Read Online Strawberry Cream Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 1 by Susan Gillard - Free Book Online

frustration.  But the cyanide hadn’t been in the donut.
    The chimes of a grandfather clock sounded through the house as someone rang the doorbell.  But she wasn’t expecting anybody.
     
    She went to the front of the house and pushed the curtain at the front window aside just a little.  It was Michelle, holding a paper bag with the words Donut Delights and the shop’s logo printed on it.
     
    Heather swung the door open.  “Hey, Michelle.  Come on in.”
     
    Michelle stepped inside.  As Heather closed the door behind her, she held up the bag.  “I brought a couple of those Southern Pecan Pie donuts we had left over.”
     
    “Mmm, I love those,” Heather said.
     
    “Yeah, me too.  They don’t help my waistline—” she patted her slightly plump midsection, “but they’re sooooo good.”
     
    “Come on back,” Heather said.  “I was just looking up some information on the computer.”
     
    “About what?” Michelle asked.
     
    “Cyanide poisoning,” she answered, starting down the hallway.  “You know how I told you Detective Shepherd said Christa was killed by ingesting cyanide?  But that it wasn’t in the donut?  Well, I thought I’d look up other ways that cyanide could be administered to somebody.”
     
    “Did you find any leads?” Michelle asked.
    Heather sat down at her desk and pulled another chair close for Michelle.  “Not really.  Actually, no.  Apparently, you can’t just go out and buy cyanide.  It’s really strictly controlled.  So if you were going to give somebody cyanide, you’d have to make it yourself.”
     
    “How would you do that?” Michelle asked, her eyebrows rising.
     
    “You could crush up a bunch of seeds.  Apples, cherries, even almonds.  But then you’d still have to get the person to eat the powder.”
     
    “That doesn’t seem likely,” Michelle said.
     
    “Yeah, exactly.”  Heather reached for the bag of donuts that Michelle had set on the desk.  “I think I need some comfort food.  Or ‘thinking food.’  Whatever.”
     
    “Here.”  Michelle opened the bag, reached in, and handed a donut to Heather.  She took the other one out for herself.  “Want me to get some napkins?”
     
    “I’ll get them,” Heather said.  In a few moments she returned and placed a pile of napkins in front of Michelle and a pile at her own place.  “I brought plenty, because I can never seem to eat these things without making a mess.”
     
    “Me either,” Michelle said around a bite of donut.
     
    Heather sat down, took a bite of her donut, and wiped her fingers on a napkin.  “Mmmm.  Thanks for bringing these.  Just what the doctor ordered.”
     
    Michelle smiled and nodded.  Heather finished her bite of donut and took another.  “Okay.  So…”  She chewed, swallowed, and started over.  “So how would the murderer have gotten Christa to swallow all that powder if it wasn’t in the donut?”
    “No idea.”  Michelle shrugged.  “Maybe they—”  She shrugged again.  “I just don’t know.”
    “Let’s start again,” Heather said.  “If Christa ate something with cyanide in it—and if the donut was the only thing in her stomach—then the cyanide had to be in the donut.  Only it wasn’t.”  She rubbed her stomach and grimaced.
     
    “Are you okay?” Michelle asked.
     
    “I think I’m getting a stomach ache,” she said.  “My stomach’s starting to hurt.”
     
    “Do you need me to get you anything?” Michelle asked.  “A glass of water, maybe?”
     
    “No, I’m fine.”  Heather tried to ignore the mild burning sensation.  “It’s probably just indigestion.”
     
    “So what were you saying about the donut?” Michelle asked, her gaze fixed on Heather.
     
    “Just that the cyanide had to be in the donut, but it wasn’t.  Or maybe—”  Heather paused as an idea stirred in her brain.  “The cyanide had to be in a donut,” she said slowly.  “Just—not that one.  Not the one