Sour Crime Donuts, page 6
Grasping Dep’s leash tightly, I set her on the ground and squeezed Izzy’s shoulder. “Tell the dispatcher that Adam has no apparent pulse and that I’m calling my husband, Brent Fyne, Fallingbrook’s detective. I hope he’s at home and can get here faster than other Fallingbrook first responders.”
Izzy relayed that information, and I called Brent. He had just come in after an afternoon of kayaking on Chicory Lake, where there was no phone reception. From his own search for real estate, he remembered where the property was. I told him, “Adam looks like he just keeled over, a heart attack or something. He’s on the edge of the lowest pond. It’s near the western end of the property. We’re beside a stand of cattails.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Stay on the line.”
It hadn’t occurred to me until Brent told me to stay on the line that Adam might have been attacked. It was possible that he had signs of trauma that I couldn’t see. I had no intention of returning to his body or rolling it over to check.
If he’d been attacked, could his attacker still be in the area? Even though I’d seen no vehicles down at the road besides mine, Izzy’s, and the SUV that had to be Adam’s, I glanced nervously toward the woods west of the pond. From where my car was, a curve hid the road below those woods. Could someone have parked down there? Considering where we’d found the box with a couple of donuts still in it, and that Adam had not been in Deputy Donut that day, I suspected that whoever had tried to hide the litter had parked near where Izzy, Adam, and I had. Maybe the litterer hadn’t even known that the owner of the SUV was on that hill.
Naturally, I pictured Landon. I didn’t know if, yesterday, he’d arrived before or after Adam, but if it had been after, he wouldn’t have known for sure who had driven the black SUV. He might have thought that Olivia, Jocelyn, and I had arrived in it. Or Izzy.
Maybe, today, he had come back and had brought his donuts up to the hill while he tried to find Izzy. To do . . . what?
With her phone against her ear, Izzy sat despondently on the rock. Dep jumped into her lap. Izzy gasped and then breathed a laugh. Hanging on to Dep’s leash, I stared at our surroundings and listened. The cattails swayed, rustling. A red-winged blackbird called from the other side of the pond. Insects sang and buzzed. Through my phone, I heard the quiet thrum of Brent’s car, and then in my other ear, I heard a vehicle on the road, approaching quickly from the east. “About to park,” Brent told me. “Is everything okay where you are?”
“Except for Adam Nofftry, yes. Izzy, Dep, and I are fine.”
His car door slammed. The sound was instant through my phone and delayed slightly through the air. Moments later, in the shorts, T-shirt, and sneakers he must have worn kayaking, Brent appeared on the far side of the meadow. He ran to us.
Barely out of breath, he pulled his police-issue notebook and pen out of his back pocket. Izzy and I disconnected our calls. I introduced Brent and Izzy to each other and then sent Brent around behind the cattails. Their leaves brushing against each other could have been conspirators whispering. Could someone be hiding in the thicket of plants?
Brent returned to us. “Who found the body?” His face did not reveal his thoughts, even to me.
Izzy gently put Dep on the ground between us, stood, and brushed at the seat of her jeans. Her face was no longer green. “I did. Emily and I saw some litter.” She pointed toward the eastern end of the meadow. “Over there. Emily took it away. While she was gone, Dep and I wandered around, and that’s when I saw it. Him.”
Brent repeated, “Litter? What was it?”
I touched the Deputy Donut logo on my shirt, “It was a Deputy Donut box that still had two donuts in it, a new kind that we started making only today. As far as I know, Adam has never been inside Deputy Donut, and he didn’t buy any of those donuts today.”
Brent gave me one of his piercing detective looks. “Could someone else have bought them and given them to him?”
“It’s possible. But I’m guessing that someone in addition to Adam was here today. Whoever it was might have had no idea that Adam was here.”
Izzy admitted, “I bought some of them today. I shared them with my neighbors. They have two teenaged boys. We ate all of the donuts in minutes.” She gave me a weak smile. “My neighbors loved them, too.” She looked up at Brent, and her expression was earnest. “Adam’s SUV might not have moved after the rest of us left here yesterday. He was alive then.”
I confirmed that I’d probably been the last one to turn around and see him. “He was watching us leave. But just now when I checked for a pulse, I thought his body was too warm to have been there long. I think he’s wearing the same outfit he had on yesterday, though.”
Brent grunted. “Emily, Izzy said you removed the box with two donuts in it. Why?”
“I felt responsible. It was litter with Deputy Donut’s name on it, so I thought I should clean it up.”
“Where is it now?”
“In the back of my car.”
Brent gazed toward an immense dragonfly perched on the tip of a cattail. The dragonfly’s delicate, veined wings glistened in the sunshine. “How long did that take?”
“About five minutes, I guess. Maybe seven. What do you think, Izzy?”
“Seven sounds about right.”
Brent turned to Izzy. “What made you come to this particular spot while Emily was gone?”
Izzy waved toward the water beyond the cattails. “Birds hang out here. I thought Dep might like to see them. And the pond, too. I really like the ponds here. Liked them.” The corners of her mouth twisted up in a mostly unsuccessful attempt at a grin. “Also, as Emily can tell you, I was here, I mean down at the road, before Emily got here. When I saw Adam’s car looking like he hadn’t moved it since yesterday, I got scared that he might want to argue with me again about which of us was going to succeed in buying the property. I didn’t want to face that again, so I called Emily and asked her to check the place out with me. I didn’t come up here, not then. I locked myself inside my car and waited for Emily. She got here in about ten minutes, but it seemed longer.” Again, that attempt at a smile. “Seeing Adam’s car still here freaked me out, but I never thought it would amount to anything as horrible as him being dead.” She took a tremulous breath. “I know it maybe looks bad, since he and I disagreed about this property, but I didn’t come up here before I called Emily or while I was waiting for her to drive here, I swear. And besides, I wasn’t worried about Adam buying this place out from under me. My contract is good. I just didn’t want to argue with him about it.” She bit her lip and then blurted, “I wish I hadn’t come here today! Or that I’d gotten here sooner. Maybe I could have gotten help for him in time.”
Brent said gently, “Maybe not. I’m not positive, but he might have had a health crisis. It probably happened too fast for anyone to have saved him.”
Shared grief flashed between Brent’s eyes and mine. Brent had been with Alec, both of them detectives, when Alec was shot. I’d been a 911 dispatcher, but I’d taken that one crucial evening off, and a new operator had been on duty. Both Brent and a witness had called for help immediately, but it had been too late. Brent and I knew that neither of us could have saved Alec, but that didn’t prevent us from feeling survivor’s guilt and agonizing moments of if only.
Brent looked down at Izzy standing in the sunlight and spoke quietly. “I’ll need to talk to you some more, Izzy.”
She gulped. “Okay.”
He stared into my eyes. “You can go home, Emily. The box with donuts in it probably has nothing to do with the man lying back there, but don’t touch it, okay? I’ll deal with it when I get home.”
Izzy cupped her elbows in her palms and hunched her shoulders forward. “Can’t she stay while you talk to me?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
She raised her chin. “Do I need a lawyer?” She hiccupped. “I can afford one.”
“Call one,” he said, “if you like.”
Izzy bent her head over her phone.
I scooped Dep into my arms. Carrying her across the sunlit, deceptively innocent-looking meadow, I heard nothing except grasshoppers whirring and clicking and the woodpecker attacking the tree. The sun was still hot enough to warm the backs of my shoulders. Above me, a distant jet painted a white streak across the vivid blue sky.
Before I rounded the curve, I glanced back. Brent and Izzy were still side by side. My husband stood at ease, his feet apart. My young friend looked down toward her phone. I waved. Brent waved back, and I started down the trail through the tunnel of trees. A mile or so away, sirens wailed. Hugging Dep, I strode down to the road.
Brent’s SUV was in front of Adam’s. Again I peeked through Adam’s windows and saw nothing unusual. I hurried past Izzy’s car to mine and eased Dep into her carrier.
The sirens were closer, but no vehicles were in sight. I made a U-turn and headed east, the way I’d come.
Lights flashing, an ambulance sped past me in the westbound lane. A police car followed the ambulance. I glanced into my rearview mirror. Both vehicles disappeared around a curve, heading toward the dismal scene on the hillside Izzy was buying.
Although Dep was mimicking a siren too well to hear me, I was glad to have a living thing to talk to. “It’s sad,” I told her. “He didn’t seem like a nice man, but he was probably in his fifties, too young to die. But there’s one good thing, I guess. He took his last breath in a gorgeous place that he wanted to own. But has his death ruined Izzy’s excitement about owning that property?”
Dep groaned.
We were approaching the dirt lane that Landon had veered onto the previous evening. I’d seen him since then, but where did that road go, why had Landon decided to take it, and what had he done there before I saw him again? He’d bought donuts from us only hours before Izzy and I found that box with a couple of donuts still in it. Had he been back in this area since then?
I skidded to a stop.
Chapter 10
Both Brent and I had guessed that Adam died from natural causes. Even if he’d been attacked, how likely was it that his attacker would have fled down this dirt track? Landon had to know that we’d seen him turn here the day before, and if he had attacked Adam, he probably wouldn’t have escaped down this desolate farm road afterward. Just the same, I was not heading down there alone. I would tell Brent that Landon had suddenly turned onto this track while Adam had, I believed, still been alive.
I took my foot off the brake and drove home.
Hoping that Brent would discover that Adam’s death had not been the least bit suspicious, and that Brent would be home soon, I took Dep inside and changed into cutoffs and a T-shirt. It was a perfect evening for Nicoise salad. In the vegetable garden near our catio, I picked grape tomatoes and green beans. I hard-boiled eggs, boiled whole white potatoes, blanched the beans, and sliced the potatoes and a red onion. I made the dressing and stirred the beans, potatoes, and onions into it. I washed the lettuce. Finally, I quartered the grape tomatoes and put everything except the tomatoes into the fridge.
It was almost dark when Brent came in, picked up Dep, and hugged us both.
As soon as I could speak, I asked, “How’s Izzy?”
“Shaken. I’ll interview her first thing tomorrow morning in my office when her lawyers can come with her. I sent her home shortly after you left.”
“Lawyers, plural? And she was able to reach them on a Sunday?”
“She has friends in Gooseleg, sisters. Both are lawyers, and in their small town, they do a bit of everything. They’re handling her purchase of that property, and they have taken on criminal cases when necessary.” He pulled his notebook and pen out of his back pocket. “Do you mind if I take more notes now for your statement? Or would you rather wait until after dinner?”
“Now’s a good time. Nearly everything’s ready, and I can do the rest while we talk.” I headed back to the kitchen section of the great room. “I hope her lawyers are good. But I believe she’s innocent of anything criminal. Do you still think Adam died of natural causes?”
Brent followed me. “Probably.”
Knowing that the police had to treat any unusual or unexpected death as suspicious, I asked, “Do you suspect Izzy of anything?”
Brent turned the question back on me. “Do you?”
I started peeling an egg. “No. She was sure that Adam wouldn’t be able to prevent her from buying the property, so she didn’t have a motive to harm him. And besides, she’s . . . enthusiastic and optimistic about everything, too happy, or at least she was happy before this happened, to do anything that might curb her spirits. I don’t think she knows how to be mean. But it does look bad because she was near the property alone before she called me about seeing Adam’s car, and she was up in the meadow alone with Dep when she found Adam’s body.”
“Do you believe her story about staying in her car until you got there?”
“Yes. She’s either a very good actress, or she was truly shocked when she found the body. She screamed, and when I reached her, she was almost green.”
Brent gave me one of his solemn and silent detective looks.
He didn’t have to remind me that things could often be interpreted in different ways. I sighed and admitted, “I suppose that a person who had just killed someone, even accidentally, might feel faint.” The word accidentally echoed painfully through my brain. Could Izzy have caused Adam to have a fatal accident?
“You say Izzy was usually happy and optimistic. Does that fit with her phoning you because Adam’s car was where it had been the day before?”
I cut the eggs into wedges. “Maybe, if only because, just today, I warned her about going to that property alone because of other people showing up there. Did you see anything else that didn’t seem to belong on that property?”
“Farther up the hill, we found a clipboard and one of those measuring devices that’s like a wheel on a stick. Izzy had already left by then. I’ll ask her tomorrow if they’re hers.”
I ripped the lettuce into bite-sized pieces. “Adam had things like that there yesterday.”
“What do you think about Izzy’s honesty?”
I frowned down at the lettuce. “She seems honest to me. Young, innocent, and maybe a little naive, but basically honest. But she could be fooling me, and I could be thinking she’s almost exactly like the child I remember. Why? Did she say or do something that made you wonder?”
“It seems a little too convenient that she claims to have seen the man she referred to as Landon driving west, away from the property, when she was driving east, having come from Gooseleg, to it.”
“This evening? Before she called me?”
“Yes. Didn’t she tell you?”
“She was probably too distracted.” I added tuna to our salads. “Yesterday, after all of us except Adam left the place, Landon drove east. We encouraged Izzy to head west, the shortest way back to Gooseleg. Olivia, Jocelyn, and I were in my car behind Landon. He suddenly swerved onto the right shoulder, and then made a sharp left onto a dirt road. We guessed that he didn’t want us following him. But now I wonder if he’s camping up there.”
“I think I know which road you mean. Is it more like a farmer’s lane?”
“Yes. Maybe he was with Adam today when Adam died, and then Landon fled west afterward, in time for Izzy to see him.” I waved my hand in a circle. “He could have eventually circled back to the dirt road to pick up his tent and camping gear before he left the area. Or maybe he’d already packed up his belongings and was on his way back to Duluth.”
Brent reminded me, “If Izzy actually saw him.”
“She seems too enamored to make up a story that would make him appear guilty of something, even to save herself from being suspected. But . . .” I sighed. “She might be a little less attracted to Landon than she was at first. She thought that the woman who came into Deputy Donut today and called him Landon might be his girlfriend.”
“Is Landon his first or last name?”
I spooned the dressing-soaked veggies over the tuna in our bowls. “It wasn’t clear. The woman seemed surprised to see him, and he blushed, something he’s good at. They left immediately, together. He had already bought some of today’s new peachy sour cream donuts, and there was chocolate frosting on some of the other donuts in his box. He offered to share the donuts, but the woman announced—to everyone within hearing—‘I detest gooey sweets.’ ” I said it with my nose pointed upward and my lips pinched and prissy.
Brent laughed. “That must have made her popular with your staff and customers.”
I rolled my eyes. “Very. I don’t know why she’d come to a donut shop if she didn’t like gooey sweets. Maybe she’d wanted a coffee, but when she saw the man she called Landon leaving, she clung to his arm and went out with him. She didn’t interact with anyone besides him. Strangely, Izzy said the woman resembled Hope, a cousin Izzy hadn’t seen since Izzy was about ten. Hope was older, and Izzy thought Hope lived in New York City.”
Brent turned to the next page in his notebook. “How many donuts did this Landon buy?”
“Six.”
“How many donuts would the box you found hold?”
“Six big ones, maybe eight smaller ones.”
“Are you sure that the box wasn’t beneath that rock when you were there yesterday?”
I arranged kalamata olives on our salads. “Positive. Yesterday, Izzy and I both noticed that rock and the niche under it, and that space was empty.”
“And you’re sure that the donuts in the box you found under the rock were from a recipe that you never made before today?”
“I didn’t taste them, but they looked like them, and I thought I smelled the peach flavoring we used in today’s frosting. Do you think the donuts have something to do with Adam’s death?”
“Possibly not directly, but we might be able to collect fingerprints or other evidence that could tell us who else was on that property today. I took the box with the remaining donuts in it from your car and put it into an evidence bag to send to the forensics lab.”
