The Peppermint Mocha Murder

by Colette London

  But Travis and I were friends now. Close friends. That made all the difference to me. I believed it did to him, too.

  His smile seemed to confirm it. “You’re welcome to press for details,” he said. “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed.”

  Fine. I knew when to back off. “Okay, then, yes. We can ‘get started’ with looking into Melissa Balthasar’s death.”

  “I knew you’d be in. Who are your suspects so far?”

  “Still TBD.” To be determined. “I’m pretty sure Albany might have been the killer’s real target, though. Or at least one of the four Albanys around here might have been.” Travis nodded in agreement. Jokingly, I added, “I can definitely see why real Albany might inspire someone to murder her, though.”

  Travis remained stone faced. Apparently, my grin hadn’t leavened the situation sufficiently. I tried again. “Someone who didn’t know her well enough, I mean. Someone who had a grudge?”

  “Someone like Tansy Park,” Travis suggested with a lift of his eyebrow. “She and Albany definitely didn’t get along.”

  Privately, I had to side with Tansy on that. All the same . . .

  “Let’s get after it, then. Can we get into rehearsals?”

  “Albany is planning to cancel rehearsals today, unless Roger Balthasar says otherwise,” Travis reminded me. It was interesting that Albany had provisionally taken charge while Roger dealt with his wife’s sudden and unfortunate passing. But then, it was Albany’s work the show was based on. “It’s still possible the show will be shut down altogether.”

  Not before I get there to look for clues, it won’t be.

  If the show’s cast and crew scattered, I might miss my chance at identifying the producer’s killer forever.

  “Then we’d better wrangle ourselves a backstage tour before it’s too late,” I told Travis as I stood to leave. “Christmas in Crazytown is integral to the case. It’s what everyone has in common, right? There are bound to be clues at the theater.”

  I was on the job. Super determined. Powered by chocolate.

  Four steps away from the table, I doubled back. I wrapped my chocolate-studded muffin in a napkin and stowed it in my crossbody bag for later. With that accomplished, I headed out again, then bundled myself in multiple layers of coat, scarf, and hat before joining a chuckling Travis at the B and B’s doorway.

  His gaze shot knowingly to my (now bulging) bag.

  “Hey, sleuthing is hungry work,” I argued. “Somebody went to a lot of effort to make this scrumptious chocolate muffin. It would be a shame to let it go to waste.” I gave my bag a tap, gently enough not to crumble the muffin. “This is just a professional courtesy, and nothing more. Now let’s go.”

  Four

  It was a good thing I’d packed a snack, I realized a short while later. Because it was quite a commute between the B&B and the not quite bustling center of town. Christmas in Crazytown was being staged at the diminutive Sproutes community playhouse, which bordered the sleepy town’s Rockwellesque commons. The theater had graciously shelved its annual homegrown production of The Nutcracker, Travis told me, so that Albany’s show could premiere, with all the attendant publicity, in her hometown.

  Rather than take my rental car—and unleash my rusty winter driving skills—Travis drove us both to the theater in his rented SUV. He steered expertly through the snow-shrouded streets with leather-gloved hands, making me think about fingerprints.

  “Do you think the police found much evidence last night?” I asked my advisor. “They closed up shop pretty quickly.”

  “Whatever they did find might be being buried as we speak.” A quick troubled glance at me. “Did you see Roger Balthasar?”

  We discussed him. Our joint conclusion was that the producer had pressured the police into slowing (or abandoning) their investigation. Travis agreed to look into the Balthasars’ financials, in case he detected anomalies that might indicate, say, a bribe paid to the Sproutes police force. Then we arrived at the Sproutes playhouse and clambered out of the SUV.

  I definitely needed different shoes, I realized. I’d worn my most rugged pair of moto boots, after my faithful canvas Converse had betrayed me on the icy walk last night, but even my boots were no match for the weather. Snow piled on the streets and sidewalks, on the roofs of the nearby buildings, and on the marquee of the theater, which announced Christmas in Crazytown.

  EXCLUSIVE! the marquee trumpeted. LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!

  I pointed to it. “Seeing that must be pretty special for Albany.” I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Some people were tricky to warm up to. If Travis trusted her, so did I. “Did you two used to go to shows here when you were younger?”

  A headshake. “We were honor-roll nerds, not drama geeks.”

  I tried to picture it. “Preppy? Serious? Competitive?”

  “Check. Check.” Travis locked his SUV, then glanced down the street while a few Sproutes residents (Sproutesians? Sproutessers?) passed by. I had the sense he was savoring the municipal Christmas decorations—strings of lights, wreathed lampposts, and red, green, and gold banners strung across the streets . . . the works. Businesses sported hand-painted Rudolphs, candy canes, and Santas on their windows. “Also, stop it.”

  I widened my eyes with overt innocence. “Stop what?”

  “Stop fishing to see if Albany feels competitive with you.” Briefly, Travis took my hand to help me cross the less than postcard-perfect snow piled up by the town’s snowplows at the edge of the sidewalk. He let me go. “It’s not a competition.”

  “If it was, then I’d win,” I said. “Also, she started it.”

  There was no reply to that. Travis merely opened the playhouse door, ushered me inside, and spoke with the security person on duty about allowing me to accompany him backstage.

  The response was a careless, hospitable wave. I wondered why, whoever the killer was, he hadn’t chosen the playhouse as his murder venue. To say its security was meager was generous.

  But now that we’d arrived fully inside, striding down the aisle between rows of velvet upholstered seats in the theater’s beautiful Art Deco interior, I understood. Lax security was only one issue facing the production based on Albany Sullivan’s tell-all opus. Since Melissa’s death, no one had been working. Plenty of the cast and crew were present, but Albany was nowhere in sight.

  “Well, the show’s not canceled yet,” I stage-whispered to Travis. Onstage, the lights were on. The stars were present, if not costumed. The stage was fully dressed. “Is everyone here?”

  “Not everyone.” He frowned, seeming preoccupied again. A few crew members nodded at him as he ascended the stage steps with me in tow, but no one spoke. Travis hailed a nearby dancer. “I thought rehearsals were being canceled today,” he said to her. “Didn’t Albany talk to everyone?”

  She started, having been engrossed in her phone. Her hair was swept up in a pretty ballerina’s bun, but her sweatpants and sweatshirt suggested she’d arrived to rehearse, not to perform.

  It was safe to assume she was part of the production.

  “Albany’s not here. Or at least, I haven’t seen her.” Her concerned gaze met Travis’s. “You haven’t heard what happened?”

  To enlighten him, she held up her phone. Travis peered at it. I did, too. I saw a grainy image—probably a cell phone photo snapped in dim lighting—and realized I recognized that place.

  It was the B and B’s dining room, with Melissa Balthasar’s wassail-soaked body sprawled vulnerably in the middle of it.

  “Someone took photographs last night?” Travis asked.

  “I guess so.” The dancer shrugged and wandered off while scrolling through her social-media feeds, leaving me gaping. Her blasé reaction to Melissa Balthasar’s death surprised me. I understood that everyone might not necessarily be a friend of the producer’s, but still . . . I’d have expected more seriousness than this. More sadness. Was anyone upset about Melissa’s death?

  All around me, the cast and crew we
re reading about it. To a person, they were riveted. I could glimpse enough of the coverage to see why. It included more ghastly photos and a few horrifying hashtags, too. I knew such “first-person reporting” was commonplace these days. But experiencing it relative to an event I’d lived through myself was disturbing.

  It didn’t seem right to mesh this kind of news with social media’s usual fodder: photos of adorable puppies and spoilers about must-see TV shows. Doing so felt wrong. I glimpsed a stagehand in the wings, reading a printed copy of the Sproutes Sentinel, and felt even worse when I saw the paper’s front page.

  TRAGIC DEATH THREATENS HOLIDAY SHOW, the headline read. Below was a photo of Melissa Balthasar in her prime, looking every inch the Hollywood mover and shaker she was reputed to be.

  Not even the traditional media had been able to resist the dramatic story. Sure, the Sentinel had strived for a more respectful tone, but the newspaper hadn’t held back from its coverage. I knew much of it had to be speculation at this point.

  All the same, I picked up a copy for myself from the craft services table. It featured coffee and all the accoutrements, a few greenish bananas, and a white baker’s box full of donuts. All of them, regardless of flavor, had been decorated with red, white, and green sprinkles in recognition of the holidays.

  You can see why chocolate—delicious but stalwartly brown—struggles to gain a foothold during the festive season.

  Tucking my newspaper under my elbow, I studied the show’s cast and crew. There were probably two dozen people of varying ages in the group. I tried to identify which actors might be portraying Albany’s family. I knew Tansy was Albany’s double in the show, but what about the rest? Given the nature of Albany’s “lightly fictionalized” memoir, surely there were cast members on hand to portray Ophelia and Cashel, along with both of Albany’s parents.

  With all names and details changed to protect the innocent, of course. Or, more likely, changed to avoid legal action. From what I’d heard, Albany’s memoir was a no-holds-barred account of her childhood Christmases. However humorously given, those representations could be grounds for lawsuits if they damaged someone’s reputation. I had to consider that grounds for murder.

  I had to actually dig in and read Albany’s book, too. Soon. Travis had gifted me an autographed copy months ago. There were probably clues in it, if I could separate fact from fiction.

  Exactly how “lightly fictionalized” was it, anyway?

  A voice nearby startled me. “No. No, no, no. Bad Tansy!”

  I glanced over to see Tansy Park standing there, gripped with indecision. Appearing agonized, she reached for a donut.

  “No!” she muttered under her breath. “No more donuts!”

  She whirled around, then put her hands on her hips. From my position, the actress appeared to be engaged in a Shakespearean struggle. To nosh on donuts, or not to nosh on donuts? That was the question. To me, they (bluntly) didn’t appear worthy of debate.

  “I’d hold out for a fresh batch if I were you,” I advised with a smile. “See how the baker’s box is soaked with grease? That means they’ve been sitting around for too long. It’s like I always say, if you’re going to treat yourself, do it up right.”

  Tansy’s embarrassed smile flashed at me. “Sorry. I didn’t know you could hear all that. It’s exposure treatment. According to my therapist, I’ll eventually become fully immune to donuts.”

  “Ha! If that worked, I’d never sneak another chocolate-dipped caramel while doing consulting work for a client. Color me skeptical. Good luck, though. I hope it works for you.”

  I really did. I had to admit, on the other hand, that if Tansy was fighting a bout of stress eating brought on by Melissa’s unfortunate death, at least that made her sympathetic.

  Tansy tossed her lustrous hair. Dressed in an oversize sweater with leggings and boots, she looked warm and stylish.

  I’d worn my knit Breton chapeau from France, along with my jeans and sweater, but I doubted I appeared half as chic as she did. Not that I’m obsessed with my appearance; I’m not. Most of the time, I’m busy troubleshooting chocolates in the back-of-house of a restaurant or devising desserts in the kitchen of a five-star hotel. I pack light. I like to be fast on my feet.

  Just then, I needed to make tracks toward Travis. Where had he gone, anyway? I was headed to find out when Tansy stopped me.

  “How do you do it, Hayden?” she blurted. “How do you work with chocolate all day, every day, and not eat every morsel of it?” Her voice sounded fraught with frustration. “Danny says you’ve been a professional baker and chocolatier for years now. Yet you don’t look as though you eat chocolate, butter, and sugar for a living.” Her hyper-observant gaze took in my jeans-and-sweater getup. “Do you have rules? A regimen? A detox plan?”

  “If you count taste testing each creation only once, then sure, I do,” I joked with a second grin. “It’s the second, third, and fifteenth bites that do all the damage, you know.”

  To my surprise, Tansy’s gorgeous eyes filled with tears.

  Oh. She was seriously asking for help. I fumbled for a better answer, sorry that I’d been so glib. “Yes, I have a few techniques to avoid eating my body weight in cocoa butter every day,” I shared in a more empathetic tone. “I have to. Aside from wanting to keep fitting into my favorite jeans, I have healthy arteries to think of. I want to perfect chocolate for decades.”

  Now Tansy looked more dismayed. “I thought chocolate was supposed to be healthy!” she cried with her hand in the air. “Now you’re telling me it’s not? That’s just mean, Hayden.”

  I moved closer, then touched her arm. I met her gaze straight on. “About an ounce a day is healthy. Especially if it’s bittersweet dark chocolate, the kind that’s rich in beneficial antioxidant flavonoids. You need phytochemicals.”

  The actress nodded. Despite her airhead reputation, she seemed to be following along. So I added more about how the stearic acid in cocoa butter doesn’t raise cholesterol levels, about how chocolate can help fight a variety of health issues, about the fact that there’s value in chocolate’s ability to make people feel happy. But that’s where I lost her, regrettably.

  “It makes me happy until ten seconds after I eat it.” She glowered. “Then I look at my ballooning thighs and regret it.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way.” I hadn’t intended to get caught up in any of this, but since I already was . . . “Tell you what. I promised Zach Johnson that I’d contribute a few things to the Sproutes holiday charity auction. Have you heard of it?”

  Tansy nodded. “He hit me up for a contribution, too. I always travel with a few bikini shots, so I thought I’d sign some of them to be auctioned. My fans love swimsuit photos.”

  I just bet they did. You might have guessed that cheesecake photos of a certain globe-trotting chocolate whisperer aren’t quite such a hot ticket. Unless they contain actual cheesecake, of course. There’s always a market for chocolate cheesecake.

  “My contribution is going to be a series of decorated chocolate houses,” I confided. “Like gingerbread houses, only made entirely of chocolate. Zach said there’s a converted barn where I can work, just a short distance from the B and B. I guess the owner donates its use to artisans and crafters each year so they can prep for the charity auction. It’s fully equipped.”

  “Right.” Tansy had clearly tuned out. “Um, and . . . ?”

  “And I’m inviting you to come along and help me with a few of the chocolate houses. I’ll show you how to manage chocolate.”

  Now I had her. “Without scarfing every single bite of it?”

  “Exactly.” I liked Tansy, but maybe her ditzy reputation was somewhat deserved. Even then, her gaze wandered longingly to the sprinkle-covered donuts. “We could meet in the mornings, before show rehearsals, or in the evenings. Whatever works.”

  “You’d really do that for me? That’s so sweet, Hayden.” She wrenched her attention from the craft services table and grabbed my hand. She d
aintily sniffled back her earlier tears. “Thanks.”

  Aww. Her gratitude made me feel like a hero. Awash in Tansy’s glowing appreciation, I felt downright special. That was Tansy’s unique gift. I’d heard that she made everyone around her feel smart, talented, and generous. Now I believed it was true.

  You know, unless she didn’t, I reminded myself. It was conceivable, it occurred to me unhappily, that someone might have meant to kill Tansy last night, not Melissa. Not Albany.

  My working theory was still that Albany had been the most likely target, thanks to her inciting memoir and show. But I couldn’t ignore the possibility that one of her doubles might have been the killer’s true target. That included Tansy.

  “As long as Danny agrees, of course,” I told her, not wanting to step on my bodyguard buddy’s toes. “Does he let you get out much without him? What’s your arrangement, anyway?”

  I held my breath, hoping Tansy wouldn’t clam up.

  She didn’t. “Oh, he shadows my every move.” A giggle. “It’s more than I counted on, really. See, I have this stalker . . .”

  Tansy went on to describe the person who’d been harassing her—sending her threatening messages and mailing her photos of herself that were defaced with frightening drawings of knives and guns. “One time, even poison, complete with a skull and crossbones drawn on the bottle. I was pretty freaked out.”

  “Sounds scary.” Poison could have been in the wassail.

  “It was! It has been. Can you imagine? What a loser.”

  Tansy inhaled, then shook out her hair again. I wondered, suddenly, if it was a very expensive, very convincing wig.

  “Anyway, I’m pretty sure I’ve dodged him.” The actress noticed me noticing her hair (wig?) and grinned. “Thanks to my makeunder, I look like a different person. Everyone says so.”

  She glanced around. Now a few of the cast and crew were getting to their feet, clustering to discuss the news about Melissa. Backstage, something clanged noisily. I envisioned Travis and Albany knocking over props amid a torrid embrace.