Eggnog Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery - Book 23 (Frosted Love Cozy Mysteries)

by Summer Prescott

  “Thanks for telling me,” Missy said softly. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Spencer is driving me to the airport. I’m going to sell the house that Amber and I bought together and move out of that town. I can’t take the thought of facing all of those memories every day. I’m going to make a fresh start…in more ways than one.”

  “That’s good,” Missy nodded, patting his hand. “We all need a fresh start at one time or another. I wish you all the best, Jeffrey. Would you like a cupcake for the road?”

  “Two, if you don’t mind. One for me, and one that I should’ve given Amber while she was still alive,” his eyes clouded with tears.

  “You got it,” Missy said, squeezing his shoulder on her way behind the counter.

  She bagged up two of her German Chocolate cupcakes and sent him on his way.

  “What a sad situation all the way around,” Echo remarked. “Think he’ll ever really change?”

  “He realized that he needs to…that’s a great place to start,” Kel replied.

  “Yes it is. I really hope he gets the help that he needs and sticks with it,” Missy murmured, watching Spencer help him with his luggage.

  Chapter 21

  “Spence, I need you to be straight with me. Ashlie already confessed to the crimes, so that’s not an issue, but someone came out there and intervened before something terrible could have happened to Jeffrey. I need to know who that was,” Detective Chas Beckett told the Marine as the two sat across the breakfast table from one another.

  “What makes you think that I’d have any idea about that?” Spencer asked mildly, sipping his coffee.

  Chas smiled and shook his head. “Well, it’s kind of interesting that, when Jeffrey described the man who “rescued” him, it sounded quite a lot like you, in appearance and manner.”

  The Marine opened his mouth to speak and the detective held up a hand to stop him.

  “I know, I know. You were here at that time. Maggie verified that already. My point is that, somehow you knew the area where the body was located, and you knew where we’d find Ashlie and Jeffrey. That tells me that, since you didn’t witness them arriving at the cabin, there must have been someone who told you that they were there,” Chas challenged him.

  Spencer shrugged. “Or…I had followed Jeffrey previously, and knew where he was hanging out and getting high, and made a guess that when he left the Inn with Ashlie that night, they were most likely headed toward the cabin,” he proposed.

  “Then how do you explain the presence of the man who intervened?”

  “Who knows? Could have been a hunter who stumbled upon them or something,” the Marine replied casually.

  “A hunter who just happens to carry duct tape in his backpack?” Chas raised his eyebrows, more than skeptical.

  “What self-reliant outdoorsman doesn’t? I never leave home without it,” Spencer cracked a smile.

  “Yeah…that’s kind of my point, Spence. This guy sounds pretty familiar, and I know that it wasn’t you, which means that it was someone a lot like you, which means there’s a fair to middling chance that you know exactly who he is,” the detective stared at him pointedly, beginning to realize that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with his line of questioning.

  “The world’s full of coincidences, boss,” the Marine smiled. “We done here? I’ve got some downspouts that need to be mended.”

  “Going to use duct tape?” Chas quipped.

  “I think I’m a bit more resourceful than that,” he chuckled.

  “I have no doubt,” the detective gave up, reaching for his coffee.

  **

  “There’s something very special about Spencer, isn’t there?” Missy asked, when Chas came back from breakfast with the Marine.

  “Apparently,” her husband smiled.

  “He didn’t tell you anything about the guy from the cabin, did he?” she guessed.

  “Not a thing.”

  “Do you think he was a spy or something when he was in the Marines?”

  “A spy?” he laughed. “Who knows? What I do know is that he seems to have some very special talents and knowledge that he wouldn’t have gained as an infantryman. We’ll probably never know the full extent of his background, and that’s by design. He’s living out a very quiet, comfortable life here, and I believe he’s earned that privilege.”

  “I’m just glad that he’s in our corner.”

  “I think Spencer Bengal will be in the corner of anyone who is doing the right thing. That’s come in pretty handy since he’s been with us.”

  Missy had a bright idea. “Have you talked to him about possibly becoming a police officer?”

  Chas shook his head. “With his tattoos, they wouldn’t even look at his application.”

  “Well, that’s just ridiculous. Someone with his demeanor and skills would be a great asset to the department,” she frowned.

  “Rules are rules, sweetie. Besides, I think Spence is content to just lay low and putter around the Inn fixing things. He helps me with investigations on the side, and no one is the wiser. It works out well for both of us,” her husband said pragmatically.

  “I sure hope we’re paying him what he’s worth,” Missy gave her husband a direct look.

  “I don’t know that we ever could, he’s worth more to us than money can buy, but I’m certainly making sure that he’s well taken care of,” Chas assured her.

  Chapter 22

  Echo wrapped both gloved hands around the base of the prickly bush that she was trying to remove from beneath her bedroom window. With a grunt she leaned back and pulled with all of her might. The stubborn, firmly rooted bush didn’t budge an inch. Wiping the sweat from her brow with her forearm, she knelt low to the ground and peered underneath the mammoth plant, trying to figure out a better strategy for its removal. In general, she liked to leave nature to do its thing, but, since the bushes had provided shelter and camouflage for her peeping-tom next door neighbor, she wanted them out, sooner rather than later.

  “Ain’t nothin more beautiful than a fine-lookin woman workin up a good sweat,” she heard Loud Steve remark from behind.

  Crawling out from under the green beast, she stood up and brushed off the knees of her well-worn jeans.

  “I can think of several things, actually,” Echo muttered, irritated.

  “Need some help, little lady?” Steve pushed his ball cap back further on his head and grin at her in a most smugly patronizing manner.

  “I don’t know that it’ll make a difference. These things are so firmly rooted that they’re just not coming out,” using the corner of her mouth she blew a stray coppery curl off of her forehead.

  “Oh, she’ll come out alright. You just wait right here,” he replied, hitching up his stained jeans and heading toward the front of his house.

  Echo was confused when she heard his truck start up, and just figured that he was going to the hardware store for an axe or something, so she was startled when she saw his truck trundling through his back yard, headed for hers. Appalled, she ran in front of the truck and held out her hand.

  “Stop right there!” she ordered. “You can’t just drive over the grass like that, you’ll kill it!”

  “Nah, this is tough stuff. A little bit of water and it’ll spring right up,” he assured her, hopping down from the truck with a coil of rope.

  Steve tied one end of the rope to a thick metal loop under the bumper of his truck, and secured the other end around the base of the bush, after much grunting, sweating and more than a little swearing.

  “What are you doing, Steve?” Echo worried.

  “Just hang tight, little lady. This bush don’t stand a chance.”

  “Well, don’t destroy it, I want to replant it along the back fence,” she directed.

  “It’ll come out alright. You can hug it all you want to after I’m done,” he rolled his eyes.

  Steve climbed back into his truck, put it in reverse and slowly back away until the rope was taut. G
iving it a little bit more gas, he pulled, causing the bush to bend toward him.

  “Don’t break it!” Echo yelled.

  Steve waved her off impatiently, giving it a bit more gas, then more still. There was a crunching sound as the roots of the bush began slowly to pull up from the ground. Her neighbor eased the truck further away, taking the bush with it, and finally, with a loud whump, it pulled free and fell to the ground, taking all of its roots and a healthy amount of soil with it.

  Echo’s mouth fell open in surprise. “You did it,” she exclaimed, incredulous. “That’s great – thank you.”

  “Told ya I could,” he gloated, reminding her of who he was.

  There were two more bushes that needed to come out, and Steve took care of them in short order. They stood outside of his truck, surveying the holes that were left behind.

  “Whatcha gonna do there?” he asked, pointing at the empty spaces.

  “I have some flowers to plant,” Echo replied, then noticed a bumper sticker on the front of Steve’s truck.

  “Are you a veteran?” she asked.

  “Heck yeah, I am. Been to Iraq and Afghanistan. Was proud to serve,” her neighbor threw out his chest a bit.

  “Ah. Well, thank you for your service.”

  “Obviously that ain’t the only kind of service that I can provide,” Steve leered, making Echo profoundly uncomfortable. She covered it well.

  “Well, clearly you’re quite skilled in removing bushes from the ground,” she said dryly, thankful that his response was interrupted by Spencer’s arrival. He had come over to help her dig the holes near the fence and replant the bushes.

  “Hey Spence, perfect timing,” she greeted him. “This is my neighbor, Steve. He helped me pull the bushes up, so now all that you and I have to do is dig the holes and plant them. Steve, this is my friend Spencer.”

  Spencer merely nodded a greeting to the man. Steve noticed the eagle, globe an anchor tattoo on the Marine’s forearm.

  “You a Marine?” he asked, peering at the tattoo.

  “Yeah.”

  “Semper Fi, man,” Steve said, sounding uncomfortable.

  “Steve is a veteran,” Echo explained. “He’s been to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  “Is that so?” Spencer asked, stone-faced.

  “Yeah, it was a long time ago,” Steve replied, suddenly in a hurry. “I gotta go.” He climbed up into his truck, staring warily at the Marine in front of him. Spencer watched until the tail lights disappeared around the corner of the house, then turned to Echo.

  “Got a shovel?”

  Chapter 23

  Missy had a busy day. She had baked over 200 cupcakes for a holiday party at a ballroom dance studio, and was now riding in the Inn’s Shopping Shuttle bus with Spencer to deliver the order. They arrived, parking near the back door of the building, as they’d been instructed to do by the owner, and rang the bell for the service entrance.

  A tall Chinese man with a brilliant smile answered the door.

  “Hi, you must be Missy,” he extended his hand and she shook it. “I’m Brent Lu. Come with me and I’ll show you where to set up.”

  “Sounds good. This is my assistant, Spencer.”

  “Good to meet you, sir,” he shook hands with Brent.

  “You too, Spencer. Follow me.”

  Brent, who was not only the owner, but the lead instructor, showed them to a series of tables that had been laid out for hors d’oeuvres and desserts. Missy’s cupcakes had a space reserved directly in the middle. There were several people milling about, taking care of last minute tasks before the party and Missy heard a familiar voice call out a greeting.

  “Missy Beckett, are you avoiding me?” Carla Mayhew, her friend and interior decorator said, coming over for a hug.

  “I thought it was the other way around,” Missy teased back. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been taking lessons. It’s amazing how much time I have on my hands now that I’m not wandering through my days in a drunken stupor,” Carla grinned.

  “Oh, honey, that’s great. How have you been?”

  “So much better,” the decorator’s eyes grew moist. “My business has picked up, I have hobbies and took up exercising again. I feel better than I have since before I became suddenly single and childless.” Carla’s husband and son had been brutally murdered less than a year ago, and she’d chosen to self-medicate with alcohol, but recently had gone cold-turkey and was apparently doing well.

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m so happy for you. You’re still planning on coming to my little get-together next week, right?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Carla promised. “But if I don’t get back to decorating this place, Brent will have me practicing the cha-cha ‘til the cows come home.”

  Missy laughed. “No problem, I need to help Spencer bring the cupcakes in anyway. Good to see you, girl,” she gave her friend another hug and headed out to the shuttle.

  She and Spencer hauled the cupcakes inside and took about an hour to arrange them on graduated trays that formed an elegant Christmas tree of cupcakes. Standing back and admiring their work, they agreed that it was photo-worthy, so Missy snapped a couple of pictures and they went on their way.

  “I think Brent was pleased,” she remarked to Spencer on the ride back to the Inn.

  “Of course he was. You rocked the cupcake tree, ma’am,” he grinned.

  “I had expert help.”

  “Well, I don’t know about all that,” the Marine said modestly.

  “It’s true. You know, Spencer…I really don’t know much about you. You don’t talk about yourself at all,” Missy observed.

  “Not much to say, ma’am,” he glanced at her briefly in the rearview mirror.

  “Are you going home for the holidays? You haven’t said anything about it.”

  “I am home,” he said simply.

  “But don’t you have any family?” she persisted.

  “Aside from you and Mr. Beckett, Maggie, Echo, and Mr. Kellerman? Not really.”

  “What about your parents?” Missy was genuinely concerned. Her parents had died tragically in an accident when she was only seventeen, and she had developed a habit of taking in familial strays ever since.

  A muscle in Spencer’s jaw flexed briefly. “My mother died in an accident several years ago.”

  “Oh, Spence, I’m so sorry. I know how that feels. I lost both parents in a car wreck when I was seventeen. Is that how your mom passed?” she asked gently.

  “No,” he replied, staring out at the road in front of him. “It was a plane crash. She was traveling from Boston to LA on business.”

  “How awful, you must have been devastated.” Missy’s heart went out to the big, tough Marine with a heart of gold.

  “What about your dad? Is he still alive?”

  “I have no idea,” Spencer replied in a tone that forestalled any further questions in that regard.

  Missy felt bad for having pursued a conversation that clearly made the young man uncomfortable, and didn’t press him any further.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I hope you know that Chas and I, and all the others consider you a part of our family.”

  “Yes, ma’am, and I’m grateful,” his eyes met hers in the mirror.

  “So, of course, you’re coming to the party next week,” she shifted the topic to something much more comfortable, much to his relief.

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he smiled, pulling the shuttle into the Inn’s parking lot.

  Chapter 24

  “I think it’s great that Carla is taking dance lessons and doing things to keep her mind off of her pain,” Missy told Echo and Kel at coffee.

  “Not to mention keeping the highball glass out of her hand,” Echo remarked lightly. “How did your cupcake tree turn out?”

  “Exactly the way that I had hoped it would,” she announced proudly. “I took pictures.”

  “Show me,” Echo commanded excitedly.

  Miss
y tapped on her phone a few times and handed it to her friend, who leaned over so that Kel could see too.

  “Oh wow, that’s beautiful,” she grinned, but then frowned, moving her fingers over the screen to enlarge the photo. “But who’s the sourpuss in the back?”

  “Huh?” Missy came around behind Echo’s chair to look, and sure enough, there was a woman scowling at Missy as she took the photo. “Oh my. I didn’t even realize that there was a person in the picture, I was focused on the cupcakes. I have no idea who that is.”

  “Trudy Detmueller,” Kel observed, taking a closer look. “Trust me, you’re better off not knowing her.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “She had a little shop that sold handmade chocolates a few years ago. Business wasn’t exactly booming and she had to close it. To say that she’s been a bit…bitter ever since, would be an extreme understatement,” the artist explained.

  “She couldn’t be too terrible if she takes ballroom dance lessons for fun.” Missy always tried to see the good in everyone.

  “She doesn’t,” Kel corrected. “When her shop failed, she had to find a way to support herself, so Brent hired her as his bookkeeper. She sits in a cubicle by herself and crunches numbers.

  “But, at least she went to the holiday party.”

  “Probably to make certain that each and every vendor who was hired produced exactly what was agreed upon, down to the last crumb,” he replied pessimistically.

  “Well, fortunately I didn’t encounter her personally, even if she did accidentally ruin my photo. I’m sure Spencer will know how to edit her out of the picture so that I can put it into my sample book.”

  “Is there no end to that young man’s talents?” Echo wondered, impressed.

  “Apparently not,” Kel sighed dramatically, cracking the girls up.

  Chas came in the front door just then.

  “Morning all,” he said, swooping in for a cupcake. “Am I missing anything interesting?”