by Jessica Beck
“I can live with that if you can,” Emma said.
“Go on, Ray,” I said after nodding my agreement to his daughter. “What’s your first question? You’re only getting three of them, so use them wisely.”
“How can I possibly learn everything I need to with only three questions?” he asked me with a scowl.
“Well, you could always just go interview someone else. There, you just used one of your questions. You’d better be more careful with the other two,” I said as I saw Chief Grant coming out of my kitchen. He was on his cell phone, but I didn’t have any idea how long his call would take, and once he was outside, there was no way I was going to stand there and let Ray interview me when there were donuts to be made inside, and on a short shift at that.
“That wasn’t a question!”
“Fine, three from now, then, but you’d better make them snappy,” I said with a frown.
Ray nodded, realizing that arguing with me was just going to cost him valuable time. “Okay, here goes. Question one: Who do you suspect killed Tom Johnson in your shop? Question two: What do you think the motive was? And question three: Are you and Grace Gauge going to try to solve the murder yourselves, or are you going to leave it up to the professionals who are trained to do detective work and not make donuts or sell makeup for a living?” He held out his handheld recorder, waiting for me to answer, and Emma was about to scold him for his questions, especially the last one, when I waved her off.
“The killer, you’ll have to ask the police chief when he comes out, and no comment.”
“Come on, Suzanne, you have to at least answer one of my questions seriously.”
“Ray, do I look like I’m taking this murder lightly? I’m not about to speculate on who killed that man in my shop, nor why they did it.”
“How about the last question?”
I didn’t even dignify that with a response. “Good night, Ray.”
“You can’t make me leave. This is public property where I’m standing right now.”
“By all means, camp out right where you are if you’d like. You’re not coming inside, though.”
“Dad, you promised, remember?” Emma reminded him.
“But she never gave me a straight answer,” he protested.
“So find someone else to talk to,” Emma suggested.
The chief finished up his phone call and started to come outside when he noticed that Ray was outside talking to us. Instead of leaving the safety of the shop, he motioned for us to come in.
Ray started to follow when I turned around and stopped him dead in his tracks. “Inside my shop is private property, and you’re not invited.”
“How do you know for sure that he wasn’t motioning to me, too?” Ray protested.
I unlocked the door. “Chief, do you want just Emma and me, or was that summons for Ray as well?”
“Just you and Emma,” the chief said.
“There, you heard it for yourself,” I said.
Emma stopped, kissed her father on the cheek, and then smiled at him. “Better luck next time. Would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow?”
His hard expression softened at the invitation from his only child. “Are you buying?”
“You wish,” she said with a laugh. “You’ll be rewarded with the presence of my company. How’s that sound?”
“Priceless,” Ray said, beaming, showing a softer side that I for one didn’t see nearly enough.
Once we were inside, I locked the door behind us and turned to Chief Grant. “Tell me you’ve got good news for me. Can we start making donuts again?”
“You can, but I’m afraid I had to confiscate a few things, most notably that massive metal dropper that was used to kill the victim. Do you have anything else you can use for your cake donuts?”
“I’ve got a few antiques hanging on the wall in back that should work,” I admitted. “It should be fine, but if not, we’ll make do somehow. Did you find anything else out while you were checking the place out?”
“Sorry, but that’s all privileged information,” he said with a shrug. If Emma hadn’t been standing right there beside me he might have been a little more forthcoming, but I couldn’t exactly send her away. Or could I?
“Is it at least free now?” I asked him.
“She’s all yours.”
“I’ll go get started then, if that’s okay with you, Suzanne,” Emma said to me.
“It’s perfect. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Once my assistant was gone, I turned back to the chief, hoping that he might be a little more willing to talk to me now that we were alone.
He scratched his neck a bit before telling me, “By the way, that lock of yours in back was just about shot, so I had one of my people reinforce the door with plywood. Nobody will be going in or out that way until you can get it fixed, but it was the best I could do on short notice.”
“Was the lock actually forced open, or was it picked?” I asked. I was taking a chance asking him a direct question after what he’d just told me about it all being privileged, but it was worth a shot, especially now that Emma was safely back in the kitchen getting ready for the day’s production.
“I shouldn’t answer that, but I will,” the chief said. “I’m guessing that a credit card could have cracked it. The safe was a brute-force job, but whoever did it knew exactly how to tackle it. Your common everyday thief normally doesn’t realize just how vulnerable the dials on those inexpensive safes can be. They pried it off with what appeared to be a heavy-duty screwdriver, and then they punched out the mechanism.”
“A writer might know that in the course of doing research for a book, though,” I said, musing aloud.
“I suppose it’s possible, but if he robbed you, then where is the money?”
I wasn’t about to go into Grace’s theory about what might have really happened. “I have no idea, unless the money was stolen after the murder. Then again, Tom could have seen that my back door was already open, stepped inside to find the empty safe, and then gotten clobbered with my dropper from behind. The murder and the robbery might not even be related,” I said, which also happened to be the absolute truth.
“Don’t worry, whatever happened here, I’m sure that we’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“We as in you and I, or we as in you and the police force? Hang on, don’t answer that. So, you’re finished here?”
“For now, Donut Hearts is all yours again,” he said as he stifled a yawn.
I suddenly realized something that I’d neglected to do earlier. “Chief, thanks for staying up all night so we can make donuts for the festival. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”
“You’re most welcome,” he said.
“If you hang around for a bit, I’m about to make a fresh pot of coffee,” I said as I flipped on the urn.
“And have that keep me awake for the rest of the morning? Thanks, but I’m going to go get a solid three hours of sleep before I have to get up and start my day all over again.”
“One last thing?” I asked before I let him out.
“Make it quick, Suzanne. I’m beat.”
“Is there anything we discussed tonight that’s confidential?”
“From Grace, or Ray Blake?” the chief asked.
“That’s what I want to know.”
He thought about it for a few seconds before answering. “You have my full blessing to tell Grace everything you know, have heard, or suspect, since I know you’re going to, anyway. As to Ray, I would prefer it if you were vague about the robbery, the break-in, and our speculations. You found the body, and that’s all you know.”
“What about the fact that the dropper was used as the murder weapon? Can I at least give him that much?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt anything telling him that, since it’s going to be public knowledge pretty soon anyway,” he said. “But that’s it.”
“It’s enough. Thanks again. Have a good night, Chief,” I said.
> “I’ll try, given how little is left of it,” he said with a sigh.
I noticed that Ray was still waiting outside to ambush Chief Grant, and even though I was hard pressed for time, I wanted to see what happened. It was as though the police chief couldn’t even see the newspaper editor given the way he blew past him, got into his squad car, and drove away. I didn’t always see eye to eye with Ray, but he had a tough job to do, there was no doubt about it, and I for one never went out of my way to make it any easier for him. I would have liked to at times, but how could I answer the questions he’d chosen to ask me? I had a list of suspects as to who might have killed Tom Johnson, and I even had a hint of the motive, though I wasn’t about to share either answer with him. As to the third question he’d asked me, the longer Grace and I could keep a low profile with our investigation, the better, and I certainly didn’t want to see headlines screaming to the world above the fold announcing that we were looking for the killer ourselves. After all, I had no desire to paint a target on my back, or Grace’s, either.
I couldn’t worry about that for the moment, though.
It was time, yet again, to make the donuts, and even more pressing, under a deadline that was going to be tough to meet.
That was enough to occupy my thoughts and my time without worrying about murder, at least for the moment.
Chapter 10
“What was that all about?” Emma asked me as I walked back into the kitchen to join her. She’d already started on the batter for the cake donuts. Now I had to make sure we had a way to drop them into the oil. Reaching up onto the wall, I got down the antique dropper I’d found in an antique shop in Maple Hollow and started getting ready to wash it in the sink.
“I had to let him out,” I said as I started running the water. “We chatted for a minute, but why wouldn’t we? After all, we’re friends, and he also happens to be dating my best friend.” It was all true, but not the complete truth. That was fine. I could live with that.
“Do you want me to do that?” she asked the second she noticed what I was doing.
“I don’t mind. You’re doing fine working on the cake donuts. It’s going to have to be all hands on deck this morning.”
“Should I call Mom?” she asked as she started dividing the batter into smaller bowls so we could customize our flavorings. “I know she’d be happy to lend a hand, too.”
“I’m not entirely sure that the three of us would fit in this small kitchen,” I said. “Let’s play it by ear, if that’s okay with you.”
“Sounds good,” she said.
“By the way, save one of those bowls of batter for me,” I said, remembering my promise to Trish and Hilda the evening before.
“What’s up? Are we doing something special for the festival?”
“No, I promised pumpkin donuts to Trish and Hilda over at the Boxcar Grill.”
Emma looked genuinely surprised by my admission. “Even with them being out of season and everything?”
“What can I say? They fed me last night until I could barely walk, and they wouldn’t take my money, so I managed to get them to agree to take some donuts in exchange.”
“I just love the barter system,” my assistant said with a grin. “The first batch is ready to drop, and I’ve got the oil hot and ready to go. Are we really going to use that thing?”
“Why not? It’s what it was made for,” I said as I finished rinsing the dropper off and drying it with a dishtowel. Even though it was old, it was still newer than the one I’d lost the night before in the homicide. This one was made of aluminum instead of steel, and the mechanism for dropping the batter into the hot oil still worked. I’d made sure of that when I’d bought it. After all, some folks might not have minded having an antique that didn’t function properly anymore, but I wasn’t about to allow it into my shop if it couldn’t still perform its original task.
“I’m looking forward to seeing it in action,” Emma said as she scooted a bowl toward my direction. “Why don’t you drop the first batch and I’ll keep working on these? I know for a fact that we’ve got some pumpkin spice flavoring in the back of the fridge. I saw it in there last week when I was poking around for the blueberry puree.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said as I started loading up the smaller dropper. This was going to take some time, since the one in my hands would only handle about a third of the batter my original dropper could take.
The first dozen donuts were not exactly things of beauty, but they resembled donuts enough to allow me to sell them in good conscience. “Hey, those aren’t bad,” Emma said as she looked over my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, I’m sure that I’ll get better at it,” I said. By the time I was ready to drop the last batter, the pumpkin donuts Trish and Hilda had requested, I was getting the hang of it. Almost without exception, they came out looking fairly decent, and I was satisfied with the results. If I had unlimited time and supplies, I would have thrown them all away and started over now that I knew how to handle the dropper properly, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. I knew my donuts would be gone in a handful of hours, but I still liked them to look their very best when they left my shop.
Oh, well. I was sure that my technique would improve with time.
Emma was working on the dishes, so I added the last bowl to the stack, and then I started measuring out the ingredients for the second half of our daily operation, the raised donuts. I knew that some donut shops focused solely on one type of donut or the other, but I couldn’t do that to my customers. Besides, I enjoyed making both kinds, and I had no idea which one I would even give up if I decided to go that route.
Once the dough had been through its first mix, I pulled the paddle out and covered the top with plastic wrap. Emma had finished up with the dishes and was looking at me when I turned to her. “We can still take our break, can’t we?”
I glanced at the clock and saw that, though we’d made up some time for our late start, we were still a bit behind schedule. Then again, the dough had to go through its first proof, and there was no way to rush it, not without jeopardizing the quality of the final product. I was already putting out less-than-perfect cake donuts; there was no way I was going to do that with raised donuts, too. “Of course we can,” I said as I grabbed my timer and set it to fifteen minutes. “Let’s go.”
I was looking forward to having a little time with Emma where we could just chat about anything that didn’t include murder. We’d both been careful to skirt the topic of Tom Johnson’s demise, something that I’d been extremely grateful for. Now we could take our break like normal and discuss anything that crossed our minds that didn’t involve homicide.
The only problem was that when we walked outside, someone else was already there waiting for us.
“Dad, what are you doing here?” Emma asked her father, the disapproval clear in her voice.
“I’m working, Emma,” he said.
“So are we. You need to go home, or to the office. Anyplace that’s not here.”
Ray refused to budge, though. “I’ve got a dozen people to talk to about this story, but unfortunately, none of them are awake at the moment. What do you say, Suzanne? Can’t you give me something?”
I thought about what the chief had told me, and how I might be able to work it to my advantage. I wasn’t Ray’s biggest fan, but the man did have a knack, at least occasionally, of digging up the truth. “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said. “I’ll share what I know with you if you promise to do the same for me.”
“So, then you are working on the case?” he asked as he held the microphone of his handheld recorder closer to my face.
I pushed it away. “Ray, if you tell the world what I’m doing, you’re only going to be hurting yourself. Do you honestly think anyone’s going to talk to me if you tell the world that I’m digging into this murder?”
“You’ve got a point,” he said as he lowered his hand and put the recorder away. “Okay, I’m willing to share my information with you
, but I refuse to name any of my sources. I’ll go to jail before I’ll do that.”
I knew that Ray Blake was begging to be arrested for refusing to reveal a source, but it wasn’t going to be because of me. “Of course. I understand, and I ask that you respect my privacy and treat me the same way.”
“You’re hardly a journalist,” Ray said, scoffing a bit.
“Dad, if you can’t behave yourself, you’re going to have to leave,” Emma reminded him.
“I’m sorry. Suzanne, I’m grateful for anything you can give me, and I promise not to ask you for your sources, as long as you do the same for me.” It was amazing how much influence Emma had over her father these days. It might have been the fact that she was growing up, or that she was in a serious relationship with Barton Gleason, or maybe it was because she’d moved out on her own, proving that she could stand on her own two feet. Whatever the reason, I was glad for the change.
I extended my hand, and he took it as he said, “Why not? We’ve cooperated before, so we might as well give it another try. Okay, Suzanne, we’ve got a deal. Now, what can you tell me?”
“I suspect some of the other authors present of being guilty in Tom Johnson’s murder, based on what I’ve seen and heard since I began dealing with them.” That much was true enough, but then again, I wasn’t exactly giving him confidential information. Anyone who had been there at the first panel would have seen that, and I knew for a fact that Ray had been present for at least some of it.
“What else do you have?”
“The murder weapon was from my shop,” I said. While Emma knew that as well as I did, she seemed surprised that I’d told her father. The police chief had given me permission to tell anyone I chose to, so again, I was living up to my end of my agreement with Chief Grant. “It was the donut dropper we used to make our cake donuts.”