Boston Scream Murder - Ginger Bolton A Deputy Donut Mystery

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The neighbor eased down into a chair next to hers and stared down toward the tent. I had an uncomfortable feeling that he was watching my every move in an assessing and judgmental way.

      Two police cars raced down the hill and tore into the driveway. I told the 911 dispatcher that first responders had arrived. She let me disconnect.

      Finally, I could use my phone’s camera. I ran into the tent, quickly snapped pictures of the guest list and the to-do list, and ran out again.

      Two of the four officers emerging from squad cars were close friends of mine, Misty Ossler and Hooligan Houlihan. Beckoning, I called to them. They waved and trotted down the grassy slope toward me. The other two officers went out of my sight, toward the front door of Rich’s mansion.

      I stared up at the tall stone structure. Was anyone inside it? Did Rich have servants? Family?

      Terri was standing, the back of her hand against her mouth. The neighbor had stood, too, and again had his arm around Terri. He was glaring at me as if he’d watched me dash into and out of the tent and had figured out that something was very wrong. Maybe the neighbor had attempted to kill Rich, was afraid he hadn’t succeeded, and didn’t want me or anyone else reviving him.

      I wished that reviving Rich were possible.

      Misty grasped my arm. “What’s up?”

      I babbled, “I brought donuts to Rich Royalson’s birthday party and found him lying inside the tent. I think he’s dead, and it looks like he could have been attacked with a skillet.” I pointed. “He’s behind that flap, between it and the bar.”

      A bit taller than her auburn-haired, freckle-faced patrol partner, Misty was also senior to him in the police department. She preceded him into the tent.

      An ambulance screeched into the driveway. Samantha jumped out of the driver’s seat. I called to her, and she ran down the hill while her partner, a man I didn’t know, opened the back of the ambulance.

      I pointed to the tent doorway. “Misty and Hooligan are in there with him. I think we’re all too late.”

      Samantha gave me a concerned look, patted my arm, and went into the tent.

      I glanced at Terri again to see if she showed any signs of recognizing Samantha, who, I thought, lived near her.

      I couldn’t tell if she recognized Samantha, but she probably recognized Samantha’s EMT uniform, and she and Rich’s neighbor had to have recognized Misty and Hooligan’s uniforms. Terri cradled her cheeks in her hands. She looked about to scream.

      Samantha’s partner wheeled a gear-covered stretcher down to the tent. He left the stretcher outside and carried gear inside.

      I heard Misty radio headquarters and request a detective.

      She didn’t need to. An unmarked police car pulled up behind the marked cruisers. A tall and handsome man wearing a dark gray suit unfolded himself from the driver’s seat.

      Brent Fyne, the man Nina called my handsome detective.

      Chapter 7

      Although the most devastating night of my life had been six years before, again seeing Brent in an emergency situation brought it back to me in a painful flash.

      That evening I had traded shifts with a recently trained dispatcher so that I could have dinner with out-of-town friends. While we were at the restaurant, Alec and Brent were shot. If only I’d been at work, maybe I could have arranged for help to arrive sooner for my fallen husband. Brent had told me that, despite his own injured arm, he had radioed for help even before a bystander called 911, and that I shouldn’t blame myself. I wasn’t sure I could help letting guilt eat away at me. Brent also blamed himself and mourned the loss of his best friend. Our rational selves knew that neither of us could have prevented Alec’s death. Our emotional selves hurt.

      In the half second I was remembering that, I was running up to the hill toward him. His deep green tie and unbuttoned jacket flapping, he strode down the slope. There was no wind, but his light brown hair looked windblown, as if he’d run out of the police station and jumped into his unmarked police car in a hurry. Usually the responding police officer made the decision that a detective was needed, as Misty had, but by that time, Brent had been pulling into Rich’s driveway.

      He grasped my upper arms, shot a glance toward the mist-covered lake, and murmured, “I’d rather be kayaking.”

      Despite the grim tightness of his lips and chin, those gray eyes were comforting. “Me, too.”

      But we couldn’t wander off together into that magical mist. Brent let me go and took out his notebook. “You called this in, Em?” Had he rushed out here because he knew that I was the one who had called about a deceased person?

      His concern nearly unhinged me. “Yes, I found Rich.” My voice shook. “His skin was already cold.”

      “Who else was here?”

      “No one that I know of, but someone was here before me, his attacker. Also several people showed up so quickly that they had to have been nearby when I discovered him. He’s Richmond P. Royalson the Third.”

      Brent raised one eyebrow in question.

      I summarized how I’d met Rich Royalson and why I was at his lakeside home on that sunny October Tuesday instead of in Deputy Donut. I described the people who had arrived soon after I did. “Cheryl, the Deputy Donut customer who arranged the date with Rich at Deputy Donut, and her date, Steve, are still in the driveway.” Pointing up at the deck at the back of Rich’s house, I explained Terri’s previous and newfound relationship to Rich. “The man hovering with her near the lawn chairs came from the next yard, so I guess he’s Rich’s neighbor. And Terri’s ex-boyfriend Derek showed up just before Terri did, but he left. On a motorcycle, I think.” I told Brent about the quarrel that Derek had initiated in Deputy Donut and about the threats he’d made against both Rich and Terri. “He told them they’d be sorry for the way they treated him. And just now, Derek had dirt in the creases of his palms, as if he’d handled something like a sooty skillet.” I described the skillet I’d seen beside Rich’s body. “It or one like it was hanging in his cottage last night.” I explained why Nina and I had explored Rich’s cottage.

      “When did you leave Deputy Donut this morning, and when did you arrive here?”

      “I must have left there a little after eleven forty. I was due here at eleven fifty-five, and parked my car at eleven fifty-four. I found Rich a minute or two after that.” Brent would be able to pinpoint the exact second that I had called 911.

      Brent gave my shoulder a quick, encouraging squeeze. “Stay here.” He took out his phone, tapped the screen, waited, and then said into his phone, “Tom? It’s Brent. Emily’s fine, but she’s a witness to a possible crime, and we’re going to talk to her for a while. She should be free to return to Deputy Donut in an hour or so. Can you tell me when she left there this morning?” Brent gave me a friendly nod. “Can anyone else confirm that? Let me talk to Nina, then.” He asked Nina the same question. “About eleven forty-five? Great. Thanks.”

      Brent disconnected and said, “So . . . about the earliest you and the hundred and ten horses under your hood could have gotten here would have been eleven fifty-five.”

      I folded my arms. “Those horses got me here at eleven fifty-four.”

      “Speeder.” He held out his hand. “Did his skin feel colder than mine does right now?”

      I rested my fingers on the back of Brent’s hand for a second. “Definitely. And he was pale.”

      He slanted a sad look down at me. “I don’t suspect you.”

      “Thanks,” I managed. “I didn’t think you did.”

      He called headquarters and asked them to send an officer to Deputy Donut to take Tom’s and Nina’s official statements confirming when I’d left work.

      While

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