Caramel Canvas

by Jessica Beck

  “Let me guess; it was ten thousand dollars, wasn’t it?”

  After an elongated pause, she said, “You found it, then.”

  “We did, but we didn’t know what it was for,” I said. “We thought somebody might be blackmailing her.”

  “Heavens no. What would anyone have on my daughter to be able to blackmail her? No, don’t answer that. Let me explain.”

  “It’s not important. Just knowing where the money went is all that we really need to know.”

  “It’s important to me!” she said firmly.

  “Okay.” I wasn’t about to try to stop her.

  “Suzanne, I haven’t always made the best choices. I listened to an investment counselor who ended up crippling me financially. He made his commissions and fees, all right, but I’m the one who lost a fortune. I was trying to get myself back on my feet after I fired him when Annabeth figured out what was going on. She offered to loan me enough money until I could figure things out, but I refused. That didn’t stop her, though. She pulled the cash out of her account without my knowledge and presented it to me as a done deal. She wanted me to forget about paying her back, claiming that she owed me at least that much on studio rental space, but I wouldn’t hear of it. It took some haggling on my part, but I finally got her to agree to allow me to pay it back at the current interest rate banks paid on super savings accounts. I wanted to pay her full interest on the loan at the same rate the bank would charge me, but she wouldn’t agree to that, so we finally came to a meeting of the minds. I feel so awful about it now I just want to cry.”

  “Alyssa, everybody gets in trouble at one point or another in their lives,” I told her, thinking about some of the boneheaded moves I’d made in my own life. They weren’t so much financial as personal, but marrying Max had been a matter of misplaced trust as well, so maybe we weren’t all that different after all.

  “At my age, I should have known better. He told me things that were too good to be true, and I believed him.”

  “It sounds as though Annabeth understood all of that,” I said.

  “She said she did, but it was humiliating having to go to her with my woes. Parents are supposed to take care of their children, not the other way around.” The woman sounded so defeated I felt bad for her.

  “If my mother and I were in the same situation and I had the money to spare, I wouldn’t have hesitated for a second to do the same thing Annabeth did,” I told her firmly and with full conviction. “She had the money to spare, right?”

  “Oh, yes. She was doing quite well with her art and her logo business as of late,” she admitted. “That still doesn’t make any of this any easier.”

  “There is no doubt in my mind that she was thrilled to have the opportunity to do it.”

  “You’re kind to say so,” Alyssa acknowledged meekly.

  “It’s not just lip service, Alyssa. I mean it, and I’m sure Annabeth was more than happy to be able to help.”

  “She seemed to be,” she admitted. “Anyway, I thought you should know. How is it going? No, strike that. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Have a good night’s sleep, Suzanne.”

  “You do the same,” I said.

  After we hung up, I built a fire and started thinking about money. I’d seen firsthand how the lust for it could drive people to do the most horrid things, but I’d also seen where it had been used for good. I firmly believed that money itself wasn’t inherently evil, but a driving desire to acquire more and more of it had ruined more lives than I even wanted to think about. I was just happy that it had never been that much of a motivating factor in my own life. It wasn’t that I didn’t always feel I could use more of the green stuff, but I didn’t let it rule my life, either.

  I was still thinking about that when my cell phone rang again.

  This time it was my dear, sweet husband, calling at exactly the right time to cheer me up and bring me out of the funk I’d let my conversation with Alyssa put me in.

  “Hey there, stranger,” he said. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too. How’s it going in Tennessee?” I asked.

  “Just getting into it now,” Jake admitted. By the terse way he spoke, I knew that he wasn’t ready to discuss it with me. My husband liked to take in the facts and let them percolate before he dove into action if the circumstances allowed it. Me, I was a jump-straight-into-the-pool kind of gal, so we complemented each other. “How are you doing really? Getting back into your old life okay?”

  “More than you know,” I said, trying to keep my tone light.

  “Suzanne, what have you been up to?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.

  “I know you, young lady. You’re getting involved in more than just donuts, aren’t you?”

  “Jake, somebody killed Annabeth. Her death was no accident, and Grace and I are going to prove it.”

  “Tell me all about it,” he said, not questioning whether I should be investigating or not or even the conclusion Grace and I had reached about Annabeth’s demise.

  “First of all, the ladder appeared to have been tampered with, but that’s not all. Based on where they found the body, she couldn’t have fallen. I checked out the angles myself. Someone must have hit her from behind and then staged it to look as though it was an accident.”

  “You were in her studio?” he asked curiously. “Why were you even there?”

  “I went to pay my respects to Alyssa, and while I was there—Grace was with me, too—she asked us to look around and make sure everything was all right. That’s not what got us started believing that her death was deliberate, though. Do you remember the painting she did for me?”

  “The one that Emma brought over from the cottage? Sure. What about it?”

  “There was a note inside written in our old high school code saying that someone was trying to kill her, and the inside of the brown paper had lots of clues as to who it might have been. She knew someone was targeting her. She just didn’t have a name yet.”

  “Who’s on your list of suspects so far?” Jake asked.

  “Let’s see. We’ve got an artist named Galen, a competitor of Annabeth’s on the local art scene who was extremely jealous of her, a man named Christopho, well, Chris really, who she continually spurned, a seedy agent named Bonnie Small she was getting ready to fire, a gallery owner who wants to capitalize on Annabeth’s death in the worst way, and an art supply store owner who was jealous of the way Christopho felt about her.”

  “Wow, you’ve certainly accomplished a lot since I’ve been gone,” he said, the admiration clear in his voice.

  “Don’t forget, Grace was helping me, too,” I admitted.

  “I’m sure she did, but we both know that you’re the driving force when it comes to your investigations. What else have you learned?”

  After covering a few more pieces of background about the case, I went on to explain, “Annabeth believed that someone tried to push a wall of heavy boxes on top of her at the art store, and she said something about a possible assault by automobile in front of the art gallery. Lastly, she claimed that she realized someone had been messing with the ladder of her studio. You know what? That part sort of clears Bonnie Small, her agent. She’s been trying to get into that studio by hook and by crook, but she’s been thwarted at every time. If she had a key, she could have just waltzed right in and taken everything she wanted to.

  “Unless she just wants you to believe that she doesn’t have one,” Jake said. “Just how clever is she?”

  “Well, she managed to convince a handful of artists that they needed her,” I admitted, “though she was beginning to hemorrhage clients when Annabeth died.”

  “So, she’s smart enough to make things complicated,” Jake opined.

  “Yes, she probably is,” I reluctantly admitted. “Then she’s not off the list after all.”
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  “It’s early in your investigation yet, Suzanne. You know how these things can take time.”

  “I do, but that doesn’t mean that I have to like it,” I said in response. “The truth is, it’s lonely here without you.”

  “I know. I feel the same way,” he said. “I’m kind of surprised Grace isn’t over there with you. I figured the two of you would be having sleepovers while I’m away.”

  “She suggested it, as a matter of fact,” I said, “but I wasn’t in the mood for company. You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” he said. “Listen, I might be able to get out of this if you want me to try. I just got here yesterday, so I don’t think it would be a problem. I’m sure Tommy can find someone else.”

  “Someone as good as you?” I asked him.

  “Probably. I’m not as special as you think I am, though I love that you do,” he said.

  “We both know better than that. Jake, I need to do this with Grace. We’re being careful. Shoot, I’m willing to bet that our suspects don’t even realize yet that we know Annabeth was murdered.”

  “The key word in that sentence is yet,” Jake answered. “If you keep digging into this, which I’m certain both of you are going to do, they’re going to see what you’re up to soon enough.”

  “We’ll be even more careful then,” I said. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll be fine.”

  “Easier said than done, I’m afraid,” he answered. “Listen, the offer stands. If you change your mind, I’m just a phone call away.”

  “And hundreds of miles,” I added.

  “Sure, but that’s just logistics. We can work that out. I mean it, Suzanne.”

  “I know you do, and I take great comfort in the fact. Just promise me you won’t come home yet. I need this.”

  “You’ve got my word,” he said. “So, besides that, how else have things been going since you’ve been back? How does it feel working at Donut Hearts again?”

  “Better than I could even imagine,” I said with a smile, even though he couldn’t see me.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I still miss you, though,” I added quickly.

  “I get that, but you need to get your old life back, even if it means risking it digging into another murder. Just be careful.”

  “Always,” I said.

  “Let’s agree to disagree on that one,” he said with a slight chuckle in his voice. “Listen, I won’t keep you, I know it’s getting to be past your bedtime.”

  “I can make an exception if it means I get to stay up and talk to you,” I said.

  “Yes, but you’ll pay for it in the morning, and we both know it.”

  “Any last-minute suggestions?” I asked him. I was feeling a little unsure of myself, given how my last investigation had ended up. I’d nearly gotten killed by someone who had barely registered on the radar of my investigation, so I wasn’t so sure that I hadn’t lost my touch for sleuthing completely.

  “I’d say ‘follow the money,’ but it appears that there are a different set of motives than that at work here,” he admitted. “I suppose the real question is who had the most to gain by her death? Who had access to that studio? According to what you told me earlier, she wouldn’t let just anyone waltz in there. Do any of your suspects have alibis for the time of the murder? Is there any reason one of them couldn’t have done it physically? It’s not as easy to kill someone from behind with a single blow as they make it look on television. Who was she meeting behind the library after hours, and why? Do all of your suspects have alibis for that meeting as well? Those questions should at least get you thinking in the right direction.”

  I had to whistle loudly at my husband’s ad-libbed list of insightful questions. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. You must have been one heck of a cop back in the day, sir.”

  “I had my moments, but don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure you’ll come up with the right answer in the end.”

  “I just wish I had the faith in myself that you have in me.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got enough for both of us!”

  “Good. I need all of it I can get,” I said, and then, after exchanging our loves and good nights, I hooked my cell phone up to its charger, curled up on the couch, and went straight to sleep. I might have had a great deal on my mind dealing with Annabeth’s murder, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment, and if I was going to start making donuts again soon, I needed to get all of the rest I could. As I snuggled up in front of the fire, still covered from head to toe in a toasty blanket as well, I decided I was going to keep sleeping out there until Jake came home. It was just too lonely in that big old bed all by myself.

  Besides, some of my best sleeps had taken place right where I was at the moment. When I’d been a little girl, Momma and Daddy had let me bunk out there and watch the fire on special occasions. I could still remember one year during the heart of a giant snowstorm with the curtains all pulled aside so I could watch the dancing fire and the swirling snow at the same time, alone with my thoughts, but feeling safe and warm with my folks just footsteps away. To this day, it’s one of my most precious childhood memories, and that was what I basked in as sleep took me over, and I dreamed happy thoughts and, for at least the moment, left our quest for a killer far behind me.

  Chapter 15

  It felt good getting my hands dirty again—if you can call making batter and dough dirty work. Some folks might have thought so, but not me. It was a tranquil time for me, the mornings I worked in the shop alone. I hadn’t always wanted to be a donut maker, but it turned out that it had been exactly what I’d needed when Max had cheated on me and wrecked our marriage. I’d rebuilt my life with my divorce settlement, buying Donut Hearts and moving back in with Momma in the cottage I now shared with Jake, and these days I couldn’t imagine my life any other way.

  As I separated the batter for the day’s cake donuts into several different bowls so I could mix up different flavors, I had to smile. This was where I belonged.

  To my surprise, as I was pulling the last banana-peanut butter-chocolate chip cake donuts out of the oil, I heard the front door open.

  Picking up the heavy donut dropper from the sink, remnants of the last batter still clinging to its sides, I walked carefully out front, ready to use it as a weapon if I needed to.

  “Emma, what are you doing here?” I asked my assistant as she hung up her coat.

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come in today and work, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I got so used to working seven days a week that it was nearly impossible for me to take a day off. You don’t mind, do you?”

  There was a tinge of sadness in my heart, since I’d been looking forward to another day working alone, but I quickly buried it and put on my best smile. “Of course. I’d love the company,” I said.

  “Were you going to attack me with that dropper?” she asked with a grin as she pointed to my hand.

  “Well, I wasn’t going to offer you a treat, but since it’s just you, would you like to taste one of my latest creations after I ice them?”

  “What are they? They certainly smell intriguing,” she said.

  “I was reading a biography of Elvis while I was recovering, and I kept wondering why I didn’t try something in his honor. My college roommate’s stepmother was a huge fan of the man, and when he did three shows in her home town of Charleston, West Virginia, she went to all three shows. Apparently Elvis loved peanut butter and banana sandwiches.”

  “And the chocolate chips?” she asked as we walked back into the kitchen together and she examined one of the unglazed donuts a little more closely.

  “Those are all me,” I admitted as I rearranged the donuts on the icing tray and gave them a solid coating before serving one to Emma. “I read that he added bacon to his sandwiches sometimes, but I didn�
��t have any on hand, so I thought I’d add some sweetness instead.”

  Emma took a bite, and I joined her, eating the other half of the donut she was sampling. “It’s pretty good,” she said.

  “Yes, but there’s still something missing. Maybe I will try to add some bacon next time.”

  “You’re not chucking these out though, are you?” she asked. “My dad would love them just the way they are.”

  “Then by all means, bag a couple and take them home to him,” I said.

  “I would, but I’m not living there anymore,” she admitted a bit warily.

  “What? You moved out? Are you living with Barton?” I knew that my assistant and the chef were getting close, but I hadn’t realized they were at that stage yet.

  “No, I’m kind of an old-fashioned girl. Unless and until we’re married, I’m not going to live with him. I found a place on campus. It just got to be too much living with my folks at my age.”

  “I suppose, but remember, I lived with Momma into my thirties,” I said with a grin.

  “I know, but those were extenuating circumstances,” she said.

  “How do your folks feel about it?”

  “Mom’s okay with it, but Dad has been loading me down with so many self-defense whistles, pepper spray, brass knuckles, and other things, I can’t even carry a regular purse anymore. My new place is close to campus and only a twenty-minute commute here. Are you okay with it, Suzanne?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? If you’re happy, then it was the right decision,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m delirious,” she replied. “I’m ten minutes closer to Barton, I can get to my classes in a flash, and I love being independent. I have three roommates, and they’re all really special ladies.”

  “I’m thrilled for you, then,” I said.

  For some reason, she looked happy to hear the news. Did my opinion really matter that much to her? Emma was more than just an employee, she was my friend, but it was still nice to know that she cared about what I thought.