Lemon Larceny (The Donut Mysteries) (8 page)

“Wow, that sounds
like you’ve got yourself some storm,” Jake said.
 
“Listen, I tried to get time off to be
with you, but I just can’t do it.
 
We found another victim an hour ago.
 
Suzanne, I want to be there for you, but
I can’t walk away from this.
 
It’s
personal now.
 
This maniac is
taunting us, and I need to get him myself.”

“I understand
completely,” I said.
 
“You need to
keep investigating and catch this guy before he can kill again.”

“Actually, I’m
beginning to think that it might be a she.”

Jake didn’t
usually track down women killers.
 
“Then you need to be extra careful.”

“Why’s that?
 
A killer is a killer in my book,” Jake
said.

“It’s been my
experience that women can be much colder than men.”

He sighed, and
then he said, “I always watch my step, no matter who I’m tracking.
 
Is there anything I can do for you?”

I hadn’t told
Jake about my aunt’s suspicions that someone might be trying to kill her before
she’d died, and I wasn’t sure this was the right time to share that particular
bit of information.
 
After all, he
had his own troubles, so why should I add to them?
 
“No, just hearing your voice makes me
feel better.”

There was another
strike of lightning then, much closer this time, and the thunder came on much sooner
than it had before, a deafening roar that hurt my ears.
 
“Listen, I’d better get off the phone.
Thanks for calling.
 
I love you.”

“I love you,
too,” he said, and then, just as we hung up, I heard a strange noise coming
from outside, something that didn’t sound anything like it belonged to the
storm.

After opening the
door and calling out to no avail, I went back inside, only to hear a new and
even stranger noise coming from the attic.

And that’s when
it all really started to become real to me.

I was all alone
inside a house that might be holding more dangers than I’d ever imagined.

Another noise
echoed outside just as the lights were extinguished, and that’s when my earlier
mentioned moments of fear and uncertainty occurred.

I opened the
front door again, despite the pounding rain, and saw Momma racing toward the
house, a bag clutched in one hand and the umbrella in the other.

“It’s miserable
out there,” she said as she tried to shake the umbrella off before bringing it
in.
 
“I see the lights are out.
 
Well, I was warned that might happen.”
 
Then she caught a glimpse of my face in
the lightning.
 
“Suzanne, are you
okay?”

“I think something’s
in the attic trying to get out,” I said in a strained voice.

“We’ll just see
about that, won’t we?” Momma said as she put the food down on a nearby table,
retrieved a mini-flashlight from her purse, and led the way upstairs.

Suddenly I was a
lot braver than I had been a few moments ago now that I had my mother with me.

Between the two
of us, I was sure that we could handle just about anything.

Chapter 8

As I put my hand
on the doorknob of the attic, I turned to Momma and whispered, “Are you ready?”

“I am,” she said
calmly.

I took a deep
breath and then I opened the door, fully expecting someone to jump out at us.

Only there was
nothing there.

Then we both heard
the noise again.
 
My hand
instinctively went to the light switch, but the power was still off, so of
course, nothing happened.

Momma shined her
flashlight in the direction where the sound was coming from, and I saw a tree
branch through the window outlined in her beam.
 
As we watched, the wind howled fiercely
again, and the branch seemed to want to break through the window and attack us.

“It’s nothing
after all, see?” Momma asked me.

“I don’t know if
I’d call it nothing,” I said, “but at least it’s not out to get us.”

“Suzanne, we’re
safe.”

“From that, at
least,” I said.

My mother smiled
brightly as the power suddenly came back on.
 
“There, now isn’t that better?” Momma asked
as she shut off her flashlight.
 
“I
hope you’re hungry.
 
I bought enough
food for four people.”

“That’s good,
because I’m starving,” I admitted as we turned off the light and headed back
downstairs.

“What did you
get?” I asked as we walked into the kitchen.

“There weren’t
many options.
 
Maple Grove is no
April Springs.”

“I don’t even
care.
 
I withdraw the question.
 
I’ll eat whatever you could find.”

Momma
smiled.
 
“I thought you might.
 
How does pepper steak and rice sound to
you?”

“Delicious,” I
said.
 
“Is that what you got?”

She laughed.
 
“Suzanne, why in the world would I ask
you how it sounded if I hadn’t gotten it?”

“I don’t
know.
 
Maybe you’re just toying with
me.”

Momma reached
into the large bag and began to pull out white cardboard containers.
 
“Let’s dig in before this gets cold.”

“I’m so hungry
I’d eat it frozen on a stick like a Popsicle if that were my only choice.”

After the first
bite, I nodded.
 
“Hey, that’s not
bad at all.
 
Pretty good, as a
matter of fact.”

“I suspect that it’s
better than Anna Albright’s casserole.”

“I don’t see how
you could be wrong about that.
 
It’s
got to be a pretty low bar,” I said, and then I took another bite.
 
I’d foregone the chopsticks my mother
had offered, preferring a good old-fashioned fork, but my mother handled her
chopsticks with casual grace.
 
“How
do you do that?”

“With style and
grace, just as I do everything else,” Momma said with a smile.
 
“Actually, Jean taught me when we were
younger.
 
She loved trying new
things.
 
I’m going to miss her more
than I can express.”

“I once read that
someone said the older you get, the more people you lose that you love.
 
It’s kind of sad, isn’t it?”

Momma thought
about it for a few moments, and then she said, “It does put things in
perspective.
 
Seizing the day is
good advice for just about anyone.
 
I will say that my sister and I enjoyed a great many years being
family.
 
I always thought of her as
more of a friend than as a sister.”

“She was
awesome,” I agreed.
 
Then I held up
my water glass and offered a toast.
 
“To Jean, one truly wonderful lady.”

Momma
frowned.
 
“Suzanne, you know that it’s
bad luck to toast with water.”

“I’ll risk it if
you will,” I said with a grin.

“Why not?
 
To Jean,” she echoed, and we clinked our
glasses together.

After we ate,
Momma said, “While I was waiting on our food, I had an idea about how to
approach my sister’s journal.”

“Have you changed
your mind?
 
Do you want to read it
yourself now?”
 
I’d been looking
forward to studying it myself, but I figured that my mother had the right to
claim that privilege for herself if that was what she wanted.

“No thank
you.
 
You should read it, but not
aloud, unless the passage has something to do with our investigation.
 
The first thing you need to do is to scan
the book for names and possible motives.
 
After all, Jean admitted that they’d be there in her last post.
 
I’ll take notes on what you read aloud,
and the rest of it I’ll thank you to keep to yourself.
 
You can filter anything that I might not
want to know.
 
How does that sound?”

“Perfect,” I
said.
 
“Should we get started right
now?”

“Absolutely,” Momma
said as she reached into her oversized purse and pulled out a small notebook
and pen.

“Hey, I’ve seen
that kind of notebook before,” I said.
 
“Since when did you start carrying one of those around?
 
The chief uses them, too, doesn’t he?”

She nodded.
 
“He’s gotten me into the habit of
carrying them around myself.”

“How’s that
going?” I asked her.

“I wasn’t sure at
first, but I like having something to write on with me at all times now.”

“I was talking
about the marriage,” I said.

“Oh,
that’s
lovely.”

“Aren’t you
finding it difficult getting used to living with someone again?” I asked her,
wondering how she felt about being with the police chief after my father.

“I might have at
one time, but living with you again got me used to the idea of sharing my life
with someone else.
 
I know that you turned
to me at a time of need, but I honestly believe that you coming to live with me
did me much more good than it ever did you.”

“That’s hard to
imagine,” I said.
 
“I was a real basket-case
after my divorce.”

“And I’d grown
far too accustomed to being isolated and on my own.
 
I know that I could have gone on and
lived a perfectly fine life alone, but I find it so much better to have someone
to share things with.
 
Don’t you
agree?”

I didn’t even
have to think about how I felt about that.
 
“It was nice having Jake stay at the cottage while he was recuperating,
and I do miss him now that he’s gone, but I’m doing okay on my own now.”

“Did you two
discuss the possibility of him staying in April Springs on a more permanent
basis?” Momma asked softly.
 
It was
a rare direct question from her about my love life, and for a second, it caught
me off-guard.

“We started to
talk about it a few times, but we never seemed to get past the fact that he
travels so much for his work.
 
I
love him, there’s no doubt about that, but with him on the road all of the
time, it makes things difficult.
 
Although…”
 
I let the thought trail off, knowing
that I probably shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place.

“Although what?”
Momma asked.

I knew that I
might as well just tell her, since I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t have any
peace until I did.
 
“After Jake was
wounded, he talked about the possibility of retiring and leaving the state
police.
 
It was only natural, given
what had happened, but I wondered for a while there if he really meant it.”

“Would he really
retire?
 
He’s not old enough for
that, is he?”

“No, he’d
definitely have to find something else to do.
 
I think he was just wondering aloud what
things might be like if he left the force.”
 
I shrugged, and then I added, “I don’t
know.
 
It was mostly him musing out
loud, some of those late-night conversations you have sometimes about
possibilities instead of realities.”

“Don’t
worry.
 
I’m certain that it will all
work itself out in the end,” Momma said with a soft smile.
 
“In the meantime, shall we tackle that
journal?”

I stifled a yawn,
and then I said, “Let’s do it.”

Momma frowned
before she spoke again.
 
“Suzanne,
your bedtime is quickly approaching, isn’t it?
 
It’s all right with me if you want to
get some sleep.
 
We can always start
back up in the morning.”

“I’m fine,” I
said.
 
“Momma, we don’t have any
time to waste.
 
Besides, if I go to
bed now, I’ll be up at one, and then what am I going to do?
 
Truthfully, I’ll probably be up then
anyway.
 
Old habits die the hardest,
don’t they?
 
Let’s press on.
 
I’ll be fine.”

“If you insist,”
Momma said.

“I do,” I
answered with a smile.
 

And then I
started to read my aunt’s journal entries in reverse order.

It was easier
than I thought it would be, and it didn’t hurt that Aunt Jean had a habit of
underlining any names of folks she was wondering about, so I could scan the
pages easily, working my way back through the book searching for the suspects
she’d already amassed for us.

“Here’s the first
one,” I said as I came across Greta Miles’s name.

“Why would her
housekeeper want to kill Jean?” Momma asked.

“I don’t
know.
 
Let’s see what it says.”

“Greta has been acting oddly lately.
 
I’ve caught her on more than one occasion
staring at me when she didn’t know that I was looking.
 
Is that guilt that I see in her
eyes?
 
Things, small ones at first,
and then larger, more expensive items, have been moved around or gone missing
altogether for the past few months, and I’m beginning to wonder if she’s trying
to make me think that I’m losing my mind.
 
I’d fire her on the spot, but if I did that, I’d never get to the bottom
of her behavior.
 
One thing is
certain; Greta needs to be watched.
 
Maybe I’ll get one of those hidden cameras so I can see what she’s up to
when I’m not around.