Back on the Sweets Read online

  Back on the Sweets

  Sweet Shop Mystery #5

  Wendy Meadows

  © 2020, Wendy Meadows

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Majestic Owl Publishing LLC

  P.O. Box 997

  Newport, NH 03773

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Thanks for Reading

  About Wendy

  1

  My son Zack frowned. “What exactly are we doing here, Mom?”

  “We’re looking at dogs,” I tell him. “Isn’t that what people do at the Humane Society? Oh, look. That one’s cute.”

  A scruffy, long-haired mutt gazes up at me forlornly from a cage near the floor. I crouch down and stick my fingers through the bars to touch it. As soon as I do, it snaps at me, bares its teeth, and snarls. I yank my hand back fast.

  Cages and kennels line both walls of the enormous concrete room. Yelps and barks resonate off the cold, slippery floor and ceiling. I never saw a place that looked more like a prison. It makes me feel cold and scared inside. I can only imagine how the dogs and cats feel.

  “That dog might be cute on the outside, but that’s about all,” Zack replies. “Seriously, Mom. This is a gigantic waste of time. Why are we looking at dogs when we aren’t going to get one?”

  “Why shouldn’t we get one?” I ask. “What’s wrong with having a dog?”

  “You don’t have time for a dog and neither do I,” he replies. “We both work full time, you have a business to run, not to mention your private investigations, your boyfriend, your community involvement….”

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” I interrupt. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Oh, come on, Mom,” he chides. “Who do you think you’re fooling? I see you and Detective David Graham together all the time.”

  “That doesn’t make him my boyfriend. I told you we broke up.”

  He snorts. “For people who broke up, you two are as close as you’ve ever been. You still see him practically every day.”

  I blush at the mention of David, but Zack is right. Our breakup turned out to be a tiny speedbump in the journey. In more ways than one, nothing really changed between us.

  I make an excuse to deflect the conversation. “I don’t see him every day. I haven’t seen him in almost two weeks.”

  Zack shakes his finger at me. “You can’t fool me, Mom. You see him around town.”

  “Everybody sees him around town.”

  “Not like you do. You two talk every time you see each other.”

  “What difference does that make?” I shoot back. “We don’t go out together. That’s the difference.”

  “You don’t go out together because you’re carrying this breakup around like the flamin’ Olympic torch,” Zack argues. “You know he would jump at the chance to take you out the way he used to. You’re making a federal case out of breaking up with him when you know you want to get back together with him the same way he wants to get back together with you.”

  “You’re delusional, sweetheart,” I tell him. “We don’t go out together anymore because he’s too busy with his daughter. Ariel spends almost every weekend with him, and the weeknights when she isn’t around, he has to work to make up the extra time. If you want to invent obstacles to us getting back together, it’s him, not me. Oh, that’s a beautiful dog!”

  I stop near the cage of a large, silky Airedale terrier. It lowers its nose to sniff when I put my hand near it. Then it nuzzles me until I slip my hand inside to pet it. It wags its tail.

  I read the tag on the kennel. “His name is Bronx. That’s a nice name. He seems really sweet.”

  Zack crosses his arms over his chest. “You are NOT buying that dog, Mom. You would never have the time to take care of him. It would be cruel to him, and you know it.”

  I sigh gazing at the dog. His deep brown eyes blink up at me in a questioning way. He seems to be trying to communicate with me. I would like nothing better than to take him home. “I know. I just wish I could do more to make the world a better place. So many people and animals need help. There aren’t enough hours in the day to help them all.”

  “You’re doing a lot more than most people,” Zack replies. “You do more than anyone I know, but there’s a limit to what one person can do.”

  “I know.”

  I turn away from the dog with a heavy heart, but before I can decide what to do next, the door opens and a familiar figure strides into the shelter. Tall, bony Mr. Stewart enters hefting a hundred-pound sack of dog food on his shoulder. He lets it slip off into the corner of the room.

  “Mr. Stewart!” I exclaim. “What are you doing here?”

  He spins around and his eyes widen. “Margaret! Zachary! I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I could say the same thing about you,” I return. “What brings you out of your dog grooming parlor?”

  He glances around the shelter and rubs his hands together in nervous agitation. “I was just…you know…. I was just…. dropping off this bag of dog food.”

  I look down at the bag. “Doesn’t the shelter have its own food delivery?”

  He shrugs and looks away. “Sometimes. Anyway, I’ll be off. Have a lovely day, you two.”

  He hurries out the door. Zack narrows his eyes. “What’s that guy up to?”

  “It’s not like him to leave his business unattended,” I add. “The Humane Society is miles away from West End. He must have taken the day off work to come down here.”

  Zack casts a rueful glance around the shelter. “Just like us. Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake leaving Patty Matthews to run the store on her own?”

  “We’re doing good business now,” I reply. “We can afford another employee, and if one of us gets sick or breaks a leg, we’ll need someone trained who can take over. The store is too busy for one person to run alone, and Patty knows the store better than anyone besides the two of us. Heaven knows she’s proved herself working for free the last six months.”

  “I just don’t like leaving it in anyone’s hands,” Zack tells me. “It’s been you and me all this time, Mom. It’s hard to let go of the reins even for one day.”

  “I feel the same way,” I reply. “We’ll both keep a close eye on Patty, and if we’re not satisfied with the job she’s doing, we can always end it.”

  “Even so,” he returns, “we’re not getting a dog so we better get out of here. Besides, I have an appointment.”

  “Where?”

  He turns his shoulder to me so I can’t see his face. “I’m meeting a friend.”

  “In Peterborough?” I ask. “How will you have time to drop me off on your way there?”

  “No, I’m meeting them in West End. I can drop you off first.”

  I study him from the side, but he won’t look at me. He’s been nothing but cryptic about his friends ever since we moved to West End. Whenever I ask about them or suggest he introduce them me to, he gets fidgety and evasive. His behav
ior is really starting to bother me, but I don’t say anything. He’s twenty years old. He can make his own decisions.

  We walk out to the shelter lobby. Just as Zack reaches for the exit door, Mr. Stewart appears leading Bronx on a leash. Mr. Stewart wears his usual white coat. He comes out of the shelter, crosses the lobby, and exits through a side door where we lose sight of him.

  I blink after him in wonder. What is he doing here with that dog? After he leaves, I can’t contain my curiosity. I approach the reception counter. “What is Mr. Stewart doing with that dog?”

  “He always comes down here,” the receptionist tells me. “He comes at least once a week to give the dogs haircuts. It helps them get adopted faster when they’re nicely groomed.”

  “Does he get paid for that?” I ask.

  The receptionist glances over her shoulder toward the door where Mr. Stewart took Bronx. She lowers her voice to a confidential whisper. “No, he doesn’t, but don’t tell anybody. He doesn’t want anybody to know he donates his time. He doesn’t get paid for the food he brings over, either, and he doesn’t want anybody to know he does that, either. I don’t like to think about the money he has spent on this place in the last fifteen years.”

  I gape at her. “Fifteen years! Is that how long he’s been doing it?”

  She nods. Then she squeezes her thumb and forefinger together and turns them near her mouth like she’s locking her lips shut.

  I turn away to Zack, who listens in silence. “Can you believe that? He donates time and food to the shelter. I wonder why he doesn’t want anybody to know.”

  “Probably ‘cuz it would ruin his local reputation as a curmudgeon and a crank,” Zack returns. “He doesn’t want anybody to know he’s really a big softy under that crusty exterior.”

  “I don’t think you’re far off with that assessment,” I tell him. “He makes such an effort to act grumpy and standoffish when he’s really a nice man.”

  Zack holds the door open for me and we make our way to the parking lot. He holds the door open for me to get into his new car, too. After we get motoring down the highway toward West End, he breaks the silence. “Do you know what Mr. Stewart reminds me of?”

  “What?”

  “He reminds me of a jawbreaker with lots of layers, one under the other,” he tells me. “You suck away one layer and find another one underneath.”

  “Most people are like that, sweetheart,” I reply. “You just have to be patient enough to reveal the next layer. Just when you think you know someone well, you find another layer, and you realize you don’t know them at all.”

  He shoots me a crooked grin. “I guess some people are more like Everlasting Gobstoppers. It doesn’t matter how long you suck them. They never get any smaller, and they never reveal anything.”

  I laugh. “You might be right.”

  He drives me back to our house and parks by the curb. He opens the passenger door for me, and I get out. “Are you sure you don’t want to….”

  He cuts me off. “I’m sure.”

  I shift from one foot to the next and look around at loose ends. “Can you at least….”

  “No, I can’t,” he interrupts.

  I have nothing better to do than to go inside, alone. He waits. I squirm. At last, he turns away and opens the driver’s door. “I’ll see you later, Mom. Have a good day off.”

  “When will I see you?” I call after him.

  “I don’t really know. I’ll be home later for sure. I have to work tomorrow, so I won’t be out too late.”

  He gets into his car and drives away. I don’t want to hang around on the sidewalk like a hungry ghost, so I go inside even though I don’t really want to.

  I wish I had friends and things to do on my day off the way Zack does. The truth is, this breakup with David cost me more than I like to admit. If we were still going out, we would probably be on one of our picnic dates right now. We could go out to the lake, even if the weather is a little cold. We could admire the leaves changing color and the landscape falling into autumn.

  Instead, he’s busy with Ariel. He spends every day he gets off with her. They both want to spend every waking minute with each other. They want to make up for the last fifteen years they’ve spent apart. He doesn’t need me anymore. I don’t really need him, but I do need something to fill the time I used to spend with him.

  2

  I come out of my office at the candy store and check my watch. It’s five minutes until nine o’clock. It’s time to open up for another day. I head for the front door, but when I put out my hand to flip the Open sign, I catch sight of Mr. Stewart in the street.

  He walks along the sidewalk. He bends down and picks up several handfuls of trash in the gutter. He stuffs them into the garbage can outside his grooming parlor before going back for more. He clears out the gutters on both sides of the street. Then he goes into the alley between his business and the building next door.

  While I watch, four stray cats and a small puppy emerge from behind the dumpster of the other building. They come toward him, and the cats look up at him and open their mouths. He ducks into his own premises and comes back with a bag and a jug of milk.

  He pours milk and portions out handfuls of food into dishes behind his business. The animals fall on the food in ravenous greed. Mr. Stewart smiles down on them before putting the stuff away. He doesn’t come back outside.

  He really is a nice man at heart. I just never knew he was that nice. He’s doing what he can to make the world a better place. He just doesn’t want anybody to know it. Only someone who got to know him would notice something like that.

  Zack’s idea about the everlasting gobstopper comes back to me. Why would someone work so hard to convince everyone they were a prickly sourpuss? Why would Mr. Stewart want to try so hard to hide his good heart?

  While I ponder the notion, I get busy opening my own store. I unlock the door and turn the sign to Open. Then I go to the storeroom and get out the big folding sign that I put on the sidewalk. When I return to the front, I see Mr. Stewart again.

  He glances both ways before trotting across Main Street to slip into the Baker’s Dozen next door to my shop. A dozen people stand around inside the bakery waiting for Sabrina Harris to serve them.

  I trundle my sign outside, but my curiosity compels me to look toward the bakery. Mr. Stewart has been acting so surreptitious lately, I just have to find out what he’s up to. Through the bakery’s plate glass windows, I see Sabrina serving customers, but Mr. Stewart doesn’t get in line to take his turn. He hangs around behind the crowd and rubs his hands together in that nervous, anxious way of his.

  After a few minutes, Sabrina holds up one finger to a customer and rushes to the kitchen. Lightning quick, Mr. Stewart charges forward. He plunges his hand into his pockets and stuffs a wad of bills into the tip jar. Then he hurries out of the bakery and back to his own building before Sabrina returns.

  I frown to myself. That is really weird. Donating time and food to an animal shelter is one thing. I can even understand feeding stray animals and cleaning up trash. Now he’s handing out cash to local businesses? Why?

  I get lost in my own thoughts, and my own customers eventually distract me from the mystery. Later, though, after I eat my lunch in the office, Stacy Koontz comes over from the Happy-Go-Lucky Café.

  “Hello, Stacy,” I greet her. “You look like someone walked on your grave.”

  She doesn’t smile and beam the way she usually does, and she doesn’t laugh and make jokes, either. “It’s the strangest thing, Margaret. I was clearing out the tip jar after lunch today. I always divide the tips between the waitstaff and kitchen staff for every meal shift, and do you know what I found? I found five, brand new one hundred dollar bills in the tip jar. I don’t know what to do. I asked the staff what to do with it and they didn’t know, either. None of them wanted to take it. They thought maybe someone had made a mistake or lost it and they might come back to claim it. I agreed, so I put it in the safe. What do
you think? Do you know anyone who might have lost some money recently?”

  Uh-huh. I know where it came from, but now that I have two incidences of Mr. Stewart giving local businesses money on the sly, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want them knowing about that, either.

  My shoulders slump. “I know where the money came from, Stacy, but I can’t tell you. I’m sorry. I wish I could, but I’m pretty sure the person wants to remain anonymous.”

  Her eyes spring open. “What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with five hundred dollars?”

  “Keep it,” I tell her. “I’m pretty sure the person wants you to have it.”

  “I couldn’t do that!” she exclaims. “Five hundred dollars! I couldn’t keep it. No way.”

  “Then divide it between the staff who were on duty at lunch. How many were there?”

  “There were three in the kitchen and two on the floor,” she replies. “I always have the same number for every shift.”

  “There you go,” I tell her. “It looks like the person calculated so you could divide it evenly.”

  She looks over her shoulder. “I don’t think they’ll want to take it.”

  I have to smile. “I’m pretty sure all your staff will be delighted with an extra hundred dollars from an anonymous fairy godmother. Tell them it’s completely obligation free, and someone in this community wants to make their lives a little sweeter and a little easier. They’ll take it.”

  She peers into my face. “Are you sure, Margaret? I might have to give them the money and then, when the person comes to claim it, I would have to make them give it back. I couldn’t do that to my staff.”

  “The person won’t come back to claim it. They want you and your staff to have it. They wouldn’t have put it in your tip jar if they didn’t.”