Jessica Beck - Donut Shop 17 - Old Fashioned Crooks (7 page)

“How have these
men been able to make a living?”

“From what I’ve
been able to gather, it’s mostly been from extortion, gambling, and other shady
activities,” Grace said.

“Boy, Emma sure
knows how to pick them, doesn’t she?”

“Don’t be too
hard on her.
 
At least she has her
youth as an excuse.
 
I’ve dated more
than my share of bad men in the past, and what’s more, I’m old enough to know
better.”

I knew that Grace
had endured a string of bad boyfriends over the years, but I wasn’t about to
find fault with her.
 
She’d always
followed her heart instead of her head, even though it had led her down more
than her share of dead ends in the past.
 
“You’ve found a good guy now though, haven’t you?”

“I have indeed,”
she said.

“Do you mind if I
ask you something?”

Grace just
smiled.
 
“Would it matter if I said
yes?”

“Not too much,
but you can always feel free to ignore the question.”

“Go on, then,”
she said.

I had to word
this just so, but it was something that I’d been wondering about ever since my
best friend had started dating the young cop.
 
“Do you ever get bored with the fact
that Stephen Grant is a good guy with no real drama in his life?”

Grace
laughed.
 
“Are you kidding?
 
He’s a breath of fresh air.
 
I don’t know why people say that nice
guys finish last.
 
I never fully
appreciated how lovely it could be to have someone in my life who actually puts
my needs ahead of his own.
 
I
wouldn’t trade him for a thousand bad boys, and that’s the truth.”

“Good for you,” I
said.

“You should be
proud, Suzanne.
 
After all, I’m just
following your example.”

What a curious
thing to say.
 
“How so?”

“You went from
Max, a born womanizer with very few redeeming qualities, to a state police
inspector.
 
That’s a pretty dramatic
shift you’ve gone through yourself.”

“Max was never
that bad, even at his worst,” I said, defending my ex for some odd reason.

“Come on.
 
He cheated on you, Suzanne, or have you
forgotten about that?”

“You don’t have
to remind me, but he’s changed, Grace.
 
You’ve seen him with Emily.
 
It’s
clear that man adores her, and he’d never do anything to hurt her.”

“Actually, I’ve
been wondering something myself, since we’re having a frank chat.
 
How does that make you feel?” Grace
asked as we got into the Jeep and started the drive toward Union Square.

“I’m happy for
both of them,” I said, keeping my gaze directed to the road ahead of us.

“Are you saying
that you’re not the least little bit jealous?”

“Of them?
 
No, that thought never crossed my mind.”

“That’s because
you’re a better person than I am,” she said.

“What do you
mean?”

“Suzanne, if I
were in your shoes, I wouldn’t be able to keep myself from wondering what Emily
had that I didn’t.”

“I don’t look at it
that way at all, Grace.
 
Just
because Max and I couldn’t make it work doesn’t mean that he and Emily
shouldn’t be able to.
 
They are two
completely different situations.”

“My, aren’t we
all grown up?” Grace asked me with a grin.

“Maybe it helps
that I’m going to marry Jake,” I admitted.

“Whenever that
happens,” she replied.

“Hey, I’m still
getting used to being the man’s fiancée.
 
There’s no rush making me his wife.
 
At the moment, just knowing that he wants to spend the rest of his life
with me is enough.”

“I get it,” she
said as we pulled into the city limits of Union Square.

It was time to
get going.
 
We were on an accelerated
time schedule now, so there was not really a moment to waste in conducting our
investigation.

Chapter 9

“So, who should
we tackle first?” I asked Grace.

“Well, at least
we know where Amanda is supposed to be,” she said.
 
“Her repair shop is just two blocks away
from Napoli’s.
 
Should we pop in on
the DeAngelis crowd while we’re here?”

“Maybe later,” I
said.
 
“Remember, we don’t have a
great deal of time left before we’re under the new chief’s thumb.”

“I’m just saying,
we’re right here,” Grace answered with a smile.
 
“It would be hard to pass up a chance
for some wonderful Italian food.”

We pulled up in
front of the auto repair shop, and I asked, “How should we handle this?”

“We could always
say that your Jeep needs some work,” Grace replied a little too quickly for my
taste as we got out of the vehicle.
 
“That should be easy enough for her to believe.”

“What’s wrong
with my Jeep?”

“Hey, don’t be so
defensive.
 
I’m just saying that it
might be a good way to break the ice with Amanda.
 
I didn’t mean to disparage your mode of
transportation.”

I thought about
it and realized that Grace might have a point.
 
After all, my Jeep had seen better days,
though thinking that way made me feel a little disloyal.
 
“What should we say is wrong with her?”

“I would think that
you’d be able to choose from a variety of ailments,” Grace replied.

“Okay, I get it. I’ll
think of something.”

I never got the
chance to come up with a cover story, though.

Apparently Amanda
already knew all about us, if she was the one striding purposely toward us. “What
are you two doing here?” the woman in her early thirties asked as she reached us.
 
“Did you come by my shop to try to pin
something on me?”

“I’m sorry, but I
don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her, caught off-guard for a
moment by her confrontational style.

“Spare me.
 
You can drop the innocent act.
 
I’ve heard enough about you both to know
that you’re here snooping into something.
 
It’s Rick’s murder, isn’t it?”

“Is there
something wrong with us trying to find out who killed the man?” Grace asked her,
matching Amanda’s tone with equal force.
 
This was turning into a battle before we’d even begun.

“I have an
idea.
 
Why don’t you let the police
do their job?” she asked, clearly disapproving of our efforts to unmask a
killer.

“We are,” I said,
trying my best to adopt a more civil tone of voice, “but that doesn’t mean that
we can’t help out a little.
 
You
knew Rick fairly well, didn’t you?”

“Who told you
that?” she asked me with a frown.

“You have your
sources, and we have ours,” Grace said smugly before I could reply.

Amanda snorted a
little upon hearing that.
 
“Don’t
bother trying to cover it up.
 
It
was that teenybopper of a girlfriend of his, wasn’t it?”

“Emma’s in her
twenties,” I said, unsure why it was so important to rush to her defense about
her age.
 
“She’s hardly a
teenybopper.”

“She doesn’t miss
it by much though, does she?” Amanda asked, scoffing.

“Emma might be
young, but she was still a threat to you and your feelings toward Rick, wasn’t
she?” Grace asked her.

Amanda laughed,
but it had a hollow ring to it.
 
“A
threat?
 
Her?
 
You’re delusional.”

“You were in love
with Rick, weren’t you?” Grace asked.
 
“I can see it in your eyes.”

Amanda frowned,
and I had to wonder if Grace had hit an exposed nerve.
 
“That’s really none of your business.”

“You can talk to
us,” I said sympathetically, trying to get the woman to confide in us.
 
I wasn’t sure if it could work, but it
was worth trying, since we didn’t have any real leverage that we could apply.
 
There was no way that we could make her
tell us the truth.

It appeared that
she was considering it, but then she changed her mind.
 
“You know what?
 
You two aren’t as big a threat as I was
told you might be.
 
Move along.
 
I’m finished talking to you.”

She headed back
into the shop, with Grace and me close on her heels.

“Who exactly have
you been talking to about us?” I asked her.

Amanda stopped
after another step and turned to face us.
 
“On the other side of that door are two men who owe their livelihoods to
me.
 
Trust me when I tell you that
you don’t want to get on their bad sides.
 
When I say I’m finished talking to you, that’s exactly what I mean.
 
Do you understand, or are you going to
need a little proof?”

“That’s fine.
 
We get it,” I said, holding my hands up
in the air in surrender.
 

“Good,” she
said.
 

At least Grace
was staying quiet, something that I was eternally grateful for.

“It was probably
just an empty threat,” my best friend said once Amanda was back inside on the
other side of that door.

“Did you really
want to find out one way or the other?” I asked her.
 
“At least this way, we live to fight
another day.”

“So, we’re just
giving up on her?” Grace asked, clearly unhappy about that possibility.
 
“She had feelings for Rick, at least
that much was clear from her reactions.”

“I think so, too,
but for now, we need to give her a little time to think about our conversation.
 
The next time that we speak with her, we’re
going to have to pursue a different line of questioning.
 
In the meantime, we have one more
suspect on our list.”

“But we don’t even
know where Denny West is,” she protested.

“Maybe not, but
we’re not without resources ourselves when it comes to Union Square.”

“We’re going to
Napoli’s?” Grace asked.

“We are, unless
you have any objections.”

“Not on your
life,” she said.

“Then let’s go
see what Angelica and her daughters might know that we don’t.”

“Girls!
 
So good to see you,” Angelica DeAngelis said
as we walked into Napoli’s.
 
It
always amazed me to see her Italian décor smack dab in the middle of a strip
mall.
 
“I trust you are both hungry.”

“I could eat,”
Grace said cheerfully beside me.

“But that’s not the
main reason that we’re here,” I said.
 
“We were hoping to have a chat with you about someone in town.”

“I’d be happy to,
but why not do both, eat and talk?” she asked with a grin.
 
She was an older woman, but her beauty
was classic, and it was easy to see where her daughters had all gotten their
good looks.
 
“Maria is working the
front, but I told her that I would cover for her for a few minutes, so it
shouldn’t be long.
 
As a matter of
fact, here she is now.”

A younger version
of Angelica came out, and when Maria smiled at us, I immediately felt the intensity
of her beauty.
 
“Grace, Suzanne, welcome.
 
Would you like a table for two, or will
your young men be joining you this afternoon?”

“It’s just the
two of them,” Angelica said as she gently pushed the menus Maria was offering
back to her.
 
“No need to fuss with
those.
 
They’re coming back to the
kitchen with me.”

“That’s no
fair.
 
You get to have all of the
fun,” Maria said with a smile as Grace and I followed her mother back into the
heart of Napoli’s.
 
The youngest
daughter, Sophia, was frowning over a skillet full of veggies crackling away on
the stovetop.
 

“Turn down the
heat a little,” Angelica reminded her gently as she reached for the burner’s
control.
 
“You’re looking for crisp,
not scorched.”

“It’s a fine
line, though, isn’t it?” Sophia asked.
 
“Hey, ladies.
 
What’s up?”

“Pay attention to
what you’re doing,” Angelica softly scolded her daughter.

“Yes, ma’am,” Sophia
answered with a slight smile, and then, when her mother’s head was turned away,
she winked at me.
 

“What can I get
you to start?” Angelica asked as we each took a seat at the small table she kept
in back.

“Information,” I
said.

“And some pasta,”
Grace chimed in.

“Grace,” I chided
her.

“It’s fine,
Suzanne,” Angelica said as she dished us up two plates of pasta and added a
simple sauce to each.
 
As she placed
the plates in front of us, she asked, “Now, what can I tell you?”

“Do you happen to
know a man named Denny West?” I asked her just before taking my first
bite.
 
It was pure bliss on a fork,
and I quickly followed up my first taste with another.

Angelica’s face
clouded a bit.
 
“I’ll tell you the
same thing I told each and every one of my daughters.
 
I don’t approve of you knowing him.
 
He’s not a good man.”

Sophia glanced
over at me, frowned, and then she quickly looked back at the skillet in her
care.
 
Did she know something she
wasn’t sharing?
 
As hard as it was
to believe, that’s how it felt to me, and it might be worthwhile asking her once
her mother was gone.

“We’re not
socializing with him, Angelica,” I said.
 
“He’s a suspect in a murder we’re investigating.”

“Who was killed?”
she asked, the concern clear in her expression.
 

“A man named Rick
Hastings,” I said.

She frowned
again.
 
“I know of him.
 
He’s a friend of Denny West’s,” she
said.

“Well, my
assistant, Emma Blake, was dating him, against my recommendation, I might add.”

Angelica’s face
softened.
 
“What is it about bad
boys that some women find so attractive?”

“My momma used to
say that girls dated bad boys, but women were interested in the nice guys,” I answered.

“She’s a wise
woman herself,” Angelica said.
 
“How
is she, by the way?”

“She’s fine.”

“Is married life
treating her well?”

I smiled.
 
“To tell the truth, I haven’t seen her
this happy in years,” I admitted.

“That’s good.”

“You know, it
wouldn’t hurt you to date again, Angelica.
 
You shouldn’t let a few bad experiences turn you off on the idea of
having someone in your life,” Grace said.

Before Angelica
could answer, Sophia chimed in.
 
“I’ve been telling her the same thing for years, but does she listen to
me?
 
I don’t think so.”

“If I need your
advice, you’ll be the first to know, young lady,” Angelica told her daughter,
softening it with a gentle pat on her cheek, and then she reached over and
turned off the burner.
 
“There.
 
That looks good.”

“It should
be.
 
It took me long enough to
perfect it,” Sophia said.

Angelica just
laughed.
 
“How sweet that you think
you’ve mastered it, Sophia.
 
Make
that dish perfectly ten times in a row with no variations, and then we’ll
talk.”

Turning back to
me, Angelica said, “I understand why you’re looking into this, but be careful.
 
Denny West is a bad man.”

After Grace
finished another bite, she asked, “Where might we find him?”

Angelica frowned,
and then she said, “He frequents a place on the edge of town.
 
It’s a bit run-down, so I’m glad that
you’re together.”

“What’s it called?”
I asked.

“Murphy’s,” she
said, and then she glanced at the clock behind her.
 
“If you go now, you should be fine, but
don’t go there after dark.
 
Promise
me that much.”

“We promise,” I
said as I pushed my plate away.
 
“Thanks for the meal.”

“Do you call that
a meal?
 
It’s just a bite.”

“What do we owe
you?” I asked her, expecting resistance.
 
She had a hard enough time presenting us a bill when we ate in the
dining room, but when were in the kitchen, we were treated like family.

“Just your
continued friendship,” Angelica said.

“You have that
without bribing us with food,” I replied with a grin.

“But it doesn’t
hurt,” Grace added with a smile of her own.

Maria chose that
moment to come into the kitchen.
 
“Momma, one of our customers wants to talk to you out front.”

“Is it to
complain?” Angelica asked, her features narrowing.

“More like to
gush,” Maria admitted.
 
“She’s dying
to meet the woman who made her pasta primavera.
 
She said that it beat anything she ever
had the entire time that she lived in New York.”

“I don’t doubt it
for one moment,” Angelica said, beaming.
 
She was justifiably proud of her food, and she took every opportunity to
enjoy praise about it.
 
“Will you
ladies excuse me?”