by Jessica Beck
“Thanks, Emma. I’d completely forgotten about them.”
“That’s why you’ve got me,” she answered with a smile.
“Just one of many reasons,” I said, returning her grin.
“Come on, Grace. Let’s go drop these off at Trish’s, and then we can get started with our investigation in earnest.”
“I’m ready if you are,” she said as she polished off the last bite of donut, finished her coffee, threw them away, and headed for the door right behind me.
We had a murderer and a thief to catch, and I wasn’t exactly sure how much time we’d have to do it in.
“I know you heard what Emma just said inside, Grace. There’s something I need to tell you,” I said as we walked across the street. I had to make it quick, since the Boxcar was literally just steps away from Donut Hearts.
“I’m all ears,” she said. “You caught me at a good time. I just had a delicious donut and a cup of great coffee.”
“You’ve probably already put it together, but I told Ray Blake that if he shares what he finds out about Tom Johnson’s murder with us, we’ll do the same.”
Grace seemed to mull that over for a few seconds before she spoke again. “That’s smart, given the limited amount of time we’re going to have to solve this. After all, how long can Stephen keep them all here after the festival is over?”
“I don’t know. I was worried you might be upset that I made a deal without you.”
“Suzanne, don’t underestimate me. I know we’ve coordinated things with Ray in the past. We just have to remember that we have to take everything he tells us with a big old dollop of salt. Are we going to tell him everything we know?”
“I don’t see how we can. In fact, I’ve already held a few things back. For one thing, I didn’t even tell him that we were robbed. The chief didn’t want me to. I think he’s going to try to keep that one in his pocket.”
“Good luck with that. I can’t imagine it not leaking out,” Grace said.
“If it does, I just want to make sure that it’s not because of something we said. Agreed?”
“Trust me, I’m not going to go out of my way to make my boyfriend mad at me,” she said with a frown. “After all, I’m not suicidal.” She hefted the second box of donuts, having asked to carry it as soon as her hands were free. “Any chance there’s more than a dozen in each box? It feels like forever since I’ve had a pumpkin donut.”
“Sorry, I just made two dozen. I’m so happy you’re eating my treats these days. Remember when I first got started, all you’d eat were healthy donuts? You strained me to my limits a few times to be ultra-creative, I don’t mind telling you.”
“Hey, a girl can change her mind, can’t she?” Grace asked. “What can I say? I’ve seen the light, and there’s no going back now.”
We were walking up the steps of the diner when the door opened. It was Gabby Williams, and the moment she saw me, she frowned precipitously. “Suzanne Hart, you just can’t seem to stay out of trouble, can you?”
“It’s not my fault,” I told her. “It could just as easily have happened in your shop instead of mine.”
“Somehow I doubt that,” she said with a sniff. Tapping each box in our hands, she asked, “Are you actually selling your goods here now? If things are that difficult, I might be able to help you out.”
“No, that’s not it at all. I’m just returning a favor,” I said. “These aren’t for sale.”
“It’s a wonder how you manage to stay in business,” Gabby said as she brushed past us. “Grace, I see she’s even recruited you into this.”
“This, and everything else,” Grace said with a grin. “After all, that’s what you do when you’re on a team.”
“I suppose so,” Gabby replied, clearly already losing interest in our conversation.
“That was kind of odd,” Grace said after she was sure Gabby was well out of hearing range. The two women had an even more tenuous relationship than Gabby and I shared, and that was saying something.
“Just remember that deep down, she’s got a good heart,” I told her.
“Sure, but exactly how deep do you have to dig to get to it?” Grace asked with a laugh.
“No comment,” I said with a grin as I opened the door to the Boxcar.
“Chicken,” she replied after shaking her head.
“You bet I am,” I said.
“Suzanne, are those what I think they are?” Trish asked me the moment we walked into the diner.
“That depends. What do you think they are?”
“They’d better be pumpkin donuts,” she said loudly.
“They are, but keep your voice down,” I cautioned her. “Nobody else is supposed to know that you’re getting them so early in the season.”
“Sorry,” she said, looking around to find a few of our mutual customers watching us. “Forget what I just said. I’m not joking,” she told them, and without exception they all went back to their meals. Trish was a force to be reckoned with, and not many folks in April Springs were brave enough to cross her. “Come on in back,” she said after she saw that she’d managed to stifle everyone’s curiosity.
“Thanks, but we just have a minute,” I said.
“Have you two had breakfast?” Trish asked. “Hilda’s experimenting with frittatas, and I’m sure she’d love it if you’d sample some.”
“Thanks, but we already ate,” I said.
“I don’t know about you, but I’d love to be her guinea pig,” Grace said. “Strike that. I shouldn’t use that expression. You both know that I had two guinea pigs growing up, and Auriel and Luna were the two best confidantes a young girl could ask for. Even with all the secrets I shared with them, neither one of them ever repeated a word of it to anyone else.”
“I’m confused,” Trish said. “Does that mean that you’ll taste her latest creation, or not? We both would really consider it a favor. After a while they all start tasting the same to me, if you know what I mean.”
“Come on, Suzanne. I know we’re in a time crunch, but there’s always time to help a friend,” Grace said.
“If you’re up for it, then so am I,” I said with a shrug. After all, how long could it take? Besides, it had been a long time since I’d had anything to eat, besides part of a pumpkin donut I’d shared with Emma back at the shop, solely for quality control purposes. Well, maybe not solely. The truth was that I missed the pumpkin donuts, too, but my reason for only carrying them part of the year was sound. At least I had thought it was, but the one I’d shared with my assistant had been awfully good.
“Thanks for tasting these,” Hilda said as she brought two large plates jammed to the edges with different frittatas.
“How many of these things did you make?” I asked her in dismay. I wasn’t at all sure I could do so much food justice and still walk around afterwards.
“Just four this time,” she said. “Trish and I have already sampled six, and our taste buds are overloaded.”
“Just four, she says.” I laughed as I grabbed the offered plate and fork. “Okay, do you at least want to tell us what we’re sampling here?”
“No, I want your honest opinions about what you prefer based on taste, not contents,” she said.
“Fair enough,” Grace said. “Here goes nothing.”
I started my sampler plate as well. There was only one problem. By the time I’d finished tasting the fourth one, I’d forgotten how I’d felt about the first one.
“Is it okay if I just say they are all great?” I asked.
“Come on, Suzanne. You’ve got to do better than that,” Trish said as she finished her second pumpkin donut. “Wow, I forgot just how good these things were.”
“Thanks, but at least you’ve got just one thing to sample,” I said.
“You really can’t rank them in order of preference?” Grace asked me curiously. Using her fork as a pointer, she said, “This was my favorite, then this one, after that this one, and the truth is that I didn’t care for that
one at all. It had too much onion in it for my taste.”
Hilda looked triumphantly at her boss. “I told you, Trish.”
“You were right,” Trish said. “I stand corrected.”
After hearing Grace’s emphatic decision, I decided to take small bites of each sample again.
“Did you have any better luck that time?” Trish asked me.
“I agree with Grace one hundred percent,” I said.
“Copycat,” my best friend said after sticking out her tongue at me.
“No, I just didn’t know how to rank them at first, but after you gave your opinion, I find that I agree with it.” The truth was that I still couldn’t tell that much of a difference between the first three, though I could see why Grace would rank them that way. The fourth was clearly the most inferior of the group. “She’s right. There are too many onions in this one. Not that they all weren’t delicious,” I added hastily. I had no desire to seem to be criticizing Hilda’s cooking, no matter if she’d solicited my opinion or not.
“Thank you,” Hilda said as she took our nearly empty plates from us. “I’m going to take your notes and work on the next incarnation a little more. Any chance you’d be willing to do this again later?”
“Maybe if we had only two choices to pick from, not four,” I said. “Any more than that and it’s just too much to take in.”
“I can see that,” Hilda said as she walked back to her grill, nibbling on one of my donuts as she went.
Trish was about to say something when we all heard someone calling her from the front. “Sorry, but customers await,” she said with a smile. “I told Hilda the same thing you two did about those frittatas, but she wanted an unbiased opinion or two.”
“Glad to help,” Grace said. “Do we owe you anything for breakfast?”
“That wasn’t breakfast,” Trish said with a smile. “That was research, and we don’t charge our taste testers for what they eat.”
“How can I get on that list again?” Grace asked with a grin of her own.
“Be here at the right time. That’s the only requirement.”
“That’s a dangerous precedent to set,” Grace said. “You might never get rid of me if you say something like that.”
“You have work to do, too,” she said. “Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be on the road by now?” Without even waiting for a response, she said, “Strike that. You’re helping Suzanne solve that writer’s murder, aren’t you?”
“What makes you think I’m looking into it?” I asked her as innocently as I could manage, which clearly wasn’t very convincing.
“Suzanne, I don’t care what a jerk the man might have been in life, he was murdered in your shop. I know there’s no way you’d be able to just let that go.”
“Just don’t spread it around, okay?” I asked her softly.
Trish mimed zipping her lips, locking them, and then throwing away the key. “Mum’s the word,” she mumbled.
“Thanks.”
“It’s about time,” Jack Jefferson said as the three of us walked out of the kitchen into the dining room, where the register was located.
“Jack, I thought I taught you better manners than that,” Trish said curtly.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Jack said, quickly apologizing. I never would have believed how she stopped the man so thoroughly from complaining. After he got his change, he said, “Have a nice day now.”
Once he was gone, I asked Trish, “How did you manage that? He’s never been that polite to me.”
“That’s probably because you never threatened to ban him for life if he didn’t straighten up his act and be more polite,” Trish said.
“You’d really do that?” Grace asked. “Can you honestly afford to lose a customer for life?”
“Let’s hope we never have to find out,” Trish replied. “So far I haven’t had to make that threat more than once.”
“I can imagine,” I said. The thing was, nobody would believe I was serious if I threatened one of my rude customers that way, but with Trish, you never knew which way she might jump. It certainly wasn’t worth the risk of getting banished from the only decent fast place to eat in town.
Once we were outside, I turned to Grace. “Could you really tell that much of a difference between those dishes?”
“There were subtle differences, but they were still there,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m stuffed. Truth be told, all four of them were good.”
“Jake’s going to be heartbroken when he finds out he missed a frittata tasting,” I said.
“How’s your husband and stepfather doing on their fishing trip?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t heard from them, so that’s bound to be good news,” I answered.
“You’re not upset that he can’t help us with the case, are you?” Grace asked me tentatively.
“I’ve got you, and that’s all I need in the world,” I said with a smile.
“You’re probably lying through your teeth, but I don’t mind a bit,” she replied, returning my grin with one of her own. “Who do we track down first?”
I’d been looking over her shoulder, and I saw someone we needed to speak with immediately.
It appeared that our investigation was in full swing.
I just hoped we had enough time and information to make an accusation before everyone we were considering for the crime packed up and left town.
Chapter 13
“Elizabeth! Over here!” I called out.
My friend and Internet-searching guru saw us and waved as she started walking in our direction.
“Grace, unless I miss my guess, we’re about to get a leg up in our investigation. I asked Elizabeth to do a little digging, and writers are her specialty. I can’t wait to hear what she’s got to say about the crew we’re hosting.”
“Let’s go over there to that bench,” I told Elizabeth as she joined us. We all walked into the park, which was, after all, right next to the diner, and took three seats on the same bench and enjoyed the morning sunshine. It wasn’t very hot yet, but I knew that it would be warming up soon enough. Still, the sunlight felt awfully good, and I found myself basking in it for a moment before Elizabeth pulled a manila envelope from her voluminous purse and handed her findings over to me. I bounced the envelope in my hand. “This thing is pretty hefty.”
“I didn’t get much sleep,” she admitted. “Once I started digging, it was amazing what I was able to find out. I just wish I’d been that thorough to begin with. It might have saved you and Paige a great deal of anguish if you’d known who you were inviting to your festival.”
“I didn’t choose the authors, though, remember?” I asked her. “That was up to Paige, and given the short time frame we had, I think she did a bang-up job.” I started to open the envelope when I followed up with, “Is there any way you can boil this all down to the highlights? I’m going to read it all, but for now, it would help if you could give us the gist of what you found.”
“I can do that,” she said with a nod. “Let’s start with Amanda Harrison. She’s been trying to break into fiction for years, without success. The harder she’s tried, the more frustrated she’s gotten.”
“That doesn’t sound all that unusual,” I said. “I understand it’s a tough business to get started in.”
“She is certainly finding that to be her experience. Rumors online say that she flew to New York two months ago and confronted an editor who gave her a pretty scathing rejection.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Grace said. “Did she hit her?”
“It was a he, as a matter of fact, but she waited outside the publishing house and followed the man for three blocks until he raced over to a police officer and told him that he was being harassed. He wanted to have her arrested, but nothing came of it. Evidently Amanda came back the next morning and started yelling at him again. He pressed charges that time, but they didn’t stick. The thing is, she threatened to break hi
s kneecaps the next time she saw him, so she’s clearly got a volatile temper.”
“Okay, we can work with that,” I said. “Who’s up next?”
“Hannah Thrush is not the shrinking violet she’d like the world to believe she is,” Elizabeth said. “She’s got quite a past herself.”
“You’re kidding,” I said. “Sweet little Hannah?”
“I thought so too, until I started digging a little harder. Evidently she tried to run her ex-boyfriend over with her car. A bystander pulled him out of the way at the last second, or she would have surely killed him.”
“What was her reasoning?” Grace asked. “Besides the fact that it was clearly a bad breakup.”
“Evidently the man wouldn’t accept the fact that she didn’t want to date him anymore. He stalked her at a party and backed her into a corner, according to eyewitness accounts. She ran out, and everyone thought it was over, until he walked out to his car and she nearly ran him down.”
“So, she reacted violently to an unwelcome advance. Do you think Tom Johnson actually made a pass at her?” Grace asked.
“I’ve heard that he’s been known to be handsy at conventions. There’s a long list of women who’ve complained about unwanted advances from him.”
“This man just keeps getting better and better,” Grace said. “Did he hate dogs, too?”
“I don’t know, but it’s entirely possible,” Elizabeth answered seriously.
“Let’s get back to Hannah,” I suggested. “Was there anything else about her?” Elizabeth looked a little uneasy, and I knew that she was holding something back. “What is it? This isn’t a court of law. Everything is admissible, at least as far as I’m concerned.”
“There are rumors, just rumors, mind you, that she doesn’t write her own books, at least not the versions that finally get published,” Elizabeth said. “No one will talk about it, but they are there, nonetheless.”
“What does that have to do with Tom Johnson’s murder?” Grace asked her as a couple walked past us in the park. I considered going back to the cottage with the two women so we’d have a little privacy, but I wasn’t at all sure how long this would take, and I wasn’t certain Elizabeth had any more time than we did.