by Deany Ray
The girl smiled gratefully, then she glanced at Eddy who was gazing thoughtfully around the room. “Would your friend like a doughnut?” she asked hopefully.
“Eddy, we’re about to leave,” Celeste called to him. “Are you gonna order?”
He gave Doughnut Girl a slimy grin as he strutted toward our group. “Nothing for me. I’m watching my figure these days.”
My jaw dropped. Is he for real? After almost ordering everything on the menu at my father’s diner?
Eddy kept his grin on and Doughnut Girl seemed to be watching his figure as well.
I rolled my eyes.
“It’s such a shame,” Eddy said in his smoothest voice, “because everything I see when I look at the counter is very, very tempting.” He looked meaningfully at the girl.
She blushed.
I rolled my eyes again.
“I do hope we’ll meet again,” Eddy said.
Time to go, before he made me hurl.
Celeste seemed to read my mind. She grabbed her cousin’s arm and we were out of there.
***
We got stuck in traffic on our way back to the office. Luckily, I’d remembered to jump into the front seat before Celeste could forget her promise to sit in the back with Eddy. If he made another move, I was ready to take action.
“That Chin-Sun Park seemed nervous,” I said, looking back at Celeste. “I have a feeling she knows more than she’s letting on. Something’s going on at that doughnut shop.”
“I agree,” Celeste said, gazing out the window. “She acted way too weird.”
“What would be really great,” Marge said, “is if we could spot those guys. Or if we saw some guys, at least, who fit the description of the men who carried out that garbage bag.”
I thought for a while. “I wonder if they work there,” I said.
“At the doughnut shop?” Marge asked.
“Yeah, it could be a possibility,” I said.
“And maybe Mrs. Park is covering it up. For some reason.” Celeste adjusted her seat belt as the traffic broke and Marge turned off the main road.
“Maybe we should talk to her husband, too,” I said as I reached into the box of doughnuts. I just couldn’t wait. “Who knows, he might be more chatty than his wife.”
“Something has Mrs. Park spooked all right, and we need to find out what,” Marge said, slamming down on the brakes as she came to a red light.
“You’re right,” I said. “It’s the question of the day: What’s going on at The Glazed Doughnut Box?”
“That’s why you have Eddy.” Our unwanted tagalong spoke up from the back seat. There was amusement in his voice.
I took a bite of chocolate doughnut.
“So you know all the answers?” I asked, my mouth full of doughy sweetness. He probably didn’t know a thing.
“As a matter of fact, I think I know what’s going on there,” he said.
We all turned to stare, even Marge, who veered into the next lane before quickly straightening the car.
“You do?” I asked.
Eddy leaned back in his seat and smiled. “While you were chatting with the owner, I had a look around. People may choose to keep their mouths shut, but their surroundings talk. You just have to listen.”
We waited for him to go on, but there was only silence.
“Eddy, will you spill?” Celeste said, exasperated. “Are you gonna let us in on what you figured out, or is it just a bunch of hot air since you love the sound of your own voice that much?”
“Oh no, it’s real good stuff.” He grinned. “Fascinating information, and I bet the cops don’t know a thing about it.”
“Okay! Just tell us already. What? What do you know?” Marge yelled as she stopped for more traffic.
“I’ll be glad to share,” he said, “if the hot one with the glasses will say pretty please.”
“In your dreams,” I told him.
He enjoyed this way too much. Guys like him loved nothing more than trying to sound smart.
“Eddy, that’s enough.” Celeste’s voice sounded fierce. “It’s your nephew as well as mine that we’re looking after, and I’m worried sick about what’s going on with Lucas. The whole family’s worried to the point that they’ve stuck us with you, so wipe that grin off your face and start talking now.”
Then she yelled a string of words in Spanish that made his face turn white. It was kind of fun to see.
That’s when he began to talk.
Chapter Nine
“A what?” I asked.
“Come again?” Marge asked at the same time.
Eddy sighed, apparently feeling annoyed we didn’t know every criminal act in the book.
“A protection money scheme,” Eddy repeated. “The doughnut place is paying up. There’s some money changing hands in that little shop of sweets.”
There was silence.
“That makes no sense,” Marge said. She slammed on the brakes to think about his words, which immediately led to a full car stop.
Celeste touched her shoulder. “Marge, for heaven’s sake. Will you please just drive the car?”
“Oh,” Marge said, surprised when she saw what she’d done. She started the car and drove very slowly while she urged Eddy to explain. “They pay someone to protect them? What do they need protecting from and who do they pay? Who’d hurt a doughnut shop?”
“Robbers, thieves, and rough guys who beat people to a pulp.” Eddy shrugged. “They’d hurt anyone if they thought it meant a buck.” He let out a sigh. “It’s a bad, bad world out there. Life ain’t always pretty here in good old Springston.”
Celeste thought about it. “An extortion racket? You could be right, but at a doughnut shop?”
“That’s the genius part,” Eddy said. “Nobody would think of it.”
“How would it work, a thing like that?” I asked Celeste.
From the back seat, Eddy grinned at me. “You’ve never had to deal with something like this, right? In your sweet life of chick flicks and picking out what colors to paint the nails on those shapely feet?”
“You want to know how sweet my life is?” I asked him in a firm voice. “Would you call it sweet to find a body in the trash and to break into a house? After which, I might add, I had to engineer a small explosion to save your sorry ass.”
That seemed to shut him up.
“What it means,” Celeste said, “is that the doughnut shop pays out to some of the…rougher groups in town. I’m talking real bad guys. And what do these guys give the shop owners in return? They promise not to beat them up.”
“Gee, they sound like real nice folks,” I said.
“It could be that,” Eddy said, “or it could be that they’re really paying racketeers to act as watchdogs, to keep the bad guys away.”
“To keep the bad guys away?” Marge asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Eddy said. “When it comes to robberies or vandals, break-ins or what have you, these racketeering clowns know all the likely subjects. They’ll make sure that every bad guy in this town knows your business is off limits – for a fee, of course. Just hand them a wad of bills and no one will mess with you.”
Celeste sighed. “To me it’s even worse, when the guys who take your money are the ones who’ll hurt you if you don’t fork over what they want. But no matter how they play it, we need to figure out what exactly is going on.”
Whoa. The subject had left me stunned. This is my hometown we’re talking about.
“So how did you know?” Celeste asked her cousin. “Just from that one visit at the shop?”
Eddy grinned and I took a deep breath. Here it came again: another chance for this guy to tell us all about how he was so smart. I guess it helps if you or your acquaintances are not exactly upright citizens. Excuse me if I didn’t hang out with the robbers and extortionists like our friend in the back seat. I liked a quieter crowd.
“I just hung out and watched, and it all added up,” he said. “The first clue was the owner. She was way too
nervous; she wasn’t acting natural. Plus, wouldn’t you think the woman would take us in a backroom to talk about a murder?”
“You’re right,” Marge said. “We asked her if we could talk in private and she wanted to talk right there.”
Eddy leaned back in his seat. “So I asked myself, why would this woman want to have this conversation out here in the open where everyone could hear? That’s when the thought hit me: there was someone in that doughnut shop that she wanted to make sure heard every word she said. She wanted someone to know that she wasn’t talking, someone who was listening. So, I took a look around.”
“Interesting,” Marge said.
“There was this guy sitting at a table.” He continued with his story. “At first, he just looked like a regular guy, you know? Sipping on his coffee, checking out the paper. But the thing is: he had that paper opened to a page that was just a mess of ads. No one wastes their time with that kind of junk! So, I watched him while you were talking to the owner, and he never turned the page.” Eddy caught my eye and winked.
“That’s because he was listening and watching!” Marge cried out.
“Bingo. He was there to make sure that the owner didn’t talk.” Eddy looked at us and smiled like he wanted a gold star.
I rolled my eyes.
“That guy who was sitting at that table in the corner?” I asked.
“That’s him,” Eddy said.
“Okay, let’s assume you’re right,” I reluctantly told Eddy. “The doughnut shop pays protection money to some shady guys. Do you think that guy reading the paper is behind all of it?”
“Not likely. Usually, the big bosses send someone out to do the field work,” Eddy said.
“This is like the movies,” Marge said. Now she was excited. “It’s like some show about the mob.”
I was not excited. I didn’t even want to think about how familiar our new assistant might be with the mafia.
“So who do you think is pulling the strings here?” I asked.
Eddy threw his hands up in the air. “Their name is not Ortiz, that’s for sure!”
“That’s a lucky thing for you,” Celeste said as she slapped his hand. “I’d knock you upside the head and fling you across a field as big as your stupid ego.”
He shook his head. “You’d think my cousin’s joking, but this girl right here is tough.”
My mind had gone into overdrive, trying to figure out how the guy in the garbage bag fit in with this new info about the doughnut shop. Somehow, it had to be connected with the people who were after Lucas and his friend. And that was not good news. These were not the kinds of people you wanted to make mad. We had to act, and fast. The first step, I decided, was to find out who these protectors were.
Eddy and Celeste seemed to be in the know about how the whole thing worked, so I asked them my questions. “What can we do to find this person, or this group, who’s taking money from the shop?”
“I can tell you one thing: It’s someone new in town,” Eddy said, leaning forward in his seat. “I keep my eye on things; there’s not much of this caliber in Springston that gets past me and some other family members. Most of the real bad ones? I can tell you what they’re up to during any given week, but this…this I just don’t know.” He thought about it a little more. “The family might know something. I’ll have to check in with the other cousins, see if they know what’s up. We could ask them tomorrow at the barbecue.”
“I’ve never heard of this going on in Springston,” Marge said. “Does this go on a lot?”
“More than people think.” Celeste pulled a cigarette out of her purse. “Which is unfortunate. If you don’t pay these guys, they’ve got ways to make you wish you’d just given them the money. Very painful ways.”
“On the other hand,” Eddy said, “if your stuff is stolen, these guys will know exactly where to find it – if you’re on their list of clients.”
“Scary stuff,” I said.
“You got that right,” Celeste said. “Here’s another thing: if your competition pays up, that’s more bad news for you. They’ll harass you, hurt your business, cause all kinds of havoc.”
“Do the police know about this stuff?” I asked.
Eddy shook his head. “I’ve always found they’re pretty clueless. And even if they suspect something, it’s hard for them to trace it. Especially if the business owners don’t talk.”
Marge looked across the seat and gave me a wry smile. “All kinds of ways of making money besides the old-fashioned methods. It’s not like they teach in school: Work hard. Do your best work. Be creative, innovative! Join your local chamber.”
I smiled back at her. “Well, I guess they are creative.”
In the rearview mirror, I saw Eddy nod. “Pretty old-fashioned too,” he said, “when you think about it. Protection money’s old as dirt.”
“There’s one other thing we have to figure out,” I said. “Just who is Peter Clayton and how is he involved? I’ll bet those receipts from the bank have something to do with it.”
Marge sped around a curve. “I know one thing. If the answer’s in his house, I’m not looking there again. Not until Bert says it’s okay. That was a close call.”
“I wonder what the cops found in there after we were gone,” I said. “I wonder what they know now about Mr. Peter Clayton.”
“There’s one way to find out,” Celeste said as she punched some numbers in her phone. After just a moment, she began to speak. “Don’t you give me that,” she said in a sharp voice. “You know I’m busy too, working on a case that you assigned to me. I need information. How can I work a case if I don’t have information? I need some info on the victim.” She listened for a while, then she looked at me. “Charlie, get a notebook out of Marge’s purse.”
I fished around until I found it at the very bottom of the bag. A piece of lemon candy stuck to the cover. Luckily a pen was wedged into the spirals on the top.
Celeste spoke into the phone in a clipped, official voice. “The dead guy. Who is he? Peter Clayton. With a Y? Charlie, write that down.”
I didn’t bother, but we had to let Bert think that we didn’t know his name. We couldn’t volunteer that we’d fished his wallet from his pocket before the police processed the murder scene; that was a big no-no.
“What do you have besides a name?” Celeste asked her ex. Then she paused and listened. “Uh huh, uh huh. You don’t say.” There was another pause. “Thank you very much. Bert, you keep in touch now.” It sounded like a combination of a threat and a friendly sign off.
Then she brought us up to date. “It seems our Mr. Clayton managed a café.”
“Interesting,” I said. “All signs point to him being caught up in this protection thing, too. If Eddy’s theory is correct.”
“Eddy’s theory is correct,” he said.
Celeste nodded, lost in thought. “Bert didn’t mention that, but if racketeering is involved, the cops might not know it yet.”
Marge braked hard for a light. “Maybe Clayton had the same protector as the doughnut shop, or maybe he’s the one who’s extorting money from them. Or was.” She pondered it a while. “Could it be that Peter Clayton’s place was considered competition for the doughnut shop and that’s why someone offed him?”
I sighed. “It could be any of those things. So many ways to die.” I turned to Celeste. “Did Bert say what café that was?” I asked.
“The Urban Rock Café,” she said.
I jotted down a note. I’d heard of the place, but I had never been there. I guessed that very soon I’d be paying my first visit.
“Did he have anything else to say?” Marge asked.
“He said the victim was shot in the forehead.”
“Duh. Like we couldn’t see that for ourselves,” Marge said, “with the hole in his head and all.”
Celeste nodded slowly. “He was shot at close range. He died the day before we found him.”
I wrote down the information. “Which matches what Lucas
told us. That he saw the two guys with the garbage bag one day before we found the body.”
“I still don’t understand why, whoever did this, left the body there for a whole day,” Marge said. “Did they leave it there on purpose to be taken away by the garbage people?”
“That’s another thing we need to figure out,” I said. “We’ve got two businesses in the food industry now that are or could be somehow related to each other.”
“Bert says there’s no connection that they’ve found so far to The Glazed Doughnut Box,” Celeste said. “He didn’t mention a protection scheme, but he might have been holding back. Usually I can tell, though, when that man’s hiding something.”
Even though we were officially on the case, I had a feeling Bert and his guys would prefer to solve the thing themselves. They were not always thrilled to share information – or to see us asking questions at a crime scene.
“The cops, what do they know? Probably nothing.” Eddy chuckled in the back seat. “These racketeers, they know their stuff, and they know how to keep your cop friends from finding out which way is up. You want to know what’s going on? Never ask a cop. A cop’s the last to know.”
“Well, right now we are the cops,” I said. “And if I do say so myself, we’re good at what we do.”
“This time we have to be,” Celeste said. “We have to be for Lucas.”
The car grew quiet as we gazed out of the windows and watched the wind pick up to scatter leaves and bits of trash. I assumed the others were like me: their minds full of questions and of theories.
“I’m assuming that Lucas and his friend saw exactly what they thought they saw,” Marge said after a while. “Two guys came out of the doughnut shop with the body in a bag. I think we have our murder scene: The Glazed Doughnut Box.”
“Why was Clayton there?” Celeste blew out a ring of smoke. “To collect money? To pay up? To confront the owners? Did our victim threaten Mrs. Park and say that he would tell? Is that why he ended up with a bullet through his head?”
“And what about the bank Lucas and his friend were about to…pay a visit to?” Marge asked. “Does that have anything to do with this racketeering scheme? If there is a racketeering scheme.”