Chocolate Most Deadly (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 2) (15 page)

CHAPTER
32

Tick-Tock Donuts was a riot of pink
neon lights, blinking multicolored bulbs and air so heavy with grease that I
probably gained five pounds just walking through the door. The guy behind the
counter was round and short, like a fleshy bowling ball with a thin mustache
and Coke-bottle glasses. I guessed his age at forty or forty-five, but the
plastic badge pinned to his white shirt left no doubt about his name.

“Welcome to Tick-Tock,” Buford
drawled. “It’s a great day for a baker’s dozen!”

I slowly surveyed the array of
sugary delights inside the glass case. “Can I have a vanilla frosted cake with
sprinkles, please?”

He pinched a flat glassine bag from
a stack on the counter. “Green, red, pink or silver?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your sprinkles,” he said with a
syrupy twang. “We’ve got green, red, pink and silver.”

“Surprise me,” I suggested.

His tiny dark eyes peered at me
through the chunky lenses. “I can’t do that,” he said, pushing the glasses up
his nose with one knuckle. “Last time someone told me to pick out their donut,
Miss Winthrop docked my pay.”

Between the earnest expression,
darting eyes and somber tone of his voice, I could tell Buford wasn’t in the
mood to tempt fate.

I waited until he looked directly
at me before I smiled warmly. “I’d like silver sprinkles, please,” I said. “And
you can tell Miss Winthrop for me that you’re doing an awesome job, Buford.”

His chubby jowls trembled as he
laughed. “Thank you, ma’am. I’ll be right back. The vanilla frosted with silver
are in the kitchen.”

As I waited for Buford’s return, I
glanced around the narrow shop. From the laminated tabletops and gleaming
subway tile on the walls to the radiant linoleum floor, the place was decorated
entirely in blue and white.

At the far end of the room, near a
doorway that I imagined lead to the restrooms, two men sat huddled in a booth.
The one on the left was Anton Hall. He’d popped the collar of his leather
jacket and pulled his knit cap low on his head. The other guy was wearing a
porkpie hat, gray crewneck sweater and glasses with green-tinted lenses. One of
his legs jutted out from the booth and I noticed his shoe. It was a white Chuck
Taylor with a jagged black thunderbolt drawn on the rubber toe cap. While the
two men continued talking in low voices, I got out my phone, pretended to check
messages and snapped a couple of quick photos of their faces.

“Here you go, ma’am,” said Buford,
reappearing behind the counter with a bag of donuts in his hand. “Don’t tell
Miss Winthrop, but I’m giving you a trio for the price of a single.”

“Thank you very much,” I said. “How
much do I owe you?”

He quoted a price. Then he
hesitated. “It’s on the house,” he said.

“But what about your boss? Won’t
she be upset if you give things away for free?”

His mouth looped into a feral grin.
“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.” He slid the envelope across the
counter. “Besides, she’s leaving to go work at Sunnyside Buffet. The owner here
promoted me to night manager. I take over as soon as Miss Winthrop is gone.”

I congratulated Buford on the
Tick-Tock upgrade and asked if I could use the women’s room. He pointed at the
doorway just past the booth where the two men were whispering.

“I just cleaned it an hour ago,” he
said proudly. “It should smell fresh as a daisy for you, ma’am.”

When I strolled past the booth a
moment later, the guy in the porkpie hat looked up with a cold glare. I offered
a faint smile and stole a quick peek at their table. In addition to half-filled
cups of coffee and a pack of American Spirit cigarettes, I saw a bag of the
same British candies found beside the murder victim in Delilah Benson’s
apartment. Both men were intently studying a map of the state that showed
several red circles drawn around small mountain communities west of Boulder.

After continuing my journey and
stepping into the women’s restroom, I pulled out my phone and dialed Viveca. As
I counted the rings, I stared at my reflection in the mirror above the tiny
white porcelain sink. In the harsh glare of the overhead light, there were
enormous dark splotches under my eyes and my skin glowed with a bluish tint. I
was about ready to give up when Viveca answered.

“Hi,” she said, panting lightly.
“Sorry it took so long, I couldn’t find my phone.”

“That’s okay. I’m a very patient
woman.”

She snickered softly. “Are you home
already?”

“No, I’m still in Denver.”

“How’s it going?”

I gave her a quick update on my
conversation with Detective Caldwell. I told her about the money hidden in
Delilah’s freezer. I told her the police suspected it was somehow connected to
the dead man that we found. And then I told her that Anton Hall had a less than
stellar reputation.

“Who’s that?”

“The guy we saw in your brother’s
building,” I said. “The one with the bald head and the gold earrings.”

She took in a quick breath. “That
is so weird that you mentioned him,” Viveca said. “I was going through more of
the emails that I got from my brother and there was a picture of that Anton guy
with Delilah, Tim and a couple of other women.”

“And your brother sent the picture
to you?”

“Not intentionally,” she explained.
“He was forwarding it to some guys he knows in Austin. I’m guessing that Tim
added my email address accidentally.”

“Can you send it to me?”

“I’m sitting at my computer right
now,” she answered. “Hang on a sec.”

While Viveca tapped at the
keyboard, I studied my face again in the mirror. I used an index finger to
gently pull the skin away from the corner of one eye, trying to see if it would
make me look less haggard.

“Did you get it, Kate?”

I checked my email to confirm that
the photograph had arrived. Then I asked Viveca to see if she could find
anything else in her brother’s correspondence that might help us identify his
other friends and acquaintances.

“Like what?” she asked.

“More pictures,” I said. “Anything
about the places where his band plays in Denver, restaurants they frequent or
clubs that they like.”

She agreed to sift through Tim’s
notes as soon as we got off the phone. Then she asked me to promise something.

“What is it?” I said.

“That you’ll be careful, Kate.”

As I started to reply, I heard a
muffled sound at the far end of the restroom. Moving closer and leaning down, I
saw a pair of feet in the last stall. When my eyes focused on them, I felt a
blast of adrenaline rush through me.

I was staring at another pair of
Chuck Taylors with jagged black thunderbolts drawn on the toe caps. Before the
person in the stall had a chance to come out and see my face, I quickly opened
the door and headed down the short corridor.

“Kate?”

In the shock of discovering that I
hadn’t been alone in the women’s restroom, I’d nearly forgotten that Viveca was
still on the phone.

“Promise that you’ll be really
careful, okay?”

I started walking again, doing my
best to sound casual and relaxed as I returned to the front of the donut shop.

“I promise,” I said. “As long as
you—”

I stopped in my tracks. The booth
was empty. And the two men were gone.

“Kate?” Viveca said again as I
slowly moved toward the counter. “Is everything okay?”

Buford came out from the kitchen
carrying a tray of glistening glazed donuts.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “But I
need to call you back.”

I quickly tapped the screen and
opened the new email from Viveca. I checked the image of Tim, Delilah and Anton
Hall. It was a slapdash candid shot taken during a party in a nondescript
living room. They were sitting on a sofa looking slightly drunk. The coffee
table in the foreground was covered with beer bottles, crumpled bags of
pretzels and grease-stained pizza boxes. I smiled when I took a closer look at
the two women on either end of the sofa. On the left, with a bottle of wine in
her hands, was Heidi, the twin with the green hair. And on the right side,
wearing the familiar faux fur jacket, was Lois. She was leaning against Anton
Hall, one arm around his shoulders and the other positioned beneath his chin.

“Would you like anything else?”
Buford asked when I approached the counter.

“No, but can I ask for a favor?”

He smiled. “What can I help you
with, ma’am?”

“Do you recognize anyone in this
picture?”

I held out my phone. He leaned
forward and examined the photograph. Then he shifted his gaze in my direction.
“They’re all regulars,” he said. “Anton was just here.” He raised one plump arm
and pointed toward the empty booth by the restrooms. “And that lady comes in
here sometimes.” He narrowed his gaze for another look before gesturing at
Delilah. “But she’s never alone,” he said. “She’s always with a guy.”

“Anton?”

Buford shook his head. “No, she
comes in with somebody named Tim.” He checked the picture again. “Yeah, right
there,” he said, pointing. “That’s Tim.”

“Okay, so Tim and Delilah come in
together sometimes,” I said.

“Yes, and the other two women come
in with Jake and Anton.”

“Jake Breen?”

“Yes,” Buford said. “I’m glad they
finally left.” He looked over his shoulder at the clock on the wall. “They were
camped out in that booth for almost three hours.”

“Oh, so that was Jake?” I asked.
“The guy that was sitting over there with Anton?”

Buford smiled. “The one and only,”
he answered. “Anton and Jake are here just about every night.”

“Wow,” I said. “I guess they really
are regulars!”

He angled his head to one side,
gesturing at the assortment of donuts in the case. “Can you blame ’em?” he said
proudly. “Tick-Tock has the best donuts in town!”

“Do you know if Jake and Anton work
together?” I said. “Or maybe they’re just buddies?”

He smirked. “They act almost like
brothers. Jake’s older and he always yells at Anton.”

“I guess some guys behave that way,
right? Whether they’re brothers or just good friends.”

Buford shook his head. “Not me and my
brother. We treat each other nice.”

“Well, he’s lucky to have you as a
sibling,” I said. “Which of you is older?”

He grinned like the Chesire Cat.
“Me,” he said. “By two years.”

“Oh, so you’re very close in age?”

“Yeah,” Buford said. “And we look
pretty much alike, but most ladies tell me that I’m more handsome.”

While he filled me in on a few more
details about his brother, I put away my phone and dug for the car keys.

“I should get going, Buford. I have
a long drive back home.”

“Be safe on the roads!” he offered.
“And thanks for making time for Tick-Tock!”

I waved and headed for the door. As
I pushed against the handle, Buford called out from behind the counter.

“Ma’am?”

I turned and nodded.

“I just remembered one more thing
about Jake,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“I heard him talking about being in
trouble with the police before,” Buford said solemnly. “It sounded like maybe
he had been behind bars and everything. And you know what that makes him?”

I shook my head.

Buford leaned closer and lowered
his voice. “That makes him a very, very bad man.”

CHAPTER
33

After leaving Tick-Tock Donuts, I
filled up the car, put an old Sheryl Crow disc in the CD player and headed for
Crescent Creek. My back ached and my brain throbbed. In a perfect world, I
would return home to a hot bubble bath and chilled glass of wine before
slipping into bed. But sleep would have to wait; it was time to dig a bit
deeper into the world of Jake Breen and Anton Hall. I wanted to take a quick
peek to see what Google might reveal about the pair of colorful characters.

When I arrived home, I kicked off
my shoes, made a cup of tea and fired up the laptop. Then I entered the two
names in the search box and waited. In less than a minute, the results returned
with more than four-hundred thousand entries.

“I haven’t got that much time, dear
Google,” I groaned, squinting at the screen. “Can’t you just…”

I scrolled down, scanning the
familiar blue text that summarized the results.

“Okay, none of these are relevant,”
I muttered, bypassing the cast and crew listing for a television show, a
newspaper article from North Dakota and dozens of obituaries posted by
university alumni in Ohio. “Maybe I should just go to bed and try again
tomorrow.”

I leaned back against the sofa and
sipped my tea. It was warm and soothing, sending gentle waves of comfort
through my body.

“Or maybe I should just drop this
whole thing.” I closed my eyes and contemplated the option. “Detective Caldwell
will figure out who killed Delmar Singer soon enough.” I enjoyed more tea before
putting the cup back on the table. “And Viv’s brother is probably just fine,” I
mumbled. “He’ll turn up eventually with some explanation for his
disappearance.”

As I continued sifting through the
results, one entry on the sixth page caught my eye:
Bolts of Brilliance Find
Dramatic Victory
. When I clicked on the link, a new window opened to reveal
an eight-year-old blog post. It was about a group of high school theater
students in Omaha—known as Bolts of Brilliance—that staged a fundraiser to help
one of their teachers after he was struck by a car while riding his bike. The
accompanying photograph, a grainy black-and-white image taken on an empty
theater stage, showed twenty youthful faces—and twenty pairs of white Chuck
Taylors with lightning bolts drawn on the toe caps.

In the center of the front row,
with their arms looped together, I spotted Heidi and Lois, the women that I’d
met at the AA meeting on York Street. They were identified as “Heidi
‘Hopelessly Heroic’ Zimmer and L. ‘Lovably Literal’ Jordan,” so I now knew
their last names. There was no sign of Heidi’s twin sister Hannah, something
that struck me as intriguing. I’d only known one set of twins before my nephews
were born—Cole and Cameron Brand, a pair of snobby classmates at the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago. As I studied Heidi Zimmer’s expression in the high
school photo, I remembered the Brand twins describing the exhilarating rush of
freedom both felt when they explored life as individuals rather than one-half
of an established duo.

“Aha!” I said triumphantly. “I
guess this explains where everybody got those snazzy sneakers and learned to be
so theatrical.”

In the photograph, Heidi and Lois
looked happy and animated, grinning proudly for the camera after their selfless
act of generosity. It was impossible to know if Heidi’s hair was green or not,
but I clicked on the photo to enlarge it and inspect her fingers.

“Looks like this was before your
acrylic nail phase, Miss Zimmer,” I said, stifling a yawn. “Although I think
the
South
Park
T-shirt and frayed Daisy Dukes are lovely.”

I quickly scanned the other faces
peering into the camera. I found Anton Hall at the end of the middle row. His
arms were crossed and he glared defiantly with a sour-faced sneer. Just behind
him and slightly toward the center, was Jake Breen. He’d obviously lost some
weight in the years since high school, but the smug, lopsided grin was the
same.

“Okay, so this explains how the
four Musketeers know one another,” I said, zooming in on Jake’s face to study
his expression. I shifted my eyes slowly around the image, suddenly realizing
that Jake’s left hand was pressed against his thigh with the middle finger
extended in a juvenile and obscene salute. “And it also proves Buford’s theory,
Mr. Breen. You are a very, very bad man.”