Jessica Beck - Donut Shop 17 - Old Fashioned Crooks

The First Time Ever Published!

The 17
^th
Donut Mystery

From
New York Times
Bestselling Author

Jessica Beck

OLD FASHIONED CROOKS

Other Books by Jessica Beck

The Donut Mysteries

Glazed Murder

Fatally Frosted

Sinister Sprinkles

Evil Éclairs

Tragic Toppings

Killer Crullers

Drop Dead Chocolate

Powdered Peril

Illegally Iced

Deadly Donuts

Assault and Batter

Sweet Suspects

Deep Fried Homicide

Custard Crime

Lemon Larceny

Bad Bites

Old Fashioned Crooks

The Classic Diner Mysteries

A Chili Death

A Deadly Beef

A Killer Cake

A Baked Ham

A Bad Egg

A Real Pickle

A Burned Out Baker

The Ghost Cat Cozy Mysteries

Ghost Cat: Midnight Paws

Ghost Cat 2: Bid for Midnight

Jessica Beck
is the
New York Times
Bestselling
Author of the Donut Shop Mysteries, the Classic Diner Mysteries, and the Ghost
Cat Cozy Mysteries.

To P and E,

my reasons why!

Old
Fashioned Crooks by Jessica Beck; Copyright © 2014

All
rights reserved.

No
part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or
electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage
piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. This is a
work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is
entirely coincidental.

Recipes
included in this book are to be recreated at the reader’s own risk.
 
The author is not responsible for any
damage, medical or otherwise, created as a result of reproducing these
recipes.
 
It is the responsibility
of the reader to ensure that none of the ingredients are detrimental to their
health, and the author will not be held liable in any way for any problems that
might arise from following the included recipes.

Chapter 1

It was originally
meant to be a fun event that the entire community could enjoy, a pleasant way
to spend an evening and help raise money for a good cause.

Instead, the festivities
turned out to be the backdrop for murder, a homicide that found its way to my
donut shop’s front door on a night when I should have been home getting ready
for bed instead of out and about on the suddenly perilous dark streets of my
otherwise idyllic hometown of April Springs, North Carolina.

Chapter 2

“Suzanne, did
Rick come in here by any chance while I was gone?” Emma Blake, my assistant,
asked me when she hurried into Donut Hearts as darkness started to fall outside.
 
It was odd being in my donut shop at the
beginning of nighttime instead of the middle and end of it, but then again,
this was turning out to be an unusual night in more ways than one.

“Sorry; I haven’t
seen him,” I told her as I began rearranging the donuts we had left in the
display case.

Emma frowned for
a moment, and then she replied, “I don’t get it.
 
He was supposed to meet me out front ten
minutes ago.
 
It’s starting to get
chilly out there.”

“What can I
say?
 
Maybe something distracted him.
 
Emma, if you want to grab your coat and
then go out and enjoy Spirit Night, I can handle things here on my own now that
we’ve got things wrapped up in the kitchen.
 
I fully realize that asking you to work
at night is going above and beyond the call of duty.
 
I still can’t believe that I offered to
open the donut shop this late in the day.”

“How could you
say no?” Emma asked.
 
“Practically every
shop in town is staying open for the festivities, even ReNEWed right next
door.
 
Besides, it’s for a good
cause.”

“I know the
school needs money for new band uniforms, but honestly, I would have rather
just written them a check,” I said with a smile.

“But if you had
done that, then you would have missed out on all of this,” she said as she
gestured at the folks milling about outside.
 
“Besides, I thought you’d welcome the
distraction, you know, considering everything.”

“Considering what,
specifically?” I asked her as I turned to face her.
 
I knew perfectly well what she was
talking about, but I was tired of her tiptoeing around me.
 
If she was going to say something, she
needed to just come out and say it.

To her credit, at
least Emma managed to look a little uncomfortable as she spoke.
 
“Suzanne, it’s no big secret that your
boyfriend is out of town again, even after you thought he was done with his job
with the state police.”

I took her hands
in mine and smiled.
 
“Emma, you
worry too much.
 
In the first place,
Jake’s not my boyfriend; he’s my fiancé.
 
In the second place, he’s wrapping things up with his job.
 
It’s not his fault that his boss is
making him work a full six weeks’ notice.
 
The best thing about it is that when his time is over, he’ll be back
here for good.”

“I’m sure that you’re
right,” Emma said.
 
“I’d just hate
to see you get disappointed.”

“Are you kidding?
 
I’m marrying the man of my dreams,” I
said with a grin.
 
“It’s tough to be
too disappointed about that.”

“How’s Chief
Martin feel about being drafted back into duty after he tried to quit?” Emma
asked me.

“The chief
understands that he needs to step up until the mayor can find a replacement for
him.
 
Until then, he’s doing his job
again, however grudgingly.”

“And you’re positive
there’s no way that Jake will want to take over as police chief after he leaves
the state police for good?”

I shrugged.
 
“He claims that he’s done with law
enforcement as a career forever, but I’m not so sure, myself.
 
I think he’d be a perfect fit for the
April Springs police department, but it’s not my call.
 
I’ll be happy with whatever he decides
to do.”

“What if he wants
you to move somewhere else?” Emma asked me, her question coming out in a rush
of words.
 
There it was.
 
She’d finally voiced her fears that I’d
close Donut Hearts the moment that Jake and I got married, and now I could
address it out in the open.

“It’s not going
to happen,” I said as I squeezed her hands.
 
“Don’t worry about me, or your job.
 
I’m not going anywhere.”
 
I gestured around the shop as I added, “This
is all too important to me to ever just walk away from it.
 
Now, do you feel better?”

“A little bit,” Emma
said with a hesitant smile.
 
“I’d be
even better if I knew what Rick was up to.”

“Like I said, I
can’t help you with that.
 
If you’re
that worried about him, though, go out and see if you can find him.”
 
I looked outside to see crowds of people
wandering up and down Springs Drive.
 
Quite a few folks were wearing the high school’s colors of blue and
gold, but nearly an equal amount were dressed in Halloween costumes, including
a great many adorned in plain white sheets with holes cut out for eyes.
 
Apparently a lot of folks in town had
decided that Spirit Night deserved its own set of ghosts, aka spirits, and they
were enthusiastically joining in on the fun.
 
In honor of the special celebration, I’d
created a Band Buster Donut, a plain cake donut decorated with blue and gold
stripes and topped with a dollop of whipped cream.
 
Emma had teasingly played with the idea
of calling it a Band Aid Donut, but we hadn’t been sure how that name would be
perceived by our customers, so we’d changed it to something a little more
acceptable.
 
On a lark, I’d also
made a regular solid yeast donut, left unfilled, but covered with white
icing.
 
As a finishing
embellishment, I’d even added two small round bits of chocolate to serve as
eyes, and another larger one for the mouth.
 
I could be as playful as everyone else,
so I called it the Spirit Donut and put it on sale as well.
 
They were actually doing better than the
Band Busters, and I thought about adding them to our regular autumn menu.
 
I was about to say so when I saw that
Emma was completely lost in the outdoor festivities; honestly, she might as
well go find her errant boyfriend.
 
“Go.
 
There’s no reason that both of us need
to hang out around here,” I said.

“Are you sure?”
she asked me eagerly as she grabbed her jacket.
 
Emma was just starting the first year of
her twenties, and I was grateful to have her working for me instead of off
somewhere in college.
 
My assistant
took some classes at the local community college during the afternoons and
evenings, but nothing that interfered with her time working with me.

Usually.

Then again, Donut
Hearts wasn’t usually open at seven o’clock at night.

“I’m positive,” I
said.
 
“Now go before I change my
mind!”

“Thanks.
 
I’ll check in with you later, just in
case,” Emma said happily as she headed out the door, hot on the trail of her
boyfriend.
 
I wasn’t a big fan of Rick’s
for several reasons.
 
For one thing,
he was in his early thirties, an age I considered too old for my assistant.
 
Added to that was the fact that I had a sneaking
suspicion that she wasn’t the only object of his affection.
 
Finally, his means of support wasn’t
entirely clear to the casual observer, and yet he always managed to flash a wad
of cash around wherever he went.
 
I
kept telling myself that it wasn’t any of my business, but I’d always thought
of Emma as a combination sister and daughter, and that meant that I constantly
lost the argument with myself that it would be smarter to just butt out of her
love life altogether.
 
Besides, I
knew that Ray and Sharon Blake, Emma’s parents, weren’t pleased with the
relationship either, so there was no real need for me to add my voice into the
mix.
 

That didn’t mean
that I was just going to let it go entirely, though.
 

I was still
wondering if there was a subtle way that I could discourage Emma from seeing
Rick when my best friend, Grace Gauge, walked in carrying a pennant on a stick.
 
She was wearing a lovely blue coat and
had a gold scarf tied fashionably around her neck.
 
Slim and pretty, she looked more like a
model than a cosmetics rep.
 
“Go
Bulldogs!
 
Woof, woof,” Grace said
with a smile as she waved the flag eagerly in my direction.

“Not you, too,” I
said with a smile.

“Why not?
 
After all, it’s not every day that April
Springs is this alive after dark, and I for one approve of all of this
gamboling about.
 
Suzanne, this
festival matches my preferred hours perfectly, though probably not yours,” Grace
said as she looked around at the half-full racks of donuts left, Band Busters
and all.
 
“How’s business, or do I
even need to ask?”

“Not wonderful,
but then again, it’s not during my normal operating hours, so it’s not an issue.
 
We’re raising some money for the band,
so I can’t complain.”

“Are you donating
all of the supplies to the cause yourself?” she asked me critically.
 
Grace knew what a thin profit margin I
ran on at Donut Hearts, and she was always looking out for me financially.
 
She was a savvy businesswoman, something
that I found too easy to forget sometimes because of the easygoing way she
treated her job.

“I am, but don’t
worry about me.
 
I can handle the
hit,” I said, not willing to admit that my donation of raw materials, even
discounting my time and Emma’s salary for the extra working hours, would eat a
deep hole in that month’s profits.

“Tell you what.
 
Let
me
cover them for you,” Grace said softly.
 
“Things have been very good at work lately.
 
We blew past our sales goals this
quarter, and everyone, including the supervisors, just got a nice bonus.”

Grace worked for
a cosmetics company as a regional supervisor, and from everything I could see,
she did well at it, though she generally worked quite a few hours less than I
did.
 
I would have loved to hit the
minimum wage mark myself.
 
In truth,
I was exaggerating, but not by much.

“Thanks for the
offer, but I’ve got it.
 
There’s no
reason for you to spend your hard-earned money on me or my donut shop.”

“Suzanne, there’s
no reason to be a hero.
 
Besides, I
wasn’t talking about dipping into my own personal bank account.
 
I have a budget for PR that I have to
use up in the next few days or I’ll lose it.
 
What better cause can you think of than
this?”

“Honestly, you
should use it for something else,” I said, determined to do it on my own.
 
I was reluctant to accept her offer,
even though it would help me a great deal.
 
It was probably just stubborn pride.

Grace just
shrugged.
 
“Suit yourself, but I
have to spend it all somewhere, or I won’t get as much next quarter.”

“For the life of
me, I don’t understand the corporate world sometimes,” I said.

“It’s not the
easiest thing in the world to do, but it has its perks,” she said.
 
“Are you sure you don’t want the
donation?
 
Honestly, you’d be
helping me out if you took it.”

Leave it to Grace
to couch her generosity as a favor request.
 
I struggled with the idea of accepting
her donation for another moment or two before I spoke again.
 
“If I took your money, how could we
advertise your participation in the program?
 
Spirit Night is already halfway over.”

“That’s not an
issue,” she said with a smile as she handed me a check.
 
The sneaky rascal had already made it
out before she’d even stepped one foot inside my donut shop.

“This is way too
much, Grace,” I replied as I tried to hand it back to her.

“Then donate
what’s left after your expenses to the uniform fund.
 
There’s just one catch, though.”

“What’s that?”

Grace frowned,
and then she asked me, “Would you mind putting a sign in your window that my
company participated in the event by sponsoring you?
 
I just need to take a picture of it and
send it in to Corporate, and you can pull the sign down as soon as I have my
photo.”

I thought about
it for a moment, and then I countered her suggestion with one of my own.
 
“I can do better than that.
 
Make a banner and I’ll put it up in the
front window for a week,” I said.

“Are you sure you
wouldn’t mind?
 
That would be
perfect.
 
I’ll be back in fifteen
minutes,” Grace said, and then she handed me her pennant.
 
“In the meantime, wave this around every
now and then.
 
Go Dogs.”

I had to laugh as
my best friend hurried back out into the crowd, narrowly avoiding being run
over by two ghosts, one leaning heavily on the other.
 
Evidently someone had gotten more into
the spirits than the actual spirit of the event.
 
Leave it to Grace to step in and save
the day.
 
I had to admit that having
that check made me breathe a lot easier.
 
Maybe now I could actually enjoy the sleep deprivation I’d be undergoing
soon.
 
I decided to be a little more
active, so I grabbed a nice selection of donuts and put them on a tray,
focusing mainly on the blue and gold donuts I’d made for the event, as well as
the spirit ghost ones.
 
I couldn’t exactly
wander around the park, leave the donut shop unattended, and risk something
happening while I was gone, but there was no reason I couldn’t sit out front at
one of the Donut Hearts tables and peddle my goods from a spot closer to the
action.