Jessica Beck - Donut Shop 18 - Dangerous Dough (20 page)

Chapter 26

I wasn’t even out
of the Granite Meadows city limits when I saw a flashing blue light behind me
just as I heard the siren.

“What did I do?”
I asked as I found a place to pull over.
 
Jake had been right.
 
It was
getting slippery, and my bad tire wasn’t helping matters any.

“Who knows?
 
You surely weren’t speeding; at least
not in this mess.”

Through the
flakes, I saw the officer behind us get out and put on his hat.
 
I knew immediately that it wasn’t the
police chief, since this policeman was in full uniform.

When I saw who it
was, I almost wished that it was the ill-tempered police chief.

Instead, it was
Officer Durant, one of my many former suspects.

“What’s going
on?” I asked him as he approached my Jeep.
 
I’d had to unzip the window to do it, even though it was going to be a
pain to zip up again.
 
I’d been
having trouble with it lately.
 
To
be fair, the whole Jeep had been giving me fits, and Jake had even had the
nerve to keep suggesting that I replace it.
 
It was rich coming from him, driving
that beat-up old truck he owned.

“License and
registration please,” Officer Durant said solemnly.

As I dug into my
wallet, Grace said, “You know full well who she is.
 
This is harassment, plain and simple,
and we’re not going to stand for it.”

Durant barely
glanced at her as he took the offered documents and made his way back to his
car.

Once he was out
of earshot, Grace said, “He’s just mad that we thought he was a cold-blooded
killer.”

“Imagine holding
a grudge over something like that,” I said to her.

“Do you honestly
think that he’s going to give you a ticket just out of spite?”

“I doubt that
he’ll go that far.
 
I have a feeling
this is just to tweak us both.”

“Well then, he
should consider it a success, because I’m fully tweaked now.”

I put a hand on
hers.
 
“Grace, the worst thing we
can do right now is to smart off to him.
 
Let’s just let him have his little victory, and then we’ll get out of
here once and for all, okay?”

“I’m not sure
that I can promise you that,” she said.

“But you’ll try,
won’t you?”

“For you, I will,”
she said.

When Durant
finally came back, I had to follow my own advice and not lose my temper with
him.
 
I was certain this was simply
retaliation for us suspecting him of killing his partner, but I wasn’t about to
give him the satisfaction of seeing me lose my temper.
 
“Is everything okay, Officer?”

“I’m sorry to say
that tire doesn’t pass inspection,” he said as he pointed to my spare.

“I just had it
put on this morning,” I explained.
 
“Someone slashed the original.”

He shook his head
without comment as he started to write something in his ticket book, and then,
miraculously, he stopped.
 
“Tell you
what I’m going to do.
 
I’ll let you
off with a warning this time, but get that thing fixed pronto.”

“Yes, sir,” I
said, hoping against hope that Grace would remain quiet.

The cop made no
move to leave, though, even though the snow was starting to come down quite
hard.
 
“I heard you had a run-in
with my boss at Shannon Tyler’s place this afternoon.”

“Wow, word
travels fast in a small town,” I said as noncommittally as possible.

“You bet it
does.
 
You’ve got to be scraping the
barrel looking for suspects if you went after the police chief.”

“As a matter of
fact, his new mistress was our main source of interest,” I said.
 
Where was this leading?
 
I had no idea, but I was willing to play
this game as long as he was.

I wasn’t sure
what to expect in the way of a reaction, but his smile still surprised me.
 
“That’s no great surprise.
 
Everybody knows that the chief has been
interested in Shannon for a long time.”

“Even before Alex
was murdered?” I asked.

“Long before
that, if you ask me.
 
Did you and
your crack team happen to look at Tyler’s crazy stalker, Maisie, like I
suggested?”

“We spoke with
her, but she had a solid alibi,” I said.

To my surprise,
the man actually looked impressed.
 
“You two have really done your homework, haven’t you?”

“We try,” I said,
“and once we get our teeth into a case, we never let go.”
 
It was false bravado on my part, but I
wasn’t about to admit that we’d hit a dead end.

“Do you have any
other active suspects you’re looking at?” he asked.
 
“Maybe I can help.
 
Or are you just giving up?”

“That’s never
going to happen,” Grace said as she leaned over to stare at him, picking the
absolute worst time to interject one of her comments.
 
“As a matter of fact, we were just on
our way to find Jake to share our latest bit of important information with him
about the case.
 
We expect to name
the killer very soon.”

Why was she lying
to him?
 
Was it a show of hubris, or
did she just not like the way we were being toyed with?
 
Either way, she needed to stop
immediately.

“Listen, we don’t
have a lot of time.
 
Are we finished
here?
 
We need to go,” I said.

“What’s your
hurry?
 
There’s something you should
both remember.
 
No matter what else
may have happened between us, Alex Tyler was my partner for six years,” Officer
Durant said.
 
“That means something
to me, whether you believe it or not.”

“I have no
trouble believing it,” I said, doing my best to mollify him.
 
“It was awfully convenient having an
alibi, though, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t recall
ever being asked for one,” Durant said with a scowl.
 
“What’s going on?”
 
He looked hard at each of us in turn,
and then he asked, “Why did you need an alibi for me?”
 

“We weren’t
exactly looking for it.
 
It just
fell into our laps,” I said, skirting the truth a little.
 
“Deke Marsh told me that the two of you
were together in Granite Meadows at the exact moment that Alex was being
poisoned.”

“He said that,
did he?
 
Well, it’s true
enough.
 
I’m just sorry that I’m the
one providing him with an alibi,” Officer Durant said.
 
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t mind seeing him
go away for it.”

“Even if you know
for a fact that he didn’t kill your former partner?” Grace asked.

“Hey, he might
not have done this particular crime, but I’m willing to bet that he’s done a
few things just as bad in his lifetime.
 
After all, life’s one big merry-go-round, and we all have to get off
sooner or later.”
 
He tipped his hat
to us, and then he said, “Be careful driving back to April Springs.
 
We wouldn’t want anything happening to
you two on the way.”

“Thanks.
 
We will,” I said.

I didn’t even
wait until he was back in his squad car to take off.
 
I wanted nothing more at the moment than
to put as much distance as possible between me and the townsfolk of Granite
Meadows, including their law enforcement officers.

“Suzanne, what’s
going on?”

“He did it,” I
said as I sped away as fast as I could go.
 
As I drove, I pulled out my cellphone.

“Who are you
calling?” she asked.

“I have to tell
Jake.
 
You can listen to me when I
tell him.”

“We’re in a dead
zone, remember?” Grace reminded me.

“Maybe we’ll get
through anyway.”
 
I heard his phone
ringing on the other end and prayed that he’d pick up.

Unfortunately, it
went straight to voicemail.

“Jake, this is
Suzanne.
 
Grace and I are in trouble
just beyond the Granite Meadows city limits sign on the way back to April Springs.
 
Craig Durant did it.
 
He killed Alex Tyler.
 
If he gets us, too, you need to prove
it.
 
I love you.”

“Suzanne, what
are you talking about?” Grace asked as she looked wildly backward.

“I may not be
able to prove it, but I know it’s true just the same.
 
Craig Durant killed his former partner,
probably to shut him up about his corruption.”

“But he has an
alibi,” Grace countered.

“Sure, from a
known felon who has a pretty big reason of his own to lie.
 
That’s what’s been bothering me since I
first heard it.
 
We’re taking a
crook’s word at face value that Durant wasn’t in April Springs when Alex Tyler
was murdered.”

“And we don’t
have any proof that he was,” she said.

“Not yet, but I’m
willing to bet that we can turn something up now that we know where to look.
 
Grace, how else could he have known
about my bad tire?”

“He could have
spotted it when he pulled up behind us.”

“From that far
away, with the snow coming down in thick sheets like it is?
 
I don’t think so.
 
I’ve got a hunch that the only way he
knew was because he’s the one who slashed the first one, him or Deke Marsh
doing it at his behest, anyway.
 
That’s not all, though.”

“What else do you
have?”

“Do you honestly
think that the chief would go around bragging about his affair with a former
officer’s wife?
 
He told us not to
say a word about it, remember?
 
I’m
guessing Durant has been following us around Granite Meadows all day.
 
He saw the chief leave Shannon’s place,
and then he saw us talking with Maisie.
 
Why else would he follow us unless he wanted to see who else we
suspected?”

“It’s still not
enough to convict him of killing his former partner.”

“Did you take a
picture of Durant with your cellphone?” I asked her as I struggled to keep the
Jeep on the road.

“I got a few
shots,” I said.

“How much do you
want to bet if we show it to Emma, she’ll be able to identify him as a visitor
to the donut shop that day?”

“She would have
remembered someone in uniform, don’t you think?
 
Hey, be careful!”

“I’m trying,” I
said.
 
“What if he was in street
clothes?
 
I’m willing to wager that
he bought that coffee for himself while staking Alex’s new town out, and then
he decided to poison his former partner.”

“No offense, but
it’s all kind of based on some pretty sketchy reasoning.”

“I’ll grant you
that, but we have some loose threads now, so if we start picking at them,
something’s going to unravel sooner or later.
 
How long do you think his alibi is going
to hold up if we start pressing Deke Marsh about it?
 
How about if Jake does it?”

“If he’s lying, couldn’t
Deke have committed the murder himself?” Grace asked as I continued to speed.

“He got out in a
matter of days, remember?
 
Deke
might not have been happy about Alex arresting him, but it wasn’t as though he
paid much of a price for it.
 
If
Durant were on the take, though, the exposure would have ruined him, plain and
simple.”

Behind me, the
patrol car was now following again, its lights and sirens going full blast.

“You’re not going
to pull over, are you?” Grace asked loudly as the Jeep’s engine started to
whine in protest from being pushed so hard.

“There is no way
that’s happening.
 
I’ll take my
chances in court if I’m wrong, but I have a hunch that Officer Durant isn’t
trying to catch up with us to give me a speeding ticket.”

“Suzanne, you’d
better do something fast.
 
He’s
gaining on us,” Grace said as she looked back again.
 
“We don’t have a prayer in this Jeep.”

“We just have to
hang on long enough until we can attract someone else’s attention,” I said,
doing my best to control my vehicle in the steadily worsening conditions.
 
Where was everyone else?
 
Most likely, they were safe at home
riding out the storm.

I needed a
witness, though, someone to keep Officer Durant from doing something to Grace
and me.

If only one would
appear.

It became a moot
point a few seconds later.
 
Going
into a curve too fast for my Jeep’s worn spare to hold, I felt myself losing
control as I spun out and inadvertently headed into the woods.
 
My vehicle had been built for off-road
travel, but I was pretty sure this wasn’t what they’d had in mind.

I had to do
something, though, and it had to be fast.

If Grace and I
were still sitting there like wounded ducks when Officer Durant arrived,
neither one of us would make it out alive.

Chapter 27

“Suzanne, what
are we going to do?” Grace asked, the fear thick in her voice.
 
I’d never heard her as panicked as she
was at that moment.

“We’re going to
be all right,” I said as I tried to get the Jeep started again.
 
The engine had died when we’d spun out,
and I couldn’t get it started again.
 
“Grace, we need to go, and I mean right now.”

“Start the Jeep
and drive!” she shouted at me.
 
“I’m
not stopping you!”

“It won’t start!
 
Something’s wrong with it!” I snapped
back at her.
 
“We need to go on
foot.”

“I can’t!
 
It won’t open!” Grace started sobbing as
she fought to open her door.
 
I
looked over and saw that I’d managed to wedge her side of the Jeep against a
tall oak.

“Climb out my
side!” I yelled.
 
I threw my door
open, but when I started to run, I quickly realized that Grace was still
inside.
 
On the road twenty feet
away, I saw the patrol car skid to a stop.
 
I was hoping at that moment against all hope that Durant would keep on
sliding and wind up in a ditch himself, but his car was clearly better suited
for the snow than mine had been.
 
We
didn’t have much time to get away now.

“Grace,” I hissed
when I got back to the Jeep.
 
“Let’s
go!”

“I can’t,” she
said through her tears.
 
“I’m stuck!”

I looked to see
what was trapping her when I noticed that her seat belt was still buckled.
 
Ordering her to free herself was clearly
not going to work, so I leaned in and unsnapped it myself.
 
Even once she was free, I still had to
pull her out.

The siren
suddenly died, and I turned back to see that the lights had been extinguished
as well.
 

It became clear
in an instant that he was coming after us, and he didn’t want anyone else to
follow him into the woods.

That could only
mean bad things for us.

It looked as
though my gut feeling was being confirmed by Durant’s actions.

The only problem—well,
not the only one, but a big one nonetheless—was that Jake didn’t have a prayer
of getting to us in time, even if he had somehow managed to get my message
immediately.
 

At least I’d been
able to tell him that I loved him one last time, even if I hadn’t been able to
hear him say it back.