Fatally Frosted

by Jessica Beck

  “How do you know that?” my mother asked.

  The chief and Jake both shrugged in perfect unison.

  Chief Martin said, “We’ll find out who’s behind this, don’t worry.”

  “I don’t see how,” I said, without realizing that I’d spoken the words out loud.

  “We’re not entirely incompetent,” the chief said, “no matter what you might think. We actually manage to solve a crime or two around here without your help, Suzanne, believe it or not.”

  I caught Jake fighting to hide his grin. He was enjoying this way too much for my taste. I turned with as much dignity as I could muster and started back toward the house. “Coming, Momma?”

  She nodded, and we went back inside. Why was someone watching me? Was it related to Peg Masterson’s murder, or did it have an even more ominous meaning for me?

  The next morning, I was just getting ready to snip the long-john dough blanks into pinecones when there was a banging on the front door. It was four A.M., a good hour and a half before we were due to open.

  Emma looked up at me and said, “I vote we ignore it.”

  “Somebody might be in trouble,” I said as I wiped my hands on a towel.

  “If you let them in, it could be trouble for us. Call the police and let them deal with it.”

  I approached the door between the kitchen and the dining area. “I’m going to at least look to see who it is.”

  I peeked out through the barely opened door and saw Jake standing there.

  “I’m letting him in. It’s Jake,” I said.

  I opened the door, careful to look behind him, just in case someone was lurking in the shadows.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked as I dead-bolted the door behind him.

  “I’ve got to go back to Raleigh. My niece’s fever is back, and now it’s worse than ever. I just wanted to come by and tell you in person before I took off.”

  “Thanks, but go. I know you need to be with your family.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as there’s anything to report,” he said. Jake hesitated a second, then he kissed me with a quick but affectionate buzz, hitting my lips this time instead of my cheek. At least his aim was improving.

  “Bye,” he said as I opened the door again for him.

  After he was gone, I turned around and found Emma watching. She was grinning broadly.

  “What’s that look for?”

  “Me? A look? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I shook my head, and with a slight smile, I said, “Let’s get back to work.”

  “Yes, ma’am. You’re the boss.”

  I swatted her with a towel that had been sitting on the counter, and after we got back to work making pinecones, I couldn’t help but be pleased by Jake’s response to an emergency this time. I dearly hoped that his niece would be all right, but I was glad he’d come by the shop to tell me what was going on in his life before he took off again.

  “Suzanne, I know you’ve been investigating Peg Masterson’s murder. I’m just wondering why you haven’t asked me to help,” Emma said as she glazed the yeast donuts I’d just pulled out of the fryer.

  I’d been waiting for her to make the request, and I had an answer ready for her. “You’ve been tied up with your own life this past week,” I said. “I didn’t think you’d have time to help me.”

  “Don’t worry, that’s over,” she said.

  “You two didn’t break up already, did you?” I asked as I flipped the current batch of yeast donuts in the fryer with my long, wooden skewers.

  “We never got serious enough about each other to call it a breakup.”

  “What do you think went wrong?” I asked as I pulled the donuts out of the hot oil. We often held postmortems on Emma’s relationships as we worked.

  She claimed it helped her gain perspective on what had happened, and if she’d made any mistakes, she’d work to correct them the next time around. I had to give her credit for her optimism. Emma constantly lived her life based on the premise that new opportunities were everywhere. Her job was to be ready for them when they appeared.

  “I know what happened,” she said, focusing more attention on pouring loaf pans full of glaze than was strictly necessary.

  As I delicately dropped another round of donuts into the fryer, I said, “So, tell me what it was this time.”

  “He was a jerk,” she said.

  “Come on, I met him. What made him such a jerk?”

  “If you must know, Paul wanted me to quit my job,” Emma finally admitted.

  I was shocked by the news. “Why? Doesn’t he like donuts?”

  “It’s the hours I keep that he hated. He kept saying how ridiculous it was for me to have a nine P.M. curfew.”

  I nodded. “I know, it must sound crazy to the rest of the world. Emma, if you want to quit so you can have a more normal life, I won’t stand in your way.”

  She looked surprised by my statement. “You mean you don’t want me working for you anymore?”

  “No, that’s the farthest thing from the truth,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t know how I’d run the place without you.”

  She appeared to be at least a little mollified. “That’s more like it.”

  “I meant what I said, though. I’d hate for you to . . .” I stopped before I finished that particular thought, but she knew what was on my mind.

  “What were you going to say, end up like you?”

  I admitted it. “Life’s hard enough without making things more difficult with an insane work schedule like we’ve got.”

  “You know what? I have faith that I’m going to find someone who wants me, despite my crazy hours. And until I do, I’m going to focus on making donuts with you, and I’m going to keep taking classes in the evenings whenever I can. I don’t have time for men in my life right now, anyway.”

  “Still, they can be a lovely distraction, can’t they?”

  “Absolutely,” she agreed. “Now, why don’t we try a new design with this dough? I’m getting tired of making pinecones.”

  “What did you have in mind? You know me; I’m always up for an experiment when it comes to donuts.”

  “I was thinking that if we cut them on the diagonal, we can do a fancy braid instead of spiking the dough up. I don’t mean like a cinnamon twist. I was thinking more along the lines of something like this.”

  She took one of the rectangular long-john shaped pieces of dough and attacked it with our stainless steel scissors. After mangling the dough, Emma wadded it back up and put it with the rest of the scraps. “Okay, that’s not quite what I was going for.”

  “Sketch it out on paper this afternoon, and we’ll see what we can do to make one tomorrow.”

  “You’re awfully forgiving of my mistakes,” she said as she started making pinecones again with me.

  “It’s only dough, and it’s not like we have to throw our misfires away,” I said. “We’ll recycle them into fried pies. If nothing else, Bob will be a happy man.”

  “He does love your pies, doesn’t he?”

  “Bob’s a man with simple tastes,” I said. “We could both do worse finding men like him.”

  “But not him, right?” Emma asked as she smiled at me.

  “No, I’m afraid Bob’s on his own there.”

  By the time we opened for business, I was in a decent mood again. I knew that Jake wasn’t anywhere near Raleigh yet, but I couldn’t help worrying about what he might find when he got there. He loved his niece like she was his own daughter, and the drive must be agony for him.

  Unfortunately I couldn’t do anything to help him, I had problems of my own, though they weren’t on the scale of his.

  I had barely unlocked the doors when I was surprised to see Janice Deal approaching the donut shop at a quick pace. From the expression on her face, I kept looking behind her to see if someone was following her, but if they were, they were adept enough to escape my detection.

  “You’ve got to help me,” Jani
ce said as she burst in. “Now someone’s trying to kill me, too.”

  FRIED BANANAS

  This one’s not for the faint of heart! It’s an acquired taste, and it took me quite a few tries to find a blend my entire family likes. It’s not a standard offering, but it might be something fun for you try on a rainy day when you have too many ripe bananas on your hands!

  INGREDIENTS

  • 1–2 ripe bananas

  • ¼ cup flour

  • ½ teaspoon baking powder

  • ¼ cup granulated sugar

  • ¼ teaspoon cinnamon

  • ¼ teaspoon nutmeg

  DIRECTIONS

  Smash the bananas with a fork, something the kids love to do to help. In a bowl, sift the flour and baking powder together. Spoon the banana puree into the flour and mix it all together well. Then add the sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and mix it all together again. Drop this batter into a pot of canola oil (360 degrees F) and turn once when it browns.

  Yield: One; or several smaller pieces

  CHAPTER 13

  I looked behind her as I reached for the telephone to dial 911.

  “I don’t see anyone chasing you,” I said. “Are you sure?”

  “Who are you calling?” she asked.

  “The police,” I said.

  “Hang up the telephone, Suzanne. I didn’t mean that they were after me this very second.”

  I hung up, then drew her a cup of coffee. “Take a sip, draw a deep breath, and then tell me what’s going on.”

  She nodded as she did as I asked. After a few seconds, Janice said, “It’s not my imagination. Someone really is trying to kill me.”

  “What happened?”

  Emma came out of the kitchen, where she’d just started on the dishes. “Is something going on?”

  “No, everything’s fine out here,” I said.

  It was pretty clear Emma didn’t believe me, but she went back into the kitchen anyway. I was afraid that Janice wouldn’t talk as freely to me if Emma was there as well. And right now, I really needed her to focus.

  “You were saying?”

  In a voice that was anything but steady, Janice said, “I was unlocking my front door a few minutes ago when I got the weirdest feeling that someone was watching me. When I turned around, I saw someone ducking back into the shadows, and when I started toward them, I heard a shot.”

  “What? Somebody took a shot at you?”

  “Yes, and I’ve got proof.”

  As I started to reach for the telephone again, I asked, “Did you see where the bullet hit?”

  She frowned. “No, but there was a witness. Someone was driving by in a beat-up old car. He had to have heard the shot, too. It’s not my imagination.”

  I put the phone back down. “Was the car blue, by any chance?”

  “Yes, how’d you know?” she asked.

  “That was Happy Cane. He delivers the morning papers around town, and his car backfires every twenty feet. You’re not used to coming in this early, are you?”

  “No,” she admitted. “It sounded like a shot to me.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” I said. “The first time I heard it, I dove to the pavement and ripped a hole in a brand-new pair of jeans.” I hesitated, then said, “I’m curious about something. What made you come here?”

  “I knew you were open, and I didn’t want to be alone,” she admitted.

  “You could have called the police on your cell phone,” I said.

  “I don’t have one. I don’t believe in them.”

  I dug mine out of my purse. “They’re real enough.”

  “I don’t mean I don’t believe they exist, Suzanne. I mean I don’t feel obligated to be available whenever anyone wants to call me. Those things are dreadful.”

  “Most of the time, I agree with you,” I said as I put mine back into my purse. “But they can be handy in cases of emergency.”

  Janice frowned. “Point taken. Maybe I’ll get one of the horrid things after all.”

  “Here’s an idea. Don’t give anyone the number, and just use it if you need to.”

  She nodded. “I could do that, couldn’t I?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “Should we call the police anyway? If someone’s stalking you, Chief Martin should know about it.”

  Janice took another gulp of coffee, then said, “The more I think about it, I’m not entirely sure I saw someone. It was dark, and there were shadows everywhere. I don’t know how you do it, coming into work in the dark every day.”

  “You get used to it after a while,” I said.

  “Well, I’m not going to. I’ve decided to abandon the idea of offering donuts to my customers.”

  I was glad not to have any more competition no matter how bad hers would probably be, but I was curious about how she’d come to the decision.

  “Is it out of loyalty to me?”

  She barely chuckled. “No, the profit margin isn’t enough to justify all the effort you have to expend. I don’t know how you manage.”

  “Some months it’s a struggle,” I admitted. “How did the police take your news about Peg?”

  “With Chief Martin, who knows? I’m not sure, but I suspect he thinks I’m guilty and I’m just trying to lay the blame on someone who can’t defend herself.”

  “Yeah, I get that from him all of the time.”

  She finished her coffee, and I offered her more.

  “No, thanks. I’ve got a big order to fill. I’d better be going. Thanks for the coffee,” she said as she reached for her wallet.

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s on the house.”

  Janice just shook her head and laid a one-dollar bill on the counter. “With your profit margin, I couldn’t accept it in good conscience.”

  I laughed after she was gone, and the second Emma heard the door, she came out of the kitchen. “What was that all about?”

  “Janice thought someone was trying to kill her,” I said.

  “Who would want her dead?”

  I frowned. “That’s the same question I keep asking myself about Peg.”

  Ten minutes after we opened, the front door chimed, and I walked up front to help our customer.

  I was surprised to see Burt come in, with Marge practically in tow.

  “Good morning,” I said. “What brings you two out here this early? Come by for some fresh pastry treats?”

  “We want you to leave us both alone,” Burt said. “Enough is enough.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  Burt reached into his pockets, but evidently couldn’t find what he was looking for. He turned to Marge and asked, “I can’t find it. Do you have it?”

  “It’s right here, “she said as she dug into her purse. Marge pulled out a note and handed it to him.

  “What’s that supposed to be?”

  “Don’t act dumb,” Burt said.

  “It’s not an act,” I said with complete candor. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He shoved the note under my nose. It said MURDERER in big, black letters.

  I waved it away. “I didn’t do this. Where’d you find it?”

  Burt frowned. “It was in her mailbox last night. Are you trying to tell us that you didn’t write it?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said. “Since you’re here anyway, is there anything I can get you?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t like what you use for toppings,” Burt snapped. “Come on, Margie, let’s get out of here.”

  Marge at least had the decency to say, “I’m sorry about this.”

  “I understand.” I paused a moment, then asked, “Is that new?” as I pointed to her ring finger. She was sporting a brand-new golden wedding band, and a quick look at Burt’s hand showed the matching ring.

  “We got married at midnight,” she said. “Isn’t that romantic?”

  “Marge, we don’t need to tell everyone we see, do we?”

  “Yo
u picked an odd place to spend your honeymoon,” I said. “Aren’t you going anywhere besides my donut shop?”

  “I’m not sure going away is the best idea right now,” Burt said. “There’s too much to do around here.”

  “I still think we should go to Hawaii, Burt,” Marge said. “It’s not every day you get married.”

  He looked at me, and I could almost see the wheels spinning in his head. A slow grin started to creep across his face as he said, “You know what, Marge? You’re absolutely right. Neither one of us is getting any younger. We’ve got some money to burn, and I can turn the store over to Pete Evans until we get back. Let’s go pack. We can be out of town by noon.”

  Marge looked absolutely delighted. “Do you mean it? We’re actually going to Hawaii?”

  “Maybe we’ll do just that. Wherever we go, we won’t be back here anytime soon.”

  “Congratulations,” I said to them both, not meaning a word of it.

  As Burt dragged his new bride out of my shop, I began to wonder why they’d had such a hasty wedding. Was it out of love, or could it have been motivated by a wife not being able to be forced to testify against her husband? Or for that matter, was it so the husband couldn’t testify against his wife?

  Had all of April Springs suddenly gone insane?

  On another front, why would someone leave that terse note in Marge’s mailbox? And more importantly, why would Burt automatically assume it was from me?

  I was still mulling it all over ten minutes later when Heather came in.

  She said, “Good morning. Suzanne, I don’t know how you do this every morning. I got up at five today, and it’s killing me.”

  “I’ve been up since one,” I said. “Would you like some coffee?”

  “I’ll take a gallon if you’ve got it. And how about some donuts, too? Mix them up. I need them to go. I have a big morning ahead of me.”

  “What happens this afternoon?” I asked as I prepared her order.

  “I’m leaving, whether I’m finished or not, and the house is going on the market, as is. This is the last morning I’m ever going to spend in April Springs. No offense, but there are just too many memories here.”

  “I understand,” I said as I handed her a coffee and the box of donuts. Heather paid for her order and left.