Troubled Treats (4 page)

“Are you implying that you knew him better than I did?” I asked her.

“I know lots of folks in April Springs,” she said, suddenly deflecting my attention.

I wasn’t going to let her, though.  “I get it, Gabby, you’re in the loop.  Don’t forget, I know a lot of folks around town, too.”  Waving my hand in the air dismissively, I said, “Thanks for your time.  I’ll try again in a few weeks.  Maybe you’ll get something in that works for me by then.”

I was two steps away from the door and beginning to regret my bluff of leaving when Gabby said, “Things are kind of slow at the moment.  Would you care for a cup of tea?”

“Why not?” I asked, doing my best not to reveal how eager I was to get her opinion about who might have wanted to murder Sully Jackson.

Gabby surprised me by walking toward the front door and flipping her sign to show that she was closed.

“I don’t want you to lose any business on my account,” I said.

“Nonsense.  Turning them away every now and then just makes them want what I have more.  You could take a lesson there yourself.  Now that you’re married, how long are you going to continue to keep your shop open seven days a week?”

“It’s taxing at times, but what day should I close?  It can’t be on the weekend; I have too many standing orders then.  What day of the workweek could I shut the shop down?  Each day brings its own unique set of customers.”

“So, let them change their routines.  I have an idea.  Why don’t you close on Wednesdays?  Remember the old days when everything closed on Wednesday afternoon around here?  You could take the entire day off and spend it with your new husband.”

“I’ll think about it,” I said.  “But I’ve already shaved a few hours off each workday, and you wouldn’t believe how some folks are still howling about that.”

“Let them complain,” she said with a shrug.  “It’s good for them.  Now, let’s see about that tea.”

We walked to the back of the store together and into Gabby’s office.  The space was quite a bit nicer than the former cubbyhole of a closet I’d converted into my office at the donut shop, but then again, Gabby had a great deal more square footage than I had to work with.  After all, I was reminded daily that Donut Hearts had been converted from a tiny old train depot, and it didn’t leave me a great deal of space to work with.

As the teapot started to whistle, Gabby said, “I’m really going to miss Sully.”

The tenderness of her admission surprised me.  “Were you two really that close?” I asked her.

“As a matter of fact, I was quite fond of him,” she said, avoiding giving me a direct answer.  “Though I might have been in the minority of the people around him.”

That news was interesting.  “I’ve heard so many people describe Sully as the last genuinely honest man left on the planet that it’s hard for me to imagine anyone wishing him harm.”

“Don’t you see that’s what threw some folks off?” Gabby asked as she prepared the tea.  “In fact, I’m willing to bet that’s why he was murdered.  Sully took his integrity to the limits, and some folks considered it a handicap more than a virtue.”

“Who thought that?” I asked her.

“Well, right off the bat, I can think of a few folks.  His two employees come to mind.”

“Who worked for him in his electrical contracting business?” I asked.

“Bob Greene and Jim Burr.  Sully often said that if he didn’t keep an eye on the two of them, they’d walk out with his kitchen sink.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.  If he didn’t trust them, why did he hire them in the first place?” I asked as Gabby delivered an elegant china coffee cup to me, brimming with freshly brewed tea.

“What choice did he have?  If he waited for someone with the level of honesty he had, he said that he’d have to work alone for the rest of his life, and he was beginning to feel the aches and pains he’d earned from a lifetime of physical labor.”

I made a mental note to talk to Bob Greene and Jim Burr at my earliest opportunity, but there had to be more than two names on Gabby’s mind.  Unfortunately, the only way I was going to get any more information out of her was by threatening to walk away.  I took a sip of tea, nodded, and then returned my cup to its saucer as I stood.  “Thanks for the tea and the information,” I said as I headed back toward the front of the shop.

“Sit back down, Suzanne.  We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface yet,” Gabby ordered.

It was a command that I had no problem obeying.  “Do you mean there’s more?”

“Oh, yes.  I’m willing to bet that you wouldn’t have considered Carl Descent.”

The name surprised me, but I tried not to show it.  “Why would Carl want to kill Sully?”

“He tried to buy the building when it came up for sale, but your mother scooped it up with a last-second offer.”

“I still don’t understand what that had to do with Sully.”

“Evidently Descent wanted to take the building down to the ground, brick by brick, and it offended Sully to think that a piece of our history was going to be destroyed.  He put in a good word for her with the former owner, and that was one of the main reasons the man chose to sell the place to your mother instead of the developer.  Weren’t you aware of any of that?”

“I’m the first to admit that I don’t know much about my mother’s business,” I conceded.  “You’re not implying that she did anything wrong, are you?”

“Heavens, no,” Gabby said quickly.  She knew that even she couldn’t get away with saying anything disparaging about my mother in front of me.  Momma and I had our fair share of squabbles, but no one was allowed to say one bad word about her as far as I was concerned, and I knew that she felt the same way about me.  “It was all perfectly legal and aboveboard.  Besides Sully’s recommendation, the owner wanted a parcel of land your mother owned, so she included it in her offer.  Even though it seemed as though her bid wasn’t the highest, it was the one the seller took.  That aggravated Carl to no end, and he vowed to stop the project, no matter what it took.”

“Even murder?” I asked incredulously.  “That’s hard to believe.”

Gabby just shrugged.  “I wouldn’t put it past him.  The man’s unbalanced, if you ask me.”  Almost as an afterthought, she added, “The building is haunted, you know.”

“I’ve heard the stories about strange lights there at night and odd noises coming from upstairs like everyone else in town has,” I admitted.  “You don’t believe that there are actually ghosts inhabiting the place, do you?”

“Don’t be so quick to scoff, Suzanne,” Gabby said.  “There are more things happening in our world that defy explanation than you can imagine.”

“So, do you think that ghosts had something to do with Sully’s murder?”

“I’m just saying that it might not be a bad idea to keep an open mind,” Gabby said.  This was getting strange, even for a conversation with Gabby, and that was saying something.

“Let’s put a pin in that, shall we?  Are there any other folks who might make your list?”

Gabby frowned, and then she answered, “Well, Shirley Edam has to be on your list.”

“Shirley?  Why her?” I asked.  Shirley was no stranger to my donut shop, and she’d always seemed nice to me in the past.

“She’s his only competitor in town.  Who are folks going to call now when they need electrical work done?  Shirley’s business just doubled.”

“It’s not enough reason to commit murder,” I said, having a hard time believing that it was possible.

“Maybe so, if that were the extent of it, but there were other reasons as well,” Gabby said.

“I’m listening,” I said when more facts were not forthcoming.

“The two of them dated once upon a time,” Gabby replied, clearly finding the admission distasteful.

“Seriously?  When?”

“It was a few months ago, but she wasn’t happy that it ended.  Lately they started discussing the possibility of going into business together, and evidently Shirley thought that Sully was more interested in a personal merger, if you know what I mean.”

It wasn’t that hard to figure it out, given her broad hinting.  “So, what happened?”

“Sully set her straight that this was strictly a business proposal, and she was furious!  Granted, he didn’t handle the situation very well, but Shirley really overreacted.”

A suspicion was gnawing at the corner of my mind, so I carefully framed my next question.  “You two have been dating lately, haven’t you?”

Gabby actually blushed, and I knew that I’d hit home.  “Suzanne Hart, what in the world ever gave you that idea?”

“You did,” I said.  “Why the big secret, though?  Neither one of you were married.”

“No, but at our ages, we decided to see how things worked out quietly before we announced our intentions to the world.”  Gabby appeared as though she were about to cry as she added, “We never got the chance to do that, though.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said, patting her shoulder awkwardly.  That explained a great deal.  If she were indeed in a relationship with Sully, it made sense that he’d confide in her.  Without realizing it, I had indeed tapped into the best source of information in April Springs that I could have found.  There was one thing left to do, and I knew that it wasn’t going to be very popular with her.  “Gabby, you need to tell Chief Grant everything that you just told me.”

She looked shocked by my suggestion.  “What are you talking about, Suzanne?”

“He needs this information if he’s going to solve Sully’s murder,” I said.  “Without it, he’s working in the dark.”

“You should tell him,” Gabby said gruffly as she turned away.

“I would if I could, but he needs to hear this from you, and soon.”

Gabby looked at me with a look of bewilderment.  “I thought you said that you were going to investigate his murder yourself?”

It was time to come clean with her, but I might be able to use her ignorance to my advantage.  “I will, but on one condition.”

“That I tell Grant what I know,” she said woodenly.  “If I do that, do you promise that you’ll dig into Sully’s murder?”

“If you come clean with the police chief about everything you know, I’ll even see if I can get Jake to help me do it,” I said.

“Sold,” she said quickly.  “I’m holding you to this, Suzanne.”

“I give you my word,” I said, doing my best not to show the slightest hint of a smile.  I’d just promised her to do something that I’d already planned to do in exchange for her doing something I knew she’d never have done otherwise.

“Then we both need to go,” Gabby said as she gathered up our cups and the teapot. 

“Where are we going?” I asked her, startled by the suddenness of her actions.

“I’m going to find Chief Grant, and you’re going to go recruit your husband.”

“I can do that,” I said.

We parted ways outside, Gabby going to her car and me heading back to the cottage on foot.  It was time to bring Jake up to speed on everything I’d just learned.  I’d been hoping for a bit of useful information from Gabby, and instead, I’d gotten an avalanche of it.

Now we just had to sort out our suspects and see who had the opportunity to kill Sully Jackson.

At least we had a pretty solid grasp on when the murder had taken place.  The time of death was usually not so specific, but we’d been on the site just after the fatal attack, so we had that going for us, which was something we couldn’t always count on.

That fact, plus the information Gabby had provided about likely suspects, might mean that we’d be able to wrap this case up quickly.

I wasn’t holding my breath, though.

It had been my experience that nothing was ever that easy, and in the end, it turned out that I was right on the money this time as well.

Chapter 5

When I got back to the cottage, I was surprised to find Jake sitting out on the front porch, swinging impatiently as he stared back toward the park.  “Hey.  What’s up?” I asked him as I approached.

He jumped off the swing as though he were sitting on a spring.  “What took you so long?  I was about ready to come after you.”

“Jake, I warned you that it might take some time to get Gabby to open up.  I was kind of surprised how well it went, myself.”

“Did you have any luck getting any information out of her, or do we need to start our investigation from scratch?”

“I’ll tell you all about it, but let’s go inside so I can warm up my hands.  I know that the calendar says that it’s officially spring, but I didn’t wear a heavy enough jacket for the walk.”

“Would you rather warm your hands up with the truck heater, instead?” he asked.  “It blasts better heat than you’ll get inside without the fireplace going.”

Not many things worked well on Jake’s ancient truck, but the heater it sported was still first rate.  “Are you that eager to get started?” I asked him with a grin.

“You would be too, if you’d been sitting here waiting.”

He had a point.  “Okay.  You drive while I warm up my hands.”

My husband looked surprised by the speed of my agreement, but he was too smart to question it.  Jake jogged around and opened my door for me, something that I didn’t think I’d ever tire of.  “Where do we go first?” he asked.

“Well, it’s going to take a few minutes before I can tell you everything so we can come up with a plan.  We could always park at the donut shop and chat there.”

“No, that might give some folks the mistaken impression that you’re open for business.  Why don’t we go to the crime scene and chat there?”

“You want to go back to the wagon factory?” I asked him.

“Call it whatever you’d like, but you knew what I meant.”

“I suppose it’s as good a place as any,” I said as the heater kicked out enough warmth to cook a roast.  My hands had gone past getting warm and were now starting to roast in the oppressive heat.  “Could you turn that down a notch?”

Jake grinned at me as he did as I’d requested.  “I told you it was a good heater.”

“I never doubted it for an instant,” I said as Jake drove past Grace’s place.  Her company car was gone, and I wondered where she was off to.  One thing I was fairly certain of was that she wasn’t investigating any murders.  It appeared that part of her life was over, at least for the foreseeable future.  Whether she’d ever come back to it was anyone’s guess, but I knew from our recent conversation that it wouldn’t be any time soon.  We drove past the donut shop, through the center of town, and then onto the road toward Union Square, though we didn’t have to go anywhere that far.  Just on the edge of town limits, Jake pulled into the parking lot of the old wagon factory.