Floured Felonies (The Donut Mysteries Book 27)

by Jessica Beck

  “Why would you look for her here, though?” Grace asked him reasonably.

  It was a fair question, and I backed a little farther into the garage, since Benny had completely cut off our escape. Was he telling us the truth about Gwen, or was he spinning his own web to entrap us?

  “She actually thinks I did it with Lori’s help,” he said. “I realized I’d better watch Penny’s place in case Gwen tried to hurt Lori.”

  “Why didn’t you join us when we were all back here before?” I asked, moving closer to one of the piles of clutter, hoping that there was some kind of weapon there if I needed it.

  “I had to go to the bathroom, and the closest one was at the gas station on the corner. I got back just as the chief was driving away.”

  “There you are!” a woman’s voice shouted angrily behind Benny.

  Gwen West was standing in the sunlight, and I had to admit that Benny had probably been right in his estimation of Gwen’s state of mind. She looked as though she were possessed by demons as she pointed a gun at all of us. “You aren’t nearly as smart as you think you are, Benny. You might have gotten away with killing Greg, but you’re not going to kill me!”

  “I told you she was crazy,” Benny protested. “I didn’t do it, Gwen. Now put that gun down, and we’ll get you some help.”

  “The only help I need is for someone to call the police,” she said. Keeping the gun pointed at Benny, she said, “Suzanne, call the authorities.” When I failed to do so immediately, the gun came back toward me. “I said call them!”

  I reached for my phone, wondering how this was all going to play out. I started to do as I was told, and I’d just begun to dial the police chief’s number when Benny made a quick step toward me, knocking the phone out of my hand.

  Gwen yelled out, “Get away from her!”

  The gun was pointing at both of us now.

  “Shoot me and she dies, too,” Benny said harshly, and I felt the prick of a knife at my neck. It appeared that Gwen wasn’t nearly as crazy as she had once seemed.

  Chapter 21

  “Drop it!” Benny shouted at Gwen, who looked torn by the command.

  “Shoot him!” I shouted at her. I had a better chance of surviving that way, and I knew it. We all did. If Greg got the upper hand, there wasn’t much doubt that none of us would leave that garage alive.

  “I can’t! My aim isn’t that good,” she wailed, and I could see that she was at the breaking point. One slight push and she’d tumble over the edge from reason to insanity.

  “I don’t care!” I said loudly.

  “Do you want to die, Suzanne?” Benny asked, the knife blade pricking my skin again.

  “No, but if I’m going to go, I want it to be on my terms.”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t do it,” Gwen said as she collapsed to the ground, the gun bouncing harmlessly off the floor of the garage.

  “Very good,” Benny said. He sounded pleased with himself.

  I was going to do my best not to let him feel that way for much longer.

  I didn’t have a weapon, but I had something that might sound like one.

  He ordered Grace, “Pick up the gun and bring it to me slowly. Grab it by the barrel. If your hand touches the grip, your best friend is going to die.”

  Grace looked at me with fear in her eyes, but I did my best to reassure her. I squinted to give her a sign to follow my lead and hoped she’d be able to figure it out.

  The timing on this would be critical.

  As she leaned over to pick the gun up, it was time to make my move.

  I’d seen some discarded glass ornaments on the floor of the garage just behind me, so as carefully as I could manage it, I stomped on the one closest to me.

  It sounded as though someone had fired a shot directly behind us.

  Benny, startled by the sound, dropped his guard for a split second and took the knife from my throat as he whirled around to face the unknown danger lurking behind us.

  Grace was quicker than I ever imagined she could be. She grabbed the gun, by the handle and not the barrel, and by the time Benny realized what was happening, she had it pointed at his heart.

  “You don’t have the guts to pull the trigger,” he said as he started for me with the knife.

  Grace fired a shot into the rafters, deafening us all for a few moments. The smell of spent gunpowder filled the air, and I saw Benny’s knife hit the floor.

  All Gwen could do was whimper even louder than she had been doing before.

  “Suzanne, call Stephen,” Grace ordered, and I was glad to oblige.

  After I made the call and we had Stephen cornered, I asked, “Why did you kill him, Benny?”

  “Does it matter at this point?” he asked sullenly.

  “It does to us,” I said.

  “The fool came to me and told me that he was going to expose Trinket! Did he honestly think Calvin was the only one working for the bad guys? I’d been doing the same thing myself. How do you think they recruited him? If Calvin went down, I knew I’d be going down with him.”

  “But why kill Greg? Weren’t you worried it would lead to an investigation of all of you anyway?”

  “I was going to take care of that,” Benny said as he took a slow step backward. Did he think he was going to be able to escape us out the back through that mess? “All I needed was a little time,” he whined, as though he were a boy with stolen toys. “I came to Greg’s place to argue that he should delay reporting Calvin to the authorities, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He wasn’t about to go to jail. His dad served time when Greg was a boy; did you all know that? The image of visiting him in jail made him horrified of ever being accused of doing anything illegal. I spent ten minutes trying to change his mind, but when I couldn’t, I knew what I had to do. He didn’t leave me any choice.”

  “So you shot him,” Grace said. “I’m surprised you came here with a knife if you had a gun all along.”

  I got it then. “You weren’t here looking for Gwen, were you?” I asked. “I’m willing to bet that gun is somewhere near where we found the sled. You must have planted them just before we arrived. Grace, be careful.”

  “No worries, Suzanne. If he moves, he dies,” she said, pointing the gun straight at his chest.

  “You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” Benny asked, clearly deflated by us figuring out what he was up to.

  “What I don’t get is why the Santa suit, and why risk putting him in the park?” I asked him.

  “I don’t guess it matters anymore,” Benny said. Once I’d figured out his desire to retrieve the murder weapon, the fight seemed to have gone straight out of him. “My fingerprints were all over that house, and I wanted to divert suspicion away from it. I found the suit in the back of his closet. Do you know how hard it is to change a dead man’s clothes?” He shuddered a little from the memory of it. “Anyway, once I got him changed, I knew I couldn’t just carry him through town over my shoulders. Greg had told me where Lori was staying, so I decided to snoop a little and see if there was anything over here I could use that might point suspicion toward her and not me. I broke into the shed, found the sled, and tied Greg to it. I figured nobody was out in the storm, but if they were, they’d think it was just a pair of crazy kids playing in the park.”

  “Why didn’t you put the sled back where you found it after you were through?” I asked.

  “I was going to, but then the storm started getting worse! I shoved the sled into my trunk and got out before I was trapped here! I meant to bring it back, but I didn’t have a chance until a few minutes before the two of you showed up. I ditched the gun behind it, and if no one found it soon, I was going to call in a tip to the police or the newspaper that I’d seen a woman with it the night of the storm.”

  “So, you were going to f
rame Lori for the murder and Calvin and Greg for your crimes at the bank,” I said. “You’re quite the prize, aren’t you?”

  “Hey, if I don’t look out for myself, who will?” he asked, trying and failing to justify his behavior, whether to us or himself I couldn’t say.

  “I’ll take that,” Chief Grant said softly as he walked up behind Grace and reached for the weapon still in her hand. “It’s okay. You did good.”

  “I had to fire it once, so I did everything exactly how you taught me.”

  “Did you have to kill her?” he asked as he pointed to Gwen’s body.

  “No! I shot into the roof,” Grace said. “Apart from a mental breakdown, she’s fine.”

  Gwen finally pulled herself together, stood up, and then dusted herself off. “I didn’t have a breakdown.”

  No matter how wrong she was, I wasn’t going to argue with her. “How are you feeling now?”

  “Better, now that the police are here,” she said, her voice still a little shaky. “That was too close for comfort.”

  “We had it all under control,” I assured her.

  “That’s what you think,” Gwen replied. “There was only one bullet in that gun, and Grace wasted it shooting the roof of the garage.”

  After Chief Grant led Benny away in handcuffs, I turned to the women still there with me. “Gwen, I’m sorry I ever doubted you, even for an instant.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Benny may be a cold-blooded killer, but he’s also smooth enough to be able to sell heat lamps in the desert.” She looked around and then said sadly, “I need to get out of here.”

  “The garage? I agree,” I said as we all walked outside.

  “No, I’m talking about April Springs, Union Square, Maple Hollow, all of it. I need a fresh start, and now that I know what really happened to Greg, I’m going to find it, no matter how hard I have to search. I’ll see you two at the station.”

  Chief Grant had asked us all to stop by for our statements, so the three of us made our way there. I couldn’t blame Gwen. She’d undergone one traumatic experience after another, and sometimes a change of scenery was the only thing that could help. I just hoped that she remembered the most important part of it: wherever she went, she’d be taking herself with her. She’d have to change inside, just as she was shifting her surroundings to someplace new.

  Chapter 22

  When I got home, I was shocked to find my Jeep parked in the driveway and Jake at the door. After nearly hugging the breath out of him, I asked my husband, “How did you get back home so soon?”

  “The party was breaking up about the time the snowplows dug us out,” he said. “I heard you’ve been busy.”

  “Who have you been talking to?” I asked him.

  “I stopped by your mother’s when I saw you weren’t home,” he explained. “Phillip told me all about Greg Whitmore.”

  “He couldn’t have,” I said.

  “Why not?” Jake asked.

  “Because I just found out the ending myself. Come on, let me make us something to eat, and I can tell you all about it.”

  “That sounds great to me. I’m starving,” he said with a grin. “Oh, before I forget, your mother has lined up a contractor to start on the donut shop next week. She apologizes, but given the circumstances, it was the best she could do. No worries, she got three quotes, too. He’s not one of her regular people, but the ice storm created a lot of havoc around town, and they’re all going to be busy.”

  “It’s so wonderful that I don’t have to think about that,” I said when I noticed he was grinning at me. “Why the smile?”

  “Can’t I just be happy that I’m back home where I belong?” he asked me.

  “Yes, but something else is going on,” I said.

  “You know me too well. Do you happen to know how they harvest mistletoe in the mountains?”

  “No,” I said. “Do you know the population of Anchorage, Alaska?”

  He looked puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Nothing. I just thought we were asking each other random questions,” I said happily, glad that he’d made it back safely to me, and sooner than expected, too.

  “The reason I asked you about mistletoe is that I witnessed it firsthand. They use shotguns and shoot it out of the trees, if you can imagine that.” Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sprig, holding it over my head and grinning again. “This one’s never been used. Care to break it in with me?”

  It was the one decoration our cottage was missing. I laughed as I threw myself into my husband’s arms. The mistletoe went flying, but I didn’t care. I didn’t need an excuse to kiss my own husband.

  After we finished our proper greeting, Jake hung the mistletoe over the doorway, and then he lit a fire as I rustled us up some food. With Christmas carols playing in the background, the tree’s lights blinking on and off, and the fire crackling happily in the hearth, it couldn’t have been more perfect if I’d planned it myself.

  I didn’t even mind not having snow outside.

  For now, I was happy not to have any precipitation falling from the sky in any shape or form.

  Recipes

  A Nice First Donut

  If you’ve never tried to make donuts yourself, this is a good place to start. These are the first donuts I ever learned to make, and the recipe is one I revisit from time to time. There’s something to be said for some of the more exotic donuts I make, but when a tried-and-true recipe is called for, you can’t go wrong with this one.

  Ingredients

  4 1/2 cups bread flour (unbleached flour will do as well in a pinch)

  1 cup granulated sugar

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon

  1⁄2 teaspoon nutmeg

  2 dashes of salt

  1 egg, beaten

  1⁄2 cup sour cream

  1 cup buttermilk (whole or 2% milk can be substituted)

  1½ to 2 quarts canola oil for frying (depending on the depth of your pot)

  Directions

  On the stovetop or in your donut fryer, add the canola oil and heat to 375 degrees F.

  In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt and sift into another bowl. Add the beaten egg to the dry mix, then add the sour cream and the liquid (milk or buttermilk) to the mixture and stir it all together lightly. You may need more liquid or flour to get the dough to a workable mix. This varies based on temperature and humidity. The dough shouldn’t stick to your hands when you touch it, but it should be moist enough to remain flexible. Knead this mix lightly, then roll it out to about 1⁄4 of an inch. Take your donut hole cutter and press out your donut shapes, reserving the holes for a later frying. The cutters are inexpensive and worth having on hand, but if you don’t have one readily available, two small glasses of varying diameters will do nicely as well.

  Place 4 to 6 donuts in the oil at a time, being careful not to crowd them, and then let the donuts cook for two minutes on each side, flipping them halfway with a wooden skewer.

  Once the donuts are golden brown, remove them to a cooling rack and sprinkle with powdered sugar or cinnamon or eat them plain.

  Makes approximately 1 dozen donuts.

  Apple Cider Donuts

  We like these donuts in the fall when it’s cider season, but you can make them any time of year for the fresh taste of autumn in a tasty little treat!

  Ingredients

  1 egg, beaten

  2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark works fine), packed tight

  3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

  1⁄2 cup apple cider (apple juice can be used in a pinch)

  2 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour

 
1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon

  1⁄2 teaspoon nutmeg

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda

  2 dashes salt

  1½ to 2 quarts canola oil for frying (depending on the depth of your pot)

  Directions

  Heat enough canola oil to allow the donuts to cook to 375 degrees F.

  In a large bowl, beat the egg, and then add the brown sugar, melted butter, and apple cider to the mix. Set that aside, and in another bowl, sift the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in thirds, mixing thoroughly along the way. Refrigerate the dough 30 minutes after it’s all incorporated, then roll the dough out to 1⁄2 to 1⁄4 inch thick. Cut out your donuts and fry for 3 to 4 minutes, turning halfway through. Drain on paper towels, then add powdered sugar immediately, or wait until they’re cool and add icing and sprinkles.

  Makes 8–10 donuts and holes.

  Donut Fluffs

  We started calling these fluffs when our neighbor’s child tried them at our annual Christmas party. The name stuck, and they’ve been fluffs ever since, but no matter what you call them, they are delicious!

  Ingredients

  2 eggs, beaten

  1⁄2 cup granulated sugar

  1⁄2 cup whole milk (2% or buttermilk may be substituted)

  1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour

  2 dashes salt