Movie Palace Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Margaret Dumas

  “I’ll try to,” she said. “I had such a good time last week with Desk Set.”

  We chatted about the plans for that night’s event as we stood in line, placed our orders, and found a table. My usual, by the window, was just about to be nabbed by a couple of guys in suits when Chip, the server, waved them off.

  “This one’s reserved,” he told them, motioning for Abby and me to come over.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I said when I got to the table.

  “But you’re a regular, and I know how much you tip,” he said with a wink.

  “I’d be a regular, too, if I worked right across the street,” Abby said. She’d gotten an almond croissant and broke off a piece as soon as we sat but didn’t eat it.

  “Lisa, the owner, is a friend,” I said. “That’s her in the back.”

  Lisa was in the rear of the shop, supervising something being done with a pastry bag. “She was at Desk Set, too, selling deserts from that big metal desk.”

  “Oh, of course,” Abby said. “I thought she looked familiar.”

  “I’ve been thinking about the day we all met, in Monica’s shop,” I said. “You, me, Monica, Kristy, Tommy, and S. I just realized that everyone except S was there the night of the Desk Set party, too.”

  Abby blinked rapidly. “Kristy and I were with Monica, but I didn’t see Tommy.”

  “Oh, but—” I stopped. I was sure Tommy had told me that night that he’d seen Monica and the women from her shop. He’d been angry that they hadn’t told me he was there. I shook my head. “That’s right. He didn’t show up until after everyone was gone.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure why I didn’t choose to press her on the issue. Maybe because she was so clearly agitated already.

  “Oh, good.” She tapped a finger to her head. “I’d hate to think I was slipping.” She glanced out the window. “It was right here, wasn’t it, where he died?”

  “Yes.” It hadn’t even been a week. I looked outside, remembering Tommy as he’d staggered, stopped, and fallen.

  I shook my head. Across the street, Marty had found all the “a”s he needed to complete the marquee and was headed down the ladder. Then a movement at the office window above the marquee caught my eye. When I looked closer I saw it was Trixie, waving at me. I held up one hand, discretely. She waved back, grinning.

  “Here you go, ladies.” We both turned as Chip set our coffee orders on the table in front of us, along with the warmed slice of quiche I’d ordered. “Enjoy.”

  “Thanks,” I said as he left. I reached for my coffee like the addict I was. It had been a late night on my stakeout with Hector, and I still hadn’t managed to buy a bag of beans for my own kitchen.

  “Oh!” Abby yelped. She’d knocked over her latte, and it was spilling all over the table and into her lap.

  “I’ve got it.” I put down my mug, threw my napkin down onto the spill and stood, already moving toward the counter to get more napkins. I grabbed some and got back to the table just as Chip also arrived, dry towel in hand.

  “I’m so sorry,” Abby said. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous.”

  “No worries,” Chip said smoothly. “It happens all the time. I’ll be right back with a new latte. Decaf, right?”

  She nodded, and he took her empty mug and hustled away. I resolved to leave an even more generous tip than usual.

  My phone pinged with a text as I sat down, but I ignored it. “Are you okay?” I asked Abby.

  “I’m fine,” she said. But she didn’t look fine. She looked like a nervous wreck.

  “Abby, what’s wrong?” I asked.

  She looked at me, and I saw something wild in her eyes. “Nothing. I’m just…tired.”

  My phone pinged again. I reached into my bag for it and flipped the ringer off before setting it face-down on the table. Something was going on with Abby and I didn’t know if it was related to the murders.

  “Every woman I know who runs a business is tired,” I said. “They told me you had an emergency at your farm yesterday. I hope it wasn’t serious.”

  She waved a hand. “Oh, there’s always an emergency at the farm.” She pushed my coffee toward me. “Go ahead. Don’t wait for me.”

  I reached for the coffee as the phone vibrated with another text.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, picking it up. “Let me set it to—”

  There were three messages visible on the screen.

  COFFEE

  DON’T DRINK!

  SH PUT SOMTHG IN YR COFEE!!

  I stared at the messages, then I looked up at the office window across the street. Trixie was jumping up and down and waving like a maniac. I held up the phone and nodded, and I could see her put her hand over her heart in relief. I’d gotten her warning.

  I turned to Abby. “Sorry.” A million thoughts raced through my mind.

  “Do you have to go?” Abby asked worriedly, glancing at the phone. “At least have your coffee first.”

  Chip came back with her second latte. Had she spilled the first one on purpose? To get me away from the table? So she could slip something into my drink? Something like arsenic?

  She took a sip of her drink as soon as the server left. “Oh, that’s so good.”

  My instinct was to reach for mine as well. Which is apparently what she wanted. But why?

  I couldn’t let her know I knew. I scrambled for any innocuous conversation that would give me time to think. “What’s it like to run a farm?” I asked her. “How long have you had it?”

  She looked surprised, but started talking, which gave me a precious minute. Could Abby have killed S and Tommy? Could she have poisoned Kristy?

  Owning a farm, she might have access to arsenic for pest control, and it’s possible she might use bee pollen in some of her concoctions. But why? Why would she have killed anyone?

  Something in her tone of voice changed. I tuned back into her. She wasn’t looking at me. She was staring off into space, talking about her farm. About how it had been in her family for three generations. How she had planned to pass it on to her son.

  Her son.

  With those words it was as if a curtain went up in my mind. I saw it all, unspooling like a movie.

  The urban legend was wrong. There was no vengeful father whose child had died while playing S’s first game.

  There was a vengeful mother.

  Abby had stopped speaking. She was watching me, every muscle in her body tensed.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m a million miles away. Do you mind if I just answer this one text?”

  “Of course not.” The words fell like ice shards from her lips.

  I sent a very brief text, then I met her eyes.

  “Abby,” I said softly, “tell me about your son.”

  A tremor went through her body.

  “He didn’t die in a normal hit-and-run, did he?”

  She froze, her eyes wide, staring at something beyond me.

  “He was playing S’s game,” I said. “The old one, with the space monsters.”

  She made a sound that was sharp and filled with pain.

  “And S didn’t take any responsibility. Did his company even get charged with anything?”

  She swallowed, her head twitching in one short negative shake.

  “Then you saw that he was going to do it again. That he had a new game. And that more kids might die. Like those two in Pennsylvania, yesterday.”

  Her jaw flexed but she still didn’t speak. She looked like one tiny nudge would shatter her into a million pieces.

  “I noticed something,” I said. “When you saw S in the shop that day. Everyone else was looking at him like he was some sort of god. I thought you were, too. I noticed it and I thought you were starstruck. But you weren’t. You recognized him.”

  I wasn’t
sure if she would speak. I wasn’t sure if she could. But finally, after an agonizing pause, she did.

  Her eyes flickered, still looking into the distance. “I thought it was fate,” she said. “Fate brought him to the store that day. Fate put him in front of me. Fate owed me, for putting my boy, my Lucas, in front of that car. Fate wanted me to make it right.”

  I nodded. “S told you about his allergies,” I said softly. “You told me he gave you his medical history. You knew he was allergic to bees.”

  She nodded, her face a mask of pain.

  “How did you get the pollen into his drink?” I asked.

  She blinked. “I didn’t. He put it in himself.”

  I got it. “You gave him samples that day.”

  “It was fate that I happened to have a CBD tincture to boost immune response,” she said, her voice robotic. “It has a high concentration of bee pollen. It’s very healthy, usually.”

  “You just handed it to him,” I said, “knowing that whenever he decided to use it…”

  She didn’t move a muscle.

  “But you couldn’t have known he’d die so publicly. That the whole world would demand answers,” I said.

  “There were only two people who could have figured it out,” she said. Then, for the first time since I’d brought up her son, she looked at me. “And I couldn’t let them say anything.” Her voice changed, becoming desperate. “Don’t you see? Not when Fate wanted me to—”

  “It wasn’t fate that put arsenic in Tommy’s juice,” I said harshly. “You can’t tell me you just happened to have a bottle in your pocket—”

  “Oh, but I did,” she said. “I told you there were only two people who could have figured out what I’d done. Monica and Kristy. I had three vials of arsenic that night when I met them for the midnight movie. One was for Monica, one for Kristy, and one for myself.”

  My blood turned to ice at the thought of what she’d almost done.

  “But then—” Abby swallowed. “Fate put Tommy in the theater with us.”

  “You did see him,” I said.

  She blinked. “That’s when I understood,” she said. “Fate was guiding them to me. And later, when Lillian hummed that tune at the séance, I knew I was right. I knew I was doing what Lucas wanted me to do.”

  “You gave Tommy the bottle of arsenic.” I said. “The night of the midnight movie. What did you tell him it was?”

  “An energy boost,” she said. “I told him to take it in the morning.”

  And he had. He’d put it in his juice. The juice he’d drunk in front of the Palace while I’d watched him from the table where I now sat with his killer.

  “Why?” I asked. “He didn’t have anything to do with the game that killed your son.”

  “Other people have sons,” she said, her voice catching. “He was putting more of those games into the world. He had to be stopped. And I was the instrument of Fate who could stop him.”

  “What about Kristy?” I demanded. “She was no threat to you, or to anyone. She was convinced Tommy killed S, and then killed himself.”

  “Maybe at first,” Abby protested. “But then you started asking questions. You got her thinking.”

  “Is that when you decided to kill me, too?” I asked. “Did that bottle you gave me the night of the séance—”

  But we were interrupted before I could get her to admit it. Detective Jackson had gotten my text, and three police cars were racing up the street, lights and sirens blaring.

  Abby heard them and looked at me, blinking. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m ready.” She took a long shuddering breath. “I miss my Lucas so much.”

  Then she grabbed my coffee and drank it down.

  Chapter 33

  “Trixie, you saved my life. And Monica’s.”

  It had been hours, but this was my first chance to speak with Trixie. She’d hovered anxiously at the top of the balcony stairs while Detective Jackson and the rest of the police had kept me in the lobby, asking me everything about what had happened.

  “I’m just so glad for that contraption,” Trixie said. She’d thrown herself at me—through me—the minute we’d been alone in my office.

  “I would have drunk that coffee if it wasn’t for your message,” I said. “I had it in my hand.” I shivered. “I don’t know how Abby thought she’d get away after poisoning me, but she had two other bottles of arsenic on her, and she’d made plans to meet Monica at the shop.”

  I’d called Monica immediately when the police arrived, holding my breath until I heard her voice, then babbling that she shouldn’t eat or drink anything Abby had been near.

  “Abby seemed so nice,” Trixie said. “How could a nice person be so horrible?”

  I collapsed on the couch. “She was grieving,” I said. “That can do horrible things to a person. I think her plan was always to drink the last bottle herself.”

  “You were so clever to get her to confess,” Trixie said. She’d heard me tell everything to Jackson. “And so clever to use your phone thingie.”

  I’d opened a voice memo app and pressed Record after sending Jackson the text, leaving the phone in my lap under the table. Which meant the police now had Abby’s full confession. They also had my phone, as evidence, which was not the worst thing that could have happened to me that morning.

  We heard heavy footsteps in the hallway and Marty appeared in the doorway. He was rubbing his eyes the way he usually did when he’d lost track of time in his booth, tinkering with ancient equipment.

  “Where have you been?” he said blearily. “And where’s my mocha?”

  Which is when, after having nearly been killed and watching a woman kill herself in front of me, and much to Marty’s horror, I did what I hadn’t yet done. I burst into tears.

  When Callie and Albert came in for their regular shifts they found me explaining everything to Marty in the break room. I started all over and caught everyone up, Trixie chiming in when she thought I might leave out some detail.

  “I had no idea,” I insisted, in response to a question from Albert. “I thought we’d just have coffee and try to figure out if we could remember anything odd happening at the shop that day. I honestly didn’t realize she was the poisoner.”

  “I mean, she gave you a bottle of poison the night of the séance,” Callie said.

  “Well, I know that now,” I replied. “At the time I thought it was just one of her tinctures. When Detective Jackson told me a bottle had been found at Kristy’s place he didn’t describe it. I thought he meant a milk bottle or a juice bottle or something. Something that had been tampered with. Although…”

  “Although what?”

  I grimaced. “Abby did seem startled at Monica’s shop yesterday, when I lied and told her how well her tincture worked. Maybe I should have asked myself why.”

  “You think?” Marty said.

  Trixie had been flitting in and out of the room while we talked. It killed me that I couldn’t tell everyone how she’d sent me the text that had saved my life, but she didn’t seem to mind.

  “When did you realize Abby was the killer?” Albert asked. “What gave her away?”

  I looked at Trixie. She waved a hand. “Aw, go on,” she said. “It’s fine.”

  I told them the same thing I’d told Jackson and the rest of the police. “It just came to me, because of the two kids who were killed yesterday, and you telling us about your friend who had been hit by a truck. I remembered Abby telling me her son had been killed.” I shrugged.

  Trixie winked at me, then seemed to hear something from outside. She went to the door and looked down the hall.

  “Um, Nora?” she said, a tiny worry line between her plucked brows. “Hector’s here. And he doesn’t look happy.”

  “You didn’t call? You didn’t text? You didn’t even think to tell me?”

 
Hector was very not happy. I’d told everyone else to set up for the twelve-fifteen and whisked him away to my office, closing the door firmly behind us. Now we stood and faced each other, having what might be considered our first fight.

  “I couldn’t call or text,” I explained. “The police took my phone. It’s evidence.”

  “There is still such a thing as a landline!” He pointed an accusing finger at the evidence of a such a phone on my desk. His sexy accent came out a little more when he was livid. Which probably wasn’t what I should have been focusing on.

  “I don’t know your number,” I told him. “It was programmed in my cell. And I knew you were going to come by for lunch, which you have, so—”

  “I came by for lunch and saw the café was closed, with crime scene tape everywhere. And when I asked someone what happened they said a woman had been poisoned.” He put a hand to his forehead, taking a step back from me. “Do you know what I thought?”

  “I’m sorry.” I closed the distance between us. “I should have found a way to contact you.”

  “She could have killed you.”

  “But she didn’t.”

  He sank onto the couch, running a hand over his face. “When I turned my back on a career in crime I expected my life to be much calmer.”

  I refrained from pointing out that he had not been the one face-to-face with a multiple murderer that morning.

  “It’s fine,” I soothed, sitting next to him. “I’m fine. It’s all over now. And I promise I’ll commit your number to memory.”

  “Do that.” He took my hand. “Also, please stop getting involved with murderers.”

  “I’ll leave them alone if they’ll leave me alone.”

  The double features must go on. And The Band Wagon party wouldn’t organize itself. Once I’d shooed Hector out of the theater I thought I’d be able to get to work, but it turned out quite a few people knew the number to the landline on my desk, including Robbie, who wanted to know everything, and Monica, who called with the news that Kristy had come out of her coma.