Pastry Penalties

by Jessica Beck

  Again, there was no response. The place, at least what I could see of it, was just as bad as the exterior had been. The furniture was worn out, and there were several trash bags overflowing with debris filled with the evidence of a thousand poor choices.

  Emily started to go in when Jake reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Hold on.”

  “What if my stuffed animals are inside? I have to see,” she said.

  “Not this way,” Jake replied.

  “What should we do, then? The police think this is just one big joke.”

  “Still, we do it by the book,” Jake said. “Let’s walk around the house and check the windows. Maybe we can see something inside that gives us cause to enter.”

  If it had just been Emily and me, I would have plowed right inside behind her, but I knew that crossing Jake wasn’t an option. After all, I’d been the one to call him in on the case. I couldn’t very well ignore him the moment it got a little inconvenient for me. “Lead on,” I said.

  The three of us walked around the house, but it didn’t do us much good. Most of the windows were covered with sheets and towels or such a thick layer of grime that seeing inside was nearly impossible anyway.

  “Can I help you with something?” someone called out behind us.

  I saw Jake crouch as his hand went to his ankle in an instant. Wow. I hadn’t realized just how fast his reactions were.

  The three of us turned and saw a woman in her seventies wearing a tattered housecoat, soiled slippers, and old-fashioned curlers in her hair.

  Jake stood again, without his weapon, and I found myself letting out my breath. Funny, but I hadn’t even realized that I’d been holding it.

  “We’re looking for Jasmine and Charlie,” I said, putting on my brightest smile.

  “You just missed them.” The old lady cackled before adding, “Four days ago. They went to live with her brother somewhere in Texas. Good riddance, I say.” The woman sized us up for a moment before adding with a crooked smile, “The place just happens to be for rent. I can give you a fair price if you want it right now.”

  “Thanks, but we’re good,” I said. I wouldn’t have lived there on a dare, let alone paid for the privilege.

  Her fleeting smile was gone as quickly as it had arrived. “Then I’d appreciate it if you’d move on. After all, you can’t be too careful these days,” she added.

  “No, ma’am. You can’t,” I said.

  “What now?” Emily asked once we were back in the Jeep. “If they’ve been gone that long, Charlie couldn’t have left the ransom note, let alone stolen the guys from me in the first place.”

  “We just keep digging,” Jake said. “Don’t worry. We’re not going to give up until your friends are safely back with you.”

  Her smile of thanks was enough to warm the oldest curmudgeon’s heart, and my husband was certainly touched by it. “I don’t know how to even begin to thank you.”

  “Where’s Max, by the way?” I asked her as I started the Jeep. I’d been surprised that my ex-husband hadn’t dropped everything to be with his fiancée in her time of need.

  “He’s shooting a commercial in LA,” Emily said.

  “Good for him,” I said. I’d been under the impression that Max’s commercial work had dried up lately. “What’s he selling this time?”

  Emily shrugged. “He wouldn’t tell me. All he would say was that it would be shown only in Japan.”

  It must have been for a truly embarrassing product if he wouldn’t even tell Emily. I’d have to wheedle it out of him at some point, but for now, we had a more important task at hand.

  The only problem was that we had no idea where to look.

  Chapter 3

  As I drove us back to town, Jake said, “You know, there’s something odd about this note.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him studying the ransom note, still safely ensconced in its plastic bag.

  “Do you mean besides the spelling errors and the messy block letters?” I asked him.

  “That’s the thing. I’m not absolutely certain we should be looking for a juvenile after all.”

  “Do you honestly think that an adult could write something that badly?” Emily asked.

  “They might if they were trying to throw us off their trail,” Jake said. “Emily, the entire town knows how much you love Cow, Spots, and Moose. If someone wanted to hurt you, what better way to do it than to steal them from you?”

  “That’s true enough,” Emily said. “But if that’s the case, why not just take them and not bother leaving a ransom note behind?”

  She had a valid point, but I wasn’t about to say anything. Was Jake making more of this than there was, just for something constructive to do? I’d once had a boyfriend in high school whose car had a headlight out. Instead of doing the logical thing, which was replacing the light, he’d checked the wiring from the battery to the light terminals. Only after two hours of mucking about did he take my suggestion to actually try the headlight itself. Needless to say, we didn’t last long after that.

  Some folks just didn’t like having the obvious pointed out to them.

  “Maybe whoever did it just wants you to think that a kid did it,” Jake said.

  “What exactly are you basing that assumption on?” I asked him as delicately as I could.

  “Pull over and I’ll show you,” he said.

  I was getting close to the grocery store, so I did as he suggested and found an empty spot in the parking lot. As I shut the engine off, Jake handed the note forward. “Look at it closely and tell me what you see,” he told me as Emily looked on as well.

  “I see a poorly written note asking for ransom money,” I said dismissively as I started to hand it back to him.

  “Look at the quality of the lines, Suzanne,” he insisted.

  I did as he asked and peered at the note a little closer. I hadn’t really noticed it before, but the lines used to print the block letters were strong and firm, neat and crisp, as opposed to the message the letters conveyed. “It was done with a firm, sure hand,” I said.

  “Good. Now ask yourself something. Would a teenager committing theft and extortion have a firm, sure hand while writing a ransom note asking for money?” he asked me.

  A shadow of doubt began to creep into my mind. “No, probably not.”

  Jake looked pleased by my conclusion.

  “But what does that mean?” Emily asked.

  “I think an adult wanted to throw you off their scent,” Jake said.

  “Why ask for a hundred dollars, then?” she wanted to know.

  “It’s to give the note some verisimilitude,” Jake said. “You can put the money in the trash as you’ve been asked, but I seriously doubt anyone is going to pick it up.”

  “I still have to try,” Emily said plaintively.

  “I understand that, but in the meantime, are there any adults you’ve crossed lately or had any conflicts with?”

  Emily frowned a moment before speaking. “It’s hard to say. I’m not exactly living a life that promotes confrontation on a daily basis,” she said.

  “Think hard, Emily. It’s important,” I said.

  “Let me think about it. I suppose if I had to, I could make you a list. There may be a name or two that might belong on it.”

  “Start thinking about it,” Jake said. “Now, how about Max?”

  “What’s Max got to do with this?” I asked, wondering why my current husband was talking about his predecessor.

  “Think about it, Suzanne. What does Max care about more than anything in the world?”

  “Besides Max, you mean?” I asked him.

  “Yes, besides himself,” he answered.

  “Emily,” I said without a moment’s hesitation.

  “Emily what?” she asked upon hearing her name. She’d
been so intent on going through a list of acquaintances in her mind who might be holding a grudge that clearly she hadn’t been paying any attention to our conversation.

  “You’re the most important thing in Max’s life,” I stated simply and plainly.

  “He cared for you too, once upon a time,” Emily said, clearly trying to mollify me.

  “Please, we’re both long past that. Jake’s point is that if someone wanted to get back at Max, they’d most likely come after you. Can you think of anyone your fiancé has had words with lately?”

  Emily shrugged before speaking. “You know Max. He has a tendency to be overly dramatic at times. Some folks around here don’t know how to take him.”

  “You need to make a separate list of those folks you know of, too,” Jake suggested.

  Emily looked uncomfortable by the request. “Really? Is that completely necessary?”

  “You want to get your pals back, right?” I asked her.

  “You know I do,” she said. “I’ll keep thinking about both lists.”

  “Good,” Jake said from the backseat. “I’m assuming the newsstand is closed right now.”

  “No, my mother is running it for me while I’m gone,” she said.

  “Would it be all right for us to go over there?” he asked her.

  “Of course it is. After all, it’s my shop. What do you hope to find?”

  “I’d like to look for evidence of a break-in, or the lack of one,” he said.

  “What does that mean?” Emily asked.

  I could answer that one for her myself. “If someone had a key, or some other access that wouldn’t require breaking into the store, that would present a very different list of suspects than if the lock was forced open.”

  I looked back at Jake for confirmation, and he nodded at me as he winked. I felt like the teacher’s star pupil. While I considered myself a master donut maker, my sleuthing was purely done on an amateur basis, so kudos from a seasoned pro were always greatly appreciated.

  “Then let’s go have a look,” Emily said.

  “I have a question for you. Who else has a key to the shop?” I asked her as I drove toward Two Cows and a Moose.

  “Nobody,” she said.

  “Nobody? Not even your mother?” Jake asked her.

  “Well, of course she has one,” Emily said.

  “So that makes two. Doesn’t Jenny Barnes come in and restock sometimes for you when you’re closed?” I asked. Jenny was a friend of Emma’s, and I’d heard them talking about it one day not that long ago.

  “Yes, of course. How else could she get in? She’s paying her way through college working half a dozen part-time jobs. I don’t pay her much, I can’t afford to, but she’s a sweet girl.”

  “Now we’re at three. Is there anyone else? Do you have a cleaning crew?” I asked her.

  “No. Of course not. I couldn’t afford that.”

  I had a sudden thought. “Emily, when you were flooded out and had to relocate to my storefront, did you give out any keys to the workmen?”

  She nodded, a look of dread crossing her face. “I must have had a dozen keys made for all of the workers who had to come in and out.”

  Her face clouded up even further as Jake followed up with the logical question we were surely all thinking. “Did you happen to think to change the locks when you reopened the shop?”

  “It never even crossed my mind,” Emily said, clearly about to explode in tears. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? I’m the reason it was so easy for someone to kidnap the guys.”

  I touched her shoulder lightly. “Don’t think of it that way,” I said. “How could you possibly know any of this was going to happen?”

  “I should have been smarter about it,” she said, getting her emotions under control.

  “I’d have those locks changed this afternoon if I were you,” Jake said.

  “What good would that do now? It’s kind of like locking the barn door after the horses escape, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Regardless of what happens with your friends, you don’t want your shop to be vulnerable like that,” he said.

  “Yes, you’re right. I’ll make a call once we get inside.”

  We were out in front of the newsstand, and I parked my Jeep away from the front door, an old habit I’d gotten into running the donut shop. The prime spots were for paying customers. I couldn’t even break the pattern when I was one of those very same customers myself.

  As we walked inside, I couldn’t help but glance up at the shelf where the three stuffed animals usually reigned over the newsstand.

  Their absence threw the universe out of whack for me.

  I could only imagine how Emily must be feeling.

  We needed to get those three back in their rightful place, no matter how silly the police might think the task sounded.

  I hadn’t noticed what my husband had been up to, but the moment we walked in, he went straight for both door locks and examined them carefully. It took him only a minute for the both of them, and he shook his head as he looked at me.

  “Does that mean that someone broke in, or they didn’t?” I asked him as I approached.

  “There are no signs of tampering. I’m not saying that an excellent lock picker couldn’t have gotten in, but considering the crime, I think we’ll have to just assume that whoever stole the stuffed animals had a key to the place.”

  “Which doesn’t really do us much good, does it?” I asked him softly. I looked up to see Emily talking with her mother, Christine, a once-plump woman, now as slender as her daughter, blessed with an excellent fashion sense. Her clothes always seemed to fit her perfectly, and I wondered about the size of her clothing budget. Chances were very good that it far exceeded mine, but that wouldn’t have taken much.

  After conferring a few moments, the mother and daughter approached us together. Since Christine had lost so much weight, she and Emily were beginning to look more like sisters than anything else. Christine spoke first. “I wasn’t sure I should say anything to you, but Emily insists. The truth of the matter is that I was sure it was just a crank call.”

  “What happened?” I asked her before Jake could beat me to it.

  “Someone called here two minutes before you walked in and said, ‘Tell them they’re cold, and getting colder.’ When I asked what in the world they were talking about, the voice just said, ‘Don’t worry about it. They’ll know,’ and then they hung up. Does that mean anything to you?”

  “Someone picked the wrong people to challenge,” Jake said, obviously irritated that we’d been followed, and worse yet, he hadn’t spotted the tail. I was angry as well. It was bad enough stealing Emily’s stuffed animals, but now they were openly mocking us in our efforts to retrieve them. I realized that Jake had been right. We were clearly dealing with someone more than just a disgruntled teenager. “Did you get any sense of who might be calling, Christine?” Jake asked her.

  “No. The voice was so soft that I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman,” she explained.

  “Were there any distinguishing background noises?” I asked.

  Jake nodded in approval, even as Christine shook her head. “I had two customers in the shop at the time, so I didn’t really get a chance to pick up on anything nuanced. I’m sorry, but I honestly thought it was a crank call until Emily spoke up.”

  “It’s fine,” I told Christine. “I’m glad you told us. Did anything else odd happen while your daughter was gone?”

  “Well, four different shoppers commented on the absence of our mascots,” she said, and Emily cringed a little. Christine touched her daughter’s shoulder lightly. “It’s okay, dear. I’m sure you’ll find them.”

  “We just have to,” Emily said.

  “Do you want to write down the names you’ve been considering for you and Max?” I asked her gently.
“After all, your lists are the best place for us to start looking.”

  “What kind of lists are you making, Emily?” Christine asked.

  “Suzanne and Jake think that whoever took the guys might have a grudge against Max or me,” she explained.

  “Surely no adult would do something so juvenile,” she said.

  “We think it might be someone trying to make it look as though a kid did it,” I told her.

  “Why on earth would anyone do that?” Christine asked pointedly. “That just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Stealing three stuffed animals and trying to get a ransom payment for their safe return doesn’t make a great deal of sense either,” I said, “and yet it happened.”

  “What does Max have to do with this?” Christine asked a little pointedly. I got the distinct impression that the future mother-in-law wasn’t all that thrilled about her daughter’s choice in men, but she was doing a good job hiding it from her daughter.

  “Probably nothing, Mom,” Emily said, quickly killing the topic of her betrothed. “I’m sure whoever did this was coming after me.”

  “My dear sweet child, who in the world could possibly have a grudge against you?” Christine asked with a smile.

  “You’d be surprised,” Emily said, and then she turned to us. “Give me a second and I’ll write up both of those lists for you.”

  Emily walked over to the register and got out a pad and a pen. As she jotted down a few names, Christine touched my arm and pulled me aside. “Suzanne, may I speak with you for a moment?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Alone?” she asked as she glanced over at Jake.

  “Christine, anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of my husband.”

  “This isn’t about the stuffed animals, dear. It’s personal.”

  I was about to protest again when Jake said, “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me, I want to take another look at those locks before we go.”

  It was clearly just a way to give Christine what she’d requested. I didn’t mind Jake leaving. Anything Christine said to me would be repeated to my husband at the first opportunity.