Mixed Malice

by Beck, Jessica

  “What should we do?”

  “Normally, I’d say we stake the place out until whoever is in there leaves, but I have to admit, I’m not crazy about this weather myself.”

  “At least we’re in agreement on that,” I said. “This can wait another day.”

  As we got back into the truck, instead of leaving the apartment complex, Jake started driving slowly around the parking area. “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m wondering if Bloch’s work truck might be tucked away somewhere discreetly,” Jake admitted. “It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Madison was playing more than one angle right now.”

  We’d gone halfway through the complex when I put a hand on his arm. “Stop!”

  “What is it? Did you see the truck?”

  I pointed to a car that looked very familiar to me. “That looks exactly like the car that did a drive-by past the donut shop this morning.”

  “How can you be sure? I didn’t think you got that good a look at it,” Jake asked.

  He was right, of course. It looked similar, but then I realized that a few others parked nearby could have just as easily been the vehicle in question too, or none of them at all, for that matter. “I didn’t, and I can’t,” I said, feeling suddenly deflated. “I suppose I’m just jumping at shadows now.”

  “It’s okay,” Jake said, backing up the truck until we were behind the car in question. “The bag’s gone, if it’s the same one. That figures.”

  “They couldn’t very well drive here from April Springs with it still over the license plate,” I said. “I’m probably wrong. Jake, we really do need to head back home.”

  He looked up at the sky again through the windshield, and then he quickly nodded. “You’re right. I don’t want to risk it any longer.” His wife and his unborn child had died in a car wreck years before, though snow hadn’t played a role in the accident, so I wasn’t surprised when he’d finally agreed to go. In fact, I’d been a little shocked when he hadn’t insisted that we leave town at the sign of the first snowflake coming down.

  The road got continuously worse as we headed out of town instead of any better. Jake’s windshield wipers were beating in quick time trying to keep up with the falling snow, but they were failing miserably at their assigned task. At least there weren’t many people out on the road with us. It appeared that most folks had had the good sense to stay home. As we rounded a bend in the road, I could feel the truck begin to slide off the shoulder. One glance through my window showed a steep drop-off on the passenger side at least fifteen feet below the road itself, and I wondered, if we continued to slide, if anyone would find us down there. It was a chilling thought, lying at the bottom of the gulley, trapped and unable to get out.

  “Jake?”

  No answer from him.

  I glanced over at him and saw that his knuckles were white on the wheel as he steered into the skid, trying to correct our slide. I knew intellectually that it was the right thing to do, but emotionally, it felt as though he was sending us straight over the side.

  His correction didn’t work, though, and I felt us getting closer and closer to the brink of oblivion.

  Chapter 15

  If it had been just pavement all the way to the edge of the precipice, there was no doubt in my mind that we would have gone over, but the berm had been graveled and banked a bit, offering us a slight incline before we ventured over the edge. It didn’t look like much, but it was just enough to stop us from sliding a little on the built-up gravel, and the truck finally righted itself under Jake’s expert hand, just in time.

  “That was closer than I’d ever care to admit,” Jake said once he was going in the right direction again. He glanced over at me, but for just a moment. “Were you scared?”

  “Not in the least,” I said, lying as much as I ever had in my life.

  Jake shook his head once, and then he burst out laughing. I had no choice; I joined him. Once we had that release of frivolity, we both felt better.

  And then the oddest thing happened.

  The snow ended.

  I don’t mean that it slowly tapered off, getting less and less with each passing yard.

  I mean it ended.

  It was as though a line had been drawn on the surface of the world around us. One side had an inch of snow on it, and the other had barely been touched by any of it. “Wow, I’ve seen a demarcation like that with rain, but never with snow,” Jake said.

  “It’s pretty cool, isn’t it?” I asked as we were suddenly in the clear. “That was some fancy driving you did back there.”

  “I’ve never been happier in my life that they made me take that defensive driving course in the academy,” he replied with a grin. “I’m glad we got out of town when we did.”

  “So am I,” I said. The sky went from somber gray clouds to a clear blue expanse, dotted occasionally with wisps of white clouds, and I actually felt the sun on the side of my face through the windshield. “It appears that April Springs is going to dodge that particular bullet.”

  “It’s a good thing, too,” Jake said as his grip on the steering wheel eased up considerably now that we were in the clear. “They’re working on your exterior tomorrow, aren’t they?”

  “That’s what Young said, but I can’t imagine that he’ll be able to do much with the interior in one day.”

  “Do you want to stop by before we go by your mother’s place and see how it’s going?” Jake asked me with a grin.

  I was tempted, but I knew better than to push the contractor with my presence. “Let’s wait until later. Maybe he’ll be gone by the time we finish eating.”

  “That sounds reasonable enough,” Jake said. “I wonder if Dorothea and Phillip had any more luck than we did this afternoon. We might just as well have stayed home, for all the good our investigation did us.”

  “How can you say that? We found out that Deloris has an alibi, Sanderson, Madison, and Bloch all have motives for the immediate need for money, and we suspect that Madison is canoodling with at least one other man, and quite possibly more, less than forty-eight hours after her boyfriend was murdered. I don’t know how they look at progress with the state police, but I’d say we had a remarkable day.”

  Jake grinned at me. “You’re right. I probably just expect too much from myself.”

  “Well, knock it off, would you?” I asked with a grin. “We’re doing great.”

  “Okay, I agree,” he answered. “We’re a regular whirlwind. I just wish things would move a little faster, that’s all.”

  “You’re thinking like a professional now instead of an unpaid investigator,” I reminded him. “We have so few of the tools you used to, I’m amazed by how well we manage to do. If I were a betting woman, I’d say that Momma and Phillip found at least one pawnbroker who got a call about emeralds over the last couple of days, too. How about you? Care to make a wager?”

  “No bet. I think you’re right. Whoever’s sitting on those emeralds must be getting awfully antsy about now.” Jake took the packet of two emeralds Momma had loaned us and handed them to me. “I don’t even like carrying these around, and we got them legitimately.”

  “No worries. I’m sure Momma has these insured.”

  “Maybe so, but do you want to be the one who tells her that we were careless and lost them?” Jake asked me with a grin.

  “Hurry up, would you? I’d like to get these back to her pronto.” He’d made a fair point. Momma would understand if something happened to the gems, I just knew it, but I couldn’t stand the thought of the disappointment in her face if that happened. The sooner I could turn them back over to her, the better, as far as I was concerned.

  “Wow, that smells delicious,” I said as Jake and I walked into Momma’s cottage that she shared with her husband. The turkey chili she’d had simmering away in th
e slow cooker all day had filled the house with wondrous smells, and the freshly made biscuits added a nice touch as well.

  “It’s just chili,” my mother said, clearly pleased by my praise. “Phillip, take their coats.”

  “Yes, dear,” he said with a smile. As he took Jake’s, he added softly, “There’s pie, too.”

  “I’d be disappointed if there weren’t,” my husband answered with a grin.

  “Now, who’s hungry?” Momma asked.

  My hand shot up like a third-grader who knew the answer to the teacher’s question for the first time in her life. “Me, me.”

  Jake laughed. “I could eat.”

  “Excellent,” my mother said.

  “I didn’t answer,” Phillip said with a smile.

  “Do you really need to?” she asked him with warmth.

  “No, not really.”

  After we sat at the table, Momma served us. The meal at Burt’s had been good, but this was better, maybe because it had been made with love, or maybe, just maybe, I’d grown up on this cooking, and every time I tasted it, it felt as though I were going home again.

  “Dorothea, you’ve outdone yourself,” Jake said after taking and savoring his first bite.

  She smiled at the praise. “I’m so glad you like it.”

  “That’s an understatement,” my husband said, and then he turned to me. “Not that I don’t love your cooking, too.”

  “Hey, Momma is the queen. I’d just be honored to be a princess.”

  “You’ll always be my princess,” my mother said to me. “Shall we discuss our results or wait until after we eat?”

  Jake finished his bite before he spoke. “Let’s wait.”

  “Agreed,” Phillip said.

  I used my fork to collect a bit of the chili and the pasta mixed into it, and then I tasted my perfect bite. The food might have been plain and ordinary in a less capable cook’s hands, but in my mother’s, it was magical. I’d tried to duplicate the results at home on my own, and while mine was usually good, hers was amazing. At least I’d gotten her biscuits down pat. “Momma, this is excellent.”

  “The chili, yes, but you’ve surpassed the teacher with your biscuits.”

  “Maybe it’s just a donut thing at heart,” I said.

  After we finished and cleared the table, we all moved into the living room, where a nice fire was waiting for us. We were all so full that we’d decided the pie would have to wait.

  “So, who would like to go first?” Momma asked.

  “Go on. Why don’t you?” Jake urged her.

  “We drew some uncooperative folks today, even with the aid of your wondrous donuts, Suzanne. Of the three pawnshops in the area, only one admitted they’d had any contact with loose gemstones at all in the past month.”

  “Someone tried to sell them in person?” I asked eagerly.

  “No, it was a telephone call inquiry.”

  “Was it a man or a woman?” Jake asked.

  “The clerk couldn’t tell. Evidently the caller spoke only in a whisper.”

  “That matches what we learned ourselves,” I volunteered. “Whoever took those emeralds from the donut shop is desperately trying to unload them.”

  “Without success so far, I’d wager,” Phillip said.

  “I know we ruled it out earlier, but should we be contacting local jewelers as well?” I asked.

  Jake shook his head. “No, the prospect of any of them buying stones without a provenance is even more doubtful.”

  “Then the killer is left dealing with the gray market or even the black one,” Momma said.

  “Which is harder to access than you might think,” Jake said.

  “Why is that?”

  “Think about it. How would an ordinary citizen even go about finding someone shady to buy the emeralds from them? Even if they could, would they be able to trust them? I’m not just talking about getting a fair deal, either. What would make them believe that someone willing to buy stolen emeralds wouldn’t just take the stones and keep the money or even carry out the transaction and sell the information of who sold them to the insurance company or hand them over to the police?” Jake asked.

  “Would a crook actually do that?” I asked.

  “He would if he could see a way to profit from it,” Phillip answered. “It’s been my experience that honor among thieves is merely a myth.”

  “The insurance company I can understand, but why the police? Explain, please,” my mother asked.

  “Dorothea, bad guys trade information with law enforcement all the time. If it gets them out of a sticky situation, why wouldn’t they? No, I’ve got a feeling the killer still has those emeralds on them, and they’re probably getting edgier and edgier about holding onto them as each hour goes by,” Phillip explained.

  “So, the real question is how do we use that to our advantage?” I asked.

  “That I’m not sure about just yet,” Jake said.

  Phillip asked, “Did anything else of interest happen on your trip to Maple Hollow?”

  “Do you mean besides nearly dying?” I asked him.

  “What?” That got my mother’s attention. “What happened?”

  “Suzanne, there was no way we were in any danger from Lester,” Jake said patiently.

  “Who’s Lester?” Phillip asked.

  “It was nothing,” Jake explained. “We stopped a brother from bullying his sister. Suzanne’s talking about the trip home.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” Phillip said. “Did someone try to run you off the road or something on your way back here?”

  “Nothing quite so dramatic as all that,” Jake explained. “We hit a patch of snow on the road, but it turned out fine.”

  “That’s right. I heard it was snowing in Maple Hollow. How bad was it?” Momma asked.

  “It was fine,” I said, sticking to my husband’s nonchalant tone. After all, there was no need to worry Momma after the fact. “Tell them the rest of our findings,” I urged Jake.

  “It turns out that Deloris has a pretty solid alibi,” Jake said. “Besides that, all three of the suspects we have left had a compelling need for money, and fast. Sanderson has a failed business, and the bills are coming due. Madison is overextended on her credit cards and is drowning in debt, while Hank Bloch has an affinity for gambling, even though apparently he’s not any good at it.”

  “Tell them the other thing about Madison,” I urged my husband.

  “We have reason to believe that she was with a man when we visited her apartment this afternoon,” Jake said. “Whether it was Sanderson, Bloch, or someone else entirely, we were unable to determine.”

  “Forty-eight hours after her boyfriend was murdered?” Phillip asked. “That’s kind of cold, isn’t it?”

  “That describes the woman to a T,” I said. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Deloris came by the shop this morning, though that hardly matters now that she’s been cleared, but so did Hank Bloch.”

  “What did he want?” Momma asked.

  “He claimed that he wanted to finish Snappy’s last job, and who knows, maybe that really was the only reason he was there, but I had the distinct impression that he was checking the place out.”

  “Which, as a contractor, he would have naturally done anyway,” Jake said.

  “True,” I said.

  “Tell them about the car you saw this morning,” Jake prodded me.

  “I thought we decided that was nothing.”

  “Now we need to hear about everything,” Momma said.

  “Emma and I were outside on our break early this morning when a dark sedan drove by the donut shop. They passed us and turned around, and when I tried to get the plate number, it was obscured by a brown paper bag. It’s probably nothing.”<
br />
  “But then Suzanne thought she may have later seen it parked in the apartment complex where Madison lives,” Jake added.

  “There’s no way I can be sure it was the same car, though.”

  Jake shrugged. “Only time will tell.” He paused, and then he smiled at my mother. “Would I be out of line asking about that pie I heard mentioned earlier?”

  Momma laughed. “No, I was just thinking the same thing myself. It’s apple, with a crisp topping, and I have vanilla ice cream to go with it as well.”

  “Sold,” Jake said with a grin.

  “Me, too,” I added.

  “Make it three,” Phillip said.

  “Why not an even four?” Momma added with a grin.

  By the time Jake and I headed home, it had been dark for a few hours, but there was still one last stop I wanted to make before we got to the cottage.

  It was time to check up on the progress at Donut Hearts.

  Chapter 16

  “Wow, it looks incredible, doesn’t it,” I said as I flipped on the lights at the donut shop and looked around. I knew that the floor had been tiled with long and thin interlocking sections, but it was difficult to tell that the vinyl on the floor wasn’t real distressed gray driftwood. The walls had all been covered in real shiplap wood, painted white and antiqued, offering a brightness to the place that hadn’t been there before, and the ceiling had been patched beautifully, blending the new seamlessly into the original work perfectly.

  Jake whistled under his breath as he took it all in. “This guy is really good.”

  “How many workers must he have had to do this so quickly?” I asked in awe. The place had literally been transformed in a matter of hours. The only evidence that I could find that the work had been done so recently was the faint smell of paint emanating from the newly installed walls, but he must have used a special paint with low fumes, because it was difficult to detect.