Jessica Beck - Donut Shop 18 - Dangerous Dough (12 page)

Chapter 13

“At least the
snow finally stopped,” I said as I looked out the front windshield of the Jeep
at the wet road in front of us.

“What are you
talking about?
 
When was it
snowing?” Grace asked me from the passenger seat.
 
Jake was once again in back, and I noticed
that he’d found a way to sit with his legs positioned that didn’t confine him
nearly as much as I’d been afraid it would.

“No doubt you
were still asleep,” I said.
 
“It doesn’t
matter, since it didn’t amount to much.”

“I saw some
flurries early on,” Jake added.
 
“It
looked really pretty coming down in the night sky with just the lights from the
park illuminating it.
 
I had a warm
fire going inside, too, so it was pretty cozy.”

“What time did
you get up?” Grace asked as she looked around at him.

“The real
question is what time did he get to bed,” I said.

“You aren’t
seriously trying to keep your wife’s hours, are you?” Grace asked him.
 
“Jake, it will kill you if you try to do
that.”

“I don’t plan on
making a regular habit of it,” Jake said in his defense.
 
“I just thought it would be nice to do
it the first night we were back in town.”

“That’s sweet,”
Grace said with a smile.
 

“I’d like to
think so,” he answered.

“So, what’s our
order of attack?” I asked as we made our way to Granite Meadows.

“Do you really
think of this as a battle plan?” Jake asked.

“You bet I do.”

“Me, too,” Grace
added.

“Hey, I’m not
criticizing; I’m impressed,” he said.
 
Jake was smart enough not to comment on it any further.
 
“I don’t see any way around it.
 
We have to go to the police station
first, don’t we?”

“I think so,
since that’s the real motivation behind you going with us in the first place,”
I replied.

“I wouldn’t say
that it’s the
only
reason,” Jake
said.

“It’s right up
there, though, isn’t it?” Grace asked.
 
“Otherwise, your new bride and I are perfectly capable of running our
own investigation without you.”

“No one ever said
otherwise,” Jake answered solemnly, which seemed to placate Grace.
 
She was clearly a little bit defensive
about what we did.

“And they’d
better not start,” she said.

It was time to
defuse the situation.
 
“The real
question is how do we approach Officer Durant?”

“We could always
bribe him with donuts.
 
I’ve heard
that cops have an affinity for that sort of thing,” Grace said, smiling a
little too brightly at Jake.

“It’s true
sometimes, but it’s mostly on a case-by-case basis,” Jake conceded.
 
“Still, it might not be a bad way to
approach him if Plan A doesn’t work.”

“Do we actually
have a Plan A?” I asked him as I glanced at him in the rearview mirror.
 
Then I turned to Grace as I said, “Wow,
we’ve never had a Plan A before.
 
That kind of implies that there’s a Plan B, C, and so forth, doesn’t
it?”
 
I knew that I wasn’t helping
the situation, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.

At least Jake had
the decency to laugh right along with us.
 
“Plan A, at least in my mind, is that I approach Officer Durant as a
fellow law enforcement officer seeking information on an active homicide
investigation.”

“Where does that
leave us, though?” Grace asked.

“Ideally, you’ll
both be waiting for me in the Jeep,” Jake said.
 
Before Grace or I could protest, he
added hastily, “This could be really dicey.
 
There are things that a cop might tell
another cop that he would never share with a civilian.
 
I’m not trying to exclude either one of
you, but the bottom line is that we want information from this guy, and like it
or not, he’s more likely to give it to me than he is to the two of you.”

Grace and I were
both silent for a few moments, taking in what Jake had just told us.
 
I knew that he was probably right, and
chances were good that Grace knew it as well, but that didn’t mean that either
one of us had to like it.
 
After
all, we weren’t making this drive just to keep Jake company.
 
We’d invited him along on our
investigation, not the other way around.
 
On the other hand, had we really been the ones issuing the
invitation?
 
Jake had basically invited
himself, now that I thought about it.
 

I was about to
point that out when Grace spoke up.
 
“How about if we manage to be close by when you talk to him, out of his
sightline but within hearing distance?
 
If we can listen to his responses, it might help trigger something for
us.
 
Would you try to do at least
that much?”

“I’m not sure that
I’ll be able to get him out of the station,” Jake said warily.

“But you’ll try,
right?”
 
Grace asked again.

“I’ll try,” he
said, the resignation clear in his voice.
 
“But I handle all of the questions, not the two of you.”

“Of course,”
Grace said with a grin that I wasn’t completely certain Jake could see.
 
I knew her well enough to realize that
if we were within earshot, we’d be within commenting distance as well.
 
I decided to keep that fact to myself,
though.

“Okay,” Jake
said.
 
“If I can’t get him to open
up with me, you two can try to see what you can get with free donuts.
 
That will be Plan B.”

“What’s Plan C?”
I asked.

“Truthfully, I
haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” Jake admitted.
 
“That’s not a problem, is it?”

“Are you kidding?”
Grace asked.
 
“We’ll be happy to wing
it if we need to.
 
Suzanne and I are
experts at making things up as we go along.
 
Why should it be any different just
because you’re here?”

“Remember, we
need to tread carefully,” Jake said.
 
“There could be a great many reasons Durant doesn’t want to talk to us,
free donuts or not.”

“Like what?” I
asked, curious about how the cop’s mind worked.

“Let’s see.
 
He could feel as though he’s protecting
his late partner’s privacy by refusing to speak with us, for one thing,” Jake
said.
 
“Then again, if he suspects
one of his fellow officers may have had something to do with Alex’s demise, he
might not be in the mood to share that, either.
 
There could be a dozen reasons for his silence
that don’t have anything to do directly with his own possible involvement, but
I’m hoping that if I push the right buttons, he’ll feel obligated to speak with
me.”

“With us, you
mean,” Grace prodded him.

“Indirectly, of
course, but yes, us,” Jake amended.

At least his
clarification seemed to mollify Grace a little, so that was something, anyway.

Twenty minutes
later, we were in Granite Meadows.
 
The police station was not far from the small downtown area, just as it
was in our own April Springs.

After I parked in
one of the visitors’ spots, Jake said, “I know that this isn’t how you two usually
operate, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d let me handle this my way.”

“That’s fine, but
we’re still coming inside with you, aren’t we?” I asked.

“Of course we
are,” Grace said as she got out without waiting for confirmation.

After looking at
Jake’s expression, I wasn’t so sure that had been his plan, but there was no
way that Grace and I were going to stay out in the Jeep while he went inside.

Once we were all
out and walking up the sidewalk together, I grabbed Jake’s hand and squeezed
it.
 
“Don’t worry.
 
We won’t get in the way.”

“Hey, wait for
me.
 
I’m carrying a box of donuts,”
Grace said from behind us.

“Come on, a dozen
aren’t that heavy,” I told her.

“You made
them.
 
You should be the one toting
them.”

“I’d be
delighted,” I said as I took the box from her with a smile.

“Suzanne, I was
just teasing.
 
I didn’t mind
carrying them.”

“No, but you’re
right.
 
Since I made them, I should
be the one who delivers them.”

“Only as Plan B,
though, remember?” Jake asked us.

“Oh, we
remember,” Grace said with that impish grin of hers.

I wasn’t sure
what was about to happen inside, but I was pretty certain that it wasn’t going
to play out as it must have in Jake’s mind when he’d first come up with his
original plan.

“I’m here looking
for Officer Durant,” Jake said as he approached the front duty desk.
 
As promised, Grace and I were holding
back to let him have some space, but we still weren’t managing to go unnoticed
by the folks around us.
 
Much of
that was probably directly due to the dozen donuts I was carrying, but a girl can
enjoy the attention anyway, can’t she?
 
Behind the front area were two rows of desks, mostly unoccupied, though
I did spot one officer with her nose buried in paperwork off to one side.

“Sorry, Durant’s
out on patrol.”
 
The man at the desk
had barely glanced at Jake before he’d responded.
 
Evidently the magazine he was browsing
through was far more riveting than we were.
 

My husband was
clearly not used to being dismissed so casually.
 
“Who’s the CO on duty?” Jake asked
curtly.
 
“Let me speak with him.”

That generated
some attention.
 
“The chief is in
his office,” he said as he looked up at Jake.
 
“And who exactly are you?”

“My name is Jake
Bishop, and I’m with the April Springs police.
 
Until recently, I was a special
investigator with the state police.”

“How bad did you
mess up to get busted that far down the food chain?” the man asked, clearly not
impressed with Jake’s former credentials.

“Just tell the
chief he has company,” Jake said dismissively, and then he turned his back on
the desk officer and started toward us.

“I’m so sorry,
Jake,” I said softly when he rejoined us.
 
“That had to be hard to take.”

“It’s nothing I
wasn’t already expecting,” Jake said lightly.
 
“Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s the
spirit,” Grace said.
 
“Never let
them see you cry.”

He looked at her
oddly for a moment before he answered.
 
“Like I said, it’s all good.”

Three minutes
later, a tall, slender man in uniform came out of one of the nearby offices and
approached us.
 
“Are you Jake
Bishop?”

“I am,” Jake said
as he offered his hand.

“Robert Willson,”
the man said.
 
“I understand you’re
filling in for Phillip Martin over in April Springs.”

“Not really.
 
One of his officers is serving as
interim chief.
 
I just agreed to
step in and help with the murder investigation.
 
Sorry for your loss.”

“I appreciate
that,” Chief Willson said.
 
“Alex
Tyler was a fine officer and a good man.”

That hadn’t been
my impression of him, but then again, I hadn’t really known him all that well.

“What can I do
for you?” the chief asked.

“I’d like your permission
to speak with his former partner, Officer Craig Durant, if I may.”

“Sorry, but he’s
out on patrol,” Willson said.
 
“I’m
not sure what he could tell you, though.
 
I knew Tyler better than just about anybody around here.
 
I’d be happy to assist you in any way
that I can.”

“Maybe you could
help me, then,” Jake said without a glance back in our direction.
 
I had the feeling that the chief didn’t
even know that we were together.

“I’ll do what I
can.
 
Come on back to my office and
we can talk.
 
We’ll have a little more
privacy there.”
 
So, he must have
noticed Grace and me eavesdropping on their conversation after all.
 
Perhaps Chief Willson was a little
better than I’d given him credit for so far.

“Out here is fine
with me,” Jake said gamely.

“Naw, come on
back.
 
It won’t take a second,” the
chief insisted.

“Fine,” Jake said
as he started following the chief back to his office.

If I didn’t do
something quickly, Grace and I were going to be out of the loop.

“Jake, aren’t you
forgetting something?” I asked loudly.

He didn’t turn
around immediately, but the chief did.
 
When we made eye contact, I held up the donuts.
 
“These are for you, Chief.”

“What are they,
cookies?” he asked as he looked at the box.

“Even
better.
 
They are donuts,” I
replied.

The chief frowned
a little.
 
“Isn’t that a little too
on the nose, bringing a box of donuts to a squad full of cops?”