Read Custard Crime: Donut Mystery #14 (The Donut Mysteries) for Free Online

can’t
they?”   She then turned to stare at
Jake for a full ten seconds before she said, “I understand that you’re in
charge of finding Evelyn Martin’s killer.”
    “That’s right,” Jake said.
    “Have you made any progress yet?”
    Jake looked a little surprised by how abrupt she
was.   “I’m not at liberty to discuss
that.”
    Gabby grinned.   “Sure, I get it.   In
cop-speak, that means you’ve got nothing.   Well, this is your lucky day, Inspector.   I’ve got not one, but two hot leads for
you.”
    “I’m always happy to listen to information from
concerned citizens,” Jake said in a calm, level voice.
    I tried to warn him off from encouraging her, but he
must have missed my signal.   I knew
that Gabby might indeed have valuable information for the investigation, but if
she started talking now, our meal would be ruined.   Besides, it wasn’t as though she
wouldn’t share it with us later, especially if it was too good for her to keep
to herself for very long.
    “Okay, then maybe you should get out your pencil and
paper and take notes,” Gabby said.   “First off, you need to look at Robby Chastain, and I mean hard.”
    “Robby?   Are you sure?” I asked her.   I couldn’t imagine anyone naming Robby a murder suspect.   I’d known the man nearly my entire life,
and I couldn’t see him killing anyone.
    Gabby iced me with a quick glance.   “Suzanne, if you’d take your head out of
your donuts for a minute or two, you’d know that Robby and Evelyn were in the
middle of a battle over an oak tree on their property line.   Robby’s been wanting to cut that thing
down for years, but Evelyn told him if he tried it, she’d burn his house to the
ground in retaliation.”
    “That sounds like a bit of an overreaction on her
part,” Jake said.
    “You didn’t know Evelyn.   She always was fire and ice.”
    “What do you mean by that?” he asked her.
    “Either you were her best friend in the world, or you
were her greatest enemy.   There was
no in-between with that woman.”
    “May I ask, how did she feel about you?” Jake asked
her.
    “We were best buds,” Gabby said.   “Why else do you think I’m trying to
help you find her killer?”
    “He probably just thought that you were a concerned
citizen,” I said with a smile that I knew was pushing my luck, but I didn’t
care.   After all, she was
interrupting my time with Jake with what I suspected were overblown
exaggerations and innuendoes.
    Gabby waved a hand in the air in my direction as if
dismissing me from the conversation.   “We both know better than that.   Anyway, it wouldn’t surprise me if Robby got tired of Evelyn’s insults
and decided to eliminate her altogether.”
    “All of this over a tree?” Jake asked incredulously.
    “Oh, there had been more things than that between
them over the years.   The tree was
just the final tipping point.”
    “Can you be more specific about their past
interactions?” Jake asked her.
    “Inspector, I’m not going to do your entire job for you,” Gabby said
disdainfully.  
    I noticed that Trish had started to walk toward us,
but when she saw Gabby sitting with us, she did a quick U-turn and headed back
to the register.   There weren’t many
folks in town that could back the Boxcar owner down, but Gabby was evidently one
of them.   Great.   Now we were never going to get to eat.
    “You said that you had two leads to share with me,”
Jake reminded her.
    “Don’t get your undies in a knot,” Gabby said.   “I’m getting to that.   The second person you need to look at is
Julie Gray.”
    “I don’t know her,” I said.   “She doesn’t live in April Springs, does
she?”
    “Union Square,” Gabby said.
    “What does she have to do with Evelyn’s murder?” Jake
asked her.
    “You didn’t know?” Gabby asked, feigning
surprise.   “She’s Evelyn’s second cousin.”
    “And how exactly is that relevant to the
investigation?” Jake asked