I glanced up at the clock before I answered her. “You’re early today.” I hadn’t even finished the batter for all of my cake donuts yet. Usually I was icing the last batch of them when Emma came in. “What’s the matter? Couldn’t sleep?”
“Actually, I need to talk to you,” Emma said solemnly.
“Oh, no. You’re not quitting again, are you?” My assistant had left for college once before, but she’d come back soon enough when living away from home hadn’t suited her.
“No, of course not,” she said.
“Then what do you want to talk about?”
“I spoke with Emily last night,” she said tentatively.
“I’m not surprised. You two are best friends, after all.”
“That’s the thing,” Emma said softly. “She asked me to take over for you.”
“You’re going to make the wedding donuts now?” I asked before I quickly added, “Not that you wouldn’t be perfectly capable of doing it. It just surprises me, that’s all.”
“I’m not making donuts or a cake,” Emma said. “Her mother’s got that covered. I’m standing in as her maid of honor. At least I will if you give me your blessing. I told Emily that I wouldn’t do it if you had a problem with it. She’s just going to have to find someone else.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” I said. “Emma, I’m happy for you. You know, you should have had the job from the start. I just got it because of my interfering.”
“I’m so sorry about this rift between you and Emily. Are you really not even coming to the wedding?” Emma asked.
“She told me not to come, and I’m going to respect her wishes,” I said.
In a soft voice, my assistant said, “All you have to do is apologize.”
That was something that I wasn’t about to do. “Emma, it might be better for both our sakes if we both just drop this, okay? I don’t want my problems I might have with Emily to bleed over into our relationship.”
“I don’t want that, either,” she said quickly. “Are we still good?”
“We’re perfectly fine,” I said as I forced a smile.
“Then there’s only one other thing I’d like to talk to you about,” Emma said as I worked on the batter for our pumpkin donuts. It was getting to be that time of year again, and I always enjoyed the smell of the frying donuts.
“Does it involve Emily?” I asked.
“Not directly. It is about Jude’s murder, though. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand completely, but Dad came across something that I thought you might like to know.”
Emma’s father was constantly trying to turn his newspaper into something more than a place just for ads and comics. “Are you sure you won’t be breaking any confidences with him by telling me?”
“I asked him that, and he gave me his blessing.” Emma looked at the clock as she added with a smile, “It doesn’t make too much difference, since the paper will be out by six AM. He figured you weren’t going to tell anybody until we opened, anyway. Could you do that much for me?”
“Sure thing,” I said. “So tell me, what’s the big news?”
“Dad found out the reason behind the fight Peter had with Jude the night he died, and he’s going to publish it today.”
“That’s old news,” I said as I went back to the batter. “Peter told me himself that he was trying to persuade Jude not to crash the wedding. Evidently they had words about it, and it led to a fistfight.”
“He lied to you, Suzanne,” Emma said. “That wasn’t the real reason at all.”
“Okay, you’ve got my attention,” I said as I set the batter aside. “Why did the two of them fight, if it wasn’t about the wedding?”
“Dad believes that both men were dating the same woman,” Emma said smugly.
“Does he know who it is?” I asked, trying not to give anything away. Could Peter have been going out with Lisa Grambling, too? I certainly had something else to ask her about the next time I saw her.
“No, he’s calling her Madam X for now. He’s even got a shadow outline of a woman to go along with the article. It sounds like a real winner.”
Ray Blake had been known to run with far less, and most folks discounted his supposed exposés with grains of salt. I had a hunch that Ray was off base on this one as well. After all, Peter wasn’t all that familiar with April Springs. How could he have even met Lisa? “Is that all he’s got?” I asked.
“No, there’s more. Jude owed someone in town a fair amount of money, and Dad thinks that might also be a reason that he was murdered, not out of jealousy.”