Toasted Coconut Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 36

by Susan Gillard

  “No! No, we didn’t fall in love until after the divorce. I thought it was love, but I’ve never seen this side of her. She’s crazy, Mrs. Shepherd. I’m sure she’s going to hurt me,” Ray said.

  “Julie doesn’t want me to know you were an item. Why do you think that is?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you’ll think she killed Charlie. Or that I did,” Ray said. “But I didn’t do that. I didn’t hurt anyone. I wasn’t even at my cabin on the night of the murder.”

  “You were at Julie’s,” Heather stated.

  “Yeah. I was. And we slept through the night, no disturbances. She was there with me, so she couldn’t have done it,” Ray said.

  “Unless she snuck out after you fell asleep,” Amy said. The very words which had formed in Heather’s mind. “Maybe she was still angry that the treasure map, and Gerard Furrows, ruined her relationship with Charlie.”

  “No. She loves me.”

  “She loved you enough to threaten you,” Amy said. “How exactly did she threaten you, by the way?”

  “She phoned me and told me to keep quiet, or I’d regret it,” Ray said. “I didn’t take her seriously at first. I laughed, and that made her scream. She yelled that she’d hunt me down.”

  Heather’s sleuthin’ gene wriggled. Was this the answer to everything? Could it be that simple?

  Had Julie Pole snuck out in the middle of the night to kill Charlie and Gerard? Or just to get to Gerard?

  Heather pinched the bridge of her nose. This didn’t sound right to her, but it had to be the answer. “I’m going to call the police,” she said.

  “Don’t arrest me. I didn’t do it. I just lied about having a relationship with Julie,” Ray said.

  “You’re not going to be arrested,” Heather said. “But you will be taken in for questioning. And you’ll be safe from Julie.”

  Ray’s shoulders drooped with relief. “Good. Okay, then call them.”

  Heather would’ve called Ryan regardless of Ray’s wishes. This was valuable information, and if he was this scared, that had to mean Julie was dangerous.

  “She sent me a knife,” he said.

  “What?”

  “She pinned it to my front door.” Ray shuddered and rubbed his arms. “She’s going to kill me when she finds out I came here.”

  “Wait, didn’t you go missing last night?” Amy asked. “Did you sleep in the dumpster last night?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Heather distanced herself from them and stopped beside the brick wall which separated Donut Delights from the barbershop beside it. She whipped her cell out of the front pouch of her apron.

  Heather went through the motions with her phone, then pinned it to her ear. The phone rang twice.

  “Detective Shepherd,” Ryan said.

  “Honey, I’ve got news.”

  “Well what a coincidence,” Ryan said. “I’ve got news for you too.”

  “I think mine will trump yours,” Heather replied. The words rushed from her lips. This had to be the answer. It’d be perfect if she could solve this one before the weekend. It’d give her enough time to focus on the Tea and Donut Fair 2017.

  “Fire away.”

  “I just found Ray Donnelly in my dumpster,” Heather said. “I need you to send Hoskins down here to collect him. Apparently, Julie threatened him if he didn’t keep their relationship under wraps.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Really. I think we’ve got to go ahead and bring Julie in. She fits the profile for this. I think she’s our murderer,” Heather said.

  “Wait. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We’ll first have to speak with Ray, and I have information which –”

  “Honey, I’m sure this is it,” she whispered, and the frustration at being held back reached its peak. Was she sure? Or had the desperation to focus on the store instead of the case clouded her view?

  “Heather,” Ryan said. “I don’t want to pull rank here, but you need to go by the book on this. I want you to escort Ray and Hoskins back to the station. I have some crucial evidence which we need to discuss before we progress.”

  Heather swallowed her anger. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll see you there.” She hung up. Gosh, that’d been rude on her part – rich coming from her, since she hated that very trait – but she couldn’t bear the humiliation of being put in her place.

  Especially by her Ryan.

  “Are the cops coming?” Ray called out, his eyes peeking out over the edge of the dumpster again.

  “Oh, they’re coming, all right,” Heather said and pursed her lips. What new evidence did Ryan have to discuss with her?

  Chapter 16

  Ryan sat across from her in his office and adjusted the picture frame on the corner of his desk. It was one Lilly had given him as a gift after the adoption papers had finally gone through.

  Heather had an identical frame and photo of the three of them in her office.

  “I’m sorry I had to pull rank with you,” Ryan said. “But we can’t rush in without discussing this first.” He splayed his fingers on top of a dossier.

  “I understand,” she said, in clipped tones. She did understand. She just had to deal with the disappointment at not closing the case in time for the weekend.

  Heather sighed. She had rushed this, and she shouldn’t have. Lesson learned.

  Ryan flipped the dossier open and drew out a piece of paper. “We got the DNA results back from the bone,” he said.

  Heather perked up. “You did?”

  “It was radius bone,” he said and tapped his forearm. “And it belonged to none other than Miss Althea Pole.”

  “What? How is that possible?” Heather asked.

  “It turns out that Miss Pole knew the day she would die. She’d tasked her ex-husband with pulling the plug while she was in the hospital. She was terminal,” Ryan said and twisted his lips to one side in an expression of regret. “This ex-husband buried the bone on her behest, though he didn’t know why.”

  “Oh gosh,” Heather said. “That’s a little nauseating.”

  “Yeah, but it gets more interesting,” Ryan said and slipped out two more sheets of paper. “These are the DNA profiles for Charlie Pole and Gerard Furrows. I’ve been told that the mitochondrial DNA is a match.”

  “Okay, you lost me. What does that mean?”

  Ryan cleared his throat. “I practiced this to get it right,” he said and chuckled. “Apparently, the mitochondria is a cell structure which contains a small portion of DNA. And that DNA is passed from mother to child. None of that DNA comes from the father.”

  “So, if Charlie and Gerard have the same mito-whatsit DNA, that means that they have the same mother. Right?”

  “You catch on quick,” Ryan replied and ran his finger down his nose. “I didn’t get that until they’d explained it to me three times.”

  “Charlie and Gerard were brothers. And Althea had to be their mother, right?”

  “Right,” Ryan said. “And in her will, it states that her money and all her worldly possessions would be left to her son. But now there are two sons, which means that the estate would have to be split between them.”

  “You’re sure about that,” Heather said.

  “Yeah. So it looks like Althea wanted her other son to know that he was her child,” Ryan said.

  Heather scraped her hand through her hair. “Okay. I understand that, but why does Gerard have a different surname to Charlie and Althea?”

  “Here’s where it gets sad,” Ryan said and made that sympathy grimace again. “I did a little research and found out that Althea was a single mother to Charlie. Her ex-husband abandoned them when Charlie was a few months old.”

  “Oh no,” Heather said.

  “Althea moved to Hillside but never remarried.” Ryan shifted the sheets of paper in the dossier. “Before having Charlie, Althea had had a child with another man. But it was during her teenage years. She’d give him up. That was Furrows. He entered the foster care system and grew up in th
e care of the Furrows family. He had a good life, according to Mrs. Furrows, who’s still alive and well in a retirement home up in Dallas.”

  “You could’ve let me help you out with some of this research,” Heather said.

  “I figured you had enough going on with the whole coconut debacle.”

  Heather shifted her tote out of her lap and dropped it onto the floor beside her. She’d hardly used her tablet this week. “So, Althea obviously hated that she’d given her firstborn up for adoption.” Her mind flashed back to the apology in the map clue letter. “And she wanted him to have what she had left and share it with Charlie.”

  “Charlie didn’t take it well,” Ryan said. “As Julie said, he became obsessed with the map and with Furrows. Maybe he wanted to believe that he was his mother’s only child, or maybe he needed money for his business.”

  And by some twist of fate, both brothers had ended up as independent contractors.

  Heather mulled everything over in her mind. Puzzle pieces clicked into place. Gerard had killed Charlie when he’d confronted him. But there was still a missing piece.

  Who had murdered Furrows?

  Heather squinted and sucked in two deep breaths. Only one other person would’ve known the location of that bone. Herman Schulz hadn’t. But the ex-husband, he’d buried it.

  Did that mean that he’d come after Furrows? What would be the motivation? Perhaps, he didn’t want Furrows to inherit from Althea, but then, he’d abandoned Althea and Charlie early on.

  “The ex-husband. Charlie’s biological father,” Heather said. “We need to speak to him. We need to bring him in and find out what he knows.”

  “We already have,” Ryan said and slid the final sheet of paper from his file.

  A name was printed across the top of the page.

  Charles Timber. “Old Man Timber,” Heather gasped.

  Chapter 17

  Heather sat in front of the TV screen and focused on her view of the interrogation room. Ryan’s back was to her, but Old Man Timber’s face was clearly visible. He wore the same plaid shirt he had that morning and wiped sweat from his hairline.

  “Why am I in here again?” He asked. “I gave you cops everythin’ you needed. Didn’t I?”

  “Yes, Mr. Timber. You’ve been very helpful,” Ryan said.

  Timber didn’t yell at him to address him by the Old Man Timber name. Instead, he picked up the Styrofoam cup of water and slurped it down.

  “What’s going on?” Hoskins asked, from behind Heather. “Why are you in here?”

  “Ryan’s interrogating a suspect. The suspect, right now,” Heather replied, without switching her gaze from the screen.

  “That old coot?” Hoskins asked, and lowered his bulk into the seat beside Heather’s. He balanced his forearms on his thighs. “What’s he got to do with it?”

  “Everything,” Heather replied.

  Ryan tapped his fingers on the document in the center of the table on the screen. “I know you’re Charlie Pole’s father,” he said. “I know you and Althea got a divorce and you moved out of Hillside. I know you came back three years ago.”

  Timber pushed back in his seat. “What don’t you know?”

  “Why you killed Gerard Furrows.”

  Timber puffed his cheeks out. “I –”

  “Don’t try to deny it, Mr. Timber. You’ll only be wasting my time and yours. I suppose, if I went to your home, I wouldn’t find a pair of gloves and jacket hidden somewhere. And if I tested them, they wouldn’t come up positive for gunpowder?”

  “Was an accident,” Timber mumbled. “Look – I wanted to help Charlie out. He was a good kid, even if I didn’t stick around for him. He had a good business and a pretty gal for a wife.”

  “So?”

  “So I knew Althea wanted me to bury that darn bone for a reason. And I knew she gave a kid up for adoption or whatever before we met,” Timber said, and pressed a finger to his temple. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”

  That was subjective. He’d killed a man.

  “You followed Charlie.”

  “He – uh – he made me a promise. If I helped him he’d give me money to start my own business too,” Timber said. “I said yes, of course. Wasn’t there for him when he growed up, so.”

  Ryan nodded and placed his palms flat on the desk. “Take me through what happened in the forest.”

  “Went down there cos Charlie told me he’d be down there tomorrow. He said Gerard was ready to make his move. So I went to the forest, and I waited for it to happen. Heard Charlie and Furrows arguing down below. Charlie screamed that the inheritance was his and Furrows’ wasn’t his brother.”

  “What about Furrows?”

  Timber shuddered and rubbed his arm. “He was… different. He was so cold. Like he didn’t care that Charlie was shoutin’ at him. I peeked round a tree, but neither of ‘em saw me.”

  “You had a gun,” Ryan said.

  “Yeah, I’m always packin’. Or I was ‘fore this happened.”

  “Go on,” Ryan said and didn’t move a muscle. Heather couldn’t imagine what look he’d treated Timber with to get him to talk.

  “Charlie’s yellin’. Totally lost his mind. Furrows pulled a gun out of nowhere and ‘fore I could do a darn thing, he went on and shot Charlie in the heart. Crack shot. Couldn’t believe my eyes.”

  “So you shot him,” Ryan said.

  “Yep. Problem was, my hand was shakin’ so much from the fright.”

  “You missed the first shot,” Ryan said. “But you got the second.”

  “Yeah. I just wanted to help my kid. I didn’t when he was a little ‘un. I did what I could for Althea at the end too. She was beautiful when she died,” Timber said, and his voice choked up. “Beautiful like I remembered. She deserved better than me.”

  Hoskins shifted beside Heather but didn’t say anything for once.

  “Wait here, Mr. Timber,” Ryan said and rose from the creaky silver, metal chair. He rounded the melamine table and exited a door.

  A minute passed, and Heather stared at the Timber and his shaking shoulders. He’d lost things he hadn’t wanted. Life was funny like that.

  Ryan opened the door and stepped into the room. “That’s a confession,” he said. “He’s going to be arraigned for the murder of Gerard Furrows.”

  Hoskins squished his bulk out of the chair and rubbed his palms together. “Another one bites the dust.”

  Heather didn’t hide her disgust at that remark.

  “Reign it in, Hoskins,” Ryan said. “This is an investigation, not a food fight.”

  Heather rose from her chair and cast one last glance at the shriveled figure beside the table. He’d lost his donut and sugar-spilling bravado. He’d lost everything.

  She walked to the door and grazed her knuckles against her husband’s. “See you later,” she said.

  Ryan’s soft smile said everything she needed to, and couldn't, hear.

  Chapter 18

  The Tea and Donut Fair 2017 started off with a melody from Hillside High’s marching band. The kids paraded by, swinging their brass instruments from side to side, outfitted in snazzy uniforms with brass buttons and buckles.

  Heather grinned and handed out trays of donuts to her chosen waitresses for the day. Maricela and Angelica had offered to walk through the crowds handing out free donuts as samples.

  Hopefully, it would encourage the folks at the fair to buy.

  “Where’s Lils?” Amy asked and fiddled with the deep fryer in the corner of their open-faced tent.

  “She’s already run off to enjoy the games. She’s taken the foster kids from the shelter with her.” They’d organized a donut eating contest to go with the tea drinker's spree Col had set up.

  And there was much more. A kissing booth had popped up, and a dunking machine where the fairgoers had to throw balls at a target to dunk the nervous contestant into the murky waters below – colored brown with food coloring, of course.

  Heather and Col had pull
ed out all the stops, and they’d been rewarded with a sunny day with the least chill they’d had all winter.

  Eva Schneider hurried up to the front of the tent. “It’s about to get busy, dears. I hope you’re ready.”

  “Ready to be destroyed,” a woman said. Kate Laverne stepped around the corner of the tent. “Did you enjoy your week, Mrs. Shepherd?”

  “Excuse me, young lady,” Eva said, her blue hairdo wobbling at a furious rate. “But I was in the middle of talking to Heather.”

  Kate ignored Eva. “As I was saying –”

  Everyone in the tent gasped. Ignoring Eva was a crime in the Donut Delights world. Mrs. Schneider had to be the sweetest, most helpful woman on the planet.

  “Get out of my sight,” Heather said, coolly.

  “I don’t have to do any such thing. I’m a paying customer,” Kate said and lifted a twenty dollar bill from her top pocket.

  Amy stepped forward, her fists clenched at her sides. “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. And we’re refusing service to you.”

  Kate’s twenty dollar bill fluttered in the breeze. She looked around at them all, the assistants, Heather and finally Eva. “All right,” she said and chuckled. “All right. I wouldn’t want to eat donuts without coconut, anyway.”

  “Without coconut?” Heather asked, and lifted a tub of the stuff onto the steel table, covered by a white tablecloth. “We’ve got plenty of coconut. More than we can use. Why on earth would you mention that?”

  Kate’s feature’s struggled for calm. She glared at the tub of coconut as if it’d offended her. “That was just a test,” she said. “After this, things are going to get serious. This means war.”

  Another round of gasps rang out, but this time, it was because a circle had cleared in the crowds, a few feet in front of them.

  Col Owen had taken a knee in front of Mona Petrov. His words were lost over the distance, but Mona’s tears told the story. She accepted the ring, then leaped into his arms.

  Applause and cheers greeted their happy engagement.

  The mood in the field lifted and Heather joined in with the laughter and cheers, Kate Laverne’s threat and presence both forgotten.