I phoned the number that Vanessa had given me and told her that I was bringing two guests to the dinner and that two others planned to come only for the presentation.
“You’re doing a fabulous job, Emily,” she said in a semi-breathless and encouraging way.
The doorbell rang. I told Vanessa goodbye and then walked quietly through the dining room.
Dep galloped to the front door. Those little kitty feet could make a lot of noise.
I tiptoed through the living room. Dep was facing the door and meowing so loudly she was nearly howling. She turned and stared at me as if wanting to know what was taking me so long.
Cautiously, I looked through the peephole.
Brent was on the porch.
Uh-oh. How was I going to prevent myself from telling him that I’d been meeting with other women—at least one of whom the police suspected of murder—to try to figure out who killed Roger?
I opened the door and tried to appear welcoming as I invited him in. “Have you eaten?” I demanded.
He picked Dep up and gave her a kiss. “Have you?”
“Yes, but I asked you.”
“I had enough.”
“Whatever that means. Come on.” I led him, still carrying Dep, toward the kitchen. “I had a salad and can make you one, too, or if you want to wait, I can cook a frozen lasagna. I didn’t bring any donuts home, sorry.”
“I grabbed a sandwich, but a salad would be nice, and the donuts can wait.” Dep squirmed. He put her down.
I didn’t ask him what week or month he’d grabbed the alleged sandwich.
I made a salad for Brent and put it on the island for him, then sat on the stool beside his. Dep jumped onto my lap, stretched, and put her front paws on Brent’s leg while her back feet were still on mine. Luckily, Brent and I were both wearing jeans, so the claws Dep inserted to steady herself didn’t hurt, much.
I wondered why Brent had dropped in. Maybe he had questions about Roger’s murder, but the jeans usually meant he wasn’t on duty. Dep scrambled up to his shoulders, rubbed her face against his ear, and purred.
Brent said nothing, as if he was waiting for me to speak, like maybe confess I’d been spending time with potential murder suspects.
I had to break the silence, or I might actually confess it, which could make Brent tell me to quit, which I didn’t want to do until I learned more. Besides, I needed to help Jenn convince Suzanne to stop going out with Gerald Stone, even for what she called information-gathering sessions. I asked Brent, “Did you talk to Jenn about her story of Gerald Stone trying to poison Roger years ago?”
“I did. Before that, I talked to one of Stone’s employees from when Roger worked there. She remembered Roger, and corroborated that Stone baked cookies and brownies for his staff. She was on a diet, though, and didn’t eat any of them, and she didn’t know if other employees did. When I told Jenn all of that, she said that Roger had become suspicious of Stone, and was afraid that Stone had caught him sleuthing, and Stone had tried to poison Roger. Then Roger quit his job and fled the area.”
“ ‘Fled’? Did Jenn say that?”
“That was my word, not hers.”
“You sound like you think Roger did something criminal.”
“Do I?” He finished the salad and thanked me.
Dep slithered off his shoulders. He caught her in his arms. She lay on her back, tilted her head until it was almost upside down, and blinked up at me as if attempting to inform me that Brent was supposed to visit us every evening.
“Maybe Roger was breaking laws,” I suggested. “Maybe Roger, not Gerald, was the one selling prescription drugs illegally. Jenn said that Roger was wealthy because of inheriting from, as she put it, a ‘distant relative.’ Her lack of detail makes me wonder if the story was true. Maybe Roger didn’t inherit except from his parents, and he ran through that money quickly. Maybe he was a drug dealer, stealing painkillers from his boss, Stone, and selling them on the street.”
“Mmp.”
Interpreting Brent’s response as a suggestion to come up with more theories, I stared back into his watchful eyes. Tom had told me that Gerald Stone had been living beyond his apparent means, and therefore Tom had suspected that Gerald was illegally peddling prescription drugs. “Could Roger have become wealthy through blackmail?” I bopped my forehead with a fist. “That could be it! Maybe Roger was blackmailing scads of people. Any one of them might have killed him.” I pulled at my curls. “How can you stand being a detective? So many culprits, so many clues, so little time.”
“We take it step by step. And don’t forget that Yvonne Passenmath is the lead detective on this case. She has other help besides me.”
I tapped my fingers on the granite countertop. “Gerald Stone retired, sold his pharmacy, sold his house and his car, downsized to an apartment, and became a part-time security guard. Could he have sold all of those things to meet Roger’s blackmail demands?”
“We’d need proof of blackmail.”
“You didn’t find any evidence of it among Roger’s things? Like large deposits to his bank accounts?”
“Did Roger strike you as the type to blackmail someone and deposit the proceeds in a way that left a paper or digital trail?”
“I talked to him only briefly a couple of times on Saturday night, so I’m not sure how well he would cover up any criminal activities. From what I saw of him, he was mean and self-centered, and also verbally abusive, particularly to his new bride.”
“Is that all?”
“Probably not. Let me guess. Passenmath thinks that Jenn suddenly snapped on Saturday night and did him in. And Jenn just happened to have a supply of arsenic on hand, maybe tucked into her bouquet or the pockets that you said were in her gown, in case she saw a chance to use it.” I folded my arms. “Jenn didn’t have to marry him, and she wasn’t going to have to stay married to him if she changed her mind. Roger’s murder wasn’t an impulse. It had to be pre-planned. Jenn didn’t need to go to such extremes, especially in a public place. She could have found a much less conspicuous method of doing him in later, in the privacy of their own home.”
Brent was grinning.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t you agree?”
“I like watching you argue with yourself. You really should join the force, you know. You could be carrying on these arguments with yourself all day every day, and we’d all applaud when you solved the case.”
I grabbed Dep out of his arms. “Give me back my cat.”
He laughed, stood up, and smiled down at us. “I should go. If you think of anything else, let me know.”
“Okay.” Carrying Dep, I accompanied him to the door.
He gave my shoulders a quick squeeze. “G’night, Em.”
With Dep in my arms, I couldn’t hug him back. I let him out and locked the door.
I had managed not to confess to my meetings with Jenn and Suzanne or to the next night’s presentation at Vanessa Legghaupt’s studio. I told myself the latter was because only females were invited to the presentation.
The truth was that I didn’t want him to think I was interfering in his investigation.
Because, maybe, I was.
But I wasn’t exactly keeping the presentation a secret. Misty was one of Brent’s colleagues in the police department, and I’d invited her to it. Carrying Dep upstairs, I murmured, “I can go to bed with a clear conscience.”
“Mmp,” Dep said.
Chapter 22
The next morning, Dep allowed me a few extra moments of sleep, but she could have given me more. Our shop didn’t open until ten on Sundays.
Shortly before nine, Dep and I walked at Dep’s chosen stop-and-go pace toward Deputy Donut. I muttered, “I should have written a speech for tonight.”
Tail straight up, my cat pranced as far ahead of me as her leash would allow.
“You’re right,” I said. “You never prepare speeches ahead of time. Why should I?” Probably because I wasn’t a cat. But Dep was too polite, or s
omething, to mention it.
Gerald Stone didn’t come in, and neither did Suzanne, which wasn’t surprising, since the shop she and Jenn owned wouldn’t open until noon.
Shortly after noon, I visited Dep in the office and peeked out the windows. I didn’t necessarily expect to see Suzanne, and I didn’t. I phoned Jenn. “Did Suzanne go out with Gerald Stone last night?”
“Yes. She called to tell me she got home safely to her apartment. She wouldn’t tell me what she learned. She’s not coming in until later. She said she’ll update us tonight after your presentation.”
Maybe I would be able to include Misty in that meeting. Suzanne was going to have to tell the police what she’d learned about Gerald Stone, preferably sooner rather than later.
That afternoon, when I wasn’t serving customers, I joined Tom in the kitchen. Rolling dough and decorating donuts, the two of us brainstormed ideas for my speech. We’d planned Deputy Donut together, and no one could have worked harder to make it succeed than he had.
I told Tom about Vanessa’s restrictions on donuts. Tom was always happy to take on challenges. We created and baked gluten- and fat-free mini-donuts sweetened with honey. When they were cool enough, we drizzled carob glaze on some of them and left the others plain. His eyes twinkled. “Tell this life coach woman that you’re always thinking of new ways to promote our store and our products, and this is one of them.”
The rest of the day, I thought about—and frequently discarded—what I would say.
Misty was apparently on late-night shifts. She and Houlihan didn’t come in. Scott did, with other firefighters. They ordered large raised donuts frosted with chocolate fudge.
Scott asked me, “What’s today’s coffee?”
“It’s a light roast from the Andes in Bolivia. It’s low acid with fruity and nutty hints.”
“I’d like that,” Scott said.
Beside him, a firefighter piped up. “Of course he would, if it’s nutty.”
“And only lightly roasted,” I added.
Scott laughed.
I brought them each one of our tiny health-food donuts to try. They said they liked them, but they were too small.
After we closed for the evening, Tom said he didn’t mind cleaning up. “You’re going to spend your evening promoting our store, Emily.”
I quickly took Dep home and left her there with food and water. I drove my own car back to Deputy Donut, parked it in the lot behind the store, and arrived inside in time to help Tom tidy and decide what supplies to order.
We filled a couple of bakery boxes with the health-food donuts. I put the boxes, a stack of brochures, my Deputy Donut cap, and a clean apron inside a cardboard carton and closed the flaps. I would not open the carton until right before my speech.
Tom accompanied me and the carton to the fun 1950 Ford in our garage. “Don’t let anyone poison your food or drink, Emily.”
“I’ll fill up on donuts instead.”
“Not if someone dips them in what looks like powdered sugar.”
I laughed. “It won’t be sugar. These life coach ladies sweeten with honey.”
“Don’t let them dip them in anything.” He waved, and I drove off.
Glancing at Fallingbrook’s architecture as I drove, I could see how the town had spread since its early days as a mining and timber outpost. Around the time that log buildings were being replaced by larger brick ones, tourists began arriving by rail to visit the waterfall on the Fallingbrook River and the many other falls, streams, creeks, rivers, and lakes in the nearby wilderness. By the middle of the eighteen hundreds, a thriving downtown surrounded Fallingbrook’s grassy central square. Deputy Donut and my residential neighborhood were built in the late eighteen hundreds, around the south and west edges of the original center of town.
After that, the village expanded southward. I drove south, down Wisconsin Street, to a section of the street that had been constructed in the 1930s and was wide enough to accommodate the automobiles of that era plus angle parking. Vanessa’s studio was in a long row of two-story buildings with big windows in front. I could have walked to her studio from Deputy Donut or my house if I’d wanted to spend a half hour carrying a lightweight but awkward carton.
Since I couldn’t take the car inside as an example of Deputy Donut’s branding, I parked in front of Vanessa’s studio where, I hoped, many of the audience members would notice the car as they arrived.
I got out, grabbed my carton, and shoved the door closed with a hip.
Halfway down the block, Misty and Samantha were walking toward me. Misty was in jeans and a purple sweater. With her blond hair down, she didn’t look like a police officer, except for her perfect posture and the way she was obviously aware of her surroundings. Samantha came up almost to Misty’s shoulder. A pink jacket over her black slacks and turtleneck went with the streaks in her dark brown curls. All three of us were wearing running shoes. I wasn’t sure about the other two, but I was hoping we wouldn’t have to run from anything.
We did run, though, to each other for hugs, one-armed in my case. They both offered to carry the carton. I refused to hand it over. “It’s not heavy.”
Misty asked, “What’s in it?”
“A surprise.”
“A good one, I hope.”
I put on a show of great solemnity. “I need props for my presentation.”
She looked down at my hatless head. “Let me guess. You’re bringing one of your funny hats.”
“Funny,” I complained, acting wounded. “It’s just like a police hat.”
“Right. Ha.”
Samantha scolded, “Be serious for a second, you two. Are we actually going to eat with these ladies? I’d never hear the end of it from my buds at work if they had to bring an ambulance for me.”
Misty suddenly became a serious law officer. “Let’s pay attention to how the food is served. If someone is bringing us food from who-knows-where, we won’t trust it. But if we can see the food being served, and everyone is being served from the same cooking pot, then the only way we’re going to be poisoned is if everyone else is.”
Samantha nodded slowly. “That’s very reassuring, Misty. My buds will need to bring an ambu-bus.”
Misty responded, “We could simply not eat anything.”
Samantha wrapped her arms around her middle. “I didn’t have time for lunch.”
I suggested, “How about this? If we decide that the food is okay, we can eat it, but we will not leave our plates or cups unattended. If there’s any possibility that someone has added anything to our food or drink, we won’t touch it.”
Misty looked off into the distance beyond me. “I suppose we can be vigilant enough to be safe.”
“Look at it this way,” Samantha contributed. “If anyone gets poisoned tonight, the police are going to suspect the women running this thing of poisoning Roger Banchen Sunday morning.”
Misty opened her eyes wide in apparent, and obviously fake, astonishment. “Great. That case will be closed, and we’ll all be dead.”
Samantha retorted, “We’ll be revived in the ambu-bus. By hot EMTs.”
Misty laughed. “I can hardly wait.”
“Let’s watch each other,” I suggested, “for signals.” Alec and I had had one. If one of us brushed hair away from our forehead and then tugged hard at an earlobe, it meant “rescue me.” It was handy at parties when one of us was stranded in the corner with someone droning on and on about their great-aunt’s shin splints. “How about this?” I suggested. “If for any reason, you think the meal is dangerous, rest a wrist on the top of your head until the other two notice, and then none of us will eat or drink a thing.”
Misty protested. “You and your signs and signals, Emily. If there’s obvious danger, I hope that any of us will announce that fact and phone for help.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll do that, too, but I’m not going to yell in front of our hostesses, ‘Hey, I think the food might be safe!’ ”
“Just wrinkle
your nose like a rabbit if you think it’s safe,” Misty said.
Samantha laughed.
I agreed, “Okay, if you two promise to do it, too.” We’d been standing outside Vanessa’s studio long enough that if anyone saw us, they might wonder what was wrong, especially when Samantha and I practiced wiggling our noses. Luckily, no one, not even Vanessa’s clients, came along.
Samantha turned and read aloud the sign on Vanessa’s door. “ ‘A Leg Up for Hope—The Legghaupt Life Coach Method.’ ” She paused and then dropped her punch line. “Is this Legghaupt woman a life coach or a dog trainer?”
Misty and I burst out laughing.
Suddenly I needed to restrain myself.
Vanessa Legghaupt was heading toward the other side of the glass door. I wondered if the smile on her face would disappear if she knew why we had such big ones on ours.
Chapter 23
Vanessa opened the door. “I see you brought your friends, Emily. Excellent. So glad you could join us.” She handed Misty and Samantha each a business card. “I’ll give you all a tour of the premises.” She pointed toward a large room to our left, the room with the wall-to-wall show window next to the sidewalk. “We have this exquisite boutique where people can purchase books, yoga mats, exercise clothes, and items that inspire, like lovely stones with motivating words and messages carved in them. Our large meeting room is in back. We can go down this long hallway . . .” Gracefully, she extended one arm, palm upward and opening like a water lily, toward a narrow corridor sandwiched between the boutique and what appeared to be a closed stairway to the second floor. “Or we can go through the boutique and my office. Come, I’ll show you.”
She ushered us into the boutique. She was a life coach who owned a boutique. Was that another form of goal achievement through shopping? I had to admit that shopping accomplished a lot of my goals. Whenever I needed a quart of milk or a new chair or a pretty sweater, I went shopping.
The boutique smelled like potpourri. Vanessa led us past a rack of handwoven garments and a display counter filled with jewelry made from chunky metals. Next to a shelf of greeting cards decorated with feathers and dried flowers, we rounded the sales counter. Vanessa opened a door behind it and waved us through.
Goodbye Cruller World Page 19