Sugar Coated Sins (9 page)

“What can the Register of Deeds
possibly tell us?
 
Was she seeing
Benjamin Port, too?
 
Honestly, where did
the man find the energy?”

“I don’t think she was one of his
paramours, but she
was
an assistant
in the register’s office when the time capsule was first sealed, so she might
be able to tell us who had access to it before they buried it.”

“That’s good thinking,” Grace
said.
 
“Gosh, Suzanne, have you ever
thought about becoming an amateur sleuth?”

“Maybe as a hobby, but we both
know that donuts are my real true love,” I answered with a smile, adding
hastily, “Besides my husband, I mean.
 
So, what do you think?
 
Is it
worth a shot?”

“Why not?
 
We’ve got nothing but time,” Grace said.
 
“Let’s go across the hall and ask her.”

“Jan, do you have a second?” I
asked as we came into the area where everything in town was recorded.
 
Unlike Hillary’s workspace, this one was
bustling with assistants and townsfolk registering everything that needed the
county government’s official seal of approval.
 
Besides dealing with everything that had to do with property, the office
also handled marriage licenses, birth and death certificates, and a handful of
other things combined in one place.

“Just that,” she said, clearly
harried by her overwhelming amount of work.

“We wanted to talk to you about
the time capsule,” I said.

“I heard they found a murder
confession inside it,” Jan said.
 
“That’s
pretty incredible, don’t you think?”

“We do,” I said.
 
“My assistant, Emma, was supposed to have a drawing
included, but we couldn’t find it when we opened the capsule,” I added, trying
to make it sound as though I was a part of the official investigation, even
though technically I wasn’t.
 
The fact
I’d just stated was true enough, though.

“Yes, I vaguely remember something
about that.
 
It was a lottery for all the
school kids, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“And it wasn’t there?
 
Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.
 
I helped search the contents myself,” I
said.
 
“Someone must have slipped it out
when they put the confession inside.
 
You
were working in this office back then, weren’t you?”

“Yes.
 
I was just one of a handful of junior
assistants, though,” she said.
 
“I never
imagined that I’d be running the place myself someday.”

“Do you happen to remember who
handled sealing the canister?” Grace asked.

Jan thought about it for a moment,
then she frowned.
 
“I don’t have a
clue.
 
Sorry, but I didn’t have anything
to do with the capsule.”

“Do you know who did?”

“Besides Mrs. Eversome, the
register at the time, you mean?” she asked.
 
“No, not really.
 
Oh, I saw the
things going into it, but not at the very end.”

“How did you happen to see the
inclusions beforehand?” Grace asked her.

“They were in a big bin in the
conference room.
 
It wasn’t like there
was anything of great value included.
 
I
seem to remember it being in the way before everything was sealed up into the
time capsule.
 
Most of us thought it was
a bit of nonsense at the time, to be honest with you.”

“So then, anyone could have had
access to it?” I asked, disheartened that it hadn’t been kept under
lockdown.
 
Of course it wouldn’t have
been.
 
That would have made my job way
too easy.

“I wouldn’t say that.
 
You needed a special key to get into the room
where it was stored, and that was for employees only.”

“Do you happen to have a list of
who was on staff at the time?” I asked her.

Jan frowned again.
 
“Not off the top of my head.
 
I can look for it tomorrow, but I’m kind of
jammed for time right now.
 
I hope that
will be soon enough.”

Grace was about to protest; I
could see it in the way she narrowed her gaze. So it was time to step in.
 
“Tomorrow would be fine.
 
Would you call me when you find it?”

“I will,” Jan said as one of her
assistants came in with a stack of papers.

“Ma’am, you need to witness these
before the end of the day so we can record them,” the young man said.

“I know, Jeffrey.”

“It really can’t wait,” he
replied.

“I said that I’d take care of it,”
Jan said sweetly, but there was a ring of steel in her voice.

Her assistant got the message and
made a hasty retreat.

“Sorry about that.
 
I’ll call you tomorrow, Suzanne.”

“Thanks.
 
We’d appreciate that.”

Once we were outside, Grace asked,
“Why did you let her put us off until tomorrow?”

“What choice did we have?
 
You saw how busy she was.
 
Remember, no one is compelled to help us
investigate.
 
Since we have no official
standing, we have to take what we can get.”

“I still think we could have
gotten that list today.”

I grinned at her.
 
“By all means, go back in and try.
 
I don’t mind a bit.”

Grace frowned at the closed door,
and then she shrugged.
 
“You’re
right.
 
I get too pushy sometimes, and I
know it.”

“I’m not complaining.
 
You’re just trying to advance our cause,” I
said.

“So, what happens now?”

I looked at my watch.
 
“I’m meeting Jake for dinner soon.
 
We’re going to eat at the Boxcar.
 
I’ve got an idea.
 
Would you care to join us?
 
We can bring him up to date on what we’ve
been doing together while we’re eating.”

“Tempting as that sounds, I have a
date myself,” she said with a grin.
 
“I
trust you to do it.
 
Just bring me up to
speed tomorrow.
 
I can’t get free until
noon, and I know you close the donut shop at eleven.
 
Is there any way that you’ll be able to wait
for me before you start snooping around again?”

“I’ll try to restrain myself until
you get back,” I said.

“Good.
 
Don’t bother dropping me off at home.
 
I’ll get Stephen to take me, since his shift
is about to end, anyway.”

“Good enough,” I said.
 
“Let’s go find our men.”

When we opened the door to the
station, Grace said, “Call me if Jake tells you anything interesting tonight.”

“About life in general, or are you
talking about something more specific?” I asked her with a grin.

“Just the case,” Grace said, and
then she turned to her boyfriend, who was standing nearby.
 
“I’m ready.”

“What a coincidence.
 
So am I.”
 
He beamed the moment he saw Grace, and I was happy that she finally had
someone in her life who cared so deeply about her.

After they were gone, I looked
into Jake’s office and saw him frowning as he concentrated on a stack of files
on his desk.

It appeared that I might not be
getting a timely dinner after all.

Chapter
11

“Is this a bad time?
 
I can always come back later.”

“No, you’re fine,” Jake said as he
looked up from the files he’d been studying.
 
“Wow, it’s amazing how little these entries actually say.”

“Is that from the investigation
into Benjamin Port’s death?”

“If you can call it that.
 
I hate to speak ill of one of my
predecessors, but I wonder how many murders were written off as accidents or
due to natural causes under Sheriff Guthrie.
 
He wasn’t what you’d call a top-notch lawman.”

“Have you stumbled across anything
else that might be interesting?”

“Not yet, but it’s early.
 
Besides, we’ve had our hands full with some
kid breaking windows around town all afternoon.”

“What?
 
Are you serious?”
 
Could the glass being broken at Karen’s house
actually have been a coincidence after all?
 
If so, her paranoia had caused her to run away for nothing.

“I wish I weren’t.
 
Evidently he got suspended from school today,
so he decided to have a little fun, if you could call it that.
 
One of my deputies caught him in the act, but
not until after he’d busted out four different windows around town.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.

“Not particularly.
 
Were you able to come up with anything on
your own?”

“As a matter of fact, I was.
 
Would you like all of the details from the
very start, or should I just hit the highlights for now?”

Jake leaned back in his chair and
smiled for a moment.
 
“Why don’t you start
with the rough outline, and I’ll ask for more details if I need them.”

“Fair enough.
 
After I spoke with Gabby and reported back to
you, Grace and I decided to approach Ray Blake to see if he remembered anything
about the case.
 
He tried to play hardball
with us about insisting that everything we said was on the record, so we left
his office and went in search of Karen Harris.”

“Who exactly is she?” Jake asked.

“That’s right.
 
Sometimes I forget that you’re fairly new in
town.
 
Karen used to be the town
librarian, and when she retired, she came back as a volunteer.”

“If she was going to hang around,
why didn’t she just keep her old job?”

“She wasn’t offered the choice,” I
explained.
 
“Anyway, we figured that if
anyone knew what was going on in town back then, it would be Karen.
 
She wasn’t at the library, though, so we
tracked her down at her home.
 
The
problem was that when we found her, she was getting ready to leave town for
good.”

That caught his attention.
 
“Do you think she may have killed Benjamin
Port?”

“No, not really.
 
The reason she was leaving town so quickly
was because of two things that happened in the past: she spotted Hillary Mast
carrying a canned jar of chicken to Benjamin’s house the day of the murder, and
she overheard Hilda Fremont and Ben arguing in public around the same
time.
 
Evidently Hilda threatened him.”

“I understand why the argument is
suspicious, but we’re going on the assumption that the chicken wasn’t the real
cause of death, aren’t we?”

“Actually, we’re just disregarding
the idea that the poisoning was an accident,” I corrected him.
 
“The cause of death and the way that it was
administered are both still in question.”

Jake laughed a moment.
 
“Suzanne, are you sure you’ve never been a
cop?”

“Scout’s honor,” I said.
 
“Anyway, Karen wouldn’t tell us either fact
until someone broke one of her windows.”

“So that’s why you were so
interested in the glass-breaking delinquent,” Jake said.

“You have to admit that it was an
awfully powerful coincidence,” I said.
 
“Since Hilda was already on your list of suspects, we spoke with Hillary
Mast at the Board of Elections.”

Jake nodded as he leafed through
the files.
 
“As a matter of fact, I saw
her name mentioned in here someplace.”

“Did the police actually interview
her at the time?”
 
If they had, Hillary
hadn’t mentioned it to us when we’d questioned her.

“No, but she was listed as one of
Port’s potential romantic interests.”

“Well, that much is true,” I said,
relating the story of how she’d happened upon Benjamin and Hilda together.

“My question is if the chicken
were indeed poisoned, why didn’t Hilda suffer as well?”

“Maybe she left before he ate any
of it,” I suggested.

“I’ll have to ask her when she
gets back,” Jake said, making a quick note.

“Gets back?
 
Where did she go?”

“Evidently she left town this
morning to visit her ill sister in Georgia,” Jake said.
 
“She’ll only be gone a few days.”

“Are you sure that she didn’t
leave until
after
we opened the time
capsule?”

Jake looked alarmed.
 
“Do you think she’s on the run?”

“I don’t know, but everywhere we
turn, it seems as though she was pretty connected to the deceased.
 
Doesn’t it seem odd to you that she’d leave
so abruptly the day the confession was unearthed?
 
Who told you that she was gone?” I asked him.

“Trish.
 
I tried to get more information out of her,
but she said that was all that she knew.”

I stood.
 
“I need to speak with her myself.
 
Do you mind?”

“Be my guest,” Jake said.
 
“I’ve got an appointment with Judge Hurley in
ten minutes anyway, so I can’t go with you.”

“That should be interesting.
 
I might like to tag along with you for that
interview myself.”

Jake shook his head.
 
“Sorry.
 
I had a hard enough time convincing him to speak with me in my official
capacity.
 
If you show up with me, he’s
not going to say a word.”

“Okay, I get that.
 
You speak with him, and I’ll see if I can get
anything else out of Trish about Hilda.
 
Should we meet back here later?”

Jake frowned.
 
“I don’t know how long it’s going to take
with the judge.
 
Why don’t we both head
home when we’re through, and we can take it from there.
 
Was there anything else you wanted to tell me
about the case?”

“Just that we also spoke with Jan
Kerber.
 
She’s going to round up a list
of names of all the folks who had access to the time capsule before they sealed
it.
 
We should have it sometime
tomorrow.”

“I know.
 
I asked her thirty seconds after you
left.
 
She’s going to give us both copies
when she finds them.”

“Great minds think alike,” I
said.
 
“I’ll see you back home.”

“See you then,” he said.

Trish was looking particularly
frazzled when I walked into the Boxcar Grill five minutes later.
 
Turning her back to her customers, she was
facing the kitchen as she said, “I don’t know when she’s coming back, Gladys.
 
You’ll just have to do your best.”

“Fine, but I can’t work every
shift, Trish,” the older woman said.

“I’m not asking you to.
 
Just help me out for now, okay?”

Gladys grumbled a little, and I
saw Trish biting her lower lip, no doubt trying to keep herself from commenting
any more than she already had.
 
When she
turned back to see me standing there, she said, “Hey, Suzanne.”

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“Hilda took off all of a sudden,
and who knows when she’ll be coming back.
 
Gladys is not happy about coming in early, or staying late, for that matter.
 
Grab a table and I’ll get to you as quickly
as I can.”

“Actually, I’m here to talk about
your wayward employee.”

Trish frowned.
 
“I’ll tell you exactly what I told your
husband.
 
All of a sudden Hilda had to
leave town, and I’m stuck with holding things together until she gets back.”

“Hey, I’m one of the good guys,
remember?” I said softly.
 
“Jake needs to
speak with her for a reason.
 
He said
that she went to see her sick sister in Georgia.
 
Is that right?”

“That’s what she told me,” Trish
said, hedging her bets a little.

“Did you believe her?”

Trish frowned.
 
“Hilda’s been with me since I took this place
over, and she worked here ten years before that.
 
She’s like family to me, Suzanne.”

“I understand that I’m putting you
in an awkward position, but this is important.
 
A man was murdered.”

“And you think she did it?”
 
Trish’s voice was shrill, and I knew that she
was close to the edge of hysteria.

“I’m trying not to jump to
conclusions, and neither is Jake.
 
I
won’t lie to you, though.
 
It looks bad, her
running off just after the confession was found in the time capsule.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”
Trish asked, suddenly near tears.

“When exactly did she leave?
 
It’s important.
 
Was it this morning, or was it some time
after twelve?”

“The latter.
 
We’d just finished the early lunch crowd,”
she admitted.

“So, it was after the time capsule
was opened,” I said.

“I don’t know anything about
that,” Trish said.

“Would you like to know the
details?”

“No, I can’t deal with it right
now,” she said abruptly.
 
“Hilda didn’t
do it.
 
She couldn’t have.”

“Then help us find her.
 
Do you happen to have her sister’s number in
Georgia?
 
That could be very helpful.”

“How about if I call and ask her
about it myself?” Trish volunteered.

“Are you sure you don’t want to give
me her number?”

“I can’t.
 
Please don’t ask me to.”

I wasn’t at all sure how Jake
would feel about the proposed arrangement, but I trusted Trish with my
life.
 
“Fine.
 
Go on and call her.”

“Thanks.
 
I’ll be right back.”

Trish disappeared for a moment, and
before she could return to the front, Jack Jefferson approached the register
with his bill.
 
“Where’s Trish?”

“She had to step away for a
second,” I said.

“Well, I can’t stand around here
all day waiting for her,” he said.
 
“I’ll
pay this later,” he added as he tucked the bill into his front pocket.

“No worries, Jack.
 
I can help you,” I said.
 
It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him, but I’d
hate for Trish to lose money because of me.
 
I rang up his bill, made change, and then I said, “Thanks for coming.”

“I thought you ran the donut
shop?” he asked me as he double-counted his change.

“I do.”

“Then why are you taking money at
the diner?” Jake asked.

“What can I say?
 
I’m a multitasker.”

He humphed and then walked out the
door.

“Did I miss something?” Trish asked
as she walked back out of the kitchen a few minutes later.

“No.
 
I rang up a few customers while you were
gone.
 
I hope you don’t mind.”

“Are you kidding?
 
I appreciate it,” Trish said.
 
“If you’re looking for part-time work, I
could use a hand.”

“Sorry, but as a cook, I’m no
match for Hilda or Gladys.”

“That’s the problem.
 
Neither am I.”

“Were you able to get in touch
with Hilda’s sister?” I asked her.

Trish frowned for a moment before
she answered.
 
“I spoke with her.”

“What did she say?”
 
Why was my friend making this so hard?

The words came out in a rush.
 
“She hasn’t spoken to Hilda in four months,
and what’s more, she’s feeling perfectly fine.”

“So Hilda
is
on the run,” I said softly.

“Just because she took off doesn’t
mean that she did anything,” Trish protested.

“You have to admit that it doesn’t
look good.”

“Suzanne, you’ve got to prove that
she didn’t do it.
 
I need your help.”

“All I can promise you is that
I’ll try to find out what really happened to Benjamin Port.
 
After that, it’s up to Jake and the court
system.”

“I understand that, but since I
know in my heart that Hilda is innocent, all you can do is help matters.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I
said.
 
“Promise me two things, though.”

“What?”

“If you hear from her first, do
your best to try to get her to come back to town.”

“I can do that.
 
What’s the second thing?”

“Call me the second you hear from
her, day or night.”

“I don’t know.
 
I’d feel as though I were betraying her trust
if I promised you that.”