Goodbye Cruller World

by Ginger Bolton

  “How about where you work?”

  “Of course he knows that. He walked me here after I hurt my ankle in your shop. He’s picking me up here tonight. If you and Jenn are still around, you can protect me.”

  Glad that my phone was in my jeans pocket, I said dryly, “We can all try to protect each other.”

  “Getting to know him has paid off. He’s started telling me his secrets, and he doesn’t realize that I can put two and two together and come up with murder.” She cocked her head toward the front of the store again. “Jenn will likely be half the night with those gabby women, and besides, I didn’t know for sure you were coming tonight, so I already told her what I found out from him last night. He confided that before he retired, he kept a stash of cash in the safe at Stone Drugs, and someone, and he’s pretty sure he knows who, must have watched him key in the combination to his safe, and then that person helped himself to the cash when Gerald wasn’t looking.”

  “Who was the person?”

  “He wouldn’t say.”

  Maybe because admitting that the thief was Roger would be the same as confessing to murdering Roger....

  “How did he know who it was?”

  “He said the person told him, but not in so many words. He said the person got away with stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

  “Why would Stone have kept so much cash on hand in a pharmacy?”

  “I asked that, too. He said he didn’t trust banks. He was lying, I could tell. I don’t know what extracurricular business he was carrying on in that drugstore, but I suspect it wasn’t legal.”

  “And if that was true, maybe the ‘not in so many words’ was a blackmail threat, and Stone had to pay the thief, or the thief would tell the police about Stone’s possibly illegal activities. So, in addition to the cash stolen from the safe, the thief-turned-blackmailer kept the pressure on, and Stone had to sell his drugstore, his mansion, and his expensive car.”

  Suzanne thinned her lips. “That’s my guess.”

  “And there’s no end to blackmailing,” I pointed out, “unless there’s an end to the blackmailer.”

  She wrapped her arms around her middle as if she were trying to defend herself from murderers. “We were talking about motivation, means, and opportunity. Gerald Stone had all three.”

  “Don’t go out with him again, Suzanne,”

  “I’ll stop seeing him as soon as I get enough information from him. Like why, if someone robbed him of hundreds of thousands of dollars, he didn’t go to the police about it.”

  “Asking him that question could be dangerous.”

  “I don’t ask him things point-blank.”

  Ignoring the criticism, which I probably deserved, I gamely went on. “With what you just told me, I think you already have enough information about him. I hope you told Detective Passenmath everything you’ve learned from Stone.”

  Suzanne made a face like she was smelling rotten eggs. “You’ve got to be kidding. Everything I say, she thinks I’m coming up with something new to try to get Jenn off the hook.”

  “It’s not too late to tell Passenmath, especially now that she knows about Gerald hinting to me about possibly providing alibis for each other. And think about other witnesses. You never know what they might have already said that will corroborate what you tell Detective Passenmath. She might even believe what you say. We all need to tell the police what we know so the police can put the pieces together, or the killer might strike again.”

  Paling, Suzanne whispered, “And we don’t know for sure if Roger was the original target. It could have been Jenn, and Gerald might still be after her. He claims he remembers Jenn being inside his store, and she certainly remembers being there before our mother became too ill to go to the pharmacy for her prescriptions. What if he thinks that Jenn saw or heard something incriminating about him when she was a child, and if she remembers it, she can put him behind bars? That would explain why he’s been stalking her all these years, and why he posed as a security guard outside her wedding reception. He saw his chance and took it, but Roger ate the crullers that were destined for Jenn.”

  It was a plausible theory, although not as believable as the one about Roger stealing from Stone and then blackmailing him. I urged, “You have to tell Detective Passenmath this, Suzanne.”

  “I will, after one more so-called date with Gerald tonight. We’re going to walk from here to the Fireplug Pub together. I’ll ditch him and walk home by myself, though.”

  “That could be easier said than done.”

  Jenn popped her head into the office. “Emily! Great. I thought I heard your voice.” She glanced toward the table. “And I see you brought donuts. And no tea, yet?”

  “I didn’t think you were ever going to get yourself free from all those women milling around in the store,” Suzanne said.

  Jenn grinned at her. “Those women are called customers, Suzanne. They pay the bills.” She became serious again. “Emily, after listening to your talk last night, I decided to change our window display. You have such good ideas. Can you come help me figure out what to do?”

  “Don’t take forever,” Suzanne warned. “Making tea is not a long process.”

  Chapter 28

  Jenn led me toward the front of the store. She was in jeans, boots, and a gorgeous navy blue and turquoise sweater she’d designed. “I’m not sure that the antique skis, sleds, and skates are sending quite the right message,” she told me. “Do you think they’re making everything else look old?”

  “No, but there’s nothing wrong with changing the look of your windows just because you want to.”

  “I feel like the antiques are too brown. All that old wood, you know? And they’re scratched up in places.”

  “If you’re not afraid of destroying their value as antiques, you could paint them.”

  “That might work. I’ve been putting clothes in the window displays to replace the ones that customers buy, so at first glance, passersby might think that nothing in the windows or in the store has changed, and they might just keep walking.”

  “Welllll,” I drawled in a humorous voice, “if they’re buying the clothes they see in the window . . .”

  She laughed. “I get that. The displays are bringing in customers and sales.” She opened the front door. The bells jingled, and we went out onto the sidewalk. The door closed behind us.

  I studied the windows for a few seconds. “I see what’s happened,” I said. “When you take out a sweater, you put in a new sweater. Same with everything else. At first the colors were all warm autumn colors, but now you’ve got pastels and primary colors mixed in with them, and it no longer looks as harmonious and enticing. How about going through the store and finding clothes in fall colors again, and replacing the pastels and primaries? Also, Halloween’s coming. How about adding some pumpkins and whimsical gourds?”

  Her eyes brightened. “And the pumpkins I put in now could transition to Thanksgiving, and after Thanksgiving I’ll hang hand-knit stockings on the mantel and decorate the windows for Christmas, with clothes in colors that match the season, and I could even paint the skis and snowshoes to match. They’d look great all white. Thanks, Emily. That’s very helpful, but it’s not really what I wanted to talk to you about.” She glanced toward the window in the door and took a deep breath. “Suzanne doesn’t like that detective from the DCI, so she refuses to tell her things that the detective needs to know. Meanwhile, Suzanne’s putting herself in danger by continuing to try to gather more evidence against Gerald Stone.”

  Pulling my beautiful heathery gray cardigan tighter against a breeze whipping leaves up off the sidewalk, I told Jenn about Stone hinting that he and I could provide bogus alibis for each other.

  “That man has no morals,” Jenn said.

  “I again tried to get Suzanne to stop seeing him, but she says she’s going out with him again tonight, to the Fireplug Pub.”

  Jenn gazed northward, toward the town square and the pub. “She never tell
s me where they’re going. Maybe I should just happen to go to that pub tonight. Chad might be willing to come with me.”

  “I could do something similar. If she’s not working, I could bring Misty, the tall blonde who was with me last night at Vanessa’s. She’s a police officer.”

  “And your father-in-law used to be police chief, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would your father-in-law or your friend know anyone from the Fallingbrook Police Department who’s not from the DCI that we could talk to? Maybe you and I could tell them everything that Suzanne has told us.”

  I’d already mentioned a lot of it to Brent, but hearing it also from Jenn might help him find a way to prove that Jenn did not kill Roger. “Alec’s former partner is helping Detective Passenmath with the case. How about if I call him?”

  “That sounds perfect.”

  I phoned Brent’s personal number. It went straight to message. “It’s Emily Westhill,” I said, mostly for Jenn’s benefit. Brent or his phone recognized my number, and Brent knew my voice, besides. “I talked to Gerald Stone this morning. I told Yvonne about our conversation, but . . .” I was afraid that Yvonne wouldn’t pass the information along to the rest of the investigators, and maybe Brent should know that Suzanne and Stone were planning to go to the Fireplug Pub that night. Brent might want to send a plainclothes officer to keep an eye on Gerald. “I’d also like to talk to you about what Stone said to one of my neighbors. Call me back, or come over to my place if you can. I should be home in about an hour.”

  Jenn thanked me for contacting Brent, and then her eyes reddened. “I don’t think I can take this smothering from Suzanne anymore.”

  “She cares about you.”

  “I know, but she goes too far. I guess she didn’t trust me to have an alibi for Saturday night, and we didn’t get to compare our stories before police officers separated us at the hospital and questioned us. She told the police I was with her in the ladies’ room at the lodge on Saturday night, but I wasn’t there as long as she said I was, and I told them where I actually was. I was . . . well, this is embarrassing . . . I was with Chad. He and I danced a few times during the reception, and I realized that I’d made a big mistake, and he pretty much agreed.”

  And after that, Chad flirted and danced with me. I kept my mouth shut.

  Jenn went on. “After Chad danced with you, he and I decided to meet at his car to talk about what we could or should do.”

  I hadn’t taken Chad’s flirting seriously, and the pain in his eyes about losing Jenn had seemed real. At that point, despite agreeing with Jenn that marrying Roger was a mistake, Chad could have felt that he’d lost Jenn. I couldn’t believe that his sadness was due to planning a drastic way of freeing Jenn from Roger.

  Jenn explained, “After I left the reception with Suzanne, she and I went to the ladies’ room, but I didn’t stay long. Suzanne was still in a cubicle when I left. I went outside and met Chad at his car. He was one of the guests I’d told to park in the staff parking lot to leave enough space in the main lot for everyone else. It was cold, so we got into the back seat, and . . . we ended up kind of making up for lost time, not that there was much I could do in that constraining dress. We thought we’d been caught around twelve fifteen when a security guard with a flashlight walked by, but he just kept going, got into his car, and drove away. Maybe the security guard was Gerald Stone.”

  “Probably. I think Stone was the only security guard at Little Lake Lodge that night. Did you tell the police about seeing the security guard at that time?”

  “Of course. Chad did, too. Both of us, separately, told the police they needed to investigate the security guard. But then that woman detective came along and decided to prove that murders are nearly always done by spouses. She started trying to tailor the facts to make me look like someone who would murder my brand-new husband. Maybe I did make a mistake in agreeing to marry Roger, but I did love him. I still do. I just didn’t realize that I loved Chad more.”

  “The day before your wedding, you told me you’d invited your ex-boyfriend to your wedding and reception because he was one of your best friends. I didn’t realize you were still in love with him.”

  She gave me a rueful little smile. “Neither did I, and I should have. Chad left in his car shortly after we saw that security guard. Gerald Stone.”

  “Did Chad, by any chance, follow Gerald Stone to see where he went?”

  “Why would he? We didn’t have an inkling who the security guard actually was or that he could have harmed anyone.” Her eyes softened. “Poor Chad. After we said our truly reluctant goodbyes, he thought he’d lost me for good. He got so . . . so teary a few miles down the road that he actually had to pull onto the shoulder until he could get control of himself enough to drive. Meanwhile, after Chad left that parking lot, I had the brilliant idea of waiting for Roger in Roger’s car, which was also in the staff parking lot. We’d been planning to leave about twelve thirty, and I hoped that he would stop drinking and come looking for me, and we could go home and pack so we could get to the plane on time and go on our honeymoon. Or if he sniped at me one more time, I was going to send him to the airport by himself, and I’d go back to Chad and start divorce or annulment proceedings. But I got cold and Roger didn’t show up, so I went looking for him. First, I needed to check my makeup. I went through the back way to the ladies’ room. My makeup was a little smeared, but not more than happens to any bride after hours of people hugging and kissing her. Suzanne was still in the ladies’ room, locked in a cubicle. I recognized her shoes under the door. She wasn’t well. I talked to her, which is why she could have believed I was in there all along. She told me we were all supposed to leave the lodge. I went out the way I’d come in, through the back door. Then I walked around to the front of the lodge, and you know the rest.”

  “Has Chad backed you up on all of this?”

  She nodded. “Everything except me being in the ladies’ room before I went out to talk to him, or going back, after. He knew that I planned to wait in Roger’s car, but he didn’t necessarily know that I actually went there. He’s a wonderful person, and I don’t know why I fell for Roger and dropped Chad.” She was nearly wailing. “But because of what Suzanne told them, the police don’t believe that either of us was in the ladies’ room. And they don’t believe us about Gerald Stone probably having harmed Roger before he came out and shined his flashlight around the staff parking lot.”

  I believed it, and I was sure that Brent would, too, after I explained it all to him. I looked up and down the sidewalk. I saw several pedestrians, but not Gerald Stone. “Suzanne told me that Stone is going to pick her up here this evening.”

  “Did she say when?”

  “No.”

  Jenn opened the shop’s front door for me. “If I wasn’t afraid I might miss out on a customer, I’d be tempted to lock up as soon as we’re inside.”

  Although I could tell she was teasing, I said, “The back door is probably still unlocked. Suzanne unbolted it to let me in.”

  “Did you see anyone go up the driveway toward our parking lot while we were out on the sidewalk in front?”

  “No, did you?”

  “No.”

  I pointed out, “Someone could have gone up the driveway before that, while we were walking from the office to the front of the store.” We were both bantering, and not really expecting Gerald Stone to jump out from behind a rotating clothing rack. However, I was extra alert, preparing to dodge him. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and held it in my hand.

  We took our time going back to the office, pointing out the clothes that we thought would look great in Jenn’s autumn-themed windows.

  In the office, the tea was cooling in three cups on the table, and Suzanne was sitting at her usual spot at the table, with her back to the two desks. Although we usually served ourselves from the bakery boxes I brought, Suzanne must have had extra time while Jenn and I were planning display windows and talking about Saturday night
and early Sunday morning. Each of the scalloped glass plates had a cruller on it.

  The cruller on the plate where I usually sat was coated in thick white powder.

  When I’d brought the crullers to Dressed to Kill, none of them had that much confectioners’ sugar on them.

  Chapter 29

  Had Gerald Stone arrived when Jenn and I were in the front? When Suzanne wasn’t looking, had Stone coated a donut with a white powder that might or might not be sugar?

  The only car I could see outside the back window was Chad’s, but most of the parking lot was not visible from where I was standing, just inside Dressed to Kill’s combination kitchen and office.

  I wanted to be able to watch the back hallway and also keep track of vehicles that came through the rear of the parking lot. I sat in the chair where Jenn had sat other times.

  Suzanne jumped up and banged into her chair, pushing it back farther than she’d probably intended. Her face red and splotchy, she threw herself into my usual seat, in front of the cruller that was covered with too much white powder.

  If she made a move to touch that cruller, I was going to stop her.

  Shrugging, Jenn sat in the chair that Suzanne had vacated and pulled it closer to the table.

  I asked Suzanne, “Has Gerald Stone arrived yet?”

  Looking puzzled, Jenn studied my face as if she’d noticed the unsteadiness of my voice.

  Suzanne dismissed my question. “Too early.”

  Who had put that too-white cruller at my usual place? Jenn and Suzanne knew I’d sat there during our other tea-and-donut information-sharing sessions. Who might they have told?

  I asked Suzanne, “Is Chad here?”

  She gave me a look that was one part disbelief and three parts disgust. “Why would men be hanging around the back of a women’s clothing store?” She made a show of staring at all four corners of the room, and then she threw her palms upward. “Do you see them here?”

  “Suzanne . . .” Jenn was obviously trying to tone down her half-sister’s sarcasm.