Survival of the Fritters Read online

  About ten minutes after we left Fallingbrook’s center, Lois pulled onto a road just inside the town limits. Homes in this subdivision were newer than those close to downtown, but old enough to radiate character. They were set back from the street on large lots surrounded by shrubs and flower gardens, with woods behind them. Tall trees had already dropped a few red and gold leaves on green lawns. Mailboxes near the road and a lack of sidewalks gave the neighborhood a rural atmosphere. It was homey, quiet, and a little isolated.

  Lois slowed near a one-story baby blue house with white shutters. On a white sign on the lawn, navy blue lettering spelled out DOLL HOSPITAL. “There’s Georgia’s house.” Lois craned her neck to see around a crimson bush beside a lamppost. “Oh no! Georgia hasn’t gone anywhere. Her car’s in her driveway.” A compact silver sedan was parked in front of the closed garage door.

  I suggested, “Maybe she took a taxi to the bus station.”

  One of my seatmates said, “Maybe someone picked her up. A friend or relative?”

  Lois parked behind the silver car, and we all piled out.

  No wonder Georgia often bought boxes of donuts to take home. Her front porch was a welcoming outdoor room where friends and neighbors could relax, chat, and enjoy snacks. Underneath its sheltering roof, the deep porch ran the entire width of Georgia’s house. Yellow and bronze mums bloomed in white window boxes on the railing. Although the cushioned porch swing and rocking chairs were inviting, we all stood in a bunch at the door.

  Lois pushed a button. Stately chimes rang inside the house. Shuffling our feet and fidgeting, we waited. Lois tried the doorbell three more times. Finally, she retrieved Georgia’s key from the pocket of her white jeans. “Do you all agree we should go in?”

  One of the women asked me, “You used to be a 911 operator, right, Emily?”

  “For a couple of years, yes.”

  “Should we call 911?”

  “Probably not.” Unless we discover a reason to . . .

  The key turned, and Lois pushed the door open. “Georgia? Yoo-hoo! Georgia!” Her voice was surprisingly forceful for such a tiny woman.

  No answer.

  The Knitpickers hesitated, as if they were as nervous as I was, and then, her head up, Lois tiptoed inside. The rest of us followed her into Georgia’s comfy living room. Dolls in various states of repair were on the coffee and end tables. Mended dolls wearing intricate outfits were lined up on the mantel above the fireplace, which smelled faintly smoky, as if Georgia had already been enjoying the wood fires that could make late summer evenings in northern Wisconsin especially cozy. Cardboard cartons were stacked beside the front door. The top one was addressed, obviously ready to be taken to the post office. The return sticker said DOLL HOSPITAL.

  Lois tried again. “Georgia? Are you here?”

  Still no answer.

  “Let’s check the bedrooms.” Lois didn’t sound keen on her own suggestion. “There are two.”

  A woman squeaked, “We have to stay together!”

  All seven of us crowded into a former bedroom that now housed a sewing machine, shelves of folded fabrics, jars of buttons, reels of lace and ribbons, and books about dolls, doll repair, costumes, and antique toys.

  The closet contained transparent plastic bins. One held batting. Another was full of tiny wigs—blond, red, and brunette, some curly, some straight, some with ponytails, others sporting braids. Boxes were labeled ARMS, LEGS, HEADS, and EYES.

  Georgia was not in her workroom.

  In Georgia’s charming vintage pink-and-black-tiled bathroom, a spare roll of toilet paper must have fallen from somewhere and rolled along the floor, trailing paper as it went. I picked it up and set it on the tank. Every single one of us peeked behind the shiny pink shower curtain. No Georgia.

  I probably wasn’t the only one who could barely breathe when Lois opened the door to the second bedroom. The comforter on the neatly made bed matched frilly curtains in the same shade of lavender as the roses on the wallpaper. In the closet, blouses, slacks, jackets, and dresses hung from a rod, shoes were arranged on a rack on the floor, and plastic-fronted boxes on the top shelf held folded sweaters. I’d seen Georgia wearing many of those garments.

  We returned to the living room and went through it to Georgia’s dining room, which was charming with its half-timbered ceiling, varnished wood wainscoting, and yet another fireplace. Yellow mums had been arranged in an orange, mid-century modern vase on a quilted table runner, a patchwork of fall colors on Georgia’s shiny dark-stained mahogany table. Two yellow petals lay on a maroon section of the runner.

  Heart thumping, I led the others into the kitchen.

  Georgia was obviously fond of color. Her kitchen cabinets were glossy red.

  However, nothing else looked quite right in that bright kitchen.

  One of the four chairs around her table was lying on its side on the black and white checkered floor. On a plate in front of where the chair had been, a fork had speared the remains of a strip of bacon, but its handle was in the congealed yolk of a sunny-side-up fried egg. Beside the plate, a glass tumbler contained an inch of orange juice. A turquoise cloth napkin lay on the floor near the fallen chair.

  A donut was in the middle of the floor.

  Another donut was even farther from the table.

  I recognized those cake donuts dusted with confectioners’ sugar and nutmeg. Georgia had bought a half dozen of them on Friday at noon before she and the other Knitpickers left Deputy Donut for the weekend. Feeling responsible because the donuts were cluttering Georgia’s floor, I picked them up.

  Standing again, I noticed an alcove just off the kitchen, opposite from the back door.

  And that’s where I found Georgia.

  Chapter 3

  Wearing blue jeans and a red sweater that I’d seen her knitting in Deputy Donut, Georgia was lying on her back on the floor of the alcove. She was blocking a white-painted door that probably led to the basement stairs.

  One of Deputy Donut’s distinctive bakery boxes, decorated with the black silhouette of a cat wearing a tilted police cap, was overturned, covering Georgia’s face. I yanked the box off and left it, right side up, on the floor. A plastic teen doll was stuffed headfirst into Georgia’s mouth. The doll was wearing nothing besides two donuts shoved up almost to her hips like a skirt.

  The donuts I’d picked up fell out of my hand. My scream came out only as a gurgle of despair. Behind me, someone moaned, someone cried out, someone gasped, and someone sobbed. Or maybe all of us were making all of those noises. The others were probably trembling as much as I was.

  I suspected that my friend, that sweet mender of dolls and of people, was beyond hope or help, but just in case there was a faint chance of reviving her, I knelt, grabbed the doll’s feet, and yanked the doll, donut skirt and all, out of Georgia’s mouth. Hoping for a pulse, I felt her wrist. She was as cold as the floor.

  The back door creaked. I jumped. A breeze blew it open.

  It wasn’t latched, and the jamb was splintered near the lock.

  Had someone run out the back door when we came in the front? Intent on finding that person, but not consciously planning what to do if I did find him or her, I jumped up, opened the door the rest of the way, and dashed onto the back porch. Behind me, tremulous voices discussed the possible merits of CPR.

  I peeked behind upholstered wicker chairs. No one was on the porch, which was probably just as well, since the only weapon I was carrying besides the bunch of keys in the front pocket of my jeans was that doll and her stale donut skirt. Although the doll didn’t seem like much of a weapon, it had apparently served as one. Its narrow plastic ankles, clamped between my middle and index fingers, felt insubstantial. But not quite inanimate.

  I didn’t see anyone. The backyard was unfenced, a neat lawn with a few big trees and flowers in the borders. Someone could have been hiding behind a tree trunk, or they could have disappeared into the thick woods behind the yard.

  Shoulders drooping, I
returned to the kitchen. The six women were standing over Georgia and crying.

  “She’s dead,” one said.

  “Murdered, most likely,” another added between sobs.

  I noticed a faint line of powdered sugar mixed with ground nutmeg on Georgia’s table. The sugar and nutmeg must have spilled out of the box of donuts, which had probably been on Georgia’s table when her killer broke in. I said, “Don’t touch anything.” My voice sounded like it was several miles away.

  Lois wiped her eyes. “Emily, you already moved the donut box, and that . . .” She shuddered. “That doll.”

  Closing my eyes, I swayed. I’d had what I thought was a reasonable impulse to help Georgia when I lifted the bakery box off her face and removed that doll from her mouth. I’d tossed the box onto the floor, but what was I to do with the doll? There was no way I was putting it back where I’d found it. Gently, I set it beside Georgia’s ear. “How about if we split up?”

  One of the women shouted, “No!”

  I revised my suggestion. “Not completely. How about if four of us go out the back and break into teams of two, and each pair checks a side of the house for footprints or anything that seems out of place?” Like a murderer crouched in the foundation plantings . . . “And the other three go back the way we came, through the house and out the front without touching anything, but keeping our eyes open for possible evidence, and then we all meet at Lois’s van?”

  They agreed. Lois and I took one side of the house. We saw no footprints in the dirt surrounding shrubs next to the house, and no litter in the window wells besides a candy wrapper that could have been there for weeks.

  We joined the others at the van. No one had noticed anything resembling a clue about whoever had attacked Georgia.

  Surrounded by crying older women, I controlled my shaking fingers and called the police. In what was left of the August evening’s sunshine, we wiped away tears, hugged one another, and spoke words that were meant to console but felt hollow. Tree shadows stretched across the driveway.

  A Fallingbrook police cruiser raced down Georgia’s road and parked. Misty, one of my best friends, got out and strode toward us. Descended from Scandinavian settlers, Misty was tall and fit, with enviably perfect features, a flawless complexion, and blond hair pinned in a ponytail below the back of her police hat. Her dark blue uniform was unwrinkled. Calm and professional, she focused on me. “You phoned in about a deceased person, Emily?”

  “Georgia Treetor, a regular customer at Deputy Donut.” I pointed. “That’s her house. She’s in the kitchen. I don’t think anyone else is inside, but we didn’t check the basement. She’s blocking the door.” I spread my arms as if about to initiate a group hug. “These are her friends, other regulars.”

  Misty was not as inscrutable as she probably wanted to believe. A twitch of empathy crossed her face. “Yes, I’ve seen most of you there.” Her gaze lingered for an extra second on Lois, and then her neutral police officer mask returned.

  “It appears that someone broke in through the back door.” Tension stretched my words taut and thin, like wires scratching at my throat.

  Misty peered toward the house. “Was the front door open like that when you arrived?”

  “I opened it.” Lois’s voice cracked on a sob. “It was locked.”

  One of Misty’s eyebrows rose slightly.

  Lois stood as tall as a four-foot-ten person could. “I’ve had Georgia’s key for years. But after we found her, we were . . .” Lois threw me an apologetic glance. “Careful not to touch things, so I guess that’s why no one closed it.”

  Misty turned her piercing police gaze on me. I confessed, “I’m afraid I took a bakery box off her face.” I let out a pent-up breath, and immediately had to inhale again. “And I pulled a doll wearing donuts out of her mouth.”

  Misty lost that inscrutable look again. “A doll wearing donuts?”

  I explained, “One of those teen dolls, plastic, with long skinny legs.”

  Lois added, “It looked like the kind of doll that some of us crochet dresses for, ball gowns with big skirts. You insert the doll’s feet into the center of a roll of toilet paper, and the skirt covers the roll. It pretties up a bathroom.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  Misty asked, “Uh-oh what, Emily?”

  “There was a roll of toilet paper on the bathroom floor. I picked it up and put it on the tank.”

  Misty seemed to be looking into a distant past. “My grandmother was very proud of a doll like that. Did Georgia have one?”

  Lois moved her hands as if she were crocheting. “I made it for her. The dress was pink, and the ruffles had black edging. But until this evening, I hadn’t been in her house for over five years, so I don’t know if she still has . . . had it.”

  None of us remembered seeing the doll’s ball gown anywhere in Georgia’s house.

  Misty pinioned me with an icy stare. “I thought that you, Emily, of all civilians, would know better than to touch anything at a potential crime scene.”

  “I wasn’t thinking, and I didn’t realize at first, especially in the bathroom, that it could be a crime scene.”

  “The lab will find your fingerprints on the doll. Your prints on the donut box won’t surprise anyone, but on the doll?” She glowered at me. “All of you, stay here. I’ll have a look. More officers are on the way.” She strode to the house and disappeared inside.

  Behind us, a hesitant voice asked, “What’s going on?”

  I turned toward the street. A skinny thirty-ish blonde in black yoga pants, a pale pink knit top, and black ballet slippers walked hesitantly toward us. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, echoing the way one side of her blouse crossed over the other, and her shoulders were hunched as if she were cold. “Why are you all crying? Did . . . did something happen to Mrs. Treetor?”

  I didn’t know what to say, and apparently all six Knitpickers had a similar problem.

  The woman pointed at a white house across the street from Georgia’s. “I’m a neighbor.” The only makeup she wore was thickly applied eyeliner, giving her a raccoon-like appearance, and her hair was thin and limp. She looked exhausted.

  I found my voice. “I’m sorry, but something did happen to her.”

  She shivered. “I was afraid of that. Will she be all right?”

  I shook my head. Lois and her friends sobbed.

  The woman tilted her head and studied me. “Hey, aren’t you the donut lady?”

  My attempt at a smile felt skewed. “I’m one of the owners of Deputy Donut in downtown Fallingbrook.” I didn’t remember ever seeing the woman in the shop.

  “Don’t you bring cakes made of donuts to kids’ birthday parties? My girlfriend’s kid had a spaceship made of donuts.”

  “I used to, before we opened the shop. People wanted to buy my donuts and coffee every day.” Especially my late husband’s police colleagues. I asked the woman, “What did you mean when you said you were afraid that something had happened to Georgia?”

  “I saw you all going into her house, and then you were out here crying, and then a police car came, and I kind of pieced it all together.”

  I gestured toward Georgia’s front door. “When the policewoman comes outside again, can you talk to her?”

  The blonde picked at a hangnail. “I don’t want to get involved.”

  Lois said, “The police will question all of the neighbors.” She stared at the house where the woman had said she lived. The front door was open. Lois’s sudden fierceness implied, We know where you live.

  The skinny blonde stayed put, probably because Misty came out of Georgia’s house. Misty was scowling. I knew she loved her job, but dealing with cases like this had to bother her, though she might never admit it. She joined us.

  I told her, “Here’s Georgia’s neighbor from across the street. She saw us and was afraid that something had happened to Georgia.”

  I could tell by the quick upward slant of one of Misty’s eyebrows that she underst
ood my hint that the neighbor might know more that she was willing to tell.

  The neighbor must have caught my hint, too. “I only guessed,” she said.

  Hmmmm, I thought. I wonder.

  Misty took the woman out of our earshot, listened to her, and wrote in a notebook. When they finished, the blonde bowed her head, hugged herself, and crossed to her side of the street. Only the outer edges of her ballet slippers appeared to touch the pavement. She went into her house and shut that gaping door.

  And then Misty’s reinforcements arrived. Three police cruisers braked quickly in front of Georgia’s house. A fourth cruiser, unmarked but recognizable as a police car, blocked the driveway, neatly keeping us from leaving in Lois’s van.

  Detective Brent Fyne got out of the unmarked car.

  Great. He was the only member of the Fallingbrook police department who never came into Deputy Donut.

  I really did not want to see him.

  Chapter 4

  It wasn’t that Detective Brent Fyne was hard to look at. He was nearly six feet tall, and although his tweed blazer probably hid a shoulder holster, it didn’t conceal his lithe muscularity. He had light brown hair and a square and determined jaw. And gray eyes that were boring into me.

  But all he said was, “Em,” with no inflection. No surprise, no hint of past friendship and shared grief, no coldness. And no warmth. He walked past us, conferred with Misty for a few seconds, and then turned to the three uniformed officers obviously waiting for his instructions. “You three, get these ladies’ statements, and then they can go.” He asked Misty, “Show me?” She preceded him inside. They left Georgia’s front door open.

  The three officers, two men and a woman, all of them frequent Deputy Donut customers, separated us and took our statements and contact information. When they were done, one of the officers moved Brent’s unmarked car away from the end of the driveway, and Lois could move her van.