Pastry Penalties

by Jessica Beck

  “I gathered as much. What’s going on, Suzanne? I got the gist of it from your end right up until the end. What does the mayor want from you?”

  I explained, “George wants to be part of our investigation.” Before Jake could protest, I added, “He doesn’t want to take the lead. He just wants to help.”

  “That sounds good to me. He’s got good instincts,” Jake said.

  “You’re seriously okay with this?” I asked him.

  “I don’t see that we have much choice. Did he say that he knew where Max was?”

  “I’m going to call him right back and find out,” I said as I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and made the call.

  Chapter 12

  “Wow, that was fast,” George said when he answered my call on the first ring.

  “You didn’t give me much choice, did you?” I asked. “We’ve discussed it, and we accept your demand.”

  There was a momentary pause on the other end of the line, and then the mayor said, “Suzanne, I wasn’t trying to blackmail you into letting me help you.”

  “That’s funny, because that’s sure how it felt on this end,” I answered, keeping my voice light as I said it. I never would have dreamed of texting something like that. I felt that all nuance went out the window when I started texting, and it had gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” George said.

  “After all that, you’re not going to tell us where Max is? Why are you protecting him, Mr. Mayor? You don’t think he’s guilty, do you?”

  “I was a cop too long to try to worry about someone’s guilt or innocence. All I was ever after was fact. If I couldn’t prove something, it might as well not have happened, at least as far as I was concerned.”

  “Then why are you shielding him?”

  Jake looked at me curiously, but I didn’t answer. After I held up one finger to ask him for his indulgence for a little while longer, I asked, “George? Are you still there?”

  “Of course I’m still here. I’m not fool enough to hang up on you. What I meant to say was that I’ll help you without any tit for tat on your part. If you don’t want me to pitch in, I’m too proud to beg or extort my way into the inner circle.”

  Evidently I’d taken my teasing a little too far. “George, Jake and I would be honored to have your help on this case. The only reason, and I mean the only one, we weren’t sure was that we didn’t want to make things tough for you in your day job.”

  “There are worse things than losing an election,” the mayor said.

  “Coming from the incumbent, that’s an odd thing to hear.”

  “The truth of the matter is that I’d rather lose a dozen elections than a good friend,” he said.

  The old dear was actually telling me how he felt about me! It warmed my heart to hear it, especially since it was so out of character for George to express his emotions like that. I was about to say as much when he added, “Besides, I don’t have many friends who used to be cops, let alone state police inspectors.”

  Wow, had I misread that! I took a few deep breaths to collect myself before I heard George laughing on the other end. “What’s so funny?”

  “Suzanne, sometimes it’s almost too easy tweaking your nose. Of course I meant you! Now let’s knock this nonsense off and get down to business. Answer me one more time, and it had better be the truth. Do you and Jake mind if I tag along with you this evening?”

  “We’d love to have you,” I said.

  Jake was just shaking his head, giving up on trying to follow our conversation from my end alone. That was okay with me. I’d known the mayor a lot longer than I’d known my husband, and George and I had an odd relationship, anyway.

  “Fair enough. You remember where my cabin on the lake is, don’t you?”

  “I fell into the water the last time I was there,” I said. “That’s a little hard to forget.”

  “I thought you claimed you were pushed,” George asked.

  “I’m tired of arguing with the entire town about it, but Timmy Braswell knows what he did,” I said, remembering the little scamp throwing out an arm as he ran past me that day to shove me into the drink.

  “Okay. Max should be there about now. He swung by two minutes before I called you and got my key.”

  “You’re hiding him out yourself?” I asked loud enough to make Jake feel the need to shush me.

  “I offered him a place to collect himself,” the mayor said. “He’s pretty torn up about Emily.”

  “Why is that?” I asked. Jake was begging for information at that point, but I couldn’t exactly put the mayor on speakerphone.

  “He saw her with Dusty at the newsstand last night. I told you that it wasn’t me.”

  “You didn’t mention that before,” I said, chiding him a little for withholding information. Some folks would have thought it took a lot of nerve for me to be upset about what I’d been doing to the police chief myself, but that was like comparing apples and oranges, at least as far as I was concerned.

  “I just found out myself,” he said. “I’m telling you, he was devastated by the thought of her cheating on him.”

  “Emily has too much class to do that, and what’s more, he should know that by now,” I said, though that was exactly what my ex-husband had done to me.

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He mumbled something about payback being a bear, past sins coming back to bite him on the rear end, and something about birds coming home to roost, and then he took off. Do you want to pick me up, or should we all just meet at the cabin?”

  “I don’t want Max to see us coming,” I said.

  “Wait for me at the top of the hill,” he said. “We can walk down together.”

  “Okay, but if you get there before we do, you need to be the one who waits for us,” I admonished him.

  “Right back at you,” he said, his voice sounding younger than it had in years. He was clearly enjoying the prospect of being in on the chase again.

  After we hung up, Jake said, “That was the world’s longest conversation I was never a part of. Do you mind catching me up?”

  “I’d love to, but can we do it while we’re driving? Max is at George’s cabin at the lake.”

  “I’m fine with talking and riding at the same time,” Jake said. As we got into the Jeep and started driving in the darkness toward the cabin, I had to stifle a yawn. I was already up past my bedtime, but tonight I was just going to have to tough it out. After all, just because I had a quirky schedule didn’t mean that the rest of the world stopped when I had to go to bed. I’d pulled late-nighters before, and I knew that if I kept investigating murder, it would happen again.

  Once we were on the road, I explained everything to Jake. “Max is the one who walked in on Dusty just as he was cornering Emily. He misread the situation and took off. At the moment, he’s at the mayor’s cabin on the lake licking his wounds, so if we’re lucky, we’ll catch him off guard.”

  “You’re going to hate what I’m about to say, but we really should call Chief Grant,” Jake said after a moment of staring out the Jeep window.

  “I admire your desire to keep the police up to speed on things, but do me a favor and wait. I really need to speak with Max first and find out for myself if he might have committed murder.”

  “Suzanne, we can’t let our emotions rule us.”

  “Ordinarily I’d agree with that, but this is different. No matter how badly he hurt me, once upon a time we were married. I love you with all my heart, but I can’t ignore the life I led before we met.”

  “I’m not asking you to do that,” Jake said.

  “So you’ll wait?”

  After a few more seconds, Jake nodded. “After we’re finished with him, we’ll call the police chief. Tell you w
hat. We can do better than that. We’ll convince Max that he needs to call the chief himself. It will go a lot easier on him if he goes in willingly.”

  “Jake, he’s not even a suspect in Dusty’s murder as far as the police are concerned.”

  “So far, but how long do you think that’s going to last once Chief Grant finds out that Max caught Emily and Dusty together in a compromising position the night before the murder?”

  “I’d say not more than two or three seconds,” I admitted. “That doesn’t mean that he’s guilty, though.”

  “Let’s just see what he has to say for himself once we talk to him,” Jake said as I continued to drive to the lake. “I keep wondering how the mayor of April Springs who used to be a cop can afford a house on the lake.”

  “You’ve never been there before, have you?” I asked. The last time I’d been there myself was when I’d been dropped into the water, and that was long before I met Jake.

  “No, I haven’t had the pleasure. Is it nice?”

  “I’m sure the mice and raccoons just love it there,” I said with a grin. “They must, since they keep getting in and setting up house. Why they wouldn’t rather be outside is beyond me. The place is in pretty bad need of a major renovation.”

  “Still, the property must be worth a fortune alone,” Jake said. “How did the mayor acquire it? From what I’ve heard about George, he’s never had a lot of money. I’m not even going to think about the possibility that he was ever on someone else’s payroll.”

  “George? A dirty cop? No way. I’d bet my life on that. When he was on the force, he used to love to play poker, though. The way he tells the story, one night a buddy of his thought he had a winning hand, but he was out of cash. George did his best to convince him to fold his hand, but the guy thought he was bluffing. This guy offered the deed to his property, which believe me, wasn’t worth nearly as much back then as it must be now. George kept protesting, but finally, the guy wouldn’t shut up, so he took him up on his offer. George won the hand, and the rest is April Springs history.”

  “If the place is such a dump, why would Max even want to stay there?” Jake asked as we began to near the mayor’s property.

  “I have to give him credit for coming up with the idea. I thought I knew all of Max’s hiding places, but George’s cabin never even occurred to me. There’s the mayor now,” I said as I flashed my headlights before turning them off and parking beside him.

  “I can’t believe my banged-up old pickup truck beat your brand-new Jeep,” George said with a grin as he shook my husband’s hand.

  “You had a head start,” I chided him as Jake got a heavy police flashlight out of the back of my Jeep. It amused me to see that George had one that was identical to the one my husband was now carrying. I felt as though I’d forgotten something, since I was the only one empty-handed. “I should warn you both, Max isn’t going to be too happy to see any of us. Is there any chance you’ll let me go in first and speak with him alone?”

  I was fearful for a moment that the resounding nos shouted out would alert everyone on the lake that we were there.

  “I just thought I’d ask,” I said. “At least let me do the talking.”

  The mayor nodded, most likely just happy to be there, but Jake wasn’t so pliable. “Suzanne, I know you and Max have this bond you keep telling me about, but I’m afraid you have a soft spot when it comes to your ex-husband. You have a tendency to let him off the hook, and don’t bother trying to deny it.”

  I saw George’s eyes go wide as he took a step back to get out of the line of fire, but instead of reacting instantly as was my nature most of the time, I thought about what Jake said. Was it true that I cut Max too much slack? After the divorce, I’d barely spoken to him for years, and if I’d seen him walking down the other side of the street while I was driving, I’d have had to fight the temptation to run him down. That had changed though, and a great deal of it had to do with Emily Hargraves. Being with her had somehow civilized him, softened him to the point where I didn’t hate him anymore, and then I didn’t mind being around him, and finally, much to my astonishment, we’d become friends. Maybe Jake was right. “Okay, I can see why you’d say that, but trust me, if he killed Dusty Baxter, nobody wants to see him pay for the crime more than I do.” I glanced over at the mayor, who was now staring at me with wide-open astonishment. “What are you looking at?” I asked curtly.

  “Me? Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  He so studiously avoided my glaring gaze that I couldn’t help bursting out laughing. “Are you two ready?”

  “Lead the way,” Jake said. “We’ll be right behind you.”

  As we made our way down the path, I nearly stumbled two or three times, since both lights were behind me. “As much as I appreciate the offer, one of you really should lead the way. Otherwise I’m probably just going to end up in the lake again.”

  Jake handed me his flashlight. “Keep going. You’re doing fine,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I replied as I played the light down on the path. There were tree roots and rocks all over the place, and it was a wonder anyone made it down it at all without breaking their necks somewhere along the way.

  Once we were close to the door, the porch light put out enough illumination so that I could see the last bit of walkway, so I shut my flashlight off, and George did the same thing.

  I was still out of the porch light’s direct vicinity when I heard an oddly dangerous-sounding voice from the porch say, “One more step and I’ll shoot you right where you stand.”

  Chapter 13

  “It’s just us, Max!” I said loudly into the darkness. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Suzanne, is that you? What are you doing out here?” Max asked, clearly perplexed by my presence.

  “I brought her,” the mayor said.

  “Come on, George. Seriously?”

  “I’m here, too, so you’d better have more than two bullets if you want to get all of us,” Jake answered as well.

  “I’m not armed,” Max explained.

  “No kidding,” Jake answered. “I’ve got to admit that you sounded pretty convincing just then, though.”

  “Hey, I’m an actor. It’s what I do,” he said with more than a little pride in his voice. “What are you all doing here? I don’t want to talk to anybody.”

  The three of us started walking toward the light, and as we climbed the porch steps, Jake said, “That’s too bad, because we need to talk to you.”

  “Let me guess. It’s about Dusty, isn’t it?” he asked as we joined him.

  “Do you really want to do this out here?” I asked. “You should invite us in.”

  “It’s not my place to decide who comes in and who doesn’t,” Max said.

  “That’s true enough,” the mayor said as he walked past Max into his cabin. “Are you all coming?”

  For a second I thought Max might make a run for it, but Jake took one slight step sideways, effectively blocking his way off the porch.

  I heard my ex-husband let out a sigh. “Fine.”

  “After you,” Jake said.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Max protested.

  “Max, that’s a dangerous game you just played. If you claim to be armed, you’d better have a weapon on you and be ready to fire. What if I’d called your bluff?”

  “What were you going to do, shoot me? You’re not armed, either.”

  Jake didn’t have to say a word. All he had to do was raise his eyebrows and purse his lips.

  “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Max said.

  “Come on. Let’s not do this out here on the front porch. Sound carries on the water. We don’t know who might be listening in.”

  “There’s nobody within ten miles of us,” Max said. “Why do you think I wanted to stay out here awhile?” Max walked inside, with Jake and me close on his
heels. I had to admit that the place was a bit cozier than the last time I’d seen it.

  “Mr. Mayor, have you been having help decorating the cabin?” I asked him. “Say, a woman, by any chance?”

  George actually blushed a little. “It’s not really important at the moment, is it? We’re not exactly here to talk about interior design.” Mayor Morris then turned to my ex-husband and asked, “Max, what have you gotten yourself into?”

  “Nothing! I swear I didn’t kill Dusty!”

  “Then why are you out here hiding by yourself at the lake?” I asked him.

  “I needed some time to sort some things out,” he said, pouting.

  “You’re an idiot. You know that, don’t you?” I asked him.

  My words stung him; that much was clear by the way he recoiled. I doubted he would have flinched more if I’d actually slapped him with an open hand. “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”

  “Did you honestly think for one second that Emily Hargraves would cheat on you with Dusty Baxter? She loves you, though I can’t for the life of me figure out why. You saw them together, you panicked, and you ran, didn’t you?”

  “Yes,” Max admitted, looking as though he’d just lost his best friend. “I decided not to do the commercial after all, so I flew back home to surprise Emily. When I walked into the newsstand, I saw him pressed against her, and I had to get out of there.”

  “You decided not to do it, or did they fire you?” the mayor asked him.

  “Let’s just say that it was a mutual decision. I quit over creative differences with the director at the same time he decided to go in another direction. It happens more often than you might think,” Max said, which was his typical excuse when he got fired in the past.

  “I don’t care why you came back. Why didn’t you confront Emily and Dusty right then and there?” Jake asked. “That’s what I would have done.”

  “We’re not the same,” Max said.

  “I thank my blessings every day for that,” I said, “but it makes you look guilty, Max, can’t you see that? You hiding here is bad for everyone who cares about you, most of all Emily. She was fighting Dusty’s advances off. If you’d gone all the way inside, you would have known that. The truth is, you should have known it anyway. Where were you at the time of the murder?” I told him the time frame, but he just shook his head.