Cupcakes and Murder: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery (Book 5) (Frosted Love Mysteries)

by Carol Durand

  Chas was baffled. Either this man was an incredible actor, or he’d had nothing to do with two gruesome murders. “That’s fine, thank you. Do you have the new key card?” Miguel handed him the key card, Beckett tipped him, and he went on his way. The detective made a quick call to Rinaldo at the embassy, who agreed to come to the resort to try and untangle the case. He arrived in Chas’s room moments later and the two men puzzled over the facts.

  “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” Rinaldo announced when he and Chas sat down at the small table in the suite’s kitchen.

  Beckett sighed, wishing it had been only good news. “Okay, let’s have it, bad news first,” he replied.

  “The bad news is that Miguel Garcia isn’t our guy. I should’ve known, it was way too easy,” he shook his head.

  “Yeah, I figured that out anyway. I just had a run-in with him, and he seems to be as honest as the day is long. Didn’t fit the profile of someone ruthless enough to commit murder just so he’d be next in line for a promotion,” Chas agreed. “So what’s the good news?”

  “It’s quite a story so far, sit back, we might be here a while,” Rinaldo replied, settling in. He relayed his findings to Chas, who, while relieved, was now more puzzled than ever.

  Chapter 12

  “So what’s the good news?” Missy asked when Chas relayed Rinaldo’s info that eliminated Miguel from suspicion.

  “The good news is that Rinaldo received copies of the autopsy reports for both Raoul and the housekeeper who was murdered, and it turns out that they were poisoned, but your cupcakes were not the culprit.”

  “Oh, I’m so relieved Chas,” she breathed. “So, how were they poisoned?”

  “For some reason, they wouldn’t release the name of the poison to me, but they did say that the only way that someone could’ve had access to it was if they had a pretty high level clearance at a hospital. Whatever substance the killer used was medical grade.”

  Missy looked around her hospital room, chilled. “But who on earth would do such a thing?” she wondered.

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out, because whoever killed Raoul and the housekeeper, tried to do the same thing to you,” he said, taking her hand.

  Missy’s eyes grew round. “What do you mean? The night that someone came in and messed up my room, they were planning to kill me?” she whispered.

  “Maybe, maybe not. I tend to think that what happened in your room was more about rage and trying to scare you, more than anything else.”

  “Then what do you mean?” Missy was puzzled.

  “When you told me that you had been stung by a bee, I checked the back of your neck and saw that you had a puncture wound that would be consistent with a syringe being used to inject you. There was bruising at the sight, and whatever was injected irritated your skin terribly and caused a swollen spot. You told me that you had been stung on the path to the beach, so I ran down to check it out and found a syringe that was nearly full of fluid, lying in some of the undergrowth. I gave it to Rinaldo for testing, and he confirmed that the substance it contained was the same poison that had killed the other two victims. Not only that, but when he dug deeper and examined some unsolved local cases, he discovered that there were at least four more victims who had been killed the same way.”

  “Oh my goodness, that’s awful – we’re dealing with a serial killer,” Missy was horrified and trembling. “So…who were the other victims?”

  “That’s the scary part,” Chas grimaced. “I don’t know their names, but Rinaldo confirmed that they were women, all in their early forties, petite but curvy, with long blonde hair.”

  Missy’s mouth dropped open as the enormity of his words sunk in. “So they all looked just like…”

  “You,” he finished for her. “Yes, there is a definite pattern, but Raoul and the housekeeper don’t fit the pattern, which makes it difficult to decide how to proceed.”

  “What if someone killed all of those women because Raoul had been suggestive with them like he was with me?”

  “A jealous girlfriend? Maybe. But then why would she kill Raoul?” Chas was about to say more, but cut his sentence short when the doctor came into the room to let Missy know that she’d be free to go in the morning as long as nothing changed overnight. Missy thanked the tall, thin woman with the lovely accent and resumed her conversation with Chas when she left the room.

  “Maybe he did more than just flirt with those women. Maybe she was tired of his philandering,” she guessed, shrugging.

  “But that doesn’t explain why she would kill the housekeeper,” he reminded her.

  “Maybe the housekeeper was a witness, or maybe she killed the housekeeper in my room so that she could frame me. If she saw that I spent the day with Raoul, she may have thought that something other than sightseeing had happened.”

  “People have killed for less,” he nodded. “I’ll check in with Rinaldo, and let him know to keep a lookout for a strong-willed lady in Raoul’s life, just in case. In the meantime, you need to get your rest.” Chas kissed her forehead and headed for the door, promising to be back in the morning to pick her up. He ran into the doctor on his way out. She was standing just outside Missy’s door, so he thanked her again and walked to the elevator, unaware of her gaze following him. An hour or so later, after Missy was sound asleep, she slipped into the room, checked all of the monitors, and pulled a syringe from her pocket, dispensing it into the IV line in Missy’s arm.

  Chapter 13

  Chas Beckett was more than frustrated, running into dead end after dead end. After talking with Rosa, the housekeeper who thought that Miguel Garcia, the concierge, was the killer, he had learned that there were rumors floating around the resort that Raoul had actually been married, which would give Missy’s ‘jealous woman’ theory more weight, but he searched and searched, never finding evidence of a marriage. He glanced at his cell phone and realized that it was time to head to the hospital. The doctor had estimated that she’d be ready for release around 9:00, and it was now 8:50.

  Arriving at the hospital, Chas took the elevator, lost in thought. He got out on Missy’s floor and headed to her room, finding it completely empty. A custodian was changing bedding and had a mop bucket nearby. When Chas questioned him about Missy’s whereabouts, the older gentleman merely shrugged and said that he didn’t know. Remembering the way that the doctor had strangely been standing outside Missy’s door when he left, and putting that fact together with the knowledge that whoever had tried to poison her had to have medical clearance, the typically calm detective felt the beginnings of panic.

  A new shift of nurses had just started their rotation, and he approached the nurses station, asking if they knew where Missy, the woman from room 343 was. They all shook their heads, finding no record of a patient in 343. As calmly as he could, Chas asked for the location of hospital security, and jabbed the button in the elevator that would take him to the 1st floor, heart pounding. The directions that the nurses had given him for the security office indicated that he would turn left, away from the elevator, take the first right, through the lobby, and the office would be on the left.

  Walking as quickly as he could without calling undue attention to himself, Chas stopped dead in his tracks when he was halfway through the lobby and heard a familiar voice.

  “Chas!”

  He turned slowly toward the voice, more relieved than he’d ever been in his entire life to see Missy waving at him from a wheelchair near the entrance of the building.

  “Hi!” she greeted him, completely unaware at the emotional trauma he’d just suffered. “You must’ve come in the back – I’ve been down her waiting for you for about half an hour. They made me use a wheelchair, it’s a liability issue I guess,” she babbled on before suddenly noticing the detective’s ashen complexion. “Hey…are you okay?” she asked, concerned.

  Detective Chas Beckett took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I am now,” he nodded with a relieved smile. “I am now
.”

  Chas and Missy arrived back at the resort, him having brought her up to speed in the case and expressing his frustration.

  “So, what information do you need, exactly?” she asked.

  “Well, it would be great if we could get a match for the fingerprints in your room, and we really need to know if Raoul had a significant other, whether wife or girlfriend, but nothing has turned up in any of the local or regional databases,” he sighed.

  “What if she’s not a local?” Missy speculated.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Raoul worked at a resort,” she reasoned. “He had access to women from all over the world. What if one of them happened to fall in love with him and decided to leave her former life behind to live in the tropics with a new Latin lover?”

  Beckett nodded, looking at Missy with admiration. “You’re right. Maybe we’re not finding anything because we’re not looking in the right places. We shouldn’t limit ourselves to Mexican databases,” he agreed, lost in thought.

  “And it would make sense to me that you might want to be on the lookout for a 40-something, curvaceous blonde,” she suggested.

  “You’re brilliant,” he said, kissing her, then jumping up, headed for the door.

  Chapter 14

  Missy was reading the novel that she had been neglecting the entire time she’d been in Cozumel when the text tone on her phone went off. It was from Chas, and said, simply, “Come to the convenience center, you’re going to want to see this.”

  Bending the corner of her page down to mark her place, Missy jumped up from the couch, grabbed her cell phone and room key, and headed for the convenience center in the lobby. She came around the corner just in time to see Detective Gonzales placing handcuffs on the blonde clerk who had been so rude to her when her card was declined.

  “Michelle Perez, you are under arrest for the murder of Raoul Perez and Sofia Consuelos, as well as the attempted murder of Melissa Gladstone,” she heard the detective say, as the clerk stood stone-faced, saying nothing.

  Missy caught Chas’s eye and they shared a moment without having to say a word. It made so much sense now. She couldn’t wait until he explained the details. They stood together, watching the clerk being herded into the back of a patrol car which took her away, sirens flashing. When they returned to Missy’s room, they were barely in the door before she started grilling him.

  “How did you figure it out?” she asked, practically jumping up and down in her seat.

  “Once you said that I should look for someone outside of Mexico, Rinaldo checked other databases, including those in the US. It turns out that Michelle was wanted in the US for tax evasion. Her fingerprints were a perfect match. She came to Cozumel on a temporary visa, met and married Raoul, and became a citizen. When I looked into her history in the states, there were some very suspicious situations involving ex-boyfriends that she had been involved with, but nothing was ever proven. It seems that she’s the jealous type. The other victims who fit your description had all been in contact with Raoul in some way or another, and Detective Gonzales thinks it’ll be very easy, based on the physical evidence that they’ve collected, to form a case against her in those murders as well.

  “I can’t begin to tell you how relieved I am,” Missy exhaled, melting into the sofa, her stress and tension gone.

  “I can only imagine,” Chas smiled at her. “If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have cracked the case. Ever consider a second career?” he teased.

  “No thank you!” she returned emphatically. “I’ll be just fine baking my cupcakes and minding my own business. We do seem to make a pretty good team though,” she flirted shamelessly.

  “Indeed we do,” he agreed, leaning over to kiss her.

  It seemed like Missy and Chas had been in Cozumel for an eternity, but in all reality, they had only outstayed their original departure date by four days. Once Missy and Chas’s names had been cleared, and the real killer found, the couple had decided to enjoy an extra day of vacation where they could actually enjoy themselves and went snorkeling again, as well as trying two more delicious restaurants and going for one last moonlight stroll. What had started out as a lovely vacation, and then morphed into a hellish nightmare, had ended well, with neither of them in jail or dead. It’s the little things in life that one appreciates.

  Missy leaned back against her headrest, not looking forward to the long flight home, but definitely ready for what awaited her upon arrival. She had called the doggy hotel, where Toffee was spending long leisurely days swimming, being walked, hand-fed and groomed, at least once a day, usually two or three times a day, including skype calls where she was able to speak directly to her beloved golden retriever. She missed her best friend terribly, and planned to make up for her extended absence with lots of walks, games of fetch and maybe a new chew toy or two.

  Checking in on her shops was also high on Missy’s priority list. While Ben and Cheryl had done a superb job of running their respective shops in her absence, she wanted to jump back in with both feet and give the two of them a bit of a break as a reward for their hard work. Ben’s grad school friend, Chris, and Missy’s new hire, Grayson, had both worked out very well, and both shops were primed and ready for the fast-approaching holiday season.

  Missy glanced over at the strong profile of Detective Chas Beckett, who exuded confident intelligence and capability, even in repose. He had been a rock during the tempest of their Cozumel adventure, and she knew she wouldn’t have made it through the experience emotionally intact without his help and support. Her fear of relationships had ebbed significantly while in the company of this outstanding gentleman, and she felt herself falling for him. As if he felt her gaze, the object of her admiration opened his eyes, and, catching her staring at him, grinned and raised an eyebrow, making her blush from her toes to the tips of her ears. He took her hand in his and closed his eyes again, letting her off the hook.

  Chapter 15

  Cheryl paced nervously, knowing that today was the day that her boss, Missy Gladstone was coming back to work. She nearly fainted when the owner came in and greeted her with a smile, a hug, and an authentic sombrero.

  “Hi Ms. G.,” she said, twisting her fingers together nervously.

  “It’s great to be back Cheryl,” Missy grinned, looking around her newly restored shop with satisfaction. “Bring me up to speed.”

  “Well, umm…okay,” she hesitated. “Do you want the good stuff or the bad stuff first?”

  Missy smiled indulgently, knowing that she was so glad to be home, there was nothing that Cheryl could say that would upset her unduly. “Gimme the good stuff first.”

  “Okay, good. Well, we exceeded last year’s sales for this month significantly, and it looks like it’s only going to keep growing. Grayson and I worked like crazy to keep up, and I had to stay longer to bake extra batches sometimes. I guess that could go in the bad stuff too,” she pulled her lower lip between her teeth and chewed on it.

  “No, that’s fine. I figured that you’d have more hours than normal in my absence, no worries,” Missy reassured her.

  “Okay, thanks. So then, we’ve been getting really good reviews and our lines are longer than ever, even though we work really fast, so that’s good.”

  “Yes, it is – good job, I’m proud of you,” her boss beamed.

  “Yeah. Well. Then there’s the bad stuff.” The hand twisting intensified.

  “Tell me all about it,” Missy encouraged.

  “Well, the budget for the month kind of took a hit, because…remember when I asked you about placing a dry goods order and you told me that I should just do it?”

  Missy nodded.

  “Well, I did place an order and so, even though we go through like 60 lbs. of flour each month, I couldn’t remember, so I actually ordered 600,” Cheryl cringed, awaiting Missy’s reaction. “It’s a lot, I’m really sorry.”

  Missy giggled. “Don’t worry about it, sweetie. Flour will never go to waste around
her,” she assured the nervous girl. “What else?”

  “Well…Grayson and I were wanting to do something creative one day, so we talked about what we should do, and we both thought that it would be really cool if we made a black cupcake with white icing. We called it the Black Tie, and they looked awesome.”

  “Then what was the problem?” Missy asked.

  “Well, the only flavor that we could think of for a black cupcake was black licorice, and a few customers really liked it, but most of them really hated it, and I didn’t want them to be mad because they bought something gross, so I gave them a free cupcake or muffin of their choice to make up for it. It was kind of a disaster,” she finished glumly.

  Missy laughed. “Well, I have to say, I love the Black Tie idea, maybe we can come up with a more popular flavor for it. As for the free giveaways, you did exactly what should have been done. We’re here to make our customers lives a little sweeter, make their day a bit brighter. If we have to take a bit of a hit because something we tried creatively didn’t work out the way we wanted it to, so be it. Whatever makes them happy.”

  “Soooo…you’re not mad?” Cheryl sounded baffled and relieved all at once.

  “No, I’m not mad! You handled everything the way that it needed to be handled and you made things work smoothly for our customers. Why would I ever expect more than that? I love that you and Grayson make a great team, and I’m looking forward to your cupcake ideas,” Missy reassured her. She made certain that Cheryl and Grayson were set for the day, and then drove out to Dellville to check in with Ben and Chris. The two young men had done an amazing job with the shop, and had no ‘bad stuff’ to report, so after a supportive conversation filled with gratitude, Missy made her way across the street to visit her friend Echo, who had recently purchased the ice cream shop. The carefree woman from California had turned an old-fashioned ice cream shop into a vegan, frozen treat, ice cream alternative shop named Sweet Love, that oddly enough in this small southern town, was thriving.