The Peppermint Mocha Murder

by Colette London

  When I turned around, Danny and Travis both pretended to huddle in their chairs, struck dumb by my bowling prowess. As I walked back to them, they broke into perfectly united applause.

  Danny’s wolf whistle drew every eye to our area. “Booyah!”

  I couldn’t help laughing. They were sometimes difficult to deal with separately. But together in this way? Impossible.

  I knew when the two men in my life were making amends for something, though. Usually, they joked around exactly this way.

  My derrière was inches from my seat when Danny spoke up.

  “Hey, let’s go look at the Christmas lights sometime,” he said in a casual voice. “I hear there’s a hayride you can take.”

  That sounds like the kind of cornball thing you’d like, was the subtext. Danny Jamieson was definitely not the hayride type.

  “There’s a showing of It’s a Wonderful Life at the Sproutes independent cinema,” Travis said, piping up simultaneously. “Let’s go.”

  I looked at their identically (implausibly) guileless faces and nearly burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “What?” they asked in unison, looking like choirboys.

  I knew what was going on here. Danny and Travis were competing again—competing to give me the very best Friendsmas.

  Theoretically, it was a bad idea to encourage that. But I couldn’t quite stop. “I like Christmas lights and hayrides,” I told Danny. “And I like classic Christmas movies,” I told Travis. “You’re both on. Who wants to take me gift shopping?”

  They both blanched. It was an effort not to guffaw.

  “I can see why you two give me such a hard time. It’s fun.”

  They glared at each other, then back at me. Rivalrous, as always.

  “Whatever works,” Danny said agreeably. “I’m here for you, Hayden. Any time.” He lowered his voice. “Day or night.”

  Whoa. Was it me, or was it getting hot in here?

  “I’ll take you gift shopping,” Travis volunteered. “Unlike some offers on hand, mine can’t be misconstrued. It’s shopping.”

  The deliberately quelling look he gave Danny next spoke volumes. I didn’t know how much Travis understood about my (let’s call it romantic) history with Danny, but evidently, my keeper had more than zero knowledge about it.

  I honestly wasn’t sure how to feel about that realization.

  But back to Christmas—or, this year, Friendsmas. A less scrupulous person might have taken advantage of Danny’s and Travis’s ongoing competitiveness for her own personal gain. But I didn’t. Not much, at least. We’d all enjoy ourselves, right?

  Through sheer will, I resisted the urge to line up a few more Christmas-themed entertainments for myself. I knew I could prod Travis and Danny into trying to one-up each other, but that would happen without my interference. Why not be surprised?

  Setting aside what they might come up with next Friendsmas-wise, I got back to the problem of solving Melissa’s murder.

  I described my day and everything I’d learned, starting with meeting Roger Balthasar. I downplayed my high-speed car chase (although Danny’s narrowed eyes suggested he’d guessed I’d run into trouble) and emphasized exactly how smarmy the producer had seemed instead. “I still don’t know where he went, though.”

  Danny seemed lost in thought. Then, “I have an idea.”

  Travis and I listened interestedly.

  With evident reluctance, my bodyguard friend went on. “You know that Tansy and I are staying at the Sproutes Motor Lodge,” he began.

  I nodded, unsure where this was going. Clearly reluctant to say whatever came next, Danny rubbed the back of his neck.

  “So is at least one drug dealer,” he acknowledged. His wary gaze met mine and Travis’s. “Some guy with a big old truck.”

  I froze. “Does it have a Rudolph nose on the front bumper?”

  My oldest friend looked at me as if I’d lost my marbles.

  “How should I know that?” he asked with an edge. “I wasn’t painting a watercolor of it. I was surveilling its driver for Tansy.”

  I understood. “How do you know he’s a drug dealer?”

  This time, Travis joined in on that “You’re crazy” look. “It’s Danny.” He angled his chin at his adversary. “He’d know.”

  “Hey.” Danny’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m not a thug.”

  “Not anymore,” I couldn’t resist saying. We all knew the truth. At one time, Danny had been living very much outside the law. Still, Travis’s point was well taken. “So, go on,” I urged.

  “So I’ve seen Roger near that truck,” Danny said. “Watching him make a connection . . .” He trailed off. “It’s laughably obvious. I can’t believe he hasn’t already been arrested. Or doesn’t have a better supplier. This happened before Melissa’s murder, but still, Roger could have paid to have something couriered to him.”

  I didn’t want to know about that. Travis, however, nodded sagely. Apparently, my keeper contained multitudes—and hid them all. I trusted Travis, but why was he so hard to get close to?

  Grumpily, I realized that Albany probably knew everything about him. Their shared history gave her an advantage I couldn’t hope to duplicate. All I wanted was to understand the man who’d been such a mystery to me for so long. Was that so unreasonable?

  But while I was thinking about that, Danny kept talking.

  “Which means Roger could have been at the motel, meeting him, this morning, during the protest at the theater,” my bodyguard pal was saying, “after he gave Hayden the slip.”

  “Hey, I’m new at car chases!” Whoops. I’d outed myself. “And, anyway, Roger didn’t seem—”

  To be on drugs when he got to the theater, was what I intended to say. But, actually, the show’s producer had been acting oddly. I regrouped. “To be on anything that couldn’t have been prescribed by a physician.”

  Reminded of Linda Sullivan and the medication Cashel had tried to pick up for her—only to be scooped by his sister—I told Travis and Danny about what I now suspected was the editor’s migraine issue. Out of some sense of protectiveness for Cashel, who’d truly seemed to be struggling with making his family respect him, I omitted the part about his failed mission to pick up his mother’s medicine. My friends hadn’t seen Cashel’s face when he told me that Albany had beaten him to the punch . . . again.

  Besides, I didn’t want to hear Travis gush about Albany.

  I told them about Ophelia. “She doesn’t have a driver’s license, which seems almost as good as an airtight alibi to me,” I theorized. “Unless Sproutes has a superior public transit system?” I looked pointedly at Travis, who would know.

  He shook his head. “There’s no budget for ‘superior.’”

  “Serviceable is good enough for most people,” Danny argued pugnaciously. He looked at me. “I’ll check for surveillance cameras at the transit stops. Most cities have them these days.”

  “That sounds good.” I was starting to feel that things were coming together. Maybe in a few more days, we’d have answers. “In the meantime, I’ve got some chocolate making to catch up on.” I told them about the converted-barn work space not far from my B and B. “It’s time to make some Theobroma cacao holiday magic!”

  “Be careful,” Danny warned. “It’s a public work space. You don’t know who you’ll find out there. I shouldn’t leave Tansy, but I could work out an alternative during rehearsals, when she’s not in any real danger.”

  “Josh would volunteer to watch Tansy,” Travis noted.

  I waved off both of them. “No problem. I’ll keep an eye out for homicidal ornament makers and killer crafters.”

  Speaking of being watchful, I saw Josh and Tansy eyeballing us suspiciously. If they only knew that Danny, Travis, and I were engaged in (unlikely) amateur sleuthing. Although, it occurred to me, someone must know what we were up to.

  Otherwise, why would SUV-driving Santa have targeted me?

  Maybe he hadn’t,
I reassured myself, reflexively reaching to rub the ache in my knee, still sore from hitting the ice. Maybe he’d targeted Tansy. Or someone else in a Santa costume.

  Maybe he’d been an ordinary, reprehensible drunk driver.

  But I couldn’t shake the feeling suddenly that I was being watched—that Travis and Danny were being watched, too.

  I looked around the bright, noisy bowling alley. Plenty of people were there. None of them seemed to be paying particular attention to me and my friends. Except maybe . . . that guy?

  Alarmed, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention. I knew my face must show my suspicion as I quickly averted my gaze. He was fortyish, I estimated, with blond hair and a penchant for flannel shirts. I sneaked another peek.

  He winked at me, then raised his glass of spiced cider in a coy invitation to join him. Oh, no. My tarty rep had struck again.

  Feeling provoked, I shook my head no. I’d already tested the waters with Albany and Roger about resolving the Donna Brown issue earlier. Next, when I got back to my B and B, Zach Johnson was getting an earful from me about his so-called “helpfulness.”

  Sixteen

  I’m afraid I unleashed a few of my murder-investigation-related frustrations on my B and B’s host when I retrieved my room key that night. I wasn’t quite my usual diplomatic self as I asked Zach to please stop “helping” me “hook up” with a sponsor for my second phantom holiday product: my chocolate fudge.

  Even though I forgot to put on my (fake) timidity for him, Zach didn’t notice. He also had the good sense to apologize.

  “I’m sorry! Someone must have misunderstood,” he told me immediately. “Around here, sometimes gossip gets out of hand.”

  With that, the issue was sorted, at least as far as I was concerned. But when Zach was still apologizing the next morning—wearing an expression that definitely seemed more embattled than contrite—I began to have my doubts about his sincerity.

  It was my turn to make amends. “I’m sorry if I offended you last night,” I said as I headed out post–pastry breakfast. “I didn’t mean to be accusatory. I was tired. It was a long day.”

  “Oh?” my host asked archly. “Long day doing what, exactly?” His irked gaze pinned me. “Not making chocolate houses for the charity auction, I know that much. Was I wrong to count on you?”

  Uh-oh. It was evident that Zach was holding a grudge. But I couldn’t exactly offer the best and most truthful excuse.

  “I was investigating your guest’s murder,” just wouldn’t fly.

  Besides, I was still bothered by my impression that I’d been being watched last night at Star Lanes. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch. Maybe I was being paranoid, because I knew what Danny, Travis, and I were up to, but I didn’t think so.

  We’d done our best to be circumspect so far. Still, Danny’s bodyguard security work for Tansy meant that the three of us couldn’t meet in complete privacy. Either we had to bring in Tansy (impossible, given that she was technically a suspect or potentially a Melissa-look-alike victim) or we had to speak in public. It was always possible we’d been overheard, I knew.

  Back to Zach’s question. Long day doing what, exactly?

  “Oh, you know—this and that. Making connections.” I gave him a breezy wave. “I’m working on helping retool Christmas in Crazytown to address some of the protesters’ issues.”

  “Ah, I heard about that. I’m friends with Donna Brown.”

  “Really?” That was interesting. Not to mention unexpected.

  Zach noticed my puzzlement. “We work together on a lot of the same Sproutes town committees and volunteer organizations. The charity auction”—another meaningful, chiding look—“the pj’s and hot cocoa Santa’s locomotive ride for kids, the arts council, the Christmas parade. You name it, we’re on it.”

  “That’s very admirable,” I told him. “Was Ms. Brown your high-school English teacher, too, along with being Albany’s?”

  His frown deepened. “You mean, did she mentor me, too?”

  Actually, I wanted to know if Donna had truly mentored Albany—if she’d originally had cause to resent Albany and her memoir. I liked the playhouse director and teacher. I wished there was some way to see her come out ahead in all of this.

  Zach didn’t wait long for me to answer. Instead, he gave a rueful chuckle. “Nah, I didn’t really get to know Donna until way after high school. I wasn’t exactly a straight-A student.”

  “You and most of the world,” I told him encouragingly.

  “Yeah. There’s a reason I’m trying to make a go of it in the hospitality business.” Zach’s wave encompassed the cozy B&B and its Christmas decorations. “I’m pretty good at the publicity side of things, though. And the decorating is coming along.”

  “Absolutely.” That much was true. “So, Ms. Brown was . . .”

  “A really good teacher.” Zach picked up the conversational thread I’d left dangling. “At least for the honor roll kids, she was. You know what I mean? If you were one of those brainiacs, there wasn’t anything Donna wouldn’t do for you. Stay late after school, offer extra credit, do one-on-one tutoring for college admissions tests. Me?” My host gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m pretty sure she thought I was a lost cause from the start.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” I remembered to try to seem shy. I didn’t want to let on that Zach had wrongly pigeonholed me.

  “Hey, the truth hurts, right?” He laughed, seeming very much cheered up. He glanced at my bag of chocolate-making gear. From the top, my Moleskine notebook peeked out. “You, on the other hand, seem like the studious type. Are you taking notes?”

  “Just on my chocolate projects,” I hurried to assure him, still preoccupied with thoughts of being watched—of being found out as a part-time amateur murder investigator and paying the price for that somehow. “Nothing more . . . nefarious,” I hedged.

  Too late, I realized how suspicious that sounded.

  Indeed, Zach gazed at me perplexedly. “Nefarious how?”

  Everything seemed to become extraordinarily still around us all of a sudden. I noticed the way his shoulders squared.

  Was Zach . . . defensive? Did he suspect me of sleuthing?

  I heard cutlery clatter against a plate in the dining room, smelled freshly brewed Christmas blend wafting from that same space, heard ordinary conversations being carried on by guests nearby, and realized how ridiculous I was being. I hadn’t even been in contact with the Sproutes police, because I suspected those officers of being susceptible to Roger’s bribe. How could anyone possibly guess that I was looking into Melissa’s murder?

  Stuck for a response, I settled for an off-the-cuff one.

  “Oh, you know, sleuthing,” I joked with a grin. “Carrying on a part-time amateur investigation into local murders, that kind of thing.” I gave a silly eye roll. “It’s important to keep careful notes under those circumstances. Sherlock does it.”

  At my knowing nod, Zach’s gaze wandered to my notebook.

  “Sherlock? You mean Sherlock Holmes?” he asked. “I don’t think he needs a notebook, actually. He doesn’t on TV.”

  Zach launched into a ten-minute tangent about the two versions of Sherlock Holmes that had aired, both of which he was a fan of but for vastly different (numerous) reasons. As someone who spent her time flying between time zones and perfecting chocolate, I had a tricky time keeping up, but I did my best.

  I was relieved to have thrown Zach off the track, however. Once, Danny had told me that the truth can be the best dodge. No one is ever expecting you to baldly confirm their suspicions.

  “Anyway, I’m off to get started on those chocolate houses.” I surreptitiously tucked my Moleskine deeper into my bag and vowed to keep it hidden from now on. It really did contain my suspects list and notes on the case. “Have a nice day, Zach!”

  He wished me the same, and we parted. Sadly, now that my B and B’s host had confirmed Donna Brown’s practice of choosing favorites from among her s
tudents—Albany included—I had to move the playhouse director and teacher higher on my suspects list.

  I could never know if Albany had ever used any of her former English teacher’s advice while writing her book, but I did know that the memoirist had never acknowledged her mentor. I also knew, even more significantly, that Albany had mentioned Melissa Balthasar’s support and stewardship in a few interviews.

  If mousy Donna Brown had watched those interviews, she’d know that Melissa B. had taken her rightful place in Albany’s public acknowledgments. Had that realization made her resent Christmas in Crazytown’s producer? Was Donna capable of murder?

  If I wanted to find out, I needed to see Donna again. The next time I did, I still hoped to have good news for her on the playhouse front. So, after I hauled on my winter coat, a hat, and a warm scarf and grabbed my gloves, I picked up my cell phone.

  “Hi, Roger!” I said when the producer answered. “It’s Hayden Mundy Moore. About the changes to the show we discussed . . .”

  Four minutes later, I had his loudly voiced agreement.

  “Hey, it’s simpatico with me if it’s simpatico with Albany! Ha-ha-ha!” the producer boomed. I could hear him chewing his breakfast. Gross. “Ordinarily, the writer of the source material doesn’t have veto power on casting and script changes, but Albany got into Melissa’s head with some ‘girl power’ stuff.”

  Except he didn’t say “stuff.” He used a stronger pejorative word. I gave an inward groan at his crudeness, then kept going.

  “Then you’ll talk to the cast and crew?” I pushed.

  “Sure, sure!” Roger’s voice carried to me in duplicate.

  Huh? Then I heard other sounds being repeated—silverware clanking, footsteps clomping, holiday music. He was near me.

  There was a reason I’d called, rather than seeking him out. I didn’t want to wind up in the producer’s lecherous sight lines.

  “For you? Anything, anything!” Roger bellowed. He laughed.

  To me, frankly, he still seemed too cheerful. If the producer was on antidepressants to help him deal with his wife’s death, someone needed to adjust his dose. He was out of hand.