Wild Raspberry Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 53 Read online

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  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2017 by Guardian Publishing Group - All rights reserved.

  All rights Reserved. No part of this publication or the information in it may be quoted from or reproduced in any form by means such as printing, scanning, photocopying or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 1

  “I think the name is fitting for this one,” Maricela said. “Because the customers are going wild for this flavor.”

  Angelica nodded. “We should change this donut’s name from Wild Raspberry to Wild Rasp-Hurry. Because that’s what we’re going to have to do in order to finish all these orders.”

  Despite how busy they were, Heather was in a cheerful mood as she worked with her two assistants in the Donut Delights kitchen. She couldn’t help but feel proud of her donuts when they became in high demand. All of her flavors were enjoyed by her customers, but her new Wild Raspberry Donut was in such high demand it reached “soaring over the clouds” height.

  The Wild Raspberry Donut was being selected by customers at her physical store, as well as having multiple online orders placed on it. The timing seemed to work out for a town in Oregon that was having a Raspberry Festival. They placed an especially large order for this new flavor, and Heather’s donuts were being prepped for their cross-country trip.

  In addition to these usual orders (though it still felt strange to Heather that her online orders and traveling donut deliveries were becoming commonplace), she had another special order to fulfill as well. These donuts were going to be a featured dessert at a local dinner theater show that night.

  All this work was keeping her staff busy as bees. Luckily this brought out the best in her employees, and everyone was staying sweet as honey instead of letting their stingers come out. However, Maricela was a bit worried.

  “Boss?” Maricela asked.

  “What?” Heather asked. She had tried in vain to get her employees to call her by her name instead of “boss,” but now it seemed that they called her it just to tease her. She didn’t really mind it though. Even though it sounded counterintuitive, calling her “boss” was their way of showing her that they really cared about her more than just an employer. They felt more like family, and families liked to tease one another.

  “I know that we’re good. But do you think we’re good enough to make all these donuts in time?”

  “Don’t worry,” Heather said with a wink. “I’ve called in some reinforcements. They should be here soon.”

  The reinforcements came in the form of two more of Heather’s assistants, Emily Potts and Jung, and her bestie Amy. They were eager to help the team stay on schedule, but were even more eager to sample one of the new flavors. Heather was happy to provide them each with a donut as thanks for responding to her call for assistance so quickly.

  “Well, nobody is going to blow any raspberries at you after trying this flavor,” joked Amy.

  Jung laughed and then agreed, “As usual, it’s delicious.”

  Emily Potts happily finished her sample and then took out her notebook. She was the most studious of the assistants and liked to write out notes about the new flavors. She licked the frosting off her fingers and picked up a pencil.

  “Could you tell me more about this donut?” Emily Potts asked. “There’s something about it I can’t quite place.”

  “I could place another one in my mouth,” Amy joked. “Something this good calls for seconds.”

  “I don’t know,” Heather joked back. “I called you in to help me bake enough donuts to fill the order. Not to eat them all!”

  “You know I can’t always help myself around donuts,” Amy said. “As my best friend, you should be used to this by now. Especially when you provide the temptation.”

  Heather laughed and then started to explain her donut. “This temptation is called the Wild Raspberry Donut. It has a vanilla cake base and is filled with a raspberry jelly inside. I tried to keep the integrity of the berry flavor in the jelly without making it too sugary. But because raspberries can be a little tart, the icing is a sweet cream.”

  “I love the reddish pink color of the icing too,” Angelica said.

  “There’s something else to it,” Emily Potts said.

  “You’re right about that,” said Heather. “The red sprinkles on top aren’t actually sprinkles. They’re dried raspberries that have been minced.”

  “That’s it,” Emily Potts said. “What a clever idea.”

  “And a yummy one,” Angelica said.

  “It’s all those things,” Maricela said. “But if we don’t get a move on, the customers won’t be able to appreciate it.”

  “She’s right,” Heather said. “Talk and work at the same time. Let’s divide into stations.”

  They split up and worked efficiently in making batches of the new flavor. Jung was working near Heather and Amy mixing icing.

  “So, what event is this batch for?” He asked.

  “This is for a murder mystery dinner theater show tonight,” Heather said.

  “That’s a whole bunch of adjectives,” said Jung.

  “A theater group is performing at a local restaurant,” Heather said. “Tonight they are performing a mystery. Audience members can enjoy the play while they eat. And they asked us to whip up some donuts for dessert.”

  “I bet they like the reddish color,” Jung said. “If it’s a murder mystery, that could fit the theme.”

  “I guess we’ll see tonight,” Heather said. “The director gave us some complimentary tickets for the show. It should be fun. Right, Ames?”

  “Right,” Amy said. “What was the name of it again?”

  “I believe it’s The Case of the Stolen Heart, Rubies, and Life of Emily Middlewick,” Heather said.

  “Yeah,” Amy said wryly. “I wonder why I couldn’t remember the name of it.”

  “It is a bit of a mouthful,” Heather said.

  “I hope people still have space for dinner and donuts,” said Amy.

  “I don’t get it,” Jung said.

  “I think it’s based on an old short story,” Heather said. “It might have been more appropriate for titles to be so long back then.”

  “No, not that,” Jung said. “It’s that you two solve murders as your other job when you’re not here. Do you really want to go to a murder mystery show on your night off?”

  “I haven’t been to a night of theater in a long time,” Heather said. “So I’m actually pretty excited about it.”

  Amy shrugged. “Getting through the title is hard enough for me, but I think it will be fun to go to a dinner theater show with some friends.”

  “Don’t you think that you two will solve the crime
in the play before intermission? And then just have to sit there for the rest of the show waiting for the characters to catch up?”

  “I don’t know about that,” Heather sad with a laugh.

  “Well, you solved the problem of filling all the orders on time,” Amy said. “I guess we’ll just have to wait until to tonight to see if we can solve the problem within the play.”

  Chapter 2

  “These seem like great seats,” Heather said.

  She and Amy had delivered their desserts and were able to take their seats before the rest of the audience arrived. Several round dinner tables were arranged in a semicircle pattern around the room. They realized that the performance must take place within this semicircle for two reasons. One was that it was the natural spot for diners to look at, and the other reason was that there were several items on this makeshift stage that did not look like they belonged in a restaurant. There was a desk, a bookcase just large enough for a person to hide behind, and a large painting of a woman in Victorian garb. There weren’t any curtains near the stage area, but there was a door off center to the space that could allow for actors’ entrances and exits.

  “It probably helped that we reserved a whole table,” Amy said.

  Heather nodded. After she had received some complimentary tickets, she thought it might be a fun outing for her family and friends to join them. They had reserved a whole table of seats, and now she was excited for the rest of their group to join them.

  Amy’s boyfriend Jamie would be joining them shortly. They had all ridden in the same car together. Now he was moving the car into the correct parking area before valet parking started for the evening. Heather and Amy had brought the donuts inside and made sure that they were taken care of by the kitchen staff.

  Heather’s husband Ryan would arrive when the doors officially opened and had volunteered to bring their friends Eva and Leila with him in his car. Eva and Leila were two older women who had started out as Heather’s favorite customers at Donut Delights but were now close personal friends of hers. The senior ladies had been elated at the chance to attend the murder mystery play with them. They had joked that they would have the opportunity to guess who the killer on stage was just like their friends often did in real life.

  Heather and Ryan had been discussing whether they thought the show would be appropriate for their daughter, Lilly, who was currently right in between her childhood and teenage years. However, they ended up not having to make the decision. Lilly was invited to a sleepover at her new friend Marlena’s, and she was going to spend the night there instead.

  Jamie joined them at the table and they happily chatted with one another about the couple’s moving plans until it was almost show time. When the rest of their group joined them, the room was starting to become abuzz with excitement as other audience members found their seats as well.

  “This is fancier than I thought it would be,” Ryan remarked. “There was valet parking, and there’s a chandelier in the room. I wonder if I should have changed out of my work clothes.”

  Heather assured him of the truth: that he always looked very handsome, and especially in his detective clothes. Two waiters went around the room to take everyone’s dinner order, and Heather found that she was pleasantly surprised by the food options. She thought it might be difficult to focus on the performance if the food were as tasty as it sounded.

  Leila regaled them with stories about her actress friend from long ago, and Amy struggled to recall the long name of the show they were seeing. It seemed that the different courses of their meal would arrive in between acts of the show. The lights began to dim, and they focused on the stage.

  The Case of the Stolen Heart, Rubies, and Life of Emily Middlewick focused on the wealthy Middlewick family whose daughters were in danger of being conned out of their money. The exact time that this story took place was unknown to Heather because it wasn’t being played as either Victorian era or present day. The woman who played the maid was attempting a British accent that sounded more like a Scarsdale one. However, overall, the play was enjoyable. There were some good laughs and intrigue about what had happened to the rubies.

  Then the young actor playing Emily’s gentleman caller appeared onstage talking about how he had had a premonition of doom in the night. He was worried about what might happen to the Middlewick family. He began to call for Emily to join him in the room to comfort him about his fears.

  The actor looked to the door where they had been making their entrances all evening.

  “Emily, did you not hear me?” He said. “I said come and join me in the sitting area. I must sit awhile and calm my nervous heart. I know your loving heart can help me. Please do come.”

  He looked at the audience and then began to pace.

  “Oh, as I spoke aloud before, this nightmare is too intense. I am so fearful and afraid and scared. I do wish you would come join me. I hope nothing has befallen you yet. Emily?”

  The actor went to the door and spoke more loudly. “Did you hear me, Emily? I would like you to come and join me in the sitting area if you are able.”

  He kept staring at the door, but that was not where the actress playing Emily appeared. She walked in from the back of the restaurant, entering from behind the audience. The first audience member gasped when he saw Emily walk by. She looked as if she had been crying, but what was more upsetting were the bloodstains on her dress.

  The actor looked surprised by her entrance, but recovered and ran toward her.

  “My love?” He asked. “What has happened?”

  “It was…” she started. “It was…”

  But then her eyes closed.

  Heather and Amy looked at one another. Obviously, the actor on stage did not expect to see “Emily” come in like that, and now she was lying so still. Did they just witness a murdered woman’s last words before their own eyes?

  Chapter 3

  “We must have murder on our minds all the time now,” Heather said, sampling an appetizer cheese stick.

  “Well, this was the right setting for it,” Eva said. “This is a murder mystery.”

  “And it was so convincing,” Leila said. “I was ready to jump up and help that poor girl. Or at least to call for help. Maybe I would have just pushed Detective Ryan Shepherd to the forefront.”

  “I’m glad it was the magic of theater and not a real crime,” Ryan said.

  Heather and Amy had been happily reassured that the actress had not died onstage, and were now flooded with relief. Though at the same time, Heather had a lingering doubt that something had not gone according to plan.

  They knew the actress had not died because when the lights dimmed, they saw her get up and exit through the door with her costar. They were further reassured when the waiters acted if everything was normal and began serving the first course of appetizers and salads.

  “Me too,” Jamie said. “Besides the obvious tragedy if a person’s life were ended, it would also be terrible if we weren’t able to eat this good food.”

  They laughed, and all had another bite of their appetizers.

  “Still,” Heather said, slowly. “I don’t think the actor was expecting the actress to come in like that.”

  “Maybe,” Leila said. “Or maybe it was impressive acting meant to mislead us. It did make things more dramatic.”

  “That’s true,” Heather said and smiled.

  She enjoyed the rest of The Case of the Stolen Heart, Rubies, and Life of Emily Middlewick. The sisters’ hearts were broken by the murder of their sister and by the young men that betrayed them. A dramatic moment occurred onstage where the middle sister took a love note from her young beau who was only out for her money and stabbed it with a knife.

  “That looks like the knives we’re using for our dinner,” Amy whispered to her bestie and indicating to the similar handles on the silverware.

  “I hope it doesn’t give any audience members murderous ideas,” Heather whispered back.

  The case was cracke
d by a plucky female detective character who, with a magnifying glass in hand, discovered everyone’s secrets. Maisy Mulligan was played as a no-nonsense investigator who made funny metaphors to break the tension as she searched for clues.

  She was underestimated by the killer because she was a female investigator, but in the end got the killer to confess to his misdeeds. The killer, who was the jealous and nosy next door neighbor, tried to escape by taking an audience member hostage. It was a dramatic but fun moment in the show. In order to explain where the audience member came from (within the world of the show) in order to be the hostage, the actors called him an unlucky servant that they came across.

  The killer was soon overpowered by the middle sister’s dishonest young beau who was trying to redeem himself. The audience member/servant/hostage received a round of applause as he went back to his seat.