Illegally Iced (18 page)

I had an inkling that it would be worth it.

THE CHERRY BOMB BOMB

If you’ve been paying close attention throughout this series, you’ll realize that I’ve been honest about the recipes that don’t turn out anywhere as good as I’d hoped. I’ve been known to go through several versions of one until I get it just right for the books, but this one keeps eluding me. So, in honor of my tradition of including one bad recipe per book, I present my own version of the Cherry Bombs that Suzanne makes at Donut Hearts. Hey, I never claimed to be as good a donutmaker as she is! Make this one at your own risk! I wanted cherry extract instead of vanilla, but either my grocer doesn’t carry it, or they don’t even make it. The last time I made these I was out of cherry Kool-Aid as well, and I think that might give it just the kick it now lacks. Feel free to improve on this if you want to, but don’t tell me about it. I’m retiring this recipe forever.

INGREDIENTS

Mixed

• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

• ¼ cup whole milk

• ¼ cup Cheerwine (or other cherry-flavored soda)

• ½ stick (4 tablespoons) butter, creamed

• 2 tablespoons sugar, white granulated

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 8 maraschino cherries, diced

• 1 packet Cherry Kool-Aid (.13 oz.), optional

Sifted

• ½ cup flour, unbleached all-purpose

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• Dash of salt

INSTRUCTIONS

In one bowl, cream the butter, then add milk, Cheerwine, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and diced cherries. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing well until you have a smooth consistency.

Using a cookie scoop, drop walnut-sized portions of batter into small muffin tins or your donut maker, and bake at 365 degrees F for 9 to 11 minutes, or until golden brown.

Yield: 8–12 small donut holes

CHAPTER 11

Dessert was everything that had been promised, and as we were leaving the manor, Grace and I searched for Harry in vain. Why hadn’t he met us outside as he’d promised? While it was reassuring to know that Anne Pinerush was on our side now, I still would have liked to speak to Harry to see if he could confirm what she’d told us at dinner. I had the feeling he’d know if Anne was telling us the truth, or if she was revising her personal history now that James was gone.

I spoke softly as I called his name. I would have liked to shout, but Stephen was still standing by the door, supposedly to make sure we made our way to the car safely. Why did I get the impression that he was spying on us? “Harry? Are you there?”

“Come on,” Grace said. “We need to go.”

I reached for the door handle of her car and felt something else there. What was it? When I looked closer, I saw that it was a folded piece of paper. I tucked it into my hand and got inside the car.

After Grace was off the grounds, I said, “Pull over a second.”

When she did, I turned on the dome light and read the note.

I’m at the café. Come by after you leave the manor. Harry.

“What is that?” Grace asked me.

“Harry left us a note after all. How do you feel about driving over to the café?”

“Don’t even mention food to me. I’m stuffed,” she said.

“He didn’t ask us out to eat. We’re looking for more information, remember? I’m probably going to have sweet tea, anyway,” I said.

“I could probably handle that,” she said.

As we drove into town, I asked her, “Do you believe everything that Anne told us tonight?”

“She was an entirely different woman than the last time we saw her, wasn’t she?”

“Maybe she’s really telling us the truth,” I said.

“It’s possible, but I want to see if Harry’s version agrees with hers before I make up my mind,” Grace said.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“I wonder what else Harry might have to tell us?”

As we neared the café, I said, “I don’t know, but I think we’re about to find out.”

After we parked, Grace and I started for the front door when I heard someone calling my name.

Harry stepped into the light. “I’m over here.”

“Why are you lurking around in the dark like that?” I asked as we approached him. “Are you
trying
to give us both heart attacks?”

“Sorry, but one of Forrest’s spies is inside eating. I can’t afford to let him see me meeting with the two of you.”

“Is it really all that bad?” I asked as Harry led us to a picnic table tucked away in the shadows, no doubt set up for folks who enjoyed eating outside during the daytime.

“I can’t afford to lose my job, so why take any chances that I don’t need to?” he asked. “Don’t worry; we should be safe over here.”

“What’s up? I was surprised to get your note and not find you waiting outside for us,” I said.

“I would have if I could, but things are escalating around the manor, and I have to watch my step. I had to see you, though. I just found out something that you need to know,” he said. “There’s a guy named Benny who maintains the cars at the manor, and he drives Mrs. Pinerush into town occasionally. I’ve been hanging around the garage some lately to see if he knew anything.”

“They actually have a full-time driver on staff?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. Anyway, Benny was changing the oil in Forrest’s car today while I was over there getting gas for my riding mower, and he was staring hard at one of the logbooks. Mrs. Pinerush insists that she knows every mile put on those vehicles since the last chauffeur took her fleet out for joyrides whenever he had a chance. I asked Benny what was wrong when he kept staring at the records, and he told me that he’d just checked the totals from three days ago when he rotated the tires, and the mileages didn’t add up to the entries.”

“Explain why that puzzled him,” Grace said.

“Well, Forrest put down that he went into Pinerush for a handful of business meetings, and Benny said there was no way he put that much mileage on his car just doing that. I had an idea, so I asked him for an exact mileage difference from what Forrest claimed and what he actually drove.”

“How did you explain your curiosity to Benny?” I asked. I didn’t want Harry to take any chances on our account.

“I told him that I loved math puzzles, which is actually kind of the truth. Anyway, he gave me the numbers and I pretended to be ignorant about what they might mean. The second I left, I got out my road atlas and figured out that Forrest drove just enough extra miles to get to April Springs and back sometime in the last three days.”

“So, he could have driven there and killed James without anyone knowing about it,” I said.

“Maybe,” Harry said, “but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. He could just as easily have driven to Rock Barn, or even Charlotte. We don’t
know
that he visited your town.”

“Maybe not, but he had a pretty compelling reason to come if he thought he was protecting the family fortune,” I said.

Harry stood up from the bench. “Make what you will of it, but it was something I thought you should know.”

He started to go when I called out, “Hold up. We have a question for you before you leave.”

Harry turned. “What is it?”

“Was Anne really ill when James was committed to the mental ward? I mean bedridden, not a cold or something less incapacitating.”

He thought about it, and then said, “As a matter of fact, she
was
pretty sick around that time. Why do you ask?”

“She claims that Forrest had James committed without her knowledge or approval. What’s your memory of the situation?”

He rubbed his chin for a full minute before he spoke. “I can’t exactly say why I feel this way, but at the time, I got the impression that she didn’t oppose it. Whether it was because she was sick or not, I couldn’t say.”

That killed some of Anne’s credibility for me. I wasn’t ready to accept what Harry said at face value, though. “Think hard. Why would you say that? Did you hear her say something to that effect?”

Harry shrugged, and he was about to say something when he stopped himself. “Now that you mention it, I’m not really sure that she was up and around at the time. I guess she
could
have been sick. I’d have no way of knowing if she was that bad off. The inside help doesn’t have that much to do with those of us who work outside.”

“Then how could you think that she might have had something to do with it?”

Harry gave it a little thought, and then said, “As best I can recall, I overheard Forrest telling someone that over the telephone. He knew that I was standing right there, because he made a point of shooing me away with his hands to make sure that I knew that I was supposed to leave. Forrest could have easily been lying about it, knowing that I’d never check with Mrs. Pinerush to see if it were true. Could he have just been covering his tracks in case someone asked me what I thought?”

“Forgive me for putting it this way, Harry, but I can’t think of any delicate way to say it. Why would he be so concerned about what you thought?”

“Because I’m
just
the gardener, right?” Harry asked. The words could have been scathing, but his tone was light and airy, and I knew that he hadn’t taken offense at the question.

“You have to admit that it doesn’t sound as though Forrest would care about your opinion one way or the other,” Grace admitted.

“Maybe not as one of his servants, but don’t forget, Jim and I were always much more than that. If I thought for one second that Forrest had done it without his mother’s blessing, I would have beaten the stupid right out of him then and there.”

“You like Anne, don’t you?” I asked.

He raised one eyebrow. “You’ve done that more than once tonight. Since when did you start calling Mrs. Pinerush by her given name? That must have been some meal the three of you just shared.”

“She was like a different person during our meal,” I explained. “I don’t know what happened to the rather timid woman we saw the day before; she was gone today.”

Harry nodded with a hint of satisfaction in his smile. “I was hoping she’d get her spunk back, but I hate that it took Jim’s death to do it. Forrest tried to take advantage of her when she was in a bad way, but it sounds like she’s getting a handle on things again. I, for one, am glad to hear it.”

I looked at him and asked, “Harry, do you think that there’s any chance Forrest could have killed James?”

To his credit, he didn’t answer me right away. “If it meant protecting what he had? There’s no doubt in my mind. He’s got a cold streak running through him like a snake’s back. Be careful around him. He’s at his most dangerous when he’s smiling at you. That means he’s already planned how he’s going to deal with you. It’s just a matter of time at that point how and when you get it between the eyes.”

“Forgive me for asking,” Grace said, “but why hasn’t he gotten rid of you yet? You must remind him of James every time he sees you.”

“Our paths don’t cross all that much in the course of a day,” Harry said, “but he couldn’t fire me even if he wanted to.”

“Why not?”

“When my father died, Mrs. Pinerush promised me a job at the manor for as long as I wanted it, and Forrest isn’t about to defy his mother that openly.”

“And if something should happen to her?” I asked.

Harry shook his head. “Most likely I’d be gone before sundown,” he admitted.

I nodded. “Thank you for risking it all just to help us,” I said as we headed for our vehicles.

“No offense, but it’s not for you. I’m doing this for Jim.”

“You are a good man,” I said.

“Maybe not as good as I should have been, but I did my best, and that has to count for something. Have a safe drive back home, ladies.”

“Thanks. Don’t forget to watch your own back.”

Harry’s grin was broad and open now. “Trust me, I do. It’s
always
my top priority.”

*   *   *

As Grace and I drove back home, I asked, “There’s a pretty compelling case that Forrest could have been involved in James’s murder, isn’t there?”

“What was his motive?” Grace asked.

“There had to be a ton of resentment when Forrest had to share his mother with his orphaned cousin, a kid he didn’t like in the first place. We know that the two of them didn’t get along for what turned out to be good reason. If we accept that as a possibility for a motive, then Forrest had the means, and from the sound of it, the opportunity. I’d say he goes to the head of our list.”

“But we still have two other viable suspects,” I said. “We can’t forget about them.”

“No worries there. Murphy and Rebecca are right up there as well.”

“But not Trish,” I said.

“No, not even if she confessed to us both and showed us the skewer she used.”

“They already found that, didn’t they?” I asked.

“I was just trying to make my point,” Grace said. “Trish is off our list, but just because we don’t believe that she killed him doesn’t mean that Chief Martin necessarily agrees with us. I have a feeling that she’s going to need more than a cash register receipt to get herself off the hook with him. She must be getting some real heat from him right about now.”

“It might not be rock solid, but she does have an alibi. It’s got to have some weight with the police chief.”

“You would think so. I wonder if he’s made any progress on the case that we don’t know about?”

I looked at her and laughed. “You’re not asking me to check in with him, are you? I think that might be over the line even for me.”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything,” she said. “But you might hear things nonetheless.”

“Momma and I don’t talk about the chief or any ongoing cases if we can help it, if that’s what you’re asking. That’s all on the Do Not Discuss list.”

“Got it,” she said.

As we drove, my cell phone rang.

“It’s Jake,” I told Grace. “Should I have him call me back?”

“No, go on and take it. I won’t eavesdrop,” she added with a grin.

I hit the Take Call button on my phone. “Howdy, stranger.”