Nate turned and seemed to notice me for the first time. His green eyes flashed concern under his dark brows. “And who are you?”
I didn’t extend my hand.
Dad spoke for me. “This is Deputy Donna Vesey, my and the victim’s daughter.”
Nate looked from Dad to myself, then addressed me. “You say you have a suspect? In custody?”
I felt my eyes narrow. “No, and that’s the problem.”
Dad turned to me, slowly shaking his head. “She’s not guilty, Donna. You know that.”
“Who’s not guilty?” Nate asked.
Dad cleared his throat. “My wife.”
Nate took a breath. “Okay, I’m going to need a strong cup of coffee and a desk, then I’d like to interview you two separately, all right?”
Dad nodded. “Let me show you the way to our coffeepot,” he said. “Then we’ll head to my office, okay?” Dad turned to me. “Donna, you look beat, why don’t you head for home? I’ll have Nate call you later.”
I shook my head. “Nothing doing. I’m staying till Nate’s ready to talk to me.”
I went back inside my office and sat down at my desk and tried to refocus on the reports in front of me. But I was too tired. Every time I blinked, a memory would flash before me: Mom and me having words in the grocery store. Over Evie. Velvet’s screams on Wade’s porch. Mom’s lifeless eyes staring up at the daughter who’d failed to protect her.
A cough startled me. I opened my eyes and jumped at the sight of Nate standing in front of my desk.
His amused expression only served to annoy me. “Pardon me, deputy, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
I found my voice as I glanced at my watch and saw it was 5:30 p.m. “I’m well into my third shift in a row, as if that’s any of your business.”
Nate sat down in the chair across from me with his clipboard. “Didn’t mean to upset you.”
I folded my arms and leaned back in my chair. “The fact that you were called in is upsetting enough. I mean, it’s not like I can’t speculate as to what happened.”
“Then would you care to share your thoughts?”
I frowned. “Well, it appears my stepmother had another one of her little spats with my mother. Considering I have a witness that puts Evie at the scene about the time Mom died.”
“That’s unfortunate for Evie if she’s innocent,” Nate said, interrupting me.
I frowned again, then continued. “I think my mother somehow hit her head during her discussion with Evie. But that would mean Evie left my mother to die, alone.” I shuddered at the thought. “That’s the part that makes me wonder. Is Evangeline really capable of such a thing?”
Nate shrugged. “You know her better than I do, but like your dad says, the current evidence is only circumstantial.”
“You know people have been put on death row with less than that,” I said, feeling my scowl deepening.
Nate shrugged. “Who knows, maybe your mother stumbled. The tox report isn’t back yet, right? But I understand the deceased was an alcoholic.”
“Don’t refer to her as ‘the deceased.’ She was my mother, and you weren’t there. I was on the scene and I’m telling you there was a struggle. You’ll find it all in my report along with Clay Whitefield’s photos.”
Nate pulled his pen off the clipboard and began to make notations. “So, what you’re saying is . . .”
“What I’m saying is, you shouldn’t be here. You’re impeding my investigation. We should be calling for a grand jury.”
“It may come to that.” Nate reached over and picked up my report and thumbed through it. He looked up, impressed. “Looks like you’re being thorough.”
“Well, yeah, I’m trying to put together a time line of Evangeline’s whereabouts. But there’s a ton of interviews to do. That’s why Evangeline needs to be in custody before she gets into cahoots with her friends.”
Nate raised an eyebrow. “Do you really hate your stepmother so much?”
I felt heat flush my cheeks. “Of course not. We’ve actually been getting along for a change. It’s just the evidence points to her.”
“Then you’re really worried her friends will give her a fake alibi?”
“Maybe.”
“Then maybe you’d better fill me in on these so-called friends of hers. From what your father said, they’re pretty notorious, right?”
I leaned back in my chair, unsure of how to answer. “Well, ah . . .”
Nate looked at the notes on his clipboard. “They’re all potheads. Correct?”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks again, and I slowly stood up. I leaned over, pushing the palms of my hands onto the desk. Nate looked up at me from his chair, a hint of fear in his eyes.
He might be cute, but this man was an idiot.
I tried to steady my voice. “This is exactly why we don’t need outsiders on this.” I spoke slowly. “No, they are not potheads. Those friends, of whom I am one, are in a cooking club of sorts. They call us the Potluck Catering Club.”
To my annoyance, Nate actually laughed. “The Potluck Catering Club? You mean as seen on TV? What are you, some sort of TV reality show wannabees?”
I stood my full five-foot-two inches and folded my arms. “We are not wannabees. We won a million dollars on The Great Party Showdown.”
“That was you? Well, then.” Nate made a few more notations. “So money was definitely a motive.”
I reached for my leather jacket, which was slung around the back of my chair, and slipped my arms into the sleeves. “Money was not a motive. Maybe Evie was full of spite, but this murder was not about money. Be assured.”
I zipped up my coat.
Nate looked up, surprised. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” I pushed the rest of my papers toward the man I’d forever refer to as “the idiot.” “I’ve been on duty almost twenty-four hours and I’ve had enough. Here are my notes. I’ve already interviewed Evie, and here’s the time line of where she says she was before, during, and after the murder. I’ll leave it to you to follow up with the interviews of her other potential victims.”
“You mean witnesses?”
I was too tired for his banter so I turned and walked toward the door. “Whatever. I probably shouldn’t even be on this case anyway.”
I paused as Nate studied my notes before glancing back at me. “Technically true, but as I’m the lead investigator and a bit shorthanded, I’m not letting you off the hook that easy.”
I caught a flash of a grin that seemed to fade under my glare. He cleared his throat. “On another topic, I know you’ve got tons of boyfriends from watching you on TV and all. But even so, can I take you to dinner and discuss this? I mean, I really do need your help.”
I hesitated. “Nope, as far as I’m concerned, I’ve done my duty. If you need help with finding addresses and phone numbers, ask Carla, the department’s secretary. I’m out of here.”
I scurried from the building and into the cool afternoon air. I climbed into my Bronco and buckled my seat belt. As much as I wanted to go home and lay my head on my pillow, I was going to swing by Vonnie’s first. If it was true that she’d made me Doreen’s sunshine cake, I wouldn’t rest until I tasted one of my only childhood memories of my mother.
May her soul rest in peace.
Vonnie
18
Biting Betrayal
I heard Donna’s tires crunch across the gravel in my driveway, and I hurried outside, motioning for her to pull her Bronco to the side of the house. That way she wouldn’t block Fred from pulling into the garage later.
When I met her on my front porch, I gave her a hug. “How are you holding up?” I asked, taking note of the dark circles under her eyes.
“I’m pretty tired; I can only stay a moment.”
I patted her shoulder. “Come inside then. I’ve saved you a plate of Fred’s barbecue chicken.”
Donna followed me up my front steps, through the front door, and to my kitchen table.
I’d already had a place setting ready for her and hurried to retrieve her foil-covered plate of barbecue chicken from my warm oven.
Donna studied the chicken before looking back at me. “This looks wonderful, though I’m not sure I’m all that hungry.”
“Then let me show you the sunshine cake,” I said, hurrying over to my countertop. I tilted the white-frosted cake just a bit so Donna could see it before I caused the blueberries to roll to the floor.
“Wow, it looks just like I remember.”
I carefully set the cake down and retrieved my cake server from a drawer and set it on the counter. “I’ll join you for a slice after you eat your dinner.”
Donna looked surprised. “Aren’t we going to wait for Fred?”
I walked to the table with a glass filled with ice and a pitcher of water from the fridge.
“We’ve already eaten, so help yourself.”
Donna looked around. “Where is Fred?”
I sat down next to my friend. “He’s on the building committee at the church; they’re having some sort of meeting tonight. I’m hoping it won’t take too long. He’s worried about you, dear. I know he wants to see you after all you’ve been through.”
Donna nodded. “I’d like to see him too.” She bowed her head in prayer before biting into the chicken. “This is good.”
I nodded, watching her eat, and worked up the courage to ask, “Have you talked to Evie about Doreen’s death?”
Donna nodded as she pushed her green beans around her plate. “Yeah, I was over at the house earlier today. I got her statement and created a time line of all her activities yesterday.”
“What did she have to say for herself?”
Donna shook her head. “As you’re on the list to be interviewed in that regard, I can’t say much, but according to Evie, she’s only guilty of ‘caring too much,’ whatever that means.”
I slowly nodded, imagining Evie saying just that to offer proof of her innocence.
“But Donna, what I really want to know is how you are doing.You’ve just lost your mother and . . .”
Donna stopped chewing and stared at me. She swallowed then said, “That’s why I’m here. I wanted to find someone in town who saw Doreen through the eyes of love and compassion. You’re the only one I could think of who would.”
I stood and walked over to an old scrapbook I had on the kitchen counter. “I loved your mother. We were friends.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Good friends.”
Donna pushed her plate back and I placed the aging scrapbook in front of her. “Look what I found.” I flipped through the cellophane-covered pages till I came to a faded photograph of a tiny child with blonde pigtails; her face was lit by the glow of four candles on top of a white birthday cake topped with blueberries. In the photo, the child clapped her hands as a proud and younger Doreen smiled down at her.
Awe filled Donna’s voice as she said, “Is that me and my mother?”
I nodded. “Sure is. Your mom invited me over for birthday cake on your fourth birthday.”
Donna gently touched the photograph face of her former self. “We looked so happy.”
Her finger slid up the photograph to Doreen’s face, and she touched her smile. “She looks like she loved me,” she finally said.
“Honey, your mother did love you. The trouble was she wasn’t so fond of herself.”
“But why?”
I shrugged. “I think there were a lot of factors. She had a difficult childhood, you know. Her mother died when she was only five, and she buried her father when she was just nineteen. I think being left an orphan made her feel she didn’t really belong anywhere. That’s probably the motivation that led her to breach her marriage and to slip into . . .”
Donna looked at me and blinked. “You can say it, Vonnie. The arms of another man. Yes, I know she ran off with the church choir director. Evie mentioned that to me a time or two when I was a kid.”
So help me if I didn’t gasp. “She didn’t.”
“She always couched it in one of her famous backhanded compliments. ‘I’d never run off with that choir director and leave such a precious child behind. What was your mother thinking?’”
I shook my head. “Evie was hurt, and people who hurt—”
Donna finished one of my favorite sayings for me, “Hurt others.”
I nodded. “Evie had hoped to marry your father herself, you know, before your mother captured his heart.”
Donna gave me one of her looks. “Evie’s mentioned that a time or two also.”
I rested my elbows on the table and placed my chin on my folded hands. “Do you think you can prove her innocence?”
Donna lowered her eyes and shook her head. “If I can . . .”
Instead of prying, I stood and walked to the counter to retrieve the recipes. “Here are those recipe cards I promised you.”
Donna gently took them from my hand and spread the yellowed cards on the table. A look of wonder crossed her face as she touched the handwritten words with a fingertip: best chocolate cake, lemon bars, onion soup, pot roast.
She found the sunshine cake card and turned it over, seeing her mother’s handwritten note: “Donna’s favorite.”
To my surprise, Donna’s head slumped and her shoulders began to quiver. I jumped up and grabbed the box of tissues from the phone desk and placed it on the kitchen table. I handed Donna a tissue, and she buried her face in it before she finally whispered, “My mother’s life was such a waste. And here I am following in her footsteps.”
“Now, wait. Doreen was a woman I called my friend. Her life was not a waste, neither is yours.”
“How can you say that? I’ve never settled down, I’ve never gotten on with my life, and if I’m not careful, I’ll end up with no one to come to my funeral, just like my mother.”
I leaned over and gave Donna a hug. “There are a lot of us who love and remember Doreen. But you’re not your mother. You make great choices.”
Donna wept harder, something I hadn’t seen her do since the day I’d seen her weep in the cemetery over her baby’s grave. She was as inconsolable then as she was today. “How can you say that?” she said with a sniff.
I patted her hand. “Well, I know my son loves you.”
Donna nodded. “I know . . .”
“But?”
“I’m starting to care about the man, but he’s still a bit of a mystery to me. It’s like he showed up here in Summit View, all the way from California, raised by Hollywood royalty. I just don’t know what to make of that, plus he doesn’t seem to want me to meet his friend Bobby. He picked him up from DIA this afternoon and they’re going to dinner before driving to Aspen. You’d think he would have invited me.”
I rubbed my upper lip with my index finger. “Is that so.”
“Yeah. I mean, I have feelings for the guy. But maybe our timing is, well . . . off.”
“Meaning?”
“When he was ready to marry me . . . I was . . . well, not even interested. And now, now that I would almost be willing to reconsider, he seems distracted.”
“Are you saying you’re ready to settle down with David?”
Donna looked miserable. “I’m not about to settle. David will have to prove to me that he’s the one by being the man I hope he is.” She sighed. “But I’ve said too much. Do me a favor and don’t mention this conversation to him, okay?”
“You know I’ve never broken your confidences,” I said as I watched as she pulled out another tissue before dabbing her eyes. “Donna, let me cut you a slice of that sunshine cake, then let’s talk some serious girl talk.”
“All right.”
“I’ll meet you at the recliners with plates of cake and tall glasses of cold milk. You relax for a while, okay?”
She nodded and I busied myself in my kitchen, but not before I watched her slump into Fred’s blue recliner, recently updated from worn-out corduroy to shiny leather. Donna pushed back in the chair, kicking up the leg rest.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” I called as I turned back to my work and sliced two thick pieces of cake, trying my best to keep the blueberries in place. I laid the cake on my blue dessert plates then grabbed a couple of napkins and forks. I opened the refrigerator and pulled out my gallon of ice cold milk and filled two glasses to the brim. I put everything on one of my blue polka-dotted TV trays and carried the treats to my recliners. I carefully set the tray down on the little coffee table between the two chairs. “There,” I said to Donna, “what do you think?”
When she didn’t answer, I turned to discover that the poor dear had fallen asleep.
I watched her steady breathing, then tiptoed away. I didn’t have the heart to wake her. But what could I do? I couldn’t leave her here till morning. Maybe Fred would drive her home when he got in.
———
For the next hour, I crept around my house and fretted. I fretted about poor Evie being accused of a crime she surely didn’t commit. Evie had her faults, but murder? That couldn’t be possible. I also fretted about poor Donna and the heartbreak of losing her mother, not to mention her growing feelings for my son, the one bright spot of the day.
And to top it off, I fretted about David. He’d left for the airport hours ago to pick up that Bobbie woman and apparently, he still hadn’t explained this Bobbie-gender-confusion thing to Donna.
When the gravel in the driveway crunched, I hurried to the front window and peered out, expecting to see Fred.
But when David dimmed the lights of his Mazda, so help me but my mouth fell open. Judging from the silhouette in the passenger seat, he’d brought Bobbie home to meet his mother.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Donna was still sleeping in the recliner, so I grabbed the sweater I kept on the wall hook and slipped outside.
David was opening Bobbie’s side of the car. He looked up. “Hey, Mom, I’d like you to meet Bobbie.”
I gently shut the front door behind me and hurried out to the car as I pulled on my wrap.
“No need to get out,” I said as if I was just being friendly.
Bobbie stepped out anyway.
Once again, my jaw dropped.
Bake Until Golden: A Novel (The Potluck Catering Club) Page 13