The Peppermint Mocha Murder

by Colette London

  “In fact, we should get together sometime!” Roger went on. “I’ve got some other projects you might be interested in!” He broke off and shushed someone near him with no tact whatsoever. “Can’t you see I’m on the phone, moron?” Roger complained in a beleaguered tone. Then he returned to me, employing a noticeably more solicitous (for him) voice. “So? Whaddya say, Hayden?”

  Was he asking me on a date? He couldn’t possibly be.

  If he was, I intended to duck him. Forever. But not until things were official at Christmas in Crazytown. I hesitated.

  Apparently under the impression that I was driving a hard bargain, like Melissa, Roger clarified. “There are better things to spend your money on than donuts!” he informed me. “Like bankrolling Hollywood productions with yours truly! Ha-ha-ha!”

  Aha. It all made sense now. Roger, too, had heard about my donut-based largesse. It seemed he wanted to personally cash in.

  I heard him coming even closer and made my getaway.

  “No, thanks. I’m tied up with other investments right now.”

  “Well, don’t forget about me! I’m just a phone call away!”

  I could tell he was closer than that. I slipped out the B and B’s front door, onto the porch. In the distance, rows of snow-dusted pine trees marched along the landscape, fronted by pure white fields and a few houses and barns. I saw my destination.

  If my boots held out, I wouldn’t even need to drive there.

  “Don’t worry,” I told Roger. “I’ll never forget you.”

  I wished I could. I hung up after his next few hearty chuckles, feeling lucky to have escaped further entanglements.

  Next up? Albany. Since I wasn’t driving to the converted-barn work space where I’d be making my chocolate houses, I was free to phone her, too. It was still too early for rehearsals. I hadn’t run into her in the B and B’s dining room during breakfast.

  She had to be upstairs in Travis’s room when she answered my call. I felt a little weird about that. My keeper had led me to believe that he and Albany were platonic friends. Linda’s characterization of their ongoing friendship had seemed to confirm that. All the same, I couldn’t help picturing Albany and Travis in bed together, naked and snuggly, in a loving embrace.

  Albany’s crisp, guarded tone suggested quite the opposite.

  “I’m a little busy at the moment. What can I do for you?”

  “Just checking in on the Christmas in Crazytown ideas we spoke about yesterday.” I kept my tone upbeat as I made my way past the low fence separating Zach’s B&B from the pasture that bordered it. I gave a slight “Oof” as I landed in the snow.

  “Are you all right?” Albany asked. I heard holiday music in the background, then an electric razor. Travis’s? “Hayden?”

  Whoops. “I’m fine. I hurt my knee the other night.”

  We chatted briefly about the SUV Santa and his scary swerve toward us. I didn’t think Albany had been the intended victim (if there had been one), given that the driver had seemed to target those women who were wearing red-and-white velour costumes, but it was understandable that Albany would be concerned.

  The snow underfoot got deeper, more powdery beneath a faint icy crust that glittered in the sunlight. I squinted toward the distant painted barn, wondering if I should have driven instead.

  There were a couple of vehicles parked there already.

  “So, have you thought about the changes?” I pressed, still trudging onward. It was cold out. “Roger says he’s up for it.”

  A laugh. “Roger is up for anything.” Albany heaved a sigh while the razor buzzed in the background. “I don’t know. It’s very late in the process now. With the other delays we’ve experienced, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to disrupt the cast and crew any further. We’re lucky the show wasn’t canceled.”

  I acknowledged that while I reshouldered my bag of chocolate-making supplies, regretting my huge chocolate blocks.

  I’ve become pretty strong while working in professional kitchens. I can capably hoist fifty-pound sacks of cacao beans and equally heavy bags of sugar and flour, but I’m not typically called upon to do those things while sinking in fresh snowfall.

  Apparently, Albany thought I was only paying lip service to the threat her holiday musical was under, because she dug in.

  “I’m serious!” she assured me. “Bringing my book to press was hard enough. There were legal threats, editorial changes, contract disputes—the works. Thank goodness for Melissa.” It sounded as though Albany was moving around now, maybe packing her things for the day. The razor and the Christmas carols had both stopped in the background. “Then the show! First, Ms. Brown said she wouldn’t cancel The Nutcracker. Later, she agreed, totally out of the blue. She had to make me sweat first, just because she could. She was maximally mean about it.”

  “I doubt she was being mean,” I murmured. “She’s nice.”

  The feud between the two of them was at the crux of this.

  Albany gave a frustrated sound. “I know she’s nice! But so am I! I don’t appreciate being forced into the role of bad guy in all this.” More moving around. “Honestly, I resent it.”

  “I know you do. It’s not fair.” It wasn’t fair, actually. Albany hadn’t started those memes. I put myself in her shoes and realized how upset she’d probably felt on Donna’s behalf. “You’re not powerless, though. You can do something about it.”

  Another heavy sigh. “I already tried that. Look, I’ve got to get down to the theater.” A playful note crept into her crisp voice. “Travis tells me he’s taking you to the movies tonight?”

  Our date to see It’s a Wonderful Life, aka the opening salvo in my keeper’s rivalry with the enforcer. I was looking forward to it. But I didn’t want to be sidetracked just then.

  “Yes. That’ll be fun,” I agreed. “Also, I know you did your best after your interview, when things got out of hand online with Ms. Brown.” Legions of Albany’s fans versus the small-town high-school English teacher: it had never been a fair fight. “There wasn’t much more you could do,” I told her. “Not then.”

  “That’s right!” Albany sniffed. “I really tried. But it was already out of control.” Her voice lowered. “After I came home to Sproutes for Christmas, I tried to make amends again.”

  “Really? When was this? What happened?”

  There was a pause. In the background, I heard a door slam over the phone. “The day after I flew in,” Albany told me. “Then again, a few days later, after Melissa died. Losing her made me rethink things. That could have been me! I didn’t want my legacy to include unleashing an online mob on an innocent woman, not even accidentally. But Ms. Brown barely listened to me.”

  “Did you try apologizing?” Sometimes, that was overlooked.

  Belatedly, I realized Albany must have disappeared for a while before going to the theater that day because she’d been covertly meeting with Donna Brown, and she didn’t want to say so.

  “Of course! Believe me, I said all the right things.”

  I pictured the scene as I reached the outskirts of the converted-barn work space. Because of the weather, its doors were shut tightly, but I heard hammering inside. Also, holiday songs.

  “I’m sure you did,” I soothed. “And you’re right. Sometimes it’s not enough to say the right things, Albany.” I knew she’d made no such statement. “You have to do the right things, too.”

  There was a moment of silence while she considered that.

  I’d learned while working with my clients that almost everyone was concerned with protecting their reputations. Yet almost everyone also wanted to do the right thing. Sometimes I had to convince people that doing the latter was worth risking the former. In the end, my clients’ reputations were usually strengthened by the very act of behaving honorably.

  I could name names, but it would violate my contracts.

  “I don’t care what you say, Hayden!” Albany blurted. “I’m going to do it! I’m going to change Christmas in Craz
ytown.” She hauled in a breath, then rushed on. “Ophelia thinks it’s a good idea, too. She says that since the sets are so arty, anyway, no one will notice that the show is slightly different from the book, and if they do, they’ll love it! Plus, all those little ballerinas who were at the protest? They’ll be amazing.”

  I nodded, studying the vehicles parked outside the barn. If one of them was a dark-colored Santa SUV, I was leaving. But no.

  “They danced last year, so they’ll be in form,” I agreed.

  By now, you may have guessed my idea. To ease the tension between the Sproutesians who wanted The Nutcracker and those who wanted Christmas in Crazytown—and to mend some fences with Donna Brown in the process—I’d suggested to Roger, Albany, and some of the show’s cast and crew that the character of Albany’s high-school teacher be included in a couple of newly penned scenes.

  The public was interested in Albany’s onetime mentor, anyway; their curiosity would spur ticket sales (that’s where the appeal to producer Roger came in). Those scenes would, crucially, skew positively toward Donna—thereby silencing the “haters” for good (that’s where the appeal to Albany came in).

  As far as the tiny ballerinas were concerned . . . well, they were simply adorable. No one could object to their inclusion.

  At this point, all sides of the issue were coming together.

  “I’m so glad we could work this out, Albany.” I watched my frozen breath float toward the barn door. “Hey, do you want to come see It’s a Wonderful Life tonight with Travis and me?”

  What was good for the goose was good for the gander, right? It was time I truly buried the hatchet with Albany Sullivan.

  “That sounds like fun, Hayden! Okay, I’ll see you then.”

  We ended our conversation on an buoyant note. I made one more phone call to Donna Brown, to let her know that everyone needed to meet to hammer out the details, then said good-bye.

  I was pleased that things were working out for the better. But as a chocolate whisperer, I still had a lot to do. The huge bars of chocolate in my bag wouldn’t become houses without me.

  I stepped inside the work space and got down to business.

  * * *

  After several hours’ work, I’d made substantial progress on my chocolate houses. I’d made several new Sproutes friends, too.

  There was Lawrence, who owned the property the barn was situated on and who was in charge of maintaining the floats for the annual Sproutes Christmas parade downtown, several of which were parked in the barn itself. There was Ginger, Lawrence’s wife, who crafted exquisite handmade ornaments using glassblowing and metalworking techniques. Ginger informed me proudly that they were always a big draw at the charity auction.

  Also on-site were two retired women who made quilted holiday stockings. They donated some of them to the charity auction and sold the rest at a weekly handicrafts market. I also met Sarah, whose hand-poured artisanal candles made the whole place smell amazing, and her girlfriend, Josie, who used light strings to create freestanding sculptures. They were all talented and all very nice—and all very interested in my chocolatiering.

  I described my process to them as I followed it, starting by making a big batch of chocolate couverture. That’s what it’s called when you precisely melt a quantity of chocolate until it reaches the right temperature to retain its structure. If common candy bars didn’t go through this process, they would be dull and prone to melting, almost impossible to shape properly.

  The air was thick with the luscious fragrance of cocoa butter after I’d created my couverture. Next, I set about molding it. Bakers need cookie-dough “walls” when making a gingerbread house; similarly, I needed chocolate walls—plus roofs, shingles, doors, and shutters. Today I was concentrating on the essential building blocks, though. So it was walls only.

  I poured melted sweet chocolate into flat, rectangular molds of various sizes. They would need a while to come to the correct temperature for construction, so this had to be completed ahead of time. It was tricky finding space for all my walls, even though I was building only a couple of chocolate houses for the charity auction. Ginger helpfully moved aside some of her tools to make way; so did Josie, who consolidated some of her light sculptures so I could lay out my molds.

  “Hey, if chocolate isn’t a good cause, I don’t know what is,” she joked. “Are you sure you don’t need an assistant?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve already got one,” I told Josie. Tansy had agreed to meet me after rehearsals for an hour or so. I planned to dig deeper into her fractious relationship with Melissa B. “We’re going to be working on decorating, probably after hours.”

  Lawrence and Ginger nodded, confirming what Zach had told me about having made special arrangements for me to work late in their converted barn. I’d been unable to refuse that privilege, now that I was (a teensy bit) late with my chocolate houses. See what I mean about me and procrastination? We’re old pals.

  “Well, if you change your mind, just let me know!”

  I promised I would. Then, grateful for the welcome I’d received from these artisanal Sproutesians, I reached for my bag. I doled out a variety of delicious chocolate samples as thank-yous to my new friends, then said my good-byes for the day.

  It was time to find out how the cast and crew of Christmas in Crazytown were reacting to all the script changes involving Donna Brown and the junior ballerinas. If we were lucky, no one would have, say, a murderous reaction to any of the changes....

  Seventeen

  I’d barely stepped into the Sproutes playhouse before Travis strode purposefully toward me, dressed in his usual suit.

  “I’ve been trying to call you,” my financial advisor said.

  “Sorry. I was in the car.” Driving to the theater had consumed all my attention for that half hour or so. While I’m traveling, I generally don’t drive much—something you might have guessed, given my difficulties with the snowy roads. Especially when I’m working abroad, in European or Asian cities, it’s more efficient to use trains and public transit. “What’s up?”

  “I thought you said you’d brokered a deal between Albany, Roger, and Donna Brown to change the show going forward?”

  “I did.” I was fairly proud of that fact, too. “Move over, top negotiator! I think I’ll be joining your ranks soon.”

  At my joke, Travis didn’t even smile. “Are you sure that everything was settled? You didn’t misinterpret things?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I know better than to make assumptions about business.” His irked expression bothered me. I looked past Travis, toward the stage. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Isn’t Donna supposed to be here?” he pressed.

  “Yes.” I nodded, perplexed. “To work out the details with Albany and Roger, and to start rehearsing her role. It’s going to be a minor walk-on, but she wants to do a good job.”

  “Something’s gotten lost in translation, then.”

  “What are you talking about, Travis?” I gestured toward the stage. Rehearsals were still under way, complete with singing and dancing. By now, the cast and crew would be wanting to break for lunch. “Everything looks fine up there.” I squinted. “Except—”

  “Except Donna Brown never showed up. I tried calling her, but I haven’t been able to reach her. Nobody has.” Travis cast a concerned glance toward the stage. Albany stood there with her arms crossed over her chest, biting her lip. “Albany’s worried.”

  So was I just then. I didn’t think that mild-mannered Donna Brown would trick us into believing we’d reached an accord when we hadn’t. “There must be a misunderstanding. I spoke with Donna on the phone just a few hours ago.”

  “Well, she’s been unreachable since then.” Travis seemed concerned. “If this is the way things are going to be going forward with those changes to Christmas in Crazytown, it’s not going to work. The show is set to premiere this weekend.”

  Only a few days away, I knew. I’d spotted the new banner saying exactly that,
that someone had hung in the theater’s window.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll handle this,” I promised Travis.

  I spotted Danny, gesturing for my attention. He was inviting me to join him in the wings, where he stood keeping an eye on Tansy, as usual. I gave him a nod of acknowledgment, then shook my head. I would have liked nothing more than to kick back with my friends while enjoying a chorus of holiday tunes and a nice catered lunch, courtesy of the theater’s craft services. But I’d apparently created a new crisis by brokering a deal with Donna that had hit a snag. I’d have to handle that first, then meet up with Danny later.

  I gave my bodyguard buddy one of those “I’ll call you later” signals, then headed for the lobby. I pulled out my phone.

  “Hi, Zach! Listen, can I ask you for a favor, please?”

  “Will you pay me in chocolate?” my B&B host asked.

  “Is there any other way?” I made sure to keep my tone a bit tremulous, as though I was almost too timid to make the call.

  “What do you need?” I heard guests chatting nearby him.

  “Well, I’m supposed to meet with Donna Brown in a few minutes,” I fibbed shyly, “and I, um, thought I’d written down her address someplace, but now I, uh, can’t find it, and—”

  “And you’re stuck not wanting to call her and say so?”

  “Something like that.” My fake shyness was filling in all the blanks. That was pretty handy. “Can you help? Since you two are friends? I thought the address was, um, nineteen eighty-nine South—”

  Zach’s laugh interrupted me. “Not even close! You should actually use that notebook of yours next time.” Genially, he supplied the correct address. Chidingly, he added, “Not that I should even tell you that, since this means you won’t be working on my chocolate houses for the charity auction.”

  “Oh, I’ve made loads of progress on those. No worries.”

  “I want to see you there in Lawrence’s barn, burning the midnight oil later!” Zach pushed. “I’ve already publicized your contribution to the auction. People are very interested.”