Sour Crime Donuts, page 11
I had locked it, but Dep had no interest in getting into it, and Brent wouldn’t be home for hours, so I let Dep explore in the other direction along the sand beside the stream. Dep was probably still hoping to see a fish. I wondered who owned this idyllic spot, where the stream came from, and where it went.
Dep stopped and stared toward the water.
I asked her, “Is that a fish?” My voice sounded loud among the clicking and chirring of insects. I stepped closer to the nearly silent stream. The “fish” was a mostly white plastic tubelike thing caught between stones. Rippling water distorted whatever was printed on the tube, and the colors on the endcaps had faded slightly, but I had taken first-aid courses every few years, and I recognized the object.
It was an autoinjector of the sort that Adam Nofftry should have been carrying but apparently had not been.
Chapter 16
The autoinjector in the stream probably had nothing to do with Adam Nofftry or his death, but I pulled my phone out of my shorts pocket and called Brent.
He didn’t ask why I was exploring a dirt road. He merely said, “Misty and Tyler deserve a break from sorting through dumpsters and compost bins. I’ll send them in one of the department’s SUVs. They can be there in about twenty minutes. Can you wait for them?”
“Sure.” I told him where Misty and Tyler would find me and then carried Dep higher on the bank and sat on the ground in the shade of a willow.
Clouds reflected on the surface of the stream, occasionally obscuring the autoinjector, but I kept my eye on where I’d last seen it, and the clouds drifted off, to be replaced by blue sky and then by other clouds. The autoinjector didn’t budge. Dep snoozed in my lap.
Lulled by her warmth, quiet breathing, and the rise and fall of the cicadas’ songs, I might have slept, too, but I stared toward that plastic tube and the reflections of clouds. My eyes stung and blurred.
Gradually, I realized I was hearing an engine, and then the squeaking of a vehicle’s springs as it bumped over potholes and gullies. Those noises stopped. A car door slammed, and then another. And the back hatch of a sturdy SUV?
Minutes later, Misty came toward me on the animal trail. Carrying a small, short-handled fishing net, Tyler was right behind her. Misty was senior in the police department to her usual partner, Hooligan, and also to Tyler.
Holding Dep in my arms, I stood. “I heard that you two have been having a fun day with garbage.”
Misty grinned. “Thank goodness for hazmat suits, gloves, and masks.”
“Did you find anything?”
Misty gazed down toward the water. “That environmentalist woman didn’t lie about tearing up one of your boxes and mixing the pieces with the compost. She was very thorough with her tearing and her mixing. I doubt that forensics will be able to learn anything from those bits of cardboard, but no one can say we didn’t try. Forensics investigators get the fun of sorting through Deputy Donut’s food scraps, and the dumpster behind the town hall had recently been replaced. There was hardly anything in it. Certainly no Deputy Donut boxes. Aha. I see why you called, Emily.”
“Dep spotted it first.”
Tyler lengthened his net’s telescopic handle. “We should have brought her with us yesterday.”
I asked, “Did Brent send you to search here?”
Misty started down the embankment. “He came, too.”
Hmmmm, I thought. Brent must have led a search here because I told him about Landon driving up this road. Maybe Brent suspects Landon more than he’s been letting on. I asked, “Did you two help with the investigation Sunday night after Izzy found the body?”
Tyler followed Misty to the edge of the stream. “No. We had three days off after working the night shift. We started working days again starting Monday at noon.” They worked twelve-hour shifts for three days at a time, with three days off between changing to twelve-hour night shifts. “So, on Sunday night, we missed out on searching all over the meadows near where that man died. Misty’s husband Scott and his firefighters pumped the water out of the pond, but they didn’t find anything.” Scott was Fallingbrook’s fire chief. Most of his firefighters were volunteers.
Tyler pointed at the autoinjector. “That thing wasn’t here yesterday.” He aimed his net toward the stones. “I should have brought a grabber. This isn’t going to fit between the stones the thing is lodged against.”
I pointed at his feet. “You two are wearing leather boots and long pants. How about if I take off my sandals and wade in just below those stones. I won’t touch the autoinjector, but I can move stones out of the way, and you can be downstream and catch the autoinjector in your net.”
Tyler had a very nice smile. “If you don’t mind.”
Misty added, “And if you’re careful. Want me to hold Dep?”
“You don’t need to.” Hanging on to Dep’s harness with one hand, I unsnapped her leash, looped the leash around the willow’s narrow trunk, threaded the leash through its handle, and reattached the leash to the harness. “This will keep her from wandering off, and you can rescue Tyler or me if one of us falls in. Or we both do.” I let go of Dep’s harness. She hunkered down in the weeds and pawed at a beetle.
“Great.” Misty’s tone implied that she’d rather hug Dep.
Avoiding possibly slippery stones, I waded into the water. Slow-moving, shallow, and heated by days of sunshine, the stream was almost warm. I didn’t particularly appreciate the cooler mud oozing between my toes, however. I told myself to think of it as silky, not slimy. “Ready?” I asked Tyler, who was standing a yard or two downstream from me.
“Yes.” The toes of his boots were almost in the stream. Bracing her feet in the dried-up, sandy mud near the edge of the water, Misty stood beside him.
I lifted one of the stones. The autoinjector edged away from another stone and rolled along the streambed so lazily that Tyler had plenty of time to net it. Apologizing to a crayfish that had squirmed, churning up silt, to conceal itself underneath another stone, I gently put the first stone back where it had been.
Misty held out a plastic bag. “That thing’s not dry enough for a paper evidence bag. We’ll give it to forensics in this and let them decide how to handle and store it.” Tyler deftly tipped the autoinjector out of the net and into the bag. “Bravo,” Misty said.
I splashed to them. Standing on the sandy soil, they gazed at the bag in Misty’s hand. She lifted it high and turned it around to see all sides of the autoinjector. “No name visible. I know that these things don’t require specific prescriptions, but we could have hoped that whoever left it here might have labeled it with his name or initials.”
I strapped my sandals onto my muddy feet. “Is it heavy, like it hasn’t been used?”
Misty answered, “I can’t tell. Water could have seeped into it. Forensics will check.”
Tyler glanced at the weedy slope across the stream. “I’m not mistaken, am I, Misty? We did search this very spot, from both banks? And though we didn’t wade into the water, we checked it visually, pretty thoroughly.”
“We did, and for about a half mile in both directions from the track where we parked. Unless we were all dazzled by reflections or something, it wasn’t here. Maybe it floated down from even farther upstream. Emily, you drive up and down County Road C all the time. Is there a bridge on it somewhere near the intersection with County Road H?”
I removed Dep’s leash from the tree trunk. “It’s more like a culvert, not far north of the intersection. It could be the same stream.”
Tyler shielded his phone from the glare of daylight and scrolled through screens. “It’s hard to tell from these tiny maps. We might get a better idea from the computer in the vehicle.”
I offered, “I’m about to go past there. I’ll let you know if it looks like it could be the same stream, though I’m not sure how I’ll be able to tell.”
Misty bent to pet Dep. “You don’t need to check it by yourself. Unless we get called away, we’ll have a look. Meanwhile, do you mind helping us keep an eye out for anything else that doesn’t belong here?” She scratched Dep’s chin. “You, too, Little Miss Eagle Eyes.”
We took our time, letting Dep lead the way and set the pace. We didn’t find a thing, either in the water or on land. I asked Misty and Tyler, “Did you collect possible evidence here yesterday?”
Tyler answered cheerfully, “We found nothing that hadn’t been here less than several weeks or even months, and we gave forensics an entire trash bag of old cigarette filters and disposable cups, just in case they get bored.”
“No wonder the place was so clean when Dep and I got here.”
Misty steepled her hands underneath her chin. “We aim to serve. Speaking of which, how do you plan to get your car out of here? Want help?”
“I figure I can make a twenty-point turn on the sandy soil down by the water’s edge. How do you plan to get out?”
She pointed up the track at the back of a police department SUV. “I already made that turn, but higher on the slope, at the expense of a few weeds and bushes.”
I looked from the dried streambed to the broken-off bushes farther up the hill. “Your method looks safer. Is that what you did yesterday, too?”
“Yes, and we weren’t the first.”
Landon? “Thanks. I should be able to turn my car around by myself.”
Misty and Tyler waved goodbye and started up the track toward the departmental SUV.
I put Dep into her carrier. “Okay, Dep, are you ready to ride backward uphill until we can turn around without bashing too many wild roses?”
“Rowr.”
With help from the car’s rear-facing camera, I backed up the slope to where the police department’s SUV had been. Misty, with Tyler in the passenger seat, had already pulled ahead and stopped.
Using fewer than ten backups, I managed to turn around without, I hoped, letting broken-off branches scratch my car. Misty drove up the lane slowly, and I followed. Again, I didn’t see signs that anyone had recently gotten out of vehicles along the dirt road. No campers or picknickers, and probably not Landon, either. Maybe he had driven up here, walked east, and tossed Adam’s autoinjector where he thought no one would find it. Then the creek had rolled the cylinder westward, through the mud, stirring up silt that camouflaged the autoinjector until it lodged against stones, and the flowing water rinsed the silt off it.
Or maybe Misty’s guess about someone tossing the autoinjector into a stream passing through a culvert underneath County Road C was accurate.
I didn’t catch up with Misty and Tyler until I reached the shoulder just south of the culvert I’d told them about. I parked behind them, opened the windows all the way for Dep, got out, and joined the two police officers on the left side of the road.
Tyler waved back toward the police vehicle. “I’m still not sure, but I think this is a tributary of the stream we just explored.”
Misty turned to me. “What do you think, Emily?”
I gazed down into the almost still, almost clear water. “It could be. I don’t know how we could be certain unless we toss an autoinjector into the water. Not,” I added quickly, “the same one.”
Grinning, Tyler raised an index finger. “Poohsticks!
Misty stared at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted a sunflower from his forehead. “WHAT?”
I laughed. “It’s a game, invented by Winnie-the-Pooh. Everyone gets a stick and drops it on the upstream side of a bridge, then they all run across the bridge and watch the water. The person whose stick shows up first wins the game.”
Misty pushed her hat back. “I see, I guess. But Winnie-the-Pooh isn’t real. I mean, wasn’t he named after a real bear? But neither a real bear nor a toy could have invented the game.”
I asked her, “Didn’t you read those books or have them read to you when you were a kid?”
“Apparently not.”
I shook my head. “Poor Misty. A wasted childhood.”
Misty readjusted her equipment belt. “Not completely. I was only about twelve when I met you and Samantha, and neither of you were exactly opposed to being childish.”
I thought of the games we’d played around Fallingbrook Falls, and of the day I’d spent there with Izzy. “We called it adventuring, and exploring. And having fun.”
Misty smiled. “And it was.”
Tyler crossed the road to the side where our vehicles were. We followed him. With mini-howls, Dep reminded me that she was still inside my car. Tyler clambered down the mown embankment beside the shoulder, climbed back up, and solemnly handed us each a small twig. “It was the best I could do.”
I laughed. “How will we tell them apart?”
“Easy,” Misty answered. “Whichever one wins is mine.”
Tyler held his stick over the edge of the culvert. “Drop them on the count of three. One, two, three.”
We dropped our twigs and hurried across the road.
We hadn’t needed to hurry. The water was, if anything, more sluggish than in the creek where we’d fished out the autoinjector. Eventually, the first, and then a second twig emerged, both turning in circles. We waited another couple of minutes. The first two twigs—mine and Tyler’s, he and I decided—spun slowly down the creek. The third stick didn’t show up. Laughing, we returned to the SUVs.
I asked Misty, “When are your next days off?”
She opened her driver’s door. “We finish tonight at midnight and will be back on duty Sunday at midnight.”
“Have a great time. With luck, Deputy Donut will be open again tomorrow. You know, you can come in even when you’re not taking a break during your on-duty days.”
Misty told me, “I was just saying to Scott that we can do that, even though he’s on call most of the time, like Brent is.”
“Do you have any idea how late Brent’s working tonight?”
Tyler answered that one. “Late. I called him when we were on the way here and told him we were bringing your find back to the office.”
Misty added, “You know how Brent is when he’s on a case. He doesn’t want to let go until he gets every loose end tied up.”
The two of us exchanged proud smiles. We and Samantha had married men who worked hard, helped others, and loved what they did. And Misty and Samantha were every bit as dedicated. I was the only one in the group who wasn’t a first responder. That was fine with all of us.
Misty and Tyler climbed aboard their SUV. Misty drove beyond the culvert to a safe place to make a U-turn, and then, her strobes flashing for a second as a goodbye, she sped toward Fallingbrook.
Behind her, a woman driving a sedate sedan looked at me, shook her head sadly, and lifted both hands off the wheel long enough to brush one index finger over the other one in a shame-on-you gesture.
I told Dep, “She thought I’d been pulled over!”
Dep didn’t seem to think it was as funny as I did. She let out a reproving wail.
At home, I took off her harness and opened the door to the catio. She streaked into it and ran up to one of her favorite perches.
Brent telephoned me. “Deputy Donut has been cleared. Officers will bring your coffee, nut, and spice grinders to your shop in the morning. I said someone would be there by six thirty, and you’d like your things then.”
I thanked him and let Tom know. We agreed that Tom would ask the Jolly Cops to return to their regular cleaning of the shop during the night, and I would call Jocelyn and Olivia.
They were both eager to get back to work. “See you tomorrow morning at six thirty,” I told them.
Chapter 17
Brent came home at some horrible hour, but he got up in the morning almost as soon as Dep and I did, and we prepared a red pepper and Wisconsin Colby cheese omelet for breakfast and packed a lunch for Brent.
I drove Dep to town in my car. Not knowing when he’d be able to return home, Brent followed me in his SUV.
Shortly after six thirty, Tom was in the kitchen preparing dough, and Jocelyn, Olivia, and I were setting up tables in the dining room. Someone knocked on our front door.
A young DCI investigator I’d never met before handed me a large carton containing our coffee and nut grinders and choppers. He pulled a receipt out of his pocket. “Sign here.”
I rooted through the box, satisfied myself that the investigators had returned every appliance they’d taken, signed the receipt, and offered, “If you want to wait until we clean a coffee grinder, we can make you some coffee.”
“No, thanks.” As if afraid that the air in our shop might poison him, he hurried away.
We rushed around and were ready, just barely, when our first patrons arrived at seven.
The Knitpickers and retired men took up their usual tables a few minutes earlier than their usual nine o’clock. Cheryl moaned. “Two full days without your donuts and coffees! I don’t know how we survived!”
Other diners told us the same thing. The police activity in our shop did not seem to have deterred customers. If anything, we had more of them than usual on a Thursday morning in late August. And many of them wanted to know why we’d been closed.
We gave them our agreed-upon response. “Nothing happened here, but the police had to make certain of it before we could open again.”
Midway through the morning, Jerry Creavus came in. I asked him what I could bring him.
“Coffee, nothing fancy, just your normal one. And do you have more of your peachy sour cream donuts? I ate all of mine as soon as I got back to my office.” His flash of a grin didn’t look quite sincere. “But I still want more.”
“We don’t have any fresh fruit yet this morning, but we’ve just taken a batch of raised donuts containing rum-soaked raisins out of the fryer and dipped them in vanilla glaze. They’re big.”
He patted his stomach. “I’ll limit myself to two, then, to start. You can bring them to that table over there. I’ll sit with those men. They’re a good bunch.” He pointed at the retired men.
Across the aisle from the men, the five Knitpickers were holding their knitting still and watching Jerry as if preparing to rescue me from his speechifying.
