Read Online Custard Crime: Donut Mystery #14 (The Donut Mysteries) by Jessica Beck - Free Book Online

tree that you and Evelyn were
squabbling over?” I asked him.
    Robby shrugged.   “We were, but yesterday she gave me her blessing to cut it down.”   I looked at him skeptically, and he
added, “If you don’t believe me, you can ask her yourself.”
    Was he telling the truth?   Was Robby ignorant of the fact that his
neighbor was dead, or was he playing a part for our benefit?   “You haven’t heard the news?”
    “What news is that?” he asked as he kicked at one of
the branches he’d taken off earlier.
    “Evelyn’s dead, Robby.”
    It didn’t register at first.   After a moment, he looked hard at
me.   “What are you talking about,
Suzanne?   Have you been sniffing too
much frosting in that donut shop of yours?”
    “It’s true,” Grace said.
    Robby slumped down on the stump where the tree had
just stood.   “You’ve got to be
kidding me.”
    “It’s not something that we’d joke about,” I
said.   “I’m guessing that you didn’t
know.”
    “No, I hadn’t heard a thing about it.   Then again, I’ve been working with my
chainsaw all day.   I couldn’t get it
to start, so I practically had to rebuild it before I could get it running
again.   What happened to her?   Was it a car accident?”
    “She was murdered,” I said calmly, hoping to see some
kind of reaction.
    He had one, and it was immediate.   “Hang on one second.   I sure didn’t do it, if that’s why
you’re here.   I had no more beefs
with the woman after we resolved this thing about the tree.”
    Grace asked him, “Robby, did anyone see you working
on your saw today?”
    “I highly doubt it.   I was in the garage by myself,” Robby
said.   “That doesn’t mean that I
killed her, though.   What
happened?   You didn’t say?”
    “Somebody pushed her through a hole in the floor and
she died in the basement.”
    “Over there?” Robby asked as he stared at Evelyn’s
house.   “That’s impossible.   I would have at least seen the
ambulances and heard the police sirens if that were true.   I doubt my hearing protectors could have
stopped those.”
    “I didn’t say it was in this basement,” I said.
    “It must have been at the candle shop, then,” Robby
said.
    “How did you know about that?” I asked him
suspiciously.   As far as I knew,
Evelyn and Beatrice hadn’t been telling anyone about their plans for their
future business venture yet.   If
that was really the case, then how did Robby know about it?
    “She told me yesterday when she came over to give me
permission to cut down this tree.   She didn’t care about it anymore, since she was going to buy a new place
to live, anyway.”
    “She was leaving her home?   Do you happen to know why?” Grace asked.
    “Well, it certainly wasn’t because of me.   Evelyn told me that she recently came
into some money, and she planned on blowing every dime she hadn’t already spent
on a new house.   To be honest with
you, I don’t think she ever liked this tree any more than I did.   Having me cut it down saved her from
having to pay someone else to do it.”
    “Robby, I’ve got a question for you, and it’s
important.   Did anyone else hear
your conversation with Evelyn yesterday?” I asked him.
    He looked hard at me for a few seconds before he
answered.   “Suzanne, you’re asking
me an awful lot of questions for a donutmaker.   What business is any of this of yours,
anyway?”
    “You know me.   I’m just a concerned resident of April Springs,” I said.
    “You’re more than that, and we both know it.   Do you think folks in town haven’t been
talking about you and Grace sticking your noses into murder investigations
where they don’t belong?”
    “We may have helped out the police every now and
then,” I admitted.   “So what?”
    “You’ve done more than that, and you both know it.   Well, you two aren’t going to pin this
murder on me.   I didn’t kill
her.   Evelyn and I finally patched
things up between