Jessica Beck - Donut Shop 17 - Old Fashioned Crooks (2 page)

From my new
perspective, I had a bird’s-eye view of the park across the street where the
majority of the festivities were taking place.
 
The school band was set up in the gazebo,
and a dozen vendors, all donating their proceeds to the cause, were tightly
wedged around it.
 
A bonfire ready
and waiting to be lit had been built close to the Boxcar Grill, and I realized
that I’d have had a wonderful view of it from the porch of my cottage.
 
For a moment I wished that Jake were
there to take all of it in with me, but he was on the North Carolina coast
dealing with the murder of the mayor of a beach resort.
 
It was a real puzzler, the only type of
case that Jake seemed to get.
 
That
was a real hitch with being so good at what he did, and his boss was squeezing
every last drop of work out of him before he was gone for good.
 

I enjoyed the
excitement as folks of all ages paraded past the shop, laughing at the ghosts
as they wandered in and out of the festivities, and I even managed to sell a
few donuts as time went by, too.
 
I
loved this time of year.
 
The days
were growing shorter and the evenings chillier, and this evening was no
exception.
 
Soon the bonfire would
be lit, and folks would enjoy the dancing flames long into the night, sipping their
hot cocoa—and other drinks—and reveling in their friendships.
 

When all was said
and done, it would be a time to remember, a slice of the small town life that I
loved so dearly.
 

I decided that as
soon as they lit the bonfire, I’d close Donut Hearts and join everyone else.
 

“Hey, you haven’t
closed the shop yet, have you?” Grace asked as she hurried to me with the
promised banner in her hands.

“No, of course
not.
 
Is that it?”

She grinned.
 
“It turned out to be a little bigger
than I’d originally planned.
 
To
tell you the truth, I got a little carried away.
 
I’ll let you off the hook.
 
You just have to leave it up long enough
for me to take a few photos of it.”

“Nonsense.
 
I meant what I said.
 
I’m going to leave it up all week so
folks know that you and your company played a part in my donation,” I
said.
 
We walked back into the shop
and draped her signage across the window, a sweet banner she’d printed out on
her computer that looked extremely professional.
 
“That’s great.
 
I might have you do some advertisements
for the shop if I ever scrape up enough to cover the expense.”

“I’d be happy to
do it,” Grace said with a smile.
 
There
was no denying that she was a lovely woman, stylish and fit, but in my opinion,
it was her smile that made her so beautiful.
 
My best friend had an easy way with
people that proved she had been born for sales, and she took full advantage of
it.
 
When we were finished hanging the
new banner, we both took a step back and admired her handiwork.
 
“Wow, that turned out even better than I
hoped it would.”
 
After taking
several photos with her camera, she asked, “Are you sure you want to leave this
up?
 
It’s kind of big.”

“So was your
generous donation,” I said.
 
“How
long do you think I should stay open tonight?”

“I don’t
know.
 
You have quite a few donuts
left,” Grace said as she studied the display shelves.

“True, but I
don’t have to sell them all now that you’ve contributed so generously to the
cause.
 
Why don’t we give them out
to the crowd, courtesy of your company and Donut Hearts?
 
What do you think of that idea?”

“I think it’s
brilliant.
 
Plus, it sounds like a
lot of fun.
 
Let’s do it.”

We gathered the
remaining donuts onto one cart I used sometimes for street fairs and other
events, and I locked Donut Hearts behind me, leaving the lights on so folks
could see Grace’s banner even though we were closed.
 
I knew that she’d made the donation to
help me, but I wanted to give her a good return for her kind investment.

We were just
getting started giving out donuts to a crowd of grateful attendees when I heard
the first scream.

Even though I’d
never heard her scream before, I knew in an instant who it had to be.

Something had clearly
provoked Emma Blake so strongly that it had made her cry out into the night, a shriek
that rose above all of the background noise of the festivities, and I was
determined to find out what exactly had happened to make her shriek like that.
 

Chapter 3

“He’s dead!” Emma
shouted through her sobs as she gestured wildly toward the freshly lit bonfire.

“Who’s dead,
Emma?” I asked as I tried to calm her down while searching for what she’d seen.

“Him!
 
Can’t you see him?”
 
She stood there in shock, pointing to
the heart of the fire, which was freshly lit and starting to lick its way up
the piled wooden branches and planks.

I looked harder,
and sure enough, I saw what looked like a man’s body hidden within the wood, newly
illuminated by the growing tongues of fire.
 
I couldn’t tell whether he was dead or
alive, but I knew that I had to act quickly before it was too late.
 
“Somebody help me!” I yelled as I
abandoned my donut cart and started running toward the flames.
 
I’d had a bad experience with fire in
the not-so-distant past, but that didn’t keep me from doing what I knew that I
had to do.

The fire chief
had lit the bonfire himself, and he hurried to cut me off me as I rushed toward
the growing flames.

“Suzanne, what’s
wrong?” he asked me.
 
“What do you
think you’re doing?”

“There!
 
Look!”
 
In my excitement, I seemed to have lost
my ability to utter more than one word at a time.

The fire chief
took in the scene and quickly spotted the body.
 
In his defense, he most likely couldn’t
have seen it from the ignition point where he’d first lit the fire.
 
It was a credit to his training and
skills that he didn’t even hesitate once he saw what was going on.
 
Because the fire had been built close to
the diner—not to mention my cottage—the fire department was already there in
case of emergency, and this certainly qualified as one.
 
In a matter of moments, under his
direction, the chief’s entire crew leapt into action, going from collecting
donations in rubber boots into full-fledged firefighting mode.
 
The hose was manned and the flames were
out quickly before any damage could be done to the body.
 

I watched as the
fire chief started to move closer toward the woodpile when I saw a firm hand come
out of the crowd and grab his shoulder.
 
It was Chief Martin, my freshly minted stepfather, and temporarily back
on the job as chief of police.

“You need to
stand down.
 
I’ll take it from
here,” Chief Martin said with the calm voice of authority, and the fire chief
nodded in quick agreement.
 
He might
have even looked a little relieved in the light coming from the streetlamp
nearby.
 
Well, why wouldn’t he be
happy to let the police handle the situation?
 
He’d been trained to put out fires, not
investigate homicides.
 
Though he had
probably seen his share of dead bodies over the years, I imagined that those
deaths had been caused by fire, not occurring before the fires had even
started.
 
It was an entirely
different type of investigation, and one that our chief of police had plenty of
experience with.
 

For that matter,
so had I.
 

“Is that Rick
Hastings?” I asked the chief as I got closer to the body.

“Suzanne, you
need to step away.
 
I don’t have
time to answer any of your questions right now; I need to handle this.”

“Sure.
 
I understand,” I said as I stepped back
and let him do what he had to do.
 
I
knew that it was hard enough on the chief to come back to a job he clearly
didn’t want, and I didn’t want to make things even more difficult for him if I
didn’t have to.

It appeared that
murder had once again come to pay a visit to April Springs.

But who was the
victim, and why had someone decided to leave the body in such a conspicuous
place?
 
Was it indeed Rick Hastings,
Emma’s boyfriend, or was it some other unfortunate soul?
 
From where I stood, I had no idea, and I
was glad that it wasn’t my job to figure it out.

In the end, I was
a donutmaker, by vocation as well as avocation, and I planned on sticking with
what I did best and let the police handle this on their own.

That was my initial
intention, at any rate, and it continued to be so right up until the second I
learned exactly who the victim was, and how the murder would directly affect my
life.

Chapter 4

“Did you see who
it was?” Grace asked me softly as she and Emma joined me near the dampened
bonfire, a spot that was now clearly a crime scene.

“I can’t tell for
sure, and the police chief’s not saying,” I said, doing my best to keep my
voice calm and level.
 
Emma was
already on the edge, and she didn’t need any signs that her worst fears might
be true.

“It’s Rick.
 
I just know it is,” Emma said, her voice
completely deadened with pain.
 
Even
as she spoke, she couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away from the body as the
chief and his deputies photographed and videotaped the details of the crime scene
for their records.

“We don’t know
that for sure yet,” I said as I put an arm around my assistant and good friend
and did my best to comfort her.

“You may not
know, Suzanne, but I do,” she said.

“Emma?
 
Are you all right?” Sharon Blake, Emma’s
mother, asked as she rushed toward us.

“Oh, Mom.
 
It’s just awful.”
 
Emma wrapped her arms around her mother
and held on for dear life.
 
I
watched as Sharon stroked her daughter’s hair, and was glad that she’d found
her in the crowd.

“It’s going to be
okay,” Sharon said so softly that I almost missed it.

“How can it
be?
 
I just know that it’s Rick,”
Emma choked out.

“If it is, then
we’ll all find a way to get through it together,” Sharon said, her voice full
of calm reassurance.

That seemed to
pacify Emma a little, but I noticed that neither mother nor daughter made any
move to break their embrace.
 
After
a few more moments, Sharon asked me softly, “Suzanne, would you ask the police
chief if he’s been able to make a positive identification yet?”

“I’ll try, but I
can’t make any promises that I’ll get an answer,” I said.

“Just do your
best,” Sharon said, and then she turned her full attention back to her
daughter.
 

As I left them
both and hurried toward Chief Martin, I noticed that Grace was right on my
heels.

“He’s not going
to tell us anything.
 
You know that,
don’t you?” Grace asked me gently once we were away from the mother and
daughter.

“You’re probably
right, but I have to at least try.
 
You heard her.”

“I’m not saying
that you shouldn’t ask Chief Martin.
 
Just don’t expect to get any answers,” Grace said.
 
“I’ve got a thought.
 
If the chief won’t tell us anything,
which has turned out to be the case so far, maybe I can get something out of
Stephen.”
 
The Stephen she was
referring to was Stephen Grant, an officer on the April Springs police force,
and more importantly to Grace, her current boyfriend.

“Just try not to
get him into any more trouble with his boss,” I said.
 
I knew that Officer Grant was often in
hot water with the police chief, and he didn’t need our help getting in any
deeper than he normally was.

“I’ll try not to,
but I’m not making any promises, either,” Grace said as she went off in search
of her boyfriend.

I just shrugged
as I started angling back toward the police chief.
 
Odds were that he wasn’t going to tell
me anything after dismissing me earlier, but I’d told Sharon that I’d try, so
that was exactly what I was going to do.

“Chief, I know
that you’re busy, but do you have one second?
 
I wouldn’t ask you if it weren’t
important,” I said as he finished directing two of his deputies as they
unfurled their crime scene tape, enclosing a large chunk of the park as they unwound
it from its spool.

“Sorry,
Suzanne.
 
Honestly, right now I
don’t have a single second to spare.”

“Even if it’s
just one question?” I persisted.

The chief looked
at me with that same exasperated expression I’d grown used to over the years,
but then he must have remembered that he couldn’t so easily discount me as he
once had now that we were family, related through both of our relationships
with my mother.
 
“Make it
quick.
 
What’s your question?” he
asked, failing to hide his impatience with being interrupted during his
investigation.

“Is the body Rick
Hastings’?” I asked.

The chief’s gaze
grew suddenly suspicious.
 
“What makes
you say that?
 
I know for a fact
that there’s no way you could have seen who it was in the dark.”

I felt my heart
freeze a little with the confirmation.
 
“Does that mean that it’s true, then?”

In a lower voice,
Chief Martin answered, “It is, but I still want to know how you knew it was him.”

“Emma told me,” I
admitted.

“And how exactly
did she know?”

“Chief, she’s
been dating Rick for a month,” I explained. “She had to have known him better
than either one of us could have.”

“That doesn’t
explain how she could have spotted him in that bonfire just as it was being lit.
 
I was standing nearby myself, and I
could barely make out that it was a man at all, let alone identify the body.”

“I don’t know
what to tell you; I can’t explain it.
 
She must have seen
something
that told her that it was him,” I said, completely skirting the idea that it might
have been her woman’s intuition.
 
Chief Martin wasn’t a big fan of the expression, and I wasn’t about to use
it after he’d just given me valuable information.

I was about to
ask him if he knew yet how Rick had died when I felt a nudge behind me.
 
I turned, fully expecting to find Grace,
but instead, Ray Blake was crowding me.
 
He was Emma’s father, and he owned and operated our local newspaper,
The April Springs Sentinel
.
 
It was more a delivery vehicle for
coupons and ads than it was a newsbreaking machine, but that never discouraged
Ray from trying to scoop everyone at the larger papers that were based nearby.

“Who was the
victim, Chief?” Ray asked him.

“No comment,” the
chief said, clearly with practiced ease.

The newspaperman
looked aggravated.
 
“Seriously?
 
I know for a fact that you were just
talking to Suzanne a second ago, and I can’t imagine you brushing her off now
that she’s your stepdaughter.
 
If
she knows something, the entire citizenry of April Springs has a right to know
it, too.”

“Like I said, no
comment,” the chief repeated.
 
At
that moment, he reminded me a little of Jake.
 
I hadn’t always been the police chief’s
biggest fan, but since I’d started working around the edges of law enforcement on
a few homicide cases myself, I’d developed a little more respect for the man’s
skills.
 
His job was hard, there was
no doubt about it, and I couldn’t imagine how he managed to do it as well as he
did.

Ray wasn’t about
to be discouraged by the flat refusal, though.
 
Instead of focusing on the chief, he
turned to me instead.
 
“Suzanne, who
was the victim?
 
Do I need to remind
you that you’re not under any obligation to keep secrets for the police
department?”

“Ray, how’s Emma
doing?” I asked pointedly as I ignored his question.

He dismissed my
question with an irritable shrug.
 
“I’m sure she’s fine.
 
How is
that pertinent to this situation?”

“Didn’t you
know?
 
She’s the one who first saw
the body, and she was pretty traumatized by the discovery when I saw her.
 
Don’t you think that you should check on
her?
 
Your daughter might need you.”

That got his
attention.
 
Suddenly the newsman in
front of me was replaced by the caring father.
 
“Where is she?”

“The last time I
saw her, she was somewhere over that way,” I said as I pointed in the general
direction where I’d seen Emma and her mother last.
 
I decided to share that information with
him as well.
 
“She was with Sharon
the last time I saw her, but she was still falling apart.
 
I’ve got a feeling that she needs both
of you right now.”

Ray took off into
the crowd without another word, and the man earned a point or two with me by
doing so, abandoning the possibility of a hot story so that he could look after
his daughter’s welfare.

“Thanks for
that,” the chief said after Ray was gone.

“You might not be
thanking me in a minute when I tell you what I’m probably going to have to do,”
I told him.

Chief Martin
shook his head for a moment before he spoke.
 
When he finally did talk again, there
was more resignation in his voice than disapproval.
 
“Let me guess.
 
You and Grace are going to dig into this
murder yourselves, aren’t you?”

I smiled at
him.
 
“You got it on the first
guess.
 
I really don’t have any
choice, Chief.
 
Emma is like family
to me.”

“I’m perfectly
aware of that fact,” he said with a sigh.
 
“Just try not to muddy the investigation too much, will you?”

“I’ll do my
best,” I said, happy that he really did see some value in what Grace and I did.

“Keep me posted,
and I mean about everything you uncover.
 
Oh, and one more thing.
 
Stay
safe.
 
Your mother would kill me if
I let something happen to you.”

“You know
me.
 
I’m
always
careful,” I said with another smile, and then, completely on
impulse, I kissed his cheek.
 
“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,”
he said, clearly embarrassed by the brief display of affection.
 
“Just don’t make me regret it, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” I
said.
 
“Now, could you tell me
exactly how the man was murdered?”

He grinned at me
before he spoke.
 
“I’ll tell you
exactly what I just told Ray Blake.”

“No comment?” I
asked, returning his smile in kind.

“Hey, you’re good
at this game, too.
 
Now do me a
favor and scram.
 
I’ve got work to
do.”

“I’m already
gone,” I said.
 
“Oh, just one last
thing.”

“What is it,
Suzanne?
 
Don’t press your luck too
far.”

“I just realized
that somebody needs to tell Emma Blake.
 
She’s been dating Rick for the past month, so she has a right to know
before it becomes common knowledge, don’t you think?”

“You’re right, of
course.
 
I absolutely hate that part
of my job,” Chief Martin said sadly, and I could see that he meant it.
 
It had to be awful informing loved ones
that someone they cared about would never be coming back to them again, and I
didn’t envy him the task one little bit.

“Would you like
me to tell her for you?” I volunteered.

After a moment of
hesitation, the police chief shook his head.
 
“No.
 
Thanks for the offer, but I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s my job,
Suzanne, but I appreciate the gesture.
 
As a matter of fact, I’d better go take care of that right now.”

I nodded, and
then I watched the man walk away.
 
All in all, it was probably a good thing that he’d refused my offer.
 
A part of me had wanted to speak with
Emma about her boyfriend so I could get some leads that might help Grace and me
find his killer, but mostly I knew in my heart that there was no way that I
could bring myself to ask those hard questions, at least not yet.
 
Right now I needed for her to find out
that her worst fears had been realized, and then I had to give her some time and
space to cope with the knowledge before I questioned her.
 
After all, my friend’s state of mind
counted for a great deal more than any murder investigation.
 
I’d offer her comfort if I could, but I
wouldn’t bring up Rick’s name until I felt she was ready to deal with what had
happened to him.

Until that occurred,
Grace and I were going to have to conduct our investigation without her,
because there was no way that I was going to add to Emma’s pain if I could help
it.

Where was Grace,
anyway?
 
She should have been back
by now.
 
I grabbed my phone and
started to punch in her number when I saw her walking toward me in the muted
light coming from the lamps scattered around the park.

“I was just getting
ready to call you.
 
Where have you
been?” I asked her.

“Searching in
vain for my boyfriend,” she answered.
 
“I hope you had better luck than I did.”

Lowering my
voice, I said, “It’s not public knowledge yet, but Chief Martin confirmed that
Emma was right.
 
It was Rick
Hastings’ body.”

Grace looked at
me in awe.
 
“How did you get him to admit
that to you?”

“I’m not
sure.
 
I must have caught him at a
weak moment,” I said.