Deck the Donuts

Book 6: Deputy Donut Mystery

by Ginger Bolton

Genres: Mystery; Animal Cozy Mysteries; Culinary Cozy Mysteries; Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

’Tis the season for the delectable desserts Emily Westhill and her cuddly cat serve up at Deputy Donut—but someone naughty on Santa’s list has come to town . . .
 
It’s Christmastime again in Fallingbrook, Wisconsin. Emily has truly decked the halls of her donut shop and decorated her donuts with festive designs from green and red frosting to snowflake sprinkles. For the annual Ice and Lights Festival, she’s commissioned a sculpture with three ice-carved donut shapes to form a holey snowman, Frosty the Donut. She has one Christmas wish this year—to spend some time under the mistletoe with a certain detective.
 
But the holidays just aren’t the same without an unexpected disaster or two. A tour bus on its way to the festival has crashed and a snowstorm has left all the shaken passengers stranded and shivering. Emily and her friends open their homes to shelter the traveling families, while the bus driver is admitted to the hospital for his injuries. But the following morning, Emily discovers his body—buried beneath Frosty the Donut.
 
The bus passengers show little sympathy for the man who dashed through the snow so badly, some claiming he was under the influence while behind the wheel. Emily also discovers that the driver had a history with folks in Fallingbrook. With multiple motives for murder piling up, it will take a Christmas miracle for Emily to solve this crime . . .  

Praise for Boston Scream Murder
 
“Spooky delights don’t discourage a murderer in small town Wisconsin. . . . Cozy fare with a dollop of moonlight mist.”
—Kirkus Reviews
 
Includes delicious recipes!
 

Release date: October 26, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 256

Sample

How could a blizzard be on the way to this part of northern Wisconsin? Puffy white clouds dotted a blue sky, and even though I was wearing ski goggles with dark, mirrored lenses, the snow seemed brighter than white in the sunlight.

I latched my boots into the bindings of my cross-country skis and pulled on my red, green, and white striped stocking cap and my leather-palmed gloves. I slipped my hands into the straps of my poles and grasped the handgrips. The bladelike tips on the ends of my poles would help propel me along the snow-packed driveway where Brent and I had parked our SUVs. My black wind-resistant nylon pants and matching jacket, worn over leggings and a long sweater, would be enough to keep me warm when we really started moving.

Brent and I had once rented the equipment for skate-skiing and had decided we preferred the more classic form, keeping our skis parallel except while turning, slowing, stopping, or herringboning up steep hills. The flat, mostly plowed driveway was snowy enough for us to ski along it to a groomed trail crossing the front yard of a gorgeous natural wood chalet nestled among pines. Snow from the previous week’s storm covered the building’s steeply pitched roof and drooped in scallops below its eaves, not quite covering holly-bedecked cedar garlands and Christmas lights. Wreaths and candles decorated windows.

When Brent had invited me on the afternoon’s ski outing, I had asked who owned the property where we were going, but he had only answered that we could ski there that afternoon and again in three days when he was hosting a Saturday-before-Christmas party.

The trail curved to the left. The chalet’s front yard ended at the brink of a forested hill where the trail headed abruptly into a valley. I clamped my poles to my sides with the ends sticking out behind me, crouched, and swooped downward. Wind whipped past my cheeks and ruffled the curls sticking out beneath my cap. I couldn’t help a huge, teeth-chilling smile. Slowing, I navigated a tricky S curve, first right and then left. The trail became less steep and ran beside a creek where miniature waterfalls flowed around rocks mounded with snow.

In the valley, a lake was mostly covered in thin sheets of shifting, grumbling ice. The trail widened around a sharp left turn and then passed a small boathouse and what might have been a beach underneath the snow.

Above me, clouds gathered and blue patches shrank. Inhaling the exhilarating, clean, and piney air, I settled into a comfortable rhythm of push, glide, push, glide. I skied up short slopes and down shallow dips.

The predicted blizzard began to seem possible. The clouds became dappled with gray and darker than the white of the snow-laden pine branches beside the trail. My skis sang against hard-packed snow. Behind me, Brent’s did, too.

At almost six feet, he was about nine inches taller than I was and could easily have skied faster than I did, but he always stayed far enough back to avoid ramming the tips of his skis into the tails of mine and sending me tumbling into soft snow beside the harder groomed trail. The previous winter, I’d learned that climbing out of deep, fluffy snow while wearing skis wasn’t as easy as it sounded, even with the help of a big, strong man. To his credit, he had tried not to laugh.

In a way, I was relieved that, on this first outing in a long time with the big, strong man, skiing prevented us from talking or even looking at each other. Brent had been my late husband’s best friend and his partner in the Fallingbrook Police Department. After Alec was shot and killed, Brent’s and my grief had kept us apart. About three years later, we’d finally begun doing things together like eating at my house where he could play with my cat, kayaking in the summer, and cross-country skiing in the winter. Our shared grief had drawn us closer than we’d been when Alec was alive, but it had also kept a barrier between us.

Now I thought I might want to destroy that barrier.

I had a problem. I didn’t know how.

Alec had told me that if anything ever happened to him, I should find happiness with another man. At first, I hadn’t been able to imagine being with anyone besides Alec. Now I felt almost ready to begin thinking about dating again.

The trouble was that Brent was the only man I wanted to be with. Worse, I really wanted to be with him. Back in August, I had finally admitted to myself how much I cared about the tall detective who was always available when I needed someone, and here it was almost Christmas, and I still hadn’t given him a hint about my feelings.

I was scared. What if merely being my dining, kayaking, and cross-country skiing buddy was enough for Brent and was all he wanted in a relationship with me? What if he felt, as I had at first, that a romance between us would be disloyal to Alec? What if he preferred to date other women?

Skiing through the elegantly lacy woods, I wondered who owned this property with its freshly groomed trail. I was skiing in grooves made by weighted skis towed behind a snowmobile. The tracks of its treads were still visible. In the short time we’d been in this snowy wonderland, I hadn’t seen or heard anyone else. No other vehicles had been in the driveway, but there could have been some behind the closed doors of the double garage I’d glimpsed at the rear of the chalet.

Brent’s eyes had held a teasing glint earlier that afternoon when he’d told me to follow him in my car to a ski trail. At the time, I’d figured he’d found a fun new place to ski. That was true, but I could also imagine that he might have bought the chalet and these acres of woods, complete with a stream emptying into a lake where we could go kayaking in the summer. I could also imagine that he might have decided to surprise me by showing me his exciting purchase instead of telling me about it first.

All of this imagining gave me a new worry. Had I waited too long to let Brent know how I felt about him? If he had bought this place, would he think I had suddenly become interested in him only because I wanted to spend time kayaking and skiing here?

But even if that thought wasn’t about to occur to him, I still didn’t know how to show him how I felt.

I pictured throwing myself into his arms. That warmed me even more than skiing had.

But what if he pushed me away?

I was overthinking it. Maybe I should take a chance.

The trail turned left again and started up a series of hills. None of them were steep, and I didn’t have to spoil the tracks by herringboning. Pushing hard with my poles, I skied to the top of the final hill. I kept going on the flat trail beside the long driveway and stopped beside our SUVs. Mine was medium sized and white. Brent’s was huge and black.

Behind me, he asked, “Do you want to go around again, Emily?” He usually called me “Em” unless other police officers were around and an investigation was going on. Then he became more formal and used my full name. But the way he’d said Emily just then had sounded more friendly than formal.

Without lifting my skis, which faced forward, I twisted my body around to look at him.

Smiling, he leaned casually on his poles. He wasn’t wearing a hat and had pushed his mirrored goggles up onto his head. Breezes had tossed his light brown hair. He looked relaxed and happy. And kind and caring. And extremely attractive. His unzipped black jacket showed off muscles that his tight black sweater accentuated.

Above us, the sky was now a heavy, sullen lead. If we skied around the trail again, I risked having to drive home through a blizzard.

“It’s a beautiful trail, and I’d love to ski down that first hill again.” I pointed a pole toward an ominous charcoal mass of clouds to the southwest. “But . . .”

“There will be other times. Like Saturday.”

“Okay.” I unsnapped my skis and thrust them and my poles into my car. The first flakes of snow landed on my face.

Brent took off his skis and held them and his poles in one hand. He glanced toward the chalet. “Would you like to go inside for hot chocolate?”

Would I be able to drive home before the roads became impassible even for my SUV? What if Brent and I became snowbound out here in the country?

Maybe that wasn’t a bad idea....

Not quite knowing how to respond to his invitation, I asked, “Who owns this place?”

He pulled keys out of his pocket. “Guess.”

“You?”

Grinning, he nodded.

“Since when?”

“Last week. Like it?”

I waved toward the snowy woods we’d just skied through. “Do you own all of that, too?”

“Yep. The woods, the stream, a beach, and a boathouse big enough for a couple of kayaks and not much else. And a dock that can be put in for summer.”

“You didn’t tell me.” I hoped I hadn’t sounded accusing.

“I wasn’t sure the deal would close, and I wanted to surprise you.”

“You did.”

He gave me an enigmatic look similar to the neutral expression he wore when he was on duty as a detective, but this was different. It was cautious and maybe a little hesitant.

“I like it,” I answered belatedly. “It’s perfect. It’s so . . . so you!”

He looked down toward the evergreens on the slope below us. “We can ski and kayak other places, but this will always be available.”

“You’ll be a half hour from work.” The police station was near Fallingbrook’s village square. So was Deputy Donut, the café that Alec’s father and I owned. My home was also near downtown Fallingbrook.

Brent conceded, “It’s a long commute, but this place is worth it.”

“I see that.” I took a deep breath, braced my shoulders, and looked up into his face. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“My pleasure.” He gazed into my eyes for a couple of seconds and then dropped his skis and poles into the snow. He leaned toward me. A question lurked in those kind and caring gray eyes.

With my eyes locked on his, I tilted my face up.

His phone rang.

Pulling his phone from a pocket, Brent backed a step away from me. “Sorry, I’ll have to answer. It’s dispatch.” I couldn’t help hearing his side of the conversation. “County Road C five miles north of Fallingbrook? Right, I’m at my new place now. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He put his phone away. His face had taken on his grimmest police detective look. “A tour bus went into a ditch. I’m closer than other Fallingbrook first responders. I’ll head there now.” He held out his keys. “Would you like to warm up inside? I might be awhile.”

I refused the keys. “I’ll come, too. I’ll follow you.”

“You’re not a first responder.”

Knowing he wanted to protect me from the sorts of situations that he and our other first responder friends encountered much too frequently, I put on my toughest expression. “I’ve kept up with my first aid training.” I’d been a 911 dispatcher until shortly after Alec was killed, but after his death, I hadn’t been able to stand working at 911 where we couldn’t rescue everyone.

Where I hadn’t been able to rescue Alec.

A new dispatcher had filled in for me that night. Brent had been only grazed. He had told me he had radioed for help for Alec before a citizen called 911, but I would probably never get over my feelings of guilt about taking that evening off work to go to dinner with out-of-town friends.

And Brent would always wonder if he could have done more to save Alec, who had been not only his partner, but his best friend.

Wretchedly, I grated out, “Those poor people . . . I could make a difference. I have to go.”

Brent slung one arm around my shoulders and described the turns he would take to reach the wrecked bus. “Don’t try to keep up with me. Someone might pull you over.”

“You’re the only police officer for miles around, and you’ll be busy.”

He let me go and said in faked ominous tones, “Don’t count on it.” He threw his skis and poles into his own SUV, got in, and raced down the driveway.

Feeling hollowed out and also dreading what we would find at the scene, I sped after him. I didn’t like wearing gloves while driving and threw them onto the passenger seat. Dark gray clouds now covered the sky, bringing with them an early dusk. Snow began falling heavily. Turning onto County Road C, I caught a glimpse of the plain gold wedding band I’d worn since the day, ten and a half years before, that Alec had slipped it on my finger. He’d been thirty-two. I’d been twenty-one, barely more than a kid. I missed his quick wit, his joy, his kindness, and his warmth, but maybe it was time to stop wearing that ring as a shield against other men.

Against one other man, anyway.

Sunshine had been warming the pavement only an hour or so before, and at the moment, the snow was melting. Ahead, the pinpricks of Brent’s taillights disappeared into the storm. I drove as quickly as possible considering that I could see only bits of the yellow line in the center of the road and white snow pounding toward my windshield. On the radio, a chorus sang cheerfully about dashing through the snow.

The onslaught of icy flakes rapidly cooled the road. Snow accumulated and deepened. Gripping the wheel more tightly, biting my lip, and afraid I would accidentally pass the crash, I slowed. Finally, in the blur of the snowstorm ahead of me, a pinkish glow blinked off and on. I slowed more.

Its hazard lights flashing, Brent’s SUV was on the road’s right shoulder. I parked a car’s length behind him and turned on my own hazard lights.

I grabbed the first-aid kit I kept on board and ran along the road to Brent’s SUV. He wasn’t in it. Ahead and to the right, wide tire tracks veered off through a lumpy ridge of the previous week’s plowed snow.

The bus faced away from me in a ditch. I followed Brent’s tracks over the piled-up snow next to the road. He had preserved clues about the cause of the crash by staying far from the marks the bus had made. In places, his feet and legs must have sunk into the snow, and mine did, too, sometimes up to my knees. Finally I made it beyond the plowed clumps of snow and ice, and walking became slightly easier. With the words of “Jingle Bells” echoing inside my head, I slipped and slid down the slope on a crusty base of old snow. I was still wearing my cross-country ski boots. Apparently, Brent hadn’t taken time to change out of his, either. The quickly falling snow hadn’t completely covered their prints. I followed them. The closer I got to the bus, the more blinding its taillights became.

The left front of the bus was crumpled against a massive tree trunk. The bus’s remaining working headlight illuminated the woods beyond the ditch. I walked past the back of the bus and between the bus and trees at the edge of the woods. I heard subdued voices but couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. Branches whispered across my nylon pants and jacket.

The door of the bus hung open. Reassured because Brent was already on the bus, but apprehensive about what we might need to cope with, I reached for handholds and climbed the crazily slanted steps.

The inside of the bus reeked of booze, and the only light was reflected from that one headlight shining into the whitening woods. It was enough to let me see what I should have expected on a bus tour ten days before Christmas—children. I gasped in shock, but far from appearing injured, the children seemed excited about their unexpected ride down into a ditch in a bus. One boy near the front swooped his hand from above his head to below his shoulder. “It was like a roller coaster!”

The boy beside him bounced in his seat. “Yeah!”

Out on the road, something roared and scraped. The noises stopped and were replaced by the sound of a rumbling diesel engine. Amber light swung past the bus windows.

Passengers seemed to be buckled into their seats except for a woman standing beside the driver. She was wearing a dark green nylon jacket with TOUR GUIDE printed in white on the back. Actually, all I could read was TOUR G IDE. The strap of her shiny black tote bag crossed over her body from her right shoulder and hid the U. Tears running down her face, she grasped the driver by the shoulders as if to keep him from tumbling out of his seat. “I don’t know what happened,” she wailed to Brent. He was helping her hold the driver, who didn’t appear to be wearing a seat belt. “Suddenly, we went off the road.” Her long hair fell over her eyes. She rubbed her shoulder against her chin and dislodged some of the hair from her face. I saw fright in her pale eyes.

Beyond Brent’s arm, I caught a glimpse of the bus driver’s bloodied face. His eyes were open, zigzagging back and forth, and his head wobbled. His eyebrows seemed stuck in one position, high over his nose and lower toward the outer corners of his eyes, as if he couldn’t get over astonishment at the bus’s having left the road. In front of him, snow was coating the cobwebby rays of the fractured windshield.

Metal jingled. A burly man ran up the bus steps behind me. The front of the bus was lower than the back. I moved up the slanted aisle to let the man inside.

“How can I help?” he asked. “I’ve got a snowplow.” He wore a stocking cap over a baseball cap, both covered in snow. He squinted at the driver and aimed an index finger at him. “Travis Tarriston.” I heard a sneer in his tone. “What are you doing around here again?”

Travis Tarriston, if that was his name, asked in a creaky voice, “Where are we?”

The tour guide answered, “We’re on our way to the Fallingbrook Ice and Lights Festival, Travis, and the bus just went off the road.” She turned her head toward the snowplow operator. “Can you pull us back up?”

“No, ma’am.”

In the distance, a siren wailed, coming closer.

The snowplow operator stared toward the people still buckled into their seats. “Don’t the inside lights work?”

The tour guide snapped, “I don’t want to run the battery down.”

The snowplow operator grunted. “You aren’t going to need that anytime soon. This thing’s a write-off.” Readjusting his hat duo, he knocked snow onto the shoulders of his bulky parka.

Still hanging on to the driver, the tour guide clamped her elbow against the huge tote bag, pulling it closer to her body. “It’s freezing in here. We need to start the engine so we can turn on the heater.” She wasn’t dressed warmly. Still in our cross-country ski clothes, Brent and I weren’t, either.

Gently, Brent told the tour guide, “I don’t advise starting the engine.” He flipped a switch in front of the driver. Dim greenish lights came on inside the bus.

Travis Tarriston rasped out, “How did I get here?”

A siren whooped outside and stopped.

Kids aboard the bus shouted, “Here’s an ambulance!” More pinkish lights flashed through the whiteness.

Brent turned to the snowplow operator. “Thanks, Ronald. Can you keep the road between here and Fallingbrook as clear as possible for emergency vehicles and until we get everyone transported to safety?”

“Sure thing, Detective Fyne.” With a final glare toward the injured bus driver, Ronald clomped out of the bus.

Corey Ides, an emergency medical technician I’d met a few times, dashed up the stairs into the bus. He sniffed audibly and grimaced as if the whiskey-like smells hit him as hard as they’d hit me. At first, I didn’t see Samantha Houlihan, the petite EMT behind her younger, taller partner. Samantha was one of my two best friends from ever since junior high. She and Corey were in their winter uniforms—black stocking caps and heavy black parkas and matching pants crisscrossed with reflective stripes. Some of Samantha’s brown curls, streaked with red and green, showed beneath her cap. She and Corey took over Travis’s care.

Travis told them, “I must have driven here.” He sounded more confident than he had moments before.

Brent and I moved farther up the slope of the aisle. Brent called out, “Some of the rest of you said you were slightly injured. Raise your hands, please.”

I was relieved that none of the children were among the few injured people. Brent held up his first-aid kit where I could see it. “I’ll take this side, Emily. Can you take the other one?”

I showed him the first-aid kit that he’d probably already noticed in my hand. “Sure.”

Brent and I asked people about injuries. One mother had an undoubtedly broken arm and one man thought he had whiplash.

Corey left and returned with a rescue sled. He and Samantha strapped Travis, with his neck now stabilized, into the sled. I ran to the front of the bus and told them about the broken arm and the possible whiplash. Samantha said, “I’ll help Corey maneuver the sled out of the bus, and then while Corey’s pulling the sled up to the ambulance, I’ll check on the other victims. Don’t move them.” She and Corey carried Travis out.

Brent carefully wrapped a thin, silvery emergency blanket around the man with the sore neck. A man and a little boy who looked about seven helped me wrap another emergency blanket around the woman with the broken arm. The little boy told me, “Mommy’s hurt. Daddy and I are taking care of her.”

Samantha returned and fastened a cervical collar on the possible whiplash victim and guided him down the sloping aisle toward the front of the bus. Brent helped the woman with the broken arm down the aisle.

The tour guide announced, “I’m coming, too.”

Samantha gave her an assessing look. “Are you injured?”

“No.”

“We can only fit the man we already took out and these two people, one in the back with your bus driver and my partner, and the other up front with me.”

Brent added, “We’ll transport the rest of you as quickly as possible.”

The tour guide sobbed, “I need to be with Travis. He’s confused. He’s not usually like that.”

Brent assured her, “He’ll be looked after, and we’ll get you to the hospital.” He went to the front of the bus, removed a small black object from an open compartment near the steering wheel, and helped Samantha take the injured people down the oddly canted stairs.

The injured woman’s husband assured their son that everything would be fine, his mother’s arm would stop hurting, and they would both see her soon. The boy’s lower lip trembled, but he didn’t cry.

I wrapped an emergency blanket around the tour guide. She asked me, “What can I do? I’m Paige, by the way.”

“I’m Emily.” I gave her a fistful of adhesive bandages printed with Santas, elves, and candy canes. “Let’s see if any of the children need these.”

One boy shouted, “I want a superhero cape, too.”

“They’re only for sick people,” his mother told him.

He wailed, “I’m sick!”

His mother held a hand toward me. “He’ll need one if we want any peace.” I gave her a survival blanket from my first-aid kit.

The boy’s two older brothers clamored for them, too. “You’ll have to share,” their mother told them. “The lady doesn’t have any more.”

That wasn’t true, but I didn’t admit that I had another one, and Brent probably had more, too. Other passengers might need them more than the obviously uninjured boys did, and we definitely didn’t have enough for all of the children on the bus.

Outside, the siren on the ambulance started up. Kids on the bus cheered. The sound of the siren dwindled. Brent came back, talked to adul. . .