

  “Is that honestly all that you’re having?” Hazel asked, looking guilty about her choice.

  “Don’t forget. I’m around this stuff all day,” I said. “Believe me, I do plenty of sampling in back.”

  “Then let’s get started, shall we?” Jennifer asked as we took our seats.

  I’d cordoned off our favorite couch and chairs earlier in honor of the meeting, and after we’d each sampled our treats and sipped our coffee, Jennifer dove right in. “I personally loved the way the author used auditory imagery throughout the book.”

  “What imagery are you talking about?” Elizabeth asked, clearly confused by her statement.

  “Wasn’t it clear to everyone else, too? I’m talking about his use of repetitive sounds throughout the book.”

  I’d noticed it too, but I wasn’t going to comment on it, since I didn’t want Elizabeth to feel as though she’d been the only one who’d missed it.

  “Like what, for example?” she asked Jennifer.

  “First, there was the doorbell that rang when he got the letter from his wife saying that she was leaving him, and then there was the programmed bell that rang on his cellphone when the police called to tell him that she was dead. A little later, we hear the church bell ringing during her funeral, and then the final bell comes from outside the courtroom after he is convicted of her murder.”

  “Those were just one long string of coincidences,” Elizabeth said.

  “I don’t think so. They were too perfectly connected to be mere happenstance,” Jennifer said as she looked at the rest of us. “Didn’t anyone else see it, too?”

  Hazel shook her head, and Jennifer looked as though she was beginning to doubt the conclusion that she’d drawn. It was time for me to speak up. “I thought I saw a connection there as well. It was rather striking, as a matter of fact.”

  “I’m sorry, but they aren’t related,” Elizabeth said firmly.

  “How can you say that?” Hazel asked. “It seems clear now once it’s been pointed out to me.”

  Elizabeth looked smug as she spoke. “I initially had the same question myself, but when I asked the author, Jenkins said that he had no intention of tying them together like that, and that if anyone did, it was in the reader’s imagination, not the writer’s.”

  “My question is, is the author always the best person to ask?” Jennifer inquired softly.

  Elizabeth appeared to be outraged by the suggestion. “Of course he is. He literally wrote the book himself. If anyone would know what he meant, it would be him.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t aware that he was doing it at the time,” I offered. “I know sometimes my subconscious does things that I’m not entirely privy to.”

  That opinion, which I myself believed, was not popular among my fellow members. The two polar opposite arguments were that either the author was aware exactly of what he was doing the entire time, or that it was all pure coincidence. I didn’t care enough to argue my point, and as the discussion continued to deteriorate, Jennifer quickly stepped in. “Let’s move on, shall we? Who else was surprised by the twist at the end? I’m sure that was planned, and I must say, I feel that the author handled it like a master.”

  That appeared to mollify Elizabeth, who had taken Jennifer’s earlier comments too personally. “He really is quite good, isn’t he?”

  “I loved this book,” I said. “It’s a shame it’s the last one in the series.”

  “What makes you say that?” Hazel asked.

  “I looked it up online. His publisher is dropping him. They said that while he did fairly well, and he always made them a profit, in the end he just didn’t sell enough books to appease their accountants.”

  “That’s ridiculous, isn’t it? Just because they are shortsighted doesn’t mean that the series is going to end, though,” Elizabeth said, looking remarkably like the cat that swallowed the proverbial canary.

  “Do you know something we don’t?” I asked her.

  “Jenkins has decided to continue the series on his own. He shared the news with me last night.”

  She made it sound as though he’d whispered the news into her ear across a candlelit dinner instead of via email over the Internet.

  “So then, he’s going to publish it himself?” Jennifer asked.

  “Why shouldn’t he? Lots of writers are turning their backs on their publishers and striking out on their own these days,” Elizabeth said. “I personally think it’s quite courageous of them, myself, and I applaud their gumption.”

  “I do, too,” Jennifer said, taking the wind out of Elizabeth’s sails. “After all, why should we be deprived of more books that we love just because a publisher happens to be wrong?”

  “At least we’re in agreement there,” I said. “What does it matter who publishes our favorite authors? I just care about the books, and I’ll read whatever my favorites publish, no matter how it gets to me. Elizabeth, did he give you any clues as to what the next one is going
to be about?” I noticed that Hazel was frowning, so I quickly asked, “Do you disagree?”

  “I know I’m alone in the group, but personally, I don’t like e-books,” she said softly.

  “That’s because you’ve never read one,” Jennifer said. “They’re wonderful.”

  “They can’t ever replace the smell and the feel of my books. My real books,” she added.

  “Did you know that you can read them without your glasses?” Elizabeth asked.

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “You can adjust the type to any size you like,” Jennifer said. “It’s unbelievable how freeing that is. I don’t have to hunt around for a pair of glasses to enjoy my book anymore, and I feel as though I’ve been freed from their tyranny forever.”

  “I don’t know,” Hazel said. “That might be nice, but I don’t hold like holding some kind of device thingy in my hands. I would think it would get tiring after awhile.”

  “What gets tiring is holding up a seven-hundred page opus in hardcover,” I said. “The great thing about reading electronically is that no matter how many pages an e-book is, it always weighs exactly the same.”

  “Hazel, if you just tried it, I know that you’d love it as much as we do,” Elizabeth said. “By the way, to answer your earlier question, Suzanne, I think Jenkins is going to kill his publisher,” she added with a grin.

  “There’s no need for anything that rash! He can just walk away and start over, can’t he? I personally don’t think violence is going to solve anything,” Hazel said, the alarm clear in her voice.

  “He’s not going to do it in real life; he’s going to bump the man off in print,” Elizabeth said with a grin. “It sounds wondrous to me, and I’m going to be the first in line to buy it.”

  “I’m looking forward to reading that one myself,” Jennifer said. “Now, let’s get back to the book at hand. I thought the dog barking in the middle of the night was significant, but I never dreamed that would be what ultimately led to him getting caught.”