Bad Bites: Donut Mystery #16 (The Donut Mysteries)

by Jessica Beck

  “We need to reconvene downstairs,” Jake said. “There’s not enough room in here for all of us. Can you make it on your own, Vince, or do you need some help?”

  “I’ll manage,” he growled out, so we all headed downstairs. As Vince started to move, though, he headed straight for Kevin Leeds before he could get away. “You did this to me, didn’t you?” Vince asked fiercely as he punched the man’s chest with a meaty index finger.

  “I didn’t do a thing to you,” Kevin protested. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “Then it must have been you!” Vince said as he spun and grabbed Nathan’s shirt front instead.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nathan said as he tried to free himself from Vince’s grip.

  “Get your hands off my husband this instant,” Maggie ordered.

  “Why, are you the one who clobbered me? It could have been a woman, and it wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if it was you,” Vince snapped at her.

  “Enough!” Jake ordered, and then he got really close to Vince before he spoke again. “If you don’t get yourself under control, I’m going to tie you up myself and gag you with more than duct tape. Is that clear?”

  Vince bristled a little at the threat, but then he relaxed a touch. “Fine. I’m okay.”

  “I mean it, Vince,” Jake said strongly.

  “Let’s just all go downstairs,” Vince suggested. It was clear that he was still angry, but it was just as obvious that he thought he’d have better luck confronting members of our group later. I really couldn’t blame him. If someone had conked me on the head, tied me up, and taped my mouth shut, I’d be pretty upset about it, too.

  Downstairs, we all found spots near the fireplace just as Jake had suggested.

  It was growing late in the day now, and full darkness was nearly upon us. The flickering light from the fireplace cast ghostly shadows across the room. In a different set of circumstances, it might have been delightful, but there was an ominous feeling to the moment that carried a sense of foreboding, and there was nothing more that I wished for than being far, far away from this lodge prison.

  “I’m hungry,” Nathan said after a few moments. “Is anyone else hungry?”

  “This is no time to think about food,” Maggie scolded her husband.

  “I’ve been wanting to eat for what feels like hours,” Kevin Leeds replied.

  Maggie shook her head in disgust as she looked at Kevin, but he just smiled in response.

  “Why don’t I go ahead and fix us something tasty that’s quicker than what I had in mind before?” Shelly asked as she stood. “We can eat in an hour.”

  “If you go, then we all go,” Jake said. “No one’s leaving my sight.”

  “What if we have to go to the can?” Kevin asked. “Are you coming then, too?”

  “What’s wrong, do you have a shy bladder?” Vince asked him, clearly taunting the man a little.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean that I like an audience, either,” Kevin said, and then he turned to Jake. “So, what about it?”

  “The men will go together, and the women will do the same thing,” he said.

  “Well, I’m going right now,” Kevin said as he stood.

  “Ladies, should we go as well?” Grace asked.

  “Why not?” I asked. “Let’s reconvene in the kitchen, okay? We all need to eat something, and the sooner the better.”

  “See you there in a few minutes,” Jake said to me, and then we split off into two groups.

  Fifteen minutes later, we were all gathered in the kitchen. Camp lights illuminated the working surfaces, but there was darkness everywhere else, and to my surprise, I found myself missing the light from the fireplace in the other room.

  “This is going to be challenging,” Shelly said as she surveyed her workspace.

  “We don’t have to have anything elaborate. Do you have the makings for sandwiches?” Jake asked her. “I’m talking cold cuts, peanut butter, and bread. That’s all we need.”

  “Certainly, but I can do much better than that, given a little time,” Shelly said.

  “Do I have to remind you that we aren’t at summer camp or off on some kind of corporate retreat? Anybody who doesn’t want a sandwich can just go without eating,” Jake said curtly.

  “Fine. I have bottles of water and soda as well. You’re right. That’s probably best. Let me at least set up a buffet line.”

  I could see that Jake was about to protest, but apparently this wasn’t a battle worth fighting. “Okay, but make it quick, okay?” I noticed that he was trying to watch everyone in the place at the same time, an impossible task in the broad light of day, let alone this shadow-filled room. I tried to help, but I could barely keep my focus on one person before another one moved.

  After Shelly was satisfied with her offerings, including three types of bread, every condiment known to man, a nice spread of chips and vegetables, and a deli platter full of cold cuts and cheeses, we were ready to eat.

  I noticed that there were nice plates at the head of the line, and I commented about them to her.

  “Just because we’re eating picnic food doesn’t mean we have to use paper plates,” she said. “Don’t you approve?”

  “On the contrary, I think it’s a nice touch.”

  I hung back with Jake, and we watched as each guest went through the line. When it was just Jake, Grace, Shelly, and me, I whispered, “Did you find anything out in your interviews?”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he said. “Would you mind making me a sandwich when you make yours so I can go keep an eye on them? You know what I like.”

  “I’d better by now,” I said with a smile. “Go on.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said, and then he took the time to give me a quick peck on the lips before he rejoined the others.

  After he was gone, Shelly said, “He really loves you, doesn’t he?”

  “Believe me, the feeling is mutual,” I said as I started building our sandwiches.

  “So why doesn’t he propose already?” Shelly asked.

  Grace nearly dropped her plate when Shelly said that. She looked at me with a straight face as she asked, “That’s a good question, Suzanne. Why hasn’t your long-term boyfriend proposed to you yet?”

  “Don’t you start,” I said with a forced smile. It wasn’t a subject I was ready to discuss with anyone, not my best friend or the lodge owner.

  “Sorry I asked,” Shelly added quickly. “I didn’t realize that it was a sore subject.”

  “It’s not,” I said. “It’s just complicated.”

  “He loves you,” Shelly said. “You clearly love him. I just don’t get it. You think you have all the time in the world, but you don’t. Trust me, I know from experience that you have to grab life by the horns and not let go.”

  “I’m sorry you lost Chester,” I said sympathetically.

  “Do you know what I’m sorry for? That I didn’t say yes when he asked me to marry him six months ago.”

  It was my turn to nearly drop my own plate. “Chester proposed to you? I didn’t know.”

  “No one was supposed to, not even Phillip,” Shelly said with a shrug.

  “Why did you turn him down?” Grace asked her, a question I was wondering about myself.

  “I wasn’t positive that he was truly finished with Maggie, so I wanted to wait until he retired so I could get him as far away from her as I could manage,” she said. “How silly was that of me? Now I’ve lost him forever.”

  As Shelly started to cry, I did my best to comfort her. No one doubted that Chester would be dead now regardless of his marital status, but she did have a point. What were we waiting for? Once we were free of our current predicament, it might be time to finally talk to Jake about our future.

  But it just wasn’t the right moment now.

  Grace interrupted my thoughts by asking Shelly, “Are you saying that you knew about him fooling around with Maggie all along?”

  The lodge owner just s
hrugged. “I knew about it, but that doesn’t mean that I liked it. The two of them both swore to me that it was over, but I could never be sure, you know? In the end, I finally decided that it wasn’t worth fighting about.”

  I had to wonder if infidelity wasn’t worth an argument, then what was? Then again, it was her life, not mine. The moment I’d discovered that my husband had cheated on me, I’d kicked him to the curb, but I knew that everyone was different.

  Grace apparently wasn’t so accepting, either. “You’re kidding, right? You just put up with it?”

  “It’s not as clear-cut as it may sound. I’m getting older every day,” Shelly said. “Besides, we all have flaws.”

  “Maybe so, but that’s a pretty hard one to swallow,” my best friend said.

  “Live to be a lonely old woman my age and then we’ll talk about it,” Shelly said ruefully.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t believe that’s going to matter,” Grace said. “I’d rather be alone than with someone who would do that to me.”

  I wasn’t surprised by my best friend’s opinion, though I was caught off guard by her willingness, even eagerness, to share it with us.

  “Then we’re just different that way,” Shelly said, clearly not willing to or interested in justifying her position any further. “I used to see the world in black and white, but the older I get, the grayer everything around me becomes.”

  I wasn’t sure how Grace would react to that, but she must have been finished with the discussion, because she just shrugged as she went back to her sandwich construction.

  We didn’t talk about it anymore, but then again, we didn’t have to.

  Once we were all gathered in the living area again, I handed Jake his sandwich.

  “Thanks,” he said as he took it from me. He must have noticed something in my eyes, though, because he asked me softly, “Is everything all right?”

  “It’s fine,” I said.

  “Suzanne,” he prompted.

  I did my best to offer him my brightest smile. “This is the wrong time and place for this particular conversation. How about a rain check?”

  Just as I asked the question, there was another flash of lightning, accompanied almost immediately by a pretty impressive explosion just outside.

  “Whew. That was a close one,” Kevin said.

  “Everybody eat up,” Jake said. “After dinner, it’s time to talk.”

  “Are we going one on one again?” Maggie asked, clearly unhappy about the prospect.

  “No, not this time. This is going to be a group discussion that involves everyone,” he said.

  “About what?” Nathan asked.

  “What else is there to discuss? I think it’s time that we all laid our cards out on the table and talked about our connections to our missing guest of honor, Chester Martin.”

  Chapter 22

  “Sure thing,” Vince said sarcastically. “Why don’t you go first, Chief?”

  Jake shook his head slightly. “As the leader of this little session, I think I’ll reserve my comments for the end, but since you seem so eager to talk, why don’t we start with you?”

  Vince looked at him warily for a few seconds, and then he shrugged. “Why not? I don’t have anything to hide.”

  “I doubt that very much,” Maggie Hoff said softly, though I was pretty sure that we all heard her, which had probably been her intention all along.

  “No interruptions, please,” Jake said, phrasing it in the form of a request, though it was clear to everyone there that it was an order, plain and simple, and it was meant to be obeyed.

  “Go on, Vince,” Jake said. “Tell us about your relationship with Chester.”

  The man hesitated, looked at the fire for a moment, glanced over at me, and then he finally spoke. “I’m beginning to realize that the truth is probably going to come out sooner or later now that he’s dead, so I might as well get it off my chest. My problems with Chester were nothing but smoke and mirrors. If anything, the guy did me a favor ten years ago by pulling out of my land deal. It took a lot of heat off me to be able to blame it on him. Maybe I milked it a little harder than I should have, but the truth of the matter is that I didn’t care about him one way or the other.”

  “But you’ve been telling anyone who would listen to you for years that he cheated you,” Jake said, pressing him further. It amazed me that Vince was actually repeating the story that he’d told me earlier, but I wanted to see if he continued to stick with it.

  Vince looked around the darkened room as he explained, “I’m not stupid enough to incriminate myself, but I wasn’t really mad at the man, and I certainly didn’t kill him, and that’s the truth.”

  “How can we be sure of that?” Shelly asked him gently.

  “Just like what everyone else here says, you’re going to have to take my word for it.”

  “What about the last time you saw him?” Jake asked. “When was it, where did it take place, and what did you say?”

  “This is starting to sound more like an interrogation than I was led to believe,” Vince said, and I saw a few of the others nodding in agreement.

  “Think of it any way that you want to, but we’re not going to get anywhere unless you all cooperate. If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t mind answering a few simple questions.”

  I could almost see the wheels turning in Vince’s mind, but he came to a decision with barely a pause. “Fine; if you want to play, then I’ll play. It’s true that I saw Chester at the library on the day that he was murdered. At least Zelda got that much right. She’s your source, isn’t she?”

  Jake just shrugged, not confirming or denying the fact.

  Vince smiled a little. “That’s what I thought. Anyway, after a while, blaming Chester kind of got to be a game for me. I enjoyed watching him sweat, and I never missed a chance to tweak him. That might not make me a good person, but it doesn’t make me a killer.”

  “So, you’re admitting that you threatened Chester the day he was murdered?” I asked, forgetting my place for a moment.

  “Suzanne,” Jake said in warning, the way he said my name stinging a little.

  “Take it easy on her,” Nathan said. “It’s something that I’m sure that every last one of us is thinking. Suzanne just had the courage to say it out loud.”

  “That’s enough out of you, Nathan,” Maggie said.

  “Oh, blow it out your ear, Maggie,” Nathan said in a simple voice that grabbed everyone’s attention instantly.

  “Excuse me?” Maggie Hoff asked her formerly submissive husband. “What did you just say to me?”

  “You heard me, but if you’d like me to repeat it, I’d be more than happy to do it. Maggie, I’ve put up with a lot of garbage from you since we first got married, but I’ve finally reached my limit. If Chester’s murder has taught me one thing, it’s that life is too short to put things off that need to be done until tomorrow.”

  “You’re going to live to regret this,” Maggie said, trying to get some of her cool demeanor back.

  “I doubt it, but even if you’re right, this is something that I need to do for myself. From this moment on, you and I are through.”

  Maggie started to speak again, but instead, she just stood and moved to the other side of the room. Nathan’s smile was unmistakable. He’d just proclaimed his emancipation from a bad marriage, and he clearly couldn’t be happier about it. If nothing else, at least Chester’s murder had given him the courage to do what he probably should have done years earlier.

  “That’s all well and good,” Kevin said, “but let’s not change the subject.” He turned to look at Vince as he added, “Why are you admitting to threatening Chester the day he died?”

  “I never said that I threatened him. I was just yanking his chain again, and he finally got fed up with my taunting. I knew that I’d pushed him too far this time, so I finally decided that it was time for me to back off. I told him I was through blaming him once and for all, and when I left, he was more relieve
d than anything else. As a matter of fact, I think he was still in some kind of shock that I was finally going to drop it.”

  “So you say,” Kevin said.

  “Think about what Zelda told you and see if it all doesn’t fit,” Vince told Jake. “If she told you the truth, then you’ll see that I’m not lying right now.”

  If Jake minded this new interplay, he was keeping it to himself. Maybe he was just as fascinated by the display of human interaction as I was, or perhaps he was just trying to give the killer enough rope to hang him or herself.

  Either way, I sort of wished that I had a bowl of popcorn for the exchanges.

  “We only have your word that you decided to let him off the hook for something that didn’t bother you in the first place,” Maggie said. “I know for a fact that Chester was afraid of what you might do to him someday.”

  “How could you possibly know that?” Vince asked her.

  “Because he told me so himself,” she said.

  Vince wasn’t about to allow her to paint him with that particular brush, though. “I don’t think pillow talk counts, sweetie.”

  “Watch yourself, Vince,” Nathan said, clearly angered by the man’s taunting words.

  “Why should it bother you? I didn’t think you cared about her anymore, sport.”

  “That doesn’t mean that you can talk to her like that,” Nathan said.

  “Thank you, dear,” Maggie said, clearly surprised by her husband’s sudden rush to her defense.

  “Oh, shut up, you nit. I’m not talking to you,” Nathan snapped, and I let a laugh slip out before I could keep it in.

  Maggie stared at me for a second with an angry intensity that was frightening before she finally broke it.

  “Whether your story can be confirmed or not, I’d like to thank you for your candor,” Jake told Vince.

  Kevin decided to chime back in as he turned to Maggie. “You had a reason of your own to want to see him dead, didn’t you? After all, he dumped you just before he was going to leave town.”