Sour Crime Donuts, page 9
Tyler disappeared from the office, leaving Olivia alone. She scooped Dep off the couch and stood holding her and staring toward our dining room.
Minutes later, Tyler joined her in the office, talking as he stroked Dep, who was still in Olivia’s arms and had to be purring. Brent entered the office. The three of them put Dep into her harness and leashed her, and then Brent came out to the parking lot with my backpack and Dep. I got out of the car and lifted Dep out of his arms. “Have you finished interviewing Jocelyn?”
Brent put my backpack on my passenger seat. “Yes, but she’s still inside. Misty asked her how to lock the front door so we can make certain that it’s locked until the forensics investigators get here, probably later this evening. And Tyler will probably dismiss Olivia soon. While I was enticing Dep away from them, Tyler and Olivia were discussing their favorite books and movies.” Brent’s smile hinted at what I’d been thinking. Olivia and Tyler might discover that they wanted to see each other more.
I asked suspiciously, “Are you the one who decided Tyler should interview Olivia?”
“It worked out that way.” His eyes twinkled, and a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“Am I allowed to talk to Olivia and Jocelyn about the case?”
“Yes. I had a quick conference with Vic, Misty, and Tyler. You all said basically the same things. And let me know if any of you remember anything else. Like if someone suddenly remembers adding an ingredient to those donuts that none of you think anyone added.” He squeezed my shoulder and then headed back toward the office door.
I told Dep, “I think I’m sadder about Brent having to question people he likes than I am about having to close Deputy Donut during an investigation.”
Chapter 13
Jocelyn came up the driveway from the front of our building at the same time that Tyler let Olivia out through the office door. “Thanks, Olivia,” he said. He was blushing and smiling.
So was Olivia.
Instead of heading toward her bike, Jocelyn came to me. “I’m glad I caught you before you drove away.”
Olivia joined us.
I nodded toward the back of the building. “Brent said we’re allowed to talk to one another about the case, even about what just happened in there. Apparently we all said the same things.”
Jocelyn grinned and pulled a flyer out of her pocket. “Who wants to talk about flour and peach pits, anyway? I’m thinking of going to tonight’s TWIG meeting. Want to come along? Maybe that Ramona person will confess to murdering the developer.”
Hugging Dep, I asked, “When is it?”
Jocelyn opened the flyer. “Seven, in the town hall auditorium.”
I scratched Dep’s chin. “I’ll come. And I even have time to take this little one back to Chicory Lake. It’s too bad that I can’t take her to our Maple Street house, but our rental agreement doesn’t require our tenant to look after a cat on demand.”
“The single chef,” Jocelyn said in a fake dreamy tone. “Maybe he’d do it if Olivia asked him.”
Olivia blushed. “It wouldn’t need me. Who could resist Dep? But I have an idea. How about if Jocelyn and I put together a picnic dinner for the three of us, and Emily, you meet us in the square when you get back into town? We can eat there before the meeting.”
I slipped one hand inside Dep’s harness and felt her little heart beating inside that cute, soft-furred little body. “I’d love that. I’ll be back in about an hour. Want me to bring anything from home? A bottle of wine?”
“Sure,” Olivia said. “Sharing one bottle won’t get us high enough to disrupt TWIG’s meeting.”
Jocelyn’s eyes twinkled. “Then maybe she should bring two.”
Olivia elbowed her. “Maybe not. How about if we meet at one of the picnic tables south of the fountain, Emily?”
“Perfect.” I wrestled Dep into her carrier in my car’s rear seat.
When I drove away, Jocelyn stood beside her bike with her hand on the seat. Looking at Olivia, she grinned mischievously. Olivia glanced up toward our office and blushed.
The music I played in the car on the way to Chicory Lake didn’t calm Dep much, or me, either. Could the forensics team have gotten it wrong? I could imagine almond flour and cardamom accidentally being mixed in with wheat flour and spices, but ground peach pits? How could that be? And Izzy had not only taken peach skins and pits from our compost bin, but she had also bought peachy donuts from us and had, as the police would see it, a little too conveniently shared them with her neighbors and then rushed the box out to the road in time for garbage pickup. Could Izzy have two very different sides to go with her two different looks? First, she’d been the charming young woman in denim, T-shirts, and sometimes a sweater who reminded me of the child in play clothes, and then today, she was a sophisticate in tailored linen who could hire a couple of lawyers to accompany her to a police interview.
At home, I took Dep inside and gave her an early dinner and some fresh water. I changed out of my Deputy Donut uniform and put on jeans and a blue-checked shirt. A divided, insulated tote would keep the chardonnay cold and the Burgundy cool. I grabbed a light jacket and my backpack and headed for the door. Dep was curled on a couch. I blew her a kiss. “I won’t be late.” Locking her inside our chalet, I mumbled so that Dep wouldn’t be able to hear and possibly become dejected, “But Brent might be.”
Back in Fallingbrook, I parked east of the square, not far from the town hall, and then I strolled along meandering pathways between majestic old trees and manicured lawns and flower beds, bright with snapdragons, zinnias, and salvia, to the middle of the square. Above the sound of water splashing in the fountain, I heard shouts. Olivia and Jocelyn waved from a picnic table covered in a red plaid tablecloth. They had also changed out of their Deputy Donut uniforms into jeans.
Jocelyn pointed at Olivia’s oatmeal-colored sweater and at her own plain, dark blue T-shirt. “We decided to try to blend into the crowd.”
I set the insulated tote on the table and pulled out the bottles. “Me, too. It’s probably not the best night to advertise Deputy Donut. I didn’t detour to see what’s going on at our shop. Do you know if there’s police tape around it?” I shuddered dramatically.
Olivia set out three plates. “There isn’t, but there’s an ominous-looking black van parked out front and investigators in hazmat suits inside.”
I opened my insulated tote. “Did you see Brent?”
Olivia and Jocelyn shook their heads. I figured he was either inside Deputy Donut or at police headquarters.
Jocelyn gave a shout of laughter. “Emily really did bring two bottles of wine!”
I defended myself. “I didn’t know what we were eating, and I thought we should have a choice.”
Olivia and Jocelyn had assembled a feast during the hour or so that I’d been gone. Olivia had put mozzarella cheese, halved cherry tomatoes, and sliced black olives on recently baked focaccia, broiled the focaccia pizzas in her oven until the cheese melted, and then had garnished the result with fresh basil leaves. Jocelyn had made a salad of blanched but still crisp green beans, green onions, and tomato slices from her parents’ garden. We decided to open only the chardonnay. “For now,” Jocelyn suggested.
Jocelyn and I sat with our backs to the nearest pathway, and Olivia faced us. The focaccia pizzas and salad were delicious, and the chardonnay was cool and brisk.
Olivia glanced toward the fountain. “Don’t look now, but here comes Izzy’s ‘Mr. Mystery.’ ”
I wasn’t good at obeying the words “don’t look now.”
Landon walked toward us, but his face was averted as if he were conscientiously studying the trees and the tall, red canna lilies on the other side of the path. Again he was dressed in business casual clothes, this time black slacks with a white dress shirt. He strode past, intent on anything but us. He wore black loafers and no socks.
As soon as he might have been out of earshot, Olivia clanked her fork down onto her plate. “He knew we were here. When I first spotted him, he seemed to be looking straight at us. Then he turned his head and kept walking.”
I guessed, “Maybe he didn’t recognize us. Or he wasn’t wearing his contacts or something.”
“He’s guilty,” Jocelyn announced. “He broke into Izzy’s place, stole the peach pits, ground them up, took off the donuts’ frosting, mixed the ground kernels into it, spread it on the donuts again, and forced Adam to eat them.”
Olivia squeezed her face between her hands. “And Izzy will be blamed.”
I divided the remainder of the chardonnay between our glasses. “Only four donuts were missing from that box. Most likely Adam ate no more than four donuts, if that. And it’s possible that Adam never saw or touched the donuts that came from that box. He died next to a pond, all the way across that lower meadow from where Dep found the donuts. Maybe Landon is merely shy. I wonder how he would have acted if Izzy had been with us.”
Olivia laughed. “Probably the same, if he’s shy. I’m guessing that he had nothing to do with Adam’s death, or he would have long ago driven off to Duluth or wherever in his rental car.”
Did Brent know that Landon was still in town? I sent Brent a text telling him where we’d spotted Landon and which direction he was heading. Brent thanked me.
For dessert, we ate Jocelyn’s homemade ginger snaps and the chilled, super-sweet green grapes that Olivia brought.
We had finished and were tidying away our meal when I heard wheels on the paved walkway behind me. A soft voice called, “Emily!”
I turned around. A woman who was about my size and had pink streaks running through her dark, shoulder-length, wavy hair walked toward us. A wiry man, taller than the woman but not really tall, pushed a stroller. I leaped off the picnic bench. “Samantha! And Hooligan!” I checked the little face peering out from the stroller. “And Lainey!”
Lainey reached dimpled hands toward me.
Hooligan beamed down at his daughter. Samantha bent toward the stroller. “Want to hold her, Emily? She’s kind of wiggly these days.”
“Of course I want to.”
Samantha lifted Lainey out of the stroller and handed her to me. Lainey had inherited her reddish hair from her father. Cuddling the warm little bundle of love, I sat on the bench with my back to the picnic table. Lainey turned toward me and laced her fingers into my curls. She barely pulled at my hair, and then she seemed to want to stand on my lap. Grasping her beneath her armpits, I let her rise to her feet. She was wearing cute little handmade leather shoes from The Craft Croft, the local artisans’ co-op. Giggling, Lainey plunked down on my lap, then she wanted to stand again. We did this a few times until Hooligan swooped down and lifted her above his head, airplane style. “You’re going to wear Auntie Emily out!”
“I don’t mind. Even a short snuggle with my favorite pretend niece is worth it.”
Hooligan lowered Lainey until her face was next to mine. She gave me a sloppy kiss on the nose.
I asked her, “Isn’t it about your bedtime, Lainey?”
Samantha answered, “We were on our way home. But what’s going on at Deputy Donut?”
I gave them a brief summary. If Hooligan were on duty, he would know more details than I did. Samantha had also been a first responder, an emergency medical technician, but she stopped working about three days before Lainey was born. Hooligan asked, “How’s Misty doing without me partnering her, and how’s Tyler doing?”
“They’re morose.” Both Samantha and Hooligan could tell I was joking. “Misty questioned Jocelyn, Tyler questioned Olivia, and Brent talked to Tom. I got to talk to DCI Agent Vic Throppen.”
Samantha must have noticed Olivia’s blush. “Tyler’s single, Olivia. And he’s a really nice guy, right, Hooligan?”
“Right. He’s thorough, smart, and considerate.”
Olivia’s face reddened more, but she said only, “Maybe, as of today, he and I are on opposite sides of the law.”
Hooligan buckled Lainey into her stroller. “Knowing all of you at Deputy Donut, I think you’re on the same side of the law as Tyler.” He kissed the top of Lainey’s strawberry-blond hair. “Come on, princess, let’s get you home, bathed, and into your crib.” He put an arm around Samantha. Together, they pushed the stroller north.
I could almost feel Jocelyn and Olivia staring at my back. I stifled a sigh. Brent and I were afraid we would never have the two children we wanted, or even one.
My doctor suspected I had endometriosis. Symptoms varied, and no two women had the same set of them, but endometriosis sometimes interfered with the ability to get pregnant. My next step was to go to Milwaukee for tests and perhaps surgery to remove the troublesome cells. The surgery could be laparoscopic, which would reduce recovery time, but I’d still need to take time off work. If the endometriosis was causing inflammation, that could be treated.
Afraid of what might be found or not found, I had not made an appointment with the clinic. What if tests came up with nothing more than the advice we’d been hearing all along? “Stop worrying and just relax.”
We tried to.
Chapter 14
I put on an unconcerned face and turned toward the others. “Shall we put the remains of our picnic into my car, or should we take them to the meeting? If we put the Burgundy into a paper bag, we can pass it between ourselves, and no one will notice.”
Olivia folded the tablecloth. “We could take this and hide underneath it in case we’re the only people who show up besides Ramona.”
However, we put everything, including the unopened bottle of Burgundy and the tablecloth, into my car and then strolled back through the square to the town hall, a lovely, yellow brick building only a few years newer than the cottage Brent and I were renting to Glenn. As with our house, Victorian details had been retained and restored. Stone steps that were nearly as wide as the building led up to a deep stone porch, and stone columns supported the porch roof. I was more familiar with the eastern half of the building, which housed the police department and Brent’s office, which he had once shared with Alec, than with the western half. Both sections of the building had identical, and identically heavy, oak front doors.
Jocelyn tugged one of the town hall doors open, and we walked into the gloriously restored lobby. Red carpet covered the floor, ornate plaster decorated the ceiling, and gleaming glass and brass chandeliers and sconces lit the vast space. This half of the building had been set up to house offices and also a theater that had once been on the vaudeville circuit and was still used for plays, concerts, and meetings. Across from the outer doors, both doors to the theater stood open.
The meeting was scheduled to start in ten minutes, and only a smattering of people sat in the red plush seats. It was a cozy space, with about thirty rows of seats divided by two aisles sloping down toward the stage. We chose seats on the right side of the center section, about ten rows back from the stage. Olivia went in first, I followed, and Jocelyn sat in the aisle seat.
Olivia leaned toward us and whispered, “Maybe I should have brought that tablecloth. We’re kind of conspicuous.”
I joked, “Want me to run back for it?”
Jocelyn raised her hands, palms forward, up in mock dismay. “No, stay. You might miss hearing something that could prove that we didn’t poison our donuts, and also that Izzy didn’t do anything wrong.”
Olivia removed a ball cap from her tote, slapped it onto her head, and pulled her russet-colored, wavy ponytail through the opening in back. “I’m staying, too.” She waggled her eyebrows. “In disguise.”
We’d all been making fun of the situation, but were any of the TWIG members murderers? And if so, what would they think about our attending their meeting?
By seven, about twenty more people had shown up. At five after, four people in green T-shirts marched down the aisle beside us, removed RESERVED signs from front-row seats, and sat where, by crooking their necks upward, they would get a perfect view of the podium at the edge of the stage in front of the closed red velvet curtains. Five more minutes passed. I heard people shuffle into seats behind ours. Finally, something nudged and poked at the other side of the red velvet curtains. After several struggles, Ramona slipped out from between the curtains and stood behind the podium.
She turned on a light and began speaking. People shouted that they couldn’t hear her. A spry gent in a TWIG T-shirt scrambled onto the stage and fiddled with the microphone. It went live, the man ran down steps on the left side of the stage, and the house lights dimmed.
Ramona introduced herself. “I’m the head of the Fallingbrook chapter of a movement growing throughout the state—Toward Wisconsin in Green.” The applause was, perhaps, embarrassingly scanty, but quite vigorous in the front row.
Ramona said she hoped we were all attending the meeting to support the cause of conservation, and that if we weren’t already TWIG members, we should join. She gave a series of tips for helping conserve Wisconsin’s greenery. She promised interesting lectures, meetings, and outings. “And protests,” she added in decibels that would awaken anyone nodding off. “As you leave the room tonight, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support us in various ways. You are more than welcome to participate in our protests, here and in other parts of the state. You’ll notice that the protest we’d planned north of Fallingbrook on County Road H has to be delayed by a week due to an unfortunate occurrence necessitating a police investigation.” Her widened eyes appeared almost gleeful.
Was TWIG postponing the protest at the property Izzy was buying because of the investigation, or because TWIG members hoped that the police wouldn’t notice their strong opposition to Izzy’s project and guess that one of their number might have done something to prevent Adam from developing the property if he had been able to buy it? Or in hopes of incriminating Izzy?
“Postponed,” Ramona repeated. “Not canceled.”
A couple of rows behind me and toward my left, someone stage-whispered, “Hallelujah.”
I turned my head. A balding man and a white-haired woman in TWIG T-shirts gazed adoringly down toward Ramona.
