Sweet Suspects (The Donut Mysteries) (13 page)

“I meant besides that,” I said.

“I don’t know.
 
Even if it turns out that Tom is innocent, I think that maybe we had our chance a long time ago, and now it’s gone.”

“I wouldn’t discount him that quickly,” I said.

“Suzanne, could we possibly change the subject?” Grace said.
 
“I’d really like to track down the murderer as soon as we can.
 
How about you?”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said.
 
“Is there anything else you’d like to cover in Union Square while we’re here?
 
I have an idea about something we can do back in April Springs, but if we can save ourselves a trip back here later, I’m willing to do that first.”

“I’d like to talk to Billy again,” she said.
 
“I’ve got a hunch there’s something he’s not telling us.”

“Any idea what that might be?” I asked.

“No, it’s just a guess at this point,” she replied, “but I still think that it’s worth a shot.”

“I agree,” I said.

As we drove to the hotel, Grace asked me, “What’s your idea?”

“I want to follow that spear,” I said.
 
“I keep thinking that it wouldn’t be an easy thing to remove from the gym, not to mention carry down the street to my donut shop.”

“They were never actually at Donut Hearts, remember?”

“They were across the street,” I said, “and that’s close enough to make it personal.”

“I totally get that,” Grace said.
 
“Let’s tackle Billy, and then we can go digging around at the gym.”

“It almost sounds as though we have an actual plan,” I said with a grin.

“You never know.
 
Stranger things have happened,” Grace answered.

We were close to the Bentley Hotel when my cellphone rang.
 
Could it be Jake?
 
No, when I checked the caller ID, it was a surprise.
 
What could Maria DeAngelis possibly want with me?

“Hey, Maria,” I said as I answered.
 
“It’s been awhile since we chatted last.”

“Suzanne, this might be nothing, but I thought you should know what just happened.”

“Go ahead,” I said.
 
“I’m listening.”

“Well, I was cleaning up the table where your two friends were eating, and I found a torn piece of stationery from the Bentley Hotel under the table.”

This could be the development we’d been hoping for.
 
“Did it say anything?”

“No, nothing was on it but one long number.”

“That’s odd,” I said.

“That’s not the strangest part.
 
Thirty seconds after I found it, Janet came rushing back into the restaurant.
 
I told her that she couldn’t be there and then I reminded her that she’d been banned, but she didn’t care.
 
She said that she lost something that she
had
to get back.
 
She sounded pretty desperate, and when I tried to get her to leave, she started getting hysterical.”

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t think it was all that important,” Maria said, “so I showed her the paper I’d found.
 
She grabbed it out of my hand as though it were made of gold, and then she tore out of the restaurant without another word.
 
At first I was just happy she left before my mother threw the woman out, but now I’m starting to wonder if I should have turned it over to her or saved it for you instead.”

“You did fine,” I said.
 
“Is there any chance you remembered the number?”

Maria laughed.
 
“If it had been a name or even a note, I wouldn’t have paid much attention to it, but I’ve always had this weird thing about numbers.
 
They stick in my head.
 
It was 3205.
 
Does that mean anything to you?”

“Not right offhand,” I said.

She sounded deflated as she answered, “That’s too bad.
 
I was kind of hoping that I’d found a clue.”

“You might have,” I said.
 
“I just don’t know what it means yet.”

“Well, let me know if you ever figure it out.
 
It’s going to drive me crazy not knowing.”

“That makes two of us,” I said.
 
“Thanks for calling.”

“You’re welcome.”

After I hung up, I told Grace about the number, and Janet’s reaction to losing it.
 
“What do you think it means?” I asked her.

“It can’t be a room number at the hotel,” she said.
 
“They don’t go up that high.”

“Well, there aren’t enough digits for it to be a phone number.
 
Could it be an address maybe?” I asked.

“What address around here is four digits long?” Grace asked me after a moment’s pause.

“Sometimes people ask for verification of your social security number,” I said.
 
“That’s four digits.”

“It could be the second part of a phone number after all,” Grace said as she took out her cellphone.

After getting a wrong number, she put her phone back in her purse.
 
“Well, that was a dead end.”

“Who did you call?”

“The prefix for April Springs, and then 3205,” she said.
 
“It was for a pizza place.”

“It was still a good idea,” I answered, trying to offer her some consolation.
 
I knew how frustrating it could be when I misinterpreted a clue.

“So what else could it mean?”

“I have no idea,” I said, “but I think we should ask Janet about it the next time that we see her.”

“Then again, maybe we shouldn’t tip her off that we even know about it just yet,” Grace said.
 
“We might be able to use the information to our advantage, but if we tell her that we know that number, it might warn her that we’re on to her.”

“Are we still thinking that she might have killed her husband?” I asked Grace.

“I’m not willing to say that just yet, but she
did
call that insurance agent the day her husband’s body was discovered,” Grace said.

“Yeah, that doesn’t look too good, does it?”

“It’s not exactly a character endorsement,” Grace said.
 
“In fact, it sounded pretty cold to me.”

“It did to me, too,” I said as I parked in the visitor’s lot at the hotel.
 

“How should we approach Billy this time?” Grace asked me.

“Well, he wasn’t exactly thrilled with us the last time we spoke.
 
I think it’s time we just come out and tell him the truth.”

“What, that we suspect him of murder?”

“No, nothing that obvious.
 
I was just thinking that maybe we should admit that we’re trying to solve Zane’s murder, and then see what he has to say.”

“The truth’s
always
worth a shot as a last resort,” Grace said with a shrug.

“Then that’s what we’ll try, because otherwise, I’m running out of ideas.”

Chapter 11

When we got to Billy’s room, we could hear voices coming from inside.
 
It wasn’t that the doors were that thin, though.
 
Whoever was in there was shouting, and they clearly didn’t care
who
heard them.
 
Grace was about to knock when I grabbed her hand.

“Let’s just listen in a little first,” I said.

She frowned, and then we both put our heads closer to the door.
 
If someone came by, it would be pretty clear what we were doing, but I was willing to take that gamble.

“I don’t care what you do, Billy Briscoe.
 
As of right now, I’m done with you.”
 
It was clearly Janet’s voice, and she was angry.

“I just asked you who you had lunch with,” Billy said with a whine.
 
“I’m
not
being over-possessive.”

Janet’s voice got louder, and I had to wonder if it was because she was now closer to the door.
 
“I don’t care.
 
Don’t call me, and don’t come see me anymore.
 
Do you understand?”

“Give me another chance, Janet,” Billy pled, and I thought I could hear him start to cry.

“No,” she said coldly, clearly unmoved by the display.
 

I glanced down to see the doorknob start to move.

Grabbing Grace’s arm, I pulled her to a nearby alcove where the ice machine and a few vending machines were located.
 

“What are you doing?” Grace asked me.

“Shh,” I said.
 
“She’s coming.”

Sure enough, we heard the door slam, and a few seconds later, Janet’s angry steps echoed down the hallway toward us.
 
If she happened to glance into the alcove, Grace and I were dead, maybe even literally.

Fortunately, she passed right by us without a single glance our way.

“Whew, that was close,” Grace said after Janet was gone.
 
“What should we do, follow her, or go talk to Billy?”

“I don’t think we’ll get much out of Janet when she’s that mad,” I said.
 
“Besides, Billy might be a little more willing to talk to us now that he’s out of the picture with Janet.”
 
Grace frowned, so I asked her, “What’s wrong with that plan?”

“It seems kind of heartless going after him when his heart is breaking,” she said.

“Ordinarily I would agree with you, but we can’t forget that he was seeing a married woman, and he might even have had something to do with Zane’s murder.
 
We can’t
afford
to tiptoe around Billy right now.”

“I know you’re right,” she said, “but I’m beginning to wonder when we got so heartless about all of this.
 
We didn’t used to be this way.”

I stopped dead in my tracks and thought about what she’d said.
 
After a few moments, I answered, “Grace, I know you’re right, but I’m not sure what to do about it.
 
Maybe investigating all of these murders has had an impact on me after all, as much as I like to think that I’m above all that.
 
Then again, I know that the old me would never take advantage of someone’s pain, no matter how they got it.
 
We’ve met too many murderers since we first started doing this.
 
A lot of them have looked us straight in the eye and proclaimed their innocence, and some of the time I actually believed them.
 
What we have to focus on right now is the fact that someone was murdered, and we’re trying to discover who did it.
 
If that makes us cold and calculating, then maybe it’s just part of what we’ve both become.”

“Maybe, but we’re
still
human,” Grace said.
 
“As much as I love tracking down killers with you, I’m not thrilled by the idea that I’m walling off a part of me that I actually like.”

“Neither am I,” I said.
 
“I don’t know what we can do about it, though, do you?”

“Suzanne, I
know
that we have to keep pushing forward.
 
I just want us to be aware of what we’re doing, that’s all.”

“I agree,” I said.
 
“In the end, if Billy turns out to be the killer, then we were justified in grilling him.”

“And if he’s not?” Grace asked.

“Then we’ll probably owe him an apology,” I said.
 
“With donuts.”

Grace nodded and offered me a slight smile.
 
“Sorry.
 
I didn’t mean to make an issue of it.”

I hugged her.
 
“That’s one of the reasons that you’re my best friend,” I said.
 
“You keep me in line when I need it.”

“Right back at you,” Grace said.

“Are you ready to do this?”

“I’m ready,” she said, and we approached Billy’s door together.
 
I knew that I could get too caught up in our investigations sometimes, and I’d lost a few friends over the years since Grace and I had become unofficial murder investigators, but I was going to make a concerted effort to remember that many of these people were my friends, and nearly all of them deserved the benefit of our doubt.
 
That might mean that we tiptoed a little more in the future than we had in the past, but I could live with that.
 
In the end, I had to live in April Springs, and even the surrounding communities, and I had a business to run.
 
I’d hate to solve a few murders and end up losing the donut shop because people didn’t want to come in anymore.
 
After all, I didn’t offer anything that was essential to
anyone’s
wellbeing.
 
I was, first and foremost, a donut maker, by trade and by avocation, and if I lost that, I’d lose a very real part of myself.

“Billy, do you have a second?” I asked as I tapped on his door.

There was no answer.

I tried again, saying, “We just saw Janet leave your room, so we know that you’re in there.
 
We’re so sorry about what happened.”

I could hear footsteps approach the door, and then Billy opened it tentatively.
 
He’d been crying; that much was clear from his bloodshot eyes and his runny nose.
 
“Sorry.
 
I’ve got allergies,” he said as he dabbed at his cheeks with a tissue.

“I get them sometimes myself,” Grace said softly.
 
“Do you have a minute?”

“Why not?”
 
He stepped aside and ushered us in.
 
If I’d been alone, I would have tried to maneuver him to somewhere more public, but since Grace was with me, I felt a little safer.
 
After all, no matter how we might sympathize with him, Billy was still a suspect on our list of possible murderers, and we’d found nothing so far to clear his name from it.

“What did she say to you?” Billy asked as he closed the door behind me.
 
“Did she mention me?”

“No, but then again, she looked pretty upset,” I said.

Billy nodded sadly.
 
“I pushed her too hard.
 
I know that now.”

“What exactly happened, Billy?” Grace asked him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Billy said, and then he frowned at both of us.
 
“Why are you here?”

“We’re digging into Zane’s murder,” I said.

He looked at us as though he didn’t believe us.
 
“Since when did you two become cops?”

“We aren’t,” I said quickly, “but we’ve helped the police chief out in the past on several occasions, and he’s come to rely on our assistance.”
 
That last bit was more than a little bit of a stretch, but how could Billy possibly know just how much I was exaggerating the situation?

“And you think I did it,” Billy said.
 
“Well, you’re both dead wrong.
 
I didn’t kill Zane.”

“You have to admit that it looks bad for you,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” Billy asked, a wary edge creeping into his voice.

“Come on,” Grace said.
 
“You were seen arguing with the man a few hours before he was murdered.
 
That doesn’t exactly help your case.”

“So we had a fight.”

“What was it about?” I asked him.
 
“Did it concern Janet?”

“Actually, it was about Helen Marston,” Billy said.

“What
about
Helen?” I asked.

“Zane was bullying her about something at the reunion.
 
I overheard them, and then I scolded Zane for doing it.
 
He told me to mind my own business, and that was when the argument started.”

“So you two fought over Helen,” I said.

“Sure, but it could have been for any one of a dozen different reasons.
 
Zane and I used to fight all the time in school.
 
It’s the relationship we had.
 
Why was
this
time any different?”

“Well, for one thing, you’re both grown men now,” I said, “and for another, he died soon afterward, remember?
 
Add your relationship with the widow into the mix, and I’m a little surprised that you’re not sitting in a jail cell right now.”

“Janet and I are just friends,” Billy said, and then he added softly, “I’m not even sure we’re still that at this point.”

“You’re more than that, and we all know it.
 
We saw you two at the reunion,” I said, keeping the fact that it was all caught on video to myself for now.
 
“There’s no use denying it.”

“Nothing happened,” Billy said.
 
“I was drunk, and I tried to kiss her on the dance floor.
 
She let me for about five seconds before she jerked away, slapped my face, and then stormed off.
 
Did you happen to see that part of it?
 
You’re wasting your time trying to pin this on me.
 
If you’re really looking for Zane’s killer, you should talk to Mr. Davidson.
 
He’s the one who had a real motive to kill Zane.”

“What might that be?” Grace asked.

“No way am I telling you that,” Billy said.
 
“If you want to know, you’re going to have to get that from him yourself.”

“At least give us a hint,” I suggested.

Billy thought about that, and then he shrugged.
 
“Sure, what could it hurt?
 
Ask him about Zane and his new girlfriend.”

“Zane had a girlfriend on the side?” I asked.
 

“Not
his
girlfriend, though I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true, too.
 
The man was a dog.
 
I’m talking about Helen Martson.”
 
Billy was clearly expecting us to be surprised by the news, but we disappointed him.
 
“You knew about that already, didn’t you?”

“We did,” I said.

“Well, you might know that, but I’m willing to bet that you
don’t
know about the relationship between Helen and Zane.”

“Tell us,” Grace asked.

“I really shouldn’t.
 
I’ve said too much already,” Billy said.

“We’ll keep your name out of it,” I promised him.
 
“You can trust us.”