Goodbye Cruller World

mysteries....

Chapter 1

The yelling began almost the second I started walking down the driveway between Deputy Donut, the café that my father-in-law and I owned, and Dressed to Kill, Jenn Zeeland’s cute clothing boutique.

The loud argument wasn’t going on inside Deputy Donut, where Tom was finishing the day’s tidying. It was going on inside Dressed to Kill, where I was heading. I couldn’t make out the words, but the women spewing them were obviously angry.

I almost turned around and went back to Deputy Donut.

However, it was nearly five. In ten minutes, Dressed to Kill would close for two weeks, and I needed the black jeans and white shirts that I’d ordered. Besides, what if Jenn was in danger?

I hurried to the front of Dressed to Kill.

I wasn’t about to barge inside without peeking in first. Jenn’s display windows were lovely, but I couldn’t see beyond her hand-knit sweaters, mittens, scarves, and hats, and the cords and down-filled vests that went with them. The clothes were draped over antique skis, sleds, skates, and snowshoes. In one window, an electric fireplace sent warm hues rippling over the entire scene. It could have been very welcoming if women inside the store hadn’t been screaming at each other only seconds before.

A red-faced woman burst out of Dressed to Kill. She muttered, Don’t go in there, budged past me, and raced south on Wisconsin Street.

My training kicked in. Get a description, Emily.

I guessed she was in her mid-to-late forties. She was tall and angular, with straight brown flyaway hair. Her mid-calf, flowing dress, a floral print in blue and white, hung several inches below an unbuttoned navy wool coat. She hadn’t zipped up the sides of her tan knee-high leather boots. With their tops flapping and threatening to trip her with each step, she ran past the bookstore and the artisans’ co-op, and then she turned right and disappeared. For a few seconds, I heard the clap, clap, clap of those unzipped boots.

I had never seen her before.

I again considered returning to Deputy Donut. Before Tom and I opened our coffee and donut shop, he had been Fallingbrook’s police chief. Tom could handle whatever had gone on inside Dressed to Kill.

And so can you, Emily.

I pulled the door open. Tiny bells jingled.

Usually, unless Jenn was busy with a customer, she heard the bells, peeked around racks of clothing, and greeted me.

This time, she didn’t. I was getting twitchy.

That shouting I’d heard earlier ...

And now, this breathless quiet . . .

I told myself I was being overly dramatic. Jenn knew I was coming. Besides, she was probably immersed in wedding preparations.

I tiptoed into the store. I couldn’t help touching, with one tentative finger, an emerald green velvet cocktail dress. It would be perfect for Jenn’s reception the next night, but I was attending the reception late, only to keep the donut wall stocked, and I would be wearing my Deputy Donut uniform. The black jeans and white shirt would be new, though, if Jenn was here to give them to me.

Jenn? I called.

No answer.

I walked farther into the store, past a table of neatly folded sequined sweaters. Jenn?

Near the back of the store, a door slammed or something fell.

"Jenn! I sounded a little frantic. Are you here?" If she didn’t answer by the count of ten, I was going back to Deputy Donut for Tom.

I got to eight, and then footsteps approached from the office beyond the dressing cubicles. Someone vigorously blew a nose.

Tall and slender, dressed in tight jeans and a luscious coral sweater that she must have designed, Jenn came out from between the dressing rooms. Her head was bowed, and her long blond hair hung down like curtains, concealing the sides of her face. Hey, Emily, she mumbled toward her sweater. I’ll get the things you ordered. She walked away quickly, like she didn’t want me to get a good look at her.

It was too late.

I’d already noticed her red and swollen eyelids.

The poor thing. She was only a little older than I was, in her mid-thirties, but the sad eyes aged her, and in less than twenty-four hours she was scheduled to wow everyone with her long white dress and the radiance that wedding guests expected from brides.

She returned, holding the clothes, which were on hangers, high, as if she were hiding behind them. She walked to the cash desk at the front of the store and hung the garments on a rack. I followed. Fiddling with receipts and invoices, she didn’t meet my gaze. These should fit, she said. Teensy for you and muscular for Tom.

I tried to prolong the joking atmosphere. You’ve changed the names of sizes? She raised her face, and I couldn’t ignore the tear rolling down her cheek. What’s wrong, Jenn?

"Everything. I wish I had your curls."

I couldn’t believe she was crying because she didn’t have a crop of unruly dark curls.

"And those vivid blue eyes."

Don’t be ridiculous, I said. Nearly everyone wants straight blond hair like yours, and your hazel eyes are beautiful. Besides, curls seldom behave the way I want them to. Plunking a hand on my Deputy Donut cap, a police hat with a faux-fur donut attached where the badge would ordinarily be, I accidentally pushed the cap down. It nearly covered my eyes. It’s a good thing I designed a hat to hide my hair at work. I shoved the hat up again. The bad news is that when I remove it every evening I have a bad case of hat head.

The blond is out of a bottle, but the straight is real. Without the help of chemicals, my hair is mousy brown. Like my sister’s. Do you know Suzanne?

She was jumping so quickly from subject to subject that I couldn’t do much besides shake my head and clench my teeth to prevent my mouth from gaping open.

She just left, Jenn said. I thought maybe you saw her. She’s my half-sister, really. We had different fathers. She’s ten years older, and when our mother got sick, Suzanne promised to look after me. I was only nine. Looking after is one thing, but . . . She blew her nose again. "Smothering is quite another. I mean, we work together here all right."

Here? I never saw her before today. I didn’t mean to sound skeptical.

We own Dressed to Kill together, fifty-fifty. She does the books, usually at night, long after you’ve closed Deputy Donut. She doesn’t like dealing with customers or ordering clothes, so I do all that. She says it would be different if we sold shoes. She loves shoes and knows just about everything there is to know about footwear.

Maybe wearing boots unzipped and flopping around one’s ankles was the latest trend. Would knowledge about footwear make someone cry? Did she upset you?

Jenn wailed, "She told me to cancel the wedding. Told me!"

All I managed was, Oh. Did Jenn’s half-sister want Jenn’s fiancé for herself?

Apparently not. "She hates Roger! She always has. She never gave him half a chance."

Still not knowing quite what to say, I mumbled something meant to sound sympathetic.

I never should have agreed to marry him in the first place, but the wedding’s tomorrow, and now it’s way too late to change my mind.

Seriously confused, I held up a hand. Wait. Don’t you want to marry him?

Yes. No. She strode to the cash desk and grabbed a fresh tissue. I don’t know. To make matters worse, I haven’t told Roger that I invited my old boyfriend to the wedding and reception. There was never a right time to tell Roger. And my old boyfriend and I are just friends, really, but he’s one of my best friends.

I saw where this could pose a problem. Maybe you should tell Roger before tomorrow. Or wouldn’t a best friend understand if you uninvited him?

She clicked long and shapely nails against the cash desk. I couldn’t do either of those things. Uninviting someone would be just too rude. And I don’t want to make Roger angry tonight, the night before our wedding. I’ll just have to trust that he won’t make a scene tomorrow.

Some people were really good at causing problems for themselves. I suggested, If you’re not sure about marrying Roger, maybe you could postpone the wedding until you know what you want to do.

I do know. Marry Roger. I’m just having pre-wedding jitters, I guess. They say every bride has them.

I’d never had the least doubt about marrying Alec.

As if I’d said it aloud, she apologized. I shouldn’t be reminding you. You must miss your husband.

That’s okay. I’ve finally reached the stage where thinking about him brings back wonderful memories. Still, I couldn’t help remembering the night that my detective husband was killed while on duty, and it still hurt. Why did your sister wait so long to tell you to cancel the wedding?

Jenn bowed her head again, letting her hair fall in front of her face. She’s been saying it all along. She told me to stop seeing him when we were first dating. Like it’s any of her business, you know? And this afternoon, she went ballistic on me, screaming, yelling, the whole nine yards. For no reason, other than this last-ditch attempt to get me to drop Roger.

Is she married?

No. Never has been. And I know she cares about me, really. It’s just that . . .

Smothering, I repeated.

She doesn’t want me to move away from Fallingbrook, either.

Are you going to? We’d all miss you—and your wonderful shop. I love how you turned your online knitting and knitwear design business into a bricks-and-mortar store. And I’d been buying a lot of sweaters.... But you can run your online store from wherever you live, can’t you?

I don’t plan to close Dressed to Kill, but Suzanne says that Roger won’t let me stay in business, period. She thinks he’s jealous of my success. But how could he be? He’s doing great as a life coach, even though he inherited so much from some distant relative that he doesn’t have to work. Suzanne says that Roger has always moved around and he’s not going to want to stay in Fallingbrook. She even uses his wealth against him, saying it will allow him to live anywhere. Jenn’s face crumpled and tears welled in her eyes. Just now, she accused me of being a gold digger.

That’s nonsense. Jenn seemed too sweet to marry a man only for his money. She had to care about him. He used to live in Fallingbrook, didn’t he? And he came back, so maybe he’s ready to settle down, with you, here.

I hope so. I don’t think I could bear to part with Dressed to Kill. She gave a resigned little shrug. But I might have to. The things we do for love. Her halfhearted attempt at a smile didn’t reach her eyes. "And the things we do because we’ve already planned a wedding. Maybe I could have canceled it a year or even six months ago, but now it’s too late. For instance, you and Tom—you wouldn’t let me put down a deposit. You built that donut wall and you’re planning to stay up tomorrow night to provide late-night snacks for our guests. You’ve probably ordered tons of extra ingredients for the donuts and crullers. I can’t ask you to cancel now."

It wouldn’t be a problem. We can use that donut wall another time, and the ingredients will keep. But you’d lose your deposit on the banquet hall rental and the meals you ordered, and you probably can’t send your dress back, and . . . Why was I giving her excuses to marry someone who, I was beginning to suspect, might make her unhappy?

Yeah, it’s definitely too late. And I want to marry Roger. I do. She gave me a watery smile. ‘I do.’ See? I’m already practicing my lines for tomorrow.

Chapter 2

On Saturday afternoon, Tom and I closed Deputy Donut at our usual time, four thirty. Leaving Tom in the kitchen to make the dough we’d need for Jenn’s reception later that night, I went through our dining area to our office and shut myself inside with my cat. When she was a tiny kitten, Alec had taken one look at the donut-like circles on her sides and had burst out laughing. Deputy Donut, he’d said, the perfect name for a cop’s cat. Laughing as hard as he did, I’d agreed.

And then after Alec was gone, Dep had graciously allowed Alec’s father and me to call our coffee and donut shop Deputy Donut.

Because of health regulations, Dep wasn’t allowed in the kitchen or dining area, and we had designed our office as Dep’s home-away-from-home. The room had windows on all four sides. Dep could perch on windowsills and supervise the kitchen, the dining area, the parking lot, or the driveway between Deputy Donut and Dressed to Kill.

She was curled up on our comfy couch. She stood and stretched. Her markings, including those cute circles, were tabby, and her coloring was tortoiseshell—black, cream, and ginger, which qualified her as a tortoiseshell tabby, also known as a torbie. I kissed the stripy orange patch on her forehead.

She and I usually walked to and from work, and her cat carrier had been underneath the desk for days. However, she must have sensed that I was in a hurry and needed to drive her home. She scrambled up a carpeted tree to the multilevel catwalk that Tom and I had built for her above the windows. Darting up and down steps and ramps, she circled the room and picked up a catnip mouse she’d stored in a cranny.

Come down, Dep, I urged.

I closed my mouth just in time. The slightly damp catnip mouse bounced off my chin.

I rattled her halter. That plus the catnip mouse at my feet must have convinced her to trot down her kitty-sized staircase. Grasping my warm fur baby, I pulled the cat carrier into the center of the office.

Despite a flurry of caterwauling and spread-out kitty toes, I managed to shut her into her carrier. I called goodbye to Tom, took the vociferous cat out to the garage in the back of our parking lot, and opened the overhead door.

Our Deputy Donut delivery vehicle was a restored 1950 Ford Fordor, a four-door sedan painted like a police cruiser, black with white doors and roof. However, the insignia on the doors was our Deputy Donut logo, the silhouette of a cat wearing a rakishly tilted Deputy Donut hat, faux-fur donut and all. Instead of a light bar, a large plastic donut lay flat on the roof. It was topped by dripping white icing and sprinkles that were actually tiny lights programmed to change colors and patterns in a zillion ways. A megaphone-shaped loudspeaker in front of the donut resembled an old-fashioned siren.

I buckled Dep’s carrier into the back seat. During the entire eight-block ride, Dep commented loudly about the indignities she was suffering. I parked behind my own car in the driveway of our Victorian cottage, took the carrier inside, and let Dep out in the living room. I’ll come home and change around nine, I promised.

Switching her tail back and forth, she looked away.

My phone rang. Why was Detective Brent Fyne calling? I knew it was silly, but I answered his call with the sort of pinpricks of anxiety I would always feel when a law-enforcement officer called unexpectedly, even when he called from his personal phone. Hi, Brent.

Hi, Em. I’m on duty later tonight. I was wondering if I could bring over pizza and beer for a quick dinner.

That sounds great, but Tom and I are providing the late-night snacks at a wedding reception, and I’ll be working until the wee hours. How does tomorrow sound instead?

He agreed, and we disconnected.

Brent and I were friends again despite my standoffishness during the first three years after Alec was shot. Brent and Alec had been best friends and had also been partners on the Fallingbrook police force, first as patrolmen and later as detectives. They’d been together the night that Alec was killed and a bullet grazed Brent’s arm. I’d been a 911 dispatcher, but I wasn’t working that fateful night. Out-of-town friends had been visiting only one evening, and I’d traded shifts with a new dispatcher so I could go out to dinner with my friends.

I would always feel guilty about going out that night. If I hadn’t traded shifts, maybe I could have gotten emergency responders to Alec in time to save him. Brent had told me that I couldn’t have sped the response. Brent had radioed police headquarters even before a witness phoned 911, and the ambulance had arrived almost immediately.

But I still felt guilty.

During those first three years, my raw grief had excluded Brent. I hadn’t wanted to think about Alec and the night I lost him. However, just over a year ago, Brent’s investigation of the murder of a Deputy Donut customer had forced me to spend time with Brent. Finally, I’d understood that both of us missed Alec terribly. Alec and I had often gotten together with Brent and whatever woman he was dating at the time. Brent was a good man, and he and I had lots in common, including the shared pain that we almost never mentioned to each other. We were friends again, but the friendship was tenuous, and the time we spent together was always casual, like a pizza and beer at my place before he headed off to an evening shift. Sometimes I wondered if Brent was visiting me or the cat he’d gotten to know when Alec was alive.

I said goodbye to Dep. Undoubtedly having figured out that I was about to abandon her, she ignored me.

I drove Tom’s and my police car to Deputy Donut and went into the kitchen. In his black jeans, white shirt, sturdy white cotton apron embroidered with our Deputy Donut logo, and his donut-trimmed police hat slightly askew on his short salt-and-pepper hair, Tom was kneading the last batch of yeast dough. He patted it into a ball and put it into our proofing cabinet, where it would rise in controlled warmth and humidity.

Leaving his apron and hat behind, we locked up and climbed into his shiny black SUV, a powerful monster similar to vehicles he’d driven as police chief. I knew from experience that he still drove like he was on the way to a life-or-death emergency. I fastened my seat belt, gripped the armrests, and held my breath.

A few miles north of Fallingbrook, he had to slow down to negotiate the hills and curves on a two-lane road hemmed in by tall trees. On our left, the sun was low and already hidden from ground level by a forest of pines, but on our right, the crowns of maples glowed red and gold in orange light reflecting from clouds.

Jenn and Roger’s ceremony in a cute Gothic chapel in downtown Fallingbrook should have ended. Had Jenn gotten over her jitters? And her puffy eyes?

Wind sent yellow leaves skipping across the road in front of us. Even though I was wearing one of the bulkier sweaters that Jenn had designed, a scrumptious turquoise, blue, and purple one, I shivered.

We crossed a bridge over a foam-flecked stream so dark it looked almost black. Tom sped up the next rise. Near the top, a carved wooden sign said L

ITTLE

L

AKE

L

ODGE

. The lodge’s logo, a row of three pines—big, bigger, biggest—was carved in relief below the name and painted dark green. Tom slammed on the brakes, wheeled left, and zoomed up Little Lake Lodge’s steep driveway.

We crested the hill. A cleared area sloped down to the lodge, a sandy beach, and Little Lake, bisected by a blinding pathway leading, it seemed, directly to the setting sun.

Little Lake wasn’t actually little, unless you compared it to other lakes in the Fallingbrook chain. Shading my eyes, I could barely make out the far shore.

The lodge was definitely not little. It was about a hundred years old and built of logs. Its steeply pitched roof and wide eaves sheltered three stories of white-mullioned, red-sashed windows. The lobby entrance, capped by a peaked roof supported by substantial peeled tree trunks, faced the flat main parking lot and beyond that, lawns and gardens sweeping up the hill toward the road we’d left.

Following instructions Jenn had given us, Tom stopped at the south end of the lodge and backed into a parking spot near a rustic pine door labeled D

ELIVERIES

O

NLY

. We carefully removed our blanket-wrapped donut wall from the SUV. Tom carried it while I brought his cordless drill and a box of screws.

The floor of the corridor inside was concrete painted deep red, while the walls were peeled and varnished logs. On the left, a closed solid pine door was marked R

UFFED

G

ROUSE

. Applause sounded behind that door. Even though Tom was carrying the donut wall, he executed a comical bow toward the door, and I had to stifle a giggle. If anyone was behind the next door on the left, titled C

ALL OF THE

L

OON

, they were silent. Farther, on the right, we found the door to the banquet hall. The name on that door was, as Jenn had told us, W

ILD

G

OOSE

.

I opened the door, and we were in another sort of corridor, a dimly lit and narrow one between the log wall and sheeny white drapes hanging from the ceiling. To our right, cartons were stacked behind what had to be the reception’s temporary bar.

Closer, but still on our right, masking tape outlined the back two-thirds of a square on the carpet’s red, purple, and beige swirls. The drapes were semitranslucent, and we could sort of see into the more brightly lit banquet room. We lifted the hem of one of the curtains and found the rest of the taped square. We were supposed to center the table supporting our donut wall over that square.

I put the drill and screws down and helped Tom lean the donut wall against the logs. Next to the left side of the taped square, the edges of two curtains met. We widened the gap and peeked into the banquet hall.

Maybe Jenn hadn’t been sure she wanted to marry Roger, but she had definitely created a dreamy setting for their reception. Lights were brighter than where we were standing, mostly behind the curtains, but they were still romantically low, and the entire room was draped, floor to ceiling, in those white curtains. The curtains themselves were decorated with swags of periwinkle tulle tied with gold bows trailing long ribbons. Rows of round tables were covered in white tablecloths overlaid by squares of sheer, glittery periwinkle fabric and set with white napkins and china. Crystal and cutlery sparkled, while simple white vases held purple and white flowers. On a dais to our far right, the long, rectangular head table faced the length of the room. Larger vases on the head table were empty, probably waiting for Jenn’s and her attendants’ bouquets. Although tables and chairs covered most of the flashy carpeting, the floor in front of the head table was a much calmer-looking parquet.

On the other side of the room from us, gold-backed chairs like the ones around the tables were in a semicircle behind music stands and microphones.

Beside the space obviously reserved for a band, a break in the white drapes revealed glossy pine double doors. A squarish red glow lit the white drapes above the doors.

Well, my father-in-law grumbled, "I guess people will be able to see the exit sign after one of those candles on the tables tips over and the room fills with smoke. We turned around. The exit sign above the door we’d used wasn’t clearly visible, either. We went out that way, into the service corridor. There are lots of places to hide in that banquet hall," Tom commented.

I laughed. Who’s going to hide at a wedding reception?

The bride, if she’s smart. Or anyone who needs a nap.

You’re such a romantic.

He held a hand over his heart. A hopeless romantic. With the accent on ‘hopeless.’

I laughed again. And then I sobered and asked him, Do you know something about Roger? Maybe when Tom was police chief, he had arrested or charged Roger. . . .

Who’s Roger?

The groom. Roger Banchen.

"Nope. But I’ve seen grooms who’ve made me want to hide."

Outside, Tom opened the back of his SUV. Carefully, we removed the table that would support