Goodbye Cruller World Read online

One of the groomsmen ran past, with another one close behind. Both boys had removed their jackets. Their shirts were untucked.

  Chad reached out and tapped the second boy on the elbow. “Whoa. Let’s slow down before we cause an accident.”

  The boy stopped and looked down at his feet, and the other boy came back to stand beside him. The boy who had been winning the race asked Chad, “Can you get us some beer from the bar? We forgot our ID.”

  Chad shook his head. “Afraid not. The bartender will serve you soft drinks, won’t he?” Chad was not a bad sort, even if he was a flirt.

  The boys tried me. “Can you?”

  “No,” I said firmly. “Have a donut.”

  They each grabbed one. One of the boys pointed at the double doors. “Hey, guys, Dad’s already here to drive us home. It must be midnight. Let’s go.” He turned back to me. “Can I have a donut for my dad, too? And my mom?”

  “Sure. Help yourself.”

  He took two more, and both boys hurried away, not quite running.

  I asked Chad, “Why are the groomsmen and the two bridesmaids so young? Are they Jenn and Roger’s relatives?”

  “Jenn and Roger hired them. The Fallingbrook High soccer teams are raising money for new uniforms and equipment.”

  I managed not to gape. “Jenn’s half-sister is her maid of honor. Is one of those boys Roger’s best man?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why didn’t he ask a friend? You, for instance.”

  Chad threw back his head and laughed. “That would be the day.”

  Chad probably didn’t realize that Roger had crept up behind him. Jostling Chad out of his way, Roger shook an index finger toward my nose. “You’re supposed to be working for me, not flirting with my guests.” He glared at Chad. “My party crashers, I should say. What are you doing here? Get out.” He tilted slightly, grasped the edge of the table, and regained his balance.

  Chad folded his arms and looked down at Roger. “Jenn invited me. If she wants me to leave, she’ll tell me.”

  Roger swore, grabbed a cruller off one of the dowels beneath Jenn’s name, crushed it in his fist, and stuffed the entire smashed cruller into his mouth, pushing the last bits in with his fingers while he chewed. Weaving back and forth, he stumbled toward Jenn. Roger-the-Rager was rapidly becoming Roger-the-Tipsy.

  “Dance?” Chad asked me.

  I checked my phone. It was one minute after midnight. “Sure. Just a second.” I dodged between the curtains, took off my hat, and set it down with its fuzzy donut facing the back wall. Two unopened bakery boxes were on the table behind the donut wall. If anyone wanted more deep-fried goodies, they might find them there.

  I attempted to fluff my flattened curls with my fingers. My phone and wallet were in my apron pockets and wouldn’t fit in my jeans pockets, so I left my apron on and pushed my way through the curtains.

  The two bridesmaids and the three boys, wearing their tuxedo jackets rather haphazardly, followed the chauffeuring father out between the open double doors leading to the lobby. One of the boys held his forefingers, each of them inserted into a donut, straight up. I expected him to start the donuts spinning.

  With a theatrical bow, Chad offered me his arm. His aftershave was spicy, like cinnamon, and I thought I detected the fragrance of the roses in Jenn’s bouquet. He must have danced with her. I couldn’t help pulling at his arm until he leaned down toward me and I could say, close to his ear, “Jenn had doubts about this.”

  One of the slanted eyebrows went up. “About what?”

  “Marrying him.”

  He patted my hand. “She knows what she’s doing.”

  “She should have married you!”

  He swung me onto the dance floor. “But then, I might not have met you.” The music was slow and romantic.

  I grinned up at him in a way that I hoped showed I wasn’t taking him seriously.

  He smiled, but a bleak shadow passed through his eyes, so quickly that I wasn’t certain I’d seen it.

  I told him, “You could win her back.”

  He pulled me closer. “Maybe I don’t want to. She and I are friends. Good friends. Are you always such a matchmaker?”

  “I . . .” Was I? “I guess so.”

  “Always looking out for others, and not yourself?”

  “Always looking out for myself.”

  “Are you dating anyone?”

  This guy moved quickly, and I wasn’t talking about dancing. “No, and I’m not trying to.” Planning one of Brent’s and my pizza and beer dinners the next night didn’t count. I asked Chad, “Do you know who Alec Westhill was?”

  Lips thinning as if he guessed what was coming next, he nodded.

  “He was my husband.”

  Chad didn’t say anything for a few beats. With a sigh, he tightened his arm around me. “I’m sorry, Emily. That was a senseless tragedy, and Detective Westhill was a great loss to the entire community. I know, kind of, how you feel. Before I dated Jenn, my girlfriend died in a collision with a drunk driver.”

  “I’m sorry. Did Jenn feel like she never quite measured up?” Ordinarily, I wouldn’t ask a stranger a personal question, but maybe I was vulnerable after working alone all evening, being at the reception but not actually part of it, or maybe his flirting and his own sad history were encouraging me to take chances.

  He looked down at me, and I saw compassion in those brown eyes. “Could anyone ever live up to Alec Westhill?”

  “I really don’t know. But I don’t think we can compare people that way. We have different reasons for how we feel about different people. Jenn isn’t the girlfriend who died, but—”

  “She’s Jenn, and loveable in her own way.”

  Suddenly uneasy, as if I’d confided all of my secrets to a stranger, I clammed up.

  Both Chad and I were probably relieved when Scott tapped Chad’s shoulder. “Sorry,” Scott said, “but this lady is promised to me for the next four dozen dances.”

  Letting me go, Chad promised to see me sometime at Deputy Donut. “Lady in Red” ended.

  Standing face-to-face with Scott, I smiled up at him. “Four dozen dances?”

  “Or more. You said you owed me a dozen donuts. Each donut must be worth at least four dances.”

  “What? It’s after midnight. There won’t be forty-eight more dances.”

  But the music started again, fast, this time. Chad and I had been mismatched in height, and Scott was even taller. But he was a good dancer, and he kept me laughing so much that my cheeks hurt.

  When that dance was ending, Chad went out through the double doorway leading to the lobby. Had Roger-the-Rager forced Jenn to send Chad away?

  Another fast dance started. Suzanne helped Jenn and her froth of white frills leave the banquet hall.

  I caught a glimpse of Roger plucking a cruller from the donut wall. Not wanting him to catch me watching him and maybe tell me, when Jenn wasn’t in the room, that I was supposed to be working, I looked away and threw myself into frenzied dancing. Six fast dances later, I started wondering if I would last through even one dozen dances.

  The band let us catch our breath with—of all things—“Harbor Lights.” I told Scott about playing a 1950 soundtrack on the way to the lodge, and getting “The Tennessee Waltz” stuck in my head. He laughed down at me and pulled me closer. He knew my story, and that I wasn’t ready to start dating. He didn’t officially know about my plans for him and Misty, but I’d probably been obvious at times, and he could have figured them out.

  Suddenly he stopped dancing. Concern on his face, he stared at something behind me. He said, “Sorry,” and then dashed toward the donut wall.

  I turned around. The small vase on the donut wall’s frame had fallen on its side, spilling water and flowers on the donuts below it.

  That little accident couldn’t have caused Scott’s abrupt departure.

  People standing near the donut wall were looking down toward the floor and covering their mouths with their hands. Above the
pounding music, someone yelled, “Help!”

  I ran to the donut wall.

  A man was curled on the red, purple, and beige carpeting. His head and shoulders were underneath the table and hidden by the periwinkle tablecloth, but I recognized the black tux, and earlier in the evening, before the reception started, I’d heard the hard leather soles of those shiny black shoes smack the dance floor when he walked.

  Chapter 5

  Roger wasn’t walking now.

  Scott was beside the donut wall, in front of the spot where the edges of two curtains met. Crouching, Scott lifted the lower edge of the tablecloth. One of Roger’s shoulders was on the taped line on the carpet.

  Scott pushed the tablecloth behind Roger’s head. Roger’s eyes were closed and his thick eyebrows were dark against his too-pale forehead. Scott positioned his fingers on Roger’s wrist.

  I eased around the crowd to stand next to the curtains, right behind Scott. Around us, wedding guests murmured about people who drank too much, especially at their own receptions. Scott pulled his phone from a pocket and dialed 911. Although I hadn’t smelled garlic around Scott or Roger before, I was catching whiffs of it now. Scott said into his phone, “Send an ambulance to Little Lake Lodge. A man in the banquet room is unconscious and breathing more slowly than he should be.... Yes, I’ll stay on the phone.” Using his shoulder to hold the phone against his ear, Scott quickly undid Roger’s bowtie, removed the studs from the top of his shirt, and loosened his waistband.

  I placed my hand on Scott’s shoulder. He looked up into my face and gave me a grim nod as if thanking me for being there.

  As far as I could tell, Jenn had not yet returned to the banquet hall. Oblivious to the mini-drama going on near the donut wall, many guests were on the dance floor, still dreamily dancing to “Harbor Lights.”

  It was possible that Roger hadn’t collapsed from drinking. Could someone have knocked him out?

  Remembering Tom’s comment about people hiding in that vast room, I edged between the curtains to the narrow, dim space near the log walls.

  It was bright enough for me to be certain that no one was near our donut wall. Our stainless-steel cart was still underneath the table, too far from the tablecloth bulging behind Roger’s head for Roger to have hit his head on the cart as he fell, although he could have crashed into the table.

  When I’d put my hat down on the table before dancing with Chad, the two boxes of donuts near it had been closed. Since then, one of them had been opened. The flaps were no longer inserted in the front and sides of the box.

  Also, my hat had moved. I was sure I’d set it down with the donut facing the back wall. Now the donut was facing the bar.

  A gust of air came from the corridor. Surprised, I glanced toward the room’s back door.

  It was standing open.

  It had been closed when I went off to dance with Chad. Had someone clobbered Roger and then fled?

  That corridor and the rooms off it had to be checked, and not by allowing hordes of wedding guests to race around covering the tracks of anyone who might have rushed out of the banquet hall. Because lights were brighter in the banquet hall, I could just barely make out the people nearest the draperies. Scott was still sitting on the floor. No one out there would be able to see me in the gloomy space near the room’s back door.

  Careful not to touch that door, I slipped into the corridor.

  The security guard’s chair was beside the delivery entrance, but the man, his newspaper, and his briefcase were gone.

  I tiptoed down the hallway in the other direction, toward the lobby.

  A round window near the top of the last door on the left was partially steamed up. Another time, I’d have liked a tour of the kitchen, but I ran past, opened the door at the lobby end of the hallway, and peeked out. In the well-lit and noisy lobby, people I’d seen enjoying donuts and crullers were heading to and from restrooms and greeting one another with the slightly brittle cheer that went with the wrapping up of a wedding reception, when everyone’s tired, folks are saying goodbye to nearly forgotten cousins, and a few people are beginning to regret some of the ways they partied.

  Feeling conspicuous in my logo-trimmed white apron, I backed into the service corridor, let the door close behind me, and trotted down the hall, past the kitchen and the back door of the banquet hall.

  The door labeled CALL OF THE LOON was unlocked. The room was dark and quiet, with rows of tables lined up and chairs pushed neatly underneath them. Below a red exit sign on the room’s opposite wall, double doors leading to the public hallway to the lobby were closed. I heard nothing besides clanks from the kitchen and the music, fast and loud, from Roger and Jenn’s reception.

  Much earlier, applause had come from the room labeled RUFFED GROUSE. That door was also unlocked. Inside, tables and chairs were knocked every which way and a wastebasket near the door was overflowing with packaging materials, as if someone had been rehearsing for Christmas two and a half months early. The room smelled strongly of the fragrance that the two Happy Hopers had been wearing. Beyond a podium on a low stage, a banner read: Happy Hopers Conference—Goal Achievement Through Shopping!

  Again, I pictured my eight-year-old self in Williamsburg, and the name of that particular fragrance came back to me. At least one of those women with a tote bag from this conference must have been wearing a perfume resembling the potpourri I’d smelled in that store in Williamsburg.

  What had become of the two women during the more than two hours since I’d encountered them? The room’s front door, the one leading to the public hallway, was closed.

  I shut the room’s back door and tiptoed as quickly as I could down the hallway to the delivery entrance. The security guard had not returned.

  Cautiously, I opened the delivery door, gripped its edge tightly, and leaned out. No one was on the concrete walkway or the gravel lane leading to the staff parking lot on the hill. No headlights moved between trees surrounding that secluded lot, and I heard no engines up there. To my right, Little Lake was calm and nearly silent. To my left, the main driveway was empty of vehicles. A whiff of exhaust fumes hung in the air.

  If an ambulance was racing toward us with sirens blaring, the sound was blocked by hills between here and Fallingbrook.

  I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath until I exhaled, creating a small cloud of fog. Shivering, not only because of the nearly freezing temperature, I let the door close and ran up the corridor toward the banquet hall. Again not touching the door marked WILD GOOSE, I eased into the space between the curtains and the banquet hall’s log wall.

  I stared at my Deputy Donut hat. Why had it moved?

  Biting my lip, I grasped the fuzzy donut between my thumb and forefinger and slowly raised the brim of the hat off the periwinkle-painted table.

  Someone had left an ironstone saucer underneath my hat. The saucer was off-white with the Little Lake Lodge logo—three dark green pines, small, smaller, smallest—printed on the edge.

  White powder resembling confectioners’ sugar covered the middle of the saucer. A donut-sized circle dented the layer of sugar, and there were ridges in the dent.

  It was exactly how confectioners’ sugar would look after someone dipped a cruller in it.

  I would have coated a cruller that way if I didn’t have a sieve.

  That night, I had not decorated any crullers with plain confectioners’ sugar.

  And, except for the sugar already coating Roger’s favorite raised donuts, I had not brought confectioners’ sugar to Little Lake Lodge.

  Chapter 6

  There was absolutely no reason for anyone to have left confectioners’ sugar on that table, and even less of a reason to hide a saucer of it underneath my hat.

  Afraid that the white powder wasn’t sugar, I wanted to scream and let go of my hat, but screaming wouldn’t have accomplished a thing, and dropping my hat might have disturbed the powder and sent a possibly dangerous substance into the air we were all breathing.
/>   Careful not to inhale, I lowered the hat to cover the saucer. Cautiously, I lifted the lid of the bakery box that had obviously been opened. We had packed a dozen donuts or crullers in each box. This box now held seven crullers.

  I peeked out between the curtains. People were still standing around Roger and Scott, staring down at them and offering Scott suggestions. If Roger had moved, he had only tightened his fetal position. Scott was now sitting on the carpet, his long legs crossed and one hand clasping Roger’s wrist.

  No one was eating a donut or a cruller. I’d seen Roger taking a cruller after I left my post at the donut wall....

  Brent had said he’d be on duty. I positioned myself between the curtains so I could watch both the front of the table supporting the donut wall and the back of the table where my cap was concealing the saucer of white powder.

  I’d known the number of the police station ever since I started dating Alec, years ago. But Brent’s personal number was on my speed dial, and by calling him directly I would avoid having to wait for a police department operator to connect us.

  Brent answered right away. “Em? It’s late. Is everything okay?”

  I took a deep and wavering breath. “No. I’m still at the wedding reception. It’s at Little Lake Lodge. The groom, Roger Banchen, collapsed. Scott Ritsorf called an ambulance, but I think this might be a police matter also.” In a voice barely above a whisper, I told Brent about the white powder.

  “Did you touch the white powder?” Brent’s voice was unusually sharp.

  “No.”

  “Taste it?”

  “No.”

  “Sniff or inhale any of it?”

  “No.”

  “Eat donuts or crullers?”

  “No.”

  “Did any of the white powder transfer to your skin or clothing?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He let out a long breath. “When did Banchen collapse?”

  “About ten minutes ago, around twelve thirty.”

  “Is anyone else showing signs of illness?”

  “Not that I can tell, but some guests have left the reception and might get sick on their way home. I’m staying near the powder to make certain that no one goes near it.”