The Peppermint Mocha Murder

by Colette London

  I shivered and decided I needed a distraction. Given my jet lag, I wasn’t thinking straight. I went downstairs to get a head start on making some couverture for use in my chocolate houses, but the B and B’s kitchen was occupied with preparations for Zach’s guests’ annual gingerbread house–decorating activity. I found myself alone in the dining room, gazing morosely at the floor.

  One of the housekeepers wandered by. She stopped. “Can I help you with something?” She frowned. “Is something dirty?”

  I hadn’t meant to worry her. I snapped out of it. “No! Everything is spotless, as usual. Believe me, the staff here is doing a wonderful job.” I smiled. “I’m just feeling melancholy.”

  “Yep, well, the holidays will do that to a person.” Her gaze brightened. “If you need anything, just let me know.”

  I promised I would. Then, as she made to leave, I asked, “The cleaning staff here . . . Does everyone work during the day?”

  “Day? Night?” She laughed. “This time of year, it’s dark when we get to work, and it’s dark when we go home!”

  I smiled in commiseration. “All the guests appreciate it, too.” I paused. “I mean, if there were a party, for example, would someone on staff work extra hours to clean up afterward?”

  Her gaze sharpened. “You mean the party where they found that poor dead woman? None of my girls were involved in that. We didn’t even know it was happening!” She glanced behind herself. “Ever since Mr. Johnson took over this place, things have been different. He’s always on his computer or his phone, doing God knows what. To tell the truth, I preferred his grandmother.”

  “Zach isn’t a good boss? Why’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s not that he isn’t a good boss. Nothing like that,” the housekeeper rushed to assure me. “It’s just that he seems a lot more worried about this place’s reputation than about what’s actually going on around here. Things need fixing!”

  Aha. We chatted awhile longer, while she described some of the B and B’s maintenance issues. None of them sounded serious.

  “You won’t go telling anyone I said so, will you?” The housekeeper suddenly seemed to realize that she’d been talking out of turn to an outsider and guest. “It’s just I needed to let off some steam, I guess, and you’re really easy to talk to.”

  I promised her that her complaints would be safe with me.

  “Whew! Thank you.” With her hand on her heart, she gave me a grin. Then she made her excuses and hurried away. “You have a nice day and a merry Christmas, too!” she called as she left.

  After wishing her the same, I forced my feet to take me away from the scene of Melissa Balthasar’s grisly death. It was time to get ready for the Santa pub crawl. I didn’t want to be late.

  * * *

  The minute I walked into the Sproutes pub we’d designated as our meeting place, I knew I’d been had. I clomped in, gamely outfitted in the red-and-white velour Santa Claus costume that Albany had secured for me from the archives of the Sproutes playhouse, and realized that things weren’t going to happen exactly as I’d hoped they would. That was because, while there were plenty of other Santa look-alikes at the local bar, none of them were my friends. I didn’t even see costumed Josh yet.

  I adjusted my red, pointy hat’s white pompon and made the best of things. At the bar, I ordered my favorite (a nice dark porter), then maneuvered my black-booted self to the table where I’d spied Danny (no costume), Travis (no costume), and Albany.

  She was wearing a costume, but it wasn’t the kind I had on. Unlike me, Albany sported no itchy white tie-on beard, no bulky pillowed belly, and no overall unflattering ensemble—whereas I’d even given myself rosy-red Santa cheeks with a multipurpose tube of lipstick, endeavoring to match the famous description of Old Saint Nick in the Clement C. Moore poem. I was a real dope.

  Albany, dressed as sexy Santa in a red-and-white cashmere sweater and matching skintight pants—both worn with high-heeled black stiletto boots—was the first to greet me. Possibly because my two best friends, Danny and Travis, were too busy laughing.

  So far, my longed-for Friendsmas needed a little work.

  “So, you just had that getup lying around, huh?” I asked Albany. Beside her I felt both lumpy and sexless, stripped of my femininity and my identity, too. “You look amazing, Albany.”

  I couldn’t miss the fact that Travis and Danny seemed to agree. So did several other pub goers, costumed and otherwise.

  Albany laughed. “Oh, this old thing? Just in my suitcase.”

  Humph. My suitcase contained things like kitchen clogs and spare spoons. There was no way I could compete with sexy Santa.

  I directed my gaze at my friends—pointedly, at their everyday clothes. “In that case, I guess your luggage was lost?”

  Danny laughed. “You didn’t seriously think I’d do this.”

  “Yes, I did, actually.” I’d thought it sounded like fun.

  “The dry cleaner lost my Santa suit,” Travis claimed.

  “Likely story.” Tansy gave me a breathless hello, then pointed toward the pub’s distant ladies’ room. “Important tip. Carefully secure your bowl full of jelly before pulling down your Santa pants, or you’ll be sorry.” The actress patted her flat stomach. “One pit stop and my realistic Santa is ruined.”

  I smiled. “I doubt your Santa was that realistic.”

  Because Tansy was, thankfully, outfitted in a Santa Claus costume. It was identical to mine. On the bombshell starlet, though, the effect was entirely different. Even with her face partly obscured by a shaggy white Santa beard and an oversize hat, she looked incredible. She’d cinched her wide black plastic belt tightly on her waist, probably to help hold up her velour pants.

  “It was highly realistic!” Tansy informed me. Two hectic spots appeared on her cheeks—the real-life version of the Santa blush I’d mimicked with my makeup application. “It was great!”

  Yikes. Her rancor caught me off guard. She seemed genuinely offended that I’d doubted the realism of her Santa portrayal.

  “I’m sorry. I only meant that you’re so stunning, Tansy! Nobody would ever mistake you for Saint Nick, believe me.”

  “Ha-ha. Gotcha!” Tansy hoisted a froufrou cocktail and toasted me with it. Its candy-cane garnish nearly stabbed me in the eye. “You should see your face, Hayden! I was only kidding!”

  Grr. I was getting tired of hearing that.

  Also, it occurred to me, Tansy seemed fairly tipsy. “How long have you all been here?” I asked. “Was the funeral very . . .”

  Moving?

  As one, they all groaned and held up their hands.

  “For one night, let’s not talk about Melissa!” Albany said. She rolled her eyes, as though fed up with conversations about her (former) champion and Christmas in Crazytown producer.

  Danny saw me noticing her unkind attitude. “Some of the tributes today were pretty over the top. It was a lot to take.”

  Because Melissa was so unlikable, was the subtext. I understood. But that didn’t mean she didn’t deserve justice.

  I must have looked indignant (and I was), because Travis stepped in next. “We can talk about it later,” he promised.

  Thus mollified, I did my best to relax. One porter later, doing so got considerably easier. “I should have known better than to start drinking,” I confided to Josh, who’d arrived late but dutifully in costume, leaving Danny and Travis as the only holdouts. “Jet lag always makes me more susceptible to alcohol.”

  “Hey, that’s a good reason to travel right there!”

  “You mean because I’m a cheap date? Maybe.”

  Danny was on duty as Tansy’s bodyguard, so he wasn’t drinking. That probably explained why he was the first to notice, each time it happened, when the pub we were in suddenly seemed to heave with costumed Santas getting to their feet. That was the signal for us all to head to the pub crawl’s next stop.

  We all trooped out onto Sproutes’s decorated streets en masse, laughing and talking. I im
agined we made a pretty funny sight: dozens of slightly wobbly, extra-cheery Santas, all marching along the town’s light-bedazzled, decorated streets.

  At every stop, Tansy was deluged with fans. She chatted and signed autographs—and shared the bounty of drinks bought for her—and generally appeared to adore being in the spotlight. I had my doubts about the authenticity of her feelings, but I had to admit, I couldn’t detect a single sign of deception in her.

  Josh seemed captivated by her. His natural gregariousness found a good partner in Tansy’s responsiveness. Only a few stops in, I was bereft of a date for the night, ditched by Josh for a more dazzling fake Santa. If not for Danny’s observant nature, I would have been a true third wheel. But he kept me company at each stop on the pub crawl, telling me jokes and companionably slinging his brawny arm over my shoulders.

  When he smiled at me, I couldn’t help feeling that old attraction between us. I tried keeping it at bay with outrage.

  “You implied you’d be wearing a Santa costume tonight.”

  His mouth quirked. “You assumed I’d be wearing a Santa costume tonight, because you are. That’s not the same thing.”

  “It should be.” I looked him over. “You’d make a good ‘hot Santa.’ You know the kind—the male counterpart of Albany.”

  Danny glanced at her. “Nope. The sweater looks itchy.”

  “Not the sweater! But the skintight pants might be okay.”

  “No thanks.” My friend gave a pained look. “I’ll pass.”

  Inadvertently, I let my gaze dip to his jeans. Very nice.

  He saw me admiring him. Of course he did. His gaze took on a knowing glimmer. “You’d better be careful with that.”

  “Or?” I didn’t mind playing with fire. Not after four pub stops and almost as many porters tonight. “Why’s that?”

  “Because something might happen that one of us regrets,” Danny told me amid the pub noise. His voice lowered. “Again.”

  I couldn’t mistake the suggestive way he said again. I felt all tingly beneath my Santa suit . . . and realizing that brought me down to earth. Danny had to be kidding me. There was no way he thought I was regret-makingly sexy—not in this getup, anyway.

  I put a lid on my feelings and got sociable with everyone else, hitching up my red velour Santa britches and heading out to the next pub stop with new resolve. Outside on Sproutes’s snowy sidewalks, I promised myself I was going to be smart. I was going to be unshakably sensible. I was going to be focused.

  I was going to be trapped in the headlights of an oncoming SUV.

  Surprised and tipsy, all I could do was gawk. I was aware of the laughter of my nearby fellow Santas, of the holiday music spilling from the pub we’d just left, of tires crunching snow.

  That SUV is going to hit me, I thought hazily. Move!

  As I tried to make a break for it, Danny slung his arm around my well-padded middle. He tackled me from behind, putting all his weight into it. I landed with an “Oof !” on a patch of ice.

  Ouch. Grimacing and shaky, I blinked in the dimness. I saw a dark SUV swerve crazily, then drive onto the curb. My fellow Santas yelped and scattered, some of them swearing loudly. I sensed weight on my right side, snowmelt penetrating my suit.

  Screaming. It was Tansy. Danny had tackled us both.

  “Calm down,” Danny said as he rolled away. “It’s over.”

  He helped up Tansy, then me. I crumpled. My knees were weak. Adrenaline surged through me. We’d almost been hit.

  I squinted at the SUV just as its taillights vanished.

  All around us, the other pub crawlers were talking and yelling. Several waved their fists and shook their heads.

  “Somebody’s had one beer too many,” Josh said.

  He shook his head with disgust, staring after the SUV.

  When I drew in a breath, Travis was there. “Hayden—”

  “I’m okay.” I gazed into his shadowed eyes and heard my own voice tremble. “What happened? Did you see who it was?”

  He didn’t look happy. “The driver was wearing a Santa suit.”

  “So it could have been anyone.” I checked to be sure Tansy was okay. She was. So was Albany. No one was hurt. “Any of us.”

  My financial advisor didn’t mistake my meaning. “You think that was the killer?” he asked in his low, husky voice. His eyebrows drew lower. “I didn’t get a photo. Nothing. I couldn’t even see the license plate.”

  “It’s okay. You were probably worried about me.”

  “Actually—” His gaze shot sideways. “I was pulling Albany to safety. It all happened so fast. Danny tackled you, and I—”

  “Watched out for your friend. I understand, Trav.”

  He seemed inconsolable. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. That SUV seemed to speed up when it neared you.”

  Sobered by that, I tried to reconstruct the scene. Me at the edge of the sidewalk. Tansy beside me. Josh just behind her, chattering about something. Travis and Danny bringing up the rear. My bodyguard pal had reacted quickly to tackle Tansy and me. Without Danny, I felt sure the night would have ended badly.

  As it was, I still felt jittery. Scared. My knee hurt where I’d banged it on the ice. I could scarcely draw a clean breath.

  Someone had targeted me. On purpose. Or they’d targeted Tansy. Or, on a wild tangent, some other costumed Santa. We all looked pretty alike, I admitted, role-playing in the dimness.

  For all I knew, Josh was right. Someone had simply had too much to drink and shouldn’t have been trying to drive home.

  But if Josh was wrong, and either Tansy or I had been targeted, that could mean only one thing: we were getting close to finding Melissa’s murderer, and they were reacting to that.

  I couldn’t stop now. I absolutely had to keep going.

  Twelve

  When I came downstairs for breakfast the next morning, bleary eyed and vaguely hungover, the preceding night felt like a dream. A bad dream. Well, parts of it did, anyway.

  Okay, the last part of it felt like a nightmare.

  Under ordinary circumstances, I would have dismissed my fears that someone had tried to run me over with a swerving SUV. But these weren’t ordinary circumstances. I was investigating a murder. My part-time sleuthing occasionally made me a target.

  I couldn’t stop hearing that loud crunch of snow beneath the SUV’s tires. I couldn’t quit imagining myself pinned beneath its wheels. Tansy and I both could have been seriously injured.

  We weren’t, though, I reminded myself as I grabbed a coffee and a pain au chocolat, then left the dining room in favor of the parlor. Today Tansy would be back at work in rehearsals for Christmas in Crazytown. I’d been planning to get together with Ophelia for another chocolate-peppermint bark photo shoot, but now our plans had been scuppered. I wouldn’t be gathering any additional clues or background information from Albany’s sister.

  Rehearsals sure did put a crimp in my plans, I thought as I sipped my coffee. I tried to relax, looking out the B and B’s window at the peaceful landscape, but my shoulders felt tight. My knee still throbbed, most likely injured during Danny’s tackle.

  He would be at the Sproutes playhouse himself today, keeping watch over Tansy. Necessarily too. After last night, the potential for peril felt all too real to me. What if Tansy’s stalker had been driving that runaway SUV? If so, Danny had earned his security-service salary twice before midnight.

  He’d saved Tansy’s life. Mine too. But in the aftermath. . .

  Well, the significant look he’d given me afterward didn’t bear thinking about, much less dissecting. We’d been shaken, that’s all. We’d been friends for ages. He’d been concerned.

  I savored my pain au chocolat, then went back to the dining room sideboard for another. What can I say? Danger makes me hungry. Returning to the parlor, I heard voices at the front desk. They sounded just secretive enough to pique my interest.

  I sauntered closer and took a peek. Albany was there, her head close to Zach’s
. Both of them were laughing softly. As I watched, Zach turned his face to hers. He looked enraptured.

  Then he pulled a goofy face. Albany’s laughter rang out.

  Had Zach only been kidding about swooning over Albany? I couldn’t tell. A moment later, someone else arrived at the desk.

  “Morning, kids! What’s new? On with the show, eh?”

  I started. This was Roger Balthasar, freshly showered and shaved, wearing jeans and a hoodie with trendy sneakers—the kind you have to be on a waiting list (or know a collector) to score.

  He looked like somebody’s “cool dad”—the kind of guy who was happy to allow the neighborhood teenagers to raid his liquor cabinet, share his stash, and lounge around his L.A. swimming pool all day. I couldn’t get over his overtly cheerful demeanor.

  If Roger Balthasar had wanted to, he could have made his living as an actor. Unless, that is, he really wasn’t sad about his departed wife. It would have been decent to pretend he was, in either case. Roger was supposed to be bereaved!

  Albany and Zach seemed unfazed by the producer’s jolliness. They all chattered for a while. Their conversation centered on Christmas in Crazytown and its resumed rehearsals. Roger’s vociferous voice made every word clearly comprehensible.

  I went back to the parlor and listened in comfort while I relished my follow-up pain au chocolat. A short while later, having learned nothing more useful from that overheard conversation than the fact that Sproutesians loved to gossip, I stared at the buttery crumbs, jam, and chocolate smears on my plate. I sighed. Tansy would have been disappointed in me.

  I’d been honest with her; ordinarily, I make it a practice to stop at one. But today I was worried. No one is always immune to stress eating, not even a professional chocolate expert.

  While I contemplated my dietary foibles, Roger strode into the parlor as though he owned the place. His gaze lit on me.

  I felt uncomfortably pinned to my upholstered armchair. For better or worse, my reaction to feeling trapped tends to be immediate and impulsive—much like Ophelia’s reaction to being passed over in favor of her sister, only with less animosity.