Dark Drizzles

by Jessica Beck

  JESSICA BECK

  THE DONUT MYSTERIES, BOOK 40

  DARK DRIZZLES

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dark Drizzles (The Donut Mysteries, #40)

  Light Snacking Donut Whisps

  Sour Cream Delights

  Easy Peasy Donuts

  Other Books by Jessica Beck

  Donut Mystery #39 Dark Drizzles

  Copyright © 2019 by Jessica Beck All rights reserved.

  First edition: April 2019

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Recipes included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk. The author is not responsible for any damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these recipes. It is the responsibility of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that might arise from following the included recipes.

  The First Time Ever Published!

  The 40th Donuts Mystery.

  Jessica Beck is the New York Times Bestselling Author of the Donut Mysteries, the Cast Iron Cooking Mysteries, the Classic Diner Mysteries, and the Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries.

  For each and every one of you,

  I can’t thank you enough for your support over the years!

  The owners of Donut Hearts and The Last Page decide to hold a festival featuring donuts and books, but when one of their guest authors dies in the middle of robbing the donut shop, Suzanne and Grace must solve the case and get the missing money back or risk losing more than the proceeds from the festival.

  Chapter 1

  “Suzanne, the mike’s still not working! What are we going to do?” Jennifer Hastings, an always impeccably dressed redhead, was a born leader, but I was afraid that this assignment was testing all of her many skills.

  “Take a deep breath, Jennifer. I’m sure we’ll be able to figure it out,” I told my book club leader and friend as she approached me near the main stage set up in the park across the street from my donut shop. I quickly glanced over at Paige Hill—owner of the nearby The Last Page bookstore and my cosponsor of the Pastries and Pages first annual festival in April Springs, North Carolina—and saw that she looked just as frazzled as Jennifer seemed to be. Then again, why wouldn’t she? Paige had agreed to book our authors, coordinate the book signings, and handle most of the behind-the-scene promotions, while I was tackling the public remarks, including leading the two panels we’d scheduled for Saturday and Sunday afternoons, helping her whenever I could, and also supplying donuts for the event, all for purchase, of course. “Which mike is giving you trouble? We have three, you know. There’s one for me, and one apiece for the cookbook writers and the culinary cozy mystery writers.” It had been a stroke of genius, or so I’d thought at the time, when Paige and I had decided to invite authors representing both of our worlds, cookbooks and mysteries.

  At least that’s what I’d thought at the time.

  Now I wasn’t so sure.

  I continued, “Is it just one mike in particular, or are all three broken? Did you check to see if there is power going to the system? Are we sure they are plugged in? We’ve still got a few minutes before we’re due to get started, so let’s not panic just yet.” Paige had somehow convinced me to be the mistress of ceremonies for the event, claiming that I was much better at speaking in public, though I doubted it. The truth was that it had seemed so far in the future when we’d first started planning the festival that I’d agreed without giving it much thought. My rash decision was coming back to haunt me, as the event was now only minutes away.

  “It’s just the main microphone that you’ll be using throughout the weekend,” Jennifer said.

  “Of course it is,” I said with a wry grin. Things had been going too smoothly up until then, and I’d been waiting for the inevitable first sign of trouble. After all, Paige and I were not professional organizers by any stretch of the imagination. The two-day festival had begun as an idea to raise much-needed money for both our businesses, but somehow the town had gotten involved somewhere along the way, and things had quickly gotten out of hand after that. George Morris, our mayor and my good friend, had offered to supply the stage, chairs, tables, and sound equipment, and I hadn’t seen any reason not to take him up on it. “Call George.”

  “I really hate to bother the mayor with this,” Jennifer said with a frown.

  The members of my old book club and I had finally gotten back in touch with each other after too long an absence, and I didn’t want to push her, but I really didn’t have much choice. “That’s okay. I know you have your hands full. I’ll be glad to do it myself.”

  “No, I agreed to be your right hand, so that’s what I’m going to be. I’ll take care of it,” Jennifer said, and then, with a wicked grin, she added, “After all, if you can delegate, I don’t see any reason why I can’t, too.” She then turned to Hazel, one of our other members, and called out, “Hazel, we need the mayor on site, pronto. One of the mikes is down.”

  “I’m on it,” Hazel said as she popped the last bite of the donut hole she’d been holding into her mouth. I knew she was a stress eater, and I hated undermining her ongoing diet, but I couldn’t worry about that at the moment. She turned to the woman beside her and asked, “Elizabeth, do you have a second? We need the mayor. Apparently we’ve got a problem with the sound system.”

  Elizabeth Martin was the final member of our club, and the one I was happiest to see at the event. She’d lost her husband to murder, and Jake and I had been there when it had happened. I couldn’t blame her for not wanting to be around me, since we’d ended up investigating and then ultimately solving the crime, but we’d finally managed to put it all behind us, and we were friends again at last, something that gave me great joy. Elizabeth nodded. “I’ll walk over there and talk to him. He quit answering my phone calls an hour ago, but he can’t duck me in person,” she said with a smile. It was good seeing her coming to terms with her loss, even though I knew she was still hurting deep down inside.

  “In the meantime,” I told Jennifer, “I can use one of the other mikes for the opening remarks.” I saw that my aide was still stressed, so I patted her shoulder as I added, “You worry too much. It’s going to be fine.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Jennifer said, and then she shrugged. “At least your opening remarks will be well amplified.”

  “Even if I have to shout them out over the crowd,” I said. “We both know that volume has never been a problem with me.”

  “Do you know what you’re going to say?” Jennifer asked. “I’d die if I had to speak on stage in front of all these people.”

  I looked around at the milling crowd and considered it. I had never been one of those types who got nervous talking to groups of people. I must have gotten that from Momma, who could bloviate with the best of them when the occasion demanded. “I’m sure I’ll come up with something. At least we’ve got good weather for the event,” I said.

  “Your donuts seem to be selling well,” Jennifer said as she pointed to the stand Emma and Sharon were running out in front of my shop. I hadn’t even thought about selling our coffee and treats outside, but Emma had pointed out that it would give us more visibility, and thus we’d most likely sell more treats. Since she and her mother were in it for a
cut of our profits for the fair, I had decided to let her handle it however she saw fit, and now I was glad that I had. While Sharon was selling our treats, I knew that Emma was back in the kitchen gearing up for another run of donuts. There were times when it was quite nice having someone who could step in and do my job if it was required, not that I’d needed her all that much lately. The truth was that I’d been a bit of a workaholic over the past few months, not taking more than one day off a week since I’d come back to town after convalescing in a cabin in the mountains. My husband, Jake, hadn’t even grumbled about my long hours. He was just happy that I’d found my way again. At the moment, he was off on a fishing trip with my stepfather, Phillip, and even Momma had decided to leave town at the last minute for a mysterious business trip that I hadn’t heard about until just before she took off. No doubt they had all been confident that I’d have things handled, but at least Grace had taken some time off to be around, just in case there was an emergency.

  “Let’s just hope Paige sells as many books as we are moving our treats,” I said. My partner in crime looked a little lonely at her table at the moment, but she’d assured me that after the two panels we’d scheduled with our visiting writers, she’d be in the black soon enough. I’d been surprised that the writers had agreed to come, based on the paltry honorariums we’d been able to offer them. We were putting them up in the homes of fans, and besides a modest fee for each participant, they were ours for the weekend. Apparently that was all that it took to lure a midlist writer to an event these days.

  “Suzanne, what’s this I hear about the entire electrical system not working?” the mayor asked as he stormed up to me a few minutes before I was set to go on and kick off the festival.

  “It’s only one microphone,” I said as I looked back at Elizabeth, who was three steps behind him. She grinned and shrugged at the same time as she said, “He wouldn’t have come if he’d known that.”

  “That’s not true,” George protested.

  “Really?” I asked him, arching an eyebrow in his direction.

  “Fine. I still have a town to run, so I’m in my office trying to get a little work done. Arrest me.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who volunteered to help out,” I reminded him.

  “I thought it would be good for April Springs,” he grumbled. I didn’t take it personally. George had been a lot grumpier before he’d become mayor, and sometimes he slipped back into old patterns if I let him, which I never did, at least not if I could help it.

  “Look at all these people,” I said as I gestured to the gathered crowd. “It would be a shame if I got so hoarse from shouting my opening remarks that the mayor had to step in and moderate both of our panels this weekend.”

  That got George’s attention, as I knew it would. “I’ll see to the microphone right now,” he said as he hurried off. He was better with people one on one, and I knew that though he could handle himself on a podium, he much preferred to be behind the scenes.

  “Wow, you handled that like a real pro,” Elizabeth said after he was gone.

  “You have to remember that it’s not my first time dealing with the mayor,” I said. “Thanks again for helping out, Elizabeth.”

  “Suzanne, you’ve got to stop thanking me. It’s kind of getting on my nerves,” she answered with a grin.

  “Understood,” I said, returning her smile. “Do me a favor and go check on Paige, would you? She looks lonely sitting there all by herself.”

  “I can do better than that,” Elizabeth said. Three minutes later, I saw her discreetly directing people toward the bookseller’s table, and when I gave Elizabeth a ‘thumbs up’ sign, she winked at me. I really did have a good crew, and I was beginning to think that the microphone problem was the only one we were going to have.

  Foolish, foolish me.

  Chapter 2

  “It was easy enough to fix. Some genius must have tripped over the outlet box and unplugged it by accident,” George said as he approached me less than two minutes before I was due to go on. “You’re good to go.”

  “Thanks so much, Mr. Mayor. Are you sure you don’t want to join me onstage?”

  “Me? No thank you.” He looked uncomfortable just considering the possibility.

  “It’s amazing what you’ll do to avoid being in the public eye,” I told him with a grin. “In case you didn’t know, that’s a pretty odd attribute for an elected official to have.”

  “What can I say? I’m an enigma,” he answered with a smile of his own. “Do you need anything else? If not, I’m heading back to my office.”

  “Aren’t you staying for my opening remarks?” I asked him, trying not to show any outward sign that I was just teasing him.

  “I suppose I could spare a few minutes,” he said as he glanced down at his watch.

  “I’m teasing you,” I said. “Go.”

  “Are you sure? I’d hate to hurt your feelings,” he answered with a grin.

  “I’ve known you so long that I doubt that you could,” I said.

  “Okay. Thanks. Break a leg. Isn’t that what they say to people about to go onstage?”

  “This is hardly a one-woman show,” I replied. “I’m just getting things going.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your opening remarks. I meant the panels you’re going to be leading.”

  “How hard could it be? You know, it’s not too late to step in if you’d like to take over for me,” I said as I brushed a stray bit of hair from my eyes. Grace had insisted that I dress up for the occasion, and I was wearing a new pair of jeans and a sporty blouse, which I’d ruined, at least according to my best friend, by insisting on putting a Pastries and Pages T-shirt over it. At least she hadn’t demanded that I wear a dress. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get styled up if the occasion called for it, but this wasn’t that kind of event, at least not as far as I was concerned.

  “No, thanks,” he said with a quick head shake. “I’ve heard about these author panels. I understand that they can get pretty ruthless.”

  I studied him for a moment to see if he was kidding, but there wasn’t even a hint of a smile on his face. “You’re not serious, are you?”

  “Suzanne, the only reason they are all here is to promote their books. The way I see it, you’ve got four big egos jockeying for attention and the best exposure they can get, no matter what. How are you going to keep them in check?”

  “I’ve got a yardstick nearby, just in case,” I explained.

  “What are you going to use that for?”

  “It was a trick Paige told me about. If someone starts hogging all of the spotlight, I tap the back of their chair as a gentle reminder that we’re all in this together.”

  “And if they ignore the warning?”

  “There is no second chance. I go ballistic on them, doing my best to embarrass them in front of the crowd,” I said. “Is there any doubt in your mind that I can do that to even the biggest egomaniac onstage with me?”

  “As a matter of fact, it sounds like it could be fun to watch. You know what? I can push my work until later. This could be too good to miss.”

  I wanted to laugh, but there was a part of me that was afraid that he might be right. What if my taps and even my scolding failed to corral one of the writers? If I had to, I could pull the plug on their microphones, though that would punish their fellow writers as well. I found myself hoping that they’d behave themselves, but George had planted a seed of doubt in my mind.

  There was no time to worry about that, though. Jennifer approached as she said, “It’s time, Suzanne. Knock ’em dead.”

  “Only if I have to,” I said.

  She looked at me oddly, but I didn’t have time to explain.

  I was on.

  “Welcome everyone, to the first annual Pastries and Pages book and donut festival!”

  There was a smattering of applause, but not as much as I’d expected. I supposed the crowd was there for the authors and the treats, not me necessarily, so I didn’t take it p
ersonally. “We’ll be starting our panel in a minute, but I just wanted to remind you all that events like this one depend on your support, so if you are so inclined, feel free to buy a book and a donut as you go through your day.”

  I’d hoped for a bit of laughter, but none was forthcoming. It appeared that being onstage was not my purpose in life. That was just as well. I was a donutmaker through and through. So why wasn’t I doing any demonstrations? Going with inspiration, I announced, “I’m pleased to say that after the panel and the book signing tomorrow, I will be putting on a donutmaking demonstration right here for anyone who is interested in the process.”

  Emma, delivering another tray of donuts to her mother, started laughing in the background. I knew she’d be able to go with the flow. I found Paige and shrugged my shoulders in apology. She gave me two thumbs up, and I realized that now I’d have to actually do it! Sometimes my mouth got me into trouble, and I was already regretting my spur-of-the-moment decision, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Anyway, it might be fun. At least that’s what I told myself.

  “Now, I’d like to introduce the four authors who have been graciously kind enough to join us,” I said, maybe a little too quickly, because they were clearly not ready to be announced. Hazel and Jennifer got them in line though, and with a nod, they signaled that they were ready for me.

  “First off, we have a multiple national bestselling author of culinary mysteries, the brilliant mind behind the All Things Sweet series as well as several other cozy mystery novels, Janice Davis.”

  When a man joined me onstage, there were several murmurs from the crowd, though one extremely attractive woman I’d seen milling about earlier applauded loudly and energetically enough to make a few of the folks around her take a step back. I added, “By the way, his real name is Tom Johnson, but he writes under several different aliases.”

  The author glared at my bungled introduction, and as he approached me, he grabbed the microphone from my hands, something that was certainly not part of the plan.

  A heavyset man in his late fifties, Tom Johnson didn’t look anything like a writer to me, but then again, what was a writer supposed to look like? Elizabeth, our resident author correspondent, had helped Paige arrange the authors, and she was looking at him with eager anticipation. Jennifer and Hazel were clearly not as enamored.