Choc Churro Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 25 Read online

  “Hillside Reporter, whaddya want?” A woman asked, and chewed noisily on the other end of the line.

  Heather held the phone away from her head for a moment, then put it back. “Hi there, I’m Heather Shepherd, calling on behalf of the Hillside Police Department. I’m currently working on a murder case and have a lead to follow with your research department. Can you put me through?”

  “You’re talking to her.”

  “This is the research department?” Heather asked, thought ‘department’ probably wasn’t the right word for it.

  “Uh-huh. I research, write the articles and answer the phone,” the woman replied.

  “I see,” Heather replied. She cleared her throat.

  “You had a question?”

  “Yeah, this article you wrote about Charles Lawless –”

  “It’s good, right? I’m proud of that one. Took me like, at least a half hour.” The woman sniffed, and sarcasm didn’t enter her tone. Not even a smidge of it.

  Heather flipped open the magazine and paged to the article. She spotted three typos right away. “Yeah, it’s, uh, it’s fantastic.”

  “What’s your question?”

  “I wanted to find out where you got the information about Charles Lawless? What was your source?”

  “Lady,” the woman replied. “I never reveal my sources. That’d be high unethical.”

  Heather ground her teeth. “What’s your name ma’am?”

  “Pinky,” she replied. “And I ain't telling you nothing.”

  “Right,” Heather said. “You do realize that I’m a consultant for the police and that withholding information about an ongoing investigation is obstruction of justice?”

  “Whatever, lady. I don’t see a badge in front of me. I don’t have to tell you anything,” she replied. Then she hung up the phone.

  Heather dropped her cell from her ear and stared at the screen. She shook her head once. “Unbelievable. I have to agree with you about the magazine, Eva.”

  “What happened?” She asked, and picked at a crumb on her plate. She’d already gobbled down the donut, and half her coffee had disappeared.

  “She was rude, and she wouldn’t tell me a thing about her source,” Heather said.

  The front door opened, and the Donut Delights bell tinkled behind them. Amy hurried in, her arms laden with fresh produce for the berry-based donuts. “Heather,” she said. “You’re not going to believe this.”

  Heather stood up and faced her bestie. “Oh gosh, what is it now?”

  “Delightful Donuts is having a grand re-opening. Right now.”

  Could the day get any worse?

  Chapter 7

  Heather and Amy strode down the sidewalk together, arm in arm. The sun glared down at them, and a wind whipped down the sidewalk and tugged at their coats.

  “Bit chilly,” Amy said, and checked she was all buttoned up.

  Heather didn’t reply. She’d spotted her target.

  Delightful Donuts reared ahead of them. The doors stood wide open, and a few people milled in and out, chomping on donuts.

  Heather stopped in front of the mock store and peered at it.

  Kate’s influence was clear.

  Spotless windows gleamed beneath the sun. The interior sparkled beneath bright, fluorescent lights, and the glass counter had been polished to perfection. Donuts nudged each other beneath the display, their cushy bodies glistened, wetly.

  A woman nearby took a bite of a donut and shrugged. “Not bad,” she muttered. “Not great either.”

  Amy gave Heather a thumbs up.

  They walked into the store and stopped in front of the counter. Geoff Lawless bent over the register and clicked and clacked the buttons.

  Heather cleared her throat.

  He popped up right and stared at her. “Shepherd,” he grunted.

  “Lawless,” she replied, coolly.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. It always pained Geoff to talk in full sentences.

  This conversation wouldn’t be the easiest Heather had participated in.

  “We’ve come to talk about, well, about everything Geoff.” Heather sighed. “Do you have a moment?”

  He glanced around the store then waved at a mousy woman near one of the tables. She scurried over and bobbed her head toward Lawless. “Sir?”

  “Watch the register,” he said. “Don’t let anyone steal from it.”

  Weird request, but okay.

  The assistant nodded again and hurried to take Geoff’s place.

  Lawless managed to detach himself from his precious cash register, and beckoned for Heather and Amy to follow him. He walked to a door beside the entrance to the kitchen, then opened it and held it for them.

  Heather strode into Geoff’s office and blinked at the change in light.

  A single lampshade stood on the corner of a small wooden desk and the blinds shut out light from a single window, high on the right wall.

  “Sit,” Geoff said, and gestured to the single chair in front of his desk.

  Amy took it. Heather stood and grasped the back, in the same position as when she’d interviewed Georgia Summers.

  Hopefully, this result would be better.

  “What do you wanna know?”

  “Where on earth have you been?” Amy asked, then coughed into her fist and looked down at her lap.

  Geoff sat down in his low-backed swivel chair and placed his massive fists on the desk. “Hotel. I had to call my sister.”

  “Geoff,” Heather said, but she didn’t know where to start. He’d popped in and out of her life for the last few months. She didn’t know him as well as she should have.

  “I started the store because my sister told me to,” Geoff said, the shut his eyes. An expression of regret flashed across his usually blank face.

  “Kate asked you to start the store?” Heather asked.

  “Yeah. She wanted this to be big. Didn’t tell me why. I messed up,” Geoff said. He glanced left and right, then leaned in and met Heather’s gaze. “I don’t like baking. I don’t like donuts.”

  “Sheesh, then you were just the guy for the job,” Amy said.

  Heather paced to the blinds and flicked one up, then peered out at the street outside. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. She makes me do things. I owe her.”

  “Why do you owe her?”

  Geoff sniffed, then cleared his throat. “Parents died when we were kids. She looked after me. Still does. I owe her.”

  Heather dropped the blind again and turned back to him. “So, you took the boxes from my dumpsters. Why?” It wasn’t related to the case, but she needed the answers.

  “I got desperate,” Geoff whispered. He bowed his head and the yellow light glanced off his pate. “Kate called me every week. Wanted to know why the money wasn’t coming in. I needed people to think I had good stuff.”

  “Or that Heather’s stuff was bad,” Amy replied.

  Geoff nodded once, a quick flick of his head up and then down. “Sorry.”

  Heather couldn’t word the apology. She sucked in a deep breath and folded her arms instead. “And the P.I. course?”

  “I like that. I like to do that,” Geoff said, and met her gaze. “I figured I could be like you and then Kate would be happy.”

  “This is weird,” Amy said, and hummed the Twilight Zone melody.

  Heather couldn’t help but agree. She walked back to Amy’s chair, then leaned on it for support.

  “Geoff,” she said. “Where were you the night Kenneth Kenny was murdered?”

  “I was here,” he said, without hesitation. “Kate called me after we saw you and told me not to bother coming back to Summers’ house. Said I had to count stock and clean up more. Make donuts.”

  “I see,” Heather said. It sounded innocent enough, but could Kate have wanted Geoff out of the way? “What about Charles?”

  “Charles and I don’t speak,” Geoff replied, stiffly.

  Amy looked up at Heather and
arched an eyebrow. Two brothers who didn’t speak. One who might be a hired assassin. Interesting.

  “Did you see this morning’s issue of the Hillside Reporter?” Heather asked.

  Geoff nodded and didn’t offer his opinion on it.

  “Any thoughts?”

  Lawless exhaled a long, low breath. “I don’t know him that well. I can’t say. He’s much older than me. We didn’t grow up together.”

  Heather tapped Amy on the shoulder, and her bestie rose from her seat, immediately.

  “Thank you for your time, Geoff,” Heather said. “I, uh, don’t want to catch you stealing from my trash cans, again. All right?”

  “I won’t,” he said. “Kate said she’d fire me if I did. She said things are going to change around here.” Geoff lurched to his feet.

  Amy jerked back and gripped at her chest.

  “Heather,” Geoff said. He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Be careful. Kate. She’s not nice. She’s not good. Just be careful.”

  “Thanks,” Heather replied. “You don’t have to warn me about your sister. I know who she is and exactly what she’s capable of.”

  Chapter 8

  “Hoskins didn’t come with you?” Heather asked, and bumped the car door closed with her hip.

  She’d spent the rest of her afternoon at Donut Delights, serving up wonderful creations to the masses. There hadn’t been a dip in sales, even though Geoff’s rival store had spent the day doling out treats of its own.

  “Nope. He’s back at the office, munching down another ten Mars Bars,” Ryan replied.

  He stood on the porch of the Kenny household and held his hand to his forehead to block the sun’s late afternoon glare.

  Heather hurried up to him, then pecked him on the cheek. “Free reign, eh? No Hoskins breathing down our necks while we investigate? Couldn’t ask for anything better.”

  “Absolutely,” Ryan said, then turned and led the way into the house.

  Heather followed him, and flashes of the Halloween party came back to her. “Oh gosh. This place looks much better without the paper bats and the miniature pumpkins.” She tapped her chin, and they took a left into a large study. “What’s going to happen to the house, now that Kenny’s dead?”

  “It’s going up for Auction. His will stated that he’d leave everything to Tatiana, but she’s in jail now, for life. So, it’ll probably end up going to the second beneficiary. A charity.”

  “Oh,” Heather replied. At least, something good might come out of this horrible scenario.

  She glanced around the study and walked over to one of the massive bookshelves. She brushed her fingertips along the spines of the books and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.

  “This is where it happened,” Ryan said.

  Heather’s eyes snapped open, and she turned back to her husband, decked out in his uniform, handsome as always. “Here. The study,” she replied.

  “That’s correct. They’ve cleaned up the, uh, evidence, but apparently, he was here when it happened.” Ryan pointed to the desk, which sat beneath a massive window.

  Light filtered through and cast long shadows across the plush, burgundy carpeting.

  The scent of aged paper and polished wood drifted through the space.

  Heather walked to her husband’s side. “Sitting or standing?”

  “Standing. Perhaps he jerked upright when the murderer entered.”

  “Perhaps. He could’ve fought with them before it happened,” Heather replied, and hurried to the desk. She walked around it and stemmed the tide of nausea which assaulted her senses.

  Oh, boy, a man she’d known had died on this exact spot.

  “What makes you say that?” Ryan asked, and whipped out his notepad and ballpoint.

  “Well, it’s like we said the other night. The gates were open when Hoskins got to the scene. Either he left them open because he ran from something or he let someone in who he knew.”

  “Right,” Ryan said.

  “The only meeting I’m aware of was one with Georgia Summers,” Heather said. “And that would explain the lipstick and the perfume on his collar.” She slid open a desk drawer and peered inside. “But Kate Laverne is also staying at the Summers’ household and –”

  “What is it?”

  Heather lifted the page from the drawer and flashed it at her husband. “Looks like Kate Laverne and Kenneth Kenny did have direct correspondence about this. It’s a contract. Or the first page of one.”

  Ryan hurried over. He read the document over Heather’s shoulder. “Outlined on this the 4th day of November in the year 2016, it is agreed that Kenneth Ken Kenny and Kate Laverne –” The document cut off there.

  “It looks like Kenneth and Georgia didn’t work together on this deal. Which is strange, since Georgia made it very clear that they were business partners,” Heather said, and handed the note over her shoulder. “Why would she lie?”

  “I’m stumped on this one. There’s no valid reason for her to lie about that. Unless she wanted to hide something.”

  Heather paced to the other end of the desk and whipped open another drawer. More documents, but none of them pertained to the contract. “Curious,” Heather said, then hummed Strawberry Fields by the Beatles.

  “I like that song,” Ryan said.

  Heather glanced around the room, then hurried to the wastepaper basket. “What’s this?” She bent and picked up the shredded scraps of paper. She squinted at the letter, then nodded once. “It’s the rest of the agreement,” Heather said and beckoned to her husband.

  Ryan joined her and picked through the papers. A frown wrinkled his brow. “So, Kenneth ripped up the deal.”

  “And that wouldn’t have been a problem if Georgia had been involved. After all, an agreement between three people would have to have been dissolved by all parties involved.”

  “And Georgia didn’t want us to know that she’d never been involved in the deal,” Ryan muttered and met his wife’s gaze.

  “She’s covering for Kate,” Heather said. “Kate must’ve gotten mad at the insinuation that Roger didn’t want to back the business anymore. I spoke to Geoff today, and it sounds like he basically wasted his sister’s money the first time around.”

  “Okay.” Ryan stood straight and brushed off his pants. “Okay, so what if Kate found out from Georgia that Kenny didn’t want to go through with it anymore?”

  “Yeah, right.” Heather didn’t budge from her position but grasped the shredded paper between her fingertips.

  “And Kate gets angry and rushes over here. Kenny knows her and lets her in. They argue, boom, it’s over.”

  “Makes sense,” Heather said, then finally dropped the scraps and stood up. “But there’s just one problem.”

  “What?”

  “The lipstick on Kenny’s collar,” Heather replied. “Where did it come from? Georgia denied ever having been involved with him.”

  “Kate planted it there?” Ryan asked.

  “Doesn’t make sense. Kate wouldn’t want any evidence pointing toward a woman killer, if she did, indeed, murder Kenny.” Heather sighed and scraped her fingers through her hair. “It’s getting complicated again.”

  “What did you expect?” Ryan asked and kissed her on the cheek. “It’s never simple.”

  “Just once, I wish it would be.”

  Chapter 9

  Heather shivered and yawned a cloud of steam into the early morning air. The keys to Donut Delights jangled in her fist.

  “Hurry up,” Amy whined, behind her. “I’m freezing. I haven’t had my coffee yet.”

  “All right, all right.” Heather unlocked the front door of the store, then rushed in and straight to the alarm keypad. She disabled it, and Amy followed her in then shut the door behind herself.

  “Ugh, that’s a tiny bit better.” Heather’s bestie made a beeline for the coffee machine in the dark.

  Heather clicked on the overhead lights, then rubbed the sleep from her eyes with both fi
sts. “I’ll tell you one thing; I am not cut out for early mornings. I nearly went on strike when the alarm clock went off.”

  “It’s not called a strike when you’re the boss, Heather,” Amy replied, and pressed buttons on the machine. She clinked cups into place beneath the spouts. “It’s called being the owner and doing whatever you want.”

  “That’s not how I roll,” Heather replied. She traipsed over to the counter, dumped her handbag onto it, then walked around to the stools behind it. She plonked down in one and shut her eyes. “Just five more minutes.”

  Amy chuckled, and the coffee machine made appreciative gurgles and hisses. The aroma of early morning caffeine filled Heather’s nostrils.

  A cold breeze tugged at her jacket, and her office door slapped shut. Heather’s eyes jerked open, but Amy hadn’t moved away from the counter.

  “What? Did I leave a window open in the office?” Heather asked.

  Amy’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o.' “What if someone’s in there? What if they slammed the door?”

  “Yeah, because the perfect way to make a quiet escape is to slam a door.”

  “Maybe they don’t want to make a quiet escape,” Amy hissed. “Maybe, they want to, you know, trap you.”

  Heather rolled her eyes at her bestie and hopped off her stool. The fright had energized her, at least. “Must you do this every time a door slams or you know, a curtain flutters?”

  “Excuse me, but I’m not the one who’s had multiple break-ins, a dead person on their doorstep, and been attacked by actual murderers,” Amy said. “I feel my paranoia has kinda worked out for me so far if you know what I mean.”

  “Point taken.” Heather walked to her tote on the counter. She rooted around in the depths of her bag, and her hand closed on the cold plastic of her Taser. She never left home without it, these days.

  Heather clicked off the safety and kept her finger on the button. She strode toward the office door, and Amy gave a tiny squeak of fright behind her.

  “Stay where you are,” Heather said and put on her serious face. “If I’m not out in five minutes, call the cops.”