Sugar Coated Sins (18 page)

“Suit yourself,” she said.

Chapter
21

“Judge, what brings you here?” I
asked Judge Hurley after he walked into Donut Hearts a little bit later.

Instead of replying, he shoved a
newspaper into my hands.
 
The banner
said,
The Morning Star, Wilmington, NC
,
and it was dated the day before Benjamin Port had been murdered.
 
“What’s this about?”

“Read the story, Suzanne.”

I shrugged and scanned the
headlines.
 
One in particular caught my
eye.
 
“I remember this case.
 
It was the Lee Myerson murder, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.
 
Now look at the presiding judge.
 
Go on.
 
It’s in the body of the article.”

Sure enough, I saw Judge Hurley’s
name printed there.
 
The article said
that he’d been there all week and that the case would probably go on for
another ten days at least.
 
Wilmington
was nearly eight hours’ drive from April Springs, so the judge wouldn’t have
been able to make it back, poison Benjamin Port, and then get back to his trial
before it started again the next morning.

“Have you shown this to Jake?”

“I just left him,” the judge
said.
 
“And now I expect you both to
leave me alone.”

“You came to me, remember?
 
And besides, I only spoke with you once,” I
protested.

“Which was once too much, in my
opinion.
 
I admit that you bothered me a
bit, but your husband was even worse, and I want to make it crystal clear that
I had nothing to do with Benjamin Port’s death.
 
Now good day, madam.”

“Good day to you, too,” I said in
reply.

A few of my customers looked at
the judge oddly as he stormed off, but they quickly went back to their donuts
and coffee.
 
Judge Hurley was known
around town for being flamboyant, so everyone seemed to take his histrionics in
stride.
 
No wonder Jake had focused some
of his attention on the man.
 
He was
clearly a hothead.
 
How had he ever
gotten on the bench, and more importantly, how in the world was he still a
presiding judge?
 
The man was clearly
many things, but in this particular case, he’d pretty effectively taken his
name off our list of suspects.

That left us Gabby Williams, Hilda
Fremont, Lisa Port Smith, and Hillary Mast.
 
Four suspects were three too many in my book, but at least we were
making progress.
 
In my mind, at that
point, Gabby was a long shot, though still a remote possibility, but it was
time to spend a little more time concentrating on Lisa, Hilda, and
Hillary.
 
From most likely to least, if I
were rating them at the moment, I had to go with Lisa, Hilda, Hillary, and then
finally Gabby.
 
I didn’t believe that
Gabby Williams would be capable of murder, but I hadn’t actually known her fifteen
years earlier.
 
Even though she’d had
motive enough and opportunity, I still didn’t want to admit that she was a
viable suspect without more justification.

It was time to put a little more
pressure on our last three real suspects, and as soon as I closed the shop for
the day at eleven, I planned to see if I could manage to do it on my own.

Emma came out of the kitchen at
three minutes until eleven.
 
“Dad just
called.
 
He’s on his way.
 
It took him all morning, but he found what
you wanted in the archives.”

“That’s perfect.
 
Thanks, Emma.”

“It’s the least he could do,” she
said with a smile.
 
“I finished up in
back, so as soon as you’re ready, we can start closing up.”

There were no customers left in
the dining area, and we had fewer than a dozen donuts left in the display
cases.
 
“Let’s go ahead and get started
now.”

“Excellent.”

As I closed out the register and
ran the report, Emma swooped in, boxed the remaining donuts, and collected the
last three trays.
 
She was still in back
when there was a tap at the front door.

“Come in, Ray.”

“I can’t stay,” he said as he
shoved a manila envelope into my hands.
 
“Here’s what you asked for, with a little extra.”

“Thanks for doing this.”

He nodded.
 
“Suzanne, I’m truly sorry about earlier.
 
Tell Emma that I delivered on my promise,
would you?”

“Ray, she’s in back, if you’d like
to tell her yourself.”

“No, thanks.
 
I’ll see her later.”

“At least take these donuts as my
way of saying thank you.
 
I could have
been nicer to you, too.”

“Really?
 
Do you mean it?” he asked me.

“I do.”

He took them gratefully, and then
the newspaperman was gone.
 
It was almost
as though he were ducking his own daughter.
 
Maybe he was.
 
Emma could be a
force to be reckoned with at times.

I opened the tab and pulled out
the envelope’s contents.
 
To my surprise,
there were five photos included, not just the one I’d requested.
 
They all appeared to have been taken around
the same time, when the time capsule was being prepared, but they showed
different configurations of the participants.
 
Unlike the blurry newspaper copy I’d seen earlier, these shots were
crystal clear.

“Was that dad?” Emma asked as she
rejoined me up front.

“He came through beautifully for
me,” I said, sliding the photos back into their envelope.
 
I wasn’t going to get Emma any more involved
in my investigation than I already had, as a favor to Ray for delivering on his
promise.
 
“I offered to give him a chance
to say hi, but he had to go.”

My assistant grinned.
 
“He knows he’s in dicey waters with Mom and
me, so he’s making himself scarce until we forgive him for blowing you off like
that.”

“You should really let him out of
the doghouse, Emma.
 
He went above and
beyond my request.”

“That’s good to know.
 
Mom will be pleased.”
 
She looked around.
 
“The kitchen is finished.
 
All I need to do is wipe the tables down and
sweep.
 
How’s the report looking?”

“I’ll know in a minute,” I said as
I laid the photos on top of the box of Benjamin’s things that Gabby had given
me.

“What should I do with that?” she
asked.

I moved it to one of our
couches.
 
“It’s out of your way now.”

She studied it for a moment.
 
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me
what’s inside, are you?”

“Probably not,” I said with a
smile.

“It’s about the case, isn’t it?”

I was thinking about how to answer
her question when the register stopped printing out its report.
 
“Just in time.”

I was ten dollars off.

I hated when that happened,
especially when I had more money than I was supposed to.
 
That meant that sometime that morning, I’d
shortchanged one of my customers.
 
I
would have rather lost a hundred dollars than taken ten that didn’t belong to
me.
 
I counted the money again carefully
and found that this time, it was a perfect match.
 
That happened sometimes when I was
preoccupied with something else, and I certainly had a lot on my mind at the
moment outside the world of donuts.
 
I
was just making out the deposit slip when Emma announced that she was finished.

“Would you like me to take that to
the bank for you?
 
I know you’ve got a
lot going on right now, and I have to go cash a check anyway.”

“That would be great,” I said as I
stuffed everything into the deposit bag.
 
“Thank your dad for me again, would you?”

“Sure.
 
I’d be happy to.
 
Did you get what you wanted?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I said.

Emma frowned for a moment.
 
“I thought he gave you more than you even
asked for, Suzanne?”

“Oh, he delivered as
promised.
 
I’m just not positive that
it’s going to do me any good.”

“Well, at least he came
through.
 
I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Bye.
 
Have a good afternoon.”

“Happy hunting,” she said as she
unlocked the door.

I wanted to take a much closer
look at those photographs, but it wasn’t going to happen just yet.

As I locked the door behind Emma, I
saw Trish rushing toward Donut Hearts from the Boxcar Grill.
 
Something was clearly wrong, and she was
heading in my direction to tell me about it.

“What’s up?”

“It’s Hilda,” she said
worriedly.
 
“Jake was talking to her for
the past half hour, and the minute he left, she ran again.”

“Ran?
 
What do you mean?”

“What do you think I mean?
 
She got into her car and left.
 
Suzanne, I’ve got Gladys working like crazy
in the kitchen, and right now I’m running the register on the honor system, and
we both know how that’s going to turn out.
 
You need to find her before Jake discovers that she’s gone again.
 
Imagine how it’s going to look that she took
off again the moment he left.”

“Trish, you’re not suggesting that
I keep this from Jake, are you?”
 
I was
loyal to my friend, but my allegiance to my husband had to take precedence over
even that.

“I’m not asking you to lie to him;
just don’t volunteer the information,” she said.
 
“Please.
 
Can you help me?
 
I don’t know who
else to ask.”

I decided that I’d give myself ten
minutes to search for Hilda, and if I came up empty, then I’d have to tell
Jake.
 
“I’ll try, but I can’t keep it
from him for very long.”

“That’s all that I’m asking,” she
said.
 
“Suzanne, I’m really worried about
what she might do.”

“What do you mean?” I thought
about the poisoned pie, and I wondered if she was concerned that Hilda might do
something even more rash after being pushed into a corner.

“I don’t think she’d hurt herself,
but I can’t be sure anymore.”

That was an angle I hadn’t
considered.
 
If Hilda was innocent, our
constant pushing might lead to her doing something foolish.
 
And if she’d been the one who’d killed
Benjamin after all?
 
Well, it was clear
that she’d felt remorse; hence the note.
 
Either way, I needed to find her to make sure that she was all
right.
 
“I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you,” she said.
 
“Now I have to get back to the diner before
my customers steal too much from me.”

“Do you honestly think folks will
take advantage of you?” I asked her as we started to walk out.

“No, but why tempt them?
 
Thanks.
 
Call me when you find her.”

“I hope I get the opportunity to,”
I said.
 
At the last second I remembered
the box of Ben’s things and the photos Ray had supplied, so I grabbed
everything and took it all out to my Jeep after I locked up Donut Hearts.

The real question was where would
Hilda go?
 
It suddenly occurred to me
that I didn’t even know where the woman lived.

I took out my cellphone and dialed
Trish’s number.

“That was fast.
 
Did you find her already?”

“No.
 
Where does she live, Trish?”

“Over on Farrar Street.
 
She’s at 2513.”

“Okay.
 
I’m going there first.”

“Good luck,” she said.

As I drove to the address, I found
myself wishing that Grace were with me.
 
After all, Hilda was one of our last remaining viable suspects for murder.
 
Was I being foolish going to her place
alone?
 
If Jake had made her feel
trapped, it was hard to tell how she’d react to me just showing up out of the
blue.
 
I wished that I had some way to
defend myself, but I couldn’t very well approach her with a tire iron in my
hand.
 
I’d just have to keep my wits
about me if I managed to track her down and be ready to react if she showed any
signs of aggression toward me.

Hilda’s car wasn’t at her house,
but I pulled the Jeep into the driveway and knocked on the door anyway.
 
I was about to give up when an older man next
door popped his head out his front door and said, “If you’re looking for Hilda,
she’s gone.”

“Do you happen to know when she’ll
be back?”

He shook his head.
 
“I’m not positive that she’s ever coming
back.
 
I’ve never seen her act that way
before.
 
She pulled up, jumped out of her
car, and even left the engine running.
 
Three minutes later, she came back out again with her arms full of
clothing and other things.
 
After she
jammed them into the trunk of her car, she drove away as though demons were
chasing her.
 
I tried to ask her what was
wrong, but she acted as though I wasn’t even there.”