Missy DeMeanor Cozy Mysteries Boxset

by Brianna Bates

  ***

  Missy called Tyler.

  “Hey, babe.”

  She smiled. He sounded more like himself. “Hey there.”

  “What’s on the itinerary for tonight?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” Missy said. “It’s supposed to be a surprise. But whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t involve a lot of running. I’m wiped out.”

  He laughed. “You always have a little bit more in the tank, trust me.”

  “You sound like Anastasia.”

  He laughed again. “I lost count of how many of my coaches told me that over the years. And you know what? It’s true. It’s all part of evolution. Your body tells you to stop long before you really have to—it’s the body’s way of protecting itself.”

  “Great. So that means I have to ignore what my mind is telling me?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “You’re telling me that exercising is like having a constant argument with yourself.”

  “When you put it like that …”

  He asked her if she’d heard any more about Eliana. She quickly brought him up to speed, including her discordant conversation with the lieutenant.

  “I asked around,” Tyler said. “The guy messed up a case a few years back. Nearly lost his job. He’s trying to make up for it by overcompensating now. And the last thing he wants is for you to solve it and make him look incompetent.”

  “I found out Eliana was sort of cheating. That was why she got kicked out of WiredFit.”

  “Really?”

  She told him what she knew. The first thing Tyler said, of course, was:

  “And Jeremy didn’t know she was taking the supplement? I find that hard to believe.”

  “That’s what I thought. Anastasia didn’t believe him either at first, but now she does because of how hard he’s had to work over the last couple of years.”

  “That doesn’t prove anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tell me what you mean first.”

  So Missy filled him on how Jeremy had gotten stuck with a lot of his lifts and wasn’t seeing much improvement across the board for almost a full year.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Tyler repeated.

  “You mean he could have been on something anyway?”

  “Unlikely, but it’s possible,” Tyler said. “I knew guys that doped in college but saw exactly zero benefit from it. Or marginal benefits from it. I think most of them had reached or were close to their potential so steroids didn’t help them much.”

  “Wow. I thought they always helped?”

  “No such thing as a miracle drug,” Tyler said. “Don’t get me wrong. Most guys saw immediate benefit, but a handful didn’t. That was just one more reason why I never took anything.”

  “So you can’t really tell who’s doping or not?” Missy asked. “Just by how they’re performing.”

  “Not necessarily. Only a drug test will prove it one way or the other, but of course there are plenty of ways around the tests. The pros have it down to a science.”

  It was more likely that Jeremy knew about Eliana’s doping than not, so Tyler’s explanation made more sense to her. She took a deep breath. “Well, Tyler, I know I wasn’t getting involved but I think that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “You say that like it’s news to me.”

  His voice had gotten a little flat again. “Tyler, honey, why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you.”

  He took a deep breath. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “I’m your fiancée and soon will be your wife. I will understand.”

  He laughed and some of the tension went out of his voice. “We don’t have enough people in the department.”

  He had mentioned this before. Actually, now that Missy thought about it, Tyler had mentioned it several times in the past couple months. He had brought this up in passing, and one time had made a comment that vandalism would probably go unpunished for the foreseeable future. When she had tried to ask him questions about it, he’d quickly changed the subject because Tyler did not like to bring work home with him.

  “You’ve said that a few times now. I guess I didn’t realize how much it’s been affecting you.”

  “That’s because I try not to talk about work,” Tyler said. “When I come home, I just want it to be us. Me and you. I think about work most of the day so I try to shut it down.”

  “But you’re having trouble doing that?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “And I know that I’ve been short with you recently. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Tyler, it’s okay. Work is a big part of life, and I’m sorry it’s bothering you so much.”

  “We just don’t have enough people.” Tyler was getting worked up. “I feel like I’m doing a half-assed job because of it, and the good people under me are stretched too thin. They’ve started chirping. I’m afraid I’m going to lose a couple patrolmen. They probably started looking for a transfer, somewhere local or even with the staties.”

  This was much more than not having enough people. Tyler was also dealing with morale issues with his staff. Missy had never worked for a big company but knew that morale was such an important motivator—probably doubly so on a police force. They lived in a nice town, but still Tyler’s men and women had to deal with the not-no-nice things that sometimes happened inside it. Tyler had explained that sometimes only a positive attitude could keep cops going and when they lost that …

  Missy said, “Have you posted for more people?”

  “It’s a budget issue,” Tyler said. “We’re on a hiring freeze right now. Meanwhile, the average citizen doesn’t know that. All they hear about are the crimes that are taking longer to address or even go unsolved. A lot of people are starting to complain.”

  “But it’s not your fault.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Tyler said. “But it’s my problem to solve. I can’t get the mayor to lift the hiring freeze. He’s a fiscal conservative and getting ready for the next election.”

  “Aw, babe. I’m sorry.” Missy felt awful. Her man was carrying all this around inside him and had kept it to himself so as not to burden her. “Tyler, you know you can talk about work with me, right?”

  “I know.” She could picture him on the other end of the line, sitting on their couch in the living room with Cody curled up at his feet. “But I try not to. I don’t want work to interfere with us.”

  “But it’s such a big part of your life.”

  “You’re right.” Tyler paused. “My pop always brought work home with him, to the point where my mom was just overwhelmed. I didn’t understand till I was in high school really. But mom worked a part-time job and was responsible for carting me around for all the sports I played. You would not believe how many miles she put on the car, driving me all over God’s green Earth. She had her own worries and then at night she had to listen to Dad’s worries … I think it wore her out. I don’t want that to happen to us.”

  “There is a happy medium somewhere,” Missy said. “Never talking about work can’t be good for you—or us—either.”

  “You’re right.” He laughed. “I guess I’m still trying to figure this out.”

  “This?”

  “This thing called being human.”

  She laughed. “Listen. How about we go out to dinner tomorrow night? Let’s talk it through and see what we can do. Okay?”

  “Melissa, you’re the best.”

  “You say that now, but wait till we’ve been married for a few years. You’ll be tired of me by then.”

  “Not a chance.”

  They said their goodbyes and Missy felt so much better.

  ***

  As they headed toward the lake to begin the evening’s session, Missy went over what she now knew.

  Gabby had discovered that Eliana was taking some kind of borderline-illegal performance-enhancing substance. After Gabby brought that to Anastasia’s attention, Eliana had been kicked out. She and Jeremy had broke
n up not long after that happened, possibly right at the same time.

  What did that mean?

  Missy didn’t know.

  But what she now assumed was that word had gotten around about Eliana’s so-called cheating. That probably explained the hushed conversation Missy had overheard, when someone referred to a woman cheating.

  It led her exactly nowhere. And Missy had ruled out jealousy being the culprit when it came to Jeremy. After speaking to Marie and a couple other women to verify, they all confirmed that Jeremy was deeply in love with his fiancée and had made his peace with Eliana. He didn’t want her back.

  What was more, Eliana had planned on apologizing to everybody. More than a year had passed since her departure as well. When you added an apology to time, that tended to smooth things over with people.

  But she’d never gotten to apologize, which meant someone who still held a big enough grudge to kill, might have pushed her off the edge.

  Carl?

  Adrienne?

  Gabby? No. She was pretty sure Gabby couldn’t have done it. Eliana would have been angry with her at revealing her so-called cheating, but Gabby didn’t have a strong enough reason to hate Eliana in return.

  As far as Missy knew.

  So who else? Missy needed to speak to more people and work out the timing of that night. If she could determine who had opportunity, she could solve this case. She knew it. Missy didn’t have much of a chip on her shoulder, but after her earlier conversation with Lieutenant Simon, all she wanted to do now was show the cop up.

  “Obstacle course tonight!” Anastasia said, as they headed toward the lake. Everybody clapped. “You’re going to be in and out of the water, which is why I told you to bring two pairs of sneakers. The ones you’ve got on will need to dry out!”

  Missy fell into step beside Marie. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m good. Looking forward to the course so it can take my mind off you-know-what.”

  Missy put her arm around Marie. “Me too.”

  “I don’t see Leeann anywhere.” Marie looked around them.

  “Is she with the lieutenant?” Missy asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “Did she and Eliana ...?”

  Marie said, “Not that I know of. But apparently she was on pace to have met Eliana where it happened.”

  Missy nodded. “Good. At least the lieutenant is using his time wisely now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  There were too many people within earshot for Missy to have a candid conversation about the investigation.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Ahead, the trees broke and a wide lake appeared. Missy was in the back of the group so she could only make out a few of the obstacles.

  Anastasia raised her hands for silence. “In the past, these are some of the obstacles they’ve used for the Celtic Games. I don’t know if they’ll utilize them this year, but I’m willing to bet we’ll see some of these.”

  Anastasia explained the course. Many of the others had already run it and claimed it was self-explanatory. It was about four miles around the lake—four miles!—and broken up by the various obstacles including a swim at the midway point across the width of the lake.

  Missy didn’t know if she had four miles in her after the three-miler last night and the circuit training this morning.

  “We got this,” Marie said as she hopped from one foot to the other. “Just think about something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Something that will distract you.”

  Missy didn’t have the first clue, then realized the answer was obvious: she could think about the case to take her mind off the discomfort of the upcoming obstacle run.

  But what to think about? She’d already gone over in her mind what she knew a hundred times. The footprints kept coming back to mind, but without being able to picture them clearly it wasn’t like she could examine everybody else’s sneakers.

  She had seen two sets. The first set was closer to where Eliana had fallen off the edge and was deeper in the mud—immediately making her think of a man. The second set began a little farther away and was much shallower—making her think of a woman.

  The first two people that came to mind in that scenario were Carl and Adrienne. They were the only male-female duo (she knew of) that together held an understandable grudge against Eliana and who would provide strong, plausible alibis for each other. They had to be prime suspects, now that she thought about it.

  But how to prove it? How to question them? And if it wasn’t them, how could she figure out which two people were involved? It would be hard enough to find one, never mind two.

  Then it came to her. She didn’t have to find both people. She just had to find one, and then that person would implicate the other to save themselves.

  Okay. Fine.

  But still—how to find the first?

  “Think about your form!” Anastasia shouted to everyone. “You’re tired, you’re exhausted, but don’t let it get sloppy. That’s when you get injured.”

  Missy didn’t think she could focus on her form when it would take everything she had just to get around the cour—

  Form.

  Running form.

  She looked away from Anastasia and went back in her mind to that night. What did the footprints look like?

  There were two ways to run. You could hit the ground first with your heel, or you could hit the ground first with the balls of your feet.

  And now that she thought about it, the first set of prints had to have been from a heel-striking runner. Wait—didn’t Marie take pictures?

  Anastasia was still getting them pumped up. Missy nudged her friend. “Marie, do you have your phone on you?”

  “Yeah, I’m going to leave it here with Anastasia since we’re swimming.”

  “What—oh yeah. Can I take a look at the pictures from last night?”

  Marie gave her a look. “Did you think of something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “What is it?”

  “It might be nothing. But I’ll show you.”

  Marie took her phone out and tapped and swiped until the pictures came up. She handed Missy the phone.

  Missy looked at the first picture. It was of the churned-up ground where Eliana had fallen—or been pushed. She swiped right to advance through the set of pics till she saw the ones of the footprints leading away from the crime scene.

  “What is it?” Marie asked.

  Missy pointed. “That looks like a heel-strike to me.”

  “A what?”

  Missy was about to tell her, but everybody was within earshot. “I’ll explain later.”

  She swiped right to see the rest of the pics. The other set of prints was as she remembered, much lighter, barely making an impression in the ground. They had to be made by someone running on the balls of their feet.

  Two different runners, confirmed.

  She swiped right again but she must have already been at the end of the pictures from last night, because the next was a very naughty image of Marie in her bedroom.

  Missy put a hand over her mouth. “Marie!”

  “Oh.” Marie’s eyes bulged and she snatched the phone out of Missy’s hands. “Forgot about that one.”

  Missy laughed hysterically, enough to draw the attention of the others nearby. “Sorry. Sorry.”

  Both she and Marie were blushing badly, trying not to laugh uncontrollably.

  “Let’s get ready!” Anastasia said.

  Missy lined up with Marie in the back of the group. They had decided earlier to do whatever the workout was together in the event they needed to partner up.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Marie, let’s get closer to the front,” Missy said.

  “Excuse me?” Marie said.

  Missy had realized that she wouldn’t get a good look at anybody’s form from the back of the pack. The better runners would separate from them quickly, so she had a small window of opportunity to
try to find the heel-strikers. She had decided to look for them first, figuring that most of the people in WiredFit had worked on their form and ran “correctly” for lack of a better term.

  Maybe that was a poor assumption, but either way it was a place to start that would help narrow the suspect pool.

  “I want to try to stick with everybody for at least half a mile,” Missy said.

  “Who are you, and what have you done with Missy?”

  She smiled sweetly. “Better lock your phone before you leave it here. You don’t want those naughty pics accidentally making their way onto the internet.”

  Marie gave her a look. “Honestly? They might already be there.”

  Missy thought she’d misheard her friend. “What?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Anastasia shouted. “Let’s go!!!”

  And they were off before Missy could get any more details about Marie’s pictures. The idea made her laugh—never in a million years would she have expected to find those kind of selfies on Marie’s phone, only then to find out they might have gotten onto the internet somehow. She couldn’t help but laugh, and then Marie was laughing too, and in the laughter Missy forgot all about how difficult running was for her and how tired she was and she managed to stay with the better runners.

  Jeremy immediately got out in front along with Byron and Richie. All three men clearly ran on the balls of their feet. Then Carl and Adrienne broke in front of her. Missy watched them closely and—yes, Carl struck the ground with his heel while Adrienne ran lightly on her toes. As a matter of fact, now that she was paying close attention, Carl hit the ground very hard. Each stride was almost like a jump. Running like that, he would have left deep impressions in the mud.

  Missy made a note to talk to him later that night. She didn’t know what she was going to say—or ask—but she’d figure it out.

  “Miss … I’m going … to die,” Marie said.

  They were running so fast that Missy couldn’t even catch her breath, let alone talk. She grunted an ambiguous response and kept going as hard as she could.

  Next to pass them were a few others, all of them running on their toes. Good. So far she’d seen only one heel-striker other than herself of course.