Custard Crime: Donut Mystery #14 (The Donut Mysteries) (21 page)

“As for me, I like to phone it in most of the time,”
she said.

“I’m not kidding.”

“Neither am I,” Grace answered.
 
“There’s nothing all that precise about
my job, especially since so much of it involves being a supervisor.
 
My people either meet their sales goals,
or they don’t.
 
Shoot, I don’t even
run the totals myself.”

“Then how do you know the level of their
performance?”

“Corporate tells me, trust me on that.
 
When my people underachieve, I get a
call from my boss.
 
When they do
something exemplary, I get an email.”

“And when they’re just plain average?”

“Then nobody says anything at all.
 
That’s the state of being I prefer.”

“You don’t want overachievers working for you?” I
asked as I finished up the deposit slip and got everything ready for the bank.

“No way.
 
If I have too many of those on my staff, then they get antsy and start
gunning for my job.
 
No ma’am, I’ll
take status quo every day of the week.”

“I’m glad I have just the one employee.”

“This place is so small, if you had any more than
that, you’d have to step outside to change your mind.”

I looked around the shop and smiled.
 
“It might be cozy, but it’s all mine,
and I like it.”

“I do, too,” Grace replied.
 
“After the bank, where should we go?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’d like to ask Julie
about that birthday card we found in Evelyn’s trashcan.
 
I’ve got a hunch that things weren’t as
sweet between them as she wanted me to believe the last time we chatted.”

“Oh, goody.
 
I just love an ambush, especially when it’s someone else that’s in your
crosshairs.”

“I never ambush anybody, do I?” I asked.

“Maybe that’s a little too harsh of a way to phrase
it, but yes, you can ask questions abruptly when we’re grilling our suspects.”

“Should I change the way I interview people?” I asked
her, honestly concerned about the way that I came across.

“No way, Suzanne.
 
It’s really the only way that we get
honest reactions most of the time.
 
If anything, I believe that we should do it more often.”

I smiled at her, and then I said, “I’m not so sure
about that, but whatever we’ve been doing so far seems to have been
working.
 
We’ve had more than our
share of success in the past, even if some of it has been due directly to
luck.”

“If by luck you mean preparation meeting opportunity,
then I agree with you wholeheartedly.”

“Someone famous said that, didn’t they?” I asked,
vaguely remembering hearing that particular quote before.

“Of course they did.
 
I like to think that I’m famous, if
nothing else, in my own mind.”

“You’re famous to me, too,” I said.
 
“Let’s drop this deposit off, and then
we can go looking for Julie.”

“I’m glad we have a bit of a car ride.
 
That way we can scheme a little more as
we head to Union Square,” Grace said as we locked up Donut Hearts and headed
for my Jeep.

“I prefer to call it strategizing,” I said, grinning
slightly.

“Potato, potato,” she said, with absolutely no change
in inflection from the first to the second pronunciation.

“Julie, I’d love to chat, if you’ve got the time,” I
said.
 
Fortunately, we’d found her
at her apartment.
 
Unfortunately,
she was walking out the door as we’d been walking up the steps to her place.

Evelyn’s cousin glanced at her watch, and then she
said, “I don’t have much to spare, to be honest with you.
 
What’s this about?”

“We’ll make it as quick as we can.
 
It’s about our earlier conversation,” I
said.

“And who exactly is this?” she asked me as she
pointed directly at Grace.

“This is my best friend, Grace Gauge,” I said as
Grace offered her hand.
 
Julie took
it as I continued, “She’s helping me look into your cousin’s murder.”

“So, you’re investigating after all.
 
Suzanne, I don’t mean to be rude, but
what makes you believe that you are better qualified to solve Evelyn’s murder
than the police?”

“I don’t, not necessarily.
 
Think of us as supplemental assistance,”
I said.

“What could you possibly do that would help anyone
involved in the case?”

“Lots of things,” Grace said.
 
“For instance, we know that you got shut
out of another will, and that you aren’t getting a dime from Evelyn’s estate,
either.”

Julie frowned at that.
 
“I didn’t think that would be common
knowledge.
 
I’ll have to have a word
with the state police inspector.”

“Actually, my mother told me,” I said, addressing the
statement myself.

Julie nodded.
 
“And she’s married to Chief Martin now.
 
My, you have a cozy little situation
going on in April Springs, don’t you?”

“We like it,” I said.
 

“I’m sure there’s nothing else that you know,” she
said confidently.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Grace said.

Julie looked at her sharply.
 
“What do you mean by that?”

I’d been holding the torn card for later, but it was
out there now, so I didn’t have any choice but to address it.
 
After I explained what we’d found, I
added, “It was found in Evelyn’s trashcan.”

My statement didn’t seem to faze her in the
least.
 
“My dear cousin was never
really very sentimental,” she said brusquely.
 
“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“I don’t know that’s at all true.
 
As a matter of fact,” I said, “she still
had her wedding photo with the chief on display in her house.”

Grace piped up, “And as for the card, it wasn’t just
discarded.
 
It was torn in half, too.”

Julie just shrugged at hearing the news.
 
“Why on earth should I believe you, or
even care about it if it happens to be true?”

I pulled out my phone and showed her the picture,
glad that I’d thought to take it.
 
“Here’s the evidence, if you don’t believe us.”

Julie looked at it, and then to my surprise, she
smiled.

“What’s so funny?” Grace asked.

“Did either one of you actually bother reading the
card?” Julie asked us.

I hadn’t even thought about doing it, and evidently
neither had Grace.
 
“No,” I
said.
 
“What does that have to do
with how we found it?”

“My cousin and I had a running gag about birthday
cards.
 
We tried to find ones that
were disrespectful, inappropriate, or in any way not acceptable.
 
It started when I was a kid and she sent
me a card for my seventh birthday congratulating me on my retirement.
 
That part of the message was crossed
out, and she’d written in that I’d retired from being her favorite cousin.
 
Mean, but funny, too.
 
I found a condolence card for her next
birthday, marked through it, and added a message that I was sad about her being
so old.
 
My mother had a fit when
she found out about it, but Evelyn had enjoyed it, so we kept the tradition up
over the years.”

I tapped my phone to study the message a little
closer, and I was surprised to see that the card was originally intended for
someone on their hundredth birthday.
 
Sure enough, on the face of it, Julie had written, “You don’t look a day
over 99” on it.
 

Julie said, “I would have loved to see her face when
she read that one.
 
It would have
been priceless.”

“I’m sure that it was,” I said.
 

As I showed the image to Grace, Julie said, “Now, if
you’ll excuse me, I really do have to get going.
 
Phillip may be inheriting everything of
my cousin’s, but I’m still in charge of her funeral arrangements, and if I
don’t leave right now, I’m going to be late.”

“Thanks for taking the time to chat with us,” I said,
but she didn’t linger long enough to respond.

“That was odd,” I said after she was gone and we were
left standing there on her porch.

“I don’t know.
 
I thought it was kind of funny.
 
Maybe we should start exchanging cards like that.
 
It could be a real hoot.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not,” I
said.
 
“The real question is, does
that make Julie look guiltier in our view, or less?”

“About the same, I’d say,” Grace replied as we headed
back to the Jeep.
 
“I hate when
we’re stalled on a case like this.
 
After we speak with a suspect, I’d rather we clear them or believe even
more that they’re guilty.
 
Ambivalence is not going to do us any good.”

“Unfortunately we both know that sometimes that’s how
it works,” I said.

“Hopefully we’ll have more luck with Violet.”

“If not with her,” I answered, “then perhaps with
Conrad.”

“For having so many suspects, we’re not doing great
eliminating many of them, are we?”

“Not so far, but we’re not the only ones working on
this, remember?
 
Jake could be
chipping away at the list even as we speak.”

“Hey, as long as one of us is advancing this case,
I’ll be happy,” Grace said.
 
“Now,
let’s go see what Violet has to say for herself.”

“At least she and Conrad both live in Union Square,”
I said as I started the Jeep.
 
“It’s
nice to be able to talk to three suspects in one trip.”

“There’s that,” Grace said.
 
“Maybe if there’s time later, we can get
another bite at Napoli’s.”

I glanced over at her sleek form as I said, “For
someone with such a slim figure, you sure do dream about Italian food an awful
lot.”

“What can I say?
 
I have a strong metabolism.
 
Sometimes it can be a real curse.”

“Feel free to share some of that with me,” I
said.
 
“I can just talk about
Angelica’s restaurant and gain three pounds.”

“We each have our strengths,” Grace said with a grin.

“And weaknesses, as well,” I replied.
 
“Let’s go tackle Violet and see if we
can discover what her shortcomings are.”

Chapter 19

“Hey, Violet,” I said when she finally came to her
door.
 
I’d nearly given up hope that
she was going to answer, but she finally made it.
 
From the look of things, she’d hastily
gotten dressed, though it was late afternoon.
 
Two buttons on her blouse were undone,
and her hair was disheveled.
 
Had we
just woken her up?
 
Maybe that would
play in our favor if she were still a little groggy from her nap.

“What do you two want now?
 
I thought we were finished talking.”

“You might be done, but we’re not,” Grace said.
 
“We would still love to hear where you
were when Evelyn was murdered.
 
You
never told us the last time we spoke.”

“You’re not the police.
 
I don’t have to tell you a thing,” she
said.

“Who’s at the door, Violet?” a familiar man’s voice
asked from the other room.

“Nobody important,” she told him, and then she faced
us again.
 
“Go away.
 
Now.”

To punctuate her demand, she slammed the door in our
faces.

“Did you hear that man’s voice inside?” I asked Grace
as we left the porch.
 
“It was
Conrad Swoop, wasn’t it?”

“That’s who it sounded like to me.
 
It didn’t take him long to come back to
Violet, did it?”

“If he ever left her in the first place,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Grace, what if he was
always
interested in her more than he was in Evelyn?
 
He could have played the chief’s ex-wife
for a fool, swindled some money out of her, and then got rid of her so he could
be with Violet.
 
It might have been
his plan all along.”

“I suppose it’s a possibility,” Grace said a little
uncertainly.

“You don’t buy it?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered as we got into the
Jeep.
 
“Tell you what.
 
Why don’t you drive around the block,
and then park somewhere out of sight up the street?”

“What do you have in mind?”

“To be honest with you, I’d like to see where Conrad
goes after he leaves here,” Grace answered.

“What if he’s settled in for the rest of the day?”

Grace shrugged.
 
“Tell you what.
 
We’ll give
him half an hour, and if he hasn’t left her place by then, we’ll go on to the
next thing on our list.
 
How does
that sound to you?”

“It’s a better idea than anything I’ve got,” I said
as I proceeded to do just what she’d suggested.
 
I parked far enough down the block to
see Violet’s front door, but not be obvious to anyone looking out the window
from inside.

After half an hour of surveillance, there was still
no sign of Conrad.