Troubled Treats (13 page)

“I don’t know about that,” he said as we made our way toward his truck.  “She gets to spend all morning with you every day.  In my book, that makes her one of the smartest people I know.”

“Keep talking.  Flattery will get you anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true,” Jake answered.  “Let me have your deposit, and I’ll put it where it will be safe.”

“Are you sure it will be okay in there?” I asked as he stowed it away in the glove box.  I’d lost a couple of deposits before over the years, and it had always hurt.

“This truck was made back when they still used steel,” he said.  “Nobody’s going to bust into it and take your money.”

“Okay, I believe you,” I said.  As he drove us to the wagon factory, I asked him, “What else did you do this morning besides talk to the chief?  I know that you didn’t sleep in.”  Jake was notorious about getting up early every day, even when he wasn’t working.  I wouldn’t doubt that Emma and I were the only people he knew who got up earlier than he did on a regular basis.

“I spent most of it on the phone,” he said.  From his tone of voice, I could tell that he’d been frustrated by the experience.

“Who were you talking to?”

He frowned a little as he told me, “I was trying to use some of my old contacts to get us information on our suspects that might be useful to our investigation.”

“From your voice, I’m guessing you didn’t have much luck.”

“I barely got the chance to ask!  My old boss has put the squeeze on everyone I ever worked with at the state police headquarters.  No one wants to cross him, and I can’t really blame any of them for that.  Suzanne, I was hoping that my connections might help us, but it appears that we’re on our own from now on.  I’m going to be worthless.”

“You’re kidding, right?  Your experience and insights are much more important than any contacts you might have with the department.  Jake, you’re a trained and seasoned professional investigator.  I’m a donutmaker.  Don’t you think that you bring our qualifications up a little just by being on my side?”

“Sure, I can see how you might look at it that way,” he said dismissively.

“Trust me, it’s massive,” I said as he pulled up into the parking lot.  Apparently we were going to start our investigation that day back where it had started, at the old wagon factory. 

There was just one problem, though.

Officer Griffin was back on the scene, standing guard once again.

Chapter 15

“What’s going on?” Jake asked the young officer as we got out of the truck and approached the deputy.  “Does this mean that we can’t go in?”

“No one’s allowed inside, but the chief has given me a particular set of orders about you two,” he said with a frown.

Oh, great.  It appeared that we were going to be thwarted yet again.

Griffin surprised me though, when he suddenly grinned.  “You two have the golden ticket, so you can go on in.”

“What?  Seriously?” I asked him.

“Scout’s honor.  You and your husband have been given all-access passes.”  Officer Griffin stepped aside, and Jake smiled at him as we walked inside the building.

“What do you think about that?” I asked him as the door closed soundly behind us.

“I think we’d better take advantage of the situation while we can,” he said.

“Fine.  Where should we start, at the scene of the crime?”

“We can check that out again later, but there’s something else I want to look at more carefully first.”  My husband mounted the stairs two at a time, and I had a difficult time keeping up with him.

“Hey, wait for me.  What’s so urgent about getting upstairs?”

“I have a theory about those crates,” he said, “and I’m dying to see if I’m right.”

“You don’t even have a pry bar on you,” I said.

He stopped long enough to reach into his jacket and pull out a small pry bar less than six inches long.  “Surprise.”

“Do you honestly think that’s going to be enough to get inside those old crates?”

“We’re about to find out, aren’t we?” he asked as we got to the room we’d been in earlier that day.

It turned out that Jake hadn’t needed the bar after all.

The crates were already open, and as a matter of fact, they were empty as well.

“Chief Grant, it’s Jake,” he said after he pulled out his phone and hit speed dial.  After he did that, he put the phone on speaker before the police chief could answer so he wouldn’t know that I was listening, too.

“What’s up, Jake?  I don’t have a lot of time.  I’m dealing with something right now.”

“Is it about the murder?” my husband asked him.

“No, I’m investigating a robbery at the storage center over on Elm.  Apparently someone broke into three units.”

That piqued my husband’s interest.  “Was anything of value taken?”

“At this point, that’s still to be determined,” the chief answered abruptly.  “So if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d make it dance.”

It was odd hearing someone else giving Jake orders, but if he took offense, I couldn’t hear it in his voice.  “I’ll make this quick, then.  Did you open those crates on the second floor this morning, by any chance?”

“I did,” he said.

“Is there any chance that you would be willing to tell me what you found?”

I could hear the chief hesitate, and then finally, he said, “I don’t see what it would hurt telling you.  Rivets.  Lots and lots of rivets.”

“What?  I’m sorry, but I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said they were full of rivets.  I had one of my men bag and tag them just in case, but they were just plain old-timey rivets.”

Jake nodded.  “Got it.  Thanks.”

After he hung up, I said, “Sorry.  I know that you’re disappointed.”

“Hey, it was worth a shot,” Jake said as he idly tried to kick one of the crates, missed, and ended up scuffing the wooden floor instead.

I did my best not to laugh.

But then an odd thing happened.

Jake kicked the floor again, this time clearly on purpose.

Chapter 16

“Are you okay?” I asked him as he suddenly got down on his hands and knees.  “Should I call for an ambulance?”

“I’m fine,” Jake said as he studied the floor carefully.

“Come on.  You missed that crate twice, and then you hit the floor.  That is not anyone’s definition of fine.”

He looked up at me and smiled.  “I admit that the first miss was an accident, but the second one was on purpose.  Didn’t you hear the difference in the floor when I kicked it?”

“It must have been too subtle for me,” I admitted.  “What exactly are you hoping to find?”

“Hang on a second and I’ll tell you.”  He then took a pocketknife from his pants pocket and opened it.  Using the largest blade, he started probing between the floorboards with it, sinking it all the way to the handle.

There was only one thing I could do; I got down on my hands and knees, too.  If my husband was going crazy, then I was taking the trip with him.  “Are you having any luck?”

“Not yet.”  He kept sliding the blade along the floor, and I was about to say something else when it evidently met with some resistance.  “Now that’s interesting,” Jake said, and I could see part of the wooden floor lift a little as he probed the floor a little more.  “What do you know?  It’s a secret cache,” he explained as he pulled a section of boards up.  They’d looked like a solid part of the flooring before, but now I could see that they’d been carefully disguised to look that way.  Once the top panel was pulled off to one side, Jake and I looked down into the space to see what might have been hiding there.

The footprint of the opening was no bigger than the size of a standard sheet of paper, and about as deep as a loaf of bread.  At first glance, I thought that the space was empty, but Jake reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small flashlight on his keychain and proved me wrong.  I’d given it to him a year before for Christmas, and I always loved seeing it with his keys. 

When he flashed the light down into the dark opening, I saw something that gave me pause.

It wasn’t empty after all.

It looked as though there was money down there.

Not much of it, though.  Jake reached in with his hand wrapped in a clean handkerchief and pulled out three bills, all of them twenties. 

Only they weren’t the familiar offset and oversized Jackson portrait looking back at me when I examined them.

They were all bills featuring the smaller version, just like the one I had outside in my deposit bag.

As Jake played the light more carefully into the hiding place, he said, “I’m guessing that there was quite a bit more here, and recently, too.”

“How can you tell?”

“The top boards didn’t make a perfect seal,” he explained.  “See that line of dust around the edges?  The pattern should be uniform throughout the cache, but the entire middle of the area is clean.”

“I see it,” I said as I stood.  “Hang on a minute.  I’ll be right back.”

“Suzanne, where are you going?”

“There’s something I need to show you,” I said.  “Let me have your truck keys.”

Jake clearly wanted more of an explanation—I could see it in his glance—but he handed them over without commenting.  “While you’re gone, I’m calling the chief.  He needs to see this, too.  I’ve got a hunch that the corner of that torn bill we found in Sully’s hand is going to match these.  Whoever took the money probably killed him.”

“You do that,” I said as I left the room.  Downstairs, I saw Officer Griffin still standing watch.  “If I go out, can I come back in again?”

He grinned.  “The Chief didn’t mention a limit on your number of visits, so be my guest.”

I got to the truck, and I didn’t realize that I’d been holding my breath until I opened the glove box and saw my deposit bag still sitting inside safely.

Was the bill still there, though?

I riffled through the money searching for the bill that I’d taken in that day, but the first time through, I couldn’t find it.  Frantically, I did a more methodical search, and sure enough, there it was!  I considered wrapping it in a tissue, but I’d already handled the thing at least twice, so there was no doubt in my mind that my prints were already on it.  I pulled a twenty out of my wallet, the lone one I had, and stuck it into the bag with the rest of the deposit.  I had a hunch that there was no way that particular bill was ever going to make it into the bank.  I wasn’t pleased about the prospect of losing twenty bucks, but if it helped our investigation, I’d have gladly donated ten times that to the cause.

After the truck was secure again, I made my way back to the building’s front door. 

“That was quick,” Griffin said with a smile.

“What can I say?  I’m efficient,” I replied with a grin of my own.

Jake was just getting off the phone when I walked back into the small room upstairs. “What was so urgent that you needed to borrow my truck?” he asked me, clearly not able to contain his curiosity one second longer.

“Not your truck, just your keys,” I said as I handed him the bill in my hand.  Before he could protest that I hadn’t mimicked his handling of the bills we’d found earlier, I said, “It was in with my deposit, so I’ve already handled it at least a couple of times.”

“Maybe so, but I haven’t,” he said.  “Hold it up for me, would you?”

I did as Jake asked, and after a quick study of the bill, he said, “Put it down gently on the top of that crate, would you?”

“It can’t be a coincidence, can it?” I asked.  “The day we find three old twenties in the wagon factory, another one shows up at my donut shop.”

“Suzanne, these bills were all issued in 1928.  They have to be linked.  Do you have any idea who paid you with that particular twenty?”

“Sorry.  I don’t have a clue,” I admitted.  I hadn’t been observant enough at the time, and now it might cost us a valuable clue.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Jake said.  “I’ve seen your shop when you’re busy, so I know how crazy it can be.  According to what you told me earlier, three of our four suspects came by Donut Hearts today: Carl Descent, Jim Burr, and Shirley Edam.”

“Does that mean that Bob Greene is in the clear?”

“Not exactly, but he can at least go to the bottom of our list.”

Something had been nagging me all along, and I suddenly realized what it was.  I’d forgotten to tell Jake what Jim Burr had said about his work buddy.  “Jake, I forgot to tell you something.”

“What is it?  Did Bob come by the shop, too?”

“No, but Jim told me that Bob was leaving town this evening, and he might not be coming back.  Shirley confirmed that without prodding, too.  How could Bob just afford to walk away?”

“Maybe he’s the one with the money,” Jake suggested.

“Who has what money?” a voice asked us from the doorway.

I looked over to see the chief of police standing there, but he wasn’t alone.

Momma and her husband, Phillip, were with him, too.

“Hey, Momma.  What are you two doing here?” I asked.

“I own the building, don’t I?” she replied.  “The chief and I were discussing when it would be released when Jake called him.  Chief Grant thought we should come along, since we have a vested interest in the investigation ourselves.”

“Not me,” Phillip said.  “I have no desire to dig into this, or any other case, for that matter.  The only thing I’m interested in these days is local history.  After all, I’m the one who convinced your mother to restore this building in the first place.”

I hadn’t known that.  Momma added, “It’s a good investment, and besides, I hate to see the old landmarks torn down so unceremoniously, and that’s exactly what Carl Descent was planning to do.  What did you find?”

Jake offered the bills to the police chief.  “We found three old twenties in a cache under the floor where the crates had been stacked,” he said.

Chief Grant had a plastic bag ready for them, and Jake slid them inside as he went on to explain, “They’re all from 1928.”

That got Phillip’s interest.  “So, it’s true,” he said with a frown.